' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (22 page)

The 105s had sowed confusion as well as knocking out one T-72 and shearing the tracks of two others. Milan rounds had killed two more, as had his own squadron
’s tank guns. Zeus and Gaskin vehicles burned. It was a good start but the friendly artillery had fallen silent as the gunners relocated hurriedly.

Further to the rear the shrapnel from bursting mortar rounds had swept a couple of tanks clear of their passengers and others had leapt off, rolling in the mud in an attempt extinguish the white phosphorus that had fallen upon them. In
the darkness and poor visibility a few tanks ran over contorting figures in their path.

Looking right he located the second command tank, it was stopped with smoke issuing from its open hatches, the crew bailing out. He looked again, seeing that not quite all the crew had abandoned the vehicle. The company commander was knelt at his open hatch and operating a fire extinguisher on the
smouldering bags of propellant inside. He seemed to be making headway as the smoke was lessening. Without warning he collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut he toppled headlong through the open hatch. The battalion’s snipers were busy about their deadly trade, and earning their rations.

The third command tank was stationary and burning fiercely despite the rain.

The Challenger fired again, targeting a T-90 cautiously moving across the dead hulks of previous attackers, it stopped dead, denying crossing point to the others in line behind it.

Having fired twice from the same location Venables driver reversed the vehicle out of the fighting position and headed for a fresh spot. 

The first Soviet tanks dropped from view and reappeared on the NATO side of the sunken lane, targeting Milan firing points and the Hussars Chieftains and Challengers, attempting to suppress the defenders fire until the obstacle was negotiated. A TOW fired by a Lynx of Eskadrille 723 destroyed one of these guardians but it been forced to remain hovering until the wire guided weapon struck. A
Refleks
missile sped across the intervening space, launched from a T-80’s main gun it struck the Lynx before it could withdraw from view and the helicopter exploded. 

Bill used the TOT shoot for cover, the noise masking the sound of the shot as he killed the commander of the Soviet troops in the captured trenches. He and Stef then edged away, moving back into more friendly territory.

Despite the success so far, it was not going to be enough to prevent the bulk of the 23
rd
from reaching the hill. Close quarters combat was not something within the snipers remit and so they withdrew to higher ground.

Above them droned Soviet counter battery fire, the heavy mortars targeting the ground the Guards and 82
nd
’s fire had been backtracked to, and the artillery shells falling in the valley behind the Vormundberg.

The Soviet fire had not slackened, it merely switched from pounding the once wooded slopes in order to fire counter battery missions before shifting back, a fact noted with relish by Major General Dave Hesher. MLRS sub munitions trashed five entire batteries of the 23
rd
’s artillery support.

“Air Red!...Air Red!...Air Red!...”
was again broadcast.

Several minutes later NAIADs on the rear slopes screeched anew as SU-25s tossed more air bursting ordnance at the hill’s defenders on their way back from doing the same to 4 Corps. They did not press home an attack with conventional weapons but dived to the tree tops and headed east, throwing out flares and chaff in their wake.

By the time the 105mm guns of 40 Regiment RA fired again the last tanks of the lead Soviet battalion where clear of the sunken lane.

Firing two rounds apiece the guns were departing for a new gun line before the Soviet gunners could respond. The first battery’s rounds landed harmlessly to the rear of the tanks but the second battery landed among the centre company, disabling one and destroying another.

The Hussars fired and moved, fired again and reversed quickly. The Milans of the Anti-Tank platoon lost a precious crew, killed three more Soviet MBTs in revenge, but the tanks of 23
rd
MRR still came on.

So involved became that fight with the leading echelon
that the movements of the second echelon were only noticed late.

They had accelerated, carrying those infantry upon the tanks hulls rapidly to the foot of the hill. Half were closing up behind the first echelon, but the remainder of the second echelon’s infantry borne on tanks were almost at the juncture
of where the Guards left flank met the 2
nd
Battalion Light Infantry’s right.

Pat had fully expected the 23
rd’s
first battalion sized effort to attack in this fashion yesterday, seeking weaknesses in the flanks, but they had defeated it, utterly, before it reached half way across the valley. It would now seem that someone over there thought it too good a plan to waste.

Pat had been wrong footed by expecting the 23
rd
to exert its entire, remaining fighting power where they already had a toehold. The paratroopers of the 82
nd
were about to pay the price for that lapse.

In front of 3 Company’s positions the Soviet tanks were being picked off according to a pre-arranged plan using the Apache, Lynx and Hussars. But the old adage was holding true ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy’.

“Warn 4 Company….”

“Too late sir, they are in close contact already!” the Ops Officer had the landline handset to 4 Company CP in his hand, the roar of small arms and detonation of grenades  clearly audible from across the table.

They drove clear across 16 Platoon’s trenches, machine guns blazing and the infantry on the decks firing downwards into the positions. They lost an elderly T-60 plough tank and a T-90 to multiple strikes from the shoulder launched LAW-80s but continue on. The remaining tanks slowed to allow the infantry to debus in the centre of 14 Platoon, the company’s in-depth position. It was a good tactic as it initially inhibited the fire from 15 and 16 Platoons.

Fierce hand to hand fighting raged within 14 Platoon’s lines but the enemy were not there by pure chance and those not involved in the trench fighting moved on up the hill with a company moving into the stream bed that marked the boundary between 1CG and 2LI’s turf.

Behind 14 Platoon at the company CP, Lance Sergeant Gibbons, the Signals Platoon rep for 4 Company and the only Coldstreamer, fired at a Czech rifleman crowding through the entrance. The shot smashed the visor of the soldier’s respirator
and exited through the back of the head, sending his helmet spinning away. A grenade from outside followed moments later, hitting the sandbagged side of the doorway before landing upon the wooden pallets that lined the floor. The company’s first sergeant, Jerry Anthony, flung himself on top of the grenade, smothering it with his body and dying instantly but more grenades were tossed through the doorway and their detonations were followed by automatic fire.

Despite his wounds, bleeding from ruptured eardrums and coughing up frothy blood, Captain O’Regan, the OC of 4 Company, recovered consciousness and spoke into the handset he had been using when the grenades had gone off. His NBC suit was torn and he had lost his respirator in the grenade blasts. VX in the air began to take effect and his voice, coupled with violent muscle spasms, caught the attention of a trio of infantrymen from the 23
rd
who were looting the dead, tossing wallets and watches into a bag of decontaminating Fullers Earth. They crowded about the injured American, their bayonets rising and falling repeatedly.

Lightning flashed overhead, immediately followed by thunder. This was Mother Nature’s doing, not mans, and the rain redoubled in intensity as if making up for the enemy shell and mortar fire that had abruptly lifted, falling elsewhere to inhibit reinforcement.

“Hello Four Six Delta this is Nine Four Bravo, over?”

“Four Six Bravo, send, over.” Spider replied.

“Nine Four Bravo…shoot Eff Pee Eff Four Four Four Lima, over!”

The US Airborne company on their right with 1CG was calling in mortar and machinegun fire on its own company command post. Company headquarters are always at the rear of their sub units and everyone with a radio now knew there was a breakthrough in progress.

Spider called off the bearing and elevation for FPF444L and attached his bayonet to his personal weapon in readiness.

On the right flank of 2LI, men attached their bayonets too, and placed grenades where they could be easily reached.

The professionals and ‘weekend warriors’ alike, all of the trenches occupants on the right flank faced right and waited.

L/Cpl Veneer and Gdsm Troper heard the triple digit call as they were part of the company net.

Leaving their shelter bay they fixed bayonets and peered into the darkness. They had no night sights for their rifles, just the monocular qualities of the rifles SUIT sights, the Sight Unit, Individual, Trilux.

Checking their pouches they laid their fragmentation grenades and spare magazines on the shelf below the parapet of the trench. Andy Troper pulled a set of brass knuckles over his rubber ‘outers’, the NBC gloves.

They could hear the sound of fighting dying down below them but they did not know who the victors were, was it the US Paratroopers or the Soviets? If it were the Yanks then they would know all about it the very next day, the abuse would be heaped on with remarks about playing with aeroplanes instead of doing real soldiering.

“”What the fuck are you wearing them things for? You can’t shoot for shit with them on!”

“I can’t shoot for shit at the best of times.” Andy replied. “I’ve never passed an annual personal weapons test in me life.”

“How come you’re a Band 1, Class 1 then?”

“I normally pay you to fire on me target on range days, remember?”

“Oh? Oh yeah, right.” Steve replied.

They stood silently in the fire bay, with the rain falling on them as they listened for tell-tale sounds in the night.

The charcoal impregnated hoods were not made with stereophonic clarity in mind but after five minutes a faint sound of metal upon metal was followed by other noises of human origin. The squelching sound of boots in soft mud, and an oath as someone slipped. Then of course there was the sound of something landing in the mud by their own feet.

There was no thought involved, simply reflex as each man scrambled from the from the trench with his rifle and rolled clear.

The grenade went off harmlessly but scattered their spare magazines and their own grenades too.

Mud and earth were landing wetly, and thick black smoke, the residue of high explosive, still hung over the damaged fire bay as they re-entered, rolling back in immediately, knowing they would now be rushed.

They came out of the darkness from directly in front, shouting their hatred even though the effect was muffled.

The Coldstreamers fired, and fired again, but then they were parrying away the stabbing bayonets and thrusting upwards with their own. Their breath and that of their attackers came in gasps, laced with fear and desperation. Outnumbered but fighting all the more desperately because of that.

A bayonet thrust down and pierced Andy Tropers left ammunition pouch, and he let go his own weapon and grabbed the AKM by its hot barrel, tugging its owner off balance and head first into the fire bay. He crouched over the man, punching hard with the brass knuckles, smashing the Soviet soldiers jaw in order to reach what he really wanted to hit, the throat.

Steve had killed the last man, bayoneting him in the visor, the blade penetrating the brain via the eye socket.

Andy stood, gasping for breath, the Soviet soldier making gurgling sounds and thrashing about for a moment before becoming still.

Together they hoisted the body, evicting it from the trench and stacked the dead men’s weapons against the trench wall.

They had killed six, a squads worth. How many were they likely to send against a single trench?

Adrenaline and effort, and of course NBC suits inability to let excess body heat dissipate, was making them both gasp for breath as if they had run a race.

“Do you think that’s all of them?”

An RPK machine gun opened fire pinning them down in the trench so that more troops could close in on them.

There were no grenades coming at them this time, the RPK kept firing until the riflemen were almost on the trench.

There were seven of them this time, firing wildly as they charged the last few yards. Steve shot two and Andy managed to get one also before the rest closed. Again it was vicious and bloody work, but they won through, justifying all the bayonet practice over the years they had served. One man retreated, but not far. He was inside grenade range as the Guardsmen cleaned house again, rolling the dead over the parapet and policing up the weapons.

The grenade could have gone unnoticed but for it striking Steve Veneer’s helmet before dropping into the fire bay. Again they rolled clear but Andy was empty handed, his SLR was now destroyed along with their cache of captured weaponry.