Cauldron

CHAPTER 24 Assembly

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.

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 combat. 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.

Reynolds needed it. The closer they got to Poland, the more worried he was when he contemplated combat against EurCon’s tanks and armored personnel carriers. The “One-Oh-One” was strategically mobile, designed for rapid deployment to world trouble spots. But portability had a price. The division’s combat battalions didn’t have any M1 tanks or Bradley Fighting Vehicles of their own. They relied on antitank missiles and helicopter gunships, potent in themselves, but not always enough when matched against fully armored units. Without “tracks” — armored vehicles — they were not terribly mobile on the battlefield, either. The division’s organic helicopter brigade couldn’t lift everyone at once, and they needed air superiority for the vulnerable helicopters to operate safely.

The plane pitched forward sharply, losing altitude fast. The loadmaster came over the sound system again. “We’re on final approach, gentlemen.”

Reynolds staggered back to his seat. Rank had granted him a window, and now he used it view to the city below. Old and crowded and darkened by industry, Gdansk had been darkened further by war. Through a broken layer of white clouds, the city seemed almost black beneath him.

Gdansk was a long way from Texas, where he’d been born and raised, or Fort Campbell, home of the 101st. The army had moved him around a lot in his six years since he’d earned his commission. That was one of the reasons he liked the service. As a youngster, even a trip into town had seemed like a big deal.

He could see the Baltic to the north, steel-gray but shimmering in the patches where the sun hit it. The harbor was crowded with ships. Somewhat incongruously, the countryside outside Gdansk looked peaceful — a softly rolling landscape of lakes and forests. The fighting was still well clear of the city, about two hundred kilometers out, but the word was that the enemy might be coming on strong again at any time.

Most of 3rd Brigade was already on the ground, with the balance arriving today. The 3/187th would spend the rest of the day gathering and unpacking its heavy equipment. Current plans called for them to move out that same night for an assembly area closer to the front lines. In a few days, they could be in battle.

Reynolds forced a confident grin onto his face. His soldiers were looking to him. Any doubts he had were for himself alone.

With a sharp jolt, the Starlifter’s big wheels touched down and Alpha Company entered the war zone.