James Rouch - Killing Ground

‘If I was feeling charitable I’d say that Klingenberg got separated by accident from his wagon-load of civvies.’ While he was speaking Revell did not for an instant take his eyes from the narrow path he followed. ‘But having had to deal with that old louse a few times, I’d say it’s much more likely he ran out on them.’

Speculation on the fate of the civilians, though, Revell knew to be pointless. What mattered now, all that mattered now, was getting the survivors of his company back to the new NATO defence line. Wherever that might be. But still he could regard it as some small mark in his favour, a sign that there remained a spark of humanity within him, that he could feel a fleeting moment of sadness at what might be the fate of those civilians.

Death, fast and painless if they were hicky. If they were not, then months of gradual starvation, disease and lingering death in a squalid refugee camp. And there were a thousand gradations of suffering and degradation between those two unsought options.

‘So that’s what they were!’ Almost saying it to himself, Revell filed one more snippet of knowledge of the Zone into his mental survival kit. The white objects that had puzzled him were bones. Not with the readily recognizable outline of human shape, but the scavenger-scattered remains of several boar. The automatic killing devices that had slaughtered those lumbering wild hogs had not been triggered again by the foxes, rats and carrion feeders that had alighted on the feast.

‘A little more speed and he might have got away with it.’ Thorne had reached the edge of the shallow crater that marked the end of the tire tracks.

‘I don’t think so.’ Clarence pointed to a dull-coloured tube supported on tripod legs.

The blast from the explosion had blown camouflage from it and now the off-road mine stood fully revealed.

Scanning the slopes on either side of the road, Revell identified ten more of the sophisticated self-activating weapons, and as many claymore mines. Several trip-wires criss-crossed the road and laced the trees on the lower slopes. Immediately beyond the crater, at random intervals, slim antennae marked the position of more buried mines. They waited only for the brush of a tank’s belly plates passing overhead to unleash their huge charges and the semi-molten slugs of super-hard steel into the weakly defended underside of the fifty-ton machines. Igniting ammunition and fuel, they worked with devastating effect.

‘Get Carrington up here.’ For Revell it had not been a difficult selection to make. No other among them knew as much about mines, but Carrington had another, special talent. He appeared not to have a nerve in his body. Revell had seen others spring the most diabolical stunts on him, in an effort to make him jump, or lose his temper, or show some reaction, but they’d always failed. Even a thunder flash under his bunk had failed to elicit much of a response. According to Dooley, who’d been present, if not the actual instigator, Carrington had opened his eyes, watched the thick smoke drift to the ceiling, then turned over and gone back to sleep.

‘Problem, Major?’ With the tip of the barrel of his Colt Commando, Carrington scratched his tangled black beard.

‘You might say that. We need to get past this lot, fast.’ Borrowing the binoculars, Carrington examined the various evidence of the extensive minefield. ‘Very amateur. What we are faced with here is a massive overkill situation. That makes it harder. A regular minefield would be more logical and so predictable, give or take the odd new wrinkle some genius manages to introduce.’

‘So?’ Revell didn’t find it easy to cope with Carrington’s laid-back manner. ‘I said we want to keep moving.’

‘Quickest way would be to lay down a firestorm. But that depends on how much ammo we’ve got to waste, and even then there’s always something that gets missed. Or maybe aimed fire. Clarence could take out everything we could see with single shots, but it’d take longer.’

There was sense in both suggestions, but Revell was forced to take into account another factor. He shook his head.

‘It’s tempting, but the way that scout car was operating we’ve got to reckon the Reds are interested in coming this way. We can’t take out what might be the only decent roadblock likely to slow them.’

Lips pursed in thought, Carrington again examined the road, and the nature of the ground around it. ‘There’s another option. That Merc bounced a good way. I’d say there is a fair chance that we’d be all right as far as that. Just past it there’s about the only section I’ve seen that we’ve got a chance of scrambling up without resorting to rock-climbing techniques.’

‘That still leaves us in the middle of a minefield.’

‘Maybe not, Major. From the way it’s laid I’d say this load of nastiness was emplaced in a hell of a hurry. If I’m right, then they wouldn’t have had time to do the mountain goat bit and do the higher slopes. Once that climbable section is cleared we can scoot around the rest. That’s the best I can offer.’

‘What do you need?’ There was no decision to make. They had no choice.

That was underlined by a stray shell from the barrage constantly passing high overhead. Tumbling far off course, it plummeted down among the trees of a distant hillside. A mushroom of grey-streaked black smoke soared above the treetops. The reverberation carried clearly and its echo took seconds to die away.

‘Just someone to follow and improve the route markings I make, as we haven’t any tape.’

‘Take Taylor. And as we haven’t got tape, get a few rolls of bandage off Sampson, to mark the worst places.’

Glad to be lightened of his pack for a while, Taylor otherwise showed no emotion; not so Sampson. It took an order from Revell to get him to surrender four large rolls of cellophane-wrapped bandage.

As the medic handed them over he scowled at Taylor. ‘You get yourself blown up, you’re going to be sorry you laid these in the dirt.’

Scanning every inch of ground before taking a step, the pair started off. Through the crater and its litter, past a scorched door torn from the Estate, they edged forward. A slim silver pen lay among sodden scraps of paper. Carrington ignored it and knew his follower would do likewise.

Both had seen too many men killed or maimed in the course of mindless or even pointless looting. In the Zone the art of mine warfare and booby-trapping had reached new heights of ingenuity and calculated frightfulness. But never before had either of them seen such lavish use of the weapons. Well-sited and concealed, a dozen assorted mines spread out over a half kilometre of road could stall an armoured column for hours, unless they were determined to press on regardless of the casualties. Here at a glance they could identify three times that number.

They were nearing the Mercedes. Waves of fierce heat and smoke swept over them with an eddy of wind trapped between the hills. They froze as the acrid cloud bit into their eyes arid blinded them, not moving on until they had blinked them clear of tears.

Several of the automatic anti-tank launchers stared from among the lower heaps of boulders and from among sparse clumps of firs. Carrington knew that the little logic boxes bolted to each tube would be registering their progress, electronically gauging what they were by shape, size, infra-red signature or any one of a whole host of methods. Right this instant they would be crossing at least one beam, maybe sonic or laser. Or perhaps the careful impact of their steps was being compared with the memory bank of a seismically activated mine

The anti-tank mines would not be interested in them, but buried at the roadside or lodged on a rock shelf there might be a shotgun mine silently ticking off their progress. Many now were set to detonate only when several bodies had passed, calculated to knock out patrol commanders, who rarely took the point and could be caught farther down the line. Well, there was nothing he could do about them. That was down to luck.