Rodriguez was trying to open the rear troop door but it was jammed against the stream bank.
With each breath, soot was clogging the filter of his respirator. Rodriguez was frantically trying to force the troop door and the driver’s screams became more strident.
Arnie Moore pulled the jack plug from his helmets headset. He was damned if he was dying like this. He hacked and slashed at the net before grabbing the gunners arm, pulling him to the hatch and they struggled out, up onto the top of the turret.
Rounds cracked by his head, the paratroopers lunged over the turrets edge to lie behind it and Arnie lost his grip on his knife as he did so, but he was out of the line of fire. He couldn’t reach the pintle mounting, and both his M4 and Angelo’s were still in the weapons rack inside the IFV. Smoke was pouring out of the open hatch now and Arnie had only Colin Probert’s Yarin automatic.
The last RPG-26 had not been a wasted shot, and with a sense of satisfaction the Czech officer knelt beside a PK machine gun on top of the cutting, directing its fire and ordering two men forward with grenades to finish the crew of the British IFV while the PK kept them pinned down.
A half mile away, the T-90 leading the attack on 2LI’s flank was struck by a Hellfire missile and blew up. Its killer headed back uphill towards the safety of the reverse slopes before beginning a fresh stalk, this time on the enemy in 2CG’s 4 Company area. Its gunner saw the distinctive green tracer of Soviet small arms fire, just left of their line of flight. A one second burst from the Apache’s 30mm cleansed the top of the cutting of the last of the Czech 23rd infantry in 4 Company’s lines.
Macky was screaming shrilly now, the fire had reached the drivers compartment and was visible to the two Americans through the armoured glass of the hatch as if the driver had lit a candle inside, a flickering yellow light silhouetting the Guardsman’s head from behind. The camouflage net was pulled tight across his hatch; he could only open it a few inches despite the strength lent him by desperation, his gloved fingers visible as they gripped the hatches underside. They both pulled and heaved at the net but it required more than brute force.
Arnie tried to remember where the knife had fallen, splashing back through the stream and clambering once more atop of the vehicle, risking the cutting of his own NBC suit and gloves as he desperately groped about the netting on the roof. He couldn’t find it, couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark and the rain.
Flame, firelight reflecting off the streams waters revealed the knife’s location; its blade gleamed on the side of the bank. Arnie slowly climbed down and retrieved it before re-joining Rodriguez. The illumination was being provided by flames issuing through the narrow gap in the drivers hatch. Macky McCardle was no longer screaming but Arnie had to firmly grasp Rodriguez by the arm and lead him away, towards the sound of fighting on the battalions other flank.
The 23rd’s armour was being reduced; just five T-90 and T-76 remained on the right whilst the six on the left flank were still awaiting the infantry on foot, unaware they had withdrawn back to the sunken lane having been caught in the open by the mortars. Counter battery fire had been requested, and promised, but it had not materialised, in fact the barrage was gradually falling silent for lack of ammunition once more. They moved left along the lane, scrambling over burnt out vehicles and detouring around freshly destroyed and still burning ones until they met up with the remaining trudging infantry from 23rd MRR and together they shook out into formation to begin the final stretch from the lane to the Vormundberg itself.
Gunfire support for the infantry attack on 3 Company was now a quarter of what it. The armour could not climb the slope 7 and 8 Platoons had withdrawn up earlier in the day thanks to the shovel and pick work that had increased the gradient, but they still tried.
The troops who had held the toehold in those platoons old trenches had gone up the slope instead, along with the infantry who had ridden upon the tank decks.
No more than fifty members of 3 Company remained combat effective. That was the estimate of regimental intelligence and the battalion political officer, which was the same thing. For once though, it was a pretty accurate assessment.
The Czech infantry hugged the slope as their own tanks attempted to suppress the enemy tank fire one last time. A British Chieftain exploded and apparently satisfied, they finally began firing high explosive fragmentation at the infantry dug in above them.
The British Challenger II was rotating its position between three firing points, but sensibly its commander was keeping quite random the spot where they would reappear. But three is three and not thirty, so it was not a great exercise in patience for the gunner of the Hind-D to hold a vacant position in his crosshairs and wait.
After three minutes, C Squadron of the Kings Royal Hussars lost its OC as Jimmy McAddam and his crew suffered a minute of unbelievable agony trapped in their burning vehicle before the flames reached the main gun rounds.
A second lieutenant just two weeks out of training called up A Squadron’s OC, Major Mark Venables and identified himself as the new commander of C Squadron. Apart from acknowledging him and wishing him luck there was not much else Mark could do. One One Charlie was burning furiously, its chassis rocking with the internal explosions that were shaking it. The squadron commander’s tank passed it, and the next prepared position, as that was being illuminated by 11C.
His gunner suddenly slewed the turret to the right, away from the valley.
“Stop!” Major Venables saw what had attracted his attention, and grabbed the override, preventing him engaging a hovering Apache in the dead ground where the reverse slope began.
The Danish commander of Eskadrille 723 had spotted movement across the valley and had identified it as a target he was ill equipped to tackle. He summoned assistance but witnessed the destruction of a Chieftain before a Brit Apache arrived.
The Hind-D was stalking its next target, losing it in the smoke from the burning Chieftain and edging sideways to re-acquire, keeping behind cover.
The Danish Lynx had no communications with the British tank and neither had the Army Air Corps so they just used it as bait and waited for the Russian to show himself.
Completely unaware of the danger Mark Venables vehicle headed on for a new position, pulling into it slowly.
The Hind-D rose and fired a beam riding Atak-V anti-tank missile, the Apache locked on and fired a Hellfire anti-tank missile which would miss if the Russian made any radical manoeuvres. The Russian held steady, guiding the weapon unerringly towards the Challenger II. The Hellfire was faster and when it struck, the Hind swung left with the missile turning to follow the still active laser.
Mark saw something flit across his vision, but as it was not aimed at him he got on with the job at hand, but they would only fire once before relocating.
M203 Grenades began to land, fired by 9 Platoon, and this triggered the Czech’s advance. Rather than stay on the receiving end of random fire they closed in with the source, confident in their six-to-one advantage.
The sole surviving section of 8 Platoon occupied shell scrapes at the nearest point of the advance and they threw smoke mixed with HE and withdrew with 7 and 9 Platoons providing covering fire.