James Rouch: Civilian Slaughter

Cover illustration:

The Chieftain mounts a long barreled 120mm cannon as well as 2 7.62mm machine guns, one coaxial and one anti-aircraft. The Chieftain solved the problem of ranging the main gun by using a ranging machine gun with similar ballistic characteristics as the cannon. When the machine gun rounds hit the target, the gunner could be reasonably assured that his cannon round will hit.

The Chieftain succeeded the Centurion and was in turn replaced by the Challenger. Early Chieftains and some later modified tanks mount the 50. Cal M2HB machinegun over the main gun as a ranging gun. The HESH round is used for antitank chemical-energy (CE) antiarmor missions, and for HE effects against personnel and materiel. A variety of fire control systems and thermal sights are available for Chieftain. At 324 Chieftains have been upgraded with the Barr and Stroud TOGS thermal sight system. The 1R26 thermal camera can be used with the 1R18 thermal night sight. It has wide (13.6°) and narrow (4.75°) fields of view, and is compatible with TOGS format. GEC Sensors offers a long list of sights including: Multisensors Platform, Tank Thermal Sensor, and SS100/110 thermal night sight. Marconi, Nanoquest, and Pilkington offer day and night sights for the Chieftain. Charm Armament upgrade program, with the 120-mm L30 gun incorporated in Challenger 1, is available for Chieftain.

A war crime is a breach of the laws or customs of war.

The only crime in war is getting yourself killed.

It is only a war crime if it is discovered.

When we do it, it’s an operational necessity. When they do it, it’s a war crime.

All war is crime.

“But Comrade Commissar, my orders…”

“Screw your orders.” Colonel Tarkovski reached out and gripped the corner of a filing cabinet to steady himself. Vodka slopped from the tumbler in his free hand, running down his wrist to soak the cuff of his soiled jacket. “Your tanks stay here until I’ve finished with them. Understand?”

“Yes, Comrade Commissar.”

The young tank major of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army offered no further dissent. It would have been pointless and dangerous to argue with a senior officer, especially one as drunk as the colonel, but literally suicidal with one who also wore the insignia of a KGB political officer.

“Then clear out and have those clanking wrecks of yours do that little job for me. When my battalion pulls back I don’t want so much as a scrap of used toilet paper to be found by the NATO troops.”

“They will find nothing of value, Colonel.”

“I don’t care if they get their hands on the treasures of the Kremlin.” Tarkovski swilled the contents of the glass around, watching the last struggles of a large fly in the clear alcohol. He drained it, without bothering to remove the insect. “What I don’t want them to find is evidence of a little going away party held by me and my men. Now get on with it.”

Ignoring the tank major’s salute, Tarkovski replenished his glass. He did so from a near empty bottle that stood on a long table crudely improvised from oil drums and rough planks. Setting the bottle down again, he had difficulty finding a space for it among the clutter of chains, wire, and tangles of stained rope. The unplaned timber was further littered with sticky heaps of pliers, metal shears, and knives.

The heavy chemical-screen curtain at the entrance to the dug-out had hardly ceased flapping from the major’s abrupt exit when a junior sergeant entered.

“What do you want?” Almost losing his balance, Tarkovski lurched a half step sideways and collided heavily with the cabinet. Its top drawer slid open. He slammed it hard shut but it opened again.

“All the other bunkers have been cleared, Colonel. Shall we remove this equipment now?”

Absently Tarkovski rippled his stubby, dirt-ingrained fingers along the tops of the exposed close-packed index cards. “Yes, you may as well. Have it put in the back of my field car.”

The sergeant waved two men into the room and they began to gather up the tools. One of them reached beneath the table and lifted onto it a large truck battery. From its terminal posts trailed long leads that ended in rusted crocodile clips. It was heavy, and he almost dropped it.

“Watch what you’re doing, shithead.” Dribbling saliva as he snarled, Tarkovski glared at the soldier. “You, I can replace in minutes. Good batteries take forever.”

“Shall I have the bodies removed, Colonel?”

“Hmm?” Making the effort to switch his bleary focus to the corner the sergeant indicated, Tarkovski took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Oh, them. I’d forgotten them.”

The naked body of a middle-aged man was sprawled in contorted fashion on the tamped dirt floor. Masses of burns, deep cuts, gouges, and contusions showed on his pallid and slightly blue-tinted flesh. His wrists were almost severed by the fine wire tightly binding them, and his eyes were gone. Wedging open his toothless mouth was a piece of splintered timber and filling the cavity between the bloody gums was a ragged wad of torn tissue and matted hair.

Beside that corpse hung that of a woman. The razor wire by which she was suspended from a hook in the wall had bitten deep into the skin beneath her arms and across the tops of her big breasts. The tips of her toes just brushed the floor.

She had been a disappointment to the colonel, a great disappointment. He’d had his eye on her for weeks, had been saving her. Then, when she’d witnessed a little bit of routine work before her own turn, she’d thrown up, and choked. He’d tried to save her, shoving his fingers down her throat to clear the obstruction, but it had done no good. She had drowned in her own vomit. Her bladder had emptied all over him as she’d died, but that thrill was small compensation for the loss of what he’d actually been looking forward to.

Even in death she’d still managed to spoil things. First washing her down with vodka and crumpled pages from Pravda, he’d tried cutting her, but she’d hardly bled. When he did things to them he liked to slide about on their blood but even that had been denied him. He’d had to finish himself off by hand, be content with doing it over her.

“Shall we remove them, Comrade Colonel?” Putting off a reply with a negligent wave of his hand, Tarkovski squinted into the open drawer. Riffling through the dog-eared cards he finally extracted two. Slowly and deliberately he tore them into tiny pieces and let the scraps run through his fingers.

“No. No need to bother with them. They do not exist any more.”

The tree line was a wild tangle of broken branches, interspersed with splintered stumps and the battered empty cases of cluster bomb dispensers.

Sergeant Hyde’s squad had dug themselves in along the fringes of the war-ravaged woodland. Several times he had walked out into the open to check their concealment. At last he’d been satisfied with their camouflage and they’d settled down to wait.

There was no movement, no conversation. Each man was encased in the private stifling world of his respirator and NBC suit. Laid mostly in individual shallow holes, they were so still that even from close up mere was little to reveal that they were not just another small group of, forgotten bodies, left over from some minor action.