About 300lbs of plastic explosive remained in the bunker, but without detonators inserted it would just burn fiercely, however the boxes of grenades, claymore mines and assorted munitions, would cook off nicely in the flames fed by the remaining twenty jerrycans. Emerging into the open he dropped the light bulb he had removed, and crushed it under foot before gesturing to the captain and the eight remaining men to follow him. Helmstedt held the nearest soviet forces and he headed southwest at a run, looking to put as much distance as possible between the evidence of recent habitation and themselves.
The mortars had dropped smoke to cover the pair of rifle companies in their advance on the woods, but on reaching the trees that cover stopped. The sweep through was only accomplished after much shouting and cursing, frequent stops in order to straighten the line and regain the intervals between each man. At 8am the Coldstreamers came up to the wrecks of a pair of Marder infantry fighting vehicles, a Bradley and a trio of M113s, a smell of something very similar to roast pork hung heavily in the air. The section that made the discovery also reported the presence of children’s corpses, but CSM Probert put the finders straight. He was pleased that the section was in cover when he arrived at the edge of a burnt area, all of 400m long and half again as wide. Blackened tree trunks, their branches burnt down to mere stumps, stuck up like ebony stalagmites from the roasted earth, giving the scene the look of an alien landscape. He followed the sections young commander to the first corpse, the soldier was keeping his features steadfastly neutral as he pointed it out, and Colin knew the young man was disturbed by this apparent discovery.
“The thing about napalm Corporal Tolley is the high temperature it produces. Body fluids boil away, and as they do the rest, including the bones, contracts… this isn’t a child’s body, I’d say he was about medium height when he was alive, the heat just shrank him by six inches or so.” The section commander looked down at the body, and then at Colin, visibly relieved that they hadn’t been involved in the accidental death of some kids playing Robin Hood amongst the trees.
They counted thirty-six bodies amongst the vehicles, and a further ten spread about nearby in pairs, easily identifiable as the sentries, but had found no living enemy troops. The first indication that there were survivors from the attack came a short time later when they came up to the bunkers, and Colin having rejoined his place at the centre of the platoon, hurried back.
He crawled the last twenty feet to where L/Cpl Tolley was lying beside Major Thompson.
“Sir, Armitage came across those two open trapdoors, there’s a fair bit of foot traffic around them in the snow, but he had a listen and says he can hear someone shouting from the far one..… that was before he called me. I’ve had a shufti, and it sounds like women.”
Colin could see the openings, about 25m away.
“What can you tell me, are they tunnels or what?”
“Sir, I can’t see the point of having two entrances next door to each other if they are tunnels. The trapdoors are metal, look fairly old like, and there are ladders that go down ten feet or so… the walls, what I could see of them, are brick, it’s pretty dark in there… maybe they are some sort of hides, sir.”
He nudged Tolley.
“Okay corporal, cut along back to your section, get them to toss across all their toggle ropes.” Colin had decided that an entry had to be effected so he was working on the assumption that there may be booby traps, the ladders were therefore suspect.
Colin used hand signals to tell 2 Section to provide cover if required and once the signal had been passed to everyone in that section, Colin crawled forward on his stomach, following Tolley’s footprints in the snow.
Crisis management is all about priorities, what needs to be done first and what can wait. A policeman at a traffic accident will deal with any casualties first, then the cars and lastly the witnesses, but if there are enough blue uniforms on scene they can do all three at once. The problem the President of the United States had was that there was just one of him and too many crises vying for the top slot. Some items he could farm out but others were his alone to deal with. A crisis not of the national security variety, but much closer to home, had been trying for twelve hours to reach him. A personal secretary at the family home in Wisconsin had notified the First Lady of a very official communication from the Defence Department, addressed to the Presidents first born. She had thought that they had an understanding, that their son would not be required to serve, and furthermore their friends had received the same call-up papers and some though not all felt betrayed. There were other people seeking his attention for the same reason, including some major contributors to the party war chest who did not appreciate their sons and daughters call to arms. It would be some time a lot later that day that the President would receive the first angry caller.
The President broke the connection with the new British PM, and shook his head in dismay. He had meant only to send commiseration’s followed by congratulations to his new office, but the damned man had stated he wanted some ‘input’ into how the war was being fought. He had obviously read a book once on cold war military strategy, and after a few words of very feigned regret at the death of his predecessor, stated he wanted the RAF to commence deep strike operations against railheads etc, in Poland and the Czech Republic. Didn’t the fool realise that his air force, in fact both their air forces, had been four times larger when Deep Strike had been an option, and now they just did not have the aircraft for such missions.
He wasn’t vastly impressed with the cabinet re-shuffle that was proposed either; the ex-servicemen his predecessor had brought in had been ousted by academics. That last thought brought a wry smile to the Presidents face, he was an academic himself and his own opinions of the military had undergone a sea change in the past weeks. However, the President had objected to the new PMs choice for one critical position as he failed to see what a 30-year-old with a degree in Sociology could bring with her by way of experience to the key Defence Ministers post. He was put on hold for half a minute but he knew full well that the ‘urgent matter that would take a few seconds’ was merely a ploy to continue the call on another phone. The CIA and diplomatic sources kept him abreast of the peccadillos in both friendly and unfriendly governments.
Political horse-trading had commenced with the resumption of the call, and ended with a former Shadow Cabinet member getting the job.
He replaced the receiver and chuckled because he didn’t know what amused him more, the fact that the guy wouldn’t be getting anymore extra-marital workouts in that bed, or the Sociologist who’d just been screwed twice, in very different ways.