‘You have visited my village before, Sergeant?
‘Gunthers?’ Browning saw the German officer nod. ‘I passed through it a couple of days ago. It was a nice place.’
‘Yes, a good place. Small, but good. And my school was good, too. I took my last class three days ago.’
‘Teacher?’
‘Yes, I am a teacher, art. I took my class on Tuesday afternoon. Boys and girls, fourteen years old. And they painted the bridge across the Ulster, from memory. I should have taken them down there, and let them sit by it… by the bridge. Now, it has gone, and with it the old gasthof, many memories. Yesterday morning, I blew them to pieces.’
Adams had repaired the track; cut it loose, replaced the severed link, repositioned the track on the sprockets and adjusted the tension. The XM1 was operational. There would be no opportunity to warm up her engine; once it was started every Russian within a kilometer would know there was an armoured vehicle somewhere close by. For a while they might think it was one of their own, but it wouldn’t be too long before someone decided to investigate. The sound of Utah’s Avco Lycoming turbine was distinctive.
Podini and Ginsborough had cleared most of the rubble from behind the tracks and with luck the Abrams would be able to reverse straight out. The men were waiting now for Browning’s orders, anxious to be moving.
The BGS lieutenant asked: ‘Well, Sergeant?’
‘How long will it take to get your men in position?
‘Four minutes.’
‘Will you be using your missiles?’
‘It’s not easy in the darkness… but yes, we will try.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Browning. ‘You have exactly four minutes.’
Podini’s voice was anxious in Browning’s earphones. ‘What’s going on? How many minutes to what?’
Browning had pulled down the hatch and was settling himself in his seat. ‘We’re going back to war.’
‘I thought we were going home…’
‘Afterwards, Podini…’
‘You had to mention a nuke,’ interrupted Adams, wearily.
‘It ain’t no nuke… I made a mistake. You’re kidding us, Sarge.’
‘Two minutes,’ warned Browning. ‘When you get her out of here, Mike, go right. Keep her close to the wall below the hill. After three hundred meters the ground dips below another section of wall that runs towards the river. I want her hull-down there for three shots, all HE… you get that, Mike… just three shots? You with me, Podini? Okay! There’s a fuel bowser this side of the bridge… that’s your first target. The missile you saw is under net some three hundred meters further up the bank, in a grove of trees, that’s your number two. I want that rocket taken out… so no mistakes. It may need a couple of shells… otherwise, we’ll see what we’ve got afterwards. Mike, once you move, move fast. Head straight into them… Podini, you’re on your own, I’ll be using the point five; and keep it cool, guys.’
‘Cool? Shit!’
Browning said, ‘Okay… let’s roll.’
Browning was watching the scene ahead of the XM1 through the light-intensifying lenses. They did not bring daylight, only dusk. There was no colour, soft shadows… the light of the minutes before nightfall.
The XM1’s turbine had started with a roar that Browning knew must have been heard clear across the border. If anything was calculated to jerk the Soviet ground radar operators back into full alert, nothing much more suitable could have been invented. At any moment he expected shells to begin bursting around them.
Adams quickly settled the tank in the dip of the ground behind the low stone wall. Browning would have been happier if the hollow had been deeper, but it was the best cover available; the near three meters height of Utah didn’t make her the easiest of armoured vehicles to conceal.
Podini hadn’t wasted time. He wanted to get it over so they could leave the area. He was talking nervously to himself, running through the firing drill. ‘Target… laser range-finder… firing-switch on… computer adjusts… fire!’ The M68 gun roared, lifting the XM1’s bow. A fraction of a second later the fuel bowser, a thousand meters away, exploded into a billowing wall of fire that turned the river into brilliant gold. ‘Target… where the hell is the nuke…?’
‘It ain’t a nuke…’ Adams’ voice. ‘Please God that ain’t no nuke.’
‘Left some,’ advised Browning. He was thinking along much the same lines as Adams, but didn’t think there would be a nuclear explosion even if the missile was armed with a nuclear warhead, which he doubted. Aircraft had crashed when they were carrying nuclear weapons, and hadn’t exploded. ‘Left more… eleven o’clock… yeah…’
Podini said: ‘Countdown begun… ten… nine…’
‘Very funny you Wop nut…’Adams wasn’t amused.
The explosion of the bowser had stirred wild activity into the area; a group of infantrymen were hurrying across the open ground in front of the nearest of the bridges. A twin automatic anti-aircraft gun with a high rate of fire began loosing off indiscriminate bursts into the hillside above the XM1. It wouldn’t take them too long to find their target… the Abrams had got off the first shot without being seen, but plenty of eyes would be scouring the darkness watching for the source of the second:
Podini fired. The explosion of the shell was unspectacular. ‘Come on Gins… come on… move your ass…’
‘Loaded…’
‘Go you shit…’ The XM1 surged as Podini fired again.
‘Okay… move out, Adams,’ shouted Browning.
Adams slammed the Allison transmission into reverse and spun the XM1 sideways, then ten meters back along the gulley into the open field. As he did so the hull vibrated to the rapid explosion of a dozen high explosive rounds in the hollow where they had been hull-down. Adams changed to forward gear and accelerated fast. He hit the low wall and the XM1 bucked wildly, the stone glancing off the hull like shrapnel and scattering into the darkness.
Browning hadn’t seen the gun’s third shell strike. Near the first bridge the fuel bowser was still blazing furiously. He thought he could make out the position of the anti-aircraft gun, and was bringing the.5 to bear when the entire strip of ground that was his night vision horizon burst upwards in a blinding flash of white fire. He saw trees blasted out of the ground, and huge pieces of unidentifiable debris hurled from the centre of the explosion. The tight was so fierce he was forced to cover his eyes with his hand, but the vision of the towering explosion remained. The XM1 hit the shock wave as though it were being driven into a deep snow drift.
‘Christ!’ Browning didn’t know whether Podini was cursing or praying.
Adams had his feet on the brake and the XM1 was almost stationary.
‘Keep her going, Adams… move the cowson…’ Browning found that so long as he was looking directly towards the raging fires near the bridges he could see, but the remainder of the landscape which had formerly been twilight through his night-sight was now pitch-black.
The whole stretch of woodland beyond the dump where the missile launcher had been conceded was blazing, as though a hundred napalm bombs had been dropped within the small area.