Without aid from their own forces Alontov had led his units back towards the east, largely avoiding the limited forces SACEUR had been able to spare for mopping up.
Their radios had failed even before leaving Braunschweig, because there is a limit to how much an airborne unit can carry and without a single re-supply drop the radios had lasted only as long as their finite stock of batteries.
The route east had been a zigzag affair of forced marches by night and mainly sleepless days after they had gone to ground to avoid detection during the daylight hours. Fires were out of the question and the inclement weather had denied them much in the way of sleep.
“I do not know what forces are currently ahead of us but I think we can be certain that they will increase, come the dawn.”
Those present watched him divest himself of all equipment except that needed to fight, and then they too removed their packs and filled pockets with the spare ammunition they held.
“Send runners out to each of the battalion commanders, inform them that NATO knows the brigade is here in this forest and they are to act as they see fit in their own individual circumstances. Either to dig in or to try and break out… just cause as much mayhem as possible to draw NATO reserves away from the front”
Standing quietly on the fringes were the two company commanders of his own elite Spetznaz troops who had jumped into Leipzig with him a hundred years ago, or so it now seemed. Over a third of their number had fallen since that night, and now an equal number carried wounds.
Serge left his staff to complete their preparations and led the pair away.
“Well now boys, we have some proper work to do, no more of this skulking in the woods and avoiding fights with half trained Bundswehr reservists. The funds we appropriated from the late Comrade Peridenko have been divided up equally and someone I trust in Moscow will be delivering it in gold to the next of kin of everyone in the companies, the dead and the still living.”
Neither man replied, accepting the deeper meaning of the words with fatalism.
“Go and bring up your men to the track junction we just passed, I have some final details to go over with the staff and then I shall join you there.”
The more senior of the company commanders had shared many adventures and adversities with his boss and had obeyed without question every order he had been given, be it to torch an Afghan hill village or act as chauffeur to a beautiful blonde air hostess, returning her home from a burning dacha.
“What are your orders Colonel General?”
Serge smiled in the darkness.
“Someone picked a fight with us tonight Mikhail, and we are going to finish it.”
CHAPTER SIX
The defensive fires bought the beleaguered platoon of Guardsmen the time to shorten their perimeter, bring the wounded into the centre of the position and do a proper redistribution of the ammunition. Relocation also necessitated a resumption of digging, the hacking out of fresh shell scrapes to replace those they had abandoned.
Twice the Guardsmen stopped the digging to defend the position against attacks coming from their left, and the second of these was unhindered by Claymores. In that second attack on their left, soviet paratroopers breached the perimeter and the fighting became a hand-to-hand melee of fists, boots, bayonets and entrenching tools before they were driven off.
The attackers left nine behind, seven lying inside and outside of the position and two wounded, who Colin had moved to the centre with his own wounded once they had been stripped of weapons.
Ammunition could become a problem later, so he had each rifleman give up twenty rounds which the gunners No.2s made up into belts using expended links. Those belts would be all ‘Ball’, with no tracer included but at the ranges the fights were taking place at there was no need.
He added another two sets of ID tags to the six already in a pocket of his smock and wiped off blood and hair from the edge of his entrenching tool, before continuing with his shell scrape.
Not too far away, the opposition had backed off and were carrying out their own reorg after the failure of their hasty attacks upon the British position, and following this there was a lull until more mortars could be brought up in preparation for a deliberate attack.
The Apaches thermal imager couldn’t provide an exact head count for the heat sources they had found but they reported between fifteen hundred and two thousand men were down in the trees, and headquarters 3(UK) Mechanised ordered the immediate reinforcement of the rear screen before requesting permission from SACEUR to employ MLRS on those concentrations not engaged or gravitating toward the Guards platoon in the forest.
Lt Col Reed had sent for Jim Popham, ordering him to take a company worth of the 82nd men in Warriors to the point where 1 Platoon was supposed to pass through into the rear of 7th/8th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders lines.
Once he had taken a platoon from each of the American companies Jim mounted the lead AFV and was about to give the signal for the ten vehicles to move off, when he heard the sound of someone rapping on the troop hatch door. It opened to admit Sergeant Osgood.
“Sir, may I have your permission to come along, sir please?”
Major Popham did not immediately give that permission. “Sergeant, I have all the men I need, why should I bring you?”
“Interpreter sir, you don’t speak Geordie.”
Jim opened his mouth to deny the request, but there was an edge of desperation in the man’s voice and he nodded his assent instead.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road then, climb in and shut that hatch.”
Oz started to close it but a large meaty paw appeared in the open hatchway, followed by Arnie Moore’s broad frame.
The RSM didn’t ask the major for permission he just clambered in and growled at a young trooper, who hurriedly budged up to make room for him.
Jim’s voiced his exasperation.
“Sarn’t Major, just what the hell are you doing here?”
Arnie seated himself opposite Oz.
“Interpreter sir.”
The major gestured towards the Guards sergeant. “Apparently that alleged need has already been met, thank you.”
“Yes sir, I see that.” Arnie replied, and then nodded at Sergeant Osgood sat opposite.
“But he doesn’t speak American.”
Jim clambered into the fighting vehicles cupola, muttering something about his wife having more control over the second graders in her school than he had over grown men in a military unit.
During the lull L/Cpl Bethers found that a weariness had come over him, a reaction from the adrenaline that ceased its infusion into his system and he caught himself doing neck breakers, the involuntary nodding of the head as the brain switches off. Removing his helmet he bent his head to allow the rain to fall unhindered onto his neck in an effort to revive himself, but the exhaustion was too great and his eyes closed.
It could not have been more than a few minutes later that he awoke suddenly, his heart pounding in the guilty realisation that he had fallen asleep, and then he noticed his gunner was snoring. His small command had fallen asleep at the switch and he reached across to angrily shake them to wakefulness.
The flash of lightning startled him, but not as much as the impression he had out of the corner of his eye of a figure stood beside a tree just a dozen paces away from their position. Snatching up his rifle he brought it up to his shoulder, cursing the light that had robbed him of his night vision but the next bolt of lightning, following quickly after the first revealed only an empty landscape of trees and churned, water logged forest floor.