Chieftains (16 page)

Christ, thought Davis. What now?

'He tells me you personally stood-off a Russian tank battalion. Is that correct?'

Davis felt himself blush. 'I don't know about that, sir.'

'At Redstart, Sergeant. Yourself and the corporal in charge of Charlie Bravo Four. He tells me that on your own initiative you got yourself hull-defilade beside a road, and picked them off as they came across the fields. You then retired four hundred meters and did the same thing again. It has been confirmed by an officer of the 17th/21st.'

'It seemed the best thing to do, sir,' said Davis. He hadn't realized there had been an audience. It made him even more embarrassed.

'You could have simply retired, Sergeant; the remainder of your squadron vehicles were all knocked out, it would have been reasonable for you to have done so.'

'Yes, sir.' Davis didn't know what the brigadier was expecting him to say. He wasn't sounding particularly friendly, perhaps Davis was about to get a rocket for putting the tanks and men at risk.

'Good show, Sergeant. Damned good show. I see that your loader was wounded, and your tank hit!'

Davis thought he should emphasize the part Shadwell had played. If there was credit to be handed around, then Shadwell was due for some. 'Trooper Shadwell lost his fingers early in the action, sir. He kept on loading even after he had been wounded. And just now, sir, he refused medical attention until I gave him an order. He wanted to remain with the crew.'

'Excellent spirit, Sergeant. His behaviour won't be overlooked.' Davis was surprised to see Captain Willis wink at him from behind the brigadier's shoulder. The brigadier continued. 'Your Chieftain's a little worse for wear. I want you to take over a troop, Davis. We're rebuilding your squadron. On your squadron leader's recommendation, I'm promoting you to warrant officer first class. The promotion takes effect immediately. Do you understand, Mr Davis?'

'Yes, sir.' He understood the brigadier's words, but he couldn't believe him. Not yet, anyway. A warrant officer. Mister Davis. My God, WO1. He had jumped ranks. Hedda would be over the moon.

Outside, Captain Willis shook his hand warmly. 'You deserve it Mister Davis. You've also been recommended for a decoration.'

'Good God, sir!' He wondered if he was dreaming.

Willis laughed. 'You'll get used to the idea, Mister Davis. The next step is a pip on your shoulder, remember that. By the way, there's a tank delivery squab in the woods. Here are the papers from Captain Clarkson. They're expecting you over there. You're getting a fresh vehicle. They'll introduce you to your new crew. Run through the usual POL, and checks, just to be on the safe side. When you've got yourself sorted out, come and see me. I can't exactly promise you a celebration, but I've got enough brandy for a small drink to your promotion.'

'Thank you, sir. But the crew, sir. I'd like to keep my own...just need a new loader, sir.'

'It's not always wise with a promotion, Mister Davis.'

'I understand, sir. But I know these men; they're good.'

Willis smiled again. 'Very well. Use them'

Dusk came early as the sun dropped below the thick pall of smoke that seemed to form the horizon in every direction. Shortly afterwards the squadron moved north-west to its fresh positions behind the River Schunter. The war was more obvious again, much closer, with the undersides of some of the clouds lit by explosions on the ground beneath them. Warrant Officer Davis knew what it was like here, knew what he had to expect again within the next short hours; the turmoil and confusion, the sounds, the heaving ground, and death. It hadn't been too bad the first time, not knowing; and then it had all happened so quickly there had been little time to think. Now, it was different. He had survived once, while a lot of men had died; many of his friends were there, behind the enemy lines, still in the wreckage of their tanks. Could he make it a second time? He would damn well try! What the hell was the use of a promotion if you couldn't enjoy it? He wanted to be with Hedda and the kids; wanted them to share the pleasure of a new uniform, his new rank and the privileges it would bring. There'd be more money, too...a better car, maybe.

The new Chieftain's engine was throbbing softly. The position was on level ground six hundred meters behind the narrow river, on the outskirts of the village of Süpplingen. Davis's tank was in a small garden, with a rising bank between it and the river giving some protection against artillery. The radio nets were silent.

The replacement loader, a nineteen year old, Henry Spink, was fussing about in the fighting compartment. He seemed to be polishing the gun. Davis let him get on with it; the lad was nervous. It wasn't surprising.

DeeJay was whistling softly down in his driving seat, feeling a little happier with a full stomach and a couple of hours sleep behind him. He hadn't enjoyed leaving Bravo Two standing forlorn and battered under her netting beneath the trees. He had felt he was deserting her. It took a conscious effort to turn his back and walk away. The new tank hadn't even smelt right; he had run up the engine, gunned it hard for several minutes, listening to it and trying to spot weaknesses or faults before allowing himself to rest. He knew Inkester had experienced similar doubts about the gunnery equipment. A tank is only a tank, DeeJay kept telling himself; one bit of army equipment is the same as the next. His own arguments didn't convince him. He tried thinking of other things. 'Inky?' He shouted over his shoulder, his voice distorted by the engine vibration and the metalwork of the new Chieftain's hull.

'Yeah?'

'Ah've been considerin',' DeeJay yelled. 'Considerin' warrant officers!'

'Oh yeah,' answered Inkester.

'Well, I reckon t' be warrant officer, tha's got to have more brains than a sergeant.' The northern accent was deliberately heavy, broad.

Davis was going to interrupt the banter, and then decided to let DeeJay finish. He didn't want to appear sensitive about his sudden promotion.

'Well, yeah, that's probably right.'

'In that case, stands to reason Inky we got to be better off than this morning, ain't we? Cus, we've got a warrant officer with us now.'

'How would you like some fatigues instead of R and R when we get out of this, Hewett?' Davis thought a little controlled annoyance might be beneficial.

'There y'are, Inky. Our warrant officer said "when we get out". See...warrant officers are bloody optimists, too!' DeeJay began whistling again, this time 'Colonel Bogey'.

Inkester twisted around in his seat. 'That's meant to be a joke, sir. You know DeeJay.'

'I know both of you; that's why you're with me.'

'We're bloody glad we are, sir.'

The moon was beginning to rise and Davis could see movement a few meters away across the corner of the field. He watched carefully. There was a hedgerow to the right, neatly trimmed, below a row of poplars that had been planted as a windbreak for the crops. A fox! He could see it better now, stalking a rabbit that was feeding a few meters out in the stubble. Everything is killing everything else, he thought. One day there'll be only one living thing left on earth, and it'll be so lonely it will have to kill itself, and that will be the end of it all. The earth might be a better place then. Green, lush, peaceful, soundless. Green? If everything killed everything else, it wouldn't be green. It would be brown...dry rock and sand...mud. It would be the battlefield again.

Davis's new troop in Charlie Squadron had retained its designation 'Bravo'. Davis wasn't sure if it was deliberate or accidental, but somehow it seemed to indicate continuity; it certainly made life easier for himself. All he had to remember was that his new Chieftain was Charlie Bravo One, and that as troop leader, he might use the call sign Nine. Captain Willis' voice was on the squadron net now. 'All stations, Charlie, this is Shark. Wolf griddle five seven six zero nine two. Out!

'Charlie Bravo One. Roger, Shark. Out.'

The radio clicked to silence again. The shorter the time a sender spent on the air, the less likely the call would be intercepted or its source located by enemy listening posts.

Wolf. That was the code name for a Soviet recce battalion. The numbers were a coded grid reference. Davis worked it out on his knee-pad, and then found it on his map. God, they were less than three kilometers away, and a recce battalion could move quickly in their light vehicles.

'How long?' asked Inkester. His voice seemed to have aged in the past hours. Perhaps it was only fatigue.

'Depends. They could try to cross north or south of us. Unless they're delayed, they should reach the river in twenty minutes to half an hour.'

'The minefields will slow them.'

Slow them! Inkester had learned fast, thought Davis. This morning he would have said: 'Stop them'. Sometimes it seemed nothing would ever stop the Russians; they'd keep rolling right the way to the Channel.

'Well get plenty of support,' Davis said. At least that was true. They hadn't intended to hold them close to the frontier, only slow them down, inflict as many casualties as possible to the armour. Here, it was different. The defences were much stronger, the minefields denser and deeper. There had been a little more time for preparation, and information on the enemy's movements and tactics was clearer.

'You been keeping score, sir?'

'Score?'

'Kills.'

'No,' admitted Davis. Christ, trust Inkester! The lad thought he was Von Richthofen. The first opportunity he got, he would paint a line of red stars on the side of the turret.

'Me neither.' Inkester sounded disappointed. 'I got as far as five, and then I lost count. It was more than that though, maybe eight.'

Eight, maybe eight, thought Davis. Better than the odds against them. If every NATO tank took out eight Russian tanks in the battles, then the Russian advance would soon be too costly for them to continue. Eight for one...no, God, not even eight for one. Better than that; he and the crew were still alive, still fighting. At least, three of them were. And the Chieftain was reparable. She was probably back in the workshops now, being serviced. She could be in action with another crew in twelve hours, perhaps less. Eight Russian tanks; three men to a vehicle. That was a lot of dead Russians. There were more – he remembered a BMP exploding, and that would have been carrying its full load of infantry besides the crew. Perhaps thirty men, all told. And this morning he had never killed anyone. How many things had he ever killed in his life, before today? Insects. Everyone killed insects...except perhaps Buddhists, and they probably killed some by accident. Davis could think of a dog he had killed once. An officer's dog. Ran straight under the track of the Chieftain as he drove it across the tank park at Bovvy. That wasn't intentional so it hardly counted. And there had been a squirrel under the tyre of his car, one early morning; Hedda had been upset, and one of the twins had cried. Apart from those, thought Davis, I haven't killed anything. Now, thirty men. Thirty, that was mass murder! Crippin, Jack-the-Ripper, Heath...none of them had killed that many. He would never tell Hedda about them, she wouldn't be able to understand. She knew you had to kill in wartime, she wasn't stupid, but she would blank out the fact that her husband was one of the men who had done it. Perhaps it wasn't a bad thing, because it would be terrible for a woman to have to hold someone in their arms if they knew he had killed so many men.

He wondered what Hedda would be doing. It was past the children's bedtime. It seemed years since he had spoken to her; he had wanted to telephone her when the regiment had received its orders, but there were long queues at the call boxes. She would have taken the boys to her sister's house at Ahlerstedt; it was well away from the city. They had discussed the possibility of war a few months previously, and he had tried to persuade her to agree to join the other British wives on evacuation flights to Britain if a war developed, but she had refused. She had become stubborn and rejected all his arguments. Ahlerstedt was wd to the west of Hamburg, and south of the Elbe estuary; it was bound to be safe there...there was nothing to bomb. Eventually he had agreed with her. But now, what if the Russian advance wasn't held? What then? What would happen to her and the children? Would they stay on her sister's smallholding, or join the thousands of refugees who would certainly move westwards just as those on the road had done this afternoon? It would be bad if that happened. What if he lost them? Families got split up in Europe in wartime, and sometimes never found each other again. They starved. Women sold themselves for food for the children. Momentarily the thought of Hedda being forced to make love to some Russian peasant soldier made Davis feel sick. She was too proud he told himself, it would never happen. Somehow, she would manage; she was a capable woman. Her family were all there, and they'd stick together. One thing about German wives, they made protective mothers.