by Nick Ryan
The word was passed along the line and men took a moment to check their weapons, to say prayers and steel their resolve. Edge wondered whether the anxious terror he felt was the same fear the heroes from the First Great War experienced the moment before they sprang from their trenches to charge across no-man’s land. Beside him Vince Waddingham looked pale. Kalina seemed small and withdrawn with silent fear.
Suddenly Captain Walker dropped down beside them again, crouched like a sprinter on the blocks with an M4 in his hands. He looked left and right one final time. “Come on!” he roared and clambered over the rim of the riverbank.
Edge, Waddingham, Kalina, and most of the other soldiers rose up from the mud and followed. Edge ran hard, his elbows pumping, his heart hammering in his chest. For the first few seconds they ran into eerie silence. Then a Russian machine gunner on the ridge saw them and all hell broke loose.
The ground around the running men erupted in chunks of flung dirt and clods of grass as the machine gun drew a bead on the lead figures and opened fire. Edge jinked left, running alongside Waddingham. He could hear Kalina’s panting breath close behind him. He was pacing himself; using his body to shield her from direct fire. A flail of machine gun bullets lashed them like wind-driven hail.
Captain Walker was halfway across the meadow when he staggered suddenly and lost his step. His knees buckled, but he came upright again and ran on for ten more paces – then collapsed in the grass.
“Christ!” Edge swore. He tossed his M4 to Waddingham and heaved the Captain to his feet. The man’s face was pallid and waxen. Edge felt warm blood soak through the fabric of his jacket. “He’s been hit in the chest. Vince! Vince, cover us!”
Edge slung the dead-weight of the Captain’s body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and stared indecisively for a moment. They were stranded in the middle of the field and under increasingly heavy fire from the Russians. A second machine gun had joined the hunt and men all around them were falling.
“Which way?” Waddingham snapped.
“Back!” Edge said. “Get back to the riverbank.”
The attack was finished.
Some of the nearby men heard the call and they hesitated, then began to retreat. Others raced on towards the tree line and were cut down. Edge ran until his knees sagged and his feet felt leaden. He ran until his eyes stung with sweat and his lungs burned, expecting each step to be his last. Then the ground gave way beneath him and he fell in an awkward tumble down the muddy slope.
Behind them the field was strewn with the freshly dead and dying. Some men clawed at the grass to pull themselves forward, leaving wet red streaks of blood across the ground. Some simply lay and stared up at the vastness of the sky as the life faded from them. Others cried out in sobbing, hysterical agony, and the sound of their slow despairing deaths tortured the nerves of the stunned survivors who were helpless to aid them.
Edge collapsed and rolled onto his back, his chest heaving, gagging and husking for breath. Kalina and Waddingham ripped the wounded man’s jacket open and went to urgent work. Captain Walker had been shot high on the right side of the chest. Waddingham guessed the collar bone had been broken. They rolled him on to his side and Kalina probed the exit wound with her finger. Captain Walker groaned in pain but did not cry out. He gritted his teeth, then sagged back in a spreading pool of his own bright blood.
“He’s gonna make it,” Waddingham declared, then worked quickly to treat and bandage the wound. Edge sat up. He felt dazed, his senses numbed by the deafening noise of the battle. Barely a dozen troopers had survived the aborted attack.
Edge blinked his eyes. “But will we?”
Chapter 5:
With Raven RQ-11 tactical drones circling high above the battlefield, Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe and Major Nowakowski were able to watch the bridge crossing in real time from the security of the TOC. Two monitors stood on a tabletop relaying color images as well as readouts of data and a compass display.
Sutcliffe sat grim-faced and fuming. To this point the crossing had been an abject failure. He scowled at the monitors as the Raven drones turned lazy circles in the sky to reveal the wreckage-torn bridge and a rising column of black smoke. The crossing was impassable until the destroyed vehicles that blocked the route were cleared away. There were dozens of dead bodies littered across the blacktop and more in the river, floating downstream. The two destroyed Mortar Carriers still burned in the field by the village so that the entire skyline seemed smudged by smoke.
Russian infantry, armed with cheap RPG’s, had stunted the attack in just a few frantic seconds. Now the Cavalry had a bloody brutal fight on their hands.
Major Nowakowski too was mortified by the savage damage the Russians had inflicted on the spearhead of the column. Two of his valuable Wolverines had been blown apart with contemptible ease. He paced the TOC tent restlessly, his arms folded, his features crumpled with concern. He had insisted the glory of being the first across the Sypitki be given to his Polish troops. Now they were all dead.
As one of the drones swept east of the bridge, Sutcliffe saw the handful of survivors that were marooned along the far riverbank and his frustration turned to rage. He began barking a string of rapid-fire orders to his aides.
“Dammit, get the rest of the MGS’s into the fight,” he said. “Move them forward and to the flanks. I want fire support here and here,” he stabbed his finger at the monitor. “And I want forward support vehicles with towing equipment on that bridge within five minutes. We’ve got to clear the wreckage, asap!”
He got to his feet, knocking over the chair and stomped out into the daylight. He could smell smoke from the battlefield drifting on the air and hear the far-away rumble of heavy gunfire and explosions. He drew a deep breath and tried to clear his mind but the images of so many destroyed vehicles and dead soldiers haunted him; compelled him to set aside his bitter frustration and focus on a solution.
He strode back into the TOC tent with his features fixed and his mind made up. “We’re not leaving those men on the far bank to be slaughtered. We’re going to punch through,” he addressed every officer and aide in the room. “Get in touch with Comanche Troop. It’s their turn to take up the fight. And before we go forward this time I want that ridgeline blown to hell, understand? Pour everything we’ve got onto that god-damned crest until there isn’t a tree left standing.”
On the battlefield, the Strykers of Comanche Troop moved forward, led by their three M1128 MGS’s which swerved to the east and found hull-down cover behind undulating ground well back from the river. Their canister cartridges were well out of range, so the vehicle commanders ordered HEAT rounds loaded and the 105mm guns began to bombard the far ridge.
For ten unrelenting minutes the M1128’s pounded the enemy’s positions until the sun turned eerily red behind a pall of smoke and dust, and the world seemed trapped in a permanent twilight. Under the cover of the bombardment and smoke a Combat Recovery Team moved on to the bridge to tow the wrecked Wolverine and Stryker carcasses away. They were defended by a swarm of infantry who had orders only to protect the recovery operation. They laid down a withering wall of suppressing fire from their M249 SAWs and small arms, concentrating their efforts on the verge of the road at the far end of the bridge and the clumps of bush that were strung along the riverbank to the west.
Only one brave Russian dared show himself, leaping up from of a shallow trench by the roadside to fire an RPG. The man was cut down by American fire and the missile flew wide of its target.
Finally the Strykers of Comanche Troop rolled forward, their cargo of soldiers deployed behind each vehicle as they jounced warily onto the bridge. There was still a great litter of tangled wreckage and debris strewn across the blacktop, and many of the dead had not been recovered. The roadway was slathered in gruesome streaks of blood and glittered with thousands of spent shells.
The first two Strykers reached the mid-point without meeting resistance. In the background the M1128’s continued to pound
the far ridge, and the relentless fury of suppressing fire the Americans directed along the roadside forced the Russian defenders deep into their entrenched positions. But then a thunderous ‘crack!’ split the fragile tension and the lead Stryker disintegrated into a firestorm of flames and boiling smoke. The shock of the explosion rolled across the sky and in its wake left a dozen soldiers dead on the roadway and a dozen more seriously injured. Their cries of agony cut through the sudden stunned silence and presaged another murderous wave of fighting.
Sitting in the TOC, his eyes glued anxiously to the monitors, Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe gave a gut-sickened groan of bleak realization. “Oh, Christ,” he moaned softly. “The Russians have got tanks.”
*
“Go! Go! Go!” an officer on the bridge shouted. He was bleeding from a shrapnel cut to the forearm, grimacing in pain and dripping blood on his boots. He waved the infantry forward, his voice strident.
The soldiers fired as they sprinted gallantly into the maelstrom of smoke and danger. Some men mouthed silent prayers while others gritted their teeth and tried not to cry out in fear. One soldier dropped his M4 and it clattered on the road. Another man spat a wad of chewing tobacco then leaped a dead body and dropped to his knee to fire at the ridgeline. The leading infantry could see through the whorls of smoke that the route to the far side of the bridge was barricaded with twisted wreckage and mounds of dead bodies. The Russian infantry sprang from their trenches and unleashed a fresh hell of gunfire that filled the air with death.
The American troopers pressed on, running at a crouch, weaving from small cover to small cover. Their heavy kit flapped and rattled about their bodies as they moved.
Then, at last, more Strykers bumped onto the bridge, belching black smoke as their drivers gunned the engines in a reckless dash to reach the far side of the river. The lead vehicle fired smoke cannisters that obliterated the winding road and the ridge from sight, and then dashed forward at high speed. Dead bodies and twisted metal debris loomed out of the haze as dull dark shapes. Then came the drumming hail of ricochets as the first vehicle ran into a storm of sprayed light arms and machine gun fire. The vehicle swerved then straightened, its own 50cal machine gun adding to the wild clamor of rattling chaos.
The first Stryker reached the far side of the bridge and swung off the road, knocking down an old wire fence and ploughing into a tall stand of trees. A Russian soldier carrying an RPG dashed forward from out of the shadows. The crew inside the Stryker recognized the danger and the vehicle’s 50cal machine gun hunted the man. Through a withering hail of gunfire, the Russian fired a snap shot into the haze, but missed. The rocket flew wide and disappeared on a tail of smoke and fireworks into the chaos and confusion.
The Stryker’s 50cal machine gun traversed and cut the Russian down.
A dozen troopers burst out of the smoke, following the Stryker. They dashed across the road to the foot of the crest and dropped into shallow ditches. The ground had been churned by canister fire; the trees and shrubs flensed of their foliage. There were dead Russian bodies in the trenches, the soft earth muddied by their blood. The Americans began shooting at targets further up the rise, but they were overwhelmed by a storm of heavy machine gun fire. One man was hit in the neck and screamed in shock and agony until he bled out. Another trooper had half his guts shot away. He sat down in the trench with his legs stretched before him and muttered a string of silent curses until death took him.
The Stryker reversed out of the trees and rolled back onto the road, it’s 50cal still firing short bursts along the ridgeline. Another Stryker emerged through the smoke, two of its huge tires deflated and on fire as it careened into a roadside ditch. A Russian mortar shell landed on the riverbank, throwing up an avalanche of dirt and dust and debris.
It was imperative that the Americans move quickly to consolidate their tenuous bridgehead on the far side of the river. Two more Strykers dashed forward, their own machine guns adding to the fury while in their wake troopers charged bravely forward as if the hounds of Hell were at their heels.
For a brief moment it seemed the bridge that had been paid for with so much spilled blood was finally won. The charging Strykers reached the far bank of the river and dashed heedlessly along the road, racing past the vehicle that had crashed into the trees. The road appeared open to the Americans, rising gradually as it bent to the left.
Two thunderous ‘cracks!’ spaced just ten seconds apart turned triumph into defeat. The first Stryker blew apart in an eruption of flying metal and flame. The second Stryker was struck side on as it reached the bend in the road. The crashing impact blew the vehicle over onto its roof, wheels spinning crazily as the shattered steel carcass became engulfed in smoke.
The infantry that followed the Strykers had been left behind by their mad dash down the road. The soldiers flung themselves to the ground. One man lay twitching in the dirt in a pool of his own blood, but the rest were uninjured.
“Fall back!” someone shouted. He sounded like he was sobbing.
“Get back across the bridge!”
The battlefield smelled of blood and smoke and fear. The suppressing fire from the American machine guns fell suddenly silent. The M1128’s had fired at the crest of the ridge until they had no more ammunition in their autoloader magazines. Now the bridge was wreathed in so much smoke there were no more visible targets. One American trooper, his left arm severed by flying shrapnel, staggered out of the maelstrom and stood in a numb, swaying daze. He had dropped his weapon and lost his helmet. His face was streaked with sweat. He shuffled into the open and stood on buckling knees, bewildered and panting, until a Russian sniper shot him dead.
The wicked retort of the shot seemed to galvanize the stranded infantry into action. They started to edge backwards. When Russian machine guns began to hunt them down, their panic became absolute.
“Get back!”
“Break cover! Run for it!”
The moment they scrambled to their feet and began retreating, Russians along the ridgeline opened fire. One trooper screamed his defiance and emptied his weapon’s magazine into the nearby trees until the ground around him erupted in a flail of gouged dirt and hissing bullets. He dropped to his knees, bleeding from several wounds. He continued firing but he was silent now, his mouth hanging open, his weapon swinging wildly until he disappeared behind the crashing eruption of a mortar shell strike.
*
“God damn it!” Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe punched the table as he watched the ignominious retreat on monitors at the TOC, eight miles behind the battlefront. He bounced to his feet and paced the floor, his features tight with bitter frustration. In the corner of the tent, Major Nowakowski stood, glowering. He stepped forward at last. His voice quivered with loathing.
“This fiasco,” he stabbed his finger at the monitor, “is all the fault of your scout who reconnoitered the crossing. Sergeant Edge should be court-martialed for dereliction of duty and cowardly negligence. If he had done his work thoroughly, Colonel Sutcliffe, none of this would have happened.”
Sutcliffe withered the Polish Major to silence with a steely glare. “Edge did his job. And regardless of what he reported, we were still obliged to take the bridge. Nothing in his intelligence changed our attack.”
Nowakowski looked like he had more to say. Sutcliffe wasn’t in the mood. The American had made all the accommodations to polite diplomacy he was prepared to make. He turned his back on the Major and hunched over the table for a few more long moments of futile despair. The infantry that had reached the far side of the river had now either retreated back to safety or were lying dead on the blacktop. All that remained on the far bank were the destroyed carcasses of several Strykers and the knot of survivors still stranded along the riverbank. In the background the radio was a chaos of accidental transmissions of gunfire, desperate shouting, frantic commands and pleading cries for support. The troops at the battlefront were too busy fighting for their lives to follow radio etiquette so that outbreaks of d
esperation overwhelmed legitimate command orders.
Sutcliffe tried to match the radio chatter blaring through the speakers with the grainy images he saw displayed on the monitors. Comanche Troop had been badly mauled by the tenacious ferocity of the Russian defenders. Their attack had been savaged and repulsed. Some of the troops on the front line appeared numbed and shocked. Some were cowering in cover while others sheltered behind the log-jam of vehicles stalled by the roadside. Closer to the riverbank it looked like men were digging defensive positions and foxholes.
“I’m going forward to the battlefront,” the Colonel announced to the 1st Squadron’s Executive Officer. He couldn’t command the conflict from behind the lines. He needed to be at the bridge to transform the milling chaos into renewed purpose. “Get me a Humvee and a driver.”
Sutcliffe sat up front in the passenger seat. Major Nowakowski and the S-3 Operations Officer clambered into the back. The vehicle sped away in a skid of dirt and gravel.
It took just a few minutes to reach the front. As the Humvee drew closer, the smoke became thicker and the sounds of sporadic gunfire and mortar explosions louder. They reached the tail of the Stryker column, and Sutcliffe urged the driver on towards the bridge. The American vehicles were stalled on the shoulder of the road, parked askew with their ramps down and their cargoes of infantry sitting idly in the long grass.
Closer to the bridge the scene became one of confusion and destruction. The driver parked the Humvee and Sutcliffe strode towards a knot of officers gathered around the rear of a Troop command vehicle. The men’s faces were haggard and smeared with dirt and sweat. One officer stood barking rapid-fire orders to a harried radio operator. Someone spotted Sutcliffe and the men snapped to attention. Sutcliffe waved their salutes away with a brusque swat of his hand.