Chieftains (10 page)

He saw a line of Russian T-64s clearing the smoke. 'What's the range?'

'Three thousand five hundred, sir.' The gunner was following one of the lead tanks.

Sergeant Davis saw the leading T-64 just as Captain Willis' shell struck it below its main gun. He thought that Bravo Four must have fired as the tank was now in position some eighty meters to his left. But as he glanced towards it now, he could see no gunsmoke.

He was searching the ground for other British tanks when Inkester fired without warning. Davis had no time to duck into the fighting compartment. The blast almost deafened him. He dropped inside and jerked the hatch closed. 'You okay, Shadwell?'

'Yes.'

Davis noticed the loader struggling, and wished he was better positioned to help the man. It seemed an age before the breech slammed closed and Shadwell shouted; 'Loaded.' Inkester fired immediately. 'Two, Sarge. Two...one after another. How's that for bloody shooting?'

'Shut up. Bravo Four, you okay?' Davis's head was still ringing from the sound of the gun.

'Affirmative, Sarge.'

'Fuckin' hurry up, Shad.' Inkester was shouting, working the turret around to the left. The Chieftain bucked again.

'Okay Bravo Four, get moving, fast.' Sealey didn't need encouragement. He was imagining a dozen guns ranging on the spot where his tank rested. His driver spun the tank on the road, and felt relief as the tracks bit into the tarmac surface.

Get going you bastard, get going! Davis knew he had to give Sealey enough time to get well down the road and into another firing position. But he was finding it almost impossible to resist the temptation to follow him. There was movement on his horizon, a turret top below a ridge of ground.

'Bravo Two this is Four. In position.'

Inkester had been monitoring the net, and shouted at DeeJay. Bravo Two wallowed for a second and then spun, showering sparks from her tracks.

The road took the Chieftain diagonally away from the advancing Russian armour, its smooth surface giving them the edge in speed, while the bank at the roadside was good cover. An enemy gunner would have to be damned efficient to get a sure sight on their fast-moving turret, thought Davis. Pray to God there weren't any helicopters! He pushed up the hatch again. The road curved to the right and he could see Bravo Four. 'Okay Bravo Four, we're going on past you.'

Sealey shouted back in the radio, 'You're fucking mad. I'm not waiting here.'

Davis changed the tone of his voice. 'Bravo Four, this is Bravo Two. You make a move before I radio, Sealey you bastard, and I'll put a Sabot right through your bloody hull. Out.' There was no comment from the shocked corporal.

A thousand meters farther down the road Davis stopped the tank and swung the turret ninety degrees to the right before calling Bravo Four. A couple of minutes later Sealey's Chieftain thundered past them at almost thirty miles an hour, shaking the ground as it went.

'Bravo Four, this is Bravo Two. I'm holding here for a while. Get yourself well back, but keep us in range.'

'Wilco, Bravo Two.' Sealey sounded subdued.

There wouldn't be long to wait, decided Davis. The battle smoke was drifting parallel with the road, and the visibility in the fields was better than six hundred meters. 'Traverse right, Inkester. Hold it...there...BMP, alongside the hedge.'

'I see it...come on love, come on now...' Inkester was talking to the gun as he fired. He yelled: 'Hit...hit, Sarge.'

Davis missed the destruction of the troop carrier, but heard Inkester's shout of satisfaction. 'Shut up, Inkester...Bravo Four this is Bravo Two, we're moving again.' Davis was trying to find the road on his map. It curved north, taking them directly across the line of the Soviet advance! They would have to leave it and move across the fields towards the west. He stuffed the map between his legs and pressed his eyes to the sight. It was aligned on a T-64. He flicked on the times ten magnification just as Inkester's shell struck; it was impressive, watching it happen only a few meters away. 'Move, DeeJay. Get her rolling...Bravo Four as soon as we reach you, move off...we'll head west off the road and get out of here...'

'Wilco, Sarge...' Corporal Sealey acknowledged gratefully.

'BMPs...BMPs...' Inkester's voice rose. The computer locked to its target, adjusting the gun as the tank moved. Inkester fired.

'Go left now, DeeJay...keep with us Bravo Four...Inkester, BMP three o'clock...don't lose it...Bravo Four, stay close...we're heading west of the small wood ahead.' The gun roared once more. 'Okay, Inkester, leave 'em.'

A shell exploded a few meters ahead of Bravo Two just as DeeJay rammed her through a hedge and into the open field. He began jinking, maintaining the speed but driving in a series of opposing curves as he braked first one track and then the other. There were more explosions, one close enough for its pressure wave to slam violently against the hull. A few meters more and they would be behind cover. Don't let it happen...please don't let it happen to us...Davis was praying. It took an eternity to cover the few hundred meters, but the shelling eased and finally stopped. DeeJay straightened the course and rammed his foot down hard. He had been in action long enough, and now all he wanted was to get away as fast as he could. 'Steady...for Christ's sake, DeeJay!' Bravo Two was pitching dangerously, hammering her bow on. the ground as her suspension was strained near breaking point. 'Easy, lad...easy.' Bravo Four was in line with them now, a hundred meters to their left.

The panic which had gripped DeeJay gradually slackened. He managed to get himself and Bravo Two under control. For a few moments, the terror which he had kept contained during the fighting had overwhelmed him.

He could hear Davis's voice, calm, unemotional. 'Fine, DeeJay...keep it like that...nice and steady. Left a little...left...good...well done, lad.' The knots in DeJay's stomach muscles relaxed and he began listening to Bravo Two. Her tracks were slapping badly, needed adjustment...her engine was beginning to sound rough; he hadn't helped it by driving like a lunatic. She didn't deserve that kind of treatment. Her steering was getting difficult as well, he was having to use a lot more strength on the left lever. Everything needed servicing, and badly. Christ, the sergeant fitter would go bananas when he examined her. There was a strange rattle, a deep knock that reverberated through the driving compartment...an engine mounting? Bloody hell, that would be an they needed. He began to nurse her, encourage her.

Davis too was beginning to relax as the distance between Bravo Two and the advancing enemy increased. I've survived again, he told himself; survived for Hedda and the boys...so we can be together...God, when? Afterwards! Hedda? It would be good when he saw her again...Christ, it would be good! He tried to send his thoughts to her...I'll be back soon, love...just you take care of the kids, I'll look after my self...don't you worry...I'm okay...doing fine.

'Ahead...tank...'Inkester yelled the words just as Davis caught a glimpse of a partially camouflaged hull, close to the wood on their right. Inkester was swinging the turret trying to get the tank in his sights.

'No...it's one of ours...a Challenger,' warned Davis. 'Bravo Four...Challengers to our right.' The ground dipped unexpectedly in front of Bravo Two. DeeJay braked fiercely and swung left. There were a line of Challengers in the hollow, hull down, waiting. 'DeeJay, slow...okay, lad...stop her. Bravo Four come alongside us.' Davis opened the hatch and clambered out, trying to decide which of the tanks was likely to contain an officer. He recognized the skull and crossed bones insignia of the 17th/21st Lancers. A figure waved to them from a tank further down the line. He jumped down to the ground and was surprised his legs held him; they felt shaky, numb. He ran to the vehicle and climbed on to her hull. 'Sergeant Davis, sir. Bravo Troop, Charlie Squadron...Battle Group Cowdray One. We've got ourselves lost, sir. No radio contact.'

The officer's rank wasn't visible on his clothing, but Davis sensed he was a captain, possibly a major. 'You should be a mile further south, Sergeant. Your group is pulling back towards Warberg. You'll be reforming there. You can leave the Russians to us for a while. Get there as quickly as you can.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' Davis jumped from the Challenger's hull. The officer's voice stopped him.

'Sergeant...what was your name again?'

'Davis, sir. Morgan Davis.'

'You men have done a good job, Sergeant Davis. Head due south. You'll hit the Esbeck to Warberg road.'

'Thank you, sir.' He saluted, then ran back to Bravo Two. There were four helicopters coming low across the fields, Lynxs, heading towards the advancing Soviet armour. The sound of artillery was quickening; a flight of rockets howled away from a battery hidden in the woods. The war was catching up with him again. It was late afternoon, on the first day.

NINE

There was sufficient aggressive determination in the voice of November Squadron's Captain Harling of the US Black Horse Cavalry, to convince Master Sergeant Will Browning that the man was a homicidal megalomaniac and that he'd conceived some sadistic plan that would lead to the extermination of his whole squadron.

The captain's exaggerated Texan enthusiasm bordered on hysteria as he made a wild speech over the squadron net about pride, the need to sacrifice and the old-fashioned spunk of true-grit American fighting men when faced with some difficult, if not impossible, task. Harling intended it to make the men of his squadron forget they might be about to die – it had the opposite effect. Those who had not remade their wills in the past few days now regretted the omission; more than a couple of the nervous were reduced to mental wrecks of no fighting use whatsoever, and they needed long and real encouragement from their individual commanders to combat Harling's damage to their morale.

It had come only a short while after the end of a series of attacks on their positions, which November Squadron had successfully repulsed. The nerves of the survivors were already ragged; the earlier artillery bombardment had been fierce. The lull, when it came, had been welcome. Then the captain's lengthy bullshit pep-talk.

He had ended: 'I can't tell you not to think about KIA...but I tell you, men, when they do a body count out there, there are going to be one hell of a lot more Popskis than Johnstons.' That was great, mused Browning, one of the November drivers was a Mike Popski! 'We're going right back in. We held the head of their assault my,
and
beat 'em. Now we're going after them, into their flank.' Harling had suddenly remembered security and switched to code after a fit of coughing. 'H minus 1237 Shark Fin. You get...' The squadron network picked up a steady howling interference that drowned out Harling's voice. Browning didn't hurry to retune to a different wavelength. Shark Fin...counterattack...so that was what all the bull was about. H...that was the datum time, so H minus 1237 meant it would all begin to happen in around ten minutes.

'How come we held the head, and we're about to attack their flank?' began Podini, incredulously. 'The guy's a nut!'

The troop radio net interrupted him. 'Utah, Idaho, Oregon?' The troop lieutenant's voice, easy and relaxed. 'What you got left?' Will Browning heard the ammunition count and added his own. 'Thirty-nine rounds; mixed. Smoke unused. Machine gun ammo okay, out.'

'H minus 1233 we move, okay. They've got a bridgehead over the Ulster a kilometer north of Gunthers. Avoid the hundred meter strip near the river, it's heavily mined. There are some T-80s ahead of us, but according to information the captain's got, they're thin on the ground, and we believe they don't have much infantry support now. The rest of November will be on our right. We'll keep to the open ground to the west. Out.'

Six minutes? There were only five left now! Browning was trying to collect his memories of the past hours; the barrage spreading south until it had engulfed them and finally passed on. There had been no casualties then in the squadron, although the infantry and one of the artillery batteries had suffered. The squadron had moved forward a thousand meters to battle positions on lower ground, and fought the enemy massed on the shallow slopes on the far side of the river Ulster. It had been long-distance warfare at first, maximum range, indistinct targets hidden behind smoke as the Soviet assault force attempted to gain a foothold on the western bank. The river defences had been hard pressed, yet they had held...but not, it now seemed, everywhere. Browning had seen the temporary military bridges blown in the first few minutes of the initial attack, demolished by the charges of the US Division's Combat Engineers. There had been several attempts by the Soviet troops using BTR-50 amphibious troop carriers to cross the river, but these had all been foiled by the artillery on the western hill overlooking the valley, and steady mortaring and small-arms fire had wasted the enemy infantry. A renewed artillery barrage by Soviet long-range field artillery had again failed to displace the US Division, and full daylight provided the Army Air Corps' gunships and Thunderbolt Threes with a wealth of targets. The US Command's plans that their ground forces should always be able to fight under a canopy of air superiority was paying off in the sector. There had been no time so far, in the battle, when Browning and the men of November had found the sky clear of American aircraft of one type or another. It had been comforting.

Napalm had ignited much of the forest on the eastern side of the border territory, and the strengthening breeze from the south-east was sweeping the fires northwards across the Soviet supply routes, and forcing them continuously to move their close artillery support. The immediate effect had been to take the pressure off the northernmost flank of the American Armoured Division.

Mike Adams was gunning the motor like some twitchy racing driver at the start of a Grand Prix. Browning was about to tell him to cool it when he heard the lieutenant again. 'Okay Indians, let's roll.'

India Troop came out of the woodland in line abreast and for a few seconds Browning felt naked, then the other tanks of November squadron were with them, and Browning was happier. Christ, he thought, war's changed... even as I remember it! You no longer saw lines of weary infantrymen trudging their way up to the front and into battle. Now they travelled right to the battlefield in their armoured personnel carriers...they arrived fresh and unsullied. At least, that was the principle. The infantry were with them now, only a couple of hundred meters behind the leading tanks, well-protected in their XM723s, sufficiently weaponed to be capable of fighting their way forward with the main amour, each of the personnel carriers equipped with TOW missile launchers and 25mm cannon; inside, twelve infantrymen and the crew.

The appearance of the small village of Gunthers startled Browning. He had driven through it legs than thirty hours before. It had been tidy, neat and spotless; the houses with their steeply pitched roofs smartly painted, their verandahs and windows decked with carefully tended boxes of bright scarlet geraniums and ferns. The men had been hurrying about their business with the usual Teutonic dedication, as though their ignoring the increasing tension so close to their homes would encourage it to go away. The women had been at the shops, the children in school. Browning had slowed his vehicle to watch a group of boys, supervised by a tracksuited teacher, playing soccer. Browning didn't understand the rules too well, but it was increasing in popularity back home in the States, and it looked active enough to be interesting. Now, it was all an area of terrible desolation and smoke-blackened wreckage. Not a single building was left standing above its first level. They were a thousand meters to the east of it.

Hal Ginsborough said quietly, 'Will you take a look at that! God almighty!'

'Mother-fuckers...' It was Podini.

'Shut up,' snapped Browning. Who needed comments to emphasize the civilian horror? He couldn't see a living soul in the wreckage, though doubtless there'd be some. Somebody always survived, no matter how bad it looked; he'd seen it happen many times in Nam, but it was always hard to believe. Maybe some of the villagers would have left before the battle began, but he doubted if all would have quit their homes. Some did...but many didn't. They sat in the cellars and waited, praying desperately that the war would pass them by. He knew what the wreckage of the buildings would smell like; it would be worse in a few days. Someone, perhaps him, would eventually have to help dig out the bodies, hoping all the time they might find someone alive, some kid perhaps, protected by a beam of timber, a collapsed wall. The smell...the stink, and the flies. There would be rats...Jesus, why was it so many of
them
seemed to escape destruction? Lean, starving dogs; worse, cats that could sometimes look obscenely well-fed, licking themselves clean amongst the tumbled and bloodstained rubble! There were fires in the wreckage, and a heavy layer of smoke drifted above the remains of the village like a shroud.

The lieutenant's voice was on the troop net again: 'Best speed, Indians, but maintain your formation. Good luck, guys.'

Best speed! 'Step on it, Mike,' he ordered, and felt the Abrams surge forward, bucking over the uneven ground, as the roar of the engines increased. Sound was always relative to discomfort in a tank, he thought wryly. The only good thing was you didn't hear most of the noises of battle. It was still there, though; not far in front of him now. Five thousand meters...closer. Much closer!

He saw the explosion of a shell two hundred meters ahead. It looked like an error, or an optimistic ranging attempt by some distant gun crew. Mike Adams had seen it too, and he steered the Abrams in a series of sharp but uneven zigzags that shook Browning's head from side to side as the direction continuously changed; a few hundred meters of driving like this and he would begin to feel travel sick.

It was barely possible to distinguish the riverbank several hundred meters to their right. Like everywhere else the ground seemed to be on fire, the grass and trees smoking, hazy; wreckage, twisted and spewing Mack fumes. Far ahead were the remains of a small wood on a low hill, and a few scattered and blasted farm buildings at the foot of the rising ground.

The barrage began to increase in intensity. Where the hell was the American smoke, Browning wondered? It was madness charging straight into enemy guns; the only protection they were getting was from the smoke of the Soviet shell explosions. The horizon was blurred, but the advancing American tanks must be obvious targets to the enemy gunners. Browning couldn't pinpoint their positions, but had the ghastly feeling he was being driven into the heart of a maelstrom of artillery fire.

Two heavy calibre shells bracketed the tank, forcing Adams to correct the steering. Hell seemed to open its doors ahead of them; shell-bursts as dense as forest trees were columns of fire leaping up from the ground. Was the squadron getting air support? Browning thought he caught a glimpse of a line of gunships above him. If it were imagination, it helped a little; he had lost sight of the other tanks. He was experiencing a growing sense of indecisiveness and terror. Should he order Adams to slow down...increase his speed? Should he tell him to swing the Abrams out of line, try to get away to the side where the barrage might be lighter? Get the hell out of here...that was important...chances of survival were nil...it was only a matter of time...seconds...and they'd be hit...this was crazy...madness...

The lieutenant was shouting on the troop net, static punctuating his words. 'Indians engaging...Indians engaging...'

Adams swerved the XM1 again as the burning hulk of a Russian T-80 loomed through the smoke. Someone, something, had hit it...visibility was little more than forty meters. The corpses of a Soviet mortar team were strewn across the path of the Abrams, their bodies blackened and twisted by napalm, still smouldering. The XM1's tracks churned them into the filthy earth.

Infantry. They would be around somewhere, hidden, waiting, as deadly as howitzers with their anti-tank rocket launchers. Was the barrage easing? Browning sprayed the area ahead with his machine gun...keep the bastards' heads down. Ginsborough was doing the same...and experiencing identical fears. Browning knew Podini would be seeking targets for the main gun, but there seemed to be none. There was a Soviet BTR-60 personnel carrier to the Abrams' right, but its wheels had been blown off and its tyres were burning. He saw movement beside the hulk and swung the .5 towards it, firing before he aimed, a line of heavy bullets ripping a deep seam across the ground. He concentrated a long burst on the rear of the carrier and saw green-suited figures stagger and fall. Ginsborough's 7.62 was chattering...short regular bursts that seemed to be timed to the pulse in Browning's temples.

Adams was yelling in the intercom: 'Jesus...oh Jesus...Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ!' He wound the Abrams through a field of craters, the wreckage of vehicles and men, its speed little more than jogging pace. The smoke was thinning, visibility increasing.

There was a heavy blow on the side of the XM1's turret which sent a violent shockwave through the fighting compartment and rang the metal of the hull as though it were a vast bell.

'Shit!' Ginsborough was swearing. In the gloom of the interior the side of the turret was glowing dull red where an armour-piercing shell had failed to penetrate as it glanced off the thick steel. The ground was rising more sharply, smashed woodland lay ahead, stumps of distorted trees, pitted earth, gaunt roots. A thin hedge ran diagonally across the landscape to the left, partly destroyed, the bushes torn and scattered. Browning saw another group of Soviet infantry eighty meters in front of the Abrams. There were the sounds of light machine gun rounds against the hull, pattering like hail on a barn roof and ho more effective. He brought the Abrams' Bushmaster Cannon on to the target by remote control, but before he could depress the firing button the Abrams' M68 gun roared and the infantrymen were lost in the burst of the 105mm shell only fifty meters ahead.

Browning was angry. 'Save your ammo, Podini...leave the infantry to me.'

'What infantry ?' Podini sounded exasperated.