He flinched and his eyes flickered open as another body slumped against his. He relaxed his instantly tensed muscles when he saw that it was Andrea. With her alone he could bear any form of physical contact. Even that, by insinuating a pack between them, he kept to a minimum. Still he could not repress an involuntary shudder as the warmth of her breath on his shoulder permeated his layers of clothing.
Ripper was not so easily to be put down, and after a short pause made another attempt to draw one of the crew, anyone who could profess to some knowledge on the subject in which he’d taken such interest. ‘Well, if we do come across it we’d be sure to be able to take on extra gas, or maybe even swap these ancient wrecks for better transport.’ He looked around hopefully.
‘It’s a dream; forget it.’ As Revell hoisted himself into the command cupola he caught a glimpse of Andrea, where she snuggled against their sniper. Much as he loathed the sight of her with anybody else, it took an effort for him to pull his eyes away.
Through the mud-smeared thick prisms he viewed the road ahead. It twisted and turned constantly, sometimes flanked by shallow banks but fairly level, but then suddenly climbing with a broken rock wall to one side and a precipitous drop to the other. They passed through a tiny village, just fifteen half-timbered houses, a tiny combined store and gas station and a tall spired church. It had been looted and abandoned long ago. Except for fading paint on doors and shutters there was no colour about the scene, with even the defoliated trees adding to the impression that he was looking at a black-and-white photograph. The same drenching of chemicals that had killed shrubs and trees had also inhibited the growth of weeds that would otherwise have enveloped the road and paths, but though that facet of dereliction was missing, the drifts of dirt and other wind-blown debris more than compensated.
They slowed to negotiate a tangle of branches from an old elm that some storm had thrown down to partially block the road. The brittle timber snapped in a shower of water droplets, and then they were clear and picking up speed again when a hail of twenty-millimetre cannon fire lashed at the APC.
The tracer-towing high-velocity rounds smacked hard against and into the mass of spare track links, sandbags and scrap metal that crudely reinforced the front plates. They ricocheted wildly, leaving scraps of their phosphorous bases to smoulder among the shattered remnants.
Burke threw the APC into a skid turn to take them off the road and out of the line of fire, but the tracks only scrabbled at the loose shale of the bank. As he hurled the machine into reverse for a second attempt, another burst of armour- piercing and incendiary shells lashed out.
There was an ear-punishing crash as a round found a gap among the remains of the protective litter on the hull, penetrated the splashboard and almost punched its way through the hull. A semi-molten scab of aluminium flashed the length of the crew compartment to smash a first-aid box beside the rear ramp.
‘Make smoke.’ Revell wrenched at the door-control lever. ‘Out, out, out.’
As Burke scrambled from the driver’s position a third and longer burst of enemy fire put a round clean through the smoke-wreathed armour, smashing the instrument panel and shattering against a control stick. Flames licked from destroyed wiring and the padding of the seat covering.
Jamming in the half-lowered position, the ramp tore weapons and equipment from the crew’s grasp as they bailed out fast, with the fire already taking hold behind them.
THREE
Slewed at an angle across the narrow road, the boxlike bulk of the old APC gave the squad cover as they scattered among the flanking trees.
As he bailed out, Sergeant Hyde caught a glimpse of a four-wheeled Warpac armoured car barely fifty meters away, parked close against the bank at a bend in the road. Stabs of flame from the snout of its cannon marked another score of shells unleashed against the now abandoned M113.
Masked by the wreck, the driver of the second vehicle in their little convoy wrenched his machine into reverse and brought it into clanging collision with the last in the file. Track links snapped and both slewed to a stop with their drives broken.
Hyde’s swearing made him overlook the fact that the Russian gunners’ preoccupation with the hulks of their armour had given the company time to scatter into cover. But it was only a momentary lapse. Those few precious fractions of time wasted by the enemy when he failed to switch his fire to the fleeing crews were quickly made up for when a torrent of co-axial heavy machine-gun fire was hosed into the woods.
There was a brief pause as a belt or magazine was changed, and then the rapid- firing weapon probed again among the trunks for human targets. But already the best chance had been missed. Only three of the grenade dischargers on the lead APC had been fired but now they added their swirling clouds to the output of the fiercer blaze inside the APC.
The steadily falling rain prevented the smoke from rising and caused it to swirl in confusing wisps into the woods. Hardly diminished by the downpour, it wreathed the intervening ground in a fitful screen.
Again the air was full of metal from the high-velocity Russian cannon as tungsten-tipped shells smacked great scabs of bark from the trees. Where some lodged, their incendiary content added to the artificial fog.
In nervously erratic ripples the streams of bullets stitched across the timber, betraying the gunner’s lack of fire discipline, as he fired blindly, expending ammunition at a prodigious rate.
From inside the flame- and smoke-generating APC came the crackle of small- arms ammunition cooking-off. At the noise, the enemy turret-gunner reverted his attention back to the wreck.
‘This is our chance.’ Haying failed to find the major, Hyde grabbed Dooley, and then kicked out at Thorne to get his attention also.
Thorne gave up his elbow-armed conflict with Scully to get equal shares of the cover of a slim tree barely adequate for one, and joined the NCO behind an insubstantial holly bush. ‘I’ll strangle the shitty flier who sprayed this lot with crap and stopped them growing to a useful width. If I live to get the chance to look for him.’
‘If we don’t do something about that scout car you won’t.’ Hyde hugged the ground as a random burst scythed through the shrub and showered them with fragments of dead leaves and wood. ‘The fucker’s ammo won’t last much longer at this rate, but I’m not prepared to sit on my arse in the hope I’ll still be in one piece when he runs out.’
They ran crouched low, ignoring the cuts and scratches inflicted by low branches and thorns as they made a wide detour around the ambush site.
They threw themselves down as another wild burst slashed slivers of bark from standing timber only inches overhead.
‘What the fuck is that thing doing here?’ Almost dropping his Ml6, Thorne hitched the three-pack of rocket-launchers more firmly onto his back after a series of jarring collisions with low-hanging branches and the tearing effect of the several dense thickets they had passed through.
‘It’s a fucking scout car. What would it be doing? It’s fucking scouting, that’s what.’ Carefully moving aside a tangle of undergrowth, Dooley still succeeded in drenching himself with the mass of droplets of water it discharged.
The trio’s circuitous route had brought them to a point level with, and slightly above, the Russian armoured car. Inching forward farther, into the heart of a long- dead briar patch, they made their preparations.
‘There’s a Hummer behind it.’ Whispering, although there was no chance of their being heard at fifty meters distance, and above the rattle of automatic fire now returned at the four-wheeler, Thorne pointed to the much-holed vehicle close by the scout car.
Along its doors and side panels showed the close-stitched holes of a burst of machine-gun fire, each dark centre surrounded by the bare metal ring where impact had smacked away the paint. Against the starred windscreen lolled the head of its driver, his face barred with blood that streaked the shattered glass.
Reaching across, Hyde helped Thorne slip the heavy pack from his shoulders, and taking one launch tube for himself, withdrew a second for Dooley. His actions being mirrored, the sergeant extended the firing tube, not bothering to raise the sights at so short a range.
‘Why are the fuckers hanging about?’ Shouldering the rocket-launcher, Dooley instinctively waited for the sergeant’s fire order. ‘Those little shits haven’t got any armour, so why’s he hanging about when he got lucky and kicked our wheels from under us?’ The four-wheeler filled his field of vision, and his finger took up the slack on the trigger. ‘It don’t make any sense, those recce wagons of theirs usually avoid a scrap.’
‘Who cares…?’ Hyde took a moment longer over his aim, and then whipped his launcher sideways to clout Dooley’s downward and prevent his firing. ‘There’s one of our blokes down there.’
For the first time Thorne noticed two men huddled against the embankment for its protection from the incoming small-arms fire skimming past the Warpac armoured car.
One of them wore the distinctive latest pattern NATO camouflage jacket and helmet. An obviously Russian officer had him covered with a pistol.
Pinned there by the fire from the woods about the disabled armoured personnel carriers, they could neither board nor scramble to the comparative safety of the trees.
The scout car began slowly to reverse, turning slightly to offer the Russian and his captive the protection of its flank, and set low in that side was a small hatch that swung open.
As the scout car began to move, the fire aimed at it increased dramatically. Hyde knew he could do nothing as the captive was propelled toward the opening. Everything told him he should fire, let the NATO man take his chances, but still he held back, willing the man to make a break for it, do something.
The intensity of small-arms fire from the woods was such that external fittings on the scout car were being broken and wrenched away as streams of tracer swept back and forth across the angled steel plates.
A burst aimed low ploughed sparks and fountains of mud from the road, ricochets passed under the belly of the vehicle and both men staggered as they were struck.
Slumping against the armour close to the hatch, eyes closed and teeth clenched against the agony of his smashed ankle, the NATO soldier did not resist when strong hands reached out and roughly hauled him inside.
The officer was not so lucky. Falling to the ground with both legs broken, he was hit again, in the face. Blood, teeth and tissue spurted from his mouth. He twisted around to make a desperate lunge for the closing door. Fingers locked on the edge of the opening, he was dragged as the scout car began to reverse. Twice the door was cracked hard against his hand, but his grip held. The third time it was opened fully and then slammed viciously. Fingers severed, the officer sprawled and had no chance to avoid the deep-treaded wheel that passed over his stomach. A last writhing contortion and he was finally still.
‘Do I fire?’ Dooley had re-shouldered the launch tube and was tracking the retreating target. ‘Do I bloody fire?’
For a moment the scout was stalled as it became entangled with the Hummer. Watching, with his mind locked almost into a trance, Hyde couldn’t give the order. He could picture the frightening scene inside the vehicle: the dim red light, blurred by swirling fumes and smoke that carried the sour stench of cordite, the non-stop hail of bullets striking the armour blending with the thunder and rattle of the cannon and co-axial machine gun.
And there’d be blood everywhere, some from the crew where they’d been cut by flying scabs of metal punched from the hull where tungsten-tipped rounds had almost penetrated, and much more from the injured man on the floor.
That’s just what it had been like when Hyde had lost his face to the furnace heat generated by a Soviet antitank round. A hollow-charge shell had struck the APC square in the side and jetted a plasma stream of molten metal and explosive across the crew compartment. Their East German prisoner, laid bound on the floor, had instantly become a demented, screaming blazing torch.
‘A couple of seconds and it’ll be gone ...’ Getting no response from Hyde, Dooley took aim. ‘Fuck it, I’m bloody firing.’ He bellowed his rage as the missile clipped a sapling, veered from course and pancaked onto the ground far short of its target.
Broken open by the impact, the solid fuel spilled and burned to form an instant smokescreen that masked the target, and when it cleared, it was gone. Seconds later the warhead self-destructed and sent a plume of steam and woodland debris above the treetops.
The three men exchanged no words as they trudged to rejoin the others, now emerging from cover.
Following a few paces behind, Hyde looked at his hands. They were shaking. He realized that deep within himself the months of combat were finally taking their toll. Circumstances, and his own stubborn refusal to see it, had driven him to and beyond his limit.
Passing the Hummer, Hyde checked the driver. Sometime during the brief action he had died. Alone, uncomforted, ignored in the skirmish going on about him, he had succumbed to the massive head wound that had blown a chunk from the front of his skull. Pulverized brain matter still dripped into his lap. Most likely he had known little about it after that single smashing blow. He had probably even been beyond pain. It had been a mercy, of sorts.
‘We lost Solly, Ferris and Lang. They caught a burst trying to get out over the top. Same as ours, the door jammed.’ Preoccupied with a dozen thoughts, Revell didn’t register the British sergeant’s detachment from the scene. ‘Apart from that just a few scratches.’ He took off his helmet and, in wiping sweat away, added more dirt.
The light rain was doing little to disperse the blood from the three corpses huddled by the interlocked APCs. Except in one place, where it mingled with a large puddle that was gradually reddening.
‘They’re both fucked, Major.’ Burke reported his examination of the collision- damaged transports.
It took that to snap Hyde back to reality. ‘Do you fancy being just a trifle more precise? Or would you like to be carrying the fifty-calibre for the rest of this trip?’