He was trying to think, to reason. Losing radio contact was one thing, but losing your entire squadron another. When they had all entered the smoke and the artillery barrage, Idaho, Oregon and the lieutenant's tank, Nevada, were all stationed to Utah's right. And beyond the troop had been the remainder of the squadron; behind them, Browning assumed, the mechanized infantry support. He had listened to the shouted conversations, the orders and comments on the troop and squadron radio networks as they had advanced. He had heard them right through until...until when? Until the noise of battle grew too loud, the jamming had begun, when everything was confusing and demanding his total attention, and all sound had become white and unintelligible. Had he heard them only in his mind?
'What the hell are we going to do?' Podini yelled from the fighting compartment. Podini always sounded as through he were on the verge of panic, but never quite got there. Browning accepted it as a characteristic of Podini's Latin background; the gunner made up for it in plenty of other ways.
'You want to start walking back, alone? No? Then dry up!' The smoke of the battlefield had thinned to the kind of watery mist that the master sergeant liked to associate with New England valleys on fall days, but this mist stank of war. In scattered places on the landscape fires burnt, spiralling dense and evil thunderheads in the warm afternoon air. Occasionally in the fires there would be small firecracker explosions, but the sounds of battle no longer surrounded them. The noises were still there, but for the time being they belonged to someone else.
Undulations in the ground made it difficult for Browning to see far beyond the first three hundred meters. He climbed back on to the tank and swung himself down into the turret. 'Get your head out of the way Mike. Podini, bring the gun around.' He switched the lenses to full magnifications as the electric motors began humming and the turret moved. 'Slow, I want a real easy scan.' The lenses were concentrating the smoke mist and exaggerating the mirage effect of the sun's heat on the damp ground. The landscape was hazy, shimmering. 'Stop...hold it.'
There was wreckage.
'Russian T-60,' said Podini, dryly. He moved the turret a couple of degrees to bring the wrecked vehicle to the centre of the lens, then checked the range with the laser. 'Two thousand six hundred meters.'
'Okay, go on some more.'
The turret revolved slowly, then stopped. 'XM1...an Abrams.' There had been no change in the tone of Podini's voice; it was flat, mechanical. 'Two thousand nine hundred meters.'
'Confirmed.' The hull of the squadron's Abrams was torn open at the side, exposing the still-smoking fighting compartment.
'It's Idaho.' There was more emotion with Podini's recognition of the vehicle.
'How the hell can you know that?'
'It's Idaho...Acklin's wagon...you think I'm dumb?' Podini's voice level was rising.
'Okay, okay. Take it round again.'
In the next two minutes they identified nine more of the squadron's XM1s. There were other wrecks, too far away for either of them to be certain they belonged to friends or enemy. And no living thing moved on the battleground.
'He always has to be first,' Podini complained loudly and bitterly. 'Adams has to be first every time. Adams, why the hell you want to be first, always up-front? Why aren't you last sometime, like ordinary people?'
'Fuck off, Pino. I only drive to order.'
Browning knew that the squadron's counterattack had failed, destroyed by the power of the Russian barrage from across the river in East German territory, and from Soviet positions ahead of the US armour. What little smoke there had been was no protection against the BM21 rockets fired from behind the border where they had obviously been deployed in battalion groups capable of landing more than seven hundred missiles on a square kilometer of ground in twenty seconds. Coupled with conventional artillery fire, it had blanketed the area occupied by the XM1s and their support. Shell and rocket craters were so close together in places on the battlefield that they overlapped. Sometime, while Browning's XM1 had been grinding its way through the inferno, jinking the shell explosions with its crew deafened by the howls and shrieks of the missiles, the radio useless with interference and jamming, there must have been an order for the survivors to withdraw. He hadn't heard it.
'I guess we're up to our eyeballs in shit,' commented Hal Ginsborough.
Adams called up from the driving position, 'Well, at least we ain't dead!'
'But you tried, man, you sure tried,' taunted Podini.
The Podini versus Adams duelling didn't bother Browning; it was part of the two men's friendship. It worried outsiders who didn't understand that it was an essential feature of their communication process. Only a few days previously, Adams had rescued Podini from a bar fight that developed when a black artillery corporal had tried, uninvited, to defend Adams' dignity.
'I'm going outside to have a look around,' Browning told his crew. It seemed to him Utah was situated in the calm eye of a tornado, and at any minute it would be swirled back into the violence. The peace was surely artificial. There should be Soviet patrols pacifying the area, their battlefield police taking charge of prisoners, engineers recovering tanks and vehicles for' the workshops. He could only think the Soviet bridgehead had been far stronger than the intelligence information had led Divisional Command to believe, and that when the main thrust of Soviet armour across the river had remained undeflected by the abortive counterattack to its flank, then it had continued to follow their commander's original orders and attack route. Soviet tactics tended to be inflexible. He tried to guess at their objective; the city of Fulda and the multiple highway linkage were almost due west, and possibly their first Red. 'Mike, Hal, both of you stay inside here. Keep out of sight. Pino, get your sidearm and come with me.'
Browning didn't enjoy being outside his tank in combat zones. There was security in thick steel, even if the infantry referred to tanks as 'Ronsons' and swore they would rather fight as smaller and less inflammable targets out in the open. Now, as he began climbing the hill through the stumps of the torn woodland, he felt vulnerable and defenceless; the Remington automatic pistols which he and Podini came. were poor substitutes for Utah's powerful weapons.
Much of the low hill had been scalped by artillery fire, but there was some protection close beneath the limestone outcrops. Near the top he paused and looked back across the battlefield. The ridge of forested hills which had been the squadron's earlier position were eight kilometers to the south and were still hidden by smoke drifting above the ruins of Gunthers. It seemed impossible Utah could have survived the barrage which had destroyed many tanks. He counted thirty wrecked vehicles, and realized there would be more south of the village. It was no longer simply a question of repairing the XM1 to get her back to the regiment, but a matter of survival for the crew and himself...he couldn't see how they would make it.
He moved cautiously, avoiding the skyline and working his way past the blazing remains of the Soviet T-62 until he found better cover in a gorse thicket on the ridge.
Podini was staying so close that when Browning hesitated the gunner crawled into him. He signalled for him to wait while he slid himself on his belly for the last meter.
He caught his breath as he pushed aside the gorse. A regiment of Soviet armour had reformed on the farmland below him less than two thousand meters away. Thirty or forty tanks, T-80s and T-60s. Beyond, a battery of self-propelled guns; nearby, three rows of armoured personnel carriers. The tanks were moving, swinging away westward, the roar of their engines drowning out the sounds of battle. The river, six hundred meters to the right, had been bridged by a pair of GSP ferries, and field engineers were already constructing a second bridge fifty meters downstream, protected by two Quad self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles and an SAM battery, lightly camouflaged near the riverbank. There was no doubt the Soviet commanders had anticipated their rapid advance, for there was already a queue of vehicles waiting to cross; heavy cargo carriers, pillow tanks loaded with fuel, artillery tractors and their guns.
How far had they advanced in the hour or two since the first dawn battle had started? Browning studied his watch, wondering for a moment if it had been damaged. It showed 16.30 hours. Noon had passed unnoticed...eleven hours since it had all begun! His mind was momentarily confused. They called it battle amnesia didn't they? The real and the unreal blended together, time compacted and loot, incidents jumbled. It was the reason pilots were debriefed the instant they landed; minutes law, as their minds relaxed after long, intense concentration, the memories were no longer accurate.
Ten hours; almost eleven. The Soviet spearhead could already be twenty kilometers into NATO territory, now they had penetrated the defences...perhaps even further. He remembered Captain Harling's words: 'We're about to counterattack their flank.' Flank! Had the captain lied? Was it an attempt by the squadron to break out of their encircled position...an attempt which had failed? The amount of materials the Russians were accumulating east of the river seemed to indicate they felt the bridgehead was secure, and for the first time that day Browning could see no NATO aircraft in the skies above.
Podini was waiting nervously, his Remington so tightly gripped in his hand the knuckles were white, his body pressed hard beneath the gorse.
'What did you see?'
'Half the Commie army. The best part of a full tank regiment, artillery and logistics. The whole darned lot down there in the fields...bridges, combat engineers.'
They returned to the Abrams by a more direct route down the cratered slope. The plain towards Gunthers where the carcasses of the squadron lay had the air of a bone-yard about it, reminding Browning of photographs he had seen of drought-sticken African deserts scattered with the dry skeletons of dead animals. For once Podini was silent, keeping his thoughts to himself as they scrambled down the hillside.
Adams and Ginsborough must have been watching through the lenses, for as the two men returned they climbed from the hull and waited for Browning to speak, their faces begging him to say something encouraging. Browning dropped his Remington back into its holster, squatted beside the Abrams and rested against the crippled track. The men stood looking down at him anxiously. He spoke slowly. 'Just over that hill is the end of the war for us. All we have to do is to walk slowly around there, with our hands up. No more shelling or bombing...no more rockets or napalm.' They remained silent. 'One thing I ought to tell you. The Russians took a lot of Germans prisoner in the '39-'45 war; the last ones they released didn't get home until '57. Some never made it at all...they used them as labourers in the Arctic Circle; maybe some of them are still alive, still up there. They'd be about sixty-five years old, could be even seventy.'
Adams said, 'We've got your point.'
'Maybe we could walk out, travel at night, try to reach the lines,' suggested Ginsborough.
'Could be,' agreed Browning. 'We might still have to try. Only the way I see it, we have a problem. The Russians could be advancing faster than we can walk. They do thirty kilo meters a day in their vehicles, we do ten every night on foot. The end of a week, and we're further behind the lines than when we started.'
'They'll be stopped somewhere, maybe at the Fulda river,' said Podini, hopefully.
'I guess we ought to get Utah mobile.' Adams ran his hand along the taut links of the track.' 'All I want is a gas cutter to get this sonovabitch back on the road. I ain't built for walking, and my idea of a vacation isn't ten years down some old salt mine.'
'It occurred to me when I was coming down the hill that there'd be everything we need in Gunthers. There'd be a garage there; I've seen one. The stuff we need could be in the wreckage.' Browning was deliberately avoiding giving the men orders. This was a difficult situation and it was going to get worse. It was essential he had a hundred per cent backing from the crew, and that would be more certain if they developed his ideas themselves.
Podini nodded. 'Maybe we could do it after dark.'
'Hole up until then,' added Ginsborough.
'They might send out patrols...pick us up.' Adams looked up at the hull of the XM1. 'Baby ain't easy to miss.'
'I think we've got a chance.' Browning pushed himself to his feet. 'The Russians' main concern is the front line. They'll use everything they've got up there, and do their tidying afterwards. I think we can make Utah look worse than she is...enough to fool a helicopter. Let's get to work. Gins, dismantle your machine gun and get yourself up on the ridge. Keep your head down, it's busy over there. Pino, you and Mike go and get a few bodies...'
'Bodies!' Podini looked stunned.
'Bodies the man said,' shrugged Adams. 'You made 'em, what you complaining about? I guess they're for decoration!'
Browning leant some of the broken tree branches against the hull of Utah, then lowered her gun until the barrel was fully depressed – it made her look forlorn. He opened all the hatches. There was a twisted sheet of metal a few meters away, part of the shield of some wrecked field-gun. He wedged it against the right track. There was already an abandoned look to the XM1.
Podini was examining the bodies of the men he had killed sixty meters to the right of the Abrams. They lay amongst the wreckage of their equipment, their bodies torn and mangled. It was the first time he had seen the effect of a shell burst on a human target at close quarters; it was horrifying. He wanted to throw up, but kept swallowing the acid bile that rose in his throat. Bodies, Browning had said. Jesus, there didn't seem to be one that was anywhere near complete! He'd seen his grandmother when she had died, but she had looked as though she were sleeping...a little yellow maybe, parchment-skinned, but only sleeping. These men, the bits of them, were wide-eyed, if they had any faces left at all; their mouths grinned through bloody smashed teeth and their bodies were grotesque, shattered, dismembered.
There was one partly covered by the loose stone of the wall. Podini could see both arms, its chest, head. He bent over it, biting his lip.
'Mike...Jesus Christ! Mike, over here.'
Adams was beside him, quickly. 'What the hell?'
'This guy ain't dead. I saw his eyes move. Feel his pulse will you...'
Adams knelt beside the man and stared at him for a few moments, then put the hard outside edge of his hand against the man's neck. He leant forward and pressed down with all his body weight.
'What are you doing, for God's sake?'
'Taking his pulse,' said Adams, coolly. The man's eyes flickered, then opened. Suddenly there was no more movement; muscles relaxed. 'I don't feel none. I'd say he was dead.'
'Mother of God, you killed him!'
'Me, or you, Pino? Take a good look at him. Look down there.' Adams rolled aside a large stone that was lying across the man's abdomen. Intestines were trailed across the rubble. A sharp splinter of white bone from the crushed pelvis stuck up through the bloody mess of cloth and flesh. 'There ain't no MASH here...wouldn't do him no good, anyway. I did him a favour. Now help me lift him.'
There were three bodies draped across the hull of the XM1, one obscenely dangling from the main hatch. Without close examination, their nationalities were unrecognizable. A fire of dry branches and the rubber-tyred wheel of a wrecked gun curled black smoke across her. It would smoulder for a long time, well into darkness. Utah looked no different from the other wrecks on the battlefield.
Browning, Podini and Ginsborough lay beneath the heavy trunk of a fallen chestnut, its branches a cave around them fifty meters to the left of the tank. Adams was hidden in the gorse on the ridge, with the machine gun.
That's what' we could be looking like, thought Browning, staring at the XM1 and its bloody corpses. It could be us there. It could be us in any of the hugs out there in the fields, twisted, broken. God almighty! There had been guys back home who thought he was crazy when he had joined the army; maybe he had been...maybe he still was.
Thirty-eight years old, and the only thing he could do well was kill. Some of the men he had been at school with were executives in companies now...owned their businesses, were married, with kids at college, mowed la
wns in the evenings, watched television. Family? All he had was a sister somewhere, wedded to an insurance salesman. Last he heard of her was that she had gone to live in Detroit. He'd lost her address, and she hadn't written again. He couldn't remember her married name.
Podini. For Christ's sake, he would never lose a member of his family. There seemed to be dozens of them, scattered across the States from Jersey City to Los Angeles. 'You hear on the radio, Pino, some guy in Memphis killed eight cops in a raid on a gas station?' 'Memphis...gee, I got an aunt there.' Podini always had aunts, and uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins...family.
And what about Adams? Six kids! Pretty wife too. She was sixteen when they got married. Half Sioux, half black; the best of both. Was going to be a dancer, ended up a baby factory. Got a good lively sense of humour...you needed one with six kids in eight years, in military accommodation. They were back home in Fort Dix, waiting for Mike Adams to finish his tour of duty. He'd have been with them in another eight weeks. Eight weeks. Shit...eight weeks was no time.
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