FOUR
They were lost. Time after time Revell and Hyde had conferred at crossroads as to the right or best direction. Almost as often, within a kilometre their chosen route had veered to the wrong heading. In the rugged mountainous terrain they would have been slowed to a crawl if they had struck across country, and so their compasses were virtually useless. The instruments served for little more than to act as general indicators that now and again they were heading in the desired direction.
Their only map was no better. Many of the roads were not marked and in any event all signposts had been removed long ago. It was an action planned to confuse the enemy, but as now it often had the reverse effect. Also against them was the fact that even before the war this had been a sparsely populated area of West Germany. The few scattered houses and farms they glimpsed were all abandoned and anonymous.
A first halt had been called after a couple of hours, while officer and NCO scaled a wooded ridge in the hope of identifying some landmark. They tried hard to conceal their frustration when they returned exhausted after the fruitless effort.
‘At this pace it’s going to take a bloody week to get back to our lines.’ Scully felt no benefit from the forty-minute rest when they restarted. The straps of his pack and his rifle sling bit into his shoulders. Their weight felt doubled by the water that lay on them and dripped from every crease of his combat clothing. Save where a tear was letting in an occasional icy stream he was still dry, but the wind was cold and beginning to burrow its way through to him.
‘Keep it moving.’ Revell looked back from the head of the main group and noticed a perceptible slackening of pace. ‘We must keep them moving, Sergeant, keep them on their toes. Another hour and then we’ll fall out, look for somewhere sheltered where we can tight a fire and prepare something hot. That’s if we don’t have any more Hinds buzzing around us then.’
‘I think we’ll have to take that risk anyway. Put a hot meal and a drink inside them and this lot will work wonders. Another stop under the trees with just a sip of cold water and a nibble at an oatmeal block and we’re going to have a hell of a job getting them on their feet again.’
Revell had to agree. ‘Pass the word that’s what we’re going to do. In return I want to up the pace.’
‘Major, Major!’ PFC Garrett came sprinting back from the point, shouting at the top of his voice.
Hyde’s snarled warning got the young soldier to lower the volume but did nothing to abate his excitement. His words came tumbling out in a breathless rush that had nothing to do with his exertion.
‘Dooley’s seen something, Major. We’ve all seen it. It’s incredible. You got to come and see.’
There was little to be got out of the eighteen-year-old while he was so worked up. Revell had seen him in the same state before, when he was on the substitutes’ bench at an inter-unit football game. A rush of emotion rendered him almost inarticulate and completely incomprehensible, and it would be simpler to follow him than attempt an interrogation.
Taking Hyde with him, Revell moved cautiously to the apex of the sharp bend that had taken the point out of sight. Dooley and another man stood in the middle of the road, holding their rifles casually, just staring ahead.
‘What’s all the bloody fuss?’ Hyde punched Dooley on the shoulder, raising a miniature cloud of spray.
‘It’s all green. Can’t you see it, everything’s green.’
And it was. Ahead the road lay dead straight for several hundred meters. Trees made a canopy over its entire length and the weak light of an overcast day filtered down in a soft green light through the mass of fresh spring leaves that sprouted from each branch and twig.
Tired though he knew he was, Revell realized that his eyes were not mistaken. That gentle verdant light was the same as the others were seeing. And there was grass and other low plants growing at the roadside, making gentle avenues of soft waving colour where they flourished between the moss-covered trunks.
But that wasn’t all. Among the lush undergrowth were patches of yellow and, less obvious, swaths of delicate blue. Flowers, primroses and bluebells. And there were others, tiny delicate blooms that had no right to be there.
‘There’s no flowers in the Zone.’ Dooley gawped in total disbelief. ‘I thought I’d seen everything in this fucking oversized no-man’s land, but I didn’t think I’d ever see flowers. It’s, shit, it’s beautiful.’
They walked slowly forward along the gently climbing avenue, surrounded on all sides by the luxuriant carpet and canopy of fresh foliage. The rest of the company followed, all vigilance forgotten as they took in what they saw. Even Andrea, the hardest of them all, appeared unable to fully comprehend the sight that met them as they walked forward.
Retrieving the bird cage from the man he’d left it with, at a price, Dooley pulled down the canvas and lifted the miniature aviary high to swing it about. ‘Come on, you lot, this’ll cheer you up. It’s just like home.’
Revived by the clean, natural scent of the woods, the birds began a chorus that within seconds had an answer. A lone thrush warbled a reply, and Dooley shook the cage to stimulate his choir to greater effort, but it had the reverse effect.
Below the overhanging trees they had a respite from the rain, the overhead cover reducing it to a fine mist. Not a single plant, stem or leaf had the tell-tale blotches of unhealthy colour that would have betrayed the use of chemical weapons in the vicinity. Even the litter from the previous fall smelled wholesome and invigorating. The combined scents saturated their every breath and with revived memories washed away death and suffering and battle.
As Hyde deliberately slothered through the moulding debris, he noticed tire tracks, and called the major’s attention to them. ‘Only the one set, fairly fresh.’ Kneeling, he spanned his hand across them to gauge the width. ‘Not a Russian pattern, and certainly not wide enough for that Warpac scout car. I should think it’s likely they belong to that Hummer.’
Nodding, Revell decided not to mention that he’d recognized the track pattern. Inhaling deeply, he enjoyed lungfuls of the untainted air. Since long before, he’d thought he’d lost his sense of smell, in all but the most extreme of conditions. But now it seemed as if the months of breathing chemicals and the stench of partly consumed explosives and super-napalm had only been serving to prepare him for this experience.
Still audible, the echo of the Russian barrage reminded some of them of the danger of completely dropping their guard. Nearly all of them had seen friends killed in an unwary moment.
Gradually though, as they walked silently forward, experience reasserted itself through their awe, though they could savour what they saw. Ahead of them, a blackbird scavenged among the dead leaves, flicking them aside as it searched for insects. It held out until the last moment before flying off ahead of them.
‘Everything I know tells me this place just shouldn’t be here.’ Try as he could, Revell could see no evidence at all that this oasis of life and colour had ever received any dose of the poisons that drenched every other part of this great swath of German territory.
‘It’s like finding the Garden of Eden in the middle of the Utah salt flats.’ Garrett picked a flower and finally succeeded in entwining it among the sparse dead foliage adorning the netting on his helmet.
‘More like the eye of a storm.’ Sampson shrugged his sixty-pound pack of medical supplies higher, but otherwise his gangling frame showed no discomfort under the crushing load. ‘Listen, man, the Zone is a killing ground that’s been well turned over. The Reds push us, we dig in, then we push them and they dig in. The next time we just push and dig in different places. Result, everything gets turned over, blown up, killed off. Only we found a slice of real estate that they’ve all missed. You got one guess where all hell is going to break loose next.’