“Sorry I’m late,” the third member of the team shouted down the shaft. They heard the ringing bell of a Green Goddess as it roared past on the road above.
“You’ve just made in time. Did you hear the alert as you came down the ladder?” Bill asked the new arrival.
Alfie Rose dropped to the concrete floor from the last two rungs of the ladder. “Yes, I did. Police and Civil Defence teams are running about like headless chickens up there.”
“If you’d left it any later,” responded Bill, the leader and observer one, rather sarcastically. “You’d be a headless chicken yourself, but fried. Right, Charlie, you man the loudspeaker telephone.”
As Charlie made his way to the telephone, a message was transmitted from the post display plotter. “Horsham, ten, eleven, twelve posts. Standby for message. Over.”
Horsham Ten-Post responded. Then it was Charlie’s turn. “Horsham-Eleven Post. Over.”
“Attack warning red. Message ends. Over.”
“Horsham-Twelve, thank you. Out.”
In the meantime, Alfie, observer three, switched on the fixed survey meter (FSM) and confirmed that the check sequence read zero-zero.
“Confirmed zero-zero, Charlie.”
“Horsham Eleven-Post. Over.” Observer two transmitted to the post display plotter.
“Horsham Eleven-Post. Over.”
“FSM on. Over.”
“FSM on. Out.”
The team of three men would now commence and maintain a continuous watch on the bomb power indicator.
Bill sat on one of the bunk beds up against the wall at the opposite end to the entrance shaft. “Buggers have done it,” he moaned.
“We’ll know soon enough,” added Alfie.
“Come on, you two, it’s not definite,” suggested Charlie.
“Horsham Eleven-Post. This was an exercise. Stand down. Over.”
“Horsham Eleven-Post. Thank you. Over.”
“Horsham Eleven-Post. Out.”
“Bastards,” growled Alfie. “Playing games at a time like this.”
Bill patted both his fellow observers on their shoulders. “Hey, let’s be thankful. It wasn’t for real this time round.”
“Yes. This time round… ” added Charlie.
Chapter 24
The tracks of the erector launcher were locked and the straps securing the missile removed. The rear platform was lowered, and two soldiers, dressed in their NBC suits, ran forward and proceeded to attach the four fins. Gunner Boyes cranked the launcher, raising it enough to allow Bombardier Jones access to the panel. The NCO loosened two screws before removing a small oval panel, tucking it beneath his armpit. He armed the nuclear-tipped missile; then replaced the cover. Joining Boyes, he helped the soldier lift off the protective cover from the MGM-52 lance missile. Sergeant Lawson, in the meantime, sighted the missile before entering the parameters for the warhead. Once the men had completed their respective tasks, the six-metre missile was slowly raised until it was in the correct azimuth with the nuclear warhead pointing east in the direction of a part of West Germany that would be the target of its deadly load. It was not the standard nuclear warhead that could be carried by this messenger of death. The standard would be between a ten-kiloton and 100-kiloton nuclear warhead. This one was special, a W70-3. This was seen as more of an anti-personnel weapon rather than an anti-infrastructure destroyer and killer of civilians. The W70-3 was a neutron warhead, with an enhanced radiation capability. Once the missile was ready to launch, two of the gunners sprinted back to the firing point where the weapon launch would be controlled. The remaining two soldiers carried the remote launching unit, unwinding the firing cable behind them as they went.
The officer in command got the nod from the two men that their task was complete. “Standby then. Ensure safe.”
“Ready here, sir,” confirmed the corporal at the control box. “On safe.”
“Minus one minute,” added the sergeant next to him.
The officer crouched down next to them. “Arm.”
“Minus three-zero,” the sergeant, listening to the comms, informed him. He then flipped the cover that allowed him to arm the weapon.
“Minus thirty,” confirmed the captain in command. “Standby, standby.”
The sergeant flipped the red cover up, exposing the firing switch.
“Minus two-zero.”
“Minus twenty,” added the captain.
The sergeant’s gloved finger hovered over the switch as he counted down. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.”
“Fire!” ordered the captain, and the switch was depressed.
One hundred metres away, two jets of black gas shot out from vents halfway up the missile, quickly followed by the white-hot flame discharged from the rocket motor, engulfing the launch platform in a thick black cloud, punctuated by the hot white and yellow flame as the burning liquid propellant thrust downwards, forcing the projectile to leave the launcher. In less than a second, the missile left the rail and climbed at a sixty-degree angle higher and higher, leaving a black trail behind it, marking its progress as it flew towards its prey. The sound of the launch was like the din of a heavy airliner blasting off from a runway, slowly diminishing until it merely sounded like an aircraft flying overhead at high altitude. Eventually, there was just a faint glow from its tail as it rapidly disappeared from view; ultimately only the swirl of a contrail evidence of its journey. A further 700 metres to their north, a second lance missile streaked across the sky as it too flew towards a very different target. Elsewhere, an American unit fired two lance missiles carrying the same deadly warhead. The last pair to blast off were launched by a West German missile unit.
Chapter 25
Colonel Bajeck’s view of the landscape in front of him suddenly disappeared, replaced by a blinding white light. He, along with twenty or more tank crews of the Polish tank battalion, was about to experience the effects of flash-blindness. They had just witnessed the detonation of a West German neutron warhead exploding 200 metres in the air above one of their sister tank units, T-72s moving into position ready for an attack the following day.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” Shrieked a sergeant close by. Shouts could be heard from other soldiers of Colonel Bajeck’s tank battalion. Flash-blindness, an effect of the initial brilliant flash of light produced by the nuclear detonation, is harmful to the human eye. The retina, unable to tolerate the high levels of light focussed by its lens, caused the visual pigments to bleach. Unknown to the panicking tank crewmen, some injuring themselves as they blundered around their environment, the effects would only be temporary, perhaps gaining some level of returning vision within the hour. For some of their comrades, directly beneath the detonation, the suffering was far worse.
Lieutenant Sawicki, sitting cross-legged on the glacis of his T-72 tank directly beneath the blast wave, was flung against the armour of the adjacent tank. His body was incinerated a second later. Any tank crews sat, stood or sleeping outside of their vehicles, suffered a similar fate.