Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  “Can he hit the Polish batteries?” Willi asked.

  “No, sir. They’re out of range.”

  Willi nodded. He’d expected as much. Content to hold the river line, the Poles had placed their artillery far enough back to avoid German counterbattery fire. Too bad. Victory in war usually went to the side that made the fewest mistakes, and Poland’s field commanders weren’t making enough mistakes.

  “Then tell him I need smoke to cover my withdrawal!” von Olden demanded suddenly. He glanced at his operations chief. “Order all companies to fall back immediately. We’ll regroup near Kolaczkowo.”

  “Hold it, Major.” Willi’s flat tone stopped the man dead. He looked hard at the 192nd’s commander. “No one withdraws. We’re not scuttling off with our tails between our legs. Not when we’re this close to that damned bridge! Get your troops moving again and use the artillery to screen your attack.”

  Von Olden flushed. “I will not ask my men to commit suicide, von Seelow. They’re fought out!”

  “Oh? And how do you know that?” Willi waved a hand around the crowded compartment. “Can you see through steel?” He didn’t bother hiding his contempt. Von Olden should have been outside kicking, cajoling, and inspiring his troops to press on — not sitting safe inside this armored box jabbering over the radio! He hardened his voice. “My orders stand. I suggest you implement them.”

  “Go to hell!” the other man barked, stung to fury by von Seelow’s scorn. “I don’t have to obey a damned traitor, a whining, bootlicking ossie!”

  Willi’s own temper flared. “Then you’re relieved!” He turned to the stunned operations chief. “I’m taking tactical command of this battalion, Major. Pass the word to all company commanders and order them to advance on my signal.”

  Von Olden stood for several seconds with his mouth open, shocked speechless. When he recovered enough to talk, he stammered out, “You can’t do this! I’ll fight you all the way up the line!”

  Willi nodded brusquely. “Protest all you want. But do it somewhere else. Captain Meyer!”

  “Sir!”

  “Wait for a break in the shelling, then escort this officer to my vehicle and arrange his safe passage to the rear area.”

  “Yes, sir.” Meyer sat down across from the dumbfounded former commander of the 192nd Panzergrenadier. His hand rested casually on the pistol holstered at his side.

  Willi turned away, focusing wholly on the task at hand.

  “Sergeant, raise the artillery again. Starting now, I want them to dump as much smoke as they can between here and the village. So much that I could walk on the stuff!”

  The sergeant hurried to obey.

  Satisfied that his instructions were being carried out, he picked up his rifle and dropped the Marder’s troop compartment ramp. “All right, Private Neumann. Let’s go.”

  “Wait!”

  Willi turned to find Klaus von Olden, sagging and suddenly looking much older, clutching the door frame.

  “Where are you going?”

  Von Seelow’s answer was brutally frank. “To do your job, Colonel.” He spun away and headed toward the fields where the 192nd lay pinned down. Neumann, bent low under the weight of his radio gear, trotted along behind.

  More Polish artillery rounds landed ahead and to either side.

  Willi scrambled over the farmyard’s low stone wall and pulled the radioman over after him. Dead and wounded men were scattered all around — cut down by the enemy barrage or by machine-gun fire from the village in front of them. He paused, scanning the fields for the telltale whip antenna of a manpack radio that would mark a command group.

  There. He spotted one waving above a small group clustered near a wrecked Marder. He and Neumann sprinted across the open ground — ducking whenever enemy shells exploded.

  But now German guns were answering the Polish barrage, firing salvos of smoke blossomed wherever the shells exploded, mingling to form a thick, gray-white cloud drifting slowly downwind.

  Near the smoldering Marder, a dark-haired man wearing the three light gray pips of a captain on his shoulder straps saw von Seelow and Neumann and waved them on. “Faster! Faster! Hurry up, you goddamned fools! You want to get killed?”

  Willi reached the little group of soldiers and dropped into their midst, breathing heavily. Their eyes widened when they saw his rank and recognized him. He grinned. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  The captain stammered an apology, but von Seelow shook his head. “There’s no need for that. You were quite right. Clearly anybody stuck out here in this field is a goddamned fool.”

  A few men chuckled nervously. The rest flinched as another Polish salvo landed only a couple of hundred meters away. German artillery rounds howled overhead in an eerie counterpoint.

  Willi watched the smoke screen billowing higher and higher above the peaked roofs of Rynarzewo and nodded in satisfaction. It seemed dense enough now to blind any Polish artillery spotters stationed there. Once he got these men out of the killing zone and closer to the enemy’s own positions, the Poles would have a hard time adjusting their fire to hit them again.

  He looked at the young officer who had yelled at him. “What’s your outfit, Captain?”

  “B Company, Herr Oberstleutnant.”

  Willi studied the frightened faces turning his way. Words alone would not be enough to move these men forward into enemy fire. Stunned by heavy casualties and the incessant shelling, they were too near the breaking point. They needed an example — his example.

  So be it. Rank should not confer immunity from risk. He climbed to his feet and stood motionless for several moments, ignoring the explosions plowing the earth alt around. He wanted them all to see him. Then he raised his voice to carry above the barrage. “All right, B Company! On your feet! Up! Up! Up!”

  Led by their captain, soldiers began scrambling upright. In ones and twos at first. Then in larger numbers as the force of example spread. Officers and NCOs in the battalion’s two other companies saw what was going on and started urging their own men up, too.

  Von Seelow held up his rifle and pointed toward the Polish village, now all but invisible through the dense, man-made haze. “We’re going forward,” he shouted. “We’re going into that town. And we’re going to take that damned bridge. Now follow me!”

  Without waiting for a response, he swung into a fast walk and headed for Rynarzewo. Neumann fell in at his side, pacing him. Only Willi could hear the diminutive radioman muttering a simple childhood prayer over and over. He found his own lips forming the same heartfelt words. “Oh, God, keep me safe. Oh, God, make me strong.” Another, older part of him added, “And give these men the courage they need to come after me.”

  His prayers were answered. With a ragged cheer, the soldiers of the 192nd Panzergrenadier Battalion surged forward, passed him, and plunged into the smoke.

  COMMAND POST, RYNARZEWO GARRISON

  Half the village was on fire. Columns of thick black smoke from burning buildings blended with the lighter gray mists spawned by the German artillery shells. Wrecked vehicles dotted the streets. Some were surrounded by sprawled corpses. Others seemed undamaged but were abandoned.

  From his vantage point at one of the post office building’s barricaded windows, Captain Konrad Polinski caught signs of movement down by the river and stared intently through the drifting haze. There! The wind tore a small hole in the smoke, and he saw German soldiers dashing from one house to the next, firing from the hip. The Germans were inside Rynarzewo! Worse, he and the rest of his troops were cut off from their only way back across the Notec River.

  Sick at heart, he turned to his radioman. “Get that engineer CO now!”

  “Major Beck, sir.” The corporal passed him the headset.

  “What do you want, Captain?” Beck asked. The commander of the combat engineers sounded understandably worried. If the Germans broke through Polinski’s defenses, his men would be dangerously exposed to enemy fire.

  “Are your charges laid
yet?”

  “Almost. We need another five minutes.”

  A German machine gun opened up somewhere outside the post office, sending rounds tearing through the windows. Polinski dropped behind a solid oak reading table, seeking cover. He kept his grip on the headset. “Hell, Major, you may not have five minutes!”

  INSIDE RYNARZEWO

  Willi von Seelow crouched beside a second-story window in a ruined house on the river. He could see the span perfectly from here. He could also see the Polish engineers busy rigging the bridge for demolition. More and more of them were peeling away, running toward the north end and safety as they finished their work.

  He and his troops were too late. Although they were just two hundred meters from their objective, they might as well be on the far side of the moon. The Poles were going to blow the Rynarzewo bridge, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop them.

  The radio on Neumann’s back caught his eye. He still had one desperate card left to play. “Contact Striker One,” he ordered.

  When the brigade artillery commander’s voice came on line, von Seelow took the mike Neumann offered him. “Striker One, this is Top Cat. I have a priority fire mission.”

  “Go ahead, Top Cat. My guns are standing by.”

  Willi keyed the mike. “Target location is the center span of the Rynarzewo highway bridge. Troops moving in the open.”

  “Understood, Top Cat. Wait one.”

  Von Seelow crouched by the window, watching the Polish combat engineers working with mounting impatience. Come on, come on, he silently urged his distant gunners. We’re running out of time.

  The radio crackled again. “Shot, over.”

  A single shell, a spotting round, howled overhead and exploded in an open field just across the Notec.

  Willi clicked the transmit button and yelled, “Shot, out. Drop one hundred meters and fire for effect!”

  HEADQUARTERS BMP, 421ST MECHANIZED INFANTRY, ACROSS THE NOTEC RIVER

  “Oh, my God.” Major Zbigniew Korytzki stared fixedly at the bridge, watching in horror as five German artillery shells fused to burst in midair exploded just above the unprotected engineers.

  Thousands of razor-sharp fragments whirred outward from each explosion, striking bridge concrete, the water, and human flesh with murderous impartiality. Men who survived the first salvo were cut down by a second and then a third. When the shelling finally stopped, corpses lay heaped one on top of another across the span. Many of the dead combat engineers were so shredded and torn that they looked more like piles of bloody rags than human beings.

  The major felt his hands starting to shake. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to see this kind of butchery. Acid-tasting bile rose in his throat. His long-held beliefs were being proved right. Being so close to the battlefield only clouded a commander’s judgment and made logical decision-making almost impossible.

  With an effort he pulled his gaze away. German soldiers were visible along the riverbank now, sprinting from building to building as they drew closer to the bridge approaches. Polish machine guns and assault rifles crackled in the distance. Korytzki shook his head sadly. A few of C Company’s isolated squads were still fighting, but they were doomed by the enemy’s superior numbers and firepower.

  He swept his binoculars through an arc. Movement just beyond the burning village caught his attention. German Leopards were advancing, rolling forward through the lingering smoke. Forward toward the bridge. Forward toward him.

  Korytzki froze for several precious seconds, unable to think past the possibility of his own death.

  When he could move again, he whirled around, leaning far out over the side of his BMP to see where the commander of the slaughtered combat engineers knelt. His eyes focused on the gray metal detonator box beside the man. “Major Beck!”

  When the tall, bespectacled engineer officer looked up, Korytzki could see tears staining his cheeks.

  “Blow the bridge!”

  Beck stared back at him as though he’d gone mad. “But what about your men, Major? What about your troops across the river?”

  “My men are dead, Major. Just like yours,” Korytzki snarled. He jabbed a finger toward the river. “Now, blow that fucking bridge!”

  Slowly, almost as though he were moving against his own will, the engineer reached out, took hold of the detonator box, and turned the key.

  192ND PANZERGRENADIER BATTALION

  The Rynarzewo highway bridge disappeared in a rippling series of explosions that raced the length of the span. A dense smoke pall cloaked the scene, lit from within by several more bright white blasts as secondary charges went off.

  Von Seelow sagged back from the window in dismay. It was all for nothing, he thought wearily. I’ve thrown away my soldiers’ lives for nothing.

  “Herr Oberstleutnant! Look!” Neumann’s startled yell snapped his head up.

  The bridge was still up. Badly battered, buckled in places, and punctured by several huge holes and deep, jagged craters, yes, but very definitely still standing.

  Willi’s eyes widened in astonishment. The artillery fire he’d walked in on top of the Polish engineers must also have cut some of their detonator wires, he realized. Not all of them, obviously — just enough to keep the span largely intact.

  Tanks and other heavy armored vehicles couldn’t make it across — not until his own engineers had time to make hasty repairs — but foot soldiers could use it now. Right now. He grabbed the radio mike. “All Predator companies, this is Top Cat! Cross the bridge! Repeat, cross the bridge!”

  Obeying his orders, small bands of panzergrenadiers broke from cover and stormed onto the span. Ignoring sporadic shooting from Polish die-hards still holding several positions along the river, the German infantrymen raced north toward the opposite bank. A few of them fell dying, shot in the back by rifle and machine-gun fire. The rest pressed on, fanning out across the countryside to seize and hold a bridgehead.

  Willi could see several Polish T-72s and a few scattered BMPs pulling out, retreating north along the highway at high speed. They were fleeing from infantry? Why, he wondered?

  The sudden roar of powerful diesel engines and the full-throated bark of tank cannon gave him the reason.

  Lieutenant Gerhardt had brought his Leopards right down to the water’s edge. Now they were busy pummeling the retreating Poles — keeping them on the run while the 192nd’s survivors dug in around the bridge.

  More vehicles pulled up beside the Leopards, Marders from the 191st. Willi breathed a quick sigh of relief. Now that the leading elements of his brigade’s other fighting battalions were beginning to arrive, he should have enough men and firepower on hand to root out the Poles still holed up inside Rynarzewo. Once that was accomplished, he could start funneling more troops across the highway bridge to expand the 19th’s foothold on the north bank of the Notec. Tanks and other heavy equipment would have to wait until the engineers repaired the bridge and laid temporary pontoon spans to handle even more traffic.

  Still planning his next moves, von Seelow turned away from the window and headed outside to confer with his battalion and company commanders. He felt an odd mixture of elation and sorrow. Against all the odds but at a painfully high human cost, his soldiers had won a stunning victory. The 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade had cracked the Notec River line before the Poles had time to form a cohesive defense.

  EurCon’s II Corps had its bridgehead on the main road to Gdansk.

  3RD BRIGADE HEADQUARTERS, 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION (AIR ASSAULT), IN THE TOWN HALL, GDANSK

  Several dozen American officers wearing battle dress and their web gear sat in rows inside the Gdansk Town Hall’s main council chamber — the Red Room. Their warlike, woodland camouflage pattern uniforms were a stark contrast with the chamber’s ornate, sixteenth-century decor and its colorful Baroque ceiling and wall paintings. The Poles were letting the U.S. Army use the room for a briefing theater. Easels covered with large-scale maps and charts occupied one side
of the chamber, surrounded by the brigade staff.

  The assembled line officers were edgy, aware that something big was in the works. They’d been summoned to this emergency brief by the 3rd Brigade’s commander, Colonel Gunnar Iverson. Outside the building, Gdansk’s city streets were jammed with Polish and American military vehicles heading south. The armed sentries stationed outside the Red Room doors were another sign of impending trouble.

  Sitting at the back with the other company commanders, Captain Mike Reynolds stifled a yawn. He’d had only four hours’ sleep in the past twenty-four, and that small amount had come in even smaller pieces. Unfortunately sleep deprivation was becoming a pattern. Their first day in Poland had passed in a jet-lagged confusion of unfamiliar streets and hurried procedures as the brigade first found, then took possession of, its equipment. None of the four days since then had been much more restful. Or less frustrating.

  After all the rash to get them to Poland in the first place, it had seemed strange that the 101st and its constituent brigades were still sitting on their collective butts only a few klicks from the Gdansk Airport. To many of the airborne troopers, the delay seemed just another typical army snafu, a standard case of “hurry up and wait.” But Reynolds was pretty sure there had been a lot more to it than that.

  The scuttlebutt at brigade HQ was that the 101st and parts of the 82nd Airborne were being held as a “strategic reserve” — as an American trip-wire force to deter the Russians from jumping in on the EurCon side. The rumors had gained powerful credibility when all of the division’s operations and intelligence officers were summoned to a special briefing on last-ditch defensive positions around Warsaw — defensive positions facing east. Just the possibility of Russian intervention sent chills down the captain’s spine. Getting caught in a land war against the French, the Germans, and the Russians seemed like a surefire prescription for a short fight and a long stretch as a POW — or an eternity as a dead man.

  Reynolds shifted uneasily in his chair. Whatever the reason, the five-day delay had not been wasted. Although they’d been ready to go into combat within hours of touching down from the States, the extra time had given the division a much-needed chance to sort itself out. During the emergency deployment to Poland, their weapons and vehicles had been packed “administratively,” meaning tightly, to make the most efficient use of the valuable space aboard the USAF’s cargo planes. Once in Gdansk, the 101st’s forward staging base, everything had to be assembled and checked out, before being readied for helicopter deployment to the front. With that done, the division’s brigade and battalion commanders had run their units through an intensive series of combat drills and physical training, honing the 101’s already sharp edge even sharper.