Command and control this day was achieved in the old fashioned way, by NCOs leading from the rear instead of the front where they should have been. The L/Cpl’s and L/Sgt’s could see the riflemen and Colin as they advanced toward the enemy paratroops, keeping everyone in line of sight.
Infantry battle drills consist of battle preparation, advance to contact with the enemy, reaction to effective enemy fire, locating the enemy, winning the fire-fight, the fight-through and reorganisation. However, they received no effective enemy fire on their advance, the RAF had done a proper job and Colin felt sympathy for the Russian soldiers, they had been brave men but the paratroops they did find were largely in no position to resist. Contrary to the opinion of the infantry on the ground, the airmen were in no way inferior. The nearest bomblet had landed a full 50m from the British positions and their CBUs had decimated the reorganising Russian airborne troops. Only eight had survived the battle at the LZ and subsequent airstrike, and of those eight only one was too brave or too stunned to drop his weapon when challenged. The seven survivors were handed over to the RSM and the defence platoon to deal with while Colin’s men returned to their positions via the clearing, checking the bodies, stripping the equipment and weapons before they could carry out a reorganisation and issue of an ammunition replen of their own.
Part of the battalion’s security was provided by its snipers, nominally a part of the recce platoon in peacetime, two joined each rifle company on operations and the remainder was the COs reserve. Most company’s had at least one sniper in their number and he got to choose his oppo, because snipers always work in pairs, always needed a spotter with more substantial firepower than they carried, riding shotgun.
L/Sgt ‘Freddie’ Laker and Guardsman Stephanski, who was known as either ‘Big Stef’ to his mates, or ‘Yoyo’ on account of the number of times he had been up and down the rank ladder. Stephanski would have done far better in an infantry regiment other than the Brigade of Guards. He had a low tolerance threshold for bullshit. There is a well-known saying in the Guards, ‘Join the army and see the world… join the Guards and swab the bastard!’ swabbing being soldier speak for cleaning. Stephanski had been a full sergeant once upon a time, until one day in Ulster when he and his platoon had returned to their company location in Strabane, Co. Tyrone, after an eighty hour operation. His men where dead on their feet, but on arrival the CSM of that company, CSM Brown, had been waiting for them. The brigade commander was visiting in several hours’ and the location had to be swabbed out… on the off chance he should inspect, which he never did.
“Excuse me sir,” Big Stef had said, once the platoon commander had disappeared.
“We start patrolling again in twelve hours’, these men need sleep and I find it difficult to believe the company commander ordered it?”
“He didn’t, I did Sarn’t Stephanski… because I don’t like flash cunts like you, so get cracking!” Stephanski had looked the CSM straight in the eyes.
“You know something Brown… I haven’t seen you shift yer fat arse outside on patrol even once in the last year, so as you are both well rested and no fucking use to man nor beast on account of the yellow stripe down your back… you swab it out!” The platoon members had paused in their journey to the dilapidated caravans that served as barracks. They saw the CSM turn purple with rage and open his mouth to reply, they also saw their platoon sergeant drop him with an upper-cut that broke the CSM’s jaw and follow up with a pile driver to the side of the head.
Stephanski had left the warrant officer out cold on the helipad. “Weapons inspection in thirty minutes, clean ‘em proper first time, and you get your heads down that much sooner.”
That had led to Stephanski’s first trip to Collie but his boys had got a full ten hours’ sleep before starting patrols anew.
North of Lohmen and three hundred yards from the safety of their own lines, Guardsman Stephanski and Lance Sergeant Laker had chosen a culvert beneath the railway line and camouflaged it by partially blocking the side facing the enemy. To even a skilful eye, the cambered bed of grey stones that the tracks rested on looked unthreatening, and only a close examination would discover the tin cans, with both ends removed, that permitted the soldiers to see, and shoot out of. Snipers are a hated breed but there are no cowards in their ranks. They do their job with cold-blooded professionalism, eliminating chains of command, shooting to wound rather than kill, to hinder and demoralise. Unlike their conventional brethren, they had no facility to call in support if they got it wrong and no one to blame but themselves.
When would-be snipers arrive at the School of Infantry, Warminster, it was assumed that they could already outshoot Annie Oakley, even if they had never used a sniper rifle before. The bulk of the course is devoted to fieldcraft and navigation, getting from A to B unseen, making the kill and bugging out. The first time the student got to fire the sniper rifles was a painful learning experience for some. They could be seen sporting sticky plasters or even a stitch or two on an eyebrow. ‘Snipers eye’ was the cause, getting their eye too close to the telescopic sight when they fired and the bare brass edge of the telescope would smack into their brow with the recoil. The final exam was in two practical parts, a stalk along a set route with observers watching for you and just to make it really interesting the observers knew exactly what route you had to use. The other part was a shoot, where the student was given his arc of responsibility, and it would be a big one! He would only get one chance, a three-second exposure of a target, sometime during a one-hour period. An exposure of that short a period meant he would have to stay in the aim, bearing the 15.93lb weight of the heavy weapon in order to be able to snap-shoot… and hit the target when it appeared, hence the name, ‘The Agony Snap’. Assuming the student passed both tests and had not upset an instructor along the way, thereby failing the attitude test, he got to wear a badge depicting a Lee-Enfield .303 rifle with a letter ‘S’ and the good chance of being tortured and shot out of hand by an enemy if caught. Skills pay does not apply in the infantry.
Today the snipers had the task of watching and reporting on enemy movement, the decision to ‘go noisy’ was left to them as it compromised their position.
One man remained on watch at all times whilst the other rested in the pitch darkness of the hide, waiting for the enemy to appear.