James Rouch - Hard Target

‘Well, it’s got to hold all of us, plus the major and his new recruits, that consideration apart, anything, anything at all.’

Dust raised by the speeding Gaz scout car settled on the men crouched behind the hedge. Dooley spat out mouthfuls of grit and made repulsive noises as he blew his nose.

‘Do you have to do that?’ Clarence wiped his tongue with a handkerchief. ‘What are you beefing about? One good spit is better than what you’re doing. For fuck’s sake quit it; dragging that dry rag around your mouth is worse than scraping your fingernails down a blackboard.’

Cohen ignored the exchange as he turned to Hyde. ‘That’s the third vehicle in twenty minutes to pass us like there was a race on. How do we stop one of those without breaking it ?’

‘We don’t. We’ll stop the next one anyway we can, then go back into hiding and wait for the following vehicle crew to stop and help whoever we clobber.’ Hyde beckoned Clarence over. ‘Take out the driver. Don’t worry about the noise. It’ll be nothing to the crate going over.’

‘Where do you want it to land?’

‘I’ll be happy as long as it’s on the road and not on us.’

Without any further discussion Clarence departed to set up his ambush. A moment later he had melted into the countryside. There was a five-minute wait before the next Soviet army vehicle came along.

It was a Toyota pick-up, one of the mass of civilian vehicles the Russian forces had pressed into use when the war had begun to extend beyond the time they had planned, and they’d had to return their own called-up supply trucks to the dislocated civilian economies of East Germany and Poland. This one was a battered and sorry example: dents and scrapes that marred every panel exposed large areas of its original bright-red paintwork, showing startlingly vivid against the thin coat of olive-drab still adhering elsewhere.

Through his glasses Hyde watched the pick-up’s fast approach. He could just, through the layer of dust on its screen, make out the pale blob of the driver’s face. ‘Looks like it’s the boy racers who come out early, taking advantage of clear roads and no traffic police.’ Occasionally the Toyota would jink to the side, as its driver slung it around the worst of the many pot-holes.

There was a distinctive double click as Libby cocked his rifle. ‘I hope Clarence is going to hit him soon, or we’ll have the perisher landing in our laps.’

As it came nearer, filling his field of vision, Hyde found it more difficult to follow the progress of the bucking vehicle, but he had a perfect view of it at the precise moment the sniper’s single bullet shattered the windscreen.

Fired from close range the 7.62mm round drilled through the driver’s right temple and clean through his head, emerging behind his left ear in an eruption of flesh and bone fragments as the tumbling deformed bullet gave up the last of its energy.

For another fifty yards the pick-up held course, then collision with the steep side of a deep pot-hole jerked the steering to the right and it struck the shallow bank flanking the track. There was a geyser of dirt and dust as the vehicle impacted. It rose up as though launched from a ramp, displaying the crumpled front end, trailing steam from its crushed radiator. The short flight ended in a nose-dive back on to the road. Both front wheels jammed up under the bodywork, it slewed to a final halt rocking op what was left of its suspension, straddling the track and surrounded by a litter of unidentifiable components. A bloodied arm hung from a window and the air was thick with the stink of petrol fumes and clouded with a shroud of steam. One oval wheel spun lazily in the road, a hub and stub axle still attached to it.

The wreck had eventually come to a halt only a few yards from where the men lay.

‘That sodding mad-arse cut it a bit fine.’

‘One yard or fifty, Burke.’ Hyde heard the complaint. ‘What does it matter? He gets the job done, that’s the main thing.’ Burke couldn’t win, and he knew it. His past provided too much ammunition for the sergeant for it to be of any use arguing with him. Besides, what bloody private ever won a real argument with a sergeant?

‘Dooley, Rinehart, you take out the crew of whatever stops at this roadblock. Use your knives. Take your time and let them get well clear of their vehicle first.’ Rinehart weighed the sergeant’s instructions. ‘Now just what if the first truck along happens to be packed full of infantry. How you expect us to deal with that?’

‘I don’t and you won’t have to, we’ll be covering you.’

‘Well give me time to get back in the fucking ditch before you open up.’ Dooley took out his bayonet and lightly ran his thumb down the edge of the double-sided blade. ‘Which side of the road do you want?’

I’m comfy here, how about you taking the stroll?’ As though it were the most elegant of toppers, Rinehart tipped his helmet rakishly over one eye and twirled a non-regulation leather-handled, saw-backed Bowie knife.

Affecting a casual air Dooley left the hedge and strolled over to the far side, pausing on the way to shake the hand hanging limply from the Toyota. He glanced back to see if his act was being appreciated before ducking out of sight.

‘Bloody clown.’

‘Bloody good one though, Sarge.’ It had taken an effort by Libby not to gratify the big oaf by laughing out loud.

‘I don’t have any use for a funny man, this is the Zone, not a three-ring circus.’

Having saved Collins from trouble by nudging him hard to shut up his giggling before Hyde found some other way of doing it, Cohen sidled over to the sergeant. ‘A silly bastard at times he may be, but there’s a lot of Commies who don’t think so, come to that they don’t think any more at all.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see evidence of it for myself.’

‘Here’s your chance.’ Fastening his body-armour tighter about himself, Cohen went back to his place.

It wasn’t in sight yet, but the throaty low revving rumble of an approaching truck was very clear in the still evening air. Clarence, further along the road and able to see more of the track, briefly put in an appearance and held up two fingers. No order was given, no man looked to another, but as though at a signal all of them slipped off their packs and reached for their knives. Cohen patted Collins’ arm. ‘Stick with me. This is where it starts to get messy.’

Major Revell had already been over to a front window twice, and now he found himself there for the third time, looking down the long winding track leading to the farm.

They would not have the light for much longer, and the hollow among the hills holding the workshops would be the first to lose the sun. Already a band of shadow was starting down from the crest of the rise partly hiding it from the farm. In an hour it would be like night down there.

The sinking bloated orange ball was shining directly in through the window, almost blindingly bright. It was very quiet. Even the whores in the adjoining room were silent. Kurt and his men had finished their ‘turns’. Andrea was in there now, guarding the women.

The regular patrons were not expected until after sunset, and Revell could only hope that none of them, like the officers Libby had killed, and the two junior sergeants, would try queue-jumping.

He had spent most of the afternoon observing the workshops. There had been no vehicle movement anywhere in their vicinity, and with only the surrounding ground to study he had come to know every inch of it, ‘picking the route they would take and the best spot for their sniper. After repeated examinations of the far slopes he’d even tentatively identified the position of one of the flak guns their prisoner had mentioned.