Death March Page 6

  Outside the Russian mortaring was definitely continuing to reduce in intensity. There were now perceptible pauses between each explosion. Just occasionally a fragment would zip across the interior and expend its energy in chipping a scab of concrete from a pillar or wall. A sliver that ricocheted from a stairwell handrail finally came to rest in a camouflage net secured to the rear of the turret on the Iron Cow.

  In the subdued light the angular bulk of the hover APC looked more aggressive than ever. Extra equipment festooned the hull sides, even draped down on to the thick creases of the steel ribbon reinforced ride skirt. A large patch and runs of semi-gloss brown paint made an incongruous touch but added to the general disruption of the vehicles outline.

  An M113 drove in, its tracks squealing as the driver executed a series of skid turns to bring it down to the lower floor from road level.

  The wide rear door dropped to form a ramp and from its interior exited two colourfully attired infantrymen Brightly patterned bandanas were wound about their heads, loosely tied ends straggling down from beneath helmets that had been given a psychedelic treatment with paint and felt tip pens. Any hippy effect though was cancelled by festoons of thermite bombs and grenades. Their only personal weapons were heavy automatic pistols carried in what looked more like a western rig than regular issue holsters. Libby watched them coming out and found his attention instantly drawn to a large rectangular pack carried by the youngest of the pair. He staggered under the weight of the close packed blocks of thermite material. Peace signs were plastered all over it and red, lilac and sky blue ribbons had been affixed to every strap and buckle. The result was more festive than camouflaging in effect. “Oh heck. I always knew the guys who played with the little ‘A’ bombs about must be crazy. If ever I needed proof….”

  “Hi Major. We’re the special unit guys you are expecting.”

  It was the unencumbered man who spoke. “They recently made the error of making me up to Lieutenant but I prefer to dispense with rank and just be called Andy. Maybe it will be a help if the Ruskies get hold of me and I just sound kind of friendly like.”

  The southern accent was accentuated, almost exaggerated and was accompanied by a gap toothed smile so broad it seemed to go half way around his head.

  “We were told there was one man who had to have special do or die protection. Is that you?” Revell saw that his own men were gathering around to take a closer look at the newcomers.

  “Oh that will be Carson. Come here young fella, say hello to the Major. He’s going to take real good care of you.”

  The long limbed marine with the pack slothered forward. He looked at first glance like a boy but there were lines about his eyes and a look within them that suggested he was older than the first impression made him out to be. “Hi.”

  Andy made no further effort to draw him out. “Anyway, he’s kind of brainy and I reckon his kin must have money stashed somewhere, because he’s real popular with the girls. Or maybe its just because parts of him glow in the dark. I know his stripes indicate he’s only a sergeant but if it does come to a sticky situation then you haul him to safety and leave me to rot.”

  Carson coloured. Some of his apparent innocence though was lost in the quietly muttered obscenity that the lieutenant did not hear.

  “Never do anything to offend a guy who carries ‘A’ bombs for a living, first lesson my Daddy taught me.” Dooley grinned across at the lad and got a sheepish grin in return.

  “Don’t you worry big fella. That’s not a nuclear device my buddy has now. It still ain’t nice, but it don’t glow in the dark.”

  Stashing the bulky case of thermite took some arranging, and a lot more arguing. It was settled by Revell. “It goes in the middle, on the floor. Fix a safety harness on it, no, make that two. I don’t want it rolling about and igniting, not that it would make any difference a metre or two either way. It would cook us all before we could get out.”

  “Oh it could matter major.” Carson looked up from stashing the decorated container. “I checked up on that. For legal purposes, say if it were family members involved, then a nano-seconds difference as to who fried and died first would matter for legal reasons in the event of execution of a will. It’s like when twins are born, only different.”

  “Carson!” Lieutenant Andy shook his head. “Stop making with the explanations of niceties like that will you.

  “OK Lieutenant.” Carson looked about the interior of the Iron Cow. “Hey, you have a serious amount of room in here. Kind of nice after being crammed into the hell seat on a Bradley.”

  “This lot are not normal.” Clarence had entered to take up his usual position by the rear ramp. He settled the butt of his long barrelled Barret sniper rifle on the floor and closing his fingers around the long barrel closed his eyes to sleep.

  Andrea took up position beside Carson. “Does your officer know what to do with the bomb if you are knocked out?”

  “He’s got a rough idea.” From a pocket Carson took a sheet of ruled paper. Sketches on either side of it showed panels, dials and the wording, ‘stick key in here, or maybe here’. “See, dead easy.”

  Libby had paused on his way to his turret seat and craned his neck to survey the drawings. He looked disappointed at their simplicity. “Well I hope it gives us a long count-down.”

  “Can the bomb go off under circumstances other than your selecting the correct sequence? Can it go off by accident.” Andrea felt sick, hearing how casual the men were discussing the weapon they were due to retrieve. The thought of riding with the bomb was making her feel dreadful, jarring her nerves. The briefing from Major Revell had come as a shock to her. The others, after a moment’s surprise, had not really shown any emotion or worry.

  Carson put his head close to Andrea, and hesitated for a moment as he smelt the rich aroma of a scented shampoo. “Oh for sure.” He inhaled again and closed his eyes in pleasure. “Yes it can, lots of ways. That’s why me and the lieutenant are here. We like to be useful.”

  As she moved away Carson experienced a pang of regret at losing the pleasure at her nearness. And to himself added in an undertone, “And now I don’t regret having to leave my Playboy magazine behind.”

  * * *

  The pair of Challenger tanks had been positioned carefully, taking advantage of the tumbled steel and rubble of a collapsed office block. In several places the ruins still smoked, adding those faint wreaths to the cover of the rusting metal and broken sheets of cladding.

  Their commanders conversed quietly with their crews and each other, taking their time to find their targets and zero in on the first of them. When they fired it was to raise a huge fountain of wet debris as their joint muzzle blasts tore at their concealing mounds.

  Fired within a fraction of a second of each other the impact of the high explosive rounds had a devastating effect on a structure across the river. The ground floor, a restaurant, disappeared from sight inside a vast cloud of dust. As that rose it revealed the frontage had been utterly destroyed, along with the two floors immediately above it. The top floor of the building shuddered and then began a progressive collapse into the roadway. With them fell the Russian machine gun posts that had been positioned on the rooftop and in a dormer window immediately below it.

  Reloading fast the huge tanks again fired almost in unison, this time sending high explosive plunging in to the steadily thickening cloud of the smoke screen. Their impacts out of sight, it was the collapse of a church tower that indicated the accuracy of their aim. Again smoke and dust soared high, adding substance to the dirty white pall the NATO mortars were rapidly achieving.

  At thirty-second intervals the pair of British tanks continued to pound any intact building on the far side of the river. They had fired ten rounds each before the first retaliatory shell impacted on the lip of the wharf to their front. It was an armour piercing round and it plunged into the massive baulk of timber lining the edge, splintering its centre section and tearing it off to float away on the swirling waters
.

  It took only a moment for one of the tank commanders to identify the location of the enemy tank, a T72. Even as he did a second round flashed across the river and skimmed the top of his tanks turret, tearing away a bank of smoke dischargers and throwing them, burning, a hundred yards on to a distant over-turned Volkswagen Golf saloon.

  He swore loudly and clapped his hand to his arm, dropping down in to the turret for a dressing to be applied.

  Before the enemy125mm cannon could launch another shot, the other Challengers main armament belched flame and sent an armour piercing shot in retaliation. As it left the barrel, ruffling the tightly strapped thermal sleeve the shell cast aside the halves of the cradling sabot and left the tungsten core to lash out at colossal speed. The Russian tank was already starting to reverse to a new position when the impact came.

  A fist-sized chunk of steel was gouged from its turret roof, ploughing between two reactive armour blocks and sending them spinning away without detonating. Every inch of the powerful machine vibrated and it rocked back under the massive blow. A towing hawsers draped around the turret side was torn away and the roof mounted spotlight and anti-aircraft machine gun reduced to mangled brackets.

  It paused and then exhaust gasses plumed high as it continued its retreat. While it did a wild shot was unleashed from its high velocity gun but it was fired before the muzzle was brought to bear. The tracer in the tail of the shell briefly revealed its flight and it struck a pile of steel beams and glanced off, to an impact far away in the west of the city.

  The exhaust from the straining engine enabled the NATO commanders to track the Warsaw Pact armoured vehicle even when piles of rubble concealed its progress. When it reappeared a hundred metres further along the bank it exposed barely sufficient of its turret to enable its gun to re-engage the British tanks, they were waiting for it.

  An armour piercing and a squash head shell struck at the same instant. The HESH round impacted and deformed immediately beside the gun mount. A colossal concussion went through the armour causing great scabs of metal to detach on the inside and pound across the gun compartment, cutting the gunner and commander in two and severing many of the cable runs in a shower of sparks.

  The armour piercing round struck the gun barrel itself, severing it and forcing the stump of the weapon back so far it defeated the recoil mechanism and smashed it into the doors of the ammunition storage, destroying the automatic loader mechanism as it did so.

  A single spurt of flame soared from a top hatch and then the whole structure burst apart with the detonation of all it s fuel and ammunition simultaneously. Above the top run of tracks the thick metal was actually rent, split apart. Track links and two road wheels were propelled far away by the blast.

  From the Iron Cows cupola Revell had watched the destruction, having been ultra cautious in getting Burke to position the hovercraft so that only that and the turret showed above the piled bricks of a collapsed warehouse.

  “Get ready to move. We’ll give the artillery a couple more minutes to stoke the screen and our two big friends to create a spot more havoc and then we’ll be off.”

  With their driver the Major had reconnoitred their initial route. Burke had expressed no doubts about the APC’s ability to tackle the slopes but had wanted to see that no lances of steel projected from them, ready to rip the skirts and reduce their ride height and the power they could put on the ground.

  Through the sights mounted on the turret cannon, Libby watched the bright pinpricks of light that were the smoke rounds bursting. They landed constantly, several at a time along the river frontage, blossoming into a fast expanding sheet of white light that obliterated everything else as the intense heat of phosphorous momentarily defeated the lens’ self-balancing optics.

  “How is it looking.” Dooley tried to squeeze up beside the gunner but could do no more than attract his attention.

  “It looks like that artillery officer is doing us proud. If the Ruskies here are only getting light stuff, just smoke, then the poor sods else where must be getting a hell of a pasting.” Swivelling the turret slowly with the hand control, Libby watched fires being started amongst the shattered remains of buildings, as the smoke rounds caused flame to race up the plastic rain pipes and across the guttering. Where the vulnerable material caught it sagged and slowly rained droplets of squealing fire. The flame spread along the eaves of the apartment blocks and forced billowing smoke from beneath the tiles in great clouds.

  “Still a few minutes to go yet.” Clarence changed position slightly, so that the deep indent in his hand made by the rifle barrel was eased. “I hope no one at HQ suddenly realises the volume of ammunition this enthusiastic artillery man is getting through.”

  “If they do then we shall likely be going forward with less than ideal cover.” Revell listened to the grouses and countered each in turn with some comment that would crush the problem, or steer it towards humour or a new direction. It had always surprised him how often he did little more than play straight feed to the worries, the fears, of his men. But it always seemed to be like that before going into action. A brittle humour masked fear well.

  When it was just five minutes to go he used the rear escape hatch to exit the Iron Cow and make a circuit of the vehicle to ensure that everything was still in order. From some unknown origin a fragment had scored the side of the hull, making a long graze in the still sticky spilt paint but doing no damage. He was surprised to hear the steps behind him and turned to see Sergeant Hyde joining him for the check-over.

  The mortar rounds had switched to fresh targets several times but with their departure imminent the barrage had transferred back to the bank immediately opposite. Now, as the smoke drifted across the river it had become sufficiently thick to cover their moving about without fear they would come under observation from enemy snipers. Even so, several times, they heard the sharp cutting zip of rounds passing not far over-head and the clatter of machine guns firing blind on fixed lines.

  “I wonder if one of those would set off the bomb?” Hyde listened to the distant rattle of the Russian machine guns and the heavier, slower crack of twenty and thirty millimetre cannon adding their contribution to the counter barrage. It was still pitifully weak though, indicating that so far, mercifully, the enemy was only just beginning to reach the river in any numbers.

  “We’ll never know.” It amused Revell to realise that he was speaking the literal truth. If something, a bullet or a red-hot fragment from a mortar round, were to set off the ‘A’ bomb while they were close to it then truly they would never know. From now on every second might quite literally be their last, and they would have no knowledge of it. Suddenly he realised that it was not something to be frightened of…Carson knew all about the bomb, but was he frightened? The bags under his eyes suggested he might worry, or it could just be that he was worked too hard or at his age maybe played too hard.

  Strange that it took the close proximity of a nuclear weapon to put these thoughts in to his head. A single round from a sniper rifle might have ended it all for him anytime in the last year or two. He had gone in to action on the first day of the war and now against all odds he was still here. Did he deserve to be? But then did anyone…it just didn’t do to dwell on such things. He shook the uncomfortable thoughts away and returned to the Iron Cow, securing the hatch.

  “Thirty seconds Major.” Burke, in the driver seat, had been quietly keeping count. Now Revell looked at his own watch and saw the hand sweeping to the moment…

  Slapping the button that would elevate the Commanders chair, Revell felt the hydraulics lift him to the observation cupola. His eyes came level with it at the instant an incendiary round smacked in to the blank side-wall of a distant public building. It did not penetrate, its designers had never meant it to, instead the thin casing of the shell burst apart and spewed its contents down the brickwork, the short distance up to and under the eaves and out and across the road, forming a wall of white fire. He closed his eyes against the glare. Th
ey were going with the last light of the day and he did not want to go in to action with his vision blurred.

  All of the crew were laced up to the internal communications network. Revell knew he did not have to raise his voice to be heard. “OK, start the engines.”

  Burke nestled deeper into his drivers seat and gripped the controls. He watched the oil pressure come up and engaged the fuel boost pumps, moving the throttle forward to ground idle. At twenty percent of maximum revolutions per minute he watched the twin gauges monitoring the turbine temperatures. The indicators on the main screen spun upwards and he waited for the moment when the turbofans internal temperature would reach the optimum. Number one lit up and he gave it a moment to run and settle to steady readings before activating number two.

  “OK Major, all good.”

  “Right, let’s go. We’ve got a nuclear weapon to bring home.”

  * * *

  “Why wasn’t I told?” General Zucharnin screamed the words and the officer in front of him, flanked by two grim looking field police, visible shrank. “You think there is some virtue in keeping such things a secret from me?”

  “Comrade General, I reported to General Lieutenant Gregori, your second in command. That is the proper procedure.”

  Crossing to the door, wrenching it open, the general shouted to the staff in his outer office. “I want Gregori here, or on the ‘phone now.”

  The glass cracked with a sharp whiplash of sound as it was slammed. It had hardly closed before the General ripped it open again. “Well, have you got him you blockhead.”

  The field telephone on the desk gave a weak jangling ring. Snatching up the handset General Zucharin had no time for niceties. “Gregori. One of your staff officers has just informed me your men are working on a nuclear demolition device under the flyovers at the eastern end of the city.” “You didn’t think to advise me?”