The legion platoon found the angled pathway and ascended at the double towards the next road level, already falling behind the nimble tribesmen.
From the west end of the plateau came the sounds of combat, proof that Mardin’s legionnaires had engaged the enemy as they pressed hard to seal up the Château.
For the final time, the Capitaine in charge of the Goumiers halted to exchange information with a fellow frenchman. The Legionnaire Sergent-Chef, a sunburnt African veteran of advancing years, was newly installed as commander of his platoon, courtesy of the Russian rifle bullet that had slain his officer. As senior, the Capitaine took the lead and quickly explained the brief.
With no hesitation, the Goumier officer stood and called to his men in their tribal tongue.
The Sergent-Chef had spent many years amongst the Berber peoples and understood the shouted exhortation perfectly.
“Come brothers, these new enemies have not yet learned to fear us. Let us enlighten them!”
Bullets reached out and took lives amongst the heavily clad tribesmen, but less than before, despite the advantage of the increasing sunlight. Leaving half a dozen of their number on the stone, the Goumiers swept forward and into the South Ward, using both main and side entrances to good effect.
As the Sergent-Chef prepared to send his own men forward he hesitated, the sound of a whistle and increased firing within the Château giving him a moment’s pause.
Two grenades bounced off the door and headed in different directions within the Armoury. One dropped at the threshold, causing the attacking paratroopers to dive for cover once more, losing the advantage they had hoped to gain by following up swiftly. The second rolled erratically into the room, causing the defenders to seek cover as quickly as they could.
Both exploded simultaneously.
Perversely, the one by the door killed one of the defenders, a large piece of metal claiming the life of the Savoy orderly, punching into his heart as his slower reactions spelt his end.
The closest grenade took Von Hardegen out of the fight, the blast throwing him against the rounded arch support, knocking him senseless.
Rettlinger cut down the first Russians into the room, his newly liberated PPSH doing deadly work in the narrow doorway. A paratrooper positioned at the base of the door and obscured by bodies, poured fire into the defenders, claiming three lives.
Rettlinger and Dubois were the only men left standing, and the comatose Von Hardegen the only other living man in the room. Both men dropped Russians as a surge brought the enemy close. Dubois ran out of ammo and was clubbed to the ground before he could react, a rifle butt smashing into his forehead and skinning the skull to the bone, the bloody flap of skin pushed up on his head like a flat cap.
Rettlinger shot the man down, and two more besides until his gun fell silent. A single paratrooper stood before him, panting, drawing air noisily in the way of a condemned man at the gallows.
Realising fate had spared him, he threw his own empty PPS at the huge German and lunged for the discarded rifle, butt sticky with Dubois’ blood.
The PPSH remained silent, similarly empty and useless. DerBo threw it at the Russian, a man not much smaller than himself. It struck the hand scrabbling for the rifle, noisily breaking fingers and bringing a howl from the crippled man.
However, the paratrooper veteran of the Eastern Front quickly recovered and sought another weapon. By his other hand lay a weapon from a different time, one of the classic swords from medieval times that decorated the Armoury.
Sweeping it up, he ran at Rettlinger, roaring as much with the pain of his shattered fingers as with the intent to intimidate. Weaponless, the ex-SS Gebirgsjager officer could only roll out of the way.
The paratrooper breathed hard and gathered himself for another attack with the heavy blade. Again he missed, the metal clanging off the stonewall as he lunged past Rettlinger’s twisting body. A rock hard fist smashed into the Russians face, breaking his nose and misting his eyes.
Unable to see properly, he dropped back and swung blindly, the tip of the sword flicking the German’s shirt as he leapt back.
Shaking his head to clear his vision, blood flowed freely from his nose, splashing in all directions, decorating the living and the dead lying everywhere within the Armoury.
Rettlinger made a mistake, catching his foot on a corpse and losing balance. He fell against the wall and the paratrooper saw his opportunity.
The ancient blade swung in an arc and bit into flesh and bone.
Slicing the muscle of Rettlinger’s upper arm, the metal smashed into the bone, shattering the humerus at its mid-point. In olden days, such an attack would have severed the limb and gone further to claim the life of the victim but the blade’s travel was suddenly arrested by the stonewall.
The ringing contact jarred the sword from the paratroopers grasp and it fell to the ground. The Russian’s left hand was broken and useless, his right now senseless and bereft of feeling, the heavy impact having robbed him of control.
His German adversary slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely from his wound and out of the fight.
The Russian moved purposefully to the doorway and picked up a PPS dropped by his section Corporal, disentangling the sling from the dead man’s bread bag with difficulty, his numb hand unable to properly function. The paratrooper halted and flexed his hand, bringing life back to numbed flesh. He slipped the weapon’s strap over his head, less trouble now his tingling hand was regaining its functions.
The man cocked an ear to the sounds of fighting nearby, rightly sensing that his comrades were withdrawing and that he should follow them too.
However, the paratrooper had a debt to collect for his dead comrades.
Here.
Now.
Shaking his right hand to summon back more control, he turned to finish the German off. Rettlinger was conscious and pushing himself away with his feet, as his right hand worked to squeeze his terrible arm wound and restrict the blood loss.
The hate in the Russian’s eyes was very real, and DerBo expected to die. What he did not expect was to witness the paratrooper’s death.
Both men sensed a presence, heard some sounds and feared the worst, as malevolence incarnate burst into the room.
As the paratrooper turned, the heavy weight smashed into his chest, propelling him backwards and onto Rettlinger’s legs. The Russian’s scream was silenced as soon as it began, throat ripped open from chin to chest.
Marengo.
Rettlinger had the most horrible experience of watching a man die three feet in front of his eyes, ripped apart in stages by the huge Alsatian. Lifeless eyes bounced in the savaged head as the beast worked on, opening cavities and stripping flesh from bone.
DerBo lost consciousness, his last vision being that of Marengo assessing him with merciless eyes.
The attack had mainly failed, at further great loss to the brave paratroopers, and Makarenko withdrew his forces, urging them to set fires as he herded his weary and battered men towards the lower courtyard.
He paused quickly in the Upper Courtyard, exchanging quiet words with the medical orderly Serzhant who was responsible for the score of broken and crippled men that were to be left behind there. Embracing and kissing the man, a soldier from the very first days, an emotional Makarenko slipped away down the ramp towards the Basse Cour.
Despite the growing sounds of combat ahead of him, he was genuinely horrified at the sights he passed, his young troopers mixed with enemy dead, bodies riven and torn for seemingly no purpose.
In the Lower Courtyard a repetition of the previous scene, with numerous wounded laid out as best they could be, tended by three orderlies and the only woman member of the Battalion.