In less than a minute he made his way down from the tower and into the street. He found Captain Zimmerman smoking a cigarette in the turret of an M36. The men who drove and fought in these tank destroyers were gathered around a couple of small fires they had built in emptied fuel drums, and now they watched the colonel and their captain with interest.
“It’s hunting season,” Pulaski shouted. Immediately drivers scrambled into their vehicles. One after another the throaty engines growled to life.
“Where d’you want us?” asked the young captain.
“On the edge of the bluff,” came the reply. “We’ve got unwelcome company coming across the bridge. See what you can do to hold ’em off.”
“You got it, Colonel!” declared Zimmerman, flashing a grin. “We got some places picked out for just such a shootin’ gallery.”
By the time the tank destroyers had rumbled away--most of them only going a block or two to get a good view of the bridge--Pulaski could hear shooting from the east. He and Dawson scrambled back to their lookout to see blazing panzers blocking the highway under Ballard’s position. Flame and smoke spat from the hidden Shermans and one after another German tanks torched into fire. Even the huge Tigers were vulnerable to flank shots from the up-gunned Shermans, and with his glasses Pulaski saw that several of the great turrets had been charred by armor-piercing hits. Diaz’s artillery, too, was brutally accurate, as shells from his guns rapidly and relentlessly marched up and down the road.
But the attack inevitably revealed the positions of the American tanks, and now the panzers were starting to find the range. Dozens of German guns shot upward from the street, while a few Tigers turned off the road and climbed toward the dug-in Americans. In one place a point-blank gun battle raged, and the hulking German vehicle inevitably got the best of it, destroying a Sherman in an oily blast of fire. Growling on, the Tiger lurched around the wrecked M4, then jolted to a halt as another U.S. tank scored a direct hit on its track.
More shots erupted from the west, and Pulaski saw that his tank destroyers had occupied commanding positions overlooking the river valley. Explosions flashed on the bridge, and several tanks on the long span began to burn. He raised his binoculars again and watched with whispered cheers as the M36 Tank Destroyers lived up to their billing, the big guns combining to pick off four Tigers in the first minute of the engagement.
But many more panzers were rolling onto the bridge, nimble Panthers skirting the wrecks, one rolling recklessly right across a burning armored car, then racing for the near bank. Several tank destroyers shot at it, but the tank seemed blessed with arcane protection as every shell went wide. On the road beyond, the procession of enemy tanks rolling toward the bridge seemed endless, a tight column bunched on the opposite river-bank as it slowly crept onto the floating span.
The next explosion was huge and accurate, the blast sending the lead Panther skidding off the bridge to disappear into the icy water. As if on aerial parade, a squadron of aircraft, white stars painted on their wings, swooped down the river valley, strafing and bombing the panzer column caught on the exposed bridge. More planes dove from above, wreaking terrible havoc among the vehicles waiting to cross. Thunderbolts and Tempests snarled past, machine guns, cannons, and bombs--in concert with the barrage from the tank destroyers--finally halting the advancing column. Mustangs and Spitfires, even twin-engined medium bombers, roared overhead in great formations and then wheeled back to attack in proud evidence of their regained mastery of the skies. Scores of panzers burned, and the few operational vehicles on the span were trapped in the midst of blazing wreckage.
At the same time, the first of the Shermans rumbled into the wharves along the river. High-explosive shells blasted trucks that were laden with fuel intended for Rommel’s advancing panzers. Everywhere the thin-skinned transports ignited into spectacular fireballs.
“Get the engineers moving down there--I want that bridge blown to hell!” Pulaski shouted into the microphone. Already he saw men darting onto the end of the bridge, M1 rifles popping off, then joined by a chattering BAR as GIs picked off German tankers who had escaped their vehicles.
Pulaski looked again to the east. The Tigers had made their way farther up the hill. Though many had been halted by the narrow alleys or the effects of crippling hits, several had rolled right through Ballard’s position. Pulaski saw a Sherman rumble out of a small alley in the command position on the left flank. The long barrel was extended toward the cross street. The colonel’s binoculars confirmed the identity: on the rear of the turret were the twin red shields marking Frank Ballard’s vehicle.
A great Tiger was trapped before the American tank, unable to traverse its gun because of stone buildings to either side. The M4 fired once, and the panzer spumed smoke and fire as its onboard ammunition cooked off. A man scrambled out of the driver’s hatch, and a second later the entire tank was consumed by flames.
Ballard’s tank started to back away--but then there was a flash from nearby. A rocket burst from the alley and exploded against the turret of the Sherman. The tank lurched, and smoke billowed from the stricken vehicle.
“Goddamn panzerfaust!” cursed Dawson as Wehrmacht infantry swarmed over the wrecked tank. The stubby, bazooka-like tank killer was wielded by a large soldier who led the squad into the next street, while other German soldiers plastered the disabled vehicle with grenades.
“Frank--goddamn it...” whispered Pulaski, first appalled, then drained by a wave of melancholy. He shook himself violently, teeth clenched as the tide of battle moved closer--he would mourn for his friend later.
“They’re coming through,” the colonel observed grimly as more of the German armor poured around the roadblock and rumbled into the city. Three Panthers were in the lead, rolling fast toward the crest above the river. The main road would lead them into the plaza just below, and from there they would have access to many streets leading down to the waterfront.
How long till Jackson would get here with Combat Command B? He didn’t even have time to call.
“Come on, Sarge,” Pulaski said. Once again the two men pounded down the narrow stairway to the street. Keefer had the half-track idling, and as soon as they jumped in he started to roll.
A few blocks later they came upon three Shermans guarding an intersection that apparently widened into a small, now abandoned, marketplace. Lieutenant Allen, the executive officer of C Company, signaled from the open hatch of his turret as the half-track rolled up.
“Where’s the rest of your company?” asked the colonel.
“Along these few blocks, sir. We were shooting at the trucks on the wharf, but we kind of run out of targets.”
“New orders--and new targets, I bet. Get yourself headed to the big square at the top of the hill. I’m going to round up the rest of your boys.”
“Yes, sir!”
The young officer wasted no time in leading the three tanks up the street. A few minutes later Pulaski had gathered a company of Shermans, pulling the tanks back from the now-successful attack on the docks. He took a last look at the valley and saw that his infantry had advanced halfway across the bridge, that the men of his engineering company were busy placing charges along the floating pontoons that supported the span. The counterattack from across the river had been utterly shattered, blocked by the wreckage of its own first wave, scattered and broken by roaring aircraft that still pounced on any suggestion of a target.
Lieutenant Allen’s three tanks and an equal number of Zimmerman’s tank destroyers were straddling the middle of the square when Pulaski arrived with eight more Shermans, together with a few trucks and a couple of jeeps hauling light antitank guns. The colonel’s half-track led the rest of the ad hoc battle group out of the narrow, ascending streets. They rolled into the square atop the hill, the plaza underneath the turret where Pulaski had his lookout post.
“Spread out here!” he shouted. “Get shots lined up on the main road, and watch the side streets, too--we can’t let ourselves get outf
lanked!”
The M4s started to move again, but simultaneously the first panzers rolled into view from the opposite direction. Shermans and Panthers blasted each other at point-blank range, a cacophony of shuddering booms, violent explosions, and whining shrapnel. Pulaski forced himself to stand behind the cab while Keefer guided the half-track along the road behind the tanks. Dawson manned the fifty-caliber machine gun, and the colonel found himself unholstering his sidearm in a reflexive gesture.
That chaos of noise was suddenly overwhelmed by the thunderous boom that shook the valley, vibration jolting even the heavy iron vehicles. Dirty water and smoke billowed above the waterfront, mixed with pieces of planking and barges--enough debris to confirm that the bridge was blown.
Nearby a building collapsed, bricks and stones rattling off the hull of the half-track. A burning Sherman jolted past, skidded sideways, to crash into the stone fountain on the square. Lieutenant Allen jumped out of the hatch and was followed by a billow of smoke as he ran for the shelter of a nearby doorway.
Loud shots cracked through the neighboring streets, and Pulaski realized that more tank destroyers had joined the fight, lengthening the American position to the left and right as the panzers tried to find a way around this roadblock. More and more tanks were burning--a sickening number of them Shermans--but now the rest of CCA was coming up from the river-bank, added fresh guns, iron, and blood to the raging fight.
Then Dawson was handing Pulaski the radio, saying something that the colonel couldn’t understand through the din.
“Ski... are you there, Ski?” The flat voice, even through the static, conjured up the square block of the man who was speaking.
“General?” It was indeed Henry Wakefield.
“Jackson is in the city, Ski... he’s joined up with Diaz, hitting the Krauts in the flank. He’ll have that highway cut in no time! But what’s your progress down there?”
A German shell blasted through the door of the half-track. The vehicle lurched, and Pulaski felt a slicing pain coupled with a gentle tug against his legs.
“We did it, Hank... we got the bridge!” he said, the words coming out in a rush.
And then the detonation came. Some vague time later he was lying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood. He fumbled for his crucifix. His pain was distant, like his thoughts, which continued to move even farther away, until they were nowhere at all.
Nineteenth Division Mobile Headquarters, Givet, France, 1421 hours GMT
Wakefield put down the radio. He unclenched his big hands, trying to shake off the chill that had come over him with the broken connection.
“He did it,” he said to Colonel Sanger. “Jimmy got the bridge. CCA has cut Rommel in two. Get me Third Army on the horn. Hell, let’s tell SHAEF and everybody.”
“Yes, sir. But, General, about Ski... what happened to him?” “I don’t know.” Wakefield looked at the silent radio set, trying to muster some sensation of triumph. “Let’s try and get some more help in there and pray that it’s not too late.”
Army Group B Field Headquarters, Dinant, Belgium, 1455 hours GMT
“Both bridges are gone, Herr Feldmarschall... and Panzer Lehr is bogged down by enemy resistance, taking serious damage from a flank attack. I encourage you to leave here--you must not be taken prisoner.” Speidel did not try to put any pleasant gloss on the news. Instead, he reached forward, as if he would take his commander by the arm and physically lead him to safety.
Rommel simply stood, thinking. The situation was grim, the facts incontrovertible. Rommel could see the maps, he could look out the window, he could examine his own mind and judgment. All his knowledge pointed toward the same conclusion: at the decisive point, the place where the result of the battle would be determined, the Americans had won.
Speidel tried again. “I tell you, the Yankees have cut off our bridgehead. But all is not lost, Field Marshal...we can fall back to the Westwall, pull out with much of the army. We must start by saving you!”
“There will be no saving my five panzer divisions already across the river,” Rommel chided gently, almost absently.
“No, of course not. But we have to make of this what we can.” General Speidel spoke reasonably, with patient logic. His whole manner projected a calmness that matched his commander.
Surprising himself, Rommel felt the same way, though he couldn’t understand why. After all, the loss of the bridges could have only one effect on the overall battle.
“Our attack has failed... we’ll never get enough fuel to the panzers, and they won’t be able to get to Antwerp.” His mind followed that conclusion to the inevitable results... the great armored arm of the Wehrmacht was finished. And the surviving infantry, mostly volksgrenadier, would trudge back to the Westwall, frostbitten and demoralized. What kind of treatment would Himmler afford the men who had failed to achieve his magnificent victory? “Yes... we have to make of this what we can.
Far across Germany, the country’s eastern border had been thinned of troops, so much of the army dedicated to this one great gamble. His gamble. The gamble that had failed. Stalin’s Red Army was there in the east, in great numbers, and the Soviet dictator would see only opportunity in German disaster.
“But we can still save that army--most of it, anyway!” Speidel insisted. “The key is for you, my Field Marshal, to get away!”
“And get away to what? To see the Red Army parade into Berlin, to sweep all the way to the Rhine? While the remnants of the German Army die in the Westwall, holding the Americans and British at bay for a few desperate weeks of hell?” He looked up, almost preternaturally calm. In his heart, in his mind, he could see only one way out. As Alexander the Great had shown, the only way to deal with the Gordian knot was to cut it, to change the game from one that was rigged into one that was still winnable. He had to save the German army and counterbalance the threat from the east. Therefore, there was only a single solution.
He looked around the conference room. Speidel was here, of course, as were his staff officers Reinhardt and Müller. Carl-Heinz Clausen stood unobtrusively in the comer, stationed at the door to Rommel’s inner office. Horst Bücher, the SS general, back from his reduction of Bastogne, looking at him with calm assurance, waiting for him to solve the insoluble. A young lieutenant operated the telephone switchboard.
The Desert Fox thought about the Metz Massacre, the slaughter of innocent prisoners, the propaganda killings masquerading as the work of American butchers. It had been Himmler’s message to him, of course, and clear enough even for an apolitical Swabian soldier to understand. He smiled, his mind racing around his new solution. It had, it seemed, the additional virtue of frustrating the führer.
“Günter,” Rommel addressed Reinhardt informally. “Please be good enough to bring us a new set of maps from storage. I wish to see the entire front in the west.”
“Of course, Herr Feldmarschall.” With a click of his heels, the tall intelligence officer departed.
The Desert Fox drew a deep breath and spoke to no one in particular. “Bring me the telephone. I would like to speak to Baron von Esebeck.” Müller brought him the handset and Rommel paused for a minute, waiting for the operator to make the connection. He looked at Müller and spoke with genuine affection. “Wolfgang, go out to the courtyard and have a look. I’d like to know how close the Americans are getting to my headquarters.”
“Of course, Field Marshal!” Müller saluted and hurried away, but Rommel was already speaking into the phone.
“Baron? Hello. Can you come up here, to my headquarters. Right away, please. I need the help of someone who speaks good English.”
Rommel looked over the maps Reinhardt brought, contemplating, examining his plan for potential flaws, concerns. A moment later he heard the arrival of Baron von Esebeck, accompanied by a short, balding fellow wearing American combat fatigues. The newspaper reporter Reinhardt had captured.
“Herr ... Porter, is it?” the Desert Fox asked politely.
“Yes, s
ir,” the reporter replied in his halting German, confused and quizzical. Rommel smiled again.
“Herr Porter, I believe we can do each other a mutual service. I need the assistance of an honest translator, and as a reporter, I’m sure you would like access to a newsworthy story.”
Rommel could see the eagerness on the reporter’s face. “Sir, I’d be honored to help, but I’m still an American, sir. I won’t betray my country.”
“Of course not,” murmured Rommel. “Nor will I ask you to. I merely want you to provide honest translation. Nothing more.” He noticed the raised eyebrow on Reinhardt’s face. The intelligence officer had figured out the situation, at last. Now it was time for the others to know. He cleared his throat, for once in his life at a loss for words, unsure where to begin.
“Gentlemen, I have reached what I believe is a decision of unavoidable necessity. This operation is over. We can fight on, of course, but only by throwing away German lives with no benefit to the Fatherland. We can retreat, but in my military judgment that will only postpone the day of reckoning, and not by long. Again, we will lose many German lives for no appreciable gain. The danger in the east I cannot dismiss as lightly as others do, with no disrespect to the diplomatic efforts of our own Colonel von Reinhardt.”
“Sir, I guaranteed that Stalin would refrain from attacking us only as long as it was in his self-interest to do so,” interjected the colonel. “With the current situation, I believe it is only a matter of a short time before Stalin’s self-interest argues for another choice.”
“As do I, Gunter,” Rommel said, nodding acknowledgment. The field marshal could see the growing awareness on Horst Bücher’s scarred face. “Sir--” the SS general interrupted. “This discussion is most inappropriate. Political decisions are taken in Berlin, not by field officers, regardless of their rank, with no disrespect intended, sir.”
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