This was the third convoy that had left the Mwanza camp, and, everyone hoped, the last. Already, three companies of SBS-trained men were digging in to the north, carving trenches for themselves out of the rain-soaked ground and clearing fields of fire. The last two companies – three hundred men under Morgan and Kigoma – were perched on the backs and in the beds of the trucks and half-tracks that lined this quagmire of a road, still eighty miles from their objective. They were averaging about five miles per hour, a pace which infuriated Morgan.
Kigoma came splashing down the track towards the SBS soldier. They were all covered with mud, wet through and seething with insect bites and ticks, but they noticed these things no more than they noticed the constant rain. They were a fact of life.
‘The two lead vehicles are stuck also,’ Kigoma said wearily. ‘And there’s been a mudslide about a mile ahead, the villagers tell me. We will have to clear it, or take an alternative route.’
‘Is there one?’ Morgan snapped. His eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness; he hadn’t slept in almost three days.
‘I don’t know. I will take some men and find out. But we won’t be able to rendezvous with the rest of the battalion today; it’s too late.’
‘All right, Kigoma, do that. See if there’s a suitable track which gets us out of all this shit.’
The Tanzanian officer splashed away through the mud.
Morgan left his men straining and digging at the wheels of the embedded Studebaker and hauled his radio out of the cab. It was a PRC 353. Predictably, he could not contact Willan. It was still too far, and the rain was interfering with the transmissions.
‘Like being back in the fucking Stone Age,’ he groused to himself. Willan had hoped to have the battalion assembled and dug in by the next day at the latest, but that had all gone west now. At least the Ugandans would be having the same problems; that was one consolation. Morgan replaced the radio, then bent and began digging with the rest of the men at the immobilized wheels of the truck. Better late than never, he hoped.
Willan surveyed the company positions one by one. They were beginning to take shape. The men had been digging and sandbagging for two solid days and they were filthy, exhausted and hungry.
The battalion, as he called it now, was in position about eight miles north of Kyaka, less than twelve miles from the Ugandan border. It was placed astride the only decent road which led south into Tanzania, and was situated on a gentle rise which gave the companies good fields of fire. Willan had considered placing the position on the reverse slope of the rise but then decided against it. His troops were too green to allow enemy tanks to engage them at close range. Better to see the enemy coming from afar, or from as far as was possible in the rainy mist.
Six miles back, north of Kyaka, the Kagera rolled along, swollen between its banks. There was a concrete bridge spanning its flow just north of the village. Willan prayed that it would not be washed away. It represented his men’s only escape route. It was bad tactics to allow his formation to be backed up against a river, but Kigoma and Okello had assured him that the bridge was a strong one and had never been washed away by even the most savage of rains. In addition, Prentiss had insisted that the battalion make a stand north of the river, otherwise the entire salient would be surrendered to the enemy without a fight, and he would be given a huge political advantage.
Politics again. It had dictated Willan’s stategy, but his tactics were his own. He had placed his three existing companies in the classic two up, one back posture. Okello’s company was to the left of the road; Kigoma’s – under the temporary command of Geary – was to the right. Behind them both was a company of the greener troops under Fraser, giving depth and support to the forward companies. Because of the rising ground, they could bring their weapons to bear over the heads of the forward positions.
Out on the flanks, Willan had sited a series of trenches for the RPG7s, facing in at right angles to the road so as to catch the advancing armour in their vulnerable flanks. The entire position was slightly concave. Okello had told him with a grin that it resembled the old Zulu ‘buffalo’ formation, of two horns and a chest.
Between and slightly to the rear of the two forward companies were sited a pair of GPMGs mounted on tripods for sustained fire. If need be, these weapons could fire accurately in the dark, since they could be directed by bearing and elevation, and Willan had already mapped out a series of likely targets for them. The only problem was that there was not a lot of ammo for them – for anyone, come to that. That was something they’d just have to live with, like the rain and the leeches and the mosquitoes.
Out to the front of the forward companies, the SBS men had sited a minefield. They had only a few of the heavy anti-tank mines, so most of the field was composed of anti-personnel mines, or ‘Elsies’. Hopefully, after the first few tanks had been wasted, the infantry would debus and advance straight into the minefield.
There was very little else in the way of field defences. Coils of wire were strung out forward of the position, but these were rudimentary two-coil affairs. They simply did not have the resources for more.
The riflemen of the companies were in four-man fire trenches, all sited so that their arcs of fire interlocked and were thus mutually supporting. There was good depth to the position, but Willan worried about his flanks. He could cater for a head-on attack only. If the Ugandans started getting smart and tried to roll up his flanks he would be in trouble.
Which was why he kept scanning the road to the south with his binoculars. He needed the other two companies that were still in transit from the Mwanza camp under Morgan and Kigoma. When they arrived he would site them off to each flank, to catch out any Ugandan attempt to sidestep the position. But there was no sign of them, and the day was getting along. They were probably bogged down somewhere.
The men had had nothing to eat today, as foraging parties could not be spared and, in any case, the countryside around here was pretty much deserted. They were on their last legs, Willan thought, watching them as they shovelled the mud out of their trenches and filled thousands of sandbags. No overhead protection was available, as he didn’t have the necessary stores. But no planes could fly in this weather anyway – a small crumb of comfort.
The entire position housed some four hundred men. It was six hundred yards wide and half that in depth. And it was the only organized resistance the nation of Tanzania could offer at the moment to any invasion from Uganda. Willan had to chuckle at the madness of it. Here he was, a sergeant in the SBS, an ex-Marine, effectively commanding a battalion, the job of a colonel. And not a sea, river or lake in sight. Plenty of water, though. All the trenches had a foot of rainwater in them, and the men had to keep bailing them out. Very soon there would be the first cases of trench foot, and God knows what else in this climate. If the Ugandans didn’t attack within a week or two, he had a feeling he would have to abandon the position anyway for the health of his men. Now there was a paradox.
Some of the clearing parties were filtering back into the position in single file, Gordon and Hill leading them through the mines. They had cleared an adequate field of fire to the front, but had left the thick brush to the flanks to conceal the RPG positions and hinder the approach of vehicles. It would provide cover for any attacking infantry, but that could not be helped.
Willan went over things in his mind for the fiftieth time. Had he forgotten anything? Was there anything else to be done? He had half-rations for three days, but if the Ugandans had not invaded by then he would have to send out foraging parties once more; he couldn’t keep everybody stood-to for ever. And Prentiss was in Dodoma, trying to get supplies and ammunition forwarded to him. He could think of nothing else to do. Except wait.
From Mbarara the road turned east, snaking though a series of bare hills before turning south. It was a dry-season road, which meant that it was near impassable during the rainy season, being totally unsurfaced. But the rains had been falling for only three days, and it had not yet metamorphos
ed into the river of mud that it would become.
A trio of French-built Savarin armoured cars rolled along to either side of the road, their big wheels churning ditches in the waterlogged earth. Their commanders had head and shoulders out of the small turrets and were cursing their drivers for the way the vehicles slewed and skidded. They were the advance element of the Simba Mechanized Regiment, a token reconnaissance of the ground ahead, and they had been on the move for almost a day and a half. Their crews were already fed up with the unending struggle to keep the vehicles moving, and the car interiors were dripping with water and dank with sweat. Finally the commander radioed back to the main body that the road ahead was clear. There was little to see through the curtain of the rain anyway, and the afternoon was wearing on. The Tanzanians had nothing to match the force that was slogging up the road behind him. His crews stopped the cars and took their ease, struggling to light sodden cigarettes and exchanging banter about what they would do to the Tanzanians if they finally caught up with them. The women in particular.
A few miles behind them, the main body of the regiment was powering forward through the muck. The T-55s had the broad tracks of all Soviet tanks, and were making a respectable pace, their 100mm guns traversing to left and right to cover the hillsides to either side of the road.
The T-55 was an early generation of Soviet tank, without night-fighting capabilities and mounting only one 7.62mm machine-gun for anti-infantry work. It also was not universally fitted with radios. Only the troop commanders were in radio contact with each other and with the commanding officer of the regiment. The other crews had to look to their officers’ vehicles to see where to go and what to do. But many of the tank crews felt that the mere presence of the metal monsters would be enough to overawe any enemy they might encounter, and they were both happy and confident as they roared south through the mud and rain.
Behind them the BRDMs and BMPs that housed the infantry lurched and whined their way through the huge ruts the tanks had carved. Many of the men were half asleep, lulled by the boredom of the journey. Others talked quietly among themselves. A very few cleaned their weapons and checked their equipment. Their officers had told them they were to expect little resistance. They had crossed the Tanzanian border without a shot being fired, and the sense of anticipation had left most of them. Now they were merely bored, their limbs aching from the primitive seating in their vehicles.
In a tank towards the middle of the long, straggling column, Colonel Kasese squinted over his map and cursed the water that was trickling down his neck. Blasted rain. But they were making good time. At this rate the lead elements of the regiment might make it to the Kagera before sunset, and he would have a presence on the objective more than twenty-four hours ahead of schedule. Nothing could stop him now.
‘What was that?’ Geary asked Willan, frowning and cocking his head to one side.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ the SBS sergeant replied, listening. It was hard to hear anything above the hissing of the rain and the chatter of some of the men who were putting the finishing touches to their trenches. Most of the soldiers in the battalion were sitting on the lips of the trenches. They didn’t want to stand in the water-filled holes any longer than they had to.
‘There it is again. What do you make of it, Sarge?’ Geary asked.
Again, Willan listened. This time he thought he heard something. A faint rattle-rumble in the distance. He and Geary looked at each other.
‘Christ,’ Geary said softly. ‘Tanks.’
‘Call stand-to,’ Willan said at once. ‘Get everyone into their trenches. It looks like they’re on their way.’
‘Right, Sarge.’ The corporal hurried off to the company he was commanding in lieu of the absent Kigoma. Willan cursed fluently. There would be no time for the two companies delayed on the road to join him now. He would have to make do with what he had, which wasn’t much. What he would have given for a battery of 105mms! Still, beggars would ride if wishes were horses.
‘Stand to!’ the cry went back and forth across the position. NCOs were kicking into the trenches those who were reluctant or slow to obey the order. Within minutes the slope on which the battalion was dug in seemed almost empty except for the dots of heads above sandbags and the bristling muzzles of weapons.
Willan threw himself into his own trench alongside his radio operator, a bright young Ugandan named Myebe, and two other men designated as runners. This was Battalion HQ, such as it was, and was located behind the sustained-fire machine-guns which lay between and behind the two forward companies.
The noise was clearer now; a sound to strike fear in the heart of any infantryman. The tracks of tanks.
Willan took up the handset of the PRC 351. ‘Bravo One and Two, this is Zero. Over.’
‘Send. Over.’
‘Enemy armour coming up the road to your front. Open up on my order only. Over.’
‘Bravo One. Roger, out.’
‘Bravo Two. Roger, out.’
The two Bravo call-signs were Hill and Gordon, each commanding a detachment of RPG7-armed men off to the flanks. Willan trusted them to open fire when the time was right.
‘Alpha One, Two and Three, this is Zero. Over.’
‘Send. Over.’
‘Wait for Bravo call-signs to initiate contact before opening up. Over.’
‘Roger, out.’
The Alphas were the three company commanders, Okello, Geary and Fraser to the rear. Willan hoped they would be able to control the barely trained men under them. Still, the NCOs he had were shaping up pretty well and should be able to keep a grip on things.
Everyone could hear it now: tank engines roaring and the shrill squeak and rattle of tracks. A murmur of whispers swept the position and then was still.
They rolled into sight in one long, dark line of vehicles coming down from the north. There were no flanking units that Willan could see as he swept the ground with his binos, and no lead reconnaissance elements. Simply a long line of tanks, and behind them, assorted armoured personnel carriers. Did they think they were out for a Sunday drive or what?
The trenches and foxholes of his waiting infantry would be almost impossible to spot through the murk and the limited viewports of the tanks. With any luck, he would be able to let them get to within point-blank range. The 100mm guns of T-55s were accurate out to a kilometre, which was not much for a main battle tank these days, but it still outranged his RPG7s. They had to get closer, much closer, or else they could stand off and bombard his positions while he was almost powerless to reply.
He held the handset of the radio against his ear with one hand while the other held the binos up to his eyes. Closer, closer . . .
‘Come on, you fuckers,’ he grated in a low voice. ‘Just a little farther. Blind bastards.’
Now. He clamped the pressel switch in his handset with his fingers.
‘All Bravo call-signs, open fire at will. I repeat, open fire at will.’
All hell broke loose.
* * *
In less than a second the three lead T-55s erupted into miniature infernos of flame and oily smoke. The turret of one was blown clean off and sent careering across the road.
At once the tanks to the rear of the destroyed vehicles broke off to left and right, bypassing their knocked-out comrades. But a second wave of RPG rounds cannoned into them, hitting their vulnerable side armour and obliterating them too. A huge fireball rose up as the reserve fuel tanks of one armoured vehicle exploded. A few insect-like crewmen tumbled out of hatches, their clothing on fire. The sound of exploding ordnance hid their screaming.
The next troop accelerated madly and swerved off the road, throwing up fountains of mud from their madly spinning tracks. The gunners began firing the main guns blindly up the slope to their front, and kept coming with their machine-guns barking little jets of flame into the overcast evening.
The road was like a burning scrapyard. Pools of petrol blazed as surviving crewmen fled back down the column. Other tanks
were scattering off the road, which had become a death-trap, and were firing blind up the hillsides around them. Some of the infantry had debussed and were sprinting to the front, while others sat tight in their vehicles, no doubt wondering what the hell was going on. The sustained-fire machine-guns in the centre of Willan’s battalion opened up, guided by Parker, who was down there adjusting their sights. The infantrymen ran into a wall of lead and were bowled over. They took cover behind the burning hulks of their armour and began firing back.
Tanks further down the column had shaken out into formation and were now advancing relentlessly, firing as they came. The slope below Willan began to erupt with shell bursts. Many of his men had opened up with their rifles, though they could do little damage with them. The enemy infantry were cowering behind wrecked tanks or sitting tight in their vehicles, still some five hundred yards away. But it would serve to distract the enemy from the real threat; the hidden anti-tank weapons on his flanks.
The T-55s were in attack formation now, ploughing through the soft earth and seemingly hell-bent on running straight over Willan’s position. Then the RPGs boomed yet again, three on each flank. Willan saw two hits; two tanks blew up and exploded. Another was hit in the track and ground to a halt, its crew bailing out only to be mown down by the SF machine-guns directed by Parker.
But the heavy tank rounds were having some effect now. They were erupting all over the slope to the front, though thankfully the heavy, wet earth absorbed some of the energy of the high-explosive rounds. Willan saw some of the forward foxholes collapsing, men scurrying from the wet holes only to be cut down by the heavy automatic fire that seemed to be tearing up the entire hillside. He thought he heard Geary’s voice shouting orders but could not be sure. The foremost T-55s were almost on top of the leading foxholes. RPG rounds raised a storm of metal and muck around the lead enemy vehicles. Another two tanks destroyed. The entire plain forward of the position seemed to be ablaze with burning tanks, the smoke from the fires like a black fog that hung unmoving in the humid air. Willan wondered how much ammunition the anti-tank weapons had left. The pressure would soon become too much to bear.
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