by James Rouch
Pushing himself up on to his hands and knees, Clarence paused. ‘You had better move around now and again, Lieutenant. The bottom must have dropped out of the thermometer. Cold has a way of creeping up on you.’
‘I’m not about to let myself be turned into a popsicle when the best slice of action so far in the whole war is in the offing. Get word to the major, then we can get this sideshow sorted out and get down to the main business.’
Clarence didn’t offer further argument or advice. Crouched low, and moving quietly through the powder-like snow, he started back to the house. The combination of snow on the ground and brilliantly sharp starlight provided sufficient illumination to light his way, but the absence of shadows made it impossible to see the prints they had made on the way out, and twice within a hundred yards, he missed his way. The cold was a very physical thing, plucking at him with needle-covered hands. Unable to measure it, he could only speculate on how far the temperature had now plunged. Recalling something he had read long ago, he made to spit. If his memory served, it would crackle when it touched the ground once the temperature had dropped below fifty degrees, but was it Fahrenheit or Centigrade? He couldn’t be sure. The skin of his face was taut, his cheeks ached and he gave up the attempt to make spittle. For once he envied Hyde his ghastly face, at least the sergeant had no feeling in it. His eyes blinked hot tears that turned to ice droplets, and wiping them away added more discomfort, as in parting from his face the flakes and droplets seared his skin like freeze-branding irons.
The house was ahead, he could see movement close by it. Clarence felt relief, another hundred yards and then he’d be able to enjoy a cup of the disgusting, stomach-’ rotting coffee that York brewed. Strange, it wasn’t getting any closer. Making the effort to bend in his bulky clothing he looked down. His legs weren’t moving. That was silly, why had he stopped? It was only a little further, a hundred steps, but he couldn’t get his legs to make one. There was a numbness in them that was spreading to the rest of his body. An overwhelming tiredness washed over him.
He was locking solid, his strength had gone, sapped by the cold that crept through him, leeching his will. Just a few more paces, just a few. Why? Why a few more steps, where was he going? Silly to go on, why not just lie down, have a rest, sleep for a while. When he woke up he’d feel better, remember where… or was it what? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered…
SEVEN
‘Solid as a bloody rock.’ Burke jabbed the stick into the fuel tank. ‘Petrol’s frozen. What do I do now, light a fire under it?’
‘You do and the major will light one under you, if you don’t blow yourself up first.’ Dooley stopped work and looked up from his chest-deep excavation. ‘The first three feet it’s like going down through concrete, keeps you warm though.’
‘But what the fuck do I do with this?’ Not wishing to add to his work load, Burke resisted the strong temptation to kick the generator.
‘You’ll have to shift it inside, won’t you?’ Using pile-driver force Dooley drove his pick into the bottom of the trench, twisted it and then reached in to haul out a lump of half-frozen earth that must have weighed fifty pounds.
‘You’re joking. It took four of us to get the bloody thing here, and now the runners are welded to the shitty ground.’
‘Why aren’t you working, Burke?’ Hood thrown back, his artificially precise hairline accentuating the featureless expanse of his face Hyde looked unreal, like a watery painting of a portrait by a child too immature to put in any but the simplest of details.
‘Can’t do any more outside, Sarge. It’ll have to go inside if we’re to have a chance of keeping it in action.’
‘Alright, you heard him, Dooley, up out of your pit and give a hand here.’
‘The major said I was to finish this before I did anything else.’
‘You should have done already. Now if you’d pretended you were digging up one of the old women you like poking you’d have been down six feet already.’
‘Heads I lose, tails I can’t win.’ Using the pick as a grappling iron, Dooley hauled himself from the hole.
‘Give the runners a clout first, to break them free. A clout I said,’ Hyde had only just ducked in time as the wildly swung pick whistled back between him and Burke, ‘not an attempt at bloody wrecking it. Alright, we’ll pull, you push.’
Ripper and Libby appeared and added their efforts. The heavy piece of equipment began to move, thrusting a wall of snow before it that constantly had to be shovelled aside.
‘This weather is really something.’ Almost sprawling as his foot slipped, Ripper prevented himself from going over by grabbing at Dooley.
‘Gives you the urge to pull Dooley’s pants down, does it?’ The enjoyment Burke got from the scene was of short duration as he almost fell himself.
‘Aw shut it. No, I mean the cold, it really gets to you. I reckon I’d have been a solid lump of ice by now, if I hadn’t been too busy sweating, trying to get that foxhole dug.’
Standing back as Libby scuffed another bank of snow aside, Hyde looked out over the still countryside. ‘It’s not a night for standing around, that’s for certain. Not that I’m likely to let you. Alright, now three more heaves and we’ll have it lined up with the kitchen door. One last effort, and we’re in.’
‘I bet the lieutenant is regretting he was so fast to volunteer now. Him and Clarence must be wishing they were back here.’
Libby nodded agreement. ‘You’re probably right. No fun in being out there at the moment, no fun at all.’
‘Radio batteries are OK, Major. My sets use only a fraction of the juice those tubes do. Even if the generator is no good, used sparingly I can keep us in contact with the big outside world for two or three days.’
Revell had asked the question almost for the sake of something to do. He felt like the spider sitting at the centre of an intricately constructed web, waiting for his prey. The work was done, and the hours until the first of their Russian targets appeared would be long, and seem even longer. This wasn’t the sort of war he liked. The real war was what you saw in the sights of your rifle, or felt at the end of a bayonet. Hanging around a command room, unable to move far from it, unable to do anything in it… that might be war for staff officers, for generals, it wasn’t for him.
To fill in, to give himself something to do, he could have gone outside, lent a hand with shifting the generator, but the interference might not have gone down well with Hyde. He suspected that inside the British NCO there still lingered a residue of resentment at serving under an American officer, at having lost the independence he’d enjoyed as leader of a crack British anti-tank team.
There were times when Revell wished he was just a sergeant, with nothing more than his squad and himself to worry about. It’d be good just to get on with the fighting, to go out and do the damned job and to hell with the political consequences. While the Russians fought without constraints, his every action was hedged about by the need to avoid civilian casualties, or damage to property, or offence to other NATO partners. Rules, regulations guidelines… a Communist officer had none of those, he’d have an objective and perhaps a deadline and the fear of the consequences of failure… Revell could still hate the savagery with which the Soviet forces obtained their victories, while ‘envying the freedom of action they were given to gain them. But it was a strange sort of freedom the Russian commanders enjoyed. Ten, twenty thousand civilian casualties didn’t matter to a Warsaw Pact general as he drove his regiments towards their goal, but if he delayed by so much as an hour, then even if his primary objective was still achieved his removal was certain. A Russian’s freedom was the freedom to butcher, to slaughter, but never to deviate from his observance of the strict orders he’d been given. It was that inflexibility that had cost the Communists outright victory at the start of the war, when none of their army commanders had dared even to attempt to plug the gaping holes in their advance caused by widespread mutinies among the East German and Polish units.
That Lance missile, standing out in the snow waiting for him to transmit the coded command to commence its near instantaneous firing sequence and launch, was a good example of NATO’s, or rather the West’s mentality. Four separately targeted warheads nestled within the sharp nose of the missile. Their fuses precisely pre-set, they would detonate above a Swedish Air Force base, a vital hydroelectric power station, a coastal patrol craft complex and a garrison town. Spectacular though their kiloton warheads would be, that would be the limit of their effectiveness.
It was a half-measure. If the Swedish parliament was as nervous as the Western analysts believed, and if it was still in permanent session at that time, it was possible it might over-react, declare on the NATO side before all the facts were gathered and the discovery made that in reality no damage had been suffered. But it was more likely to do what it had been doing for two years, dither and talk and let the moment pass in frightened and confused indecision. Then the West’s only hope would be that a local commander with a few coast defence missiles under his control might not wait for orders, might retaliate instantly to what he saw as a Russian bombardment preceding an assault. What a way to fight a damned war…!
York and Cline were preoccupied with their respective electronic equipment. Outside, Revell could hear Hyde exhorting the men to greater effort. The generator being bumped against the wall and the shout of someone whose fingers were between the two. From upstairs came the rare loud groan of one of their causalities. Andrea was up there… he should go and see how the injured were faring, he hadn’t checked on them for several hours…
‘Go down and get yourself a coffee. I’ll be up here for a while.’
The young gunner-medic made a fussy last adjustment to the bandage he’d been replacing, then went out. His footsteps echoed back to Revell from the uncarpeted stairs.
It was darker than the fire-control room. Only white or very light coloured objects stood out in the breath-misted gloom. Bandages were clearly visible, as were the pale hands and faces of the men wrapped in their life preserving silver chrysalises. The hard rasping breathing of a chest case was the only audible sound.
Andrea was over on the far side of the room, struggling to fully fasten the zip of a silver cocoon. Carefully, Revell stepped between the bodies to go and help her.
‘It is done.’ With a last effort Andrea sealed the body into its crinkling shroud before Revell reached her. ‘He is the first, others will follow. I think that one is next.’
Revell followed her pointing finger to where a scrap of white cloth blended imperceptibly into the deadly pallor of a face it didn’t entirely cover. ‘I don’t know how he’s lasted this long. He lost a lot of blood when his arm was taken off. I’ll have the body moved as soon as the men have finished shifting the generator.’ There were other matters Revell wanted to talk about with her, but in the darkness he couldn’t be sure all of the casualties were sleeping.
He’d never managed to be alone with her for more than a few moments. Not that he’d ever been really conscious of her manipulating it that way, but on reflection he felt sure that she had. Never very communicative, she immediately stiffened and backed away from contact with any man she sensed showing an interest in her. With her looks, that kept her perpetually on her guard. The skills she displayed at holding men at a distance, and generally taking care of herself, were considerable; the way she managed Dooley was ample proof. Revell couldn’t tell whether the big man got anything from the relationship, other than having, and enjoying, the prestige of having her near. Several savage slap-downs he’d received in public suggested there was less than truth in many, perhaps all, of his private boasts.
Damn it, Revell had never felt so protective towards any woman, not since the early days of his marriage to the bitch, and that had soon been beaten out of him by spite and neglect and contempt. And now he had this irrational urge to take Andrea under his wing, a woman more able to take care of herself than any other he’d ever known. It was stupid, irrational, when he’d made up his mind to treat her no differently from any of the men. And it was dangerous as well. Dangerous because his preoccupation with her could affect the efficient running of the unit, because it could cost some or all of them their lives unless he could come to terms with it.
From where it lay on top of a pile of rags, Andrea picked up her scarred and chipped M16. The fat tube of the grenade-launcher below the barrel gave it a clumsy and ill-balanced look. ‘When do I use this? I am not a nurse, this is not where I belong.’
‘Perhaps you won’t need to. If the mission goes according to plan then we do the job and get out without firing anything but the heavy artillery. Command won’t be too happy if we start a big fire-fight with Swedish patrols. Why do you think they sent such a small escort group, with so few support weapons? It’s so that if we do start trouble we can’t cause too much of it.’
‘The West does not deserve to win this war.’ Andrea turned to the window, and stared out. ‘They expect their soldiers to die, but do not want them to win.’
‘That about says it.’ Revell moved to stand beside her. He liked her clipped German accent. Her manner was sharp, he could visualise an affair with her being very one-sided. She would dominate any man, he imagined her being very strict, very severe… No, he backed away from the thought. That was a speculative road he didn’t like to travel. There was a darkness at its end he didn’t care to pierce, for fear of what he might discover about himself.
The snow covering the island gave the landscape a strangely two-tone, two-dimensional effect. There were no greys, no shadings to give depth or texture to any object. After a few moments the weird monotony of the scene began to play tricks with his eyes. A log, or it might have been a rock protruding above the snow, almost seemed to be moving. Of course it couldn’t be, there was nothing alive out there, God had shut shop for the winter, even Clarence would find nothing to kill…
‘Come on.’ Revell didn’t think to, didn’t have time to, define what prompted him to jump and stride over the close-packed casualties; but intuition or some sixth sense told him that shapeless dark hummock he’d dismissed as a log was one of his men. His boot rapped against an improvised splint and elicited a groan from the man he’d almost stepped on, then with Andrea close behind he was out of the room and taking the stairs three at a time. He was shouting for the medic even as he raced for the front door.
At ground level everything looked very different, but he had a bearing and snow sprayed ahead of him as he ran. There was an icy feeling inside him that had nothing to do with the cold.
‘The lieutenant thought you ought to know about it.’ There was an intense cramping pain in Clarence’s fingers and toes as circulation gradually returned. He could feel the soup in his stomach radiating warmth through his body, and breathed in the steam that rose from the can he held clumsily between clenched fists, not feeling the hot metal burning into his blue knuckles.
‘And that was all you saw? Just three men and a woman moving supplies of some sort into the old tower.’
‘We tracked them from the boat. It looked like an old wreck, as if it shouldn’t still be afloat, but it was, and its motor sounded alright. After they’d got out of sight we took a chance and had a look inside. We had to give them a bit of a start, there’s not much cover up that end of the island.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing. I got the impression the hull and mechanics had been well maintained and the rest of it allowed to go to hell. Funny, you’d think anyone who owned a big yacht would have taken care of it.’
‘Can’t get th
e petrol, no point.’ Hyde had been listening. ‘There must be thousands of beautiful boats rotting away along this coast.’
‘But then why look after the engine, why keep it in good running order? Sergeant, take Ripper and two others and find Lieutenant Hogg. If he hasn’t got positive proof that bunch are harmless -1 don’t know, maybe a group from a university or something – then go in and grab them. Something about that set-up isn’t right, and I want to know what.’
‘I’m getting something, Major.’ York settled his headphones more snugly. ‘This is weird. My gear isn’t directional so I can’t tell where, but I’d say somebody on this island is transmitting.’
‘What language?’ Revell picked up the spare headset, plugged in and held it to his ear.
‘Swedish. Shit, it’s gone.’ After a minute spent trying every frequency, York took off the headphones. ‘Not there anymore.’
‘On your way, Sergeant. We both know where that must have been coming from. Tell Lieutenant Hogg to take whatever action he has to, I want an answer to this damned riddle, and fast.’ It wasn’t until he’d turned round that Revell saw who Hyde had selected to go with him beside Ripper. Dooley and Andrea were pulling up the hoods of their snow-suits. It was an intelligent choice he couldn’t argue with, the pair worked well together. Clarence wasn’t fit to go anywhere for the time being, he wasn’t prepared to trust their Russian that far from his sight, and Libby and Burke were busy with the generator.
The door closed behind the trio, and Revell resisted an urge to rush to it and call Andrea back, to replace her with Libby. There was a better than evens chance he was soon going to make a fool of himself over her, unless he made a greater attempt to curb his feelings, -or at least the emotions they gave rise to. A loud crash from the kitchen broke into his thoughts, which were then swept aside by the voluble swearing that followed the heavy metallic noise.
