by James Rouch
Mopping up was still going on, the flanks of the corridor that had been punched through the encircling armies would have to be consolidated, but they would be able to put to excellent use the many defences the Russians had spent so much effort in making.
‘The whole fucking world’s gone mad.’ Dooley plonked himself beside the major after completing a scavenging expedition to secure as many souvenirs from the dead enemy officers as he could. ‘I just been talking to a guy who’s waiting for the stretcher bearers. Him and his pals spotted this Commie field kitchen and thought they’d try the cabbage soup, see if it was as foul as they serve in Hamburg. They get right up to it and wham, the Ruskies fight to keep it like it was the steps of the Kremlin. Then you know what they do, when they seen they’re gonna get beat, they blow it up, and themselves as well. Soup and bread and meat everywhere.’
‘Did you say meat?’
‘Sure I did, Sarge. You been too close to the guns? Your hearing going?’ ‘There ought to be a field kitchen near that missile battery. We’re not needed for the moment, shall we take a look?’
Major Revell didn’t have to make the invitation a second time.
Although they’d not yet encountered any themselves, they’d seen others walk on to mines, and took care to retrace a route they’d already found to be safe.
The site was completely deserted. There were some signs that hurried preparations had been under way to destroy the missiles, their launch vehicles and associated truck-mounted radars, but little of it had been completed, and none of it carried out. Demolition charges lay scattered about the open back of a truck and more were in cases aboard it. That was why it had not disappeared like all the other light weight vehicles such a large unit must have had. Plenty of dry skid marks showed where field cars, motorcycles and command cars had taken off in a hurry. A burning motorcycle combination in the distance revealed that not all had made successful escapes.
‘It’s here. Two bloody great wagons, with trailers ...’ Bullets cut the air close by and Burke had to dive for cover.
There was a look of semi-permanence about the site. Camouflage had been done very thoroughly, and the usual tented accommodation had been supplemented by three small wooden shacks. It was from the middle of those that the fire had come.
‘Good job that trench were there.’ After some difficulty getting out, Burke crawled back to join the remainder of the squad who had taken cover behind a holed and rusting oil storage tank at the rear of what might once have been a small engineering works. ‘Bloke they dug it for must either be bloody tall, or a heck of a coward. It’s all of six foot deep.’
‘Try a grenade on them.’
The only one among them with any left was Boris, who had to work his way close enough to toss the fragmentation bomb under the slightly raised floor of the cabin.
Lifted off its foundation piles by the explosion, the wooden structure settled back with its walls all at angles and its doors blown off. The floor had been gouged and splintered by slivers of metal that had penetrated it to wound the men inside.
A spray of automatic fire finished the Russians who were groping for their rifles, but as Boris moved forward to look inside, Clarence’s shouted warning came only just in time. From between the trucks came a long gout of flame that belched into and over the cabin to set it ablaze.
Its operator got no second chance. Bullets fired under the vehicles brought him down and as more finished him the snout of the flame gun dribbled fire on to his chest.
‘I smell meat again.’ Ripper inhaled deeply. ‘Yeah, of course you can. I see the ribs barbecuing from here.’ Dooley returned from another treasure hunt. ‘You know these missile guys had some real strange notions about how to dig trenches. There’s a load more of those deep foxholes round the back.’
The shack in the middle was well alight, but it was still possible to approach those on either side, though their splitting and cracking walls would be a part of the conflagration soon. Revell opened one, to see rack upon rack of meat hanging to dry. He slapped Ripper’s hand away when he reached for a piece.
‘Something you should see, Major.’ Hyde led them to a huge cast iron stove. Once perhaps the pride of some trendy person’s fitted kitchen, now the bright red Aga stood beneath a corrugated iron canopy with a crooked chimney made from lengths of drainpipe, surrounded by broken floorboards and furniture intended as its fuel.
A fire still burned in it, and Hyde used a piece of cloth to open the oven door to reveal an almost done roast. ‘And there’s something else, one last thing.’ Again he led, this time to a pit well away from the kitchens. Taking a scrap of paper he lit it, and let it flutter into the depths.
Ripper threw the contents of his stomach after it, extinguishing the light. ‘Why’d he do that, what’s the matter?’ Dooley sauntered over to the group and peered into the pit.
Gritting his teeth was the only way that Hyde could stop from joining Revell and Thorne who’d also begun to heave. His words came out through them. ‘You thick sod. Those aren’t bloody trenches, they’re bloody graves. These shits were starving, so they used the only food source they had left to them. Think about it. What’s there always plenty of in war?’
‘You mean they… they have been eating their dead?’ ‘Yes, and ours. That’s why they’ve been trying to destroy the evidence.’
But Dooley wasn’t listening any more, hands on his knees he was retching uncontrollably as his empty stomach went through the ritual of straining to eject something that wasn’t there.
Standing back Clarence took care to stay beyond the range of smells from the ovens and the burning huts. He watched Boris stagger away clutching at his stomach and reeling from dizziness and nausea. It had hit the deserter worse than any of them, and he could feel sorry for the man. For some reason he hadn’t expected the major to react the same way as the others. Not that he considered the officer to have no human traits; he clearly had, as his pursuit of Andrea testified; but he’d always thought of him as harder than most men. Perhaps it was an act, or maybe something that happened to him while he was away from them that had changed him.
Finally Revell managed to bring himself under control, though the urge to retch remained and was doubled when he heard the others doing it. He was glad Andrea wasn’t there, to see him like this. Damn it, he wished he could stop. He tried to take a sip from his flask but his body’s reaction was instantaneous, throwing it back the moment it touched his throat.
And Inga too. He could only hope that there was someone else who could be sent to take the pictures that would inevitably be wanted for propaganda, and eventually for war crimes evidence.
The siege was almost lifted, the Russians were on the run and nothing could prevent them completing the task now. The city was safe, he was glad the girls were too. He would have to choose between them, there couldn’t be room in his life for both. But he wouldn’t choose yet, he would wait, and see what happened.
‘He did that because you told him to?’ Andrea had listened to the recounting of the night Inga and Revell had spent together, not making any comment, showing any expression, only asking questions now and then. ‘Yes. I made him do it four times, he seemed to want me to.’ Throughout the recital Inga had been aware of the pistol’s unwavering barrel pointed straight at her. ‘What are you going to do with me?’ She tried not to show her fright. With a man it would have been easy, but with this cold woman she could not tell. She tried to smile, to make light of her situation, effect nonchalance, and was surprised to see an answering smile.
‘I have not thought that far. Do you think I am attractive?’ ‘Yes.’ Inga answered as boldly as the question had been posed. ‘Undress.’
Inga didn’t hesitate, the pistol still pointed at her, but perhaps she saw a chance. She had never done it with a woman before, but...
Andrea watched, and as the last garment was shed, stood close in front of the naked girl. ‘You have told me everything about your night together?’
; The events flickered in freeze frame style through her mind. It was possible she might have the order wrong, had the acts out of sequence, but that was all. ‘Yes. I have told you everything.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
This she had to reply to carefully. Inga was aware of that. She had to inject something, a hint of reservation. ‘It was nice, yes, but... but a man cannot truly understand a woman, know what she really wants.’ Anxiously she watched for a reaction, but could see none.
‘You are cold?’
Looking down at her breasts Inga saw that her nipples had hardened. ‘I think I am, yes, a little.’
‘There is one last thing I want to know. Show me how he kisses.’ It was the chance she’d been waiting for. Taking the half-pace that was all that separated them, Inga put her arms round Andrea’s neck, pulled her close and kissed her hard and long on the lips. At first there was no response, then a hand pressed into her back and made the embrace go on. She was breathless when she was allowed to break away. Her whole body tingled as though it was undergoing a mild electric shock, only pleasant. It would be possible for her to get to like this, perhaps eventually she could even recruit this enigmatic girl.
‘Do it again.’
This time it was less harsh and lasted even longer as she forced her tongue into Andrea’s sweet tasting mouth.
‘And that is how he kissed you? Exactly the same way?’ ‘Exactly like that.’
‘Thank you. That is all I wanted to know.’
Five shots hit Inga in the chest and she died instantly, before her body finished bouncing on the bed on to which the impacts threw it.
Before retrieving her rifle and going out, Andrea shook the contents of the oil lamp over the bed, laid a trail of it into the lounge and let the rest of it soak into the carpet around the radio. A last time she walked to the bedroom door and looked at the body sprawled face down on the stained sheets. She could still taste the blonde’s lipstick.
Blue flame rippled from the growing blaze by the radio, across the carpet and into the bedroom. She left the front door open to give the fire a plentiful supply of air. By the time it was noticed it would have a good hold, be out of control.
As she went down the stairs she removed the clip from the butt of the pistol and with loose shells she took from a pocket began to reload.
Five bullets had been too many. Two would have been sufficient, three at most. She must discipline herself; in future three would be her maximum, any more would be wasteful overkill.
Document Outline
PDF THE ZONE 5 Overkill.bmp
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