“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Just like her mother,” responded William, kissing Samantha on the cheek. “I have to go.”
“I’ll stay here with Vicky for a while. I don’t want to see you go. Be careful, William. Come back to us.”
He kissed her again, then got up off his knees and headed out of Victoria’s bedroom, hearing his wife’s gentle sobs as he closed the door, and made his way to the spare room. Once in the spare room, he dressed quickly, knowing he was already running late. But he didn’t care. They could throw the book at him if they wanted; he had needed to see his daughter one more time before he left to go into the unknown. He pulled on his combat trousers and the rest of his uniform then his boots. He didn’t bother with his NI patrol boots this time, but pulled on his combat highs. If it all kicked off, looking good would be the least of his problems, he thought. Survival would come to the fore. He hoisted his 58-pattern webbing onto his left shoulder and his kitbag on the other, crept out of the flat and bounced down the concrete steps to the ground floor.
Closing the main door behind him, he strode across to the car, threw his kit on the back seat, slumped into the driver’s position and started the engine which turned over immediately. Other car engines were turning over as the married quarters’ area came to life, with soldiers like himself answering the call to report for duty as ordered by the still roving RMPs with their Tannoy-mounted Land Rovers.
“This is an alert, this is an alert. This is an Active Edge alert. All military personnel report to their units immediately. This is not an exercise. I repeat, this is not an exercise. All military personnel report to their units immediately.”
Another Land Rover drove past slowly, the blue, flashing light bathing the street in its eerie glow, the RMP Corporal nodding to William as they passed his car. They too were part of this call to arms, not mere spectators overseeing an exercise but fulfilling an operational role in support of the British military force that was waking up and slowly gathering pace.
William pulled out and headed towards the road that would take him to the barracks, a steady flow of cars joining the road ahead and also behind him. A queue had formed at the entrance to the camp as they were checked in. The seriousness of what was occurring was brought home to William when he saw soldiers digging in at the entrance to the camp, and an FV432 armoured personnel carrier had pulled across the road forcing cars to zigzag around it. He drove through and, moments later, was amongst the hive of activity by the tank sheds, the grumble of tank engines warming up, soldiers and tank crew rushing to and from different parts of the tank park fulfilling tasks given to them by their officers or NCOs. He parked up and dragged his kit from the car and was immediately accosted by one of his fellow crewmen, Lance Corporal Ellis.
“Give us your kit, Patsy. I’ll stow it while you go to the armoury.”
“Everyone else here?”
“Yep. Troop’s pissed with you, so you’d better be quick.”
“OK, mate. Grab this lot then.” He handed his kitbag to Ellis and pulled his webbing on fully, recognising that everyone else was dressed ready to do battle. Mark Ellis headed back to the tank sheds where their Chieftain was parked up, and William tore off towards the armoury to collect his weapon. On arriving at the camp, he had seen the first indication that this was for real; on entering the armoury, he experienced his second wake up call. The staff-sergeant handed Patsy his sub-machine gun along with six empty 34-round magazines and 200 live rounds of 9mm ammunition which he had to sign for. He found a vacant space and loaded the six magazines, placing the curved magazines in his ammunition pouches when full, the remaining rounds in another pouch. Once complete, he left the armoury and made his way to the tank sheds, striding up the centre road that ran between the line of sheds either side. The pace around the sheds was almost manic; clouds of white smoke from the exhausts as the L60 engines coughed into life; others just ticking over to warm up ready for the order to move.
William waved to Mark who was sitting on the glacis of the tank, reaching out his arm so his fellow tankie could hoist him up. Now Patsy had joined the crew, call sign One Bravo was complete.
“Corporal Patterson, you honour us with your presence,” announced Lieutenant Wesley-Jones as he climbed out of the turret.
“Sorry, sir, a bit of a queue in the armoury.”
The Lieutenant scowled. “Go and find Sergeant Andrews. Tell him to round up the troop for a briefing.”
“Sir.” William winked at Mark Ellis then dropped down to the ground and went in search of the troop sergeant and to round the crews up for an update. Within a few minutes, they were all gathered around the troop commander’s Chieftain tank.
The Chieftain tank was the backbone of 1 British Corps’ armoured force and 1st Armoured, 3rd Armoured and 4th Armoured Divisions were the formations that would use them to stem the tide of any potential attack by the Warsaw Pact, standing up to the thousands of Russian tanks that would be thrown against them. The design of the Chieftain, the successor to the world-renowned Centurion, was essentially a trade-off between three divergent factors: on the one hand, firepower, provided by the 120mm tank gun, but in competition with mobility and protection. The primary role of the Chieftain was to defeat the enemy’s main battle tanks, such as the T-64, T-72 and the latest model, the T-80, so heavy firepower was a necessity. But the enemy tanks could hit back, and hit back hard, so protection was equally essential. But both of these two factors had an impact on weight and size, so an appropriate power pack was required to drive it into battle. This created a dilemma for the designers: to achieve the right balance between the three characteristics. The Chieftain tanks that the 14th/20th Hussars would go to war in were a culmination of those mutually conflicting factors.
Lieutenant Wesley-Jones called them in close. All were sipping mugs of tea that had miraculously arrived from somewhere. This could possibly be their last hot drink for some time. He shuffled his backside on one of the track guard stowage bins, his booted feet dangling over the edge. To his right was his crew: Mackey, the driver, Lance Corporal (L/CPL) Ellis, the loader, and Corporal ‘Patsy’ Patterson, his gunner. Sitting along the track guard of the tank opposite was Sergeant Andrews, tank commander of call sign Two-Bravo and the troop’s second-in-command; sitting alongside him his crew: L/CPL Owen, his gunner, Trooper Wilson, his loader, and Trooper Lowe, his driver. To his left was Corporal Simpson, commander of call sign Three-Bravo, with his gunner L/CPL Moore, loader Trooper Robinson and driver Trooper Carter. These twelve men made up the crews for Bravo-Troop, Two-Squadron of the 14th/20th Hussars Regiment.
Wesley-Jones placed his cup down on the tank. “I’ve just been briefed by Major Lewis. We will be moving to our wartime locations and deploying in a defensive posture around the town of Gronau. Although our deployment areas have never been revealed to us, we have conducted exercises in that area on a number of occasions. We are familiar with the lay of the land and the ground we will operate in. The difference is that we may well be establishing a defensive placement for real this time. All completed your checks?”
Sergeant Andrews responded first. “Yes, sir. This is for real, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sergeant. We have to assume that. The politicians are still talking, but there seems to be no sign of Soviet troops dispersing. Their claim is that they are on a planned, notified exercise and have no desire to finish it before it has run its course. Unfortunately for us, there are indications that the Soviet forces are massing close to the Inner German Border, and there have been reports of East German and Polish units also on the move.”