Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

There was a flash to his right, sun on steel. He swung the SAW up and around, its burst driving the butt hard into his thigh, the gun now silenced, squashed into the mud and guts of the corpse next to him, the long, razor-sharp blade of a knife at his throat, motioning him up — the Russian, if he was Russian, in a long, black, zipped-up jumpsuit and black balaclava, frightening the hell out of him, the man’s eyes almost impossible to see, and his hot, sour breath on Brentwood’s face.

“Up!” he told Brentwood. “C’mon, quickly!” The ease of the man’s English, its purely American sound, devoid of any foreign accent, was the next thing David noticed.

The craters were now alive with the black figures moving forward. He counted at least fifty of them as he was hurriedly taken back toward Russian lines, escorted by relay, stumbling dizzily at first, his muscles still tight from the trauma of the shelling. A quarter mile farther on, he passed over more heavily cratered ground littered with the rotting corpses of what had been the American airborne, whole bodies the exception, limbs savagely amputated by the 120-millimeter shrapnel — from friendly fire. Stomachs literally blown apart, unrecognizable organs and intestines were scattered all over the battlefield in various hues of decomposition, some invisible in the mud except when revealed as a moving mound of maggots, others surrounded by crows pecking almost disinterestedly, waddling like ducks, so gorged they were too heavy to fly. And over it all the revolting burnt-chicken smell of death.

But for all the horror, worse than anything he’d seen during Freeman’s raid on Pyongyang in Korea, the thing that struck David most was the catlike grace with which the black-suited Russian commandos moved, up and over the deep craters, taking no notice of the human detritus about them, or if they did, not showing the slightest sign, pausing only at the butchered chunks that still had heads attached or stopping where a severed head lay encrusted with mud, bending down, removing the airborne’s dog tags, which were sometimes still attached to the neck or pressed into the mush that had been a face. Now and then he saw one of the black jumpsuits pause, raising his hand moments later with a clutch of ID tags. A runner, one of the Poles brought up from the support battalions, would dash up, grab the tags from the Russian, and then head back to the Russian battalion’s headquarters in a thick stand of pine, where David now sat silent with the other two-hundred-odd prisoners, a few British but most of them forlorn remnants of the disastrous airborne drop.

It was only after they took his own dog tags that he realized why he hadn’t been killed on the spot. A very fit, no-nonsense, English-speaking Russian NCO in army greatcoat ordered them to remove their uniforms. Walking behind him was a private, his arms festooned with wire coat hangers, one for every prisoner, and a small plastic garbage bag for personal effects. A British private, peeling off his brown-and-green-splash combat tunic with the British Army of the Rhine shoulder patch, offered David a cigarette. David normally didn’t smoke, but he took it. The Englishman, a cockney, brushed a sprig of sticky pine from his sleeve. “Don’t want ‘em all messy, do we?”

David looked puzzled.

“When they cut your throat,” said the cockney. “Makes a mess of the uniform.”

David nodded. His ears were still ringing so that the Englishman’s voice seemed to come from a long way off and as if he were talking underwater. Putting the cigarette in his mouth, still dry from fear, he reached over to steady the cockney’s hand as the Englishman flicked his lighter, but David found his hand was no steadier, both of them trembling.

David was surprised how good the tobacco tasted. He took a piece of the loose weed from the tip of his tongue and flicked it to the ground. “Could’ve—” he began, but his throat was so parched, he had to begin again, and only now, as he took off his trousers to put on the hanger, did he realize his thigh was wet not so much from the blood of the corpse against which he’d cringed during the barrage, but also from water that had leaked from his punctured canteen. The bullet had penetrated halfway up the canteen. He took a sip from what was left, offering the rest to the Englishman. “Could have strangled us, though,” said David. “Taken our uniforms there and then. Why march us back?”

“Nah, mate. You shit yourself then, see? If they strangle you. Have to wash your duds out. No — they want ‘em Persil white.” The Englishman paused. “Reminds me of when I was a kid: ‘I’m no fool, I use Persil on my tool.’ “ He shook his head, forcing a grin, and put out his hand to the American. “Fred Waite’s the name.”

“David Brentwood.”

“ Schweig doch! “ —”Shut up!” shouted one of the guards, a Stasi, from his red-gold-black shoulder patch, walking toward them on the soft, brown needles of dead pine, and coming from a command truck that was only now visible to David through the camouflage netting. “ Schweig dock!” the German repeated, and David saw the shadows of others guards in the nearby pines looking over at them.

“Bit late now, Fritz,” said Waite. It was clear that it wasn’t only their talking but the apparent friendship between the American and Englishman which annoyed the guard. It was as he had been told: the British and Americans had no respect for authority. From Waite’s response, he appeared to think the two prisoners hadn’t understood his order and so switched to English and gesticulations, his English broken and not at all like that of the sleek, fluent jumpsuits, the first of whom were now returning after their quick foray into the crater zone, where Polish contingents were taking up positions, digging in.

“There is to be no talking already,” said the guard.

David saw the guard was about his age, maybe a few years older, midtwenties, his eyes tired but awake with suspicion. Waite, sitting on his haunches, leaned forward, arms protruding from the poncho that, apart from their regulation khaki underwear, was all the half-naked prisoners had to keep them warm. He held up his hand, like a schoolboy asking permission.

“Ja?” said the guard.

“Listen, Fritz. What’s going on?”

“My name is not this Fritz.”

“What is it, then? Your name?”

“Asshole!” called out someone from the twenty or so POWs in a clump that was being guarded near one of the eleven-man Russian armored personnel carriers.

“Who said this?” demanded the Stasi, swinging about. “What is this name?”

“It’s an expression of endearment,” said one of the British Army of the Rhine, shivering in the cold under his poncho.

“Yeah,” put in one of the Americans next to him. “Especially in San Francisco.”

There was a round of laughter, some of the British in another group opposite David and the cockney clapping their appreciation.

The young guard, red-faced, unslung his AKM, right hand snapping back the sideways-folding metal butt, and stepped to within a foot of the twenty or so prisoners. “It is strictly forbidden to — to be abusing socialist soldiers already.”

“Stop fucking around!” It was one of the black jumpsuits, a bunch of dog tags in his hands. In German he curtly told the guard to check if any of the prisoners still had their ID tags. No one said anything; the jumpsuit officer, a man of at least six feet, lean and wiry-looking, was one of the toughest men David had ever seen. As the guard snapped to attention and immediately began checking everyone’s neck for dog tags, the officer unzipped and removed his boiler suit, folding it with such dexterity, it was clear to the NATO prisoners of war that it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. Someone murmured something about a strip tease, but the weak ripple of laughter quickly died. He was standing in a well-worn uniform of an American airborne lieutenant, complete with dog tags.