Somewhere deep inside the layer of smoke, the Soviet armour had reached the second line of minefields. Added now to the thunder of their artillery support were the satisfying dull thumps of the mines, and where they exploded the mist turned crimson and churned black with fuel smoke.
Studley had been attempting, with no luck so far, to obtain the use of a command helicopter. It had been promised but had not arrived. He wanted to get above the position, if only briefly, to obtain a clearer idea of the enemy’s intentions. The information he was getting over the rear net from Division was frequently too broad to be of great use to him. It seemed to him his battle group ms facing the spearhead of a main Soviet thrust, but this could be a feint to lead him to commit his men when perhaps the real attack was yet to come, elsewhere.
The air activity had increased over the battle zone, though much of it was at a high level above the broken cloud. There had been a brief attack by three East German Sukhoi Su-15s, who had come in from high altitude in the east, lost in the glare of the rising sun, in a Mach-2 30-degree dive. AA-8 missiles had been fired into a position evacuated minutes before by the Abbots. The battle group had suffered no casualties in the attack that lasted only seconds, and the Su-15s had not returned.
His adjutant drew his attention away from the battlefield. ‘Charlie Squadron are engaging, sir.’
‘Good. Order them to retire as soon as it gets too hot.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The adjutant thought it unnecessary to tell his CO the identical message, with the coded reference, for Charlie’s new positions had already been sent out on the net.
EIGHT
Inkester shouted: ‘Where is it? I’ve lost it!’
‘Calm down… there, two o’clock, on the edge of the smoke.’ Sergeant Morgan Davis saw the T-72 as a dark silhouette through the ‘times-ten’ magnification of his sight. The Soviet tank was three-quarters-on to Bravo Two, bucking as it crossed the furrowed land three thousand meters away, swerving occasionally to avoid the wider craters in its path.
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Take your time.’
‘Sod… the bastard’s gone.’
‘Steady… there.’ Davis was using the coupled sight giving him an identical view to that of Inkester the gunner. The sights were settled on the hull of the T-72 as Inkester traversed the gun. The tank heaved upwards with the shock as the gunner hit the firing button and the propulsion charge detonated in the breech. With the engine on tick-over the roar of the gun was impressive within the confines of the fighting compartment. An automatic flashguard within the sight protected the eyes of the gunner and commander from the glare of the barrel flame, but smoke from the muzzle blurred their vision for a few seconds.
‘Load Sabot,’ ordered Davis.
There was a heavy clank of metal from the vertically sliding breech-block as Shadwell reloaded, and a mist of cordite smoke swirled inside the hull; most of the fumes were exhausted outside the tank, but some always drifted back. Shadwell shouted: ‘Loaded.’ He made certain he was well clear of the gun before he did so. Gunners could get a shot off fast if they had a target and to be caught-out standing behind the gun was a sure way to die as the recoil hurled it backwards. It was only one of several ways a loader could come to grief; more commonly they managed to get themselves caught in the traverse, getting a leg or foot trapped behind the charge bins as the gunner or commander swung the turret.
‘Shit!’ Inkester swore, not at Shadwell but because the burst of the Chieftain’s 120mm shell was ahead and to the right of the Soviet T-72. As he brought the sight onto it again, he suddenly realized with horror that he was staring right down the black muzzle of the T-72’s gun. Through his sight’s magnification the T-72 seemed little more than two hundred meters away. There was a burst of flame from the barrel of its 125mm, and Inkester instinctively ducked instead of firing.
‘Inkester! What the hell?’ shouted Davis. There was an explosion on the slope forty meters to the rear of the Chieftain. Davis didn’t see it, but he felt the ground shake and the violent thud of the pressure wave against Bravo Two’s hull. The shell must have passed within centimeters of his turret… his head. He felt sick.
Inkester’s sight picked up the T-72 again, and again the Chieftain’s gun roared. This time vision was better as Bravo Two settled back on her suspension. The T-72 had begun to jink once the driver had realized he was under fire.
Davis seemed to wait forever, until he decided Inkester must have missed again or the shell had failed to explode. Then he saw a brief shower of sparks scatter from the foredeck of the T-72’s hull to the left of the driver’s hatch, and almost at the same time it exploded outwards like a movie scene in slow motion. He saw the two hatches on the turret fly upwards, followed by the turret itself and the driver’s and engine hatches. Soundlessly, to Davis, the hull tore apart, belching a swirling orb of flame. He heard Inkester’s awed voice: ‘My God!’
Davis stared through the lens. ‘50 traverse right… one o’clock. Infantry combat vehicle… a BMP. Pick it up, Inky.’ He felt the turret swing and dropped his eyes back to the sight. ‘Good… good.’ Inkester was silent, concentrating now, just as he would be at Lulworth or Suffield. The range was less than for the T-72 — thirteen hundred meters.
The Chieftain lurched. This time Inkester had fired quickly, but more calmly. The shell struck the BMP just under the thick sloping armour of its bow, and exploded on impact. The vehicle stopped as though it had run into an impenetrable wall. A second later Davis saw the eight infantrymen it had contained, and two of its crew who were apparently unwounded, leap from the vehicle and dive for the shelter of a nearby shell crater. He could see them clearly. Instinctively, he found them in the sight of the 7.62mm machine gun. The Chieftain’s turret was moving again as Inkester sought another target. Davis corrected his aim, adjusting the movement of his cupola to oppose that of the turret. He pressed the firing button and heard the satisfying response from the gun; the bullets tore the lip from the crater in a burst of dust and earth. It was difficult to keep the fire accurate. One of the Soviet infantrymen scrambled from the shell hole and ran to Davis’s right. He didn’t bother to try to follow the man. The bodies he could now see in the crater were motionless.
Inkester had the main sight on another tank, a T-80 which had appeared at the edge of the smoke. Davis anticipated the explosion of the gun, but before Inkester could fire the tank swerved and began belching flame through ventilators and hatches.
‘Blowpipe missile,’ shouted Davis. He could see movement on the lower ground to his left. ‘Some of our infantry. Why the hell don’t they keep us informed?’ There were shell bursts in the trees near the infantry position, and the smoke laid by the enemy artillery was much closer. The noise of the battle had become as great as that of the initial artillery barrage. Davis could hear the crump of mortar shells and feel the ground shivering beneath the Chieftain. It was like standing in a railway tunnel as a ten-coach intercity roared by.
He was about to try to help the infantry with prophylactic fire along the hedges beyond their position, when Inkester shouted again: ‘Traversing right… three o’clock.’ Davis saw movement at the edge of the barrage. Dark hulls in the smoke… the sudden flashes of white flame. Inkester began bringing the turret around.
The bank of earth three meters ahead of Bravo Two was hurled aside. The concussion knocked Davis backwards, his head smashing against the equipment behind him. He heard a second explosion and was thrust forward out of his seat. Someone was screaming… the interior of the Chieftain was pitch-black, the atmosphere thick with the stench of fuel and swirling dust. ‘We’re going to brew up,’ thought Davis. ‘Any second now we’ll go.’ Bravo Two was quivering as though it were alive. He tried to struggle upright, but could find no purchase for his feet. Shadwell was yelling beside him. There was a burst of light above, then a terrifying crash. The Chieftain’s hull echoed… there was excruciating pain in Davis’s ears. Bravo Two rocked as though it were resting on a water-bed, then something seemed to hammer down on the turret with terrible force, twisting the tank sideways, forcing it deep into the earth as though struck by a gigantic fist…