Hard Target

by James Rouch

  Still undecided, Burke thought he might as well join in. ‘You’re right. The weather’s nice, we’re in the country and soon the little birdies will be singing...’

  ‘And right now I’m going for a little crappies.’ Wandering off a few paces into the middle of the track, Dooley began to lower his pants. ‘... and we’re about to witness yet another demonstration of nature’s own little miracle.’ Burke plucked a small white daisy from the midst of a tuft of coarse leaves. ‘How to convert a pound and a half of steaming hot shit into a gem of miniature perfection.’

  ‘Fuck off. This ain’t no fertiliser I’m dropping. What happens when you put your foot in some really pig-shit awful dog dirt?’ ‘I stop, feel ill and don’t wear the shoes again for ages.’ ‘Exactly. Well, my crap has much the same effect on tanks and their crews. In the right place at the right time, with the right amount of Ex-Lax, I could stop a bloody regiment of T84s.’

  To take his mind off the revolting sights and sounds emanating from a few yards away, Burke began to systematically take the flower apart, having to squint to see it at all. ‘He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves...’

  ‘Will that old crate of ours get us there ?’ Collins blew on the boiling hot coffee, and passed it rapidly back and forth from hand to hand. ‘It’ll get us there.’ Clarence drank his mugful scalding hot.

  It was his theory that at that temperature you couldn’t taste how awful it was. ‘I must admit I am more concerned that it should be able to get us back.’ ‘She’ll make it, there and back.’ Like the others Hyde kept quiet for a moment to catch the argument between Cohen and Rinehart that floated to them from the vehicle.

  Cohen’s criticism was indistinct, but Rinehart’s reply was clear enough. ‘And if you don’t like the way I hold this torch, then you can tie it to your fancy shaped pisser and do the job on your own.’

  ‘How come they didn’t just stick us in a chopper, buzz over and drop us right on the target ? We’d be there and back inside two hours.’ Collins blew on his coffee.

  ‘Because war is an art.’ Clarence took the answer upon himself. ‘And NATO creative ability does not yet stretch to finding a way to let fixed or rotary wing aircraft survive for more than, what? one and a half minutes? in enemy air space. I am all for experimentation, but not when it includes the near certainty of whirling down from a thousand feet in a burning and disintegrating helicopter.’ ‘Balls.’

  ‘Have you finished, Rinehart?’

  ‘All finished, Major. I think our little friend is intoning a prayer over it now, he kinda uses God like an electronics trouble-shooter.’ ‘What did you mean by balls?’ Clarence steered the conversation back to the previous subject.

  ‘What I said, balls. There’s no damned art in war. Where’s the art in super- napalm, or suitcase-sized nukes, or dumdums. What you said is a load of bullshit.’ ‘I didn’t use art in that sense, you ignorant. ..’ ‘That’s enough. ‘The humour had gone out of the exchange. Revell had caught the sudden edge in Clarence’s voice, and it made the back of his neck prickle. For all the man’s quiet manner and well educated tones, there was something very deep, very dangerous, in the sniper.

  ‘I got this feeling. Like it just ain’t going to be a good day.’ Through one of the rare gaps in the interwoven branches high above them, Rinehart watched a tiny streamer of red flame being towed across the sky, betraying the path of an aircraft in trouble.

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Libby poured himself another coffee. ‘I’ve found that when things are really bad, they have a habit of getting worse.’ The flame-tail was suddenly tipped with a flaring ball of yellow and white that expanded rapidly, and then faded just as swiftly. The aircraft crew’s trouble had just become infinitely worse.

  FIVE

  The definition of the image intensifier had not been improved by the pounding the vehicle’s electrics had taken, and Burke had to call on all his skills as they followed the stone and tree-trunk strewn course of the stream. In places the water had cut a narrow winding channel between almost perpendicular banks. Had the precipitate descent of the preceding hour been at one of those spots, none of them would have survived.

  ‘We’re coming out into the open now.’ The skimmer slowed to a crawl as Burke nosed it from the last of the cover. On the major’s instructions he now swung the Iron Cow up out of the gravel bed of the stream and on to the lush meadow-land that flanked it.

  ‘At least there’s no reception committee waiting for us.’ Revell slowly rotated the cupola to check the flat land about them. ‘Right, slow ahead. At this stage I think silence might offer us a better defence than speed. Stop on the river bank when we reach it.’

  The turbines sent a shiver through the craft as they slowed. Burke alternately lowered and increased the rpm, searching for a power band that would stress the overtaxed engine mounts as little as possible.

  A wide shining strip suddenly showed on the driver’s screen. The hovercraft flattened another hundred yards of the tall grasses, and then the noise of the engines fell away to a whisper as it coasted to a stop and settled beneath the dangling tips of a willow.

  ‘What the hell have we stopped for? Let’s get across.’ Dooley used one of the periscopes set in the roof to peer out at the pale expanse of the river Aller, stretching away to right and left before them.

  He was completely ignored by Hyde and Revell as they compared the view from the cupola with their map. Carpet bombing of the far bank had breached it, allowing the river to flood beyond its normal confines and increase its width by spreading into the neglected fields.

  ‘Most of the landmarks have gone, and the rest of the landscape has been so knocked about it’s hardly recognisable.’ The sergeant snatched another look through a periscope, then studied the view on Burke’s screen.

  ‘Take your time. I’d rather you were sure.’ The pencil Revell was holding tapped a random Morse code on a corner of the map board.

  Although the words didn’t say it, Hyde sensed the impatience underlying them. He climbed up for another look. There was something, about a thousand yards off, the ruins of a building. It was in the correct place, but the outline wasn’t how he remembered it. If it was the old processing plant then the roof and both silos and chimneys were missing. Other components of his field of vision looked vaguely familiar. A pile of rubble where a large house had been, leaning stumps where a copse of tall oaks had stood. Damn those bombers. Sod it, it felt right, it must be...

  ‘Yes, this is about it. We’re closer than I thought, but our detour accounts for that. We’ll cross here, and then it’s only a couple of miles to a place where we can leave the Cow in safety while we find the workshops. That’s if the Airforce have stuck to the rules and not bombed closer to the camp than they’re supposed to.’

  Cautiously Burke eased the machine forward until it overhung the six-foot drop to the sluggishly flowing water. A shouted warning, and then he nudged it a fraction further and the skimmer swung down. A curtain of spray rose up as the leading edge of the skirt and hull dipped into the Aller, and air being thrust out by the turbofans fought to keep the craft on an even keel. There was another towering cascade as the rear of the hovercraft pancaked down and stabilised the machine.

  Spray clouds surrounded and followed them across the river and again in the swamp-like fields beyond.

  ‘How is he?’ Collins leant across to where Rinehart was trying to re-secure the bulky dressing that ineffectually bound Nelson’s gaping wound. ‘Pretty bad. Can’t see him hanging on long unless we can get him fixed up proper, real soon.’

  The bandage slipped, and as it fell from the wound it was followed by a gush of blood that brought with it shards of bone and blobs of spongy white matter. ‘Here, hold this.’ Rinehart pushed the sterile dressing back in place and while Collins held it with eyes averted, bound it to the wounded soldier’s head with many intricate windings of crepe. ‘He’s gonna wake up again soon, and when he does he’s gonna make an awful noise.’
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br />   ‘What we could do with is a nice big-boned nurse, all starch and black stockings, with a juicy fat arse and nutcracker thighs.’ Dooley made crude appreciative noises by smacking his lips together.

  ‘Don’t forget the tits.’ Having overheard, Burke joined in. ‘Don’t forget the tits.’

  ‘Never do. That’s why I like bending them over and taking them from behind. That way you get plenty of good handfuls as well. You can’t do it from the front, least I can’t, they always tell me to use me elbows ‘cause I’m too heavy.’ The big man grinned at Collins. ‘How about you, kid, how do you like them? Had any tasty schoolgirls lately? Or aren’t you old enough for them yet?’ ‘Shut up, you poisonous lout.’

  In the noise of the compartment Clarence’s words weren’t clear and it was a few seconds before their meaning sunk in and wiped the leer off Dooley’s face. A ham- sized fist rocketed towards the sniper.

  Clarence didn’t move until the last possible instant before the huge paw would have struck him, then he half-turned in his seat as the dirty knuckles swept past his chin with only a fraction of an inch to spare, and brought up his rifle from between his knees, driving the tip of the barrel into Dooley’s forearm. It sank past the sight into the thick flesh.

  Dooley bellowed as the pain made his fist spring open. He held his arm and examined the livid bruise that was fast spreading on it. ‘What sort of fucking trick is that?’ There was an agonising sensation of intense pins-and-needles in the limb, and he couldn’t move his fingers. ‘Feels like you’ve fucking broken it.’

  ‘It isn’t, you’ll recover.’ Taking a clean, neatly folded tissue from his breast pocket, Clarence wiped and scrubbed his rifle. He kept on long after any trace of the big man’s sweat had been removed by the short, brusque actions. ‘Neat, very neat. You’ve got good reflexes there, man.’ Rinehart had watched with amazement and admiration.

  Though he waited for some acknowledgement of the compliment, none was forthcoming. ‘You’ll have to forgive old Dooley here. He’s really a no-holds- barred man, he don’t usually go in for such refinements as punching.’ ‘He’ll find out.’ Flexing his hand as a degree of feeling returned to it, Dooley didn’t look up as he spoke.

  ‘Save it for the Commies.’ Revell had been about to intervene when Dooley made his move, but he’d seen the look in the Britisher’s pale unblinking eyes and instinctively known that he didn’t have to. If the big man had been more observant, he too might have held off and saved himself a deal of pain. But maybe not - Dooley was the sort who always had to learn lessons the hard way.

  Hyde hadn’t even bothered to watch what was going on, let alone get involved. ‘You don’t bother much about your men, Sergeant.’ ‘I don’t have to, Major. They get in and out of trouble quite well enough on their own. If it’s minor stuff, I let them get on with it.’

  Revell was finding it difficult to fathom the British squad. They were an unlikely mixture. A lonely kid, a near psychotic sniper, a brilliant combat driver who could tire himself just by breathing, an efficient turret gunner who was frighteningly normal by comparison and a horrifically mutilated sergeant whose principal control over his men was his total confidence in them, and their trust in him.

  Combined with the individuals Revell still had left out of his command, it was a weird assortment of types and talents, but maybe just because of that it had the makings of one hell of a good team, so long as it could learn to work like one.

  ‘Just two miles from the refugee camp now, Major.’ The sky was beginning to lighten, and Hyde couldn’t decide which was best, normal optics or the various imaging systems available to him. ‘The Russians have a dawn-to-dusk curfew on the place, so that still gives us twenty minutes before the first of the mobs will be leaving the shelters on foraging trips. Then they swarm all over the area, scavenging for anything they can find.’ ‘Where’s this place we can hide up? It’ll have to be good.’ ‘Isn’t it just.’ Burke’s words lacked enthusiasm. ‘You just drive.’

  ‘Sod it, Sarge, isn’t there anywhere else?’ ‘No, it’s dead ahead now. Take us in very slow and don’t put us down till I tell you.’

  Burke brought the skimmer’s speed down to a crawl. ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking. Did you think I would?’

  The Iron Cow began to climb a gentle slope towards the dense dark wall of trees at the perimeter of an area of woodland. Very carefully, Burke piloted* the hovercraft between two well-weathered stakes. Barbed wire grated beneath the belly of the machine and then the noise was gone and the tangled mass of undergrowth engulfed them.

  Several times, despite the intense care he took, their driver couldn’t prevent the skimmer from nudging trees it had to squeeze past. Angular dark shapes, tantalisingly indistinct, were glimpsed at the edge of the screen as they drove in deeper. Sergeant Hyde stood behind the driver’s seat, scrutinising every inch of the woods and signalling slight corrections of course by tapping Burke’s left or right shoulder.

  ‘Forward a little more, left, left; a little more. Steady. Put her down.’ The engine note remained the same. Burke made no move to follow the last instruction, maintaining the same ride height. ‘I said put us down.’

  Their driver still made no move to comply, finely balancing the controls to keep them hovering in the same spot.

  ‘Do as the sergeant says.’ Revell added his weight. ‘You do know where we are, don’t you, Major?’ With a slight movement of the left steering pedal Burke corrected a tendency on the part of the machine to drift to the right. ‘This is a bloody minefield. The place is stiff with the ruddy things. Those are wrecks out there.’ He pointed at the screen, to a vague squat outline some yards ahead of them.

  Revell looked at Hyde. There was nothing in the man’s face to give him any clues, there was hardly any face, but the sergeant’s manner didn’t suggest he was contemplating suicide and intent on taking them all with him. ‘So put us down gently.’

  For a couple of seconds Burke still stubbornly resisted, then began very gradually to reduce engine power to enable the craft to settle. All the time he made minute adjustments to keep the position Hyde had indicated.

  Like all of the others Rinehart held his breath until the Iron Cow was safely grounded, then let it out in a sigh of relief. ‘What do you want us to do now, Sarge. Go for a stroll through the woods?’

  ‘This is the only place the refugees don’t come foraging for metal. They’re like a load of jackdaws, pinch anything...’

  ‘Hey, Dooley, you got a load of relatives around here some place?’ It was Cohen who interrupted the British NCO.

  ‘...that’s the reason the Commies don’t lace this area with ground radar surveillance dishes. They’d all be turned into frying pans by the end of the day. About the only things the refugees won’t go near is mines. These derelicts have been here two years and they haven’t been touched in all that time.’

  ‘How well do you know this camp, Sergeant?’ Revell got in first, before Dooley could take up Cohen on his remark.

  ‘Pretty well. I expect it’s changed shape a bit since the last time I was here, about four months ago, but the Reds don’t like them to get above a hundred thousand so overall it’ll be much the same. Certainly the inner areas will be. It’s the later additions, the most recently tacked on shelters that alter the appearance and can get you lost.’

  ‘At that size it’s going to be too big to scout on foot, even if we weren’t spotted as we roamed about. Do you have any contacts in there, who might be helpful with the right persuasion?’

  He’d have to answer carefully, Hyde was fully aware of that. Both sides, in theory at least, enforced the Red Cross’s rules about no military interference in the camps beyond minimum policing; but Soviet commanders broke them when it suited them, and few soldiers on either side could resist the obvious attractions of the various ‘entertainments’ the camps offered. Many NATO troops made a point of carrying extra rations and similar temptations that could be exchanged for the frequently desperate re
fugees’ gold, or jewellery, or bodies. He didn’t know the major’s standpoint on the matter so he played safe, he wasn’t about to lose his stripes or get himself slung out of the army, just because he spoke without thinking.

  ‘I’ve heard of a couple of places where we might get information about any new activities the Reds have started in the area. I expect I can find them.’ ‘Don’t be cute, Sergeant Hyde. I know what goes on in the camps, I’m not trying to catch you out. Considering the mayhem we hope to let loose before the day is out, bending a few rules isn’t going to bother me. Now, yes or no ?’ ‘I’ll give it an hour. My best cover will be to mix and merge with the civvies. Better break out the rags, Collins.’

  From a locker Collins dragged out a kitbag, and started to extract various articles of patched and faded clothing.

  ‘Fuck that.’ Dooley moved away. ‘I kept thinking someone had wind. It weren’t, it were those, phew.’ He held his nose.

  Clarence toed a garment that was dropped. ‘If you go into the camps you not only have to look right, you have to smell right. You should feel completely at home.’

  ‘Don’t aggravate him, Clarence. You know he’s got a temper worse than yours.’ From the heap Hyde picked a large soiled windcheater. ‘Scruffy so it won’t draw attention, bulky enough to hide a weapon. Soap doesn’t figure anywhere on the list of priority supplies the Red Cross and Oxfam bring in, so it’s no good walking about with a well scrubbed look smelling of bloody violets.’ He pulled on an oversized pair of Levi cords.

  ‘You can pick me an outfit too, Sergeant. I want to see the ground for myself; and we’ll take one other man, your choice.’

  About to secure the top of the jeans with a grubby polka-dot necktie improvised as a belt, Hyde paused. ‘That’s not a good idea, Major. The civvies won’t give us away if they spot us; the Ruskies never pay for information and in the camps everyone wants to be anonymous, not draw attention to themselves. But if they heard your accent... Well, they’d be down on us like a swarm of locusts and the Reds will spot a riot a mile away.’