The surviving male of the party seemed to shrink at Hyde’s words, somehow collapsing in upon himself to occupy only half the space he had before. His face was a ghastly colour, it had passed white and was now a deep-lined grey. A palsied shaking gripped his body and he held both hands to his mouth, as though he would have bitten every nail simultaneously if he could have got them all in.
‘That’ll do, Ripper. I want them covered, not used to form the base for a new ice shield.’ Shouldering his rifle, Hyde took up a trace from the sledge and forced it into the quaking Swede’s hand, almost having to drag it from his mouth to do so. Ice crusted the exposed fingers before the Swede could pull his gloves on, and he whimpered at the pain of moving them. ‘Right, if everybody is ready.’ Holding another of the lines himself, Hyde took up the slack and prepared to pull.
‘I were kinda thinking we ought to be making a move.’ Alternately using borrowed binoculars and an image intensifier, Ripper had been maintaining surveillance of the Russian encampment. The three Gecko missile launchers had left the main body of the landing party and were motoring towards their cover. A command car, its canvas top erected and its windows thickly misted, headed the procession. ‘They ain’t coming on like they were looking for trouble, but if they intend to set up shop around here, then we are, if we don’t get our tails out of here.’
Pushing back his hood, Dooley looked up at the tops of the trees. ‘So do I, but I think we might have screwed the timing. Down!’
Faint at first, it grew rapidly louder, a buzzing whirring sound that raced up the audible range until it filled the air and assaulted their eardrums, almost drowning Dooley’s shouted warning. Flying snow stung their faces, caked their clothes and plugged their nostrils. A helicopter’s landing lights briefly seared night from the woods as it passed over, lighting the scattered bodies like day as Hyde’s squad joined the corpses in the cover of the snow.
TEN
‘Those Ruskies must be planning a long stay, that’s a lot of equipment they’re bringing ashore. There can’t be much left in that transport by now, apart from the crew, fixtures and fittings.’ Squinting at the surface radar screen, Cline watched the trace of a landing craft as it made another journey from the Ivan Rogov’s flooded stern dock back to the north of the island.
‘The air-watch radar also showed activity. Five full loads of personnel and stores had already been ferried to the island by the big transport helicopter they had seen manhandled from the Rogov’s battered hangar. It was approaching the ship again for another landing on the forward well-deck, where the TV display showed further crates and crowds awaiting it.
‘Pity there isn’t a nice thick minefield strung out across the island, between them and us.’ York took his headphones off and rubbed his ears.
‘Minefields are OK in some tactical situations, like protecting flanks, but not here.’ There was a burning sensation at the back of Revell’s eyes; he would have rubbed them but they were already sore. In a minute he’d go and get another scoop of ice to cool and soothe them. Sleep would have been better, but there wasn’t the time for that luxury. ‘No, if we set a few the Ruskies could either jump back into their boats and nip round them, or into that chopper and hop over. All we can do is hide, that’s our only defence from what’s piling up against us.’
‘Another update coming in, Major.’ York read the strip as it came out. ‘The number of escorts is up to forty, heavies total fourteen. That looks like the final count.’
‘That’s enough. What’s their ETA?’ Revell had already computed his own estimate of the fleet’s time of arrival, but with the benefit of near continual satellite surveillance, Command should be able to refine the probable error to within thirty minutes either way. Apart from anything else, it was better informed as to sea and ice conditions in the waters through which they must pass. ‘Six hours, Major. That’s two after first light.’
‘You getting anything special, Boris?’ The Russian had been so quiet that Revell had almost forgotten him. The man sat hunched at the side of the radio table, occasionally jotting a note down into his log, or attempting to adjust his ill-fitting headset.
‘Nothing of significance, no. There is some ship-to-shore chatter, and the helicopter pilot keeps making complaints about the poor landing guidance he is getting on the Rogov, but that is all.’
‘Well, stay on it. Let me know if they start moving about on the ground. Listen for anything about Hyde and the others.’
‘They must be dead, or in the bag by now, Major.’ Wiping his oil-streaked hands on his anorak, Libby came in from the kitchen. Burke could still be heard fussing and swearing over the erratically running generator.
‘If they were,’ Boris looked up, ‘then these would be burning my ears.’ He tapped the headphones. ‘And we could expect visitors at any moment.’
‘There’s a chance we’ll have some anyway, let’s reduce the odds as much as we can. Close down every active system… yes, everything.’ Revell waved his hand to quell the babble that greeted the order.
‘Major, me and Burke have just spent half the night getting that bloody generator to go, and keeping it going.’ Libby made the loudest protest. ‘Now you want us to stop it?’
‘That’s right. We’ll just keep a radio watch. That should give us ample warning of increased activity by our Commie neighbours.’ Even as he said it, Revell was all too well aware that it really didn’t matter just how much warning they got of any Soviet aggression towards them. They didn’t even have the men to provide an adequate defence of the house, let alone send reinforcements to aid the gunners at any of the three launch sites. The mission had been envisaged, by the most optimistic, as a hit and run affair: with their numbers so depleted, the very best that could be hoped for was hit and internment, and it was much more likely to be attempt-to-hit, and die. The continuing cold was making him feel ill, and lack of sleep didn’t help. His every movement was becoming an effort. When your body hurt and ached all over, the temptation to do nothing, to just sit and wait for the end, was very great.
At this stage, inactivity might be a defence of sorts, but it offered no opportunity for rest. Perhaps some of the others might stand down for an hour at a time, but he couldn’t. Eventually it would get to him, perhaps not on this operation; but if he went on to more, then one day he would find his mind had a limit to what it could take. Every combat officer had a breaking point, a moment at which the strain or tension would become too much and his brain would simply switch off. Many others had gone that way before him. He’d seen some – who had refused to give in to increasingly obvious symptoms of an approaching nervous collapse until it was too late – go to pieces. A colonel who had burst into tears when only a dozen men out of a fresh battalion had rallied after a massed Russian attack, a young lieutenant who had beaten out the last flames on the shrivelled pain-wracked bodies of his baled-out crew and then calmly walked back to his blazing tank and climbed in a moment before its ammo detonated…so many different ways to go when a mind overruled the will that had been driving it too long, and tried to regain control. He was already watching himself for the first signs, watching and waiting.
There was the sound of heavy, hesitant, footsteps on the stairs, a drumming double thump kept time. The medic appeared, dragging the body of a gunner.
‘Give him a hand, Clarence.’ A moment passed before Revell realised the sniper had made no move to leave the dark corner where he sat. ‘I said help him.’
With slow deliberation, Clarence stood up still kneading his fingers, as he had been doing perpetually since the moment he’d recovered his senses after his brush with freezing death. Without the light from the tubes he couldn’t examine them to see if the faint discolouration had gone, but the tips didn’t hurt any more. ‘You want me to help carry a body?’