He called through to the Headquarters command Sultan. ‘Hullo Ops, this is Sunray Rover One, have you been eavesdropping? Over.’
‘Hullo Sunray Rover, this is Ops. Yes, we understand the situation.’
‘Give me Amphora.’ This was Max Fairly’s code name. It was a small personal joke, a reference to the 2nd IC’s slightly pear-shaped figure.
‘Hullo Sunray Rover One. Reference Amphora; regret no can do. Amphora is MBK.’
Missing believed killed? Max? Perhaps he had misheard the Operations Officer. ‘Say again. Over.’
‘Hullo Sunray Rover One. Reference Amphora; regret Amphora is MBK. We have had a report on the incident from Kilo Nine.’
‘Ops, take over. Send all to Firefly. I’ll join you soonest.’ He switched to the intercom. ‘Horsefield… move us out.’ He tried the group net a few moments later, but the Soviet jamming had taken over the wavelengths. It was more efficient than had been estimated, and was making communication difficult… at the moment impossible as the high-pitched whine cut deep into his head. He switched it off. Poor old Max… Max! Damn them! And how complete was the encirclement of the battle group? Total? If so, could the circle be broken? Studley realized he should have pulled back when his adjutant had suggested it earlier. Studley had erred in his decision that the group should hold its position longer. Everything had looked fine… no reason to suppose a breakthrough would happen so quickly. God, he had cocked it up, his first battle! He had made a mistake; a costly one.
The thought of the adjutant drew Studley’s mind back to the overrun command vehicle. ‘Horsefield… go right… more right… I want a look at the command APC’s. And keep your eyes peeled…’
Corporal Riley interrupted him: ‘Sir… traversing three o’clock.’ Broadside on, not thirty meters away, was the green hull of a Soviet fire-support tank, the insignia of its parachute battalion clearly showing on its skirt. At point-blank range, it was impossible for Riley to rotate the turret fast enough to counter the forward movement of the tank. ‘Halt the bloody tank, Horse,’ Riley yelled fiercely. Horsefield dug both his feet hard on the brake pedal.
The turret stopped traversing. The fire-support tank was not more than sixty meters away, standing amongst the trees. Studley could see men moving near its rocket launcher, silhouetted against the skyline. It seemed a lifetime before Riley fired and the Chieftain echoed the instantaneous explosion of its shell against the hull of the Russian vehicle. Studley saw one body arc high into the air before the smoke obscured the wrecked tank.
Horsefield had no intention of remaining stationary longer than necessary, and began moving the Chieftain forward at a brisk pace. The smoke cloud from the wrecked vehicle was drifting across their path, a useful screen. Visibility was now less than forty meters; the smoke thickening. Studley could feel heavy concussions but couldn’t hear the sounds of the explosions which accompanied them. The ground ahead was clearer, and he thought they must have reached the outskirts of the wood, only a hundred meters from the command position. A vehicle was burning, spurting red flames in the smoke. There were bodies hunched around it; he couldn’t identify them, but thought the helmets were Russian. There was another wrecked vehicle, this time a British APC, and beyond it a burned-out Chieftain, its hull ripped open and its turret and gun missing. The ground was churned and cratered… more bodies. Horsefield swerved, found it impossible to avoid the corpses, and drove over them… he recognized their combat smocks as NATO-issue and hoped there were no wounded amongst the motionless figures he was crushing beneath the tracks.
There were dark shapes in the smoke not twenty meters away, closer, men moving. Studley identified a T-72, the nearer of the vehicles. ‘Reverse, Horsefield.’ The figures scattered as the Chieftain loomed out of the smoke behind them. The turret of the T-72 began moving. Horsefield crashed the gearbox into reverse so fiercely the tracks skidded. For a few moments the fifty-two tons of the Chieftain kept her slithering forward, then the tracks gripped. The muzzle of the Chieftain’s 122mm gun was no more than four meters from the rear of the T-72 when Riley fired. The close proximity of the detonation twisted the Chieftain sideways and a billowing spray of burning fuel swept over its hull. Horsefield was trying to regain control when a second explosion tilted the Chieftain on to her side. It dropped back with a bone-jarring crash then settled. Horsefield began accelerating again. He couldn’t see where they were going, and was hoping the colonel was watching to the rear. He locked the right track and hammered the Chieftain into forward gear, to swing her round. The Soviet RPG-7V anti-tank rocket, fired by an infantryman forty meters away, hit the Chieftain on the flat slab of armour directly beneath Horsefield’s feet. The hollow-charge high explosive round punched its way through the metal as it exploded, killing Horsefield instantly, wrecking the driving compartment, and spraying the interior with fine shrapnel; a heavy scab of metal ricochetted from the floor and buried itself in Sergeant Pudsey’s chest as a searing white flame leapt around the breech of the gun, the charge bins and the stacked ammunition. Studley’s head felt as though it had burst. He could smell explosive, burning fuel. The air was unbreathable. He was choking.
He attempted to force open the turret, the hatch lever was jammed, but gave way slowly. Everything was confused, unreal. He was unable to focus his eyes, and when he tried to shout to the crew his lungs contained no air; his chest muscles and diaphragm were cramping in painful spasms. He grabbed at the edge of the turret and fell forward, sliding down the hull and landing on his stomach beside the track. He was immediately sick. He knew the Chieftain’s ammunition might explode and tried to drag himself further away, flopping like a seal across the ground as his arms gave way beneath his weight. It was all night-marish… swimming in fine dry sand… the sour taste of bile in his mouth… throbbing pain…
He lay still.
He was thrown on to his back with a jerk that almost dislocated his neck. The brightness of the sky was blinding. There was a man’s face above him; mist slightly clearing. He felt his NBC clothing pulled apart, roughly… hands searching his coverall pockets. The helmet? American? Russian! Cut high above the man’s ears, grotesquely sinister. He was dragged on his back, his head jolting against the earth before he was hauled into a sitting position against a tree. He recognized an AKM rifle aimed at his chest, then vomited again. More hands searched him. He tried to say: ‘Let me die in peace, in my own time,’ but the only sounds he could make were deep rasping groans between his retchings. He collapsed on to his side.
They let him lie for a few more minutes, until the surging waves of nausea had passed, then pulled him back against the tree. He faced the smoking wreckage of the Chieftain, fifty meters away. Beyond it, a mass of twisted metal was all that remained of the Soviet T-72.
His breathing was easier now, and the throbbing in his head had lessened. He felt mentally numb, each individual thought leaden. One of the men who had been supporting him was kneeling beside him winding an olive-green field dressing around the lower part of his left leg. I’m wounded… wounded and they’re dressing it… that means I’m alive… and they aren’t going to kill me… not yet anyway… maybe they’ll kill me later… I’m a prisoner… God, I’m a prisoner.
There was no sign of any others of the crew. He stared at the wreckage… how had he escaped? The others were still inside… dead! His stomach heaved again, but he managed to hold it.