When the grenade went off team five commanders jumped over the foxhole and knelt, groping about until she found the telephone cable. On being joined by members of her teams she turned and ran into the NATO position, the cable running through her fingers, it would lead them to a CP of some description, and from there they would find other cables leading to hopefully higher command elements.
The tank bucked as the main gun fired, the Tungsten steel sabot round cutting straight through the vehicle and out the other side.
“Reload HE!” yelled the gunner to the loader. Major Venables ducked back inside the turret and pulled the hatch closed after him as rounds whipped past his head, he couldn’t see a damn thing so he got out of harm’s way. The damaged 432 was apparently still operational, because the driver had put it in gear and it lurched forwards.
“Do may a favour sir… next time you break the seal on the hatch, check the NBC sensors first, you would have killed us all if they’d dropped some of that crap along with the HE!” Venables looked uncomprehending at his Gunner, he could see the lips moving but he couldn’t hear a word. The tank bucked again and the stolen armoured ambulance blew up, but continued moving forwards for several feet.
In the battalion CP they broadcast the warning to stay in their trenches, anyone or anything moving above ground was in play, it came too late for the depth platoon of 4 Company. Grenades flew into the platoons CP but the alerted platoon positions reacted swiftly, driving the attackers into cover and leaving three in the open, one deathly still and two threshing the ground in pain.
Team Fives leader ducked into the freshly blown command trench, ignoring the wrecked bodies of the airborne soldiers who had occupied it. She was angry at having been given this mission, her troops were too valuable to be thrown away in such death squad actions, and not even being able to plan it properly, the time scale meant they’d had to wing it. Joining up with two other teams as instructed, they had cobbled together a rough plan, and ambushed a pair of ambulances before setting off.
Similar attacks were taking place at other locations along the front to weaken the opposition at ideal crossing points; some of those would have the support of airborne assaults, but only the successful ones. The Red Army never reinforces failure.
On the floor of the CP were two field telephones, one was smashed by the explosion, both were splattered with gore but she picked up the one which looked intact, wiped the earpiece against her leg to get rid of the blood, and tried it. She knew that chemical agents had not yet been used tonight so she put away her respirator and pulled the hood down. There was no further need for the subterfuge and the return of un-muffled hearing and 180’ vision was welcome, it gave them an advantage over the defenders. She listened without speaking as the field telephone was answered, and then cut the connection. Removing the wires from the retaining clamps, she replaced them with the ones off the smashed field phone and tried that line in the same fashion. Once it was answered she ripped the wires from the back of the phone, held the wires carefully as she raised her head to look over the parapet, whip-lashing the wires up and down she noted the direction they were running. There was a lot of firing around them, and like an infection it spread as nervous soldiers opened up on shadows, there was little being aimed in the direction of the Spetznaz troops, with any degree of accuracy anyway.
Lt Col Reed had thrust his hands deep into his pockets when the initial contact report had come through from the armoured squadrons commander, the small arms and grenades he could now hear up top was out of proportion to that report.
“Sarn’t Major Moore… kindly tell all units to cease firing unless in direct contact. You… signaller, call up Sunray Tango and ask him for an estimate of the enemy entering our lines.” Arnie Moore got busy on the field phones, and the signaller started typing.
Major Venables ears were still ringing but his eyesight was back when the Bn CP sent their query via Ptarmigan. Both armoured ambulances were now burning, and he typed a quick sitrep, estimating the enemy numbers at 12 to 16.
“Colonel Sir!” Pat Reed turned from reading Venables reply,
“Yes Sarn’t Major?”
“All stations have acknowledged with the exception of our 9 Platoon, their CP is closest to the penetration point.”
With 9 Platoon l CP out of the loop there was but two ways to get messages to the remainder of that platoon, either by radio or by runner, and he was not going to risk anyone’s life to friendly fire by sending a man with a message.
“Break radio silence, tell all stations we believe that the intruders are in the area of 9 Platoon CP, I want a shermouli put up from 7 Platoons lines, then its watch and shoot at anything not in a trench, ok?” He next turned to the battalion MFC.
“Lance Sarn’t Cornish, your tubes have all individual positions registered, yes?” The MFC nodded.
“Yes sir… do you want 9 Platoon’s CP stonked?”
“Perhaps, but not until I say so, I would like visual confirmation that it has been overrun by the enemy first.”
Team Five’s commander did not have to crawl past any of the platoons trenches in order to get close enough to identify where the landline ran to, it was positioned slightly further to the rear than the position they had come from, and over to the left. Once the small arms fire had petered out she’d ordered the rest of the teams to pair up and stalk the NATO fighting positions. There had been twenty Spetznaz troopers on this mission, and they were down to eleven already. She was now lying in a shell crater with two of her own team, with just one defence platoon trench between her and their goal when the handheld para-illum went up. All three hunched in the mud when they heard the ‘whoosh’ made by the small rocket, and each closed their shooting eye to preserve their night vision. The commander squirmed onto her back, laying down her British SA-80 on her stomach and extracting a steel mirror from a breast pocket, and another two grenades’ from an ammunition pouch. She had done this drill for real once before in Chechnya and before that many times with first dummy, and then live grenades.
Poking the small mirror above ground with her left hand, she gripped the first grenade tightly in her right whilst one of her men pulled its pin out. The small parachute flare was now lighting up this area of the battlefield, and her other troops, but she ignored all else but the identifying of the trench. She had to open both eyes to find the trench and judge the distance, then after a moment's pause she lobbed the grenade backwards over her head and immediately grasped the second grenade. Her trooper pulled the pin on that also and she lobbed it after the first, before rolling over and fixing her bayonet to the NATO rifle and pulling another grenade from the pouch. Both grenades landed in the British trench, but the first was scooped up by a young Guardsman and thrown to the rear, he hadn’t seen where it came from, and unfortunately he didn’t see the second one arrive either.
With her eyes squeezed tight to try and restore some of her lost night vision, the team commander waited for the shermouli to fizzle out, and then she was up and running, with her troopers in firing positions to give cover if needed. The old Wehrmacht bunker had been built with observation slits, but these had been left covered with earth after its re-discovery. The sappers had cleared away the earth from the steps leading down to its entrance but removed the rusted steel door, lest it trap its new occupants inside.