by Nick Ryan
He told himself he should not move from the spot until he had counted to twenty, then decided that a brave man would count to sixty. Then he remembered he was not trying to be a hero – he wanted only to survive this war. He settled for a count of thirty.
A sudden small movement caught Edge’s eye. He turned his head casually towards the lower slopes of the nearest ridge and was about to dismiss it as a rustle of leaves. But the pre-dawn was still and airless…
The movement came again; so slight that this time he sensed it more than saw it, and the first chill draught of apprehension blew down his spine.
Edge looked away, feigning casual indifference, and dropped to one knee to scoop up a fistful of gravel. He let the dirt trickle through his clenched hand and trained his eyes back to the spot without moving his head. In the periphery of his vision, he saw the outline of a man’s helmet covered in camouflage net. For long seconds he was stunned, frozen by the shock of it. His senses strained tight with a sudden fizz of adrenaline.
Now Edge saw the whole picture. A man lay crouched behind a fallen tree trunk. He was wearing a camouflage smock and cradling an automatic weapon to his shoulder. Beside the man was concealed another soldier, lying prone amidst a thicket of leaves and ground cover. It was a machine gun post, situated to enfilade the bridge. Then the outline of a third soldier materialized to the left of the others, his body half-hidden behind a boulder.
Edge turned away from the ridge and rose slowly to his feet. He started to walk back across the bridge taking slow measured steps.
He flexed his arms and felt the space between his shoulder blades and imagined the devastating impact of a bullet as it tore into his back and exploded out through his chest. His skin prickled from the flesh-crawling stings of his fear.
Edge reached the middle of the bridge. The dawn’s light came on quickly, pushing back the veil of night to reveal the new day. The upper works of the bridge’s steel frame took form, and the rooftops of the distant village buildings had shape. A flock of waterfowl splashed across the river’s glassy surface and then took to noisy flight.
Go!
Edge started to run.
He broke into a desperate sprint, his arms pumping, his head thrown back. He had the terrifying sensation of time slowing, so that the dash to the end of the bridge seemed to take forever, his boots dragging leadenly in the gravel.
The sudden wicked sound of a single shot split the still morning; a high-pitched ‘thwack’ that echoed across the plain. The bullet ricocheted off an iron bridge truss, the projectile passing so close to Edge that he felt the heat of it like a hot breath against his cheek. He jinked left, then right. His knees buckled. He reached the verge of the road and flung himself down the slope. A second bullet kicked up an eruption of dirt by his boots. Then he was in the long grass, tucked into a tight ball and rolling, tumbling. He bounced to his feet and sprinted for the depression. He saw Waddingham and Kalina hunched over their weapons. He swerved left to clear their field of fire, lifting his knees high, his face wrenched in desperate effort.
Vince Waddingham sprayed a short burst of gunfire at the far ridge. Then Edge loomed over the crest of the hollow, his mouth hanging open, his whole body strained with exertion.
He flung himself into a desperate dive, and crashed down into cover.
*
Edge hit the ground in an awkward tumble of arms and legs. His knee cracked against his jaw and his mouth filled with blood. He was drenched in a lather of sweat. His mouth felt thick, his tongue swollen. He blinked his eyes and the pale dawn seemed as bright and blinding as an arc light. He rolled onto his side and hawked a thick gob of phlegm and blood into the dirt.
Edge groaned, then forced himself into a sitting position and scraped the back of his hand across his mouth, leaving a smear of blood across his cheek.
Dawn’s light had begun to spread across the plain, catching the upper works of the bridge and the fringe of shrubs that grew along both banks of the Sypitki. The distant ridgeline seemed somehow less hostile in the soft morning light, its tree covered crest blurred behind a thin veil of mist that twisted across the surface of the river.
“What did you see?” Waddingham spoke from the rim of the depression without turning his head. His voice was urgent with anxiety.
“A machine gun post,” Edge answered.
“Fuck!” Waddingham spat. “Anything else? Any armor or artillery?”
“Not that I saw – but that doesn’t mean they’re not there, or somewhere nearby.”
“Fuck.”
“Are we safe here?” Kalina interrupted.
“For now,” Edge considered the question. “The Russians won’t want to reveal their strength just to kill a few scouts.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah,” Edge put certainty into his voice. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about the crossing…” He reached into Waddingham’s drag bag for the radio and a pair of binoculars, and crawled to the rim of the depression. He ran his eyes along the ridgeline. In the morning light the heights looked peaceful and tranquil. Through the high-powered glasses he quartered the ground beyond the bridge’s geometric frame, studying the tree-shadowed undergrowth. He saw nothing. He picked up the Harris AN/PRC-152 radio – a handheld secure comms unit – and called 1st Squadron headquarters.
“Checkmate Six Romeo, this is Bad Karma Xray. SALUTE report, over.”
“Bad Karma Xray, this is Checkmate Six Romeo prepared to copy. Send it.”
“Infantry fire, defensive positions, ridge Alpha-Four-Nine, zero-five-forty-five hours, machine guns and light weapons. How copy, over?”
“Bad Karma Xray this is Checkmate Six Romeo. Good copy. Out.”
Edge slid back down into the meager shelter of the depression and rolled onto his back. The sun broke through a thin veil of cloud.
*
Pacing the floor of the TOC like a caged lion, Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe snatched the report from his radio operator and read quickly. The 1st Squadron’s Strykers were formed up on the road to Norwid-Slowack, ready to move out. Half a mile ahead of them the twelve Polish KTO Rosomak Wolverines sat with their engines idling clouds of grey exhaust into the morning air. The Polish troops were standing in tight knots around their vehicles, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee from tin mugs.
Sutcliffe stood with his fists balled on his hips, aware that every wasted moment mattered. Beside him, Major Nowakowski lurked, stiff as a statue, his brow furrowed. Sutcliffe glanced at a map spread across the table and growled.
“Find out how much fire the scouts are taking,” he demanded.
The radio operator hunched back over his equipment. “Bad Karma Xray, this is Checkmate Six Romeo. Over.”
Edge snatched the radio out of the dirt. “Checkmate Six Romeo, this is Bad Karma Xray. Go.”
But before the operator could ask his question, Sutcliffe leaned impulsively across the table and snatched the radio away. “Bad Karma Xray, this is Checkmate Six Actual. Report your current situation.”
“Checkmate Six Actual we are thirty yards northeast of the bridge, over.”
“Have you taken enemy fire, Bad Karma Xray?”
“Sniper fire only, Checkmate Six Actual, but the enemy has at least one machine gun post in position to cover the crossing…”
“Only sniper fire?”
“Confirm.”
“Hold your position, Bad Karma Xray. We’re advancing to the bridge.” Sutcliffe broke the connection and glanced at the Polish Major, his decision made. “Get your troops mounted up. The mission is a go!”
Major Nowakowski hurried out of the TOC shouting orders.
The Lieutenant Colonel drew his Troop leaders around him. “Get your men mounted up. Our scouts report nothing but sniper fire, but I want those mortars set up on the outskirts of the village just like we planned,” he singled out a Lieutenant in command of four M1129 Mortar Carriers attached to the Squadron from HHT. Then he turned his focus onto the rest of his off
icers. “Once the mortars are in place to cover our advance, we’ll go for the bridge hard and fast. I want to be right behind the Polish column, and I want our lead elements ready to take over the attack at the first sign of trouble.”
The Squadron’s Troop commanders nodded gravely.
Sutcliffe issued a final reminder. “Gentlemen, the Russian spearhead is closing on Warsaw and every moment we’re delayed is another mile they plunge deeper into Poland. Our mission is to attack their flank and harass their advance. This isn’t the time for caution.”
Chapter 4:
The attack on the bridge began as a ground tremor; a rumble that rose up through the earth. “It’s beginning,” Edge felt the faint vibration through his chest and he rose cautiously to his feet, still screened from sight behind the bushes, and looked back towards the village with the binoculars pressed to his eyes.
In a single column, the four M1129 Mortar Carriers appeared in the distance. Coming on fast they emerged from behind a bend in the road and grew in size and detail with every passing moment until Edge could clearly see each vehicle commander standing upright in their hatches, and hear the rumble of each Stryker’s engine.
The Mortar Carriers kept coming on, racing along the road, inexplicably bypassing the turnoff to the village and instead making straight towards the bridge. Edge frowned with a twinge of unease. He glanced north towards the forbidding crest of the ridge on the far side of the river and tried to estimate the range. Two thousand yards, perhaps. No more.
And still the four Strykers came on, the sound of their charge rising like a steady rumble of thunder against the tranquil peace of the new day.
“They’re too close!” Edge said aloud. “They’re supposed to set up firing positions on the outskirts of the village!”
“Where are they going?” Vince Waddingham also realized the imminent danger. “They can’t come any nearer.”
“They’re in range of machine gun fire. Christ! They’ll be cut to pieces.”
Then suddenly the four vehicles swung off the road and swerved into a muddy farm field between the village and the riverbank, following each other at strictly spaced intervals. Edge tracked their movement through the binoculars, holding his breath as a sickening knot of imminent dread tightened in the pit of his guts.
“They’ll get slaughtered,” Vince Waddingham agonized. “They must go back. They must fall back to the village.”
The four Mortar Carriers skidded in the mud, their tires biting deep into the soft grassy ground as they slewed their tails to the riverbank and braked to an urgent halt. Then the roof hatch doors on each vehicle burst open and the compartment space that housed the 120mm mortar filled with bustling crewmen. Within sixty seconds of frantic well-rehearsed activity the mortars were cleared and ready to fire.
Edge watched on with a sense of foreboding. The first Stryker sank on its suspension and a second later the echo of gunfire from the mortar tube carried across the plain. Edge saw a drifting wisp of haze and then turned his head to track the fall of shot. The mortar landed on the distant ridge and exploded in a thick billow of grey cloud.
“They’re firing smoke,” Edge growled. A split-second later the other three M1129’s opened fire, the sound of each launch like a deep throaty cough.
One by one the smoke shells landed along the distant ridge line, blanketing the upper reaches of the crest in swirling clouds.
Then there was a deeper sound on the air; like the thunder of an approaching storm. Edge swung the binoculars back in the direction of the village and felt a surge of mingled apprehension and elation.
Far away but drawing quickly closer, appeared the column of Polish Wolverines and the Strykers of the 1st Squadron. They were racing down the road in a column, dragging behind them a skirt of dust and dirt.
“Here comes the Cavalry,” Edge said. “Let’s hope they’re in time to – ”
A sudden flurry of savage chattering noise choked off the rest of his sentence. Edge focused the binoculars back to the four mortar carriers. The crews were still hunched over their weapons, still working with mechanical urgency to feed their mortars, but now the long grass around the vehicles began fluttering as if fanned by a brisk breeze. Then there was a flash of sparks and the sound of ricochets.
“Machine guns!” Vince Waddingham seized Edge’s shoulder and spun him urgently towards the Sypitki. “The Russians are dug in along the far side of the riverbank. Look!”
Long flickering tongues of flame identified the location of the two heavy machine gun emplacements. Edge felt physically ill.
“Pull back!” he shouted helplessly at the mortar teams, his cry swallowed by the sudden snarl of more enemy fire and made tiny by distance. “Get back into cover!”
Vince Waddingham snatched up the radio. “Checkmate Six Romeo, this is Bad Karma Xray. For Christ’s sake, you have to order the mortar carriers back to the village! They’re too close to the river. Do you read?”
But it was already too late. As Edge watched on helplessly, the Russian machine guns finally found their range and accuracy.
It sounded like heavy hail drumming on an iron roof. It was the noise of the Strykers coming under concentrated fire. A soldier in the nearest vehicle suddenly flung his arms in the air and arched his back. He stood frozen for a moment and then tumbled over the side of the vehicle and lay still in the grass. Another man sagged down on his knees clutching at his shoulder, and then a soldier in the far Stryker was struck full in the face. The impact sent his helmet spinning high in the air and disintegrated the man’s head into red mist.
Edge watched on in agonized impotency, unable to do anything other than groan with frustration. Something low and fluttering caught his eye, moving like a darting bird in flight on a tiny tail of flame.
“Missile!”
The Russian Kornet anti-tank missile had been fired from the tree-covered crest on the far side of the river. It streaked across the field and struck the closest Stryker. The vehicle was completely engulfed in a ball of fire, and the roar of the explosion shook the air.
“Christ!” Vince Waddingham gasped.
A thick pall of smoke drifted on the breeze so that for long seconds the rest of the Mortar Carriers were obscured. When at last the haze cleared, Edge realized the surviving vehicles had stopped firing and were jouncing across the grass, fleeing desperately towards the built-up shelter of the village.
Only two of the Strykers escaped.
The trail vehicle was struck by a second Kornet anti-tank missile just as it ascended a low rise of ground, the impact so savage that it lifted the twenty-ton steel vehicle clear into the air as it blew apart. The sound of the explosion was like the toll of a doomsday bell. Twisted fragments of wreckage were thrown a hundred meters into the air and fell like rain across the field, starting small grass fires.
“Oh, God,” Edge groaned. “The stupid bastards! The stupid, foolish bastards!”
But there was no time to mourn. The main attack was beginning.
Through billowing smoke, the Polish Wolverines came hurtling towards the bridge, driving headlong into the waiting Russian storm…
The Polish vehicles were flanked on either side of the road by two of Apache Troop’s M1128 Mobile Gun System Strykers. The MGS’s were the heavy-hitting hammers of the Cavalry Squadron – equipped with a 105mm cannon fed by an autoloader, and a 50cal machine gun that could be manually operated by the vehicle commander. The MGS had been specifically designed to support infantry and light vehicle operations. They braked to a sudden halt a hundred yards shy of the bridge on either side of the river, positioned like bodyguards to overwatch the assault.
The first Polish troop carrier hit the crossing at thirty kilometers an hour, charging down the center of the road. The vehicle reached the far side of the bridge before coming under machine gun fire. The Wolverine swerved onto the gravel and inexplicably stopped in a skidding billow of dirt. As the rear troop door swung open a Russian soldier rose to his feet from behind cov
er and fired an RPG. The front of the vehicle was engulfed in a fireball of oily smoke and flame. Incredibly, the soldiers inside the vehicle survived the devastating impact of the missile strike. They spilled out of the back of the Wolverine but were instantly cut down by Russian machine guns.
The following Wolverine exploded on the bridge, hit by two RPG’s fired from close range. It disappeared behind a blistering wall of flames and was blown apart. Dead and injured soldiers were flung across the blacktop, some of the bodies thrashing feebly, their uniforms ablaze as they screamed and burned. Sporadic machine gun fire from the ridge whipped through the steel trusses, leaving bright silver scars on the grey painted metal.
The rest of the Polish vehicles spilled off the road and scattered into the nearby fields, looking for cover along the riverbank. Two of the Rosemaks slewed to a stop close to where Edge and the others lay, nosing themselves hull-down behind a hedge of bushes. The first vehicle opened fire with its 30mm cannon, shooting blindly across the river. The second vehicle launched smoke cannisters, blanketing the far bank of the Sypitki in grey swirling clouds. The rear doors of the Wolverines burst open and Polish troops scrambled into the long grass.
Within a matter of seconds the entire attack had stalled. The Wolverine in the center of the bridge was burning beneath a rising column of black oily smoke, and the roadway was strewn with broken bodies.
“Christ!” Edge groaned. “It’s a disaster.”
The two Stryker MGS’s joined the battle. The vehicles were capable of firing six rounds a minute and carried four different types of ammunition in their auto-loaders. The commanders aboard both Strykers ordered canister loads and opened fire on the far ridge. The canister cartridges had a range of five hundred meters and were packed with hundreds of tungsten balls. They landed on the crest of the ridge and flailed through the woods like a mighty scythe, killing every Russian soldier within twenty yards and stripping the trees bare of foliage.
The vehicle commanders emerged from their hatches and opened fire with their 50cal machine guns, hosing the dense undergrowth that fringed the riverbank close to the bridge. The roar of each gun’s vengeful fury seemed to dominate the battlefield so that momentum appeared to swing in the NATO troops favor – until one of the vehicle commanders was struck under the chin by a ricocheted round that deflected off the weapon’s gun shield. He folded sideways in a pool of spreading blood.