In an effort to kick-start his advance again, the Colonel sent in ‘C’ Company of his armored-infantry.
A vicious fight took place in the Schloss itself, and an armored-infantry platoon seeking to establish itself there was forcefully ejected from the main building, seeking refuge in the stable block to the west side.
Before they could properly set themselves, the guardsmen threw themselves forward, taking casualties as they charged across the open yard.
Hand to hand combat ensued, at which the Soviets excelled, and the Americans were displaced as much by the extreme shock of the assault and violence of the gutter fight visited upon them as by the casualties they started to sustain. Many of the Russians employed sharpened spades as cleavers, slashing down in the manner of a chopper, aiming for vulnerable neck flesh where head met torso. More than one blow went the full distance, separating the parts.
Whilst most of his comrades recoiled from such bestiality, one American saw, for the first time, his natural element. Or rather the raw natural element of his tribal ancestors. Tsali Sagonegi Yona of the Aniyunwiya Tribe, named as Cherokee by the Creek Indians, named as Corporal Charley Bluebear by the US Army, and known both jokingly and seriously as Moose by his friends. The 6’5” frame had all the litheness and flexibility associated with his tribe but accompanied by a body tone, solidity and strength rarely seen in combination.
Add to the mix, courage beyond measure and then offer up an enemy disposed for close quarter fighting and the recipe for untold savagery and slaughter was in place.
What happened next was a blur of metal and blood.
Bluebear discarded his BAR and reached around his waist belt, extracting his heirlooms, ready to fight in the manner of his ancestors and with their weapons, treasured items entrusted to him by his family before he left for the war. A tomahawk and a battle knife that had last seen enemy blood in the Argonne Forest during 1918, when wielded in his father’s hands against the German. Uttering his father’s name, he plunged forward. As he struck out and killed he bellowed the battle cry his father had taught him, once for each enemy who fell under his blades.
“Tsuhnuhlahuhskim!” for which the English translation would be, “He tries, but fails.”
The US platoon officer went down, stunned by a rifle butt, the attacker shaping to plunge his bayonet deep into the senseless man while another guardsman drew back his entrenching tool, also intending to end the officer’s life.
In a blur, the Cherokee stepped over his leader and struck out, his tomahawk curving in a backhanded stroke, from right to left through the eye sockets of the rifleman, bodily detritus flying from the awful wound, closely followed by the knife slamming low and hard into the groin of the other attacker.
The screams were as much for the horror of the witnesses of both sides as they were for the pain of the wounded.
“Tsuhnuhlahuhskim!”
Bluebear stood in defence as others grabbed the unconscious officer and pulled him clear.
Another bayonet lunged but missed.
The brave Russian soldier ducked the intended hatchet blow only to have the battle knife driven powerfully and terminally into the side of his neck.
“Tsuhnuhlahuhskim!”
Gushing blood over his killer, the dying Russian stuck on the blade, pulling the Cherokee to one side with his body weight.
Another soldier with the courage of youth, that courage the young possess that makes them feel invulnerable, saw his chance and leapt forward, thrusting a bayonet forward, and penetrating the jacket of his target.
Bluebear did not notice the blade slice his flesh, although pain caused by the swift movement of it down his rib could not be ignored or overcome by his adrenalin.
He backhanded his tomahawk into the young soldiers’ neck, a glancing blow because of his lack of balance, penetrating but not enough to kill by itself. However, the blow caused swelling to such an extent that the airway virtually closed up in an instant.
Letting go of his rifle, the youth fell to the ground, not aware of Bluebear’s yelp of pain as the unsupported Nagant rifle dropped away and caused the bayonet to rip out his side.
Focussed by pain and anger for a moment, the Cherokee spared a second to stamp on the back of the head of the dying boy, breaking the neck instantly and, although not his design, releasing the soldier from the longer and more painful journey.
“Tsuhnuhlahuhskim!”
Men who had stood the rigours of a Stalingrad winter, and who had been in close combat in a score of skirmishes since, paled before the deadly whirling apparition.
An experienced Corporal managed to slice through Bluebear’s left forearm with a spade cut but received a blow to his left temple that stove his skull to his brain stem and dropped him dead to the floor.
The battle knife dropped from Bluebear’s useless fingers but the killing went on.
All around the stable block, men scrambled away from the death giver, friend and foe alike recognising the bloodlust that had overtaken him. No longer using his war cry, simply screaming as hard as his capacious lungs permitted, the Cherokee moved like lightning, slowed neither by the wounds or by the efforts he had already expended in his frenzy.
Panic is a virus that spreads at speed. Self-preservation took over and the surviving guardsmen escaped as best they could, more than one screaming in fright as they ran.
One Guards Sergeant turned and fired off every round left in his pistol unaimed, in panic and desperation, virtually closing his eyes to blot out the apparition he was running from.
Bluebear, in the act of pulling his hatchet from the head of another victim, felt the sting as two bullets hit him in the right thigh.
Anyone else would have gone down immediately but not the Indian. Bluebear managed the ten yards or so to the Sergeant who had tripped over a dead comrade in his terror, claiming his last victim of the battle when he sunk his weapon into the man’s forehead.
The remaining guardsmen could be heard shouting warnings to their comrades in the Schloss as they ran for their lives, some splashing through the moat in their blind panic, not knowing that the Devil had collapsed from exhaustion and blood loss behind them.
A shaking armoured-infantry medic quickly bandaged the bloodied thigh wound, applying a tourniquet and squeezing the femoral artery virtually shut, saving Charley Bluebear’s life.
The Soviet reverse really did not matter in the greater run of things, as the shocked American troops decided to withdraw, led by a wide-eyed Sergeant who would need treatment for his traumatic experiences until the day he died.
After the battle, reports from the survivors who escaped the day’s slaughter were incredulously assessed. Conservative estimates suggested a total of twenty-two men personally slain by Tsali Sagonegi Yona of the Aniyunwiya Tribe, named as Cherokee by the Creek Indians, named as Corporal Charley Bluebear by the US Army, and known both jokingly and seriously as Moose by his friends. Except those who witnessed that day first hand, and those enemy who escaped the stables and lived, for whom, be they Armored-Infantry or Guards, he was forever named Death.
Despite the horrors in the Schloss, the balance seemed to perceptibly change in favour of the defenders and when weary Guards retook St Josef’s Church for the third time, it did not change hands again.
One older guardsman committed himself to the attack with a liberated bazooka, wrecking one Sherman that had strayed too close, but setting fire to religious trappings hanging behind him with the unexpected back flash from the weapon.