Once Bannon finished, Unger superimposed his supporting fire plan over the scheme of maneuver. When there was a deficiency, or Bannon required a special method of engagement from the artillery in order to support his scheme of maneuver, he explained what he wanted and waited until Unger had made the changes before continuing. As most maneuver commanders are prone to do, he asked for an enormous amount of artillery-delivered smoke. If he could have, he would have moved the Team through one huge smoke screen from where they were all the way to the objective. This gave rise to a standing joke that if every company and team commander were given all the smoke he asked for, all of Germany would have been perpetually shrouded in a dense smoke screen. But reality and the constraints of the artillery basic load reduced his demands. Only when he was satisfied with the soundness of the plan did he climbed out of the FIST track and returned to 66, leaving Unger to rumbled off into the night in his track to pass his plan on to the battalion FSE.
The high-pitched whine of the FIST’s modified M-113 faded into the night and was replaced by a stillness punctured at random intervals by distant artillery fire. The moon was out and full. Its pale gray light provided near-perfect visibility of the hill across the valley. Many of the smashed Soviet vehicles were still glowing bright red. Fires in the village continued to burn, but had died down. Everything else was quiet and peaceful. The casual observer would have been hard pressed to find any sign of life in the valley. It was amazing how quiet hundreds of men, intent on killing each other, could be.
Folk was manning the 50 when Bannon reached 66. Ortelli was asleep in the driver’s compartment. Kelp was lying out asleep on top of the turret. For some reason, the image of the severed arm and wounded men at 55 flashed through Bannon’s mind as he took in the scene around him. Looking at Kelp lying there, exposed to artillery fire and anything else the Soviets might throw at them, he regretted not requiring the tank crews to dig foxholes. He would have to see that that was corrected in the future. At least Kelp had his protective mask on. If nothing else, he would be spared Lorriet’s fate if, sometime during the night, the Soviets launched a surprise chemical attack.
With far too many things going through his head, Bannon relieved Folk and told him to get a few hours’ sleep before switching places. If the lull continued after stand-to, he would issue his complete order during a working breakfast, then get some more sleep. It was a good plan, one he prayed like hell he could implement it.
For the next two hours Bannon stood there, alternately fighting sleep and boredom. He had to change his position every five minutes in order to stay awake and semi-alert. Every hour on the hour 66 and the rest of the tracks would crank up their engines to recharge their batteries. They didn’t all come up together but it was close enough. If every vehicle ran its engine on its own, the Soviets would be able to pinpoint every track by the sound of the engines. By running them together, that became more difficult. Once finished, Ortelli would immediately slip back into a deep, untroubled sleep.
With nothing else to occupy his mind once he was satisfied his plan for the attack was as good as it was going to get, Bannon began to wonder what was happening on the other side of the hill. Even with the muffled rumble of artillery in the distance and the smoldering remains of combat vehicles in the valley before him, it was difficult to come to terms with the reality that they were at war. From the Baltic Sea to the Austrian border, almost three million men were facing each other just as he and his crew were, waiting for another chance to hack away at the enemy on the other side of the valley, or across the river, or in the next village.
He tried to imagine what the young Russian company commanders were doing in the 28th Guards Tank Division. No doubt they were going over in their minds how they would seize their objectives, trying to guess where their enemy would be and how they would deal with the US forces once they were encountered just as he had. He knew enough about Soviet tactics to appreciate that their company commanders had few decisions to make. The regiment made most of them. Subordinate battalions and companies simply carried out the orders using fixed formations and battle drill. That, Bannon reasoned, must have made it one hell of a lot easier on the Russian company commander. But, if the end results were attacks such as the two Team Yankee had smashed, Bannon wanted no part of a system like that. Even if he didn’t get all the support he wanted, at least he had some control in deciding how to crack the nuts Team Yankee had been handed. His only worry now was whether he had guessed right and come up with the best possible plan.
At about 0130 he woke Folk. As he was giving his gunner a few minutes to get himself together, Bannon considered waking Kelp and putting him out as an OP. That, however, would have left him out there alone, violating the cardinal sin of placing only one man out on outpost duty. In the end, he abandoned the idea as being a waste since the 3rd Platoon OP to the left, and the Mech Platoon OP to the right was already covering 66. He also decided to violate the standing rule that required each tank keep half of its crew up and alert at all times. So in a moment of weakness, he let him sleep.
Once Folk was ready, they switched places. This didn’t take long, for rather than Folk rolling up his sleeping bag and Bannon rolling out another, they hot bunked with Bannon using Folk’s sleeping bag. It was a normal practice in a tactical environment that allowed the relieved crewman to crash without having to screw around in the dark with gear.
With pistol at arm’s reach, protective mask on, and the sleeping bag pulled over but not zipped, Bannon was finally free to close his eyes and let his mind go as the enormity of the events of the day quietly slipped away. Sleep did not follow, at least not right off, as in their place personal concerns crept in, concerns and thoughts that had been pushed aside by the needs of Team Yankee. Now that they were, for the moment taken care of, Bannon’s concern about the safety and welfare of his wife and three children could no longer be kept at bay. Where was his family? Had they made it out? Were the airfields still open? Was someone protecting them and caring for them? When would he find out about them? Only sleep quieted the Team commander’s troubled mind.
CHAPTER 4
INTO THE VACUUM
The quiet chatter of the evacuees watching the loading of a C141 was drowned out by the blast of air raid sirens. Everyone froze in place, then took to frantically looking about in the hope someone, anyone, near them knew what to do.
The first to come forward was an Air Force sergeant who began to run up along the window, yelling as he went for everyone to get back away from the windows, adding that the Air Base would be under air attack in a minute.