Death March

by James Rouch

  The point was a good one. Revell himself had been worrying about crossing the territory between the opposing lines. Every conceivable obstruction would be encountered. It was better to wait and go at first light instead. If they lost the cover of the night at least they had a better chance of negotiating the chewed up land between the Russian and NATO lines safely. Revell made that decision. Instantly and instinctively he knew it was the right one and announcing it had the effect of subduing the squad, placating their near insubordinate questioning.

  “Well that will give us plenty of time to work, and test the results.” Carson spat on his hands and rubbed them together. “Right, who is going to give me a hand moving my box of tricks to a spot with a tad more elbow room.”

  * * *

  General Zucharnin experienced a sensation of contentment. It was brief, coming from the satisfaction of a plan that was falling in to place. All morning he had been working on staff problems, paperwork. He hated it but he had no wish to get a black mark at this stage because his returns were not up to date. But now it was all done and he could again concentrate his attention on the wall map. Reports had kept coming in all morning confirming that the advance into Nurnberg was definately stalled at the river.

  Surprisingly, considering the calibre of the troops he had to work with, to either side of the city some local crossings had been made and tiny bridgeheads established. Heaven only knew what with, they had no bridging equipment. Of course they would not last, he had never expected that any would, but if by a miracle one or two were still clinging on the next day he would allow his local commanders to exploit opportunities.

  In the south of the sector Regensburg was still a rock against which he could hurl troops and armour to their destruction if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to, not yet. The time would come, when the cities defences were threatened from behind as well.

  The reports from Bamberg in the north was exactly what he expected to hear. After some initial successes the attack had stalled. Probing attacks between the centres, little more than a series of reconnaissance in force type engagements had done no more than tie down NATO troops who might otherwise have reinforced the cities defences.

  And that left just Bayreuth a town in the far north of his sector only ten kilometres from the demarcation line between his and another command. It formed a small salient in to the Zone but was of no consequence from any point of view. NATO shunted troops in and out of the area for rest and refitting. It had been Warsaw Pact custom to employ the ground for much the same purpose. Apart from a little sniping and occasional artillery exchange there was nothing much going on there.

  At least there hadn’t been. At the side of the map General Zucharnin had a supply of spare coloured pins and arrows. Nice bright shiny new ones that had never been used before. How he longed to plunge those into their appropriate positions and get ready to move them, but he couldn’t do that yet. Not just yet.

  Looking again at the map the General sighed and moved the spare markers down the side from the top to nearer its centre, where they would attract no attention or comment.

  Captain Pritkov entered and as was his habit when the General had not have been expecting him, would not have had the chance to conceal anything, his first action was to glance at the map, to ensure nothing was happening that he should know about. Lieutenant General Gregori had been delighted with the snippets of information he had initially provided, had promised him promotion on the strength of it. Of late though there had been less to pass on. It was very frustrating. How he wished his mother had never married Zucharnin. She just couldn’t see that the man was after her family influence as well as her money. He had coveted the lovely four-bedroom apartment over-looking the Kremlin wall and spires from across the river. And the dacha on the Black Sea, that was what he was after.

  Pritkov had got rid of earlier boy friends. Zucharnin might be harder to ease out, but it could be done. If he could get him demoted, even jailed, then his mother would divorce him fast enough. But he would have to be careful or she might begin to suspect.

  “What is it this time?” Zucharnin was finding himself with less and less patience

  with the boy. Certainly that was how he thought of him, as just a kid. He might have the grand title of Staff Captain but it conferred almost no authority on him, and certainly as little responsibility as was possible.

  “The units in the sector south of Bayreuth.”

  “What about them.” Zucharnin was instantly on his guard, the boy had been trawling for information quite a lot recently. For a basically lazy person it appeared strange that he was taking an active interest in anything, but especially that he should be curious about that location.

  “Alright, what about them. Get a move on.”

  Trying to appear casual, Pritkov put a stapled wad of papers on to the general’s desk. “They have been taking delivery of large quantities of ammunition lately. A very large amount for reserve units. They have also been trying to obtain stocks of petrol and diesel, far more than their vehicle scales and static situation would require normally. Is there a reason?”

  Zucharnin pursed his lips and allowed himself a few moments to gather his thoughts. He was certainly not going to reveal his plans to the boy. The alternatives were to bawl him out and frighten him off or to offer some plausible explanation that would satisfy him. It just wasn’t in his nature though to handle a situation by taking the soft option.

  “What the bloody hell has it got to do with you? You’re job is not to oversee such things so keep your damned nose out of business that is no concern of yours, that you don’t understand. If you did a half decent job of sorting out my transport problems you wouldn’t have time to go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  The blast made Pritkov take a step back and his bottom lip trembled. “I was just asking why…”

  “Well don’t bloody ask. Get on with your own work, stay out of mine.”

  As Pritkov closed the office door the staff in the outer officer hurriedly bent over their desks, simulating activity. Of course they had been listening and they certainly could not have helping hearing the tearing off he had got from the general. God, how he hated the man, loathed him. Uncouth, ill mannered. A peasant. What on earth did mother see in him.

  Making his way back to his own office he could feel his face burning and a bitter fury burned inside him. Now he had to get him, claw him down from his lofty position and have him thrown into a penal battalion. Yes, that would be nice. But how to do it. So far he had passed to the Lieutenant General Gregori no more than tittle-tattle, nothing of any real substance.

  He found he still had the papers in his hand. Throwing himself in to the deep- buttoned leather armchair beneath the window he scanned the list gain. What little he had absorbed of what the army had tried to teach him told him that these fuel requests and ammunition quantities were far in excess of the requirements of units in a static reserve condition.

  Nothing was planned in that area. The hard look he had taken at the general’s map told him that. So why would they need anti-tank rockets and gasoline on these scales. What could it all be used for? He rang for one of his staff.

  The officer who came in was a good choice. A bookish looking lieutenant he was one of those irritating men who studied his subject hard and was always able to show up his superiors by being better informed, better grounded in any of his specialities. It was why he had never got beyond his present position.

  Pritkov handed over the sheaf of close typed sheets. “If I gave you that to execute, what would you think was planned?”

  The officer gave a weak smile in acknowledgement of the instruction. He flipped back and forth through the information. “I would say you are asking me to equip a reinforced infantry division for an assault and follow up pursuit.”

  “Follow up?”

  “Yes Captain. The fuel requirement is too much for attacking a limited objective. It is insufficient for massed armour but the proportions of
diesel to petrol would suggest an anticipated high mileage by light forces; scout cars and armoured personnel carriers for an assault and break-out.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  The officer ran his finger down one of the pages.

  “The engineers supplies, it is strange. If it is an assault against prepared defences then there is no provision for mine lifting. And the artillery stocks. Sufficient I would say for some long range counter battery work but most of the weight is close support munitions, mortars and Katushas. I would say that some one, judged by the absence of armour is embarking on an infantry assault against anticipated light opposition. Unless their Intelligence information is flawless they are taking an enormous risk.”

  * * *

  Zucharnin had enjoyed giving vent to his feelings. He had said what he had wanted to say for a long time. Of course he risked making an enemy of the boy, but what harm could that do. The wimp was in no position to do him any damage. Beyond office tittle-tattle what could he have that would make trouble. He looked again at the map and plucked out one of the new pins and let it hover over the north of the area. The tip of the shining point rested on the paper. It had a pink head. He looked at the others and ran over what they would represent in his mind. There was something missing. Of course, something to mark the refugees. He buzzed the intercom to the outer office.

  “I want some more map markers. I want red ones. Blood Red.”

  * * * *

  The bomb felt hot to the touch, or at least Revell imagined it to be. But then he had also thought he had seen it glowing. Fear was capable of doing strange things to the mind.

  Andrea had gone off to the far side of the site and now crouched on the ground, hugging her grenade launcher, her eyes closed. None of the others had such extreme reaction but all were showing the strain. Their ways varied, from Ripper’s forced light-heartedness to Burke’s veneer of nonchalance.

  Four of them carried the bomb from the APC to a corner. Some slabs of broken concrete were stacked close by to use as improvised tables to hold the tools.

  Corporal Thorne began preparing detonators for the thermite blocks. If a sudden need arose to employ them there would not be the time for such delicate precision work. He moved well away from their transport, taking out only two blocks at a time. He was happy to get the distraction, laying them on a rusty steel cabinet door ripped from some storage room.

  “OK.” Carson looked up at the clouds and then down to tiny sliver of light that came from a heavily masked torch. “Let’s hope the sky stays clear.”

  A few wisps of cloud were scudding past, occasionally concealing the wafer thin slice of a new moon. Lieutenant Andy was laying out tools and testing meters. “If the weather is the worst we have to worry about, I am happy.”

  Dooley took up an M60 to go to the guard post he had been allotted. “I wish I was as easy to please.” He took a look at the bomb, almost invisible in the dark save where a small patch inside an inspection panel was illuminated by a narrow beam from a torch. “And I wish I wasn’t so shit scared.”

  The work on the device took far longer than expected, with Lieutenant Andy twice having to relay questions through the local HQ about technical matters. When tools were dropped or the shielding from a torch slipped and filled the ruined building with glaring light it stretched all their nerves to breaking point. A couple of times the two specialists walked away from the job, to quietly discuss some problem, to ease the tension they were experiencing.

  For long hours Revell watched them work, breaking off occasionally to check the guard posts. Always though he returned to keep his vigil. Strangely, he had been thinking about the dark haired woman when his mobile phone vibrated fiercely in his pocket. Shaking himself fully alert he took the call. He recognised her voice.

  “It is Linda, I have no time”

  There was a lot of noise in the background, shouting.

  “The Russian soldiers have come in to the camp, thousands of them. They are flooding out of the tree plantations. They are rounding up people, everyone, at random.”

  “Can you tell what their purpose is, can you see what they’re doing.” Still Revell could hear the loud confusion behind her voice, and in her voice, fear. It must be taking a super human effort to keep talking when everything inside her was prompting her to run, or hide.

  “They are lining people up…I thought they were going to shoot them, but they are not. They are marching them away, the soldiers pushing the people ahead of them. They are doing it very fast, they are shooting any who move too slowly.”

  To verify that Revell could hear single shots, but so many of them that they crackled almost like automatic fire.

  He couldn’t think what to say. ”Can you tell what direction they are heading?” The first pale streaks of first light were visible on the horizon.

  “Oh yes, they are marching them towards the west. Away from the sunrise. I am sure. And now they are coming this way, what should I do? They will be here soon. I must put the children’s coats on.” There was an edge to her voice, barely controlled fear.

  “Hold back as long as you can. Get in to the middle or back of the column. Avoid the front at all costs.” The phone made a scratching, scrabbling noise and then Revell heard the signal end abruptly. He could only think she must have jammed it in her pocket and switched it off, before the Russians saw it.

  ‘Away from the sun.’ Even now her feminine inability to know direction had been obvious, but she had come up with what she could. The Russian infantry, propelling tens of thousands of civilians was moving away from the sun. They were moving west, straight for the weak NATO defences south of Bayreuth.

  “On your feet, now.”

  The major’s shout carried all the urgency he had intended and the squad bolted for the hovercraft. The bomb had already been fastened on board. None of them worried about bumping it now as they packed on to the benches. Dooley, last man in, pushing past their Russian prisoner. He looked weary, exhausted. All night others had been pushing past him to take their turn to sleep on the benches.

  “All aboard. Closing up.”

  Revell had been scribbling on a pad, now he tore it off and handed it to their signaller. “Make it top priority and don’t make a mistake.”

  “What’s happening Major.” Sergeant Hyde asked the question loudly.

  “The Reds are clearing out that camp. They’re marching the refugees ahead of them as human shields.”

  “Engines up to speed and running sweet as a nut Major. Five percent extra on the port motor.”

  “All electronics functioning, signals poor.” Boris was the next to check in over the intercom’ circuit.

  “Turret guns OK.” Libby checked his ready-use ammunition was to hand.

  “Good. Hold it for the moment.” Major Revell listened as Burke eased off on the power so as to keep the turbine chambers within the optimum temperature range.

  Hunched over his communications board, Boris was hitting his keyboard with lightning speed, his face creasing in concentration. Twice more at short intervals he pounded them then turned to the officer. “They are jamming Major. Every frequency with a strength I have never seen before. They’re pushing us back in to the dark ages. No radio, no sat-nav, no satellite links, nothing.”

  Revell knew the truth of the dark ages remark. Now it was up to who ever had the fastest horse. “Burke, I want every ounce of power. Use the route we checked out last night, towards the NATO lines. Everyone else, man the ports Load the turret gun with high explosive. If I call for fire give it all you’ve got. Don’t worry about conserving ammunition. Any action is going to be short and bloody.”

  * * *

  Zucharnin smirked as he picked up the first marker his clerk had placed on the desk. They made a dark red line on the white blotting pad. His expression became one of intense satisfaction as he began to mark the route of his division and the civilians being herded before it.

  His commanders would only
have got back to their units an hour before their troops were due to cross their start line. He had deliberately called them to meet him down here, at a secret location. By the time they got back to their commands they would have missed a nights sleep, a supper and breakfast. They would be tired, hungry and bad tempered. That was just what he wanted. If the refugees slowed, tried to turn aside or even turn back, then the Soviet soldiers among them would drive them forward. If the Commanders were ill tempered then that attitude would cascade down to the ranks and for once the ordinary soldiers would have others to bully, to drive.

  He added the other unit markers. He had no need to refer to anything, he had it all engraved on his memory. The nature of the terrain he knew by heart. Several inspection trips had familiarised him with every valley, every town, village and every hedgerow.

  Everything that needed to be done, had been done. And now that the moment was here there was nothing more for him to do. Every one down to the lowliest NCO knew his place and function precisely. The mass of staff work had been completed on the spot so that no one in his headquarters would have any idea. His imbecile stepson was the only one who had openly questioned what was going on. Any others of his officers who had suspected the planned attack had retained the good sense to keep their mouths shut.

  It was now just a case of waiting. Signallers following the advance would be laying landlines. NATO jamming counter measures would be by-passed that way. Three hours, perhaps less if the troops were utterly ruthless, as they had been ordered, would see the first wave of the refugees approaching the NATO defences. The minefields would be breached quickly beneath the civilian’s feet. The light outer defences of the NATO line would likely be empty by the time his men reached them and even if they weren’t they would go down like straw as they hesitated to fire for fear of hitting the refugees.

  He could well imagine the total confusion among the NATO troops, faced with a herd of innocents being propelled towards them. They might try selective fire but with his division so enmeshed with the refugees they would surely not resist for long. They would fall back and once that started to happen it would have a domino effect.