by Andy Farman
Colin had some ideas, or rather someone else’s, for dealing with the church, and sought out the 82nd’s Captain who commanded 4 Company. Neither man was in the business of ancient building preservation, if it came to a case of either the church, or their own men’s lives. The American was in full agreement and he sent his runner to scrounge for the necessary items along with the British CSMs.
The business of taking out the steeple and tower began, and the Russian’s were unable to do anything about it, half an hour later and the Challengers ceased fire, the top fifteen feet of tower and the steeple had fallen into rubble.
Rather than attempting a costly fire and manoeuvre action across the open ground, a withering hail of small arms fire was levelled at each possible firing point in the church. Under cover of this fire, three small groups of men from the 82nd Airborne crossed the churchyard to gain the base of the church wall. Despite the covering fire they left two of their number lying on the exposed ground. The lengths of wood they carried were used to lift, and hook plastic containers onto the wire mesh, wire coat hangers taped to the sides of the containers snared the mesh and the paratroopers withdrew, losing another man as they went.
The three explosions that followed were not produced by particularly large amounts of explosives, but the results were catastrophic for the defenders in the church.
“It’s a trick the PIRA used to employ against us in Ulster.” Colin had explained. “A three gallon can of petrol hooked on to the mesh, the explosives taped to the street side of the can vaporises the petrol as it is blasted into the building, and a coupla thou's of a second later the vapour ignites.” The home-made fuel/air weapons had turned the interior of the church into a furnace, which was now starting to cook off munitions either stored or in the pouches of the defending Russian airborne troops.
The fight for the opposite side of the street had halted whilst the church was dealt with, but now the fight there renewed, although with less resistance from the defenders, as the majority of their troops had been inside the strongpoint, and who were now very visibly and audibly lost.
The defenders started to withdraw, they were on a loser and they knew it, so they planned to bug out and find another spot to defend, but none made it out of the net the battalion had thrown around the village. A dozen eventually threw down their weapons and surrendered, they were all wounded and the ammunition was gone. Once they had been rounded up the advance to contact was resumed.
1 Platoon led the way out of the village but it did not take the road, that was too obvious and likely to be mined or DF'd, registered for pre-planned Defensive Fire, if the enemy had the munitions or mortars. They took to the fields to the south of the road, forming the point of the spearhead as the battalion continued west.
CSM Probert and his small platoon headquarters element emerged from the village behind the three infantry sections. He had with him his runner, the platoon sergeant, Oz, and an air defence team consisting of the big man from Lancashire, Gdsm Troper and his sidekick L/Cpl Veneer. So as not to draw special attention from an enemy, a platoon headquarters will try to look like any ordinary rifle section, staying well spread out and covering their arcs.
Troper wasn’t watching his arcs of fire when Oz kicked him in the backside; he was grouching to himself and examining the blisters on his hands. Oz walked beside him, telling him his fortune if he didn’t switch on, before doubling back to his place in the formation.
“I thought they were told to hold until the afternoon, at the very soonest?” said a sergeant lying to one side of Captain Bordenko. Nikoli reached across and retrieved his binoculars from him. “No plan survives first contact, sergeant…” he brought the binoculars up to his own eyes, “…we just have to keep chipping away at them.”
The first troops were starting to emerge out of the western end of the village, and shaking out into section sized arrowheads. Nikoli watched the men running across the snow to take up their positions; they were not burdened down with the bulky Bergen’s, they carried only their fighting order of webbing and the Bergens side pouches as ‘patrol packs’. They were all clad in arctic whites, and as they drew away from the darker background of the village, he had trouble picking them up against the snowfields backdrop that had coated the countryside. He started to lower the binoculars when one of the soldiers emerging from village caught his attention. There was something about the way he carried himself as he walked him behind one soldier and delivered a kick to the man’s backside, before walking beside him with his head canted over, no doubt dispensing some choice criticism. Nikoli had seen instructors at Brecon perform ‘corrective surgery’ in the same manner, and he smiled to himself as it came to him who this man was. He watched Oz run back to where he had come from, and turn his head to speak as he passed one particular soldier. Nikoli focussed on that man and recognised him straight away. So, the enemy coming at them was the Coldstream Guards again, and he began looking for the distinctive American helmets, which would indicate some of the 82nd Airborne was still temporarily fighting alongside the survivors of the guards battalion. The next company to exit the village was American; Nikoli watched that company angle across the fields to take up position, rear right of the company his friends were in. Truly, they had sent the ‘First Eleven’, as Colin would say.
It was time to get back to their first positions, and after crawling backwards off the small rise Nikoli dropped down into the ditch they would use for their circuitous route. By walking in the ditches that bordered the fields they avoided leaving clearly visible tracks in the snow, a signpost stating ‘Bad Guys – This Way’.
Nikoli had collected the survivors from five aircraft that had been shot down before reaching their DZ’s, sixty-seven men, correction, thirty-five men now that the village had fallen, with which to delay the enemy.
All he could hope to do now was make a fighting withdrawal until they reached the first airborne brigade at its blocking point.
Military Flight One Four Eight: Same time.
The large Boeing in its blue and white livery was virtually empty; its five passengers were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Senator Rickham and their aides. The parties occupied opposite ends of the aircraft and General Shaw had no wish for the seating arrangements to alter, so it was with some exasperation he reacted to Rickham’s appearance at his end. The aircraft had intended landing in the UK and collecting the politicians, doing a quick turn around and returning. Henry had waved off suggestions that they should have an escort across the Atlantic and back.
“From Europe to the US certainly, but that’s it. A no fly zone around the aircraft will suffice for the route in.” Mid way across the ocean they received news that their intended passengers were in Germany, not England, so the flight plan changed.
“Shaw, there are fighters on our wings; they appeared about ten minutes ago…are you attempting to intimidate me?”
Henry glanced out of the window, seeing not US aircraft but German Tornados, and managed to refrain from grinning in anticipation.
Rickham’s two aides had trailed dutifully after him, to Henry they looked more like whipping boys and girls than PAs, and the general suspected it was Rickham’s ability to bully then that had been the deciding factor in the senator s selection of them.
“Why would you think that I would want to intimidate you senator?”
“Because it’s the only thing that motivates Neanderthal’s, and so you think that it must be the same for everyone else.” he snapped back.
Henry kept his tone light.
“These would be the same Neanderthal’s that are the only thing keeping you from being forced to speak Russian…or Chinese, depending on who occupies the United States first, if we lose?”
“Don’t get smart with me Shaw…and you can address me as Sir!”
“Actually senator, I can’t…but to get back to the fighter escort, what makes you think that they would obey orders from me?”
Rickham turned puce.
“You�
�re the goddamned chairman Shaw; send them away…right now!”
“I’m afraid senator that the German air force does not take orders from American generals.”
Rickham opened his mouth to speak and then stopped, ducking down to peer out at the Tornados.
“What the hell are they doing out here!”
“It is not out here to them, we are entering German airspace.”
It took a second for that to factor in with the senator. “Shaw, we’re supposed to collection the Europeans from some place called Northolt, what’s going on?”
“At this critical time the British PM and the German Chancellor are seeing for themselves how their men are holding up, so we are landing at RAF Gütersloh and meeting them there.” A full two hours ago an airman had informed him of the change of destination, and General Shaw had told him to save his shoe leather and return to the communications centre. Henry had lied to the young man about informing the senator because he wanted to see his eyes when he realised he was in a war zone.
“Don’t worry its all of ten minutes away from the front…as the Flanker flies.” Henry smiled cheerily at the politician who had turned a worrying shade of grey, and now turned and pushed his aides unceremoniously out of the way as he hurried back to his seat.
The news that the aircraft was coming was kept as a closely guarded secret by the military, the ‘Air Force One’ call sign was only used when the President was aboard so the next available military flight number was used. Civilians have radar screens too, and the establishing of a safe corridor to Germany, along with a fighter escort gave the game away. One air traffic controller at Reims ATC took a break, and made a call on his mobile phone from the car park of the air traffic control centre.
As ballsey as the US president had revealed himself to be, no one in the KGB really thought for one moment that the President would come so close to the front, in so visible a manner.
Nevertheless, they scramble activated a sleeper cell once the destination became obvious.
North of the Faeroe Isles: 1350hrs, same day.
There was almost absolute silence aboard the USS Twin Towers; men spoke in whispers as they went about their business. Captain Pitt was in sonar with a headset on, staring unseeingly at a mug of coffee before him on the commandeered workstation. He had been sat there with his shoulders hunched in concentration for over an hour, he hadn’t acknowledged the sailor who had placed the mug there, and he hadn’t touched it. A film had formed on its surface and it had grown cold. They had been in company with a Canadian vessel, the diesel submarine HMCS Victoria, until the Canadian went ahead to increase the chances of interception. That had been four hours before, and then seventy minutes ago there had been the sound of a torpedo in the water, followed by a submerged explosion and breaking up noises. Since then there had been nothing but the normal sounds of the sea, no clue as to what had occurred.
His head rose an inch as he heard something, and he looked sharply at the operator next to him.
“I don’t think it’s the Canadian, sir.” He consulted the digital read-outs before him but pulled a face. “Too far off to get a range or bearing Captain. Roughly east northeast is the best I can do.”
The faint sound, carried across ten miles of ocean by freak thermal eddies faded out.
“Jeez, those Canadians build quiet boats.”
“They didn’t build them.” Rick Pitt murmured. “HMCS Victoria used to be HMS Unseen, they were the Upholder class, built by the Brits and then sold almost as soon as they had been launched.”
The young sonar operator frowned.
“Why the hell did they want to go and pull a dumb stunt like that…those boats are ghosts?”
“Asshole's with more braid than brains or integrity, toadying to bigger assholes in government…” his voice tailed off as something again sounded from across the horizon.
Pitt wasn’t the expert here, and he was looking at the expert but saying nothing and waiting to be told what it was he was hearing.
“That’s a short sprint and a knuckle…nuclear plant, not the Canadian diesel…bearing zero eight zero degrees, maybe fifteen thousand yards, give or take.” The young man eventually told him. A ‘knuckle’ is a noisy area of turbulence caused by a fast moving submarine making a radical turn, and the Captain didn’t think it likely that the enemy had done it out of boredom.
“Transients Captain” the operator murmured. “A torpedo in the water…there’s another one…and yet another.” He glanced at his panel. “Different bearings, zero seven seven degrees, zero eight zero and zero eight five degrees…differing high pitch screw sounds, two are Russian…we got us a gunfight out there, sir!”
It got quite noisy in the headsets and the sonarman kept him informed as best he could as to who was doing what. “Someone’s runnin’…it’s the Nuke, an Alpha I reckon…noise makers…more noise makers…that’s the Canadian…can’t hear the third sucker, but there’s definitely three boats out there…that’s a knuckle…hull poppin’, someone’s going up...now they’ve stopped…transient, Victoria got another one off ”
Captain Pitt closed his eyes, trying to picture what was going on out there. There were now four torpedoes in the water, all acoustic and re-attacking if they got dummied. As much as he would have liked to have been in a position to assist the Canadians, submarine warfare doesn’t work like that. There is no IFF, identification friend or foe devices underwater, no easy way of telling who was who, and torpedoes are not exactly discriminating in whom they sink. A furball below the waves between multiple antagonists would undoubtedly result in friendly fire deaths, what the Brits called ‘blue on blues’.
After what seemed much longer, but was in reality just over four minutes, there was a hollow boom in his headset and his eyes flew open, someone had died. It was followed two seconds later by another almost identical sound, and he looked at the sonar operator.
“Different bearings sir…I got breaking up sounds, same bearings as the impacts…two guys jus’ died, I guess.” It was just a figure of speech, but the breaking up sounds represented far more than just two men whose lives had been lost. Two ships companies had died, one undoubtedly soviet, because the remaining NATO vessels were either up north covering the Denmark Strait, or southeast between the Faeroes and Scotland. The big question was, Pitt asked himself, was HMCS Victoria the other?
RAF Gütersloh, Germany: Same time.
General Shaw walked down the airstair and held up five fingers to the waiting Royal Air Force staff cars as he joined a pair of ground technicians examining the starboard landing gear. Rickham was already inside the car and shouted angrily at the general to ‘move his ass’, and when he was ignored he snapped at the young woman in uniform behind the wheel to pick the general up later. He had himself ignored the Group Captain who commanded the RAF Station, walking quickly past him at the bottom of the airstair without a glance or a nod to acknowledge the salute he had been given, heading straight for the car.
The driver did not like her boss being treated like a lackey, or a general officer being sworn at by a bloody overweight civilian, and she certainly wasn’t taking orders from the arrogant sod, so she ignored him.
There was nothing left of the front outer tyre on the gear, it had shredded and now lay in fragments along the length of the runway where airmen were already collecting them, lest they get sucked into an engine intake.
“That looks nasty?”
Henry had changed into attire more fitting to a war zone before they had landed and both airmen looked up at the speaker and saw the black woven stars on his collar. The camouflage material of the generals’ jacket and trousers wasn’t what they expected from someone with five stars, the boots too showed signs of wear, this wasn’t a man expecting to take any salutes from troops passing in revue. The faded webbing holster had sat on the same hip in Vietnam when Shaw had been a young lieutenant and other clothing and equipment had seen Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and Afghanistan when muck
and bullets had been in the air. There had been a few other places in between, unpublicised and ‘deniable’ actions where politics by other means, had been extended.
They started to rise but he gestured them to stay where they were.
“Sir, it happens now and again, but then again the Reds paid us a visit yesterday and it could have been caused by a piece of sharp shrapnel lying on the runway that we missed.”
There was nothing there to indicate in any way that a sniper a quarter mile from the end of the runway had shot out the tyre.
Henry looked around the field, the snow had left a white blanket across everything, including bomb craters and as he squinted, he could now make out indentations in the otherwise flat surface of the aerodrome. The station’s control tower was a pile of fire charred rubble, and a hangar was in ruins, no doubt there was other damage he could not see but the place was open for business anyway. The loss of AWAC cover had given the enemy a number of opportunities to sortie raids behind the lines, but now that the AWACs that had covered North Cape were overhead, albeit with exhausted crews, the hole was plugged.
“Have you got any tyres like these on the base?”
“No sir, my flight sergeant is givin’ Lufthansa a bell, they probably won’t fly one in but it’ll only take a couple of hours by road. We’ll get the jacks under your bus straightaway so we can stick it straight on.”
Henry was about to tell them he wouldn’t be going back on that aircraft, but a flight of RAF Jaguars taking off would have meant him shouting, so he didn’t bother. Giving the men a nod and a smile he headed toward the waiting staff cars that drove them into the camp to the station command centre.