artillery command and reconnaissance vehicle. It was a captain, a battery commander. His guns were ready to move out and follow Bezarin. Evidently, the division commander’s directives to Beechtree had shocked him into action.
Bezarin delayed calling Nevsky Ten until he felt he had assembled a sufficient, if lean, grouping that could act as a forward detachment. He personally dashed among the congregating vehicles, insuring that they moved to the correct radio frequencies and ordering them into local positions that provided at least partial protection from ground and aerial observation. The clear sky showed webs of jet trails, and Bezarin felt it was only a matter of time before the enemy would attempt to strike back. The best of his tankers had quickly learned new priorities now, and they hurried to restock their on-board units of fire from the limited quantities brought forward on the battalion’s trucks. Bezarin urged them to hurry, convinced that time was pressing, that the afternoon was waning. When he finally glanced at his watch, he was amazed to find that it was not yet ten in the morning.
As Bezarin remounted his own tank the gunner told him that Nevsky Ten had been calling.
Bezarin was horrified. “Why didn’t you come and get me?”
The gunner shrugged. He was a gunner. Command communications were not part of his responsibilities.
Bezarin hastily pulled on his headpiece. “Nevsky Ten, this is Ladoga Five.”
Major General Duzov responded quickly. “This is Nevsky Ten. What’s your situation?”
“We’ve cleared the ridge. I’ve formed a grouping by combining my battalion with the remnants of First Battalion. Overall strength, battalion-minus of tanks, with one motorized rifle company attached and a battery of guns moving to join us. We are prepared to act as a forward detachment. I’ve already dispatched a reinforced tank company to clear the approach route in the Hildesheim tactical direction.”
Bezarin’s body tensed in anticipation. He wanted this mission. He wanted to lead. He had tasted blood, and he liked it. He felt as though he could take on anything the British had to offer. His battalion had earned the right to be the first to reach the Weser River.
“This is Nevsky Ten. Do you have a clear understanding of the mission? Do not respond with details in the clear. Just yes or no.”
“Yes. I understand. We’re ready.” Bezarin knew this was a slight exaggeration. It would be at least ten to fifteen minutes before he could get everyone back aboard their vehicles and organized into march order.
“All right. Do you have any long-range means of communications with you?”
Bezarin thought hard. What he needed was a regimental command tank or vehicle.
“This is Ladoga Five. I have a special artillery vehicle with me. I can use the artillery long-range set, if necessary.”
“Good. Get your vehicles on the road. And whatever you do, keep moving. We will all be behind you.”
The gravity in the commander’s voice, and his simple choice of words, moved Bezarin. He switched over to his battalion radio net, anxious to send out the words that would set them all in motion. He knew that his tanks needed more time to resupply, that the stray vehicles had not been sufficiently integrated into the grouping to do much beyond merely following the vehicle to their immediate front. But he knew that now, with a great hole punched through the last line of the enemy’s defense, time was the dominant factor. He felt simultaneously elated and half-wild with small, cloying frustrations. He worked his radio in a fierce, uncompromising voice that had matured in the space of a morning. Major Bezarin wanted to move.
Seventeen
The morning mist floated off the Weser, blending with the slow-moving darker smoke from the burning buildings. Gordunov sat concealed on the bank, alone, allowing himself a brief rest, fighting against his body to maintain the strength to lead. He had expected an assault at first light, but the dirty air had been growing paler for an hour, and still the only sign of hostility was the occasional rattle of a spooked rifleman or machine gunner in an outlying position. Communications checks with the network of observation posts returned only reports of vehicle noises back in the hills. Gordunov could not understand the delay. The reduced visibility provided by the mist and smoke offered perfect cover for an attacker. Later, after the mist burned off, an assault would have a much tougher time of it. Gordunov could feel the change in the weather. The last of the rain had sputtered out during the night, and the day would be warm and clear.
He was certain of one other thing, too. There would be little mercy shown on either side. As he’d made his tour of the perimeter in the first light he had been startled by the number of dead civilians in the Hameln streets. House fires had obviously driven them from their hiding places right into the midst of the fighting. In the night, they would have been impossible to distinguish from combatants. Dark running forms. A foreign language. Both sides would have shot them down. But Gordunov understood the psychology of the situation. The blame would fall solely on his men. When the enemy returned, they would see only the victims. They would not pause to consider that their own fires might have been as much at fault as Soviet weapons. And they would not be inclined to take prisoners. His men would get the message quickly enough.
So be it.
In many ways, so many ways, this was a totally different war from the lost war in Afghanistan. You rarely had such a heavy morning damp, or such thick mist off slow rivers. In high Asia, the air was thin, and the mountain torrents plunged through impassable gorges down into ruined valleys. You did not have so sturdy an urban area as this outside of Kabul itself. But haunting similarities remained. As a brand-new, unblooded officer, just off the troop rotation plane with the first windblown grit in his eyes and teeth, he had been garrisoned at Bagram, where the new airborne leaders learned the ropes. A priority then had been reopening the road to Kandahar. The Afghan forces failed, as always, and Soviet forces received the order to do the job. Gordunov commanded a company in a battalion equipped with airborne-variant infantry fighting vehicles. They road-marched south, a small part of a much larger operation, nervously awaiting an ambush that failed to materialize. Gordunov had not tasted combat directly that time. But he got his first look at war up close.
The column halted in a ruined village, whose dirt streets were littered with fly-covered carcasses. At first, he had only recognized the dead animals, large and obvious. Then he realized that the clumps of rags lying about were human bodies. Scavengers circled overhead, like gunships awaiting targets. The column idled in the stench and the heat, anxious for orders that would call them to support a combat operation ongoing in the next valley. But vehicles began to cook over, and still no word came. Gordunov dismounted to relieve himself, and he walked a few meters away from the column, hunting a place where the flies would not hurry off a nearby corpse and attack him before he could finish his business. He turned into an alley between two ruptured mud buildings. And he faced a carpet of human bodies, butchered until they were stacked three corpses high. The alley was at least fifteen meters long and perhaps a meter and a half wide. It ended bluntly against a masonry wall. The natives had been driven into the enclosure, then methodically murdered. Now they lay turning to leather in the sun. A few pillaging birds lazily lifted away at the sight of Gordunov, unsure of what he portended but too bloated to hasten. A fly pinched Gordunov’s cheek. He batted wildly at his face, gagging at the thought of some strange and hopeless infection. He struggled to master his insides just as a hand seized his slung weapon from behind.
It was a special-operations major, grinning. “Interesting, don’t you think, Captain?”
Proud, Gordunov struggled to mask his emotions. But it was useless. He still had many things to master.
“We
The special-ops major laughed, releasing Gordunov’s weapon. The major’s skin had cooked a dark brown, almost as brown as the exposed, dehydrated corpses. He looked as though he lived in these mountains.
“Of course not,” the major said. “This village was loyal to the government.” And he paused, smirking, allowing Gordunov time to settle himself a bit. Then he continued, “We only do this sort of thing in villages that support the dushman. But get yourself an eyeful. And buy yourself a nice little camera in the bazaar. You’ll see plenty more, if you don’t go home in a tin box first. And you’ll want pictures to help you describe the glorious successes of our efforts at international solidarity.” And he walked away. Gordunov hurried back to the stalled column, seeking shelter in its vigor and familiarity. He pissed against the road wheels of his track, thinking about the special-operations officer, trying to understand him. He had failed in his efforts that day. But later on, he came to understand the man very well, indeed. Death became more trivial than a spilled drink.
Gordunov remembered standing there in the stink of death and shit and diesel fumes, wondering how the
