you offering him, kill or cure?’ Sergeant Hyde butted in. ‘Finish that muck fast or throw it out. The whole damned cabin stinks.’
Major Revell was only half-aware of the conversation and exchanges going on behind him. They were back over the road again, and he was watching it from between the two pilots, looking for a natural obstacle that would stop the column and force it to deploy when they next brought it under fire. Too near the advancing Russians and there wouldn’t be time to set it up; too far ahead and there would be no chance of setting up a third ambush if it were needed.
Hell, who was he kidding? Of course it would be needed. The way the Reds had ploughed past the first roadblock was proof of more than blind determination. He’d seen them come on like that before, lots of times, and later interrogation had always uncovered the nature of the orders that had driven them suicidally on.
The words ‘or else’ were never actually included in the orders, but every Russian officer developed a genius for reading between the lines. False economy, particularly in respect of casualties, was never a factor behind the decisions arrived at by the Soviet Command. If a target was of sufficient importance, then forty tanks and two hundred and fifty men were utterly expendable to capture or destroy it.
Frankfurt was that important. The column, while formidable on any battlefield, was totally inadequate for taking a city, but the panic their appearance on the streets would cause, before they could be mopped up, would be catastrophic.
‘That’s what we want. Put us down there.’ The chopper sank to a fast bouncy landing in a field not far from the stone bridge. Revell had the door open before it settled, and was shouting instructions even as he jumped out.
‘Cohen, get us air-support. Tell them we’ll have a backed-up armoured column for them in… in forty minutes. Sergeant, I want explosives under that bridge, enough to bring down most of the span. Any mines we have left go on the far bank. Concentrate them at the most likely locations armour might use to cross.’
‘What about the bus?’ The pilot had come out of the Chinook, and approached Revell as he assisted in the unloading of the stores. ‘Hang on here until we’re finished, then you can lift us to that farm over there.’ Revell indicated an extensive sprawl of barns and sheds, surrounding a shuttered four-storey house fifteen hundred yards away. ‘That’s fine by me, just don’t leave it too late. If we’re in the air when the Ruskies show, then we won’t be for long.’ He turned to go back in, then paused. ‘You need any help?’
‘Every bit we can get. Take these over to the bridge.’
‘OK.’ The pilot held out his arms and accepted the load of explosives and fuses. ‘Matter of fact, I’ll be glad when the last of this ordinance is off my old bus. Since I came over, I’ve mostly been hauling vehicle spares, it was beginning to get kinda boring. Now I reckon I’m looking forward to the stink of axle grease again.’
The co-pilot was not as pleased to be roped in to help with the portering. The sweat that poured from him, as he lugged the charges to where Libby was setting them against the underside of the single arch, had little to do with the effort involved. His peace of mind wasn’t helped by Dooley who, seeing his nervousness, cut a thin slice from a block of plastic explosive and put a match to it right in front of him.
‘Save the party tricks and get on with it,’ was the only rebuke offered by Hyde, as the co-pilot made a peculiar strangled noise and backed away, to turn and run clutching the seat of his pants to the nearest ditch.
Libby had rested the charges on the ledges of large steel I beams, that had been set into the structure some time in the past to strengthen it. ‘That’s the best I can do without more time to play around.’
‘That’ll do.’ Revell looked over the parapet. ‘They’re not going to see
Tracie Peterson, Judith Pella