by Larry Bond
“It’s a truck, Herr Leutnant.”
Preussner fought off his first impulse to throttle the private and sighed. If he reacted to every insolent remark, he’d have half the headquarters guard detachment up on charges. “And?”
“One of ours, sir.”
The lieutenant closed his eyes in exasperation and said, with far more patience than he felt, “Why don’t you go and make sure of that, Private?”
Vogler muttered something Preussner chose to interpret as agreement. Still muttering, the sour-faced private slung his assault rifle over one shoulder and stepped out of the guard post into the road. He used a shielded flashlight to wave the canvas-sided track to a stop.
Preussner leaned against the guard post’s waist-high wall, waiting patiently for the private’s next screwup.
The truck driver’s door creaked open and a man clambered out from behind the wheel, dropping lightly to the ground in front of Vogler. Something about his uniform looked odd in the dim red glow from the private’s flashlight. Just what kind of camouflage pattern was that?
Vogler stiffened suddenly and whirled toward Preussner, eyes wide. “Sir, they’re Pol — ”
Something bright gleamed in the darkness and plunged into the private’s back. Vogler moaned once and crumpled to the ground.
Preussner felt his mouth fall open. He stood rooted in shock, staring from the private’s contorted body to the Polish soldiers already leaping out the back of the truck. Everything around him seemed to freeze.
Then the frozen moment passed and movement came back in a flash. The lieutenant’s hand was already fumbling for the pistol at his side when a dark shape flew through the air, smacked onto the sandbags in front of him, and rolled inside the guard post — right between his feet.
Paul Preussner had just enough time to recognize the Soviet-style fragmentation grenade before it went off.
Even as the muffled burst of light and sound faded, figures were already rising up out of the tall grass and standing crops in front of the shredded, smoking guard post.
Major Malanowski and his men had come to pay their respects.
“… French are falling back, Willi… need you to plug the gap by morning… critical…”
Willi von Seelow pressed the headphones tighter against his ears, trying to make sense out of the static-filled, scrambled transmission from division HQ. Polish radio jamming was getting better, and they hadn’t had time yet to lay wire communications. Two things were disastrously clear, though. First, the damned French had been beaten and were retreating fast. And second, Montagne and his underlings expected the 19th Panzergrenadier to save their bacon — again.
He clicked the transmit switch. “Understood, sir. But…”
Whummp. “
Wait one.” Von Seelow pulled the headphones off and glanced at the sergeant sitting beside him. “What the hell was that?”
Gunfire erupted outside the TOC — the chattering roar of machine guns and the higher-pitched crackling of assault rifles. Startled cries and screams rose above the noise. Realization broke past his surprise. They were under attack!
Von Seelow tossed the headset to the sergeant. “Get help fast!” Without waiting for a reply, he reared up off his chair, undogged the commander’s cupola, and poked his head through the opening.
Trucks parked around the command post perimeter were on fire, burning brightly as fuel fed the flames. Everywhere he looked men were toppling, cut down by the bullets scything through the camp. Others dove for cover behind vehicles or piles of equipment, clawing at their sidearms to return fire.
An RPG streaked through the night and exploded inside a Marder APC, gutting it. Razor-edged steel fragments blew outward, slicing two German officers who had been sheltering beside the Marder into red ruin.
Flashes stabbed out of the darkness along the perimeter. The Poles were still outside the camp, but he could see shadowy forms scrambling upright and moving forward. They were coming in to finish the job. Another grenade went off near the overturned map table.
Von Seelow grabbed the MG3 machine gun mounted beside the cupola and opened up, sending a long, withering burst along the line of advancing enemy soldiers. Several were hit and knocked off their feet. The other Poles dropped flat, seeking shelter wherever they could find it.
One man knelt, leveling a rocket launcher.
Willi sensed more than saw him and whipped the machine gun around with his finger still locked on the trigger. Four 7.62mm rounds moving at 2,700 feet per second tore the RPG gunner to pieces before he could fire.
Heartened by his example and with the Poles pinned down, more German crews made it to their own armored vehicles and started shooting back. Tracers lit the night, floating out over the open fields around the orchard.
As quickly as it had begun, the attack ended. The Polish soldiers faded back into the darkness, dragging their own dead and wounded with them. They left the 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade’s headquarters in shambles behind them.
Half an hour later, von Seelow stared down at a familiar figure sprawled beside the splintered map table. A grim-faced medical officer kneeling by the body looked up and shook his head.
Colonel Georg Bremer was dead.
Willi swallowed hard and turned away. So many were dead, and so many others were badly wounded — Jurgen Greif, the brigade second-in-command, and his old friend Otto Yorck among them. The Polish commando raid had decimated the 19th’s command structure.
“Sir?”
“What is it, Neumann?”
The private still sounded shaken. He’d been standing close to the colonel when the attack began. “II Corps is calling again, Herr Oberstleutnant. They want to know when we can move up. They say things are going from bad to worse across the river.”
“And what do they think we’re doing here? Cleaning up after a damned picnic?” Von Seelow instantly regretted the outburst. The private was only doing his job. He put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and felt him flinch. “Tell Captain Weber to inform Corps that we’ll have two battalions on the road within the hour. And tell them to make sure the bridges are cleared for our advance. Understand?”
Neumann nodded and hurried off.
Willi von Seelow sighed once. Then he moved into the tangle of burned-out and bullet-pocked vehicles, rounding up his surviving officers. With Bremer dead and Greif out of action, command of the brigade fell to him. Whether anyone higher up liked it or not.
JUNE 21 — 19TH PANZERGRENADIER BRIGADE, ON THE WARTA RIVER
Von Seelow squinted into the rising sun and scowled angrily. Despite all the promises made by II Corps, the three pontoon bridges across the Warta were packed with French troops and vehicles streaming back in disorder. Signs of barely contained panic were everywhere. LeClerc tanks showing clear signs of battle damage — scarred armor, jammed turrets, or smoking engines — mingled with others that seemed completely untouched. Dazed soldiers threaded their way through the slow-moving columns on foot. Trucks that stalled out in the growing heat were pushed off into the river instead of being towed to the opposite bank.
He grabbed the French military police captain who had been directing traffic and stabbed a finger toward the bridging site. “I’m not asking you, Captain, I’m telling you! I want at least one of those pontoon bridges clear for my brigade to cross! Not later! Now!”
The MP licked dry lips and shrugged nervously. “I’m afraid that is impossible, sir. General Belliard himself gave me my orders. All bridges are reserved for the 5th Armored.”
Von Seelow nodded. Belliard was the commander of the 5th French Armored Division.
He glanced up the road behind them. Leopard 2s and Marders were backing up, stalled in close formation while they waited to cross the Warta. They were sitting ducks while stuck like that. His men called the Leopard Der Schimpanse because it was so easy to drive that even a monkey could do it. But not even the Chimp could swim. Only God himself could help them if a Polish fighter-bomber broke through the air patrols overhe
ad and the SAM defenses here below. Or if the Poles got forward observers in a position to call in artillery fire on the riverbank. “And where is General Belliard?”
Again the same nervous shrug. “I am not sure, sir. His command vehicle went by several hours ago.”
Shit. Willi’s anger flared to white-hot rage. The cowardly son-of-a-bitch was probably already back hiding behind General Etienne Montagne’s dress uniform trousers. Part of him wanted to sit back and simply accept the fact that getting across the Warta into combat again was impossible. But another part of him — older, more inflexible, and still bound by honor — summoned up reminders of the oaths he had sworn and of his duty as a soldier.
He spun the French MP around and pointed to the big 120mm main guns mounted on his Leopard 2s. “Do you see those guns, Captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Von Seelow leaned forward to stare directly into the other man’s frightened eyes. “Listen to me very carefully. Either you clear a path for my men and me immediately, or my tanks will blow every single one of those damned bridges into the Warta — with or without your men on them. Do I make myself clear?”
The Frenchman’s mouth dropped open and hung there while he stared back at von Seelow. Then he closed it hastily and nodded rapidly.
Von Seelow released him and walked away without looking back — striding back to his command vehicle. With Willi in the lead and in command, the 19th Panzergrenadier was heading back into battle.
CHAPTER 24
Assembly
JUNE 21 — EMBARKATION AREA, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
Down on the Savannah waterfront, the bells pealing to signal Sunday services were drowned out — buried beneath the constant roar of diesel engines and heavy machinery. Ignoring the noise and frantic human activity, clouds of midges and biting flies drifted lazily through hot, humid air, sliding low above oil-stained water and between rusting steel hulls.
Ships crowded the harbor, taking on military cargo destined for the war in Europe. Several were RO/ROs, roll-on/roll-off vessels with stem and side ramps specially designed to speed the process of loading and unloading large numbers of vehicles. Most were breakbulk, general-purpose freighters. Cargo-handling cranes towered over the dock area, dwarfing the crates, containers, and stores pallets they were busy lifting from the piers and lowering into freighter holds.
Mike Decker put his lunch box on a crate and eased his large frame down onto the wooden surface. The seats in the pierside cranes were all right, but after eight hours in one of those steel cages even this wooden crate felt comfortable.
He mopped his rugged face and balding head with a kerchief. It had been a muggy night, and a busy one. He was still strong, still one of the bulls on these docks, but a guy his age, counting the months to retirement, had a right to feel a little stiff. He could do his job, the same one younger men did, but it took more out of him now.
He’d spent the entire night shift — on double time, he reminded himself — loading crates and vehicles and guns and everything else the U.S. Army needed. Now, in the morning light, it looked like he hadn’t done a damn thing.
The port was jammed. Row after row of green and brown camouflaged tanks, trucks, self-propelled guns, and other vehicles filled parking areas near the docks. He knew others were still tied down on flatcars in the rail yards adjacent to the harbor. Crates and cases on pallets occupied every flat spot until there was hardly room to walk.
Two U.S. Army divisions were being readied for sea transport to Poland from Savannah — the 24th Mechanized and the 1st Armored. Other units were loading their gear aboard trains for transportation to different ports along the eastern seaboard.
In addition to the civilian longshoremen, Merchant Marine sailors and Navy Sealift crews were sweating around the clock to load and stow the heavy equipment as it came rolling in by train.
Decker had been working the docks for thirty years. He’d gone out himself, on a ship like these, to Korea. After that, he’d spent his life loading ships, sometimes for war.
The papers were full of stories about the war in Europe, and his father, nearly an invalid but still clear-eyed, was full of stories about the last time Americans had fought in Europe. Like his son now, he had loaded the ships, then watched them sail off over the horizon, wishing them luck and a speedy return.
Decker wished these ships luck as well.
JUNE 22 — ALPHA COMPANY, 3/187TH INFANTRY, OVER GDANSK
The spacious compartment of the C-141 cargo plane was still dark, even with all its interior lighting on. Captain Mike Reynolds could barely see the loadmaster standing at the forward end of the compartment.
The barrel-chested staff sergeant needed an amplifier to make himself heard over the steady roar of the transport’s jet engines. Holding onto a bracket to steady himself, he shouted instructions into a microphone. “Listen up, gentlemen. This will be a ‘hot landing.’ Not having any great ambition to get blown up by some Frog or Kraut jet jock, we want to be on the ground for the shortest time possible. So make sure you have all your gear ready to go and go fast. There ain’t no lost luggage counter at this here airport.”
That earned him a low chuckle from the listening troopers.
“We’ll turn off the seat belt sign early, as soon as the plane’s landed and slowed a little. Stand up and head for your assigned door, then get out as soon as the doors open. Last time, we emptied this puppy in ten minutes, and we had more cargo then.”
Reynolds looked at his men. Most were nodding, accepting the challenge. Good soldiers were by nature competitive, and this was not an idle contest. While Combined Forces aircraft controlled the sky over Gdansk, a surprise EurCon raid on the airfield would pay big dividends. The enemy might risk planes for the attack, or send in a salvo of cruise missiles. They could hardly miss. The field was crammed with planes and equipment. Besides, other aircraft were stacked three deep behind them, waiting for their turn on a runway. Gdansk was one knotted end of the lifeline keeping the Eastern European democracies afloat.
Unable to stay seated, he unbuckled and moved down the rows of seated soldiers, ostensibly checking over his men and their gear. He hated the confined seating of the Starlifter, folded almost double, and jammed tight against the next man. The bulky, standard-issue rucksack and equipment harness was filled with bumps and hard corners, so that no matter how you sat, some part of your anatomy was being poked by something.
Reynolds was a lean, rangy man, with straight brown hair cut short, almost a crew cut. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses sat on his nose. It was his one kick against army regulations. When they got closer to a combat zone, he should switch over to the ugly, heavy-duty, black plastic frames commonly referred to as the “most effective birth-control device known to man.”
His command, Alpha Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment, occupied most of the Starlifter’s cargo compartment. The space left over was filled with palletized cargo and small-arms ammunition.
Reynolds’ infantry company was one of three in the battalion. Together with an antitank and a headquarters company, they gave the “3rd of the 187th” a strength of almost eight hundred men. The outfit had a long history, going back to World War II. The company’s motto was “Angels from Hell,” and that was a description its officers and men took very seriously.
The 3/187th was one of three airmobile infantry battalions making up the 3rd Brigade. In turn, there were a total of three infantry brigades and one helicopter brigade in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), the famous “Screaming Eagles.”
Alpha Company had over a hundred men in it. Reynolds had trained hard with them since joining the 101st. And he’d worked hard to get to know them — as soldiers and as individuals. Some, many of the senior sergeants, were combat veterans. He wasn’t. He’d been commissioned shortly after Desert Storm. West Point and Infantry Officer Basic Course and all the other training that the army had loaded onto him had given him the skills, but not the experience of c
ombat. Right now, he faced the same question as the rawest private: How will I do once the shooting starts?
Caught by minor turbulence, the C-141 rattled and shook briefly. Reynolds rode it out standing upright in the aisle. He felt better on his feet. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but it had been a long flight, straight from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to Poland — over ten hours in the air. The only break in the monotony had come during the in-flight refueling, west of the British Isles, but there hadn’t been much to see. A few of the troops had glimpsed some escorting fighters, which had started a low-grade panic until the Starlifter’s pilot confirmed the planes were friendly.
He smiled, remembering the mildly sarcastic remark from one of his sergeants. “If those are enemy fighters, Private Wilson, why the hell aren’t you dead?”
His men were crammed into canvas-backed metal seats fastened to the cargo bay floor. Dressed in full field gear, most of them had sat for the entire flight with their rucksacks and personal weapons in their laps. Where space allowed, soldiers had piled their personal equipment to one side or in odd corners, but those spaces were few and far between.
Knowing that it might be their last chance for quite some time, they’d all slept as much as possible. Reynolds, exhausted by the frantic preparations needed to ready his unit for an overseas move, had fallen asleep almost as soon as the plane started moving. He’d started awake after a few hours, stiff and restless. From then on he’d read, talked, eaten a box lunch, finally slept just a little more, and wished a hundred times for the interminable flight to end. He knew his body could use the rest, but his active mind wouldn’t slow down.
Now, as the Starlifter approached its destination, there was a last-minute bustle as troops collected and double-checked their gear. He moved down the rows of seats yet again, finishing his inspection. He knew many of them well: Corporal Cook, curled up with a paperback horror novel, Private Khim, asleep until the last minute, and third in the row, Sergeant Ford.
First Sergeant Andy Ford was a combat veteran, and one of the key men Reynolds depended on to make Alpha Company work. He was the senior enlisted man in the unit, and his only job was to help Reynolds make things happen. His nickname was “Steady,” a compliment to his temperament. Now he met the captain’s gaze with his own. Ford smiled and nodded at the captain. Some of his confidence seemed to rub off.
