‘Shit, now how in the hell did they do that?’ Ripper kept the turret rotating, searching for a target, but there was none.
Another explosion blew the bows from a patrol boat, and it immediately stopped dead in the water and began to sink.
‘What have we got on the screen?’ From his perch in the top of the hull Revell couldn’t see their Russian deserter sat at the radio and radar consul at the rear of the hull but knew he would be continually monitoring the hostile fire locater to identify and track the cause of the losses back to their source.
‘Nothing, Major. All systems check. Whatever it was, is,’ Boris corrected himself as a transport took on a sudden list after an explosion ripped a huge rent in its side, ‘is not artillery fire of any sort.’
‘Maybe it’s a sub.’ Dooley opened the armoured shutter over his own image intensifying vision block and scrutinised the river for a periscope. He nudged Clarence beside him as encouragement to do the same but was ignored. ‘Well, it could be.’ Undeterred he returned to his lone and self-appointed vigil.
Revell wasn’t looking for a periscope, but he was watching the surface of the water just as hard. Almost at once he saw what it was he was searching for, and had hoped not to see. He grabbed at the radio tuner to broadcast a general warning but for at least another of their number it came too late.
So intent was he on tracking the driftwood-surrounded half-submerged oil drum as it bobbed towards them that it wasn’t until it was too late that he saw their companion craft cutting across their front.
Perhaps it was going to investigate a similar object it had spotted further away. Revell never knew. Even as he shouted the warning the other HAPC skimmed over the innocuous flotsam, striking the slim aerial-like spine projecting from it.
The mine must have contained over two hundred pounds of explosive, and it detonated immediately beneath the vehicle. Foaming water streaked with flame and smoke rose high, its top feathering like a wind-blown fountain in the breeze, then fell back to make a short-lived circle of white water about the broken turretless hull. Both engines had gone, but even without that burden to hurry it, it went down fast, leaving no sign of its ever having existed, save for a single limbless torso that, as if unhappy to be left in the world in that state, followed seconds after.
‘All of you. Hit anything that looks even remotely like an oil-drum.’
Anticipating the major’s order, Ripper already had his sights on a cluster of three, and each round of the clip he put in found its mark. ‘Aw, I got a bunch of duds.’
Using rifles and light automatics the others aboard had also selected targets, but it wasn’t until Andrea chose her second that they achieved the result they’d all been expecting.
A geyser of mud and river went up a hundred feet, and four more oil-drums later Clarence found another.
Sergeant Hyde had kept a tally, as accurately as he could when some of them were obviously selecting the same target. ‘I don’t think even the Commies could make that many duds. By my reckoning about one in five is live. The rest must just be weighted dummies, to make life harder for us.’
‘They’re bloody succeeding.’ Burke gripped the controls tighter and hunched himself into the smallest shape possible as he saw an oil-drum that had been riddled with small arms fire and stubbornly refused to sink, bear down on them and, still only partially submerged, pass under the front of the ride skirt.
‘What’s the old guy beefing about now?’ Ripper swore under his breath to conceal his annoyance as a shot he fired almost missed and succeeded only in pounding in the top of a hooped metal barrel, without piercing it. ‘He’s only got to die the once, ain’t like being wounded. And sure as hell if we hit one of those lil’ ol’ parcels, he’s gonna die.’
‘I bloody know that, you thick hick. ‘Course I’ve got to bloody die. It’s the fucking where and how I’d like to have some say in.’
Hyde came on the intercom to put a stop to the chatter. He was tempted to use his own rifle from one of the ports, but those to which there was easy access were already in use. The heaps of ammunition boxes and various other stores in the middle of the floor restricted movement and would have made it virtually impossible to take up a firing position at another. Instead he squeezed through to the back to check on Boris.
He wasn’t happy at having the Russian in so sensitive a job. Maybe he was alright now, at this very moment, in action; he had to do a good job or he’d perish with the rest of them, but they were well inside the Zone now and there was much in these craft that the Communists would have loved to get their hands on. With so few having been made, every one lost in action could be accounted for, and so far they could be certain that not one had fallen into enemy hands in any condition other than that of a maniac’s jigsaw scattered over several acres. So far Boris had played it straight, passed all the tests, but they were a devious and poisonous bunch, the Commies, maybe he was just biding his time, waiting his chance…
Their miniature teleprinter chattered a slim white ribbon of neatly typed gibberish. Tearing it off, Boris fed the strip into the decoder.
Watching, Hyde wondered what ‘I’ Corp would do to Revell if they found out he’d put the renegade in this position. He’d seen the standing orders regarding the do’s and don’ts of having Russian deserters in your unit. Although a handful were now finding their way into combat units, none that he knew of were ever given anything other than pioneer, pick and shovel, work to do. Most of the Commies who had come over were employed in the rear areas in labour battalions, and even there they were watched very carefully.
‘Will you give this to the major?’ Hyde looked at the offered message, and was tempted to tell the Russian what to do with it, but resisted the temptation. ‘You take it, I’ll watch the screens.’
It was impossible for Boris to tell the NCO’s mood by reading anything from his horror-mask face, or what had been his face; but in the sergeant’s voice he could detect mistrust, and didn’t offer argument. ‘Of course,’ He was aware that Hyde had read the message as it came out of the decoder, and knew why he did not trust him alone with the radio.
Terse to the point of being cryptic, the order ran to only ten words. Revell read them through several times, before instructing Boris to take it to each member of the crew in turn. He had no way of knowing if the Russians had them under electronic surveillance, but it was more than likely, and if the equipment in use was good enough, then use of the intercom would be as much of a giveaway as if they broadcast the message in-clear.
As it was passed around the only reaction from any of the crew was a long low whistle from Dooley, otherwise it was received in absolute silence. Revell accepted it back from their radio-man and read it through once more before rolling it into a ball and dropping it onto the floor. The word stayed in his mind when they were no longer before his eyes: ‘Seek and destroy source of mines. Radio silence until completion.’ Looking back along the interior he saw the sergeant was ostentatiously securing the radio.
Vibration rippled through the hull as the Allisons were run up to full power and the ride height was increased to the maximum. As speed picked up they began rapidly to draw away from the body of the convoy. Over the intercom came Burke’s voice, raised, as much as his gruff tones would allow, in song. As they sped towards the next belt of enemy defences he worked his way through ‘A-Hunting We Will Go…’ to ‘Run Rabbit, Run Rabbit, Run, Run, Run…’ but Hyde put a stop to the impromptu concert when their driver reached the chorus of ‘Oranges and Lemons say the bells of Saint Clements… chop, chop, chop off their heads…’