So, von Seelow thought bitterly, it was up to the 19th Panzergrenadier to kick the attack into high gear. As always. Well, he was getting tired of asking his soldiers to fight and die just to correct French mistakes.
He swallowed the anger, knowing it was unproductive now. They were committed. Instead, he ran over his attack plan one more time, looking for weaknesses or problems he’d overlooked earlier. He couldn’t find any. If the Polish defenses were as thin as his scouts reported, this sudden, sharp blow under the cover of darkness should break them wide open.
Willi squared his shoulders. Very well. He would shatter the Poles, regroup and refuel through the night, and push on through the gap at sunup. The brief pause should give his troops time to sort themselves after the inevitable confusion of a night battle without giving the Poles enough time to rebuild their defensive line.
Only one nagging worry remained. Where exactly were the Americans? Reliable reports said they had the better part of two divisions in Poland — the lightly armed 82nd and the 101st — but where in Poland? Without their photo recon and SIGINT satellites, France and Germany lacked any real ability to collect strategic intelligence. Even their air reconnaissance was spotty at best. As more and more U.S. and British warplanes joined the battle, fewer and fewer EurCon air recon missions were getting through to their targets.
As a result, educated guesses about enemy dispositions were all EurCon intelligence officers had to offer. And right now, their situation maps showed both American outfits still deployed around Gdansk and Gdynia, defending the area’s ports and airfields against a possible surprise attack by French or German airmobile units.
He hoped they were right about that. Of course, light infantry units were no real match for his Leopard and Marderarmed battalions, but they could slow him down.
Willi von Seelow stared out into the blackness ahead. Without firm intelligence, he and his brigade were fighting blind in more than one way.
Thunder roused Mike Reynolds from an uneasy sleep, the kind of hammering rumble that you get on the flat Texas plain during a summer storm. Then he remembered that he wasn’t in Texas.
“Heavy artillery fire to the southwest, Captain!” Corporal Adams shouted from the cluster of radios and telephones that kept them in touch with the rest of the battalion and brigade. “And heavy-duty jamming on all radio frequencies!”
Southwest. That was the Poles getting pummeled, then. Reynolds scrambled to his feet.
“First Platoon reports movement to their front!”
“On my way!” Reynolds sprinted out of the old stone barn they were using as a company CP, heading for the front. The sounds were changing — shifting from a distant rumbling to a staccato series of higher-pitched bursts. Tank fire. The Poles were under attack.
First Sergeant Ford was there ahead of him, waiting in a foxhole with Second Lieutenant John Caruso, the 1st Platoon’s young and inexperienced leader. Both men were scanning the ground ahead, using night-vision gear. Repeated flashes lit the horizon.
“What have you got?” Reynolds fought to keep his voice under control. Fear was always contagious.
“Six-plus tracks, advancing,” Ford answered, pointing out into the darkness.
One of the vehicles was moving a lot faster than the others, bouncing and rolling across the uneven ground with its headlights on. It had to be a friendly. Didn’t it? Reynolds snapped out an order. “Pass the word to all platoons: hold fire!”
He didn’t want to start his war by killing allied soldiers by mistake.
The vehicle slowed and stopped just outside Alpha Company’s perimeter. It was a Humvee. One man slid out from behind the wheel and came forward with his hands up to show he was unarmed. Guided by 1st Platoon soldiers who kept their guns on him just in case, Lt. Col. Ferdinand Irizarri made his way to the foxhole where Reynolds and the others were waiting.
“Those are Polish tracks out there, Colonel?” Reynolds asked.
“Yes.” Irizarri’s mouth tightened as he filled them in. Hit first by heavy artillery and then by at least a brigade-sized attack on a battalion-sized frontage, the Polish outfit he’d been attached to had never stood a chance. Some parts of their defensive line had simply disappeared — deluged by German armor. The rest had either fled or died in place.
Jesus, Reynolds realized, we’re next. He shivered, suddenly cold.
“Look, Mike. I’ve got wounded in the Humvee. And more coming. You can expect stragglers coming in across your whole line,” Irizarri said, grim-faced. “They’ll be showing green chem lights.”
Reynolds nodded, hearing Ford and Caruso already organizing ground guides and safe lanes through the company’s defenses. “We’ll bring your people through, Colonel.”
Within minutes, small clumps of armored fighting vehicles were crawling through Alpha Company’s fighting positions. Wounded men were piled on top of each tank and APC. The smell of diesel fuel hung in the air, along with the smell of burned metal and rubber.
The last Polish survivors were still coming in when the 3/187th’s battalion commander arrived. Colby looked worried.
Reynolds could understand that. Without the Polish armor as a mobile reserve, the battalion was going to be left dangling pretty much on its own. Colby didn’t waste any time before outlining Alpha Company’s new orders.
Along with an attached TOW platoon, he wanted Reynolds and his men to set up one thousand meters out in front of the rest of the line. They were expected to delay the next German attack for as long as possible, taking over the 314th’s job of bloodying and slowing the oncoming enemy.
Reynolds whistled softly in dismay. The mission was important, but it was also the kind of assignment that could go suddenly, disastrously wrong.
“One last thing, Mike,” Colby said. “What will your team’s call sign be?”
A company with attachments was called a team, and one centered on Alpha Company would normally be “Alpha Team,” but no self-respecting grunt would settle for something so tame-sounding. Reynolds knew that, considering where they were going, there was really only one choice. “How about ‘Hell Team,’ sir?”
Colby nodded. “Go brief your people, Captain.”
The short summer night was coming to an end as the cloud-covered darkness overhead slowly gave way to a gray, pink-tinged glow in the east.
Von Seelow sipped cautiously at the scalding-hot coffee in his mug, feeling the caffeine washing away fatigue and infusing new energy. Then he looked up from the mug, surveying the rutted field around him. The brigade’s forward command post — a small, battered collection of Marders, American-made M577 command tracks, trucks, and jeeps — occupied what had been the Polish main position. Shell craters and burning wreckage scattered all around testified to the power and stunning ferocity of the German attack.
“Herr Oberstleutnant!”
Von Seelow turned around. Major Thiessen’s head poked out of a roof hatch on the M577 serving as the brigade’s TOC, its tactical operations center.
“All battalions report they are ready to resume the advance, sir!”
Willi dumped his coffee out on the flattened grass and whirled toward his own APC’s open ramp, already snapping out new orders. “Radio all units to push forward up the highway. We’ll exploit this breach toward Swiecie. Our objective is Gdansk!”