Hammer of God

Chapter 19

The evening passed uneventfully, as Troyak had predicted. They saw the French move what looked to be a few platoons of infantry into positions at the edge of the town. A few set up in the palm groves, and one squad had moved into the old Roman ruins, but otherwise no attempt was made to approach the Chateau. It was what he did not see that encouraged him most-enemy artillery. The troops assigned to this garrison did not seems to have much in the way of heavy weapons. He noted machineguns, and a few mortars, but no other guns. Mortars would be hard to aim and fire on a position like this, he thought. And our mortars will be much more accurate to take out any that try-as long as our ammunition holds out.

“Zykov,” he said to the Corporal. “How many rounds did they drop off for the 82s?”

“About a hundred each, but that includes ten smoke rounds and five illumination rounds.”

They had brought in a pair of 2B14 Podnos mortars, a lightweight system that was sometimes called the M82. A muzzle loaded, drop fired system, it could range out a little over 4000 meters with HE rounds and had a good rate of fire. Troyak had one on the north apex of the fort, and one on the south tower. The two AGS-30 autogrenade launchers were placed in the center, east facing apex of the fort, in the towers above moat bridge and gate. The hill they were on commanded the entire scene, and Troyak knew that any attempt to take this fort with infantry would be suicidal for the attackers. The flanks of the hill were too steep, and the towers had good fields of fire in all directions, with view slits on multiple levels.

No. This fortress could only be broken by firepower, which is why he was relieved that the French here seemed to have no artillery. The only other threat they had considered would be an air strike, and for that they brought along four Ilga ‘needle’ hand held SAMs, and one satchel held four replacement missiles. It was a thin shield, with only 8 missiles, but was more than any comparable force of that day could claim by way of air defense. If they got into real trouble from above, they could also call on the KA-40, which had been rigged out with pods of air-to-air SAMs as part of its mission loadout.

Around midnight, the watch saw a small squad of legionnaires moving quietly towards the flanks of the hill. The men watched with interest and the five man group labored up the hill, moving from one gully to the next, and trying to be as stealthy as possible. They could not know that they were being watched on infrared and night vision equipment, and seen as easily as they might be in broad daylight.

Zykov took two men down to the gate, and they took up positions in the shadows, thinking to surprise them. As the enemy approached, they heard them whispering to one another in Russian, and so he shouted down the hillside to give them a shock.

“Hey! Pizda! We’ve been watching you since you left the ruins down there. What’s wrong? Is the food bad in the French Army?”

The men immediately went to ground, and the Marines got a chortle as one man tried to work his way into a firing position near a rock. Zykov saw what he was up to and put two well aimed rounds right on the rock to dissuade him. “Not so fast,” he said again in Russian. “We’ve only black bread and cheese enough for our own men here. So the five of you get your sorry asses back down that hill right now, or I’ll put a bullet in each man’s head.” To further underscore his threat, he fired one more round a foot from the crawling legionnaire’s head, and shouted that the next one would knock off that funny looking cap.

That was enough to send the patrol scrambling down the hill, eating dirt most of the way down, and fearful they might be shot at any moment. Their report later to Colonel Barre that there were Russians, and not British, in the high Chateau, came as quite a surprise.

“Yes? Well we have Germans, Belgians, and even a few Hungarians here,” he said at last. “I guess the British collect trash as well when they have to fill out the ranks. Very well, get back to the barracks and clean the dirt off those uniforms. So much for your night patrol!”

Dawn painted the red desert hills with its ruddy glow, and the Russians were stretching their limbs and shaking off the cold night when Kolnov, on the early watch that morning, spied something from the west. A column of smoke rose on the horizon, and soon Fedorov was peering through his field glasses, wondering what was there. It was not long before the dust became a long column of trucks, the reinforcements that von Pappen had promised, arriving from Homs. The men of the 47th Regiment of the 22nd Luftland Division had flown to Homs the previous day, where General Dentz had assembled close to 300 trucks, pulling in every available vehicle he could get from Homs and Hamah further north. It was enough to move the German regiment, though troops were crowded onto the trucks and a gaggle of civilian cars that had also been commandeered.

Colonel der Infanterie Ludwig Wolff was leading the regiment that day, living out a slightly different timeline in these Altered States. Already well decorated from the First World War, Wolff had somehow managed to avoid the wound he was to suffer in Belgium in this telling of events. He had also come to the 22nd Luftland Division early, as he was to rise to command of the entire division in October of 1941. Generalleutnant Hans Graf von Sponeck still held that post, but his replacement was already a Wolff in the fold, the newly promoted Colonel at the head of the 47th Regiment.

Wolff was eager to get into the war, and saw the deployment to Syria a much better chance than sitting around in Greece waiting for the Generals to finish their planning for Operation Barbarossa. Something had happened to energize the German war effort against the British, and the 22nd was the only division in the army trained for long range deployment by air, aside from Student’s 7th, which was still consolidating on Cyprus.

Student already had taken two good plums in Malta and Cyprus, thought Wolff. Now we get our chance to trump his exploits-Syria! True, the French already hold the place, but not for long, by all accounts. They had been fighting hard, but the British were making gains now, particularly around Damascus. The news that there were now columns invading across the eastern frontier had sent his men in motion, flying from their bases in Greece to Iskenderun, Turkey, and then on to Homs in Syria. There they hastened onto the trucks, assembling the long column in a good order of march into the early hours of the morning. When they finally got moving, they made the 140 kilometer drive to Palmyra in a little over four hours on the thin desert road, arriving at dawn.

Approaching from the southwest, he could see the tall battlements of the Chateau ahead, and knew that was to be his first job with the regiment in combat. He stopped, glad to be out of the noisy truck and stretching his legs. Leutnant Lindel was at his side as the two men surveyed the area, looking at the maps they had been given by the French authorities in Homs.

There were three fingers of high ground that reached for Palmyra from the west. The first was a long ridge, due west of the fort, and rising to about the same elevation at its highest point. The middle finger had two hills, one at about 540 meters where there was little more than a pole with a wind sock to gauge the wind direction. Just northeast of this was the Chateau, on a 520 meter hill, but with battlements rising as high as the other hill. The third finger of land was well south, pointing directly at the old Roman ruins. A quick assessment told Wolff he would want to occupy all this high ground at once.

“Get men up on that hill to the left,” he said. “It has a good field of fire on the Chateau, and with some effort they can drag their Leichtgeschutz recoilless rifles up there. As for that hill in the middle, it will be the only cover we have approaching from this direction. The high ground north of the fort should also be occupied. Get mortar teams up there, Lindel.”

“Yes sir, and what about the artillery?” They had a battalion of twelve 105mm howitzers with them, and another comprised of nine 75mm Infantry Guns, and six bigger 150mm IGs. It was all the artillery that could be moved on short notice, but more than enough in Wolff’s mind. He knew that this fortress would have to be broken by gunfire, and not infantry assault.

“The French say the British have mortars up there, and they hit the airfield last night and knocked out a pair of our Heinkels. So we will move the artillery south of this hill. That will put it out of range of their mortars.” He folded his arms, squinting at the high fort.

“Such audacity,” he said. “How in the world did the British pull that off and manage to get commandos in here last night?”

“I am told they have also raided the French aerodrome at Rayak, sir,” said Lindel.

“Oh? Too bad for them. The first units of 9th Panzer Division are deploying there by rail. The British will have the whole division recon battalion to deal with at Rayak, and the Pioneers.”

“Speaking of that, sir,” said Lindel. “Where do you want our own Pioneers?”

“Behind that hill in the center, the one masking the fort. If we do have to put in a ground assault, they will be the ones to do the job. But first, let us see how they like our artillery. We’ll be half the day getting into position, but I want the regiment deployed by noon. Take second and third battalions and move it through those palm groves to the east. The British columns will be coming from that direction, so coordinate with the French garrison there. We’ll also need to block this road here as well.” He pointed to a desert track that approached the town from the south, the very route chosen by Glubb Pasha and his Arab Legion.

“The map shows one road up the back side of the hill with the fort. Shall I send up a reconnaissance? We need to assess their strength.”

“Go ahead, but don’t get careless. How many men can they have in that Chateau? A platoon? A company at best. It will not matter. The artillery will do the job, not the infantry. Understood?”

Troyak saw the Germans fanning out and disembarking with some misgiving. It looked to be a very large force, several battalions, and he could see the one thing he feared being towed by the long column of French trucks.

“They have artillery,” he said to Fedorov.

“And they probably will have a good number of mortars,” Fedorov replied, “or even good caliber recoilless rifles. This isn’t good. I didn’t expect German troops here at all!”

“In battle the things you don’t expect are usually the ones that will kill you,” said Troyak with a stolid expression. “So they will out gun us now, and they certainly have the troops to take this fort if they have a mind to. It will cost them dearly given our firepower, but if we hold, it will come down to trading our twenty Marines for as many men as they are willing to commit here.”

“We’ll have help soon,” said Fedorov, reaching for any straw at hand. “But how soon before they might attack?”

“A few hours-perhaps noon. They’ll be some time getting themselves sorted out. We should welcome them with some mortar fire.”

“Won’t that be like poking the beehive with a stick?”

Troyak smiled. “They’re going to hit us one way or another, whether we send down a cheesecake with a cherry on top, or a few 82mm mortar rounds. Those trucks make an inviting target.”

Fedorov nodded, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with this development and now about to open another infantry ground action. A few minutes later the Marines on the south tower had the honor of the first shot, three rounds that came whistling in on the German column. The explosions caused quite a stir, and one truck was hit and burning, though it had already off loaded it’s squad of infantry.

They saw men scattering in all directions, put in two more rounds for good measure, and then ceased fire, content to announce their presence and throw down a steel gauntlet from their high towers. The Germans would not forget to answer them in due course.

Come noon they were just finishing a meal of field rations when they heard the sharp crack of guns firing in the distance. Troyak knew a large caliber weapon when he heard one, and ordered the men to take cover in the inner chambers of the stone fort.

“Here it comes,” he said gruffly. “Let’s see how upset they are over those five mortar rounds.”

The first rounds went right over the top of the fortress, falling harmlessly on the brown parched earth beyond the hill. Troyak was watching the fire from the south tower, heedless of the danger as he studied the enemy positions through field glasses. As the second barrage started, he went down the stone steps to the inner chamber of the tower.

“Someone over there has a head on his shoulders,” he said. “They’ve positioned their guns well south, beyond the range of our mortars.”

“How did they calculate that?” asked Fedorov.

“They knew we hit the airfield from here last night, and they can read a map,” said Troyak.

The salvo fell short this time, striking the sheer hillside with a rumble of three rounds. “They are just bracketing now, but they’ll have the range in another minute. I think their O.P. is on the hill to the west.”

He pinched his collar microphone and gave an order for the mortar team on the north tower to put five rounds on that hill. A minute later the scene was a roar, with both incoming and outgoing rounds whistling and exploding. One round struck the fortress, shaking the old stone walls near the base of the south tower. Then another explosion sent a haze of dust and rock fragments down on the chamber where Fedorov and three other Marines huddled, his fingers in his ears.

“That was close,” he said, noting that the other men took the development with cool nerves. They had been under fire many times before, and knew what was coming.

“I think we’ll need the KA-40 to get after those guns,” said Troyak. “These are 105mm rounds, and if they have the ammunition, they can just pound this fortress all day. The stonework is solid, but it’s old. They’ll reduce the place to a pile of rubble in time.”

The fire continued for some minutes, with another hit in the upper gallery of the fort. Then there came a pause before they heard the guns begin again. Fedorov braced himself, hands over his ears, eyes shut tight, but no rounds came at them. Troyak was up the stone stairs and onto the upper tower battlements again with his field glasses. He returned a moment later to report that the Germans had re-oriented their fire to the southeast.

Fedorov smiled. “The British!” he exclaimed.

“I saw a small dust column coming from that direction,” said Troyak.

“It could be Glubb Pasha and his Arab Legion, but they didn’t have many vehicles.”

They soon learned that the British were arriving from two directions now, south and east. The sound of a bugle scored an interval of silence with its high call, and the Marines re-deployed to the top of the fort. There they could see the platoons of the French Foreign Legion withdrawing from their positions in the old Roman ruins, and moving off to the east through the town.

“I think they have bigger fish to fry,” said Fedorov.

“Yes,” said Troyak. “I make two German battalions off to the east now. They’ve left only one battalion here to cover the fort and stand as a reserve. They’ll have their men on all that high ground by now, but I don’t think we’ll see anything more than mortar fire, unless we get them pissed off. They’ll wait until after dark, and then they’ll try to send in a few patrols to see what we have under our skirts. Until then, I think we will be watching a battle form up to the east.”

“Should I contact the KA-40?” Fedorov asked.

“Not yet. Better tonight when they can’t really see what will hit them. Let them heat up those artillery tubes today, and we’ll see their positions on infrared tonight. At dusk we’ll start a little mortar duel here to uncover their tube positions on these hills for the helo. Then they get a nice surprise after dark.”

“Can we expect a ground assault here”

“Possibly. I would at least probe the position if I were them. They can’t want us up here with mortars able to hit their troops in the town if the fighting gets pushed there. They’re ignoring us for the moment, but they haven’t forgotten we’re here. Tonight we’ll remind them.”