‘You hear these things, but you don’t believe them.’ It took an effort for Burke to resist the temptation to empty his weapon into their cringing prisoner. ‘There was a rumour last year that a few of the bandit gangs had started a slavery business, supplying girls for the Russians and houses in the bigger camps, but you never want to believe things like that.’ His attempts to keep his temper in check faltered and then failed. He brought his heel down hard on the man’s thigh.
‘No, come on, lads, queen’s reg’s.’ He squirmed, fighting off the blow. ‘I got to have a proper court-martial and all that...’ He gagged as another kick took him in the chest.
‘That’s enough.’ Hyde grabbed the man and hauled him to his feet. ‘You’ll get your court-martial, but I’ve half a mind to hand you over to them.’
It was not as much a threat as it should have been. Huddled together, the girls looked too frightened and bewildered to be thinking of revenge.
‘I suppose you just happened across a group who were all in their teens and early twenties, did you?’ Hyde found he was breathing heavily, not out of exhaustion but through forcing down his natural instinct to unleash another blow.
‘Look, I told you, it was the Turks who did all the dirty work.’ He searched their faces, almost indistinct in the gloom. ‘I just told them the kids didn’t fetch decent money and the old ones would never make it...’ It was too late to retract and he knew it, but tried out of sheer terror, and in that he made the mistake of appealing to Andrea.
‘You tell them what it’s like ...’ He froze, the rest of the sentence stillborn. There was a knife in her hand.
Hampered by his bonds his recoil was too slow and he took the slashing attack across the face. The razor like blade opened his cheek from below the left eye to the centre of his chin, splitting both lips. The flesh peeled aside, exposing white bone and muscle tissue before being hidden by a gush of dark blood.
‘That’s enough.’ Only Hyde’s intervention prevented a second a more deadly lunge. Clamping down on Andrea’s wrist, the struggle brought their faces close together.
The proximity of the sergeant’s horror-mask of a face had no effect on Andrea. ‘Let me finish him.’
‘We’re taking him back. If his time’s up, then he’ll buy it when the Reds catch up with us. You’re not going to play judge, jury and executioner like you have before. Get those girls to the truck and try not to frighten them any more than they are already.’
Bewildered and bedraggled, the captives let themselves be led by Burke while Andrea sawed at each of their halters in turn. Even when released from that restraint, they kept their place in line like horses long used to being tethered and not knowing how to behave with a free rein.
‘I sure am glad you’re back. I were thinking I was gonna bleed to death.’ Ripper lowered himself down onto the seat and slit the blood-stained material to expose the bullet hole in his leg. ‘For the first time ever, I wish Sampson was with us.’
Burke examined the neat entry wound and made Ripper turn on his side while he looked for an exit hole. ‘It’s still in there. You got lucky—no breaks, no arteries cut. I’m afraid you’ll live.’ As he applied a dressing he looked into the back of the cab.
The Dutchman had been hit twice in the head, through the left eye and the centre of the forehead. His blood saturated the bench seat.
Taking the body by its feet, Hyde hauled it out of the cab and it flopped on top of the body of its compatriot. ‘Get the girls up on the back. Throw those pallets off to make room.’
Realization of the change in their situation was dawning among the young women, and when Burke came to help the last few climb up, several tried to throw their arms around him to demonstrate their relief and gratitude. He was embarrassed by the emotive display and pushed them from him, but not hard, muttering, ‘Bitte sehr, bitte sehr, don’t mention it, don’t mention it.’
A short blond girl, chocolate-box pretty even under layers of dirt streaked by tears and with her long hair matted, stroked Burke’s arm as she waited, last to board. Over and over she quietly repeated, ‘Danke schon, danke schon.’ As he went to lift her she kissed him on the cheek, lightly and quickly, and then averted her eyes as for an instant they caught his.
‘Ah reckon I’ve seen near enough everything now,’ Ripper chortled. ‘Didn’t reckon I’d ever see a good old boy like you brought out in a blush.’ He just couldn’t resist the dig at their driver as he climbed back behind the wheel.
‘One more word out of you,’—Burke crashed into first, then remembered his cargo and let the eight-wheeler crawl forward to mount the fallen timber slowly— ‘…just one more, and you’ll have a matching hole in the other leg.’
In a series of almost slow-motion lurches that brought stifled screams from their frightened passengers, the Scammel wallowed over the obstruction.
‘There’s no choice now.’ Hyde shoved their prisoner along the back seat until he was seated in the still-solidifying blood, prodding him with the barrel of his Browning. ‘We can’t go dragging those kids around the battlefield like this crud was prepared to do. We’ve got to get them back to the others. At least in the castle there’s food and water. Even if in the next few hours it could have a horde of Reds hammering on the door.’
‘How the hell are we supposed to do that?’ Burke was using every facet of his driving skills to keep up the best pace he could while not subjecting the girls to more danger and discomfort than he could help. ‘There’s supposed to be the granddaddy of all minefields right around the place.’
‘I don’t know.’ Hyde cocked the pistol and held it to the deserter’s head as the man tried to turn so as to bring his bound hands onto the door catch. ‘Please do. If the fall doesn’t kill you, I will.’
Moving from the door, the man changed his tactics. ‘You’ve got to do something about my face. I’m bleeding to death.’ His words came out distorted by the wound. With each word fresh blood welled from his split lips and dripped into his lap.
‘You concentrate on staying still and quiet.’ Hyde set the safety on the pistol and lowered it, but didn’t lower his guard. ‘And don’t worry about that little cut. Facial wounds are rarely fatal.’ His scar tissue crinkled in mockery of a smile. ‘I speak from experience.’
‘Shit.’ Ripper stared in disbelief. ‘It looks like they nuked the place.’
Through the trees they glimpsed the castle, or the stump of it that remained. Only where it joined the rock was there here and there a section of wall that was recognizable. Dust still hung thick in the air about it and huge slides of rubble had cut swaths through the trees on the lower slopes.
‘So come on, tell me.’ Burke braked to a stop just short of where a torrent of broken stone had obliterated the road. Piled to three times the height of the cab, from it poked jagged lances of roofing timber.
‘Come on, Sarge, I’m asking. How do we get back to the others through this lot?’
Andrea craned her neck to survey the cliff. ‘I think I may know a way.’
Only the great gateway remained recognizable. Every other section of wall was shattered, and topped with many meters of broken stone. Abandoning their transport on the road, Revell and Voke split their men into parties to clear a way back into the cellars, and to erect firing positions atop the mountain of rubble, and in those ground floor rooms that had survived being crushed.
The dust lay knee-deep and was being turned into an adhering slurry that soon coated them from head to foot, transforming them into grey spectres.
Revell led a group through the huge hall, now partially filled with rubble where its massive roof timbers had failed to withstand the vast weight of the collapse of the main tower.
They were lucky; the smaller rooms beyond had survived and the door to the cellar steps was clear. Voke caught up with them as Revell groped for the generator switch.
Flickering fitfully at first, the machinery made hard work of starting up in the dust-laden atmosphere. It hung so thick that it made pearly halos around the lights.
Voke held a cloth over his mouth and nose to filter the worst of the choking particles. ‘This is the only way that is clear. It would take much time and heavy lifting equipment to break through to the other entrances. The demolition charges may have been larger than was truly needed.’
‘I agree.’ Revell spat to clear his tongue of cloying grit, and failed. ‘It was definitely rather overdone.’
Together they toured the warren of cellars. There had been roof-falls in two of the smaller rooms, but most, and all those with the weapons and ammunition, had survived intact.
They found Sampson already at work in the improvised dispensary, checking supplies, laying out instruments and dressings on a cloth-covered stool beside a rough pine table.
‘All I need is a couple of well-starched nurses and I’m ready to start up my own practice.’ He opened a case of morphine ampoules. ‘Looks like I shan’t have to tie anybody down this time.’
‘Let us hope that none of this will be needed.’ Voke winced as a bone-saw was added to the other implements of the surgeon’s trade.
‘I get the impression he’ll be disappointed if they’re not.’ Revell continued the tour of inspection.
Several of the working parties were now removing stores to stock the positions topside. Frequently the officers had to flatten themselves against the cold damp walls as men staggered past loaded with cases of mortar bombs, grenades and rockets.
They had just passed a door decorated with an ornate lock when something made Revell pause and hold the lieutenant back.
‘What’s in there?’
Voke shrugged. ‘It is a room we did not need. I do not recall ever opening it.’
‘It’s open now.’ Looking again at the lock, Revell noticed that the escutcheon plate was scratched and dented. As he went to push it, from the other side he heard the musical trill of birdsong.
‘Don’t shout at me, Major.’ Dooley threw his arms wide, an unopened bottle in either hand, in a gesture of supplication. ‘I must be dead and this is heaven, and no one gets shouted at in heaven.’
The vault was as big as the largest they’d seen, but its contents were markedly different. Down the full length of both sides were tall wine racks. In the centre of the floor, standing over a drain grating was a small deal table and on it a row of glasses.
‘You’re not dead, but if you don’t pull your weight with the others you soon will be wishing you were.’ Revell turned to the lieutenant. ‘Are any of your men teetotal?’
For a moment Voke’s command of English let him down. ‘Do you mean abstainers? Oh yes, twenty at least.’
‘Well, put your best fire-^and-brimstone man on this door.’
‘Old William that is who you need. If you wish, he would enjoy smashing the bottles and letting all this ... demon drink, run to that sump.’
‘No, Major. You can’t, you mustn’t.’ Dooley was panicking at the thought. ‘There’s thousands of bottles of wine here, and there’s champagne, cognac, sherry...’
‘Out!’
‘Then can I leave my birds here? If there’s going to be some mad prohibitionist freak on the door they should be safe enough. No one’s going to get past him.’
Above the ruins the pioneers were working hard and fast. Amid the jumble of stone they had already fashioned several interconnected strong points, improvising top cover for every pit and trench. In every position was emplaced a TOW anti- tank missile launcher or a clutch of Starstreak and Stinger antiaircraft launch tubes. In the small area of courtyard that remained clear had been set two mortars, and close by them an assortment of ready-use rounds, including smoke, high-explosive, illuminating and, in greatest numbers, Merlin top-attack armour -penetrating bombs.
‘Your men know their job well.’ Revell watched as a Dutch pioneer improvised a roof, from splintered doors, over the vulnerable ammunition.
‘I think they are enjoying themselves, Major.’ Voke was handed a bulky satchel by one of his men. He glanced into it, then handed it to Revell. ‘A little present for you. Something you asked for.’
Puzzled, Revell accepted it, and from its depths extracted three large drum magazines. ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve been eking out my last seven shells and you come up with these.’
He substituted one for the half-empty box mag on his assault shotgun. ‘Perfect, flechette and explosive.’
‘It is my hope that the communists do not get close enough for you to make effective use of that weapon.’ Voke patted his British Endeavour rifle. Its bull-pup configuration made it look insignificant close to the chunky mass of the wooden- stocked combat shotgun. ‘I prefer a weapon that can engage them before they get that close.’
Revell clipped the spare magazines to his belt. ‘I don’t think the choice will be down to us.’
FIFTEEN
‘Hold your fire! Hold your fire!’ Carrington yelled at the top of his voice, and heard the instruction passed on in Dutch and English.
He looked again through the image intensifies It didn’t reveal a perfect picture, but it clearly resolved into a view of a soft-skin eight-wheeler of NATO type.
‘Is it Hyde?’ Smothering himself in clinging grey mud in the process, Revell hurled himself into the machine-gun nest and grabbed the vision-enhancing night glasses.
‘Ought to be, but there’s too many of them.’ Adjusting the focus, the major saw that their hard-man was right. Six, including Andrea had gone out on the mine-laying detail. He could see at least twice that number moving about the vehicle.
‘Star shell?’
The suggestion made sense, but for Revell there was more than simply the lives of the sergeant’s squad to consider, with action so close. Yes, the truck had to be Hyde’s, perhaps returning with prisoners from their skirmish, but it might be a Russian recon team who’d taken it over and were employing it. It was a stunt the Warpac forces had used many times to approach NATO positions.
‘If it’s Reds we’ll let them get close before we hit them. I’ll want prisoners.’ Oh yes, he’d want prisoners. If they’d captured or killed Andrea he was personally going to make the death of every communist who fell into his hands very painful and extremely protracted.
Rummaging through the truck’s tool kit, Burke swore as he caught the back of his hand on the unguarded blade of a hacksaw.