‘Fuck it.’ There was no time for anything else. Libby threw up his hands to protect his face as the Ural thundered into the huge armoured recovery vehicle coming down through the outer doors.
Rugged as it. was, the six-wheeler was no match for a modified T72, with its inches of armour and a weight more than four times that of the truck.
There was no room to pass, but Hyde tried throwing the Ural at the narrow gap between tank and wall to reduce the shock of impact. The tank’s broad left track climbed on to and crushed the truck’s engine before it stopped.
Revell found himself looking at the belly of the tank’s pulley-and hawser-adorned hull. The passenger door was tight against the wall and the other, distorted by the collision, was jammed. There was only one way out. One swing of his assault-rifle pushed out the windscreen, and then followed by Hyde and Libby he scrambled out onto the cab roof.
The uncomprehending crew of the ARV were climbing dazed from their vehicle. Hyde gave them no chance. His rifle barked three times and they tumbled back out of sight.
Revel] jumped down and ran to the back of the truck where Dooley, blood streaming from a gash in his forehead, was helping the others out. A bullet zipped past him, very close.
‘I’ll fix those buggers.’ Hyde appeared, and pulled a rocket launcher from the tangle of equipment on the floor of the truck. ‘Take out the generator that might do it.’
Firing wild bursts from the hip Rinehart was already trying to do just that, but more bullets were coming at them, ricocheting from the concrete and striking sparks from the truck’s chassis and rear axles.
Aboard the six-wheeler, Cohen was attempting to extricate Collins from beneath the pile of ammunition boxes. The major jumped on board to help. As they pushed the last aside they saw that the effort had been in vain. Collins stared at them with unseeing eyes.
‘Join the others and have them start back for the skimmer.’ It took a hard shove to get Cohen moving.
Shouldering the launch tube, Hyde took careful aim.
Bullets buzzed past him and smacked into the concrete at his feet, but he stood rock steady and kept the sights aligned on the big generator trailer sixty yards away. Only the top half of it was visible above a substantial sandbag blast wall, and that view was constantly being lost as smoke from burning drums of cable eddied about it.
Hyde gently squeezed the trigger and sent the black painted anti-tank rocket on its way. A few yards clear of the launch tube the projectile’s main motor cut in and it raced towards its target.
They heard the crash of its impact, but smoke prevented them from observing precisely where. The arc lights remained on. Sergeant Hyde was reaching for another of the disposable launchers when the lights flickered, dimmed and faded. ‘Will you look at that.’ Rinehart stood transfixed. ‘Hell must be like that.’
It was a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno. The big underground complex was now only lit by the unchecked fires that raged within it. With the last of the machinery stilled, apart from the occasional bang of a round cooking off, the only noises came from the many trapped and wounded men. It was hard to breathe. The air was searing hot and filled with poisonous fumes from the fires.
A fresh flare-up from the direction of the knocked-out generator lit up the service road by which they’d escaped. It was filled with a hobbling, crawling mass of wounded.
All of them were making for the ramp. Rinehart brought up his rifle, but like Revell beside him in a similar pose, didn’t fire.
The approaching men were pitiful. Only a few were groaning or making any complaint, but they served to highlight the silence of the majority. Shattered limbs, terrible burns and massive stomach wounds were all to be seen.
‘We’ve done enough, let’s get out.’ Skirting the truck, Revell was first to leap on to the front of the ARV completely blocking the ramp. He helped up Hyde and then extended his hand to Rinehart.
A scattering of shots came from somewhere among the wounded. They were being used as cover. One clipped Hyde’s rifle and tore it from his grasp, another struck the armour at their feet and went on to bury itself in a thick baulk of timber attached to the hull-top.
Rinehart froze, dropped his assault rifle, then sprawled back to lay spread-eagled across the top of the recovery vehicle. A high velocity round had struck him between the eyes. His helmet could be heard falling from ledge to ledge inside the hull.
At dangerously close range Revell put two shells into the track’s cab and, as they turned the crushed front of the Ural into a furnace, stepped back on to the recovery tank’s engine deck and pumped shells in through each open hatch.
On reaching the top of the ramp they looked back. A wall of spitting chemical fire blocked it, and as they watched, the boiling fuel in the Ural’s high capacity tank flared up and the over-stressed container split, sending a burning flood down the incline into the complex. There were no more shots, only screams.
FIFTEEN
Clarence was quite satisfied with his first shot. He’d watched as the gun-layer of the 57mm was lifted from his seat and laid out of sight below the rampart of sandbags. In a minute the body would have company.
The sniper settled himself behind his rifle again and waited. The non-stop concussion from the explosions in the hollow was no distraction that was a discipline he had taught himself.
Another Russian was climbing into the seat. Clarence gave him a second to settle down and. as the gun began to turn and dip, carefully pulled the trigger. He kept his eyes glued to the sight and waited – nothing. Confident, he maintained watch. Fully six seconds after he’d fired, his second victim slowly, almost gracefully, fell sideways and draped himself across the gun’s breech.
There would be no third target, not at that gun. Four Russians jumped from the pit and ran. Clarence turned his attention to the machine gun mount, and swore quietly to himself. The barrels of the weapon had been dipped to bear on his hillside, and the gun-layer was hidden behind the close packed machinery of the guns themselves and the strips of vertical armour plate to either side. Flashes tipped each barrel and tracer soared across the gulf between the hills.
It had most probably been intended as a morale booster, to give the crew the feeling they were doing something. But Clarence recognised that behind that random burst there lay an intelligent guess. Good: he enjoyed a duel and though not usually pitted against a flak gun, he wasn’t concerned about the disparity in fire power. The extra risk would add spice to the contest. He fed a fresh round into the chamber and took a long time over sighting.
‘Keep moving, keep moving.’ Revell caught up with the others and dragged them to their feet. ‘That lot was meant for Clarence, not for us!’ The tracer had started fires higher up the slope, away to their right. The circle of illumination they cast was rapidly expanding. Together Hyde and the major urged and shouted the others on, but there was no more speed to be got out of them. Dooley was having to help Libby who was trailing a leg, and Kurt clutched at his shoulder and seemed to slow with every pace.
Showers of sparks spiralled from the burning grass, starting fresh fires that spread towards them. Their way led between two patches of the flickering light, and a sudden increase in the strength of the breeze widened both to overlap and encompass the struggling group.
Another burst from the flak gun, chewed the ground, throwing soil and clumps of grass over them. This time no one took cover and the rate of progress up the hill increased. At the instant the flak gun ceased firing there was the distinct crack of a single rifle shot from the crest. A hesitant answering burst from the heavy machine guns soared harmlessly into the sky and ended raggedly. Then there was silence.