The Steel Wave (41 page)

He turned slowly, Speidel still standing straight, staring ahead. Yes, Rommel thought, he has a guilty conscience. But what else could you have done, Hans? No general will risk being the man who cries loudest, no one will risk being made a fool over a false alarm. The quote came to him now, old lessons, Frederick the Great:
It is pardonable to be defeated but never surprised.
So, who is responsible for the surprise, after all? Was it the enemy’s genius or our own ineptness? If I had been here, would I truly have made a difference? I also expected them at Calais. At high tide. Is there any pardon in that for me?

“I want Geyr here in the morning.” He spoke slowly. “I want full reports on the enemy’s activities. I want to know what those damned paratroopers are doing. I want to know why we have no air support for our defenses. I will demand that von Rundstedt—or whoever else thinks he is in charge here—cede me full authority to strike the enemy in the most advantageous manner. I want full mobilization of all reserve units, as far back as Paris. Once I have determined the enemy’s strength in the various sectors, I want the Fifteenth Army mobilized to move south on my command. If I have to talk to Hitler myself, I will, and if I have to take a pistol into General Jodl’s office to get some attention, perhaps I will do that as well.”

He looked at Ruge.

“You are quite correct, Friedrich. The enemy has taken an enormous step, and he may very well have the advantage. But it is not yet over.”

24. ADAMS

T
hey had worked to clear the town of snipers, but the troopers at Chef-du-Pont had been unable to advance completely across the swollen river. As at La Fière, the raised causeway extended out past the stone bridge for several hundred yards; halfway to the other side, the causeway spread out in a wide bubble of land, occupied by several stone buildings. As the paratroopers fought their way through the village, the retreating Germans who did not escape across the marsh manned that fortified position. Throughout the afternoon, artillery and machine-gun fire poured over the town itself, keeping the paratroopers huddled down in whatever cover they could find. An assault would require artillery, which the Americans still did not have. To try to swarm the German machine guns on foot, across so much flat open ground, would be suicide.

As daylight began to fade, Gavin received word that his hold on La Fière Bridge was enduring a crisis of its own. Though the men left there had done good work, establishing a bridgehead on the far side of that causeway, there had not been enough strength to hold the position, and German armor and artillery had responded by overwhelming the meager force that tried to hold the village of Cauquigny, on the west side of the river. The paratroopers there had been forced to flee back eastward across the causeway, to the village of La Fière. But even with their armor, the Germans could not make an effective strike across the open causeway, the few bazookas in operation performing exceptionally well, destroying two German tanks on the causeway itself. By late afternoon, both sides held a tentative grip on their own side of the causeway, a situation far more dangerous for the outnumbered and outgunned Americans.

The worst news Gavin received was the casualty report. While Gavin was still at Chef-du-Pont, Colonel Ostberg had been badly wounded by machine-gun fire, and Gavin had placed that force under the command of a company commander, Captain Roy Creek. But the situation at La Fière was much worse. German artillery had taken an enormous toll on the men there: Along with the loss of dozens of troopers, the battalion commander, Fred Kellam, was dead, along with his executive officer, Colonel James McGinity. Command at the bridgehead had fallen on Colonel Mark Alexander, the executive officer of Adams’s own 505th, until Colonel Ekman himself finally found his way to the bridge.

With nightfall spreading over both causeways, Gavin’s frustration mounted. Despite the chaos of command changes, Gavin believed, with the more dangerous fight facing them at La Fière, the village was where he needed to be. Late in the afternoon he left Chef-du-Pont in the hands of Captain Creek and thirty-four troopers of the 507th, and pulled the rest back to La Fière.

LA FIÈREBRIDGE
JUNE 6, 1944, 9:30 P.M.

“Cease fire!”

The shooting gradually stopped, and Adams tried to calm himself, the heat from the Thompson searing his face. He rolled over to one side, jerked the magazine away, tossed it behind him, reached into his pants leg. Two more. That’s not good.

“Hold your damned fire! The Krauts are using your muzzle blasts for target practice!”

The voice was Scofield’s, the man sliding through the taller grass, reaching the row of foxholes.

“Here, Captain. Good cover,” Adams said.

Scofield crawled quickly, spun around, slid down into the narrow cut in the dirt.

“We’re not going anywhere tonight. Too many Krauts on the far side, too few of us, and they’ve got all the advantages.” Scofield peered up, the far side of the causeway lost in the darkness, brief flashes of fire, streaks of tracers. He scanned the ground close by—more foxholes, the best cover the men had—and called out, “Keep an eye on that causeway. The Krauts have moved machine guns up on both sides, and they know we’re sealed up here. All hell might break loose in the morning, so no wasted ammo.”

Adams felt the magazines again, through the filthy cloth of his pants, and said in a low voice, “Not much left to waste. I’m down to sixty rounds. Still have the grenades. Haven’t been close enough to anything to toss ’em.”

“That might change. Right now, we’re looking at a stalemate here, which is a damned good thing. I’m not really interested in making a long-distance run across that open causeway. The Krauts have a dozen machine guns, and if so much as a frog moves out there—”

“I heard engines, trucks maybe.”

“Yep. They’re pouring people into line over there, but they don’t want to cross that open ground any more than we do. I think our reputation for marksmanship is spreading. They’ll probably try to soften us up with artillery and send some tanks across. Gavin is pulling back some of the five-oh-seven and five-oh-eight boys, forming a reserve to cover both bridges and maybe give some help to Sainte-Mère-Église.”

Adams knew by now that the larger town, one of the jump’s main targets, was five miles east of La Fière Bridge, a straight shot behind them on the same road that led out over the causeway. There had been sporadic firing from the town all afternoon, unnerving the men, who stared at German guns across the flooded river. Should the Germans recapture Sainte-Mère-Église, the men at the causeways would be cut off.

There was a lull in the firing. Adams peered up through the grass, the darkness almost complete. He thought of the men whose jump landed them on the far side of the river, the men Gavin had hoped would come to their aid. Those paratroopers had established their meager bridgehead in the village of Cauquigny and brief contact had been made with a number of those men, a small force mostly from the 508th. But with German armor overrunning that position, pushing the troopers back across the causeway, the men still on the west side were presumed to be either scattered again or captured.

“Any idea how many of our guys got stuck over there?”

“Gavin didn’t say much about it. Best guess is that we only had fifty or sixty guys holding on to Cauquigny. Big mistake probably, but he hasn’t said much about that either. Hell of a mess. If we’d had the whole bunch of us over there, we might have held the Krauts away, but then they might have broken into our rear on this side of the river and cut us off. We need to hold our position at this causeway, and at Chef-du-Pont, to give our boys at Sainte-Mère-Église time to organize and fortify the town.”

There was a spray of tracer fire, men shouting, streaks of white light punching the air over Adams’s head. He lay flat, Scofield doing the same. Out front, voices: “Pull back! Get off the open ground!”

Scofield cursed, looked up briefly, and said, “Who said that?”

“Colonel Lindquist. Orders!”

Scofield cursed again and said to Adams, “Lindquist has ’em pulling back! What the hell for? Damn!”

Scofield crawled up and out, moving forward, more voices, the officers arguing, the words finding Adams.

“Gavin’s orders.”

Well, okay.

Men began to crawl past, moving off the more open ground along the edges of the causeway.

“Foxholes! Watch it!” Adams said.

He heard tumbling boots: more men up, crawling to the thicker brush along the edge of the village of La Fière.

Scofield was there again. “Let’s go! Find some cover, keep down.”

“What the hell, we pulling out?”

Scofield was moving away; he glanced back. “No questions, Sergeant. We’re consolidating, that’s all. Pulling in the fingers. Let’s go.”

Adams crawled up out of the hole, the ground alive with men in motion, tracers coming again, pops and thumps, brief flashes that lit the ground. He knew the heavier brush line was up a short rise, rocks and low rocky walls; in the village itself were stone buildings that would endure only the lightest artillery fire. He tried to see Scofield, heard officers calling out, could see a vast sea of foxholes now, larger machine guns perched in their nests, bazooka crews, the best defense they had against what was still to come. Men were still digging, dirt tossed into short piles, adding to the cover, making room for the others, quickly filling up the holes. Adams saw one man standing in the brush, tall and thin: Gavin.

“Line up here! If you have a shovel, use it!”

There was a sharp crack above Adams, a streak of light, and he flinched, blinded. No! He blinked hard, fought to see, and called out, others as well.

“Sir?”

“General?”

Gavin’s voice found them, high-pitched and angry. “Son of a bitch! They were aiming at me! To hell with this. We’ve lost enough officers today. Who’s close by, Captain Scofield? Colonel Ekman?”

“Here, sir!”

“Scofield here, sir!”

Adams saw Scofield now, as the officers gathered, Gavin crouched low in the brush, and Adams caught pieces of the low talk.

“I’ve set up a command post where the road meets the railroad tracks. We finally found some radios, so I’m in contact with General Ridgway. He’s holding position in Sainte-Mère-Église. We’ve got glider support scheduled to come in any time now, two huge flocks of those birds, set to land about now and again around eleven. If we’re lucky this time, they’ll bring us some artillery pieces we can actually put to use. Colonel, follow me. Captain, see to your men. Make sure everybody has some rations and some ammo. The gliders should help there too. Keep an eye out for anything moving on that causeway. I don’t think the Krauts will come in the dark, but—well, hell, I didn’t think I’d have this many guys in such a mess in the first place. Stay alert and get some rest.”

Gavin slipped away through the brush. Adams saw Scofield moving out through the network of foxholes, heard low talk, orders to the lieutenants. Adams sat back against the dirt wall, his knees touching the dirt in front of him, in a hole he had not dug. He reached into his pocket for the D ration, a lone candy bar, all he had left. The paper came off easily and he bit off a piece, felt his thirst. Still no canteen. Take your time, he thought. I haven’t seen any gliders, and I’m not so sure it’ll matter anyway. He recalled Gavin’s own words, weeks before:
Gliders don’t land, they crash successfully.
Not me. I’m coming down on my own feet, not in some readymade coffin. There’s some serious guts in those glider pilots.

Around him, men were eating rations. Some were still digging, making their holes deeper than they needed to be. Some were talking, low mumbles, some sitting alone, as he was; some smoking cigarettes, absorbed by what they had seen and done. This has been one long-ass day, he thought. About this time last night, we were boarding up. Marley crying, Unger full of conversation. Corporal Nusbaum…jerk. Well, maybe not. He did okay today. Takes a little machine-gun fire to find out what a guy’s got in his pants. Lieutenant Pullman…God knows where he is now. Not here, that’s for sure. Hope the Krauts didn’t grab him. Buford…Dammit! He bit off another piece of the chocolate, could not shake the sound of the bullets hitting Buford’s wounded body. I had to be a damned hero and pull him up out of that ditch. He’d be alive if I’d just left him there. He cursed himself, closed his eyes, his head against the dirt. Or maybe not. The Krauts would have found him, maybe nailed him right there in the ditch. They shoot the wounded? Who the hell knows? Let’s not find out. Bastards.

He knew Unger was close by, had stayed true to his word to stick close to Marley. They made it through so far, he thought. Marley’s a veteran now. Hell, after today, everybody out here is a veteran. But we lost a bunch of people. So much stupidity and bad luck. Or just plain old combat. Kill or be killed, and a bunch of us lost that argument. And tomorrow we’ve gotta do it again.

He heard a soft hum and the men quieted, listening. They all knew the sound, the drone of a vast flock of C-47s, hauling their precious cargo behind them. It was almost completely dark. The machine-gun fire started again, the Germans aiming skyward, red streaks arcing overhead. Adams stared into the night sky, but there was nothing to see, only the sounds of the engines. Even now, Adams knew, towlines were being released and men and equipment were drifting silently down through the darkness. The gliders were coming.

25. EISENHOWER

SHAEF FORWARD COMMAND POST, PORTSMOUTH
JUNE 6, 1944, MIDNIGHT

H
e walked beyond the tents and felt for the note in his pocket, the message he had prepared to read to the press, to the president, and to those families who waited for any word of their men, the soldiers Eisenhower had ordered into France.

Our landings…have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If there is any blame or fault attached to the attempt, it is mine alone.