Vorishnov raised an eyebrow. 'You appreciate that, given the distance, you may not be able to control your entire brigade if you place yourself south of the Kanal.'
'I have,' Dixon countered, 'no intention of attempting to control the entire brigade. When we split, I will go south with the tactical command post and command this half of the brigade. You will remain here with the main command post and command the rest.'
For the first time since joining Dixon, Vorishnov was flabbergasted. He started to protest. 'But I am a Russian officer!' — 'And a damned good one. Listen, Lieutenant Colonel Yost has his hands full keeping the brigade trains together, functioning, and moving north. The same argument I used when I sent Cerro to the 3rd of the 3rd Infantry still applies. If Yost leaves, we stand a good chance of losing the trains.' Dixon pointed to one of the northern battalions, then the other, as he spoke. 'The commander of this battalion is a major, like Cerro, and the lieutenant colonel in command of this one has his hands full with what he already has. He's not brigade command material.' Turning to face Vorishnov, Dixon tapped his chest. 'So tag, Colonel. You're it. I'll leave you the tank and I'll take one of the personnel carriers. I want to go fast and be as inconspicuous as possible.'
'Your division commander will never agree to my taking command, Colonel Dixon.'
Now Dixon smiled, truly smiled for the first time in days. 'Sorry, won't work. I've already talked to him about your succeeding me. He agreed.'
Outmaneuvered there, Vorishnov turned his head toward the brigade staff and surveyed them. Those who were in earshot returned Vorishnov's stare. 'And them?'
Turning his head also, Dixon let the smile on his face fall away. When he spoke, it was so that the staff officers and sergeants listening would hear what he had to say. 'They, Colonel Vorishnov, are professionals, each and every one. They will do as they are told, regardless of who is in command.' Finished, Dixon looked back at Vorishnov. 'Besides, I am only lending this command post and those battalions to you. I intend to take them back as soon as I reach Bremerhaven.'
Closing his eyes, Vorishnov smiled and nodded. 'Fine. That will be fine.'
With that, the two colonels parted. Dixon went out to gather his gear and head south before his route was blocked by the Germans, while Vorishnov turned to his staff and began to issue the orders that would be necessary to break contact with the 1st Panzer Division and continue the long march to the sea.
While he waited for Captain Nancy Kozak to arrive, Major Hal Cerro paced along the side of the road, Across the road, the crew of his M-2 Bradley infantry righting vehicle watched him as he would walk several meters, stop, look at his watch, turn, look at them, and then retrace his steps. When he had reached the limit of his small circuit, Cerro would stop again, look at his watch, look over to the Bradley again, and repeat the process. His gunner, sitting on the turret roof with his feet dangling down the open hatch, and his driver, half hanging out of the driver's compartment, watched, munched on tasteless rations, and exchanged comments.
'The major's in a hurry.'
Swallowing, the driver wondered out loud, 'How long do ya think he'll wait before we go lookin' for her?'
Even though the driver couldn't see the gunner, the gunner shook his head as he answered. 'Don't think the major's in a hurry to get back on board. You scared the piss out of him on that last series of turns.'
'I didn't mean to. He did say move out, didn't he?'
'You're going to have to take it easy,' the gunner advised, 'until the major gets used to us and the Bradley.'
'I thought,' the driver protested, 'that he knew what he was doing. How the hell was I to know he'd never commanded a Bradley before.'
Taking time to lick the tomato sauce off his plastic spoon, the gunner slowly responded. 'Come on. Use some common sense. You see all those badges he's got? Master parachutist, jump master, pathfinder, ranger, combat infantryman's badge. That's a leg infantry collection. I'll bet he never spent a day in a mech infantry unit till he got assigned to us.'
The driver grunted. 'Yeah, ain't we lucky. We get to do some on-the-job training.'
'It could be worse,' the gunner reminded the driver. 'We could have been stuck with the ops officer.'
The driver shook his head. 'I don't know. I really don't think it makes much of a difference. All officers get kind of strange when they get promoted to major. The best we can hope is that this one lasts longer than the last two.'
The gunner was about to ask why he had said that, but caught himself. Of course the driver hoped that nothing happened to Major Cerro. Because his fate was now tied to theirs. Odds were, if something bad happened to the major, they'd be right there getting the same thing. 'Yup. Sure hope this one's luckier than the last two.'
The driver saw Cerro stop and look down the road. From the direction Cerro was staring in, the driver heard the whine of another Bradley's engine cut through the cold, damp morning air. 'Looks like the Nose has arrived.'
Turning his head, the gunner also looked to see if the Nose, the nickname Nancy Kozak had earned after breaking her nose during the campaign in Mexico, had finally arrived. From around the corner, a Bradley came into sight. When the gunner saw the black image of a wolf's head painted on the gunner's side of the turret, he knew it was Kozak. Sergeant Wolf had done the painting himself as a little extra show of pride. When Kozak saw what Wolf had done, she insisted that he do something similar on her side. Of course, all the junior NCOs in the battalion dared Wolf to paint the silhouette of a large crooked nose on her side. But Wolf, knowing that he'd have to put up with her for a long time, opted to paint a palm tree, resembling the symbol used by the German Afrika Korps during World War II, with a K in the center of the tree's trunk instead of the swastika. Kozak loved it and Wolf was harassed in a friendly sort of way by his fellow NCOs for weeks after that.
But that all seemed like ancient history to the gunner now as he watched Kozak's Bradley come to a halt across from Cerro's. Both Kozak and Wolf were riding low in their open hatches. Even from where he sat, Cerro's gunner could see that they were both exhausted. Neither Kozak nor Wolf looked as if they had washed their faces in days. While Wolf's face, stub-bled with beard, looked bad, Kozak's was worse due to the dark bags that hung under her eyes and seemed to drag her cheeks down from their sheer weight. The gunner had no doubt that her eyes were just as bloodshot as Cerro's. That was becoming the first indicator that an officer was approaching. Though everyone was dragging tail, the officers, to a man, seemed twice as bad off as any enlisted man. There was, Cerro's gunner thought to himself, no way that he'd put up with all the shit that officers had to. No way.
From below, Cerro's driver shouted to get the gunner's attention. 'Hey, you have something up there to trade for my dehydrated peaches?'
In the two and a half days since Cerro had assumed command of 3rd of the 3rd Infantry, Kozak had seen him nine times. At most of those meetings the format was the same. She'd give him a quick update on the status of her company, the location of her platoons, significant contacts or sightings, and what they were doing or about to do. Cerro, if time permitted, would explain what was happening elsewhere in the battalion and brigade area of operations, potential enemy threats that they needed to consider, and then issue Kozak new orders. When he was sure that she had a firm grasp of what was expected of her company, Cerro would mount his Bradley and head down the road in search of the next company commander. Only twice, due to the fact that they were in almost constant contact, was he able to muster more than two company commanders together at the same time. There just wasn't time.
Ordering Paden, her radiotelephone operator, to lower the troop ramp of her Bradley, Kozak dropped into the turret and through the small access door that led to the Bradley's troop compartment. Cerro walked around her Bradley and met her at the ramp. Kneeling down, he threw his map down on the ramp, took a notebook out of his pocket, and prepared to issue his order. Before he started, however, he asked Kozak, map in hand, which of her two infantry platoons was in the best shape.
Kozak didn't need to think about that. '2nd Platoon. Marc Gross's. He has three fully operational Bradleys and three dismount teams with four men each.'
Cerro looked up at Kozak. 'Is Gross reliable?'
Kozak nodded. 'He's the best I have left.'
Cerro, in a hurry and not keen on the order he was about to issue, snapped back, 'I didn't ask for a comparison. I asked if he was reliable.'
Cerro's sharp tone and the look on his face took Kozak aback. She realized that he, like her, was not thinking and tempers were short. Kozak rephrased her answer. 'He is an experienced and capable platoon leader. The former battalion commander used him as an advance guard detachment on several occasions.'
