An American jeep outpaced the remaining vehicles, intent on moving to the tank officer’s left. Biffo pulled the LMG round, all the time chasing the little vehicle with bullets, but not hitting.
In an instant, the jeep exploded, hit by one of the last Soviet mortar shells fired, and the six man crew were scattered to all points in pieces no larger than a shoebox.
Moving the DP back to his front, Haines engaged the nearest vehicle or at least for two bullets worth, as the circular pannier gave up its final rounds.
He made a split second judgement, deciding that the unfamiliar reload would take too long, as the enemy vehicle disgorged seven angry men.
He looked around him, immediately spotting the grenade in one dead man’s hand.
It looked similar to one’s he had used, so Haines pulled the pin and sent the deadly charge downhill.
The Russians went to ground as soon as they saw the F1 fragmentation grenade coming and, as Haines had thrown it too soon, took no damage at all when it exploded.
Haines understood what he had done. A bag around the dead man’s body surrendered more grenades.
Again, the seven soldiers dropped as another grenade came their way, and rose again once it had exploded, only to be cut down by the second grenade they had not witnessed thrown.
Three were put down hard and didn’t rise again.
The other four, all wounded, closed on the depression.
Haines looked around for more means by which to defend himself, his mind finding time to remind him of the 16th/5th’s motto.
‘Aut cursu, aut cominus armis’.
Acting Major Biffo Haines MC found time to laugh out loud.
‘Either in the charge, or hand-to-hand’.
His hand closed around the only weapon he could find.
Colonel Kozlov gripped his binoculars tightly, knowing Golin’s switch to attack into the enemy left flank was a bad move.
‘Leave the bastards… go around them… for the god’s sake go around them!’
“Radio Mayor Golin immediately. Tell him to go around their flank. He must go around.”
He winced as yet another of his AA trucks was destroyed, the successful Beaufighter clawing its way back into the sky, leaving a stream of black and grey in its wake.
His focus returned to Golin’s force, so he missed the explosion high above the battlefield, as the injured RAF aircraft surrendered to its damage.
British artillery started to beat the zone ahead of the mobile force, causing it to switch direction yet again.
Kozlov was momentarily happy, realising that his command was now back aiming straight at the Castello again, then suddenly realised there was a problem.
“Call 10th Mortars. Tell them to ceasefire immediately.”
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik.”
He would worry about where to direct their fire next once he was satisfied that Golin’s force was no longer at risk from friendly fire.
One of the vehicles disappeared in an explosion and he knew what he had feared had happened, but such things were more than common in war, and he had done what he could.
Another of the vehicles seemed to be rolling backwards down the slope, until it jammed a wheel, slipped sideways and rolled the rest of the way.
“Go on, Golin! Push on man, push on!”
Somewhere to the mobile group’s front, there was some resistance, and a grenade put down some of his men before the rest swept over the enemy position.
Happy that Golin would now make his ground, Kozlov concentrated elsewhere, and discovered that, whilst he had been watching the hill, he had lost the battle in the valley.
His men and vehicles were in retreat, pursued by bullets from the Rifle Brigade and harassed by repeated strafing runs from the RAF heavy fighters. Although each had spent its rockets, each Beaufighter was equipped with murderous firepower, with six .303 Brownings in the wings, and four 20mm Hispano in the nose.
One such aircraft had circled for a fourth strafing run, turned over the Tagliamento River and lazily described an arc as it came back round to do a further east to west attack.
One of the Quad Maxim lorries took it by surprise, causing the pilot to throw his aircraft to the right and out of the approaching tracer stream.
His approach ruined, the angry pilot spotted an alternate target, dropped his nose, and thumbed his triggers.
The first man over the edge of the depression was probably more scared than Haines, the youngster’s eyes wide open in fear as he made to plunge his bayonet into the tank officer.
He missed.
Biffo swung the entrenching tool and connected with brutal and terminal force, penetrating the boy’s skull from eye socket to ear and points beyond.
The still running cadaver crashed into Haines, the impact ramming the hard metal of the rifle directly into his wounded left arm.
Haines bellowed with pain.
The next three Russians arrived together and virtually clattered into Haines, the four bodies falling to the bottom of the depression in a disorganised snarling heap.
Two of the soldiers were also mere boys, and at least one had soiled himself in fear, the stench of faeces overpowering to the four men.
Haines lashed out with the spade, one young soldier deflecting the blow with his arm. The sound of the bone snapping was incredibly loud, more so than any other on the battlefield at that moment, before the boy’s screams drowned out everything else.
The Soviet officer, a veteran of many a tight skirmish, found Haines lying on his pistol hand, so tried to use his free hand to gouge Biffo’s eyes from his head.
Haines felt a grubby finger against his lips and took the opportunity to bite it as hard as he could.
More screams of pain followed, before Haines rolled over and drove his head into the officer’s face.
Both men squealed, the Russian as his nose was broken and blood spurted everywhere, Haines as he did similar damage to his own nose.
Spitting the severed fingertip into the face of the bloodied Russian, Biffo pulled the man’s face towards him and got his head butt perfect the second time.
The officer was out for the count.
Wiry hands closed round the tanker’s neck, pulling him backwards, as the last intact Russian soldier tried to throttle him.
Whimpers and curses indicated that the other child soldier was trying to extricate himself from under the pair of combatants.
Haines found himself unable to break the tight grip around his neck, no matter how he struggled.
The other Russian, tears streaming down his face, his broken arm limp and useless, held a small knife in his good hand and rammed it into Haines’ stomach.
White-hot pain gave Haines strength and he broke Russian fingers as he prised the hands from his throat.
The assailant dropped away howling with pain.
Squealing with fear, the one-armed boy pulled out the blade and it rammed home again.
The pain was unbelievable.
Lashing out with his right hand, Biffo caught the boy on his broken arm, taking him out of the fight with a white blur of extreme pain. Again, the young soldier lost control of bowel and bladder.
The knife still lodged in his stomach, Haines struggled to his feet and planted a kick in the side of the would-be strangler’s head.
Whatever he did, it was permanent and quick, and lifeless eyes stared up at the sky.
Picking up the entrenching tool, Haines dropped to his knees and brought the heavy weapon down on the wailing Soviet soldier with shattered fingers.
When Stumpy and Killer found him three minutes later, he was still chopping away at what remained of the Russian’s head.