The shed blew apart, first being lifted from its foundations, and then collapsing inwards like a card house, as Andrea’s 40mm rifle grenade went in through a window.
Mud and blood had to be wiped from the corpse’s sleeve patch before Revell could decipher its design.
‘Well, is he railway troops?’ Burke pushed forward, trying to see past Sergeant Hyde.
‘No, artillery.’ Turning the body over with his boot, Hyde reached into an unbuttoned pocket and took out the Russian’s pay book. He handed it to Boris. ‘Does this tell us any more?’
Flicking over the well-thumbed pages, Boris stopped at those detailing the soldier’s specialist training. ‘He is with an air defence regiment.’
‘No bloody wonder they’re hacking our choppers out of the sodding sky. This shit must have a load of mates around here. No one said anything about all this bloody flak. A bloody milk run they said. It’s fucking Arnhem all over again.’
Burke watched as Dooley roughly cut away the badges from the dead man’s jacket. ‘I wondered what had made you so keen. You started souvenir collecting?’
‘Yeah, sort of. Fetch a good price do these, from the typewriter warriors back at HQ.’ He cursed at having to leave the belt buckle, as Hyde shoved the M60 at him, and pushed him after the others.
As Libby moved from the security of one line of wagons to another his mouth was dry and his breath came faster. Beneath the big steel-bodied cars nothing could touch him, but each time his turn came to wriggle into the open, drag his rifle and pack out after him then dash the few feet to the next sanctuary, before repeating the same frantic process in reverse, fear struck him in a way that was almost physical. He watched Clarence when his turn came. The sniper’s coolness made him as devoid of expression as the hideously disfigured Sergeant Hyde, but there was nothing in his actions, no extra caution, no hesitation, to betray even a suggestion of fear.
There were fewer choppers going over now, but the sounds of battle around the yard were increasing, with several more heavy weapons coming into action. The crash of grenades was becoming more frequent, and then they heard the first thunder of demolition explosions, and mushrooms of smoke and debris soared high above the yard from the direction of the engine roundhouse.
The concealment offered by the rolling stock ended a good seventy-five yards from the signal cabin. Between it and them gleamed several sets of tracks, woven into a complex junction at the throat of the yard. Stray shots had chipped the reinforced structure, making a couple of star-surrounded holes in the smoked glass windows, but the indicator lights on the modern control board inside could still be seen, blinking on and off.
‘We’ll put down smoke.’
‘Hell, Dooley, you hear the major? Ain’t enough your big feet are gonna have to trip the little o’l light fantastic over ah’ that ironmongery, he’s gonna make you do it with your eyes tight closed, or as good as.’
‘Shut it, Ripper.’ Hyde had been scrutinising the wagons of a train standing some fifty yards on the other side of the cabin. ‘I think we can save some rounds, Major.’ He pointed out from beneath the bulk cement carrier to a pair of unmarked matt-black tanker wagons.
‘It’s worth a try, and the wind’s in the right direction.’ Revell nudged Libby, and indicated the cleaner of the two wagons. ‘Five rounds.’
‘Like shooting at a barn. Reckon he’ll hit it?’ This time Ripper didn’t need to be told, he saw Revell looking his way, and shut up instantly.
Five sparkling spouts came from the evenly spaced punctures made by the high-velocity bullets. ‘Looks like aviation gas. Try the next in line, same again.’
This time the spurting fluid was darker, splashed less where it landed.
‘That’s what we want, some nice heavy stuff. OK Andrea, put an incendiary grenade into the side of the first one.’
It was almost point-blank range, and she had only to elevate her rifle a fraction for the tube of the grenade thrower slung beneath the barrel to put a phosphorous round into the centre of the target.
The detonation of the leaking kerosene mixture was instantaneous. There was a rippling flash of pale flame, barely visible even against the dark paint of the tanker, and then a massive report as the wagon bucked violently and twisting pillars of fire sent its top-mounted valves and inspection hatches hundreds of feet into the air above the marshalling yard. Almost the entire contents were consumed in that moment, but where the gushing liquid had mixed with the glutinous mass from the next wagon it burned longer.
Thick black smoke began to billow about the signal cabin and drift across the tracks towards the squad, as the heavier fuel started to burn in earnest, showing a curling angry red at the base of the pall.
An arm-waving figure appeared at a doorway in the otherwise blank walled base of the cabin. Chased by a flurry of hastily aimed shots, it dived back inside and the door slammed shut.
Cline was the first to reach the building. He fired a burst from his Colt Commando at the now closed door, forcing the others to dive to the ground to find shelter from the wild ricochets that whined and bounced from the thick metal and its strengthened surround.
‘Mad arse.’ Dooley was astounded to look up and see the bombardier still in one piece. ‘Shit, you should be more full of holes than a fucking colander.’
‘All of you. Take cover. Libby, get us in there.’
Libby took a wad of plastic explosive from his pack and worked it in his hands to make it more pliable, before pulling it apart, and moulding each of the chunks against the door’s exterior where experience told him the bolts were most likely to be. He used a fuse with the shortest possible delay, and barely had time to join the others behind an angle of the structure before it blew with an eardrum-punishing roar.
Hyde had to barge dine aside before he could toss the concussion grenade through the opening. Dust and smoke swept back into his face and the major used the second it took him to recover to pass him and go in first.
Half -hidden beneath the flattened door lay the partially dismembered body of an East German railwayman. His blood had made the floor slippery and Revell almost fell as he reached for the splintered handrail and started up the concrete stairs three at a time, with Cline hard on his heels.
A single fluorescent tube still lit the windowless room. As it swung, its flickering light made weird shadows of the rack upon rack of relays, switches and other electronic equipment. Another flight led to the control room. The door at its top was closed.
Shouldering his assault shotgun, Revell fired twice and even as the gouged and shattered door crashed back, was racing up to, and through it.
A single hand frantically waving a soiled handkerchief was the only obvious movement among the huddle of four figures in a corner. There was a woman among them, as white-faced as the men, her eyes staring from behind thick lensed glasses.
‘Down.’ Revell demonstrated his meaning by jerking the barrel of his 12-gauge towards the floor. The cabin staff understood and dropped as if pole-axed, laying stiff and un-moving. ‘Set the charges, I want this place ready to blow in ten minutes, and get Boris up here. I want to find out how many of the others have made it down safely.’ Leaving dine to guard the prisoners, he took advantage of their elevated position to try to get some idea of what was happening in the rest of the yard.
There were several big fires around the perimeter of the area, but whether they were the results of the efforts by other assault groups, or simply marked the sites where choppers had crashed in, it was impossible to tell. A handful of smaller blazes had started among the long rows of rolling stock, and a large cloud of oily smoke was beginning to rise from the direction of the machine shops. That had been a prime target, it had to be the result of demolition.