by James Rouch
Only changes in roof level hampered their progress, with one alleyway being crossed by a bridge they hastily improvised from abandoned scaffolding poles and planks.
“We’ll go down here.” Over the edge of a parapet Revell looked into an empty street. Even as he did the doors of a building across the way burst open and civilians poured out, some clutching children, most staggering under loads of baggage.
As they hesitated, trying to orientate themselves, unsure which way to run, a column of armoured personnel carriers motored into the street.
Some among the crowd clearly recognised the NATO emblems on the tracked vehicles and rushed into the middle of the road, waving their arms, gesturing wildly to stop the APC’s, imploring their help.
Instead of slowing the lead vehicle accelerated and drove straight over two men leading the crowd. Before the others could scatter the thrashing tracks and broad hull fronts were moving down others. Revell was about to shout but it would have been useless. The vehicles crew had not even the excuse they were shut down and couldn’t see the people. Several men rode on the top of each and he saw some level their automatics at the crowd and open fire. On the last vehicle a gunner swivelled the dark bulk of a fifty calibre machine gun and hosed the throng, even aiming at those out of their way, and finally turning to send a last body-shattering burst into a knot they passed who were stood petrified, aghast at what they had witnessed.
As the three vehicles rattled from sight some of the troops, adorned with colourful scarves, tank crew goggles and other embellishments were waving clenched fists and weapons in evident celebration.
Not the only witness of the carnage, Revell turned to find Andrea was looking in to his face. She shrugged. “That was unnecessary. The ammunition is precious. Anyway, it could have been Russians in captured vehicles.”
“Definitely NATO troops.” Hyde turned back from the edge, “No doubt of that. Maybe the same ones who fragged the civvies in the bank?”
“Well I would hate to think we have two units who indulge in atrocity on that scale.” Revell watched the women below recoiling form the gruesome scene of crushed and mutilated bodies.
It was from the last building in the street that they descended, out of sight of the carnage. Before doing so they were able, unobserved, to carry out a surveillance of the surrounding roads. One held what they wanted. Two eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers’ old BTR 60 models, adorned with whitewash daubed Russian slogans, were parked outside the shattered front of a small department store. The sole trooper who had been left on guard was anxiously bobbing about on the pavement, craning to see what the other men were looting, and hopefully awaiting their return and his chance.
He never knew what hit him. Dooley’s blade struck twice in the small of his back even as his hand clamped over the Russians mouth. Burke was inside the lead vehicle in an instant and had started the engine even as the others clambered into the cramped interior.
“Why do they always stink?” Through a still open side hatch that swung and clanged heavily against the steeply raked hull Dooley tossed out opened ration packs. Bundles of new clothing and masses of household goods followed. Their immediate route was littered with the household effects.
Creating their own route through the plants and fountains of a miniature park Burke sent the APC crashing and bucking. It canting right over as the four wheels on one side churned deeply in the turned soil of a flower bed and then rearing up as it drove across the top of a bullet riddled Mercedes taxi.
The pressure of the impact burst the vehicle’s trunk and luggage was thrown out to scatter its colourful contents across the road. The driver’s side doors were also thrown open and bodies flopped from the front and rear of the vehicle to be ground to a pulp by the APC’s huge tyres.
“Slow down, we don’t want to break this thing.” Through the tangle of its passengers flailing limbs and tumbling bodies, Revell moved forward to take the commanders seat behind their driver.
Both large front vision flaps were open and Revell saw the terrified face of a Soviet machine gunner who hurled himself aside just in time, leaving his weapon and two other men to disappear beneath the sharply raked front of the vehicle.
There were slight bumps as the deeply treaded tyres ran over them. A smattering of small arms fire chased the vehicle until it swerved through a sharp turn. Blasts rocked them as mortar rounds plastered their route. Burke knew that they came by chance; there was no way coherent opposition to their appropriation of the APC could be organised so quickly. They had acted so fast it was highly likely it hadn’t even been missed as yet. He closed his front hatch but made no move to avoid the explosions. Several times they drove through the falling debris of a round that landed almost under their wheels.
One eighty-millimetre bomb struck the top of the armour plating just behind the small turret that Libby had occupied. The concussion pounded dust from every joint in the plating and made their ears ring. Another landed right beside the vehicle and flayed long strips of thick rubber from a retreaded tyre. Pieces flew off and the wire mesh that filled it and provided its run-flat ability protruded from the split casing. There was a severe rattling from the worn out compressor as it tried to keep the ruined tyre filled with air.
“One more turn, sharp left.”
On Revell’s’ shouted instruction Burke broad-sided the APC through a manoeuvre that rolled the damaged tyre from its buckled rim and flattened all the road furniture; bollards, traffic lights and pedestrian guardrails, on a refuge in the centre of the road.
The bridge was ahead of them, artillery rounds falling about it, sending geysers of water high above the broken parapet.
“Tuck us in among those civvies.”
It was that running, stumbling, crowd, mostly women and children that saved them from the anti-tank rocket batteries positioned on the far bank. As they skidded to a halt on the far side they were surrounded by gun waving, yelling, military police and Revell had to talk fast.
Identity established there was as much shouting and waving to get them to drive the APC clear. They were directed to park in a side street close by, at the tail end of a row of Soviet vehicles, mostly soft skins and several with hastily improvised NATO markings Clearly they were not the only ones who had borrowed enemy transport to get back to their own lines.
Artillery fire was falling regularly in the area of the bridge approaches. Revell knew it might have been simply to prevent NATO reinforcements crossing, but there were smoke shells among it and that suggested it was quite likely the Russians intended to rush the bridge without waiting for any preparation. It was a tactic the Soviet forces had often applied in their advance in to West Germany and was responsible, at a heavy cost in casualties, for much of their early success. Not that everything had always gone their way though.
Due to the wholesale desertions of Czech and Polish units in the early days of the war some Soviet attacks had not been pressed. In places the Zone had developed into a broad ribbon of land up to one seventy kilometres wide. In this region in many places it more closely resembled the battlefields of the First World War, with infantry filled trenches and blockhouses facing each other across a no-mans land less than a rifle shot wide in some places.
As they trudged away in search of their transport, abandoned earlier and hopefully left to receive attention from their light aid detachment, they passed a short line of heavily battle scarred armoured personnel carriers. They were three M113’s; much modified and rebuilt late versions. The insignia they should have carried had been obliterated by scraping and the thick daubings of camouflage paint. Their hulls sides were heavily splattered with fresh blood. Scraps of clothing were caught between the tracks shoes and in the suspension wheels. A child’s shoe was wedged beneath the side-hung towrope on one and hanks of bloody scalp and hair were caught around the suspension of the others.
The troops who lounged on top were all very young. They sported bright coloured scarves and various designs of goggles were push
ed up on to the shaven heads of those who had removed their helmets. Several were openly smoking joints and there was no obvious insignia to identify officers or NCOs. Rock music blared from speakers fitted to the hull sides.
“I think we know this mob.”
Sergeant Hyde called up to a driver whose drooping eyelids suggested the joint he rolled between heavily stained fingers was not his first. “What outfit?” He added sarcastically, “Had a good day?”
The reply came in French and carried insolence and disinterest, gabbled with a heavy provincial accent that made it impossible to comprehend. The driver leered down at Hyde’s scared features. From the end vehicle in line came the sound of a fifty calibre round being chambered ostentatiously.
“Leave it for now sergeant.” Revell indicated for the NCO to walk on. “I think we’ll come across them again.”
The driver turned away and ignoring them in a moment in a haze of cannabis smoke.
Behind them there came a loud rumble as charges were exploded beneath the bridge piers. One of them, less well packed than the others, sent a fast climbing gout of dark smoke and chunks of masonry high above the rooftops. As the thunder of the massive detonation died away and in a temporary lull in the shelling, there arose a spine chilling sound. Across the width of the river there came what started as a scream, and then turned in to a howl, a collective hoot of distress.
Refugees, temporarily herded from the far approaches were now rushing back, to look down in the torrent filled abyss that lay between them and safety, between them and the west. Between them and their escape from this newly forming area of the Zone.
So much masonry had been brought down that in a couple of places it was humped above the flood, forcing the river to detour around the broken stone. Already the surging water, propelled by the flood of the winter rain was crumbling those pathetic islands away.
A woman, lifting her arms in distress, then gathering a young child into each, flung herself over the jagged edge of the severed road. Another, mercifully without children, hurled imprecations that did not carry and then followed the first, her slim body making hardly a ripple in the fast moving water.
Tipping his helmet to the back of his head the French driver lolled against a raised hatch He had watched the big pieces of stone rain down on to civilians crowding forward too soon on the distant road. He grinned and blew out a plume of white smoke as he witnessed the scene of the suicides. “Oui, it is a lovely day…a lovely day sergeant. Truly a lovely day.”
* * *
The Iron Cow looked terrible. The hover APC appeared to have received scant attention, just been abandoned in a corner of the garage. It had been crammed up against a wall, penned in by a heavy truck and two partially dismantled Hummers being stripped for spares.
The workshop seemed to have become no more than a dump for abandoned equipment. Various boxes and coils of wire were draped across the APCs hull A large pot of semi-gloss brown paint had been upset on the hull top forward of the turret and now made a glistening series of rivulets down the camouflage decorated aluminium armour. Sergeant Hyde’s fist tightened in the loose material of a mechanics coveralls. “You said twelve hours. You’ve had fifteen.”
His toes barely making contact with the floor the man tried not to look at the NCO’s expressionless mask of a face, or what would have been a face before an anti-tank round had seared it away.
”What are you bitching about Hyde.” Sergeant Taylor, his coveralls saturated in grease and his many pockets bulging with tools and anonymous pieces of metal, intervened. “Put my bloody mechanic down. You’re never bloody satisfied. You want me to line the interior in a nice chintzy fabric, maybe put blinds over the gun ports?”
Hyde released the mechanic who initially tried to saunter away nonchalantly but instead scuttled to bury himself out of sight among the vehicles under repair.
“I don’t have time for smart valet parking. We can tug that pile of shit out when you want it. Its all done, the bits that matter anyway.” Taylor scrubbed at his hands with a cleaning fluid that left incongruous patches of pink skin showing.
“She’s done?” Sergeant Hyde found it hard to believe. “The blades, everything?”
“Appearances count for bugger all. Oi, Watts.”
At the mechanic NCOs’ summons, a skinny private with pens behind each ear stuck his head out of a glass walled office. Its windows were adorned with advertising stickers that revealed the establishments civilian origins.
”Yes? What is it now? I can’t ever get these returns finished. HQ wants them faxed in an hour”.
“Give me that list of spares for the Iron Cow.”
Relieved it was nothing more the harassed clerk dived in to the office, rummaged briefly and then scurried out to hand over a computer printed list.
“This is all the gear we rounded up, in fifteen hours.” There was a definite sneer in Taylor’s voice. “See it’s all listed here, spare ride skirts and fixing strips, new recoil mech’ for your cannon, two complete reconditioned banks of decoy dischargers…what the fuck do you do with them, you’re forever tearing them off along with a chunk of the hull…new hydraulic pipes and a servo for the front and rear doors, a complete new roof hatch and set of command cupola vision blocks plus a new rear fuel tank and miracle of miracles I even found replacement blades for the port Allison. Add in that we patched or filled better than twenty shell and splinter hits and we hate welding aluminium…”
“Ok, I believe you.” Despite himself and the state of constant antagonism between himself and their maintenance chief, Hyde was impressed with the volume of work carried out. “How soon can we have it?”
“What the hell is going on here?”
The officer who barged in to the scene had just sufficient bombast and haughty attitude to instantly alienate Sergeant Hyde. He waved a manicured hand towards the hover APC. “Is that damned thing yours?”
“It’s our vehicle, yes.” Revell sensed he might have returned to the workshop at just the right moment.
“I’ve had enough of you cowboy outfits dumping vehicles on us and expecting immediate results. When, if, your transport can be signed out then it will be.” From a tool littered workbench, Libby picked up a clipboard; he nudged Sergeant Hyde and handed it to him. He in turn passed it to Major Revell, who had entered through the back lot.
After glancing down the list on the clip board Revell looked out through the partially open sliding doors and took in the activity around some large Mercedes saloons and a couple of expensive looking sports cars. He scanned the page while the officer who stood before him, bristling at being kept waiting for a response, tried to take it away.
“Seems you’ve managed to put quite a few civilian cars back on the road.” His finger traced further down the list. “And a good number of top of the range Mercedes, Lexus and Audis have been trailered out.”
Uncomfortable, looking for a reply, the workshops commanders’ false bottom set of teeth protruded as he pursed his lips. His attitude had altered, but still he tried to project an air of authority. “I decide the priorities here…”
“And clearly who has the most clout and what will best serve your bank balance.” Revell noticed the man colour and saw him fighting to respond. He didn’t give him the opportunity. “I’ve had enough of self serving bum-kissing specimens like you. My APC is ready in ten minutes or we take our choice from the Merc’s and Lexus saloons you seem to be finding room for. You can then explain to their four and five star owners what happened to them.”
The officer turned about for support but saw only repressed smirks among his men, all of whom had edged closer to witness the confrontation but who now ducked aside and pretended occupation elsewhere. “It’s not possible.” His truculence was almost childlike, petty. His voice rose in pitch, in desperation. “It can’t be done.”
“It had better be. I shall leave two of my men.”
Even as Revell said it, Dooley strode forward and planted himself beside his office
r.
Revell had seen the big man and Andrea eyeing up the beautiful cars packed into the workshops outside area and anticipated him volunteering.
Less expected was Andrea volunteering, though she had been running her eyes over the sleek lines of a Jaguar V12 saloon. “I shall be happy to stay and ensure our transport is pulled out in time. And if it is not…” As she looked at the metallic blue automobile her hand came to rest on the ugly outline of a thermite grenade clipped to her belt.
* * *
“The situation called for…special measures, but an operation went wrong and an important piece of equipment has been lost. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Something…something very important, has been lost behind enemy lines.”
Revell sensed that Colonel Lippincott was very uncomfortable. He had paced as he had mumbled through the introduction and preamble now he sat behind his desk and kept glancing at the sour faced Intelligence Officer who was also present. The Colonel was measuring his words, as if afraid he might say too much, as if the Intelligence Officer was monitoring his every word.
Saying nothing, Revell was enjoying the situation. More used to being on the receiving end of disciplinary blasts from his commanding officer, this was very different and he waited with interest to see what was coming. Getting the summons had not surprised him.
After the trouble at the repair shop he had anticipated problems originating from some pen pushing senior officer ready to castigate him. It might have been for any reason, perhaps for causing a delay in the repair of a favoured piece of luxury transport, maybe a sports car promised to a wife or mistress. Or perhaps the complex arrangements for shipping out such a trophy had been disrupted or delayed.
But it had been very quickly become abundantly clear it wasn’t that. No general was on the warpath, not this time. Colonel Lippincotts’ manner strongly suggested he was deeply unhappy about something. Maybe there was some crap mission in the air and the Special Combat Force had drawn the short straw, but Revell couldn’t guess why that should bother his commanding officer. It never had before.