Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (7 page)

Gurung gave the order and charged forward, the pain in his wounded shoulder now forgotten. Despite the hammering of the Thompson in his left hand, his mind was focussed on his right hand, now occupied by the weapon of his youth.

Blinking rapidly to clear the tears brought on by the smoke, the CHM sought another target. The Thompson yielded its last bullets, smashing down a panicky cavalryman as he reloaded his PPSh.

Tossing the empty weapon to one side, Dhankumar Gurung threw himself forward, rolling under the thrust of a
Soviet bayonet, coming up into the crouch and ramming his kukri home, point first, the tip exiting the back of his screaming opponent.

Releasing the blade, he rolled again, avoiding a massive swipe from a bearded Cossack, the tip of the
shashka kissing the rim of his helmet and creating a ringing metallic sound.

Sl
ipping as he tried to rise, Gurung’s wounded shoulder impacted with a discarded ammo box, and he cried out in pain.

Seeing weakness in his opponent, the bearded Russian attacked once more, intent on using his strength and reach to batter the Gurkha down.

Blade met blade as Gurung fended off the blows, but the Gurkha was being penned back, acting solely defensively, as the big Cossack pressed harder still.

Suddenly, the man halted in mid swipe, his face demonstrating a lack of understanding, whilst his body knew
very well that it was dying.

A second shot from Graham’s Webley dropped him
lifeless to the earth.

The captain bore all the hallmarks of a man drunk on blood, his wild eyes and grinning face betraying his combat madness.

In his right hand, he now carried a bloodied shashka, the former owner having no further use for it. Graham’s kukri remained deeply embedded in his skull.

“Up and at ‘em, Havildar-Major, up and at ‘em I say.”

In an instant, he was gone, gobbled up by the steadily increasing fight.

Securing the position, Gurung installed a Bren gun team with
back up to prop up the left flank, and pushed back into the throng to help secure the centre.

More Cossacks entered the fight, the
organised remnants of the 3rd Battalion focussing on the perceived weak point, desperate to break through.

Some Cossacks were learn
ing the hard way that a trench was not the best place to be when the enemy has a kukri, its lack of length suddenly becoming a strength, as the longer shashkas fouled the wooden boarded sides of the old German earthwork.

The sun disappeared, leaving the illumination to the flames and flashes from explosives and weapons.

A group of cavalrymen became isolated and pressed on both flanks, the heavy bladed kukris carving men into pieces, until the Gurkhas met in the middle over the dead bodies of their enemy.

A
Soviet grenade exacted a price from the victors of that small battle, levelling the score in an instant.

Parts of the wooden trench began to burn, slowly at first, but then gathering in ferocity.

One group of Gurkhas, under the command of Naik Rai, stepped back from the close fight and started to pour fire into the approaching Cossack reinforcements, forcing them into cover and delaying the support they tried to bring to their fellows.

5th
Platoon’s commander attempted to turn the right flank of the Cossack attack, advancing two sections to the southeast.

As they rushed the road, the Gurkhas fell foul of Soviet machine-gunners, positioned to cover just such an effort.

5th Platoon lost a dozen men and failed to affect the fighting on the other side of Route 317.

The Captain commanding the Soviet machine-gunners sent up a magnesium flare to help see. It deflected off an overhanging branch, slamming back into the ground and illuminated his own positions long enough for a Bren gunner to extract some revenge.

The remaining men of 6th, 7th and 8th Platoons fought harder in an attempt to throw the enemy out of their positions, but they were fighting high calibre troops who had no intention of giving ground.

It made for a bloodbath.

The final portion of Major Graham’s reserve launched itself forward and fell in behind the close combat zone, firing at targets of opportunity, careful to avoid their own side.

Rai, t
he Naik, was down, legs smashed by a burst from a DP, but he still encouraged his men, directing their fire, and keeping them focussed with his shouted encouragement.

Graham appeared on the edge of the position, his loud voice immediately getting the attention of the carrier platoon’s Havildar c
ommanding the adjacent reserve. He followed the officer’s gesture, spotting a group of enemy pressing hard to the left of centre.

The Havildar’s group switched their fire, dropping a few Cossacks
, but the cavalrymen refused to halt, speeding up to get to the doubtful safety of close quarters.

Ordering his men forward, the Havildar fell in mid-shout, a single rifle bullet instantly taking his life.

None the less, his men plunged into the fray, driving hard into the flank of the new Soviet arrivals and, once again, balancing the numbers in the frontline position.

Gurung, his wounded shoulder
aching badly, watched as the battle temporarily moved away from him. He permitted himself to take a few deep breaths before seeking further involvement elsewhere.

He spotted Graham fighting like a man possessed, lashing out with the Cossack blade and his empty Webley.

Horror overtook him, for his leader had not seen the approaching danger.

Gurung screamed a warning at his officer.

“Sahib! Behind you!”

Throwing
a kukri was an acquired and delicate skill, and CHM Gurung was renowned as an able practitioner and excellent shot.

The bloodied
kukri flew through the air.

It missed.

On hearing the warning, Captain Graham had turned, just in time for a bayonet to slam into his solar plexus, punching through gristle and bone, folding him in two with the weight of the thrust.

The dying officer tried to swing the sabre, but he was robbed of his strength, rolling away to the left as the Cossack twisted his rifle, causing unspeakable agony.

The rifle spoke once, blasting a larger hole in Graham’s chest, stopping his heart in the briefest of moments.

Beside himself with rage, partially at the death of the popular British officer
, and partially because of his own failure, the maddened Gurung threw himself forward, crashing into the Cossack, and sending both men flying.

His shoulder wound forgotten, the wiry Gurkha dodged the knife aimed at his body and slipped inside
the thrust, knocking the man down again and breaking the Cossack’s wrist when he fell on top of his arm.

The knife fell away from his useless fingers
, and was instantly retrieved by Gurung.

He stabbed quickly into the man’s side and stomach and was about to finish him off when a sixth sense warned him and he rolled away.

A sabre cut the air where his head had been the briefest moment before.

Another blow made contact, slamming into his
midriff, but failing to cause him damage, the blade eating into his webbing and pouches and halting at the buckle.

One of his younger platoon members saw his senior NCO in difficulty and sprang forward, only to receive a deadly blow
as his kukri was brushed aside, and the sabre left free to kill.

The dead man’s
kukri dropped invitingly to the ground, but the Cossack understood the situation, and made sure he stayed between it and Gurung.

Swinging the
shashka, he advanced again, his wounded adversary having no choice but to retreat, the knife useless against such a heavy attack.

A burst of firing
, close at hand, marked a momentary separation between some of the combatants, a space that some of the Cossacks exploited, using PPSh’s to slay a number of Gurkhas.

The firing distracted the cavalryman, only for a split-second, but enough for Gurung to spring.

Attention back on the fight, the Cossack slashed at the moving shape, nicking an arm as the Gurkha rolled low and right, slipping under the attack, and jamming the knife in the meat of the cavalryman’s thigh.

It
jarred into the bone, causing a horrendous pain that momentarily paralysed the Cossack, until it passed just as quickly and he turned to deal the Gurkha a deadly blow.

“Ayo Gurkhali!”

Gurung led with a powerful thrusting straight arm, moving inside the latest sabre cut, the retrieved kukri smashing, point first, straight through the man’s upper teeth, before penetrating the roof of his mouth and into the brain beyond.

Regardless of the absence of verification in the Divisional records, Kazakov actually had been awarded the Red Star for valour, back in the days when he was a patriot
, prepared to risk his life for the Rodina.

That had long since
passed, and the butchery to which his unit had been subjected, often by orders of doubtful military worth, had left him with only self-preservation of immediate concern.

Or so he thought.

Watching from his position, he observed men he had lived with these past four years, comrades and friends, dying and bleeding for the same cause he had forsaken.

Something clicked inside.

“Blyad!”

Substituting his weapon for a discarded SVT rifle with spare magazines, he slipped forward in the
half-crouching run that marked out the veterans from the cannon fodder.

Arriving at the
old German trench section, he calmly picked off Gurkhas, saving more than one of comrade’s life in the process.

Tossing an empty magazine away, he saw the movement and turned, dropping the new mag as he raised the rifle to stop the blow.

A bloodied Gurkha brought down his kukri and found only the rifle. The blade bit into the wood and metal and lodged there, the weakened man tugging on it without success.

The Gurkha saw death in Kazakov’s eyes and fell to the ground, exhausted by his wounds, drained by his
exertions.

The SVT was useless as a rifle
, so Kazakov repeatedly drove the butt into the face of the wounded man, smashing jaw, cheekbones, and cracking the skull, before throwing the rifle away, the bloodied kukri still lodged in its workings.

The
shashka was in his hand before he moved away, deciding to avoid the melee in the trench, and investigate off towards the right.

Gurung recovered his own
kukri and looked around him, immediately understanding the situation.

The Gurkhas were losing.

In such moments, men are born, and Company Havildar Major Gurung immediately determined to be a beacon and rallying point to his men.

Shouting the battle cry, he moved up and out of the depression he was in, exposing himself to friend and enemy alike.

The surviving Gurkhas took inspiration and fought back with renewed vigour, pressing the Cossacks hard, despite their inferiority in numbers.

Two
Cossacks rushed at him, screaming, and slashing with their blades. Each received the same journey to Valhalla in short order.

A
wounded Soviet officer emptied his Nagant revolver at the mad Gurkha, missing every shot, his fear growing as the whirling shape grew nearer.

A
Cossack Sergeant, his hands pressed to a ruined face, staggered into kukri range and was dispatched, his blood splashing over the officer’s hands as he fed more shells into his Nagant.

He started to scream in fear, his hands desperate to snap the revolver back together and kill the mad little man.

Fear leant him wings but also robbed him of the composure he needed, and Gurung’s kukri bit deeply into his chest, spilling his life’s blood.

A bullet tugged at Gurung
’s sleeve, and he wisely moved back into cover.

As he turned back
, he saw another cavalryman, gleaming sabre in hand, stalk the position, occasionally hacking down through gaps in the flames, striking at a man in the trench below.

A pistol appeared
in the man’s hand, and more of Gurung’s men died.

Despite
his growing weariness, Gurung threw himself forward, shouting at the Cossack to distract him.

One bullet remained in the pistol and the trigger was pulled. It missed the charging Gurkha
, so metal met metal, as shashka and kukri clashed again.

Kazakov felt the sting as the
kukri slash slipped through his guard, opening his jacket side and slicing the flesh down the line of his ribs. However, Gurung had been falling away at the time, so the cut was not deep.