Thorpe took a left at the top, the clumping sound behind indicating that his radio operator was close behind. Once through the door on the left at the top of the stairs, he headed for the large window, a small crack of light showing him the way. He eased the shutter slightly, not wanting to expose himself behind the only unshuttered window in the house.
“Pritchard, open all the window shutters facing east, upstairs and down below, then back up here.”
“Sir.” With that, Pritchard went away to carry out his task.
Thorpe gave him a couple of minutes then pulled back both shutters, giving him a great view of the landscape out to his front. Hearing a clattering of boots on the stairs, he was soon joined by Sergeant Cohen.
“Good open country for the Milan’s, sir.”
“Yes, we can deploy them along this road. We need to keep a close eye on that road crossing our front. At least one firing point needs to be assigned to cover that. I’m sure they’ll cross over it, but if they’re stupid enough to travel down it, they will make a good target.” Thorpe moved the binoculars to the left, the canal now visible. Two kilometres to the east was the forest north of Lindhorst. “At least the Army Air Corps are keeping a lookout for us,” he said as he watched the hovering Lynx through his wavering binos. He passed the binos to his platoon sergeant.
“I want the sections dug in forward of the treeline. Let’s have the houses and trees at our back. The Soviets will soon target the buildings, but they’ll find it harder to spot us to the front, dug in. The houses can give us some cover when we need to pull back.”
Cohen agreed, handing the binoculars back to his platoon commander.
“What about the spare Gympy?”
“Put it with Two-Section, and the mortar directly behind them. That way, they can both cover the entire platoon front.”
“How long do you reckon we’ll have to hold this place for, sir?”
“Anybody’s guess, Sarn’t Cohen. Our job is to hold for as long as possible, or at least until the last units have withdrawn to the river. Keep the Soviets away from 2-Div as long as possible. Give them every opportunity to establish well dug-in defences. Then we can pull back.”
“Or get cut off.”
“Exactly.”
“We’ll hold the river though, won’t we?”
“We have to. We’re running out of places to run.”
The lieutenant twisted his shoulders to the right, zooming in to the village of Lindhorst. A staging post for an attack, he thought. If only we had more men, it would be a good defensive position. He saw movement on the road that ran west to east, from Ludersfeld to Lindhorst. It was a Fox, probably from the TA recce squadron that was providing a screen. At least they will have some warning of the enemy’s arrival. “We have recce from the TA out to our front. Let the sections know,” he said to his signaller who then moved away from the window, crouching down next to one of the internal walls, and contacted the sections of the platoon. “And remind them that there’s a TA company out front and they, along with elements of 3 Queen’s could come tearing through here at any time.”
“Sir.”
Oliver leant his elbows on the windowsill and tracked the open-topped Land Rover as it drove around the western outskirts of Lindhorst. “The Weser is pretty wide, and we’re building up a good defence.”
“I know, but their bridging kit is pretty impressive. How about our reinforcements, sir?”
“We have an American Corps coming in to support NORTHAG, but it’s not all arrived from the States yet. There’s a division on the way though.”
“That’ll help, surely.”
The officer turned to look at his platoon sergeant. “That depends on who gets first call. The Germans, Dutch, Belgians or us. Right, we need to get to work.”
“I’ll put two spotters from each section in some of the houses, sir. At least we’ll have additional warning when the Soviets finally turn up.”
“Yes, do that. The lads need to watch their backs as well. There could be Soviet airborne between us and the FARB. We know they’ve reached as far as Haste.”
Before the sergeant could respond, they heard the wop-wop, wop-wop, wop-wop of rotor blades from a Chinook twin-engine helicopter as it suddenly descended low in front of the house, in between their position and the L445. The large helicopter spun in a southerly direction, backing up until the pilot was happy with their position. The ramp at the rear was down, and two white plastic pipes jutted out each side at an angle. Two Land Rovers careered across the open ground just as the engineers, sitting in the back of the Chinook, released L9 bar mines, anti-tank mines, sliding down the plastic tubes, laying two lines of these lethal weapons as the helicopter moved forward. Soldiers from the Field Squadron, Royal Engineers, jumped out of the open-topped Land Rovers and started to set the fuses, following the large helicopter as it discharged its lethal cargo.
“Thank God for that,” uttered Lieutenant Thorpe.
“It will certainly slow the buggers down, sir.”
“We can hit them as they try to cross the Ziegenbach, and again when they hit the minefield.”
“What about our fallback positions, sir? We could do with checking them out.”
The young officer stroked the light stubble on his face, making a mental note to shave as soon as time allowed. “Of course. If I leave you to settle the platoon in, I can take the FFR Land Rover and scout our positions.”
“Shall I assign one of the sections to be the first to pull back?”
“Yes, make it the centre section. In fact I’ll take Lance Corporal Jeffries from Two-Section with me.”
When they abandoned this line, the platoon would have to move quickly on foot, with all their equipment, to the second defensive line. From there, they could hit the enemy again. Their final position would be behind the Holpe, another minor run of water that would act as a temporary barrier to the enemy. Once there, the helicopters of 24th Airmobile Brigade would swoop in behind them. As the Lynx Mark 7s of the Aviation Regiment provided cover, along with C–Company who were dug in along the road, the Lynx Mark 9s and Chinooks would pick them up and take them to wherever higher command dictated they would need to fight next.
Somewhere behind them, they could hear more helicopters, so they crossed to one of the rooms on the opposite side of the house to investigate. Pulling back the blinds, they could look through the line of trees out towards the open ground on the other side of the road. There was a flight of Chinooks, some carrying an internal load, either more troops or a Land Rover tucked inside. Slung beneath, several had a second Land Rover; others a net containing supplies and ammunition. Thorpe knew that at least one of the Chinooks would be carrying the Milan detachment, and the Land Rovers slung beneath would belong to them. This would enable his platoon to grab a ride, moving to their secondary positions much more quickly when required. Three Lynx hovered further to the south, dropping down on their skis, allowing the soldiers on-board to debus. B-Company was moving into position, their responsibility from Ludersfeld down to Stadthagen.
“Let’s go then.” With that, Lieutenant Thorpe headed for the stairs, closely followed by Sergeant Cohen and Pritchard.
“Pritchard, get onto Lance Corporal Jeffries and have him meet us here.”
“Sir.”
Once at the bottom of the stairs and out through the front door, they collected Barnes, Thorpe’s runner, and waited for the second-in-command of Two-Section to join them. Barnes, in the meantime, collected the FFR, Fitted For Radio, Land Rover.