ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (25 page)

The padre studied him for a moment before replying.

“Are you an agnostic young man, surely you have heard
the word of the Lord?”

Stef had got to know Bill quite well, and knowing him
as he did he gave another nudge by way of a warning, but groaned inwardly when
it was ignored.       

“No Padre, not personally.”

The gauntlet, as far as the padre was concerned, had
been flung down. Using what he considered to be reasoned examples, he sought to
put doubt into the snipers mind but found instead that Bill had long ago formed
his own views on the subject of the established churches of all faiths on the
planet.

“Don’t get me wrong padre, I believe in a Supreme
Being creating the universe and I believe in good and evil, I just don’t happen
to believe, or trust, the interpretation that humankind gives it. In case you
had not noticed, we seem to be a bit shy of miracles around here”

“God is all around us, Staff Sergeant. Haven’t you
ever witnessed the miracle of birth?” 

Bill smiled wryly. “I’ve had occasion to actually
deliver a baby padre, so yes I have witnessed that. I often give to charities
for famine relief…but I have never witnessed a starving bishop, or even a
malnourished mullah for that matter, though.”

After another five minutes the padre accepted that
Bill was not about to join the ranks of the born again, and having made his
excuses he started to leave, but Bill sent him a parting shot.

“Let me know when they find the missing page to the
original bible, padre.”

Pausing before the blackout the padre looked back at
the sniper.

“Missing page?”

“Yes Padre, the page at the beginning where it says
‘Names, places, characters and incidents are a product of the authors
imagination and any resemblance to any living person or real events is purely
coincidental’.”

Bill had gone too far and he realised that fact as
soon as he had spoken, so he muttered an apology.

The padre looked at him for a moment, ignoring the
attempt to make amends.

“
You
may not believe but I’ll thank you not to mock those
of us that do, Staff Sergeant.”

Stef saved his comments until the padre had
disappeared.

“For a copper, your people skills suck at times.”

Bill and Stef had been inside the battalion lines
since it had begun to dig in on the hill, but they were now to relieve a
sniping pair forward of the battalion perimeter.

The American paratrooper from the 82
^nd
,
Major Popham, came to give them their orders and although both Stef and Bill
knew the location of the hide, Major Popham opened a map to show them where the
40 Commando positions were in relation to it.

“To your ten o’clock, about six hundred metres off, is
a small copse with dead ground behind it. This is the marines gun line for a
battery from 29 Commando Regiment’s 105mm guns, and fourteen hundred metres to
your front you will see a small farm with a sunken lane just visible at its
left hand edge. The farm is the most visible mark for the rear perimeter of 40
Commando’s real estate, and that sunken lane runs diagonally across your
front.” He paused to point out the features on the map.

“Your marines will withdraw along that lane and I need
you to report that movement, because if communications between us and them go
to rat shit then we isn’t going to get much warning, is we?”

“If Ivan plays it smart, he’ll use that lane too.”
Bill used the edge of his thumb to measure the distance on his own map from the
foot of the hill to the point where the lane came closest; it was only eight
hundred metres.

“When you get on the ground you will see the lane is
lined with trees. The marines have prepared most to be dropped behind them as
they go, so it will prevent vehicles using it and allow them some breathing
space to pass through 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and set up shop
again in pre-prepared positions a mile back. They have a troop of your Hussars
with them which will break off and rejoin us once the pass through is
complete.” The map showed the Royal Marines fall-back positions backed onto the
autobahn that was the Soviet’s goal. There were no such positions beyond that
for the men and women of 3 (UK) Mechanised Brigade, beyond the autobahn lay the
gun lines, headquarters and support units.

“What’s the timescale sir, when are they expected to
make contact?”

Jim knew the answer to that one.

“If they haven’t hit the anti-tank mine field in front
by 10am, then they stopped for breakfast somewhere or the…what the hell is a
Wimik?”

“It’s the Royal Marines trying to prove they can use
words consisting of two syllables.” Stef told him, but seeing the American
major was looking blank he quickly added.

“A
Wimik is what
the marines call a Landrover with ‘fifty cals’ and a Milan post bolted on.”

Jim shrugged and went on.

“Well, they have a screen of Wimik’s out forward a
couple of miles beyond the mines to shoot and scoot

“Is there any chance that your 4
^th
Corps
will beat them here, sir?”

Shaking his head Jim folded the map and put it away.

“I doubt it, we are in for a hard fight but if we can
hold them long enough, well…”

He left the sentence unfinished and reached across to
shake both soldiers by the hand.

“Good luck to you both.”

They pulled their bergens back on and checked for
anything rattling before pushing their way back outside and heading for the 3
Company sentry position where they would take the winding route through the
field defences to exit the location.

The sound of aircraft passing to the south of them
came as they were at the trench that guarded the safe route. It was still foggy
and far too dark for them to see the air armada, but the drone of the
transports and the fighter escorts were apparently heading east, so it was a
toss-up whether they were friendlies on the way to make mischief, or enemy
aircraft returning from dropping yet more airborne troops behind them, this
time to block 4
^th
Corps.

They arrived at the hide in plenty of time for the
relieved pair to be back in the battalion location before first light, where
they would get perhaps a couple of hours of sleep before the Soviet armies
arrived.

The hamlet of Struhn, 25 miles east of Magdeburg, had
never been much more than a cluster of buildings that other people passed
through, even before the autobahn between Berlin and Magdeburg had bypassed it.

With the autobahn a kilometre south and a railway to
the north the world passed Struhn by even faster than before. That had changed
to an extent when NATO had avoided being outflanked by withdrawing from this
part of Germany and a company of Czech mechanised infantry, assisted by an
anti-aircraft unit, had arrived to guard the major rail junction three quarters
of a kilometre to the north.   

The only inhabitants who still remained were an
elderly couple, the remainder of the hamlet’s residents having joined the tide
of refugees following in NATO’s wake. Their tiny cottage had been looted as
they huddled, terrified in one corner. They had little to start with, but the
invaders had first emptied their larder and then returned later to steal the
furniture to use as firewood when the snow came and the temperatures plummeted.

The couple had survived, sharing body warmth beneath
piled blankets and on vegetables ignored by the thieves. The old man augmented
this fare by defying the curfew to set snares in nearby woods and hedgerows,
and again before the dawn to check them for catches. He dared not leave the
snares in place during the day in case some enemy patrol happened across one
and stole his catch.

A solitary, skinny, rabbit was the nights total haul
and after bashing the creature on the head and dismantling the snare he was
carefully making his way to the edge of wood, stopping often to listen for
patrols, when something came crashing down through the branches behind him,
striking the ground with a dull thud.

The old man turned in panic, clutching the scrawny
animal to his chest, and then took a pace backwards as something else; something
larger followed it even more noisily.

A dark shape came to an abrupt halt two feet above the
ground, bounced and swayed and began to mutter expletives. It fumbled for a
moment inside its smock before finding and switching on a pair of passive night
goggles, which it held to its face for a look down at the ground. Satisfied
that it wasn’t suspended above an abyss by its snagged parachute it used them
to slowly pan around its surroundings, and froze when it reached the old man.

“‘Mornin’.”
It said after a pause.

The old man didn’t speak English, and stammered back a
query whilst still clutching the rabbit in both trembling
hands.         

“Bitte?”

“Yer not wrong there mate, it’s just this side of
bleedin’ freezin’.”

The British paratrooper wriggled free of his harness
and crouched for a few moments before standing with difficulty, hunched over
under the weight of a
bergen
he had just struggled
into.

“Nice meeting yer mate but I can’t be gossiping with
you all night now can
I
? So, I’ve got to be off.”

After several moments the old man slowly followed in
the direction the paratrooper had taken and stopped at the edge of the wood. He
couldn’t make out the soldier anymore, the meadow beside the wood was dotted
with abandoned green parachutes and their former owners were hurrying off into
the darkness. The 1st and 2
^nd
battalions of the Parachute Regiment had arrived to
put a clot in two of the Red Army’s main supply arteries.   

Lt Col Reed and Arnie Moore left the battalion CP to
visit each of the locations, starting with 4 Company on the left. He had held
another O Group for all the company commanders just the last evening, but today
was going to be a busy one and he wanted to get around and speak to as many of
the men under his command as possible.

4 Company was one of the 82
^nd
’s
and was tied in with their neighbour’s right flank, 2LI, 2
^nd
Battalion Light Infantry. To make things more complicated the Light Infantry’s
shortages had been made good with a platoon on loan to each of its rifle
companies from 2 Wessex.

A small stream with high banks provided a physical
boundary between both units, and although it was too dark to see it, Pat could
hear the rushing water faintly from the entrance to the company’s CP.

The first thing that caught his attention once inside
the CP was an 82
^nd
signaller wearing a beret, not that there was
anything wrong in that, they were under cover and not under fire, however,
behind the paratroopers badge was sown a Guards flash, the blue, red, blue
rectangle his own men wore behind their own regimental cap badge. Pat let it go
without comment; this was after all a battlefield in Germany and not Horse
Guards Parade in London.

The battalion was stood-to half an hour before first
light whilst he and Arnie were at 4 Company, and they remained there until it
was stood down without incident a half hour after dawn at which point they
crossed the stream to say a quick hello to the neighbours, and of course to
also run a professionally critical eye over who was essentially guarding their
flank.

They were too far from the stream to easily get back
into cover behind its bank when they were challenged and both Pat and Arnie
stopped and held their rifles one handed and away from their bodies as they
peered toward the sound of the voice.

Pat could not make out the position though until he
was told to advance a few steps and halt again, close enough so that the sentry
covering them did not have to shout out the number to which Pat responded
correctly.

Lying behind the sentry’s trench Pat and Arnie were
impressed to discover the soldiers were 2 Wessex territorials and not 2LI
regulars and they couldn’t fault the position. 

Passing back over the stream to 4 Company’s turf they
went from trench to trench, knowing that this was to be a day of days for them
all and an end of days for some.

The normal day in the field, once stand-to is over,
starts with weapon cleaning and personal administration, but only one man at a
time stripped and cleaned his weapon per trench, his mate’s was ready for use
during this time. Pat and Arnie exchanged a few words with the men as they
worked and found nothing to cause undue concern. For some of the men, those who
had arrived in the past five days for the large part, it would be their baptism
of fire when the Soviet’s arrived, but each of these men had been paired off
with a seasoned soldier.