by James Rouch
Though his German was far from fluent, Libby caught the gist of what the muscled runt had told the girl. He watched her delve into the bag and take out the cigarettes, then hand it back to Mother Knoke. The ringleader had told her to take out any money as well, but she hadn’t. Another of the gang snarled a threat at Knoke and then propelled her from the dilapidated building with his boot.
While the rest of the gang kept Revell and his men covered, the leader and girl conferred in a corner. Then she came over and stood in front of the major. ‘You are American, they are British.’ She pointed with her submachine gun. For her small frame the weapon was too large, too ugly. ‘You have come here to learn something, or do something. We will help you. In return you will take us with you when you go back. It is agreed?’
For all their caution they had been identified and followed, perhaps from the moment they entered the camp. Hyde swore, quietly, under his breath. ‘Things getting a bit hot for you round here, are they?’
A brief pause while she translated and conferred with bullet-head, and then ‘There is nothing else you need to know now. We can help, you know our price.’
He couldn’t help it: she had a gun on them, was with a band of the nastiest individuals imaginable, and still Revell could look at her and see just a beautiful girl. It was a hard, high-cheeked beauty. Tight jeans that made a dozen arrows of white creases drew his eyes to her crotch; and the dirt-streaked parka she wore, though it’s quilting revealed only a hint of the breasts beneath, was pulled tight enough to her body to illustrate a tiny waist that emphasised her unconcealable femininity.
‘Where is your transport?’
Revell felt relief the instant she translated the hoarse prompting. While that was still unknown to the East Germans he held the upper hand.
‘If they want to bargain or offer their services, tell these apes to point those weapons at the floor. I get rather stubborn when a couple of hundred rounds are aimed my way.’ It was a crucial moment. Revell watched and waited as she trans- lated. Hell, she was lovely. Jet black hair that framed her face didn’t hang in greasy strips, but fell as separate strands that rested like a swinging bell on her shoulders. From the rear the view was just as feminine. Below the hem of her jacket the tight centre seam of the denim showed off the halves of her backside.
At last the barrels of the submachine guns were lowered, though that was as far as the relaxation went. Fingers remained on triggers, and their guards’ attitude remained one of suspicious vigilance.
‘Have you ever worked with this sort of crew before?’ Revell held an urgent whispered conversation with Hyde.
‘Never needed, and never wanted to, Major. I wouldn’t trust any of them, not as far as I could throw them, and in the case of short-and-fat there,’ he indicated the deserters’ leader, ‘that isn’t very far.’ ‘We could use them though.’ Since the loss of Sergeant Windle and the others of the platoon, Revell had been only too aware of just how thin on the ground they were for the task they had been given. And now with the possibility of the workshops being dug in, the chance of extra manpower, and consequently firepower, had obvious attractions.
‘Yes, and we could get shot in the back while the job’s in progress, or right after it’s finished, if this mob see an advantage in doing that rather than going ahead with the original arrangement.’ The suspicions in Hyde’s mind were, he knew, only too well founded.
In the past British patrols had used renegade East German scouts, and the few survivors of those patrols had returned with stories of treachery and ambush. 62
The major had formed his own evaluation of the offer, and of the individual who made it. He thought little of either, but they needed those extra guns. ‘How many of you are there altogether?’
‘There are just the six of us. We lost five men yesterday when we tried to enter a Russian dump. Some were taken alive, so by now we will be known.’
Without question Revell accepted the girl’s statement. The efficiency of the Russian interrogation methods was well known. Both the military police, the so- called Commandant’s Service, and the military arm of the KGB were expert in extracting the truth. Anyone falling into their hands would tell everything before they died. No wonder this handful of renegades wanted out, and their desperation only made them all the less trustworthy.
‘You’re with them?’ Despite the submachine gun, and the familiar way in which she handled it, Revell found it hard to believe that the girl was a full member of this ugly crew.
‘Yes. I had been conscripted as a telegraphist into the Territorial Workers Militia. The Soviets killed all our officers, and were sending us to Russia as a labour battalion, because we would not provide a firing squad to shoot civilians who had been stealing from them.’ She threw a look of contempt at her companions. ‘I would never work for the Russians, so I ran away. This is as far as I could get.’
Hyde had been sidling nearer to the officer while the exchange went on, and now he whispered from behind the hand he held over his lipless mouth. ‘I’ve got a smoke grenade. We could be out of here before this lot know what’s happening.’
Though he didn’t hear the words, the shaven-headed East German sensed that something was going on and took a threatening pace forward. He indicated with jerking movements of his submachine gun that he wanted them to move apart.
‘Well?’ Hyde held his ground.
‘No, we can use their firepower. It’s our transport they want. I reckon we can trust them until the job’s done.’ Revell spoke to the girl. ‘Tell your ugly friend we’ll do a deal.’
While Revell, the girl, and bullet-head held a discussion to iron out the details of the arrangement, Hyde and Libby withdrew to a corner. ‘Can’t say I’m too keen on this, Sarge. Do you think he knows what he’s doing?’
‘I bloody hope so. It’s not just his neck he’s sticking out. Mind you. he’s right about them being OK until they find out where the skimmer is; it’s after that things could start to get a bit hairy. I wouldn’t put anything past this lot.’
‘I know someone who won’t like this arrangement -Clarence.’ Libby accepted a cigarette and a light from Hyde. ‘As far as he’s concerned, once a Commie always a Commie. He’s quite likely to blow their heads off the moment he sees them.’ ‘I can’t see the major being too happy about that if it happens. So we’d better keep an eye on him, hadn’t you.
The heavy emphasis wasn’t lost on Libby, ‘I’m not his bloody keeper.’
‘You are now. I’m not having this job and my pension buggered up, just because one of my blokes takes it into his head to shoot GDR deserters into decent imitations of lace curtains with dum-dums. Anyway, you’re the only one he really gets on with.’
That was something Libby could not deny. He and Clarence had lost much in the war. For the sniper though the loss of his family, a part of his mind and his humanity at least had been sudden and complete. For Libby fate had reserved a more spiteful piece of cruelty. Two days before he and Helga were to be married, the Russian armour had plunged into West Germany: the border town of Ratzburg where she lived with her grandfather had been one of the first to be overrun. All he could do now was keep looking and hoping. To do so he had to stay in the Zone, and he’d stay there for as long as it continued to exist, and he lived.
Revell concluded his discussion through their interpreter and rejoined Hyde. ‘He’s called Kurt.’ Revell indicated the leading deserter. ‘He says he is, or rather was, a captain in the 8th GDR Motor Rifle Division.’ ‘The hell he was.’
‘I agree with you, Sergeant. Those weapons they’re carrying must be the ones they had when they went over the hill, and the only units I know of that were still issued with those antiquated pieces when the war started were the Grepos, the border police.’
‘We’re not in very nice company, then, are we. I wonder how the girl got mixed up with them.’ The more Libby saw of her, the more she reminded him of Helga. It was the stance she adopted, her air of determination, independence, Helga’s qualities
, the reasons he felt sure she must still be alive.
‘Who knows. Maybe you’ll get the chance to ask her. They’re going to show us exactly where the Russians were doing their digging. You don’t seem at all happy with the idea, Sergeant Hyde.’
The Yank was a perceptive bastard, Hyde had to give him that. How do you tell an officer you reckon he needs his bleeding brains tested? ‘It’s your decision, Major, but there’s a couple of precautions I think we should take while they’re around.’
‘OK, I’m listening.’
‘Main thing is to keep an eye on Kurt. If any trouble starts he’ll be the one to fire first. And don’t let them bunch us together. Stay spread out among them, that way we’ll make less of a target if they try any funny business.’
‘That’s a nice comforting thought.’ Libby deliberately lengthened a tear in his ragged over-clothes to make access to his pistol and grenades easier. It was a bloody stupid way of going to war: dressed like a tramp, working with scum who probably didn’t even trust each other and certainly couldn’t be trusted by anyone else. That was the Zone, slowly destroying even those it didn’t kill, grinding them lower and lower to a sub-human level where any action was acceptable or justifiable. But these men were border police, men who’d earned bonus payments for each would-be escaper through the Iron Curtain that they shot down. They had a head start on everyone else.
EIGHT
‘Can’t you do something to keep him quiet? Give him another jab, two if it’ll help.’ The intermittent screams from the wounded man were beginning to fray Burke’s nerves.
‘What do you want me to do, gag him?’ Rinehart was becoming irritated by the constant interference. ‘He’s had an extra shot already, but it doesn’t do any good, not with the skull fractures he’s got.’ ‘That’s not bloody fractures, half his bloody head is shot away. Why don’t you save him a lot of pain, get it over with now?’
The black had to wait until Nelson had finished another sequence of wailing and incoherent shouting before his reply could be heard. ‘In our outfit we don’t pull the plug on nobody, not even a specimen like you.’ ‘I would, if it were him.’ Dooley grinned broadly at Burke.
Cohen stepped back inside. He’d gone out on to the ramp for a while to get away from the bickering, and smell of sweat and blood and stale tobacco. There was little movement of air about the skimmer. Even with every hatch and port open, the fetid atmosphere inside was hardly stirred by the light breeze that ruffled the tops of the oaks.
‘I’ve counted. Between you, you’ve managed to start fifteen arguments in the five hours since the major left. Maybe you want to try for sixteen?’ No one took Cohen up. ‘You want to get some air, kid, you’re starting to look a bit green about the gills.’ He moved aside to let Collins squeeze past. ‘Don’t step off the ramp. If you want to have a pee you’ll have to do it from there, anything, else you’ll have to hang on to. I’ve spotted a suspicious lump below that might react rather loudly to having a pile of shit dropped on it.’
‘You sure are taking this being left in charge thing seriously. I ain’t never even heard an officer telling anyone how to crap. Hey, can you imagine that?’ The idea appealed to Dooley, and he offered it to the general audience. ‘On the command, wait for it, pants down. Shitting commences now. Arse paper will only be torn off from left to right...’
An outburst of yelling from Nelson blotted out his finale. As the wounded man’s shouts tailed away, and the wracking arching spasm that had accompanied it subsided, before Dooley could repeat his last words, there was the sound of cannon fire.
‘Light stuff.’ Like the others Burke froze in his seat as he listened intently, trying to identify the type and direction of fire. ‘North of the woods, so it’s not between us and the major.’
‘That’s Commie flak, twin 23mm mount by the sound of it.’ There was another noise Rinehart could detect between the rapid bursts. Faint at first, but growing louder, a high-pitched buzzing like a disturbed bee-hive. No, more like the engine of a model aircraft. ‘Hell, it’s an RPV, a sky-spy.’
Even as he said it, at the end of a sustained rattle of cannon fire the tinny note changed, became ragged.
Still on the ramp, Collins looked up and saw the miniature craft for an instant as it flashed overhead. Looking like a six-foot-diameter discus with a lift fan set in its centre, the dappled white-and-blue remotely piloted reconnaissance vehicle swished a leaf-chopping path across the treetops as it plunged towards the ground. The cloudless sky could be seen through a large dark-edged hole near its rim, from which spun a trail of vaporising fuel. ‘That’s one of ours.’
‘What the hell do they think they’re playing at?’ Rinehart fumed. ‘We want the Ruskies around here lulled to sleep, not kept awake and damned well encouraged to shoot at anything that moves. Shit, what did they expect to see, us in full blazing action?’
‘That I don’t know.’ A heavy impact among the trees a few hundred yards away punctuated Cohen’s words. ‘If it was just fitted out for recording and retrieval then they won’t get anything anyway; sounds like it just piled in. But, if it was one of the new ones with a real-time transmitter, then there’s a fair chance that O’l Foul Mouth and an assortment of brass have just had a close-up of the kids’ weapon in action.’
For a moment Collins was about to ask what he meant, then he recalled why he’d been out on the ramp. He sought a way in which to hide his embarrassment. ‘Will they come to look for it?’
‘Who, the Reds? No way. I got a brother in the electrical business in Chicago, if he knew he might make the journey, he deals in a lot of second-hand, but the Russians, no. They must bring down five or ten every day in this sector alone. Unless one falls on a Commissar I shouldn’t think they give it a second thought, maybe not even then. It’s like my suntanned friend says, it’d just be better if all the Commie gun crews got their heads down while we went about their business.’
‘I reckon we’ll get a medal if we pull this off.’ Dooley lit up at the thought. ‘Maybe they’ll ship us back home to the States and put us on TV. I could get my picture in the paper.’
‘Have to be a double page spread to get your head in.’ Ignoring Cohen, the big man went on building his dream. ‘Hey, I’d be famous, like, like...’ he sought examples, ‘like, like...’ ‘Godzilla, King Kong, Hitler, Attila The Hun?’ He was not about to be put down. ‘Just think of it, all those beautiful broads who’d love to be shafted by a big hero like me.’
‘Some hope, brother, some hope.’ There was deep scorn in Rinehart’s laugh. ‘Do we live in the same world, we fighting the same war? The only way that’d happen is if we carved our way to Moscow and stomped the Kremlin flat with our bare feet.
Trips home are for officers and cripples: medals are for guys who look good in the papers. And as for that screwing, what have you got to offer? OK, you don’t have to show me... so you got a tool that wouldn’t disgrace a stud stallion, but a decent piece wants more than that. Like always, it’s the guys who stayed home and made the tanks and missiles that have got all the money and they’ll get all the action. When we go back, if ever, we’ll be treated like we carried plague. People have heard so much about radiation counts, bacterial weapons, no one will come within a mile of us, and even your cock won’t reach that far.’
‘Shame, isn’t it.’ Burke had enjoyed watching Dooley’s bubbles being shot down. ‘Still, that’s America for you.’
‘Since when have you Brits had so much to crow about?’ The jibe stung Cohen into a swift re-joiner. ‘If we weren’t supplying more than half your equipment, you’d be down to using sling shots by now. You got so many fellow travellers on your little island it’s a wonder you didn’t open the doors to the Commies a year ago. Is going on strike still your main sport, or have you invented some new way of losing the war?’
‘We’ve locked up all the rubbish now, and striking has been illegal for nine months,’ Burke waded back in.
‘Pulling little girls’ panties down ha
s always been, but that still goes on.’ There was more aggravation to be milked from the exchange, and Dooley went after it. ‘You’re just lucky we’re always around to bail you out.’ ‘Would you care to step outside and say that, loudmouth.’ It was Clarence’s voice, floating down from the turret where he’d been listening.
He was half out of his seat, ready to accept the challenge before Dooley saw the expressions about him, and settled back down. ‘Very funny. Save it for another time.’
Clarence dropped from the turret. ‘What a pity. I thought you’d go bouncing out into the minefield. Ah well, never mind, it almost worked.’ He hauled himself back to his eerie and resumed his slow cranking of the manual turret traverse. ‘Don’t that creep ever get dizzy?’ With a jerk of his thumb Dooley indicated the steadily rotating lower trunk and legs. ‘It ain’t like he can see anything, except the damned trees and a few wrecks. Is he bucking for a stripe or what?’
‘You wouldn’t catch me doing any work I didn’t have to.’ Burke found a sentiment he could wholeheartedly agree with in Dooley’s words. ‘That I had already worked out for myself.’ Cohen nodded. ‘Well what’s the point in knocking yourself out. I’ve got enough to do with driving the Cow, and looking after it. I don’t need any more work.’
‘So how about doing the work you’ve got.’ Seeing his remark ignored Cohen added a rider that would carry more weight, and the rest of the crew with him. ‘When we have to move out, it’s going to be in a hurry. There won’t be any time to get out and tighten up a few nuts and bolts; so how about you check this old clunker over, especially that damaged motor. Stay on the hull, keep your feet off the ground and you’ll be safe enough.’
Put that way Burke couldn’t refuse, not with the eyes of all the others on him. With ill grace he grabbed up a tool roll and went out. Rinehart watched their driver haul himself up out of sight on to the roof. ‘It sure has gone quiet in here, but I ain’t gonna miss him for the next hour or so. I think I’ll just catch some shut-eye.’
