The Ten Thousand (16 page)

Glancing back to see who had delivered her from the jaws of death, Kozak saw the two M-1A1

tanks to her rear. Directing Tish, she ordered her to stop making smoke and to continue to back the Bradley up until they moved in between Rourk’s tank and a third M-1A1 that had come out of the woods. All the while, Wolf continued to search for more targets, and Rourk’s three tanks continued to engage the last of the BMPs that had overrun Gross’s position.

The engineers manning the roadblock peered out of the window of the farmhouse into the darkness as they listened to the sounds of the battle down by the river drift through the woods toward them. After the sudden and terrifying exposure to enemy artillery fire just short of their position, followed by the noise of battle that seemed to be coming closer and closer toward them, every noise, every motion, real and imagined, caused the engineers to jump. Left out there on their own, with no idea of what was happening, the engineer squad leader and his seven soldiers struggled to control their fears as they maintained their vigilance. Outside in a nearby field, the bellowing of a cow injured by the artillery barrage served to remind the engineers that this was for real, that there was a real enemy out there intent on killing them.

Across the room, huddled in the corner of the farmhouse, the owner of the house, his wife, and two young children watched the engineers. At that moment in the darkness of the room, listening to the sounds of an approaching battle, it would have been difficult to tell who was more frightened.

“Sarge, Sarge. To the front. Something’s coming up the road.” The warning, shouted by the gunner manning an M-60 machine gun, didn’t need to be repeated. While his people aimed every weapon they had down the road, the squad leader wondered how long he should wait before challenging the approaching intruder.

Having no idea where the engineer roadblock was, but knowing that this was no time to screw around, Shildon kept running for all he was worth. Huffing and puffing, he made it up the last incline, picking up speed as he continued to pump his legs. Absorbed by his own exertions and unable to hear very much due to the pounding of his feet on the pavement and his labored breathing, Shildon didn’t hear the halfhearted challenge given while he was still fifty meters from the farmhouse.

The realization that the intruder running at them had increased his speed, rather than stopping when he was challenged, left the engineer squad leader little choice. Without a second thought, he lifted his rifle to his shoulder and passed the word to open fire.

For a moment there was a pause in the action, a pause that allowed Kozak to catch her breath. It took her several seconds to calm down enough to look around and assess her situation. To her right sat Rourk’s tank. Beyond that she could see another M-1A1 tank. To her left, just a few meters away, was a third tank. That she didn’t see a fourth tank didn’t occur to her. What did occur to her was that the tanks had arrived just in time, destroying four more BMPs that had continued moving out of the woods while C60 had been fighting its own little battle. What chance, she thought, would she have had of surviving if the tanks had not arrived when they did. After pushing that thought aside, and finally composed enough to speak, Kozak made a crew check. Like her, most of her crew had been stunned into silence by their close brush with death. Only Pa-den, who had been in the rear compartment and unable to see out, had no clear idea of exactly what had happened. The reactions of the others, however, had been enough to convince him that things had been very, very tight.

Satisfied that all was in order where she was, Kozak attempted to contact Gross in an effort to find out what was happening within 2nd Platoon. Sitting in the low ground, one hundred meters behind the woods, Kozak was unable to see the river or the gap beyond. But she could hear the sounds of small arms coming from the woods she had just fled from and Bradley cannon fire from the high ground far off to her right Artillery seemed to be impacting somewhere off in the distance, beyond the woods and near the river. She couldn’t tell whose artillery it was, let alone what it was hitting. Finally ready, Kozak began to find out.

The first person to answer Kozak’s call for sitreps was Gross’s platoon sergeant, sitting up on the high ground with the platoon’s Bradleys. His report was quick and harried. “
CHARLIE
SIX
, WE
ARE

ENGAGING
A
WHOLE
BUNCH
OF
BMPS
TO
OUR
FRONT
. WE
HAVE
DESTROYED
AT

LEAST
TEN
,
BUT
THERE
ARE
MORE
MOVING
UP
NOW
,
OUT
OF
THE
RIVER
.
ENEMY

RETURN
FIRE
IS
BECOMING
HEAVY
AND
ACCURATE
.
CHARLIE
TWO
TWO
HAS
BEEN

HIT
AND
IS
OUT
OF
ACTION
. I
MAY
HAVE
TO
PULL
BACK
FROM
HERE
.
OVER
.”

Realizing that he was facing the second-echelon company, Kozak looked over to Rourk’s tank, then keyed the radio. “
CHARLIE
TWO
FOUR
,
THIS
IS
SIX
.
HOLD
YOUR
POSITION
. I AM

COMING
UP ON
YOUR
LEFT
WITH
THE
TANKS
. WE
WILL
HIT
THE
ENEMY
SECOND

COMPANY
IN
THE
FLANK
. DO
YOU
COPY?
OVER
.”

Gross’s platoon sergeant, in the midst of an engagement, only managed a quick “
WILCO
.”

That, however, was enough. While facing Rourk’s tank, Kozak radioed him. “
ALPHA
THREE

FOUR
,
THIS
IS
SIX
.
DID
YOU
MONITOR
MY
LAST
ORDER
TO
CHARLIE
TWO
FOUR?”

Rourk waved while he answered over the radio. “
ROGER
THAT
,
SIX
.
WE’RE
MOVING
OUT

NOW
.” Taking his cue from Rourk, the driver of his tank began to move forward.

When the tank to the left began to move, Kozak called to Tish over the intercom. “Okay, let’s try this again. Tish, move out and try to keep abreast of the tank to your left.”

As Kozak and the tanks began to pass to the rear of his position, Marc Gross was still in the process of pulling his dismounted squads back together. Reoriented by Gross to the front and right, squad leaders called out to their men, who were scrambling and stumbling about in the woods torn up by the first wave of BMPs. While the platoon medic and a lightly wounded infantryman paused to help some of the more severely wounded, the rest of 2nd Platoon’s dismounts homed in on the sound of their squad leader’s voice. This effort was complicated by the presence of one
BMP
that had earlier run through his position and, unlike the others that had left the woods, had turned back. Realizing that he would be unable to ignore the presence of that
BMP
, Gross ordered the squad leader of his 2nd Squad to take his men and go back to find and destroy it. With that problem taken care of, Gross turned his attention to the efforts of his other two squads. Both had taken casualties, but for the moment both were preparing to re-engage enemy BMPs going past them into the gap.

The BMPs moving through the gap offered the anti-tank gunners flank shots at less than fifty meters and provided Gross’s men with perfect targets against which they could vent the rage they felt after being overrun. Seeing there was nothing more that he needed to do, Gross ordered the squad leaders to fire at will. After the first anti-tank rocket was launched, Gross called for his radioman, took the hand mike from him, and called to his platoon sergeant for an update.

Back on the hill where Kozak had left him, Lieutenant Fong listened to the reports to Kozak and plotted them on his map. Even though she hadn’t asked for it, Fong decided that Kozak would need some artillery to support her counterattack. Satisfied that he had a handle on the situation, he told his sergeant to contact the supporting artillery battalion and request fires on two preplanned targets that would cover the gap. The sergeant, leaning over to confirm the target numbers Fong had given him, asked if they wanted to cease their bombardment of the enemy tanks that had been supporting the river crossing. Fong looked at the sergeant, then at his map. “Tell the
FSO
at battalion that if the guns can fire both missions, then yes, keep up suppressive fires on the enemy tanks. If not, shift all fires into the gap.”

Giving Fong a thumbs-up, the sergeant began to process the call for fires using his digital message device, a keyboardlike device that tied directly into the
TACFIRE
system used by the artillery. While the sergeant did that, Fong called Kozak on the Charlie Company command net, notified her of his actions, and reminded her that the artillery was on the ball and doing its job.

Stuck in the middle of a cluster of BMPs, the Ukrainian battalion commander realized that they were in trouble. Opening his hatch, he watched as the anti-tank fire he had assumed had been silenced resumed. He was about to order the follow-on company commander to shift one platoon over to engage the enemy anti-tank gunners in the woods on their flank when that company commander called over the radio net that enemy tanks were coming up from behind the woods. Jerking his head to the front right, the battalion commander watched as two BMPs on the right were blown up by enemy tank fire. Hit from the front by enemy Bradleys on the high ground, and now by tanks and dismounted infantry on the right, he saw no choice but to order all surviving vehicles to move left and take refuge in the woods on the other side of the gap.

By now it was too late to salvage much. Command and control of the battalion disappeared in a matter of seconds as the second-echelon company collided with the remains of the lead assault company and mingled, just as Kozak with the tanks came up on the flank and opened fire. That this happened just as the dismounted infantry with Gross opened fire and the first volley of artillery began to rain down on the gaggle of BMPs was pure luck, nothing but pure luck. But luck, as Ellerbee had found out, was at times just as important in war as good planning and training.

Using the woods to mask her command from the supporting Ukrainian tanks still sitting on the other side of the river searching for worthwhile targets to engage, Kozak began the methodical process of destroying the remains of the Ukrainian motorized infantry battalion.

The final act in Ranger Company A’s drama that night was, by comparison to Kozak’s fight, anticlimactic. The movement of the ranger company down away from the tunnel was unopposed.

Ilvanich’s prediction that the Ukrainians would shift their efforts to the right of where the reaction force had been defeated appeared to be correct. Ilvanich, finally able to shake himself out of his despondency, joined the end of the column. Within minutes of moving off of the ledge where the tunnel entrance was located, he was able to concentrate again. The cold morning air, the physical act of moving in the company of soldiers, and the simple fact that they were finally leaving the tunnel that reeked of death were invigorating. By the time he had moved a kilometer, Ilvanich began to feel that he was back in control of himself and the situation. That did not mean he had forgotten. No, Ilvanich knew better than that. It only meant that for the moment the images, the sights, and smells that he had witnessed that night were relegated to the recesses of his mind where they would lie dormant. Someday, Ilvanich knew, they would be back. Like thieves in the night, they could creep back into his conscious mind. There they would try to rob him of his sanity and stability, just like the other images of past battles that he struggled to restrain and suppress and on occasion did. Regardless of what happened, regardless of who won, Ilvanich knew that this war would never end. Only death, he knew, would bring an end to his suffering.

As the single file of men, burdened by wounded comrades and heavy weapons, snaked its way along the side of the mountain, Ilvanich began to make his way to its head. The rangers, each left to deal with his own thoughts, pushed on in silence, reminding Ilvanich of members of a funeral procession. They needed to be touched, he thought, touched by a word of encouragement, a smile, a hand from another living human being. So as he moved forward, followed by Sergeant Rasper, Ilvanich took the time to pat each man on the back or grab his arm and say something, anything, in an effort to shake the men in his command out of their stupor. The presence of Rasper following on Ilvanich’s heels and doing the same as he was overcame any reservations that the rangers in Company A had about the Russian major.

By the time he reached the head of the column, Ilvanich was feeling better about his decision to move overland in an effort to link up with the rest of the ranger battalion at the other storage site. Fitzhugh, who had been at the head of the column, was slowly picking up the pace as the shock of the morning’s operation wore off and the soldiers of Company A began to regain their balance. When he came up next to Fitzhugh, Ilvanich placed his hand on Fitzhugh’s shoulder. “We must not speed up too much, or the men carrying the wounded will soon be lagging behind.”