The intelligence sergeant thought about that. One spill, twelve rockets or one pod of a multiple rocket launcher, would be devastating, but maybe not devastating enough. Knowing that his boss had been waiting to catch the command post of the German 1st Panzer Brigade all day, the sergeant was determined to make sure that it got nailed good and proper now that they had it. "Sir, this is an enemy brigade command post, the command post of the lead enemy brigade that's controlling the enemy units threatening to cut off Autobahn A7. Don't you think we should dump more on them, just to be sure?"
The artillery captain thought about that while looking at the red brigade symbol on the map and its location. With a smile he nodded his head. "You're right. They do deserve everything we've got. Sergeant Mears, let's fuck 'em over real good. Three spills, followed up immediately with a battalion time on target from the eight-inch battalion."
The intelligence sergeant glanced over at the sergeant sitting in front of the TACFIRE computer. Both sergeants were grinning as the TACFIRE sergeant gave the intelligence sergeant a wink before he turned to input the necessary data for the fire mission. "On the way, sir."
Through the magic of computers and digital communications, Sergeant Mears communicated with rocket and gun batteries spread out all over the 4th Armored Division's area. The computer, accepting the grid and target description provided by Mears, determined all firing data needed by both the rockets and the eight-inch howitzers, relaying that data in seconds. When the computers of all firing units reported back to Mears's computer that they were ready, the same computer system gave the order to fire and initiated an artillery strike that would effectively wipe out the commander and staff officers that had given Seydlitz his last orders for the day.
When she woke again, Hilary Cole was completely disoriented. Looking around, it took several seconds for it to sink in that they hadn't moved from where they had stopped hours ago. When she went to sit upright, a sharp burning pain, caused by a muscle cramp and leaning against the door of the truck with only a thin Army blanket for padding, shot through her right arm. Pausing, Cole let the pain subside before she moved again. While she waited, she looked down at her watch. Three a.m. Four hours' sleep. She had been able to get four hours of uninterrupted sleep. That was the most sleep she had been able to get in one sitting since they had left Slovakia.
That adventure seemed years ago instead of just two weeks. Two weeks of traveling through hell, a hell that tonight looked an awful lot like a deserted forest road.
Ready, Cole finished sitting upright. When she did, she realized that she had a headache as well as a body racked with pain. Still she was thankful that no one had bothered her during the last four hours. That thought was soon replaced with one of concern for the wounded. How were they doing? Realizing that it would be a while before she would be able to go back to sleep, Cole decided to get out, stretch her legs, find some aspirin, and check on the wounded that were in the six ambulances immediately behind the truck she was traveling in. Looking over at the driver, who was sound asleep, Cole slowly opened her door.
Even before she had it fully opened, the blast of cold air hit her. It didn't bother her. Rather, it felt good, refreshing. Pushing on the door, Cole carefully swung her legs out and searched for the running board of the truck. When the toe of her boot found it, she slipped down, turned to face the driver, now stirring, and then closed the door as quietly as she could. When she was sure it was secure, Cole lowered herself to the ground, pulled her parka around her, zipped it up, and flipped the hood up over her head. Though she was sure she looked like something out of a Russian fashion magazine, Cole was warm and well protected from the cold night air.
As she moved over to the shoulder of the road, the pale moonlight allowed her to see the line of trucks that stretched off into the distance almost to a bend in the road. The trucks in front of her hospital's lead vehicle carried strange boatlike contraptions. An engineer unit, she thought. Had to be. They carried all kinds of unusual stuff like that. In front of the dozen or so engineer trucks at that bend there was an MP humvee parked in the center of the road. A lone MP sat upright manning the M-60 machine gun mounted on top of the humvee's roof while another MP, bundled up against the cold, slowly walked back and forth across the road in front of the humvee. With his rifle slung over his shoulder, Cole couldn't tell if he was on guard or waiting for someone and simply walking to and fro to stay warm.
No matter, Cole thought. They knew what they were doing. And she knew what she had to do. Turning her back on the MPs and the engineers, Cole began to walk toward the first ambulance. In doing so, she missed seeing the lone roving guard freeze in place, listening to a noise in the distance while he unslung his rifle.
Crashing through a series of logging trails and unpaved farm roads some six kilometers northwest of Bad Hersfeld, Seydlitz was beginning to realize that his orders, which seemed so absurdly simple, were becoming harder and harder to carry out. After backing his tanks out of position in pairs, he reassembled his company and began to infiltrate them en masse as he had been ordered. Though his attempts to contact brigade and notify them of his departure went unanswered, Seydlitz didn't care. He had his orders and he had verified them. Now all he had to do was to carry them out as he saw fit.
Doing so turned out to be almost as nerve-racking as sitting in one place for hours on end waiting to be attacked by enemy ground units or artillery. Fumbling forward into the darkness, Seydlitz's company managed to avoid contact with any American units. That soon became a problem. The routes into what he thought were the enemy rear areas were totally devoid of any sign of the enemy. It was almost as if the Americans had never existed. Slowly, as he pushed his exhausted company further and further north, he became bolder and bolder, picking up speed and heading for parts of the forests and countryside that looked like good places to set up rear area supply bases and facilities.
Under normal circumstances, Seydlitz's thinking would have been correct. But these were not normal circumstances for the Tenth Corps. Rather than concerning themselves with setting up and operating, the Tenth Corps' combat service support units were only concerned with getting out of the trap that the 2nd and 10th Panzer divisions were still trying to close. So instead of hiding in the woods where Seydlitz was hunting, the prey he sought sat in the open, lined up and exposed on the roads as they waited their turn to continue the long march to the sea.
Seydlitz's decision to leave the woods and begin to move along the roads was not based on any great revelation or protracted decision-making process. Rather, he was tired of screwing with the countless tree branches that slapped at him as his Leopard tank lurched back and forth over the heavily rutted trails now frozen stone hard. To hell with this, he finally said to himself shortly before 3 a.m. With a curt order over the company radio net that was almost a scream, Seydlitz ordered the lead tanks to halt while he took the time to study his map and decide where to go next. Satisfied that he had a good fix on his unit's location, Seydlitz noted with much joy that there was a hard-surfaced secondary road just a few hundred meters in front of his lead platoon. "There. That is what I want."