Chieftains

by Robert Forrest-Webb Bob

  Sod it, Davis suddenly thought. We’re not supposed to be running, we’re here to fight a bloody war. It’s our job. ‘Charlie Bravo Four, this is Bravo Two. Hold it where you are.’ Sealey’s tank was already three hundred meters behind them. Davis got his shoulders beneath the hatch and pushed upwards. For a moment he hesitated, remembering the danger of gas and considering fitting his respirator. Mentally he shrugged; if there had been gas around, then he would be dead by now. Bravo Two was pretty much of a sieve, he had been able to see daylight through the side of the hatch for the past hour, but she’d done a good job of keeping them all alive. He rammed open the hatch; it moved squeakily, one of the hinges twisted out of line. He stood and looked out. The air, though heavily tainted with gunsmoke, smelt fresh after the interior of the tank. He called down inside: ‘Shadwell, do you think you can manage some fast loading with one hand?’

  ‘I can try, Sarge. I’m not feeling too good, though.’

  ‘How many rounds do we have left?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  Davis didn’t remember using so many; it was easy to lose count. He would have estimated they had used only a dozen shells. ‘You won’t have to load that number,’ he told Shadwell. ‘Charlie Bravo Four this is Charlie Bravo Two. We’re moving down the hill until we meet the road. Do you see it?’

  ‘Affirmative, Sarge.’

  ‘There’s a cutting to the left of the small wood at four o’clock… got it?’

  ‘Cutting to left of small wood. Right of the line of trees?’

  ‘That’s it. We’ll get down there. When we’re in position, you follow.’

  ‘That’s towards the bloody Russians.’ Corporal Sealey didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  ‘DeeJay, head down the hill.’ Davis felt a strange sense of exhilaration as the Chieftain swung itself around, the same feeling he had experienced the first time he had climbed inside one of the huge vehicles and heard the powerful roar of its engine. Familiarity had dulled his appreciation, now it had returned. He could see why his machine gun had failed to operate, the barrel was twisted down against the cupola, its casing shattered. The main gun appeared undamaged, but there were shrapnel scars on the hull and turret, some several centimeters deep. Half the camouflage paint had been burnt off; Bravo Two looked like a candidate for the breaker’s yard. Whoever had decided to do away with the.5 calibre ranging machine gun was a bloody fool, decided Davis. It was a useful spare weapon. Now all he had apart from the main gun, which wasn’t much use against infantry, were the Sterlings. Still, it was good to be out in the open again after hours closed-down. It might be dangerous, but it felt better, and his field of vision was greatly improved. The smoke was thickening again now they had moved down closer to the fields, but visibility was almost three hundred meters. DeeJay bucked a shallow ditch and then they were on the narrow roadway, barely as wide as the length of the tank. Opposite was a steep bank, just over a meter high. The gunner wouldn’t be able to depress the gun fully, but that wouldn’t be necessary. It wasn’t too bad as a firing position Davis decided. There was reasonable protection for the hull, and not too much of it showing above the bank. With luck, the rising ground behind would help conceal them, though they would be vulnerable to air attack. He watched Bravo Four begin to move down to join them.

  Almost three thousand meters above on the slopes of the hill, out of radio contact with both his squadron and the battle group headquarters, Charlie Squadron Leader Captain Valda Willis was watching the two Chieftains through his binoculars. He had just identified them as Two and Four of his squadron’s B Troop. Willis, and another survivor of the squadron, had only a few minutes previously managed to force their way through the encircling Russian armour. It had been a close thing, with only a narrow corridor remaining clear. Willis had seen the two Bravo Troop Chieftains on the slopes, before they had turned off down the hill. Their manoeuvre had been unexpected. They were being driven straight towards the enemy as though going in for an attack! It was impossible for him to contact them by radio, his two aerials had been blown away by an HE shell explosion on his turret. The two Charlie Bravo Chieftains he was watching were now facing north-east, the bulk of the moor to the left of them. The Russian amour had occupied most of the woods on the eastern slopes of the moor and was encircling the lower ground to the south. He was surprised that any of Bravo Troop had survived; their position had been heavily shelled and then overrun.

  He saw a line of Russian T-64s clearing the smoke. ‘What’s the range?’

  ‘Three thousand five hundred, sir.’ The gunner was following one of the lead tanks.

  Sergeant Davis saw the leading T-64 just as Captain Willis’ shell struck it below its main gun. He thought that Bravo Four must have fired as the tank was now in position some eighty meters to his left. But as he glanced towards it now, he could see no gunsmoke.

  He was searching the ground for other British tanks when Inkester fired without warning. Davis had no time to duck into the fighting compartment. The blast almost deafened him. He dropped inside and jerked the hatch closed. ‘You okay, Shadwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Davis noticed the loader struggling, and wished he was better positioned to help the man. It seemed an age before the breech slammed closed and Shadwell shouted; ‘Loaded.’ Inkester fired immediately. ‘Two, Sarge. Two… one after another. How’s that for bloody shooting?’

  ‘Shut up. Bravo Four, you okay?’ Davis’s head was still ringing from the sound of the gun.

  ‘Affirmative, Sarge.’

  ‘Fuckin’ hurry up, Shad.’ Inkester was shouting, working the turret around to the left. The Chieftain bucked again.

  ‘Okay Bravo Four, get moving, fast.’ Sealey didn’t need encouragement. He was imagining a dozen guns ranging on the spot where his tank rested. His driver spun the tank on the road, and felt relief as the tracks bit into the tarmac surface.

  Get going you bastard, get going! Davis knew he had to give Sealey enough time to get well down the road and into another firing position. But he was finding it almost impossible to resist the temptation to follow him. There was movement on his horizon, a turret top below a ridge of ground.

  ‘Bravo Two this is Four. In position.’

  Inkester had been monitoring the net, and shouted at DeeJay. Bravo Two wallowed for a second and then spun, showering sparks from her tracks.

  The road took the Chieftain diagonally away from the advancing Russian armour, its smooth surface giving them the edge in speed, while the bank at the roadside was good cover. An enemy gunner would have to be damned efficient to get a sure sight on their fast-moving turret, thought Davis. Pray to God there weren’t any helicopters! He pushed up the hatch again. The road curved to the right and he could see Bravo Four. ‘Okay Bravo Four, we’re going on past you.’

  Sealey shouted back in the radio, ‘You’re fucking mad. I’m not waiting here.’

  Davis changed the tone of his voice. ‘Bravo Four, this is Bravo Two. You make a move before I radio, Sealey you bastard, and I’ll put a Sabot right through your bloody hull. Out.’ There was no comment from the shocked corporal.

  A thousand meters farther down the road Davis stopped the tank and swung the turret ninety degrees to the right before calling Bravo Four. A couple of minutes later Sealey’s Chieftain thundered past them at almost thirty miles an hour, shaking the ground as it went.

  ‘Bravo Four, this is Bravo Two. I’m holding here for a while. Get yourself well back, but keep us in range.’

  ‘Wilco, Bravo Two.’ Sealey sounded subdued.

  There wouldn’t be long to wait, decided Davis. The battle smoke was drifting parallel with the road, and the visibility in the fields was better than six hundred meters. ‘Traverse right, Inkester. Hold it… there… BMP, alongside the hedge.’

  ‘I see it… come on love, come on now…’ Inkester was talking to the gun as he fired. He yelled: ‘Hit… hit, Sarge.’

  Davis missed the destruction of the troop carrier, but heard
Inkester’s shout of satisfaction. ‘Shut up, Inkester… Bravo Four this is Bravo Two, we’re moving again.’ Davis was trying to find the road on his map. It curved north, taking them directly across the line of the Soviet advance! They would have to leave it and move across the fields towards the west. He stuffed the map between his legs and pressed his eyes to the sight. It was aligned on a T-64. He flicked on the times ten magnification just as Inkester’s shell struck; it was impressive, watching it happen only a few meters away. ‘Move, DeeJay. Get her rolling… Bravo Four as soon as we reach you, move off… we’ll head west off the road and get out of here…’

  ‘Wilco, Sarge…’ Corporal Sealey acknowledged gratefully.

  ‘BMPs… BMPs…’ Inkester’s voice rose. The computer locked to its target, adjusting the gun as the tank moved. Inkester fired.

  ‘Go left now, DeeJay… keep with us Bravo Four… Inkester, BMP three o’clock… don’t lose it… Bravo Four, stay close… we’re heading west of the small wood ahead.’ The gun roared once more. ‘Okay, Inkester, leave ’em.’

  A shell exploded a few meters ahead of Bravo Two just as DeeJay rammed her through a hedge and into the open field. He began jinking, maintaining the speed but driving in a series of opposing curves as he braked first one track and then the other. There were more explosions, one close enough for its pressure wave to slam violently against the hull. A few meters more and they would be behind cover. Don’t let it happen… please don’t let it happen to us… Davis was praying. It took an eternity to cover the few hundred meters, but the shelling eased and finally stopped. DeeJay straightened the course and rammed his foot down hard. He had been in action long enough, and now all he wanted was to get away as fast as he could. ‘Steady… for Christ’s sake, DeeJay!’ Bravo Two was pitching dangerously, hammering her bow on. the ground as her suspension was strained near breaking point. ‘Easy, lad… easy.’ Bravo Four was in line with them now, a hundred meters to their left.

  The panic which had gripped DeeJay gradually slackened. He managed to get himself and Bravo Two under control. For a few moments, the terror which he had kept contained during the fighting had overwhelmed him.

  He could hear Davis’s voice, calm, unemotional. ‘Fine, DeeJay… keep it like that… nice and steady. Left a little… left… good… well done, lad.’ The knots in DeJay’s stomach muscles relaxed and he began listening to Bravo Two. Her tracks were slapping badly, needed adjustment… her engine was beginning to sound rough; he hadn’t helped it by driving like a lunatic. She didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Her steering was getting difficult as well, he was having to use a lot more strength on the left lever. Everything needed servicing, and badly. Christ, the sergeant fitter would go bananas when he examined her. There was a strange rattle, a deep knock that reverberated through the driving compartment… an engine mounting? Bloody hell, that would be an they needed. He began to nurse her, encourage her.

  Davis too was beginning to relax as the distance between Bravo Two and the advancing enemy increased. I’ve survived again, he told himself; survived for Hedda and the boys… so we can be together… God, when? Afterwards! Hedda? It would be good when he saw her again… Christ, it would be good! He tried to send his thoughts to her… I’ll be back soon, love… just you take care of the kids, I’ll look after my self… don’t you worry… I’m okay… doing fine.

  ‘Ahead… tank…’ Inkester yelled the words just as Davis caught a glimpse of a partially camouflaged hull, close to the wood on their right. Inkester was swinging the turret trying to get the tank in his sights.

  ‘No… it’s one of ours… a Challenger,’ warned Davis. ‘Bravo Four… Challengers to our right.’ The ground dipped unexpectedly in front of Bravo Two. DeeJay braked fiercely and swung left. There were a line of Challengers in the hollow, hull down, waiting. ‘DeeJay, slow… okay, lad… stop her. Bravo Four come alongside us.’ Davis opened the hatch and clambered out, trying to decide which of the tanks was likely to contain an officer. He recognized the skull and crossed bones insignia of the 17th/21st Lancers. A figure waved to them from a tank further down the line. He jumped down to the ground and was surprised his legs held him; they felt shaky, numb. He ran to the vehicle and climbed on to her hull. ‘Sergeant Davis, sir. Bravo Troop, Charlie Squadron… Battle Group Cowdray One. We’ve got ourselves lost, sir. No radio contact.’

  The officer’s rank wasn’t visible on his clothing, but Davis sensed he was a captain, possibly a major. ‘You should be a mile further south, Sergeant. Your group is pulling back towards Warberg. You’ll be reforming there. You can leave the Russians to us for a while. Get there as quickly as you can.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Davis jumped from the Challenger’s hull. The officer’s voice stopped him.

  ‘Sergeant… what was your name again?’

  ‘Davis, sir. Morgan Davis.’

  ‘You men have done a good job, Sergeant Davis. Head due south. You’ll hit the Esbeck to Warberg road.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ He saluted, then ran back to Bravo Two. There were four helicopters coming low across the fields, Lynxs, heading towards the advancing Soviet armour. The sound of artillery was quickening; a flight of rockets howled away from a battery hidden in the woods. The war was catching up with him again. It was late afternoon, on the first day.

  NINE

  There was sufficient aggressive determination in the voice of November Squadron’s Captain Harling of the US Black Horse Cavalry, to convince Master Sergeant Will Browning that the man was a homicidal megalomaniac and that he’d conceived some sadistic plan that would lead to the extermination of his whole squadron.

  The captain’s exaggerated Texan enthusiasm bordered on hysteria as he made a wild speech over the squadron net about pride, the need to sacrifice and the old-fashioned spunk of true-grit American fighting men when faced with some difficult, if not impossible, task. Harling intended it to make the men of his squadron forget they might be about to die — it had the opposite effect. Those who had not remade their wills in the past few days now regretted the omission; more than a couple of the nervous were reduced to mental wrecks of no fighting use whatsoever, and they needed long and real encouragement from their individual commanders to combat Harling’s damage to their morale.

  It had come only a short while after the end of a series of attacks on their positions, which November Squadron had successfully repulsed. The nerves of the survivors were already ragged; the earlier artillery bombardment had been fierce. The lull, when it came, had been welcome. Then the captain’s lengthy bullshit pep-talk.

  He had ended: ‘I can’t tell you not to think about KIA… but I tell you, men, when they do a body count out there, there are going to be one hell of a lot more Popskis than Johnstons.’ That was great, mused Browning, one of the November drivers was a Mike Popski! ‘We’re going right back in. We held the head of their assault my, and beat ’em. Now we’re going after them, into their flank.’ Harling had suddenly remembered security and switched to code after a fit of coughing. ‘H minus 1237 Shark Fin. You get…’ The squadron network picked up a steady howling interference that drowned out Harling’s voice. Browning didn’t hurry to retune to a different wavelength. Shark Fin… counterattack… so that was what all the bull was about. H… that was the datum time, so H minus 1237 meant it would all begin to happen in around ten minutes.

  ‘How come we held the head, and we’re about to attack their flank?’ began Podini, incredulously. ‘The guy’s a nut!’

  The troop radio net interrupted him. ‘Utah, Idaho, Oregon?’ The troop lieutenant’s voice, easy and relaxed. ‘What you got left?’ Will Browning heard the ammunition count and added his own. ‘Thirty-nine rounds; mixed. Smoke unused. Machine gun ammo okay, out.’

  ‘H minus 1233 we move, okay. They’ve got a bridgehead over the Ulster a kilometer north of Gunthers. Avoid the hundred meter strip near the river, it’s heavily mined. There are some T-80s ahead of us, but according to information the captain�
��s got, they’re thin on the ground, and we believe they don’t have much infantry support now. The rest of November will be on our right. We’ll keep to the open ground to the west. Out.’

  Six minutes? There were only five left now! Browning was trying to collect his memories of the past hours; the barrage spreading south until it had engulfed them and finally passed on. There had been no casualties then in the squadron, although the infantry and one of the artillery batteries had suffered. The squadron had moved forward a thousand meters to battle positions on lower ground, and fought the enemy massed on the shallow slopes on the far side of the river Ulster. It had been long-distance warfare at first, maximum range, indistinct targets hidden behind smoke as the Soviet assault force attempted to gain a foothold on the western bank. The river defences had been hard pressed, yet they had held… but not, it now seemed, everywhere. Browning had seen the temporary military bridges blown in the first few minutes of the initial attack, demolished by the charges of the US Division’s Combat Engineers. There had been several attempts by the Soviet troops using BTR-50 amphibious troop carriers to cross the river, but these had all been foiled by the artillery on the western hill overlooking the valley, and steady mortaring and small-arms fire had wasted the enemy infantry. A renewed artillery barrage by Soviet long-range field artillery had again failed to displace the US Division, and full daylight provided the Army Air Corps’ gunships and Thunderbolt Threes with a wealth of targets. The US Command’s plans that their ground forces should always be able to fight under a canopy of air superiority was paying off in the sector. There had been no time so far, in the battle, when Browning and the men of November had found the sky clear of American aircraft of one type or another. It had been comforting.