' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (23 page)

Steve heard, rather than saw the grenadier and one of the three rounds he fired left the man screaming from his wounds until the VX claimed him. 

Again the RPK opened fire, but there was a second parapet to the trench now, a soft one, and not much of a muchness as regards its bullet catchment qualities. It did however provide cover from view for L/Cpl Veneer to put some well aim shots down, using the muzzle flash of the RPK as his aiming marker.

The gun stopped firing but Steve had no way of knowing if he had hit its gunner or merely scared him off.

He crawled backwards into the trench to find Andy Troper groping about in the mud.

“You got any more rounds mate? That grenade blew everything to shit ‘n gone.”

Steve checked his magazine.”

“I’ve got two rounds and then I’m out?”

They both heard the sound of more of the enemy approaching, and on the left flank as well as straight ahead this time.

Andy lifted the damaged Stinger’s launcher from out of the mud. The hand-guard he been blown off along with the battery coolant unit and he held it by the Venturi end. The sight unit’s
forward hinge was smashed and it lolled drunkenly on the back one until Andy pulled it off and tossed it away. He gave the launch tube a trial swing, and apparently satisfied he rested it on his left shoulder, bearing it casually as if it were a cricket bat and he had the measure of the bowler before even reaching the crease.

“It’s been an honour mate.” He said, holding out his hand to Steve.

Keeping close to the sides of the streambed, a huddled mass of infantry from the 23
rd
Motor Rifle Regiment crouched in the mud, waiting for the signal to split up, to head for their next objectives. The company headquarters CP of the British Light Infantry battalion to the north of the stream, the Guards 1 Company CP, and its regimental quarter masters ammunition stores, they had all been identified by radio intercepts , ‘SigInt’, and aerial photographs. Antiquated though it may seem, and arduous is the task of laying D10 field telephone cable, but it will always remain more secure than radio and microwave communications. As far as the aerial photographs are concerned, well that is what track plans are supposed to prevent.

Sustained fire from GPMGs to the north, south and west began to fall further down the hill, landing on the company headquarters that had been their first objective. Mortar rounds followed, destroying the CP and twelve Soviet infantrymen in and around it, including the killers of Sean O’Regan.

The plan had originally been conceived when they still had fuel for their infantry fighting vehicles and the entire battalion would have been here now. The remainder of the battalion was still making its way on foot from the sunken lane. The tank support had made it though, at least some of it anyway.

Grinding up the hillside behind them came a pair of T-90s, not the two troops worth that they had been assured would be there for them.

The company commander assigned both tanks to the attack on the Light Infantry, reasoning that there was a known enemy company position standing in the way and he and the company political officer took their place behind the second of those comfortingly bullet-proof pieces of machinery.

The remainder split up and headed uphill in different directions.

“Why has the shelling stopped, sir?”

Oz answered his stores assistant with a question of his own.

“If someone gave you a horse as a gift bonny lad, would you count its teeth before accepting it?”

They slipped and slithered here and there on the muddy path, the cumbersome NBC overshoes lacking the traction of proper boots soles. It was steep here on this part of the path leading from their CP to the vehicle track some distance away. The vehicle track led to various rear locations, including the path to the RQ’s ammunition store.

The storeman led the way, the wood and canvas stretcher now furled and carried balanced on one shoulder and his SLR over the other, muzzle downwards to keep out the rain.

From years of habit, especially as an instructor, Oz carried his own weapon with the butt in the shoulder, a full magazine attached and the cocking handle out in readiness, but his SLR was uncocked. Oz had cut off an NBC gloves rubber finger-piece to act as a muzzle cover, and this simple device kept water and mud out of both the muzzle and the flash eliminators apertures.

Lightning flashed and ahead they saw a line of men coming toward them along the same narrow path.

The young guardsman stepped to one side to let them pass, carefully ensuring the stretcher was not going to smack anyone in the forehead.
Bayonets lanced out, stabbing the 1 Company storeman through the chest multiple times. With both lungs perforated and no air remaining to shout or cry out, the soldier collapsed noiselessly, still impaled on a bayonet.

Final Assault 2

Again the lightning flashed and Oz, who was momentarily frozen to inaction, saw that these were Soviet troops, not friendlies.

Placing a boot on the dying man’s throat the lead soldier used it for purchase to withdraw his bayonet and then lunge at Oz.

Muscle memory, automatic reaction, or just good training that had been drilled home at the Guards Depot, Pirbright took over and Oz cocked. He knew he had no time to aim and fire so he stepped forward into the Enguarde. The Soviet soldier used his rifle and bayonet like a stabbing spear, aiming for the colour sergeants solar plexus. The Geordie ex-coal miner parried, with powerful shoulders outmatching the strength of his opponent he knocked the others weapon off its line. Metal rang loud upon metal as the underside of the SLR’s barrel struck aside that of the AKM’s. Half turning he drove the SLR’s butt full force into the face of the enemy soldier, shattering the eye pieces and driving him backwards into the man behind.

The Soviet troops had not fired, seeking to close with the 1 Company CP undetected.

Oz closed one eye tightly and fired twice into the packed file of men, two rapid shots, the heavy 7.62 rounds ripping through several men and the muzzle flash robbing all except himself of their night vision, and then he was gone, leaping desperately off the path and into the darkness below. Feet together and knees bent as if performing a parachute landing roll, Oz hit the dark slope, rolling with it, knuckles white as he attempted to retain his rifle. A wild burst followed, the sound of the AKM distinctively differing from that of an SLR or SA80. A shermouli rose up from a trench to the rear of the CP and the sentries, the OC’s Orderly and his driver, opened fire with their GPMG.

The bayonet wielding lead man had been the Czech platoon commander, and his sergeant was bringing up the rear. When the firing began the sergeant pushed forward, halting a panicked rush back along the path. He held them at a bend where they could crouch down out of the line of fire. He saw the British machine gunners could not see the downhill slope from their current position, but he could work carefully along
that way and deal with the machine gun position with grenades.

Not including the platoon commander and three men shot by Colour Sergeant Osgood, eleven men more men were dead, or as good as. Even the slightly wounded were on borrowed time in that chemical laden air.

The parachute flares that the British kept putting up were a double edged weapon, aiding both sets of antagonists. He selected the steadiest half dozen men to distract the machine gun with pot shots, and he departed. As quickly and as carefully as he could manage, he kept just beneath the level of the path and worked his way along to within grenade throwing range. Slinging his AKM the sergeant removed a grenade from a webbing pouch, and it was at that moment that Oz shot him from the shadows below.

On seeing the last of the leadership tumbling lifeless down the slope, the Czech infantry moved back the way they had come and onto the vehicle track again.

Leaderless, a short argument took place between several of the men as to what they should do next.

1 Troop, A Company of 44 Commando, now re-grouped and re-supplied, was leading the way for the Royal Marine unit, going forwards on General Hesher’s orders. They were in 1CG’s lines before the shelling had resumed and they now encountered the arguing Soviets on the track. It was a short, one sided and extremely violent meeting before the marines continued forward, leaving the Czechs where they fell.

At the stream the leading T-90 engaged a low gear to climb out. The 2LI reinforcements from 2 Wessex opened fire with rifles, GPMG and grenades in case infantry were still riding upon the tanks decks.

The effect of the fire was to make the following Soviet infantry close in even more behind the tank, seeking to stay well out of harm’s way.

It rose up, its wide tracks digging into the crumbling bank for purchase, grinding away the water saturated earth to find firmer ground.

Just a heartbeat separated the 94mm rockets fired by a graphic designer from Reading and an unemployed landscape gardener from Henley-on-Thames. Both reservists’ weapons struck the exposed underside and penetrated. Jets of white hot molten metal cut through crewmen and set off the main gun rounds in the automatic loader. The turret unseated with the force of the explosion and the turret hatches were torn off, flying away into the rainy night like deadly Frisbees.

Awful screams sounded from the stream bed as the tank rolled backwards, crushing several men beneath its tracks and running over two others. Trapped in the stream beneath the crippled vehicle they both drowned.

Grenades arced over out of the stream bed and exploded. White Phosphorus and fragmentation grenades covered the second T-90’s climb over the bank and it charged the trench manned by the men from 2 Wessex before more LAW80s could be prepared. On straddling the position it stopped and pivoted in place, turning through a complete circle, collapsing the walls of the trench and burying the men alive before moving off with its accompanying infantry in its wake.

The Hussar’s guns spoke, not just Mark Venables tanks but Jimmy McAddam’s and his number three troop of C Squadron too, from on the right with 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. The Highlanders anti-tank platoon also accounted for three Soviet tanks with Milan before artillery that had been landing on the Guards and paratroopers began landing on them instead.

The Soviet guns were isolating them from the rest of 2 and 3 (UK) Mechanised Brigade. A large chunk of 2LI’s area of responsibility was also receiving special attention.

Major General David Hesher looked at his own maps as contact reports from his units flooded in. His map was cover by a sheet of clear Perspex which his staff updated constantly with red chinagraph symbols for the Soviet forces and blue for his own and other Friendly forces. Civilian facilities were accorded the colour yellow and neutral forces that of green, if there had been any present of course.

The blue symbols for 4 Company HQ and 16 Platoon were removed and replaced with red ones. The process was repeated with 2 Platoon of 2LI.

The Brits were having a bad day, as were his countrymen fighting alongside the Coldstreamers, but despite the penetration on the left, the right side was going exactly as he had wished it would, at least so far.

One of his aides approached, holding in his hand a green chinagraph. There were not that many neutrals in Europe at the moment.

“Sir, from SACEUR, in the last hour Luxemburg, Iceland and Denmark have announced their withdrawal from NATO and are believed to be suing for a separate peace.”

“The rot has started then.” General Hesher said. “The first of rats are abandoning ship.”

“There is more sir and I am also awaiting a response from the commanding officer of Eskadrille 723.” He handed across the message form from General Pierre Allain.

General Hesher read it twice and looked across at his liaison officers from the Dutch and Belgian forces.

“Has anyone from your General Staffs been in contact about the possibility of your brigades extracting themselves from the line and from further combat with the Red Army?”

Colonel Van d’Kypt of the Royal Netherlands Air Force answered for them both.

“Oddly enough we were just discussing phone calls we received on that very subject.” He continued. “Apparently no one on the General Staff of either of our countries could be reached, and someone claiming to be my governments defence minister called me direct.”