“James dear boy, have you by any chance seen the latest on the opposition?”
“Yes sir, the point unit is Czech, their 23rd MRR according to the brigade G3.”
“You may or may not know all the ins and outs of this battalion’s first battle of the war, but it was against a Czech division that consisted of three regiments. The 21st MRR, which were annihilated whilst a second, the 22nd MRR, took heavy losses from this battalion before it, and the 23rd MRR, overran the battalions’ positions.”
“Ah, these are the guys who killed your wounded and the prisoners, aren’t they sir?”
“No Major, these are the guys who butchered our wounded, and the men they captured.”
There was a moment’s silence from his CO and Jim wondered exactly what was going to be asked of him.
“I want someone to go around the positions one last time before we come under direct attack. Talk to the new boys and give them a little reassurance, and spread the word that we play rough but we play by the rules…even with these bastards!”
If word hadn’t already got out, well there’s a first time for everything, Jim thought, he was going to have the impossible task of stopping this turning into a grudge match.
Arnie Moore had been looking for an excuse all morning to get out of this bunker and mix with the men on the firing line, and so he didn’t have to be asked twice. The RSM even managed to look sincere when Jim extracted a promise from him that he would be back before the Soviet’s reached the forward slopes of the location.
Arnie Moore took a tri of Guardsmen with him, and ignoring the FV-432 assigned for his use, he took Jim Popham’s Warrior and its three-man crew instead. He wasn’t planning on returning to the bunker any time soon, and if he were going to take part in the fighting he would require something more substantial than a bulletproof taxi.
There was a brief lull in the artillery falling upon the RM positions, and a Wimik broke from cover close by to a Soviet O.P to dash back into friendly lines, chased by small arms fire and mortars that fell wide. No sooner had the vehicle made it to safety the artillery fell once more, keeping the marines pinned in their holes.
Fifteen minutes later, brigade informed 2REP and 1CG, the units closest to the Royal Marines, that 40 Commando’s CP had gone off the air and the RM’s senior surviving officer, the O.C. Bravo Company, had taken command but his company CP was not set up to run the whole unit, so there could be command and control shortfalls. It was not an unheard of occurrence to lose a CP; 1CG had lost its own during its first defensive action of the war, so on the face of it the marines had hit an unlucky streak. Major Venables was passed the same message by the CP with an update by the C.O, and he in turn warned his troop commanders that they might possibly be leaving their hide positions for the forward fighting positions earlier than expected.
As well as warning the attached arms and company commanders, Pat Reed had the information passed to the OPs and snipers; Big Stef listened briefly to a signaller at the battalion CP and replaced the hides’ field telephone receiver.
“Keep a good eye open to the sunken lane, the Green Machine lost its CP.”
Bill removed his eye from the Schmidt & Bender sight. “They’ve got another, a fall back like we have, haven’t they?” The infantry was not his chosen arm and despite the time spent with 1CG he found many of the ways of the infantry a mystery.
“What about the farm, that’s a CP?”
“The farm’s their support company CP, and they may not have an alternate…we only have one because of what happened before. It’s not standard practice.”
Bill returned his attention to the scope.
“The marines’ gunners are back.” Stef grunted an acknowledgement. Half an hour before, the gunners had fired a mission and relocated, vacating the gun line nearest the snipers just before Soviet counter battery fire landed. The 105mm battery had been changing location after every mission it fired in support of the troops on the ground, and was now moving back in to their original position. If there were a breakdown in communication between units, it would be hard to tell if the gunners were relocating or bugging out because they may know something their neighbours didn’t. The only way to tell would be the sudden influx of traffic, foot and vehicular, onto the sunken lane.
“Keep a good eye out for any signs of the marines pulling back, mate. This could all go to ratshit pretty damn quickly.”
Bill kept his eye fixed to the telescopic sight.
“There’s movement in the lane.”
Stef crawled back to his place beside the staff sergeant and took up the Swiftscope, training it to where Bill had the rifle aimed.
“You see a Landrover with stretchers along the back?” Bill said. “It’s just to the left of the farm.”
Stef adjusted the point of view and then brought the vehicle into focus, watching it as it moved slowly down the lane.
“Casevac run.” Stef muttered. “And it’s a Wimik, not a ‘Lanny’.”
Anything on the lane was visible to their hide for only a hundred or so metres from the point where it appeared beside the farm, and after a short while the Wimik’s position was only identifiable owing to the vehicles radio antennae, sticking up above the lanes bordering hedgerow. They watched it for a few minutes because there was nothing else going on at the moment in their sphere of responsibility.
“Why do they keep on stopping?” Bill asked after the antennae began whipping energetically back and forth, indicating the vehicle had stopped again. It had done so twice within the space of a hundred metres.
“I dunno.” Stef was no wiser than his mate. “Maybe it’s knackered, or maybe there’s obstacles in the road that need shifting…and why are you asking me anyway, do I look like the fucking oracle?”
Any answer, which may have been coming, was drowned out by the sound of three 240mm mortar rounds landing as one. Both snipers had been looking elsewhere at that precise moment, and on looking toward the source of the sound they found the view of the farm obscured by smoke and flying debris. When the smoke cleared, the farmhouse, barn and all the rest of the buildings had all but disappeared. The mortars had been fired from seven miles away and the rounds had landed within a foot of one another, square on the roof of the farmhouse, but to the casual observer it seemed that a single lucky, or unlucky, round had scored on another 40 Commando CP. Fractured stone, brick and splintered timbers were still landing far from the point where they had played there part in the farms structure as Stef called it in on the field telephone. Bill swung his weapon back toward the lane in time to see the last of the stretchers and the burdens upon them being passed across the hedgerow. So the vehicle had broken down then, he thought, and watched the half dozen stretcher bearers lift their loads and start toward the hill defended by the Coldstreamers. That wasn’t the marines pre-planned egress route but Bill didn’t know if casevac’s had to follow the same route.
The first port of call for Arnie was 1 Company, to pass on the gospel according to Pat Reed and to look up his mate C/Sgt Osgood before the fight started. Directing his driver to park up in a ‘garage’, a prepared camouflaged area with camm nets thickening up the natural cover that vehicles could use without having to unravel and drape their own nets over whenever they stopped.