James Rouch - Death March

“Those great things are going to kick the crap out of the defences at Nurnberg.” Libby knew that the distance of four thousand metres was beyond the effective range of the anti-tank missiles they carried and the swarming light armour was going to prevent them getting significantly closer. Already a cannon and missile armed APC had spent several minutes watching them from the base of the ridge. A single wire guided anti-tank missile it had launched had failed in mid flight when the filament had broken, ploughing in to the hillside, burying its nose in the turf and its rocket motor, burning until it fuel was exhausted, starting a small fire among leaf litter.

After manoeuvring for a while the APC had got itself in to a position where it could elevate its low velocity gun sufficiently to engage them, but at extreme range Libby had been faster and had driven it away before it could fire, bouncing two cannon shells off its frontal armour.

“A squadron of Chieftains or M60s would stop them and make mince meat of the whole lot if they picked the right spot.” Hyde witnessed another missiles arrival. Its warhead erupted as an airburst and a wide circle of ground was churned. But only one APC was caught within its lethal radius, a vehicle that had failed to start and was receiving attention from its crew.

Dust rose to head height about it and then subsided to reveal the men were no more than a red smear upon the ground and the roof of their transport had been crushed and its tracks broken into its component pieces.

“The whole point is there are no M60s or Chieftains to block their path.” Revell elevated the command chair and sat with his head and shoulders above the cupola roof. He donned goggles and wrapped a scarf about his face to shield his nose and mouth. He could still speak through his throat microphone. “There is nothing between them and Nurnberg. They’ll arrive at the back door of that place and take the west bank of the river, letting the main Russian forces cross unopposed and create havoc. It won’t matter that they haven’t any heavy tanks. The direction they’ll be coming from there will be no meaningful defences to block them. And anything that is scraped together those assault guns will brush aside in no time.”

“If Nurnberg falls then Regensburg will be next.” Hyde knew the area well, had holidayed there before the war. “At a stroke they’ll have stretched the Zone a long way towards Wurzburg and even Schweinfurt. Taking Wurzburg gives them a straight run to Frankfurt. I can’t see the West German coalition government being able to stand up to that. They will throw in the towel, try to negotiate rather than fight on. They’ve been on the verge of that a couple of times already.”

“So this swarm of light stuff might just be what tips the balance.” Carson had taken out a knife and with it was cutting away those straps on the bomb that just hung down, with no function.

“Not if we can find a good use for that thing.” Revell indicated the bomb. “Not if we can find the right place to set it.”

To get ahead of the Soviet forces Burke had to drive flat out, taking incredible risks as they made a wide sweeping detour far out in to the countryside to avoid Soviet patrols. They crossed and recrossed railway lines and rivers, tearing through fences and every manner of obstruction. Twice they had to pull up and jump out to free the hovercraft from long ribbons of woven wire mesh fencing that even their speed had been unable to punch through. The second time they dismounted to find they were towing about a ton of two metre wire mesh fencing, countless posts and caught up in it several dead cattle and the remains of a Ford tractor.

“Hell,” Burke had got out to supervise the work.” I thought we were slowing. The wonder is we kept going at all. No other machine would.”

High overhead a pair of fighter-bombers began a steep banking turn.

“You sure our IFF functioning OK.” Watching the aircraft, Revell knew that there always existed the risk of their being attacked by their own side. He had seen it happen, and experienced the bitter frustration at such an event, when everything in you screamed for retaliatory fire and yet you knew you couldn’t.

The aircraft rolled in to a dive and spawned a scattering of decoy flares as they lanced down towards distant targets. As they pulled out of their dive one dissolved into several fire and smoke towing fragments.

The destruction was complete and sudden. It was unlikely anyone baled out. Certainly no parachutes blossomed but at the distance they might not have been visible.

“That could have been expensive if they only whacked an APC or two. Not a good exchange rate at all.” Tugging aside the last of the wire mesh Sergeant Hyde scanned the sky for any more evidence of the NATO air force. He didn’t really expect to see any. The sector had long suffered a paucity of air support. It must have been a significant contributory factor to the Russian decision to plough on with only close range anti-aircraft cover.

Usually a Russian advance would be sheltered under stepped anti-aircraft defences from a range of missiles and radar, from hand held weapons that could do no more than chip pieces off jets tailpipes to huge mobile rocket batteries quite capable of bringing down the biggest bombers from their maximum ceiling.

Again the countryside they were passing through was untouched by the war, had yet to become enclosed within the hell that was the Zone. Perhaps it would stay that way even when it was. Strangely some places survived in their natural condition even after adjustments of the front lines had enveloped them. Within the giant no-mans land of the Zone, an ugly swathe of territory from the Baltic coast down to southern Germany some of the ground even continued being farmed, though any produce had to be disposed of within the Zone. No supermarket would even stock produce that originated from the chemical poison and atomic weapon contaminated land.

Gradually though the influence of the Zone pervaded all the land between the main belligerents and affected the people trapped within it. The farms were neglected and then abandoned. The villages became more derelict, more over crowded.

Even now, not far away a mass of deep treaded tyres and churning tacks were starting the process that would spoil this beautiful Bavarian scenery.

“Do you reckon they’ll continue the advance at night?” Hyde had been watching from an opened hatch as the clouds began to build up, tall thunderheads boiling high into the sky and threatening more rain. He had to hold on tight to the rim of the opening as the vehicle bucked and skidded across a deeply ploughed field.

“Yes, I think they will, but at some stage they will have to stop and refuel those self propelled guns. The scout cars and APCs have a decent range but those big lumps are thirsty brutes. I saw some gas tankers among their supply column but I recon they will want to hang on to them for emergencies, when no captured stocks are available. I should think they will have earmarked some civilian facilities for that and that will be best done under the cover of darkness. An autobahn service centre will be their most likely place. They’ll have the capacity to take care of the SPGs and to top up the other vehicles. Boris, is there anywhere between here and Nurnberg that is obvious.”

“There are two locations major.” Boris had been scanning the route ahead. “One not far from here, the other another thirty five kilometres further on.”

Revell tried to put himself in to the mind of the Soviet officers leading the reconnaissance element of the advance, and the main body. Enemy doctrine was to keep moving, avoid fighting in built up areas where possible but above all to maintain momentum. It was likely that they would use both service centres, half refuelling at one and the rest at the second. Those who were assigned to wait until reaching the second would be getting short by the time they got to it. And that would be just after dark, early evening.