James Rouch - Killing Ground

From inside the flame-and smoke-generating APC came the crackle of small-arms ammunition cooking-off. At the noise, the enemy turret-gunner reverted his attention back to the wreck.

‘This is our chance.’ Haying failed to find the major, Hyde grabbed Dooley, and then kicked out at Thorne to get his attention also.

Thorne gave up his elbow-armed conflict with Scully to get equal shares of the cover of a slim tree barely adequate for one, and joined the NCO behind an insubstantial holly bush. ‘I’ll strangle the shitty flier who sprayed this lot with crap and stopped them growing to a useful width. If I live to get the chance to look for him.’

‘If we don’t do something about that scout car you won’t.’ Hyde hugged the ground as a random burst scythed through the shrub and showered them with fragments of dead leaves and wood. ‘The fucker’s ammo won’t last much longer at this rate, but I’m not prepared to sit on my arse in the hope I’ll still be in one piece when he runs out.’

They ran crouched low, ignoring the cuts and scratches inflicted by low branches and thorns as they made a wide detour around the ambush site.

They threw themselves down as another wild burst slashed slivers of bark from standing timber only inches overhead.

‘What the fuck is that thing doing here?’ Almost dropping his M16, Thorne hitched the three-pack of rocket-launchers more firmly onto his back after a series of jarring collisions with low-hanging branches and the tearing effect of the several dense thickets they had passed through.

‘It’s a fucking scout car. What would it be doing? It’s fucking scouting, that’s what.’ Carefully moving aside a tangle of undergrowth, Dooley still succeeded in drenching himself with the mass of droplets of water it discharged.

The trio’s circuitous route had brought them to a point level with, and slightly above, the Russian armoured car. Inching forward farther, into the heart of a long-dead briar patch, they made their preparations.

‘There’s a Hummer behind it.’ Whispering, although there was no chance of their being heard at fifty meters distance, and above the rattle of automatic fire now returned at the four-wheeler, Thorne pointed to the much-holed vehicle close by the scout car.

Along its doors and side panels showed the close-stitched holes of a burst of machine-gun fire, each dark centre surrounded by the bare metal ring where impact had smacked away the paint. Against the starred windscreen lolled the head of its driver, his face barred with blood that streaked the shattered glass.

Reaching across, Hyde helped Thorne slip the heavy pack from his shoulders, and taking one launch tube for himself, withdrew a second for Dooley. His actions being mirrored, the sergeant extended the firing tube, not bothering to raise the sights at so short a range.

‘Why are the fuckers hanging about?’ Shouldering the rocket-launcher, Dooley instinctively waited for the sergeant’s fire order. ‘Those little shits haven’t got any armour, so why’s he hanging about when he got lucky and kicked our wheels from under us?’ The four-wheeler filled his field of vision, and his finger took up the slack on the trigger. ‘It don’t make any sense, those recce wagons of theirs usually avoid a scrap.’

‘Who cares…?’ Hyde took a moment longer over his aim, and then whipped his launcher sideways to clout Dooley’s downward and prevent his firing. ‘There’s one of our blokes down there.’

For the first time Thorne noticed two men huddled against the embankment for its protection from the incoming small-arms fire skimming past the Warpac armoured car.

One of them wore the distinctive latest pattern NATO camouflage jacket and helmet. An obviously Russian officer had him covered with a pistol.

Pinned there by the fire from the woods about the disabled armoured personnel carriers, they could neither board nor scramble to the comparative safety of the trees.

The scout car began slowly to reverse, turning slightly to offer the Russian and his captive the protection of its flank, and set low in that side was a small hatch that swung open.

As the scout car began to move, the fire aimed at it increased dramatically. Hyde knew he could do nothing as the captive was propelled toward the opening. Everything told him he should fire, let the NATO man take his chances, but still he held back, willing the man to make a break for it, do something.

The intensity of small-arms fire from the woods was such that external fittings on the scout car were being broken and wrenched away as streams of tracer swept back and forth across the angled steel plates.

A burst aimed low ploughed sparks and fountains of mud from the road, ricochets passed under the belly of the vehicle and both men staggered as they were struck.

Slumping against the armour close to the hatch, eyes closed and teeth clenched against the agony of his smashed ankle, the NATO soldier did not resist when strong hands reached out and roughly hauled him inside.

The officer was not so lucky. Falling to the ground with both legs broken, he was hit again, in the face. Blood, teeth and tissue spurted from his mouth. He twisted around to make a desperate lunge for the closing door. Fingers locked on the edge of the opening, he was dragged as the scout car began to reverse. Twice the door was cracked hard against his hand, but his grip held. The third time it was opened fully and then slammed viciously. Fingers severed, the officer sprawled and had no chance to avoid the deep-treaded wheel that passed over his stomach. A last writhing contortion and he was finally still.

‘Do I fire?’ Dooley had re-shouldered the launch tube and was tracking the retreating target. ‘Do I bloody fire?’

For a moment the scout was stalled as it became entangled with the Hummer. Watching, with his mind locked almost into a trance, Hyde couldn’t give the order. He could picture the frightening scene inside the vehicle: the dim red light, blurred by swirling fumes and smoke that carried the sour stench of cordite, the non-stop hail of bullets striking the armour blending with the thunder and rattle of the cannon and co-axial machine gun.

And there’d be blood everywhere, some from the crew where they’d been cut by flying scabs of metal punched from the hull where tungsten-tipped rounds had almost penetrated, and much more from the injured man on the floor.

That’s just what it had been like when Hyde had lost his face to the furnace heat generated by a Soviet antitank round. A hollow-charge shell had struck the APC square in the side and jetted a plasma stream of molten metal and explosive across the crew compartment. Their East German prisoner, laid bound on the floor, had instantly become a demented, screaming blazing torch.

‘A couple of seconds and it’ll be gone…’ Getting no response from Hyde, Dooley took aim. ‘Fuck it, I’m bloody firing.’ He bellowed his rage as the missile clipped a sapling, veered from course and pancaked onto the ground far short of its target.

Broken open by the impact, the solid fuel spilled and burned to form an instant smokescreen that masked the target, and when it cleared, it was gone. Seconds later the warhead self-destructed and sent a plume of steam and woodland debris above the treetops.

The three men exchanged no words as they trudged to rejoin the others, now emerging from cover.

Following a few paces behind, Hyde looked at his hands. They were shaking. He realized that deep within himself the months of combat were finally taking their toll. Circumstances, and his own stubborn refusal to see it, had driven him to and beyond his limit.

Passing the Hummer, Hyde checked the driver. Sometime during the brief action he had died. Alone, uncomforted, ignored in the skirmish going on about him, he had succumbed to the massive head wound that had blown a chunk from the front of his skull. Pulverized brain matter still dripped into his lap. Most likely he had known little about it after that single smashing blow. He had probably even been beyond pain. It had been a mercy, of sorts.