Winter Warriors

Perdue shook his head. “Curly goes first, then Moe. Once they’re over we’ll hook passenger cars to the diesels and send as many over as the bridge will take. Each train is going to damage that bridge a bit more and we have to get the heaviest stuff over first. If the bridge goes, whatever is left this side will get blown up as well.” That would include the diesels if they got trapped. They were only shunting engines, intended to move cars around, but they would still be useful to an enemy that was short of rail transport. The partisans had seen to that, they had a talent for devising innovative ways to sabotage steam engines.

“Very well. I wish you luck Tovarish Commander. My men and I will buy you what time we can.”

“Tovarish Major, I beg you, please, we need you too much to leave you here. None of my men understand how to repair railway track or work on the lines. We have no knowledge of what the capacities of the tracks are or anything like that. The Hitlerites are all over the place, they may have cut lines, bombed them, shot them up, who knows? If there is damage, we do not know how to repair it. We need you and your men Tovarish; if we are to get these guns out, your experts are vital. And beyond that, skilled railway engineers are worth their weight in gold. Once the bridge has been blown, the fascists will be stuck here for hours anyway. There is little you can achieve by staying here, but there is service of incomparable value you can perform if you come with us. We have room set aside for all your men in the trains. After the miracles they performed last night, we cannot afford to leave you.”

The AST AC Major looked bewildered at the impassioned appeal. Before he had time to commit himself to a refusal, Lieutenant Commander Enright from Moe cut in. “Tovarish Major, my Commander speaks nothing but the truth. There is a major fascist offensive going on. The damage in the rear areas will be heavy and we all know the railway lines are the first targets. We will need you and your men if we are to get these guns out.”

Major Boldin looked at the two American Navy officers and sighed. Their appeal made sense and he was under no illusions about how little a group of railway engineers armed only with bolt-action rifles could achieve when fighting a panzer-grenadier unit. It was just that he had his own chain of command to worry about.

“Very well. I will order my men to cross the river and wait for your trains there. After that, we will ride with you. For my files, please will you give me a written explanation of why we must ride with you?”

Perdue hid his smile carefully; he had anticipated that. There was still enough of the old days left in Russia to make written orders a valuable commodity. He had already written a paper that explained the problems of getting his guns to safety and how essential the help of the ASTAC unit was. “That can be arranged, Tovarish Major. If you will excuse me for a few minutes I will prepare it for you now.”

As Perdue went to get the letter, he saw the ASTAC Major telling his work teams they would be riding with the guns, not staying here to fight. The air of general relief was quite unmistakable. Then, Curly’s Mikado engine sounding its whistle drove everything else out of his mind. The trains were about to start moving.

The bridge looked as shaky as he had suspected. It had been repaired all right, but the work had been done fast and had used whatever materials were available. As the first train had moved up, the ASTAC work team had flooded over the bridge, combining an urge to run for the safety of the other side with a last check on the hasty repairs. Perdue swung up into the Mikado’s cab where the engine crew was getting ready to move off.

“How do we do this? Get over as fast as we can?”

The engine driver spat over the side of the cab reflectively. “No Sir. No way, We take this slow and steady. We try to run over and we’ll shake this contraption apart. We take it careful-like and Mike here will get us over.”

The engine started to move. The strain of towing the 16-inch gun and the rest of it’s consist showed in the faces of the cab crew. They were moved steadily forward and watched their speed pick up slowly. The engineer kept the pressure just right to hold at the correct speed. Perdue could tell when the wheels hit the bridge. The sound changed dramatically and he could feel the structure groaning beneath him. He tore his eyes away from the gauges in the cab and looked out at the river below. Then, he wished he hadn’t. He could see the train swaying on the bridge and, out of the corner of his eye, what looked suspiciously like bits of the bridge structure falling away to splash in the river below. Ahead, the far side of the river seemed to be receding rather than getting nearer. That had to be an illusion didn’t it? They couldn’t be going backwards.

They weren’t. The sound changed again as the Mikado’s wheels left the bridge and were once more on solid ground. Perdue jumped down as the train started to slow and went over to the ASTAC officer who was watching with anguished anxiety.

“Well done, Tovarish Major. Your crews did a fine job. We have saved our first gun.”

Major Boldin smiled weakly. The American Navy officer hadn’t seen the bridge sagging under the train or the supports that had been hammered into place, breaking loose and falling into the river. “Tovarish Commander, can you order your gun to go down the line so we have room for the next. We must hurry, we have little time.”

Perdue nodded and spoke into the walkie-talkie radio. The other side of the river, Moe‘s train started to move. He could see why the Russian was so worried. The bridge seemed to be stretching under the weight, only there was no ‘seemed’ about it. The track was stretching. It had to, the way the railbed on the trestles was arching downwards. He heard the Mikado starting to strain as it pulled Moe up the slope to the side of the river. The underside of the bridge now dropped a steady rain of fragments into the river. Finally, the train made it, the Americans and Russians joined in a prolonged barrage of cheers. The guns were over, anything else that made it was a bonus.

The next to try was a diesel shunting engine towing two carriages. The demolition teams were on board those and they had one last job to do before they took the perilous ride over the river. That was to start the fuses on Larry and the rest of the gun site working. Once they’d finished, their diesel started to pull them over. By then, the bridge was clearly on its last legs. It swayed from side to side as well as up and down. The fragments that detached from it were larger, obviously from more than just the track bed. The diesel and its carriages made it, just; it was clear nothing else would. The remaining two diesels and the carriages that were left were going to have to go.

As if to emphasize the point, there was a despairing groan from the bridge. Then the whole structure started to collapse into the river. The tracks and rails detached as it fell. The roar of the bridge’s descent was drowned out by a massive explosion from the site that the battery had used for so long. Perdue could see the huge cloud boiling over the hill that separated them from Larry’s explosive demise. It roiled upwards, towering over them, dropping yet more debris into the river that was already three quarters blocked by the remains of the bridge. Unidentifiable objects rained down. Perdue had a nasty feeling they were parts of Larry’s barrel. Then the original explosion was joined by more than a dozen more as the rest of the rolling stock was destroyed.

“Well, that’s it.” Perdue was as sad as he sounded. It was a hard thing to blow that gun up.

“Not quite.” The demolition engineer had a nasty grin on his face. When Perdue thought about it, he realized that all demolition men had nasty grins, most of the time. “We left a few surprises for the Nazis.”

Perdue nodded. Anything to buy time. Then he turned to the AST AC major. “We head east, for Murmansk?”

“I would recommend not Tovarish Commander. The fascists are coming through that way, a right flanking move. They will cut the line soon. We should go west. We can go that way, then pick up a spur line that will take us to the northern trunk line.”

“There isn’t a spur line on this map.”

Major Boldin grinned. This day was his. The bridge had held for the two vital trains, he’d got his people out with all the paperwork to justify it and now he knew something the American did not. “Of course not, Tovarish Commander. To put all our railway lines on a map the fascists may capture? I think not. There are some lines that are not shown on these maps and some that are shown do not exist. That is why we always have guides on trains that are heading off the main routes.”

“Very well. West it is.” Perdue turned around; he just couldn’t resist the chance. He waved his arm like an old-fashioned wagon train guide and gave the time-honored order, “Wagons West!”

Mechanized Column, 71st Infantry Division, Kola Peninsula

The huge pyre of smoke rolled over the trees a few seconds before the rumbling crash of the explosion rocked the column. Colonel Asbach cursed; fluently and with great imagination. The devastating blast had come