Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

Back at his headquarters in Minister, Freeman was told the story and, though he smiled, was curiously ambivalent about it. On the one hand, he told his aide, the story would probably do more to raise Allied morale in the pocket than a dozen speeches. On the other hand, the distortion that the story had undergone in the retelling disturbed him, for it was as clear an example as you’d want, he told Banks, of how “screwed up the simplest verbal exchange gets as it’s passed down the line.” No matter how sophisticated the communications equipment, all the more vital in a war of rapid movement, it often came to naught when messages had to be relayed verbally. The general state of communication glitches that had been reported from Heidelberg, before it fell, was one of the reasons he was so determined to reestablish personal contact with as many units as possible within the chaos of the shrinking perimeter. He particularly wanted to rally the airborne, who had taken a terrible beating, many of them, like young David Brentwood, who had fought with him in Korea, now reported missing, apparently having come down on the wrong side of the drop zone. Well, there was nothing he could do about those out of reach.

In the rear, the media army, most of them safely across the Rhine, were clamoring for interviews with Freeman once they’d heard the Fräulein story. Freeman’s press aide suggested to the general that it might be prudent before he spoke to any of the reporters to “rephrase” his response for home consumption.

“Hell, no!” was Freeman’s response, too busy in any case with trying to figure out how he would meet what he was sure would be Yesov’s massive and final assault upon the perimeter. “Doesn’t matter what you say,” said the general as he held out his hand impatiently for his map case. “Newspapers screw it up anyway.”

Freeman placed his forefinger on Bielefeld and, moving the second finger to form a divider, checked the rough measure against the map’s scale. It was twenty-seven miles east from Bielefeld to the Weser River. If only there were some way he could push the Russians back to the river, to suddenly reverse the position, to buy time for NATO reinforcements to pour in from the convoys that he hoped were now unloading at the British and French ports. The Russians had damned good Leggo bridges, but if they were forced to withdraw, the crossing would slow them down, giving the Allies a vital pause so that RAF, USAF, and Luftwaffe fighters could bring all the firepower they still had from their fast-dwindling supplies to bear onto the smaller, concentrated areas of the bridges. With hopefully devastating results. “You know,” he told his press aide without looking up from the map spread out before him, “that James Cagney never said, ‘You dirty rat.’ “

“No,” said his aide, somewhat nonplussed. “I didn’t know that.”

Freeman ordered the Dutch mobile infantry to close on what he believed would be the northernmost right-handed punch of the Russian armor. The Dutch had always been a concern for prewar NATO HQ. But recognizing the implications of being stationed farther away from the front line, they’d made up for it, developing a speed that had won the respect of even the Bundeswehr. “Well,” Freeman told his press aide, trying to boost morale with a little trivia, “Cagney didn’t say, ‘You dirty rat.’ What he did say was ‘Judy! Judy! Judy!’ “

When the press aide saw Al Banks walking toward the command bunker, the snow was falling heavily. As Banks took off his coat, the aide noticed he had a somber, pained look about him. The aide poured a mug of coffee for him and, handing it over, asked, “What the hell’s the general on about — Judy, Judy, Judy?”

“What—?” asked Banks, cupping the coffee mug in his bands. “Listen, we’ve just got Stealth infrared overflight photos that show the Russians are moving in three more tank regiments under this blizzard. Another two to three hundred tanks.”

“Jesus—”

“I think they’re just trying to frighten us,” said Banks, laughing. There was a hint of fatigue-craziness to it that unsettled the press aide.

“T-90s?” asked the aide.

“No. PT-76s apparently.”

“Well, that’s not as bad as the 90s.”

“Yes it is. I think the old man hates them more than the 90s. Nineties are like our M-1s. Great when everything’s going great, but one good bang and out go half the electronics. With the 76s, we’re down to VW Beetles versus Cadillacs. Sometimes the simpler the better — in weather like this.”

“Easier to repair,” said the press aide, eager to show he knew more than the usual media “flak.”

“Yes,” confirmed Banks, pouring more sugar into the steaming coffee. He could see Freeman at the situation board, a corporal, with a plug-in wire trailing from his headset, writing in the estimated strength and position of the Russian armored buildup with his marker pen. They had been using the small, magnetic block stickers, the kind civilians use for sticking messages on refrigerators, but they’d had a major foul-up near Heidelberg because the magnets on the big “tote” board had wiped a nearby computer disk clean. The result was a rifle company misdirected and lost. It was the sort of unpredictable screw-up that haunted all the commanders, Freeman especially, who confided in Banks that it was the “accidents of history” that worried him more than the enemy — the little things upon which great events can turn, despite the best-laid plans.

“Another thing about the PT-76s,” said Banks, “is they’re about half the weight of our tanks, Kraut Leopards and British Challengers included. Don’t get stuck nearly so easily in the slush. That’s why the North Koreans caught us with our pants down. Gave ‘em the edge.”

“This wet snow isn’t going to help them,” replied the press aide.

“Nope. What we need now is it to get a damn sight colder — drop well below freezing. That way we’d have hard ground.”

“That how we beat ‘em in Korea?”

“That and an uninterrupted supply line from Japan,” replied Banks, the worry lines in his face so deep, they made him look like a man twice his age. “If we don’t get a full NATO convoy through in three weeks — we’re sunk.”

“Jesus!” said the aide. “You really think we’ll lose the perimeter?”

Banks looked down at him. “Where’ve you been, Larry? We could lose the war. If I were you, I’d have a press release ready in case they bust through.”

The young press aide was visibly shaken. “Christ, I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“You’ve been reading your own press releases. No one else but the old man, our G-2, and those poor bastards right on the perimeter know. I’m just saying that meanwhile you’d better cover your ass. Not too much about our gallant boys at the front. If you pump up the public back home, they’ll turn on you if we get our butts kicked back behind the Rhine. Why do you think the old man won’t allow any TV cameras on the perimeter?” Banks drained the coffee cup. “It’s going to be the biggest attack since Fulda Gap.”

“I dunno if I can keep the media off that,” said the press aide, shaking his head. “Those TV guys are pretty persistent. Already there’s a stringer on the loose. One of my guys said he put on a groundsheet — no press insignia showing. We’ve lost track of him.”

“What’s his name?” asked Banks.

“Rodriguez.”

“There’s a thousand Rodriguezes. You have his accreditation number?”

“Yes — why?”

“We don’t want him doing a Vietnam on us. Not now— when we’re down.”

“I don’t see how we can stop him, Al. He’ll be hard to spot. I mean those hand-held videos these days are no bigger’n a Hershey bar.”