They now had only seven out of thirteen, but it was still seven against three. The Germans relentlessly bore down on the American position, closing the distance to make their numbers tell. Another volley of American shells found their targets, but the Germans kept moving— and they fired as they moved.
“Tango Zero-One, this is Tango Zero-Three. We’re out of it. Took a hit full frontal. Driver’s hurt, but he’ll live. Our stuff’s gone, though.”
“This is Zero-One. Roger.” Shit, Lawson thought, down to two. Lousy odds. .
“Sergeant?”
“What is it, driver?”
“The transmission’s stuck in reverse; I can’t go forward. If I can get out and gerryrig that linkage, then I might get us going.”
They’ll be on top of us by then, thought Lawson. Damn damn damn damn dammit all to hell! “Do it, and hurry.” He keyed the microphone switch. “Zero-Four, this is Zero-One. Three’s down and so am I. It’s all you.”
“This is Zero-Four. Roger,” Shelley replied.
“Winchell!” He called over the intercom.
“Yes, Corporal Shelley?”
“We got seven enemy tanks and everybody else’s down. We’re the only one who can shoot.”
“Then I guess we’d better go shoot. Let’s use the shortened fire commands we figured out during gunnery. Cook, you just keep slamming ’em in there.” Winchell fine-tuned some knobs, then spoke into the intercom. “Driver move out, straight ahead, pick up speed.”
“Winchell! We’ll be in the open!” Shelley shouted.
The tank grunted forward.
“The better,” Winchell said calmly, “to see them with.”
“American tank in the open!” screamed Wasserman. “Kill it! Kill it!”
The far edge of the village erupted in flame as American artillery smashed into the German vehicles. But the enemy infantry platoons had dismounted, advanced, and now came face-to-face with Walker’s men. In the shifting light of parachute flares, burning houses, and impacting high explosive, the firefight around the shattered buildings became an intensely personal impersonal act. The Germans threw grenades. Macintosh, short on ammunition, threw rocks. A German would hear the rock hit, wait, then lift his head to see what had happened; Macintosh would drill him between the eyes.
Crosshairs on target, fire. Recoil. “Gunner sabot three tanks right tank first!” Shelley screamed as the targets appeared in his tank commander’s sight. The cook-tumed-loader slammed another round into the breech and barked out “Up!” as Winchell centered another tank in his sights. “Identified!” Man and machine blended into one as he squeezed the trigger. “Fire!” Recoil. “Left tank next! Driver hard right, hard left!” The tank swerved sharply, but Winchell lined up the sight with a caressing hand. “Identified!” Crosshairs on target. “Fire!” Recoil. “Center Tank!” An enemy round screamed inches past their turret. Three down, three to go. Crosshairs on target. “Firel” Recoil. “Gunner three tanks, left tank first!”
“Identified!”
“Up!”
“Fire!”
Wasserman watched the American tank’s cannon dispatch three of his tanks, then come to rest dead center on his own. As though in slow motion, he saw an orange bubble of flame spurt from the Ml, then a thin red dot of tungsten carbide sailing clearly, unerringly at his vehicle. Wasserman had just enough time to see the American’s gun tube swing toward another target and think, He knew he killed us when he pulled the trigger. Then Wasserman died.
Baldwin, on his belly, eased his face around the corner of a shattered house to see how close the Germans had come. He found himself peering into the eyes of a German who was trying to see how close they were to the Americans. They stared at each other for a long time. Baldwin finally shook his head and put his finger to his lips. The German nodded and slid back. Baldwin heard him stand and rolled over twice. The German emptied a rifle magazine at where Baldwin would have been. Baldwin reacted on instinct, drilling his enemy in the chest. The surprised German fell backward.
“Two-timing bums,” he mumbled to himself as he crawled behind another pile of bricks.
The battle raged before him as Stern’s tank broke out of the wood line. Burning tank carcasses littered the fields of the valley. Below him and to his right front, one of his tanks was wading into a nest of three Leopards. No time, Stern thought, to hunt up frequencies and tell them we’re coming.
“Driver move out, right front,” said Stern. Thank God this is one of the old ones, he thought as he felt for the tank commander’s cannon controls, “Loader, weapon off safe.” At least I know what I’m doing in this baby. The tank lurched downhill. “Let’s go even up those odds.”
After their first brush with the enemy, both the Germans and Walker’s platoon backed off to try again. For Walker with his sixteen remaining dismounted soldiers, the choice came easily: Outnumbered two to one and with a tank battle going on in the fields just off to their right, he had no thought of attacking — and to make a run for it to get behind the Cav would only let the Germans shoot them in the back.
They would defend.
He issued his orders on the move — some by radio to his platoon sergeant controlling his Bradleys, others shouted to his squad leaders as he jogged back through the remnants of the village to its far edge. What was left of 3d Squad found cover to the right, the men wrapping themselves around the smoldering remains of two farmhouses. Walker set 2d Squad in the middle and about sixty yards back. On line with the 3d, Nick Watson’s 1st Squad soldiers went to ground on the platoon’s right, around what had once been a barn. There was no time to dig in; the infantrymen found what protection was available by dropping behind piles of wood, rubble, and an occasional tree. Behind them the Bradleys repositioned — two to cover the platoon front with crossing fires from their “Bushmaster” 25mm chain guns, two to watch the open flank. Even over the sounds of battle, Walker could hear the hydraulic whine of the flank vehicles’ missile launchers as the boxy weapons pods came up from their stowed position on the turrets’ sides and locked into firing position.
He had no time to walk his line and check positions. As soon as Walker and his artillery forward observer dropped behind a pile of logs, the Germans came on. They rushed forward in small groups of four or five at a time, backed up by their remaining Marder infantry fighting vehicles. Walker figured he had about seventy enemy troops to his front. From 1 st Squad came the rattle of a squad automatic weapon (SAW), its spray of chain-linked 5.56mm bullets cutting across the platoon front. Three Germans went down, sprawling dead in the open. Then came the return fire from the German rifles, machine guns, and the on-board weapons. The sound of it built until the hum of bullets overhead drowned out the sound of 1st Platoon’s own firing. Then came the German assault.