by James Rouch
‘Major.’ Wiping it clean, Hyde capped the survey meter probe before replacing it in his pack. ‘I’ve just run a check. There’s more than just background radiation around here.’
‘How much more?’
‘Hard to tell, there’s a lot of variations. Generally it’s in the region of a hundred Rads. We can take that, but there are a few hot spots close by where it goes right off the scale.’
‘Mark them and warn the others.’ Revell had already noticed the same evidence of ground and air nuclear bursts. Judging by the appearance of what was left of Kirchdorf, several high sub-kiloton weapons had blasted and seared it.
No wonder the colonel had described the area as suitable for tanks. It was possible, even likely, that the Russians had not been aiming at any specific target when they smeared the suburb, military or otherwise. Perhaps, having become irritated by the grindingly slow pace and expense of fighting through built-up areas they had decided to tailor some ground to suit themselves.
And there was something else about the place that made it tank country. Only men sealed inside a filtered air-conditioned environment behind thick armour could be sure of crossing it without danger of contamination and be certain of being fit to fight when they reached the far side.
For Revell, it was already too late to take any precautions. He was caked with the dust. It seeped inside his clothes, he could taste it in his mouth. Even if the Russians did not come, if the tank attack didn’t materialise, death was already creeping up on him.
SIX
They allowed the Soviet scout car to pass right through their line. The dust that hid them also served to part-blind the vehicle’s crew as it rose to cover periscope prisms and the armoured-glass blocks protecting the vision ports.
Even when it crossed an occupied trench, offering its thin underbelly to the men beneath, no move was made against it. Engine growling and burbling away to itself, it motored on until its small machine gun armed turret was hidden from sight by the mounds of debris.
Ten minutes later it returned. This time it moved less cautiously, and stopped long enough to put several hundred rounds into the area of the interchange. Apparently satisfied when no fire was returned, it headed back the way it had come.
An hour passed, in which the sun climbed higher and beat down more fiercely. Their sweat mixed with the dust and brought to their bodies an unbearable itching sensation they could do nothing to relieve. None of them touched the water bottles they had been allowed to half fill before leaving. If it was bad now, it was going to be a lot worse.
Revell felt almost guilty when the colonel sent him forward to investigate the sound of tank engines that had been audible for some time, but that was not accompanied by the clouds of dust that would have indicated movement and betrayed a precise location.
He took Andrea with him, and together they crawled, slid and ran two hundred yards to the shelter of a rusting Leopard tank. Wriggling in through a hole low in its hull side they carefully extended the aerial of their radio out through the crack around the edge of the distorted loader’s hatch.
An ammunition explosion had gutted the inside of the tank, only the massive breech of the main armament remained intact. The turret had been lifted by the blast and now it was possible to see daylight between its bottom rim and the top of the hull.
It hardly seemed possible they could have got so close. A pair of Soviet T72s stood not fifty yards off. Both had their engine covers open, and a harassed mechanic was leaning over one compartment, while he shouted at and argued with the crew seated on the other tank.
Around the tanks were a company of Russian infantry. Having grown bored with waiting they had organised various diversions, among which games of cards and dice seemed the most popular. A group of young officers stood and talked among themselves. Glancing frequently at the tanks, they looked even more often at their watches.
‘They are afraid. They have fallen behind their schedule.’ Andrea eased herself to a more comfortable position. It brought her into contact with Revell, but she made no move to back off.
He spoke quietly into the radio, but his mind was on other things. Was it his imagination or could he feel the heat of her body through the several layers of clothing between them? If it was only his imagination he was content to let it stay that way, an illusion was better than nothing. After all the months of hoping, of hopeless scheming, this was the first time he’d been alone with her.
And now that at last he was so close to her, it had to be at a time, and in a place, when he could not exploit the situation. They had seen what they’d come for, now they had to get back, and fast. The engine covers were being slammed closed and the infantry prodded to their feet.
Stifling though it was inside the metal hull, they still felt the additional heat from the exhaust gases of the scout car as it stopped alongside. A fraction of an inch at a time Revell began to retract the radio aerial, until it slid to the thinnest end of the crevice through which it projected, and stuck fast with near twelve inches of the shining metal still sticking out.
With engine beats that were far from healthy the T72s began to lurch forward, inexperienced drivers, or failing gearboxes giving the infantry riding on the rear decks and turrets an uncomfortable time.
As they began to move, Revell noticed a junior sergeant deliberately slip back from the back of the second tank and sit in the track marks clutching his ankle and feigning injury. Two privates were less concerned with appearances and simply jumped, sprinting away. An officer fired after them and the slower of them stumbled, recovered and tried to hobble on, fast being left behind by his companion. The officer fired again and this time the limping man went right down, rolled once, arched into a spasm and lay still.
With that example before his eyes the junior sergeant made a miraculous recovery and dashed after his mount. He leapt for the back of the tank and as he got a hold was kicked in the face by the officer who had used the pistol with such effect. Letting go with one hand he swung round, and as he threshed to regain a grip put his right leg between the whipping track and the drive sprocket.
Crushed and pierced, the limb was not completely severed and the junior sergeant lost several fingers as the sudden wrench with which his remaining hold was torn dragged them along a rough-finished weld that sawed straight through them.
The bark of the exhausts drowned the screams from the terrified man as he flopped about in the dust, first pressing the spurting stumps of his knuckles to his mouth, now plucking at the bloodstained cloth tangled with the protruding bones of his leg.
Leaving their vehicle, the crew of the scout car climbed on to the hulk of the Leopard and from that vantage point watched and shouted derision at the sufferer. They kept it up for some minutes, before their commander did as the tormented man begged, between anguished screams, and ended his agony with a bullet.
Slowly and carefully Revell moved round until he could bring his repeater shotgun to bear on the turret hatches. He could hear the Russians moving about, and from the cutting-off of the beams of daylight coming through various ports and holes in the armour he could determine their positions.
There were three of them. All it would need would be for one of them to drop a grenade in, and that would be it. Should they by some miracle avoid that, then they’d be in no state to answer the burst of automatic fire that would inevitably follow.
The radio, resting on the twisted remains of the loader’s seat, was suddenly jerked into the air as a Russian gave its protruding aerial an exploratory tug. Revell didn’t give him the chance to pursue his curiosity further.
Five blasts from the shotgun threw open the hatch and caught two of the car’s crew unprepared. The storm of pellets lashed into them and the multiple impacts threw them off.
Andrea fired at almost the same split second. Patiently she had been tracking the progress of the vehicle’s commander and as the roar of the 12-gauge boomed about the interior of the hull, she put a compact burst through the hole in
the turret front where the co-axial machine gun had been, and into the base of the soldier’s spine as he sat on the hull front reloading his pistol.
Blood made the metal surround slippery, and Revell had difficulty hauling himself out. The recoil was savage as the improperly held shotgun put the contents of three shells into the men on the ground. All of them were lying still, but he had seen others learn the hard way that a Russian who was down was not always out. A favourite trick of theirs was to play dead and then open fire on the backs of NATO soldiers after they had passed.
Ignoring the helping hand offered, Andrea climbed from the turret. She didn’t bother to look at the bodies.
A bullet bounced from the armour between them, striking sparks from the metal. A second cut through the air past Revell’s face and they jumped down to seek the shelter of the tank’s bulk.
A smattering of single shots followed, coming from the direction of a decrepit Tatra truck hung about with toolboxes and welding kits.
Machine gun fire came from another angle and probed for them with short accurate bursts that forced them to keep low. Only Andrea’s M16 had the effective range to engage the enemy, and it wasn’t enough. Taking a smoke grenade from his belt, Revell lobbed it beyond an angle of the hull and counted down the seconds to its ignition. Its bursting seeded a wide area with blazing pieces of phosphorus that gave off dense clouds of yellow-white smoke.
The first few paces they tried to hold their breath, but the exertion of running forced them to gulp for air, and instead they got the acrid fumes from the blazing chemical. It rasped in their throats, burned their lungs and even as they raced clear their eyes continued to stream from the irritation.
After only fifty yards the machine gun zeroed on them again and they had to take to a rough-formed trench made by the collapse of a sewer.
Mortar bombs began to fall, and though it was taking them the wrong way, they had to stay in the snaking excavation as red-hot slivers of casing scythed overhead. Above the continual bang of their detonation they caught the sharp loud bark of tank cannon. The T72’s had run into the colonel’s reception.
Now there was no chance of rejoining the squad. They were trapped on the wrong side of the fighting, and with the mortar fire continuing to pursue them with a single-minded vindictiveness they could only go on, in the hoping of finding an alternative route back into the city.
They shook off the barrage when they entered an area of docks and wharfs and warehouses, and passed beyond its range.
Everywhere was utter devastation. Few of the huge buildings had been completely levelled, but what was left standing had been rendered useless by repeated bombing and artillery fire. Ships of every size and type lay alongside but without exception they had sunk at their moorings. A foot-thick layer of debris-bearing fuel oil carpeted the water and the stench from it was overpowering. Many of the ships had burned and the hulls and upper works were a uniform smoke-streaked rust red.
Nothing that could have been of the slightest use remained. The wheels had been taken from the overturned trucks, along with engine fittings and, in some cases, even axles. There was not a packing case that had not been broken open and its contents examined. Vessels that had keeled over until most of the superstructure was submerged showed signs of having been entered and searched. Save where the charred remains still hung from davits, every lifeboat and raft had been removed. It was as if a swarm of human locusts had scoured the docks from end to end.
Checking his map, Revell began to work towards where a bridge was indicated, and as they shifted course in that direction they became aware of the sound of an engine ahead of them. From its rough note, far worse even than the two ill-maintained T72s, it couldn’t be a vehicle. Its beat was slow and ragged, as if each might be its last, but every time it wheezed, hesitated, and then managed one more.
In the echoing streets between the leaning bomb-scarred walls it was difficult to pinpoint precisely, but its location became obvious when they turned a corner and saw a group of elderly women working at the edge of a dock.
Hoses trailed from a throbbing pump, one over the edge of the wharf, the other up and into a large container mounted on a handcart fashioned from the rear end of a pick-up truck. The women were filthy, stained from head to foot with thick oil that glistened in the sun with hues of blue and green. They formed a chain that passed buckets of oil from the surface of the dock to a cluster of opened drums.
A shot rang out as a girl with a rifle saw Revell and Andrea and fired at them. For a snap shot it came close, clipping the stock of Andrea’s Ml 6 and jarring it in her hands.
The salvage party broke and ran, slipping and sliding in the mess covering the ground about them and made worse by the full buckets they dropped. In a moment they were gone, but the girl with the rifle, joined by a similarly armed companion, had taken cover behind the handcart and now proceeded to snipe accurately at every move the pair made.
Not close enough for a shouted explanation to be heard above the continuing throaty pulse of the pump, and unlikely to be believed even if it could be, they had no choice but to make a long detour.
‘How do you like being bested by women, Major?’ There was that taunting smile again. Using the mute excuse of pretending preoccupation with the difficulties of negotiating a tangled mass of girders from a fallen crane, Revell didn’t answer, until she persisted by repeating the question.
‘It’s not a case of being bested, it just made sense to back off. We couldn’t get through to them, certainly couldn’t kill them, so this was the best course.’
‘You felt no annoyance, no anger that two young girls, civilians, should force you to change your plans?’
‘Why do you want to know, what does it matter to you?’
‘Because I would like to know how your mind works, what it is in a situation that guides you to your decisions.’
It wasn’t the exertion of threading and climbing through the steel web that made Revell’s pulse and respiration race. Perhaps he’d got it wrong, maybe he’d read too much into her words but he could dare to hope this meant she was going to attach herself to him the way she had to others.
From Clarence she’d learnt all there was to know about sniping and camouflage and associated skills; from Dooley every aspect of unarmed combat. And before Libby had deserted, it’d seemed she was about to batten on to him to pick his brains of all he knew about demolition and explosives and the larger calibre weapons.
Now, hopefully, it was Revell’s turn. He was certain that none of the others had ever made it with her. Clarence wouldn’t have said if he had, but he wasn’t the sort to try. Dooley had constantly said he had, and no one had ever believed him.
If it was his turn, then she had chosen him rather than Hyde from whom to absorb the skills of command. The sergeant’s disfigurement had not been any bar to his being chosen, Andrea had never been bothered by the NCO’s ghastly appearance, and so Revell had always felt that he was in a competition, but a competition in which he was the only one who was really trying.
He mustn’t blow it, had to keep the thing alive. ‘This isn’t the time or place. We can go over it later, if you like.’ Oh damn, he had to add that last bit. He’d wanted to be positive and encouraging, and he’d succeeded only in sounding lame.
‘Yes...’
His hopes soared.
‘...perhaps.’
And crashed. He’d screwed it, he just knew it, he’d screwed up. Damn, damn, damn ... fuck. That was the first time he’d used the word, even to himself. He disliked swearing, especially the grossly obscene every-other-word type in which Dooley and Burke indulged, allowed himself nothing stronger than an occasional ‘damn’, but now the word seemed appropriate. Fuck ... word and meaning filled his mind ... fuck, fuck, fuck. Savagely hard he kicked a splintered baulk of timber over the edge of the wharf.
It struck the oil with a smack that hardly raised a splash, only one low ripple that was absorbed back into the glutinous mass within a yard. B
ut the action had an unlooked for result.
On impact it turned over a bundle of fuel-sodden rags, to reveal them as clothes on a corpse that had been in there a long time. The oil had largely preserved the body, but as it lolled face uppermost it displayed an expanse of teeth made more prominent by the contracting of the soft flesh around them. With lips drawn back the dead man grinned up at Revell and mocked him before turning back to float face down again.
Sometimes it seemed that even the dead were against him.
There was a bridge, and it was still intact. They would not have to follow the river upstream to find the oar-powered ferries that had brought the unit across.
As they approached, Revell listened for the sound of fighting from the direction of Kirchdorf, but above the continual booming of Russian shells exploding in the city he could not make it out.
Once the bridge had carried a multi-lane autobahn, but it had taken many direct hits and now only a single-lane track wound across it, twisting past and between the many craters and sections where the road bed had been severely damaged by rounds that had failed to penetrate.
Some had done more than that though, they had punched right through. As he passed, Revell could see the river a long way below through a ragged-bordered hole. The various layers of the bridge’s construction showed clearly, and shreds of metal from a bomb fin caught in the exposed ends of reinforcing rods, still bright and shiny where the paint had been stripped from them, showed that the damage was recent.
From the centre of the bridge they had a good vantage point over that half of the city. Shell bursts kept a permanent pall of dust and smoke in suspension over it and here and there rose a black column that marked the place of some more lasting blazes.
‘There should be many more fires.’ Andrea scanned those quarters under attack. ‘It must be that there is little left to burn.’
