“Not too shabby, Dan,” Simms observed.
“Some people,” said the skipper of HMS
Oberon,
“have all the bloody luck!”
“You know, Todd,” said the commanding officer of USS
Chicago,
“this is pretty good beer.”
USS
PHARRIS
There were only two bodies to bury. Another fourteen men were missing and presumed dead, but for all that, Morris counted himself fortunate. Twenty sailors were injured to one extent or another. Clarke’s broken forearm, a number of broken ankles from the shock of the torpedo impact, and a half-dozen bad scaldings from ruptured steam pipes. That didn’t count minor cuts from flying glass.
Morris read through the ceremony in the manual, his voice emotionless as he went through the words about the sure and certain hope of how the sea will one day give up her dead . . . On command the seamen tilted up the mess tables. The bodies wrapped in plastic bags and weighted with steel slid out from under the flags, dropping straight into the water. It was ten thousand feet deep here, a long last trip for his executive officer and a third-class gunner’s mate from Detroit. The rifle salute followed, but not taps. There was no one aboard who could play a trumpet, and the tape recorder was broken. Morris closed the book.
“Secure and carry on.”
The flags were folded properly and taken to the sail locker. The mess tables were carried below and the stanchions were replaced to support the lifelines. And USS
Pharris
was still only half a ship, fit only to be broken up for scrap, Morris knew.
The tug
Papago
was pulling her backwards at just more than four knots. Three days to shore. They were heading toward Boston, the closest port, rather than a naval base. The reason was clear enough. Repairs would take over a year and the Navy didn’t want to clutter up one of its own repair facilities with something that would take that long. Only those ships that could be repaired for useful war service would get rapid attention.
Even his continued command of
Pharris
was a joke. The tug had a reserve crew, many of them salvage experts in civilian life. Three of them were aboard to keep an eye on the towing cable and “advise” Morris on the things he had to do. Their pieces of advice were really orders, but polite ones.
There were plenty of things to keep his crew busy. The forward bulkheads required constant watching and attention. Repairs were under way to the engine plant. Only one boiler was working, providing steam to turn the turbogenerators and provide electrical power. The second boiler needed at least another day of work. His main air-search radar, they said, would be working in four hours. The satellite antenna was just back on line also. By the time they reached port—if they reached port—everything aboard that his crew could fix would be fixed. That didn’t really matter, but a busy crew, the Navy has always said, is a happy crew. In practical terms it meant that the crewmen, unlike their captain, did not have time to brood on what mistakes had been made, the lives that had been lost because of them, and who had made them.
Morris went to the Combat Information Center. The tactical crew was rerunning the tape and paper record of the encounter with the Victor, trying to find what had happened.
“I don’t know.” The sonar operator shrugged. “Maybe it was two subs, not just one. I mean, here he is, right? This bright trail here—then a couple minutes later the active sonar picked him up over here.”
“Only one sub,” Morris said. “Getting from here to there is about a four-minute run at twenty-five knots.”
“But we didn’t hear him, sir, an’ it don’t show on the screen. Besides, he was heading the other way when we lost him.” The sonarman rewound the tape to run it all again.
“Yeah.” Morris went back to the bridge, playing it over again in his mind. He had the entire sequence memorized now. He walked out on the bridge wing. The spray shields were still perforated, and there was a faint bloodstain where the XO had died. Someone would be painting over that today. Chief Clarke had all kinds of work gangs going. Morris lit a cigarette and stared at the horizon.
REYDARVATH, ICELAND
The helicopter was the last warning they needed. Edwards and his party were heading northeast. They passed through an area of many small lakes, crossed a gravel road after waiting an hour to see what the traffic there was like—none—and began to traverse a series of marshes. By this time Edwards was thoroughly confused by the terrain. The mixture of bare rock, grassy meadows, lava fields, and now a freshwater marsh made him wonder if Iceland might not be the place where God had put everything that had been left over after the world was built. Evidently He’d made just the right amount of trees, though, because there were none here, and their best cover was the knee-high grass that sprouted from the water. It must be hardy grass, Edwards thought, since this marsh had been frozen not too long ago. It was still cold, and within minutes of entering the marshes everyone’s legs ached with it. They endured the misery. The alternative was to travel on bare and slightly elevated ground, not something to be contemplated with enemy helicopters about.
Vigdis surprised them with her endurance. She kept up with the Marines without faltering or complaining. A true country girl, Edwards thought, she was still benefiting from a childhood of chasing the family sheep around—or whatever it was you did with sheep—and climbing these Goddamned hills.
“Okay, people, take ten,” Edwards called. Immediately everyone looked for a dry spot to collapse. Mainly they found rocks.
Rocks in a marsh!
Edwards thought. Garcia kept watch with the purloined Russian binoculars. Smith lit up a cigarette. Edwards turned around to see Vigdis sitting down next to him.
“How do you feel?”
“Very tired,” she said with a slight smile. “But not so tired as you.”
“Is that so!” Edwards laughed. “Maybe we should step up the pace.”
“Where we go?”
“We’re going to Hvammsfjördur. They didn’t say why. I figure another four or five days. We want to stay clear of all the roads we can.”
“To protect me, yes?” Edwards shook his head.
“To protect all of us. We don’t want to fight anybody. There’s too many Russians around to play soldier games.”
“So, I don’t hurt—ah, stop you from important things?” Vigdis asked.
“Not at all. We’re all happy to have you with us. Who wouldn’t like a walk in the country with a beautiful girl?” Edwards asked gallantly.
Was that a smart thing to say?
She gave him a strange look. “You think I pretty, after—after—”
“Vigdis, if you were hit by a truck—yes, you are very beautiful. No man could change that. What happened to you was not your fault. Whatever changes it made are inside, not outside. And I know somebody must like you.”
“My baby, you mean? Mistake. He find another girl. This is not important, all my friends have babies.” She shrugged it off.
That stupid son of a bitch,
Edwards thought. He remembered that bastardy carried no stigma on Iceland. Since no one had a surname—most of the Icelanders had given names followed by patronymics—you couldn’t even tell the difference between the legitimate and illegitimate. Besides which, the Icelanders didn’t seem to give a damn one way or the other. Young unmarried girls had babies, took proper care of them, and that was that. But who would walk away from this girl?
“Well, speaking for myself: Vigdis, I’ve never met a girl prettier than you.”
“Truly?”
Her hair looked like hell, tangled and filthy, Edwards admitted to himself. Her face and clothing were covered with dust and mud. A hot shower could change that in a few minutes, revealing the lovely thing that she was. But beauty comes from within, and he was only beginning to appreciate the person inside. He ran his hand along her cheek.
“Any man who says different is an idiot.” He turned to see Sergeant Smith coming over.
“Time to move, ’less you want our legs to stiffen up, Lieutenant.”
“Okay. I want to make another eight or ten miles. There’s farms and roads on the far side of this mountain we’re walking around. We’ll want to eyeball that area before we try to cross it. I’ll call in from there, too.”
“You got it, skipper. Rodgers! Take the point and bend it a little west.”
BODENBURG, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
The ride forward had not been an easy one. Eighth Guards Army moved its forward command post as close behind the leading troops as possible. Its commander, like Alekseyev, believed in having his eyes and ears as close to the front as possible. The trip took forty minutes in armored troop carriers—it was far too dangerous to use helicopters—during which Alekseyev had observed a pair of savage air attacks on Russian columns.
German and Belgian reinforcements had joined the action, and intercepts of radio messages indicated that American and British units were also en route. Alekseyev had called up more Russian units as well. What had begun as a relatively simple push by one mechanized army was now growing into a major engagement. He took this to be a good sign. NATO would not be reinforcing if they did not regard the situation as dangerous. The Soviet task was to achieve the desired result before reinforcements came into play.
The general commanding 20th Guards Tank Division was in the command post. They’d set it up in a secondary school. A new building, it had lots of space, and until an underground bunker could be prepared, it would have to do. The pace of the advance had slowed, as much because of traffic control difficulties as from the Germans.
“Straight down this road to Sack,” 8th Guards Army told the tanker. “My motor-rifle troops should have it clear by the time you get there.”
“Four more kilometers to Alfeld. Yes, just make sure you can support us when we jump across the river.” The General set his helmet atop his head and moved out the door. It was going to work, Alekseyev thought. This general had done a magnificent job of delivering his unit to the front in nearly perfect order.
The next thing he heard was an explosion. Windows shattered, pieces of ceiling dropped around him. The Devil’s Cross had returned yet again.
Alekseyev raced outside to see a dozen burning armored vehicles. As he watched, the crew bailed out of a brand-new T-80 tank. An instant later the vehicle brewed up: a fire swept through the ammunition racks inside and a pillar of flame rose toward the sky as from a small volcano.
“The General is dead—the General is dead!” a sergeant shouted. He pointed to a BMD infantry carrier from which no one had escaped alive.
Alekseyev found the commander of the 8th Guards Army cursing beside him. “The assistant commander of that tank division is a new colonel.”
Pavel Leonidovich reached a quick and convenient decision. “No, Comrade General. What about me?”
Startled, the commander stared at him, then remembered Alekseyev’s reputation as a tank commander, and his father’s. He made a quick decision of his own. “Twentieth Tanks is yours. You know the mission.”
Another infantry assault carrier rolled up. Alekseyev and Sergetov boarded it, and the driver sped off toward the divisional command post. It took half an hour before they stopped. Alekseyev saw rows of tanks parked inside the treeline. Allied artillery was falling close by, but he ignored it. His regimental commanders were grouped together. The General quickly gave orders for objective and timing. It spoke well of the General not dead an hour that everyone here knew his mission. The division was finely organized, with every part of the assault plan already firmed up. Alekseyev saw at once that he had a good battle staff. He set them to work as his unit commanders rejoined their regiments.
His first battle headquarters was fittingly in the shade of a tall tree. His father could have wished for no better. Alekseyev smiled. He found his divisional intelligence officer. “What’s the situation?”
“A battalion of German tanks is counterattacking on this road leading cast from Sack. They should be contained, and in any case our vehicles are moving southwest behind them. The lead motor-rifle troops are just inside the town, and report only minor resistance. Our leading elements are now moving and should be there within the hour.”
“Air Defense Officer?”
“SAMs and mobile antiaircraft guns are just behind the leading echelons. We also have friendly air cover. Two regiments of MiG-21s are on call for air defense, but we haven’t had any ground-attack fighters assigned yet. They took a beating this morning—but so did the other side. We killed twelve NATO aircraft before noon.”
Alekseyev nodded, dividing that number by three, as he had learned.
“Excuse me, Comrade General. I am Colonel Popov, your divisional political officer.”
“Fine, Comrade Colonel. My Party dues are paid to the end of the year, and with luck I will live to pay them again. If you have something important to say, be quick!” If there was anything Alekseyev didn’t need now, it was a
zampolit!
“After we capture Alfeld—”
“
If
we capture Alfeld I will let you have the keys to the city. For the present, let me do my job. Dismissed!”
Probably wanted permission to shoot suspected fascists.
As a four-star general, Alekseyev could not ignore political officers, but at least he could ignore those under the rank of general. He walked over to the tactical maps. On one side as before, lieutenants showed the advance of his—
his!
—units. On the other, intelligence officers were assembling what data they had on enemy opposition. He grabbed the shoulder of his operations officer.
“I want that lead regiment right behind the motor-rifle troops. If they need some help, give it to them. I want this breakthrough and I want it today. What artillery do we have set up?”
“Two battalions of heavy guns are ready now.”
“Good. If those infantry have targets for them, find out, and let’s start hitting them now. This is not a time for finesse. NATO knows we’re here, and our worst enemy is time. Time works for them, not for us.” The operations officer and artillery commander got together, and two minutes later his 152mm guns were delivering fire to the front. He’d have to have a medal awarded to the dead commander of 20th Tanks, Alekseyev decided; the man deserved a reward of some kind for the training he saw evident in this staff.