The Warriors driver brought the fighting vehicle along slowly, stopping whenever the RSM told him to but these stops were fleeting, allowing Arnie only to satisfy himself that they had not overtaken their prey. On one such pause however, the twenty-four tonne Warrior had settled, quite suddenly to one side as the ground gave way beneath the left-hand track. Arnie grabbed the side of the hatch to steady himself but after the initial list to one side the vehicle now seemed stable. Looking over the side of the turret he saw that some animal or other had apparently made its home beneath the bramble patch their fighting vehicle had entered and the weight had collapsed its tunnel. The Warrior obviously wasn’t going to tip over so he ordered the driver to proceed and transferred his attention back to the job at hand.
The collapse had grounded the Warrior; the brambles were crushed between its armoured belly and the earth. Its left track spun around, churning at the soft earth until it was able to find solid traction, but Arnie did not see the soft earth it churned at turn to a red paste speckled with white bone fragments. The Warrior continued on down the slope until reaching the line of field defences before the company in depth, but no sign was there of any other infiltrator’s.
Soviet artillery was beginning to fall on the forward companies now. Arnie reasoned that the movement he had seen was probably that of a rabbit or a fox startled by the cannon fire, so he ended the hunt by ordered the driver to take them back to the position covering the stream.
Pat Reed came off the air from a conference call with the brigade commander and received a handful of messages from a signaller, which updated him on several incidents taking place whilst the brigade commander had held his attention. None of the items were awaiting a decision from him or needed him to okay the appropriate action; they were being dealt with already. The 155mm self-propelled SA90s of 40 Field Regiment were firing a mission against the sunken lane, its rounds fused for airburst to best deal with the enemy infantry there. A damaged Army Air Corps Gazelle carrying a Royal Artillery officer had set down in a clearing behind the in-depth companies, it had been spotting for the guns when a Fulcrum had come within a hair of splashing it with a missile. It occurred to Pat that thus far they had neither seen nor heard of any close air support by the Soviet’s against either the Royal Marines or themselves today, so maybe SACEUR’s ‘forlorn hope’ had paid off? More good news was that two of his best snipers, Stef and Bill, had regained the battalion lines via 3 Company. Stephanski had ensured that the CP knew the enemy infantry were not only fighting unhampered by the wearing of respirators or gas masks, but also they were not even wearing their version of NBC suits over their conventional combat attire. It was a fairly good indicator, though not iron cast, that the enemy either had no stocks of chemical weapons at hand anymore or they did not see the need to employ them. This information was passed up to brigade as well as to the individual units and sub units in 1CG’s area of responsibility. Pat also received his snipers brief account of the final moments of 40 Commando, relayed to him by another signaller.
“One of 3 Company’s Milan crews is tracking the tank sir, it is still in clear view and they asked for permission to move forward to extreme range and engage?”
Pat knew damn well that they had in all probability already gone along the correct chain of command and had been refused.
“Three Nine knocked them back because he quite rightly didn’t want his assets exposed too soon, so do they honestly think I’m going to overrule one of my company commanders just because their blood is up?” Pat left the signaller to pass on the rebuke, and carried on reading, his eyes skimming over the words and taking it all in. The RSM’s report of infiltrators and the death of the Padre were both saddening and alarming, but none of the emotions he was feeling could be read on his features by anyone watching at that moment.
“Has this infiltration business been acted upon, Timothy?”
The Adjutant was on the radio to Major Venables and he raised a thumb above his head without looking around, confirming that he had it in hand but then winced as Soviet artillery impacted none too far away from the CP. As the rumbles died away he took the radio headset off and glared at it in disgust, but the radio operators were already removing the various radios antennae coax cables and replacing them with others that led to an alternative antennae farm. Pat listened as Tim re-established communications with the Hussar squadron’s commander and explained that artillery had just taken out one of the antennae farms.
All in all, Pat considered that things could have been far worse by now, but he mentally kicked himself for tempting fate because another message was handed to him. The Guardsmen and Paratroopers in the forward companies had been receiving artillery for the past twenty minutes, but not in a concentrated fashion, that had just changed now as both company CP’s reported a drastic increase in the weight of incoming fire. Lt Col Reed could only guess at how long the enemy was planning to soften up his unit before continuing the assault.
23rd Czech MRR went firm on the positions formerly held by the British 40 Commando, in expectation of one of the Romanian regiments passing through to take up the assault, but any hopes of a breather were dispelled when 23rd ‘s commander gave his sitrep. 23rd MRR still had adequate fighting strength remaining and were ordered to carry out a quick reorg whilst the next NATO position was ‘prepped’ by artillery. Once the reorganisation had been completed, they would step off over the rise and cross the 3 kilometre wide valley to fight through to the summit of Vormundberg. The commander of the 23rd knew he had just had one easy victory and was ready for more, he knew the Spetznaz team had crossed over into the next enemy position, securing him the sunken lane, a route safe from direct fire down into the valley that a company of mounted infantry in BDRMs and a tank company could use.
He had lost the best part of a company of infantry in the sunken lane through NATO artillery, but they had been dismounted and vulnerable to such fire, away from the protective armour plate of their vehicles. So hyped up was he with success, he did not think to ask if the Spetznaz major was still sending fire missions to the gun line, he merely assumed that the division commander would inform him if all contact had been lost. On the other end of the secure communications link the Romanian General was a little relieved that he had not been asked that question because lying was a necessary, yet tedious art in this business of man management.
The distribution of fresh ammunition and the shifting around of personnel to even up the losses went swiftly, largely due to the lack of incoming rounds from NATO guns.
At Lt Col Reed’s insistence the guns available to the battalion were being preserved until the Soviet’s put in their attack, and the Royal Artillery had a Phoenix UAV aloft now, watching for that very move. He knew that there was a distinct possibility that the enemy would use the sunken lane to get an armoured force closer to his forward companies’ unseen, and whilst that attack was being addressed a far larger force could use the distraction to close with the Anglo American unit.
Pat believed that the brunt of the attack from the lane would in all probability be borne by 3 Company, but he was confident that with the assistance of the section from the anti-tank platoon and a troop of Challengers who were attached, they would cope. He could not predict where the main attack would be focussed; it could drive on 3 Company as a second wave to the first attack, or come at 4 Company and thereby divide the fire of his artillery assets.