“Juliet-Zero, Juliet-Five. Lost track, immobile but functional.”
“Juliet-Zero, Juliet-Six. Road, south of forest, 2,000 metres, in position to cover. Over.”
“Juliet-Zero, Juliet-Seven. 200 metres east of Juliet-Six. Over.”
“Roger, all call signs, this is Juliet-Zero. Hold position, hold position. Cover Juliet-Five. Coming to you. Out.”
The turret turned slightly, the gunner keeping track of the likely enemy positions. Peterson looked across at his three burning tanks, and the crippled one stranded still close to the enemy.
Suddenly he was thrown violently against the side of the turret, the force so great it nearly broke his right arm. He grasped it in agony as he heard the screams below, the tank turning left, out of control, the glacis dipping down into a ditch, the tracks bogged down in the mud at the bottom.
Captain Peterson scrambled out onto the turret, captivated by the three burning tanks he could see, a column of thick, black, oily smoke poured skyward, yellow and orange flames still flickering around the armoured vehicles. Turning around, he watched, mesmerised as a main battle tank was being hungrily devoured by flame and exploding ordnance from within, jolting the armoured vehicle. He had just lost over half of his squadron. Only the infantry could help them now.
Oberst Keller walked alongside Colonel Gachev, commander of the Soviet tank regiment in the local area. T-64s lined the streets. The tank crews had made a poor attempt at camouflaging their main battle tanks. Like everyone else, they were weary. Also, there was an air of over confidence. Before Oberst Keller, from the 8th Motor-Schutz Division, 5th German Army, could make his next move, he needed to ensure that his troops were locked in with the Northern Group of Soviet Forces, particularly the 6th Guards Motor Rifle Division, if they were to advance at the same time and put pressure on the enemy. Whenever Keller spoke aloud, referring to the West German Bundeswehr as the enemy, it left a sour taste in his mouth. On their way to the Soviet regimental headquarters, they passed a hospital. It was clearly overcrowded; overflowing with wounded soldiers, most of them East German, but some of them West German, as well as Soviet motor rifle and tank troops. A number of UAZ 452s, small glass-sided utility vehicles, with a Red Cross sign indicating they were ambulances, along with Gaz-66 vehicles similarly marked, were offloading even more wounded. Space inside the hospital was obviously at a premium as, once triaged, those deemed not severely wounded were left outside on stretchers. But what horrified Oberst Keller more was the queue of German civilians lined up along the pavement, clearly seeking treatment for various injuries as a consequence of being caught up in the fighting. He did a quick mental count: there must be at least 100, he surmised. At least seven had horrific facial and arm injuries, reminiscent of exposure to a blister gas. Evidently, many of the blisters had burst, and now looked red and raw, weeping, the pain they were causing etched in the people’s faces. Others were obviously traumatised, their wounds caused by exploding bombs or a stray large calibre bullet or splinters from a shattered tank shell.
Oberst Keller stopped. “Do they have some civilian doctors or medical staff that can treat these people?” he said, looking at the Soviet colonel.
“There are some, but our own soldiers have a priority over these.”
“Can’t you at least release some nurses to provide them with some minimal care?”
“No, Comrade Oberst. My orders are to treat as many of our soldiers as possible. I must release some of my medical teams to move forward for the next push.”
“I understand that, Colonel Gachev, but to spare a few nurses would have little impact on your ambitions.”
The Soviet officer started to walk off, but was called back.
“What if I release some of my own medical staff to assist?”
The regimental commander looked him straight in the eye. “If you have spare resources, Oberst, then I suggest you release them to help our soldiers who have been fighting to free these people from the capitalistic yoke that hangs around their neck.” With that, Gachev stormed off.
One of the civilians, a woman in her late seventies, a dirty, bloodied bandage wrapped around her face and covering one eye, peered at him with her good one. Recognising that he was speaking German, noting the uniform was different from the Soviet officer, she ascertained that he was with the National Volksarmee.
“Why are you doing this to us?”
The officer was caught off guard as the woman clutched at his sleeve, the single eye searching his face.
A middle-aged man also approached, pointing to a young boy slumped against a low wooden fence. The boy’s upper chest was wrapped with what could only have been white bed sheets, torn into strips to act as a bandage. “He got hit by a stray bullet. We can’t seem to stop the bleeding. Please help us. He will die if you don’t do something.”
“My daughter was hit by falling masonry,” called out another. “She has a head wound. She keeps passing out. We have nowhere else to go. Have mercy on us. We didn’t ask to be involved in this war.”
The girl, probably no more than ten years old, was lying on a wooden door, either taken down, or blown down, to be used as a stretcher. Next to her, sitting cross-legged on the tarmac road, her brother stroked her arm.
Oberst Keller pulled away from the old woman who was now holding both sleeves, pleading for help. He walked ten paces back in the direction he had come from initially, and signalled to the driver of the Jeep that had brought him here. The driver, leaning against the side of the vehicle, quickly stubbed out his cigarette, jumped in the vehicle and drove towards the National Volksarmee Oberst’s position.
“Get onto the 2nd Battalion,” Oberst said to the radio operator sitting in the back of the vehicle. “I want their medical team here within the hour. Once they arrive, you are to direct them to assist these civilians. They are acting on my orders. No one is to prevent them. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, thank you.” The man with the wounded child expressed his gratitude, and was quickly joined by others in the line.
With that, the Oberst left to rejoin the Soviet officer who had stopped about 100 metres down the road. When he was alongside, the Soviet officer barked. “Your Samaritan act will get you into trouble, Oberst.”
“Had they been Soviet citizens, Herr Colonel, what would you have done?”
This time it was the German officer who stormed off.
Chapter 9
The Fox eased forward, poking its nose just outside the outskirts of the small village of Lindhorst. The vehicle commander called a halt, and a second armoured reconnaissance car joined him, pulling up alongside on his right. Ashford saw the 30mm RARDEN cannon swing right, the commander of that vehicle keeping a watch to the southeast. Ashford put the rubber cups of the binoculars to his eyes and did a quick search of the foreground, then further out. Above the ticking sound of the armoured car’s Jaguar engine, he could hear a steady staccato of machine-gun fire, interspersed with the single cracks of SLRs and punctuated with the claps of explosions coming from somewhere west of Hanover. He had a good view of the open ground in front of them from here, except for a small wooded area to the north that was blocking his line of sight to the northeast.