“Thinking of your wife and daughter, Patsy?”
Patsy smiled at the use of his nickname. “Yes, when I’m not shitting myself. What the hell is that?” Exclaimed Patsy looking skyward.
Dusk suddenly turned to daylight. Alex thrust Patsy’s head down and tucked his own into his chest as the sky got brighter and brighter. The flare eventually died down, and both looked back through the gap in the trees behind them. The ground shook, and the noise of the detonation eventually reached them. Towards the west, a glowing plume was slowly rising higher and higher; a plume they both recognised, something they had seen in history books, magazines and on TV documentaries. They never ever thought they would see one at first-hand.
“Oh God,” Alex groaned. “Gas! Gas! Gas!”
The tanks of Combat Team Delta were dispersed around the small forest south of Locum. They couldn’t go any further east until they had refuelled and rearmed. They had enough of both to defend their current position, but not enough to advance any further. They had met stiff resistance while fighting against the encircled Soviet division, who fought ferociously. It was only the enemy running out of ammunition and fuel before the 7th Armoured and 2nd US Brigade did that secured the allies a victory. But now across the Weser, they would have to wait before they could move any further forward in support of 22nd Armoured.
They would never know what happened next. Positioned 100 metres from the centre of the nuclear air burst, the crews outside and inside their tanks, along with the ordnance and equipment, out to a radius of 300 metres were instantly vaporised as temperatures reached 6,000 degrees. The trees that had been providing them with cover from the enemy swayed away from the direction of the blast, stripped, their foliage vaporised, before springing back, some crashing to the ground in flames. The tarnished tree trunks that remained were blackened, smouldering stalks, like rotten, broken teeth. Light armoured vehicles were flipped over; soft-skinned vehicles likewise, quickly bursting into flames.
The corporal, zipping up his fly as he returned to his tank twenty metres away, just inside the edge of the forest, looked at the flash, the sky, the air, the space in front of him losing all colour: just white, blindingly white. But only for a fraction of a second as the rapidly increasing fireball engulfed him, vaporising skin, flesh and then bone. He felt nothing. He just didn’t exist any more. A modern-day crematorium furnace generates a heat of 1,000 degrees Centigrade to burn a body and ensure the disintegration of a corpse. The bodies of soldiers and civilians engulfed in the nuclear fireball didn’t just disintegrate: in the 6,000-degree temperatures, they were vaporised.
Out to a kilometre, the air blast demolished most buildings, destroyed soft-skinned vehicles and killed all those that weren’t protected by solid cover. Even out to three kilometres, soldiers and civilians alike suffered injuries that in many cases were fatal. If the fireball and blast hadn’t killed Lieutenant Barrett and his crew, the rest of his squadron and elements of his regiment, the 70 Gy radiation dose would soon see to it, within hours or, at the most, a couple of weeks.
Three kilometres away, a unit of men from the Royal Signals, setting up a new relay station to ensure communication could be maintained for the Brigade to initiate its next advance, did not escape. A captain ran as fast as he could towards the large paddock alongside the farmhouse, his NBC suit smouldering, diving onto the grass, rolling his body over and over, smothering any potential flames. He put his red-blistered hand to his face and screamed as swollen flesh met swollen flesh. The other soldiers caught out in the open also suffered. A sergeant, his body facing the arc of the blast, his chest and legs saved by his Noddy-suit, felt the flesh on his hands and face begin to break down. He felt no pain; there were no nerves left to feel the pain with. Even those three and a half kilometres away, suffered third-degree burns. If there was one positive, as a consequence of it being an airburst, the level of fallout would be a minimised.
But 1,000 soldiers and civilians had just died, with the estimated number of casualties in the region of over 6,000. The Royal Hussars Regiment, along with its logistics support, signallers, drivers, military police, gunners, ceased to exist as a fighting force.
Civilians who were away from shelter, without the protection of NBC suits, had no chance. Their blackened bodies could be seen lying around the area for days. Those that survived would be collected, eventually, but the facilities just didn’t exist to treat so many people.
“You wanted me, sir?” the CSM asked as he stood at the entrance to the OC’s penthouse tagged on the back of the OC’s 432.
“Yes, come in, CSM.”
He handed Tobi Saunders the sheet of paper with the notes the company signaller had made.
Battle Group RGJ.
CO and OC eyes only.
Six 50-kiloton tactical nuclear strikes occurred at the following locations:
Bassum
Asendorf
Rehburg-Loccum
Brakel
Schloss Steinau
Schlotten
Units to disperse. Prepare for additional strikes.
“The flashes and noise were a bit of a giveaway, sir. Same number of strikes we launched. What the hell happens now?”
“Only God can answer that one, CSM. But we need to get the Company dispersed and dug in deep.”
“Any news on Lieutenant Russell sir?”
“Nothing. And air-recce tells us the Soviets hold the crossroads.
Chapter 39
Gunter Keortig pulled his wife close to him as they gazed through the bedroom window of their house on Bremer Strasse. For the last twelve hours, there had been a steady stream of Polish soldiers moving east through the town of Tostedt. It reminded him of the war, the Second World War, when he as part of the Wehrmacht had traipsed along roads in a similar manner to this. Not defeated, but on the run. The Polish army was using as many vehicles as it could acquire in order to get their men back home. The baker across the road had been forced to surrender his small van. It was then used to carry wounded soldiers. Keortig and his wife had watched as the van was loaded with the injured, their faces and bodies covered with horrific burns. Others they had seen looked to be well, in that there were no visible wounds, but they would suddenly collapse onto the road, heaving their guts up until there was nothing left, then retching some more.
On one occasion, there had been a confrontation right outside the house. A Soviet unit, the maroon flashes indicating Soviet Internal Security, MVD, had clashed with a Polish unit. A Polish captain and Soviet major, along with half a dozen men, had been killed, the Soviet unit withdrawing after being threatened by an ever increasing number of Polish infantry supported by a T-54 tank. After the clash, the column continued its move east.
“What is wrong with your men, Oberst Keller? We had the enemy on the run, and a crossing of the River Eider was wide open to us. Now, we are having to get ready to defend what we’ve already taken!”