The Red Effect (Cold War)

by Black, Harvey

  “Right, Mackey, let’s go,” called the commander.

  Trooper Mackinson, his head just sticking above the driver’s hatch, headphones over the top of his black beret, tinted goggles protecting his eyes, pushed down on the accelerator. The seven-hundred horsepower engine revved and the energy transmitted through to the drive sprocket powered the armoured giant forward. The engine screamed as it slowly gathered speed, only released as Mackey changed gear, only to build up the momentum again as the speed ramped up, the distinctive banshee-like sound of its multi-fuelled engine joined by the rest of the squadron as they too joined in the convoy. The tank lurched forward as the driver worked his way through some of the six forward gears until they hit a steady thirty kilometres an hour, all they were allowed to do on the range roads. The tank tracks had blocks of rubber arrayed along the treads, to protect the German roads and reduce the noise as they pounded along them, pacifying the complaints from the local population in some small measure during the large exercises the British Army and NATO conducted annually.

  They headed for the lager where the squadron would congregate before spending their day honing their skills on the tank gunnery range. It was an opportunity to allow the L11A3 120mm tank gun to show its metal, as opposed to the 105mm of its contemporaries.

  Wesley-Jones looked behind him through a cloud of white smoke, rocking against the Mark 2 cupola as Mackey changed down to negotiate a sharpish bend. He turned back round, facing forwards again, a spotlight on the front of the cupola, an L37A1 7.62mm machine gun to his left. Now they were on the move and not buttoned down, he was the eyes and ears for the driver. Although Mackey was sitting up straight, his view was very limited. But the tank commander felt fairly relaxed: they were just going to the ranges and Mackinson was familiar with the roads having driven this route many times before.

  Down in the confines of the tank, the fighting compartment, Patsy and Ellis gave each other the thumbs up. They were just going to the ranges for the day and not a full deployment as they had feared. They could relax during the journey; their jobs as gunner and loader would start once they arrived at the ranges. For now though, it was the tank commander and the driver’s job. The fighting compartment extended the full width of the hull, with the turret suspended on a ‘ball race’ which gave it a 360-degree capability. The commander turned as Corporal Patterson popped his head up out of the turret’s second hatch.

  “Get your bone dome on, Corporal Patterson, you know the score.”

  “Sir.”

  Patsy reached down, grabbed the battered green bone dome, removed his beret and pulled on the helmet with its bulging ear covers, settling the earphones until they were comfortable.

  “That’s better. You know what the OC is like.” He said it with a smile though. He had a good crew, the best in the squadron. In the last regimental-wide competition on driving, handling and shooting, his tank and his crew had won. Anyway, he was just as pleased they wouldn’t be deploying today.

  “Well, Patsy, just a short day. Your own bed tonight, eh?”

  Chapter 12

  EAST BERLIN RAIL RING. 9 MAY 1984.

  THE RED EFFECT −2 MONTHS.

  Jacko handed his tour commander a mug of coffee and then he settled down on the carpet of grass that covered the edge of the railway embankment. It was Jacko’s turn to sleep but he had experienced a painful bout of cramp while trying to catch some shut-eye on the back seat of the Range Rover, hidden below them beneath the bridge. This was their second night out on Operation Bloodhound. They were due to be relieved by their second intelligence unit, Three Zero Alpha, later that morning at 0800. Their remaining unit, Three Zero Charlie, would also be out later that day. Intelligence headquarters were clearly worried about something.

  They were covering the railway line that came into Berlin from the north-east. Any incoming traffic could either turn south and continue into the southern part of East Berlin, or head north and continue around the rail ring that would take them west, deeper into East Germany, bypassing the centre of the city. This was the likely route for military trains passing through, heading deep into Germany to transfer military equipment between barracks, or upgrade the equipment assigned to the many divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GFSG). The worst-case scenario though was military trains passing through the outskirts of Berlin to reinforce the Russian Army already there, should there ever be a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Coming from the east, the train’s departure point could have been anywhere in Poland or Russia – the Belorussian Military District, for example.

  This was their second night and, after shifts of four hours on, four hours off during the day, two hours on and two hours off during the night, waiting for that elusive military train, they were both tired, overtired. They had, so far, managed to stay out of the clutches of the VOPO (Volkspolitzei) and the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Ministry for State Security, MFS, nicknamed the Stasi. The Range Rover had been hidden amongst some trees down below and they hadn’t used this site for some time. The occasional civilian snooped around, but the team had remained hidden until the locals went about their daily business.

  They were now tired, but in good spirits. However, they were disappointed they had not seen anything yet and concerned that their sister unit would get all the glory of a sighting. They would see a train before they heard it. The steam locomotives had a single white headlight and they would see it well before they heard the train approaching. Any military load requiring movement via the railway network would be moved by the Deutches Reichsbahn and pulled by one of their pre-war, refurbished steam trains. The Deutches Reichsbahn, formally Deutches Reich (German Empire), was founded when the Weimar Republic took national control of the German railways in 1920.

  “Can’t sleep, Jacko?”

  Jacko turned on his side in the knee high grass, sipping at his coffee, staring up at the expanse of stars twinkling above. “No, Sarge, too tired to sleep and too bloody uncomfortable on the back seat.”

  “Why don’t you kip outside? It’s warm enough.”

  “Bloody bugs all over the place. No sooner do I close my eyes, and I can feel them crawling all over me.”

  “Use a maggot and put your cam scarf over your face, you plonker,” Bradley suggested, referring to their green army sleeping bags. He lifted his binoculars and peered into the darkness seeking out that telltale prick of light that meant a target was finally heading their way. Nothing.

  They had been watching and waiting for over eighteen hours and, apart from the regular passage of high speed passenger trains and a few civilian goods trains, they had seen nothing. Not a military train in sight. The Berlin rail ring was a major rail junction, and military traffic had to pass through the outskirts of East Berlin if it was to make a quick passage to the western part of East Germany. The two operators were at a location they called ‘Newcastle Bridge’, a rail bridge that crossed over a ‘B’ road near the district of Karow. The rail line ran in from the east, turning south-west into Berlin, passing their current location before heading north-west to track around the north of the city. Although trains could turn south, generally military trains wanting to head into the centre or to the south of the city would come in from the east further south of the city, running into Friedrichsfelde and Biesdorf; sometimes carrying cargoes of military equipment and troops to the various Soviet units in and around the eastern part of the city. Often, the troop trains would stop over at Pankow, Marzahn or Karlshorst sidings to let the priority passenger trains overtake. The section regularly did a tour of these railway sidings looking for a prize, a fully laden Russian military train.

  Bradley suddenly stood up from his kneeling position, Jacko joining him, recognising the signs that something was about to happen. “Well?”

  “A single light. It has to be one.”

  He handed Jacko the binos and he confirmed that he too could see the single white light indicating a potential troop train. “It has to be,” he said handing back the bino
s, his voice excited, the need for sleep forgotten.

  They both watched patiently as the light, growing stronger by the minute, crept slowly towards them as it approached the railway junction and the traffic signals. Eventually, they could hear the hiss of the steam engine, the puff of smoke ejected from the black smokestack, and the clanking of the coupling and connecting rods, driven by the steam-powered piston, as they rotated the four large driving wheels. Bradley’s plan was to watch the train pass by, enabling him to check the cargo it was hauling. Then they would scramble down the gently sloping bank, climb back into the Range Rover and race to the next junction further along the line where they could confirm its final direction of travel. The silhouette of the black steam locomotive, the clanking of its rods and wheels, the rhythmic ejection of smoke and steam from its stack as it powered the train slowly towards them. The train started to lose way. As it got closer, they could pick out the two distinctive, familiar, bowed, black-plated shields that stood proud, curved around each side of the boiler near the front of the train. A sudden blast of steam and smoke burst from the stack as the engine slowed down to a walking pace, but still creeping towards their location. Towed behind the steam engine, of World War Two vintage, they could just make out a line of flatcars laden with tarpaulin-covered vehicles whose shape looked familiar, yet unfamiliar, to Bradley as he peered at them, in what little light the moon gave them.

  “What are those?” whispered Jacko. “FROG-7s?”

  Bradley remained silent, his eyes flickering over the steadily growing line of tarpaulin-sheeted vehicles whose shape grew ever more familiar. “No, they’re not FROGs,” he responded finally. “They’re too big.”

  “But look at the spacing.”

  The large road wheels could just be seen below the tarpaulin cover.

  “Look at the wheels, Jacko. They’re evenly spaced apart. The FROG’s two centremost wheels are closer together.”

  The sound from the locomotive steadily increased as it got closer, slowly crawling past them as they ducked down not wanting to be seen by the engine’s driver or the fireman, the smell of smokey hot steam wafting over them. The rhythm slowed down further, becoming more erratic as it came close to stopping completely. Ten metres further on, with an explosion of smoke and steam, it came to a halt, clouds billowing into the early morning air, the clang of the flatcar buffers striking against each other concertinaed down the line as they too came to a complete stop. The noise settled down to a gentle hiss as the locomotive’s crew stoked the fire, keeping the steam pressure up as they waited for the signals to change, giving them permission to continue their journey. Once stopped, likely as a consequence of priority traffic elsewhere on the circuit, they would wait before they either headed straight into the city, which was unlikely, went south, possibly, or turned north. This was the direction the section anticipated this train would go. Bradley scooted towards the flatcar opposite, Jacko remaining behind, keeping watch. Towering above Bradley was a SCUD-B, a ballistic missile and launch system. He looked along the line of flatcars but could see no further than the fourth one. He suspected there would probably be over twenty of them. Eighteen would be carrying the SCUD TELs (Transporter Erector Launcher vehicles); the rest would have either SCUD resupply or supporting vehicles. There was bound to be a goods wagon or two mixed in with the flatcars, carrying accompanying Soviet troops. They certainly didn’t want to get mixed up with them. They would respond aggressively if they saw Bradley and Jacko examining their precious cargo. Looking back, Bradley held up his right hand and signalled, in a circular motion with his finger pointing upwards, indicating Jacko should move to their vehicle and get it ready for a quick getaway. He continued to move along the line, looking for the plate that would likely be attached to one of the flatcars and where, behind a perforated, sprung-metal grill, he would find the paperwork, the distinctive DR ticket indicating the destination of the load. Bradley smiled to himself: Soviet secrecy overcome by the Deutches Reichsbahn’s efficiency.

  Looking up, the foreboding missile launchers towering some five metres above him, the TEL itself over two metres, gave him a sense of awe. The launcher vehicle was nearly fifteen metres in length. Called a 9P117MV, it was based on an improved MAZ-S43 chassis, with an uprated 650hp D12AN-650 engine to power its thirty-five-ton weight. Bradley touched one of the eye-level rear road wheels, capable of taking its cargo on roads or across country at speeds of up to thirty miles per hour. He arrived at the middle of the vehicle where he could just make out the bottom of the door of the combat cabin that dipped down in between the two central road wheels. Behind that door, a crew of two or three would sit at the main console that would control the launch of the missile that was positioned above. Bradley knew there was a crew of seven, but was unsure as to how many of them would actually be at the controls at the time of the launch; some would probably be situated in the shielded cabin upfront. The missile it carried was out of sight, beneath the tarpaulin, resting on its erector frame. The Scud missile, used in anger during the Gulf war, and hunted by the British Special Air Service, was just under forty feet in length, almost as long as the TEL itself. Powered by the Sayev 1KBkh M9D21, liquid-fuelled rocket engine, it had a range of up to 350 kilometres, a perfect delivery means for a tactical nuclear missile that could potentially be used on a European battlefield. Bradley continued to move forward, slightly nervous now, constantly looking about him for an unseen civilian, the Stasi, engine driver, or one of the escorting soldiers. He also felt a shiver when he contemplated the power of the weapons that were within an arm’s reach of him. Never mind the power of the conventional chemical or nuclear warheads it could carry, he knew that the propellant, that would speed the missile to its target at over 1,600 kilometres an hour, consisted of nitric acid, nitrogen tetroxide and kerosene – an extremely volatile mixture in its own right. Should a war break out between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, and should it turn into a tactical nuclear exchange, these very missiles would most likely be aimed at NATO targets in West Germany.

  Bradley jumped as the wagons jerked, the connecting chains between the flatcars rattling, the entire length of the train shuddered as the powerful locomotive at the front snatched them forwards.

  “Shit,” he hissed under his breath and immediately focused on the task in hand. The train could move off at any minute now. At the end of the flatcar, he could see the paler colour of the route ticket behind its protective cage and rushed towards it. He lifted the sprung-meshed grid that held the ticket in place and extracted it, stuffed it in his pocket and headed back towards the Range Rover on the other side of the embankment just as the train jerked again as if impatient to be on the move.

  Another jerk. This time the wheels of the wagons started to turn as the train slowly gathered pace, moving faster and faster. Bradley got to the top of the bank and watched until he was sure he knew which direction it would take. It took the track that curved to the right, taking its load onto the rail ring, heading north. Now certain, Bradley scrambled down the side of the bank and could just make out the puffs of exhaust from the rear of the Range Rover and hear the engine gently ticking over. Jacko was ready. He made one last scan of the area and jumped into the front passenger seat.

  “Let’s go, Jacko. It’s north.”

  “London?”

  “Yes.”

  The Range Rover crept away from ‘Newcastle’, the code name for their present location, and headed for ‘London’, the code name for their next destination. The vehicle steadily gathered speed, no aggressive motoring or lights to advertise their presence. Once they were away from the habited area though, Jacko put his foot down and raced down Pankgrafen Strasse. He weaved the vehicle around the corners of the narrow road, occasionally tilting over if he took one too fast; doing over eighty kilometres an hour at times, and without lights, as he took them north-west, running parallel with the rail ring. Speed was of the essence if they were to meet up with the train again.

  Bradley peered ahead through the wind
screen looking for the turning on the left, the narrow, partially hidden lane that would take them south-west where the train might well stop again before continuing its journey north-west; then turning west to head deeper in country.

  “There, Jacko!”

  Bradley was thrown forwards as Jacko slammed on the brakes before turning violently left, the low-lying branches smacking the Range Rover’s windows as they bounced down the narrow, weaving track. Bradley hit the button of the sunroof and the large hatch whined as it steadily slid back.

  “Can’t see a fucking thing,” Jacko moaned.

  Bradley climbed up onto his seat and hoisted his head and shoulders through the large cavity, gripping the front edge of the hatch as the vehicle ground and bounced its way along the track, heading towards the railway line that was now directly opposite them. He shouted down through the hatch, “I can hear it. Keep going.”

  Smack! A large branch struck Jacko’s window. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Keep going!” Bradley ducked as a low-hanging branch nearly took his head off, some of the thicker twigs painfully scraping across the top of his head. He was suddenly thrown forwards as Jacko brought the tour car to a violent halt. “Fuck, Jacko!”

  “Sorry, it was either that or we’d be sat on the rails in front of the bloody train. Can you hear it still?”

  “I might if you’d turn the bloody engine off.”

  “Sorry.” Jacko turned the key, and the Range Rover shuddered into silence.

  “Nothing.” Bradley slid down into his seat, opened the door and ran towards the railway line that crossed directly in front of them. He stepped onto the tracks and made his way into the centre, in between the two sets of lines. He peered south, looking for the solitary light that would indicate the steam engine was coming towards them. He cursed under his breath. They couldn’t have missed it, surely. He crouched down then lay down next to one of the steel lines, placing his ear flat against its cold surface. He put the palm of his hand over the other ear and listened. At first, all he could hear was the muffled white noise inside his own head. But then, a deeper rumble was being transmitted down the line: faint at first, but growing steadily louder, the vibrations of the wheels turning on the track, the distinctive click as it passed over a joint. It had to be the one. Often it was touch and go. An impatient engine driver might anticipate the lights, keen to keep to his schedule and move slowly ahead, while another may be distracted, chatting to the fireman and not as fast off the mark. But tonight they had struck lucky: it was on its way.