Like Griffin, Stern also kept a running count of the brigade’s maintenance status. He, too, worked out the numbers and the loss rate. If the brigade kept losing vehicles at the current rate, it would be piecemealed along the road — combat ineffective if and when it hit the Germans. They needed to stop to repair what they could.
A track pulled up. Mark Griffin piled out, pulled off his CVC and tossed the helmet to his driver, then confronted Alex Stern.
“Boss, you can’t be serious about stopping.”
“Mark, you know damn well we have to.”
Griffin’s contorted face betrayed his frustration. Of course we have to, he thought. We’re bleeding to death from breakdowns. And of course we can’t, we have to get to the depot.
“I know, I know,” said Stern, reading Griffin’s thoughts on his face. “I’ve gone over the situation a dozen times. Maybe too many times. Show me a better idea.”
“I… I…” God damn it, thought Griffin, there must be a way. Then he turned. “Middletown, come here!”
The operations officer dashed over to the two colonels.
Let the S3 figure out how, Griffin thought. “How can we keep moving,” he demanded, “and still let the bulk of the brigade address its maintenance problems?”
Again Stern smiled. Griffin was learning.
“Uhhh…” Griffin’s question had come out of far left field, catching Middletown off guard. He shuffled his feet in the dirt as he tried to think. “We, ah, could push the cavalry troop out well forward — maybe reinforce them with a tank platoon from one of the battalions.”
“And the rest of the brigade?”
“They, ah, leapfrog at two-hour intervals. Yes, Sir, that’s it. They close up to here,” Middletown pointed at his map, “then every two hours they displace forward.”
“So we get maintenance time and we continue movement?”
“Yes, Sir, we get both.”
“Good,” Stern said with finality. “Modify your plan so we execute that concept.” Middletown practically spun around, desperately trying to form a new plan on the run and get a few minutes to put together a coherent order for the battalion commanders.
“And S3…”
No luck, thought Middletown. He turned back to Stern and Griffin.
“Captain, we’ve been very careful to ensure innocent civilians don’t get hurt. But what happens when we make contact with 11th Panzerbrigade?”
This time Middletown had an answer. “Initially, Sir, we have to defend.
I’ll pick leapfrog positions that will allow us to do so, and so let us build up our strength as we fix stuff. Eventually, we’ll have to attack to get through the Germans to the depot. We’ll probably need to conduct a movement to contact to find them first — unless they just decide to go away and let us pass.”
“Just what makes you think they might?” demanded Stern.
Middletown glanced at Griffin, then at the ground.
If it were any one of a hundred times or places before, Mark Griffin would have left the man under the gun to be blasted by his own words. But — for reasons that he had long before put away but now, somehow, meant the world to him — Griffin spoke up.
“I discussed this with Captain Middletown. I still can’t believe Joel, I mean Colonel Guterman, would side with these butchers. I knew him too well; he’s a good guy.”
“Maybe you knew him, but now he’s a bad guy. How are we supposed to tell the good guys from the bad guys? Nobody’s published a program. How do we tell a good German from a bad one, walk up and ask? If they don’t shoot us, then they’re good guys; if they do, then they’re bad?”
“Alex, if there’s even an off chance we can avoid combat with Joel’s unit, we ought to take it.” Griffin knew, and Stern also knew, the size and strength of Panzerbrigade 11. They both also knew Guterman was a very deadly opponent.
“You want to keep civilian casualties down,” said Griffin. “So keep the MPs in front and tell them to be very, very careful. They’ll keep the civilians out of the way no matter what color hat the Germans are wearing.”
“Colonel Griffin, as I can’t think of anything better, your plan will have to do. You got it all, S3?”
“Yes, Sir. Anything else, Sir?”
You mean any other changes that will throw you for a loop, don’t you, Captain? Middletown was learning too. No, thought Stern, those will cause you enough headaches. “That will be all. Thank you, S3. Execute.”
A dazed Middletown saluted, then hurried off to his maps.
In the early dark of the night, one of his recon company’s Luchs armored cars lay burning a soccer field length to his rear. Seven hundred meters ahead, a Bradley slowly succumbed to flames; a hundred meters in front of the American armored vehicle, two upended HMMWVs smoldered. In the backseat of one of them, bullets from confiscated polizei pistols popped as they cooked off in the heat. Burnt flesh has its own particular stench, thought Oberleutnant Rusht as he surveyed his small piece of the battle. The lead vehicles of the recon company that he had so suddenly come to command had easily killed the MP vehicles — the HMMWVs and their occupants seemed to die, without much objection, to surprise machine-gun fire. But the Bradleys had been tougher; they’d cost him a vehicle. In accordance with Shror’s orders, Rusht pressed the attack. From across the sector, reports reached him of friendlies lost and American forces destroyed. By his best guess he faced off against his counterpart, a cavalry troop.
Now comes a game of cat and mouse, he mused, and we will soon discover who is the cat. In any event, 11th Panzerbrigade will soon arrive and you, my American friends and enemies, will soon be eliminated.
“I guess that gives us our answer.” Stern handed Cooper back his summary of the cavalry scouts’ reports.
“I still can’t believe it. Let me see.” Griffin quickly read through the papers.
“Mark, seven dead and twelve wounded ought to convince you. They fired on the MPs and shot them as they ran. The Cav lost two Bradleys before it could fire a shot. Sorry, Mark, your buddy has gone over to the bad guys.”
“This stinks. I don’t like it,” Griffin said, tossing the papers to Cooper.
“I don’t like it either. I remember Guterman from the desert. Vaguely, but enough to know he’s a real threat. If we’re going to get through them, he’s going to have to go.” Stern sighed, then reached for the comfort of his pipe. “This will be tough, real tough.”
SEVEN
Tucked just inside the edge of the forest on the wooded hillside, the men in the Bradley fighting vehicles scanned the village spread out below them. To the naked eye the barns, houses, and town shops seemed no more than blurry outlines in the night, but inside the Bradleys each structure in the valley below glowed plainly in the gunners’ thermal sights. Electric motors whined their eerie whine as the Bradleys’ turrets slowly rotated, searching for the Germans. Each member of the platoon sensed that, somewhere in the quiet farming town, the bad guys were waiting.
That was their problem — somewhere.
“Red Four, this is Red Three. Did you see which way they went?”
“This is Red Four. Negative. I bet they cut down one of those side streets.”
“This is Red Two. Roger. I saw one of ’em take a left about three streets up. I don’t know where he or the other one is now, though. They’ll probably pull the same trick as before: lie low and bushwhack whoever sticks his nose out first. Break, Red One, this is Red Two. What do you want us to do now?”