Death March Page 16

  If it came to an inquiry then the members of any tribunal, knowing how parsimonious had been their ammunition scales when they were field commanders, would have scant sympathy for any complaint about the quality of the troops he had been given when his ammunition supplies had been so lavish.

  The mass infantry assaults would stall, he was certain that they would. But whatever the reason he would have his excuse to eliminate Zucharnin, then he would unleash the surprise he had prepared. His assault troops would leapfrog across the river at Nurnberg, using the bridging equipment he had held back. It had been a thorn in the Warsaw Pact side since the first days of the war. It still held out and threatened every advance in that sector. Already the cities defences had blunted and stalled a dozen major assaults.

  He had spent so much time working on this plan. All the time as second in command he had been forced to do no more than organise the training of reserve troops. Even now he looked again at the map on his wall and in his minds eye saw advancing columns and fleeing enemies.

  There were still nagging doubts in his mind. There was the salient centred on Bayreuth, further to the north. Zucharnin had used the area to hold troops being refitted and brought up to strength. When he took over it would be better to not be too adventurous in that direction. Better to use those second rate infantry units to continue to hold the northern flank than to risk them in an advance that might fail and need reinforcing with units from elsewhere.

  But even with this limitation on his objectives he would still be the hero of the hour. Nurnberg would be a huge defeat for the British and the West Germans. They would have no choice but to pull back and with luck the retreat would turn in to a route. The old fools in the Kremlin would have to promote him to full general at last. He clenched his fist, he could feel a Marshals baton in it already, and Zucharnins neck under his heel.

  * * *

  “At least he doesn’t weigh much.” Thorne had wrapped strips of cloth around the pliant hawthorn branches to form a litter. He wished he had instead tied at least one around his face. The old man smelt terrible and his body still leaked some of the filth he had evacuated as he fought for his last breaths.

  Twice the slight body had slipped off the makeshift stretcher, or rather through it, when the thin material forming the sling had given way. The Russians had not allowed them to gather better timber from the fir plantations and they had been forced to use all that was available, a stunted overgrown shrub growing beside a near derelict cottage. It was so spindly that it had not even been raided for firewood, not as yet. Eventually though even its roots would be grubbed out.

  The scrap of rag covering the old man face kept falling away and Andrea in her character as a grieving daughter had frequently to replace it.

  The Russian escort trailed along behind them. The soldier had picked some daisies and was, with some blades of young wheat, creating a miniature bouquet. With his rifle slung over his shoulder he was taking no interest in the burial party.

  The pit was enormous and had obviously been excavated with explosives. The sides were ragged and chunks of loose material stuck up in places through the single layer of corpses in the bottom.

  They carried the old mans body to the far end. Had the Russian guard been paying attention he would doubtless have objected and stopped them as soon as they reached the hole. Instead he traipsed along behind them, taking no note of where he was, intent only on the miniature flower arrangement he was going to press and mail to his girl friend in Minsk. He did look up as the body tumbled down the crumbled side of the grave, and started to look round to see where the sole mourner had got to, and received Andreas blow on the side of the jaw with total surprise.

  She would have delivered a second blow but he sagged to his knees and slumped sideways to join the body that was still slowly rolling to its final resting place. They ended up enmeshed, a tangle of arms and legs.

  “Come on, the squad will be wondering where we’ve got to.” Revell led a fast pace through the straggling plantation. It had already been harvested of mature trees but those too stunted or storm damaged had been left, and with the high piled debris from where the trees had been trimmed they had ample cover to make it back to the Iron Cow.

  Two bodies lay beside it, two Russian officers. They had been stripped of the heavy quality coats, pistols and badges.

  “We let them walk right up to us.” Dooley was examining the Makarov pistol he had kept for himself. “They were chatting away, happy as you please. Must have come as quite a shock.”

  “The ultimate, I imagine.” Revell looked at the bodies. “You took a chance, if they’d been on the button they could have run off yelling for help.”

  “Once they’d seen us it seemed safer to keep our heads down and let them come to us.” Burke was stood on the top of the engine housing, packing tools, binding each of them in strips torn from the coats, to stop them from rattling.

  “How come they got so close”?

  “They came up from the other side of the hill Major. We could only keep a watch from beneath the hedge and that had a limited view. If I’d put someone on the other side or on top of the wagon they’d have been visible for miles. These two just came up on our one blind spot.” Sergeant Hyde was securing a gag on their technician prisoner. “At the last moment this perisher spotted them and went to call out, Libby just managed to clamp his hand over his mouth in time. I don’t want to take any more chances.”

  “Are there any others about?” Revell ushered the crew aboard.

  “Far side of the hill there is a GAZ command car with a driver reading a book.” Hyde stowed an M60 that had been positioned outside. “He could be their driver. Their boots don’t look mucky enough to have walked too far over this ground. I think they must have trotted up here for a view of the woodland, to check their camouflage, or something like that. If we’re taking off in that direction then he can’t miss us. The thing has two damned great aerials so he can call down problems for us pretty quick.”

  “I think we can deal with that OK.” Revell was last in and smacked the control to close the rear ramp.

  Using minimum power Burke nudged the APC through the hedge and started almost to glide the machine down the hill towards the distant staff car. They were still a couple of hundred metres away when the driver saw them. He got out of the car, folding a page to mark his place, calmly put his book on the seat and then stood waiting with his head on one side in an attitude of puzzlement, not recognising the unmarked hovercraft.

  At fifty yards distance his alarm showed and he reached back inside, bringing out a radio microphone. Even then he acted undecided. At twenty metres, as the approaching vehicle accelerated towards him he began to bring the microphone up to his mouth, then threw it down and turned to run.

  The Iron Cow slewed sideways, skidding across the young crops. It caught him across the chest and crushed him into the side the vehicle. A spurt of blood from his pulverised lungs arced across the fully distended ride skirts. The heavy Kevlar sheets were as hard as metal under full inflation and the collision with the staff car sent it toppling over while the body of the driver ended up thrown inside it so that his legs stuck out, straight up in to the air.

  “No dignity in death, is there.” Clarence caught a glimpse of the bizarre tableaux as they drove past.

  “Who gives a shit when they’re dead.” Libby looked out through the gun port in the turret.

  Sergeant Hyde sat down to watch Carson and Lieutenant Andy trying to fasten more straps to the nuclear weapon. They had already lifted it and wadded cloth beneath it, as an improvised shock absorber.

  Several of the others were watching as well. Andrea could no longer look. She had her head in her hands and her eyes closed. She was sat as far to the back as possible, opposite their prisoner. He too was watching, making little groaning noises through his gag. Sweat was pouring down his face and soaking his collar. At every jolt the two specialists put their hands out to steady the device.

  Bu
rke took them down a shallow streambed and then up a section of bank when a large fallen tree blocked their path. As they climbed the craft canted over and then levelled up with a jarring crash. There was a sudden series of clicks from the Geiger counter.

  Carson tugged at Revell sleeve and put his head close to talk to him. “I think we had better find some where to pull over.”

  “Urgent?”

  “Yup, kinda getting that way.”

  * * *

  It had taken a nerve wracking three-kilometre drive before they had found somewhere suitable. The tall unpainted metal silos flanking the derelict building suggested it had been some sort of food processing plant. All the windows were gone and the cast concrete structure was cold. Its roof had collapsed long ago and its interior, exposed to the elements, had filled with leaf litter. A few straggling shrubs sprouted from cracks in the floor and walls. That very likely explained why it had not become a home to refugees at any time in the past. There was no evidence that it had ever had any sort of occupation since it had closed down, that and its isolated position at the end of a rusted and overgrown single-track railway line.

  Only Carson had remained in the vehicle. The tension had been too great for most of the others and all had volunteered to stand guard about the place. It took Major Revell an hour to make contact with the nearest NATO headquarters. Fortunately it was only six kilometres away, in Bayrueth but the question he had got Boris to encode and send was never going to be answered by a commander at local level. The question had a long way to go up the chain of command and it would be some time before it started its tortuous journey back down to them.

  The counter was still rapping out its steady series of clicks but Carson had helped to sooth their frayed nerves by turning its volume right down.

  “What do you think? If it’s going critical, that the right term? will we be able to lift it out and drive away or will it be a case of not touching it and doing a runner.” Not even wanting to rock the craft by going back inside, Revell posed the question from the open rear hatch.

  “I truly don’t know.” Carson drummed his finger tips on his knees as he sat with them either side of the much decorated pack. “The problem is here.”

  With the chisel end of the felt tip pen he indicated the two neat puncture holes made by the Russian bullets. “I can trace the path of one of them, it didn’t go far and didn’t hit anything serious, but this one,” he indicated the lower hole, “is not so straight forward. In fact it is actually a bit of a bugger.

  “Is it still in there?” Revell wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but he could not prevent himself asking.

  “Oh yes, in fact they are both still in there, but as I said, this one higher up is not that important. “Bombs are like bodies.” Sitting back, Carson put his pen away. “It’s better if you can get the slug out, because if you don’t, and its some where vital, then it can move about and do more harm.”

  “Especially if the body is moved?

  “Just so, especially if the body is moved.”

  “That stuff you encoded for HQ. Was that just technical stuff, or political.”

  “Both, and even if it hadn’t been I suspect that either would have been dealt with in both ways before they got back to us.” Carson wished he could talk to the officer openly but very little of his work was suitable for shop talk.

  “You mean if you asked a technical question the answer could well be based on other than technical considerations.” Revell was beginning to get an inkling of the depths of the matter with which they were having to deal. He was under no illusions; he knew that in many respects they were considered expendable. It would not be consideration of their lives that was holding up the decisions.

  “Yes, that’s about it. And if I asked a why or where question they would ask for technical information before answering it.” Checking the Geiger counter to see that the volume was turned down as far as possible, Carson debated with himself whether or not it might be kinder to shut it off altogether for a while. He decided against doing it. While the respite from what sounded horribly like a count down would doubtless be welcome, at some stage he would have to turn it on again, and that would be worse.

  Boris had sat on an old piece of partially dismantled machinery. It was starting to strike cold through his combat clothes. He knew he would have to be the one to return inside before any of the others. The thought that if anything happened it would be so fast he’d have no knowledge of it was uppermost in his mind, but somehow it didn’t help. After a minor stroke his father had spent the last five years of his life worrying himself physically sick at the thought he might have another. Now Boris knew how he felt. For the first time ever he could understand the fear his father had lived with for all that time. He had eventually died of liver failure instead.

  Simmons struggled not to show the anxiety he felt. He tried to get others to play cards, but the couple of times a game was started it soon fizzled out, with players making foolish mistakes and throwing in their hands early, or misdealing or any one of a dozen reasons for not continuing. As the youngest member of the unit he had made much of his fitness, his toughness. He had in many previous dangerous situations acted recklessly, even shown off but this was different and he couldn’t summon any of his usual banter, his usual willingness to make light of a situation.

  “Message coming through.” Carson heard the printer chattering and called Boris.

  Entering, Boris wished he had originally left the APC through the slim front door, leaving it open for his return. It would have meant squeezing past Burkes controls and drivers seat before reaching his own position but it would not have meant moving past the bomb. The stupid thought occurred that if he stumbled and set it off then they would all blame him. But they wouldn’t. Neither he nor they would ever know he had fallen against it and set it off.

  But with most power turned off, the drain on the batteries to actuate the door would have risked taking too much away from the communications panel. And manual operation was out of the question. A glancing cannon shell hit had distorted the door and opening it was now an operation that called for force and frequently resulted in the doors resistance suddenly ceasing and the thing flying back and crashing in to the hull.

  So he found himself very conscious of the noise his steel shod boots made as he went up the ramp. Every move he made, as he crabbed sideways between Carson and the bomb, every noise as his chair squeaked when he turned it and then sat. Checking the printout his heart sank when he saw it called for an acknowledgement. He knew it would, was certain, but he didn’t want to. His fingers barely brushed the keys and then he was done, except that he should have to go out again. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was now obvious why Andrea had occupied the rear bench seat. It was hard to know which was worse, squeezing past the bomb or staying in here with it.

  “I’ll stay, here, take it.” Reaching out as far as he could, he just managed to pass the slip of paper to Carson’s fingertips.

  Note pad on one knee, the document held on the other Carson began to transcribe the coded message. After completing the first third of the close spaced print he called Andy and gave it to him for completion. When it was done he read it through and then went out to beckon Revell aside.

  “ Is there any chance you could give us a smooth run from here, across the Warpac lines and in to ours?” Lieutenant Andy looked sheepishly apologetic as he asked, especially as he knew the answer.

  “Even if HQ in Bayreuth can give me some indication of the Russian dispositions and some advice on terrain, maybe a few aerial photographs, then there is still no chance we’ll get through without hitting a lot of bumps and very likely having some commie shells bounce off of us pretty hard. Do I take it that our little ticking friend is not in the condition to do the journey?”

  “Bumping it about it about does alter all the odds.”

  “Reading between the lines it sounds like NATO Head Quarters is worried we’ll get so far then go pop and tak
e out our own front line.” Revell was sure he could imagine the gist of the message. “If we obliterate our front line then that will give the local commies a walk through. This may be a quiet sector but they would be sure to take advantage of such an incident. I can’t pretend otherwise, the run will be bad, real bad.”

  Revell had made many crossings of the front lines to get in and out of the Zone. Usually they would be negotiating ground that had been reconnoitred, either by drones or satellites or even by ground patrols. That sort of information wasn’t available to them this time, they would be crossing territory they were not familiar with, encountering enemy emplacements whose position and firepower was largely an unknown factor. Even if Bayreuth HQ told him everything they could scrape together there would still be much that could come as a bad surprise.

  “I should think it will be about as rough as you can imagine, and then some. We’re talking about the military equivalent of a blindfold wild roller-coaster ride.”

  The lieutenant rubbed his face with both hands and then took off his helmet to run them through his close-cropped red hair. “Then it’s a risk we can’t take. We’ll unload where we are.”

  “We’re destroying it?”

  “No, we’ve had word and technical advice from the powers that be. They want us to fix it, bring it back. They reckon two hours work to stabilise it sufficiently to take the knocks of a cross country journey.”

  It was not the news Revell had been expecting and the squad certainly wasn’t. Their react was mixed, noisy. He had to be loud himself to quiet them down and regain control.

  Clarence’s objection was the most valid. “So we’ll be carting it home just as we lose last light. You want us to do the journey in the dark? We are as likely to get shot up by our own side. You know our gunners, none of the pay one jot of attention to the recognition charts. They’ll shoot us full of holes before we can get out any visible recognition signals.”