In the attack on the marines position he had so far only committed two tank and three APC companies, he still had one complete battalion and two more tank companies waiting in the wings. The first British positions were already under his control, including a slightly wooded rise, the control of which allowed them access to the marines left flank. An attack on that rise should have prompted reinforcement and priority of fire the second it looked to be in danger of being successful, but no increase in shellfire, airstrike’s or fresh troops had been evident due to the destruction of the chains of command. His men had killed the marines in their holes before occupying the position, and he was now ready to roll forward along the marines flank prior to making a sharp right and rolling up the entire position.
The snipers were ready to vacate the hide as soon as the marines began to appear in the lane were it topped the crest ahead of them. So far they had seen only the casevac party, but neither man doubted that it could be too long before the Commando began to withdraw, with its forward companies beginning a reverse leapfrog, giving ground but always with two companies covering as the other pair moved. That was the way things were done, and nobody had told them to expect anything else.
Stef saw movement on the crest first, two hundred metres left of the lane where a handful of men, some plainly wounded, forced a way through the hedgerow there, hacking at it with machetes to widen a gap and then dragging the wounded through it. More men appeared, this time in the lane, and then the men at the hedgerow were joined by two Scimitars of the Blue’s & Royal's, reversing into view whilst firing three round bursts back the way they had come. A pair of men each dragged a wounded marine towards the Guards lines, leaving a gun group and three riflemen to fight a rear-guard action alongside the light armour, which had now reversed over the hedgerow. It was a short, one-sided defence and both Bill and Stef watched open mouthed as the four marines and the wounded on the reverse slope were cut down by automatic fire, coming not from the front, but from the sunken lane. What they had assumed to be Royal Marines of 40 Commando withdrawing were in fact Soviet dismounted infantry using the cover of the lane to get as close as possible to the next line of defence.
“Why weren’t the trees dropped across the lane, I thought they’d been wired to blow, Stef?”
“Fuck knows, mate!” Stef grabbed the field telephone receiver once again, to warn the CP.
The troops in the lane switched their attention to the tiny knot of resistance beside the hedgerow, but it was not until two of the marines had been hit that the remainder realised that they had been flanked, but from their position on the crest the tankers were able to look down the slope and into the lane. A Scimitars turret traversed to the right and it opened fire, its 30mm cannon creating carnage in the narrow confines of the lane, which was now seething with Soviet infantry.
The response from the lane was sudden and swift, a Sagger left a thin trail of dirty exhaust as it flew across the intervening space to strike the light tank squarely on the rear of the engine compartment, the Scimitar’s cannon immediately fell silent and the vehicle began to burn without any of the crew bailing out.
The surviving marines used the smoke of the burning armoured vehicle as cover to make for a ditch running down the opposite side of the field to the lane, but the surviving Scimitar moved only to place its burning cousin between itself and the lane, gaining some protection at least to its exposed rear. Neither of the snipers could see what the lightly armoured vehicle was engaging, but its commander clearly felt that whatever it was, it was a more serious threat than even the enemy troops at his back. The Scimitar continued to engage the enemy in the dead ground beyond the hedgerow, but moments later it was struck by a main tank round and exploded in spectacular fashion, only its tracks remained.
Its killer emerged into view from out of the dead ground, the T-72s main gun moving from side to side as it searched for another target. The marine gained the ditch but not quickly enough to avoid being seen by the T-72s driver who altered course once the hedgerow had been negotiated, placing the armoured vehicles right hand track into the ditch and accelerating. Mud and grass, gauged out of the ditch's bottom flew into the air in the tanks wake, but then Bill vomited as he saw the airborne detritus turn red.
“It’s time to go!” Stef pulled the ends of the D10 cable from the field telephones terminals and stuffed the instrument inside his Bergan beside the Swiftscope. More tanks were appearing on the crest and Bill wiped his mouth on a sleeve before crawling backwards away from the firing loop.
“We need to get a rift on, or those bastards will be using us to line their wheel arches too.”
The ‘door’ to the hide was removed by Stef who emerged into the daylight before reaching back to haul out their Bergans, and once Bill had joined him they kept low and began to follow a pre-planned route, although indirect, that made use of the best available cover back to their lines.
Arnie Moore, assisted by the Padre, guided the Warrior into a natural fold in the ground that gave the vehicle total cover from view from the front, and yet by moving forward just ten feet it would be in a hull-down position and able to engage. He had noticed this spot several days before, it was too narrow to accommodate a Challenger II or the older Chieftain’s that the attached tank squadron had, but from this spot a Warrior could cover the steeply sided stream that separated this battalion from its neighbour on the left. Both units had of course sited positions to cover the possible chink in the proverbial armour, but Arnie could visualise those positions being swamped before any reinforcement could take place.
On the whole he thought Pat Reed had worked marvels in motivating tired men into achieving the level of defence that they had. It had been the commanding officer whom had seen the potential of making men spend time with picks and shovels on the slope between 3 Company’s platoon and the company positions. The hillside on the right of the battalion line was steeper than on the left, and with a lot of sweat and blisters the men had managed to make it damn near impassable to all but tracked vehicles with very, very skilled drivers. Anyone advancing beyond the bounds of 9 Platoon would find the gradient suddenly becoming quite severe and the natural routes blocked by the simple expedient of placing several pine trunks on their sides between two trees; on the uphill side of course. The trees braced the stacked trunks, which could not be easily bulldozed aside owing to earth that had been piled behind and hard packed. Beyond these obstructions the drivers would discover where the earth had come from, the troops had crudely quarried six to ten feet in depth in a band along the side of the hill. It wasn’t much but it would probably mean the infantry having to debus and hoof it uphill whilst the fighting vehicles tried to find another way around.