Bannon turned back to watch the line of figures continue forward. Slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out the two frag grenades he had taken off 66 before destroying it.
He raised the M 16 up to his shoulder and began to sight in on the nearest figure. This was going to be a very short fight.
As Bannon watched the figure in his sight, it occurred to him that the uniform was very familiar. It was camouflage. Then he noticed the rifle. It was an M 16. They were Americans. He turned to Polgar and whispered, "Americans." Polgar stuck his head up a little higher, looked, and then smiled.
Remembering the day before, he was a little more cautious in making contact. He let the line of infantry get within twenty meters and then bellowed out, "HALT!"
The line of infantry froze where they stood, ready to drop and fire. Their heads slowly turned to find the origin of the voice.
"Advance and be recognized."
Their heads snapped as one in Bannon's direction. He slowly rose up to the kneeling position but kept his rifle trained on the nearest man. He began to move toward him. When he was close enough, Bannon repeated the order,
"Halt." At that point, 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 First of the Seventy Eight. We were cut off. Who are you?" Bannon kept his rifle aimed at the figure.
"What's the challenge?"
"I don't know. We were cut off yesterday. I'm Captain Bannon, the team commander." The infantry was beginning slowly 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. Now tell your mob 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 1st of the 78th Mechanized Infantry, and Bannon had been holding each other at bay. Team Yankee had been relieved.
Polgar led Kerch and his people through the woods to where Team Yankee was located.
Bannon went up to the top of Hill 214 where the battalion command group was. It occurred to him as he followed the trail to the top of the hill that he'd been here for over twenty hours, had fought for the hill and done his damnedest to hold it and 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 1 st of the 78th that had been attached to the I st 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. There were three figures standing next to the PC looking at a map board. When one of the figures looked up and saw Bannon approaching, he motioned. 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 1 st Battalion, 4th Armor, Team Yankee's parent battalion. As he closed, Bannon saluted and, as nonchalantly as possible, greeted Team Yankee's saviors.
"Sean, Colonel Reynolds told us you had been wiped out last night." "Sir, the news of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. D company is reporting for duty." Not that they could do anything 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 dirty. 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 and 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. Bannon guessed he couldn't have looked much worse. As they walked over to the PC, he 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. They stopped by the tanks and looked down into Arnsdorf. There were still wisps of smoke rising from some of the burned-out Soviet vehicles. Scores of dead Russians littered the field among the smashed vehicles. The battalion commander looked at Bannon, "I take it you did that last night."
"Yeah. With a little help. Very little help," he replied without turning away. It all seemed so remote now, so foreign. Bannon had difficulty equating the scene before him with the horror show that had been last night. He gazed up at the clear blue morning sky, across the valley to the green hill to the north, and then at the battalion commander. "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 spread out all over the division's rear during the night road march. While passing through one of the villages at night, part of the column had taken a wrong turn. The people leading the two line companies, C and D, the battalion trains, and the battalion CP all realized their mistakes at different times and tried to get back onto the proper route separately. This led to confusion and more errors, just as the first sergeant had reported.
D company was the first to show up and join Team Bravo on its overwatch position at 1730 last night. C company went into the rear areas of the German panzer division that was to the south of the division, got turned around, and then ran out of fuel. It never reached its destination, being held in the rear as part of the division reserve. The battalion trains pulled in at night but never told anyone. Major Jordan found them by accident in the area where they were supposed to be. The S-4, in charge of the trains, 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 in the late morning by a dismounted counterattack from Lemm.
When all this had been sorted out by the battalion and brigade commanders, it was decided to pull the 1st of the 78th Mech out and throw in the 1 st of the 4th Armor. As Team Bravo was combat ineffective, and everyone thought that, except for recovered tracks, Team Yankee was gone, the I st 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, just after the battle of Hill 214, and began its attack at 0530, just before the Team woke up. Major Shell told Bannon that he, the commander, and the XO were trying to figure out what had happened to all the Russians that the 1 st of the 78th had reported and who had done all the damage in Arnsdorf when Bannon showed up.
The good news from this comedy of errors was that Team Bravo held LOG long enough for First Sergeant Harrert to gather up the Team's wounded and recover those tracks that had only been damaged. To Bannon's surprise, he found out that First Sergeant Harrert had four tanks and two PCs, including the HQ PC, in varying states of repair. In the attack against LOG, Team Yankee had had only two tanks totally destroyed, 21 and 66, one PC, the 1 st Squad of the Mech Platoon, and the FIST track. For casualties, not counting the men who were killed on Hill 214, the Team had lost fifteen killed and six wounded. The number of killed seemed staggering and out of proportion. But as he thought about it, it made sense.