Lev Kharsen nodded his understanding and made a quick assessment.
“I see no problems except here,” he pointed to the stiffening resistance that had already cost the 91st Tanks a number of vehicles.
“Yes… I’ve sent the heavy flamethrowers forward now that they’ve topped up. That should fuck the bastards right off.”
“That ought to do it, Comrade Polkovnik, although they’ll be vulnerable if the 91st aren’t up to the mark.”
“Understood.”
It was a small problem, in that they had been given no opportunity to understand their new running mates, and vice versa, but thus far the tankers seemed to be doing their job.
“Keep the boys at it, Lev. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve made my assessment.”
He slapped his man on the shoulder and moved away, nodding to the waiting Iska who had assembled the necessary men as soon as he heard his commander’s words.
Four vehicles stood waiting, two each of captured US halftracks and BTR-152s, and the group raced away towards the increasing sounds of fighting on the Koprzywnica, some two kilometres away.
As the machines bumped down the scarcely identifiable track, Chekov accepted a cigarette from his senior NCO.
“So, that’s a platoon is it?”
“You know me, Comrade Polkovnik… never been able to count.”
“Only bottles and cigarettes anyway.”
“No problems on that score, Comrade Polkovnik. Anyway, there’s safety in numbers and we can’t have you getting your uniform dirty, now can we?”
“Cheeky bastard NCOs can be reassigned, Comrade Praporschik!”
They shared a laugh, and left some things unsaid, as the rain stopped and the first strands of dawn declared themselves in the lightening sky.
0530 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, the Koprzywianka Bridge, four hundred metres southeast of Sośniczany, Poland.
Wary of attracting unnecessary attention, Chekov and his men dismounted at a road junction and jogged the rest of the way forward, where they found Sárközi putting the final touches to his unit’s deployment.
He and the 359th Guards’ battalion commander quickly filled the Colonel in on deployments and Chekov was very soon satisfied that the men knew their trade.
Across a front of roughly eight hundred metres, the position bristled with anti-tank guns and dug-in infantry, with the MACE launchers more concentrated around the bridge, in case the enemy developed any more ideas of crossing the watercourse.
As Chekov scanned the positions through his binoculars, he was the first to sense a movement in the receding shadows, his suspicions quickly confirmed by observers in the forward infantry positions.
Veteran instincts took over and men threw themselves into cover just as a rapid mortar strike washed over the part of the defensive area directly opposite the Legion infantry attack.
The strained silence of waiting was punctuated by mortar shells bursting and the screams of wounded men, and then destroyed totally as the defensive line erupted with machine-gun and rifle fire.
On the heights on the other side of Route 79, which ran between the two positions, larger weapons started bringing the Soviet force under fire, attracting a reply from some of the anti-tank guns.
The battle started to escalate as both sides added artillery to the inventory, and within minutes the whole area was bathed in explosions, smoke, and high-speed metal.
Just off to one side from Chekov’s position, an 85mm D-44 anti-tank gun added parts of itself to the storm of steel as a Legion artillery shell struck home.
Chekov gripped his binoculars tightly as he watched brave men rush forward to pull some wounded men clear of the position and into relative safety.
Some were cut down by mortar shrapnel, but the three wounded men were dragged into the trenches in record time.
Runners arrived from all parts of the infantry battalion’s front, the absence of proper communications equipment a surprise to Chekov.
He ducked down below the sandbags.
“Where’s your communications, Comrade Mayor?”
“We have one radio only, Comrade Polkovnik. We had to leave much of it behind and our signals vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery.”
Chekov nodded and beckoned Iska forward.
“Get the field telephone equipment out of our headquarters vehicle… all of it… turn it over to the infantry commander. He has need of it.”
Iska nodded and moved away, tapping two men on the shoulders as he went.
The three waited for the next set of landings before setting off to retrieve the equipment.
“Comrade Mayor, my men are getting you some telephones and cable… should help you control your battalion better.”
The weary man grinned, a cigarette hanging from the corner of a bloody mouth.
“Thank you, Comrade Polkovnik. We were too good at retreating and… well… we’ll get it all back shortly.”
Another runner arrived and reported to the Major, who clutched his wounded side as he rose up and followed the line down which the NCO pointed.
He slapped the man on the back in gratitude and issued him with orders before sending him back out into the man-made storm.
“Comrade Mayor Sárközi, your time has come I think!”
The Hungarian moved quickly to the infantryman’s side and followed the sweep of the man’s binoculars with his own.
Chekov joined them and they immediately understood why the infantry attack was in progress.
“Infantry’s nothing but a distraction attack,” Sárközi said to no one in particular.
“My guns’ll engage this new enemy when you do, until then we’ll keep on at the bastards on the hills across the road… make it look like we haven’t seen them.”
The two laid their plans seemingly oblivious to the presence of the more senior man.
Not that Chekov cared, for the two clearly knew their trade.
Sárközi scurried away to prepare his ambush and the infantry major, one of remnants of Makarenko’s paratrooper division long disbanded to bolster the 116th Division, sent runners out into the growing dawn.
0539 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Route 79, five hundred metres east of Sośniczany, Poland.
The 2e/1er Genie led the way with their combination of lorries and halftracks, closely followed by the handful of tanks from the headquarters of 1er RDCA, including their dead commander’s vehicle and its grisly cargo.
Sárközi instructed his crews not to engage the softer vehicles, not that they needed such instruction, but he reasoned that such orders were better safe than sorry.
Judging that there were enough hard targets in range, he used the Hungarian’s radio system to allocate targets to each launcher.
Patiently waiting to ensure the best chances of success, he remained focussed on the moving tanks, not on the growing exchange across the river.
‘Steady… steady… now.’
“Fire!”
Eight MACE rockets were on their way in the blink of an eye and he watched in awe, still capable of being fascinated by the fiery trails that spelt doom for the enemy encased in their steel targets.
Six hit, and all but two of them were transformed into fiery wreckage in an instant.
The engineer’s anti-tank guns opened up and the Legion engineer company took some serious knocks, even though they were moving in and out of cover in their bid to escape the decreasing pocket.