Hard Target (6 page)

‘That’s enough arsing about. Fetch that stuff down here on the double and do the ruddy job.’ As Hyde turned to leave, there was a huge splash behind him and a fan of water hit his back and showered past on either side. ‘Sorry, Sarge, it slipped.’

Although, being much closer to the point of impact, Dooley must have been absolutely soaked by the ‘accident’, Hyde could hear him fighting to suppress a laugh, and mostly failing. He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and kept going. There would be other times, if the Ruskies didn’t get them first, when he would be able to get those two back into line, and he’d enjoy doing it.

In order to keep the Iron Cow’s IR signature as low as possible, they had removed to a flood-scooped hollow beneath the overhanging roots of a beech for a brew.

Nelson had been double dosed and left on board. There was nothing else they could do for him. The terrible nerve-jangling hooting he’d made for all often minutes had forced them to administer the second injection. Now, for a while, he had lapsed into oblivion.

Sergeant Hyde found an early opportunity to extract some measure of revenge on Dooley and Burke, when he sent them to relieve the two men on guard at the top of the ravine, only a minute after they’d finished bolting on the replacement skirts.

Begrudgingly, causing the maximum disruption, the pair extracted themselves from where, by dint of much wriggling and removing of pebbles from beneath their backsides, they’d managed to attain a degree of comfort and left the hollow.

As they did, the tops of the trees were thrown into violent motion. Both men hurled themselves flat as with a loud whirring of blades a helicopter flew over. The trees continued to thrash back and forth and shower down leaves for some time after the chopper had gone.

Before the trees had settled down the pair were up and running for the slope. ‘Bloody hell. From the racket you two were making I thought a bleeding elephant was coming up behind us. You made more noise than that chopper.’

‘Piss off and get your coffee.’ Dooley began to hack at the sides of the shallow excavation to accommodate his larger frame. Unable to resist it, Libby offered a parting shot. ‘You’ll find the worms quite friendly. Have a nice stay.’

Burke threw a shovelful of dirt after the departing pair. ‘You reckon that chopper spotted us?’

‘How the fuck should I know? Probably wasn’t even on a recon’ flight, just on his way home. Mind you, if he were taking a few frames he’ll be in for a surprise. He’ll have one of a pair of silly fuckers laying face down in the stream. That’ll keep the unimaginative bastards guessing, they’ll wonder what sort of silly-arse games we’re playing now.’ Pushing one final spadeful of soil aside, Dooley settled down.
‘You’re fucking mad.’ Burke couldn’t decide if the American was serious or not. ‘The whole fucking world is mad, or we wouldn’t be here. But it is, and we are; so let’s enjoy it.’
Still undecided, Burke thought he might as well join in. ‘You’re right. The weather’s nice, we’re in the country and soon the little birdies will be singing...’

‘And right now I’m going for a little crappies.’ Wandering off a few paces into the middle of the track, Dooley began to lower his pants. ‘... and we’re about to witness yet another demonstration of nature’s own little miracle.’ Burke plucked a small white daisy from the midst of a tuft of coarse leaves. ‘How to convert a pound and a half of steaming hot shit into a gem of miniature perfection.’

‘Fuck off. This ain’t no fertiliser I’m dropping. What happens when you put your foot in some really pig-shit awful dog dirt?’ ‘I stop, feel ill and don’t wear the shoes again for ages.’ ‘Exactly. Well, my crap has much the same effect on tanks and their crews. In the right place at the right time, with the right amount of Ex-Lax, I could stop a bloody regiment of T84s.’

To take his mind off the revolting sights and sounds emanating from a few yards away, Burke began to systematically take the flower apart, having to squint to see it at all. ‘He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves...’

‘Will that old crate of ours get us there ?’ Collins blew on the boiling hot coffee, and passed it rapidly back and forth from hand to hand. ‘It’ll get us there.’ Clarence drank his mugful scalding hot.

It was his theory that at that temperature you couldn’t taste how awful it was. ‘I must admit I am more concerned that it should be able to get us back.’ ‘She’ll make it, there and back.’ Like the others Hyde kept quiet for a moment to catch the argument between Cohen and Rinehart that floated to them from the vehicle.

Cohen’s criticism was indistinct, but Rinehart’s reply was clear enough. ‘And if you don’t like the way I hold this torch, then you can tie it to your fancy shaped pisser and do the job on your own.’

‘How come they didn’t just stick us in a chopper, buzz over and drop us right on the target ? We’d be there and back inside two hours.’ Collins blew on his coffee.

‘Because war is an art.’ Clarence took the answer upon himself. ‘And NATO creative ability does not yet stretch to finding a way to let fixed or rotary wing aircraft survive for more than, what? one and a half minutes? in enemy air space. I am all for experimentation, but not when it includes the near certainty of whirling down from a thousand feet in a burning and disintegrating helicopter.’ ‘Balls.’

‘Have you finished, Rinehart?’
‘All finished, Major. I think our little friend is intoning a prayer over it now, he kinda uses God like an electronics trouble-shooter.’ ‘What did you mean by balls?’ Clarence steered the conversation back to the previous subject.

‘What I said, balls. There’s no damned art in war. Where’s the art in super- napalm, or suitcase-sized nukes, or dumdums. What you said is a load of bullshit.’ ‘I didn’t use art in that sense, you ignorant. ..’ ‘That’s enough. ‘The humour had gone out of the exchange. Revell had caught the sudden edge in Clarence’s voice, and it made the back of his neck prickle. For all the man’s quiet manner and well educated tones, there was something very deep, very dangerous, in the sniper.

‘I got this feeling. Like it just ain’t going to be a good day.’ Through one of the rare gaps in the interwoven branches high above them, Rinehart watched a tiny streamer of red flame being towed across the sky, betraying the path of an aircraft in trouble.

‘I know what you mean.’ Libby poured himself another coffee. ‘I’ve found that when things are really bad, they have a habit of getting worse.’ The flame-tail was suddenly tipped with a flaring ball of yellow and white that expanded rapidly, and then faded just as swiftly. The aircraft crew’s trouble had just become infinitely worse.

FIVE
The definition of the image intensifier had not been improved by the pounding the vehicle’s electrics had taken, and Burke had to call on all his skills as they followed the stone and tree-trunk strewn course of the stream. In places the water had cut a narrow winding channel between almost perpendicular banks. Had the precipitate descent of the preceding hour been at one of those spots, none of them would have survived.

‘We’re coming out into the open now.’ The skimmer slowed to a crawl as Burke nosed it from the last of the cover. On the major’s instructions he now swung the Iron Cow up out of the gravel bed of the stream and on to the lush meadow-land that flanked it.

‘At least there’s no reception committee waiting for us.’ Revell slowly rotated the cupola to check the flat land about them. ‘Right, slow ahead. At this stage I think silence might offer us a better defence than speed. Stop on the river bank when we reach it.’

The turbines sent a shiver through the craft as they slowed. Burke alternately lowered and increased the rpm, searching for a power band that would stress the overtaxed engine mounts as little as possible.

A wide shining strip suddenly showed on the driver’s screen. The hovercraft flattened another hundred yards of the tall grasses, and then the noise of the engines fell away to a whisper as it coasted to a stop and settled beneath the dangling tips of a willow.

‘What the hell have we stopped for? Let’s get across.’ Dooley used one of the periscopes set in the roof to peer out at the pale expanse of the river Aller, stretching away to right and left before them.

He was completely ignored by Hyde and Revell as they compared the view from the cupola with their map. Carpet bombing of the far bank had breached it, allowing the river to flood beyond its normal confines and increase its width by spreading into the neglected fields.

‘Most of the landmarks have gone, and the rest of the landscape has been so knocked about it’s hardly recognisable.’ The sergeant snatched another look through a periscope, then studied the view on Burke’s screen.

‘Take your time. I’d rather you were sure.’ The pencil Revell was holding tapped a random Morse code on a corner of the map board.

Although the words didn’t say it, Hyde sensed the impatience underlying them. He climbed up for another look. There was something, about a thousand yards off, the ruins of a building. It was in the correct place, but the outline wasn’t how he remembered it. If it was the old processing plant then the roof and both silos and chimneys were missing. Other components of his field of vision looked vaguely familiar. A pile of rubble where a large house had been, leaning stumps where a copse of tall oaks had stood. Damn those bombers. Sod it, it felt right, it must be...

‘Yes, this is about it. We’re closer than I thought, but our detour accounts for that. We’ll cross here, and then it’s only a couple of miles to a place where we can leave the Cow in safety while we find the workshops. That’s if the Airforce have stuck to the rules and not bombed closer to the camp than they’re supposed to.’

Cautiously Burke eased the machine forward until it overhung the six-foot drop to the sluggishly flowing water. A shouted warning, and then he nudged it a fraction further and the skimmer swung down. A curtain of spray rose up as the leading edge of the skirt and hull dipped into the Aller, and air being thrust out by the turbofans fought to keep the craft on an even keel. There was another towering cascade as the rear of the hovercraft pancaked down and stabilised the machine.

Spray clouds surrounded and followed them across the river and again in the swamp-like fields beyond.
‘How is he?’ Collins leant across to where Rinehart was trying to re-secure the bulky dressing that ineffectually bound Nelson’s gaping wound. ‘Pretty bad. Can’t see him hanging on long unless we can get him fixed up proper, real soon.’
The bandage slipped, and as it fell from the wound it was followed by a gush of blood that brought with it shards of bone and blobs of spongy white matter. ‘Here, hold this.’ Rinehart pushed the sterile dressing back in place and while Collins held it with eyes averted, bound it to the wounded soldier’s head with many intricate windings of crepe. ‘He’s gonna wake up again soon, and when he does he’s gonna make an awful noise.’
‘What we could do with is a nice big-boned nurse, all starch and black stockings, with a juicy fat arse and nutcracker thighs.’ Dooley made crude appreciative noises by smacking his lips together.
‘Don’t forget the tits.’ Having overheard, Burke joined in. ‘Don’t forget the tits.’

‘Never do. That’s why I like bending them over and taking them from behind. That way you get plenty of good handfuls as well. You can’t do it from the front, least I can’t, they always tell me to use me elbows ‘cause I’m too heavy.’ The big man grinned at Collins. ‘How about you, kid, how do you like them? Had any tasty schoolgirls lately? Or aren’t you old enough for them yet?’ ‘Shut up, you poisonous lout.’

In the noise of the compartment Clarence’s words weren’t clear and it was a few seconds before their meaning sunk in and wiped the leer off Dooley’s face. A ham- sized fist rocketed towards the sniper.

Clarence didn’t move until the last possible instant before the huge paw would have struck him, then he half-turned in his seat as the dirty knuckles swept past his chin with only a fraction of an inch to spare, and brought up his rifle from between his knees, driving the tip of the barrel into Dooley’s forearm. It sank past the sight into the thick flesh.

Dooley bellowed as the pain made his fist spring open. He held his arm and examined the livid bruise that was fast spreading on it. ‘What sort of fucking trick is that?’ There was an agonising sensation of intense pins-and-needles in the limb, and he couldn’t move his fingers. ‘Feels like you’ve fucking broken it.’

‘It isn’t, you’ll recover.’ Taking a clean, neatly folded tissue from his breast pocket, Clarence wiped and scrubbed his rifle. He kept on long after any trace of the big man’s sweat had been removed by the short, brusque actions. ‘Neat, very neat. You’ve got good reflexes there, man.’ Rinehart had watched with amazement and admiration.

Though he waited for some acknowledgement of the compliment, none was forthcoming. ‘You’ll have to forgive old Dooley here. He’s really a no-holds- barred man, he don’t usually go in for such refinements as punching.’ ‘He’ll find out.’ Flexing his hand as a degree of feeling returned to it, Dooley didn’t look up as he spoke.
‘Save it for the Commies.’ Revell had been about to intervene when Dooley made his move, but he’d seen the look in the Britisher’s pale unblinking eyes and instinctively known that he didn’t have to. If the big man had been more observant, he too might have held off and saved himself a deal of pain. But maybe not - Dooley was the sort who always had to learn lessons the hard way.

Hyde hadn’t even bothered to watch what was going on, let alone get involved. ‘You don’t bother much about your men, Sergeant.’ ‘I don’t have to, Major. They get in and out of trouble quite well enough on their own. If it’s minor stuff, I let them get on with it.’

Revell was finding it difficult to fathom the British squad. They were an unlikely mixture. A lonely kid, a near psychotic sniper, a brilliant combat driver who could tire himself just by breathing, an efficient turret gunner who was frighteningly normal by comparison and a horrifically mutilated sergeant whose principal control over his men was his total confidence in them, and their trust in him.

Combined with the individuals Revell still had left out of his command, it was a weird assortment of types and talents, but maybe just because of that it had the makings of one hell of a good team, so long as it could learn to work like one.