staff car and gave Ilvanich a casual salute. Without waiting for Ilvanich to return the salute, the young German lieutenant smiled as he spoke. 'Well, can't say that I'm not glad to see you and your company. We've been finished for hours, waiting to get out of here and find someplace where we can warm up.' Glancing beyond the lieutenant, Ilvanich saw the rest of the engineer platoon warming themselves around a barrel with fire in it. Again deciding not to criticize, Ilvanich simply nodded as he returned the lieutenant's salute. Looking about at the underside of the bridge to study the handiwork of the German engineers as he slowly got out of the staff car, Ilvanich, almost absent-mindedly, began to question the lieutenant. 'Must have taken most of the day to prepare this target.'
'Actually, we started yesterday and finished this morning, Herr Captain. It was a bit too much to work on it during the night. The cold and all, you know.'
No, Ilvanich thought, I don't know. These Germans, he thought, were not as good as he had expected. Perhaps, he thought, this was just a lazy unit. And if this unit wasn't an isolated case, if the whole German Army was as bad, the Americans just might be able to pull off this insane plan after all. Shaking his head, Ilvanich turned and faced the lieutenant. 'Do you have written orders?'
The lieutenant nodded. 'Well yes, of course.'
Ilvanich didn't need to pretend that he was losing his patience with the German officer. He really was. 'Well, Lieutenant, let me see them now.'
Startled by Ilvanich's sudden demand, the lieutenant jumped slightly. 'Well, I have to go get them from my map case, Herr Captain.'
Narrowing his eyes into a piercing glare that sent a shiver down the German engineer lieutenant's back, Ilvanich leaned forward and snarled, 'Well why don't you do that, Lieutenant.'
While he waited for the orders, Ilvanich looked back at his own trucks. With little talking, the rangers of Company A had dismounted and were gathering around the rear of Fitzhugh's truck. Only Pape, manning the machine gun in the lead truck and providing Ilvanich cover, remained behind. And of course Jefferson and his Pepper Platoon were ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. A few chuckles and muted laughter told Ilvanich that Rasper was using his fractured German to form up Fitzhugh's platoon. He had heard Rasper practice it and had found it amusing. Commands such as 'Fallin zee in,' and 'Mockin much snell, now,' mixed with Rasper's lazy Texas drawl, brought smiles to everyone, even the normally solemn Ilvanich. This, however, was not the time, Ilvanich knew, for such antics. Barking out in German to Fitzhugh to knock it off, Ilvanich's booming voice caused everyone in the area, real Germans and rangers, to stop what they were doing and turn toward Ilvanich.
At the rear of the column, Fitzhugh, realizing that Ilvanich was yelling to him, moved to the side of the last covered truck, where Sergeant Jefferson was, and stopped. With no idea of what Ilvanich wanted because he couldn't speak German, Fitzhugh looked toward Ilvanich but whispered to Jefferson, who spoke the language fluently. 'What's the major want, Sergeant Jefferson?'
Seeing that he had an excellent opportunity to mess with what he called his favorite lieutenant, Jefferson took liberties with his translation of Ilvanich's order. 'The major said, 'Lieutenant Fuzz, if you don't pull your head out of that lily white ass of yours and get that platoon under control, I'm going to come down there and stick my size twelve Russian boot up your butt.' '
Fitzhugh shook his head and smiled to himself. 'But the major doesn't wear a size twelve. Please ask him, Sergeant Jefferson, to repeat his last order, just to make sure you got it right.'
Silence followed by muted chuckles told Fitzhugh that he had stumped Jefferson. 'Okay, fun's over. I'll get my people under control. Please do the same to yours. Supply trucks, especially German Army supply trucks, Sergeant Jefferson, don't laugh.'
Back at the head of the column, the engineer lieutenant returned with the orders. Ilvanich took them and read them carefully. As he was doing so, the German lieutenant commented that he had never thought that he would be given such orders. Ilvanich, pausing, looked about at the gathered German pioneers, then up at the underside of the autobahn bridge at the explosives that he and his rangers would soon be removing. A smile slowly began to creep across his face as he looked down at the German officer. 'Funny,' Ilvanich said. 'Somehow I always knew that I'd be doing exactly this.'
Struck by the captain's strange reaction, the engineer lieutenant didn't comment as Ilvanich went back to reading the orders. The captain, the lieutenant thought, was the hard, cold, and very proper Prussian type. He could see it in the captain's face, in his voice, even in the way he wore his short hair and uniform, all very military and very proper. The captain, judging from his accent, had to be an easterner, the lieutenant decided. He was right. He just didn't realize how far east Ilvanich really came from.
Finished, Ilvanich folded the orders and turned to place them in his own map case sitting on the side of his staff car's seat. The orders, official German military orders, gave Ilvanich documentation that he didn't have before that might be useful in bluffing his way through a tight confrontation with other, more alert German officers. When the German lieutenant protested Ilvanich's taking of the orders, Ilvanich demurred. 'Your work here is finished. They told you to prepare this target for demolition and then wait for either orders to execute it or to turn it over to another unit that would guard it or execute it for you. My orders, all verbal unfortunately, are to relieve you of responsibility for this target.'
Still unsure about leaving Ilvanich with his orders, the lieutenant countered. 'I was expecting to be relieved by elements of the 2nd Panzer Division. A staff officer from that division was by here a few hours ago warning me that they would be delayed another ten to twelve hours at least. They are supposed to establish blocking positions here while linking up with the 10th Panzer Division to the east.'
'Did this staff officer say where that link-up was to be made?'
Not suspecting that Ilvanich's question was anything other than idle curiosity, the lieutenant nodded. 'Yes, Herr Captain. He said that the link-up would be somewhere east of Alsfeld. Once they had made that link-up, the staff officer said that the Americans would be forced either to stop and give up their race for the sea or attack. Quite frankly, Herr Captain, I think the staff officer was hoping that the Americans would attack. There are some officers I know who are looking for a fight.'
Looking back at Fitzhugh and his platoon, ready to move forward and assume control of the massive autobahn bridge as soon as the German engineers were gone, Ilvanich shook his head. 'Well, Lieutenant, if those officers knew the Americans like I do, they would think twice before messing with them. Now, unless there's something else that you need to tell me, I accept responsibility for this site and relieve you and your platoon.'
Glad to be finished, the lieutenant told Ilvanich that as far as he could see all was in order. Saluting, he turned to gather up his men and equipment. The German engineers left the bridge without a second thought, leaving Ilvanich and Company A to disarm the masses of explosives the Germans had worked so hard to emplace and to pass on to the Tenth Corps G-2 the information Ilvanich had been able to glean from them.
While Ilvanich and the rangers of Company A secured the autobahn bridge east of Niederjossa, the lead elements of the 4th Armored Division prepared to make their next leap forward. Like a great Slinky toy moving across the face of Germany, each night the Tenth Corps would spring up, stretch out, move forward, and then collapse on itself further north than the night before. While that simple analogy might make Malin's 'March to the Sea' understandable, the actual complex process of moving a corps with over 75,000 soldiers and 30,000 vehicles defied the ability of any one person to really understand the process. For it entailed more than simply lining up vehicles and putting them on the road.
In the first place, the Tenth Corps had to be prepared to fight. Combat maneuver units, armored cavalry squadrons, tank battalions, and mechanized infantry battalions marching in the lead, on the flanks, and in the rear of the corps, had to be arranged so that they could bull through a blocking position or turn and defend the rest of the corps from a thrust from a German unit. This requirement dictated the order and manner in which combat support units followed. The march tables of artillery units had to conform to the movements of the tank and infantry units so as to allow the artillery units to rapidly set up and fire in support of the combat maneuver units if they made contact with German units determined to fight. The result was that the Tenth Corps, instead of moving forward as one large Slinky toy, in reality consisted of thousands of tiny company-and platoon-sized Slinkys. Moving at different times along different routes and to different locations, these separate companies and platoons tried hard to be at the right place at the right time without ensnaring with each other, a feat that they achieved most of the time but not always.
Mixed in with the combat maneuver units were the ubiquitous engineer units, ready to jump forward in front of the combat maneuver units to bridge a river or to clear an obstacle. To protect the ground elements from attack by German aircraft, which already were flying over the long columns with great regularity, were air defense units
