Half the village was on fire. Columns of thick black smoke from burning buildings blended with the lighter gray mists spawned by the German artillery shells. Wrecked vehicles dotted the streets. Some were surrounded by sprawled corpses. Others seemed undamaged but were abandoned.
From his vantage point at one of the post office building’s barricaded windows, Captain Konrad Polinski caught signs of movement down by the river and stared intently through the drifting haze. There! The wind tore a small hole in the smoke, and he saw German soldiers dashing from one house to the next, firing from the hip. The Germans were inside Rynarzewo! Worse, he and the rest of his troops were cut off from their only way back across the Notec River.
Sick at heart, he turned to his radioman. “Get that engineer CO now!”
“Major Beck, sir.” The corporal passed him the headset.
“What do you want, Captain?” Beck asked. The commander of the combat engineers sounded understandably worried. If the Germans broke through Polinski’s defenses, his men would be dangerously exposed to enemy fire.
“Are your charges laid yet?”
“Almost. We need another five minutes.”
A German machine gun opened up somewhere outside the post office, sending rounds tearing through the windows. Polinski dropped behind a solid oak reading table, seeking cover. He kept his grip on the headset. “Hell, Major, you may not have five minutes!”
Willi von Seelow crouched beside a second-story window in a ruined house on the river. He could see the span perfectly from here. He could also see the Polish engineers busy rigging the bridge for demolition. More and more of them were peeling away, running toward the north end and safety as they finished their work.
He and his troops were too late. Although they were just two hundred meters from their objective, they might as well be on the far side of the moon. The Poles were going to blow the Rynarzewo bridge, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop them.
The radio on Neumann’s back caught his eye. He still had one desperate card left to play. “Contact Striker One,” he ordered.
When the brigade artillery commander’s voice came on line, von Seelow took the mike Neumann offered him. “Striker One, this is Top Cat. I have a priority fire mission.”
“Go ahead, Top Cat. My guns are standing by.”
Willi keyed the mike. “Target location is the center span of the Rynarzewo highway bridge. Troops moving in the open.”
“Understood, Top Cat. Wait one.”
Von Seelow crouched by the window, watching the Polish combat engineers working with mounting impatience. Come on, come on, he silently urged his distant gunners. We’re running out of time.
The radio crackled again. “Shot, over.”
A single shell, a spotting round, howled overhead and exploded in an open field just across the Notec.
Willi clicked the transmit button and yelled, “Shot, out. Drop one hundred meters and fire for effect!”
“Oh, my God.” Major Zbigniew Korytzki stared fixedly at the bridge, watching in horror as five German artillery shells fused to burst in midair exploded just above the unprotected engineers.
Thousands of razor-sharp fragments whirred outward from each explosion, striking bridge concrete, the water, and human flesh with murderous impartiality. Men who survived the first salvo were cut down by a second and then a third. When the shelling finally stopped, corpses lay heaped one on top of another across the span. Many of the dead combat engineers were so shredded and torn that they looked more like piles of bloody rags than human beings.
The major felt his hands starting to shake. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to see this kind of butchery. Acid-tasting bile rose in his throat. His long-held beliefs were being proved right. Being so close to the battlefield only clouded a commander’s judgment and made logical decision-making almost impossible.
With an effort he pulled his gaze away. German soldiers were visible along the riverbank now, sprinting from building to building as they drew closer to the bridge approaches. Polish machine guns and assault rifles crackled in the distance. Korytzki shook his head sadly. A few of C Company’s isolated squads were still fighting, but they were doomed by the enemy’s superior numbers and firepower.
He swept his binoculars through an arc. Movement just beyond the burning village caught his attention. German Leopards were advancing, rolling forward through the lingering smoke. Forward toward the bridge. Forward toward him.
Korytzki froze for several precious seconds, unable to think past the possibility of his own death.
When he could move again, he whirled around, leaning far out over the side of his BMP to see where the commander of the slaughtered combat engineers knelt. His eyes focused on the gray metal detonator box beside the man. “Major Beck!”
When the tall, bespectacled engineer officer looked up, Korytzki could see tears staining his cheeks.
“Blow the bridge!”
Beck stared back at him as though he’d gone mad. “But what about your men, Major? What about your troops across the river?”
“My men are dead, Major. Just like yours,” Korytzki snarled. He jabbed a finger toward the river. “Now, blow that fucking bridge!”
Slowly, almost as though he were moving against his own will, the engineer reached out, took hold of the detonator box, and turned the key.
The Rynarzewo highway bridge disappeared in a rippling series of explosions that raced the length of the span. A dense smoke pall cloaked the scene, lit from within by several more bright white blasts as secondary charges went off.
Von Seelow sagged back from the window in dismay. It was all for nothing, he thought wearily. I’ve thrown away my soldiers’ lives for nothing.
“Herr Oberstleutnant! Look!” Neumann’s startled yell snapped his head up.
The bridge was still up. Badly battered, buckled in places, and punctured by several huge holes and deep, jagged craters, yes, but very definitely still standing.
Willi’s eyes widened in astonishment. The artillery fire he’d walked in on top of the Polish engineers must also have cut some of their detonator wires, he realized. Not all of them, obviously — just enough to keep the span largely intact.
Tanks and other heavy armored vehicles couldn’t make it across — not until his own engineers had time to make hasty repairs — but foot soldiers could use it now. Right now. He grabbed the radio mike. “All Predator companies, this is Top Cat! Cross the bridge! Repeat, cross the bridge!”
Obeying his orders, small bands of panzergrenadiers broke from cover and stormed onto the span. Ignoring sporadic shooting from Polish die-hards still holding several positions along the river, the German infantrymen raced north toward the opposite bank. A few of them fell dying, shot in the back by rifle and machine-gun fire. The rest pressed on, fanning out across the countryside to seize and hold a bridgehead.
Willi could see several Polish T-72s and a few scattered BMPs pulling out, retreating north along the highway at high speed. They were fleeing from infantry? Why, he wondered?
The sudden roar of powerful diesel engines and the full-throated bark of tank cannon gave him the reason.
Lieutenant Gerhardt had brought his Leopards right down to the water’s edge. Now they were busy pummeling the retreating Poles — keeping them on the run while the 192nd’s survivors dug in around the bridge.
More vehicles pulled up beside the Leopards, Marders from the 191st. Willi breathed a quick sigh of relief. Now that the leading elements of his brigade’s other fighting battalions were beginning to arrive, he should have enough men and firepower on hand to root out the Poles still holed up inside Rynarzewo. Once that was accomplished, he could start funneling more troops across the highway bridge to expand the 19th’s foothold on the north bank of the Notec. Tanks and other heavy equipment would have to wait until the engineers repaired the bridge and laid temporary pontoon spans to handle even more traffic.