by Andy Farman
The troops who had held the toehold in those platoons old trenches had gone up the slope instead, along with the infantry who had ridden upon the tank decks.
No more than fifty members of 3 Company remained combat effective. That was the estimate of regimental intelligence and the battalion political officer, which was the same thing. For once though, it was a pretty accurate assessment.
The Czech infantry hugged the slope as their own tanks attempted to suppress the enemy tank fire one last time. A British Chieftain exploded and apparently satisfied, they finally began firing high explosive fragmentation at the infantry dug in above them.
The British Challenger II was rotating its position between three firing points, but sensibly its commander was keeping quite random the spot where they would reappear. But three is three and not thirty, so it was not a great exercise in patience for the gunner of the Hind-D to hold a vacant position in his crosshairs and wait.
After three minutes, C Squadron of the Kings Royal Hussars lost its OC as Jimmy McAddam and his crew suffered a minute of unbelievable agony trapped in their burning vehicle before the flames reached the main gun rounds.
A second lieutenant just two weeks out of training called up A Squadron’s OC, Major Mark Venables and identified himself as the new commander of C Squadron. Apart from acknowledging him and wishing him luck there was not much else Mark could do. One One Charlie was burning furiously, its chassis rocking with the internal explosions that were shaking it. The squadron commander’s tank passed it, and the next prepared position, as that was being illuminated by 11C.
His gunner suddenly slewed the turret to the right, away from the valley.
“Stop!” Major Venables saw what had attracted his attention, and grabbed the override, preventing him engaging a hovering Apache in the dead ground where the reverse slope began.
The Danish commander of Eskadrille 723 had spotted movement across the valley and had identified it as a target he was ill equipped to tackle. He summoned assistance but witnessed the destruction of a Chieftain before a Brit Apache arrived.
The Hind-D was stalking its next target, losing it in the smoke from the burning Chieftain and edging sideways to re-acquire, keeping behind cover.
The Danish Lynx had no communications with the British tank and neither had the Army Air Corps so they just used it as bait and waited for the Russian to show himself.
Completely unaware of the danger Mark Venables vehicle headed on for a new position, pulling into it slowly.
The Hind-D rose and fired a beam riding Atak-V anti-tank missile, the Apache locked on and fired a Hellfire anti-tank missile which would miss if the Russian made any radical manoeuvres. The Russian held steady, guiding the weapon unerringly towards the Challenger II. The Hellfire was faster and when it struck, the Hind swung left with the missile turning to follow the still active laser.
Mark saw something flit across his vision, but as it was not aimed at him he got on with the job at hand, but they would only fire once before relocating.
M203 Grenades began to land, fired by 9 Platoon, and this triggered the Czech’s advance. Rather than stay on the receiving end of random fire they closed in with the source, confident in their six-to-one advantage.
The sole surviving section of 8 Platoon occupied shell scrapes at the nearest point of the advance and they threw smoke mixed with HE and withdrew with 7 and 9 Platoons providing covering fire.
Encouraged, the Soviet infantry forged forwards but 3 Company was not pulling back another inch, and the ground did not allow the full weight of the enemy to fall on them at once. Most of the infantry were still on the steep slope below the position.
The close quarter’s sound of steel upon steel rang out, and only the occasional shot told those who were only within earshot that it was not the ghosts of Germanic tribesmen battling the shades of Publius Quinctilius Varus’s legions.
“Hello 3, this is 9, fetch Sunray, over.”
“3, negative, Sunray 39 has gone forward to support 32, over.”
“Ops!” Pat Reed shouted, reaching for an SLR. This was the crunch, and his battalion would live or die depending on the events of the next half hour. He had been told to expect reinforcement from 44 Commando but they had not appeared, and had probably been isolated from the Guards position by the Soviet barrage.
There was nothing more he could do that the next most experienced officer present could not.
“Sir?”
“The battalion is yours for a while. I am going to take a stroll across to 3 Company.”
His driver, orderly and radio operator pulled on webbing and came across to join him.
His ‘Rover Group’ was a little on the light side now. Sergeant Higgins and the half section from Defence Platoon, aka the Corps of Drums in peacetime, were dead and Arnie Moore had been missing for several hours.
The RSM and Rodriguez entered the CP at that moment and Pat paused to take in the muddy duo.
“I don’t know whether to quip ‘Look what the cat dragged in’ or ‘Someone has been in the wars’?” Pat grumbled as he had half expected to discover that the American paratrooper had become a casualty of the shelling. Despite his tone he was in fact warmed to see the RSM safe and well.
“Grab a rifle and bayonet sarn’t major, you too young man.” He added for PFC Rodriguez benefit
As Arnie crossed the bunker for one of the British rifles and bayonets he looked for new filters while he was at it.
“Any fresh respirator filters?” Arnie asked. “Mines about done in.”
The Operations officer held out two, one for Arnie and one for Rodriguez.
“Watch him carefully RSM.” The Ops officer said just loud enough not to be overheard, and nodding towards the commanding officer.
“His boy was killed.”
Arnie had met Julian Reed during the advance to contact with the Soviet airborne forces. A very likeable young man and one who was clearly respected by his troops. Arnie thanked God that he and his wife had started their family late, and all were well below military age.
The first hint of dawn, muted by the cloud and rain, an almost imperceptible lightening of the horizon at their backs as they headed toward 3 Company.
The sound of fighting came to the small group as they worked their way along the muddy tracks and Pat picked up the pace. The dark crater where the original 3 Company headquarters had died was on the right; Tim Gilchrist had first occupied it with a single radio operator for want of anything better being available when assuming command, but that was before the rain had come in earnest. It was more pond than protection now. They had co-located in the 9 Platoon HQ trench as the platoon commander had been a casualty earlier. The wrecked and burnt out Defence Platoon Warrior was on its side on the track beside another crater, where Sgt Higgins and the four Drummers had been killed.
The fighting masked their approach and Pat almost walked into a kneeling group of men at the side of the track preparing grenades. By the outline of their helmets they were Soviet, not British or American. They had managed to work their way around to the rear of 9 Platoon and were about to tilt the odds even more in the attackers favour.
Pat thumbed off the safety catch, and one head turned on hearing the metallic click. Lighting flashed and Pat looked upon his enemy, then shot the man in the face.
It was Arnie’s place to bring up the rear, to chivvy along and ensure the tail-end-Charlie’s kept up, but his offer to lead this time had been refused and so he had slotted himself behind the CO instead.
Lt Col Pat Reed shot the first man and then a second and third, but he had not moved his position, he was stood upright and illuminated by his own weapon’s muzzle flash.
A hand grasped the yoke at the back of the CO’s webbing, and yanked him roughly backwards, a burst of fire narrowly missing him. By the time Pat regained his feet the enemy squad, all six of them, were dead.
Arnie Moore made no apology, but gave no clue that he was responsible for the CO’s tumbl
e either. He shouted to the nearest 9 Platoon trench, identifying himself and the rest as the CO’s Rover Group and warning them to watch their rear.
“Now.” Pat shouted to his radio operator. “Tell Jim Popham to go now!”
Jim Popham’s small force of Warrior IFVs moved into view and opened fire from the flank.
In order to engage the IFVs the tanks left the cover of the hillside, moving back into the churned mud soup that was the valley floor where they were again ‘in-play’ from fire from the Highlanders Milan teams and C Squadron.
The infantry attack slowed, faltered, and only the officers were keeping the men from withdrawing.
Bill allowed the rifle to point naturally at the target, the sight rising and falling with his breathing. At the bottom of the breath he squeezed, the butt kicked back and he followed through.
“Next one” Stef muttered. “Three clicks left, he’s got no rank tabs but he’s got a radio operator dogging his heels.”
This one was canny, he didn’t stay still even when he was stationary, his head and torso were in constant motion and Bill spent a while trying to predict his next movement. It was like trying to hit a balloon tethered in a gusty wind, his head would not stay still.
“Sod this, it’s boring.” He grumbled at last, raising himself on his toes to alter his position fractionally before relaxing once more. He fired, and the radio operator fell on top of the wily officer, pinning him to the ground. A second’s pause as another minor realignment of position took place and Bill shot the officer in the head.
“Who’s next?”
“A guy who just realised he is now the battalion commander…go six clicks right, the one with the big grin on his mug.”
Bill shot him too.
The two leading Warriors blew up, hit by tank fire and an RPG respectively; the latter struck the turret and set off the stored HE and APDS clips. The wrecks blocked the way for the remainder and Pat’s planned Hammer and Anvil withered and died. Only Jim Popham’s Warrior was able to fire into the flank, aiming between the burning vehicles.
“With me!” Pat Reed shouted, and ran past Arnie Moore towards the trench fight.
“God give me strength!” the RSM grumbled. “Someone break the CO’s legs before he gets himself killed, f’christ sakes!” Arnie added with an oath.
The enemy had the skeletal 8 Platoon’s two trenches and one of 7 Platoon’s. Stabbing down with bayonets, clubbing brutally with rifle butts at the defenders in the remaining trenches.
Voice muffled by his respirator Pat screamed hatred at these men who had killed his son and were now killing his battalion. He charged forwards without waiting to see if anyone followed.
A big sergeant rammed his bayonet through a respirator and into the face of a young American paratrooper, firing a shot to release the blade now wedged in a cheekbone, he grinned at the effects. Pat’s bayonet took him straight through the sternum and the force of the charge knocked him from his feet. The man to the sergeant’s right turned and raised his rifle and bayonet high. Pat’s side was unguarded but Arnie Moore’s blade took the man in the throat. Arnie’s helmet took most, but not all, of the force of a rifle butt and he fell to his knees. He looked up and saw the weapon reversed and dawn’s first rays upon the blade. Another rifle butt took his attacker in the throat and Arnie felt the ground vibrate as pounding boots thudded past him, driving into the Czech infantry, driving the men in front back into those behind.
Upon reflection, it was the most disciplined killing frenzy the American had ever seen.
The Royal Marines of 44 Commando gave no quarter, they slaughtered without remorse, avenging their comrades of ‘Forty Two’ and leaving bodies in their wake, dead and dying as they retook 3 Company’s latest position and drove the Soviets back onto the steep slope they had so recently climbed. Men ran past him, tired men, the gun groups catching up with the riflemen who were now firing downhill.
The sun’s rays revealed the blasted hillside degree by degree, announcing an end to the longest of all nights.
Arnie looked for the CO and saw Pat kneeling and firing, but not at the beaten enemy on the slope, he was aiming at the infantry approaching the foot of the Vormundberg.
The Royal Marines raised their aim and the gun groups, still breathing heavily set down their GPMGs and got down behind them. A winded man is not the best shot, but there were plenty of targets down there, struggling through earth turned to molasses by countless armoured vehicles churning tracks in the previous twenty hours or so.
81mm and 51mm mortars began to land on the valley floor and those who had just reached the five tanks, all of them burning or oozing smoke, tried to use them for cover.
There was return fire but the rising sun was in their eyes.
Lt Col Reed removed the magazine off his SLR and checked his pouches for a fresh magazine, but he had used all four. Arnie took the magazine off his own rifle and handed it across.
Pat Reed took the proffered magazine with a perfunctual nod and continued with the killing.
It ended of course, not with the complete massacre of the hated 23rd Motor Rifle Regiment but in acknowledgement by those on the hillside that they still possessed humanity. Men were surrendering, waving opened field dressings, the only items in their equipment that were white.
Perhaps a hundred survived, perhaps less. Either way, the 23rd was effectively no more.
“Colonel Reed?” a voice called out enquiringly from behind them.
Pat raised an arm and on turning saw the battalion’s artillery rep approaching, and pointing.
“Look sir, above the far crest!”
Across the valley, on the top of the hill where the enemy had first appeared the previous day there now emerged more, climbing out of the river valley beyond.
“Fuck!” swore Pat. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!...haven’t we done enough, haven’t we?”
The best part of two first class Divisions approached, the 77th Tank Division and the 32nd Motor Rifle Division, two hundred and twenty eight main battle tanks, eighty two infantry fighting vehicles, plus artillery and the myriad support units required to maintain and run the divisions.
They had trampled the French armoured and Canadian mechanised brigades into the mud on the banks of the river to reopen the supply line, and now they would deal with the worn out defenders of the Vormundberg without hardly a pause.
“No sir, look up!” the artilleryman said. “Above the hill!”
Thin contrails, hundreds of objects were plunging out of the cloud base above the hill and the valley beyond, MLRS and 155mm ‘smart’ ordnance began winking like countless flashbulbs before reaching the ground.
They stood watching those twinkling lights, the defenders from all the nations upon the Vormundberg, the seemingly harmless light show in the distance, but then the sound reached them. It pummelled their ears as not just one, but all of the grid squares from the crest back to the river were ‘removed’.
4 Corps had won the race.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves"
(William Pitt)
BOOK TWO
‘Crossing the Rubicon’
CHAPTER one
Germany: West of Potsdam.
Saturday 20th October. 1034hrs.
The pain roused Svetlana, dragging her back to the realm of consciousness where she took stock of her situation with little clue as to how she came to be where she was. She was swing from side to side in the breeze, the motion accompanied by the creaking of a branch above her head.
She saw that dawn was some hours past and that the rain had recently stopped. She could hear the drops that still fell from the branches to land on the soaked ground.
The pain radiated outwards from her lower back but when she tried to reach around with her right arm to examine the area, she could not in fact feel that arm at all. In a panic she groped with her left arm, searching for the right limb. She moaned in pain as
the slightest movement increased the agony in her back. The arm was not there but there was no blood on her left hand either, surely they would have been if it had been ripped off? That thought sparked a memory, one of being in a cramped but warm cockpit one moment, and hurtling through the night and the rain the next, as if her seat had been shot out of a cannon.
A pretty close analogy as it happens.
Caroline had saved her, ejecting them both just as the abused airframe had said ‘Enough’ and given up the ghost.
She looked up and saw her arm had become trapped in the lines of the parachute when she had hit the tree and the canopy had collapsed. She retrieved the pale limb with difficult and not a little pain. The loss of feeling had been due to restricted circulation as if she had slept upon it, and she sobbed with agony as full blood flow was restored.
Regaining terra firma was difficult and she suspected a bruised coccyx was the cause. Before her first flight with Caroline back at RAF Kinloss, a seemingly long time ago, she recalled the stunningly attractive American pilot leaning over her and strapping her in whilst explaining the drills for abandoning the aircraft and the importance of posture at the moment of ejection. Svetlana’s libido had got in the way and she had become distracted by the possibility of kissing that mouth rather than listening to the instructions that were coming out of it.
She now leaned against the tree and listened. There was just the wind and the sound of the trees, nothing else. So, she thought to herself, Elena had kept her word by stopping the war, rather than just pocketing the financial inducement and continuing it once she had seized the leadership. That was something she had expressed her reservations about to Scott Tafler, whether Elena Torneski could be trusted to settle for US backing of leadership of the Russian Federation, and a whole lot of money, or to go for broke and a new Soviet Union, one that encompassed all of Europe.
“Where are you, Caroline?” she muttered to herself and looking around, seeing nothing but trees, she added a rider to that question. “And where the hell am I, for that matter?”