At the sandbagged guard post two hundred meters down the road to Nochowo, a match flared suddenly.
“For God’s sake, Vogler!” Lieutenant Paul Preussner snapped. “Put that damned cigarette out! You’re on sentry duty here, not waiting for the bloody bus to Berlin!”
“Yes, sir,” the private answered sullenly. A red glow flipped through the air and landed close to his foot.
Preussner stared down for a second at the still-smoldering cigarette and then ground it out. He felt like tearing his hair out. These idiots were hopeless! He felt a moment’s intense longing for the quiet competence of the enlisted men who staffed his cryptographic van.
The throbbing sound of a heavy diesel engine approaching brought him out of his reverie. A vehicle had turned off the main road and was rattling up the dirt side track that led to the orchard. His head came up. “Report, Vogler.”
“It’s a truck, Herr Leutnant.”
Preussner fought off his first impulse to throttle the private and sighed. If he reacted to every insolent remark, he’d have half the headquarters guard detachment up on charges. “And?”
“One of ours, sir.”
The lieutenant closed his eyes in exasperation and said, with far more patience than he felt, “Why don’t you go and make sure of that, Private?”
Vogler muttered something Preussner chose to interpret as agreement. Still muttering, the sour-faced private slung his assault rifle over one shoulder and stepped out of the guard post into the road. He used a shielded flashlight to wave the canvas-sided track to a stop.
Preussner leaned against the guard post’s waist-high wall, waiting patiently for the private’s next screwup.
The truck driver’s door creaked open and a man clambered out from behind the wheel, dropping lightly to the ground in front of Vogler. Something about his uniform looked odd in the dim red glow from the private’s flashlight. Just what kind of camouflage pattern was that?
Vogler stiffened suddenly and whirled toward Preussner, eyes wide. “Sir, they’re Pol — ”
Something bright gleamed in the darkness and plunged into the private’s back. Vogler moaned once and crumpled to the ground.
Preussner felt his mouth fall open. He stood rooted in shock, staring from the private’s contorted body to the Polish soldiers already leaping out the back of the truck. Everything around him seemed to freeze.
Then the frozen moment passed and movement came back in a flash. The lieutenant’s hand was already fumbling for the pistol at his side when a dark shape flew through the air, smacked onto the sandbags in front of him, and rolled inside the guard post — right between his feet.
Paul Preussner had just enough time to recognize the Soviet-style fragmentation grenade before it went off.
Even as the muffled burst of light and sound faded, figures were already rising up out of the tall grass and standing crops in front of the shredded, smoking guard post.
Major Malanowski and his men had come to pay their respects.
“… French are falling back, Willi… need you to plug the gap by morning… critical…”
Willi von Seelow pressed the headphones tighter against his ears, trying to make sense out of the static-filled, scrambled transmission from division HQ. Polish radio jamming was getting better, and they hadn’t had time yet to lay wire communications. Two things were disastrously clear, though. First, the damned French had been beaten and were retreating fast. And second, Montagne and his underlings expected the 19th Panzergrenadier to save their bacon — again.
He clicked the transmit switch. “Understood, sir. But…”
Whummp. “
Wait one.” Von Seelow pulled the headphones off and glanced at the sergeant sitting beside him. “What the hell was that?”
Gunfire erupted outside the TOC — the chattering roar of machine guns and the higher-pitched crackling of assault rifles. Startled cries and screams rose above the noise. Realization broke past his surprise. They were under attack!
Von Seelow tossed the headset to the sergeant. “Get help fast!” Without waiting for a reply, he reared up off his chair, undogged the commander’s cupola, and poked his head through the opening.
Trucks parked around the command post perimeter were on fire, burning brightly as fuel fed the flames. Everywhere he looked men were toppling, cut down by the bullets scything through the camp. Others dove for cover behind vehicles or piles of equipment, clawing at their sidearms to return fire.
An RPG streaked through the night and exploded inside a Marder APC, gutting it. Razor-edged steel fragments blew outward, slicing two German officers who had been sheltering beside the Marder into red ruin.
Flashes stabbed out of the darkness along the perimeter. The Poles were still outside the camp, but he could see shadowy forms scrambling upright and moving forward. They were coming in to finish the job. Another grenade went off near the overturned map table.
Von Seelow grabbed the MG3 machine gun mounted beside the cupola and opened up, sending a long, withering burst along the line of advancing enemy soldiers. Several were hit and knocked off their feet. The other Poles dropped flat, seeking shelter wherever they could find it.
One man knelt, leveling a rocket launcher.
Willi sensed more than saw him and whipped the machine gun around with his finger still locked on the trigger. Four 7.62mm rounds moving at 2,700 feet per second tore the RPG gunner to pieces before he could fire.
Heartened by his example and with the Poles pinned down, more German crews made it to their own armored vehicles and started shooting back. Tracers lit the night, floating out over the open fields around the orchard.
As quickly as it had begun, the attack ended. The Polish soldiers faded back into the darkness, dragging their own dead and wounded with them. They left the 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade’s headquarters in shambles behind them.
Half an hour later, von Seelow stared down at a familiar figure sprawled beside the splintered map table. A grim-faced medical officer kneeling by the body looked up and shook his head.
Colonel Georg Bremer was dead.
Willi swallowed hard and turned away. So many were dead, and so many others were badly wounded — Jurgen Greif, the brigade second-in-command, and his old friend Otto Yorck among them. The Polish commando raid had decimated the 19th’s command structure.
“Sir?”
“What is it, Neumann?”
The private still sounded shaken. He’d been standing close to the colonel when the attack began. “II Corps is calling again, Herr Oberstleutnant. They want to know when we can move up. They say things are going from bad to worse across the river.”
“And what do they think we’re doing here? Cleaning up after a damned picnic?” Von Seelow instantly regretted the outburst. The private was only doing his job. He put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and felt him flinch. “Tell Captain Weber to inform Corps that we’ll have two battalions on the road within the hour. And tell them to make sure the bridges are cleared for our advance. Understand?”
Neumann nodded and hurried off.
Willi von Seelow sighed once. Then he moved into the tangle of burned-out and bullet-pocked vehicles, rounding up his surviving officers. With Bremer dead and Greif out of action, command of the brigade fell to him. Whether anyone higher up liked it or not.
Von Seelow squinted into the rising sun and scowled angrily. Despite all the promises made by II Corps, the three pontoon bridges across the Warta were packed with French troops and vehicles streaming back in disorder. Signs of barely contained panic were everywhere. LeClerc tanks showing clear signs of battle damage — scarred armor, jammed turrets, or smoking engines — mingled with others that seemed completely untouched. Dazed soldiers threaded their way through the slow-moving columns on foot. Trucks that stalled out in the growing heat were pushed off into the river instead of being towed to the opposite bank.