Cauldron

CHAPTER 31 Gdansk Is the Key

The improvised convoy carrying the eight hundred men of the “3rd of the 187th” pulled up outside brigade headquarters in the rural town. Captain Mike Reynolds shifted in his cramped seat, glad the trip was finally over. He stood gratefully, gathered his gear, and stepped off the hastily camouflaged school bus.

They’d left from Gdansk at six that morning, despite the risks of daylight travel. Speed was more urgent than anything else, and headquarters had reassured them that there would be continuous fighter patrols over the convoy. Well, Reynolds hadn’t seen any aircraft from either side, but at least they’d arrived intact. Part of his relief over the end of the journey was his joy at getting out of what his trained eye told him was a conspicuous, barely mobile, and horribly vulnerable four-wheeled target. As an infantryman in a combat zone full of tanks, artillery pieces, and laser-guided munitions, Reynolds was only really comfortable in cover and on his own two feet.

It had taken them four hours to cover the 125 kilometers between Gdansk and the small town of Swiecie. He was sure many tourists had taken the same trip. Highway 5 paralleled the Vistula River, past historic buildings and hundreds of small farms. It would have been a scenic drive if not for the bedraggled refugees clogging the road. Although Gdansk had shown all the signs of war, the morning’s trip had given Reynolds a real sense of the struggle. Those people on the road had not left their homes because of some abstract threat. Armies were on the move.

All along the route, bombed-out buildings had provided evidence of EurCon power. Polish demolition teams were also busy. At first, Reynolds had thought the wrecked bridges and cratered roads were more results of EurCon air raids, but then they had driven past a party of engineers actually blowing the bridge over the Vistula at Grudziadz.

“They don’t have a lot of confidence in us, do they?” he thought, but he remembered Thompson’s speech. The Poles were realists. He and his troops were all too likely to be coming back over this road again, heading in the other direction.

The relatively short trip also brought home to Reynolds just how close the French and German divisions were to their goal. Even at twenty-mph convoy speeds, he and his troops had covered the distance in a single morning. If the 101st didn’t slow EurCon down, and quickly, Gdansk would fall.

The closer they got to Swiecie, the fewer civilians they saw, and the more military activity. He was relieved to see a group of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters half-hidden in a copse of woods, and, as they drove into the town itself, he spotted a battery of Hawk missiles guarding the gunships.

Swiecie was the forward support base for the 3rd Brigade and its three infantry battalions, and drab green-gray vehicles lined its narrow streets. The Piast Hotel, the only one in town, had been taken over as the brigade’s headquarters. Reynolds guessed that Americans now outnumbered Poles in this village, especially with so many of the original inhabitants in flight.

As he watched his men debark, all stretching and yawning, a private came up and saluted. “Battalion brief in the hotel, sir, right away.”

Reynolds acknowledged his salute, gathered up his assembling platoon leaders, and headed for the hotel.

The Piast was a stone and brick building, shabby enough to be “rustic” but really just spartan and old. The dining room on the main floor was quickly filling with the 3rd Battalion’s officers, all silent as they waited for the final details of their assignment. Tables and chairs had been pushed to one side, while easels in the center held maps and status boards.

Reynolds spotted his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Colby, conferring with the brigade’s civil affairs officer. The S-5’s responsibilities included the civilian evacuation plan, and while their convoy hadn’t been horribly delayed by the refugees streaming north, the main road was supposed to have been kept clear. Reynolds was sure the hapless captain was receiving some pithy, pungent feedback from the colonel.

Reynolds liked Colby. A flamboyant, energetic commander, he had passed on some of that energy to his battalion — to some extent compensating for Colonel Iverson’s restrained style. Sometimes, though, he seemed too flamboyant, too “hell-for-leather,” to be real. The colonel had the “army look,” a lean frame with a long, tanned face and close-cropped hair, in this case brown. He was also a Desert Storm veteran, though not as a battalion commander.

Reynolds sighed. The real issues weren’t with Colby, but with himself, and with the entire battalion. Would they hang together? Would this complex machine built of men and weapons work right? The shooting was still too far away for him to feel any personal fear, but he’d admitted to himself that he was terribly afraid of screwing up.

Colby finished his conversation, straightened up, and looked around. Only a few of the battalion’s thirty-odd officers were absent, and he said, in a powerful, carrying voice army wags said was only issued to lieutenant colonels and above, “All right, let’s get it done.”

Even as he spoke, an enlisted man passed out copies of the battalion operations order. Reynolds quickly scanned its cramped, coded, familiar format:

The rest of the order was amplification and explanation, but Reynolds instantly understood his task. Their battalion had its left flank anchored on the Vistula River, and would deploy its three infantry companies, with their attachments, on a line. Bravo Company, “Team Bastard,” had the left flank, west of the highway, then “The Choppers,” Charlie Company, then Reynolds’ Alpha Company. Engineers and TOW missiles were attached to every company but his. He might have been disappointed by that, but at least it meant that his men weren’t expected to take the heat.

He’d still see plenty of action, though. Third Brigade guarded the most direct route between the EurCon II Corps and Gdansk. EurCon would want that road, real bad.

Out in front of them, the Polish 314th Mechanized Regiment clung to a battle line north of Bydgoszcz. At its present strength of just forty tanks and APCs, it should have been withdrawn from the line and reequipped, but Poland had no reserves left. The 314th would have to hold the enemy for as long as it could, bloodying and delaying them.

After falling back through the 101st, the battered Polish regiment and its parent division would form a mobile reserve, resting and refitting. Meanwhile, the Screaming Eagles, and Reynolds’ “Angels from Hell,” would be responsible for keeping the advancing French and Germans at bay.

It took Alpha Company’s soldiers thirty minutes of hard marching to reach their section of the new line, minutes Reynolds was already ticking off against a midnight deadline. He and his troops had what seemed like a million things to do before then.

Standard operating procedure saved him. His troops knew what they had to do as soon as they arrived. While that still left a lot of work and planning for the officers and noncoms, the routine items were already part of the plan.

Reynolds quickly walked the ground with his platoon commanders. He forced himself to take the time to do it right, to do it by the book, because the book wouldn’t let him forget anything important. To hold his section of the line, he had three platoons of infantry of about thirty men each, armed with automatic rifles and machine guns. The company’s heavier firepower came from two 60mm mortars, useful for laying smoke or harassing unprotected troops but not much else, and six Javelin antitank missile launchers.

He took strength from the familiar routine, even in an unfamiliar landscape. But behind the quiet, calm front, dozens of troubling questions filled his mind. Would his men hold up under enemy fire? Would he? Had he forgotten anything — anything that might get his soldiers killed unnecessarily? At last, he shrugged inwardly. There was no way he could answer questions like that. Not until tomorrow.

The sun lay low on the western horizon by the time Alpha Company broke for dinner. Reynolds squatted on the grass near the other men in his company headquarters, chewing reflectively on the rubbery Swedish meatballs in his mess tin. His troops had accomplished a lot, he decided. Ammunition was still a problem, but their communications nets, both radio and landline were in place, and battalion had promised him engineer support to help build obstacles and lay minefields…

“Movement to the front!” The sudden shout snapped everyone’s eyes around, and those few men who did not have their weapons immediately to hand cursed their error and raced to get them.

Even as he was moving to cover, Reynolds spotted a Humvee roaring up a dirt road from the southwest. The driver seemed to be doing his best to keep the utility truck airborne as much as possible, and Alpha Company’s commander carefully checked to make sure there wasn’t an enemy in hot pursuit.

As the wheeled vehicle roared closer, Reynolds recognized Colby in the passenger seat, along with Captain Marino, the battalion’s intelligence officer, or S-2. Another lieutenant colonel, a stranger, drove. The Humvee was heading for a stone barn serving as the company CP, and Reynolds hurried back, making it there just as the dust cleared and the riders disembarked.

Colby had on his best outgoing, cheerful manner. “Can you take three more for dinner, Mike?”

“No problem, Colonel,” Reynolds answered, glad that he had successfully arranged a hot meal for this evening. With combat imminent, it might be their last for some time.

The battalion commander introduced the other lieutenant colonel. “Captain, meet Ferd Irizarri, liaison with the Polish 11th Mech. You may remember him. We were at Irwin together.”

Reynolds nodded. He remembered Irizarri very well. Of middling height, the dark-haired liaison officer seemed to pack enough energy into his frame for a much taller man. He wore Polish battle dress, but with American rank insignia, and he carried an American-made Ingram submachine gun. While Colby’s and Marino’s gear looked neat and fresh, Irizarri’s was worn — not slovenly, but he’d definitely been in the field for a long time.

The last time Mike Reynolds had seen Ferdinand Irizarri up close, the man had been serving as the executive officer of the OPFQR battalion at Fort Irwin, the army’s National Training Center. The OPFOR unit specialized in using Soviet gear and Soviet-style tactics against regular battalions like the 3/187th rotating in for advanced tactical training. They were good, very good. Low-powered lasers, blanks, and small explosive charges used as artillery simulators took the place of real bullets and shells, but everything else was kept as close to real combat as possible. Harsh experience in Korea and Vietnam had taught the American military to train hard and train often. Combat leaders and troops were supposed to make their basic mistakes in front of Fort Irwin’s unforgiving evaluators — not in a real war.

He led them toward the chow line. “So now you’re working with the Poles, Colonel?”

Irizarri nodded. “I’ve been here for two months, getting the 11th ready for the transition to U.S. tactics and equipment. The war caught us just a few months short of trading in the Soviet gear. Now I’m the link between their fighting style and ours.”

Colby and Marino had brought Irizarri back to coordinate the withdrawal of the 314th. Its escape route, once the EurCon pressure grew too great, lay right through the middle of Alpha Company’s position. The movement of one unit through another, called a passage of lines, was always dangerous. First, because it could be tough to identify the incoming unit as friend or foe, and second, because there was always a risk that the two formations would get tangled up in each other, so that instead of two combat-ready units, you wound up with one disordered mess.

“We’ve been up ahead getting the exact picture,” Colby announced as they ate. “I wish I could send all the battalion’s officers up there, but there’s no time. I’ll tell you this, though.” He leaned forward a little, emphasizing his point. “You are going to see some beat-down soldiers come through here tomorrow morning. They need us.”

After finishing the quick meal and briefly touring Alpha Company’s defenses, Colby was done. He had two more companies to visit before it got too dark to see. But before climbing back into his Humvee, the 3/187th’s dapper commanding officer clapped Reynolds on the shoulder. “I like what I see, Mike. You’re on track. What’ll we do tomorrow when they come at us?”

Reynolds smiled. “Give ’em hell, sir.”

Willi von Seelow looked up from the map at the circle of tired, confident faces in front of him. “That’s it, then, gentlemen. Are there any questions?”

“No, Herr Oberstleutnant.” His battalion commanders and senior staff officers shook their heads in unison.

“Good.” Von Seelow slowly straightened to his full height, aware that the top of his head almost brushed against the shelter tent his headquarters troops had rigged between the brigade’s command vehicles. “Remember this: when we attack, we attack hard. Push your companies forward on a narrow front, using heavy smoke as a shield. Then find the Poles, fix them with firepower, and grind them under!”

They nodded, stiffened to attention, and then filed out, heading for their own command tanks and Marders.

Willi followed them outside and stood looking out across the darkened landscape in front of him. He was taking a big risk with this attack. Trying to conduct offensive operations at night invariably spawned serious command and control problems. Unable to see clearly, units got lost or blundered into each other. Friendly-fire incidents multiplied. As the surrounding darkness magnified fears and confused the senses, attacks could bog down without even encountering significant enemy resistance. Given all of that, he knew that many of his counterparts would have waited longer, at least until first light.

But von Seelow had his eyes on the clock, not on tactical perfection.

For the EurCon forces inside Poland, time was as much an enemy as the opposing soldiers waiting up the highway. Every day — no, every hour — they were delayed gave the Americans and British more time to land troops, tanks, artillery pieces, and combat helicopters at Gdansk. The first big seaborne convoys could only be days away at most.

Willi gritted his teeth. They should be closer to the port city than they were. Much closer. But routing the Poles out of the factories, chemical storage areas, and housing tracts around Bydgoszcz had taken far longer than it should have — thanks largely to what seemed the typical French reluctance to take casualties. He shook his head angrily. Again and again, Germany’s “allies” had relied on time-consuming artillery barrages and tiny, halfhearted attacks to drive the city’s defenders from their positions. They had gained ground, but slowly, so slowly. Twenty kilometers in two days! At that rate, the whole American army could reach Poland before he and his men caught even a glimpse of Gdansk’s skyline!

So, von Seelow thought bitterly, it was up to the 19th Panzergrenadier to kick the attack into high gear. As always. Well, he was getting tired of asking his soldiers to fight and die just to correct French mistakes.

He swallowed the anger, knowing it was unproductive now. They were committed. Instead, he ran over his attack plan one more time, looking for weaknesses or problems he’d overlooked earlier. He couldn’t find any. If the Polish defenses were as thin as his scouts reported, this sudden, sharp blow under the cover of darkness should break them wide open.

Willi squared his shoulders. Very well. He would shatter the Poles, regroup and refuel through the night, and push on through the gap at sunup. The brief pause should give his troops time to sort themselves after the inevitable confusion of a night battle without giving the Poles enough time to rebuild their defensive line.

Only one nagging worry remained. Where exactly were the Americans? Reliable reports said they had the better part of two divisions in Poland — the lightly armed 82nd and the 101st — but where in Poland? Without their photo recon and SIGINT satellites, France and Germany lacked any real ability to collect strategic intelligence. Even their air reconnaissance was spotty at best. As more and more U.S. and British warplanes joined the battle, fewer and fewer EurCon air recon missions were getting through to their targets.

As a result, educated guesses about enemy dispositions were all EurCon intelligence officers had to offer. And right now, their situation maps showed both American outfits still deployed around Gdansk and Gdynia, defending the area’s ports and airfields against a possible surprise attack by French or German airmobile units.

He hoped they were right about that. Of course, light infantry units were no real match for his Leopard and Marderarmed battalions, but they could slow him down.

Willi von Seelow stared out into the blackness ahead. Without firm intelligence, he and his brigade were fighting blind in more than one way.

Thunder roused Mike Reynolds from an uneasy sleep, the kind of hammering rumble that you get on the flat Texas plain during a summer storm. Then he remembered that he wasn’t in Texas.

“Heavy artillery fire to the southwest, Captain!” Corporal Adams shouted from the cluster of radios and telephones that kept them in touch with the rest of the battalion and brigade. “And heavy-duty jamming on all radio frequencies!”

Southwest. That was the Poles getting pummeled, then. Reynolds scrambled to his feet.

“First Platoon reports movement to their front!”

“On my way!” Reynolds sprinted out of the old stone barn they were using as a company CP, heading for the front. The sounds were changing — shifting from a distant rumbling to a staccato series of higher-pitched bursts. Tank fire. The Poles were under attack.

First Sergeant Ford was there ahead of him, waiting in a foxhole with Second Lieutenant John Caruso, the 1st Platoon’s young and inexperienced leader. Both men were scanning the ground ahead, using night-vision gear. Repeated flashes lit the horizon.

“What have you got?” Reynolds fought to keep his voice under control. Fear was always contagious.

“Six-plus tracks, advancing,” Ford answered, pointing out into the darkness.

One of the vehicles was moving a lot faster than the others, bouncing and rolling across the uneven ground with its headlights on. It had to be a friendly. Didn’t it? Reynolds snapped out an order. “Pass the word to all platoons: hold fire!”

He didn’t want to start his war by killing allied soldiers by mistake.

The vehicle slowed and stopped just outside Alpha Company’s perimeter. It was a Humvee. One man slid out from behind the wheel and came forward with his hands up to show he was unarmed. Guided by 1st Platoon soldiers who kept their guns on him just in case, Lt. Col. Ferdinand Irizarri made his way to the foxhole where Reynolds and the others were waiting.

“Those are Polish tracks out there, Colonel?” Reynolds asked.

“Yes.” Irizarri’s mouth tightened as he filled them in. Hit first by heavy artillery and then by at least a brigade-sized attack on a battalion-sized frontage, the Polish outfit he’d been attached to had never stood a chance. Some parts of their defensive line had simply disappeared — deluged by German armor. The rest had either fled or died in place.

Jesus, Reynolds realized, we’re next. He shivered, suddenly cold.

“Look, Mike. I’ve got wounded in the Humvee. And more coming. You can expect stragglers coming in across your whole line,” Irizarri said, grim-faced. “They’ll be showing green chem lights.”

Reynolds nodded, hearing Ford and Caruso already organizing ground guides and safe lanes through the company’s defenses. “We’ll bring your people through, Colonel.”

Within minutes, small clumps of armored fighting vehicles were crawling through Alpha Company’s fighting positions. Wounded men were piled on top of each tank and APC. The smell of diesel fuel hung in the air, along with the smell of burned metal and rubber.

The last Polish survivors were still coming in when the 3/187th’s battalion commander arrived. Colby looked worried.

Reynolds could understand that. Without the Polish armor as a mobile reserve, the battalion was going to be left dangling pretty much on its own. Colby didn’t waste any time before outlining Alpha Company’s new orders.

Along with an attached TOW platoon, he wanted Reynolds and his men to set up one thousand meters out in front of the rest of the line. They were expected to delay the next German attack for as long as possible, taking over the 314th’s job of bloodying and slowing the oncoming enemy.

Reynolds whistled softly in dismay. The mission was important, but it was also the kind of assignment that could go suddenly, disastrously wrong.

“One last thing, Mike,” Colby said. “What will your team’s call sign be?”

A company with attachments was called a team, and one centered on Alpha Company would normally be “Alpha Team,” but no self-respecting grunt would settle for something so tame-sounding. Reynolds knew that, considering where they were going, there was really only one choice. “How about ‘Hell Team,’ sir?”

Colby nodded. “Go brief your people, Captain.”

The short summer night was coming to an end as the cloud-covered darkness overhead slowly gave way to a gray, pink-tinged glow in the east.

Von Seelow sipped cautiously at the scalding-hot coffee in his mug, feeling the caffeine washing away fatigue and infusing new energy. Then he looked up from the mug, surveying the rutted field around him. The brigade’s forward command post — a small, battered collection of Marders, American-made M577 command tracks, trucks, and jeeps — occupied what had been the Polish main position. Shell craters and burning wreckage scattered all around testified to the power and stunning ferocity of the German attack.

“Herr Oberstleutnant!”

Von Seelow turned around. Major Thiessen’s head poked out of a roof hatch on the M577 serving as the brigade’s TOC, its tactical operations center.

“All battalions report they are ready to resume the advance, sir!”

Willi dumped his coffee out on the flattened grass and whirled toward his own APC’s open ramp, already snapping out new orders. “Radio all units to push forward up the highway. We’ll exploit this breach toward Swiecie. Our objective is Gdansk!”

Reynolds both hated and welcomed the first brightening of the eastern sky. On the one hand, the morning light gave him his first real chance to see the ground he would be defending. On the other, dawn meant that the Germans would be coming soon.

He yawned uncontrollably, hoping that the coming daylight would fool his body into wakefulness. So much for the battalion’s sleep plan, he thought. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was only the first of many that would go astray.

Nobody had slept last night, or wanted to — not knowing they were almost sure to be attacked the next morning. While he frantically set up artillery target points and designated fields of fire, his men dug in and camouflaged their new positions — doing everything they could to turn the ground they occupied into a small fortress.

Irizarri’s help had been invaluable. He had thrown himself into organizing Hell Team’s defense, almost adopting Reynolds and his company as his own. Reynolds remembered the colonel’s training background at Fort Irwin, and was grateful for his assistance on this “final exam.”

All of the setup had to be done in near-absolute dark, and with absolute security. If Alpha Company’s battle positions were discovered too soon, its mission would fail before it even began. Battalion’s scouts had been right about the woods being clear of Germans. He could only hope they had kept the enemy scouts at bay as well.

Hell Team held a thin line of woods on the edge of a dilapidated farm. The trees were old, well-established growth, originally planted next to a low stone wall that had fallen into disrepair. Brush had grown up along the treeline, and the three-hundred-meter-long grove had widened over the years until there was plenty of cover for a reinforced company. The woodland’s only flaw was the difficulty of digging in its root-tangled earth.

The trees also created a mix of problems and opportunities for the team’s antitank missile operators. To hide both themselves and the backblast when they fired their TOWs and Javelins, they wanted to be as far back inside the treeline as possible. Too far back, though, and they would risk tangling the TOW’s missile guidance wires on branches when they fired. It had taken them much of the night just to position all their weapons to Reynolds’ satisfaction.

A two-lane asphalt road ran through their front, angling in from the right and cutting through their line. About fifty meters back, it curved east and eventually joined with the motorway. To their front, rolling fields extended another two thousand meters up to a low wooded crest, the graveyard of the 314th and now held by the Germans.

Reynolds had spent part of the night studying the crest, looking for clues to the enemy’s deployment or strength, but even in the thermal sight, there was nothing for him to see. The Germans were staying well out of sight.

They were there, though.

Two early morning Polish air raids on the 314th Regiment’s old positions had drawn ground fire — a lot of ground fire. About midnight, and again at three, jets shrieked past overhead, darting south toward the German-held hill. Seconds later, bright explosions had billowed out from the trees. More significantly, sparkling tracers had climbed into the night from dozens of separate points — most spraying the sky at random, but a few converging on the fast-moving attack planes as they circled away.

Reynolds couldn’t tell if the Polish pilots had hit anything during their brief forays over the battlefield. The few hot spots he’d found using the thermal sights never moved. In the gray, predawn light they were also marked by columns of thin black smoke. Were there German tanks at the base of those flames, or just burning leaves?

He lowered the sight and turned his head toward Sergeant Andy Ford. “All right, Sergeant. Have the men stand to.” They were as ready as they’d ever be.

Most of Hell Team were already at their posts, with their weapons ready, so there was no noise, no bustle — just an increase in alertness, and tension.

Irizarri had left an hour ago with two more Polish stragglers who had wandered in. Both the Poles had insisted on staying and helping Hell Team until the last possible minute, and one, wounded in the leg, had to be near-dragged to Irizarri’s waiting Humvee. The man had wanted a weapon.

Reynolds’ fingers drummed steadily against the butt of the M16 assault rifle lying next to him. Despite all their hard work through the night, Hell Team’s present location was a poor match for their previous position. The company CP was nothing more than a few shallow holes dug in the middle of a tiny cluster of trees, with the spoil piled in front to provide more cover. It was euphemistically called a “hasty position,” as opposed to the “prepared positions” they had reluctantly abandoned yesterday evening. Knowing all of that, Alpha Company’s commander felt insecure, exposed. Why don’t those bastards come ahead and get it over with? he wondered.

He forced himself to wait, to sit quietly. Every minute EurCon delayed was a win for his side. If he had his druthers, he’d sit here until Christmas, while the German tanks rusted. But that wouldn’t happen.

The field phone buzzed. Corporal Adams answered it. “It’s the OP, sir.”

Reynolds took the handset offered him by the tall, gangling soldier. He had placed two of his men, Corporal Ted Brown and Private Gene Webster, on a small rise a kilometer in front of Hell Team’s position, halfway to the enemy. Thoroughly dug in and camouflaged, they were there to give him a few minutes’ extra warning.

“We can see ‘em, sir. Dozens of tanks!” Brown’s voice mixed eagerness and excitement with fear. He’d finally seen the enemy, in the flesh, arrayed for battle. “They’re still back in the trees, but they’re moving up.”

“How many? What are they doing?” Reynolds spoke sharply, feeling his own pulse rate climbing. This was it. “Come on, Ted. Use SALUTE.” The acronym was a memory aid, designed to help observers report what they saw clearly — even in the noise and confusion of battle. Including size, activity, location, unit, time, and equipment in any contact report usually covered all the essentials.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, sir.” There was a small pause. “Size — six armored vehicles. They’re wheeled. I think they’re Luchs armored cars.”

Reynolds scribbled the information down. “Roger.” He didn’t ask what happened to the “dozens” Brown had seen moments ago.

“Activity, moving up to the edge of the woodline.”

Once he remembered the much-practiced drill, Brown quickly passed the rest of the information. It sounded like the reconnaissance element of a German armored division, getting ready to move forward. Reynolds nodded to himself. That made sense. The Germans would certainly throw a line of scout vehicles out ahead of their advancing tanks. Alternatively they could be using the recon unit’s movements as a feint while the panzer division launched its real attack in some other sector. Which was this?

Reynolds scanned the area with his own binoculars. Nothing. The enemy scout cars Brown and Webster had spotted were still too far away. He asked the observer, “Can you see any other movement? Tanks or APCs?”

“No, sir. Just the recce vehicles. It looks like they’re getting ready to move out.” The concern in Brown’s voice hinted at his real message: “Can we leave now?”

At normal rates of advance, the enemy would take three to four minutes to reach the OP. And it would take two men, sprinting with their gear, longer than that to reach the safety of Hell Team’s position. In other words, they had to bug out the second that the Germans started to move.

Reynolds had no intention of sacrificing his two men unnecessarily, but he wasn’t going to let them leave a second early, either. His only reply was “Stay low and keep your eyes peeled.”

He passed the sighting report back to battalion, then to his three platoon leaders. Their waiting was almost over.

A few minutes later, the OP called in again, with a new report. They could now see tanks, at least ten, and the armored cars were moving forward. This time Corporal Brown wasn’t shy about it. “Sir, we’d like to get out of here.”

“Get back here, fast.”

Reynolds alerted his platoon leaders, then searched the woods ahead again. At two kilometers, the small, gray-green vehicles would be hard to see, even if the ground had been perfectly flat. This wasn’t Texas, though, and the rise and fall of the terrain would give him only glimpses of the enemy scouts.

The German scouts were playing a deadly game, daring the Americans to shoot at them, thus revealing their positions. They trusted to their own luck or their enemy’s poor shooting for survival. It was a dare Reynolds couldn’t pass up. If he left the scouts unmolested, depending purely on concealment, they might get close enough to see the battalion’s positions as well as his own. No camouflage was ever perfect — especially against expert observers with their own thermal imaging equipment.

Instead, he was going to let the Germans close until they were well inside Javelin range, then open up and try to kill several at once. He had time, a few minutes yet.

Alpha Company’s first victory came without firing a shot. One of the scout cars, angling off to Reynolds’ left, hit a mine laid by the engineers last night.

Whummp.

The sudden, powerful explosion tossed the Luchs into the air and then over onto its side. No one crawled out of the smoking, twisted vehicle.

The captain smiled grimly. That minefield wasn’t very wide or very dense, but it would take the Germans a while to find that out. Meanwhile, one of their six reconnaissance vehicles lay wrecked out in the open.

Reynolds studied the surviving scout cars through his binoculars, taking care to keep the lenses out of the sunlight. Each Luchs was a long, eight-wheeled thing. Angular, lightly armored, and capped with a small turret holding a 20mm gun, they were “easy meat” for an M1 Abrams or even a Bradley, but to Reynolds and his men, they could be a real threat — if they got close enough. Except he didn’t plan to let them live that long.

Three of the five Luchs rumbled up and over the low rise occupied by the now-abandoned OP. They were within seven hundred meters. Now. He lifted the field phone. “Shoot!”

He heard several, muffled whumphs, followed by a thin, rippling whistle of missiles in flight. One TOW and four of the Javelins fired — the smaller missiles double-teaming their targets.

Reynolds lowered his field glasses, trying to follow one of the Javelins, no more than a small black dot moving incredibly fast. As the gunner made course corrections, it darted a little from side to side, then arced up and flew above one of the Luchs.

Whammm.

The antitank missile exploded into a round gray-black ball right over the German scout car. Puffs of dust or smoke danced on its engine deck and turret top, and sparks flew as if it were being struck by dozens of small hammers. He never saw the second missile aimed at the Luchs. Luckily, one hit was enough.

The armored car slewed right and stopped, with greasy black smoke pouring out of the engine compartment, in the rear. The jagged fragments spewed by the Javelin’s warhead not only pierced armor — they were also white-hot.

Through the binoculars, Reynolds saw two men stumble out of the Luchs, quickly scrambling out of sight. They were at the ragged edge of small-arms range, but his well-disciplined company held their fire. With two of their comrades dead and their vehicle wrecked, the German scouts were no longer a threat.

More explosions echoed across the countryside. Two more vehicles were also hit. The leftmost, targeted by the TOW, was a mass of flame. The TOW’s larger warhead must have detonated its on-board ammunition. The third, hit by two Javelins, sat motionless — wreathed in dust and smoke. Reynolds nodded somberly. Hell Team had just announced its existence to the EurCon commanders.

The first steps in the dance had been his, but he knew what had to come next, and so did the rest of his men. He’d exercised with the Germans as a young platoon leader, and they were good.

“Incoming! Take cover!” Sergeant Ford’s shouted warning rose above the shrill whistle of the first enemy shell arcing in.

Whammm.

Christ! As tight as he’d been hugging the earth before, Reynolds buried himself in it now. The explosion tore a chunk out of the ground a hundred meters away, still about ten meters out from the copse of trees they were holding, thank God.

It was as close as Reynolds had ever been to a real live artillery shell fired at him, and it awed and frightened him. In exercises, they used artillery simulators, “devices” that exploded with about the same force as an old M80 firecracker. You really had to use your imagination to turn a bunch of those into an artillery barrage.

He wouldn’t need to use his imagination ever again, he thought grimly. He’d remember this for the rest of his life. Probably a 155mm, the professional part of his mind speculated — a ranging shot. More to come.

There were, and for the next few minutes the earth and air blended in a thunderous roar as HE rounds hammered the area around Alpha Company’s positions. Reynolds’ stomach turned to water every time a round landed nearby, and he buried his face in the dirt, in genuine fear for his life. He risked a glance to his right. Adams was curled up into an impossibly small ball, tucked into the space between two trees.

After the first few blasts didn’t kill him, his sense of duty took over. How were his men doing? Their foxholes would protect them from near misses, but they had little overhead cover. Even more important, he knew what he’d be doing, if he were the enemy commander.

He risked raising his head, buffeted by the pressure wave from an explosion in the middle distance. Raising his glasses and bracing them on the mound of dirt piled in front of his hole, Reynolds saw tanks, formed up in neat rows, advancing out of the distant woods.

He studied them for a minute, then reached over, lightly punching Adams in the side. The corporal looked up, and Reynolds shouted, “Get the arty. We need a fire mission, SADARM, ref point seven one. Got it?”

Adams nodded. He scuttled over to the field phone. Hugging the instrument close, the corporal passed on his captain’s message — screaming to be heard over the shells still howling in and exploding all around.

The important thing was to keep busy, Reynolds realized. Action helped suppress fear. He concentrated on his next move. One of the first tactical lessons any junior officer ever learned was the importance of retaining the initiative. You couldn’t let the enemy force you into reacting the way he wanted you to. Well, right now the Germans wanted him to keep his head down. He studied the advancing line, ignoring the shells still raining down all around.

The German batteries were firing blind, he decided — flinging shells out toward unseen map coordinates. With their forward scouting parties either dead or in flight, they couldn’t possibly have an observer close enough to adjust their rounds directly onto his positions. So the enemy gunners were just firing among the trees, not concentrating their barrage anywhere, or even aiming it accurately. Of course, there was still dumb luck, he thought as a near miss rattled his teeth. He spat out dirt.

Adams shouted in his ear, “Done, sir.” Besides the American guns, the 3/187th had a battery of Polish-manned 155s in direct support, with a full artillery battalion on call if they needed it.

“Great!” Reynolds ate dirt again as another 155mm round exploded close by. Fragments screamed overhead, tearing leaves and lethal splinters off the trees above the CP. He lifted his head again. “Have all the platoons check in.”

The corporal nodded, more intent on his task now.

The reports came back quickly, and they were encouraging. So far Hell Team had been lucky. A few men had been wounded by shell fragments or splinters of wood, but no one was dead. Not yet. Reynolds relaxed minutely, relieved that the moment had not yet arrived when he would have to deal with losing any of his men. But he couldn’t fool himself. Once the Germans started concentrating their artillery fire, his casualty count would skyrocket.

“Captain! Hewitt wants to open up!”

Sergeant Hewitt commanded the team’s attached TOW antitank platoon. The German Leopards were well inside effective range, and at the rate that they were moving, the sergeant and his ATGM gunners would only get a few shots in before they’d have to displace or be overrun. Reynolds understood that, but he had his own ideas. “Tell him we’re sticking to the original plan.”

Now, where the hell was that fire mission?

Reynolds steeled himself, studying the approaching tanks, counting them, checking their formations, trying to be all business. He could feel his insides starting to liquefy again. They were less than a thousand meters from his positions! He opened his mouth, just about ready to have the TOW missiles fire anyway, when the friendly artillery fire arrived, whistling past on its way toward the oncoming German tank company.

He raised his binoculars, looking above the armored formation.

The German barrage stopped suddenly, having done about as much as could be expected with unobserved fire. Besides, this far inside Poland, artillery ammunition was undoubtedly at a premium. Reynolds noticed the cessation only when he realized that he hadn’t flinched for a good minute.

A clump of small parachutes blossomed almost directly above the German Leopards. More followed in short order, popping into existence faster than the eye could follow.

Old-style HE barrages were rarely effective against armored units. Unless a round scored an incredibly lucky direct hit or knocked a track loose, tanks could roll right through the artillery fire, ignoring the man-killing fragments rattling off their armor. SADARM was an advanced form of artillery ammunition designed to give U.S. guns a way to kill enemy tanks.

Each of the tiny parachutes drifting toward German armored vehicles carried a small, sophisticated submunition. As the chute spiraled down, a millimeter-wavelength radar constantly scanned the ground in a slowly widening cone. The instant the seeker detected the characteristic radar profile of a tank, it would fire — sending a sharp-edged fragment lancing down through the tank’s thin top armor.

Puffs of smoke appeared beneath the chutes, each connected by a straight, glowing white line with a Leopard below. Three German tanks veered out of line and halted. Two were on fire.

In the same instant, Hell Team’s TOW and Javelin gunners fired another volley of antitank missiles. More Leopards died — hit before they could realize they were under attack from more than one direction.

A second ATGM volley was on its way before the Germans twigged to what was going on, and even then, the word didn’t get out to all their tanks in time. Only a handful popped smoke, triggering grenade launchers mounted on the turret sides. Those that did were suddenly covered in a dome of opaque whiteness, and Reynolds knew the smoke was multispectral, just as opaque to his team’s thermal imagers. Shit!

Three Leopards, the remnants of a platoon, surged out of their own smoke, swinging wide to flank the American-held treeline. One after the other, they stumbled into one of Hell Team’s minefields and stopped — immobilized by thunderous blasts that ripped tracks off road wheels and smashed through their weaker bottom armor.

Reynolds bared his teeth in a tight, tense grin. It had been relatively simple, given the range at which he’d planned to engage the Germans, to guess which way any tanks trapped in his kill zone would try to dodge.

Some of the tanks opened up, pumping 120mm rounds and long-range machine-gun fire into the trees ahead of them. Since the Germans could have only a general idea of where the American positions were, their shooting was wildly inaccurate. But the shells roaring overhead were impressive and terrifying, a new kind of fear for him to face.

All of the surviving Leopards were using smoke now, and weaving back and forth in violent evasive maneuvers. Reynolds was amazed at the agility of the fifty-five-ton monsters dancing over the ground at near-highway speeds. They were not advancing, though. Instead, the German vehicles started to disappear, hiding in folds in the ground or other cover. Good, thought Reynolds. Hooray for our side.

“Hewitt says he can’t see through the smoke,” Adams reported. The antitank section commander’s message was expected. Reynolds acknowledged, then told the corporal to pass the word: stand by for more artillery.

He craned his head, studying the wreck-strewn field in front of him.

Hell Team had seriously dinged the German tank company, inflicting far more losses than he’d expected. He guessed the Leopard commanders hadn’t expected to meet any opposition this far forward. The company, though, was only the lead element for a tank battalion, and the battalion for an armored or mechanized brigade. God alone knew what was backing that up.

Reynolds shook his head. He couldn’t stop them all, and he wasn’t about to play Fort Apache. Instead, he was presenting the Germans with a tactical problem, one that could be solved — but solving it would eat up precious time.

The book said that you didn’t charge dug-in troops with tanks. The book said that to push enemy foot soldiers out of the woods, you suppress them with artillery, then send in your own dismounted infantry to clear it, man-to-man.

He searched the German-held woods, two kilometers away. Past the wisps of clearing smoke, he could see a line of boxy, angled troop carriers pouring out of the trees. This time there really were dozens of them, with more Leopards coming right behind. They were just dots at this range, but he worked out the math: The Marders could cover that first kilometer in just three minutes, From that point, the panzergrenadiers they carried would dismount and cover the next thousand meters on foot. He had roughly ten minutes before they’d be close enough to engage.

It was time to skedaddle. “Pass the word to the platoon leaders. Get the wounded ready to move. Start packing up. First and 3rd platoons will move in five minutes.”

And then the German artillery opened up again, flaying the woods held by Hell Team with high explosive.

Reynolds heard the wailing freight-train roar and dove back to the bottom of the CP, seeking cover just as the first shells went off.

Whammm. Whammm. Whammm.

The ground shuddered, rocked, and bucked. Trees toppled — sheared off by direct hits.

Reynolds crouched helpless in his hole, trying to breathe air that contained more dust and smoke than oxygen. This was worse than the first barrage. Now that German forward observers could see where their rounds were falling, they could concentrate their fire, systematically walking the barrage up and down the small patch of woodland. Reynolds and his men were also more than a mere nuisance, and thus worthy of more attention. The Germans were using more guns this time, a lot more. Maybe a full battalion.

A nearby burst picked him up and slammed him into the ground, then another rolled him over before he could get his grip again.

Reynolds heard someone screaming and realized his men were being hit, maybe killed. Hatred flared. He was suddenly glad about the German tanks and crews they’d killed.

But it was still time to leave.

The barrage shifted slightly. Now most of the enemy shells were dropping to their front, about a hundred meters or so out. And the Germans were firing smoke, not explosives.

Uh-oh. With a smoke screen in place, the Marders could advance under its cover to almost point-blank range before dismounting their troops. Well, he knew the correct tactical solution to this problem, too. Bug out now.

His 1st and 3rd platoons, as planned, were already moving out. Reynolds took the field phone from Adams, amazed to find that the lines were still open. Speaking rapidly, he passed the word for all but the rear guard to get out.

He also had to phone his boss. “German infantry battalion advancing under smoke cover. They’re about a klick out,” Reynolds reported.

“Good job, Mike.” Colby paused, and then confirmed the decision he had already made. “Get your boys back now.”

Reynolds hung up and turned to check the progress of their retreat.

More foot soldiers ducked past him, sprinting north, away from the oncoming Germans. He looked around quickly, peering through the drifting smoke. He couldn’t see anybody else. And the engine noises from inside the enemy smoke screen were growing louder fast. Time to go.

He turned to the sergeant commanding his seven-man rear guard and shouted, “Okay, Robbins! We’re clear! Fall back!”

Staying low in case the German smoke screen thinned, they ran back, careful to take the same path followed by the rest of the company. The engineers who had laid the minefields in front of Hell Team’s positions had also mined areas behind the patch of woods. With a little luck, a few German tank crews might find that out the hard way.

The pickup zone was five hundred meters back, in a low spot well out of the German line of sight. Reynolds ran like he’d never run before, the distance seeming to stretch ahead of him forever.

The whine of turbines grew louder when he burst over the small rise that shielded the pickup zone.

Drab-green UH-60 Blackhawk troop carriers waited in the hollow, rotors already turning. Soldiers scrambled aboard by squads while other helicopters, already loaded, lifted off — streaming away to the northeast. One of the 1st Platoon’s rifle squads covered the area, lying prone in a line with their weapons pointed outward.

A howling roar snapped Reynolds’ head around in time to see two waves of four AH-64 Apache gunships flash past just a dozen meters off the ground. One of the machines flew past close enough so that he could see the gunner in the front seat, bent over his sight. When the pilot, seated higher up and further back, looked in his direction and waved, the 30mm gun mounted below its belly eerily tracked with the man’s gaze.

Then they were gone, climbing over the low rise and spreading out into fighting pairs as they clattered south. Reynolds stood at the top of the hollow watching them vanish into the smoke and dust. He felt a sense of grim anticipation. Those Apaches carried enough firepower to tear a bloody chunk out of the German attack.

“Captain. Last chopper’s ready to roll.” Andy Ford’s calm voice called him back to his own responsibilities. Adams and the last men from 1st Platoon were just crowding into the helo’s troop compartment.

“Okay, Andy.” Reynolds followed Ford downhill, ducked under the rotors, and pulled himself inside.

As soon as he was aboard, the big helicopter lifted off, turbine engines screaming with effort. The deck surged up beneath him and they were off — sliding low over the landscape at nearly 150 miles an hour. This close to the ground, the sensation of speed was overwhelming.

With the speed flowed relief. They’d made it. His company had done its job. Combat was a known quantity now, to his men and to himself. They’d paid a blood price for their success, though, and now the war had turned personal. It was no longer just a professional exercise in tactics.

Despite the periodic, hissing waves of static generated by American jamming, the increasingly desperate voices crackling over von Seelow’s headphones came in clearly — mirroring the state of the battle raging in front of Swiecie.

“Can you get forward, Jurgen?”

Von Seelow heard the major commanding the 191st Panzergrenadier Battalion talking to an infantry company commander trying to push into the village itself.

“No, Herr Major!” the unknown captain shouted. “The damned Amis have us pinned down short of the farmhouse… shit!” The staccato, ripping sound of high-velocity cannon fire echoed over the radio circuit. “Another fucking gunship just made a pass. Oh, Jesus. Sammi’s Marder is hit. It’s burning!”

Willi was listening in to the radio frequencies allocated to his combat battalions and support units, trying to extract as much information from sketchy reports and snatches of panicked dialogue as he could. Frustrated, he tore the headset off and poked his head out through one of the command Marder’s rear roof hatches.

Smoke, white from artillery smoke rounds, and black from blazing tanks and APCs, stained the northern skyline. Flashes rippled through the smoke pall. Tank guns, exploding shells, and infantry small arms all blended in one hammering, thumping, discordant roar.

Von Seelow’s eyes narrowed. His attack was falling apart — broken up by the unsuspected American defensive line behind the Polish positions he’d overrun the night before. He scowled, furious with the 19th’s new recon unit — two Luchs platoons he’d cobbled together with replacements and attached Territorial Army units — and with himself. Poorly motivated, poorly led, and made overconfident by their easy victory over the Poles, his scouts had sat on their asses through the night instead of probing ahead. That was bad. Even worse was the fact that he’d let them get away with it.

Willi closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of the fighting up ahead. Men, his own soldiers, were dying because he’d neglected one of his responsibilities. The pain he felt was almost physical, like a bayonet tearing at his guts.

“Sir!”

Private Neumann’s cry pulled him back down inside the Marder. “Yes? What is it?”

“Major Feist is on the division frequency, Herr Oberstleutnant. He wants to speak with you.”

Willi put his radio headset back on. What did the 7th Panzer Division’s assistant operations chief want now? “Von Seelow here.”

“Good,” Feist said coldly. He was one of the division staff officers who had sided with von Olden before he was relieved and sent home to Germany in disgrace. The little mustachioed major was a charter member of the “I hate ossies” club. “We have new orders from II Corps, Herr Oberstleutnant. The 19th Panzergrenadier is to disengage and fall back on Gruczno.”

“What? Why?” Von Seelow didn’t bother hiding his astonishment. The tiny hamlet of Gruczno had been the jump-off point for his night attack.

“We’ve identified a new enemy formation in line — the American 101st Division.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Willi snarled. “That’s all the more reason to push ahead and break through now! Before the Amis can dig in any deeper!”

“Negative, Herr Oberstleutnant. General Montagne’s orders are explicit,” Feist sniffed. “Units from the French 5th Armored and the III Corps have also run into stronger opposition than expected. Corps believes we must regroup and rethink our plan of operations in light of these new developments.”

Von Seelow saw red. The one thing the enemy needed was time, and now Montagne and those other idiots were handing it to them on a silver platter. “Tell corps to stuff its ‘developments’ up its ass…”

“I suggest you comply with your orders, Herr Oberstleutnant,” the major said coolly, apparently unmoved by his outburst. “You have thirty minutes to begin withdrawing. If not, I’m sure we can find someone else to command your brigade. Feist, out.”

Willi stood staring at the appalled faces of his staff for several seconds before growling out the string of orders that would put the 19th Panzergrenadier’s drive toward Gdansk on hold.

Major Tad Wojcik climbed down from his F-15 Eagle feeling like he’d run a marathon and then boxed a few barefisted rounds with a gorilla. Flying combat missions all day and doing paperwork all night was bleeding away his last carefully hoarded stores of endurance and energy. Even now, after a hectic air-to-air combat mission, his work wasn’t done. One of the squadron staff, Sergeant Jerzy Palubin, was waiting, both with information about the rest of the regiment and with questions about the mission he’d just finished flying.

His new slot as 1st Squadron’s operations officer, and the promotion that came with it, had come quickly — but holes in the composite fighter regiment’s organization had to be filled as soon as they opened up. Major Wolnoski had died an airman’s death, crashing trying to land a crippled Eagle. Tad had taken over his job and rank the same afternoon. He was one of the last of the squadron’s original pilots. Wolnoski had been another.

Now, just a few days later, it felt like he’d been doing the job forever. He’d been ready for it, having proven himself a survivor as well as a skilled pilot. He’d kept flying, of course — just like his predecessor. There just weren’t enough pilots.

In spite of his fatigue, Tad was pleased. The morning’s mission had been a good one, the first in a long while. Ten Eagles had managed to intercept a EurCon raid near Stargard that morning, well before they could reach the rail yards there. For once, French and German fighter cover had been light, and they’d torn into the enemy attack aircraft, downing at least a quarter of the thirty-plane raid.

His own flight of four planes, about all that was left of 1st Squadron in flyable condition, had accounted for five Mirages all by themselves.

“It’s just too bad none of them were Germans. I really wanted to kill a few more Krauts on this hop,” he remarked grimly to Palubin, as they walked back to the ops building.

The older noncom glanced back at him, obviously puzzled and a little disgusted by the disappointment in his voice. “Who cares whether they’re German or not? They’re all the enemy, aren’t they?”

Evidently reminded of the disparity between their ranks by Tad’s shocked look, Palubin quickly apologized for his outburst, but Tad waved it off. “Never mind, Jerzy. You’re right anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

He followed the sergeant back to the ops building in a pensive mood. He had spoken reflexively, but maybe it was stupid to count Germans apart, as if they were some sort of evil breed. After all, France was at least as much to blame for this war.

He wondered how his parents were faring. A brief message passed through official channels had told him that they were alive and safe in Warsaw. Make that relatively safe, he decided. There were too many rumors that the Russians could come pouring across the border at any moment. If that happened… Tad felt cold. If the Russians sided with EurCon, then all their sacrifices would be in vain. Poland would fall. He pushed the depressing thought away, focusing his worries instead on his mother and father.

The fragmentary message hadn’t said where exactly his parents were living in Warsaw. Probably in one of the sprawling, dirty refugee tent cities that were springing up on the capital’s outskirts. Did they have enough food to eat? Probably not. The war had badly disrupted Poland’s own food distribution systems, and the limited supplies coming in by sea went to the armed forces first. While their nation was under threat, civilians would have to fend for themselves. Tad grimaced. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to hate the French, after all.

But did he have to hate to do his job? That was worth thinking harder about.

When they got to the operations building, the 1st Squadron’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lyskawa, congratulated him on his two kills. They raised Tad’s score to nineteen.

Then Wojcik saw him smile for the first time in a week.

“We’re getting some new aircraft, Major. Eight ‘C’ models will be delivered tomorrow, along with three new pilots. Our two oldest planes get sent to England, for rework.”

Tad’s mind raced. New planes and pilots? They were the first in weeks — the first tangible signs that Poland’s American and British allies were winning their battle to open the sea and air corridors to his adopted country. They already had more pilots than F-15s, so the reinforcements would almost double the squadron’s available aircraft. As operations officer, it would be his job to assign missions to the squadron’s planes. Suddenly his options had grown, and he felt as if there was a chance. They weren’t overstrength enough to pull any pilots out of the line, but they’d be able to stand a few down for a day’s rest.

It gave him a small measure of hope. Maybe not for him personally, but for Poland, at least.