In similar collection points facing the slopes of the Vormundberg, mechanics moved amongst the infantry’s fighting vehicles, syphoning off the precious fuel for use instead by the tanks and AAA vehicles.
As for the 23rd MRR relieving the Romanians and Hungarians in the attack, they were held back temporarily, a delay for the purpose of coordinating four attacks at once. 9th Russian MRD on the east bank of the Saale would attack westwards, 77th Guards Tank Division on the west bank of the Saale would attack eastwards at the same time as elements of the 91st Romanian Tank Regiment seized key positions west of Magdeburg in NATO’s rear.
The rain came again, dumping copious amounts of misery onto the blasted hillside, flowing into the fire bay of trenches and slowly filling them about the ankles of occupants too busy to bale.
The heavy clouds robbed the Earth of any of the half-moons rays. It was stygian, relieved only by the flashes of occasional, and fitful, lightning from within and the light from fires and bursting shells reflecting off the cloud base.
The massive bombardment of the Elbe/Saale Line had severely depleted the Red Army artillery stocks and the NATO airborne forces, acting unsanctioned by their governments, were seeing to it that resupply did not come any time soon.
Once the paratroopers ran low on ammunition and explosives though, the roads to the rivers would reopen, although that was another hurdle for the Red Army to vault over once more.
The French and the Canadians had left armour in hide positions, two brigades worth, and once the main juggernaut of Red Army had unknowingly bypassed them they had emerged in the enemy rear. The NATO armour smashed everything they found of worth, stores, bridging equipment, fuel and ammunition dumps, tankers and trucks. All had been left burning.
Trucks had become the number 1 bullet magnet, and engineers, or anybody who could fix or build a pontoon bridge came a close second. For once it was safer to be an infantryman, relatively speaking, anyway.
With the fall of darkness the Hungarian 43rd MRR did not return and 2Lt Ferguson, the green commander of the Nova Scotia Highlanders Reconnaissance Platoon, was settled in at the bottom of his trench for an uncomfortable night. Sergeant Blackmore had conjured up a couple of plastic heavy duty beer crates from somewhere and these were upended, allowing them to avoid the water at the bottom of the firebay in relative comfort for an hour, taking it in turns to bail out the trench every thirty minutes.
His sergeant was currently squatting, hunched up with the collar of his combat smock pulled up to keep out the rain. Asleep with mouth partly ajar and heedless, or just too exhausted to care that the side of his face was pressed against the firebay's muddy wall. A ballistic helmet with its chin strap undone was displaced by the sleeping posture, sat at an angle upon the sergeants head, its camouflage cover sodden with the rain and the water dripping from the helmets lower edge.
Dougal Ferguson was himself in a similar posture, like a slightly better than average looking, upright, church gargoyle. Shoulders hunched to trap the field telephone handset against his left ear whilst his right enjoyed the unbroken hissing from the radio earpiece, the hash noise. About his left wrist were looped string communications cords to the trenches on either side. Three forms of communication at his disposal in his muddy hole in Germany thought Dougal, who was momentarily tempted to add a fourth by uttering an imitation of a night owl, Hollywood Western style. Dougal though was aware that so far his contribution to the platoon was not held in very great regard by his men. He was determined to change that, but he just did not know how? Everything he touched seemed to turn to mud, and his sincerest suggestions were greeted with either thinly veiled contempt, or muffled sniggers. He was not sure which was more demeaning.
The fear of failure was almost equal to the fear of death or disfiguring injury, and the low esteem he was apparently held in by the men was reducing his self-confidence to tatters.
After the departure of the Hungarians he had been ordered to send out a patrol to check on what was occurring with a suddenly reluctant enemy, and the answer was that they had simply gone, taking with them many of the dead from the battalion that the Canadians had already defeated. The land beyond the turnip field was empty of all but the tracks of caterpillar treads and tyres leading east.
The previous day the brigade had emerged from its hide position in the forest and split into four elements, a defensive firebase and three combat teams of an armour squadron mated with two mechanised infantry platoons in AFVs and an armoured reconnaissance squadron. The brigade artillery, engineers, remaining armour, and the bulk of the infantry had dug in at the firebase in preparation for a wild and furious enemy reaction. The combat teams had roved abroad in assigned sectors, smashing and trashing for twelve hours before the brigadier had called a halt to the fun and games. The combat teams fell back to the firebase but the brigadier had almost left it too late before ordering the recall. A troop of four Leopards had engaged in a fighting withdrawal with an under-strength Hungarian battalion, covering the remainder of the combat team’s departure, picking off enemy tanks and AFVs, and leapfrogging backwards from cover to cover.
Unable to achieve a break in contact themselves, and in danger of being swamped by greater numbers, that old quantity versus quality equation again, the Leopards had fought a running gun battle with the Hungarian’s PT-76 light tanks that culminated in a last-man-standing gun fight in the turnip field, backed by direct support from the firebase. The single surviving Leopard had required the services of an armoured recovery unit.
Ferguson's four man clearance patrol, led by Corporal Molineux, the section commander of 2 Section, had remained on the forward edge of the turnip field, out of sight of the firebase, digging in inside a hedgerow as night fell in order to provide a listening post.
The remainder of the recce platoon were dug in in less than ideal ground, as is frequently the way in woodland positions. Losses over the months had only been partially made good and with the four men out of the lines on the listening patrol it left two empty trenches.
2Lt Ferguson and Sergeant Blackmore took over the trench of 2 Section's commander whilst the platoons sniping pair occupied the other. The radios, field telephone and Claymore clickers were transferred to the trench along with the communication’s cords.
The platoon’s fire plan with its DFs and FPFs was written on Sgt Blackmore’s range card and attached to the radio antennae by para cord. Needless to say, the young officer had not been trusted to contribute to that either.
The level of muddy water was now an inch from drowning the beer crate sanctuaries and Dougal stood carefully, hooking the telephone handset over the set itself, hung suspended by its carrying strap clear of the water on a tripflare picket.
An old mess tin served to bail out the trench, being careful not to dump the contents on the section’s C9 Minimi sat on the lip of the firebay.
Bailing duty complete and Dougal paused to listen. Someone was snoring and it seemed to come from the sentry position to his left where the platoons main firepower, the GPMG, general purpose machine gun resided. Everyone was tired but that was no excuse. There was never any excuse for the sentries to be asleep. The platoon’s gun position covered the approaches to the position from this side of the woods and the duty was shared on a stag roster, so called as the duty was at staggered times, a 'fresh' sentry coming on duty every hour for a two hour stint.