He was tired. Only a deep sense of fear kept his legs moving, almost robotic-like, occasionally stumbling drunkenly as his thighs got tighter and tighter. All but sprinting, he was brought to a sudden halt as he stormed straight into an irrigation ditch, throwing his left shoulder hard against the far side ditch, a wall of stacked earth, the water up to his waist. A rank smell assailed his nostrils. His mind worked feverishly as the howls of the dogs got closer and louder. The radio. He needed to ditch the Clansman radio. He clawed his way out of the ditch, slipped off the scoot pack and pushed it, including the radio within, down into the repugnant quagmire he had just left. He turned a sharp right and headed along the ditch, avoiding the clearing to the north, wanting to get back amongst the trees further to the east, now he was beyond the clearing that had prevented them going in that direction earlier. His boots squelched as he ran, his trousers slapping against his legs, the howl of the dogs urging him on. He would run until he collapsed, abject terror now keeping him going. Deep down inside, he felt despair slowly rising to the surface, knowing the German Volksarmee, Volkspolitzei and the MFS, the military state police, the dreaded Stasi, would be setting up control points on every road or lane in the surrounding area, despatching more and more search teams to close in on him, pinning him down into a smaller and tighter area.
Whop, whop, whop, whop.
A helicopter reared up in front of him as it came to the hover, the downdraught bringing Bradley to a halt as he shielded his face, a powerful searchlight beam blinding him, shifting to keep the runner in its glare.
Thump! A heavy weight struck him between the shoulder blades as the forty-five kilogram Alsatian war dog ploughed into the back of Bradley, knocking him to the ground. The dog immediately bit into his victim’s back, gripping clothing and flesh between its large teeth, twisting and dragging the body towards him. Bradley let out an involuntary scream as the dog’s jaws shifted position, biting deeper into his back. A second dog joined in the fray, grasping the arm Bradley was about to use to help get himself up; gripping the limb between its teeth, grinding its powerful jaws together in a chewing motion, crushing Bradley’s arm with such force, that the radius and ulna actually touched. The noise of the helicopter failed to drown out the growls of the wild animals and his own screams. Bradley grabbed his pistol with his free arm, pointed it in the direction of one of the dogs, his eyes still blinded by the searchlight above, and pulled the trigger. He heard a satisfying yelp as the dog dropped, the bullet having passed through the top of its shoulder blades, and he felt the pressure released from his arm. He didn’t hear the soldier or see the boot swinging towards his head, but felt the pain as it struck his temple. Shooting stars and bright lights were the last things he saw as he passed into unconsciousness.
Chapter 5
The divisional columns had completed the first stage of their long-distance march, and had settled down for a long halt, if that was what you could call it. Some units had arrived late afternoon, early evening; others had driven into their final rest area at just after ten. But there was no immediate respite for the various packets: wheeled, trailer-loads and tracked vehicles. The wheeled packet was dispersed into various hides around the Potsdammer Wald, part of a large forested area fifteen-kilometres south of Potsdam, that surrounded Michendorf. They were then ordered to check their equipment, refuel their vehicles and complete any servicing requirements. Then, and only then, were the troops provided with their first hot meal in twenty-four hours.
The 300-plus T-64s, transported by semi-trailers, were split across a much wider area, but the areas had good access to the road network as, once rested, they would be back on the road. Stavka were screaming for reinforcements to be in place on time to support the war effort to the west. The pressure was on for the army to achieve what it had promised. A third area had been allocated to tracked vehicles, such as the BMP-2s from the tank regiments, and the tracked surface-to-air missile carriers that were also deploying to protect the convoys from any possible air attack. The self-propelled guns of the artillery regiment and the engineer vehicles, GSPs, K-61s and PTSs, joined them. The largest group of all, the wheeled element of the division, had been allotted a sizeable forested area surrounding Beelitz. The road network was considered to be good, and the trucks would not be held up when it started all over again in the morning.
That time had come and the officers and NCOs, particularly the Praporshchik, the warrant officers, drove the men mercilessly to ensure they would be ready. Their next 150 kilometre march would see them in the area of Helmstedt, getting into more dangerous territory, where they would be closer to the enemy and any deep interdiction strikes. Even when in Helmstedt, they would still have nearly seventy-kilometres until they reached Salzgitter. The final deployment area, where the Stavka deemed they would deploy before being committed to the battle.
To say the activity at Kuznica, Poland, was hectic would be an understatement. Here, after a journey of some 900 kilometres, the trains carrying the division had to stop. Here, they were in the process of switching from the Soviet gauge to the European gauge. The process of switching the undercarriages was time-consuming and would take at least two hours per train. For some of the routes, this change was not required. On one route, L’vov, Krakow, Katowice, Wroclaw to East Germany, for example, a wide-gauge track already existed. The first steam train, puffing clouds of black smoke and white steam pulled out of the sidings, a long journey ahead of them. The next stop for the thirty-six trains transporting the division west was the railroad bridge over the Vistula, another 400 kilometres away.
Chapter 6
The M2-Bradley, armoured infantry fighting vehicle, from the 11th ACR changed position again, the Commander on edge and feeling exposed as they watched over the engineers working on the bridge where it crossed the River Fulda, west of the town itself. The turret swivelled and the 25mm Bushmaster chain gun covered the arc that had been allocated to its crew.
The three engineers lifted the eighty-kilogram Medium Atomic Demolition Munition, a MADM, carried in a heavy backpack, off the back of a Gamma Goat, a six-by-six, amphibious wheeled vehicle. This particular type of weapon was a W-45, a multi-purpose nuclear warhead developed in the early 1960s. With its nuclear fission core, called the ‘Robin primary’, it would generate a half a kiloton yield, equivalent to 500 tons of TNT. German Jaeger, reserve units, had been rounding up German civilians throughout the night, forcing them out of their homes, urging them to move west to safety. Not only was the Soviet army practically on their doorstep, but once this particular bomb exploded, there would be little left of their homes for up to a radius of quarter of a kilometre.
They set it up next to one edge of the bridge, in the centre of the span, and the lieutenant in command set the cypher for the code-decoder component, linked to the firing unit. When it exploded, it would devastate the bridge, tearing it apart and preventing its use by the Soviet armour that was fighting its way to the banks of the River Fulda. It wouldn’t delay them for long, such was the capability of the bridging equipment and engineering units of the Soviet army, but it would at least delay the enemy that little bit longer.