“Direct hit,” Shilko said, grinning.
A lieutenant thrust his face out of the control post. “Comrade Battalion Commander. Orders. Our forces are across the Elbe-Seiten canal, and we’re to prepare to displace.”
“Now?” Shilko said, thinking of the rounds piled on the ground and of his trucks that had not yet returned.
“We’re to be prepared for movement within two hours.”
Shilko relaxed. Two hours was a long time. “Have they assigned us new fire positions?”
The lieutenant shook his head. “Division says things are moving very fast. Fire positions will be designated when we receive the order to execute movement.”
“All right,” Shilko said. According to the manuals, his batteries already should have displaced several times to avoid discovery by the enemy. But there was no place to go on the overcrowded terrain. “Good. Vassili Rodionovitch, call down to the batteries and tell them we’re going to fire everything we can’t lift.” He looked back at the lieutenant. “Son, get me the current gift list, and we’ll see what presents we can send the enemy.”
The lieutenant pulled his head back into the tentage like a turtle returning to its shell.
“Standard movement drill?” Romilinsky asked.
“No,” Shilko said, suddenly adamant, thinking of the possibility of losing control of his battalion on the hectic roads. It was as bitter as the thought of abandoning his children. “The rules are off, Vassili Rodionovitch. We’ll all move together. Or we won’t see our batteries again until the war’s over.”
“But if we receive interim missions? And no one’s in position to fire?”
“We can always say we ran out of ammunition,” Shilko said, determined to maintain control of his unit, and delighted at the prospect of engrossing activities that would, at least temporarily, drown his self-doubts.
Another huge ripple of fire punched the sky. This time, the spillage off the tarpaulin caught Shilko. The water was cold and unwelcome. But Shilko shrugged it off.
“Direct hit,” he said.
Major General Khrenov’s divisional forward command post had been hastily composed around a liberated country inn. In the parking lot, communications vans hid halfheartedly under sagging camouflage nets, and command vehicles lurked under dripping trees. Windows had been smashed out of the building to admit cables, and handyman soldiers spliced and taped and carried boxes of staff clutter up the steps to the building’s main entrance. Bad-tempered warrant officers supervised the physical activities, monitored, in turn, by staff officers who occasionally ventured out into the damp air to find out why everything was taking so long.
The scene was instantly familiar to Trimenko, and he didn’t like it. This was a souring conclusion to the elation of seeing his army on the march from the vantage point of the helicopter. He wanted Khrenov on the move, not setting himself up to hold court. But the army commander decided to hear what the division commander had to say before letting the hammer fall.
“Comrade Army Commander,” Khrenov greeted him, smiling, clearly quite pleased with himself, “I hope you had a good flight.”
Trimenko made a noise at the back of his throat, noncommittal. He strode beside Khrenov from the meadow that served as a helipad to the building. The rain-rinsed air felt unseasonably cold.
“Comrade Army Commander,” Khrenov tried again, “you no doubt have been informed that we have secured our bridgehead, and that we are expanding it at this time. It’s a solid bridgehead. We already have forward detachments out.”
Trimenko had not known. The information must have missed him in flight. What in the world was Tkachenko, his chief of engineers, doing? He was supposed to keep his army commander informed on the crossing situation. Trimenko wondered what else had happened of which he was unaware, what other events had occurred in the army’s sector of which his staff had failed to properly inform him. He had only known that a forward element had seized a good crossing site in the vicinity of Bad Bevensen almost by accident and that Khrenov’s crossing operation was underway. But this was rapid success, if Khrenov was accurately reporting his situation.
“I need the details, not generalities, Khrenov,” Trimenko said, as though none of the division commander’s revelations had surprised him.
Their boots slapped up the cement steps. Inside, staff maps and remote communications gear had been set up in a public dining room. The appointments were far too comfortable for Trimenko’s image of a division’s forward command post in wartime.
“You’re carrying a lot of your staff forward with you, Khrenov,” he said.
Khrenov looked at him in mild surprise. “The bastards hit my main command post with a fire strike. Around noon. I thought you knew. Over fifty percent destruction. I’m running everything but rear services and traffic control from here until we get the alternate running hot.”
Trimenko was furious now, although he carefully held his temper inside the mental box he had fashioned for it over the years. He realized that so much was happening so swiftly that it was impossible to know it all. But his staff had the mission of sorting out those details that were truly vital and keeping the army commander informed. These gaps in his knowledge only convinced him more fully of the inability of average men to cope under the conditions of modern war. The machine was superior to the man.
“I’m sorry, Khrenov. I didn’t know that.” For a moment, Trimenko framed the problem in terms of the officers lost, undoubtedly some very good men. But he quickly rejected any sentimentality. “The important thing is not to lose control now. We must keep close control of the troops. Confusion is the enemy now. Confusion and time.”
Khrenov nodded. “Comrade Army Commander, if you’ll have a seat at the map, I’ll brief you myself.”
Really pleased with himself, Trimenko thought. Otherwise, he’d have one of his staff officers brief me. Trimenko took a seat beside a table, fronting on a map that had been unfolded and tacked to the wall. A staff officer slipped a packet of looted cigarettes, matches, and a cup of tea onto the table, then nimbly disappeared. Trimenko ignored the little gifts, reaching into his tunic pocket for his tobacco pouch of pistachio nuts. He scattered a few on the tabletop and told Khrenov to go ahead.
“The overall situation in the sector of the Twenty-first Motorized Rifle Division is quite favorable at this time. We have firmly established a divisional bridgehead… here… following a successful assault crossing against the canal line. At this time, forward elements have penetrated the line of Highway 4, and the division’s right flank regiment, following a tactical turning maneuver north from the bridgehead, is fighting on the southern outskirts of Uelzen.”
“Don’t get bogged down in a city fight,” Trimenko interrupted. “Just get the roads. Let the follow-on forces deal with any pockets. Don’t divert any more forces to deal with them than absolutely necessary to provide security.”
“Comrade Army Commander, our only interest is in securing the Highway 71 axis. Our forces are only engaged in the Uelzen area to firmly establish control of the local road network. A forward detachment detailed from that regiment has already passed into the enemy’s rear, and its last reported location puts it in light contact eighteen kilometers west of Uelzen along the supporting network corollary to Highway 71 in the Soltau-Verden direction. The division’s mission of the day should be accomplished within one to two hours.”
The reported locations were almost stunning to Trimenko. But he adamantly refused to show it in his facial expression. He slowly peeled another nut, slipped it between his lips, and stared at the map. Khrenov had reason to be pleased with himself. This was splendid. The enemy had lost control in the sector. Now it was time to hit them even harder.