Wesley-Jones switched to the internal tannoy. “No deployment, we’re heading for the ranges. Back in by tonight.”
Ellis punched the air. “Fucking magic.”
“Right, Mackey, let’s go,” called the commander.
Trooper Mackinson, his head just sticking above the driver’s hatch, headphones over the top of his black beret, tinted goggles protecting his eyes, pushed down on the accelerator. The seven-hundred horsepower engine revved and the energy transmitted through to the drive sprocket powered the armoured giant forward. The engine screamed as it slowly gathered speed, only released as Mackey changed gear, only to build up the momentum again as the speed ramped up, the distinctive banshee-like sound of its multi-fuelled engine joined by the rest of the squadron as they too joined in the convoy. The tank lurched forward as the driver worked his way through some of the six forward gears until they hit a steady thirty kilometres an hour, all they were allowed to do on the range roads. The tank tracks had blocks of rubber arrayed along the treads, to protect the German roads and reduce the noise as they pounded along them, pacifying the complaints from the local population in some small measure during the large exercises the British Army and NATO conducted annually.
They headed for the lager where the squadron would congregate before spending their day honing their skills on the tank gunnery range. It was an opportunity to allow the L11A3 120mm tank gun to show its metal, as opposed to the 105mm of its contemporaries.
Wesley-Jones looked behind him through a cloud of white smoke, rocking against the Mark 2 cupola as Mackey changed down to negotiate a sharpish bend. He turned back round, facing forwards again, a spotlight on the front of the cupola, an L37A1 7.62mm machine gun to his left. Now they were on the move and not buttoned down, he was the eyes and ears for the driver. Although Mackey was sitting up straight, his view was very limited. But the tank commander felt fairly relaxed: they were just going to the ranges and Mackinson was familiar with the roads having driven this route many times before.
Down in the confines of the tank, the fighting compartment, Patsy and Ellis gave each other the thumbs up. They were just going to the ranges for the day and not a full deployment as they had feared. They could relax during the journey; their jobs as gunner and loader would start once they arrived at the ranges. For now though, it was the tank commander and the driver’s job. The fighting compartment extended the full width of the hull, with the turret suspended on a ‘ball race’ which gave it a 360-degree capability. The commander turned as Corporal Patterson popped his head up out of the turret’s second hatch.
“Get your bone dome on, Corporal Patterson, you know the score.”
“Sir.”
Patsy reached down, grabbed the battered green bone dome, removed his beret and pulled on the helmet with its bulging ear covers, settling the earphones until they were comfortable.
“That’s better. You know what the OC is like.” He said it with a smile though. He had a good crew, the best in the squadron. In the last regimental-wide competition on driving, handling and shooting, his tank and his crew had won. Anyway, he was just as pleased they wouldn’t be deploying today.
“Well, Patsy, just a short day. Your own bed tonight, eh?”
Chapter 12
Jacko handed his tour commander a mug of coffee and then he settled down on the carpet of grass that covered the edge of the railway embankment. It was Jacko’s turn to sleep but he had experienced a painful bout of cramp while trying to catch some shut-eye on the back seat of the Range Rover, hidden below them beneath the bridge. This was their second night out on Operation Bloodhound. They were due to be relieved by their second intelligence unit, Three Zero Alpha, later that morning at 0800. Their remaining unit, Three Zero Charlie, would also be out later that day. Intelligence headquarters were clearly worried about something.
They were covering the railway line that came into Berlin from the north-east. Any incoming traffic could either turn south and continue into the southern part of East Berlin, or head north and continue around the rail ring that would take them west, deeper into East Germany, bypassing the centre of the city. This was the likely route for military trains passing through, heading deep into Germany to transfer military equipment between barracks, or upgrade the equipment assigned to the many divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GFSG). The worst-case scenario though was military trains passing through the outskirts of Berlin to reinforce the Russian Army already there, should there ever be a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Coming from the east, the train’s departure point could have been anywhere in Poland or Russia — the Belorussian Military District, for example.
This was their second night and, after shifts of four hours on, four hours off during the day, two hours on and two hours off during the night, waiting for that elusive military train, they were both tired, overtired. They had, so far, managed to stay out of the clutches of the VOPO (Volkspolitzei) and the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Ministry for State Security, MFS, nicknamed the Stasi. The Range Rover had been hidden amongst some trees down below and they hadn’t used this site for some time. The occasional civilian snooped around, but the team had remained hidden until the locals went about their daily business.
They were now tired, but in good spirits. However, they were disappointed they had not seen anything yet and concerned that their sister unit would get all the glory of a sighting. They would see a train before they heard it. The steam locomotives had a single white headlight and they would see it well before they heard the train approaching. Any military load requiring movement via the railway network would be moved by the Deutches Reichsbahn and pulled by one of their pre-war, refurbished steam trains. The Deutches Reichsbahn, formally Deutches Reich (German Empire), was founded when the Weimar Republic took national control of the German railways in 1920.
“Can’t sleep, Jacko?”
Jacko turned on his side in the knee high grass, sipping at his coffee, staring up at the expanse of stars twinkling above. “No, Sarge, too tired to sleep and too bloody uncomfortable on the back seat.”
“Why don’t you kip outside? It’s warm enough.”
“Bloody bugs all over the place. No sooner do I close my eyes, and I can feel them crawling all over me.”
“Use a maggot and put your cam scarf over your face, you plonker,” Bradley suggested, referring to their green army sleeping bags. He lifted his binoculars and peered into the darkness seeking out that telltale prick of light that meant a target was finally heading their way. Nothing.
They had been watching and waiting for over eighteen hours and, apart from the regular passage of high speed passenger trains and a few civilian goods trains, they had seen nothing. Not a military train in sight. The Berlin rail ring was a major rail junction, and military traffic had to pass through the outskirts of East Berlin if it was to make a quick passage to the western part of East Germany. The two operators were at a location they called ‘Newcastle Bridge’, a rail bridge that crossed over a ‘B’ road near the district of Karow. The rail line ran in from the east, turning south-west into Berlin, passing their current location before heading north-west to track around the north of the city. Although trains could turn south, generally military trains wanting to head into the centre or to the south of the city would come in from the east further south of the city, running into Friedrichsfelde and Biesdorf; sometimes carrying cargoes of military equipment and troops to the various Soviet units in and around the eastern part of the city. Often, the troop trains would stop over at Pankow, Marzahn or Karlshorst sidings to let the priority passenger trains overtake. The section regularly did a tour of these railway sidings looking for a prize, a fully laden Russian military train.