Blind Fire (14 page)

A fight broke out as a soldier without his mask tried to snatch another’s. The struggle was short and violent and the respirator’s new owner stood on his victim’s body to put it on.

The deception was reinforced by two more of the devices. Both exploded in the air, sending a drenching cloud of pungent household chemicals towards the Russians. At that their nerve broke, those already aboard slammed the doors on the men still trying to get in, and the APC began to lurch through an ill-judged turn that brought it into collision with several houses in turn. The succession of jarring impacts gave its turret gunner no chance to bring his weapons to bear, and as the carrier completed the manoeuvre it passed right under Libby’s window.

Concentrating on bringing down the last of the abandoned infantry, Ripper only caught a glimpse of the bundle of grenades Libby tossed out. He brought up his rifle after fitting a fresh magazine, and levelled it an officer who appeared hesitant, uncertain whether to seek cover, or chase after his vehicle. A group of five bullets aimed at the Russian’s chest went wildly astray as Ripper was bowled over by a heavy tackle about his knees.

‘What are you up to? You made me miss the bastard.’ ‘Keep your bloody head down.’ Cradling his head on his arms, and opening his mouth wide Libby waited for the blast. The air was thick with the fumes of diesel exhaust and bleach, then it was broiling hot as well, as a huge shock caught the building and shook it. First the floor slammed up into them, then as a fireball passed the windows the walls shed great slabs of plaster and the ceiling fell in. It became almost impossible to breathe in the choking dust that reduced visibility virtually to nil.

‘Jesus, what was that, you got some pocket-size nukes?’ Dazed, spitting out dust and pieces of carpet pile, Ripper needed the support of an overturned coffee table as he got shakily to his feet. ‘Hey, those commies ain’t the only ones who play for keeps.’ He stuck his head out of the window. At first glance the APC, now immobile with its motor still running raggedly, hadn’t been all that badly damaged. Most of the force of the blast had been borne by the hull top, just to the rear of the turret. But as he looked harder he could see strips of rubber beading hanging down the armoured side of the vehicle. They came from the bottom rim of the turret, now lifted off its ring. There were dents and buckles in the roof of the carrier and it had been holed in several places.

Some of the bodies lying about had been caught by the devastating blast and were piled grotesquely together in a small front garden. Chunks of flesh decorated leafless trees, an arm had come to rest in a window box.

‘Stick your stupid head out like that and you’re liable to get it shot off.’ Libby was about to drag his companion back inside, when the carrier’s nearside rear door slowly began to open. ‘I thought I’d got them all.’ He watched, the squeal from the grating metal of the distorted hinges making him clench his teeth.

The door opened a little way, and after a pause a light coloured cloth was flapped from it. Bloodstained fingers were just visible clutching a corner, and the movements were weak.

‘No, let’s wait and see. Even if it’s a trick, we’ll be better off with them out in the open.’ It had taken an effort on Libby’s part not to fire. Almost from the first days of the war, the NATO troops had learnt never to trust the offer of surrender by Russians. Time and time again they had used it as a ploy to gain an advantage, and now Libby never bothered to even consider if a capitulation was genuine. He’d seen too many good men die while they took time to give it thought, tricked into dropping their guard for an instant.

After a moment the gesture was repeated, and then the door began to open further. Another pause, and then three badly wounded men crawled and stumbled from the APCs dark interior. The first could hardly stand, in his right hand he held the makeshift flag, with his left he supported the smashed remnant of his bottom jaw. The two who followed were in a worse condition, and bled from several penetrating wounds of the head, chest and thighs, where they had been caught while sitting down, by the overhead burst. They moved slowly away from the APC, until they came to the centre of the road, then stopped and, like cattle uncertain of a reprieve from slaughter, stood or sat as they were able, waiting for the initiative to come from elsewhere.

Ripper was all set to fire, had his finger on the trigger, but held back. ‘You know, I kinda hate wasting good bullets on them. If I had a dog in that sort of state back home, I’d finish it with a length off the woodpile.’ ‘That’s one of their tricks, among others. One way and another the medics get saved a lot of work in the Zone.’

‘What’d yer think then, do I finish them, or do you want first go? I’m easy.’

‘Leave them.’ That surprised Libby himself, those weren’t the words he’d meant to say. He rationalised it. ‘They’ll not last long, leave them to bleed. Like you say, why waste bullets.’ Not since they’d discovered the enemy were using dum-dum and explosive bullets had Libby knowingly spared a Russian, and even before that there had been few occasions. The fighting was always too fierce, too fast moving to admit the taking of prisoners. There was no certainty about those three succumbing to their injuries, terrible though they obviously were, but still he didn’t fire.

Oh what the hell, let them go, they’d be taking no more part in the battle. Maybe he was beginning to have had enough of killing. It was a certainty he’d stop the moment he found Helga, and it would be without any regret, without any guilt either. Two years fighting the Warsaw Pact Forces in the Zone had taught him to expect no quarter, and he in turn had given none. But those three out there, they no longer presented any threat, so what was the point? Let them live, at least the few minutes they had left. He was doing them no favours, judging by the state they were in; yes, let them live. He put his hand out to push down the barrel of Ripper’s M16.

The rattle of the rapid automatic fire went on a long time and echoed all about the street. Each of them hit by several rounds, the wounded Russians jerked and rolled and doubled-up.

‘From over there.’ It was Ripper who had pinpointed the spot from which the firing had come. His bullets smacked dust from the doorway, but the Russian officer had already ducked back out of sight. There were three more dead in the road. One of them still clutched a large pale piece of cloth, now spattered with his own blood and soaking up more that flowed about it. Puddles turned red as they mingled the separate streams coming from the bodies.

‘That guy killed some of his own. What’d he do that for?’ ‘Could be any of a dozen reasons.’ Libby started out of the room, talking back to Ripper over his shoulder as he followed. ‘Most likely reason is fear. The same thing that’s driving that column on. A Soviet officer can lose ninety, a hundred per cent of his men in battle and so long as the objective is achieved, who cares, sure as hell his superiors won’t, all they want is results.’ He led the way out through the kitchen. ‘But let the same poor bugger have a single man desert and God help him. So, when they have to, they prevent their men from going over the hill, or surrendering or changing sides by ways like you just saw. As a system it works, and it suits the commie mentality. If they can’t terrify a poor sod into blind obedience, they kill him. Bang, no problem.’

‘They sure ain’t too nice, not by half.’

‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’ Checking each alleyway and side street they had to cross with extreme caution, Libby led as they worked their way towards the main street. ‘The real beauties are the party officials, the ones with GLAVPUR, the Red Army’s political directorate. Now those specimens really know all about being nasty. If we get out of this, go and see one of the POW cages where they’re kept, you’ll find it an education.’

‘Kinda seems like that’s what I’m getting at the moment.’ Ripper covered the Britisher as he sprinted across the corner of a small square, then followed as soon as Libby had taken up a position to cover him in turn.

‘No, this is just a pre-school playgroup, kindergarten. Wait until you get to college, one of the big set piece scraps with nukes and all.’ They were getting close to the scene of the fiercest fighting. Overlapping waves of compressed air from grenade and shell explosions made Ripper’s ears pop, and brought cordite-heavy smoke to bite into his throat and lungs. His eyes began to water. ‘I can wait, all of a sudden I ain’t chasing medals no more.’

ELEVEN
The bayonet was stuck fast, gripped by the ribs between which it had penetrated. Shit, he’d been thrusting for the gut. Dooley could tell from the commie’s slack- jawed glazed expression, and from the increasing downward drag on his rifle that a second blow wasn’t needed, but his immediate problem was freeing the M16. He braced himself against the inevitable recoil, and fired.

Its muzzle rammed hard against the Russian, the weapon’s kick was vicious. Prepared though he was, Dooley’s arm was momentarily numbed as the bayonet withdrew.

A whistling sigh escaped the blade’s victim, cut short as the big man’s boot crushed his kneecap and sent him tumbling down the stairs. It was a body that hit the landing below, almost falling on another Russian who was making ready to hurl a grenade. The snap shot that Dooley followed up with didn’t hit him, but whined past the grenadier, close enough to startle him and cause him to hold on to the bomb a fraction too long.

‘Hey, that was an own goal, how about that?’ Dooley realised that the celebration might have been a little premature when a long burst of machine gun fire came up through the boards beside him, and slivers of wood lanced into his calf. ‘Fuck that. Ain’t you broken through that wall yet?’ There was no answer. He backed up a few paces along the corridor, and another crackle of fire came through precisely where he’d been standing. ‘Come on, it can’t be taking you that long. If they can shove stuff up through the floors, you must be able to get through to next door.’

Lieutenant Hogg came down from the staff quarters. ‘Things getting too hot for you?’
‘I ain’t chucking my life away while Cohen could be out cold and cashable.’ A grenade bobbed over the top of the stairs and rolled to Dooley’s feet Without hesitation he reversed his rifle and, using it like a five-iron, sent it back. ‘Fuck this, they’re beginning to cheese me off.’ He took a blast grenade of his own, and tossed it after the other.

Coming almost together, the detonations shook the building and as a wall of dust rushed at Hogg, he became aware of a new noise. It grew louder, a splintering tearing sound. He grabbed Dooley and pulled him back as the stairs and several yards of the corridor vanished, raising still further clouds of dust as they crashed to the floors below. A strong smell of burning came to their noses, and with it the groans and shouts of trapped men.

‘Did you mean to do that?’
‘Of course I did.’
Disbelief shaded Hogg’s expression, but he said nothing further as they made their way to the attic rooms.

‘How’s that?’ York stood by an irregular hole hacked in the gable end. ‘I said I’d make a good job.’ The praise he’d been expecting didn’t materialise. ‘Well I reckon it’s a good job.’
‘All we want is a way out, not a triumphal arch.’ Burke and a two man machine gun team went first.

Hogg supervised the departure of the others. The roof space had filled with smoke, and the floor was growing hot as he made a last check.

The adjoining property was one floor lower, and there was a ten foot drop to its steeply pitched tiled roof. Dooley and a couple of others had already set to work smashing an entrance through it.

‘Here, let me have a go, I’ll show you.’ Attacking the growing opening enthusiastically, York smashed his rifle butt up and down, sending shards of grey tile skittering off the roof on to the road below. ‘Just once more.’ Raising the weapon above his head, he brought it down with pile-driver force. It missed and went straight through the hole, and York went with it.

‘Jesus, hell do anything for a laugh.’ Dooley went next, exercising more caution and making a feet first landing on the bed that had broken York’s fall. ‘You damned near landed on my head.’ There were several cuts on York’s face. ‘With a head that size, I’d have had trouble avoiding it wherever I fucking landed.’

Machine gun fire from the street was breaking tiles as the last man swung in the hole for a moment before dropping down, then his brains showered over everybody and he plummetted to the floor sickeningly hard. There was no need for anyone to check, the top of his head had been shot off.

Lieutenant Hogg shouldered his AKM, and took the rocket launcher from beneath the body. ‘OK, so what are we waiting for. Come on, the Reds know we’re in here, do you want to fight your way out of here as well?’

A tank shell passed through the room a moment after they left and another shower of powdered plaster chased them down the stairs. Letting the rest of the men pass, Hogg ducked into a small front room and crossed to the window. On the far side of the street a T84 had its main gun trained on the building. The nearest turret hatch was open, and a crewman was using the anti-aircraft machine gun to hose long bursts at every window in turn. Hogg just had time to duck when one of the fusillades came his way. Incendiary rounds lodged in the walls, window frame and furniture and began to give off white smoke as their phosphorus content ignited.

It was the first time Hogg had ever used one of the M72 launchers, except for a dummy during basic training. Now he prayed he’d remembered all he’d been told. The safety pins securing the waterproof end seals came out easily, and he gingerly extended the telescopic launch tube to cock the firing mechanism. Supporting the front end with his left hand, the back of the tube on his shoulder, he approached the window again. His right hand played over the top of the launcher, seeking the trigger button. He found, it, and his index finger rested lightly on it as he aligned the flip-up sights, This was what he’d been waiting for, the chance to dish out a bit of what he’d been on the receiving end of for a year. How many times had he watched truckloads of infantry driving over the bridges he’d built, and wished he was going with them as he saw the cluster of improvised crosses in a nearby plot? How many times had he and his company of combat engineers dug in around the approaches to one of their fabrications, waiting for an enemy attack that never came? It had always been the other companies that’d had the heroic struggles. Well if the mountain wouldn’t come to him...