Overkill (17 page)

‘Oh, I was going to bring you breakfast in bed. I know it is a little late…’ She saw him as he came into the lounge. ‘No, I don’t want anything, thanks anyway.’ He hesitated. ‘About last night…’

‘Last night was last night. It is past, and I shall not talk of it if you do not want to, but,’ she leant against him and stroked behind his ears with long slim manicured fingers, ‘but I do not think you will be angry with me if I tell you it was lovely. I liked watching you do that, you came so many times, and when your fingers were inside me, and your tongue...’

‘Yes… but like you say, that was last night…I wouldn’t like anyone to know…not that I think you would...’

‘Shush.’ She put a finger to his lips. ‘It is forgotten, until the next time. Now, eat with me.’

‘I can’t, I must go back to be reassigned. That’s where I should have gone after I left the hospital, and I must check on Andrea.’

Inga didn’t argue, she could see that his mind was made up. ‘The reassignment office is closest, at least let me go there with you, won’t you?’

‘Sure, but I want to get away now, I’ve delayed too long already.’ He saw her hurt expression at that. ‘But I’ll admit it, I enjoyed it too.’

The sun was high in the sky and trying hard to break through the perpetual dust and smoke cloud that hung over Hamburg. It was blistering hot down in the street and the queues at the water tankers were longer than usual.

A familiar landmark was missing from the city skyline, but if the people shuffling endlessly forward with their buckets and jerry-cans noticed, they made no remark.

It was slightly cooler underground, but the sheer numbers of people lined up before the tables and waiting on the platform and tracks beyond kept the humidity high and the air stale. There appeared to be even more of them than there had the time before.

An hour passed before they even came within sight of the table: an hour of having their feet trodden on, of hearing petty squabbles all about them, of edging forward a half-pace at a time. If Inga had not been on his arm, helping to make the time fly, he would have barged his way to the front, using his strength, his rank or the 12-gauge to be attended to first. As it was he put up with the crowds and the noise and the bickering and the shoving because it stretched that much further the last few minutes he had with her.

‘You were not wounded?’ Andrea spoke to Revell, but her eyes were on Inga. ‘What the hell are you doing here, you’re supposed to be in the hospital.’ Revell was completely taken aback by her appearance. He noticed an assignment slip in her hand.

‘I could not stand being in that place. All that is wrong with me is that I have lost a little blood and I have some sutures in my leg. I reported here to get back into combat, but all they have given me is command of an old truck, an older man and some radio location equipment. Tomorrow I shall try again to return to a fighting unit. Who is she?’

The dislike generated between the two attractive women was instant and total. Revell would have liked to have thought that he was the cause of that, but he couldn’t believe he was. The introductions he made served only to ice the air further.

‘Did you know the squad was still intact?’ Andrea now ignored the tall blonde, acting as though she didn’t exist. She watched for the major’s reaction to the news.

‘Where are they?’ He tried to keep his voice casual, to give her no satisfaction by reacting with surprise.

‘At the Schauspielhaus, on Kirchenallee, resting. They were in action last night. I hear they crossed the Aussenalster and destroyed the big mortar that has been tearing Hamburg apart. It is only a rumour, but it is said they forestalled a Russian attempt to use a nuclear round on the city.’

Revell thought he felt Inga tighten her grip on his arm, and he patted her hand to reassure her. The action brought a withering look of contempt to Andrea’s face. Saying nothing she hitched her M16 more comfortably on her shoulder and went out. He noticed a slight limp in her walk and might have gone after her had his companion not kept a firm hold on him.

‘You will be rejoining your unit now?’
‘Immediately. I’ll come to the apartment as soon as I get a chance.’ He tried to pull away, but she clung tight.

‘I have a feeling, do not stay at the theatre. It will be safer if you find somewhere else. Please, do as I ask, please?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve survived this long.’ ‘Yes, but do not stay there, it is very important.’

The urgency, genuine pleading, in her voice was unmistakable, and Revell didn’t know quite what to make of it. He sought to calm her. ‘OK, I’ll get them to shift quarters, does that satisfy you?’

She nodded and then threw her arms round his neck and held him tight. Mostly the people in their vicinity ignored them, but an elderly woman sitting unravelling an old woollen cardigan smiled approvingly, and gave her chest a maternal pat as she watched the couple.

He had to tear himself away or he would never have had the courage to go. Disentangling himself from her embrace he gave her one quick kiss then turned into the press and made for the door, moving fast as he pushed through the throng and not looking back.

The squad registered amazement at his still being alive, but expressions of pleasure they saved for the news that Andrea had also come through. Revell saw a new face, and recognised it.

‘Thorne, have you been looking after this crowd?’

‘No he fucking hasn’t, Major, sir.’ Hyde shoved Thorne in the chest and barged him aside. ‘And he isn’t an officer in the Royal Engineers either. He’s a bloody sapper corporal, for the time being. I held on to him as I thought we might as well have his services for a while before the military police have him.’

‘This looks like being a day for surprises. OK, well done, Sergeant.’ Inga’s words came back to him, and their recollection convinced him there was more to them than some female whim, some half-baked premonition, though what he couldn’t fathom. ‘Get the men ready to move, will you. We’re relocating in five minutes, soon as I’ve squared it with Colonel Horst.’

‘Here, Major, what for? We’ve only just got settled here. They’re just putting a light under a field kitchen and we’ve found decent bogs and beds.’ Burke expressed the indignation and annoyance that several of the others displayed, but didn’t voice.

There wasn’t a reason he could give, not one that would make sense to them. Hell, it didn’t make any damned sense to him. ‘Just be ready to move when I get back.’ It wasn’t a good start to his resumed command.

To Revell’s relief the Bundeswehr colonel didn’t require any reason. He didn’t care where the major’s men set up home, so long as they could be found quickly in an emergency. He testily declined to take seriously the suggestion that he might like to move his own men from the theatre also, when no logical explanation was proffered to back the idea.

Hyde had to work hard and constantly to quell the mutinous muttering among the men when they left the great building and trudged off down the dusty road. Most of his threats had to be directed at Burke, who maintained a dirge-like monotone of complaint.

‘Comes back from the bloody dead ... drags us from our fucking dinner ... four shitty rows of upholstered seats ... nearest things to bleeding beds inside of a week ... proper chemical bogs ... even shit paper ...’

‘It were separated layers of corrugated cardboard.’ Ripper injected a qualifying note. ‘And we’d have had to knock the arms off the chairs before we could have laid on ‘em, and then they’d have probably tipped up and folded away with us inside of them.’

‘I’d still like to know why he’s dragging us away from a cosy billet...’

The air-raid sirens commenced their wailing, as they heard the approaching jets and dived for cover. A pair of MIG-27’s ripped the air apart with the staccato crackle of their turbofan engines as they passed overhead at only a few hundred feet.

From the fronts of their belly packs came the rapid clatter of their 23mm Gatling cannons delivering the maximum rate of fire. The mixed tracer and explosive and incendiary shells marched across an intersection, over the front of a gutted cinema and plunged in through the side wall of the theatre. At the same moment the aircraft released the contents of their under fuselage and inboard wing pylons.

Miniature parachutes deployed from retarded bombs began an arching descent towards the building, and falling with them were the tumbling teardrop-shaped canisters of napalm bombs.

Three of the six iron bombs fell short, blasting an avenue of destruction through an area already hit many times. The others straddled their target, and the walls and the whole fabric of the theatre were beginning to crumple as the napalm struck.

Fire made giant bubbles through the smoke of the earlier detonations and the building was completely hidden as thousands of gallons of petrol-jelly drenched and consumed the ruins.

For once, though, the city’s flak guns were putting up more than a token resistance. Lines of tracer, almost invisible in the bright sky save where they rose against the background of a smoke pall, chased the jets that, with their after- burners roaring, were climbing as fast as they could. For the trailing aircraft that wasn’t fast enough.

Pieces flew from the jet and the smoke trail it left suddenly turned darker. Its undercarriage began to extend, further decreasing its rate of climb, and then a plume of white vapour poured from its fuselage side. For another four hundred feet it towed the twin trails, then an explosion threw it sideways across the sky and the white trail turned to a long feather of flame. The outer section of its port variable-geometry wing broke off and the MIG went into a stalling turn that became a flat spin towards the ground.

At three hundred feet an anonymous chunk of wreckage falling with the aircraft resolved itself as the ejector seat. It towed the slashed and burning remnants of a parachute.

Aircraft and pilot struck the ground near enough together, somewhere over towards the docks.

‘You got second sight, Major?’ Gaping, Ripper watched the fires taking hold of the flattened theatre.

Revell didn’t have to answer; the incident had restored his stock, put him firmly back in charge again. But there was a question he was going to have to ask Inga, and he wasn’t looking forward to insisting on an answer.

‘Must be that nuke we found the other night.’ Revell re-read the order. ‘Looks like the city fathers have been scared to learn the Commies are ready to drop big ones on the city itself, so they’re bringing forward plans for the breakout.’

‘About bloody time.’ Dooley’s gut signalled its emptiness from both ends of him at once. ‘Another day and we’d have been classed as residents and then we’d never have got out.’

‘We’d never be residents, not anywhere.’ Attempts Burke was making to suppress wind from his small intestine were failing, and he joined the big man in a repulsive duet. ‘We’re cannon fodder. They’ll let us do the dirty work for them, but they wouldn’t have us as ruddy neighbours in case we glowed in the dark and frightened the kids.’

‘Same back home.’ Taking the sensible precaution of moving up wind of the other two, Ripper continued reassembling his rifle. ‘Got a letter from my Aunt Emma just before we came on this jaunt, and from the tone of it I got the distinct impression she thinks I’m in danger of growing two heads. Mind you, the jars of home-made wine she gets through I reckon she sees two of most things.’

‘If your second bonce is no improvement on the first, in looks or brain power, I wouldn’t bother if I were you.’ Burke signalled the finale of the obscene double act with a thundering fart that almost lifted his backside off the ground.

Dooley just had to top that, and lifting each buttock rapidly in sequence contrived to turn a long burst of pungent wind into an almost recognisable tune.

‘If you two carry on for much longer, then the Communists are going to think we are using poison gas.’ Boris sniffed the air.

‘Take care, mate, one whiff of that and you’ll be pushing up the daisies.’

‘Can the rest of you not smell it?’

‘I hesitate to ask, but smell what?’ Cautiously Clarence sampled the evening breeze, taking care to first check the reading on the chemical level indicator attached to his belt.

‘Food, no not just food, meat, cooking meat.’

‘Our pet Ruskie is going off his trolley.’ Clarifying his meaning by tapping the side of his head, Burke suddenly stopped, and began to copy the others who were also testing the air. ‘Christ, I must be going dotty as well. It must be the hunger.’

‘Then we can all smell it. Either we’re down wind of a Russian officer’s preparations for a private party, or they’ve come up with a new stunt to drive us all crazy.’

‘Not very likely, Clarence.’ Revell was also enjoying the aroma of roasting meat. ‘The Reds gave up subtlety long ago.’

A green star shell burst overhead and bathed everything in a ghastly light that turned healthy flesh a putrid colour.

Ripper held out his hands to examine the effect. ‘Can’t say I’m keen on what it does for me, but on Burke I reckon it’s an improvement.’

‘Silence from now on. We’re moving up to our start line, that was the signal. There will be a barrage of sorts to cover the noise of the move, but the guns are short on ammo and we can’t count on its smothering everything, so if you’ve got any last words, out with them now.’

‘Or forever hold your...’ A look from their NCO and Burke cut it short. ‘... Amen.’
‘Can I just say you might have used a better form of words, Major.’

Corporal Thorne was unimpressed when Hyde turned his disfigured face to him.

Revell let it go. He could afford to, there was scant chance that the sapper would come through the night of fighting that lay ahead. Only the order to take up positions for the breakout had saved him from being handed over to the military police on a string of charges. But he was paying a price for that reprieve. The satchel he carried contained five homemade limpet bombs. Utilising a shaped-charge principle they were to be used to finish any disabled armoured vehicles that continued to resist, or any pill-boxes the flame throwers could not subdue.

From close behind them a battery of field guns opened a steady if none too rapid fire, managing to send another shell on its way as the echoes of the previous died.