The keen-eyed man pointed out the smallest wisp of cold breath adjacent to the furthest end lump.
“A guard?”
Kuibida nodded unseen, but added a comment.
“Guarding something… what?”
The light in the hut behind them had long since gone out, and the assault group was reformed.
Kuibida dropped back and pulled his force in around him.
Firstly, he slapped Evancho’s shoulder.
“Good work.”
Pointing back towards the previously unsuspected structures, he whispered his instructions.
“Your group will take the first two,” he touched one of his NCO’s on the arm.
“Watch out for sentries. Something there’s worth guarding so it seems… that position has a man outside. That’s down to your group, Evancho.”
The men prepared to move off.
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Fifteen and Seventeen.”
The two assault groups slipped away as Kuibida quietly briefed Shandruk on the change.
Completing his brief conversation with his senior NCO, Shandruk waited a moment before cursing.
“Koorva!”
He looked at his watch, and knew it was going wrong. He attracted the radio operator’s attention.
“Wasco, tell Shark to hold.”
Shark was an integral part of the escape, and could not be risked to a failing plan. Shandruk had decided to keep the vessel out at sea a while longer.
Other reports had come in, and only ‘Seven’ was left to purge, at least, as far as the west side of the track was concerned.
“Brat, twelve and fourteen empty, over.”
Shandruk welcomed the advantage that offered, but the professional in him felt disgusted that his enemy was so inept as to leave important positions unmanned, no matter what the circumstances.
“Dedushko, Seven, over.”
‘Excellent’.
He toyed with the idea of sending ‘Sestra’ to sort the stone buildings out, but checked the thought, knowing that Building ‘Seventeen’ was still an issue.
Instead, he kept ‘Sestra’ and ‘Dedeshko’ holding in place, and moved himself forward.
“All units, Tato moving to Nine, out.”
He reasoned that he could best use the MG42’s cover from ‘Nine’ if there was an issue with either the farm buildings or the final wooden structure at ‘Seventeen’.
Shandruk simply didn’t realise that the new locations, recently discovered by Kuibida’s force, would be in his line of sight.
The snow crunched gently underfoot as the teams moved forward, this time seemingly more loud than before, their senses enhanced by the known presence of an enemy.
Evancho, his infra-red goggles revealing everything, found the sleeping sentry with ease, and he gestured his knifemen forward. Inside the small building, voices were mumbling, not in alarm, but seemingly in quiet conversation.
The sentry’s SVT-40 clattered noisily onto the wooden verandah, causing those inside to abruptly stop talking.
Recovering his knife, the lead killer moved quickly to the doorway, part of his mind registering metal bars on the windows, the other part indignant that the door was padlocked and resistant to his attempt to enter.
Evancho saw the problem from his cover position, and gestured at his companion, who placed his silenced Winchester on the snow and started looking through the dead sentries’ pockets.
“Here.”
The keys were tossed to one of the waiting knifemen, but he missed the catch, the distraction of something landing in the snow in front of him proving too much.
Evancho reacted the quickest and threw himself forward, landing on top of the grenade as it exploded.
Whilst he muffled the explosion, and protected his men, the dull noise rolled through the silent camp, and redoubled as the sound of automatic fire followed the grenade.
“Bastards! There’s fucking English bastards in the camp, lads! Wake up, you fucks! Wake up!”
The Irish voice summoned the camp to arms, although the owner didn’t realize that he was mainly calling to dead men.
Three of Evancho’s group were down hard; Evancho and the key catcher were both dead. The Winchester man had taken a round in the shoulder, and was screaming in the red snow.
Scrabbling around at his feet for the dropped key, the surviving Ukrainian unlocked the padlock and sought cover inside, his pistol readied for any problems.
A chair leg, swung by a very muscly and tattooed arm, felled him immediately, and a pair of hands grabbed the inert figure, dragging him inside before pulling the door closed.
One occupant, who had been subjected to regular beatings, was in no fit state to offer resistance, but the other was fighting fit, and ready to take advantage of whatever was going on around him, as the camp burst into frenzied life.
Shandruk realized his positional error and quickly shifted the MG42 to where it could flay Hut ‘Seventeen’.
Surprise was just a distant memory now, but most of the work had been completed, although there had yet to be any sighting of the two specific targets, ‘Kolobok’ and ‘Ryaba’, or Brown and Reynolds as they were known to their peers.
“Wasco, get Shark moving again. Tell ’em not to worry about silence.”
He spoke rapidly into the HT as his radio operator passed the message to the RAF rescue trawler, HMS Robert Hastie.
“Bird, Tato, stage two, out.”
Busy taking in the tactical situation, part of Shandruk’s brain registered the sound of aero engines bursting into life, as the three Sunderlands responded to his order.
To his front, Kuibida had flanked Building ‘Seventeen’, coming at it from the east side, where it was set against the trees and bushes, and where there were no openings.
The MG42 was spitting bullets at any part of the structure that showed signs of movement.
Across the track, part of ‘Dedushko’ had joined in the firefight, whilst the other part had teamed up with ‘Sestra’, and that joint force was closing on the stone farm buildings at speed.
With part of the group covering, the rest of the attack force pressed hard on the farmhouse they knew as Building ‘Twenty’.
It seemed they had got there without problems until a burst of fire from a downstairs window put two of the attacking Ukrainians down, sparking a firefight with the covering force.
Back at ‘Seventeen’, Kuibida was in position.
“Mama to all, no fire on Seventeen. Assaulting now, out.”
Whilst all stations received the message, Shandruk made sure the 42 team fully understood, and took the opportunity to check their fire.
“Tato, Sestra… report… over.”
Nothing.
“Tato, Dedushko… report… over.”
“Dedushka, Tato, Sestra inside Twenty… there is resistance… at least four men down… waiting, over.”
“Tato, Dedushko… leave Sixteen to us… stay away, out.”
The MG42 was given another target and started peppering the windows of building ‘Sixteen’.
Back at ‘Seventeen’, Kuibida’s assault was heralded by grenades. It also came in from the south side, whilst the IRA defenders were oriented west and north.
One Irishman, a veteran of the Great War, realised the presence of enemy to their rear, but died as the first of six grenades exploded inside the wooden hut, setting fire to a number of flammable items, and bathing the area with an intense orange light in seconds.
The Ukrainians swept in and over the stunned defenders, shooting the wounded and stunned survivors without mercy.
“NO!”
Kuibida’s shout rang through the hut, giving everyone a moment’s pause.
“Not him,” he pointed at the unconscious man who had been about to travel to his maker at the hands of Konstantin Lach.
“Him, we want, Konstantin. He’s your responsibility. Make sure he gets back alive.”