by James Rouch
“Can’t you at least move your men to a greater state of readiness.” It was a last attempt, a compromise, but at least it would have been something. Revell waited for the response.
“No, I don’t want to provoke anything. Let sleeping dogs lie I always say. In the meantime though I would be very grateful if you would motor on out of town with that cargo of yours and you’d best take your prisoner with you. My medic’s say your guy did a good job on him, he’s stable and in no immediate danger. I have an idea that who ever collects your bomb will want him as well My men don’t have the knowledge to interrogate him properly.”
A telephone rang and a signals clerk languidly picked it up and listened in open- mouthed confusion.
Revell had been about to leave; now he paused and waited expectantly. He looked at a clock. It was just seven.
“Colonel, we’re getting loads of calls from the front, by land line. All the radios are jammed.”
“Well?”
“They report that thousands of civvies are trekking out of the Russian lines and straight towards them.”
“Tell them to look again.” Revell interrupted before the Commanding Officer could snap him self out of his surprise. “Tell them to look for Soviet troops among them.” He turned to the Colonel. “In the next few minutes you have decisions to make. I don’t envy you but I did warn you.”
* * *
There had already been a massive attrition rate and the Russian executioners following the advance had stopped killing those who couldn’t keep up. There were too many. The last five kilometres of the route was almost paved with the young and infirm, and when the children especially fell back, their parents tried to stay with them. For their attempted compassion they were booted and clubbed back in to line.
The troops tried to keep in formation among the crowds. Obstructions diverted the human tidal wave again and again and it broke up units until some battalions were split into their component companies, then platoons and some of those were splintered further until individual riflemen were plodding on surrounded by a personal escort of cowed refugees.
Armoured personnel carriers escorted by missile carrying scout cars began to catch up to the throng and men, women and children were forced to ride on top of some. The clung to anything that would give them a hold but many times that grip failed and those who fell clear of the tracks, breaking legs and arms were the lucky ones.
Every effort by the officers could not maintain the cohesion of the advance and when the head of the huge column breasted a slight rise and saw the broken and churned ground ahead they faltered, almost coming to a stop and were only kept going by the pressure of those behind and the beatings administered by the troops around them.
In the centre of the advance, draped with terrified civilians were the enormous self-propelled guns. Their broad tracks left a wide trail of flattened earth in which followed their supply echelon of fuel tankers and ammunition trucks. They too were festooned with refugees. Ropes had been fastened to the sides of the camouflaged bowsers and their human shield clung tight until their hands bled.
As they stepped out in to no-mans land the artillery opened up from further back, probing for the NATO batteries. Instantly drowning those loud reports was the deafening howl of the heavy Katusha rockets firing salvo after salvo over their heads.
In the far distance the mist softened outline of Bayreuth suddenly sprouted tall columns of flame as the powerful warheads reached the extreme of their short range and enveloped the outskirts of the town in destruction and boiling smoke clouds.
The tramping refugees cringed at the ear-splitting howl, as the number of missiles seemed to increase, each tearing through the air towing a long streamer of flame. Many tried to hold back but from the top of a scout car an officer opened up with a machine gun, firing bursts in to the crowd where it seemed most to resist the urgings to go on.
A man who had seen his children shot down jumped on to the back of the car, grabbing the gunner. Mad with grief and rage he plunged his thumbs into his eye sockets. An instant later he was shot down and rolled to the ground, his corpse joining those of his family. It was almost the only example of fighting back in that whole crowd. Most of the men were weakened by thirst and in many cases by hunger. Subdued by the treatment they had received and seen handed out to others they were only anxious to protect their families. So they did nothing.
Still buried in the centre of the column but now staggering under the weight of the two young children she carried Linda managed to keep going. She knew there would come a point when the presence of the refugees would have conferred on the Russian attack all the benefit it could. Then they would be dumped and their gravest danger would be the risk of being run down. Already she had seen the Russian combat drivers making no effort to go around those who had fallen for any reason. She tried to keep the children’s eyes averted but it wasn’t always possible. If they survived this day she knew they would wake and scream every night for a long time.
Smoke with a choking stench rolled across them and she looked for its source. Off to her right two tall pillows of smoke were rising and drifting. Although she had heard nothing she knew it was shelling. To add to the other agonies of the people some NATO units had opened fire.
At the head of the procession there was a sequence of detonations. Unidentifiable pieces of bodies were thrown high. A ripple of fear ran back through the refugees and they actually stopped, shocked by the loss of life as they entered a minefield. As many again went down beneath the gun butts and boots of the Russians. There were two more waves of destruction before the minefield was cleared.
Linda and her children were ten ranks nearer the front by the time it ended and they walked through a field of dead and dying.
* * *
General Grigori had sent his signal and had waited twenty minutes in an agony of suspense. He might have had to wait hours, a day…perhaps the first response would be KGB units arriving to arrest any body, every body, who might be involved or responsible for what was happening, to the extent of the whole head Quarters staff. That would include him. Signal or no signal he might not be believed when he swore he had known nothing. Perhaps there would be a penalty to pay for not having known when he should have.
He bellowed at any one who approached him. He wanted the worry that made his heart pound and his head to feel as if it was splitting to go unseen by others. His back was giving him hell, a stress spasm he hadn’t experienced since he’d been at risk of being found cheating at his Staff College examinations. He wondered how Zucharnins’ attack was going. The first assault waves would be on the NATO front lines about now. Would the ruse work? Would the NATO forces hold their fire when faced by the approaching civilians? It was likely they would. That was something he could really worry about, Zucharnin might get away with it if he scored a spectacular success. But still, there was the indisputable fact that he had built his own army, something the Kremlin feared more than anything else.
Gregoris’ staff were at their desks, not daring to move. They knew the mood he was in and would do or say nothing that would draw his attention. He once again thought through the course of action he had taken. In a way the risk he took was no less than Zucharnins. But if it payed off, it would pay off handsomely.
He noticed a signals clerk hunching further over his radio, his hand poised over the out-tray of an attached printer. “This must be it.” He longed to rush into the outer room and snatch it away but forced himself to be calm, to wait.
The man took an age, withdrawing the single sheet slowly and methodically folding it in half before standing, brushing down his jacket front and pushing his chair back. Gregori wanted to hurl himself through the door, grab him and choke him to instil a sense of urgency but forced down every outwards appearance of the churning mental turmoil he was experiencing.
The glass door opened and the signaller presented himself at the desk. Even now he kept his arms by his side, keeping the paper out of reach. It was impossibl
e to restrain himself any longer. As the man punctiliously saluted Gregori leant as far across the desk as he could and his hand went out like a claw.
“If you do not hand me that message instantly I shall rip it from you along with your fingers.” He took it from a hand that shook like a leaf and dismissed the man.
Restoring full self control he waited until the door had closed, again agonisingly slowly, before opening the paper and orientating it to read. There was only one line, just two words. ‘Arrest Zucharnin.’ Nothing more, no instruction to assume command, no direction as to what to do with the assault that had already begun. It was only half of what he wanted. A start, but still only a half.
The general would be in his office on the next floor up. Grigori would have too move fast. He would gather a squad of military police on the way. The building swarmed with the parasites and after the frequent blasts they got from the general they would welcome the chance to get a measure of payback.
* * *
“Until we can get rid of the bomb we can do nothing.” Revell listened to the rockets rending the sky on their way to blast apart the NATO defences. He well knew the hitting power of those massive warheads. From the nature of the detonations he had seen he was sure some of them contained napalm. Fires were springing up everywhere as the frightful liquid was jetted in to buildings and across rooftops.
The jamming had stopped. Perhaps there had been a lucky hit by one of the few retaliatory NATO shells, or more likely the Russian equipment had failed. Usually the Russians built redundancy in to their systems with back-ups for everything but that was no guarantee the second line units would be fit to take over. Often they would be incapable of doing so with the troops manning them nothing like the calibre of the front line units.
They parked in the shelter of a sports stadium to clear out the ankle deep accumulation of shell cases and empty ration packs. Although the sounds of the barrage came clearly none of the salvos of Russian missiles seemed to be directed to this area.
There had been comparatively few of the original population remaining in the region before the attack. A quiet sector it might have been but its position in a slight salient was a sure indicator that before long it would be just another swathe of ruins within an ever-expanding Zone. Their anticipation was proving prophetically correct, more so than the NATO High Command who had allotted the area a low priority in men and materials.
* * *
The Russian troops, now supported by swarms of scout cars and APC’s were reaching the southern suburbs of the town. In places their commander’s impatience had induced them to drive on ahead of the covering refugees and the few NATO weapons able to engage them had extracted a heavy price. Others had driven outside of the trudging column and run on to mine fields. The lightly armoured vehicles had been blasted apart by weapons designed to knockout far heavier main battle tanks. The lighter construction of the armoured personnel carriers had seen them erupt in flames and fall apart, throwing to a great distance any civilians still clinging to their hulls.
In places a circle of bodies surrounded a crater like petals around a flower, mown down by devices that on being triggered had bounced from the ground to waist or head height and unleashed a storm of ball bearings.
Gradually the mass of people had tended southwards, crossing an autobahn that made a wide sweep around the built up area. Bridge they crossed or passed under showed no evidence of having been prepared for destruction. Such West German and American soldiers as they saw in the distance melted away even before they were attacked, retreating rather than open fire on woman and children.
Once through the NATO front line, within a short distance the landscape miraculously returned to normal with industrial areas and sprawling breweries alternating with modern housing. There were some areas of traditional half- timbered buildings, where outlying villages had been swallowed by the expanded suburban development.
The Russian commanders had anticipated a problem and a steady stream of missiles fell on and around the breweries. Most were already well alight and huge vats of copper and stainless steel were exposed by the collapse of the walls around them. Giant fountains of casks and bottles flew in to the air and the air was saturated with the heady smell of hops and malt.
The civilians were being pulled down off the APCs and replaced by Soviet troops. Infantry swarmed through side streets and industrial areas seeking out vehicles to confiscate and piling aboard them in numbers far exceeding anything the manufacturers had intended. A whole battalion found space aboard several luxurious six wheeled buses. NCOs punched out Perspex roof panels to mount anti-aircraft machine guns and grenade launchers.
Where they thought they were no longer being watched, refugees made a break for it. Few had the strength or endurance to go far and most did no more than duck out of sight and hide. For some who chose to hide in stores it was a terrible mistake. There were few establishments still open this close to the front and the Russian officers threw grenades in to most, suspecting them of stocking beers and spirits. Even so there was sufficient alcohol found for many of the marauding troops to get blind drunk in next to no time. Some were amongst those who died in the stores, having got their ahead of the officers and hidden when they heard them approaching. They found themselves concealed behind the same stacks of cartons and display-topped counters as refugees. Phosphorus bombs turned the interiors in to blazing pyres, the conflagrations fed by the bursting bottles of spirits. Chances to escape were rare.
Among the swarming four wheeled armoured vehicles were some tracked carriers. Behind their armoured cabs their flat load decks sported multi-barrelled anti-aircraft cannons. A single NATO helicopter gunship that approached was greeted with streams of tracer and rocket-propelled grenades from among the mass of infantry.
Standing off at a distance beyond the slant range of the Russians weapons the chopper launched stubby bodied missiles. None failed to find targets among the close packed enemy armour. Massive warheads reduced any vehicle they struck to a blazing hulk. Pillars of black smoke rose straight up in to the morning sky.
* * *
Zucharnin had not been allowed to talk to anyone. He sat in a bare office with a three-man military police guard outside the door. The men of the Commandants Service were strict in their enforcement of the instructions Lieutenant General Grigori had given them. It never occurred to them to question what he ordered. All that concerned them was that they obeyed orders to the letter. There was risk enough just by this nebulous association. They were nervous, not wanting to take risks by appearing to show any concessions or favours to the prisoner. Each kept as close a watch upon the others as their high ranking captive.
Gregori had risked another signal, requesting further instructions. Just that and nothing more. If only the Kremlin would give him some task, anything, he could start to use it as a lever in to his ex-commanding officers position. All work in the Head Quarters had come to a stop. Nobody dared to move as much as a single sheet of paper. Any thing could be construed as aiding and abetting the traitor.
Apart from aiming a fierce glare at Grigori, Zucharnin had shown no reaction at the sudden turn of events. His arrest he had greeted by calmly lifting his arms so that his burnished holster could be removed. He had stayed still as his pockets were searched, displayed no emotion.
Gregori had watched the Generals arrest. Some how things were not going as he expected. Not that he had anticipated any great storm of wrath, display of histrionics. Zucharnin might bellow a lot but he never did it without cause. The shouting was always aimed at slow moving staff, at any incompetence. But still, something, some reaction was to be expected. And yet, nothing.
Gregori closed out his thoughts on the subject. That next communications from Moscow was all that mattered now. There were routine message coming in, but nothing from the phantom assault waves that Zucharnin had launched. He had discovered the white phone was exclusively for contact with them, but since the arrest there had been nothing. An attempt to use
it to call out had been ineffective and now Gregori felt entirely cut off. He dare do nothing, show no initiative for fear of being stuck with the same label as Zucharnin. And so again he waited. All he could do was have the signallers check the links to Army HQ regularly. He did not dare test the line to Moscow Head Quarters, in case it should result in an accidental connection. He was not ready to talk to them yet. Indeed he hoped he would not have to, at any time.
* * *
The end of the jamming had been like having a blindfold renewed. The local commanders seemed to be at a loss to handle the situation but they were at least passing back an accurate assessment of what was going on. There appeared to be an obsession with casualty figures and it was impossible to give those with any degree of accuracy. The best estimates put the civilian casualties in the hundreds and those of the NATO defenders at not more than fifty.
Revell knew that both had to be woefully inaccurate. The refugees had left a trail of bodies that stretched back ten kilometres and many more were still being forced forward into the dangers of minefields and artillery fire from NATO units not yet appraised of the situation. The Russian breakout appeared to have commenced already but masses of refugees still milled about, being employed to protect the flanks of the Soviet thrust. Thousands, several thousands was a much more likely figure. As to the NATO dead and wounded. Revell was aware that it was very likely to be even less than the given figure. Most had fallen back before the first waves of the assault, not firing a shot when they knew what they were faced with.
The crew of the few emplaced armoured vehicles had surrendered quickly, unable to drive out of the hides that had been rapidly surrounded by the mix of enemy infantry and terrified civilians.
