“Step one; kick the door open… Well, what the fuck are you waiting for; kick the door open!”
The front pair, consisting of the squad leader and one guardsman, looked at each other blankly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Mayevsky. “This should be obvious even to you half-witted shitheels, the one who kicks is the one on the side of the door where the doorknob is. Now kick the door!”
The squad leader did kick it. The door opened violently.
“Step two, which should happen as soon as the door is open, is that the second pair pull the detonation cords on their grenades and throw them through the door. Man on the right throws gently, just hard enough to get it inside. Man on the left throws to hit a far wall. As soon as the grenades are thrown, they announce ‘Flash!’ and everybody closes their eyes and looks away, too.
“Okay, second pair, the door is open, do your part.”
That was satisfyingly quicker; the grenades went sailing immediately, even as every man closed his eyes and looked away.
“Idiots! You forgot to announce it. Try again.
“Fine. Now everyone waits until they see the dim outlines of two flashes getting just past their eyelids. This brings us to step three, use the thumbs of your firing hands to grab the ring from the dynamo lights on your chests and give them a sharp pull down. Do that, now.
“Will wonders never cease? You managed not to fuck that step up. Now you’ve got about five seconds of light to clear the room. If you’re both quick and accurate that’s all you need.”
Mayevsky then went to the door and stepped inside. “This step, the fourth one, is more fluid. First pair, come to me and go through the door.”
When they got to the door, a matter of half a step, the pair bounced off each other. “Problem one, two shitheads cannot normally get through one door at the same time. So who goes first? The door kicker! He shouts, as the captain said, ‘Romanovs get down!’ He then enters and takes to the wall on his side. He slides along this, with his back to the wall, shooting any man standing after the order for the Romanovs to duck. He continues sliding along the wall, shooting generally in the direction of the opposite wall.”
Mayevsky physically pushed the first man to do what he wanted.
“The other man in that pair goes in after the first man, slides along the other wall, the one perpendicular to the one the first man has his back against. He also shoots anyone standing.
“Now note here; we think that if a blinded Bolshevik is going to be able to orient at anything it’s going to be the door. Get out of the fucking door as quickly as possible, or you might well catch a random bullet.
“The next pair does the same thing, doorkicker side first—no, stop right there, numb nuts; your back is to the wall!—then the other man after. They look low for any threats—from the base of the opposite wall towards themselves—and take them out.
“Third pair follows the same pattern, doorkicker side goes in first. They look from the middle of the floor upward…”
Mayevsky took two of the open walled shacks, while Cherimisov took the other two, including the one with the platoon leader’s squad, which still had to be ready to jump in and take the place of any other. With the sun going down, it was obvious that, “No fucking way, sir; these men are not ready to advance to the live fire room below ground yet.”
Cherimisov reluctantly tended to agree. “Another day, do you think, or two?”
Mayevsky shook his head, doubtfully. “Could be three or fucking four, sir. They’ve got the basic idea down, but—if we’re reading the problem rightly—this requires clockwork precision and that the shitheads do not have. Also…”
“Yes?”
“Sir, I think we need an obstacle course, something to restore their coordination for the kinds of obstacles we’re likely to encounter.”
The captain nodded, thoughtfully. “The obstacle course is a good idea, Top; I agree. The rest? This is going to fuck up the schedule pretty badly. Here’s my thoughts; let’s make arrangements to send them back to Weber, Federov, and Nenonen, tomorrow, for a day’s more weapons work. We can pretend that was the plan all along. Then, later tomorrow we work on Second Platoon, here. First can practice tomorrow all the time they’re not actually on the ranges. Then Second goes to the weapons ranges again, and we run First through this. If they’ve got the precision down, we can take them down to the simple live fire room.”
“Yes, sir. Makes sense to me. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Range G1, Camp Budapest
There was an old Russian technique, going back at least as far as Victor Suvarov, in the late eighteenth century, of having the troops chant their principles of operation, which is to say, their doctrine. Thus First Platoon double timed to the range chanting, “Surprise… speed… violence… discrimination… surprise… speed… violence… discrimination… surprise…”
Mayevsky met the platoon by the entrance to Range G1—a pair of uprights and a crosspiece with the name emblazoned—and then, in a flurry of pointing arms said, “First squad… second… third… headquarters! Medic; your ass stays with me. The rest; form up at the doors to your buildings and stand by to assault on my order or the captain’s.”
The first squad to actually convince Cherimisov and Mayevsky that they were up to executing the simplest room clearing problem with live ammunition was second squad, under Sergeant Yumachev. They moved from the open walled shed down to the ramp leading to the underground room. This was an open excavation—whatever else might be said of the Russian soldier, he could dig—about twelve by fifteen feet, covered with logs and the logs then covered with dirt. The sides had also been revetted with split logs, or it would likely have collapsed before they were done with it. The door was hung on nailed canvas hinges, which allowed it to be turned around and upside down to change the position of the knob. For this run, however, the knob was on the left hand side, just as they were for the open shacks, above.
There was canvas laid over the top of the ramp leading down, to give the mens’ eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness they could expect in the room and when they executed the actual mission, presumed to be at night.
Inside, three dark painted wooden targets waited, erect, along with two narrower white painted ones on the dirt floor. None of these were anything much, solid but thin wood held up by very thin sticks. A bullet strike should put them down.
One final word Cherimisov said, before giving the order to go, “You’ve heard this before but it can’t hurt any if I repeat it; if I or anyone calls ‘cease fire,’ you are to immediately take your fingers off the triggers, pull and lock the bolt of your machine pistols to the rear, remove the magazine, then clear the chamber. Are we clear on this?”
“Yessir, yes, sir, yessirir, yes,” came the answer.
He looked over the group. Sergeant Yumachev looked ready to kick the door. To his right, tensed like a wound spring and quivering with anticipation like a racehorse in the gate, stood Sobchak. Behind those two, Guardsmen Yurin and Ilyukhin gripped flash grenades and the pull cords. The grenades were the real article, this time. Both had their machine pistols hanging from cords over their left shoulders. In the rear, Sotnikov on the left and Corporal Poda on the right held their MP18s muzzle-up by one hand, the thumbs of the others in the pull rings of their dynamo lights.
We need, thought the captain, to tie cords from the weapons to the dynamo lights so they can pull them without ever giving up control. Discuss with Top, this evening.