Bob Forrest-Webb - Chieftains

Hinton was waiting with his platoon. 'Don't hang about,' Fellows told him. 'I don't want my Scimitars around here too long. In and out fast, that's the name of the game. You've got two hours to find the exact location and report back to me, that should be enough.'

'Yes, sir.'

Fellows watched the men jog silently into the darkness, fading like ghosts amongst the stumps of the trees. More waiting, he thought. The whole damned war for me seems to be waiting. He almost envied the men who had remained with the regiment or who were operating as recce squadrons; they would have been in action since the first shell was fired. But this waste of time, this waiting…waiting.

21.25 hours. Day One.

Master Sergeant Will Browning thought he now knew why the Black Cavalry Squadron's counterattack had failed. During the past hours while he and the crew of Utah waited for darkness there had been time for him to think over the possibilities. When the squadron's Captain Harling had given the order to advance, the intention of HQ must have been to strike at the flank of the Soviet spearhead. By ill-luck, poor intelligence or plain bad timing, and Browning was unable to decide which, the counterattack had met the head of the second echelon of Russian armour and, worst of all, at a point on the battleground where the enemy artillery could give it the best possible cover.

'The second wave of Soviet tanks, reforming after crossing the river, had been fresh into battle and received sufficient warning to enable them to deploy in readiness for the counterattack. The Soviet divisions' main artillery, still in its positions on the eastern side of the border, was able to treat the American armour in exactly the same way the Russian artillery had dealt with the British charge of the Light Brigade, at the historical battle of Balaclava. And with the same decimating results. The losses to the Russians had been negligible. Maybe it wasn't entirely the captain's fault after all, Browning decided. The officer was bluff, often blustery, but West Point didn't turn out fools; and it certainly couldn't be the troop lieutenant's responsibility either, because he would just have obeyed orders like the rest of them. If a mistake had been made, then it was at headquarters. Wasn't it always!

Browning peered at his watch. He could just see the glow of its luminous dial; it was twenty-one twenty-seven. In three minutes Podini would come down off the hill where he had relieved Adams as guard, and then it would be time for them to move out.

There was plenty happening. Adams had watched a build-up of Soviet logistics on the west bank of the river. The two bridges had been in constant use for the past four hours. It appeared, in darkness at least, that the Russians were unconcerned about the threat of air attack, although the movements of their supplies column should have shown up on NATO infra-red detectors. It suggested to Browning that the Russians were feeling very confident about the present lack of NATO air surveillance, and as he hadn't seen any US aircraft overhead since late afternoon he thought that, for the moment anyway, their efforts must be concentrated on the forward combat zone.

Ginsborough nudged Browning's arm urgently, and whispered, 'Out there…'

Browning could hear noises on the hill twenty meters away, the rolling of a small stone through frost-dried leaves, the snapping of a thin twig. He aimed his Remington into the darkness, and eased off the safety catch.

An off-key blackbird whistled an unlikely first two bars of 'John Brown's Body', and the scuffling on the slope above them increased.

'Podini?' It had to be!

'Who else?'

'You gink,' swore Ginsborough, the tension had made him feel sick.

'Will said half after nine, and it's half after,' hissed Podini.

'What did you see going on over there? Browning asked.

Podini's eyes glinted, catching the light of the rising moon. 'Same as Mike said. They're still building up. Man, some heavy stores!'

'Like what?'

'Rear service equipment. About twenty MAZ cargo carriers…fifteen tanners…ammunition I'd reckon, by the way they spaced them out. Plenty of trucks.'

'Any armour?'

'Nope…some artillery on the other side, waiting to get across. There's an MTU laying another bridge. That'll make three.' He paused and then said casually, 'I saw a nuke.'

'A nuke?' It was Adams, incredulously. 'A nuke missile? You're kidding!'

'How d'you know it was a nuke? demanded Browning.

'I don't know. All I know is that it was one hell of a rocket.'

'How long?'

'I'm guessing…it ain't too easy to see down there. Maybe ten meters, a big eight-wheeled transporter like a fire truck.'

'It's probably a Frog-7,' said Browing, 'with a conventional warhead.'

'You and your fucking nuke,' grunted Ginsborough. Podini seemed determined to make him throw up his rations.

'Okay, let's move out,' ordered Browning. He wanted to get clear of the open ground before the moon rose any higher.

Gunthers was still smouldering, burning in places when the light brae stirred up ashes and fanned new life into the embers. Rubble spread across the streets from shattered houses and stores. The volunteer Bundesgrenzshutz infantrymen who had defended it with their Dragon and Milan missiles had drawn heavy artillery and tank fire, and because most were local men defending their own homes, they had fought bitterly. The bodies of many of them now lay amongst the ruins, but the wreckage of the Soviet tanks, twisted and blackened hulks in every street, was evidence of the ferocity of the battle.

Browning was feeling despondent. Now he was away from the Abrams, it seemed even more unlikely it could ever be repaired. Maybe it was best to write Utah off, and try to make it back on foot even though it might be difficult. The smell of war and death was getting through to him; it had done so at times in Vietnam. It was familiar, a recurring sickness that made him ill for a time, and like 'flu he would get over it. Only there was no medicine he could take to ease his present discomfort. The only rapid cure he knew was in a bottle on the shelf of a bar, in some town as remote from war as maybe Las Vegas.

Adams was a few meters ahead, flattened against a crazily tilted wall that was overhanging the sidewalk. He was signalling frantically with his arm. When Browning reached him, he jerked his head towards the interior of the wrecked building. Browning listened. For a few moments he could hear nothing, and then there was a faint scratching sound.

Browning whispered: 'Civilians, leave them.'

'Maybe they can help us.' Adams dropped to his knees and crawled over the rubble into the darkness.

'Come back you damn fool,' hissed Browning, but Adams ignored him. Browning squatted beside the doorway, his automatic ready; behind him Podini and Ginsborough waited tensely.

Adams was gone a full minute before he reappeared. 'I was right,' he said, 'it's a woman and some kids.'

'If they'd been Russians, you'd have got us all killed,' said Browning angrily. 'Don't ever do that again.'

'They can help.'

' Maybe they can help!'

It was a few moments before his eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the shelled building, then he saw them, huddled together in a narrow wedge of open space between a fallen wall and a staircase – a middle-aged woman and three young children.

The woman asked nervously, 'Soldat…Amerikanish?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Gott sei Dank.'

'Don't thank me yet, there are only four of us. D'you speak English?'

'Bitte…verstehen sie nicht!'

'I can speak.' It was one of the children, a boy of about twelve, pale beneath the grime of brick dust that coated him.