It was even more of a fillip for him when the radio showed obvious signs of life.
Slapping both men on the shoulders, he moved off to his vehicle, secreted behind a small farm building, adjacent to a smouldering wrecked vehicle of a type that he couldn’t recognise.
Behind the British lines, the battery commander, the incoming directions now dried up, took it upon himself to fire on the last location, sending his 4.5” shells southwards, one misfire earning his immediate attention.
The shells arrived on target.
Dubestnyi heard the scream of shells and threw himself into a hole.
The mortar OP survivors were obliterated by the first shell to strike the ground.
The second struck the building, blowing all four walls outwards perfectly, the flat brickwork lying symmetrically out from the solid, but cratered, base.
The third shell struck just behind the Gaz jeep, lifting it and its two occupants into a large tree some thirty metres away, the grisly package remaining stuck above ground level, flesh and metal swaying violently, defying the expectations of gravity.
The fourth shell landed close to the destroyed scout car, causing more insult to already slain men.
Back with the howitzers, standard operating procedure was applied and the gun re-fired.
Not that anyone expected the shell to fire off, but it did, a relief sweeping amongst the crew, now that they would not have to complete the misfire procedure.
Back at the target, Dubestnyi raised his head at the moment the shell landed, striking the fallen wall nearest the hole in which he had taken shelter.
A brick, perfect and undamaged, propelled by the force of the shell’s violent end, struck him in the temple, staving in the front of his skull, and destroying much of the brain matter beyond.
The Soviet commander gurgled incoherently, dying alone and unseen in the bottom of his accidental grave, his death painless but protracted, the sound of fighting long ended before he took his last shallow breath.
On the Guards hillock, the fighting was desperate.
Command of the Irish soldiers lay firmly on the shoulders of the surviving officer, a recent arrival from the halls of Sandhurst, ill prepared for the realities of modern combat.
Despite his wounds, he moved position to position, bucking up his boys, doing what he was taught an officer should do, even though the officer in question had solely one good eye with which to find his way.
The Jocks of the Royal Scots had taken a fearful pounding and welcomed the young officer, their own leader having fallen in the first attack.
Every probe, every rush was bloodily repulsed, but every pile of Soviet dead came at a cost to the Irish and Scots.
An unseasonably hot sun broke through the cloud and started to bake the soldiers of both sides, adding to their discomfort.
An Irish Guards Lance-Sergeant sought out the new officer. Tumbling into the small log pile that now constituted the company headquarters, he gasped frantically for air, alternating between an upright and face down position as he struggled to get enough oxygen into his lungs. Face streaming blood from a nasty cheek wound, the NCO looked on his last legs.
“Sir, we can’t hold the buggers. Me Brens have little ammo, and half the lads are down. We gotta pull back beyond the water there.”
The bemused officer listened but did not hear, his shock taking over.
“O’Rourke, you’re wounded.”
“Sir, we gotta withdraw or me boys will all die here this day!”
“Someone fetch the medic, will you?”
O’Rourke spat as blood filled his mouth.
“For fuck’s sake Lieutenant! Give the order or we’ll all meet the Lord Almighty on this fucking hill!”
A flight of ground attack aircraft flew overhead, hugging the ground, as best they could, to avoid interception, intent on wreaking havoc somewhere to the north. The Irishman, distracted as he quickly checked the Soviet aircraft were not a threat, initially missed the movement of the mentally incapacitated Lieutenant.
The officer rose and headed off, his gait unsteady, his internal compass all wrong.
“Oh sweet Jesus! Sir, will you come back here now, for the love of God!”
Totally confused, the battered young man shouted constantly for medics to attend his NCO, even appealing to the Soviet engineers who closed in on him, before they battered his vulnerable frame to the ground.
His capture gave O’Rourke command of the company, a position he used immediately, shouting to nearby men, organising them to stand fast, whilst others were to slip away across the modest watercourse.
Seventy-nine sons of Ireland had pinned their colours to the hill. Exactly forty made their way back over the water to the north bank.
The Royal Scots did not get the order, but in any case could not have disengaged successfully, so close were they to the attackers. The Penal troopers stormed the Jock’s positions, hand grenades and sub-machine guns doing awful work amongst the trees and foxholes.
The platoon was overrun, some men choosing death, some choosing life.
The prisoners were not all lucky, and more than one man was bayoneted in an act of vengeance, payback for a comrade lying dead or wounded in the hell the Russians had charged through.
The Soviet tank support had withered away, mainly destroyed by the accurate fire of the single tank that hugged the shallow slope, five hundred yards to the north-west.
Balianov had remained in his position, his tank concealed, whilst he tried to work out what to do about the unknown monster vehicle.
Charles made a decision.
“Driver, time to relocate. Reverse her up the way we came and we will pop round and up on top of the hillock.”
In response, the Rolls-Royce Meteor engine increased its note from idle, and the Centurion reversed out of its firing position.
“Commander, gunner. Infantry target to front, range six hundred.”
“I see it. Engaging.”
The Centurion Mk I, of which the British Army presently boasted six pre-production trials vehicles, was equipped with a 20mm Polsten cannon.
The Polsten was a version of the Oerlikon, less parts, cheaper to build, but with no loss of performance.
Twenty-three explosive 20mm shells spat from the Polsten mount, transforming the target area into a mass of rising earth and dust.
Enough of them struck Balianov to remove everything from his armpits upwards.
Third Kompagnie of the 58th Grenadieres were enjoying the payback of a turkey shoot, their mixed machine-guns reaping a deadly harvest amongst the attacking Soviet infantry.
None the less, the Siberians of 2nd Battalion made it to the base of the hill, and the battle descended into a grenade exchange, small packets of death been thrown blind at suspected enemy positions, some resulting in silence, others bringing the screams of the injured and dying.
The 60th Mortar’s observer brought down another barrage on the machine gunners, part of which caught the edge of the Grenadieres line, causing severe casualties to the platoon linking to the gunners.
3rd Battalion had an easier ride, enjoying direct tank support, driving hard into the positions of the 58th Grenadieres 2nd Company, although they lost both commander and second to the same tank shell.
An experienced Oberfeldwebel ordered his men to fall back, rallying them the other side of the watercourse, where the recently arrived platoon of Vickers machine-guns contributed to halting the Soviet rush.
The runner sent to 3rd Kompagnie did not deliver the message, and so the remaining grenadiers east of the watercourse were left vulnerable.
The Siberian Guardsmen were quick to notice the opportunity, and drove into the exposed right flank, rolling up nearly a hundred metres of the 3rd Kompagnie’s position, halted only by an avalanche of MG42 fire from a small reserve unit the Kompagnie commander had hurriedly organised.