The order to halt and take up hasty defensive positions threw Sergeant Polgar. For a minute he thought that the Team Commander had made a mistake. Garger thought the same, for no sooner had Bannon stopped talking, then he came back and asked him to repeat his last transmission. A little agitated at having his orders questioned, Bannon made it a point to repeat his instructions slowly, in such a way as to ensure that they not only were understood, but Garger got the message he’d managed to push the wrong button.
As each of the platoon leaders were acknowledging Bannon’s order, Polgar couldn’t help but take note of the difference between the two tank platoon leaders. The 3rd Platoon leader was clearly upset with his commander for stopping the mad dash he had been leading. Polgar wanted to get on with the attack himself, especially since they had such a clear advantage over the enemy. But he was an old soldier who guessed that Bannon would not have stopped their advance unless there was a damned good reason to do so.
The platoon leader with the 2nd Platoon, on the other hand, sounded as if he were relieved to get the order to halt. Not that Avery could be blamed. The US Army had a tradition of being rough on second lieutenants. It had to be hell on that officer, Polgar reasoned, being assigned to a unit in the middle of a war and then going right into an attack like this before he had a chance to figure out which end was up. And though he was trying his best, so far the poor bastard hadn’t impressed anyone, especially the captain. If any further proof was needed that there was an overall lack of confidence in the man, one of the NCOs in his own platoon had started a lottery in which NCOs and enlisted men in the Team placed bets on how long the new lieutenant would last once they went into action. The big money was on two days. Some bet it would be hours. Polgar had been one of the more optimistic. He had his bet riding on three and a half days.
The Team was settling into positions along an east-west road just as the sun was beginning to peek over the high ground to the east. Bannon watched as the sky slowly changed from near pitch black to a deep, crimson red, reminding him of the old nautical saying, “Red sun at night, sailor’s delight. Red run in the morning, sailor take warning.” The sun that was greeting Team Yankee this morning was blood red. Watching the great red solar orb as it began its laborious ascent, he uttered a silent prayer that the sun he was watching rise in the east was not an ill omen.
After setting that thought aside, and once he was satisfied with the way the Team was deployed, Bannon turned his attention listening in on the battalion net. The colonel, he gathered, was preparing to hit the Poles with everything he had available. First he called the battalion’s artillery fire-support officer and designated targets he wanted hit and when they were to be hit. He next instructed the Delta Company commander to get with the Germans and see if they could increase the amount of direct fire support they were already contributing. Finally, based on information provided by the Delta Company commander, he gave Team Bravo and Delta Company their orders.
His plan was a simple hammer and anvil operation. While holding the attention of the Poles to their front with Delta Company and the Germans and pinning the Poles with artillery, he would be hitting them from behind with Team Bravo.
The plan proved to be as effective as it was simple. The devastating fire that had smashed their ill-fated predawn attack, their failure to destroy C Company, the weight of the firepower of Delta Company, the Germans, and the artillery heaped upon them and the violence of Team Bravo’s attack to their rear finally broke the Poles. One of the surviving Poles who was taken prisoner would later observe that the Americans and Germans had used so much firepower that even the sun had was bleeding.
Forty kilometers east of Team Yankee’s hastily assumed positions, a Soviet tank company commander was about to finish briefing his platoon leaders when he noticed how red the morning sun was. For a brief moment he reflected on its significance.
Pointing to it, he told his gathered platoon leaders that the Motherland to the east was sending a red sun as an omen to them. He promised his gathered officers that if they performed their duties as they had been trained and adhered to the great truths that were the pillars of strength to true Communists, the red dawn they were witnessing would herald the end of the imperialist dreams in Europe and the beginning of a new socialist era. Dismissing them with a salute, the company commander turned away and headed to his own tank.
As he was doing so, he wondered if any of his platoon leaders had believed the line of horseshit he had just served them. Stopping, he turned and looked up at the red sun that was still hovering just above the horizon. After a moment, he heaved a great sigh. It wasn’t important if they did or not. The political commissar had been pleased with his outpouring of socialist propaganda. Perhaps that miserable party hack would stay out of his way for the rest of the morning, leaving the serious business of killing Americans in the hands of the professional soldiers. This thought caused the Soviet captain to smile. The political commissar was happy, his company was finally going to get a chance to kill some Americans, and, if they were lucky, the Poles would get in its way, allowing him to run the worthless shits down. This, he concluded, was shaping up to be a great day.
The end of the Poles did not signal an immediate resumption of the battalion’s attack. This had been Charlie Company’s first time under fire, and the experience had been shattering. Like Bannon, Reynolds had no wish to press deeper into the enemy’s rear strung out and piecemeal. With the need to sort out the tangled mess that the three trailing companies were in, he advised Bannon to hold his current positions until he could get everyone on the right track. Reynolds went on to advised him to that the divisional air cavalry troop was going to be operating between Team Yankee’s current positions and the Saale. That suited Bannon just fine. He was becoming tired of stumbling around like a blind man waiting for the Soviets to hit the Team. Let the cavalry earn their pay.
As it was now obvious that the Team would need to hold their current positions longer than he had initially thought, Bannon began to take a closer look at the lay of the land to his front and flanks and, if necessary, reposition his platoons. Ahead, across the road embankment they were deployed along was a valley about ten kilometers wide flanked by wooded hills that rose sharply on either side. Immediately to the Team’s left was a small town named Issel. As he looked at the town through his binoculars, Bannon could see no sign that it was occupied. There was the possibility that the Soviets had cleared the village of civilians prior to the attack in order to maintain operational security. There also was the possibility it was occupied either by combat service support units or security troops responsible for rear area who were, at that very minute, reporting Team Yankee’s positions back to their higher ups. It was this second possibility that worried him.
After a quick consultation with Major Jordan on the battalion net, Bannon ordered the 2nd Platoon to move into a position from which they could place effective fire onto the town. As they were preparing to do so, he dismounted and made his way over to Polgar’s track to give him his instructions.
With the tanks overwatching his move, Polgar was to take his platoon into the town and check it out. While he appreciated the Mech Platoon didn’t have the manpower to do a thorough job of clearing the town, building by building, they at least could check out the more obvious places and, if the town was occupied, keep anyone they came across busy until one of the pure infantry companies came up and took over for them. Besides, he added as an aside, at least this way some of the Team would be doing something useful. This last point was most appealing to Polgar who didn’t like the idea of sitting out in the open waiting for some hotshot Russian pilot to come along and fire up his platoon.