by James Rouch
‘That’s not a description of any anti-shipping missile that I know of.’
‘That’s cause it’s not. The British gunners who are going with you will have simple, lightweight, trailer-mounted versions of our standard 125mm multiple rocket launchers. The sort our artillery boys use all the time. Fucking clever, ain’t it? The Ruskies will have planned for everything; mines, torpedoes, air-attacks, the lot, you name it they’ll be ready for it. The one thing they won’t be prepared for is for you to have a go at them from a direction they’ll not be expecting with a weapon that’s never been used that way before.’
A major drawback occurred to Revell. ‘OK, it sounds smart, but even if they all get through to the target, 125mm rounds are going to do little more than skin damage to those big battlewagons. They’ll shrug it off like so many flea bites and plough on.’
‘We’re one ahead of you. Going back a bit, one of our destroyers off ‘Nam was on the receiving end of an accidental near miss from an air-launched missile one of our pilots let go by mistake. It was a Shrike I think, anyway, it had a fragmentation head and when it banged off right over our ship it took out all her radar, diced better than twenty of her crew and stopped the tub dead in the water. It was kept kinda quiet at the time. The babies you’ll be taking have been fitted with similar heads. If just one of them bangs off over a Ruskie ship it’ll be as good as poking the fucker’s eyes out. Any Commie admiral should take that serious enough.’
‘Maybe if we did enough damage we could force them to turn around, go back for repairs. That’d lock them up for the rest of the winter.’
‘Don’t start getting over-ambitious, Major. That’s what the city fathers of Frankfurt were beefing about. Just do the job as it’s given you. If you manage to knock them about, sufficient to soften them up for a reception by the Brit Navy when they reach open sea, good. But just remember, Copenhagen is not so far from there. At the moment the Ruskies are accepting the Danes’ declaration of it being an open city: they’ve occupied it, but they ain’t harmed it yet. You overdo things and that might change. We need the Free Danish Forces. No point in roping Sweden into the fight if we upset and maybe lose an established member of NATO in the process.’
‘Alright, so let’s assume it all goes according to plan, and the Commies and the Swedes start chucking ordnance at each other. What about my men? We’ll be in the middle of the cauldron, and back-loading our equipment is not going to be easy. If we leave a load of NATO gear on the island it won’t take the Swedes long to figure out that someone has been doing some stirring. Could rather spoil things.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. When you’ve done, you’ll destroy what you can’t carry. It’ll have to be done thorough, but it’s a small price to pay for fucking up a Soviet fleet.’
‘What about the men? Are you fitting them with self-destruct mechanisms?’
Coming from another man Lippincott might have seen humour in the question but not from Revell, strait-laced crud! ‘The planning ain’t got that far yet, but you’ll be picked up as soon as the excitement dies down, or moves elsewhere. Sub, or chopper, or surface craft; we ain’t sure yet.’ He tidied the sheets of paper together. ‘The rest you’ll get at briefing before the ‘off’. We’ve got to move real fast on this one. Met reckon the Commies will have to make a move inside the next eight days. I want you and your crowd kitted and on your way within twenty-four hours. Oh yeah, a last piece of good news. You won’t be exactly making a landing on the island, leastways, not the way you mean, from the sea. I’ve arranged a little treat for you, you’re going in by parachute.’
‘The hell we are! Better find yourself another suicide squad. None of my men are trained, give it to the SAS or the Screaming Eagles. I’m beginning to think you snatched the mission from them in the first place.’
‘Scared the shit out of you, have I?’
‘No,’ Revell kept the irritation out of his voice, but it took an effort. ‘No, you just wasted my time.’ He made to leave.
‘OK, so I was only kidding, you’re not actually making a drop. Well, not a real one.’
‘You want to try explaining that piece of gobbledygook, or shall I keep heading for the door?’
‘Ever seen parachute extraction?’
‘Where a transport comes in low and slow with its rear doors open and chutes deploy to drag out a sled-mounted cargo? Sure, I’ve seen it… you want my men to go to war that way? Are you crazy, that’s strictly hardware only.’
‘They’ve refined it a bit…’
‘What did they do, fit the sledge with springs so it can pogo back inside if it goes down in the wrong place?’
Again Lippincott sensed no light intent behind the remark. ‘I’m telling you, it’s OK. There’ll be three pallets. One will carry the launchers, their ammunition and the demolition charges, along with most of the electronics gadgets you’ll be taking. Another will have a generator, a small tractor for dispersing the launchers and moving your stores, and your support arms and ammunition. Number three will have a cabin that you’ll all ride down in.’
‘And you think the Swedish Airforce is just going to stooge around and watch us while we land and set up camp…’
‘You won’t even see them. Your flight will replace a scheduled civvy run. When you approach your DZ your pilot will report engine trouble to Swedish air traffic control and act like he’s got problems. He’ll lose altitude and drop you off just before the difficulty miraculously rights itself and he turns away for home. Far as the Swedes are concerned, it’ll be a routine flight that just got hairy for a moment or two.’
O’l Foul Mouth had a way of presenting a mission that Revell didn’t like. What had doubtless been long thought over and meticulously worked on by experienced planning Staffs, he made sound hasty and improvised. While riding shotgun for a bunch of gunners wasn’t the best job Revell had been offered, it would do as a stopgap, serve to keep the nucleus of his new command together, if it ever materialised. His life seemed a succession of stopgaps; his battles, his women, each briefly enjoyed then discarded as he hurried to the next, and hopefully better experience.
‘You’ll pick up your equipment and the group you’re to escort at Bremen. You’ll fly out from there.’ Lippincott rose to conclude the meeting. ‘Best round up that cutthroat mob of yours, fast as you can. Where are they now, what they doing?’
‘Manning a Zone perimeter checkpoint. They’ll have their hands too full of refugees to get into any trouble there.’
‘You’re forgetting I know that crowd, and so do you. Neither of us believe that, not for a fucking second.’
TWO
‘I hope the lieutenant knows what he’s doing. We’re supposed to be making sure the refugees stay in the Zone, not helping them get out.’ Burke looked out from the uncurtained window, along the road to the checkpoint.
A bedraggled group of elderly civilians was shuffling through the gap that had been opened in the barricade. The moment the last one was clear Lieutenant Hogg hauled the wire-festooned pole back into place, laying it across the top of the concrete-filled oil drums. He was hampered by several of the party attempting to crowd about him and offer their thanks. An old lady in a mud-spattered suede coat kept grabbing at his hand, trying to kiss it.
‘Now how far are they going to get, dressed like a load of scarecrows?’ Ripper’s southern drawl was accentuated by a succession of yawns, and he tucked a blanket more snugly about his legs as he lay slumped on the couch. ‘Folks in these parts are shit scared of the Zone, reckon anyone who gets out carries every disease from anthrax to the black death, and glows in the dark to boot. They’ll be lucky to travel another mile, and luckier still if all that happens is that they’re picked up and shoved back in.’
Ushering the civilians away with a pantomime of urgency, the young officer freed his sleeve from a rusty barb and walked back to the Iron Cow. The hover-APC was parked at the side of the road, straddling the fence it had crushed when it came to rest. Its turret-mounte
d Rarden cannon, supposed to be covering the road-block, drooped, and still had its bell-shaped muzzle draped with a scrap of oily cloth against the flurries of sleet.
‘He’s not doing them any favours. Those Krauts think he’s smiling because he’s glad to be helping them. If only they knew, he’s doing it because he reckons the fighting in the Zone will be simpler if he empties it of civvies.’ Burke watched Libby stand aside on the vehicle’s lowered front ramp to let the lieutenant in, then once more fill the doorway as he scrutinised the face of each refugee filing past. Totally absorbed in the inspection he was making, he appeared oblivious of the cold and discomfort.
Burke went back to the fire, and tossed on to it a couple of chair legs picked from among the pile of broken furniture that provided its crackling fuel. Their impact sent a mass of sparks up the chimney. ‘This isn’t a bad little number we’ve got here. I hope the lieutenant isn’t about to louse it up. There’s bloody millions of civvies trapped in the Zone. If word gets round that we’re holding the door open, the trickle we’re getting through this back road at the moment will turn into a ruddy flood. Then there’ll be some questions.’
‘Hell, what’s the worst they can do to us?’ Ripper stretched. ‘They can only send us back into combat. And they’ll be doing that soon enough anyway.’
Using his boot, Burke tried to return an ember to the grate, but only managed to bring down two more. ‘I’d prefer it later than sooner. So would Dooley, he can’t get visits from his girlfriends in the Zone.’
‘Friends they may be, girls never. Leastways, not for a long, long time.’ York came out of the kitchen, surrounded by blue smoke. ‘The meal might be a little late. The gas must have been cut, there’s hardly any pressure.’
‘Doesn’t seem to be affecting your cooking. You’re still burning everything.’
‘I’m a fucking good cook, could have been a chef.’ He offered Burke the dripping spatula he carried like a badge of office. It wasn’t accepted. ‘So shut up then.’ He listened. A steady ‘thump-thump, thump-thump’ could be heard. It came from the next room, sounding like heavy furniture being rhythmically bumped into the wall, it went on and on. ‘He’s never still at it, is he? What can the fucking over-sexed bugger be doing now.’
‘I’d say you hit it on the head first time.’ Ripper punched the cushions into a more comfortable configuration. ‘I reckon he’s about done with fucking, and he’s started buggering. He sure does like variety. Ain’t ever known anybody who liked doing it so many different ways, ’cepting a cousin of mine who kinda got a hankering-for the livestock.’
Having failed to return the brand, Burke lost patience with it and crushed it into charcoal dust. ‘I don’t know about that, but did you see the old piece he took in there?’ He nodded at the bedroom door. ‘She must be into her fifties, must be.’
‘Can’t say I’ve ever been with one that old myself.’ Reaching out, Ripper lifted a slim-necked green wine bottle from the side of the fire. He jiggled it against the light to gauge its contents, then pulled the protruding cork with his teeth before taking a long pull at a lukewarm liquid. ‘Ain’t a touch on a decent rye, but,’ screwing up his eyes he examined the label and tried to decipher the elaborate entwined script, ‘but I just might be getting a taste for this here schnapps. We stay here much longer and I’ll have to see if I can’t lay in a supply. Where was I? Oh yeah, like I was saying, I ain’t never had one that old. Come to that, apart from a hairy old dame I ran errands for when I was a kid, who used to take out my cock and squeeze it when I got the change wrong, I ain’t had no relations with any female over eighteen or so. What do you think they’re like when they’re getting on a spell, all kinda discoloured and crinkled at the edges, and maybe smelling a bit?’
‘Sounds like a description of York’s cooking.’ The spatula hit the side of the fireplace as Burke ducked.
Only for a moment did the slamming of the kitchen door drown out the continual reverberations of Dooley’s excesses in the next room.
A draught of cold air blasted in with Andrea and circled the stuffy room for several seconds after she closed the door behind her She propped her grenade-discharger fitted M16 against the back of the couch before taking off her helmet and slipping out of the glistening rain cape. Draping the dripping garment over the back of the remaining empty chair, she dried her face and hands on the crumpled curtain she took from the top of a sideboard. The large brass rings still attached to it clinked as she rubbed the last beads of icy water from her fringe.
‘We will be moving out shortly. The lieutenant said we are to be ready.’ There was no need for her to do anything to get the men’s attention, she knew before she looked up that she would have an audience. The surge of cold air and the opening and closing of the doors had woken Clarence; now his head appeared out the top of the sleeping bag against the far wall. ‘That will please York. His culinary efforts must be about nearing fruition, or is that a dead goat I can smell?’
‘Sod York.’ Burke dismissed their volunteer cook’s feelings with an airy wave of his hand, then gestured dramatically at the bedroom door, ‘Who’s going to break Dooley’s concentration and give him the bad news.’ The non-stop thump-thumping had become a rapid thumpity-thumping. Andrea heard, understood, and without hesitation crossed the room and grasped the door handle. Ripper jumped from the couch and caught up in time to grab her wrist. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Either he’s going to shoot your pretty head off, or he’s gonna reckon you’re offering to make up a threesome and then he’s liable to grab you before you get a chance to explain.’
‘I know his temper, with that I can cope, as for the other… I do not think he is suicidal.’ Shaking off the restraining grip with ease Andrea pushed into the room. ‘Fuck off, I’m busy.’ Dooley didn’t even slow down, let alone falter. He had the woman bent over a dressing-table against the partition wall, and was frantically taking her from behind, his pants rucked in grubby folds around his ankles. The ample flesh of the overweight bodies slapped together with a loud wet clapping noise that failed to smother the woman’s screams when she realised they were no longer alone.
‘We are to be ready to move at once, the major will be back soon.’ Andrea’s expression didn’t alter as she unblinkingly took in the scene.
‘I said get out. I don’t care if the shitty Russians are coming, I’m coming first.’ It was taking all of Dooley’s considerable strength to hold the loudly protesting woman, for having failed to break free she now attacked him with her elbows, pounding them back with pile-driver force into his chest and stomach. When she eventually came to the conclusion that her best efforts had failed, she contented herself with sobbing hysterically and hiding her scarlet face in the voluminous lacy French-knickers she had managed to pull down from the corner of the mirror.
‘Shit, I can’t finish this.’ Dooley withdrew, and as he hoisted his pants received a rain of pudgy-fisted blows to the face, as the woman dropped the undergarment and the last vestige of her dignity to launch the assault.
The appearance of York, Burke and Ripper behind Andrea only served to intensify the woman’s hysterics. She grabbed her dress from the soiled and rumpled bed and cowered in a corner of the room, shielding herself with one hand, while trying to restore some order to her elaborately-piled hair with the other.
‘Don’t you ever bloody do that again.’ Dooley towered over Andrea. ‘I’d have killed one of them grinning monkeys if they’d done it. I was going for a personal best, would have bloody made it too, eventually. Now look what you’ve done, buggered my screw and reduced a perfectly good piece of knocking fodder to that…’
Being pointed at didn’t help the woman. She was unsuccessfully trying to conceal her globular white breasts with a fat forearm, while hopping up and down on one leg with a high heel caught in the lace trimming of her knickers. She was sobbing, between alternate distraught snatches of threats and imprecations.
‘What’s she saying? She’s gabbing too fa
st for me. Shrugging, Andrea turned to go out, but answered when Dooley grabbed her arm and spun her about, repeating the question. ‘She said she is going to report you. She will tell the police you raped her.’
‘Silly cow, she’s just worked up, that’s all. Her husband’s got his own factory, he’s in local politics I think, she ain’t going to risk queering that, not the nice little life she’s got. You speak the lingo better than me, tell her if she does that I’d have to show the cops some of the Polaroids she took of me, at her house. Remind her about the lampshade and the carrot, she’ll know what I mean. Well, tell her then, you got me into this fucking mess.’
It was necessary for Andrea to walk right up to the fat frau and slap her face before she was able to get the woman’s full attention. As she finished translating Dooley’s message the woman stopped her howling, nodded dumbly and muttered a reply, accompanying it with a pleading look at Dooley.
‘There will be no accusation of rape, she wishes to forget what has happened.’ With that brief translation Andrea went back to the lounge, and the others, unwilling to remain without the presence of her moderating influence, followed.
‘And fucking stay out.’ Savagely, Dooley kicked the door shut. Shit, why’d they have to burst in then; another minute, well maybe two, and he’d have done it. Hell, he couldn’t leave it like this, he had to finish, had to have one last one. If they were moving out it could be ages before he got another chance, and if the major were taking them into action, and that was near enough the only place he ever did take them, then maybe it’d be his last ever. What did he have to lose?