As he lay there trying to figure out what to do next, his platoon sergeant came running up in a low crouch and dropped down beside him.
“We got two hit, but they’re not serious.”
“Already?”
“Angelino when he dismounted. Kang got one when something came through One-One’s side. Don’t worry about ’em, Sir; they’ll be okay.”
Walker felt relieved. The squads still had enough men to fight. He’d lost some men in the fight in the village. That night he’d slept little, instead doing some hard thinking about war and its costs. But he’d put those thoughts behind him, leaving the dead behind and concentrating on accomplishing the mission — and on keeping the living alive.
“Good. Look, Sergeant Parker, I don’t want to push farther until the company comes up to cover us. I want 3d Squad to work its way downhill and hold off these ’rads. We need to turn 1st and 2d around and get us some security. We’ll want to get somebody looking over this rise.” He gestured back over his shoulder. The hill crested a little more than four hundred meters beyond them. “There’ll be more Germans behind this platoon.”
Parker, a thin black man with a pencil-stripe mustache, nodded.
“Go get 3d Squad moving, then come back here and take charge of the Bradleys. I’m going to get the other two squads in place.”
“Better call The Lizard. The other two platoons’ll be coming up in a minute.”
Calling Walker’s company commander The Lizard was a standing joke. Capt. John Spencer, who named each of his platoons after poisonous insects, reserved for himself the code name Cobra. But Spencer was notorious in the company for moving slowly — thus his unofficial designation. Even under fire, Walker grinned at the name.
, “Roger that. Pass the word while I call him, then go get 3d moving. Have the squad get ready to guide in the other platoons.” Parker, who hated to crawl, rose to a crouch and hurried off.
First Walker got his other two squads reoriented forward, pointing out positions and giving quick instructions as each squad leader hustled his men by.
“Sergeant Watson, make sure you put a two-man OP out forward as soon as you get set. These ’rads can’t be out here all alone. We’ll have company soon.” "
“Wilco, Sir,” Watson called over his shoulder as the squad deployed. Then he turned to his squad. “I need two people who don’t owe me any money for a routine assignment. Macintosh, you and Baldwin get the field phone and the commo wire from the track and hurry up here.”
As Watson gave instructions, Walker slung the radio off his back and called his commander to describe the situation. Within minutes the company of Bradleys spread out into firing positions on both sides of his platoon. He was about to walk his line when Captain Spencer’s Bradley pulled up beside him. Walker hoisted himself up the side of the track as Spencer leaned out of the commander’s hatch.
“Good job with those enemy back there,” Spencer yelled over the engine roar. “Now get ready to move. I’m going to pull us all up to the ridge top, then I want you to cover Spider’s bound. The old man is pressing us to find the enemy’s main body, and the company on the other side is getting ahead of us.”
“Do they have contact?”
Spencer nodded. “They bumped into a platoon and got their noses bloodied.” He held up his hand, cocked his head as if to hear better the radio message coming through the earphones in his CVC, then spoke into the microphone. Although Walker couldn’t hear, he could tell it was their battalion commander, prodding Spencer to move faster. His master’s voice, thought Walker.
Spencer shook his head and turned back to him. “We’re halfway through these hills, and any second we’re going to waltz into the damn German army and… oh, hell. I want you to move in five minutes.”
Walker flashed a thumbs-up as he jumped off the Bradley. As he jogged toward his track, he thought he heard rifle fire, then he heard his commander’s vehicle rev up and creak forward. But then his CO’s track suddenly stopped. He turned to see Spencer slumped forward over the cupola. The crack of bullets caught up with him as he ran to his captain’s track.
When he yanked open the troop door, the crew was lowering Spencer down out of the hatch and onto the floor. The captain’s left side was already soaked with blood flowing from his chest, and his arm was so much hamburger.
“Sucking chest wound,” said Walker as he tore open his first-aid pouch for a bandage. “Others, too. Prop him up or he’ll drown in his own blood. Get on the radio and get the medics up here.”
Spencer coughed and weakly spat blood. “Walker, you’re in charge,” he mumbled. “We gotta move forward, gotta find the main body.”
Outside, the sounds of gunfire grew steadily louder. “I think they found us, boss.” But Spencer didn’t hear him. Or anything. Walker and the two track crewmen stared at their dead commander as the sounds of the firefight built up.
“Sir? Sir? Battalion’s calling Captain Spencer. So are the platoons. What should we do?”
They don’t even give us time to mourn a good man, thought Walker. “Give me the radio — the company net first. And one of you get on that chain gun. We’re going to hold right here.” As he talked to the platoons, trying to get a grip on the battle and form some sort of plan, he wondered what had happened to his OP.
Macintosh and Baldwin were not, of course, privy to the grand schemes of which they were only a small part. They didn’t know of Stern’s plan, which sent the lead battalion on a two-pronged advance around both sides of the bowl and held the second one back to either break through or patch up a hole. They had no idea that Guterman had sent an entire battalion on each of his attack avenues or about the Germans’ rushed piecemeal deployment into the woods, a move that had cost them two platoons. Nor were they aware that, after the loss of those platoons, the Germans had formed for deliberate attacks against their enemy. Macintosh and Baldwin were only privy to the knowledge that the field phone had decided not to work — and that one hell of a lot of dismounted Germans, backed up by their fighting vehicles, were plodding over the hill crest and straight toward them. Armed with this knowledge, the pair first hosed the woods to get the Germans to go to ground. Then they heaved the broken field phone at the enemy and ran like hell back to their platoon.
Middletown stood in his tank turret, facing the quilt of farmland spread out to his west. He was seemingly oblivious to the fighting in the hills less than a mile over his right shoulder. He was too concerned with emplacing the last of what were now nine ITVs, one having broken down a mile back. The remaining vehicles found firing positions along the hillsides to the east of the autobahn and oriented northwest. The flats across the autobahn were now their engagement area. Nine ITVs and one tank, he thought, that’s all that’s keeping the Germans from end-running right around us. He scanned the empty fields with his binoculars. We’ll hit them in the flank first, he thought as he saw the battle unfold in his mind’s eye, then they’ll turn toward the fire. We’ll have to use crossing fires; otherwise, the missiles will just bounce off the frontal armor. The old man will wait until the last second before he launches the counterattack. I hope his timing’s good.
He listened with one ear as the fight unfolded around the bowl. To the west, in the hills just over his shoulder, artillery from both sides rained down, splintering the firs and pines into toothpicks. The battalion commander was down, and the battalion operations officer sent back bleak reports. Although the American units were holding in the east, where the Germans presented easy targets to Walker’s company as they skylined themselves coming over the top of the ridge, the battle in the west was costing the Americans both lives and land. Two understrength companies were stacked up against a German battalion, and only the broken ground kept the Germans from punching through. If they do break through, thought Middletown, they’ll roll up my flank on the way.