Red Army (10 page)

Shilko looked around. Everyone was listening to him, despite the unmistakable tension. The clock showed two minutes to go.

Shilko grinned. “You know what he said to me? He leaned over that desk, so close I could see the old scars on his cheek, and he half whispered, ‘Shilko, wars are not won by the most competent army -- they are won by the least incompetent army.’ “

His audience responded with pleasant laughter. But the undercurrent of anticipation had grown so intense now that no man could fully master it. The tension seemed almost like a physical wave, rising to sweep them all away.

Romilinsky gripped the field telephone, ready.

Less than one minute to go.

In the distance, a number of guns sounded, startling in the perfect stillness. Someone had fired early, either because of a bad clock or through nervousness.

Shilko looked at the clock one final time. Other batteries and full battalions took up the challenge of the first lone battery, rising to a vast orchestra of calibers. Shilko turned to Romilinsky, utterly serious now.

“Give the order to open fire.”

Junior Lieutenant Plinnikov wiped at his nose with his fingers and ordered his driver forward. The view through the vehicle commander’s optics allowed no meaningful orientation. Rapid flashes dazzled in the periscope’s lens, leaving a deep gray veil of smoke in their wake. The view was further disrupted by raindrops that found their way under the external cowl of the lens block. Plinnikov felt as though he were guiding his reconnaissance track through hell at the bottom of the sea.

The shudder of the powerful artillery bursts reached through the metal walls of the vehicle. Suddenly, the armor seemed hopelessly thin, the tracks too weak to hold, and the automatic cannon little more than a toy. Occasionally, a tinny sprinkling of debris struck the vehicle, faintly audible through Plinnikov’s headset and over the engine whine. He could feel the engine pulling, straining to move the tracks through the mud of the farm trail.

“Comrade Lieutenant, we’re very close to the barrage,” his driver told him.

Plinnikov understood that the driver meant
too
close. But the lieutenant was determined to outperform every other reconnaissance platoon leader in the battalion, if not in the entire Second Guards Tank Army.

“Keep moving,” Plinnikov commanded, “just keep moving. Head straight through the smoke.”

The driver obeyed, but Plinnikov could feel his unwillingness through the metal frame that separated them. For a moment, Plinnikov took his eyes away from the periscope and looked to the side, checking on his gunner. But Belonov was all right, eyes locked to his own periscope. Three men in a rolling steel box. There was no margin of safety in personnel now; everyone had to do his job without fail. Plinnikov had never received the additional soldiers required to fill out his reconnaissance platoon for war, and he had no extra meat, no dismount strength in his own vehicle. As it was, he could barely man the essential positions in each of his three vehicles.

It was impossible to judge the exact location of his vehicle now. If everything was still on track, his second vehicle would be tucked in behind him, with Senior Sergeant Malyarchuk to the rear in an over-watch position. Plinnikov laughed to himself. Overwatch. You couldn’t see ten meters. He glanced at his map, anxious to orient himself.

He could feel the trail dropping toward a valley or ravine. Artillery rounds struck immediately to the front.

“Keep going,” Plinnikov said. “Get down into the low ground. Stay on the trail as long as the smoke holds.
Fast
now,
move.”

Plinnikov sensed that they were very close to the enemy. Clots of earth and stone flew into the air, hurtling across his narrowed horizon. Plinnikov guessed that, if he moved off the trail, there might be mines, but that the trail itself would only be covered by direct fires -- which would be ineffective in the confusion of the Soviet artillery preparation.

“Lieutenant, we’re catching up with the barrage. We’re too close.”

“Keep going. We’re already in it. Go right through.”

“Comrade Lieutenant . . .” It was Junior Sergeant Belonov, his gunner and assistant. The boy’s face was milky.

“It’s all right,” Plinnikov told him through the intercom. “Just spot for targets. If we wait and try to sneak through, they’ll get us for sure.”

An unidentified object thumped against the vehicle so hard that the vehicle jolted, as though wincing in pain.

“Go
faster,”
Plinnikov shouted to the driver. “Just stay on the road and go as fast as you can.”

“I can’t see the road. I lose it.”

“Just
go.”
Plinnikov brushed his fingers at his nose. He felt fear rising in his belly and chest, unleashed by the impact of whatever had hit the vehicle.

Suddenly, the artillery blasts seemed to swamp them, shaking the vehicle like a boat on rough water. Plinnikov realized that if they threw a track now, they were dead.

“
Go,
damn you.”

In the thick smoke, the lights of the blasts seemed demonic, alive with deadly intentions.

“More to the left . . .
to the left.
”

The tracks seemed to buckle on the edge of a ditch or gully, threatening to peel away from the road wheels.

“Target,”
Plinnikov screamed.

But the sudden black shape off to their right side was lifeless, its metal deformed by a direct hit. The driver swerved away, and the tracks came level, back on the trail again.

Plinnikov broke out in a sweat. He had not seen the shattered vehicle until they almost collided with it. He wondered, for the first time, if he had not done something irrevocably foolish.

Slop from a nearby impact smacked the external lens of Plinnikov’s periscope, cracking it diagonally, just as the vehicle reached a pocket where the wind had thinned the smoke to a transparent gauze. Several dark shapes moved out of the smoke on a converging axis.

“Targets.
Gunner, right. Driver, pull left
now.
”

But the enemy vehicles moved quickly away, either uninterested in or unaware of Plinnikov’s presence. The huge armored vehicles disappeared back into the smoke, black metal monsters roaming over the floor of hell. None of the turrets turned to fight.

“Hold fire.”

The enemy were evidently pulling off of a forward position. The fire was too much for them. Plinnikov tried his radio, hoping the antenna had not been cut away.

“Javelin, this is Penknife. Do you hear me?”

Nothing.

The heaviest fire struck behind them now. But the smoke, mingled with the fog and rain, still forced them to drive without points of orientation. Plinnikov worried because he had once turned in a complete circle in a smokescreen on a training exercise, in the most embarrassing experience of his brief career. He could still hear the laughter and the timeworn jokes about lieutenants.

“Javelin, this is Penknife. I have a priority message.”

“Penknife, this is Javelin.” The control station barely came through the sea of static.

“Enemy forces in at least platoon strength withdrawing from forward positions under fire strike. I can’t give you an exact location.”

“Where are you? What’s your location?”

“I’m in my assigned sector. Visibility’s almost zero. We just drove under the artillery barrage. We’re in among the enemy.”

“You’re hard to read. I’m getting a garbled transmission. Did you say you’re
behind
the artillery barrage?”

“On the enemy side of it. Continuing to move.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Plinnikov sensed that he had surprised them all. He felt a bloom of pride. Then the faint voice returned.

“Penknife, your mission now is to push as far as you can. Ignore assigned boundaries. Just go as deep as you can and call targets. Do you understand?”

“Clear. Moving now.”

Plinnikov switched to the intercom. The smoke thinned slightly. His first instinct was to move for high ground so he could fix his location. But he quickly realized that any high ground would not only reveal his presence but was likely to be occupied by the enemy.

“Driver, follow the terrain, stay in the low ground. Just watch out for ditches and water.”

He switched again, this time to his platoon net, trying to raise his other two vehicles.

“Quiver, this is Penknife.”

He waited. No answer. He tried again and still received no response. He swung the turret around to get a better view, straining to see through his cracked and dirty optics.

There was nothing. Misty gray emptiness.

“Penknife, this is Stiletto.” Plinnikov heard Senior Sergeant Malyarchuk’s voice. “I can’t hear any response from Quiver. My situation as follows: moving slowly with the barrage. Can’t see a damned thing. I lost you twenty minutes ago.”

“This is Penknife. Clear transmission. Continue to move on primary route. Watch for Quiver, he may be stuck out there. End transmission.”

His other vehicle might be broken down or mired. But, he realized, it was more likely that they were dead. He was surprised to find that he felt little emotion, and ashamed to experience how swiftly his thoughts turned to the implications the loss of the vehicle and crew had for him.

“Driver, get on that trail to the right. That one.”

The vehicle moved sharply now, with the worst effects of the barrage well behind it. Plinnikov’s optics had deteriorated severely. The crack in the outer lens allowed water to seep in.

“Slow. See the trail into the trees?
Slow.
Take the trail.”

The vehicle eased onto a smooth forest trail that appeared very well-maintained. Plinnikov hoped to find a spot to tuck into for a few minutes so they could clean off all of their vision blocks and lenses and tighten the antenna. One barrage had already passed over the forest, and patches of trees had been splintered and blackened. The driver worked the tracks over a small fallen trunk. He drove the vehicle cautiously, with no desire to throw a track in such close proximity to the enemy.

“Comrade Lieutenant, I can barely see,” the driver said. “Can I pop open my hatch?”

“No,” Plinnikov said. “Stop right here. I’ll get out and clean the blocks.”

The vehicle rocked to a standstill. Plinnikov unlatched the safety bolt and pushed up his hatch. The sudden increase in the noise level was striking. The weight of the artillery preparation was incredible, and the fires sounded much closer now. It was difficult to imagine anything surviving such an effort.

In the wet green woods, fresh forest smells mingled with the stink of blown ordnance. Raindrops worked through the overhanging branches and struck Plinnikov’s nose and cheeks, touching cool at his lips. The hatch ring felt slimy with moisture and dirt.

Just ahead, another trail crossed the one along which they had moved. The other trail was deeply rutted and black with mud, evidence that several tracked vehicles had passed along it.

Plinnikov drew himself back down into the turret. “Belonov,” he told the gunner, “make sure the auto-cannon’s ready to go. I don’t think we’re alone.”

“Comrade Lieutenant, let me check the exterior.”

“No. You stay on the gun. Just be ready.” Plinnikov stripped off his headset and snaked out of the turret. The deck seemed to slide away under his boots, and he grasped the long, thin barrel of the automatic cannon to steady himself, crouching.

The armament appeared to be all right, with no metal deformities. But there were numerous spots on the vehicle exterior where the paint had been stripped away and where the bolt-on armor had been gashed or even sheared away. One fender twisted toward the sky. An external stow-box was gone, and the spare track pads were missing. The shovel was gone. The main antenna for the high-powered radio set was nicked, but functionally intact.

Unidentifiable objects ripped through the foliage, their noises an occasional whisper. Big raindrops burst like shells on his skin. More rain coming. Plinnikov hurriedly cleaned all of the optics with a rag, trying not to smear them too badly.

He got back into the turret as soon as he reasonably could. “The trail looks clear enough up ahead, but you can’t see very far. The enemy has either passed through these woods or he’s still somewhere in here with us.”

“Perhaps we should wait here for a while, Comrade Lieutenant. See what the enemy does, you know?” Belonov was clearly frightened. Plinnikov hoped the gunner would be able to work his weapon when the time came.

Plinnikov twitched his nose, then rubbed at it with his dirty knuckles. “No. We have to get a fix on our location. And if we just sit, the artillery will roll back over us. We’re moving.”

The truth was, Plinnikov realized, that he was afraid to remain motionless, afraid he couldn’t handle the stress of inactivity.

“Driver, can you see all right now?”

“Better, Comrade Lieutenant.”

“Let’s go. Nice and easy.” Plinnikov wanted to make sure he spotted the enemy before they spotted his lone vehicle. He knew it would be impossible to detect moving vehicles until they were fatally close, due to the noise of the artillery preparation.

The vehicle dug itself into the peat of the trail, then gripped and lurched forward. Plinnikov unlashed his assault rifle. He expected to fight with the automatic cannon and the on-board machine gun, but he wanted to be prepared for anything. He stood up behind the shield of his opened turret, weapon at the ready, headset flaps left open so he could hear a bit of the world around him.

The vehicle pivoted into the rutted trail. The rain picked up, slapping Plinnikov, making him squint. Nervously, he ejected a cartridge from his weapon, insuring it was loaded and ready.

“Belonov?”

“Comrade Lieutenant?”

“How well can you see?”

“I can see the trail.”

“If I duck down and start turning the turret, be ready.”

“I’m ready.”

Plinnikov heard the nerves in both of their voices. He was furious about the lack of soldiers to fill out his crew. He wanted all of the fighting power he could get. He wished his lost vehicle was still with him.