‘Are the crews aware of this?’
‘Of course not.’ Roxforth could see no point in reducing the men’s confidence in their commander. Everyone could make mistakes, and he could appreciate the captain’s feelings.
‘One kilometer west of Bisdorf would put the Red HQ about three K’s from the A2 autobahn.’
‘Or thereabouts,’ agreed Roxforth.
‘And we’ve lost three hours.’
‘We may be able to recover time,’ Roxforth said, encouragingly.
‘Nonsense. There’s no way you can recover lost time. Damn and blast! Get the crews ready to move out. The minute Hinton is back, we’ll get going.’ He studied his watch. ‘I’m giving him another thirty minutes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t need to "sir" me, Sandy, just because I’ve made a bloody fool of myself. And by the way, I’ll make out a report of the matter afterwards.?
‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’
‘It is necessary. Thank young Sache-Worrel for me will you. Tell him he did the right thing, Sandy. Late, maybe, but right.’
Fellows watched him walk away through the shadows of the woods. He felt angry with himself; not only angry, but ashamed. He had prided himself that his career had been near-faultless, no errors in training, always the highest marks; a close runner-up for best cadet at Sandhurst. He had never put a foot wrong, until now. And this had been what all the training had been about — war. He had made a balls of his first command in real action. Why? Because he had been unable to trust the judgement of a superior officer. He still believed his German CO was wrong; if you were going to have armoured stay-behind units, then they should be Chieftains with more protection and heavier weaponry, not lightly-armed Scimitars. But as he had always felt this, then he should not have accepted the command; he should have had the courage to refuse. His lack of conviction in the practicability of the scheme had led to his carelessness. Responsibility now for its failure was totally his own. It was not going to be easy to live with in the future; he rejected imperfection in others, but had discovered it in himself.
Hinton’s patrol had been unsuccessful. He returned feeling dispirited. They had probed further than he had originally intended and still found no indication of the enemy main HQ. They had seen Russians; a field hospital, a number of engineering units, and two kilometers west of Rosche a motor-rifle company. He was surprised by Fellows’ casual acceptance of his failure, it seemed out of character with his own experiences of the tank captain.
Fellows said, simply, ‘Bad luck, Hinton. Well try again to the south… to the west of Bisdorf. Get your lads on the APCs briskly, we don’t want to waste any more of the darkness.’
Fellows led them south-west for several kilometers, then crossed the Wolfsburg Neindorf road and swung east. Movement was difficult. Whereas on their first run from the bunker they had been travelling almost due west and in the general direction of the Soviet advance, now they cut across the main supply line of the enemy division. The Russian commanders were making use of darkness to move up their supplies and reinforcements, and those south of Neindorf were coming within range of the NATO howitzers sited west of Köningslutter. The ground the Scimitars and APCs were now covering bore signs of heavy battle activity. Every dip in the fields, every wood and copse, farmhouse and village had been defended. Damaged and wrecked military vehicles and equipment littered the fields and roadsides, some of the vehicles still alight, their metalwork twisted and blackened, the corpses of their crews around them. There were wounded men in the ditches and shell craters; sometimes they moved or signalled frantically at the Scimitars. Fellows knew that many were NATO soldiers, but there was nothing he could do for them, and therefore no gain in slackening the speed of his unit. Some would survive, but they would have to wait until the Soviet medical units had attended their own men.
Fellows had slowed the unit two hundred meters from the ruins of the small village of Almke when they came under fire. The first indication was the explosion of the second in line of the SAS APCs. In open ground a little to the rear of the Scimitars, it burst into flames, swerved to the left and overturned. Sandy Roxforth, in station sixty meters to the right of the APC, had been standing in his Scimitar with his head and shoulders out of the hatch. The attack was unexpected, accurate identification was difficult at night and Soviet troops would be taking care not to fire on their own armour.
Roxforth dropped into the vehicle and as he did so heard machine gun bullets rattling off the aluminium hull. The lieutenant had just sufficient time to realize its significance when a 120mm shell, its point-blank range confirmed by the ranging machine gun, penetrated the Scimitar hull just below the top run of the track and exploded directly behind the driver.
Sache-Worrel saw Roxforth’s tank destroyed. The way in which it blew to pieces was terrifying, and he realized instantly there was no possibility of survivors. He was praying for someone to break radio silence and tell him what he should do. It seemed sensible to use best speed to get out of the immediate area of the village and away into the darkness; at fifty miles an hour it didn’t take long to get a Scimitar out of trouble. But Captain Fellows, to Sache-Worrel’s right and eighty meters ahead of him, had not changed course and appeared to have stopped.
Sache-Worrel saw a burst of flame from Fellows’ Rarden; a single shot, then two in rapid succession. He was getting too close to Captain Fellows’ tank so ordered his driver to swing away further to the right and increase speed, intending to draw around in an arc beyond the leading Scimitar.
Fellows’ Rarden fired a three-round burst, then his Scimitar accelerated. The captain had left it a fraction of a second too late. A shell exploded beneath the tank’s square stern, lifted the hull upwards and threw it completely on to its side. It ignited immediately, its fuel spreading around it so it appeared to be floating in a lake of flames. Sache-Worrel caught a horrifying glimpse of a small dark figure staggering within the incinerating fire, then heard Gunion on the net, his voice urgent.
‘Magpie Sierra Echo… this is Ben… three o’clock, woods,… go like hell!’
‘Wilco…’ He felt the Scimitar surge across the ground as his driver swung it away.
‘Magpie Sierra Delta… this is X-Ray Nine… we’re going in to neutralize.’ It was Hinton.
‘Roger X-Ray Nine, we’ll stand off.’
The net was silent again for several minutes. Sache-Worrel brought the Scimitar around two thousand meters beyond the village, and waited.
‘Magpie Sierra Delta this is X-Ray Nine. It’s okay here now.’
‘Roger X-Ray Nine, out to you. Magpie Sierra Echo… white farm building four kilometers back… small lake… rendezvous there.’
‘Roger Magpie Sierra Delta.’
The HF died. Sache-Worrel was stunned by the happenings of the past few minutes. Half the SAS unit wiped out… and two Scimitar crews… Sandy Roxforth… Captain Fellows… all in seconds. A body thrashing in the petrol fire, Fellows’ or his gunner’s? There was no slow introduction to war and death, one moment it was peace and the next all hell had broken loose around you. And he had not even seen the enemy although he had kept his eyes to the L2A1… Fellows must have spotted them though, he had managed several shots with the Rarden.
McLeod the gunner shouted by Sache-Worrel’s right shoulder, ‘We hit the shit, sir… bloody shame!’
Hit the shit! That was understatement thought Sache-Worrel. Everything had gone wrong since the moment they left the bunker! He could see the farmhouse ahead of them now. Before when they had passed it the ruins had looked serene in the darkness, and the carp lake bordering its grounds had appeared calm and peaceful. Now he wasn’t sure; it might hold an enemy gun… death… nothing would be as it seemed for him ever again. At least, not in war.