THE TEN THOUSAND

by Harold Coyle

  Vorishnov nodded. "Yes, that will be necessary. And that force will be sacrificed."

  "Yes, I know." Sliding his right hand back into his pocket, Dixon stared at the symbol that represented Cerro's battalion, 3rd of the 3rd Infantry. ' "They will need to hold as long as possible, then when they're about to be overrun, they make a break and hope they can get out of the way of the Germans and find their own way north."

  Placing his right hand on Dixon's shoulder, Vorishnov attempted to reassure him. "I understand. They are all your soldiers, my friend, but these concerns are best left to the commander on the spot, Major Cerro."

  Dixon turned his head and smiled at Vorishnov. "As always, Colonel, you are right. I should leave that fight to the battalion commander. But I will be there to advise and encourage him, just as you have done with me, my friend."

  Vorishnov raised an eyebrow. "You appreciate that, given the distance, you may not be able to control your entire brigade if you place yourself south of the Kanal."

  "I have," Dixon countered, "no intention of attempting to control the entire brigade. When we split, I will go south with the tactical command post and command this half of the brigade. You will remain here with the main command post and command the rest."

  For the first time since joining Dixon, Vorishnov was flabbergasted. He started to protest. "But I am a Russian officer!" - "And a damned good one. Listen, Lieutenant Colonel Yost has his hands full keeping the brigade trains together, functioning, and moving north. The same argument I used when I sent Cerro to the 3rd of the 3rd Infantry still applies. If Yost leaves, we stand a good chance of losing the trains." Dixon pointed to one of the northern battalions, then the other, as he spoke. "The commander of this battalion is a major, like Cerro, and the lieutenant colonel in command of this one has his hands full with what he already has. He's not brigade command material." Turning to face Vorishnov, Dixon tapped his chest. "So tag, Colonel. You're it. I'll leave you the tank and I'll take one of the personnel carriers. I want to go fast and be as inconspicuous as possible."

  "Your division commander will never agree to my taking command, Colonel Dixon."

  Now Dixon smiled, truly smiled for the first time in days. "Sorry, won't work. I've already talked to him about your succeeding me. He agreed."

  Outmaneuvered there, Vorishnov turned his head toward the brigade staff and surveyed them. Those who were in earshot returned Vorishnov's stare. "And them?"

  Turning his head also, Dixon let the smile on his face fall away. When he spoke, it was so that the staff officers and sergeants listening would hear what he had to say. "They, Colonel Vorishnov, are professionals, each and every one. They will do as they are told, regardless of who is in command." Finished, Dixon looked back at Vorishnov. "Besides, I am only lending this command post and those battalions to you. I intend to take them back as soon as I reach Bremerhaven."

  Closing his eyes, Vorishnov smiled and nodded. "Fine. That will be fine."

  With that, the two colonels parted. Dixon went out to gather his gear and head south before his route was blocked by the Germans, while Vorishnov turned to his staff and began to issue the orders that would be necessary to break contact with the 1st Panzer Division and continue the long march to the sea.

  While he waited for Captain Nancy Kozak to arrive, Major Hal Cerro paced along the side of the road, Across the road, the crew of his M-2 Bradley infantry righting vehicle watched him as he would walk several meters, stop, look at his watch, turn, look at them, and then retrace his steps. When he had reached the limit of his small circuit, Cerro would stop again, look at his watch, look over to the Bradley again, and repeat the process. His gunner, sitting on the turret roof with his feet dangling down the open hatch, and his driver, half hanging out of the driver's compartment, watched, munched on tasteless rations, and exchanged comments.

  "The major's in a hurry."

  Swallowing, the driver wondered out loud, "How long do ya think he'll wait before we go lookin' for her?"

  Even though the driver couldn't see the gunner, the gunner shook his head as he answered. "Don't think the major's in a hurry to get back on board. You scared the piss out of him on that last series of turns."

  "I didn't mean to. He did say move out, didn't he?"

  "You're going to have to take it easy," the gunner advised, "until the major gets used to us and the Bradley."

  "I thought," the driver protested, "that he knew what he was doing. How the hell was I to know he'd never commanded a Bradley before."

  Taking time to lick the tomato sauce off his plastic spoon, the gunner slowly responded. "Come on. Use some common sense. You see all those badges he's got? Master parachutist, jump master, pathfinder, ranger, combat infantryman's badge. That's a leg infantry collection. I'll bet he never spent a day in a mech infantry unit till he got assigned to us."

  The driver grunted. "Yeah, ain't we lucky. We get to do some on-the-job training."

  "It could be worse," the gunner reminded the driver. "We could have been stuck with the ops officer."

  The driver shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't think it makes much of a difference. All officers get kind of strange when they get promoted to major. The best we can hope is that this one lasts longer than the last two."

  The gunner was about to ask why he had said that, but caught himself. Of course the driver hoped that nothing happened to Major Cerro. Because his fate was now tied to theirs. Odds were, if something bad happened to the major, they'd be right there getting the same thing. "Yup. Sure hope this one's luckier than the last two."

  The driver saw Cerro stop and look down the road. From the direction Cerro was staring in, the driver heard the whine of another Bradley's engine cut through the cold, damp morning air. "Looks like the Nose has arrived."

  Turning his head, the gunner also looked to see if the Nose, the nickname Nancy Kozak had earned after breaking her nose during the campaign in Mexico, had finally arrived. From around the corner, a Bradley came into sight. When the gunner saw the black image of a wolf's head painted on the gunner's side of the turret, he knew it was Kozak. Sergeant Wolf had done the painting himself as a little extra show of pride. When Kozak saw what Wolf had done, she insisted that he do something similar on her side. Of course, all the junior NCOs in the battalion dared Wolf to paint the silhouette of a large crooked nose on her side. But Wolf, knowing that he'd have to put up with her for a long time, opted to paint a palm tree, resembling the symbol used by the German Afrika Korps during World War II, with a K in the center of the tree's trunk instead of the swastika. Kozak loved it and Wolf was harassed in a friendly sort of way by his fellow NCOs for weeks after that.

  But that all seemed like ancient history to the gunner now as he watched Kozak's Bradley come to a halt across from Cerro's. Both Kozak and Wolf were riding low in their open hatches. Even from where he sat, Cerro's gunner could see that they were both exhausted. Neither Kozak nor Wolf looked as if they had washed their faces in days. While Wolf's face, stub-bled with beard, looked bad, Kozak's was worse due to the dark bags that hung under her eyes and seemed to drag her cheeks down from their sheer weight. The gunner had no doubt that her eyes were just as bloodshot as Cerro's. That was becoming the first indicator that an officer was approaching. Though everyone was dragging tail, the officers, to a man, seemed twice as bad off as any enlisted man. There was, Cerro's gunner thought to himself, no way that he'd put up with all the shit that officers had to. No way.

  From below, Cerro's driver shouted to get the gunner's attention. "Hey, you have something up there to trade for my dehydrated peaches?"

  In the two and a half days since Cerro had assumed command of 3rd of the 3rd Infantry, Kozak had seen him nine times. At most of those meetings the format was the same. She'd give him a quick update on the status of her company, the location of her platoons, significant contacts or sightings, and what they were doing or about to do. Cerro, if time permitted, would explain what was happening elsewhere in the battalion
and brigade area of operations, potential enemy threats that they needed to consider, and then issue Kozak new orders. When he was sure that she had a firm grasp of what was expected of her company, Cerro would mount his Bradley and head down the road in search of the next company commander. Only twice, due to the fact that they were in almost constant contact, was he able to muster more than two company commanders together at the same time. There just wasn't time.

  Ordering Paden, her radiotelephone operator, to lower the troop ramp of her Bradley, Kozak dropped into the turret and through the small access door that led to the Bradley's troop compartment. Cerro walked around her Bradley and met her at the ramp. Kneeling down, he threw his map down on the ramp, took a notebook out of his pocket, and prepared to issue his order. Before he started, however, he asked Kozak, map in hand, which of her two infantry platoons was in the best shape.

  Kozak didn't need to think about that. "2nd Platoon. Marc Gross's. He has three fully operational Bradleys and three dismount teams with four men each."

  Cerro looked up at Kozak. "Is Gross reliable?"

  Kozak nodded. "He's the best I have left."

  Cerro, in a hurry and not keen on the order he was about to issue, snapped back, "I didn't ask for a comparison. I asked if he was reliable."

  Cerro's sharp tone and the look on his face took Kozak aback. She realized that he, like her, was not thinking and tempers were short. Kozak rephrased her answer. "He is an experienced and capable platoon leader. The former battalion commander used him as an advance guard detachment on several occasions."

  When Cerro spoke, there was no apology, no regret for his reprimand. He simply began issuing orders. "You're to take your company across the Mittellandkanal, here." With pencil in hand, Cerro pointed to a circle drawn on his map case. "Once across, Gross and his platoon will occupy a blocking position here. His mission is to hold up the advance of the German units moving along the Kanal for as long as possible. You and the rest of your company will move west, along the main road here, as quickly as possible and secure the cross point here. There you'll remain in place to cover the crossing of the rest of this battalion and the 35th Armor. Hold there until a company from the 35th comes up and relieves you. Once the brigade's across, we go north as fast as we can."

  Kozak looked at the two points on the map that Cerro had marked and shown her. "You realize, Major, we wouldn't be able to support Gross and his platoon at all."

  Cerro nodded. "I know."

  "How long," she continued, "does Gross need to hold here?"

  "Until he can't hold on any longer." There was, Kozak noticed, no emotion in his voice.

  "Will Gross be able to join me when the 35th Armor relieves me or is he expected to join the 35th?"

  Locking his eyes on Kozak's, Cerro leaned forward. "Let me make myself perfectly clear. Gross will hold that position until he is no longer able to hold it. I do not expect him to join us or the 35th. He digs in as best he can and he holds, period. If and when his position is overrun, the survivors will be free to make their way north as best they can, on their own."

  Slowly the look of surprise on Kozak's face was replaced with a mask of horror as she realized that she was expected to order one of her platoons to literally die in place. That was not, she thought, the way we did things. Last stands, she thought, had been dropped from American military doctrine at the end of the nineteenth century. Besides, she wondered, how could she be expected to order almost half her remaining company to stand fast, fight, and die while she fled north to safety?

  Cerro saw the look on her face and knew what she was thinking, for he had considered the exact same thing when Colonel Dixon had issued him his orders little over an hour ago. Looking down at Kozak, Cerro was suddenly struck by how out of place Kozak looked at that moment. As hard as this was for him, Kozak's big brown eyes and smooth round face, looking more like a hurt child's than a combat commander's, made all of this harder. Even with her long auburn hair, except for a stray wisp that always seemed to fall across her face, wrapped and tucked-up into an olive drab wool watch cap, and layers and layers of bulky winter clothing that made Kozak look more like a stocking doll than a woman, Kozak was for an instant a female, someone he suddenly felt the need to protect, to comfort. Only with a great effort was Cerro able to pull his tired thoughts back onto track. She's an officer, damn it, a captain in the United States Army. A company commander. Nothing more, nothing less. Taking several deep breaths, Cerro continued.

  "Look, Captain, the Germans are crashing down on the corps' flank with two panzer divisions. If we don't get out of the way, we'll be crushed. As it is, the units north of the Kanal are already giving way. Our only chance is to turn to the west and cross somewhere else, and then run north as fast as we can.

  And we can make it in less than twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, so can the Germans. The Air Force can chew 'em up and delay them some. Unfortunately they can't stop them. Only ground forces can do that."

  "And Gross has been elected." As soon as she said it, Kozak was sorry she had.

  Angry, Cerro clenched his fists. He didn't like what he was doing any more than she did. But he had been convinced that it was necessary, had accepted the order, and now he expected Kozak to do likewise. He could have blamed Dixon, who had originated the order. That, Cerro knew, would have been easy and would have made Dixon the bad guy. To do so, however, would be wrong, for the order did make sense, and it was after all an order.

  Barely holding back his anger, Cerro glared down at Kozak. "Yes, goddamn it. Your Lieutenant Gross has been elected. He elected himself when he took his oath of office and put on the uniform. No officer who understands his or her responsibility to his profession and duty should ever imagine that there's always an easy or safe way out. It just doesn't work like that. Being a soldier means killing, and sometimes being killed. Well, I'm here telling you that I expect your Lieutenant Gross to take his men there, north of the Kanal, and kill Germans. And they will continue to kill Germans until they can't kill any more. This is no time to debate the wisdom or merit of orders regardless of who generated them. You have your orders, and I expect you to issue Gross his. Is that clear, Captain?"

  Kozak sat there on the ramp of her Bradley and looked up at Cerro. There was a rage and anger in his eyes that she had never seen before in a human being. He was, she realized, a man beyond reasoning. What kindness or emotions this man had once possessed had been crushed by the weight of his responsibilities and the horrors of war, just as her own spirit and hope had been extinguished as she had watched the soldiers of her company drop or disappear one by one during the long march. That none of this made sense anymore seemed a moot point. All that seemed to matter anymore was to follow orders and keep going north, regardless of cost, regardless of consequence. To stop now was not possible. They had all gone too far and paid too much to stop or allow this enterprise, right or wrong, to fail.

  Slowly, as if the weight of the entire world were on her shoulders, Kozak pushed herself up off the cold metal ramp and faced Cerro. Though in her heart she was dying, Kozak choked back her tears and saluted him. "Yes, sir, your orders are clear."

  Unable to speak, and not knowing what to say anyway, Cerro reached down, grabbed his map, and fled across the road to his own Bradley, leaving Kozak to pass on the order.

  CHAPTER 21

  24 JANUARY

  Despite the fact that she had been finished several hours ago, Jan Fields-Dixon couldn't bring herself to leave the World News Network studios. In Germany, where it was still mid-afternoon, the flow of Tenth Corps units into the perimeter held by the 17th Airborne Division, south of Bremerhaven, was beginning to turn into a flood. At checkpoints all along the southern tier of that perimeter, news teams stood by recording what some correspondents called completion of the greatest military march since Xenophon led his ten thousand Greek mercenaries out of Persia in the year 400 B.C. Like everyone else, the experts, real and imagined, sat by television monitors shaking their heads
in disbelief and watching as the soldiers of the Tenth Corps finished what many had said could not be done. "Every man and woman in the corps," one retired colonel had told Jan during an interview earlier that day, "should be proud of what they have accomplished."

  Jan, ever watchful for any sign of her husband, could see no hint of pride in the vacant eyes of the survivors as column after column of soldiers rolled past the electronic eye of the news media. Few in Germany seemed to share the wild joy most Americans back home felt now that the great march to the sea was coming to an end. Instead, when a correspondent managed to make his way to a group of survivors, his questions were often left unanswered as the soldier stammered or simply lapsed into a stunned silence. At one assembly area, where the remains of a tank battalion had been marshaled, a reporter found every man, officer and enlisted, spread out over the fenders and tops of their tank turrets asleep. It was, the reporter commented as his cameraman panned the slumbering crewmen, as if the only thing that had kept the men and women of the Tenth Corps moving, in spite of the terrible hardships and odds, was stubborn pride and fear of failure, and now that they were safe, they could go no further.

  Having been long associated with the military, Jan knew better. Men like her husband, Scott Dixon, his operations officer, Harold Cerro, and the corps commander, Al Malin, went on doing things that often could not be explained and defying common sense because they couldn't do otherwise. There was a vague and indefinable force known as duty that drove her husband and those that followed him to keep putting themselves in harm's way. Jan, like others, knew that stubborn and mindless male pride, coupled with a childlike fascination with danger and the primeval animal-like drive to kill, played a part in the process. But these drives alone could not justify or explain what Scott did for a living. Neither could high-sounding words, such as duty, honor, country, justify the brutality that Scott and others like him meted out to others and suffered in return. That was something that defied explanation. Something kept Dixon in the Army and allowed the soldiers of the Tenth Corps to do what everyone in Washington had termed impossible.