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.
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
