With every step large cones rolled beneath his feet, crunching and crackling as they were crushed into the carpet of slim brown spikes. But that, like the distant call of a wood pigeon, did not disturb the sombre mood of the place.
‘Be a nice place to live, up here.’ Through the stiffly standing trunks Libby could see along the track where it curved down the hillside. The trees lining it framed the sunset, now made a blotchy red by the dust clouds it shone through. Fog was hiding the details of the lowlands, only a few soft-contoured hills standing like islands upon it to give any point of reference.
Bending down to pick up a handful of the deep covering of needles, Dooley let them run out through his fingers as he straightened. ‘Yeah, you could be right. Ground like this would soak up a lot of slurry.’
‘Don’t you ever think about anything but pig shit?’ Dooley treated the sniper’s question seriously. ‘Of course I do, sometimes, when I’m on a forty-eight hour. But right now we’re in the Zone. While we’re here, can you think of anything better?’
Using a map board as a tray, Boris was distributing cups of coffee. ‘This is the last. We have found some soup, enough for a little each, and then there is nothing.’
‘The nothing sounds better. Someone else can have my share. You found that soup aboard the carrier. No way am I going to eat Russian muck.’ An incredulous dine watched Clarence drink at one go the boiling coffee that was burning his fingers even through the thick enamelled mug. ‘Even if I had a gullet like his I wouldn’t, so you know what you can do with your cabbage soup.’
‘Actually it is bulyon, chicken broth, and you would be missing a treat. It is delicious.’
‘I ain’t never had Ruskie food, what’s it like?’ At the risk of burning his mouth, Dooley was using the unsweetened black coffee like a mouthwash, but swallowing it after swishing it around his gums.
‘When you can get it, at its best it is superb, but for a long time now only Party members and senior officers have been able to get enough food of good quality. For most there are only queues, disappointment and growing hunger.’ Boris thought back to the brief stay he’d spent in Moscow, soon after completing his training. Most, virtually all his time there, had been a hell he’d rather soon forget; but there had been one night, out with a friend who was a well-connected Party member, when he had eaten at a restaurant.
‘The best meal I ever had was in Moscow. There the Party fat cats take good care of themselves, and once, just once, I saw what it was like. I started with smoked salmon, do you know I had never even seen it before; and with it a glass of chilled vodka, Stolichnaya, the very best. Then there was chicken breasts filled with butter, so rich, so full that it splashed my best uniform but I did not care. And then I had ice-cream with three kinds of fresh fruit and then brandy with Turkish coffee. When I got back to my barracks I was sick. And then I served ten days in military prison for the damage to my uniform, and I never wanted to eat well again.’
‘I still prefer German chow…’
‘Good, then I’ll help you work up an appetite for pork and spuds,’ Hyde interrupted. He indicated a tall tree. ‘Shin up that and keep a watch for aircraft. We could miss them from down here. Not much we can do about them, but we might as well be prepared for whatever they call down on us.’
‘Fuck that. I’m not a bloody monkey.’
‘Do it.’ There was no inflexion, no irritation in Hyde’s voice. ‘And if I don’t?’ Dooley stood his ground, though a fraction less sure of himself. He noticed the others had moved away from him. The sergeant was carrying his rifle.
‘You’re right, I can’t make you. Apart from the fact I wouldn’t waste a bullet on you, if I did you’d be in no state to climb. So I tell you what, if you don’t fancy doing it, just nip over and tell the major. He’s watching you now.’
‘Anybody got a banana?’ Throwing his assault rifle to Ripper, Dooley hitched his trousers and started up the tree.
Ripper watched him go. ‘Hell, I don’t know what the Commie bombers might drop on us, but sure as eggs is eggs, it couldn’t be as bad as if he does.’
‘I fucking heard that, you shitty pox-faxed hillbilly.’
‘He sure do have a way with words, don’t he?’ Ripper tried his coffee, and found it had gone cold. ‘You lousy bastard, listening to you and Boris I’ve let my coffee go cold, it’s all your damned fault. What you gonna do about it?’ From somewhere above them floated Dooley’s response. ‘Oh hell, I am sorry. Tell you what, I’ll make it up to you, I’ll let you have something warm of mine.’
There was a brief pause, and then the trees shivered and sent down a deluge of needles as a long loud fart shook the forest.
When Ripper looked down again, many of them were floating, or in the course of sinking, in his coffee.
The white sickle of the new moon gave just sufficient light to work by as Burke toiled at the broken pump. ‘Sodding awful this Russian equipment. No wonder they always rely on bloody numbers when they fight. They need to send a hundred of these crates into battle to make sure ten reach our lines.’
‘And then they find they’re facing only two of ours.’ Libby tested the strength of the drive belt he had improvised from various pieces of webbing, putting his foot in it like a stirrup and pulling as hard as he could. ‘Be nice for us to surprise the Commies for once. Even this blooming Kothen show was a shambles. Some light flak… I’d like to meet the staff officer who wrote that.’
Cline sat by them. He shifted uneasily, alternately cradling his Russian rifle, and nervously pointing it towards the heart of the forest. ‘You hear anything?’
He got only negatives from the men busy with the engine, and craned forward, turning an ear towards the direction of the sound he thought he had heard. ‘You sure you don’t hear anything?’
‘Either shut up, or go for a trot and check it out.’ The would-be belting had snapped, and Libby’s temper was also close to doing so.
I’ll just have a look around then.’ He held back a moment, but no one urged him to stay put, and he began to shuffle cautiously towards the darkness beneath the trees further in.
Shit, this was when war got stupid. If he got killed now, with no one looking, who’d ever care? Not this lot, that was for sure. It was alright charging into a dangerous situation when there were officers around to be impressed and write out recommendations for medals, but dying for nothing, that was just plain pathetic.
It was eerie beneath the trees and near pitch-black. There were noises, he could hear them, but it was probably only animals and he wasn’t going to make a prat of himself over a false alarm. Perhaps it was wolves, didn’t they have them in Germany, or maybe escaped animals from an abandoned safari park?
A twig snapped behind him, and he stiffened. Was that a footfall? He had a round chambered, and was tempted to fire, just to break the predominating silence. He could always explain it away as an accident. But this lot of cruds would see through that.
Remembering the image intensifier Revell had lent him, he groped for it on his chest, where it hung from the cord about his neck. As he lifted it there was another sound behind him, and he had no time to react as a noose was dropped over his head and jerked tight.
Libby heard the strangled shout that abruptly died in a choking splutter, and was reaching for his rifle and calling the alarm before the webbing he dropped had touched the ground.
A dark shape came at him from behind a tree and he blocked the knife thrust at him with his rifle butt. Another figure came at him from the side and he went down beneath it as he was knocked off balance.
Two short jabbing blows he connected elicited a soft groan from his assailant who collapsed and lay still. There were fights all around him; the others were being attacked as they jumped from the APC.