Red Army (37 page)

“Got the bastard.”

“Three, can you hear me?” Bezarin called, his desperation rising.

Nothing.

“Where are you, Three?”

Instead of Dagliev, Roshchin came back on, pleading for help. Bezarin coldly ordered him off the net. An enemy tank appeared in Bezarin’s optics, so close it seemed as though they were bound to collide with it.

“Target left.
Get on him,” Bezarin yelled to his gunner.

“Too close.”

“Fire.
“Bezarin’s field of vision filled up with blast effects. But they had gotten the British tank first. Bezarin felt weak, almost nauseous, yet his pulse throbbed as though his heart would explode.

“Volga One, this is Ladoga ... is that your element mixed up with the British on the crest?”

“This is One. I’m still in the smoke. It must be Two up there.”

At the mention of his call sign, Roshchin came back up on the net. He was weeping. “They’re all gone,” he said, “everybody’s gone.”

Bezarin’s gunner screamed. A British tank had its gun tube aimed directly at them.

“Point blank,
“Bezarin yelled. “Fire.” He did not even know what kind of round, if any, was in the breech.

A burst of sparks dazzled off the mantlet of the British tank’s gun. A moment later, the enemy vehicle began to pull off of its position without firing. Bezarin sensed a kill and methodically directed his gunner. The next round stopped the British tank, and smoke began to climb from its deck. Roshchin cried into the battalion net as though he had lost his sanity. Bezarin found himself cursing the boy, even wishing that the British would kill him, just to stop him from blabbering. He feared that Roshchin’s panic would become contagious.

“Roshchin,” Bezarin said, disregarding the last radio discipline. “Roshchin, take command of yourself. You’re still alive. You can fight back. You’re all right.”

Bezarin could not even be certain that his transmission had reached the boy, who had begun to broadcast incessantly.

Suddenly, Bezarin lost his temper. “Roshchin, if you don’t get off that radio, I’ll shoot you myself. Do you understand me, you cowardly piece of shit?”

For the moment, Roshchin dropped from the net. Bezarin’s driver barely avoided colliding with another Soviet tank in a last pocket of smoke. The driver halted the tank to let the other vehicle pass. Bezarin used the pause to help the gunner replenish the automatic loader’s ready rack.

Roshchin called again. This time his voice was marginally more rational. “They’re behind us,” he cried. “I have enemy tanks to my rear.”

“We’re behind them, you stupid fuck,” Bezarin called back. “Just shoot.”

Kikerin, the driver, set the tank back in motion, throwing Bezarin off balance. As soon as he recovered, he tried to piece his unit back together over the radio.

“One, where the hell are you?”

“Can’t talk,” Voronich answered. He sounded out of breath. “We’re fighting it out with an entire company. I think they lost their way in the smoke.”

All right. At least Voronich was fighting. “Volga Three, this is Ladoga Five.” No answer. Bezarin wondered if he had squandered an entire company, and his best company, at that, by sending them around the spur. He ordered his driver to head for a copse of trees that sat slightly higher than the tank’s present location. As the vehicle moved Bezarin watched the treeline warily.

A British armored personnel carrier bolted from the grove like a flushed rabbit. Kikerin knew enough to stop the tank, and the gunner already had the target in his sights.

“Fire.”

The British troop carrier exploded in a spectacular bloom of flame.

“Get in against the trees and halt,” Bezarin ordered. He had lost control of his battalion in the smoke and the fighting. But he did not see how he could have done otherwise. Now he could only hope and gather what remained of his battalion to him. He did not even know for certain who was winning. If the radio net was to be believed, the fight had been a disaster. Yet here he was, on the high ground atop the broad ridge, with a trail of destroyed British vehicles to his rear. It was hard to make sense of it. At any rate, there was a perceptible change in the level of combat in the immediate area. A pocket of quiet seemed to have grown up around his tank.

He tried again to contact Dagliev, hoping that his position on the high ground would make a difference.

“Volga Three, this is Ladoga Five. What is your situation?”

Dagliev replied as promptly and as clearly as if he had never been away. “This is Three. I’m behind them. Clean. Killing them one after another as they pull off. It’s just like firing on the range.”

“Your losses?”

“None.
They never saw us coming. They must’ve been totally fixed on the smoke and what was going on in front of them. We ran right through their artillery batteries.”

“Good.
Wonderful.
When you’re done at your current location, I want you to sweep back to the east toward me. Close the trap completely. I’m up on the high ground. Just watch what you’re shooting at as you close.”

So perhaps things were not so bad after all. Bezarin felt a tremendous satisfaction in having sent Dagliev around the enemy’s flank.

“Volga One, this is Ladoga Five. Situation?”

“Wait.
Load sabot.
I’m still in the shit, but it looks about even.”

“Are you all right?” Bezarin was surprised at his good luck, after all.

“Yes. All right. But Roshchin’s gone.
Now. Fire.
I saw his tank go up. Catastrophic kill. I watched the last of his company go. In seconds. They came out of the smoke at an angle, driving right up between my tanks and the British. It was a matter of seconds.”

So. Perhaps, Bezarin thought, wishes had a dark, unforgiving power. But he could not let himself think about that now.

“All right,” Bezarin called. “Just stay off the crest of the ridge. Three’s coming in behind them now.”

“I heard the transmission.”

“Good luck.” Bezarin switched over to the regimental net.

“Ural Five, this is Ladoga Five.”

Silence. Then a bit of faint, eerie music.

“Kuban Five, this is Ladoga Five.”

“Target, left,”
Bezarin’s gunner screamed.

“Hold it, that’s one of ours,” Bezarin said. He tried the microphone again.

“Kuban Five, this is Ladoga Five.”

No response. Where was everybody?

Bezarin angrily unlatched his hatch cover and shoved it up hard. Unreasonably, he felt that if he were out in the open air, he would have a better chance of reaching someone.

“Comrade Commander,” the gunner called, trying to stop him.

Bezarin ignored the tug on his overalls. The air, laden with the acrid residue of the artillery barrage, of the smoke and the tank fight, was nonetheless marvelously fresh after the poisonous fumes in the interior of the tank. The noise of battle was still there, but at a reduced volume. Then Bezarin noticed the huge black scar on the side of the turret. There was a break in the reactive armor plating that gave the appearance of a section of mouth where teeth had been knocked out. Bezarin suddenly remembered the tremendous jolt that had shaken the tank early in the fight. It made him feel weak in the bottom of his belly to realize how close he had come to dying.

Bezarin was startled a second time by the appearance of Voronich’s tank leading five others up the hillside behind him. Several of these tanks also bore visible scars where the reactive armor had saved them.

Shaking his head, Bezarin pressed the microphone closer to his lips. “Volga One, this is Ladoga Five. Put your tanks in the woodline just below my position. Cover the saddle you just worked up and the crest to the north.” Six tanks, Bezarin thought, plus his own. Seven. And Dagliev had reported no losses at the time of his last transmission.

Roshchin was gone. And it sounded like the greater part of his company had gone with him. But Bezarin hoped that a few of them, at least, would show up alive and well as the last smoke dissipated.

Bezarin called Dagliev. “Three, what’s your current position?”

At first, there was no response. Bezarin was just about to try a second call when Dagliev responded.

“This is Three. I can’t talk now. I’m in it hot.”

Bezarin’s newfound confidence began to dissolve.

“Three, where are you? I’ve got seven tanks up here. I’ll come to you.”

“It’s all right,” Dagliev answered. He sounded annoyed at the suggestion that he needed help. “We’re just shooting as fast as we can. We caught their reserve right in its ass end.”

“One, this is Ladoga. Prepare to move.”

“Acknowledged.”

Bezarin knew that they had the British now. He wanted to finish the job. But he was worried at the complete silence on the regimental net.

“Ural, Kuban, this is Ladoga. Can you hear me?”

“Ladoga, this is Beechtree. I hear you clearly.”

Bezarin had no idea who Beechtree was. He tried again.

“Ural, Kuban, this is Ladoga. What is your situation?”

“This is Beechtree,” the unidentified station insisted. “Regimental artillery. The attack has failed; it’s all over. Air and fire strikes hit Kuban as he was moving up. Ural never reached the British positions. All of the battalions are destroyed. It’s all over.”

“Like hell,”
Bezarin said. “We’re in behind them. They’ve pulled off the southern portion of the ridge. We have their positions. Now we’re going to roll them up from south to north. Can you support us?”

The net was silent. Then:

“Ladoga, this is Nevsky Ten. Do you hear my transmission?”

The transmitter was clearly very powerful. Whoever Nevsky Ten was, his voice dominated the static and distant stations on the net.

“I hear your transmission,” Bezarin said.

“Execute your decision,” the godlike voice commanded. “We will support you. Antitank helicopters are closing from the north at this time. You roll up the British from the south. Be prepared to mark your positions with flares. I will stay on this net. If you have any problems, call me immediately. Stop. Beechtree, answer your vertical net. But priority of fires is to Ladoga, is that clear?”

Bezarin no longer had any doubt about the identity of Nevsky Ten. It was Major General Duzov, the division commander.

The British were in a trap. Bezarin turned his tanks northward behind the last line of enemy positions as smoothly as in a demonstration for visiting dignitaries, working up along a broken plateau atop the high ground. He felt as though he was absolutely in control. Most of the targets were infantry fighting vehicles and transporters now, with few tanks in evidence. Bezarin concluded that the British had run out of antitank ammunition, since they so often failed to return fire effectively. Their surprised vehicles scurried about like mice surrounded by cats. As Bezarin’s armor overran one of the positions a British soldier emptied his rifle at the command tank, then charged the forty-ton vehicle, swinging his empty weapon as a club. Bezarin cut the man in half with machine-gun fire.

The last of the smoke disappeared, and Bezarin’s tankers fought under blue skies. The Soviet tanks halted along the cleared ridge, pursuing the fleeing enemy with their fires. The long slope up which Bezarin’s sister battalion had attacked presented a chilling testament as to what could happen when a hasty attack became so rushed that it degenerated into recklessness. Most of the battalion’s vehicles sat inertly or burned, sending pillars of dark smoke heavenward. The encounter had been devastating for both sides, overall. The British had killed, and then they had been killed. The combination of Bezarin’s sweep and the converging attack helicopters had turned the tide. Bezarin switched his attention to rallying what remained of his battalion and the survivors of First Battalion’s debacle.

Stray vehicles gathered around Bezarin’s position. Leaderless, the disoriented crews’ general confusion was evident in their tendency to draw too close to one another, as if for protection by virtue of proximity, and in the slackness of their behavior. Vehicles simply halted in the open in the middle of the seized positions, their crews convinced that the work had been done and that they could relax. The tautness of battle ebbed dangerously now.

Bezarin acted quickly. He had not forgotten the forward detachment mission, and he did not want to be deprived of the opportunity to lead his tanks into the enemy’s rear ahead of everyone else. He ordered Dagliev to take one platoon of motorized riflemen along with his tanks and push on northwest toward Hildesheim, clearing the road. Then he organized every stray tank he could locate that remained in running order into a heavy company under Voronich, his remaining company commander. His rear-services officer provided a pleasant surprise by appearing on the scene before the last tanks had stopped firing. The rear-services captain, an especially preachy communist who was laughably naive about much of the corruption in the regiment’s rear services, had come through, living up to all of the hollow-sounding phrases about the need for good communists to take the initiative. A representative from Beechtree, the regimental artillery commander, came up as well, maneuvering warily in his artillery command and reconnaissance vehicle. It was a captain, a battery commander. His guns were ready to move out and follow Bezarin. Evidently, the division commander’s directives to Beechtree had shocked him into action.

Bezarin delayed calling Nevsky Ten until he felt he had assembled a sufficient, if lean, grouping that could act as a forward detachment. He personally dashed among the congregating vehicles, insuring that they moved to the correct radio frequencies and ordering them into local positions that provided at least partial protection from ground and aerial observation. The clear sky showed webs of jet trails, and Bezarin felt it was only a matter of time before the enemy would attempt to strike back. The best of his tankers had quickly learned new priorities now, and they hurried to restock their on-board units of fire from the limited quantities brought forward on the battalion’s trucks. Bezarin urged them to hurry, convinced that time was pressing, that the afternoon was waning. When he finally glanced at his watch, he was amazed to find that it was not yet ten in the morning.