by James Rouch
‘A ruddy combat driver I’m supposed to be, a bloke who pilots battle-taxis. Alright, so I’ve been a silly sod and made a cross for me own back by taking on every piddling job that’s had anything to do with mechanics, but why the hell are you always roping me in to do the do-and-die bit?’
‘I don’t always need a reason, but this time it’s because we need manpower, and even you might be some use.’
‘As a human shield, maybe.’ Making no attempt to conceal his amusement, Dooley poked their driver with the snout of a light machine gun. ‘Anyway, don’t worry, little man, you can just stand around trying to look ferocious until the action starts, and that won’t be for ages yet.’
‘You’re wrong.’ The instant the surface radar screen glowed into life, Cline spotted the distinct traces. He began to count. ‘There’s five, six, no, seven,’ he added the correction as yet another blip materialised, ‘seven ships coming out of the Sound.’
The men crowded behind him for a look, as an eight then a ninth appeared. It was Dooley who broke what seemed like a long silence. ‘Jesus Christ. The bastards are rushing us.’
ELEVEN
‘Looks like two cruisers and an escort group, destroyers most likely.’
The radar man’s interpretation of the contacts struck Revell as about right. He’d been expecting a vanguard of approximately that strength. ‘Good, now check the sites, find out what sort of shape your gunners are in.’
As he waited for the information, Revell unwrapped and made a quick visual inspection of his 12-gauge assault rifle. He’d debated with himself whether or not to bring it on this mission. Useful as a close-quarters weapon, he was now beginning to think he might have done better to bring something with a longer range, especially in view of their shortage of fire power, and medium and heavy support weapons.
‘Two of the men at the Lance site have collapsed, Major. Sounds like exposure. Everyone else is ready to go.’
Damn the bombardier, Revell disliked the way the man always had to have an opinion on every matter. If York was the man who thought he could do it all, Cline was the individual who imagined he knew it all. ‘OK, tell site three they’ll have to look after them the best they can for the time being.’
‘At least the manpower shortage won’t matter so much there.’ Hyde was removing some of the ammunition belts with which Dooley had festooned himself. ‘It’s one and two that’ll need the fit men for reloading.’ He left four of the hundred-round belts on the big man, and handed him the others to be replaced in the ammunition boxes.
‘Yeah, chucking those fucking great rockets around they’ll be collapsing from exhaustion. Wouldn’t happen if everyone was as fit as me.’
‘Oh shut up, Dooley.’ There was a note of irritation in Libby’s voice. ‘First you show off by loading yourself until you look like an ammo tech’s Christmas tree, then you go for a new hot air production record. You’re not going to tell us about the time you did five hundred press-ups to get your Kung-Fu black belt, are you? Not again.’
‘Keep your men quiet, Sergeant.’
The officer’s words having been audible to everyone in the room, Hyde didn’t need to repeat them, but he added a rider of his own. ‘Some of you lot have been treating this like a bloody picnic so far; wise up, or you’ll find you’ve got an enemy facing you already. Now settle down.’
In the ensuing silence, the only sound was that coming from the generator. Scuffling movement upstairs announced the commencement of another. Hesitant heavy footsteps on the stairs preceded the noise of a body being dragged down them.
‘Picnic’s over for another bloke.’ Scrutinising the floor, Burke hoped he wouldn’t be detected. His view was suddenly blocked by Hyde’s boots, but to his amazement nothing was said, and the boots moved out of his range of vision. That wasn’t like the Sarge at all, not at all. The scar-faced bugger had never soft pedalled before, probably didn’t know how to. He risked a glance. Their senior NCO had crossed to the radar screen.
Knowing Burke would be watching, Hyde turned slowly and the knife-slash gash of a mouth below where his nose should have been widened a fraction. It was the nearest he could get to a grin. ‘Could be cancelled for all of us. Six more major units are coming out of the Sound, with enough escorts to make ruddy great stepping-stones all the way over to Denmark. You want to stay alive, you’d better put in the maximum effort the major will be expecting of everybody else. For the time being that just means staying awake and staying alert, that should break: you into the idea nice and gently.’
Cline’s application to his task was already total. At present his concentration was focused on the surface radar. The air-watch and perimeter intruder systems were switched to automatic, an audible warning would sound if either detected interlopers. In the case of the air-watch radar there was a further refinement. At the instant of contact the set would interrogate any aircraft with its IFF. Should the Identification-Friend-or-Foe fail to receive the correct answer, then the alarm it blared out would rise to a more strident note that no one could miss. There was no need, while the system continuously monitored and checked its own performance and its tiny green tell-tale glowed, for Cline to do so; but exhibiting religious dedication, Cline double-checked it every couple of minutes anyway.
He did it ostentatiously, moving his whole head, not merely glancing up but taking a long hard look. By the book, that was how he intended to do it. His backside ached, as did the back of his thighs,; the fronts of his legs, and his feet and arms were cold. The numbing chill had crept into his body and even now he could feel it spreading through him. He had tightened-up. To the very last atom of his bones and flesh. Shoulders hunched, stomach drawn in, a feeling of tense, almost painful constriction had invaded him.
‘Try one of these.’
An unthinking refusal of the grubby mint Ripper was •offering was stifled by Cline before it could be expressed. ‘Are they hot?’
‘Only about the hottest thing around here, apart from Andrea that is.’
The off-white disc seared Cline’s tongue on contact, then branded the inside of his cheek as he pushed it aside to suck in cold air.
Ripper watched the radio-man’s reaction, saw the beads of sweat that broke out on his forehead. ‘You like it, heh? I sure do.’ He popped two into his mouth and chewed hard. ‘Really do warm you, don’t they? I used to eat a packet before going home of a night, so my mom wouldn’t, know I’d been having a beer or two. Kinda got a liking for them. Want another?’
As Cline shunted the caustic sweet around his mouth, he became aware of the others watching him. Well he wasn’t about to give them any satisfaction. Taking a deep breath, he gathered all the saliva he could and swallowed. Every inch of the confection’s route down his throat to his stomach was charted by a burning sensation. He could feel a small ball of fire where it finally came to rest in his belly. I’ll have another.’
‘You haven’t the time. Keep your attention on the screen.’
The officer’s intervention came just in time, for the packet was being extended towards the bombardier again. Cline was relieved, he hadn’t been too confident of his ability to palm a mint without being observed.
Having finished his checks of the men and their weapons, Hyde picked a corner of the room and settled down. Within an hour, two at the most, they’d all know whether or not they’d be coming through the mission, and if so in what condition. His small squad were less occupied than York or Cline or the major. Even their Russian had something to do, but for those of them who hadn’t, now was the time to be thinking about all the things that had already gone wrong, and what could still do so.
It was Ripper who showed the pressure most. He had the least combat experience of any of them and was conscious of the fact. Like with the practical joke he’d played on the bombardier, he was overcompensating in an attempt to conceal his fear. All of the others had been through it many times before, only Dooley displayed any nervousness, but then he always did. He reminded Hyde of
a big bull, pawing the ground, almost too eager for the action to commence. ‘Where the hell are you going?’
‘I never searched that old guy we chucked outside.’ Dooley halted at the door. ‘The major checked him for papers.’
‘That ain’t what I mean, Sarge… Jesus, do I have to spell it out? Look, the old goat must have had some money on him. If we end up getting interned, might be useful to have a few krona stashed away.’
‘Don’t try lying to me, Dooley, you’re just no good at it. Why do you think you always lose at cards?’
‘Honest, Sarge…’
‘Honest my arse.’ Hyde raised his voice. ‘Sit down. I know what you’re up to. Ever since Cohen got in the way of that tank shell at Frankfurt you’ve been trying to copy him, build a little fortune for yourself. Forget it, you haven’t the wits to amass it or the brains to hold on to it, so quit trying. Anyway, if we get grabbed by the Swedes, what do you imagine they’ll think if they find we’ve been killing and looting the bodies of their nationals. Leave that frozen carcase alone, find something else to occupy your time.’
‘I don’t see the harm in trying to come out of the war with a bit more to show for it than a load of scars.’ Grumbling in an undertone, Dooley sat down beside Andrea. She went on polishing her bayonet, appearing not to hear him, so he persisted in nudging her until he had her reluctant attention. ‘Well, what do you think? You remember Cohen, the little runty Yid who had the pockets of his flak- jacket stuffed with money and rings. Why shouldn’t I do that?’
‘If you wish to, you can.’ Andrea folded the soft pink cloth and tucked it into a pocket. ‘There are fortunes to be made in a war. Even in the camps there are refugees who have done well out of the suffering of others. Many Russian soldiers have also profited. When I was with the GDR people’s militia, many times I had to help load trains and convoys of trucks with goods the Soviets were stealing from my people. So if you wish, then gather what money you can, but while you do it remember all those you have seen die because their need, or their greed, made them reach too far, just once too often.’
‘What a nice little moral tale.’ Sitting on the other side of the girl, Libby couldn’t resist the sneer. ‘Since when have you been writing sermons? I thought all your energies were devoted to learning new ways to kill.’
‘Piss off, this is a private conversation.’ Dooley could feel tension growing like a physical thing inside him.
Clarence knew what she meant, understood the point she was trying to make. It was stupid, he’d only started to understand her since she had deserted him in favour of Dooley. There was something deep inside Andrea that drove her on. Her fanatical hatred of the Communists was real enough, but that was only a surface manifestation of what lay beneath. With her brains she could have got out of the Zone, or at least used her looks to better her situation, but she had chosen to stay among the people at the bottom of the heap. Even now she operated with this ragbag unit when she could have found something much better. It was as if she needed it to be that way, needed to see and experience the suffering. And what she saw at first-hand fed her hatred and helped her kill and, coming full circle, the killing then compounded the horrors she’d witnessed. A fruitless cycle of death, whose beginning was unknown and whose inevitable end, after many, many turns, must be violent and bloody.
‘Those Ruskie sailors aren’t the best at station keeping, Major.’ Cline had to revise his log entries as the enemy ships veered from heading to heading. ‘If I allow for the wandering about, take a sort of average course, then it looks like they’ll pass within three miles of the island. We’ll be able to take them on at point- blank range. You want me to alert the launcher crews?’
‘We’re not engaging the vanguard.’ Revell saw the look Cline gave him, and was tantalisingly slow in adding, ‘Not yet. Once those Ruskies figure out what’s coming at them, and from where, our target practise will be over. I want to engage the maximum number of targets in the shortest possible time. Let the lead group pass, we’ll give the cruisers a few rounds from astern, but save most of the rounds for the next bunch. We might not get the chance to use our reloads. I want to do all the damage we can with what rockets are in the tubes now.’
‘What about the Ivan Rogov? That damned tub is sitting in our laps.’ York had turned to an illustration of a sister ship. ‘That baby packs a hell of a punch. Says here she’s got guns and missiles of her own. If her captain decided to join the fight, we’re a sitting target.’
‘So is he.’ The cold must be more than numbing his body. That was something Revell should have thought of for himself. What else had he missed, what else was there that he was overlooking? For many hours now the Rogov had been a part of the local scene, he’d grown used to its presence until it had merged into the background and he’d come close to forgetting, damn it, he had forgotten it. ‘If it’ll put your mind at ease, York, then we’ll give the tub the undivided attention of half a dozen rounds, how does that suit you?’
‘Just fine, Major. Want me to let you know of anything else I think of?’
‘I believe you may be, as you Americans say, pushing your luck.’ Boris rapped the radio-man’s ankle with the steel-shod side of his boot., He said the words quietly enough not to carry to the officer, but still managed to inject the urgent note of warning he intended.
‘Vanguard is coming into camera range now.’
Under Cline’s practised guidance a TV camera panned over an expanse of slab- dotted sea. He switched to a second, and instantly the screen was filled with a bow- on shot of an ice-coated destroyer. An arcing bow wave carried a crescent of ice and foam up and away from the knife-edged hull.
‘Pennant number is five-six-four.’ Having retrieved his book, Cline sought the vessel’s identity. ‘Here it is, Strogiy, modified Kashin class destroyer. Last reported in Leningrad yards for extensive refit.’
‘Find and identify the others, especially the two cruisers.’
Revell stood away from the bombardier’s chair. The operator would be under sufficient pressure without his appearing to hover over him. One after another the vanguard escorts jumped into focus, were identified and logged. In several cases the ships could only be identified by class or type, their pennant numbers were as new as the hulls, and unlisted. A guided missile frigate was of a class never seen before, and defied Cline’s efforts to positively identify it.
‘There’s one of them.’ A Kresta class cruiser jumped ‘into vision. Going for a close-up, Cline panned along its impressive length. The ship bristled with a staggering array of antenna complexes and weaponry. A moment later he found a second, and this one he was able to identify. ‘It’s the Marshal Voroshilov, another that was last seen in the yards.’
‘That’s an anti-submarine force. Our subs are going to have a tough time with that crowd.’ Revell scanned the list.
‘If we used all the tubes, we could do them a fair bit of damage, give our blokes a chance.’ Only two buttons had to be depressed and Cline could immediately transmit the ships’ positions to the launcher crews. He’d been with the battery long enough to know that it would take the gunners mere seconds to align the tubes and get clear. In a matter of minutes the Russian ships would be on the receiving end of a storm of fragmentation warheads that would rip through their complex radar equipment and mow down any crew on deck or behind light protection.
‘No, they’ll have to take care of themselves. Our orders say we go for the big tubs.’ On the screen the view of the ships was changing from side-on to a three- quarter rear shot. ‘Have number one site prepare to engage the cruisers. Seven rounds each. Site two can put a half dozen rounds into the Rogov.’ Revell turned to York. ‘And this is where you start to do your work. The moment we open fire, start playing with your fireworks. I want any Commie tracker who so much as glances this way to get thoroughly confused. Use chaff, ECM, whatever you need to decoy any radar homing warheads they throw, but go easy on the pyrotechnics. Libby salvaged what he could, but we’re sti
ll short, so make it last, be sparing. I want maximum value from what we’ve got.’
With his headphones on, Boris could only half-hear what was going on, he would have preferred not to have been able to hear at all. When he had been drafted into the Russian forces, especially when he took the military oath, the penalties for desertion had been drummed into him. They were harsh, and usually demanded the ultimate sanction, but he was discovering that there were other penalties that no one had warned him about.
To fight Communism was one thing, but when he had actually made the decision to join the NATO army he had not given much thought to just what that might, that would, that was about to, involve. He had friends, some of whom had been drafted at the same time, others he had made during training or in his unit, and now he was about to help in the destruction of fellow Russians, men he might have got to know and like in other circumstances. The Soviet navy got the pick of the best electronics experts; perhaps some of his friends were aboard those ships, it was possible, likely even. The only difference between him and them was that he’d had his chance to escape, and had taken it. But then he’d been free to, with no close family ties ...free; free to turn round and kill his own people. Some of whom he could hear talking at that very moment.
It sounded like ship-to-shore transmissions again, nothing important, just a junior sergeant complaining about a mistake over rations that had come ashore; he was telling the ship that they had no tea or vodka and that his officers expected him to remedy the situation. From the other end, and a bored supply clerk on the Rogov was verbally shrugging aside the complaint; he was safe and had no wish to bring the mistake to the notice of his own superiors.
Perhaps the clerk had done it deliberately, to pocket the profit he would make from selling the precious supplies elsewhere. Everyone did it, or tried to. It was necessary if a man were to survive in the Russian forces. A case of vodka supplied to an officer at a special low price would build up a fund of, if not goodwill, at least understanding, that might come in very useful later on. Boris caught the start of another exchange between Cline and the officer, and closed his ears to it. There was no way he could entirely disassociate himself from what was about to happen, but he was determined to have as little to do with it as possible. That would not salve his conscience, but if he did not know everything that happened, at least he would carry a smaller burden.