THE TEN THOUSAND

by Harold Coyle

  The captain shook his head as he reached out to offer Dixon the small slip of paper he had been carrying. "No updates from the Task Force 3rd of the 3rd after their report that they had defeated the advanced guard detachment. This report is from Tenth Corps headquarters in Prague, sir. They picked up a report over Sky Net from SAC. Satellites have detected what they believe was a nuclear detonation south of Svalyava. Corps has advised all units involved in Operation Desperate Fumble and east of Prague to commence nuclear survey and monitoring."

  Dixon had said nothing. He had suspected that something would go wrong. He constantly reminded his commanders and staff that things never go exactly the way they were planned, which, according to his admonishments, was why commanders were always needed to be forward and staff officers thinking. In the back of his mind, Dixon had been waiting for the hidden flaw of this operation to pop up and rear its ugly head. That it came in the form it did was a shock that neither he nor Cerro had imagined.

  Cerro, taken aback by the captain's announcement as much as Dixon, responded first. Folding his arms across his chest and looking down at the ground, Cerro grimaced. "Well, so much for stealth and cunning." Looking up at the captain, he asked if there was anything else.

  "No, sir. We asked for additional information, but the people at corps gave us a wait-out. I don't think they had a good handle on everything yet." Then as an afterthought he added, "The sergeant major is having Sergeant Godwin prepare an effective downwind message and frag order for all units to initiate immediate survey and monitoring. By the time you get back, it should be ready."

  Dixon reached out and put his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Well, don't wait for us. Get back there and get it out over the air. Use flash-override if necessary. Now go."

  After a hasty salute, the captain turned and trotted off back to the command post carriers.

  For several seconds, Cerro watched Dixon in silence. Dixon was thinking, mentally absorbing the latest development and considering what actions, if any, he needed to take. Finally Cerro spoke. "Colonel, should we consider delaying the deployment of the brigade trains forward in case someone decides we need to unass the Ukraine in a hurry?"

  Dixon thought about Cerro's question as he turned and looked at the unending line of trucks moving east. "Too many goddamned vehicles," he mumbled. "We've got too much shit for our own good." Then he looked at Cerro. "Let's wait and see what's happening before we get all excited and start altering the equation. Come on, let's go. Break's over, Hal. Back on your head."

  The last of the three tanks of the advanced guard detachment had been destroyed by the time Kozak reached Ellerbee's position. Pulling up next to his tank, Kozak had dismounted and climbed up on Ellerbee's tank, where she listened to his report. When Ellerbee was finished, Kozak went over with him what she expected from her subordinates in the way of reports. Though she was composed by the time she got back into her Bradley, Sergeant Wolf knew that the red in her cheeks wasn't all due to the cold and wind. Watching her as she put her combat crewman's helmet on and stared blankly to her front, Wolf decided she needed a little humor. "Well, ma'am, I guess it's true."

  Caught up in her own thoughts, Kozak gave Wolf a quizzical look. "What are you talking about, Sergeant Wolf?"

  Wolf smiled. "You know, ma'am. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

  Kozak suppressed the urge to laugh. "Where in the devil. Wolf, did you hear that one?"

  "The first sergeant. That's what Top always says when you go off and chew someone out after they've pissed all over your leg."

  Though military etiquette frowned on sergeants talking to their commanders in such a manner, Kozak seldom corrected or restrained Wolf or any of the members of the crew of Charlie 60, her Bradley. She in fact encouraged open and free discussion as a means of both relieving the tensions that sometimes became unbearable in C60 during operations and as a way of finding out what the latest rumors and gossip in the company were. Still they had their limits. And vulgarity was, for her, pushing the limits of acceptability.

  "Sergeant Wolf, you are not the first sergeant. And I didn't chew Lieutenant Ellerbee out. I merely ensured that he understood what I consider to be proper reporting procedures."

  Wolf gave Kozak a knowing smile. "Okay, ma'am, I understand. Where to now? Back up the hill?"

  "No. Let's head for the bridge and find Lieutenant Matto. We need to see how her engineers are doing. Those three T-80 tanks no doubt weren't alone. I expect we'll have some more company soon."

  Serious now, Wolf keyed the intercom switch on his crew man's helmet. "Yo, Terri. Crank it up and move on down to the bridge to where we were before."

  Terri Tish, known by most of the company as Terri Toosh, responded by cranking up the Bradley. Despite the fact that she was small in stature, Wolf had known few drivers, including himself, who could make a Bradley perform like Terri. Though he still kidded her about women drivers, his comments, like those he made with Kozak, were lighthearted.

  At the northern approach of the bridge, Second Lieutenant Elizabeth Matto stood next to the ancient M-113 armored personnel carrier that served as her command post track and ammo carrier. While the ton-and-a-half trailer attached to the personnel carrier restricted its maneuverability, the extra demolitions and barrier material she could carry in the trailer made it too important to be left behind.

  In the distance she could see the sappers of her platoon going about their tasks. On the south end of the bridge, an M-9 armored combat engineer vehicle, called an ACE, was cutting a hasty anti-vehicle ditch on either side of the roadway leading up to the bridge, while a squad of her people finished emplacing a cratering charge on the roadway itself. On the bridge, another squad worked on placing demolition charges. She intended to drop two sets of the bridge's supports as well as three sections of roadway in order to create a gap too large for the Ukrainians to bridge with an armored assault bridge.

  Though the work was taking longer than she had anticipated, it was progressing well and nearly completed when Matto heard the whine of Kozak's Bradley approaching. Turning to her platoon sergeant, Matto told him to make a quick check along the line and hurry the demo teams up while she stayed where she was and "entertained" the CO.

  Kozak, however, wasn't interested in being entertained. After pulling up next to Matto's personnel carrier and dismounting, Kozak came up to Matto for a report on their progress.

  Matto rendered her report while they both watched the engineers on the bridge. In the light of a pale moon that just barely cleared the high ground behind them, they could even see the M-9 ACE as it continued to laboriously hack away at the frozen ground. "Well, ma'am, it'll be another ten, maybe fifteen minutes until the highway bridge will be ready to be dropped. The cratering charge on the southern approach to the bridge is in place and ready, but the anti-tank ditch extended to the riverbank won't be finished for at least another half hour. I believe the railroad bridge upstream is ready to drop now."

  Kozak listened to Matto's report in silence. When Matto was finished, she began issuing orders. It was, to Matto, almost as if she had already decided what she intended to do before hearing the status of the work. "Go ahead and stop the antitank ditch. We don't have a half hour. Use a very hasty minefield to close the gap if you can do it in ten minutes, which is all the time you have to finish the job on the bridge. I'm going to order the infantry platoon back now. The brigade's shifting a company of attack helicopters covering the advance on Mukacevo to a battle position just northwest of here to give us some support. Between them and the mines, we can do without the anti-tank ditch."

  Not waiting for a response, Kozak began to turn to hurry back to her track when Matto stopped her. "Captain, we can't surface-lay the mines and then set off the cratering charge. The detonation and debris from that charge will set off most of the surface-laid mines. We'll have to set off the cratering charge, then go back and lay the mines."

  Kozak looked at Matto, then at the bridge, and then back at Matto
. "Okay. Forget the mines. We don't have that kind of time. Do whatever you need to do in order to blow everything in ten minutes."

  Saluting, Matto turned and trotted off toward the bridge, calling out for her platoon sergeant as she went. Kozak watched and listened for a moment. Her voice, like Kozak's, came out as a screech whenever she tried to yell, which was why Kozak seldom yelled. It was, she had been told by one of her sergeants years ago, both irritating and at the same time a source of amusement to the men under her command. So Kozak had learned to give orders and direct her subordinates in a way that all but eliminated the need to yell and shout. When shouting was necessary, she had one of her male NCOs do it for her when possible. Although few people in her company knew why their young female captain with a slightly crooked nose seldom yelled at anyone, most of the men and women in her command preferred it that way. It showed, one senior sergeant once said, that she had respect for her people as well as for their eardrums.

  When she reached her Bradley, Kozak stopped next to it and called for her gunner. Because of her accent, Kozak didn't emphasize the "1" in Sergeant Wolf's name, which resulted in her calling him Woof most of the time. As she stood there calling for Wolf to pop his head up while trying to keep from screaming, a young engineer fifty meters away stopped what he was doing and looked over to see who was going "Woof, woof." From where he stood, it looked as if Kozak was baying at the moon. That sight, in the middle of what had been a tense and exhausting night, caused the young engineer to burst out laughing. His squad leader, wondering what was so funny, stopped what he was doing. "Are you losing it, Havarty, or is it a private joke?"

  Havarty continued to laugh as he pointed at Kozak, who was still calling to Sergeant Wolf. The squad leader snickered, then wiped the smile from his face. "So? What's so strange about that? What do ya expect? She's an officer and an infantryman. Insanity and strange habits go hand in hand when you mix those two. Now get back to work before I sic her on ya."

  While they waited for the platoon sergeant of 2nd Platoon to arrive, Ilvanich checked out the radio that two men had pulled out from under a pile of wreckage. Even though he had made a point of watching how the radiotelephone operators performed their checks and used their equipment, Ilvanich soon found that it was impossible to put the radio into operation. The electromagnetic pulse that had preceded the nuclear detonation had fried every transistor in the radio.

  Tapping him on his shoulder, Fitzhugh got Ilvanich's attention. Pushing the worthless radio away, Ilvanich turned to see why Fitzhugh interrupted him. "Major, we found Lieutenant Zack over by the tunnel. He's dead too."

  Nodding, Ilvanich turned back to look at the radio. Unable to contact anyone, and realizing that they could not stay where they were, Ilvanich decided that he had to do something soon, before the Ukrainians recovered and came forward to investigate, or radiation levels exceeded permissible levels.

  Standing up, Ilvanich looked at the remaining leadership of the ranger company gathering about him before he responded. Unlike Fitzhugh, Ilvanich doubted if the sergeants were sure about his taking over. In the pale moonlight, Ilvanich could see it in their eyes. Except for the scurry of men and medics tending to wounded about them, there was an eerie silence as he did so. While there was what he thought was a glimmer of doubt, Ilvanich also saw that they were there in response to the orders he had issued, through Fitzhugh. If there was one thing that he was sure of, it was that they were professionals and understood their situation. They understood what had happened, they understood that Fitzhugh wasn't ready to assume command under such circumstances, and they understood that if something wasn't done soon, none of them would make it out alive. Deciding that this moment was as good as any to find out how receptive the leadership of Company A was to him as their commander, Ilvanich began to issue his new orders. As he did so, he watched how the gathered sergeants reacted to him.

  "The electromagnetic pulse has destroyed these radios. Unless there is another radio somewhere here that can reach battalion, we have no means of contacting them." Ilvanich paused to let that fact soak in. "The blast, I am sure, has also released radiation, some of which will be residual. That means we cannot stay here for very long. And no doubt once they get over their own shock, the Ukrainians will be back in force." Again Ilvanich paused. Now as he prepared for the moment of truth, he drew in a deep breath. "With the weapons which we came for destroyed or buried, there is no reason for us to remain in place and accumulate radiation. Follow-on forces will no doubt be diverted to the other weapons storage site by either the battalion commander or corps. While your battalion commander will no doubt organize a survey and monitoring team to come over here and check out the situation here, that will take time, time in which we will continue to be exposed to radiation and the danger of a counterattack. I do not believe it is a good idea to wait and depend on what others may or may not do. So we are going to move out from here."

  The reaction by the sergeants, though muted, was positive. The decision to move, regardless of who made it or who led them, was welcomed. Not only would they escape the stench of burned bodies that was beginning to permeate the area, but they would move away from the invisible enemy, radiation, that each suspected would soon saturate the area. Ilvanich allowed himself a few seconds to enjoy his success. Then, as was his habit, he got back to the matter at hand. "All right, if you have no objections, we must get on with this. Now give me a complete account of your units, their conditions, and positions. Then we will go over how I expect the next thirty minutes to go and what we will do."

  Without hesitation, the leadership of Company A gathered around to render their reports and hear their commander's orders.

  After a brief discussion over a map with Fitzhugh and his senior sergeants, Ilvanich decided on where they would go and the formation they would use. As they prepared to break up and head back to their platoons to pass the word, one of the sergeants stood up and stared at the tunnel behind him. "Major, I think we need to go in there and see if there are any survivors."

  This comment caused everyone to stop what they were doing, for each of them, except Ilvanich, had been thinking the same thing. Looking first at the tunnel, then at Ilvanich, they waited for his response.

  Ilvanich looked at the tunnel, and then at the faces of his leaders. It was, he knew, foolish to go in there. No one, he knew, could have survived, the blast. Even if they had somehow miraculously survived the fireball, that same fireball would have eaten every cubic centimeter of air in the tunnel and replaced it with superheated gases. Exposure to that, even for a second, would be enough to destroy a man's lungs. After considering his response, he was about to point this out in graphic detail, but decided not to. The men in that tunnel were their comrades and friends, people they felt a responsibility to. "You realize that the chances of anyone being alive in there are nil."

  The sergeant who had brought up the matter nodded. "We know that, Major. But we have to try. Otherwise I'd never again be able to face the wives and kids of people I know in there." There was a pause before he added, "We have to try. You understand, don't you?"

  No, Ilvanich thought, he didn't understand why a man was willing to go and confirm something that he already knew. "What is your name please?"

  "Rasper, Sergeant First Class Allen Rasper. Platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon."

  "You realize, Sergeant Rasper, that whoever goes in there will absorb more radiation, perhaps a lethal dose."

  The only response by Rasper to Ilvanich's observation was to repeat his comment. "Sir, we have to try."

  Realizing that Rasper's comment was more of a statement than a plea, Ilvanich decided to give in. Although he knew it was not meant to be a test, to refuse this request, as insane as it was, would jeopardize his tenuous position as their temporary commander and could lead to further disaster. "All right, we will go. But we go with a radiacmeter. Once the radiation level becomes too high, we turn back. Agreed?"

  Rasper and the others nodded.

 
Ilvanich looked about the group. "Who is going with me?"

  Caught off guard by the idea that Ilvanich was going, the Americans looked at each other for a second. Then Rasper stepped forward. "I'll handle the radiacmeter, Major."

  Ilvanich reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. "Good, good." Then he turned to Fitzhugh. "While we're in there, you are in command. You are to prepare the company to move from here as soon as we return. Bring your map and come over here."

  Moving up next to Ilvanich, Fitzhugh turned his small flashlight onto a map he held between himself and Ilvanich. Ilvanich, a professional soldier to the core, had already considered their situation and had come to a decision. Using his finger to trace a line on the map, Ilvanich issued his orders. "We will move to the south, along the side of the mountain to a point here. That line of march should take us away from the downwind area of this mess, away from where I expect the Ukrainians to launch their next attack, and take us to a landing zone, here, that we can defend. Have the company ready to move when I return. Understood?"

  Fitzhugh nodded. "Yes, sir. Understood."

  "Good, now get moving." When the rest of the leaders had gone, and while Rasper checked out his radiacmeter, Ilvanich dug about the ruins of the guard shack looking for some rubberized ponchos he had come across before. Finding them, he pulled two out, tossing one to Rasper. "They will not give us much protection, but it will help. We can discard them after we are finished."

  Rasper put on the poncho Ilvanich had handed him and his protective mask. When he and Ilvanich were ready, the two men tromped off into the gaping black void that reeked of burned flesh. For a moment every eye in the company was on them as each man shared two common feelings: that someone was going to at least search for survivors and, at the same time, relief that they were not the ones going in.