Gunion's Scimitar was the closest, thirty meters away to his right at the easternmost corner of the square formed by the four tanks. The two SAS APCs were concealed within the square. Somewhere in the darkness of the woods beyond the tanks were the SAS guards Hinton had posted before leaving with his patrol; they gave Sache-Worrel the same feeling of safety his father had spoken of when discussing the operational value of Gurkha riflemen in the Second World War.
Sache-Worrel's background sometimes inhibited him. It did so now as he stood below Gunion's turret. He felt he should knock rather than simply trespass on his neighbour's territory by clambering uninvited on to the hull. He tried a discreet cough, but although Gunion's turret hatch was open, no one appeared. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled himself on board.
'Ben?' The interior of the Scimitar was a black pit, but Sache-Worrel could smell the usual combination of oil and sweat. 'Ben? He was keeping his voice low, confidential. He was about to reach down into the darkness when Ben Gunion's face appeared very close to his own, like a surprised jack-in-the-box.
'Good God!'
'It's me...Robin...'
'Damn you, Robin, I almost pissed myself. What on earth are you creeping about for?'
'I was thinking...'
'For God's sake don't think,' advised Gunion. 'It's contagious. Want a quick snort? Here...' He handed Sache-Worrel a quarter litre flask of Asbach. 'I've got a decent bottle of claret in my locker, but it's probably too shaken about. Wasn't going to leave it for the bloody Ruskies, though. Well, drink up...'
'No thanks, Ben.' Sache-Worrel passed him back the liquor.
'You sound ill. Nervous?' Gunion was 'sympathetic. He liked Sache-Worrel. 'Don't be. It won't be as bad as you think. Pre-match nerves – they'll disappear as soon as the balloon goes up.' Sache-Worrel was the same age as Gunion's younger brother, and always made the first lieutenant feel protective. 'We'll give them hell. Just remember the training; keep your head down and whenever possible attack the command vehicles. In and out fast, before they've a chance to recover.'
'It's not nerves, Ben. It's just...well, something else.'
'Girls? I say, you haven't got yourself into a spot of bother! Now that would be a fine thing.'
'No, it's not a girl...it's to do with Captain Fellows.'
'Well, spit it out.'
Sache-Worrel told him. Gunion took another sip of his schnapps before he made any comment, then he said: 'I didn't hear the message. Bugger! You're certain you've got it right? Bacon is the correct code for Bisdorf, but was Bacon the word in the message? Are you sure you heard Bacon and not Brandy?'
'I was positive; now I'm not so certain. That's the trouble. I've been thinking about it so much I've confused myself. An hour ago I'd have staked my life I was right, now I don't know.'
'We could all be staking our lives on it'
'What can we do?'
'You, nothing! It's Sandy's job as senior lieutenant. God! I wondered why we hadn't seen anything of Hinton's lot, they're probably chasing halfway around the Hassenwinkel on a wild goose chase. They were due in an hour ago, and working with the SAS is like working with robots; they usually programme themselves to the second.'
'You'll tell Sandy?'
'Yes, I'll tell him. If you see a flash of blue light from his tank, it'll be him reacting.'
Roxforth was experiencing some of Sache-Worrel's feelings on hearing the information passed him by Gunion. It wasn't easy to tell your commander he was wrong and, like Gunion, Roxforth hadn't heard the original coded message. He was tempted to let the matter slide; sooner or later Fellows himself would realize he had made an error and would probably correct it. The only trouble with that line of reasoning, Roxforth knew, was correction might be impossible if too much time was lost. A Soviet division's main headquarters was as mobile as the battlefront itself. The opportunity to knock it out might never occur again...there were too many contingencies involved to guarantee the survival of the stay-behind unit for more than a few hours. One surprise attack during the darkness of the first night was all they could count on; with a lot of luck, they might even manage two. But by daylight, the Russians would be looking for them. Even if they remained where they were now, every hour that passed brought a greater chance of discovery as more enemy troops entered the area and the Soviet consolidation and mopping-up began.
Although Roxforth liked Sache-Worrel, he was hoping the second lieutenant was wrong. It would be much better if Fellows could simply shrug his shoulders and say: 'Nothing to worry about, everything is fine.' The entire incident could be passed off as normal anxiety in this kind of situation. It would be forgotten immediately.
Mick Fellows was standing beside his Scimitar when Roxforth found him, staring out into the darkness of the woods. 'Sir?' Fellows was as twitchy as the rest of them, and turned quickly. 'Can we talk for a minute?'
'I shouldn't wander around too much,' suggested Fellows. 'I'd rather you all kept to your tanks until the recce patrol gets back. What's the probelm?
'The message from HQ. I didn't hear the original code.' Roxforth found himself speaking over-quickly.
'Having doubts, Sandy? Don't worry. These damned SAS are taking their time, they're overdue. It shouldn't have taken them so long, we put them down within a couple of miles of the location. This waiting makes all of us edgy. It doesn't help hearing the sound of battle all the while; makes you want to get in there and do something. Bloody frustrating. How are the crews?'
'Fine. Most are sleeping.' He knew he was going to have to persist even if Fellows did get angry with him. 'What was the code, sir?
Fellows replied sharply, 'Trophy Bacon Sunset Juliet. What's on your mind?'
Oh Christ, thought Roxforth, there has been a mistake! 'The thought dismayed him though he hadn't spent too much time dwelling on the consequences of the error. He said, 'I'm sorry, sir. I think there's been a mistranslation.'
'Nonsense!' Fellows was immediately defensive, and annoyed. 'The translation is correct.'
'Bacon, sir.'
'Bacon is Hehlingen.'
'No, sir. Bacon is Bisdorf. Hehlingen is Brandy.'
Roxforth could sense Fellows bristling in the darkness. 'Now see here, Roxforth...' Fellows paused, thought for a few moments as his doubts grew then spoke more softly. 'Damn...damn!' He had been showing off in front of the SAS lieutenant...if he had taken just a few mare seconds to check the message.
'It was a mistake for HQ to choose neighbouring towns with code names beginning with the same letter,' said Roxforth, offering his commander an excuse.
'No need for eyewash, Sandy. Which one of you spotted the error?' Fellows answered the question for himself. 'Only Sache-Worrel could have heard the original.'
Roxforth realized the knowledge it was the junior lieutenant wasn't going to make it any easier for the captain.
'I wish to God he'd spoken up at the time,' said Fellows, quietly.
'I don't believe he thought about it until we reached here...then he wasn't certain how to handle it.'
'Are the crews aware of this?'
'Of course not.' Roxforth could see no point in reducing the men's confidence in their commander. Everyone could make mistakes, and he could appreciate the captain's feelings.
'One kilometer west of Bisdorf would put the Red HQ about three K's from the A2 autobahn.'
'Or thereabouts,' agreed Roxforth.
'And we've lost three hours.'
'We may be able to recover time,' Roxforth said, encouragingly.
'Nonsense. There's no way you can recover lost time. Damn and blast! Get the crews ready to move out. The minute Hinton is back, we'll get going.' He studied his watch. 'I'm giving him another thirty minutes.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You don't need to "sir" me, Sandy, just because I've made a bloody fool of myself. And by the way, I'll make out a report of the matter afterwards.?
'I don't think that will be necessary.'
'It is necessary. Thank young Sache
-Worrel for me will you. Tell him he did the right thing, Sandy. Late, maybe, but right.'
Fellows watched him walk away through the shadows of the woods. He felt angry with himself; not only angry, but ashamed. He had prided himself that his career had been near-faultless, no errors in training, always the highest marks; a close runner-up for best cadet at Sandhurst. He had never put a foot wrong, until now. And this had been what all the training had been about – war. He had made a balls of his first command in real action. Why? Because he had been unable to trust the judgement of a superior officer. He still believed his German CO was wrong; if you were going to have armoured stay-behind units, then they should be Chieftains with more protection and heavier weaponry, not lightly-armed Scimitars. But as he had always felt this, then he should not have accepted the command; he should have had the courage to refuse. His lack of conviction in the practicability of the scheme had led to his carelessness. Responsibility now for its failure was totally his own. It was not going to be easy to live with in the future; he rejected imperfection in others, but had discovered it in himself.
Hinton's patrol had been unsuccessful. He returned feeling dispirited. They had probed further than he had originally intended and still found no indication of the enemy main HQ. They had seen Russians; a field hospital, a number of engineering units, and two kilometers west of Rosche a motor-rifle company. He was surprised by Fellows' casual acceptance of his failure, it seemed out of character with his own experiences of the tank captain.
Fellows said, simply, 'Bad luck, Hinton. Well try again to the south...to the west of Bisdorf. Get your lads on the APCs briskly, we don't want to waste any more of the darkness.'
Fellows led them south-west for several kilometers, then crossed the Wolfsburg Neindorf road and swung east. Movement was difficult. Whereas on their first run from the bunker they had been travelling almost due west and in the general direction of the Soviet advance, now they cut across the main supply line of the enemy division. The Russian commanders were making use of darkness to move up their supplies and reinforcements, and those south of Neindorf were coming within range of the NATO howitzers sited west of Köningslutter. The ground the Scimitars and APCs were now covering bore signs of heavy battle activity. Every dip in the fields, every wood and copse, farmhouse and village had been defended. Damaged and wrecked military vehicles and equipment littered the fields and roadsides, some of the vehicles still alight, their metalwork twisted and blackened, the corpses of their crews around them. There were wounded men in the ditches and shell craters; sometimes they moved or signalled frantically at the Scimitars. Fellows knew that many were NATO soldiers, but there was nothing he could do for them, and therefore no gain in slackening the speed of his unit. Some would survive, but they would have to wait until the Soviet medical units had attended their own men.
Fellows had slowed the unit two hundred meters from the ruins of the small village of Almke when they came under fire. The first indication was the explosion of the second in line of the SAS APCs. In open ground a little to the rear of the Scimitars, it burst into flames, swerved to the left and overturned. Sandy Roxforth, in station sixty meters to the right of the APC, had been standing in his Scimitar with his head and shoulders out of the hatch. The attack was unexpected, accurate identification was difficult at night and Soviet troops would be taking care not to fire on their own armour.
Roxforth dropped into the vehicle and as he did so heard machine gun bullets rattling off the aluminium hull. The lieutenant had just sufficient time to realize its significance when a 120mm shell, its point-blank range confirmed by the ranging machine gun, penetrated the Scimitar hull just below the top run of the track and exploded directly behind the driver.
Sache-Worrel saw Roxforth's tank destroyed. The way in which it blew to pieces was terrifying, and he realized instantly there was no possibility of survivors. He was praying for someone to break radio silence and tell him what he should do. It seemed sensible to use best speed to get out of the immediate area of the village and away into the darkness; at fifty miles an hour it didn't take long to get a Scimitar out of trouble. But Captain Fellows, to Sache-Worrel's right and eighty meters ahead of him, had not changed course and appeared to have stopped.
Sache-Worrel saw a burst of flame from Fellows' Rarden; a single shot, then two in rapid succession. He was getting too close to Captain Fellows' tank so ordered his driver to swing away further to the right and increase speed, intending to draw around in an arc beyond the leading Scimitar.
Fellows' Rarden fired a three-round burst, then his Scimitar accelerated. The captain had left it a fraction of a second too late. A shell exploded beneath the tank's square stern, lifted the hull upwards and threw it completely on to its side. It ignited immediately, its fuel spreading around it so it appeared to be floating in a lake of flames. Sache-Worrel caught a horrifying glimpse of a small dark figure staggering within the incinerating fire, then heard Gunion on the net, his voice urgent.
'Magpie Sierra Echo...this is Ben...three o'clock, woods,...go like hell!'
'Wilco...' He felt the Scimitar surge across the ground as his driver swung it away.
'Magpie Sierra Delta...this is X-Ray Nine...we're going in to neutralize.' It was Hinton.
'Roger X-Ray Nine, we'll stand off.'
The net was silent again for several minutes. Sache-Worrel brought the Scimitar around two thousand meters beyond the village, and waited.
'Magpie Sierra Delta this is X-Ray Nine. It's okay here now.'
'Roger X-Ray Nine, out to you. Magpie Sierra Echo...white farm building four kilometers back...small lake...rendezvous there.'
'Roger Magpie Sierra Delta.'
The HF died. Sache-Worrel was stunned by the happenings of the past few minutes. Half the SAS unit wiped out...and two Scimitar crews...Sandy Roxforth...Captain Fellows...all in seconds. A body thrashing in the petrol fire, Fellows' or his gunner's? There was no slow introduction to war and death, one moment it was peace and the next all hell had broken loose around you. And he had not even seen the enemy although he had kept his eyes to the L2A1...Fellows must have spotted them though, he had managed several shots with the Rarden.
McLeod the gunner shouted by Sache-Worrel's right shoulder, 'We hit the shit, sir...bloody shame!'
Hit the shit! That was understatement thought Sache-Worrel. Everything had gone wrong since the moment they left the bunker! He could see the farmhouse ahead of them now. Before when they had passed it the ruins had looked serene in the darkness, and the carp lake bordering its grounds had appeared calm and peaceful. Now he wasn't sure; it might hold an enemy gun...death...nothing would be as it seemed for him ever again. At least, not in war.
Gunion had stayed with the remaining APC, and then escorted it back. The vehicle was now in the shadow beside the tumbled farm building, and the men were stationed in the rubble. The two Scimitars were parked in what had been the farm's orchard and a carpet of apples covered the ground.
Hinton was angrily discussing the tragedy. 'It was a Leopard! A bloody Heer Leopard. Hull-down in the wreckage of a supermarket.'
A Leopard! Good God, thought Sache-Worrel, we lost all our men to a NATO tank. Is war all mistakes? It was beginning to look like it.
'You sure it was a NATO crew?' asked Gunion. 'It might have been captured!'
'It should have been bloody captured,' growled Hinton disgustedly. 'It would have been better for us. I lost eleven men, good men...you've lost six...every one dead.'
'Who were the Leopard crew?'
'There was a 7th German Armoured Division flash on the back of the tank,' said Hinton. 'And what I could see of their equipment afterwards was all West German.'
'What did they say when you told them we were British?' asked Sache-Worrel.
'I'm afraid we didn't have time for a conversation. They were fighting with the commander's hatch wedged partly open...we dropped them a message and shut the hatch.'
'A message?'
'A Britis
h ordinance mark on a grenade!'
The second transmission from HQ, due to be made at 02.23 hours, did not materialize. Again the men experienced the now familiar feelings of uncertainty. Had the radio message been transmitted an hour earlier than they had expected? Would it be transmitted an hour later? The message was supposed to give a new target for the unit. But even more important, it was a form of contact with their comrades. Gunion had decided against any further attempt to pursue the first target of the Soviet Division's HQ, by now they would probably have been moved, and there was less than four hours until dawn. He didn't want the last two Scimitars caught in the centre of the main Russian troop movements in broad daylight.
The SAS were free to operate as an independent unit after the first night, and Hinton had already explained his plans. He intended to abandon the APC and work on foot. Men were easier to conceal than vehicles, and he would travel for the remainder of darkness into the sector occupied by the Soviet logistics column and operate there. He had a potential rendezvous with a Bundesgrenzshutz unit in forty-eight hours, and would link up with them if they still existed. Supply points of additional weapons and explosives were already available to him when he needed them, and he would be organizing a guerrilla force.
Chieftains Page 20