The rest of the squad were working just as frantically hard but still being careful not to throw the spoil beyond the vegetations shadow and being cautious not to do any obvious damage to the plants when they pulled tangles of branches down over their excavations.
“Experience.” Clarence was slowly panning the lens of his Barrett sniper rifle across the distant landscape. “We’ve been fighting the Ruskies so long that at times we think like them, but I will admit that the weight of that barrage came as a surprise. They’re firing off shells like they’ve got to get rid of them. Usually if a Ruskie company gets in trouble, gets held up, the best they get in the way of support is a couple of medium sized shells or two minutes of half hearted mortar fire. This time they must have put down fifty rounds at least.”
“There’s something going on down by the ditch.” Wiping dirt from the sights of his M16, Dooley waited for a signal from the Major. “Heck, they’re coming again.”
Three hundred metres away, barely showing above the curve of the ground, brown clad figures began to rise into view.
“They’re no keener now that they were before.” Dooley watched as the distant men milled about, many turning around to offer help to others following them from the irrigation channel, hauling them out and up in to the open They were doing all they could to delay their own start across the open ground.
Again shells screamed overhead. Most fell on the Fir trees bordering the far side of the service centre car-park but a couple missed the position Revells’ men had just vacated, smashing in to the buildings of the autobahn café and motel complex. The pounding high explosive completed the work of destruction begun earlier and tore up the white-lined surface of the car park, tossing long abandoned civilian vehicles about.
“They can’t see this hedge. I don’t reckon they will until they’re over half way here.” Revell slid to the earth, not bothering to look back at the cascade of shells. “We’re concealed by the slight rise between us and them. They think we’re still in the area of the buildings.”
More high explosive dropped and this time several rounds fell short of their intended target and red-hot slivers of shell casing slashed through the light overhead cover. A nearby pylon was hit, vibrating wildly, the strain bringing down one of the power lines. It fell, inert, into the long grass of the meadow.
Once again the Warsaw Pact infantry shook itself out in to an extended line and finally after much urging from officers began to step out. Here and there a man would stop and be grabbed, threatened and hustled forward by an NCO.
Revell watched through binoculars. He knew that to be the likely limit of the corporals and junior sergeants responsibilities. If the officers went down they would display no initiative and the attack would crumble. He just wished it were easier to select those targets. The officers must have been experienced even if the troops were clearly not. Kalashnikovs were being carried by all and that way the officers were not making themselves obvious.
At an unseen signal the Russians levelled their weapons and opened a wild automatic fire. In the gloom of the overcast early morning the multi-coloured tracer flashed wildly across the field, gouging furrows in the fresh green barley shoots where they impacted. Even more flew over-head, hopelessly wide of their target. “I think I have an officer lined up…” Clarence had to raise his voice to make himself heard.
“I have a group around a man with a radio. They are using him as a shield.” Andrea levelled her grenade launcher and tracked her selected targets as they steadily, reluctantly, approached.
Still Revell held back. The Russians slowed even more as they began to pass between the bodies of the men chopped down during the earlier assaults. “Not yet.”
Very carefully Burke moved his finger to flick away a red ant making an erratic path down the barrel of his rifle. He longed to brush away all the others that swarmed on his arm, but remained still.
Behind them the barrage seemed to increase in intensity with more rounds falling short and sending slabs of red-hot steel through the top of the hedge. From behind the advancing enemy a single wheeled armoured personal carrier drove in to sight. It moved out to a flank and added long bursts from its turret heavy machine gun to the storm of light automatic fire. The tracer passed over the hedge, hosed towards the ground about the shattered remnants of the autobahn buildings.
The deluge of shells ceased abruptly.
“They must think that has finished us.” With a fractional adjustment of his telescopic sight Clarence turned his attention towards the camouflage painted vehicle. Still no order came and the enemy infantry had covered more than half the distance towards the hedge. Seeing it ahead of them, and having passed safely through the zone where their compatriots had been mown down they gathered confidence and speed. Those in front almost tripped over as they shuffled quickly over the ploughed ground, hurrying to seek the imagined shelter of the hedge.
“Now!” The range was about one hundred metres when Revell shouted the order.
With short sharp burst the NATO men chopped down the leading rank of advancing Russian infantry. A smudge of dirty smoke marked the impact of a high explosive grenade on the chest of a radioman. He seemed to dissolve and it was just his pack that fell, several of his cowering escort going down with it.
Ignoring the nearer targets Clarence took his time aiming on the distant APC. His first shot went in to the turret a fraction of a centimetre below the opening through which the machine gun barrel protruded. The penetration was marked only by a brief pinprick flash of light and then a wisp of white smoke. A slight adjustment to allow for the breeze and as the vehicle began a clumsy turn Clarence put his second armour piercing round in through the centre of the drivers closed steel visor, immediately below the vision slit. Momentarily the APC surged forward and then the wheels shuddered at an impact. It side-slipped on a moss-covered mound over the stump of a tree. A dying crewman was convulsing, thrusting unthinkingly hard on the foot pedals. The vehicle slowly fell sideways into the ditch, sending up a spray of stagnant water. Just visible, the wheels continued to rotate, sending out a fan of earth where they brushed against the sides of the water channel.
Hyde’s weapon pecked with neat precision at the advancing line of infantry. Several times rounds passed through two or even three men as they bunched behind one another. The enemy broke under the accurate fire, turned and ran again. Many who fell were hit in the back as they threw down their weapons to enable them to frantically shrug off their backpacks, to lighten their loads in the cloying soil. They made the best speed they could for the cover of the ditch.
Clarence continued chasing them with single shots as they reached and began to throw themselves in to the excavation. This time they didn’t stop, clambering up the far side and racing for distant woodland. The snipers last bullet cut down an officer waving a pistol as he threatened the men hurling themselves in among the timber, at eight hundred metres range.
He was not alone in the vengeful selection of targets, firing until the last possible moment. Beside him Andrea sent air burst grenades after the fleeing men. Several times she seemed to catch small groups of Russians as, zigzagging across the ridged earth, they were only a step or two from safety. She was the last of the squad to stop firing, not ceasing until she had exploded a grenade between two soldiers who were limping, far behind the others. They went down and didn’t move.
“Time to get out.” Major Revell gathered up two fragmentation grenades he had laid beside his scrape and snaked backwards from their cover. “They’ll know about the hedge, and were we really are, now.”