THE TEN THOUSAND

by Harold Coyle

  "We're ready, sir. We know that we'll be able to penetrate German airspace. Whoever has been feeding us the IFF codes for the Luftwaffe is continuing to do so." IFF, short for identify friend or foe, is an electronic system on every combat aircraft that emits a signal when interrogated by another aircraft or a ground-based air defense system. If the correct response comes back from the aircraft being interrogated, it is considered friendly. If not, it is deemed to be hostile and engaged or tracked. With the Luftwaffe's IFF codes, the aircraft of the 79th Air Wing would be able to make it to their designated targets without interference from the German long-range air defense system. Even when it was discovered that the IFF codes had been compromised, confusion would reign and engagements between opposing aircraft would rely on visual rules of engagement rather than radar alone.

  Looking back at MacHaffry, Big Al smiled. "Okay, get back to Boomer and tell him to stand by. I don't want to push the Germans too far, not until it's really necessary."

  Satisfied that everything that could be done about the Luftwaffe was in hand, the assembled group looked to the portion of the map where the symbols of the 10th Panzer Division sat clustered west of Alsfeld. Prentice, the G-3, pointed out that the 55th Infantry Division, with two brigades and six battalions, was an even match for the 10th Panzer's three brigades and six battalions. Though Big Al agreed, saying that he intended to leave that fight up to the 55th's commander, he also stated that he would suggest a holding action at Alsfeld with one brigade, and a maneuver to the north and west with the other. To assist in this fight, Big Al directed Prentice to issue orders attaching one squadron of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment to the 55th. The rest of the 14th Armored Cavalry would cover the corps rear and the maneuver by the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade.

  Finished, Big Al asked if anyone had any questions or comments. Prentice, looking at the map, asked if he thought that the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade would be able to cover the distance from Fulda to Highway 19 and still be able to strike north in time to influence the battle. Big Al smiled as he prepared to answer. "That's Scotty Dixon's brigade you're talking about. If I asked him to secure a bridgehead on the moon, the only question he would ask is what side of the moon we wanted it on." Then, on a serious note, he looked at the map. "If anyone can do it, he can." Unsaid was a follow-on comment that Big Al kept to himself: And if I'm wrong, Scotty's brigade will be wiped out and we fail.

  While the general pondered and staff officers scurried about issuing orders to this unit and that, the first casualties arrived at the 553rd Field Hospital just as the sky in the east began to lighten, announcing that another cold gray day was dawning. The appearance of real wounded soldiers whose bodies were torn, twisted, or burned in combat had the same effect on the personnel of the 553rd that news of the first battles had had on the staff of the Tenth Corps. But they hid any outward manifestation of that shock or dread behind the mask of medical professionals. For the task of the men and women of the 553rd Field Hospital was to save those who were suffering from true shock, the shock of physical and psychological trauma caused by what was being called the Battle of the Two Felds.

  Working in pre-op, Hilary Cole, like every other nurse in the unit, walked a fine line between maintaining a detached professional attitude when dealing with the broken and traumatized soldiers entrusted to her care and opening her heart to their sufferings. In some cases, where the soldier was unconscious or under heavy sedation, this was easy. Then all she had to do was cut away those parts of the uniform that would interfere with the surgeon's work, remove old dressings, often hastily applied in adverse conditions and contaminated with dirt and mud, and clean the wounds as best she could.

  It was when the soldier was conscious and able to talk that Cole had to be on her guard. Often these soldiers had no idea of how seriously they had been injured. They knew they had been hit, and they felt pain. But the shock of the wound, coupled with adrenaline dumped into their system by their bodies, and sedatives administered at battalion aid stations, masked for the most part the severity of- their condition. Inevitably those who could would ask the question that the nurses working in triage and pre-op dreaded, namely, "How bad is it?"

  Having worked in shock-trauma before joining the Army, Cole had seen serious injuries before and had learned to deal with that question. While working as quickly as possible, Cole would try every ploy she knew to change the subject. She'd ask the patient's name, where he came from, what his unit was, anything to take his mind off of his injury and save her from having to lie about it. That was not always possible. One soldier, missing his left foot from the ankle down, would not be put off by Cole's diversions. The more she told him to calm down and relax, the more upset he became. Finally, angry and upset, he began to struggle to sit up as Cole was trying to cut away the blood-soaked field dressings. Stopping what she was doing, Cole turned away from his left leg and leaned over the soldier, taking his face firmly between her hands. Mustering all the calm she could, she looked him in the eye and quietly told him his foot was gone. For a second there was a pause as the horror of her statement struck home. Then he closed his eyes and let himself slump back down as he tried desperately to absorb the reality of losing his foot. Finally, just as Cole finished and was preparing to leave, the soldier reached out and grabbed her arm. His face betrayed no more fear, no anger. He only nodded and whispered, "Thanks."

  Taken in isolation, Cole and the other nurses could have handled such incidents. But as the day wore on, Cole's ability to keep her emotions in check, her efforts to isolate herself from the pain and suffering of the young men and women she worked on, oozed away like the blood that soaked through field dressings. By midmorning Cole could feel herself begin to lose it as she realized that no matter how fast she worked there were always two or three more waiting for her attention. Still, like the other nurses, she kept working, dealing with the screamers and those barely alive. She had to, as she watched two more wounded brought in. For a second Cole felt like she was the only one there, left alone to deal with cuts and gashes that measured a foot or more, burns that made the human body look like badly burned beef, severed limbs that refused to stop bleeding, abdominal wounds that revealed the intestines, and shattered bones that stuck out of the body in ways she never thought were possible. And there was no end, no letup.

  Turning her attention away from the door, Cole forced herself to focus on the soldier lying before her. He was a young man, maybe twenty, twenty-one at most. From his waist down, blood seeped through his burned uniform from numerous wounds. Unable to deal with him properly, his battalion aid station had sent him straight to the 553rd with only hasty patching and treatment. It was now up to Cole to prepare him for the surgeons.

  At first she didn't even bother looking at his face. Instead she mechanically began to cut away the charred uniform, stopping only when she exposed a wound that was bleeding too badly. The cutting was not easy, for the burned skin often stuck to the shredded uniform. When she ran across this, Cole was careful to lift the uniform slightly, and then separate the skin from the material with scissors or a scalpel. While she was doing this to one particularly nasty wound on the inside of his thigh, Cole noticed that the soldier didn't move or jerk. Looking up at his face for the first time, she checked to see if he was breathing. To her surprise, he was awake and staring up. Finishing what she was doing, Cole moved over to check the soldier's vital signs. As she did so, he still didn't move as he continued to stare vacantly into space. Satisfied that he was still hanging on, Cole was about to go back to work when he softly called out, "Is it all there? Am I, am I going to be all right?"

  Knowing that he was concerned about his genitals, Cole hesitated for a second. She didn't know, since she hadn't gotten that far. Torn between ignoring the soldier's gentle plea and responding, Cole flashed the best smile that she could and turned to face the soldier. With her right hand, she brushed several dirty strands of hair away from his forehead and leaned over close to him. "Wel
l, honey, I'm sure you're going to be all right. I just need to do some more cleaning up so the doctors can take care of you. Now if you promise to relax and try to stay still, I'll do my best to finish as quickly as possible without causing you any more discomfort than I have to. Is that a deal?"

  A weak smile was the best response that the soldier could muster before he returned to staring into space. Taking a deep breath, Cole straightened up, looked at his face one more time, then got back to work. Though she did her best to keep the amount of distress she was causing him to a minimum while working as fast as she could, Cole knew that she was putting the soldier through agony. Still he did not move. Every time she looked up, all he did was lie there staring at the ceiling. Only when she finished and turned back to tell him that she was done, did she find that at some point during her efforts the soldier had quietly slipped into unconsciousness and died.

  Suddenly the full weight of all the emotions that she had been holding back, all the horror and suffering that she had been defending herself against, came crashing down on Cole. With her face stiff with panic, Cole stepped away from the table, unable to turn away from the soldier's eyes frozen open in death. Without realizing it, Cole began to shake and tremble. She didn't hear the high-pitched squeal that came from a soul unable to continue with her gruesome labors. Slowly, uncontrollably, Cole was beginning to break down under the stress.

  From across the way, First Lieutenant Renée Ritter heard Cole's screech and looked up. In an instant Ritter knew what was happening. Shouting to an orderly to come over to where she was and finish cleaning a burn, Ritter rushed over and grabbed Cole's arm from behind and spun her around. Cole's face was taut with terror. Her eyes, wide open and unblinking, were focused on some unseen object past Ritter's shoulder. Holding Cole's arms firmly in her hands, Ritter gently shook her.

  Finally Cole looked up and searched Ritter's face for a second before speaking. Even then Cole was able to utter only a few weak and fluttering words. When she did, those words were disjointed and almost whispered. "He died! He did what I asked and he died. He just lay there like I asked him and he died. I told him if he just relaxed and kept quiet, he'd be all right. And he died!"

  On the brink herself, Ritter fought back her own tears as she took Cole's chin in her hand and tilted it up to look into her eyes. "Hilary, you're doing your best. You can only do so much. God, I hate to see this too and I hate to admit it, but not everyone in here is going to live. We can't stop that. You can't, I can't, even the colonel can't. We can only do our best to save those we can." Pausing, Ritter let go of Cole's chin and wiped away the tears that were streaming down her own cheeks. She didn't realize that in the process she was smearing across her own face blood that was still on her hands from the last casualty she had been working on. "Hilary, you've got to stay with me. If you don't, we'll lose more. Do you understand that? Do you hear me? You've got to stay with me."

  Cole, fighting her tears with the last of her strength, looked into Ritter's eyes as she inhaled. She couldn't answer. All she could do was nod just before she wrapped her arms about Ritter. Putting her head on Ritter's shoulder, Cole began to cry. Without hesitation, Ritter wrapped her arms about Cole and leaned her cheek against Cole's.

  While other nurses and orderlies around them went about their work, ignoring the two nurses, Ritter slowly rocked Cole, saying nothing, for there was nothing that could be said. No words could drown out the moans and screams of the wounded that waited to be tended to. No promises that everything would be all right could reassure Cole. Only the warmth of another human being, suffering and needing a kind and gentle touch just as badly as Cole did, could ease the suffering that was tearing at Cole's heart.

  Though the wounded kept coming in, they would have to wait for a moment while the Army's caretakers took care of their own invisible wounds and suffered for a moment in silence together.

  Outside, in any direction you cared to turn, officers and soldiers of the U.S. Tenth Corps and the Bundeswehr moved about through the woods and around the hills of central Germany hunting each other like animals. For at company and platoon level, the grand strategy and sweeping maneuvers discussed by commanders and staff officers at corps and division had no meaning. War to the company commander, platoon leader, and the soldiers entrusted to them was nothing more than a series of chance meetings, sudden firefights, and swift mad charges and countercharges as attacker and defender rushed forward to tear blindly away at their enemy whenever they were found. For the next two days, opposing German and American companies and platoons collided in the cold, damp, snow-covered hills, fields, and woods. When that happened, they would hurl themselves at each other, exchange fire, and push for an advantage. In this way they generated more wounded, more broken bodies, broken bodies that would eventually find their way to Cole, Ritter, and other nurses, German and American, working hard to undo the damage caused by officers doing their duty and national policies run amuck.

  CHAPTER 14

  19 JANUARY

  While the problems faced by all the commanders throughout the 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division, up to this point of Malin's March to the Sea had been varied, complex, and numerous, they were for the most part taken in stride and carried out swiftly and efficiently. Even the sudden change in orders, jerking them from the nerve-racking task of playing rear guard for the corps to an offensive mission that would require them to charge off into the flank of an advancing German panzer division, was taken in stride with hardly a break in the tempo of the brigade. Scott Dixon, after all, had gone to great extremes during training exercises to stress and test the flexibility, both physical and mental, of all of his commanders. "Every conceivable problem and difficulty in war," he told his officers and noncommissioned officers at every opportunity, "is possible. The only thing that any of you can be sure of," he warned his subordinates, "is that in war, the next mission or next problem you face will probably be the one which you were never trained to deal with or weren't prepared to deal with." While these words were coming back to haunt every officer and sergeant in Dixon's command the further north they went, they had special meaning to Captain Nancy Kozak that morning.

  Though everyone by this point was tired and a little ragged from the constant movement and stress brought on by maintaining a high state of combat readiness around the clock, the effectiveness of Scott Dixon's training paid off as the 1st Brigade went through the throes of changing its mission and direction of movement. Having received the new orders just after occupying a new defensive position, Kozak accepted the battalion order that would hurl them into the flank of the 2nd Panzer Division and without any fuss quickly prepared her own company order. With the efficiency of a well-trained drill, Kozak gathered her platoon leaders, described the new situation that they were about to face, and issued the necessary orders that would initiate their movement to contact in the clear, concise, and crisp manner that Fort Benning taught its young officers. With salutes that were as crisp as Kozak's orders, her platoon leaders had acknowledged their new orders and turned away to go back and brief their platoons, when without warning the company first sergeant presented Nancy Kozak one of those unexpected challenges that Scott Dixon had taken great pains to warn them about. The challenge came in the form of a Mrs. Emma Louisa Richardson and her two children.

  As all good soldiers quickly learn, it is important to establish a routine, a disciplined routine, for taking care of oneself in the field and maintain it even under the most pressing of circumstances. Kozak, having discharged all of her responsibilities for the moment by issuing out a quick and complete operations order for their new mission, found herself with a few minutes to herself. Informing the executive officer that she was going to clean up and grab something to eat, Kozak climbed inside of her Bradley. Sitting on one of the seats free of personal gear and equipment, Kozak removed her helmet and dropped it to the floor. With both hands she violently began to scratch her head. As she did so, all she could think of was how filthy and oily her
hair got during operations like this. At that moment Nancy Kozak would give just about anything to spend five minutes under a hot shower beating down on muscles that ached and skin that was so dirty that it almost made her cry. Knowing that such a dream, however, was only a dream, she pulled her rucksack over to her and began to dig for her ditty bag and towel, shouting up to Sergeant Wolf, who was standing radio watch in the turret, to keep an eye open for visitors and wave them off if possible. Within a few minutes, Kozak was stripped down to her T-shirt and preparing to spend the few minutes she had to herself getting as clean as her spartan conditions would allow.

  She was just beginning to enjoy the warmth of the Bradley and the fact that she had no web gear, bulky jacket, or itchy sweater on when Wolf yelled down to her. "Yo, Captain. First sergeant's coming our way."

  Taking the washcloth she had been wiping the back of her neck with in both hands, Kozak wrung it out over the small bowl of soapy water that sat between her feet, dropped it into the bowl, and muttered a curse that Wolf couldn't hear. When she heard the first sergeant pound on the armor plate of the rear troop compartment door, the tone of Kozak's voice betrayed her disgust at being disturbed. "Come on in, Top."

  Twisting the heavy metal handle, First Sergeant Gary Stokes let the door swing out, then stuck his head in. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am. But I got this little problem I'd like your opinion on."