There were none.
“Outstanding. Now get busy.”
As those two teams set up their weapons, Sean told the third team leader, “Zisky, set up your gun at least a hundred yards due east of the other two, firing north-northwest. Make sure you’re not in Montez’s field of fire. Got that?”
“You bet, Sarge.”
“Then go do it.”
When the three teams reported they were ready, Sean walked each position, checking their weapons were oriented properly. Wouldn’t be the first time some poor bastard got all turned around in the dark, he reminded himself. That’s how you kill your own guys by accident.
Satisfied with the machine gun emplacements at the truck park, Sean returned to the ambush site itself to check its progress. He found things were moving slowly.
Too slowly, dammit.
“What’s the fucking holdup?” he asked the platoon sergeant in charge of the right flank.
“We’ve got dead spots in our fields of fire, Sean,” the platoon sergeant replied. “We sure could use a couple of those thirty cals you took for the truck park.”
“Negative, Rick. Negative. Use your fucking imagination here. Between the Zippos and the half-tracks, you got machine guns coming out your ass. Demount a couple if you got holes you can’t cover with a vehicle.”
“But I hate doing that, Sean. Shit gets lost when you start taking things apart.”
“And things are gonna get dead real quick if you don’t, Rick. So what’s worse? I’d rather argue with some fucking supply officer than have to bury someone.”
As he made his rounds, Sean had one more piece of instruction. He delivered it to each section individually:
“Nobody, for any reason—and I mean any reason—is to go back to the trucks. Not to cadge a nap or a smoke, get something outta your pack, sneak off to see some skirt back in town, or any other bullshit. Is that fucking clear?”
Only one trooper—a PFC tourist new to the unit—had the temerity to ask why.
Sean’s answer: “Because you’ll end up fucking dead, that’s why, numbnuts. Those machine gun crews got orders to cut down anything that moves around there…and that’ll mean you. Any more questions?”
It was 0200 now, and no Russian convoy had come down the road toward Pisek. This was the hardest time of all, when unrealized fears waned to complacency. Men who should be alert as if their lives depended on it could be dozing instead.
Sean knew it all too well. That’s why he kept on the move, roaming from position to position, offering encouraging words to those he found awake and vigilant. Fortunately, that was most of his men.
Those he found asleep were roused with a swift kick.
One wide-awake PFC asked, “Hey, Sarge…how come there ain’t any officers out here tonight?”
“Because it ain’t none of their turns to watch you,” Sean replied. “And we ain’t exactly got an overabundance of leadership talent on the roster to go around, anyway.”
“But you’ve been out here every damn night,” the PFC noted.
“Maybe them officers trust you not to fuck up more than I do.”
The PFC then asked, “Do the Ivans like to fight at night, Sarge?”
“Nobody likes to fight at night, kid. Too easy to fuck up in the dark. But they do it when they’re told, just like us.”
They heard the dull, distant ploof of a mortar being fired before Sean’s RTO breathlessly whispered, “They got contact at the truck park. They just called for illum rounds.”
“No shit,” Sean replied. “I got ears. I figured that one out already.” Grabbing the RTO by the arm, he added, “C’mon, let’s get over there. Tell ’em we’re coming so they don’t shoot our asses.”
They broke from the trees into the truck park’s clearing just as the first illumination flare cast its harsh, surreal light onto the ground below. Dropping into the hole DiSalvo’s team had dug for their .30 caliber’s emplacement, Sean asked, “What’ve you got, Dee?”
“Couple of cans started clanking over that way,” DiSalvo replied, pointing north. “Don’t see shit, though. Maybe it was just a fucking animal or something.”
Sean replied, “Or maybe they’re lying real still on their bellies in that high grass, afraid to move while that flare’s up. You got Zisky’s gun on the landline?”
DiSalvo waved the field telephone’s handset in front of Sean’s face. “Got him right here, Sarge.”
“Okay then,” Sean said, “everybody shut up and listen…”
But all they heard was the faint sizzle of the flare as it extinguished.
DiSalvo said, “I’m gonna call for another illum round, okay?”
“No, hold off,” Sean replied. “Just use your ears.”
It took a few seconds, but they began to hear something moving toward them, a rustling and thump-thump sound that puzzled DiSalvo.
“What the fuck is that, Sarge?” he asked Sean.
“Sounds like people carrying shit…maybe dragging it.”
“Should we cut them down?”
“Wait…just hold your water a little longer,” Sean replied.
“But they’re out there, Sarge!”
“Yeah…and we want to shoot them, not just scare them. Let ’em get into your field of fire first…and Zisky’s, too.”
The few seconds they waited seemed an anxious eternity to Lou DiSalvo. He nearly cried for joy when Sean finally said, “Let ’em have it.”
What followed was a five-second hell of hammering machine guns, ringing ears, and screaming men.
The abrupt silence that followed was every bit as unnerving, only broken when Sean said, “Now you call for another illum round, Dee.”
The radio traffic was frantic with ambush team leaders calling Sean, wanting to know what was going on. His reply: “Everybody stay off the air unless you got contact to report. Send me the reserve squad on the double.”
No sooner had the next illumination round bathed them in unnatural light once again than one of the trucks started up. After a few grinding attempts to get it in gear, the deuce-and-a-half began to roll forward.
Sean yelled, “Montez, shoot the driver.”
As his gunner swung the machine gun toward the truck, Montez replied, “The driver? You sure, Sarge? Shouldn’t we just shoot the tires or something?”
“Fuck no. Just shoot the driver—not the tires, not the engine, and for fuck’s sake not the gas tank.”
The gunner put a short burst into the cab, bullet strikes sparkling as metal hit metal. The truck lurched forward as if someone had popped the clutch and stalled the engine. It rolled a few feet more before shuddering to a stop.
Sean called out, “Where’s that fucking reserve squad?”
A voice replied, “We’re here, Sarge.”
Warily, the squad members rose from the high grass behind the gun pits. They’d flung themselves down at the sound of that last burst of fire.
Sean asked, “You guys need a minute to clean the crap outta your pants?”
“Maybe,” the squad leader replied. “That was one hell of a greeting, Sarge.”
“Save it for your mother. Let’s go see who we just killed here.”
As they walked toward the shot-up deuce, Sean thought, That better not be one of my guys slumped over that steering wheel. It ain’t like I didn’t tell them to stay the fuck away from the damn trucks.
DiSalvo asked, “You want another illum round, Sarge?”
“No. Leave it dark.”
It wasn’t a dead GI behind the wheel; it was a Russian. The burst from Montez’s machine gun had struck him several times, most obviously in the head. Sean breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t killed one of their own. As best they could tell in the dark, the deuce didn’t appear unserviceable, just a few holes in the cab’s side panel and dashboard, as well as a torn up seat cushion. The windshield hadn’t even been shattered. It would just need the Russian’s brains cleaned off.
The reserve squad had fanned out ac
ross the field, stumbling through the darkness to see if there were any other intruders still around, dead or alive. One of the GIs cursed loudly as he tripped over something that, on contact with his foot, made a hollow, metallic thunk.
“It’s a fucking jerry can,” the GI said, picking up the empty five-gallon container.
A few feet away was another dead Russian.
And two more empty jerry cans.
A few yards farther, they could hear a man moaning. The source was a wounded Russian, shot in both legs.
Next to him lay another two jerry cans, also empty.
In the truck park, they found two more Russians, unwounded but terrified, hiding beneath a deuce.
When the GIs tallied all the jerry cans they’d found, the total was ten. All empty.
They’d even found a few short lengths of rubber hose; siphons, no doubt.
“Five Ivans, lugging two cans apiece,” Sean said. “That’s a hell of a way to swipe fifty gallons of gas. You gotta be pretty damn desperate…”
But what bothered Sean most was the Russians obviously knew the trucks had been there. He told the reserve squad leader, “At first light, clear the tree lines all around the truck park, just in case they got some scouts there…or a sniper.”
DiSalvo smiled and said, “So that’s why you want to keep it dark, Sarge? So snipers can’t see shit?”
“Damn right, Lou.”
Just before sunup, Captain Carpenter arrived to relieve Sean and take command of the ambush team. The wounded Russian from the early morning gasoline raid had already been driven back to Pisek for medical attention. Now Sean was considering what to do with the two prisoners and the two dead men.
“Wasn’t enough to steal gasoline, eh?” Carpenter said. “So he tried to take the whole truck?”
“They never got any of the gas, sir,” Sean replied, “and we figure swiping the truck was either part of the plan all along—I mean, who wants to lug those jerry cans full of gasoline to God knows where on foot? Or that one guy just panicked and figured a deuce was the fastest way to escape. Too bad for him he didn’t know how to drive it so good.”
“Either way, you did a great job, Sergeant.”
“Thanks, Captain. But where do we bring these prisoners and stiffs? We snuck the wounded guy into Pisek, but we can’t take these others there. We got loose Russians wandering all over the place, right? Could cause big problems if they caught on.”
Carpenter replied. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that much longer. It looks like the Russians are quitting Pisek. Don’t be surprised if you pass them on the road on your way in.”
The captain’s supposition had proved correct. Sean had selected the shot-up deuce to transport the Russians and himself for the eight-mile drive back to Pisek. He’d instructed the GIs riding as guards to keep the truck’s rear curtain down: “Don’t need no Ivans going in opposite directions catching wind of each other. Plus, we got those KIAs…”
Four miles outside of Pisek, Sean’s deuce passed a column of bedraggled Russians on foot marching away from the town, toward Prague. It stretched nearly a mile.
“What do you reckon, Sarge?” the deuce’s driver asked. “A thousand of them?”
Sean replied, “More than that, probably. A lot more. And the poor bastards ain’t even got a vehicle to ride in.”
“I’ll bet that’s the least of their worries, Sarge. I heard the Ivans get put in prison…maybe even executed…if they retreat.”
“Inside Mother Russia, maybe,” Sean replied, “when there’s a real war on. But what’s going on here is just a pissing contest.”
Chapter Eighteen
George Patton might have been confident when he said, What Ike doesn’t know won’t hurt him. But he didn’t realize that something he didn’t know could very well hurt him. Right now, that something was a captain at his Tegernsee headquarters. Even though he was assigned to the logistics section, the captain was, in fact, a medical officer—a psychiatrist—who’d been planted there by Eisenhower’s chief of staff to clandestinely assess the mental fitness of George Patton for continued command. With a stroke of the adjutant’s pen, the branch insignia on the captain’s uniform changed from the caduceus of the Medical Corps to the key, sword, wagon wheel, and eagle of the Quartermaster Corps.
Eisenhower’s rationale for the subterfuge was simple: I don’t trust George to keep his damn mouth shut. Sure, he’s the best fighting general I’ve got, but some of the things he says in public sound more like the ravings of a lunatic. I’m walking a very thin line here between Washington’s demands and Moscow’s scheming.
I don’t need George Patton making my life any more difficult than it already is.
Unschooled in the mechanisms of logistics and the politics of the occupation, a certain Patton directive had nearly missed the captain’s attention. But when he noticed a roomful of staff officers in heated debate over the document, he paid close attention, even managing to study it himself. It was a memorandum marked NOT TO BE DISTRIBUTED.
So this is what the others are in an uproar about—Patton wants the weapons taken from surrendered German forces to be prepared for reissue to them. If I hadn’t heard them arguing, I would’ve never realized this was anything other than an administrative matter.
But he wants to rearm the Germans so they can fight the Soviets.
Even if it’s not the thinking of a severely disturbed individual, it’s just politically crazy.
Doesn’t the general realize what Washington would think of rearming our enemies?
Dutifully, he prepared his report, shipping it to Eisenhower’s Frankfurt headquarters in the daily dispatch pouch. On arrival, it would sit for three days on the desk of a low-level staff officer on leave in Paris. Only on his return would it be forwarded to Ike’s chief of staff, one among scores of envelopes marked Urgent.
Harry Truman should have been the happiest man on Earth. Just after midday, he’d read the cable from the Emperor of Japan announcing his nation would cease hostilities against the Allied forces arrayed against it. The global war had officially come to an end.
But yet we’re still in a shoving match with the Soviets, one that seems to be growing more dangerous by the day. Weren’t they our allies, until Eisenhower let them walk all over us in those closing days in Europe? Losing Berlin the first time was Ike’s fuckup.
Losing it again would be mine.
At the daily staff meeting with his military and diplomatic leaders, Truman listened impatiently as the thorny details of concluding the war against Japan were discussed. There were still thousands of American POWs whose safety was anything but assured. A million Japanese troops were still scattered across China, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia. While there would be millions more US servicemen to be brought home as soon as possible, there was now another defeated nation whose occupation would demand enormous amounts of manpower.
And Stalin sneakily came through on his Potsdam pledge to declare war on Japan at the very last minute, not so much to help us but to mop up whatever spoils he could in Asia. He’ll claim millions of square miles of territory with a minimum of military effort. And some geniuses have the gall to say it was his declaration of war that prompted the Emperor to surrender, not the three years of blood and sacrifice by millions of American boys…and those goddamn bombs.
“These are all details we won’t fully resolve today, tomorrow, or next week,” Truman fumed. “But I trust you gentlemen will come up with an outstanding solution to each and every issue we’ve discussed. Japan is finished…but Uncle Joe Stalin isn’t, apparently. Now that the Soviets seem more than willing to shoot first and ask questions later, how are our plans to contain them coming along?”
“Fairly well, Mister President,” General Marshall replied. “We’ve come to believe that the Soviet two-pronged attack we’d feared is not a realistic option for them.”
Truman asked, “You mean the one in which they’d push through the British zone along the Baltic c
oast while swinging through Austria into southern Germany…maybe even Italy, Switzerland, and France?”
“Yes, Mister President. The southern option presents one big problem to the Soviets: the Alps. Their forces would be canalized in the passes and easily targeted by our air power. For them to advance on a southern axis, they’d run right into the bulk of Patton’s forces and then the French behind them.”
“The French?” Truman asked with no small amount of surprise. “We aren’t really expecting any help from de Gaulle, are we? I thought he just took help, never gave it.”
“It’s a moot point, Mister President,” Marshall replied. “A southern offensive by the Soviets won’t happen. They’re not strong there—Patton’s readjustment of the lines in Czechoslovakia confirms that. A northern one, however…that’s a different story.”
Truman asked, “Are the British prepared for such an attack?”
“No, sir, we don’t believe so. That’s why we’ve come up with a way to resolve the issue of Berlin—and Germany—in one fell swoop.”
Marshall went on to describe a plan in which Patton’s 3rd Army—several divisions lighter than it had been on VE Day but still the most potent and mobile fighting force in Europe—would do an end run deeper into Czechoslovakia, turning north at the Neisse River and plunging straight through Germany east of Berlin. Once the Neisse joined with the Oder, they’d follow the Oder all the way to the Baltic. Patton’s southern flank would be protected by US 7th Army. Such a move would encircle all the Soviet forces in Germany and, most importantly, Berlin. Trapped between the British to their west, the Americans to their south and east, and the Baltic to the north, the Soviets could be compelled to quit Germany completely.
Then Truman asked, “And we do all this without a declaration of war, General?”
“Yes, Mister President. We can present this as nothing more than a territorial adjustment, being done as a humanitarian issue in the interests of the German people.”
“Territorial adjustment, my ass, General,” the president replied. “This is a land grab, plain and simple.”
This Fog of Peace (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 4) Page 18