Libby heard the conversation, but hesitated before going in. They were a funny bloody pair. He’d got on alright with Clarence before the girl had appeared on the scene, nothing close, but closer than anyone else had ever got to the sniper. Still, at least Hyde no longer regarded him as the sniper’s keeper – that had been a ruddy bind.
There were times when he could do with a bit of female companionship himself. Even on his last leave he’d managed to keep the promise he’d made to himself, not to have a woman until he found Helga, but it became more difficult each time he was tempted. Christ, he was only human.
He stuck his head around the door. ‘Been looking bloody everywhere for you two. The Reds are on their way.’ Libby saw the bodies. ‘Left it a bit late, didn’t they? Major says he wants you in place now. Four launchers have been put in the stable block for you.’
‘Tell him we’ll be along in a moment. We’re only close-in defence, he can start the killing without us. We’ll catch up.’
FOUR
Hyde’s right hand moved to the control box and rested lightly on it as the head of the column came into range. The last of the cables from the remotely positioned missiles had been plugged in, and he was all set. It wouldn’t be quite yet though, first he’d wait and see the effect of the charges beneath the bridge, and the mines and ALX. He dimmed the bright daylight display on the screen and pressed his face into the hood, into his own private world.
The magnified image was only an inch in front of his eyes. He panned along the spaced-out column and made careful adjustments to the focus, until the lead tank showed up with perfect clarity. Now it was just him and it. Strange how he always thought of tanks as living things, almost forgetting their crews. Perhaps it had something to do with the way they reacted to the impact of the powerful warheads he sent at them.
Some died instantly, grinding to a halt with smoke and flame pouring from them. Others went more quietly, slowing to a gentle stop, main guns drooping. And for a few there was another, rarer way.
Like huge stricken animals they’d go crazy, moving erratically, lurching and shuddering, even ramming others of their own kind. Sometimes he would fire a second missile to finish them off.
His total score was about thirty-nine. Whether they were confirmed or not didn’t matter to him; he knew. Out of those, he’d only seen the crews on perhaps six or seven occasions, and then they had appeared no more than parasites leaving a dying host.
Shifting the nagging weight of the flak-jacket to a more comfortable position, Cohen jotted down the incoming message. ‘Major. I got some news. Which do you want first, the good or the bad?’
‘Just give it to me straight. I haven’t got the patience for party games.’
‘I just found us a pair of Thunderbolts. They’ve given me an ETA of fifteen minutes, but they’ve only got a part load, been diverted from another mission.’
‘What do they have?’ Not that it made any difference, Revell knew that. They could find a use for whatever stores the ground attack aircraft were carrying. Anything that helped lower the odds was welcome, they were in no position to be fussy.
There was the inevitable consulting of the message pad. ‘Four pylons apiece, free fall stuff, an even mix of super-napalm and iron bombs; retarded thousand-pounders. And their drums are quarter-full, so they can give us a short storm of 30mm if we want it.’
‘Tell them they won’t be taking any of it back home, and we’ll call the targets as they make their final approach. And you’d better warn them these Ruskies aren’t short of flak-wagons or SAMs.’
Now the first tank was almost on the bridge. Revell’s hand closed around the radio-control device and, at the very moment the T84 reached the centre of the span, crashed his thumb down hard.
The bridge disappeared inside a huge cloud of dust, spray and debris. Blocks of stone flew high into the air, towing streamers of smoke. As the rubble fell back, so the dust cloud cleared. One of the strengthening girders, twisted but still in place, was all that remained of the arch. The tank, its tracks gone, all of its road wheels buckled or missing, lay upside down in the river, barely visible among the turbulent water it partially dammed.
There were several near collisions as the rest of the vehicles turned off the road and deployed in the fields alongside. Revell watched through his binoculars. ‘Seems to be a discussion going on. Any minute now they’ll send some poor devil to test the bank for mines and the water for depth. Hold your fire, we’ll see what happens before we stir them up again.’
A T72 had lowered the bulldozer blade beneath its hull front and was moving forward to tackle the riverbank, watched by dozens of figures who had appeared at the hatches of other vehicles. As the tank reached the river, the ground erupted beneath it. With both tracks broken and uncurling on the meadow behind it, the T72 slid down into the water, until the flood reached the base of its turret. Hatches flew open and the turret crew baled out. For a moment it looked as if one of them was going to assist the driver, struggling to escape from his submerged compartment, but the tank slid in further and he didn’t, joining the other crewmen in jumping on to dry land.
There was another explosion and two bodies were tossed high by the blast. The driver finally managed to free himself, crawled up on to the canted engine deck and crouched there, too terrified to step off.
‘Looks like it’s a bloody stalemate, don’t it?’ Careful not to disturb the sergeant’s equipment, Burke set the machine gun at the window. ‘They move and the mines get them. We open up and they get us.’
‘Fuck off you miserable bastard.’ Dooley brought in three cases of ammunition. ‘Can’t you ever think of anything cheerful to say?’
‘How about getting out of here, before the commies do a demolition job on this place with us still inside?’
‘I can see movement down by the bank. I think they’ve…‘ Hyde didn’t finish the sentence. Another tall fountain of mud, water and weeds erupted as a legless torso cart wheeled into the river.
‘They’ve got infantry down there, clearing a way.’ Revell looked at his watch. ‘Where the hell are those planes?’
‘Coming in from the west now, right on the ground.’ Cohen carried the communication pack by its straps to the window. ‘They’ve got us in sight, and want to know where to lay their eggs.’
‘Tell them to beat up the far bank, both sides of the bridge, but save the heavy stuff this time round.’
The Thunderbolts came in side by side at treetop height, and on their first pass cut a bloody swathe through the Russian infantry. Panicking survivors and the deluge of high velocity shells set off more of the mines and caused further casualties.
Revell spotted a group of Russian vehicles more closely spaced than the rest and, in answer to the aircrafts’ request for further targets, ordered Cohen to pass the information on.
Barely twenty seconds later they reappeared from another direction, but the column’s anti-aircraft defences were ready this time. Tracer of every calibre and colour hosed upwards, and from a missile carrier came the stabbing flare of flame tails, as SAMs hurled themselves after the camouflage-painted planes.
Decoy flares rippled from the Thunderbolts as they screamed over the collection of Russian armour, their titanium plated bellies shrugging aside the hail of machine gun and radar directed 23mm cannon fire. Four long slim finned bombs littered the sky after their passing, each deploying a miniature parachute.
The drogues slowed the bombs’ falls, allowing the jets to escape before the earth was rocked by four monstrous explosions. A 122mm self-propelled gun tipped on its side, and was part-buried under a shower of steaming earth. An APC was torn apart by a near miss that scattered flaming debris around a giant crater, and another simply ceased to exist as it took the full force of a direct hit. The last victim of the bombs was the missile carrier. Its radar torn away, the side of its hull crushed in, it began to burn.