ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (39 page)

“One of 3 Company’s Milan crews is tracking the tank
sir, it is still in clear view and they asked for permission to move forward to
extreme range and engage?”

Pat knew damn well that they had in all probability
already gone along the
correct
chain of command and had been refused.

“Three Nine knocked them back because he quite rightly
didn’t want his assets exposed too soon, so do they honestly think I’m going to
overrule one of my company commanders just because their blood is up?” Pat left
the signaller to pass on the rebuke, and carried on reading, his eyes skimming
over the words and taking it all in. The RSM’s report of infiltrators and the
death of the Padre were both saddening and alarming, but none of the emotions
he was feeling could be read on his features by anyone watching at that
moment. 

“Has this infiltration business been acted upon,
Timothy?”

The Adjutant was on the radio to Major Venables and he
raised a thumb above his head without looking around, confirming that he had it
in hand but then winced as Soviet artillery impacted none too far away from the
CP. As the rumbles died away he took the radio headset off and glared at it in
disgust, but the radio operators were already removing the various radios
antennae coax cables and replacing them with others that led to an alternative
antennae farm. Pat listened as Tim re-established communications with the
Hussar squadron’s commander and explained that artillery had just taken out one
of the antennae farms.

All in all, Pat considered that things could have been
far worse by now, but he mentally kicked himself for tempting fate because
another message was handed to him. The Guardsmen and Paratroopers in the
forward companies had been receiving artillery for the past twenty minutes, but
not in a concentrated fashion, that had just changed now as both
company
CP’s reported a drastic increase in the weight of
incoming fire. Lt Col Reed could only guess at how long the enemy was planning
to soften up his unit before continuing the assault.

23
^rd
Czech MRR went firm on the positions formerly held by
the British 40 Commando, in expectation of one of the Romanian regiments
passing through to take up the assault, but any hopes of a breather were
dispelled when 23
^rd
‘s commander gave his sitrep. 23
^rd
MRR still had adequate fighting strength remaining and were ordered to carry
out a quick reorg whilst the next NATO position was ‘prepped’ by artillery.
Once the reorganisation had been completed, they would step off over the rise
and cross the 3 kilometre wide valley to fight through to the summit of
Vormundberg.  The commander of the 23
^rd
knew he had just had one easy victory and was ready
for more, he knew the Spetznaz team had crossed over into the next enemy
position, securing him the sunken lane, a route safe from direct fire down into
the valley that a company of mounted infantry in BDRMs and a tank company could
use.

He had lost the best part of a company of infantry in
the sunken lane through NATO artillery, but they had been dismounted and
vulnerable to such fire, away from the protective armour plate of their
vehicles. So hyped up was he with success, he did not think to ask if the
Spetznaz major was still sending fire missions to the gun line, he merely
assumed that the division commander would inform him if all contact had been
lost. On the other end of the secure communications link the Romanian General
was a little relieved that he had not been asked that question because lying
was a necessary, yet tedious art in this business of man management.

The distribution of fresh ammunition and the shifting
around of personnel to even up the losses went swiftly, largely due to the lack
of incoming rounds from NATO guns.

At Lt Col Reed’s insistence the guns available to the
battalion were being preserved until the Soviet’s put in their attack, and the
Royal Artillery had a Phoenix UAV aloft now, watching for that very move. He
knew that there was a distinct possibility that the enemy would use the sunken
lane to get an armoured force closer to his forward companies’ unseen, and
whilst that attack was being addressed a far larger force could use the
distraction to close with the Anglo American unit.

Pat believed that the brunt of the attack from the
lane would in all probability be borne by 3 Company, but he was confident that
with the assistance of the section from the anti-tank platoon and a troop of
Challengers who were attached, they would cope. He could not predict where the
main attack would be focussed; it could drive on 3 Company as a second wave to
the first attack, or come at 4 Company and thereby divide the fire of his
artillery assets.

Pat Reed intended on giving 3 Company exclusive
call
on the battalions 81mm mortars, initially at least,
whilst using the artillery to carry out counter-battery shoots and then switch
fires to pound on the larger force once it was halfway to the battalions
position. This final NATO line did have close air support on call, but even
with the extra help it was limited.

SACEUR knew that the French 8
^th
Armoured and Canadian 2
^nd
Mechanised Brigades’ would need all the help they
could get once they put in their counter-attacks against the Soviet
bridgeheads, so he was preserving ground attack capable airframes for that
moment, which left mainly tank hunting Lynx and Apache helicopters, with just a
few flights of fixed wing ground attack aircraft, available to the blocking
force.

The Royal Artillery rep called 1CG’s CO over and
showed him the current download from the Phoenix, showing tanks and APCs beyond
the rise in the newly conquered ground, filing into the sunken lane and heading
towards Vormundberg. Pat estimated their strength to be between two and three
companies worth.
The UAV operator steered the machine north,
where at first the only vehicles to be seen were the burning hulks of the 40
Commando soft skinned Wimik’s and the Blue’s & Royals Scimitars, before
passing over massed armour that was already formed up and ready to go. His FAC,
Forward Air Controller, was also watching the downloaded images, and sipping at
a mug of beef beverage with an air of apparent calm about him, however Pat
could see in the man’s eyes that he was really loitering with intent, staving
off impatience as he waited for the CO to call on the services of himself and
his troops. A signaller passed Pat a slip of paper and waited silently as he
read the content; 2 REP was now under attack from a force of tanks with BMPs in
support, but Pat had expected as much.

The attack on the French paratroopers was merely a
supporting attack, one designed to prevent them using their Milan’s to fire
into the flank of the Soviet attack at extreme range, effectively denying 1CG
any help from that quarter. It was solid military tactics and Pat knew that it
was only a matter of time before his neighbours, the Argyll’s and the Light
Infantrymen, received similar attention, isolating his unit from help as the
main attack clashed with his forward companies and tried to drive over them.

The air battle above the Soviet armoured vanguard had
proved debilitating to both sides and the sky was, for the moment, relatively
clear as both sides refuelled and rearmed. Pat ordered the artillery to begin
counter-battery fire so that his own men could emerge from their shelter bays
and prepare to receive the enemy. His FAC dropped all pretence of nonchalance
and hurried back to his proper place within the CP once Pat had told him what
he wanted the available ‘air’ to do.

In fields and woodland clearings to the rear of the
fighting a host of British Army Air Corps Lynx and Apache helicopters had been
waiting with rotors already turning, and they now lifted off and headed toward
the fighting.

The barrage impacting on 3 and 4 Companies slackened
once the British 155mm rounds began finding the Soviet gun lines. It gave the
men a breather and allowed them to collect their wits and their weapons, and
then to leave the shelter bays of their trenches.

Although artillery was still impacting on the forward
positions it was at a greatly reduced volume. Artillery rounds criss-crossed the
air above the trenches as the gunners of both sides sought to make the other
duck. It was a duel that the NATO artillery could never win decisively due to
the Soviet’s numerical superiority, but it served the purpose that Pat
desired.  

L/Cpl Veneer and Guardsmen Troper had put a lot of
effort into the construction of their position, sandbags lined the firing bay
as insurance against cave-ins caused by the Stingers back blast, but many of
these were now leeching earth from rents where they had been peppered with
slivers of shrapnel by Soviet artillery rounds bursting overhead.

Troper had neglected to put everything under cover
once rounds had begun incoming, so consequently his tin mug and brew making kit
had vanished, scattered into the undergrowth by one or more near miss.

“Bluddy ‘ell…them fucker’s ‘
ave
ram-raided us!”
   

No sympathetic words were forthcoming from his
partner, who was listening to his PRC 349 and had a hand held up for silence.

Troper had a hangdog expression, but a thought
occurred to him and he instantly brightened up.

“I suppose it could be worse, we’ve still got your
brew kit, haven’t we!”

“No,
I
still have
my
brew kit…if you want some you can
buy
a
mug’s worth off me for two fags.”

An indignant Troper levelled an accusing, and somewhat
grubby, finger at his oppo.

“You jack bastard, you don’t even bleedin’ well smoke!”

“’Course I don’t, filthy sodding habit.” Veneer paused
to listen again at the earpiece but no one was yet speaking to them.

“When was the last time we had a NAAFI run, eh? The
smokers are gasping and will pay a quid for a coffin nail, so every fag you
give me I’m selling on.”

He stuck a finger in his free ear to drown out the
expletives aimed at him, and acknowledged in turn the radio message aimed
specifically at the battalions air defence contingent.

“Stop whinging, you wanker…our choppers are coming
forward, but we’ve to hold fire on all fixed wing stuff until informed.” He
pulled a launcher and a pair of reloads from the storage bay and then noticed a
trio of green painted faces topped by US pattern Kevlar helmets peering at them
over the lip of a fighting position to the left and slightly downhill. He
stopped what he was doing and stared back at them, but no one said anything so
after a few moments he involuntarily looked over his shoulder to see if they
were looking at someone else before looking back.

“What?”

The painted faces looked at one another as if
telepathically electing a spokesperson; the one on the right lost.

“Erm…
yuze
guys ain’t
thinkin
’ of
lightin
’ one of them
things off, is
ya
?” 

“What?”

The spokesman from the former colonies and his mates
waited for a more substantial reply.

In exasperation the young lance corporal responded.

“We’re the air defence detachment for this
company,
wot
the fuck do yer think
we’re goin’ to do?”

“We expect
ya
to walk three
hundred paces in any direction but this one,
before
you let one off.”
It was a different spokesman, but the message was the same,
not welcome
.

“If
ya
fire that thing,
every motherfucker with a gun will be shootin’ it in this direction, they hate
triple A.”

L/Cpl Veneer gave brief consideration to reasoned
argument, but logical debate had never been a strong point of his and so he
settled for giving the neighbours two raised fingers instead. The rigid digits
seemed to tempt fate because suddenly there were aircraft a hundred feet above
them and everyone dived for cover before noting they were outbound rather than
incoming.

The trio of RAF Tornado’s passing overhead belonged to
617 Squadron, one of the most famous units of the old Bomber Command, which
despite its maritime strike role had left its home base at RAF Lossiemouth two
days before hostilities had commenced, flying to Gutersloh with fifteen Tornado
GR4s and had been in the thick of it ever since. Three of its five remaining
airframes passed a hundred feet above the heads of the dug in Guardsmen and
Paratroopers, loosing off high-speed anti-radiation missiles before breaking
hard to the north. They lacked the numbers to either intimidate in a major way
or eliminate the AAA, and a mixture of quad 23mm and SA-9s rose from the massed
armour and followed earnestly in the wake of the departing aircraft. The
squadrons remaining pair of aircraft arrived on scene at that juncture, coming
in fast from the southwest and adding eight more HARM’s to the twelve already
in flight.