by James Rouch
The officer was not so lucky. Falling to the ground with both legs broken, he was hit again, in the face. Blood, teeth and tissue spurted from his mouth. He twisted around to make a desperate lunge for the closing door. Fingers locked on the edge of the opening, he was dragged as the scout car began to reverse. Twice the door was cracked hard against his hand, but his grip held. The third time it was opened fully and then slammed viciously. Fingers severed, the officer sprawled and had no chance to avoid the deep-treaded wheel that passed over his stomach. A last writhing contortion and he was finally still.
‘Do I fire?’ Dooley had re-shouldered the launch tube and was tracking the retreating target. ‘Do I bloody fire?’
For a moment the scout was stalled as it became entangled with the Hummer. Watching, with his mind locked almost into a trance, Hyde couldn’t give the order. He could picture the frightening scene inside the vehicle: the dim red light, blurred by swirling fumes and smoke that carried the sour stench of cordite, the non-stop hail of bullets striking the armour blending with the thunder and rattle of the cannon and co-axial machine gun.
And there’d be blood everywhere, some from the crew where they’d been cut by flying scabs of metal punched from the hull where tungsten-tipped rounds had almost penetrated, and much more from the injured man on the floor.
That’s just what it had been like when Hyde had lost his face to the furnace heat generated by a Soviet antitank round. A hollow-charge shell had struck the APC square in the side and jetted a plasma stream of molten metal and explosive across the crew compartment. Their East German prisoner, laid bound on the floor, had instantly become a demented, screaming blazing torch.
‘A couple of seconds and it’ll be gone ...’ Getting no response from Hyde, Dooley took aim. ‘Fuck it, I’m bloody firing.’ He bellowed his rage as the missile clipped a sapling, veered from course and pancaked onto the ground far short of its target.
Broken open by the impact, the solid fuel spilled and burned to form an instant smokescreen that masked the target, and when it cleared, it was gone. Seconds later the warhead self-destructed and sent a plume of steam and woodland debris above the treetops.
The three men exchanged no words as they trudged to rejoin the others, now emerging from cover.
Following a few paces behind, Hyde looked at his hands. They were shaking. He realized that deep within himself the months of combat were finally taking their toll. Circumstances, and his own stubborn refusal to see it, had driven him to and beyond his limit.
Passing the Hummer, Hyde checked the driver. Sometime during the brief action he had died. Alone, uncomforted, ignored in the skirmish going on about him, he had succumbed to the massive head wound that had blown a chunk from the front of his skull. Pulverized brain matter still dripped into his lap. Most likely he had known little about it after that single smashing blow. He had probably even been beyond pain. It had been a mercy, of sorts.
‘We lost Solly, Ferris and Lang. They caught a burst trying to get out over the top. Same as ours, the door jammed.’ Preoccupied with a dozen thoughts, Revell didn’t register the British sergeant’s detachment from the scene. ‘Apart from that just a few scratches.’ He took off his helmet and, in wiping sweat away, added more dirt.
The light rain was doing little to disperse the blood from the three corpses huddled by the interlocked APCs. Except in one place, where it mingled with a large puddle that was gradually reddening.
‘They’re both fucked, Major.’ Burke reported his examination of the collision- damaged transports.
It took that to snap Hyde back to reality. ‘Do you fancy being just a trifle more precise? Or would you like to be carrying the fifty-calibre for the rest of this trip?’
‘Reporting, sir. Command carrier burned to a crisp, number two carrier has broken back, three links damaged, and jammed transmission. Number three has jammed transmission, commander’s cupola ripped away ... Oh yes, and the electrics have been buggered by a bit of shit a penetrating shell sent flying about inside. They’re both workshop jobs.’
Ignoring his sergeant’s glare, Burke looked back at the APCs. Fuck it, he was a combat driver, not a bloody infantryman. And all this bloody hassle caused by one sodding little stray Warpac scout car. He spat in annoyance.
‘What’s up, boy?’ Ripper displayed his mass of little green teeth in a broad grin.
‘You reckon you’re too ancient to learn how to use your feet again?’
‘Salvage what you can, Sergeant. Ammunition and ration packs to take priority.’ Revell walked across to the Hummer. Something about it had been bothering him. He walked around it twice. Somehow it jarred, but he couldn’t figure why.
‘It is new.’
Revell started; it was as though Andrea had read his mind yet again. That was the thought he’d been forming. A glancing re-examination confirmed it.
Beneath a superficial coating of mud the Hummer was factory fresh; it didn’t even have any unit or other markings.
‘How long is it since we saw any new NATO transport in this sector of the Zone?’ Stepping back, Revell took in the perfect paint work, new tires and complete complement of shovels, axes and gas cans.
‘I cannot recall.’ Andrea looked to the blazing APC and the collision-damaged pair of M113’s beyond it. ‘I thought that all replacement equipment was issued to headquarters staff and their like, for the vital movement of filing clerks and senior officers.’
‘You’re all sick. You know that, don’t you?’ Pushing between the officer and Andrea, Sampson felt the driver’s neck for a pulse. At the first brush of his fingers the cooling of the man’s flesh told him there was no point. He wiped blood from his fingers, dragging them down the side of his jacket to rid them of the last adhering clots. ‘Half of West Germany is a blitzed and contaminated wasteland and all you’ve got to complain about is who’s getting the new sets of wheels.’
There was a loud shout and the three of them saw Dooley plunging into the billowing smoke shrouding the fiercely blazing APC.
He staggered out of the pall seconds later, clutching a bulging, smoke-stained kit-bag. There were two ragged-edged holes in the tight-stretched drab material. When Dooley pulled it aside, in contrast to the earlier noisy excitement there was just a single plaintive ‘cheep.’
The bright-coloured birds clung forlornly to their perches. A beak, a foot and a scatter of yellow and green feathers marked the only mortal remains of the Russian gunners’ unwitting target. The victims’ abrupt demise had for the moment at least tamed the excitability of the surviving birds.
Satisfied the loss was no worse, Dooley recovered the cage and slung it over his shoulder. ‘Well, what are we waiting for then?’ He ducked as a large chunk of red- hot metal flew overhead, propelled from an explosion on the side of the APCs hull.
‘That’ll be my flame tanks.’ Struggling with the straps, Thome attempted to shift a bulky pack to a more comfortable position. He didn’t bother to turn and look. ‘There’s always a spot of residue left in them.’
Sergeant Hyde detailed men for the point and rearguard. Ammunition aboard the burning M113 was beginning to cook-off, making almost too much noise for him to make himself understood. He was relieved when the major signalled for them to move out.
Of the many dozens of actions he’d been in, it was the first occasion in which Hyde could recall having been bothered by the sounds of battle. He noted it as perhaps a further indication that his nerve was cracking.
As they filed past the flattened corpse of the Soviet officer, few of them gave it as much as a cursory glance. Only one man deliberately averted his eyes.
‘Now don’t you go on letting things like that upset you, boy.’ Ripper gave the man a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘It’s gonna come to all of us. And besides, he wouldn’t have wanted to live no more. Not with his pecker flattened and the end shot off his tongue. His sex life wouldn’t have been worth a pinch of chicken shit.’
Boris made no reply. It was not
the sight of a body that he avoided. He had seen more than most, and having suffered fates far more horrific than this lone example. What bothered him was that as a Russian deserter who had for more than a year been fighting on the NATO side, he was becoming less and less able to look upon the death of his fellow countrymen.
It had not always been like that. When he had first gone over he had exulted at every Warpac death he had witnessed. During his time in the Red Army, many men had attempted desertion from his unit. Most had been dragged back and brutally executed in front of their comrades as an example. And now, as he gradually learned more of the methods by which the communists were keeping their forces together in the field, the sight of the remains of an ordinary Russian soldier filled him with sadness.
In the Soviet army the penalty for failure, even if through no conceivable fault of his own, did not result only in a man’s death at the hands of the sadists in the Commandants Service, the field police; it usually meant a similar sentence on some or even all of his family. It was to that they had sunk, to the methods of Stalin’s time, and worse.
The junior officer whose blood he had walked through had been a victim of that system. His crew had jettisoned him to avoid putting their mission at risk. The system was run by fear.
For Boris it held a special terror. He had deserted during the confusion of a heavy air raid. If for an instant his disappearance was suspected of being anything other than total obliteration beneath a falling bomb, then already his family would have suffered.
As he trudged with the others through the rain, sometimes beneath the scant shelter of the dripping trees, he felt as though he no longer cared whether he lived or died. All that was important was that he did not fall alive into the hands of the KGB, or their military equivalent, the GRU.
‘I wonder who the poor sod was that they carted off.’ Burke didn’t address the question to anyone in particular, but his gruff voice carried to others in the file. ‘They must have wanted him bad to take risks like they did. If we’d had any TOW rounds left or been keeping company with an Abrams they’d have been deep in the shit.’
‘I made a note of the driver’s ID.’ Sampson wiped water from his face. ‘He was with some piddling little supply company, Dutch I think. Whoever the guy was who was with him he couldn’t have been that important.’
‘Perhaps.’ Clarence didn’t raise his voice, but with its precise clipped tones it carried. ‘Perhaps the Reds have heard the stories and they’re looking for Paradise Valley.’
‘Quiet back there.’ They had a long way to go, and Revell wanted to put an early stop to speculation like that. With Russian reconnaissance patrols already probing the area they could not afford to waste time on a wild-goose chase in search of some mythical end-of-the-rainbow-type supply dump.
He was about to order an increase in pace, to take their minds off the speculation, but against the continuous and virtually ignored thunder of artillery came the much louder, and closer, throbbing of a Soviet gunship. Their step quickened automatically.
FOUR
They were lost. Time after time Revell and Hyde had conferred at crossroads as to the right or best direction. Almost as often, within a kilometre their chosen route had veered to the wrong heading. In the rugged mountainous terrain they would have been slowed to a crawl if they had struck across country, and so their compasses were virtually useless. The instruments served for little more than to act as general indicators that now and again they were heading in the desired direction.
Their only map was no better. Many of the roads were not marked and in any event all signposts had been removed long ago. It was an action planned to confuse the enemy, but as now it often had the reverse effect. Also against them was the fact that even before the war this had been a sparsely populated area of West Germany. The few scattered houses and farms they glimpsed were all abandoned and anonymous.
A first halt had been called after a couple of hours, while officer and NCO scaled a wooded ridge in the hope of identifying some landmark. They tried hard to conceal their frustration when they returned exhausted after the fruitless effort.
‘At this pace it’s going to take a bloody week to get back to our lines.’ Scully felt no benefit from the forty-minute rest when they restarted. The straps of his pack and his rifle sling bit into his shoulders. Their weight felt doubled by the water that lay on them and dripped from every crease of his combat clothing. Save where a tear was letting in an occasional icy stream he was still dry, but the wind was cold and beginning to burrow its way through to him.
‘Keep it moving.’ Revell looked back from the head of the main group and noticed a perceptible slackening of pace. ‘We must keep them moving, Sergeant, keep them on their toes. Another hour and then we’ll fall out, look for somewhere sheltered where we can tight a fire and prepare something hot. That’s if we don’t have any more Hinds buzzing around us then.’
‘I think we’ll have to take that risk anyway. Put a hot meal and a drink inside them and this lot will work wonders. Another stop under the trees with just a sip of cold water and a nibble at an oatmeal block and we’re going to have a hell of a job getting them on their feet again.’
Revell had to agree. ‘Pass the word that’s what we’re going to do. In return I want to up the pace.’
‘Major, Major!’ PFC Garrett came sprinting back from the point, shouting at the top of his voice.
Hyde’s snarled warning got the young soldier to lower the volume but did nothing to abate his excitement. His words came tumbling out in a breathless rush that had nothing to do with his exertion.
‘Dooley’s seen something, Major. We’ve all seen it. It’s incredible. You got to come and see.’
There was little to be got out of the eighteen-year-old while he was so worked up. Revell had seen him in the same state before, when he was on the substitutes’ bench at an inter-unit football game. A rush of emotion rendered him almost inarticulate and completely incomprehensible, and it would be simpler to follow him than attempt an interrogation.
Taking Hyde with him, Revell moved cautiously to the apex of the sharp bend that had taken the point out of sight. Dooley and another man stood in the middle of the road, holding their rifles casually, just staring ahead.
‘What’s all the bloody fuss?’ Hyde punched Dooley on the shoulder, raising a miniature cloud of spray.
‘It’s all green. Can’t you see it, everything’s green.’
And it was. Ahead the road lay dead straight for several hundred meters. Trees made a canopy over its entire length and the weak light of an overcast day filtered down in a soft green light through the mass of fresh spring leaves that sprouted from each branch and twig.
Tired though he knew he was, Revell realized that his eyes were not mistaken. That gentle verdant light was the same as the others were seeing. And there was grass and other low plants growing at the roadside, making gentle avenues of soft waving colour where they flourished between the moss-covered trunks.
But that wasn’t all. Among the lush undergrowth were patches of yellow and, less obvious, swaths of delicate blue. Flowers, primroses and bluebells. And there were others, tiny delicate blooms that had no right to be there.
‘There’s no flowers in the Zone.’ Dooley gawped in total disbelief. ‘I thought I’d seen everything in this fucking oversized no-man’s land, but I didn’t think I’d ever see flowers. It’s, shit, it’s beautiful.’
They walked slowly forward along the gently climbing avenue, surrounded on all sides by the luxuriant carpet and canopy of fresh foliage. The rest of the company followed, all vigilance forgotten as they took in what they saw. Even Andrea, the hardest of them all, appeared unable to fully comprehend the sight that met them as they walked forward.
Retrieving the bird cage from the man he’d left it with, at a price, Dooley pulled down the canvas and lifted the miniature aviary high to swing it about. ‘Come on, you lot, this’ll cheer you up. It’s just like home.’
Revi
ved by the clean, natural scent of the woods, the birds began a chorus that within seconds had an answer. A lone thrush warbled a reply, and Dooley shook the cage to stimulate his choir to greater effort, but it had the reverse effect.
Below the overhanging trees they had a respite from the rain, the overhead cover reducing it to a fine mist. Not a single plant, stem or leaf had the tell-tale blotches of unhealthy colour that would have betrayed the use of chemical weapons in the vicinity. Even the litter from the previous fall smelled wholesome and invigorating. The combined scents saturated their every breath and with revived memories washed away death and suffering and battle.
As Hyde deliberately slothered through the moulding debris, he noticed tire tracks, and called the major’s attention to them. ‘Only the one set, fairly fresh.’ Kneeling, he spanned his hand across them to gauge the width. ‘Not a Russian pattern, and certainly not wide enough for that Warpac scout car. I should think it’s likely they belong to that Hummer.’
Nodding, Revell decided not to mention that he’d recognized the track pattern. Inhaling deeply, he enjoyed lungfuls of the untainted air. Since long before, he’d thought he’d lost his sense of smell, in all but the most extreme of conditions. But now it seemed as if the months of breathing chemicals and the stench of partly consumed explosives and super-napalm had only been serving to prepare him for this experience.
Still audible, the echo of the Russian barrage reminded some of them of the danger of completely dropping their guard. Nearly all of them had seen friends killed in an unwary moment.
Gradually though, as they walked silently forward, experience reasserted itself through their awe, though they could savour what they saw. Ahead of them, a blackbird scavenged among the dead leaves, flicking them aside as it searched for insects. It held out until the last moment before flying off ahead of them.
‘Everything I know tells me this place just shouldn’t be here.’ Try as he could, Revell could see no evidence at all that this oasis of life and colour had ever received any dose of the poisons that drenched every other part of this great swath of German territory.