The Ten Thousand (70 page)

Radek had just opened the door of the commandant’s building when the shooting started. Stepping out onto the front step, he gasped in horror as he watched a staff car careen madly past him. It was going as fast as it could while the passenger on the side opposite from where Radek stood fired wildly out of his open door. Radek was still standing there, bewildered and disbelieving, when the first truck of the convoy went by. In the rear of the truck, the canvas sides were rolled up, revealing the German soldiers inside crouching behind the thin sides of the truck’s cargo bed as it came roaring past. Like the soldier in the staff car, they too were firing their rifles as they went. Though their aim was wild, the volume of fire they put out more than made up for it. Hit in the shoulder, and then the chest, Radek was thrown backwards through the open door of his office. There, bleeding and unable to get up or even call for help, he lay listening to the sound of trucks rushing by, punctuated by screams of pain, panic, shooting, and every now and then a random explosion.

Outside the site, Colonel Haas pulled himself out of his overturned staff car. His driver, crumpled up like a ball of rags behind the steering wheel, was dead. And from what he could tell, he had two broken legs. Once he was out on the paved road leading into the site, Haas looked toward the gate, still gaping open. Like Radek, he listened helplessly to the sounds of battle as they moved away from him and closer to the inner secure area.

Specialist Kevin Pape ignored the wind whipping in his face, made harsher by the speed of the truck he was riding in. Instead, he prepared to fire the machine gun that he had cared for and manned for many days but had never had the opportunity to fire in anger. Leaning into the weapon, Pape tucked his chin up against the shoulder stock, took careful aim at a group of three Germans running for cover behind a bunker near the gate of the inner secure area, and opened fire. Seeing his first burst of seven to ten rounds fly over his targets, he stretched himself up slightly and fired again. This time he was on target, sending the middle soldier tumbling down and causing the man behind him to make a quick leap lest he trip over his fallen comrade. With a slight correction, Pape caught the German in midair.

Absorbed by his engagement, Pape did not notice that a machine gun in the bunker where his targets had been running was now firing on Ilvanich’s staff car. It wasn’t until that car, its driver hit, made a sudden turn to the right and went crashing into the barbed-wire fence that Pape realized what was happening. The driver of his truck, Private Ken Hillman, cut the wheel to the left to avoid crashing into the rear of Ilvanich’s staff car. In doing so, he lost control of the truck and, like Ilvanich’s staff car, the truck went crashing into the barbed-wire fence. Unlike Ilvanich’s car, the heavier truck continued through the fence and into the anti-vehicle ditch beyond. The front wheels bit into the soft mud of the ditch and buried the front fenders.

Even before the truck stopped, Sergeant Rasper slapped Pape on the side of his leg. “OUT! OUT!

EVERYONE
OUT!”

Reaching forward, Pape pulled the pin that held his machine gun in the truck’s ring mount, dropped inside, and yelled to the driver as he started to duck out the door on the left. “Don’t forget the ammo.

Grab the ammo boxes.”

As Pape began to go out the door, Hillman yelled, “Got it,” and leaped from his.

Rasper, in the middle, was right behind Pape as a stream of bullets smashed the track’s windshield.

“Go, damn it. Get your ass out of here.” Excited, Rasper gave Pape a shove.

Caught off balance, Pape and his machine gun went flying down, face-first, into the mud of the anti-vehicle ditch.

Pulling himself out of his vehicle, Ilvanich paused only long enough to satisfy himself that Sergeant Couvelha was beyond help. Then, with his automatic rifle in his right hand, he jumped up onto the hood of his staff car, placed his left hand on top of the pole that the barbed wire was strung on, and boosted himself up and over the wire fence. Like any well-trained paratrooper, he brought his feet and knees together while he was still in the air and prepared to roll as soon as he felt the shock of hitting the ground.

The mud in the ditch, however, was softer than he had anticipated. He sank several inches into it and never rolled until he remembered to do so.

His timing was impeccable. Ilvanich’s gymnastics caught the attention of the Germans manning the machine gun in the bunker at the entrance of the inner secure area. Finished with the truck for a moment, the machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around to the left and fired a burst at Ilvanich. He had, however, disappeared into the anti-vehicle ditch. Cursing, the gunner slapped the side of his weapon. “Why in the hell did they dig a ditch like that right in front of the bunker’s field of fire? The Russians must have had a death wish.”

The sergeant behind him smacked him on the side of his helmet. “Shut up and go back to the truck.

The enemy are deploying.”

But by the time the machine gunner had managed to bring the gun back to the right, the last of the rangers that had been in the rear of Rasper’s truck were in the ditch and rushing forward to the wall of the anti-vehicle ditch nearest to the inner secure area.

Throwing himself against that wall, Ilvanich paused for the first time since the shooting had started to assess the situation. Twenty meters to his left he watched for a second while Rasper deployed his men against the wall and, like him, stopped to catch his breath and sort things out. Behind him he could hear firing from the direction of the buildings they had gone through. Lieutenant Fitzhugh, no doubt, was deploying the rest of the ranger company and engaging the bulk of the German garrison. Though Ilvanich didn’t know what had happened that had allowed them to get so far, he knew that if they didn’t do something in the next minute or so, the Germans to their rear would be able to assemble their overwhelming numbers. They would then be free to wipe out Ilvanich and the rangers, now trapped between the inner secure area and the main compound.

Desperate measures for desperate times. Over and over Ilvanich repeated that to himself. Desperate measures for desperate times. When he was mentally ready, he yelled over to Rasper, “Sergeant! We must get out of this ditch and into the secure area before the Germans recover. I am going for the machine gun. Cover me.”

Rasper didn’t stop to think about what Ilvanich was saying or what it meant. He simply turned to his men and yelled, “Everyone, up and fire. Up and fire.” While his men did so, Rasper yanked a smoke grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it over to where Ilvanich would be coming from.

Swinging the heavy German machine gun up, over, and down onto the dirt parapet of the anti-vehicle ditch, Pape took the best possible aim he could and began to fire at the bunker. As his bullets began to splatter against the concrete around the aperture of the bunker, the German machine gunner brought his weapon to bear on Pape and returned fire, throwing clods of mud kicked up by near misses back into Pape’s face.

When Ilvanich saw this, he took a deep breath, pulled himself up out of the ditch, brought his rifle up to his hip, and began to race for the bunker at a dead run. Inside the bunker, the German sergeant’s attention was drawn back to Ilvanich. From behind his machine gunner he pointed his finger toward Ilvanich. “To the left. Get that bastard.” Without letting up on the trigger, the German machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around, cutting Ilvanich down just as he reached the halfway point.

For the briefest of moments there was a stunned silence as the rangers with Rasper watched Ilvanich go down and roll over twice before coming to rest on his back. After all that they had been through in the past few weeks with him, to see him cut down like that was a shock. But it only lasted a second. Rasper knew what Ilvanich had been after, and he knew what needed to be done. Taking a second smoke grenade, Rasper pulled the pin, threw it out to his front, and watched its clouds of yellow smoke build up.

Ready, he yelled to his men again. “I’m going for the bunker. Cover me.”

Again the rangers in the ditch popped up and began to fire at the bunker as fast as they could while Rasper this time scrambled up over the edge of the ditch and headed for the bunker. And as before, the German sergeant in the bunker, despite the building clouds of smoke, saw the danger and directed his machine gunner’s attention to it: Without a sound, without a single moan, Rasper pitched forward and fell flat, sliding to a dead stop only meters from where Ilvanich lay.

The thud of Rasper’s body and the strange noise of the air leaving his lungs while he died caught Ilvanich’s attention. Though his mind was drifting in an almost dreamlike state and he didn’t seem to have any control over a body that he hardly felt, Ilvanich managed to bring his head around until he was facing Rasper. It took several seconds for his eyes to focus. When they did, Ilvanich quickly understood what had happened. Rasper lay there with bulging eyes and his face half buried in mud that had been plowed up as his body had pitched forward and slid along the mud. He had, Ilvanich realized, followed his lead and had for his efforts been killed.

Suddenly understanding that they were going to fail, Ilvanich began to sob. He still didn’t feel any real pain, but he knew he was hit bad. Nothing except his head responded to his efforts to move. This was no way for a well-trained Russian paratroop officer, a man proud of his skills and abilities, to die. Not at the head of a foolish attack that was doomed to failure. No, these men deserved better than this.

In what appeared to be a foolish attempt to mock him even further, Ilvanich watched as another man came up and out of the ditch in an effort to reach the German machine gun. They were, he thought, doing exactly as he had asked them to do. And they were dying, for the ranger that had sprung up grabbed his face and fell backwards before he even managed to get both feet out of the ditch. Unable to watch anymore, Ilvanich closed his eyes and prayed to any god that would listen to take him now, before he had to see one more man die.

The shock of seeing Private Ken Hillman’s body being thrown back into the ditch right next to him broke Pape. There, not more than a meter away, his friend Ken Hillman lay on his back clutching his bloody face with both hands, screaming at the top of his lungs and kicking wildly with his feet. Everything, the sudden rush from the front gate to the inner secure area, the truck crashing into the ditch, watching Ilvanich, followed by Rasper, and now Hillman, cut down like this was too much for Pape. Without any conscious thought, Pape let go with the yell of a man who had lost control. Hoisting his machine gun up to his side, he bounded out of the ditch and began to rush forward toward the bunker.

Across the field from him, through the thinning clouds of yellow smoke, the German sergeant saw the new target pop up out of the ditch and start running at him. “God in heaven! Are these men mad? Who are they?” For a second he, the machine gunner, and the assistant machine gunner watched in utter amazement as another man in a German uniform, screaming at the top of his lungs, came lunging toward them, a machine gun at his hip and firing as he went. Recovering from this spectacle, the sergeant simply said, “Kill him. Now.” Seeing no need to rush, the German machine gunner prepared to comply, taking careful aim. When he was ready, he braced himself and pulled the trigger.

It took only a fraction of a second to realize that although the bolt had gone forward, the machine gun had not fired. Behind him, the sergeant, who had not heard the bolt go forward, yelled, “Fire! Fire, damn it.”

Pulling the trigger a second time, the gunner confirmed that the bolt had gone forward. “AMMO!

MORE
AMMO
. HURRY!”

Caught off guard and totally absorbed by the nonstop rush of events, the assistant machine gunner looked over to the gunner with a dumb look on his face. He stood there for the briefest of seconds before he realized what the gunner was saying. “
AMMO
.
I’M
OUT
OF AMMO! HURRY!”

The sergeant, seeing the confusion, didn’t wait for the assistant gunner to respond. Instead, he bent down and grabbed for the first ammo box that he could reach. The machine gunner, pushing the assistant gunner out of the way, raised the cover of his weapon, pulled the bolt back, and reached for the fresh belt of ammunition just as Pape stuck the muzzle of his machine gun into the aperture of the bunker and let go with a long burst of fire.

From across the anti-vehicle ditch, Fitzhugh, leading the rest of the company, had watched in horror as Hillman had gone down and then Pape, like a man possessed, had risen and rushed for the bunker.

When he saw Pape cover the distance from the ditch to the bunker and stick his machine gun into the opening, Fitzhugh yelled to the men following him, “Okay, rangers, let’s go. All the way. We’re going all the way.”

Without breaking stride, the rangers with Fitzhugh poured into the ditch through the hole in the fence made by the truck, ran through the muddy bottom, and scrambled up over the other side. Those rangers who had been with Rasper and were still in the ditch joined Fitzhugh and his men in the mad dash for the inner secure area.

Once they were clear of the ditch, their momentum carried them forward, overcoming any resistance that remained and leaving the German battalion, back in the main compound of the storage area, thrashing about in an effort to assemble and reorganize. Fitzhugh, short of breath but still fired up, paused for only a moment as he passed Pape and slapped him on the shoulder. “That was great! You did great.

Now let’s go. Follow me.”

Pape, however, was in a daze. Allowing the muzzle of the machine gun to drop to the ground, Pape fell back against the side of the bunker and looked across the open field to the ditch. The last of the smoke from the grenades was being carried away by the breeze. There, under a thin veil of yellow, he could see both Ilvanich and Rasper lying still. In the ditch, though he couldn’t see him, was Hillman. That much he knew. What puzzled him, and it would puzzle him for the rest of his life, was how in the name of God he had gotten to where he was now standing. Neither the eyewitness accounts nor the citation that accompanied the Medal of Honor he was given would ever satisfy Pape. What he had done, and why, during the longest and most important fifteen seconds in his life would always be a mystery to him.