ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (49 page)

Obstructions in the water became more numerous,
shattered sections of bridge drifting with the current, jagged edged and some
slowly sinking were also amidst the floundering soldiers. Behind the major at
the Bulgarians bridges the river was on fire, burning fuel had covered half the
rivers width and was spreading downriver engulfing all before it. A drifting
section of pontoon bridge carrying an ammunition truck was overtaken by the
flames and minutes later the truck and bridge section disintegrated.

The river carried the major around a bend, and there
in front of him was the last crossing of the Red Armies bridgehead across the
Elbe. There were troops and vehicles on the bridge, all moving east and quite
obviously the enemy.

Some hundred or so men were in the water along with
the major, and he was still over a hundred metres from the shore. Eyeing the
NATO troops worriedly he redoubled his efforts to reach the bank but that
clearly was not about to happen before the current had carried him to the
bridge. He wasn’t alone in his fears and the tension was palpable as the first
swimmer reached it. There was no gunfire from either the fighting vehicles or
the men walking beside them, and the only action they took was with those men
in the river who were clearly tiring and clung to the bridge when they reached
it. Canadian infantrymen pulled those men from the water and left them sodden
and gasping on the pontoons.

Several hundred yards further downriver the major
pulled himself onto the riverbank and lay on the wet earth panting for breath.
The crack of tank guns close-by announced that the Canadians had found what
they had been seeking, the first of several depots of stockpiled bridging
equipment that together would have kept the bridgehead in business even had
twice the number of bridges been totally destroyed. Along two and a half miles
of the river camouflaged dumps of bridging sections and pontoons had been
established. The battalion of tanks and infantry crossed over to the eastern
bank, and swung south with the intention of destroying as much of the Soviet’s
equipment as possible before recrossing at the Magdeburg autobahn
bridge.    

Looking back along the river smoke was darkening the
sky prematurely, and floating wreckage, including bodies, was thick upon the
water. He tried to remember if any bridging units had accompanied the divisions
driving west, it was logical that there would be which was just as well,
because he was pretty certain that there hadn’t been time to move any of the
spare bridging equipment to the western side of the Elbe.

The major couldn’t believe that after all the blood
and sweat that had been expended just getting a foothold across this damned
river, NATO could take it back with so little effort.

Fighting off despair, the engineer officer stood on
legs shaky with fatigue and went in search of his men.

Events on the ground were not only being followed with
the greatest interest aboard Sabre Dance Two Four, the X-Band radar returns
were being beamed via satellite to SACEUR’s current locale and from there to
over a dozen national headquarters. It was electronic, if not visual,
confirmation of what the commanders of the various units on the ground were
telling them, that the Red Army logistics train, already greatly hampered by
the airborne drops, was at least for the time being severed.

For all the courage, skill at arms and élan displayed
by the NATO troops, the contest of arms was not yet settled though. They had
prevented the immediate reinforcement and resupply of the Soviet divisions in
contact west of the Elbe, but to describe those fifteen divisions as being
‘trapped’ would be somewhat premature. Considerable fighting power existed,
enough for the Soviet’s to be able to continue the advance and still turn
around enough units to clear a path back to the Elbe, thereby re-establishing
the supply route once new bridging equipment could be brought forward.

Before midnight the operators aboard the E-8 would see
the three divisions further east detach regiments from the hunt for the NATO
airborne, and send them west with all three divisions bridging units.

To the west of the Elbe it was not Regimental sized
formations that were ordered to turn about though. The Russian 77
^th
Guards Tank Division began the business of changing its axis of advance by
180°, lumbering awkwardly around. Only by first allowing the support units to
pass through the Tank and Motor Rifle Regiments on the narrow roads could the
men and armoured fighting vehicles retrace their steps to the river and deal
with the pitifully inadequate NATO units that had the audacity to try and trap
a giant.

It was going to take time for that manoeuvre to
happen, and in order to prevent the French and Canadians from preparing
adequate defences, battalion sized units were receiving orders to leave
positions guarding the flanks and attack the pair of NATO brigades on the Elbe.

There was nothing on the operators screens to suggest
that the advance on the autobahns was hesitating, units identified by radio
intercepts as being Romanian had come up on the flanks of the Czechs and were about
to fall on the British and American trenches at Vormundberg. Behind those
troops were two Russian divisions in the last throes of deploying and would
soon be following on. They would overlap the Czech’s and Romanians,
encompassing the combined frontage of the British, Dutch and US brigades. The
French legionnaires of 2Rep and the Royal Marines of 44 Commando were already
in receipt of artillery fire, and they were responding as the overrun 40
Commando had done, by sending out tank killing patrols rather than just hiding
in their shelter bays and waiting.

Vormundberg: Same time.

Mark Venables Challenger left the small copse that hid
the ammunition resupply point for his squadron, and motored back toward the
ominous shape of Vormundberg. He had been listening with increasing anxiety to
events on both the battalion and squadron nets, and even though it was only a
five minute journey back to the reverse slopes he would have coaxed the machine
into powered flight if he had been able.

His driver showed why he had been chosen to sit in the
front seat of the squadron commander’s callsigns, working the six forward gears
to achieve 40kpm across open ground to the single, narrow metalled road that
led back to the hill, and once upon that hard surface he got the sixty-two and
a half tonne vehicle up to 55kph.

The trees cast long shadows, which closed over the MBT
as it entered the pines that covered the feature, its passage shook the trees
lining the road and continued to do so until the road sloped upwards and forced
the driver to change down.

Mark Venables gripped the edge of the hatch and ducked
to avoid a branch, but he did not order the speed slackened off.

The tarmac gave way to gravel and then the Challenger
slowed, turning off onto the track that would lead it to the route over the top
of Vormundberg.

Pat Reed had found himself in a purely spectator
position, up upon the hillside and watching the Czech 23
^rd
MRR coming on in contrast to the Romanians who were fast moving up on either
flank. Although the 3 Company CP was close by he had not entered, it had not
seemed appropriate to burden that company’s commander with his presence, so he
and his party stayed outside and observed.

Without the minefield the Czech vehicles advanced
confidently, the direct fire support from their fellows in lieu of a standard
heavy artillery barrage.  

The tank fire from the hillside slackened as the troop
attached to the Argyll’s withdrew, repositioning themselves to best deal with
the Romanians closing on the Scottish regiments positions. As the Czechs
closed, the Hussars could no longer engage those in the fore, their barrels
were at maximum depression. Those fighting vehicles their guns could still
reach were engaged in the same way, a carefully aimed shot followed by a rapid
relocation to another firing position. For every round fired by the Chieftains
and Challengers they drew the fire of at least three enemy tanks and/or
anti-tank launchers.

Tango One Two Charlie, 2 Troops problem child had
started off by doing pretty well, its driver treated it with kid gloves and its
kill rate had equalled that of the other Chieftain in the troop. When the troop
commanders Chieftain was taken out it increased the pressure on the remaining
pair of tanks in coping with the mass of targets within the troops arc of
responsibility. Soon after that occurred the temperamental gearbox in One Two
Charlie started again with the driver experiencing difficulty in changing from
forward gears to reverse, and it was also inclined to jump out of gear at high
revs.

The inevitable happened after they had destroyed yet
another of the elderly T-72s, the rear gears refused to engage, leaving the
vehicle exposed to retaliatory fire. The driver had done the only thing possible
in the circumstances, with one track locked and the other churning forward he
had the tank crabbing around through 180°, cursing the machine loudly for
effect as he did so. A sabot round striking the side of the turret and
careening away caused the Chieftains young loader to lose control of his
bowels. The manoeuvre was nearing completion when they were hit again, this
time in the engine compartment where the sabot defeated the armoured covering.
The twelve-cylinder Rolls Royce engine absorbed the sabot round’s remaining
energy and the crew compartment was not breached, but the tank itself was dead,
with diesel from severed lines gushing over metal turned white by the sabots
impact. Flames were lapping around the turret, and its crew had bailed out,
making good use of the smokes cover to gain the safety of the trees. They made
their way to 3 Company’s CP, on arrival they were unceremoniously bundled into
the COs Warrior and sent back to the REME workshop to collect one of the
replacement vehicles.

Heavy and medium shell and rocket artillery had been
landing on the forward slopes for several minutes but it was not in the
proportions that it had been when the battalion had been dug in at Magdeburg.

Pat Reed hated the banshee wail of the rockets; he could
quite understand how grown men, trained and experienced soldiers at that, could
soil themselves at the sound of one approaching.

He studied the approaching enemy, noting that despite
the number of vehicles that were being destroyed there were still more than
enough to go around.

Pat started at the sound of a single rifle shot close
by and craned his neck to see who was wasting ammunition on armour, but what he
saw was Bill and Big Stef lying within a bramble patch just downhill of his own
position. The Coldstreamer was peering along the Swiftscope and spotting for
the Staff Sergeant who was controlling his breathing as he took aim at his next
victim. Pat unzipped his smock and fished out his self-focussing binoculars,
which he raised to his eyes, looking in the direction the sniper appeared to be
aiming. Several vehicles flitted across his view, all had their hatches firmly
shut but then he saw a T-80 with additional antennae marking it as a command
tank, and it had an open lid. The top of a head was just visible and he
couldn’t figure how Bill could consider such an impossible shot to be viable,
but then the tank slowed slightly and the front end dipped down into a wide
crater, exposing more of the cranium to view. The crack of the shot made him
start again but his eyes were on the top of the Soviet tankers head when the
7.62 round entered it, splashing the inside of the hatch cover with gore.

Pat took his eyes from the binoculars to look down at
the snipers in amazement, such an incredible shot deserved some words at the
very least, but Stef had already spotted another target and Bill, the last
victim forgotten already, was moving his body around slightly, re-setting the
placement of elbows and the line of his torso so that the weapon would point
naturally at the fresh target.

Pat hunted for the snipers prey, but it was not a
company or battalion commander this time.

Peering over the cover of a low bank, a young Czech
infantry lieutenant looked for a firing position closer to NATO lines than the
one they currently occupied. The BTR-60 he had been riding in had been knocked
out but he had been lucky enough to escape along with three of his riflemen. A
conscientious officer, he had gathered up other stray troops hiding in ditches
amongst whom were numbered two AT-3 Sagger crews, and he had physically dragged
these men from hiding places and put them to doing what they had been intended
to, attacking the NATO armour. Crewmen and infantrymen who had escaped
unscathed, or just a little bit singed in one or two cases from knocked out
tanks and fighting vehicles, now became either the security for the Sagger
crews, or the mules that carried the reloads. Neither of the anti-tank crews
had scored hits yet, but they were contributing considerably to the British
Hussars discomfort.

The lieutenant saw a likely spot but before he could
indicate it to his men he was forced to roll to one side to avoid being crushed.

Through his sight Bill observed a BMP-3 almost run
over the form he had already tagged as being a leader, if not an officer. He
let the vehicle pass and lay quite relaxed, as the leader of the group Stef had
directed him to send a rifle squad out of cover and across open ground. These
men were not yet of any great importance to him and he let them go on unhindered,
and it was only after they had dropped into fresh cover that he pulled the
rifle butt into his shoulder just that little bit more firmly. The Sagger crews
came next, although not both at once and he allowed the first trio to leave
cover, burdened down with sights, launcher and a pair of missiles they moved
much more slowly than the infantry squad had. Once they were twenty feet from
the bank the second crew hauled themselves into view. The second crew was
twelve feet from the bank before Bill fired; he worked the bolt, aimed, fired
again and again worked the bolt. Six shots rang out with barely over two
seconds between each as he first killed the rearmost man before working
forwards. The first Sagger crew had still been on their feet, oblivious to the danger
they were in and unaware that the second crew were lying sprawled in the mud
behind them when Bill shot their gunner. A cry of alarm alerted the leading man
who had looked back to see one of his mates face down and the other with a look
of surprise on his face. That surprise was turned briefly to shock when Bill’s
fifth round made a small hole in his helmet, just level with his forehead. The
leading man did not have time to begin the dive for the ground that his brain
had told him was vital for survival, Bill’s last round punched through his
sternum and carried on through his chest to exit out the small of his back.