THE TEN THOUSAND

by Harold Coyle

  The German aviator wearing the insignia of a captain slowed down as he approached. There was a scowl on his face as he looked at Messinger, then at Erich, and then back up to Messinger. When he was ten feet away, the German captain let his right hand, which still held the pistol, drop to his side as he spoke. "You fool. You could have killed us."

  Messinger did not miss the irony of the German captain's statement. Given the political and the military situation, that was exactly what they should have been doing. And yet, Messinger thought, just when it seemed that he had succeeded in doing just that, his first reaction and that of his pilot had been one of concern. They had come running out of habit to assist fellow aviators in distress, not to view their handiwork. And because it was so obvious that this was so, the German captain began to holster his pistol as he directed his observer to go help Perkins with Otto.

  Squatting, the German captain placed his hand on the side of Erich's head and said something in German that caused Erich to respond with a weak smile that vanished as soon as it had come. Feeling out of place and uneasy, Messinger stepped back. "Hey, I'm sorry. We were only trying to scare you."

  The German captain stood up and faced Messinger. "Well, Herr Major, you succeeded. Now you'd better go. There is a recovery team coming in with my battalion commander. He might take a dim view of seeing you here and decide to keep you."

  Nodding, Messinger called to Perkins and began to walk. He had only gone a few steps when the German captain called out. "Major!" Stopping in midstride, Messinger turned toward the German. The German captain was looking down at Erich as he spoke. "Thank you for landing and your concern." Then he looked up at Messinger. "I wish our leaders could have been here to see that we are not in reality enemies."

  Messinger looked about. "Yes, I know what you mean. Auf Wiedersehen, and good luck."

  Part Four

  CENTRAL GERMANY

  CHAPTER 13

  19 JANUARY

  Like someone hitting a light switch, the violent tugging at the bottom of his sleeping bag brought Staff Sergeant Joe Dallas out of a sound sleep. For a moment he didn't move, didn't make a sound. Perched on top of the turret of his M-1A1 Abrams tank, wedged in between boxes of rations, duffel bags full of personal gear, and boxes of .50-caliber ammunition, Dallas, known to everyone since his first day in the Army as Dallas Joe, just listened. It was quiet. Except for the sound of his own breath bounding off the nylon cloth that covered his face and protected it from the wind and weather while he slept, Dallas heard nothing. For a moment, lying there warm and snuggled up tight and secure in his Arctic sleeping bag, he could imagine that he was anywhere. He had even managed to learn over his years in the Army to ignore the discomfort of sleeping on the hard armor plating of his tank. During that moment before the distress of the circumstances crept into his conscious mind, before the bitter cold bit at his cheeks, before the responsibility of being a tank commander came crashing down upon his twenty-six-year-old shoulders, Dallas could enjoy a few seconds to himself, free from the misery and harshness of the circumstances.

  Another tug at the bottom of the sleeping bag, followed by his loader's voice, punctuated by a hacking cough, ended Dallas's splendid isolation. "Sergeant Dallas, the LT wants you over at his tank right away. Says there's an order to move out in ten minutes."

  With great reluctance, Dallas let out a grunt to acknowledge his loader's efforts. When he was ready, Dallas moved his right hand from where it had been resting mummy style on his chest and pushed the face cloth off. Though he was prepared for the cold, Dallas was not at all ready to be sprinkled with a shower of freshly fallen snow that had accumulated on the cloth. In an instant the peace and tranquility that Dallas had felt just after waking was wiped away. Sitting up, he looked about but saw nothing. Even when he looked up, he couldn't see any sign of sky. The only thing he could detect was the soft, cold, wet pinpricks of falling snow on his face. It was, he realized, going to be another miserable day in Krautland.

  With the speed and efficiency of a professional, Dallas was up, dressed, and on his way to his platoon leader's tank in minutes, leaving his gunner, Sergeant Tim Doyle, to pack up sleeping bags, camouflage nets, and to prepare the tank. When Dallas arrived at his platoon leader's tank, the lieutenant was standing in front of his tank with the platoon sergeant studying a map spread out on the front slope of the tank. Walking up to one side of the platoon leader to where he could see the map, Dallas made his presence known without interfering with the discussion between platoon leader and platoon sergeant. Though both of them realized that Dallas was there, neither acknowledged him nor broke off the discussion that had been in progress.

  "You're right, Sergeant Emerson. I don't like the idea of running down the middle of a two-lane highway in the middle of the night either. But the CO was clear. He wanted us to physically make sure that Highway 84 was clear as far as Rasdorf and check out the reports from the division's cavalry squadron of tracked vehicles moving into that village. To me that means he wants us to roll along every inch of that hardball road."

  The platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Emerson, looked at his lieutenant, thought for a moment, then leaned forward over the map. With a small red-filtered maglight, Emerson studied the map for several moments. "Look here, Lieutenant, there's this logging trail running parallel to the highway. If this map is right, there's a number of smaller logging trails that run from the logging trail out to the main road at regular intervals. I could take my wing man and run the logging trail, sticking my nose out onto the highway every now and then to take a look, while you and your wing man run the main road, but further back. When I see that the road is clear, I'll call. Then you can come up to where I am and hold while I drop back to the main parallel logging trail and go down to the next crossover point. That way we can satisfy the old man's desire to pound the pavement without stumbling down the middle of the road like a bunch of drunks."

  Looking at the logging trail that Emerson had pointed out, the lieutenant thought for a moment. "It sounds good, Sergeant Emerson, but that's going to take a long time."

  "Did the old man give you a time limit, sir?"

  "No, no, he didn't. He just said do it."

  "I don't see what the big deal is then. So long as we're doing exactly what he said, it doesn't make any difference how long it takes."

  Conceding Emerson's point, the lieutenant sighed. "You're right, Sergeant Emerson. As always, you're right. We'll do that until we get here, just west of Rasdorf. There we'll set up on both sides of the road, with you on the north side and my section on the south. The only difference is that I'll take my section down the logging trail and you run the road. Gotta remember, I'm the platoon leader."

  Emerson, trained long ago that there were certain things that you didn't argue about with a West Pointer, merely shrugged. "Okay by me. Unless you have something else, sir, I'm going to go and give Allston and his crew a swift kick and get ready to move."

  Emerson, not waiting for a response, disappeared into the darkness. For the first time since his arrival, the lieutenant turned and faced Dallas. "Did you get most of that, Sergeant Dallas?"

  Dallas, not pleased that his platoon leader had opted to take the logging trail, something that could be hazardous under the best of conditions, said nothing. Though the risk would have been higher, Dallas would have preferred to go down the road, especially on a night like this. Dicking around on a rutted logging trail at night when you couldn't see your hand in front of your face was not his idea of excitement. Just as Emerson had discovered a long time before, Dallas was finding out that there were some things that you just didn't debate with a young second lieutenant. Instead, Dallas just grunted. "Got it, sir, loud and clear. I'll be ready to roll in less than five."

  Satisfied, the lieutenant brushed off the snowflakes that had fallen on his map as he carefully folded it in a manner that would show their route to Rasdorf. "Fine, real fine, Sergeant. Bring your tank around as soon as you're ready and meet me
here." Giving his platoon leader a halfhearted salute out of habit, Dallas turned and stumbled back to his tank to prepare for the start of a new day.

  Progress, as the lieutenant had anticipated, was slow because the condition of the logging trail was everything that Dallas had expected. The map that both the platoon leader and Dallas used, though it was the most detailed, couldn't show every twist and turn in the logging trail. At times Dallas even wondered if they were on the right trail. But after making the left turn and popping out onto Highway 84 a couple of times, as Emerson had suggested, Dallas stopped worrying. If there was one thing that his platoon leader could do well, it was use the position locator on his tank and read a map. Satisfied that all was going well, Dallas began to relax some by the time they reached the halfway point to Rasdorf.

  Tracking their progress on his own map, Dallas figured that they should have reached the next turnoff. Looking up from his map, he saw the cat-eyed taillights of his platoon leader's tank slow and then turn to the left. After making a tick mark on his map case to indicate where they were, Dallas called to his driver, Specialist Bobby Young, to slow down and prepare to turn. Young, already aware of what to do, said nothing in response. He knew that it was just Dallas's way of checking on him and keeping the rest of the crew aware of what was going on. With the greatest of ease, Young began to feel his way into the turn while Dallas leaned as far out of his open hatch as he could to watch that the huge 120mm main gun didn't smack any trees as the tank turned onto the connecting trail that led to Highway 84. When they were on the trail and Dallas saw the taillights of his platoon leader's tank again, he eased himself back down into his open hatch and watched as his platoon leader moved forward slowly toward the main road.

  Just before the two tanks reached the road, Dallas ordered Young to stop. He wanted to give the platoon leader some room to back up just in case he needed it. From the hatch of his tank, Dallas watched his platoon leader's tank break free of the woods, climbing up a slight embankment and traversing its turret to the right in the direction of Rasdorf as it went. To Dallas, who didn't like using night vision goggles, everything was black and shades of gray. Even his platoon leader's tank was nothing more than a large black mass before him, with the gun tube slowly moving to the right being the only clear feature of the turret he could see. Turning away for a moment to look down along the side of his own tank to check how well it was doing in negotiating the logging trail, Dallas was startled when suddenly the whole forest seemed to light up around him.

  Young, the driver, hit the brakes when he saw a mass of flames leap out of the platoon leader's tank in front of him. Thrown forward and then back, Dallas struggled to regain his balance before looking up at his platoon leader's tank. That tank, now dwarfed by sheets of flame leaping up from the turret, was rolling backwards toward his own tank. Though he had no idea what happened, he suspected the worst. Looking to his left, then to his right, Dallas saw that there was no way to get around his platoon leader's tank, now being racked by a series of secondary explosions. Nor was there any way that he could fight his tank where it stood if he had to. Stuck on the narrow trail, and lit up by the fires from his platoon leader's tank, he would be a sitting duck. The only thing that Dallas could think of was escape. "BACK UP! Young, back up! NOW!"

  There was no need for Dallas to repeat his order. Young was already shifting gears before Dallas said anything. When he felt the tank lurch, and then begin to move back, Dallas twisted about in his open hatch, facing to the rear as he prepared to direct Young. Dallas's night vision, however, was shot by the conflagration that was consuming his platoon leader's tank. He saw nothing of what was before him. Dots and blurred images of flames burned into his eyes, blinded him to where he was going and what was happening around him. Keying the intercom switch on the side of his crewman's helmet, Dallas told Young to take it slow and hold the tank straight. Though Dallas didn't hear a response, he could feel the tank slow slightly, telling him that Young had heard and understood.

  Both Dallas and Young were calming down and getting their act together when the loader, watching back toward the road, yelled over the intercom, "Dallas! There's something moving on the road. It's— SHIT! It's a tank and he's looking right at us!"

  To the west, sitting on the side of Highway 84 just around a bend in the road from where his platoon leader was supposed to come out of the woods next, Sergeant Emerson saw the ball of flame leap up over the treetops. Immediately following that he heard the crack of a high-velocity cannon firing. Someone, he knew, had fired, and someone had died. Without a second thought, Emerson ordered his driver to move forward slowly up to the bend in the road so that he could see what was going on. Emerson's gunner, unable to see anything, yelled out asking what was happening. In a voice that never seemed to betray excitement or stress, Emerson responded by simply telling his gunner to keep his eye glued to the sight and be ready to engage. Emerson in the same calm voice told the loader who had been riding with his head popped up out of the turret to get down, load sabot, and arm the gun. Even before he heard the loader's yell, "SABOT LOADED," Emerson had eased himself down into the turret so that only his head and shoulders showed above the lip of his open hatch. With his hand on the tank commander's turret override, he, like the rest of the crew, was ready.

  Though the flames had died down some, whatever had been hit, and Emerson feared the worst, was still burning. The fire created an eerie light that lit the road and the trees that lined it at the bend ahead. Moving toward that point, Emerson slowly began to traverse the turret so that as soon as his tank rounded the bend the main gun would be pointed down the center of the road toward the east. Like everyone else in the crew, Emerson held his breath as he felt his pulse rate quicken in anticipation of what they would find. Taking a quick glance to his rear, he could see his wing man Sergeant Allston's tank, following at the same pace, off to one side of the road. Satisfied that he was ready, Emerson faced back to the front just as the front slope of his tank began to inch out around the bend. With a simple "Okay, here we go," Emerson prepared his crew.

  The scene to his front confirmed his worst nightmare. The road leading toward Rasdorf was lined on either side by tall pine trees. Less than three hundred meters ahead, through the light snow that continued to drift down, Emerson saw the gun tube and front of a burning tank. Half protruding out of the woods, hanging on the road embankment and blocking one lane of the road, it was burning furiously. For a second he tried to confirm that it was in fact an Abrams tank. The motion, however, of another vehicle emerging from the darkness beyond the burning tank caught Emerson's attention. Instinctively he slewed the gun tube in the direction of this threat, more perceived than confirmed. Ordering his driver to stop, Emerson watched.

  From further down the road, the black form moved to one side of the road as it tried to bypass the burning tank. Emerson was about to drop down and check out this vehicle through the thermal sight when he clearly saw it turn its turret to the left in the direction of the burning tank and fire at something in the woods beyond it. Without any hesitation, without waiting for any further evidence, Emerson shouted out a quick fire command. "GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!"

  Both the gunner and loader responded in unison, "IDENTIFIED!" "UP!"

  To which Emerson replied, "FIRE!"

  At a range of three hundred meters, the flight time of Emerson's armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot round, which is a small depleted uranium dart launched at speeds greater than one mile a second, was indistinguishable from the rock and recoil of the main gun on Emerson's tank. By the time the muzzle blast had cleared, their target had already been hit and was beginning to be rocked by secondary explosions. Satisfied that the target was finished, Emerson dropped down to look at it through the tank commander's extension to the gunner's primary sight. When he did, the image that greeted him made his heart sink. The tank that he had just engaged and killed was without a doubt a German Leopard II. That, of course, meant that the burning tank sticking
out of the woods was his platoon leader's tank. Knowing that German tanks, like American tanks, never travel alone, Emerson jumped back up and ordered his driver to back up around the bend. From there he could call, in an effort to find out what had happened to Dallas and even more important to inform his company commander that they had made contact with the enemy and report the results of that contact. The thought that he had witnessed the opening shots of the shooting war had not yet dawned upon Sergeant First Class Emerson. Such things were of no real concern to him. He was, as the commander of the German Leopard tank had been, simply doing what he was trained to do.

  Impatiently, Big Al Malin waited for the morning update to end. He already understood both the nature and the severity of the situation that the Tenth Corps faced. The straight line between Alsfeld in the west and Hünfeld in the east was approximately thirty-five kilometers, or twenty-one miles. Between those two points, Autobahn A7 and Highway 27 ran north to Kassel from Fulda in the south. It was at this critical point amongst the hills and forests of central Germany that the Bundeswehr, prodded by Ruff, chose to strike first.

  Neither the location nor the units involved were a surprise to the Tenth Corps' senior commanders. Big Al's intelligence officer had been tracking the progress of the 2nd Panzer Division from Erfurt in the east and the 10th Panzer Division coming up from Frankfurt in the west for some time. Warnings had gone out to the commanders of the 4th Armored Division and the 55th Mech Infantry Division to be prepared to block those thrusts, something that both commanders set about to do. Yet even as the commanders and staff's of the Tenth Corps and its two divisions went through the motions of preparing for the confrontation, many hoped that the maneuvers of the two panzer divisions were nothing more than posturing. That was why almost to a man the staff officers of Tenth Corps felt an uncomfortable sinking feeling that morning when they briefed Big Al on initial contacts, like Sergeant Emerson's. The hope of being able to make it to the sea without a serious confrontation was in an instant washed away by the blood of these first battles. It had come, as Big Al had predicted, to a fight. Now in a matter of hours it would become a death struggle for the Tenth Corps.