Killing Ground

by James Rouch

‘I see that you doubt me.’ The disembodied voice blasted out again. ‘That is understandable. I shall expose myself.’

  Dooley tittered. ‘That’s supposed to set out minds at rest?’ He had to shove fingers in his mouth to comply with Sergeant Hyde’s order for silence.

  There came an electronically amplified thud and then a resonant ‘click,’ as if the bull-horn had been put down while still switched to full power. There was a brief period of dead silence and then from behind the machine gun nest strolled an unarmed officer. Walking into the open, he turned to beckon behind him and was joined by three young soldiers. Their battledress was immaculately new, but long hair straggled from beneath their helmets.

  The trio lounged against the blockhouse, masking the machine guns. Reassured, but still maintaining a degree of caution, Revell went forward with Andrea and Carrington. Advancing to meet them, the first man made a careless salute.

  ‘Lieutenant Hans Voke, commander of Dutch Pioneer Company seven four nine.’ He grinned a broad grin that exposed a gold tooth. ‘I am welcoming you to NATO supply depot number twelve. You may have heard of it; the unofficial name is Paradise Valley.’

  ‘Doesn’t look much like paradise to me.’ Keeping a tight grip on the side of the truck, Thorne was bumped by others as the eight-wheeled Foden wallowed through huge potholes.

  The basin of land dominated by the castle was over two kilometres in diameter. They were nearing a small village set in its centre, and dwarfed by the jagged ridges and precipitous slopes around it.

  Apart from the straggling collection of about twenty houses and a small church, the only other sign of habitation in the valley was a picturesque farm on the slopes opposite the castle.

  All of the buildings were from another and gentler age. Half-timbered for the most part, some with shutters and fenced gardens, the only sign that the twentieth century had created any impression on the place was the abandoned hulk of a farm tractor beside a rotting woodpile.

  Pulling into the yard of a small sawmill that was little more than an open-sided shed beside a house with blue shutters, the truck came to a stop with a hiss of air brakes. When they’d all dismounted it drove forward beneath the shed.

  ‘So where are all the goodies that are supposed to be stashed here?’ Looking about him, all Dooley could see was a typical abandoned West German village, scruffy from long neglect.

  ‘You are standing on them.’ Voke displayed his gold tooth again. ‘But perhaps it is improper of me to say that. You are standing over them, a small part of them.’ Beside him stood an electric saw bench. The drive belt had perished and fallen off. He pressed the start button.

  There came the subdued hum of a well-maintained pump starting up and the sigh of powerful hydraulics. The Foden began to drop smoothly as the floor beneath it sank.

  ‘What you tell me about the two men in the Hummer is a cause for worry.’ Voke led the major down a long well-lit corridor that smelled of gun oil and linseed.

  ‘They were two of my men; they deserted early in this morning, I think.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Here they have knowledge of this place. You can be certain one was taken as a prisoner?’

  ‘My sergeant saw it happen. The man was wounded, but he thinks not fatally. But what can your man tell them—just what have you got here?’

  ‘It would be more quick to show you while my men’ show yours where fresh clothes and boots are to be found. Of course they are not mine to give, but the provost sergeant and the last of the stores clerks were evacuated by helicopter last night, and you can see,’ he indicated his own impeccable turnout, ‘I am not in a position to tell on you.’

  They turned a corner and with a sweeping wave of his arms Voke announced the huge subterranean hangar they’d entered.

  For a battle-weary commander like Revell, who for a long time now had almost given up hoping for, let alone trying to get hold of replacement equipment, it was an Aladdin’s cave.

  In the great cavern beneath the floor of the valley were row upon row of factory- fresh wheeled and tracked armoured personnel carriers, armoured cars and armoured re-supply vehicles. In the distance was what looked like a small mountain of crated engines and other spares.

  Voke tried to hide his amusement at the major’s open-mouthed amazement. ‘There are seven more rooms like this.’

  ‘All filled like this?’

  ‘Certainly all filled, but not all like this.’ Voke led the way out again and talked back over his shoulder. ‘Another holds pieces of light and medium artillery, another contains engineering equipment. Two are filled with soft-skin transport; I cannot recall what is in the others. But that is not all. There are other storage areas for electronic equipment, radar spares and the like. And then yet more for clothing, small arms and ammunition. All on the same scale.’

  They were passing a series of large rooms whose fireproof doors had been strongly wedged open. Looking in as they passed, Revell could not identify all that the various crates and racks held, but he saw sufficient to be more impressed and more bitter with each he hurriedly scrutinized.

  ‘Why the hell hasn’t any of this stuff ever been issued? There’s enough here for two or three battalions. We’ve been screaming for it for months.’

  ‘Actually, a clerk told me that here there is enough to equip at least a brigade, or even to refit a division. One of my men swears he has even seen several crated gunships. I do not disbelieve him.’ Voke’s tone had an edge to it now, and he was no longer smiling.

  He led into a large circular room. The centre was dominated by a crescent of computer terminals and telex machines. Leaving only space for two or three doorways, the walls were lined with filing cabinets. Voke tugged at the handle of the nearest. It was locked. ‘You see, for a bureaucrat the turning of a key makes everything safe. We should have fitted the Free World with a lock, and kept communism out that way.’ He unleashed a massive kick at the cabinet, denting its front. ‘We give them the latest machinery, the best computers, and still they only feel happy when they are pushing pieces of paper from tray to tray.’

  ‘Doesn’t any of this material ever get issued? The road in hasn’t seen real traffic, maybe not all winter.’ Tapping at a keyboard, Revell was surprised when the screen glowed to life, displaying the gibberish he’d typed. Its green glow was eerie in the dimly lit room.

  ‘I have not been here even that length of months. All I have seen is perhaps five or six small loads being taken out by Chinook. High-value specialized equipment, radar, that sort of thing. Not enough to keep the cobwebs off the stacker trucks.’ ‘Is that your task here, materials handling?’ ‘No, Major. I was sent here to prepare all this for destruction.’

  EIGHT

  Tugging open the elevator gate, Voke led across the dusty interior of the shell of a house and out into the rain.

  Looking back as he instinctively closed the street door behind him, Revell could see nothing about the property, even at this distance, that would betray its real purpose.

  Voke noticed the inspection. ‘It is good, isn’t it? As far as we know it has fooled all the Warpac sky-spies, surveillance satellites and reconnaissance aircraft. Certainly they have made no attempt to destroy this very tempting target.’

  ‘You think they still don’t know it’s here?’

  ‘Well, perhaps by now they do. I understand their interrogation techniques are crude but effective.’ Voke shrugged. ‘I expect by this time our man has told them everything. We shall have to hope they do not arrive quite yet. It would spoil my preparations.’

  ‘What are your plans for getting out?’

  ‘We were due to be picked up at about the time the jamming became so bad.’ Rain plastered to Voke’s face the long blond hair that made a fringe below the brim of his helmet. ‘The chopper did not arrive, so we altered our plans.’

  ‘Reckon they forgot about you?’ Revell noticed that the road was not the soft asphalt it appeared, but concrete thick enough to take the biggest trucks. It had bee
n washed over with tone-down paint, but a small patch that had been missed revealed its true colour.

  ‘Forgot? Yes, certainly it is possible. At this time a company of pioneers will not rank high in the list of transport priorities, especially as many of my men are too old for combat duties. Old William admits to fifty-six, but I think he could well be sixty, or even more. There are about five of us under the age of thirty, out of ninety-six. No, it is ninety-four now, isn’t it?’

  ‘So what are you going to do, gas up a few of the Bradley’s and make a run for it?’

  ‘Surely you are familiar with the ways of the Dutch army, Major.’ Voke laughed. ‘Even in battle they have to vote on everything. My men discussed the position this morning, when it became obvious the pick-up was not going to happen. I was not invited to the meeting. There I was kicking my heels expecting them to produce a demand for overtime pay, and instead they said that they wished to stay and defend this complex.’

  ‘With less than a hundred men?’ Revell tried to keep the amazement out of his voice. ‘This place is vast. You’d be spread far too thin. Sure you’ve got limitless ammunition, and if it was just a case of holding that narrow pass we entered by I’d say you could hold out for some hours. But there’s nothing to stop them pushing infantry through these hills at any one of a dozen points. The ground may be rough, but it’d only delay them, not stop them. Or they could come in low and fast and drop a few chopper loads before you could get Stingers on to them.’

  A smug look came over Voke’s face. ‘For air-defence there is an RAF regiment battery dug in at that farm. They too were due to be air-lifted out this morning, so we are not alone in being overlooked.’

  Revell had forgotten the Rapier they’d seen chasing the MIG. He had to concede that point. ‘But you still haven’t the manpower to defend the whole area. You’re just wide open.’

  There was disappointment in the lieutenant’s expression. ‘I had hoped we could persuade you and your men to stay, but we cannot force you to join us. Look, Major, I know that time is precious, but will you give me just thirty minutes, that is all I ask? Just thirty minutes to show why I believe we can defend this place against whatever the Russians throw at us.’ He could see he was not winning the argument. ‘Listen, it will take at least that time to bring some transport to the surface and fuel and load them with ammunition. Tell me what you need and I will have my men do it right away. When we get back, if you still wish to go, then no time will have been lost.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve nothing to lose.’

  ‘You just can’t fucking do it.’

  ‘And why the bloody hell not?’ Scully resented Garrett’s objections. ‘What’s so fucking wrong with it, that’s what I want to know?’

  ‘It’s ... it’s wrong. It’s not decent. You can’t cook a meal in the oven of a mobile crematorium.’

  ‘You are picky, aren’t you? Look, this place has a cold store the size of a house. It’s packed full of food I had forgotten existed. The only kitchens I can find here are run off a ruddy great LPG tank that’s bone-dry.’ Scully patted the steel flank of the trailer-mounted field crematorium. ‘This little beauty has its own bottle already connected. It’s never been used to burn bodies, so where’s the harm in me using it to womp up a meal?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s not proper.’

  ‘Well then, you don’t have to eat what I cook, do you?’ Refusing further discussion, Scully finished levering apart great slabs of frozen steak. He threw the last frost-covered chunks inside. Partially closing the heavy semi-circular door, he played with the setting controls until he had a low steady flame.

  He turned his attention to hammering the contents of the sacks of frozen vegetables into more manageable-sized lumps. ‘Same as usual.’ He grunted as he swung another over arm mallet blow. ‘All welded together. Those civilian contractors must make a fortune out of pushing the old stuff onto the army. It’s probably from the bottom layer of one of the first EEC food mountains.’

  ‘How long is it going to take?’ Hyde tapped the metal tip of his toecap against a portion of meat that had fallen into the mud. It rang, as if it too was metallic. ‘Looks like they’ll take a week to thaw.’ ‘This is not what you’d call a standard catering kitchen.’ A slight touch on the flame control and Scully jumped as they instantly transformed to roaring blue jets. He made a hurried readjustment.

  ‘I asked how long.’

  ‘Give me a chance, Sarge.’ Having finally satisfied himself that the flame was about right, Scully carefully closed the door and secured it. He had to go on tiptoe to see that all was well through a small thick glass porthole in the side of the oven.

  ‘When the major went swanning off he said thirty minutes. I’ve still got twenty left.’ Filling two buckets with assorted lumps of glistening vegetables, Scully added a gallon- of water to each and then they too went in. ‘This lot should be done just before he gets back. It won’t be cordon bleu, but it’ll be done. Salmonella special coming up,’ he muttered under his breath, and then out loud, ‘It was never like this at The Dorchester.’

  The rest of the company were asleep in an underground barracks. A couple of the hardiest had showered but the others had not bothered when they’d discovered there was no hot water. They’d been content with clean clothing.

  Scully had left them down there as soon as he’d kitted himself out. Even in the lift going down he’d experienced the all-too-familiar sensation of claustrophobia. Volunteering to prepare a hot meal had got him out without having to explain. As much as any of them he needed rest, but not in that stark warren with its hollow sounds and the perpetual thumping of the air conditioning.

  Satisfied he’d done all he could, he sat on a pile of boxes containing more of the ice-encased steak, shifting to an upturned pail when the cold struck through to him. In under an hour they’d be trying to’ fight their way out through a tightening ring of communist armour and artillery, groping almost blindly in closed-down APCs from one desperate situation to the next. And then there was still the river. At least the Bradley’s’ new water-propulsion system might give them a chance in the strong currents, if the bridge was down, as by now it most likely was. In the elderly M113s they wouldn’t have had a hope. Pushed and spun by the currents, they would only have been target practice for Warpac gunners on the banks.

  Shuddering at the thought, Scully tried to blank it from his mind, but failed. All he could see was the cramped inside of that horrid aluminium box as they were tossed and drenched and hurt and gradually sank. ‘God, don’t let me die in one of those tin cans.’

  ‘I know exactly how you feel.’

  Scully hadn’t realized that in his abstraction he’d been staring past the sergeant at the first of the Bradley APCs to be brought above ground, and had spoken out loud.

  ‘I learned to hate them a long time ago.’ Tentatively, Hyde put his fingertips to his face. The scar tissue and layers of grafts meant that he sensed rather than actually felt the touch. It was unreal, not a part of him, feeling as it might have done after a local anaesthetic. Only he lived with that sensation all the time. He gave a start as fat spat loudly in their improvised field kitchen. There was a slight tremor in his right eyelid. That always came on when he was exceptionally tired.

  Hyde looked for a distraction. He walked down a pathway between the church and a house whose ground floor appeared once to have served as a small general store. From that side of the hamlet a narrow road ran between unkempt fields and pastures to the slopes beneath the castle. It then climbed steeply through a series of hairpin bends to the gate of the ancient fortification.

  Looking that way, he could see the West German countryside as it used to be and could imagine himself back in time. Back to when you could drive all day and not see a single burned-out tank, a ruined town or masses of decaying bodies. A time when men were not astounded by green leaves on trees, a time before shells, nukes and chemicals had transformed almost every part of it into a land fit only for the warrior
s of hell, and him into one of them.

  Revell wasn’t in the least surprised when the lieutenant drove the unissued Range Rover staff car straight up to the castle. He’d been more than half expecting it.

  The steep and twisting approach road was the only way to it. With a sheer drop of at least a hundred meters on every other side, combined with the building’s massively thick walls and commanding situation, it certainly had an air of impregnability. But it had been constructed in another and far distant era. It was possible the architects might have envisaged future wars when ways might be discovered of delivering blows against the fabric from a greater distance off, but in their wildest dreams they could never have imagined the power of those new projectiles.

  They drove through a narrow double gateway and into a small courtyard. Voke was the first to alight. ‘If you will come with me, Major.’

  ‘You two stay with the transport.’ Revell made to follow the Dutchman. ‘And Dooley, don’t go wandering off on one of your famous scavenger hunts.’

  ‘Who, me?’ Dooley adopted his hurt look, but at the same time could not resist casting a speculative eye over the property.

  Andrea didn’t even bother to acknowledge the order. Pulling the hood of her rain cape forward over her helmet like a monk’s cowl, she cradled her rifle and, not bothering to take shelter, watched them enter the ground floor.

  Checking his watch, Revell resisted the urge to hurry his guide. He was led through a series of spacious panelled rooms, through a magnificent oak-beamed banqueting hall and into what must once have been the kitchens.

  ‘Nearly all of the furniture has been removed, quite legitimately, but I understand a few choice pieces did disappear between here and the West. I find it amusing that perhaps there is somewhere a refugee hovel furnished with priceless antiques.’ Voke took a large key from an inside jacket pocket. ‘More likely, though, it has already passed through the hands of several dealers in London and New York.’

  The door he unlocked was set in an angle of the wall at the back of the kitchen. Despite its obvious age and heavy construction it swung open smoothly and almost silently on well-lubricated hinges.