by James Rouch
‘After you’ve changed Nelson’s dressing.’ Cohen saw the smirk on Dooley’s features as the black had to give up the corner in which he’d just made himself comfortable. ‘You want a job?’
‘You going to give me one? I told you to knock off the officer bit, I ain’t impressed.’
‘No. No, for you I’ve got no job. What’s the point. Big thick stiff like you, what’s it matter if when we go into action that old M60 of yours jams up. So you buy it, so what, good riddance.’
A growl was Dooley’s only response, as Cohen ignored him and fiddled with a strap on his body armour.
Begrudgingly, the big man at last reached for the machine gun and began to strip it.
‘Is there something for me to do?’
‘You religious, you believe in the power of prayer?’ Collins didn’t know what to make of the question. He answered hesitatingly. ‘Eh, I hadn’t really thought... I suppose... well I haven’t... not for a long... no, not really.’
‘Pity, that rules out the one useful thing you could have done. OK, so I’m kidding. Help the Hulk with his toy. He’ll show you thirty different wrong ways to reassemble an M60.’
The hasty softening amendment he tacked on to the slap-down had come almost unconsciously from Cohen. Thirteen months he’d been in the Zone, he was a veteran already. His first day of combat seemed a lifetime away. But it wasn’t so far back that he couldn’t remember what it was like to be the rookie in a squad. This British boy was no different; the butt of all the humour, the recipient of all the dirty chores. Not that he was making it any easier for the kid. The hardening process, the acquiring of the tough shell that would at last get him accepted as a member of the team, would only take longer if he didn’t take all the knocks as they fell due.
‘Don’t you listen to him, kid. There ain’t nothing I don’t know about this piece.’ Dooley’s hand flew the practised ritual of disassembly. ‘Only thing you’ve got to watch with these is that you don’t put the piston back in the cylinder the wrong way round. If you do, the gas ports don’t line up and she’ll only fire once before stopping. That’s not even in the Tech. Manual, but we ain’t going that far, not as we might want to slap this old Betsy back together in a hurry if any Ivans come prowling.’ He held the barrel up to the light and squinted up it. ‘I wish I were with the major and that three-stripe horror show right now. I’d be looking up a fuck- sight more interesting hole than this.’
Rinehart paused from applying a fresh set of dressings to Nelson’s shattered cranium. ‘I reckon that’s just wishful thinking. Whatever the major is doing now, he ain’t within a hundred yards of a nice slice of tail.’
Her name was Andrea; that and what she had told him earlier about her reasons for being there was all he knew about her. There had been no further opportunity to ask question. The camp was now wide awake and every path was sprinkled with its quota of scruffy hollow-cheeked people. Some slithered slowly through the dust on seemingly aimless journeys, others sat or squabbled or loitered. Each had the half furtive, half apathetic expression that only life, or rather existence, in the camps could induce.
They passed through the little graveyard behind the church. In every corner there were heaps of mouldering bones. The press for living space was so great, the need to find shelter so urgent, that the vaults and tombs had been opened and their long dead occupants replaced by a mass of the half living.
A few paces more and they stepped into the main and only street of the village about which the camp sprawled.
The ground floors of the houses were hidden behind the numberless lean-tos that slumped against their walls. Some brave or desperate souls had even risked adding a second storey to those extensions. The glass had gone from every window, and all of the lower, and some of the upper windows were being used as secondary entrances.
‘Over one hundred in that one.’ Andrea indicated a small cottage that couldn’t possibly have boasted more than six rooms, including the kitchen extension. ‘There are others, detached, not much bigger, that hold twice that number. Many can live in a garage, a whole family in a tool shed.’
There was bitterness in her voice. Her whispered words conveyed it clearly and it wasn’t lost on Revell. Kurt and the other Grepos took no interest in what went on around them, save anything that had a bearing on their safety. The girl saw everything, and felt it. It was as though she was storing images, locking each into her memory for a future time.
Revell found himself deliberately falling a couple of paces behind her, to get another look at her denim-wrapped backside. She was lovely. What could be her relationship with the loutish Kurt and the others? Not for a moment could he believe that she stayed with them for any reason other than pure convenience. They stank, and their crudely chopped hair and beards added to their uncouth appearance.
A sudden halt was called. Ahead of them an Oxfam Leyland truck was parked in the centre of the street, and from its open back a pair of harassed young men were trying to distribute packets of food to the seething fast-growing crowd surrounding it. Two Russian soldiers wearing the insignia of the Commandant’s Service stood nearby, but made no move to instil order. The mass of people about the Leyland surged back and forth.
An elderly man wriggled clear of the press, hugging a tattered prize, only to be knocked down and robbed of it by two heavily built women who began to fight between themselves for possession, even as they waddled away between the buildings. The Russians smirked, and one grunted an ugly laugh. Neither made any move to assist the oldster who had fallen almost at their feet, and was now struggling to get up, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
Only a gruff warning from Kurt prevented Andrea from using the submachine gun she carried inside the roll of sacking. A colour had risen in her cheeks and when Kurt put out his hand as a further restraint, she shrugged it violently aside.
It was clear to Revell that her distaste for Kurt was almost as intense as her hatred of the Russians. As they took a side turning to avoid the blockage and were once more forced into single file by the narrowness of the route, he found himself behind her again.
She really was something special. He enjoyed looking at women, could find something to appreciate in almost any who weren’t too old or dirty, or too gawkily young. The smoothness of the plump ones, the bodies of the plain, the faces of the thin. Every woman had something, but this one, Andrea, harshly beautiful and beautifully built, what a combination! It was a hell of a time to come across a woman with those sort of qualities. Another time, another place, he’d have made a play for her right away. Maybe there’d be a chance to get to know her later on, maybe. So many ‘maybes’, and that was one too many.
Hyde was taking careful note of every inch of their journey. Despite the continuous twists and turns they were holding a generally easterly course: he’d been expecting that. None of the refugees would ever go foraging in that direction, that way led further into Communist held territory. If the Reds were using a part of the camp as cover for their tank repair shops then the eastern sector would be an obvious choice, easier to keep private.
It was also obvious why the East Germans knew about what was, on the surface, an abortive piece of civil engineering. Like Mother Knoke they had a vested interest in knowing everything that went on, in particular where Russians were to be found at any given time. You can’t hide until you know where the seeker might be.
The midday sun drew the last wisps of stench from every latrine and pile of refuse. Dust hung in the still air for minutes after it had been raised, and added to the discomforts Libby was already experiencing under his several layers of clothing. Sweat poured from him and combined with the penetrating particles of grit to irritate him to the point of madness. God, he loathed these places. Bitter cold, stifling heat; they never seemed to enjoy a happy medium, and the huts gave little comfort or protection; He looked up at the sound of a jet aircraft approaching, but though it was low enough for the thunder of its passing to bring falls of accumulated
dust from the tattered eaves of the huts it was invisible against the sun, and he had to seek and look at shadow for a while before he could blink his eyes clear of the tears brought on by the glare.
It was a relief when Kurt stopped before a shack fashioned from innumerable cardboard boxes bearing assorted brand names, all of them faded and many on the verge of disintegration, and ushered them in.
There was a man and a woman inside, and they scuttled into a corner to hide the object they’d been bent over. But they weren’t fast enough to prevent Revell from identifying the partially skinned carcase of a mongrel dog. A pan full of fly blown entrails, a pile of imperfectly cured skins in a corner and dark sinewy strips of meat hanging to smoke over a slow fire gave further proof of the frightened couple’s line of business.
Kurt ignored them and their trade, save to snatch a still red-raw strip from the rack, and with his knife opened a thin and fragile wall to make a way into the adjoining hut. He led them in a similar manner through two more, both empty of inhabitants, before making a smaller slit in the patched canvas outer wall of the fourth. That done, he tore off a chunk of the dog meat with his blackened teeth and stood aside with a gesture that invited Revell to look out.
A clearing fifty yards wide stretched away to left and right, separating a cluster of several hundred shelters, that lay in a hollow between a crescent of low hills, from the main body of the camp.
‘What the hell have they done that for?’ Libby had found a vantage point of his own and like the officer and NCO was making a survey. ‘Could be a fire break.’ Using his bayonet Hyde made another hole in the canvas at a more convenient height than the one he’d found ready-made. ‘Possibly, but look.’ To either side Revell could see no evidence of the debris of the flattened shelters having been removed or disturbed.
‘Looks like they just bulldozed everything flat.’ A glint of metal caught Hyde’s attention. He borrowed the binoculars for a closer examination. ‘And I mean everything. There’s cooking pans, clothes... that’s all these poor sods have got in most cases. They must have been chucked out fast. I wonder why they didn’t go back for them afterwards. This lot of scavengers would have cleared the ground down to bare soil in a matter of hours.’
‘Follow that wire.’ Very carefully Revell nudged the binoculars to bring into the sergeant’s field of vision a tangled flattened web of slotted angle iron, to which portions of the corrugated plastic sheets that had once formed walls were still attached.
Hyde adjusted the focus, picked up the dull metal thread and panned along it until it vanished in a low heap of mixed debris. The overhead sun illuminated sufficient of the mound’s interior for him to recognise the flask-shaped device nestling there.
‘A bloody minefield.’ Flicking the glasses back and forth, Hyde identified a dozen more of the trip-wires.
‘They look directional to me.’ Revell accepted the binoculars back. ‘Set to throw their fragments along the clearing, but I shouldn’t imagine the Reds are too fussy about what might spray out into the camp. This sheet,’ he tapped the canvas, ‘has a few holes that look about the right size.’ Again he flicked the thick material, where quarter and eight inch diameter holes admitted beams of light that streamed like miniature searchlights across the hovel’s dark interior.
‘Many did go back.’ Andrea crossed to stand by Revell, as though she might look out, but she didn’t. ‘The Russians did not stop or warn them. They let the mines do it. Everyone who has tried has been killed, even those who had been in the army and thought they could deal with the mines. They go off if you touch the wires, and there are others that go off for no reason when you are near.’
‘They wouldn’t take that sort of trouble for a few bags of cement, Major. There must be more in there than some unfinished drains.’ Revell nodded agreement. ‘I think you’re right, Sergeant Hyde. We still need more information, but I think we just found our target.’
NINE
It was so damned frustrating. Revell panned the binoculars across the clearing and then over the eye-confusing clutter of the detached portion of the camp. There was nothing more to be learnt from their present position.
The few outward signs of the minefield gave every indication of its having been most carefully laid. On their own, the criss-crossing trip-wires would have provided a major and time-consuming hazard to safe clearance, but there were other, more subtle indicators that various different types of mine were also in use. In places there appeared to be inviting gaps in the network of wires; Revell didn’t doubt they were a deliberate invitation to the unwary. Pressure, noise, vibration, any one of a dozen stimuli might set off the traps beneath the seemingly safe lanes. They had neither the time, nor the expertise to clear a way through.
Hyde had been considering the same problem. ‘No way past that lot, Major, not in one piece, and I should imagine it goes all around the place.’
Only half listening to the sergeant, Revell swept the glasses upward to the bare gentle slopes of the surrounding hills. ‘We need to find somewhere up there, where we can keep watch for a while and try and figure out the layout of the place.’
‘It’ll have to give good cover.’ There was no enthusiasm in Libby’s voice for the idea. ‘If this is the place we think it is, then the Ruskies aren’t going to take too kindly to having bunches of sightseers gawping at it.’
‘Now where the hell did they come from?’ Coming down through the long grass away to their left Revell saw a group of Russian soldiers. They were lounging along, some indulging in horseplay, all of them carrying their jackets in a casual manner, though as they neared the bottom of the slope, just before they disappeared from sight behind the detached part of the camp, they had begun to dress and tidy themselves.
‘Look at the top of the hill... no, more to your right, that’s it.’ Under the sergeant’s guidance, Revell brought the grey tiled rooftop into his field of vision. That was all that was visible of the building that lay just over the crest.
‘It’s the Reds’ knocking shop, you’d call it a cat-house. Round here it’s known as The Farm.’
At Hyde’s words Andrea stopped fanning herself with the opened front of her jacket and looked at her watch. ‘The Russian pigs allow the girls to sleep in the afternoon. That will be the last of them leaving now. They have stayed late today. The whores will not be at their best tonight.’ ‘Be an ideal place from which to keep an eye on those workshops, if that’s what they are.’
‘You still have doubts then, Major?’ Libby borrowed the glasses.
‘We have to be sure. The Reds will only give us the one crack at a stunt like this. If we screw up and all we hit is a field kitchen or mobile bath unit, we’ll not only get blasted for a big fat zero, we’ll screw it up for the poor SOBs who have to come along after us and try for the real thing. Even if it is the outfit we’re looking for, I don’t want us to go charging in and shoot up a handful of empty bays and a couple of junked soft-skins. Surprise is the only compensation we have for lack of numbers. At the speed we’ll have to get in and out there won’t be time to hunt for targets, we have to hit them where it hurts first time.’ He looked at Andrea. She had closed her jacket again, that was a pity. He had enjoyed watching the twin swells of her high breasts.
‘Are you sure about the Ruskies clearing out of that place in the afternoon?’ ‘That is how it has always been. I do not think they change it.’ ‘You know the place, Sergeant. Are there any problems in walking in there and staying low until we’re ready to make our move?’ ‘Not that I can think of, Major. There’s just the one building. Front and back door. Central staircase. Six rooms upstairs, five down. There’s a big attic which runs the length of the roof and a small cellar.’ ‘Are there any Russian units close by?’ This time the girl had to refer the query to Kurt; he didn’t bother to reply, just shook his head.
‘Do you know of any commander, in any army, Major, who’d build a barracks close to a brothel?’
‘Can’t say I do, Sergeant Hyde, b
ut I can think of a few Staff Officers who’d make sure the HQ was next door to one.’ If Hyde had tried to score a point there, Revell hadn’t let him. It was difficult to tell when the NCO was being sarcastic and when he wasn’t.
Hyde had meant his remark to be a light one, but it had not come out that way. For all this Yank’s drive and efficiency, and determination to be in the forefront of the action, Hyde was beginning to take a dislike to him. He was too bloody austere, Even the outwardly flippant counter he’d made to Hyde’s question had been delivered’ without a trace of humorous intent. It was difficult, no impossible, to imagine what the American officer did when he wasn’t on duty.
Did he sit and play solo all day, stand to attention in a cupboard until it was time to go back on duty again?
Oh sod it. Why couldn’t they have left him and Clarence and the others happily potting away at Russian tanks and crews in the salient? Was it simply fate, or the malice of some nameless clerk he’d crossed at battalion HQ that had got him involved in this half-wit scheme?
Well he was lumbered with it now, but if he came through it alright then there was no chance of his doing it again. Soon as it was over he’d rejoin his own outfit like a shot.
More than anything he wanted to stay in the army. What was there for him outside looking like he did, sweet fuck-all. Staying in would probably kill him; getting out, back into civilian life would slowly destroy him. Of the two he much preferred the quicker death and fuller life before it, than the living death and no life at all that would be his lot back home: but by Christ he’d risk it rather than work with these Yanks again, or a moment longer than he had to. First of all though he had to survive. He’d already proved he was good at that; he ran his hands over his facial scars, well fair. In the next twelve hours, the way things were shaping up he’d have to be ruddy brilliant.
