Combat engineers swarmed over the span, dodging APCs and trucks as they frantically wired it for demolition. Several hung over the sides, dangling from climbing ropes while they placed charges against the concrete piers supporting the roadway itself.
Two hundred meters from the southern end of the bridge, a short, brown-haired Polish officer hurried from house to house on the village outskirts, checking his defenses. Captain Konrad Polinski commanded the mechanized infantry company ordered to hold Rynarzewo while the engineers finished their work.
As an experienced soldier, Polinski was not happy with his company’s tactical situation. He didn’t like fighting with a river at his back — especially when the only way across was liable to go up in smoke at any minute. His small detachment was not strong enough to defend the village against a determined EurCon attack. Detailed at the last minute, C Company hadn’t had time to lay mines and barbed wire, or to dig holes with good overhead protection.
There were supposed to be T-72s stationed in the forest across the river, but that was really too far away to do much good. Rynarzewo’s buildings would also block much of their field of fire. Even the best tank gunners in the world couldn’t hit targets they couldn’t see. He couldn’t even count on reinforcements. The 421st’s other mechanized infantry companies were several kilometers beyond the river, reorganizing and refitting before coming back to form a defensive line.
The captain stopped behind a garden wall and raised his binoculars. There, at the very edge of his vision, pillars of black smoke billowed skyward. Half-hidden beneath a thick brown mustache, his mouth turned down in a sudden grimace. That was a full-fledged battle raging out there, something far more serious than the usual isolated sniping. EurCon’s leading elements must be trying to smash through the covering force guarding the retreat.
His radioman, a skinny, eighteen-year-old corporal, confirmed that. “Sir! Tango Foxtrot reports contact with a strong German unit near Kolaczkowo! Tanks and APCs both!”
Polinski swore inwardly. Kolaczkowo was the closest village — a tiny hamlet barely four kilometers down the highway. If the enemy advance guard was already there, they could be on top of him in minutes. “Order all platoons to stand to!”
“Yes, sir.”
The Polish captain spun around to look back at the vehicle-choked bridge behind him. The engineers were still hard at work. How much more time did they need? More important, how much more time would the Germans give them?
Smoke from burning buildings, burning vehicles, and turret-mounted grenade launchers had turned the battlefield outside Kolaczkowo into a gray, hazy, nightmarish swirl of deadly, split-second encounters.
“Veer right! Right!” Lieutenant Werner Gerhardt screamed, already hoarse from yelling orders above the deafening noise all around. He tightened his grip on the hatch coaming as his mammoth Leopard 2 roared out of its own smoke screen and swung sharply to avoid a wrecked vehicle dead ahead. Fifty-five tons of steel moving at high speed clipped the burning Luchs scout car, sending it tumbling out of the way in a high-pitched, grinding shriek of tearing metal.
Another tank, a Polish T-72, appeared almost directly ahead, trundling backward in a tangle of flapping camouflage netting as it reversed out from behind a farmhouse. Its 125mm cannon still pointed away from the German lieutenant’s Leopard.
“Gunner! Target at one o’clock!” Gerhardt squeezed the turret override, guiding the Leopard’s main gun around himself.
“Sabot up!”
“Fire!”
Hit point-blank, the T-72 slid sideways and exploded. Steel splinters thrown by the blast spanged off the Leopard’s own armor and screamed over Gerhardt’s head. He ducked and then stood higher, looking from side to side for new dangers.
More German tanks emerged from the smoke, strung out in a long fighting line. The lieutenant tallied them rapidly while still searching for signs of the enemy. Counting his own Leopard, ten of A Company’s twelve vehicles had survived the tank duel.
As the smoke cleared, he could see that the Polish rear guard and Captain Brandt’s scout company had been far less fortunate. Destroyed T-72s, BMPs, and German Luchs scout cars covered the fields on both sides of the highway, facing in every direction in mute testimony to the confused, savage nature of the short battle. Only his own tanks were still moving.
Gerhardt switched his radio to the brigade frequency. “Top Cat One, this is Falconer One.”
“Go ahead, Falconer.” Major Thiessen’s voice sounded distorted, wavering in and out between bursts of static. The 19th’s headquarters unit must be on the move.
Gerhardt released the transmit button on his mike. “We’ve cleared the first village. Now proceeding toward the river.”
“Acknowledged, Falconer. Where is Prowler One?”
The lieutenant stared out across the battlefield and swallowed hard. He looked away. “Captain Brandt and his men are dead, Top Cat. All of them are dead.”
Von Seelow’s own calm, determined voice came on line. There was no time now to mourn Brandt and his men. Controlling his emotions, he said, “Understood, Lieutenant. Can you continue the attack?”
Gerhardt gripped the turret ring, regaining his own control. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Von Seelow’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Keep moving, Falconer. Press them hard. Don’t let them regroup! Predator One is right behind you.”
Gerhardt stared down the highway. The colonel was correct. He could already see the 192nd Panzergrenadier Battalion’s infantry-filled Marders pouring into Kolaczkowo in column. He signed off and relayed the necessary orders to his crews.
Alpha Company’s ten surviving Leopard 2s rumbled north toward the bridge at Rynarzewo.
Polinski breathed a faint sigh of relief. The last canvas-sided trucks, BMPs, and GAZ jeeps were finally inching their way toward the Rynarzewo bridge, and the black ribbon of highway stretched away empty to the south. Even the sounds of firing had stopped. Captain Kubiak’s covering force must have stopped the German probes cold. Good. The engineers still hadn’t finished wiring the bridge and every extra minute counted.
He glanced at the radioman hovering nervously beside him.
“Contact Tango Foxtrot. Ask them how much longer they can hold before handing off to us.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Polinski lifted his binoculars again. Plumes of bluish-black exhaust appeared behind a low rise roughly a kilometer away. There were tanks moving out there, diesel engines straining even on the shallow uphill grade. He frowned. Why hadn’t Kubiak’s T-72s reported in before falling back so far?
“Sir! I can’t raise Tango Foxtrot!” the radioman stammered, aghast., “Jesus Christ.” Polinski saw a line of armored vehicles appear like magic along the crest of the rise he’d been scanning. Large, angular turrets and dark green, brown, and black camouflage schemes identified them as enemy Leopards — not Polish T-72s. His mouth dropped open in shock. They were under attack!
The German tanks fired, opening up in one long, rippling salvo that sent shell after shell screaming low overhead. Trucks crowding the bridge approaches on both sides of the river began going up in flames. The Leopards were methodically working their way from front to back — gutting trapped vehicles with high-explosive rounds.