by Nick Ryan
“So what do we do?”
“We wait,” Edge fumed. “And we hope the fucking Poles turn up in the next few minutes, because otherwise the men attacking the bridge are going to get slaughtered for no reason. No damn reason at all.”
It was a somber thought. The Strykers of 1st Squadron would be massing around the bridge, the MGS’s taking up overwatch positions behind cover and preparing to fire. The main column would be drawn up on the road with their engines idling, waiting for the ‘Go!’ order. The troopers in the rear of each vehicle would be tense and anxious. Other infantry would be dismounted, crawling through the long grass to the riverbank, from where they could lay down suppressing fire. Once the Russian mortars began counter-fire, those troops would be horribly exposed. And every minute the feint attack continued, more men would die needlessly…
“It don’t seem right,” Waddingham said bitterly. “I mean this is their country. We’re fighting in Poland to defend their capital, their towns and their farms from a Russian invasion… and their own military can’t be bothered turning up on time for the battle?”
“It’s not the Polish troops. It’s that arrogant bastard, Nowakowski,” Edge’s voice was a vengeful, savage snarl. “And I swear to God, when this is all over, I’m going to make him pay.”
Chapter 8:
The sudden percussive cough of a far-away explosion, followed soon after by another, startled Edge and brought him to sudden anxious alert. Three seconds later the night was lit by a dazzling white orb of light that hung in the sky, suspended on a trickling tail of smoke. A moment afterwards the second light flared, bright as the sun.
“Illumination rounds,” Waddingham said.
Edge glared at his watch, sick with dread. “They’ve started the attack on the bridge too early.”
“They’re not our flares,” Waddingham said with foreboding. “They’re Russian.”
“Oh, Christ!” Edge groaned.
It was a nightmare.
The Russians had somehow been alerted to the American armored column’s advance and had opened fire. In a single second of misfortune, the initiative had been lost. Now the killing would begin.
The sky became criss-crossed with arcs of flaring light and the smoke trails of shells passing in the sky. The horizon glowed orange, pulsing with the flashing bloom of each new explosion. The air seemed to quiver with the roll and punch of every salvo. The stars became blotted out by a thick blanket of smoke that was twitched and torn by new salvos that glowed red inside the clouds.
Edge bounced to his feet and sprinted back to the Stryker. There was no longer any need for stealth. Now speed was all that mattered. He snatched up the radio and his voice was urgent.
“White Two, White One. Have the Polish Wolverines arrived?”
There was a delay before Calhoun’s voice filled the static hiss. “One, this is Two. Negative. Still no sign of the column.”
“Fuck!” Edge swore. He clawed his fingers through his hair, fuming with impotent frustration. “Two, this is One. I want you to go and find the bastards. Understand? Leave the other Stryker by the riverbank in case they turn up.”
“One, Two. Roger.”
Edge slammed the radio into its cradle and sprinted back through the screen of woods.
“What’s happening?” Waddingham muttered.
Edge crouched down and growled. “Still no sign of the Polish.” He could see Waddingham’s face in the dull glowing light but behind his camouflage paint it was too dark to read his expression. “I sent Calhoun out into the night to look for the bastards.”
From the west the sounds of fighting intensified. What had started as a flurry of flares and mortar shells had turned into the savage full-throated roar of battle.
*
For a brief gut-churning, heart-stopping moment the Cavalry troopers around the bridge were caught in the bright glare of Russian illumination rounds – picked out in stark relief against the pitch black of the night.
Then their world turned to hell.
The Russians had the range to the bridge already zeroed in. They didn’t need to know exactly where the Americans were. They only needed to know they were making another attempt to seize the bridge. Mortar shells began to fall like rain, churning the ground to a slurry of muddy furrows and spewing deadly shrapnel. Inevitably men on the road and along the riverbank began to fall. Some were killed outright, shredded to pieces by the booming barrage of explosions. Others were scythed down and fell into the long grass clutching at gruesome wounds. Cries of pain and agony filled the space between each fresh explosion, becoming shrill with panic and desperation. Freshly spilled blood spattered the blacktop and soaked the fields.
The MGS’s behind low cover to the east of the bridge returned fire, their muzzle flares lighting up the night. The wicked recoil of each round kicked up a swirl of dust around the rocking chassis. Ejected round casings shot out from a chute in the rear of the turret and clattered on the ground. The M1128’s were operating in batteries to concentrate their fire, scouring the slope of the far crest with canister. The thrashing hail forced the Russian infantry deep into their trenches, but did nothing to slow the rate of incoming mortar fire.
Caught exposed in soft cover, the dismounted Americans around the bridge died in their droves. Yet as troopers fell, so more men were flung forward into the crossfire of shrapnel and explosions. As the casualties rose, the Strykers on the road edged forward, keen to deflect some of the enemy’s concentrated fire and give the troopers in the open small respite. One Stryker rushed onto the bridge behind a curtain of 50cal machine gun fire. A Russian RPG missile flashed across the night sky, missing the American vehicle and disappearing into a distant stand of trees. The Stryker’s machine gun hammered the roadside on the far side of the bridge, rooting out enemy infantry that were firing from waist-deep trenches. Two Russians bounced up from the ditch and both men fired RPG’s. The Stryker’s hull was encased in a steel skirt of slat armor mounted to the sides of the vehicle, colloquially known as a ‘bird cage’. The Stryker took two direct hits.
The slat armor was designed to detonate the piezo-electric fuse in the RPG’s nose and misfocus the shaped charge jet. The Stryker shrugged off both rocket attacks and emerged from a dense wall of smoke scared and smoldering – but intact. The remote controlled 50cal machine gun in the turret turned and the two Russian soldiers disappeared in a roar of hammering revenge.
The Stryker remained on the bridge for several more seconds, allowing infantry to advance in its wake. Then the vehicle retreated behind a thick wall of smoke just as the distant sky erupted in a blooming flash of muzzle flame and a deafening ‘crack!’.
The round, fired by an unseen enemy from the saddle of the crest, missed the Stryker by a scant ten yards and struck one of the steel girders supporting the bridge. The night rung with a sound like a huge tolling bell. Then part of the bridge’s twisted steel frame sagged into the river in a groaning agony of metal. The colossal noise seemed to stun the battlefield. The entire bridge became enveloped in thick boiling smoke. When the haze cleared the bridge still stood, and the Stryker had returned to the safety of the riverbank. More troopers swarmed forward, spilling from the back of their vehicles. Then the Russian mortar barrage resumed and in a matter of five cruel seconds the advancing troops were swatted down; shredded by a curtain of shrapnel explosions.
From the TOC, Colonel Sutcliffe watched the carnage on monitors with sinking despair. The feint assault was fast becoming a bloody slaughter. He turned to his aides, his eyes pricked with tears and his tone tortured.
“Where the fuck are the Polish? Why haven’t they attacked the enemy’s flank yet?”
*
“White One, White Two,” Hal Calhoun’s Texan drawl twanged over the Platoon net. “We have located and rendezvoused with the Polish Wolverines.”
Edge snatched up the radio. “Where are you, Two?”
Calhoun rattled off a grid reference. Edge grabbed for a map and frowned. “You�
��re still six clicks away, Two?”
“Confirm, One.”
“What the hell are the Polish doing?”
“They’ve stopped, One.”
“Stopped?”
“Confirm.”
Edge felt his grip on the radio microphone tighten until his knuckles turned white.
“What the fuck did they stop for, Two?”
The static was filled with an incredulous pause. Finally Calhoun’s voice came through the hiss and crackle. “One, the Polish Major halted the column because he was tired with a headache. He’s been asleep for the past thirty minutes with orders that he cannot be disturbed.”
Edge blinked. For a moment he was too stunned to speak. Then an unholy rage consumed him. He swore vehemently and bitterly, roaring an apoplectic litany of abuse that would have made a Paris whore blush. When he keyed the mike again his voice was low and icy with rage. “Two, fuck the Polish! Escort the three MGS’s to the crossing, and if anyone tries to stop you, remind them the M1128’s are not under Polish command. When you get here, we’ll launch the attack ourselves if we have to.”
“Confirm, One. We’re on our way. Two out.”
Calhoun’s Stryker arrived at the river crossing eight minutes later. Behind him trailed the three MGS’s, keeping open intervals to avoid the dust flung up by the preceding vehicle. Edge stood on the far riverbank with his hands propped on his hips.
“Bring them over!” he shouted across the water.
The vehicles went nose-first down the muddy bank. One by one they made the crossing, emerging on the far side streaming great torrents of water from their hulls. Edge directed Calhoun and the M1128’s into the woods where Waddingham waited, but before they could move off a new roar of noise filled the night.
The ten remaining Polish Wolverines appeared out of the darkness. The lead vehicle had its driving lights blazing. Propped in the turret’s command hatch, Major Nowakowski struck a warrior’s heroic pose, his jaw thrust forward, his chin lifted with arrogant contempt. The vehicle braked to a halt by the river’s muddy bank.
For two minutes nothing happened. Then, in a howl of revving engine noise and a billow of diesel exhaust, the KTO Rosomak lunged into the river, throwing up a wave of spray as it wallowed through the water. The vehicle slewed onto the far bank, its wheels spinning wildly, and came to a lurching stop.
From his lofty command perch, Major Nowakowski looked down on Edge and regarded him with haughty contempt.
“I am ready to lead our surprise attack to glorious victory,” he announced loudly – but beneath the façade of bravado his face was a lather of nervous sweat, like that of a man sick with fear. He turned back to the river, his belly hanging against the rim of the hatch, and spoke into his headset. A moment later the second vehicle in the column slid down the slope of the riverbank like a skittish horse approaching a fence.
One by one the Wolverines made the crossing while Edge paced impatiently. In the background the sounds of the battle for the bridge intensified, emphasizing the critical importance of every second being wasted. Edge fumed at each small delay, seething with impatience. By the time the Polish vehicles were concealed within the woods he was so wild with frustration he could barely speak.
Nowakowski climbed ponderously down from his command vehicle and hitched up his pants with both elbows. He strutted importantly to Edge and regarded him with a condescending glare.
“My men are hungry. We will eat before we attack.”
Edge flinched. A wave of murderous loathing overtook him. He had to resist the urge to cut the bastard’s throat. “Can I speak to you in private, Major?” he snarled through gritted teeth.
He stalked into the woods until he was well out of earshot of the rest of the men. Major Nowakowski strutted behind him. Edge wheeled on the man and his pent-up fury exploded in a torrent of temper.
“Can you hear that, you bastard?” Edge flung his arm to the sky. “That’s the sound of good men fighting and dying. They’re being slaughtered at the bridge. Slaughtered – and it’s been going on for thirty minutes! We should have been attacking by now. We should be crashing into the enemy’s exposed flank. But we’re not. And do you know why, you fucking arrogant ass? It’s because of you! My friends are bleeding to death to buy us a chance to destroy the Russians. So shut your damned mouth about being hungry and get your men mounted up. We’ve got a fight to win and killing to be done.”
Nowakowski’s face turned ugly and swollen with insult. “You do not speak to me that way!” he blustered a protest. “I am a Major in the Polish Army, and I –”
“You’re nothing but a primped up piece of shit!” Edge cut him off. “You’ve never seen combat in your life. You’re an armchair general,” he snarled in contempt. “You think I care about your rank? I don’t. I care about the men on that bridge. Now, for the last time,” he took a menacing step closer and there was cruel hatred in his eyes, “get your men in their vehicles and follow my scouts.”
Shaken, trembling with outrage, the Polish Major stalked back through the woods.
Edge waited until he heard Nowakowski shout a flurry of orders to his men, then turned his head slowly. “Well? Did you hear that?”
Vince Waddingham emerged from the deep shadow of a nearby tree. He brushed leaves from his shoulders and smiled ruefully. “You really need to work on your people skills.”
*
The 2nd Platoon Strykers were the first to move out, followed by the three MGS’s and then the ten Polish Wolverines. Major Nowakowski stood mute and sullen in the hatch of his command vehicle, his face creased into a thunderous scowl.
Edge led the way northwest, crashing through the forest, throwing caution to the wind, and with every passing moment the horror of the bloody fight for the bridge grew louder and more intense.
Once inland of the river, the woods thinned and the canopy of trees overhead became patchy. The sky was filled with flashes of red fiery light and a thick pall of smoke. The sounds of fighting seemed to come in waves, like the crash of surf on a beach. Moments of chaotic intensity were followed by brief lulls – then another salvo would herald a renewed outburst of gunfire and the cycle repeated itself.
Standing in the command hatch of his Stryker, Edge counted down the minutes impatiently, urging the unwieldly column to greater speed – so that when the Stryker abruptly burst onto a pathway of clear ground he was taken by surprise.
“Driver, stop!”
They had reached the fire trail that he and Waddingham had traversed the night before. He leaped down from the Stryker and waved his arms, marshalling each vehicle as it appeared at the assembly point.
When Major Nowakowski’s Wolverine emerged from the woods, Edge pointed to the west and spoke abruptly. “This is where we separate. Follow the fire trail. It will bring you out between the bridge and the saddle of the ridge. I will lead my column over the rise and behind the enemy’s lines.” He didn’t wait for Nowakowski’s acknowledgement. Instead he glanced at his watch. “I will be in position in ten minutes. That’s when we launch our coordinated attack.”
The Major lifted his chin in contemptible disregard and spoke into his headset. The Wolverine moved off at a cautious walking pace, followed by the rest of the Polish vehicles. Kalina appeared out of the darkened shadows.
“Can I fight with your men?” she asked Edge.
“Why?”
“I do not support the things my father has done…” she said no more.
Traversing the spine of the crest in the Strykers proved impossible. Edge was forced to lead his column on a circuitous route, skirting the foothills. He urged his driver to reckless speeds until they burst through a wall of ferns and onto the farm track. Suddenly the going was smooth and the path ahead clear. They raced towards the red-glowing sky, barely slowing as they passed the burned out shell of the Russian command vehicle Edge had destroyed with grenades. Another illumination round arced into the sky and burned bright as a star.
The dreadful crescend
o of combat became deafening. Mortar rounds mingled with the throaty roar of heavy artillery to create a clamor of chaos. Edge checked his watch. There would be no time to form up or to organize a planned assault. It was to be a Cavalry charge in the traditional sense – a race into danger. In ninety seconds the Polish Wolverines would explode from the fringe of trees and fall upon the unsuspecting Russians. Edge had to be at the road to join the attack and to blockade any enemy attempt to retreat.
As the Strykers raced to meet their fate, it seemed to Edge, as it had in the past, that time slowed to a trickle. His mind picked out small details and registered them in startling clarity. He saw the crimson sky, glowing and pulsing from the flare of each new salvo, and he heard the fluting whine of a mortar shell as it reached the zenith of its trajectory and then plummeted back towards earth. He saw the end of the farm track blocked by an old wooden gate and bordered on both sides by a high wall of trees. Beyond the fence he saw the ghostly shadows of movement; it might have been Russian infantry or perhaps a small vehicle. Then he heard the wicked ‘crack!’ of a high-caliber muzzle, and a moment later a huge explosion.
“Faster!” he urged his driver as fear and the exhilaration of imminent danger descended upon him. “Charge!”
*
Everything happened during the few wild seconds the Strykers dashed along the farm track.
Edge’s gunner and vehicle commander climbed up through his hatch to stand at the 50cal machine gun, while in the buttoned-up troop compartment Waddingham, Kalina, and his three scout team members made final hasty checks of their weapons.
Waddingham had his eyes glued to the navigation computer. Blue dots marked the positions of all four vehicles in the Platoon, projected onto a satellite map of the local terrain. Waddingham passed around a clutch of additional grenades to his team as the image on the monitor blinked and then refreshed.
“Stay alert,” Waddingham told his team. On the screen he could see the Stryker’s position drawing inexorably closer to the road. “Once we clear the farm track, the ramp is gonna come down. We exit hard and fast. Everything is an enemy target. Our objective is to find and neutralize the Russian mortars.”
