James Rouch: Death March

Covering each other in turn Revells’ unit rushed from the death trap glass fronted office block and into the bank. Each section reacted the same, skidded to a halt immediately inside the entrance, before cautiously picking their way in to the interior.

In many places the bodies overlapped two or three deep. Hyde’s boot slipped on congealing blood and he began to wipe the sole on a shawl until he saw that it shrouded a child’s partially dismembered body.

Looking around, Major Revell noted the pockmarked polished marble pillars, the many gouge marks in the gilt embellished mahogany cashiers desks. “This was done with grenades. The civvies were herded in and then a handful of fragmentation bombs were hurled in among them.”

“The Russians have not reached this side of the square.” Andrea bent down to pull away an arm that shielded a face. Attached only by some stringy tendons it flopped aside.

“So who?” In a corner Burke saw two Warsaw Pact uniforms. He recognised the stained insignia on their collars, telegraphists. Both were buxom middle-aged women, but the wire wound tight about their necks had made their faces bulge, eliminating any wrinkles. Their arms were bound tightly and the blood had drained from their hands “Looks like these were done first. But why the civvies as well?”

“Perhaps who ever did it had orders to take them along, and didn’t want to be hampered.” Andrea had to take the longest strides she could to step among the corpses, on the majors’ orders, counting them.

“Still leaves the question, who?” Revell ducked as a stray bullet came in through the open doors and shattered a large clock face on the back wall. “But no time for guessing games. Try and raise HQ on the radio or a cell phone. What ever works. We need ammunition before we move on from here.”

“You want to be found among this lot?” Hyde swept his hand to indicate the atrocity. The press are having a field day with us as it is.”

Revell knew his sergeant was right. “OK, as soon as we’re sure that supplies are on the way we’ll let this place have some thermite and arrange to link up with the trucks elsewhere.”

Burke had been examining the bodies, trying to make it look as though he was checking for survivors, but the hand he slipped inside jackets, felt more for wallets than heart beats. Drawing attention, and a deep scowl from their sergeant he made to casually stroll behind the desks, to where massive vault doors stood open.

The boxes on the plain metal shelves were empty of all but a few scraps of paper. Further within a wall of safe-deposit boxes gaped and a sledgehammer and broken steel chisels on the floor indicated how they had been opened.

“Hell, always the same. How come we are never the first to these places.” Burke kicked aside a carelessly tumbled stack of long safe-deposit boxes. In the metal lined interior of the vault the noise rebounded and was magnified to a deafening avalanche of sound.

“And how would you carry enough to do you any good, even if we did escape the Russian advance.” Andrea smiled at the man’s frustration.

“Some of these” he gestured at the litter of battered metal, “must have contained jewellery. I can carry a lot of that without it getting in my way. Give me a chance and I’ll show you.”

“We have a long war ahead of us. You’ll get your chances.”

“Bollocks.” Dooley stuck his head in to the vault and smiled at Burkes frustration. “We’ll be home by Christmas.”

“A prize for everyone who has said that at the start of a European war. People have been saying that every year since the Commies advanced and the Zone was formed.” Hyde ordered them out. “The Russians are still being stalled, by us and by the unreliability of their so called Allies. We are hampered by inept generals and corrupt politicians. This could go on forever. Very likely will.”

“This is it? We expect a couple of trucks and instead we get one pick-up? Thorne led the chorus of complaint as the squad clustered about the vehicle and the few boxes of magazines and grenades were opened and their contents distributed.

“Don’t blame me.” The quartermaster sergeant who was trying to record who was taking what, was getting more and more frustrated as men just grabbed at the assault rifle magazines and ration boxes. Finally he waved his clipboard above his head in angry frustration. “Major I have to account for all this.”

Taking the board and wiping the dirt from it with his sleeve, Major Revell scrawled a signature and date across the page. “There, you’re covered.”

Looking suddenly more cheerful the clerk took back the board and returned to the vehicle. The driver accelerated away as the last box was hauled from the back.

From an open container Burke hauled out a short belt of machine gun ammunition. “Don’t know what the guy is worried about. War is a great way of making your inventory come out straight. Every US quartermaster in Europe squared his books the day the Russian came over and through the wall.”

At the end of the street the drab coloured vehicle slowed for a turn and as it did a rocket-propelled grenade arced from a side road. It impacted on the vehicles rear wheel. As the light truck flipped over on to its top the metal of the cargo deck was ripped apart and hidden within the ball of fire from the exploding gas tank. Two figures towing wisps of smoke jumped from the wreckage and sprinted away.

“The Russians are closing in on us. We’d best be moving.” Not even bestowing a last glance on the shattered vehicle, Revell led the unit away and into a warren of lanes.

“They infiltrating darned fast.” Glancing aside Libby saw a stream of tracer flick along a parallel route.

“With the weight of fire they’re putting down that’s hardly surprising.” Hyde kept up a fast jogging pace and fell back a few steps to get alongside the Major.

“They’re just destroying everything in their way.”

Several times they had to change direction, when rocket salvoes crashed down into the street or artillery shells ripped open the tops of buildings and sent torrents of masonry across their route.

“Who is on point?” Revell had unslung his assault shotgun and cradled it, as they had to move to the other side of the road when a mortar barrage ploughed across the small paved area of a tree line square up ahead. He glanced down at the bandolier across his chest. Only eight of the pouches were full and all of those held anti-personnel flechette rounds. He would have been happier to have more, a lot more. A mix of explosive and incendiary would have been better.

“Burke and the new kid. Simmons.”

“An ill matched pair if ever there was one.” Revell smiled to himself, the sergeant had teamed the fittest and the slowest of their squad together. One needed the exercise; the other needed the restraint of a slower partner. “Keep them in sight. Too easy to get out of touch and separated.”

More high explosive rounds were impacting on the rooftops, scattering fragments of slate, copper sheet and shreds of waterproofing felt almost to the middle of the road. A single shell impacted on the tarmac behind them and started a fire in an abandoned Volkswagen, collapsing it on to the ground as fragments punched away the jack holding up an axle without wheels.

“Getting closer. Some one knows we’re here.” Ducking into a doorway to avoid a deluge of tiles that shattered the glass entrance canopy of an adjoining building, Revell scanned their surroundings.

Most of the buildings were of several stories and precluded any useful view of what lay ahead. Just visible between two gable ends was a distant church spire. The officer had caught fleeting glimpses of the structure from time to time. If the Russians had managed to get an artillery observer up there then his view of them would be just as sporadic, and would explain the erratic nature of the occasional bombardment they were receiving.