Upon hearing this, Polgar stuck his head up a little higher, looked, and then smiled.
Remembering what had occurred the day before when he was a bit too hasty in trying to get Polgar’s attention after he’d abandoned 66, Bannon was a little more circumspect in letting the advancing infantry know he was there and he was friendly. He let the line of infantry get within twenty meters before he bellowed out “HALT!”
The line of infantry froze where they stood, ready to drop and fire. Heads slowly turned to find the origin of the voice.
“Advance and be recognized.”
This time, all heads snapped as one to where Bannon was. Ever so slowly, one of them rose up to the kneeling position while keeping his rifle trained on Bannon. When he was sure the wasn’t going to be shot, the lead infantryman began to move toward Bannon.
When he was close enough, Bannon repeated the order, “Halt.” At that point, he found he was unable to recall the challenge and password. He had to do something fast before the people in front of him got excited and fired. “We’re Team Yankee, Task Force 3rd of the 78th. We were cut off. Who are you?”
“What’s the challenge?”
“I don’t know. We were cut off yesterday. I’m Captain Bannon, the team commander.”
As this exchange was taking place, Bannon noticed the line of infantry was slowly beginning to spread out. Things were not working out well at all.
From behind, Polgar called out, “Hey, Kerch. Is that your mob of dirt bags out there?”
The infantryman in front of Bannon straightened up, let the muzzle of his rifle drop some, and turned toward Polgar’s voice. “Polgar, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, you worthless sack of shit. Now tell your thugs to ease up so the captain and I can get up.” With that, Polgar stood up and began to come over to where Sergeant First Class Kerch, A Company 3rd of the 78th Mechanized Infantry and Bannon had been holding each other at gunpoint. Team Yankee had been relieved.
Polgar led Kerch and his people through the woods to where Team Yankee was located. Bannon made his way up to the top of Hill 214 where he was told the battalion command group was. It occurred to him as he was doing so that while he’d been here for over twenty hours, had fought for the hill, and done his damnedest to hold it, he had never been on top of it. He was finally going to see what the Team had paid for so dearly.
At the wood line he passed the tracks from a platoon of the 3rd of the 78th that had been attached to the 1st of the 4th Armor. They were waiting for word to go in and pick up the dismounted element he and Polgar had encountered. Just below the crest of the hill, two tanks and a PC sat, peering over the top toward Arnsdorf below. Three officers were standing next to the PC looking at a map board. When one of them saw Bannon approaching, he motioned to him to join them. The other two looked up, put down the map board, and started towards him. They were the battalion commander, XO, and S-3 of the 1st Battalion, 4th Armor, Team Yankee’s parent battalion.
As he closed, Bannon saluted and, as nonchalantly as possible, greeted Team Yankee’s saviors. “Well, fancy meeting you here, sir.”
Surprised but pleased, LTC Hall extended a welcoming hand to Bannon. “Sean, Colonel Reynolds told us you had been wiped out last night.”
“Sir, the news of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. Alpha Company is reporting for duty.” Not that they could do anything given how little of it that was left, but what the hell, it sounded good.
Maj. Frank Shell, the S-3, looked him over for a moment, then turned to the battalion commander. “If the rest of his people look as bad as Sean, the infantry was right, Team Yankee was wiped out.” Then he turned back to Bannon and, seriously this time, asked if the rest of the Team did look like him.
Bannon’s eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles around them. Every exposed patch of skin was filthy. He had two-days growth of beard. The cut on the side of his face had become swollen from infection, and there was dried blood on his face, neck and around his collar. There was also dried blood on the chest and sleeves of his chemical suit from pulling Ortelli from 66. This was mixed with diesel and oil stains. Without needing to see what he actually looked like, Bannon guessed he couldn’t have looked much worse.
As they walked over to the PC Colonel Hall was using as a command track, Bannon explained the Team’s situation and requested that an ambulance be sent immediately to the trail junction to bring out the wounded. The battalion XO got on it and had an M-113 ambulance rumbling down to the Team in minutes. Stopping when they’d reached the tanks where Colonel Hall was, Bannon and Major Shell looked down into Arnsdorf. There were still wisps of smoke rising from some of the burned-out Soviet vehicles. Scores of dead Russians and smashed vehicles littered the field. The battalion commander looked at Bannon, “I take it you did that last night.”
In the clear light of day, the scene before Bannon seemed so unreal, so foreign. He had difficulty equating what he was looking at with the horror show he and his Team had been through but a few short hours ago. Tilting his head back, Bannon gazed up at the clear blue morning sky, then across the valley to the green hill to the north, and finally over at the battalion commander before replying. “Yes, sir. We did that, and more.”
After the battalion commander and XO left to go down into Arnsdorf and follow the attack, Major Shell updated Bannon on what had happened since yesterday morning and how 1st of the 4th had come into play. The Mech Battalion that Team Yankee was part of had become scattered throughout the division’s rear area during the night road march. While passing through one of the larger towns, part of the column had taken a wrong turn. The people leading the two line companies, Charlie and Delta, the battalion trains, and the battalion CP all realized their mistakes at different times and tried to get back onto the proper route on their own without bothering to inform any of the units following them or battalion that was what they were doing. This led to confusion and more errors, just as First Sergeant Harrert had reported.
Delta Company was the first to show up and join Team Bravo on its overwatch position at 1730 hours. Charlie Company didn’t turn around until after it had wandered into the rear areas of the German panzer division that was to the south. By then, it was running low on fuel. By the time a division staff officer managed to get collect Charlie and lead it back, the division commander decided to hang onto it as a reserve. And though the battalion trains finally managed to make it to where it was supposed to go sometime in middle of the night, they never told anyone. When Major Jordan found them by accident, the S-4, in charge of the trains, told him he thought the battalion was still under radio listening silence, never realizing the net had been jammed, and the battalion had moved to another frequency. Team Bravo, which had been in position to support Yankee, moved up to LOG but was thrown off it by a dismounted counterattack from Lemm after Team Yankee had taken Hill 214.
When all this had been sorted out by the battalion and brigade commanders, it was decided to pull the 3rd of the 78th Mech out and throw in the 1st of the 4th Armor. As Team Bravo was combat ineffective, and everyone thought that, except for recovered tracks, Team Yankee was gone, the 3rd of the 78th was sent to the rear to reconstitute and act as reserve. The 1st of the 4th relieved the Mech Battalion at 0300 and went into the attack at 0530, just before the Team woke up.
“We, the commander, the XO, and I were trying to figure out what had happened to all the Russians that the 3rd of the 78th had reported and who had done all the damage in Arnsdorf when you showed up,” Major Shell explained. “I expect the good news is that Bravo, 3rd of the 78th held LOG long enough for First Sergeant Harrert to gather up the Team’s wounded and recover those tracks that had only been damaged.”