Marder APCs were deployed around the perimeter for added firepower.
Willi glanced down at his watch again. Only a few minutes had passed since he’d last checked the time. The man they were waiting for was late. As usual.
During the twenty-four hours since they’d sent that French cretin Cambon packing, Leibnitz and the other officers of the 7th Panzer had already ignored one peremptory order to advance, and another directing them all to report to II Corps headquarters for an “urgent conference.”
II Corps’ latest message was more promising. It had requested a meeting, to resolve “difficulties in the command structure.” To do that, General Montagne himself would come to the 7th Panzer’s headquarters.
Now they waited for the French corps commander’s helicopter, due to arrive momentarily. They still had no idea what Montagne would say, but his willingness to talk at all was heartening. “First intelligent thing the French have done,” Leibnitz had muttered.
Willi nodded to himself. That was true enough. Certainly the other actions the French had taken were less reassuring. The supply cutoff had left the division with just enough gas and ammunition for one defensive battle. Now scouting parties were reporting heavy roadblocks across all major roads, and most of the secondary roads. In the circumstances, it seemed clear that any major German movement might trigger a new conflict, this time between erstwhile allies. In the field, in front of a hostile army, that would be worse than disastrous, and Willi’s military training rebelled at the idea.
He grimaced. This situation had to be resolved quickly. Food and fuel were incidentals compared to the strategic issues.
So far, the Americans had not counterattacked. Nobody knew how much of the “mutiny” was known on the other side, but both the French and German participants were doing their best to keep it quiet. Like family members with a grievance, they still argued in whispers, lest the neighbors overhear.
A shout from an enlisted man brought them to their feet. A gray-and-green-camouflaged Puma helicopter, moving low and slow, was in full view, coming in for a landing in the clearing in front of the headquarters.
Willi glanced left and right. Soldiers in nearby foxholes tracked the helicopter, an indication of just how far relations with their “allies” had deteriorated.
The Puma settled to the ground in a cloud of dust and dried grass, its rotors seeming to take forever to slow. Finally, as the blades spun down to a stop, the side hatch slid open.
Suddenly Willi heard the crash of an explosion behind him, and the rattle of small-arms fire from somewhere further back among the trees. He spun around, looking for the source. The shooting continued, doubling in intensity.
New rifles crackled, from closer now. The soldiers near him were firing at the grounded Puma. Instead of French generals, two squads of French troops in full combat gear were pouring out, shooting on the move. Rounds whined over his head and smacked into the trees close by.
Christ. He knelt down, unslinging the MP5 submachine gun he’d been carrying. Leibnitz and the other brigade commanders were already prone. They all kept weapons close to hand. Nobody wanted to follow Bremer’s fate.
Just beyond the clearing, a French Gazelle attack helicopter popped into view over the trees, followed closely by another. Hugging the ground, the two gunships swept toward the woods, searching for targets. A puff of smoke appeared under one machine, and a missile leapt away, flashing into the trees.
One of the Marders, parked a few dozen meters away, fireballed — hit broadside by a warhead designed to kill tanks. A powerful, ringing explosion blew the APC’s 25mm gun and turret high into the air.
But German Marders also carried portable Milan antitank missile launchers. Even as the French HOT missile struck, the rest of the APC’s crew avenged its destruction. A Milan streaked upward from a nearby foxhole toward the Gazelle. Flying too low and slow to evade, the helicopter took a direct hit — just under its rotor transmission. The blades and part of its engine broke clear, spinning out of sight, while the rest of the airframe, burning brightly, slammed into the ground.
In response, the other Gazelle gunned the treeline, almost casually lacing it with 20mm shells. Von Seelow could hear men screaming as the cannon rounds ripped through their foxholes.
Killing them took time, though — time enough for a second Marder, still concealed by camouflage netting, to slew its own 25mm turret around and fire. One long, clattering burst seemed to pin the French helicopter in place. Armor-piercing rounds tore off pieces of the Gazelle until what was left was no longer fit to fly. It dropped to the ground, a mass of burning metal.
The Marder fired again, this time aiming for the French Puma. More than a dozen explosive shells hit the helicopter hard enough to knock it over and set it ablaze. The commandos it had carried, now pinned down in the open, fired back, but they had lost surprise, as well as their supporting firepower. Several were already dead or badly wounded. The rest wouldn’t last much longer, Willi thought grimly.
Gunfire and grenade explosions still rattled and thumped in the woods behind him. The French were launching a two-pronged attack, he realized. One force had infiltrated through the trees to hit the headquarters from behind, while the Puma brought in this second unit to cut off any attempted retreat.
Leibnitz scrambled up. “Our men need help, gentlemen.” He jerked his head toward the sound of firing. “Come.”
Willi nodded and gripped his submachine gun tighter. Personal weapons out and ready, the four senior officers scuttled away from the clearing, moving deeper into the woods. They were only twenty meters short of their command trucks, when a long, searing burst of fire drove them to ground.
Jansen, commander of the 20th Panzer Brigade, screamed once and then fell silent. He’d been shot through the head.
Dead soldiers, both French and German, sprawled everywhere. Heart pounding now, Von Seelow lay still, scanning the surrounding area for signs of living enemies. Where had those shots come from?
They’d hit the dirt close to a burning truck, but the choking smoke and flames forced them to edge away from the cover it provided. The closest trees, spaced meters apart, were no help. They only made it more difficult to see. The sounds of firing still surrounded them, spasmodic, but almost constant overall, and the flames crackling noisily nearby further confused the picture.
Suddenly a pair of French soldiers burst into view, running hard toward some point off to Willi’s right. They spotted the prone Germans at almost the same instant and skidded to a stop, swinging their assault rifles around. They were too late.
Von Seelow pulled the trigger on his submachine gun, spraying the two Frenchmen with several short, deadly bursts. Hit repeatedly, both men went down in a tangled heap.
The firing had attracted attention, though. Out the corner of one eye, Willi caught a flicker of movement as a second pair of commandos appeared and then went prone, diving into some brush a short distance away. Desperately he swung the MP5 around, already knowing he was too late.
Two grenades sailed toward the German officers.
“Down!” he shouted, burying his face in the dirt.
One landed too far to the right and exploded harmlessly, but the other landed a bare two meters away.
A wall of hot air, almost a solid thing, buffeted Willi, threatening to lift him off the ground. He clung desperately, knowing that hundreds of steel fragments were embedded in that mass, sleeting out from a point only a man’s height away. The howling sound of their passage, though, was masked by the explosion itself, and by the time von Seelow wondered whether any would hit him, they were past, and he was still alive.
His training told him what must come next, and he fought with his body, trying to shake off the dizziness and to raise his weapon. It seemed to weigh a ton, and his arms would not point it in the right direction. He was half- blind, too, with the dust blown in his eyes and not enough time to wipe it out.
Finally, still prone, he levered the submachine gun over and fired a long burst toward the enemy. It was not a well-aimed burst, but it was fast, and it worked.
He didn’t hit anything, but the two French soldiers, rising to follow their grenades in on the heels of the blast, were caught by surprise. They dove back into cover.
Now, Leibnitz and Schisser, the 21st’s acting commander, both pumped short accurate bursts from their own submachine guns, one after another, into the brush. They were rewarded by screams and a low, gurgling moan that slowly died away.
