THE TEN THOUSAND

by Harold Coyle

  Desperate measures for desperate times. Over and over Ilvanich repeated that to himself. Desperate measures for desperate times. When he was mentally ready, he yelled over to Rasper, "Sergeant! We must get out of this ditch and into the secure area before the Germans recover. I am going for the machine gun. Cover me."

  Rasper didn't stop to think about what Ilvanich was saying or what it meant. He simply turned to his men and yelled, "Everyone, up and fire. Up and fire." While his men did so, Rasper yanked a smoke grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it over to where Ilvanich would be coming from.

  Swinging the heavy German machine gun up, over, and down onto the dirt parapet of the anti-vehicle ditch, Pape took the best possible aim he could and began to fire at the bunker. As his bullets began to splatter against the concrete around the aperture of the bunker, the German machine gunner brought his weapon to bear on Pape and returned fire, throwing clods of mud kicked up by near misses back into Pape's face.

  When Ilvanich saw this, he took a deep breath, pulled himself up out of the ditch, brought his rifle up to his hip, and began to race for the bunker at a dead run. Inside the bunker, the German sergeant's attention was drawn back to Ilvanich. From behind his machine gunner he pointed his finger toward Ilvanich. "To the left. Get that bastard." Without letting up on the trigger, the German machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around, cutting Ilvanich down just as he reached the halfway point.

  For the briefest of moments there was a stunned silence as the rangers with Rasper watched Ilvanich go down and roll over twice before coming to rest on his back. After all that they had been through in the past few weeks with him, to see him cut down like that was a shock. But it only lasted a second. Rasper knew what Ilvanich had been after, and he knew what needed to be done. Taking a second smoke grenade, Rasper pulled the pin, threw it out to his front, and watched its clouds of yellow smoke build up. Ready, he yelled to his men again. "I'm going for the bunker. Cover me."

  Again the rangers in the ditch popped up and began to fire at the bunker as fast as they could while Rasper this time scrambled up over the edge of the ditch and headed for the bunker. And as before, the German sergeant in the bunker, despite the building clouds of smoke, saw the danger and directed his machine gunner's attention to it: Without a sound, without a single moan, Rasper pitched forward and fell flat, sliding to a dead stop only meters from where Ilvanich lay.

  The thud of Rasper's body and the strange noise of the air leaving his lungs while he died caught Ilvanich's attention. Though his mind was drifting in an almost dreamlike state and he didn't seem to have any control over a body that he hardly felt, Ilvanich managed to bring his head around until he was facing Rasper. It took several seconds for his eyes to focus. When they did, Ilvanich quickly understood what had happened. Rasper lay there with bulging eyes and his face half buried in mud that had been plowed up as his body had pitched forward and slid along the mud. He had, Ilvanich realized, followed his lead and had for his efforts been killed.

  Suddenly understanding that they were going to fail, Ilvanich began to sob. He still didn't feel any real pain, but he knew he was hit bad. Nothing except his head responded to his efforts to move. This was no way for a well-trained Russian paratroop officer, a man proud of his skills and abilities, to die. Not at the head of a foolish attack that was doomed to failure. No, these men deserved better than this.

  In what appeared to be a foolish attempt to mock him even further, Ilvanich watched as another man came up and out of the ditch in an effort to reach the German machine gun. They were, he thought, doing exactly as he had asked them to do. And they were dying, for the ranger that had sprung up grabbed his face and fell backwards before he even managed to get both feet out of the ditch. Unable to watch anymore, Ilvanich closed his eyes and prayed to any god that would listen to take him now, before he had to see one more man die.

  The shock of seeing Private Ken Hillman's body being thrown back into the ditch right next to him broke Pape. There, not more than a meter away, his friend Ken Hillman lay on his back clutching his bloody face with both hands, screaming at the top of his lungs and kicking wildly with his feet. Everything, the sudden rush from the front gate to the inner secure area, the truck crashing into the ditch, watching Ilvanich, followed by Rasper, and now Hillman, cut down like this was too much for Pape. Without any conscious thought, Pape let go with the yell of a man who had lost control. Hoisting his machine gun up to his side, he bounded out of the ditch and began to rush forward toward the bunker.

  Across the field from him, through the thinning clouds of yellow smoke, the German sergeant saw the new target pop up out of the ditch and start running at him. "God in heaven! Are these men mad? Who are they?" For a second he, the machine gunner, and the assistant machine gunner watched in utter amazement as another man in a German uniform, screaming at the top of his lungs, came lunging toward them, a machine gun at his hip and firing as he went. Recovering from this spectacle, the sergeant simply said, "Kill him. Now." Seeing no need to rush, the German machine gunner prepared to comply, taking careful aim. When he was ready, he braced himself and pulled the trigger.

  It took only a fraction of a second to realize that although the bolt had gone forward, the machine gun had not fired. Behind him, the sergeant, who had not heard the bolt go forward, yelled, "Fire! Fire, damn it."

  Pulling the trigger a second time, the gunner confirmed that the bolt had gone forward. "AMMO! MORE AMMO. HURRY!"

  Caught off guard and totally absorbed by the nonstop rush of events, the assistant machine gunner looked over to the gunner with a dumb look on his face. He stood there for the briefest of seconds before he realized what the gunner was saying. "AMMO. I'M OUT OF AMMO! HURRY!"

  The sergeant, seeing the confusion, didn't wait for the assistant gunner to respond. Instead, he bent down and grabbed for the first ammo box that he could reach. The machine gunner, pushing the assistant gunner out of the way, raised the cover of his weapon, pulled the bolt back, and reached for the fresh belt of ammunition just as Pape stuck the muzzle of his machine gun into the aperture of the bunker and let go with a long burst of fire.

  From across the anti-vehicle ditch, Fitzhugh, leading the rest of the company, had watched in horror as Hillman had gone down and then Pape, like a man possessed, had risen and rushed for the bunker. When he saw Pape cover the distance from the ditch to the bunker and stick his machine gun into the opening, Fitzhugh yelled to the men following him, "Okay, rangers, let's go. All the way. We're going all the way."

  Without breaking stride, the rangers with Fitzhugh poured into the ditch through the hole in the fence made by the truck, ran through the muddy bottom, and scrambled up over the other side. Those rangers who had been with Rasper and were still in the ditch joined Fitzhugh and his men in the mad dash for the inner secure area.

  Once they were clear of the ditch, their momentum carried them forward, overcoming any resistance that remained and leaving the German battalion, back in the main compound of the storage area, thrashing about in an effort to assemble and reorganize. Fitzhugh, short of breath but still fired up, paused for only a moment as he passed Pape and slapped him on the shoulder. "That was great! You did great. Now let's go. Follow me."

  Pape, however, was in a daze. Allowing the muzzle of the machine gun to drop to the ground, Pape fell back against the side of the bunker and looked across the open field to the ditch. The last of the smoke from the grenades was being carried away by the breeze. There, under a thin veil of yellow, he could see both Ilvanich and Rasper lying still. In the ditch, though he couldn't see him, was Hillman. That much he knew. What puzzled him, and it would puzzle him for the rest of his life, was how in the name of God he had gotten to where he was now standing. Neither the eyewitness accounts nor the citation that accompanied the Medal of Honor he was given would ever satisfy Pape. What he had done, and why, during the longest and most important fifteen seconds in his life would always be a mystery to him. />
  From where he lay, Ilvanich could hear the sounds of battle move on. That and the trampling of feet past him and Rasper, accompanied by Fitzhugh's shouts, told Ilvanich that somehow the tide of battle had swung back in their favor. With nothing left to do but wait, Ilvanich closed his eyes and tried to relax. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he could hear above the din of battle helicopter blades beating against the cold winter air. That would be nice. Yes, it would be very nice if the Marines came now. Perhaps then this would have been justified. Yes, that would be nice.

  Outside the storage site, Colonel Haas sat on the side of the road propped up against the wreckage of his staff car. Looking up, he watched the first of the dark green helicopters with large black letters spelling U.S. Marines stenciled on their sides come swooping down overhead and into the storage site. When he saw no anti-aircraft fire directed at them from the storage site and the helicopters following taking no evasive maneuvers, Haas knew it was over. Chancellor Ruff's great adventure in making Germany a nuclear power was at an end. Haas wondered if that meant that Germany too would soon be coming to an end. Though he hoped in his heart that such a thing would not happen, the specter of such a grim future for the country he so loved and had served so long suddenly became real.

  Then, as if struck on the head, Haas realized that Germany had again placed itself into the hands of an ambitious man. "Maybe," he said to himself out loud, "we should disappear. Perhaps the German people are too great to live in such a small world."

  There was a soft knock on the door of the study. Abigail Wilson, pulling herself away from the window seat, called out, "Come in, please."

  When the door opened, one of her military aides stepped inside the study. Though he had never seen the commander-in-chief in a bathrobe and slippers, he pretended not to notice. Instead he submitted his report. "Madam President, we have confirmation that both storage sites have been secured. Though the inspection teams that went in with the Marines are still in the process of inventorying the nuclear devices, we're sure we got them all."

  Wilson nodded. Then she looked up. "Casualties? How bad were our losses?"

  The colonel smiled. "Initial reports say they were minimal."

  Wilson frowned, looking down at the floor. Minimal, she thought. Minimal to whom? To us, the people who had issued the orders? How would she, a mother, like it if someone told her that her son had been one of the minimal casualties? She wouldn't. She knew that. But this was not the time to make an issue of the colonel's poor choice of words.

  Instead Wilson simply thanked him and turned her head back toward the window. There, in the privacy of her study, she would be the first to mourn for those minimal casualties, whoever they were.

  CHAPTER 20

  24 JANUARY

  At first, no one seemed to notice. The excuses rendered by those who failed to show up for work were, given the time of year and the advent of a new strain of flu, quite reasonable. Only when the flood of absenteeism spread to the General Staff did Colonel Hans Kasper begin to realize that the absences were not acts of God but wholesale desertion of Ruff's government. Following the example of General Lange, more and more officers openly declared their support of the unilateral cease-fire declared by the Parliament or simply failed to report for duty.

  Even more ominous was the action of entire units that were declaring "active noninterference" with American forces. Not satisfied that acceptance of the unilateral cease-fire was enough, commanders of battalions, brigades, and even divisions were lending logistical and medical support to American units as they streamed north. Some even intentionally maneuvered themselves between American forces marching to the sea and German units still considered loyal to Ruff, raising the danger of civil war. When Kasper, in a private conversation with the commander of the 5th Panzer Division, mentioned this, the general became quite blunt. "Your Chancellor Ruff will be gone soon. And I hope the devil takes him. But we and the German people will still be here to atone for his sins. Someone, Herr Colonel, has to defend the soul of Germany. Because when this is over and our day of reckoning comes, we will have to be able to stand up and show that we Germans truly understand right from wrong and that we deserve to sit at the table with other civilized nations."

  Those words, like Lange's words to him a week before, haunted Kasper as he moved about the half-empty offices of the Chancellery, trying hard to catch up with the work that used to be done by those who no longer could support a man that they themselves had elected into office. This was not easy. There was no way that Kasper, with the aid of a handful of loyal staffers, could replicate the effort that had required twice their number. But they tried and for the most part succeeded by judiciously dealing with only those matters that were absolutely essential. Since Kasper was a trained General Staff officer, this was a relatively simple task. With a firm hand and a trained eye that was quick to sort out trivia from important information, Kasper was able to keep Ruff informed. This additional work was for Kasper a godsend, since it kept his mind busy and left him little time to ponder the questions of right and wrong, good and bad, and, even more pressing for an officer, duty versus a vague notion of personal conscience.

  Still, Kasper had nagging doubts that Ruff himself did nothing to quiet. Rather than embarrass the General Staff, which was losing its officers to the Parliament at a prodigious rate, Kasper himself gave Chancellor Ruff the early-morning update on military operations in progress and those planned for that day. Kasper kept these updates brief, for he quickly realized that Ruff didn't seem to have much of an interest in the detailed workings of the military machine which he had so recently tasked to perform a mission that was now tearing it apart from within. Ruff was satisfied with a quick overview of where major American units were and what they were up to, where units still loyal to him were and what they were doing, and, most important of all to the Chancellor, how many Americans had been killed and wounded in the last twenty-four hours. His insistence on knowing the precise number of American losses, neatly broken down into the number of killed, wounded, and missing, bothered Kasper, since he showed no similar concern for the cost of this war to Germany.

  At first Kasper thought he was imagining things. For three consecutive days he had briefed Ruff and after enumerating American losses had been dismissed before mentioning German casualty figures. This caused Kasper to wonder what was going on inside of his Chancellor's mind. So he decided while walking through the quiet halls of the Chancellery that morning to test a theory he had. He was going to present German losses first and not mention anything about American figures.

  Looking at his watch, Kasper saw that he had only a few minutes to finish putting his update together and he still lacked the information from the General Staff. Reaching over to the secure line that went directly into the joint operations center used by the General Staff, Kasper punched in the number for the duty officer. When Colonel Siegfried Arndt answered, Kasper was surprised. "Siggie, this is Hans. I thought you were on duty last night? What are you still doing there?"

  Arndt's voice was tired. "I'm still here because my relief hasn't reported for duty yet."

  Since duty watches ran twelve-hour shifts and the night duty officer should have been relieved at six in the morning, over an hour ago, this meant that chances were good that another officer had come down with what was being referred to in private as the parliamentary flu. When Arndt spoke again, there was a less than subtle hint of disgust in his voice. "I'll tell you, Hans, if it weren't for the easterners who had been senior officers in the former East German Army that Ruff had insisted on reinstating, work over here would have come to a grinding halt yesterday. Word's out this morning that the entire operations staff has gone over."

  This piece of news caused Kasper to stiffen upright in his seat. "Then who's in charge of current operations and the plans section?"

  Arndt sighed. "They're still discussing that. I suppose another easterner will take over those duties."

  "Yes," Kasper res
ponded, trying not to betray his dismay, "of course. Listen, I called to get an update on what's happening. I brief the Chancellor in a few minutes."

  "All right, here it is. The lead elements of the American 55th Division are just outside Bremen. We expect them to bypass that city to the west and strike north to Wilhelmshaven. Unless something stops them, which is unlikely, they will link up with the American forces in Bremerhaven tonight or early tomorrow. The American 4th Armored Division continues to screen the eastern flank of the American line of advance from a point just north of Paderborn, across the Mittellandkanal. And the 14th Cavalry Regiment continues to screen the rear and to the west."

  "Who," Kasper interjected, "are they screening against in the west?"

  Arndt chuckled. "Good question. The 7th Panzer, of course, has assumed a posture of active noninterference. It is the fuel from their supply trains that's keeping the American march going. The 5th Panzer, as you know, has assumed defensive positions in the east to protect the Ruhr east of Düsseldorf."

  "And who are they protecting the Ruhr from?"

  Ignoring Kasper's last question, Arndt continued. "The 1st Panzer expects to commence its attacks against the American 4th Armored later this morning with two brigades. Its axis of advance will be due west from Hannover north of the Mittellandkanal. The 2nd Panzer Division, which will not be in place until late in the afternoon, will join that effort, attacking on the right or north flank of the 1st Panzer. The commander of the Second Corps, coordinating the effort, expects to be able to penetrate the 4th Armored Division's screen and, with luck, isolate most of that division."