James Rouch: Plague Bomb

‘What were those troops then?’

Venables re-secured the top of the all but empty flask. ‘Pioneers, I should think, a pick and shovel company cleaning up after the fighting, poor devils, too stupid even to be used as cannon fodder. Not the sort we have to worry about. We can forget them; they’ll not be bothering us.’

The Leopard armoured recovery vehicle followed Sergeant Hyde and his squad as they walked along the scorched section of road, assessing the suitability of the knocked-out trucks and personnel carriers for repair.

At irregular intervals the surface was pockmarked by shallow indentations where the engineers had removed mines the Russians had found time to plant after springing their ambush on the column.

In many cases there was little of the vehicles left to examine. Fierce blazes had completed the work started by close-range tank fire. Ammunition and fuel loads had burned long enough to totally consume all but steel bodywork and chassis members.

An M113 armoured personnel carrier had come to rest a little off the road, having taken only a single hit, and not burned; it looked a more promising candidate for their attention.

The shell’s impact had jammed the rear door, and Dooley had to take a crowbar to it. When finally he managed to pry it open the air was suddenly full of fat black flies as a miniature tidal wave of decomposed mushed flesh and bloated maggots slopped slowly around the sides of the partially lowered ramp, and to the ground.

Ripper started to heave, threatened to set others off, until Hyde shoved him away.

Holding a cologne-doused cloth over his mouth and nose, Dooley waved sapper Thorne forward. His voice came indistinctly from behind the rag. ‘What you waiting for, give it a fucking burst.’

‘Anything to oblige.’ As he stepped up, for once he could envy their sergeant. The furnace heat that had long ago destroyed the NCO’s face had also ruined his sense of smell. Bracing himself in anticipation of the weapon’s surging recoil, Thorne aligned the fuel dribbling nozzle of the man-pack flame thrower on the partially open rear of the carrier.

It bucked in his hands as a three second burst squirted a mushrooming jet of yellow fire, filling his ears with its distinctive wailing screech and washing away the stench of rotting tissue and replacing it with the familiar pungent fumes of unconsumed petrol-jelly.

‘Salvage detail, who’d bloody have it. Must be the worst sodding work there is in the whole of the ruddy Zone.’ A single small arms round cooked off inside, and Burke ducked, expecting more, but there was only the one. ‘Well isn’t it?’

‘You don’t hear any of us arguing, do you?’ Cautiously Dooley approached the combined ramp and door and put his boot onto its warm metal. Using all his weight he tried to force it down further, but it moved only a fraction before its damaged hydraulics locked and prevented any more movement.

Smoke came from scraps of cloth smouldering among the remains inside. Soot stained the metal walls of the interior and coated much of the surface of the sluggish mess oozing toward them.

A neat circular hole marked where the Russian tank shell had penetrated, the APCs bulging and distorted aluminium armour indicated that its explosive filling had detonated inside the crew compartment. Of the driver and commander and their eleven infantry passengers all that remained was the gelatinous layer of pulped flesh on the floor and bench tops. Fragments of larger bones made it lumpy, as did broken rifles and submachine guns, and crushed helmets holding the pulverized remains of skulls.

A tidy row of boots along either side added a touch of gruesome absurdity. From some protruded the stumps of ankles and from a pair at the far end, untouched by the roaring flame, came a non-stop cascade of squirming white maggots as they overflowed from the heaving food gorged mass that filled them.

‘I thought the hygiene squads were supposed to take care of this sort of thing.’ Not making the mistake of coming too close again, still Ripper had to fight to suppress the urge to retch.

Thorne slipped from the harness of the flame thrower and lowered its triple cylinder pack to the ground, laying it carefully before leaning the hose-linked projector and trigger group against it. A gentle hiss of escaping propellant nitrogen gas came from a pressure tank until he gave its valve an extra half turn. ‘You’re joking. Half the battle damaged armour being back loaded for repair at base workshops has bodies or bits on board. The poor devils from REME who do that job can’t cope with it all. Anyway, does the rear-area warriors good to see how mucky the war can be. I’m surprised you’re not hardened to it by now. Must be those weird hand-rolled fags you smoke, upsetting your stomach.’

‘Oh, yeah, and what makes you an authority on everything. Seems to me you ain’t so clever, you only just got out after doing twenty-eight days and losing your stripes for impersonating an officer.’ There was more Ripper would have added, but in his anger at the sapper for mentioning his joints within hearing of the major, he took a step forward too far, and the smell hit him again. He was forced to retreat with his hand clamped tight over his mouth.

‘I wouldn’t have if your precious major had kept his word and dropped the charges after I knocked out that commie anti-tank position.*

‘He’s your major as well, now.’ Sergeant Hyde picked up the flame thrower and thrust it back at the sapper. ‘You remember that. He’d have willed his soul to the devil, and ours as well, in exchange for the destruction of those Ruskie guns; just be grateful that he spoke up for you at the court martial. You could have gone down for a lot, lot longer.’

‘Like forever.’ Setting his head on one side, Dooley let his coated tongue loll from his mouth and made a pantomime of tugging a noose tight about his neck.

‘You’re not expecting us to shovel this mess, are you.’ The sentence was phrased precisely by Clarence. It was not a question, it was a statement, a refusal in advance of any order.

‘Heaven forbid that our aseptic sniper should ever be compelled to do such a nasty thing.’ Using the butt of his rifle, Hyde pushed the door shut as far as it would go. I heard you turned down a medal because you were scared you might have to shake hands with a general at the presentation. If you can’t even stand contact with the living then who am I to force you to consort with the dead. Anyway, it’s not worth bothering with, it’s a write-off.’

Those words came as a relief to their Russian deserter. Since Major Revell had gone off to headquarters to try and get their assignment altered, Boris had been given all of the worst duties by their NCO. In anticipation of being told to climb into the carrier he had already begun to assemble his entrenching tool, now he quietly, and hopefully unobtrusively, stowed it once more. His actions did not entirely escape the sergeant’s notice.

‘Go tell the ARV crew they can stand down, there’s nothing for us here. We’ll have a brew then get on to the next site. You know where the tea things are.’ All of them stopped, turned and looked as they heard the personnel carrier’s door being lowered again. It was Andrea who was surveying the ghastly interior. Her sharp dark eyes met Hyde’s.

‘Was it like .this when your face was destroyed?’ Her expression didn’t alter as she glanced from the horrors of the vehicle to the sergeant’s mask-like graft-built features.

Hyde knew there were few men who could have looked at either without registering at least revulsion.

‘No, it was the plasma jet from a hollow-charge warhead that took my face. This looks like it was done by an armour-piercing high explosive round. From the size of the entry hole I’d say about a hundred and twenty-five millimetre. That would make it from a T72 or T84, or maybe an up-gunned T64. That what you wanted to know?’