His body stayed upright for a second, before dropping like a rag doll on to forest floor, the NCO’s eyes wide open in indignation.
Three more grenades were thrown, each as deadly, reducing Mors’ force and, in the case of the last grenade to arrive, silencing the machine gun.
Shouting wildly, the Soviets charged forward and overran the rear-guard.
Up front, Skorzeny, who had hidden a chest infection from the Medical Officer, was struggling to keep up with the bulk of his men.
Stopping occasionally, under the pretext of encouraging stragglers, he found himself at the very rear, accompanied solely by his self-appointed personal bodyguard, a Viennese paratrooper called Odelrich, formerly of the SS-Fallschirm Batallion 600, who had first served with the Colonel during the Battle of the Bulge.
Skorzeny set his hands on his knees, drawing in cold air, all the time listening as the firefight behind intensified and then stopped altogether.
“Either they’re on the run or they’re down, Standartenfuhrer. Either way, we’ve got to move on now.”
Odelrich moved to support his commander, but Skorzeny waved him away.
Taking one deep breath, he leapt forward in pursuit of his men.
Behind him, Mors and two of his men found themselves in the hands of angry Soviet NKVD soldiers.
Von Berlepsch had arranged his force according to Skorzeny’s order, flanking the waiting Porcupine.
The first members of the main body arrived and were sent off to positions either side, further widening the defensive line on the kanal.
He had detailed a senior Corporal to count off the men as they arrived.
“How many, Stabsgefreiter?”
“Eighty-seven, Herr Oberleutnant, not including either the Oberst or Maior Mors.”
“Scheisse!”
“Rescue party, Herr Oberleutnant?”
“Pull one man in four…quickly… have them assemble at the porcupine. I need to brief Bancke.”
The Stabsgefreiter ran off, pulling men from their defensive positions and sending them after Von Berlepsch, who was in animated conversation with the slightly mad Feldwebel Bancke, the commander of Skorzeny’s secret weapon.
The need for a rescue party disappeared with the arrival of Odelrich and Storch’s leader.
Von Berlepsch explained the situation but before Skorzeny could offer up orders, a wave of infantry appeared in the weird light, moving in between the straight trunks of the trees, closing on the Fallschirmjager line.
“Bancke! Feuer!”
The gunner needed no second invitation and the Maxson mount burst into life, accompanied by the lesser instruments of death in the supporting line.
At a rate of two thousand rounds per minute, the quadruple mount started to alter the landscape, as the occasional tree was sawn through by a steady stream of bullets.
The loaders stood ready to replace empty ammo panniers with full ones, hoping to keep the time the weapon as silent to a minimum, although the gunner was always aware of overheating the barrels.
All of Skorzeny’s men had seen the Porcupine in practice and drill, but not in battle, and being used on human beings.
NKVD soldiers literally flew apart or were cut in half, and the attack quickly lost steam and went to ground, although that didn’t stop the killing, as bursts fired into the woods caught men following up in the second and third echelons.
“Achtung!”
Skorzeny shouted, getting the attention of the men nearest to him.
He pulled his ‘jack in the box’ from his pocket and waved it around, showing those that saw him what he wanted.
The order went along the line quickly and the British designed mini-mines were quickly positioned, on the banks as well as around the crossing points.
Consisting of half a pound of explosive and a friction trigger, the simple wooden bomb had a three metre length of thin cord attached to the upright, which was, in turn, attached to something immovable.
The non-standard mine, the brainchild of a British Sergeant of the Royal Engineers who had been ‘adopted’ by Skorzeny’s unit, was armed simply by raising the wooden arm and pushing it into position in the slot, which then solely required the upright piece to be pulled for the friction igniter to do its work.
Each man in the main force element of ‘Storch’ carried one, which meant that Skorzeny’s order resulted in sixty-eight ‘Jacks’ being planted.
Using hand signals, Skorzeny ordered the line to fall back at speed, using the Porcupine to dissuade the pursuing enemy.
His soldiers responded instantly, rising up and moving back towards the landing strip.
Skorzeny moved back to Bancke and made sure he understood what was required.
“Feldwebel, you must stay here until we signal. Alright for ammo?”
“For sure, Herr Oberst, I have another five panniers for each gun.”
“That should be enough. Now, hold the bastards off. I’ll send up the two reds and you get yourself and your men back immediately. Is she prepared?”
Skorzeny anticipated the answer, as Bancke knew his job, but he still wanted to know that the porcupine would not fall into enemy hands.
“She won’t be recognisable, Herr Oberst.”
“You may have noticed… no Polish officers… it was a trap, so expect them to be here in numbers. Look after your men and yourself… and get back on the aircraft when I signal.”
“Zu befehl, Herr Oberst.”
Two minutes and two thousand rounds later, Bancke looked into the sky as the star shells burst.
‘Green and red?’
“Keep firing, menschen!”
Green and Red was not Skorzeny’s signal to fall back.
The signal originated from NKVD Colonel Volkov, commander of the force that lay in hiding around the landing zone.
Mortars sent their bombs skywards, intent on bringing destruction to the parked JU-52s.
They couldn’t miss.
Heavy machine guns opened up, cutting down the Polish security force, men on the landing field, and those running from the woods towards the illusion of safety that their aircraft represented.
From north and south came light armour, T70s and T80s of the 4th NKVD Rifle Division, supported by lorried infantry.
Mobile flak units covered the take-off points, creating a hell from which there seemed no escape.
Skorzeny, his chest infection suddenly forgotten, urged his men onwards.
Remembering the Porcupine, the Colonel stopped and selected the two star shells, sending them into the sky one after the other.
Satisfied that the signal had been seen, he turned back to the immediate problem.
One JU-52 was speeding down the grass runway, following the instruction to evacuate the ground crew if there was a threat to the landing zone.
The starboard engine was clearly misfiring before it clawed its way into the air, not that it mattered, as 37mm shells chewed the wing off and the aircraft flipped over and smashed into the ground.
The whole landing field looked a disaster movie.
Skorzeny, moving as fast as his weakening state permitted, ran straight into an exploding mortar shell, which sent him flying back the way he had come.
The excruciating pain prevented him from any feeling of satisfaction as the ‘Jack-in-the-box’ charges started to claim lives amongst the pursuing soldiers.
Skorzeny could neither move nor feel either arm, which in the case of the left arm was not surprising, given that it was some ten feet away.
At least six fragments had perforated his stomach, but he couldn’t regain enough control of his right arm to allow him to press his hand to the awful wounds to help dull the pain.