Yes, why should they hang on around here? They could have grabbed all the armour they needed, topped it off with a handful of combat engineer tractors and been fit to punch their way out of most anything the Reds would have had this far forward by now.
He couldn’t even put it down to Voke’s enthusiasm and persuasiveness. No, he’d stayed because he’d wanted to, because of his desire to dig his heels in, to turn around and face the Russians and show them they were going no farther. He and his men had taken enough, more than enough. If the politicians were content to fudge and compromise, he wasn’t, not anymore. Europe was being nibbled away piece by painful piece. Well, not anymore, not any fucking more. They were going to be stopped, and they were going to be stopped right here.
Ripper stood with his upper body out of the roof hatch. He kept one hand on the traverse ring holding the Browning and the other he rested against the launch tube of the Stinger missile where it nestled between the back of the cab and the folded arm of the onboard loading crane. Often he had to duck to avoid low branches, and after each occasion had to clear foliage caught on the machine gun. All the time he kept watch for enemy gunships, working mostly by touch so as not to relax vigilance for a second.
Picking a shred of steak from between his teeth, Burke made appreciative lip-smacking sounds as he flicked it out through the side window. ‘Don’t you tell him I said so, but considering it was done in a bloody crematorium, that meat were good.’ He shifted down through two gears as a sharp bend before an incline gave him no chance to take a run at it.
‘Hey, Ripper.’ Burke shouted to make himself heard by their roof gunner.
‘You’re always spinning stories. Tell me, how do I ever get people to believe me when I tell them I’ve had a dinner cooked in the oven of a crematorium?’
There was no answer, but Burke had hardly expected one. The Southerner was always touchy when anyone cast the slightest doubt on the veracity of his homespun stories.
‘The bridge is just over this next rise. Take it slow.’
All his training, all his experience, all his common sense told Hyde they should stop short of the crest and go forward on foot to reconnoitre the brow of the hill and what lay beyond, but their schedule was too tight to allow such caution.
At the back of the cab the two middle-aged Dutch pioneers were deep in whispered conversation. Hyde took no notice, until it appeared to become heated, and voices were raised. He turned in his seat.
‘What’s up?’
‘We are having to argue, thank you.’
‘I can hear that. What about?’
Again there was a gabble of Dutch between the pair, then the other spoke up, scowling first at his compatriot. ‘I do not think we should blow the bridge. It is my thinking that we should instead drop the mill onto the road and bridge as the Russians pass.’
In bottom gear Burke crawled the truck over the brow, and there below them the view was exactly as they’d last seen it.
‘It’s very tempting and I’d love to see it happen, but we haven’t the time for fancywork like that. Okay, Burke, what are you hanging about for? Put your foot down.’
The Scammel surged forward, and was doing sixty before the brakes were applied. For a moment it seemed the back end was going to break away, but Burke corrected before a skid could develop. ‘Where do you want it?’
‘See if you can turn it around without any more bloody dramatics. Then park it out front of the mill.’ With the motor now warmed and running quietly, Hyde clearly heard a distinct new sound against the background thunder of the barrage.
Andrea heard it also. ‘Mines.’ She listened again. ‘And ammunition. The Russians have run onto the minefield where Taylor was killed.’
They jumped from the truck, Hyde shouting to Burke before slamming the passenger door. ‘Get a bloody move-on, and don’t ditch it.’
‘Fucking great.’ Burke took the precaution of speaking after the door had closed. ‘I’ve got a wagon longer than the road is wide and he wants me to try for the world’s fastest three-point turn.’
‘If you reckon you ain’t up to it, boy, I’ll always have a go.’
‘Shit,’ Burke muttered under his breath. He’d forgotten Ripper still manning the anti-aircraft mount. ‘You just concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing. If we get jumped by a gunship we’ll be in worse crap than if I drop a couple of wheels off the road.’
Before the Scammel finally rocked to a halt facing back the way they’d come, boxes and cases were already being hauled from the back and broken open on the road.
The Dutchmen had made a hurried survey of the bridge and when they returned to Revell they were arguing again.
‘So what is it now?’
Grudgingly they broke off their acrimonious exchange.
‘It is stronger than we expected. With the charges we have they will need to be placed right underneath to be sure of bringing down the span. Anywhere else and…’
‘How long will it take?’ Even as he said it, Revell knew he’d made a mistake by addressing the question to both of them.
‘One hour, not more…’
‘At least two…’
‘I say one…’
‘So help me if you two start up again I’ll leave both of you here.’ Hyde’s bellowed threat cut them short. He stabbed his finger into the chest of the older man. ‘We’ll go for your idea. How do we drop the mill?’
He looked smug and was about to make a sarcastic aside to his companion when he saw the NCO’s expression and decided against it. ‘That is a fuel-air bomb.’ Gesturing at a tarpaulin-shrouded hump aboard the Scammel, he began to unfasten a securing rope and then tugged at the heavy waterproof material.
It fell away to reveal a drab-painted cylinder about two meters long and half as wide. This was the first time Hyde had seen one close-up, though he’d witnessed their tremendous power from a distance.
‘Get it emplaced as fast as you can. Time’s running out on us.’ Taking up a heavy case of claymore mines, Hyde went to join Andrea and Burke, who were setting various anti-armour and anti-personnel devices to cover the approaches to the bridge.
They worked quickly, hardly needing the prompt provided by the distant reports of mine explosions. Cannon fire blended into the destructive chorus and told Hyde that the Russians were putting down a firestorm in order to blast their way through.
Hurried though the preparations were, they were thorough. Mines and launchers were set where they would be protected by the devastating sweep of shotgun mines and these in turn by smaller ones scattered among the undergrowth.
Those hidden most carefully were fed instructions to delay detonation until a certain number of armoured vehicles had passed, in the slight hope of catching a command APC or even a bridge-layer. In any event their discharge over a period of time into the flanks of the enemy advance column would be bound to disrupt it, if not bring it to a halt while the area was cleared.
‘Right. That’ll have to do. Back to the truck.’
The fat pressure tank was just being lowered behind a low wall beside the mill. In the shadow of the building, with the added embellishment of a few broken planks and sheets of corrugated iron, it blended in perfectly.
‘About five minutes to make the connections, Sergeant.’
‘Six,’ muttered the other Dutchman.
‘Seems a pity.’ Looking wistfully at the building, Burke gave a heavy sigh.
‘Whoever was doing that up must have been sick as a pig when they had to abandon it. A bit of sympathetic restoration and it would have made a lovely home. I could retire to a place like this. Look at the setting.’
Andrea was arming small mines and throwing them to lodge among the crevices of rock below the bridge. ‘None of us will live long enough to retire.’