Patton extended an arm and swept Clarke outside the tent.
“General, I was on the verge of relieving him.”
Unlike his reputation suggested, Patton rarely relieved his officers, and was surprised that the genial Clarke had reached that critical point with one of the best officers in his command.
Clarke saw the question in his commander’s eyes and decided straight talk was needed.
“I think he’s nearly done, General. He’s been at the front now…what… since Normandy? A lot of officers have come and gone, but not JP… Old Reliable.”
Patton nodded in understanding.
“Well, I’ll tell you straight, Sir. I think he’s cracking up… lost sight of things some… almost like… like what he says is the state of his boys is actually a reflection of him… like he’s telling me that he’s burned out and exhausted, which I think he is.”
“He looked just fine to me, Bruce. His unit’s done good from France to here… and he ain’t failed yet, has he?”
Clarke persisted.
“I know, General, and I wasn’t going to let him fail now. I think he needs to be away from here.”
Patton rubbed his chin, turning to examine the busy Brigadier General through the open tent flap, seeing a man hard at work, acquiring intelligence from the divisional staff, updating his own information before moving off to put his command back on the road to Cologne.
“Alternatives?”
“Go with him up to CCA and give him my support, but he’d know what I was doing for sure.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I could leave Bill Bridges with him,” Clarke thumbed in the direction of Colonel Bridges, one of his aides, and a soldier of no little repute, “And he can step in if there’s trouble.”
“I like that one better, Bruce.”
Never one to waste much time, Patton strolled back into the tent and pulled Greenwood to one side where they could not be overheard.
“JP, we’ve given you the ball for some hard yards here. Wish I could lighten your load, but we’ve got a job to do."
Making sure he wasn’t overheard, Patton adopted his softest tone for one of his old warhorses.
"I’ve asked General Clarke to give you some assistance here. Colonel Bridges’ll be temporarily assigned under your command. Use him to lighten your load, ok?”
“Yes, Sir, General. Thank you.”
Those simple words of thanks told Patton that Clarke was probably right, and that JP was near the end of his tether, for such intrusions would normally not be welcome, and seen as a lack of trust, but he was now committed.
He left again, passing Bridges on the way in.
Clarke was waiting beside his halftrack.
“Sir, Bridges is briefed, and I’ve told him to take over if things go bad.”
“Shit, Bruce. He’ll do just fine. Now, I think CCR would benefit from our presence, don’t you?”
In seconds, the two vehicles were hammering down the road to Wormersdorf, where CCRs commander was trying to sort out a growing mess.
Chapter 120 – THE COLD
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.
The point unit of CCA had been stopped cold, just north of Wuschheim, on Route 194, precisely coinciding with a snowfall that was constant and heavy.
Even as Brigadier General Greenwood was making new command decisions, the air was rent with the sound of vehicles exploding, and the screams of wounded men.
“Here, we push here instead. Get Hardegen’s outfit online and moving straight away. Get’em to take the 182 and outflank these motherfuckers.”
His staff rushed to put the new plan into action.
The compact mixed force, led by Major John Hardegen, was waiting in Kleinbüllesheim, ready to exploit the success of the main advance, but was now tasked with finding an alternate route forward and round the blocking force holding up the main body on the 194.
It was, in essence, a smaller version of CCA, with tank, armored infantry, cavalry, and artillery components.
Greenwood had already sent some of the mechanized cavalry to reconnoitre down Route 182, and the reports had been favourable.
That they had also been favourable for Route 194 did not occur to him at this time, so consumed was he with pushing his command forward.
All the smaller watercourses were frozen solid, something that increased the options for his forces, but he knew how much the Red Army loved breaking up ice with explosives once troops were on it, or over it, so prudence still played a part.
His HQ vehicles were already covered in a thick layer of snow, and the battlefield’s visibility was greatly reduced, the large flakes falling even more thickly than before.
Reasonably, he and his officers considered that was the same for both sides.
Alas, the Gods of War are rarely reasonable in their dealings with man, as Task Force Hardegen was about to find out.
The cavalry’s Greyhound armoured car literally came apart as Hardegen scrutinized its careful advance, something of inordinate power just destroying it in an instant, and ending the lives of all four crew.
Whatever it was, it was to be avoided, and Hardegen screamed into his radio immediately.
“All Mohawk elements, get off the road, get off the road. Dragonfly, get some smoke down either side of the 182, on the bridges and river line, over.”
“Dragonfly, Mohawk-six, roger.”
Dragonfly, the call-sign for the 191st’s artillery officer, contacted the waiting 155mm howitzers.
Zinc chloride smoke shells soon began to burst all around the river and road ahead, drifting back towards the task force and masking the flames of the destroyed M24.
No further shots came from the defenders, wherever they were.
Hardegen was on the radio.
“Mohawk-three-one, push your element down the track to Strassfeld. Push on one mile, and then turn north. Come in on the flank. Be careful, Chris. Mohawk-six, over.”
“Roger Mohawk Six. You too, boss.”
The seven medium tanks selected, one tank platoon enlarged by two stragglers, bolstered by a platoon of M5 Stuarts from D Company, pushed off to the right, followed by their supporting infantry element from the 53rd Armored-Infantry, plus two M36 Jacksons, last remnants of one of the 808th TD’s platoons, recently adopted by the infantry.
CCA was in it up to its neck, but didn’t yet know how deep.
The main thrust up the 194 had run straight into a prepared defensive position, manned by determined infantry from the 101st Rifle Corps, backed up with anti-tank guns, mines, artillery, and a few tanks.
Hardegen’s force, sent on its flanking mission, had hit the join between the 52nd and 101st Rifle Corps, filled with a composite force of exhausted units.
Artem’yev’s guardsmen, pulled back for a rest, were once again pitch-forked into a cauldron of fire.
However, they were not unsupported.
The gun that had claimed the lead M20 was a 152mm, mounted on a tank chassis, in the form of an ISU-152 of the 378th Guards Heavy SP Gun Regiment. It had seven of its friends on the field.