“This is Red One. Red element stand by for orders. We’ve done this drill before.” Hell, isn’t that the truth? thought a frustrated 1st Lt. Ralph McKay. We just spent forty minutes chasing these guys down goat trails to prod them out of the woods, and now we get to play hide-and-seek in this burg. The cavalry platoon leader swore to himself. All we’re doing is burning fuel and taking hits.
Since just after dark, McKay’s cavalry platoon — like the other two Cav platoons stretched across the 195th’s front — had played a deadly game of tag with the German recon company’s eight-wheeled armored cars. McKay’s platoon, and the whole troop, at first moved quickly on the Germans in the open countryside. But as the woods and villages thickened, the German vehicles dodged along narrow trails and skirted down side streets, firing when the more heavily armed but clumsier American vehicles lumbered into the open. McKay’s platoon had been lucky, all but one. The Germans had let Red Five pass by, then stitched shells into it from behind at less than fifty meters. McKay fought for twenty minutes just so a recovery vehicle could drag the hulk back. By the time the medics got to the riddled Bradley, they found only bodies. Counting the track that broke down on the march out, the loss of Red Five took him down to four out of six.
McKay scanned the village streets through the Bradley’s sights, hoping to pick up the enemy. This thermal sure turns night into day, he thought; I wish it could see around corners. Why won’t the brigade let us use artillery? he thought. Then we’d flush the Germans out in no time. I could sit here and the cannon cockers could throw high explosive at these guys from twelve miles back, and we’d be able to get on with it. But no, McKay whined to himself, the brigade commander doesn’t want “avoidable” civilian casualties. So we do it the hard way. He keyed the radio.
“Red, this is Red One. We clear this cow town block by block in bounds. Two and Three lead off; One and Four cover and follow.”
“One, this is Two. Can we get the tanks up here?”
“Negative.” The tanks they sent to support us would be even easier targets in those narrow streets, McKay thought. One of them supporting Blue platoon got waxed that way. I know it’s gonna take time, so let’s get to it. “Red Two and Three, move out in two minutes — straight down the main drag.”
He threw a switch and a small, dull red light glowed just enough for him to read “25mm — Armed.” Just show your face, comrade, was all he thought, just show your face. Comrade—how odd the GIs’ slang for the Germans seemed now. Maybe Granddad was right, thought McKay, maybe they’re really nothing but krauts. The two bounding vehicles came into his field of view as they headed downhill toward the village.
By the dim lantern light in a field aid station, medics bandaged the wounded. The all-too-familiar creak of medic tracks delivering casualties signaled to the battalion physician’s assistant that he had more patients even before the medic darted into the tent.
“Three more from the Cav,” the corpsman told him. “We need to evacuate one farther back. I’ll get him stabilized and then in an ambulance. The other two are coming in here.”
In the army’s battalions there are no doctors, only “physician’s assistants,” warrant officers who do everything — and often more— than a doctor does but get much less pay and respect. Dave Marlboro had served with the 1-89th Infantry for a year. The medics set the first stretcher down and he went to work.
“How you doing, mister? You must be Cav. What platoon? Looks to me like you’re going to be okay.” He chattered, trying to put his patient at ease. If he answers questions, Marlboro reasoned, at least he isn’t thinking about his wounds. I’m getting too good at this bedside manner stuff. Too much practice recently. Multiple lacerations, internal bleeding. That arm is mangled; it’ll have to come off. Hmm, maybe not. We’ll see.
“Yeah, I’m Cav. Second Platoon — the Blue Platoon, blue balls. If you ain’t Cav, you ain’t… They took out my track, doc. From the blind side. Cheap hit. Fuckers, that’s what those German mothers…” The soldier faded in and out. “Your guys gave me a shot, doc. Sorry I can’t talk so well.”
“Morphine does that to you. Don’t worry about it. Does that hurt?”
“Owww! I mean yes.”
Good, thought Marlboro, the nerves are intact. The arm’s salvageable. He motioned to a medic behind him. “Clean him up and get some blood into him. I’ll dig the lead out of him, stitch him up, then set the fractures. While you’re doing that, let me look at this other patient.” A second stretcher lay on the other side of the tent. Marlboro pulled back a blood-caked blanket and surveyed the damage.
“Can you hear me, soldier? I’m Doc Marlboro. What’s your name?”
What was left of a body was attached to what was left of a face, and what was left of the face responded. “Yeah, doc, I hear you.” Fresh blood spattered onto the blanket as the man coughed up his answer. “Name’s Buford, John Buford.”
Marlboro made a quick judgment, then took a quicker look at the casualty information tag. Protestant, it said, no specific denomination.
“John, you need a treatment I can’t give you. You just hang on until I get the specialist here, you understand?”
“Yeah, I understand,” his voice rattled.
“Say ‘understand, Sir.’ Now you hang on until that specialist gets here, that’s an order. You understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” what was left of Buford wheezed, “yes, Sir.”
Marlboro reserved his “Sir” routine for those who really needed it. He’d used it before, twice already that night. Anything to take his patient’s mind off the pain. Marlboro turned to the medic behind him.
“Go get the chaplain.”
Middletown drove forward to the cavalry troop command track to supervise the full-court press against the enemy recon company. Thirty minutes later the grease pencil tick marks on his acetate chart told the story. In two hours the Cav had forced the Germans back four miles and destroyed two of their armored cars. But the enemy had put a tank and three Bradleys out of commission. Two of the vehicles were so badly damaged that the maintenance team could only strip what it could salvage and write off the hulks. The brigade could continue to advance, Middletown figured. But at the cost of two vehicles destroyed per mile per hour, by daylight there’ll be no cavalry troop. He struggled to clear his mind to think through to a solution, but the steady chatter on the radios aborted the beginnings of any ordered thinking. In his frustration he snapped his pencil.
Stern’s track driver slowed and followed the bouncing red dot of the ground guide’s flashlight. A hundred yards away a few slender threads of light leaked from beneath the canvas extensions stretched from the backs of the battalion’s command vehicles.
Eads keyed the intercom. “We’re here, Sir.”
A half hour and one briefing later, Stern shook Eads to tell him to get back on the road. They drove in as much silence as there can be in a sixteen-ton Bradley fighting vehicle, Stern reflecting on the numbers scribbled upon the cards in his pocket. The night would be a long one for the mechanics, he thought as he ran over, the numbers, but this leapfrogging business seems to be working. We’ll be in good shape by morning.