Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) (19 page)

General
Dentz soon learned the details von Pappen could not disclose on the telephone.
It seemed Herr Hitler had big plans for the spring campaign before he set his
mind on Russia. The Germans were coming alright. They were transferring XIV
Motorized Korps from its positions in Bulgaria, through Turkey by rail, to
Syria. Yes, the tanks he had hoped for would soon be coming. The German Korps was
made up of two notable divisions, the 9th Panzer Division, which had been
primarily tasked with linking up with the very same airborne forces von Pappen
had just mentioned during the campaign of May 1940 in France. Out in front, it
had the distinction of covering more ground than any other German Division in
that campaign, unhinging the French defense, taking thousands of prisoners, and
storming through Paris under Guderian. Now it would be sent to link up with the
22nd Air Landing Division here.

The
other unit was something new. Apparently the Germans had collected many volunteers
from the nations they had already conquered in the previous year. A new
division was built from these men, volunteers from Denmark and Norway, and
others from Belgium and the Netherlands. The new unit came under the control of
the elite German SS, and the message indicated the division was now designated
“5th SS Motorized Division Wiking.” It was a collection of Germans, Finns,
Dutch and Nordic troops, and it would go on to gain a reputation as one of the
most fearsome German divisions in the war.

And
so as General Dentz leaned over his map table, he could finally sigh with
relief and think to himself that this little war might just be won. What we get
afterwards, with the Germans casting their dark shadow here, remains to be
seen.

Fedorov
knew nothing of these plans and maneuvers as he sat that night in the high
southern tower of the fortress of Fakhr-al-Din. His bold little plan had worked
out quite well at the outset. They had swept in through the gathering night,
stormed the Chateau, destroyed the two German planes on the airfield, and shut
it down as planned. Now all they had to do was wait for the British in King
Column, and Glubb Pasha’s men. The thought that he might soon be facing German
troops here was the farthest thing from his mind, a “Catch 22” that he could
find nowhere in all his laborious and detailed research.

For
this was a new war now, writing a new volume in the history books in blood
here. Gibraltar had fallen, along with Malta and Cyprus lately taken by the
Germans—things that had never happened before. Now the Germans were coming to
Syria to save the beleaguered Vichy French, and the hard stone walls of the
fortress, and Sergeant Troyak’s 20 Marines, would soon come to feel all too
thin a defense against the storm that was coming.

Part VII

Wolf in
the Fold

“
History never repeats, but
attitudes and arguments, dilemmas and excuses, clichés and delusions recur with
the inevitability of a sun setting on successive empires.”

—Karl E. Meyer / Shareen Blair
Brysac:
Kingmakers

Chapter 19

The
evening passed
uneventfully, as Troyak had predicted. They saw the French move what looked to
be a few platoons of infantry into positions at the edge of the town. A few set
up in the palm groves, and one squad had moved into the old Roman ruins, but
otherwise no attempt was made to approach the Chateau. It was what he did not
see that encouraged him most—enemy artillery. The troops assigned to this
garrison did not seems to have much in the way of heavy weapons. He noted
machineguns, and a few mortars, but no other guns. Mortars would be hard to aim
and fire on a position like this, he thought. And our mortars will be much more
accurate to take out any that try—as long as our ammunition holds out.

“Zykov,”
he said to the Corporal. “How many rounds did they drop off for the 82s?”

“About
a hundred each, but that includes ten smoke rounds and five illumination
rounds.”

They
had brought in a pair of 2B14 Podnos mortars, a lightweight system that was
sometimes called the M82. A muzzle loaded, drop fired system, it could range
out a little over 4000 meters with HE rounds and had a good rate of fire.
Troyak had one on the north apex of the fort, and one on the south tower. The two
AGS-30 autogrenade launchers were placed in the center, east facing apex of the
fort, in the towers above moat bridge and gate. The hill they were on commanded
the entire scene, and Troyak knew that any attempt to take this fort with
infantry would be suicidal for the attackers. The flanks of the hill were too
steep, and the towers had good fields of fire in all directions, with view
slits on multiple levels.

No.
This fortress could only be broken by firepower, which is why he was relieved
that the French here seemed to have no artillery. The only other threat they
had considered would be an air strike, and for that they brought along four
Ilga ‘needle’ hand held SAMs, and one satchel held four replacement missiles.
It was a thin shield, with only 8 missiles, but was more than any comparable
force of that day could claim by way of air defense. If they got into real
trouble from above, they could also call on the KA-40, which had been rigged
out with pods of air-to-air SAMs as part of its mission loadout.

Around
midnight, the watch saw a small squad of legionnaires moving quietly towards
the flanks of the hill. The men watched with interest and the five man group
labored up the hill, moving from one gully to the next, and trying to be as
stealthy as possible. They could not know that they were being watched on
infrared and night vision equipment, and seen as easily as they might be in
broad daylight.

Zykov
took two men down to the gate, and they took up positions in the shadows,
thinking to surprise them. As the enemy approached, they heard them whispering
to one another in Russian, and so he shouted down the hillside to give them a
shock.

“Hey!
Pizda!
We’ve been watching you since you left the ruins down there. What’s
wrong? Is the food bad in the French Army?”

The
men immediately went to ground, and the Marines got a chortle as one man tried
to work his way into a firing position near a rock. Zykov saw what he was up to
and put two well aimed rounds right on the rock to dissuade him. “Not so fast,”
he said again in Russian. “We’ve only black bread and cheese enough for our own
men here. So the five of you get your sorry asses back down that hill right
now, or I’ll put a bullet in each man’s head.” To further underscore his
threat, he fired one more round a foot from the crawling legionnaire’s head,
and shouted that the next one would knock off that funny looking cap.

That
was enough to send the patrol scrambling down the hill, eating dirt most of the
way down, and fearful they might be shot at any moment. Their report later to
Colonel Barre that there were Russians, and not British, in the high Chateau,
came as quite a surprise.

“Yes?
Well we have Germans, Belgians, and even a few Hungarians here,” he said at
last. “I guess the British collect trash as well when they have to fill out the
ranks. Very well, get back to the barracks and clean the dirt off those
uniforms. So much for your night patrol!”

Dawn
painted the red desert hills with its ruddy glow, and the Russians were
stretching their limbs and shaking off the cold night when Kolnov, on the early
watch that morning, spied something from the west. A column of smoke rose on
the horizon, and soon Fedorov was peering through his field glasses, wondering
what was there. It was not long before the dust became a long column of trucks,
the reinforcements that von Pappen had promised, arriving from Homs. The men of
the 47th Regiment of the 22nd Luftland Division had flown to Homs the previous
day, where General Dentz had assembled close to 300 trucks, pulling in every
available vehicle he could get from Homs and Hamah further north. It was enough
to move the German regiment, though troops were crowded onto the trucks and a
gaggle of civilian cars that had also been commandeered.

Colonel
der Infanterie Ludwig Wolff was leading the regiment that day, living out a
slightly different timeline in these Altered States. Already well decorated
from the First World War, Wolff had somehow managed to avoid the wound he was
to suffer in Belgium in this telling of events. He had also come to the 22nd
Luftland Division early, as he was to rise to command of the entire division in
October of 1941. Generalleutnant Hans Graf von Sponeck still held that post,
but his replacement was already a Wolff in the fold, the newly promoted Colonel
at the head of the 47th Regiment.

Wolff
was eager to get into the war, and saw the deployment to Syria a much better
chance than sitting around in Greece waiting for the Generals to finish their
planning for Operation Barbarossa. Something had happened to energize the
German war effort against the British, and the 22nd was the only division in
the army trained for long range deployment by air, aside from Student’s 7th,
which was still consolidating on Cyprus.

Student
already had taken two good plums in Malta and Cyprus, thought Wolff. Now we get
our chance to trump his exploits—Syria! True, the French already hold the
place, but not for long, by all accounts. They had been fighting hard, but the
British were making gains now, particularly around Damascus. The news that
there were now columns invading across the eastern frontier had sent his men in
motion, flying from their bases in Greece to Iskenderun, Turkey, and then on to
Homs in Syria. There they hastened onto the trucks, assembling the long column
in a good order of march into the early hours of the morning. When they finally
got moving, they made the 140 kilometer drive to Palmyra in a little over four
hours on the thin desert road, arriving at dawn.

Approaching
from the southwest, he could see the tall battlements of the Chateau ahead, and
knew that was to be his first job with the regiment in combat. He stopped, glad
to be out of the noisy truck and stretching his legs. Leutnant Lindel was at
his side as the two men surveyed the area, looking at the maps they had been
given by the French authorities in Homs.

There
were three fingers of high ground that reached for Palmyra from the west. The
first was a long ridge, due west of the fort, and rising to about the same
elevation at its highest point. The middle finger had two hills, one at about
540 meters where there was little more than a pole with a wind sock to gauge
the wind direction. Just northeast of this was the Chateau, on a 520 meter
hill, but with battlements rising as high as the other hill. The third finger
of land was well south, pointing directly at the old Roman ruins. A quick
assessment told Wolff he would want to occupy all this high ground at once.

“Get
men up on that hill to the left,” he said. “It has a good field of fire on the
Chateau, and with some effort they can drag their Leichtgeschutz recoilless
rifles up there. As for that hill in the middle, it will be the only cover we
have approaching from this direction. The high ground north of the fort should
also be occupied. Get mortar teams up there, Lindel.”

“Yes
sir, and what about the artillery?” They had a battalion of twelve 105mm howitzers
with them, and another comprised of nine 75mm Infantry Guns, and six bigger
150mm IGs. It was all the artillery that could be moved on short notice, but
more than enough in Wolff’s mind. He knew that this fortress would have to be
broken by gunfire, and not infantry assault.

“The
French say the British have mortars up there, and they hit the airfield last
night and knocked out a pair of our Heinkels. So we will move the artillery
south of this hill. That will put it out of range of their mortars.” He folded
his arms, squinting at the high fort.

“Such
audacity,” he said. “How in the world did the British pull that off and manage
to get commandos in here last night?”

“I
am told they have also raided the French aerodrome at Rayak, sir,” said Lindel.

“Oh?
Too bad for them. The first units of 9th Panzer Division are deploying there by
rail. The British will have the whole division recon battalion to deal with at
Rayak, and the Pioneers.”

“Speaking
of that, sir,” said Lindel. “Where do you want our own Pioneers?”

“Behind
that hill in the center, the one masking the fort. If we do have to put in a
ground assault, they will be the ones to do the job. But first, let us see how
they like our artillery. We’ll be half the day getting into position, but I
want the regiment deployed by noon. Take second and third battalions and move
it through those palm groves to the east. The British columns will be coming
from that direction, so coordinate with the French garrison there. We’ll also need
to block this road here as well.” He pointed to a desert track that approached
the town from the south, the very route chosen by Glubb Pasha and his Arab
Legion.

“The
map shows one road up the back side of the hill with the fort. Shall I send up
a reconnaissance? We need to assess their strength.”

“Go
ahead, but don’t get careless. How many men can they have in that Chateau? A
platoon? A company at best. It will not matter. The artillery will do the job,
not the infantry. Understood?”

* * *

Troyak
saw the Germans fanning out and disembarking with some misgiving. It looked to
be a very large force, several battalions, and he could see the one thing he
feared being towed by the long column of French trucks.

“They
have artillery,” he said to Fedorov.

“And
they probably will have a good number of mortars,” Fedorov replied, “or even
good caliber recoilless rifles. This isn’t good. I didn’t expect German troops
here at all!”

“In
battle the things you don’t expect are usually the ones that will kill you,”
said Troyak with a stolid expression. “So they will out gun us now, and they
certainly have the troops to take this fort if they have a mind to. It will
cost them dearly given our firepower, but if we hold, it will come down to
trading our twenty Marines for as many men as they are willing to commit here.”

“We’ll
have help soon,” said Fedorov, reaching for any straw at hand. “But how soon
before they might attack?”

“A
few hours—perhaps noon. They’ll be some time getting themselves sorted out. We
should welcome them with some mortar fire.”

“Won’t
that be like poking the beehive with a stick?”

Troyak
smiled. “They’re going to hit us one way or another, whether we send down a
cheesecake with a cherry on top, or a few 82mm mortar rounds. Those trucks make
an inviting target.”

Fedorov
nodded, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with this development and now about to open
another infantry ground action. A few minutes later the Marines on the south tower
had the honor of the first shot, three rounds that came whistling in on the
German column. The explosions caused quite a stir, and one truck was hit and
burning , though it had already off loaded it’s squad of infantry.

They
saw men scattering in all directions, put in two more rounds for good measure,
and then ceased fire, content to announce their presence and throw down a steel
gauntlet from their high towers. The Germans would not forget to answer them in
due course.

Come
noon they were just finishing a meal of field rations when they heard the sharp
crack of guns firing in the distance. Troyak knew a large caliber weapon when
he heard one, and ordered the men to take cover in the inner chambers of the
stone fort.

“Here
it comes,” he said gruffly. “Let’s see how upset they are over those five
mortar rounds.”

The
first rounds went right over the top of the fortress, falling harmlessly on the
brown parched earth beyond the hill. Troyak was watching the fire from the
south tower, heedless of the danger as he studied the enemy positions through
field glasses. As the second barrage started, he went down the stone steps to
the inner chamber of the tower.

“Someone
over there has a head on his shoulders,” he said. “They’ve positioned their
guns well south, beyond the range of our mortars.”

“How
did they calculate that?” asked Fedorov.

“They
knew we hit the airfield from here last night, and they can read a map,” said
Troyak.