Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (39 page)

One in
ten of the Alma lay dead, other units that had been in support equally savaged.

Losses in Legion equipment were huge, worst in tanks and SP guns.

And Uhlmann was missing.

It had been an extremely difficult night.

Rest did not come for many at the French First Army Headquarters.

Throughout the night, the Legionnaires and GIs of the Corps D’Assault laboured against growing odds, mostly without gain
, and always at cost.

Each and every assault had been stopped in its tracks,
although the Soviet strength grew as that of the Corps D'Assault declined, the hospitals and dressing station full to overflowing with the injured legionnaires and GIs of the US supporting forces.

Command Group
Normandie had taken the brunt of the serious fighting and remained the heaviest engaged of the three groups. The 16th US Armored Brigade was in reasonably good shape, despite the fact that it had tangled with some very serious Red Army tank formations. Alma was mauled, as was Camerone.

Command Group Lorraine had fared much better.
Tannenberg was relatively intact, but was spread thin in an effort to relieve the pressure on its comrades from Normandie.

Sevastopol was moving to take over some of Tannenberg's ground, so her sister unit could
close up again.

Command Group Aquitaine had the lightest load
, and it was presently being manoeuvred into positions where it could take over from Camerone's decimated units, supported by the arrival of the 7th Regiment Tirailleurs Algerie from Corps reserve.

Général d’Armée De Lattre received
an extremely difficult phone call, the more so as despised the man who had made it.

‘
Molyneux.’

Reports from Plummer had suggested that the man was actually acquiring some competence. A private conversation with De Walle had revealed the contents of yet another such exchange, when Lavalle had expressed his surprise at the contribution Molyneux had made in the planning of Spectrum Black.

‘Perhaps we are all wrong about him?’

De Lattre snorted openly.

‘Perhaps not!’

The man had been virtually on the verge of tears as he presented the bad news.

The notes De Lattre had made were for his use only. The results of Spectrum Black would already have been translated onto the situation map downstairs.

Picking up the phone again, he directed the operator to place his secure call.

The whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.

Arthur Wellesley, subsequently The Duke of Wellington.

“A good evening to you, General.”

Eisenhower was in the planning room, poring over maps with
most of the command group for Spectrum; Smith, Tedder, Bradley, Patton, Dönitz, Guderian, Somerville, and McCreery.

Von Vietinghoff was absent on a visit to Alexander in Italy. Devers was busy with h
is own problems, and he had easily accepted De Lattre’s request to speak directly to Eisenhower.

Also present were two men from the darker professions, remaining aloof and silent until their time to contribute came.

None of the officers present had yet benefitted from the latest reports from French First Army, so focussed had they been on their own part of the plan.

Ike covered the mouthpiece and mouthed the name of the caller. Everyone stopped for the moment, waiting for the Supreme Commander to get the good news.

The look on Eisenhower’s face sent out warnings long before he started to repeat what he was hearing.

“
Spectrum Black has been stopped.”

Guderian and Patton exchanged looks, wondering if all the planning was about to go out of the window. The two had established a professional working relationship, based on mutual admiration for the qualities of the other,
stirred with the obvious personality differences, and tempered with the distrust that clearly remained from their time as adversaries.

“
I’m sorry to hear that, General, really I am. Can you hold what you have?”

Eisenhower scribbled as De Lattre spoke.

‘Legion Corps decimated. Spectrum Black advances approximately half of intended distance.’

Eisenhower nodded
at the telephone, at a man who was so many miles away.

“
Yes indeed. That was noted by our reconnaissance. At least six corps equivalents. That represents two of their army formations at the very least, General.”

Part of Spectrum Black had been aimed at moving some of the Soviet units southwards
, and it had achieved that aim rather too well for the Legion Corps.

Clearly,
De Lattre was concerned over the ratio of forces.

Again, Eisenhower nodded out of habit.

“I will authorise that immediately, General. Give me an hour and I’ll send you something else too.”

Ike grimaced, feeling the man
’s pain.

“
Please thank your unit commanders, General. They’ve done all they could.”

The Commander gripped the phone demonstrably tighter, his voice adopting the reluctant tone that was always present when Eisenhower asked men to do the impossible.

“Can you continue to bring them down on you, General? Agitate? Local attacks? Keep their moving units on the march south?”

Ike closed his eyes
, initially to pray for the right answer, and then in thanks that the man immediately supplied it.

“
Thank you, General.”

De Lattre came to the end of his call.

“Yes. Thank you, General. We will not waste the opportunity your brave men have granted us. Good night to you, General.”

Replacing the telephone in its cradle, Eisenhower remained
staring at the inert object.

“
Sir?”

It was Bedell-Smith who
had spoken first.

Eisenhower recovered his poise.

“Sorry. Gentlemen, the French have been stopped.”

His hand shot up immediately
he saw that Patton’s body started to twitch.

“
No! Not now, not the hell now, George. They did what we asked of ‘em, and they brought down a world of hurt upon themselves so that your boys can have an easier ride... so not now... not ever.”

Eisenhower
’s voice climbed steadily as he spoke, his final five words almost spat directly at Patton.

The men in the room almost recoiled, for such
passionate displays were extremely unusual for their leader.

George
’s pathological disregard for his French allies and their capacity for fighting was not well known, except to the men in the room.

His disdain for the ex-SS units had not been hidden from the
moment they came into being.

Eisenhower, clearly
affected by the conversation with de Lattre, had fallen on him heavily.

Out of the others in the room, only Bedell-Smith did not show the slightest traces of a smile at the cowing of the buoyant commander of Spectrum
’s main assault phase.

George Patton was heavily disliked by Bradley
, as the two had history that went way back. The Germans, grudging admirers of the man’s record driving through France, felt the American’s brashness hid away limitations that would surface if things did not go to plan. The British, at least those present, tolerated him, but did not enjoy his presence, which was as much as a result of his ability to get under people’s skin as his blind faith in his own invincibility.

Eisenhower
brought them back to him as he lit his cigarette.

“
Gentlemen... Spectrum Black’s now effectively ended. De Lattre will try and make further distractions, but his units have been hammered, so no great progress is now possible.”

Letting them digest that for a few seconds, Ike cast a quick look at the map.

“They have been successful bringing down these units, away from where they can harm the main attack.”

Others joined him in his examination of the plethora of coloured arrows and markings that designated the plan for Spectrum.

“Before that call we were agreed that they’d already done enough. I’m sending some extra troops to bolster them... I’ll sort that with you shortly, Walter... so what we’ve to examine is any change caused by the losses to the French. Brad?”

Eisenhower deliberately called in his senior field commander to make the first contribution.

“Sir, we’ve very little time before we go in.”

Bradley
paused between each point.

“
The Commies’ve moved considerable assets out of our line of advance, and we were happy to go on that basis, before the call, that is.”

He looked at Patton and Guderian, the two men most burdened with direct responsibility for the main assault.

Neither spoke so the commander of the US Twelfth Army Group continued.

“
We’d like more assets to move away, but I assume that’ll risk causing us trouble down in Alsace there?”

There were enough nods for him to understand he would get no argument on that point.

“Unless the Navy and Air Force can show me otherwise, I think we gotta go in the morning, as planned.”

It was not as originally planned
, but delay had been forced upon the Allies by unforeseen circumstances.

“
Good point, Brad. Admiral?”

Cunningham looked at Donitz,
who gave a firm nod of the head.

“
The naval aspects of Spectrum are ready to go on schedule, Sir. Unless Admiral Donitz can say otherwise, I would absolutely recommend that we go on Friday. We cannot risk ‘Red’ being discovered beforehand and, if we delay, I’ll have to keep my fleet circling out here,” he stabbed the North Sea, “And that will do nothing for those aboard the ships.”

Dönitz did not wait for an invitation.

Golding, ever-present to interpret, had not even started before the diminutive German Admiral had concluded.

“
Sir, Admiral Dönitz states his belief that Spectrum Blue should go on Friday as planned, Sir.”

Eisenhower looked the German in the eye.

“Thank you, Admiral. Arthur?”

Tedder, Ike
’s second in command and highest-ranking Air Force officer in SHAEF was similarly straightforward.

“
Sir, we’ve the weather we need across the areas of concern, guaranteed as best can be until Monday. If we delay, I grant you, I’ll have my assets get stronger, but I may not be able to bring them to bear if the weather falls away. ‘Green’ is unaffected by the French’s problems. I say go.”

Eisenhower nodded to his deputy, sliding his matches to the
RAF man who was clearly in search of ignition for his pipe.

His gaze turned to the two men responsible for the sharp end of the ground attack.

“So, gentlemen?”

Patton, still annoyed by Eisenhower
’s relative harsh handling, remained unusually silent.

Guderian slowly turned away from the curtained window he had been looking at, his gaze trying to burn through the heavy hangings and into the night sky beyond.

Clearly, he did not trust his English for the statement, so Goldstein was called into action again.

“
Sir, General Guderian states that much depends on the weather so, if it is as Herr Stagg says, then we must go as planned. Delay risks discovery of all parts of Spectrum.”

Eisenhower nodded his head and turned to Patton, looking him directly in the eye, not challenging the man
, but firmly letting George know that the previous matter was closed.

Patton
’s haughtiness returned in an instant and, with hands on his hips and chest thrust out, George S Patton, commander of the US Third Army, shared his thoughts.

“
Just say the goddamned word, Ike, and we’ll march all the way to Moscow, starting ten o’clock Friday morning.”

No one had expected any different.

“What?”

“
The NKVD are convinced that this assault near Strasbourg is a feint; a maskirovka. They have reports that the Allies will move elsewhere, as a main attack, within the next seventy-two hours, possibly as soon as tomorrow, Comrade General.”