Not one man had suffered any injury as the Soviet artillery, weak by comparison to normal, had probed the defensive positions of the Sirmoor Rifles.
Part of their line was a trench dug months before their arrival, eight foot deep, wood reinforced and with firing steps along its length, a relic of the previous conflict.
Gurung’s soldiers had extended the trench, and taken advantage of natural depressions in the ground, as well as fallen tree trunks, creating a strong position from which to resist.
Thus far, the battalion had not seen an enemy, apart from the occasional flash of an aircraft overhead.
According to the legends of the British Army, no enemy relished fighting these wiry hillmen from Nepal, and, to a man, they were keen to get to close quarters with the new foe to put their marshall skills to the test against a strong and cunning enemy.
The Sirmoor Rifles, also known as the 1st/2nd [King Edward VII’s Own] Gurkha Rifles, waited in anticipation of the battle to come.
[Book Three of the Red Gambit series, ‘Stalemate’, should be available by January 2013 on Amazon Kindle as a download, and createspace.com as a book.]
Fig #50 – Rear cover graphic
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