Adams swerved the XM1 again as the burning hulk of a Russian T-80 loomed through the smoke. Someone, something, had hit it… visibility was little more than forty meters. The corpses of a Soviet mortar team were strewn across the path of the Abrams, their bodies blackened and twisted by napalm, still smouldering. The XM1’s tracks churned them into the filthy earth.
Infantry. They would be around somewhere, hidden, waiting, as deadly as howitzers with their anti-tank rocket launchers. Was the barrage easing? Browning sprayed the area ahead with his machine gun… keep the bastards’ heads down. Ginsborough was doing the same… and experiencing identical fears. Browning knew Podini would be seeking targets for the main gun, but there seemed to be none. There was a Soviet BTR-60 personnel carrier to the Abrams’ right, but its wheels had been blown off and its tyres were burning. He saw movement beside the hulk and swung the .50 towards it, firing before he aimed, a line of heavy bullets ripping a deep seam across the ground. He concentrated a long burst on the rear of the carrier and saw green-suited figures stagger and fall. Ginsborough’s 7.62 was chattering… short regular bursts that seemed to be timed to the pulse in Browning’s temples.
Adams was yelling in the intercom: ‘Jesus… oh Jesus… Jesus Christ… Jesus Christ!’ He wound the Abrams through a field of craters, the wreckage of vehicles and men, its speed little more than jogging pace. The smoke was thinning, visibility increasing.
There was a heavy blow on the side of the XM1’s turret which sent a violent shockwave through the fighting compartment and rang the metal of the hull as though it were a vast bell.
‘Shit!’ Ginsborough was swearing. In the gloom of the interior the side of the turret was glowing dull red where an armour-piercing shell had failed to penetrate as it glanced off the thick steel. The ground was rising more sharply, smashed woodland lay ahead, stumps of distorted trees, pitted earth, gaunt roots. A thin hedge ran diagonally across the landscape to the left, partly destroyed, the bushes torn and scattered. Browning saw another group of Soviet infantry eighty meters in front of the Abrams. There were the sounds of light machine gun rounds against the hull, pattering like hail on a barn roof and ho more effective. He brought the Abrams’ Bushmaster Cannon on to the target by remote control, but before he could depress the firing button the Abrams’ M68 gun roared and the infantrymen were lost in the burst of the 105mm shell only fifty meters ahead.
Browning was angry. ‘Save your ammo, Podini… leave the infantry to me.’
‘What infantry?’ Podini sounded exasperated.
The Abrams had reached the rubble of a low wail where the main gun’s shell had exploded. The tracks were grinding harshly, the hull bucking. A couple of meters to the right of the bodies of the Soviet infantrymen were the twisted remains of an ASU-57, its light alloy armour ripped and torn by the blast, its gun barrel buckled. ‘Sorry, Podini… nice work.’
‘Yeah, thanks!’ Podini’s sarcasm was lost on Browning.
ASU-57, an airborne assault gun, mobile and light. So that was how the bastards had got across the river! A quick airlift of men and light armour to establish the bridgehead and give the heavy tanks cover while they forded. God almighty, the thing had almost wiped them out. A few degrees’ difference in the angle of impact and the Russian shell would have penetrated, and the Abrams and its crew been wasted. Only Podini’s quick shot had prevented the Russian crew getting a second chance!
There’d be others… Jesus, where?
The Abrams was slithering, tracks churning. Much of the surface earth of the woods had been stripped from the stratas of damp limestone, greasy with shattered roots, branches and fallen leaves.
‘Left, Podini, eleven o’clock on the ridge, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Got it… I see it…’ The Abrams’ turret was swinging. Fractionally above the brow of the hill, Browning could distinguish the domed turret of a T-62, badly camouflaged, its gun moving against the skyline. Its commander had chosen a poor position but it had been protected until now by the battlesmoke. ‘Yeah… yeah… yeah’ Podini fired and the T-62 burst into flames. ‘
Adams was having difficulty moving the XM1. She could climb an obstacle a meter high but facing him was a steep limestone shelf, its edges soft and crumbling. The Abrams was bucking like a mule, lurching as the driver reversed her and repeatedly charged the greasy slope. Browning tried the troop net. ‘November India this is Utah… India this is Utah… come in India Leader…’ he paused, waiting. There was no response. He repeated the request for contact but there was only silence. The XM1 was jerking, swaying, as Mike Adams kept butting the limestone like a demented steer. ‘Cut it out, Mike… hold her where she is.’ The tank settled and the engine roar decreased. Browning tried the troop network again.
There was a howl of electronic interference from a Soviet jamming station, and a voice, distorted, barely distinguishable. ‘Utah… India… where the hell…’ The pitch of the oscillations rose. ‘Utah… read… Utah we don’t…’ Interference drowned the network completely. Browning tried the alternative wavelengths but the Soviet jamming covered the entire range. The artillery had stopped and he could see no movement on the hillside. He opened the hatch slowly. and stared around. There were no accompanying American APCs in sight… nothing moved within the mist of the battlefield, nor in the woods above.
He dropped back into the fighting compartment. ‘Get us the hell out of here, Mike.’
‘The Abrams rammed the shelf of rock again with a jolt that nearly dislocated Browning’s spine. ‘Backwards, you asshole; go out backwards!’
There was a scream of metal sheering metal, and the Abrams swung broadside to the limestone and stopped abruptly.
‘Track.’ Podini’s and Ginsborough’s voices shouted the word in unison.
‘You creep, Adams… you stupid no good black son of a bitch…’ It was Podini.
‘Knock it off! Mike, try and ease her forward, see if you can get the track free.’ Browning knew it was probably hopeless, but it was worth a try. The Abrams shuddered as the right-hand track brought her back a little. The Left stayed jammed. ‘Hold everything.’ He levered himself out on to the deck and jumped down. The left track was half-off the driving wheel at the rear. He put his hand on the links and swore. They were too hot to touch. He could see the upper run of the track, as taut as a steel bowstring between the front bogey and the drive- wheel.
Adams was leaning out of the driving hatch, his dark face streaked with sweat. His eyes asked the question.
‘Utah’s not going anywhere,’ Browning told him. ‘The track’s off the drive.’
Ginsborough’s head was above the deck. ‘The networks are all jammed. How did they jam HF? Oh God!’
‘Keep trying. We want a recovery vehicle.’ There was gunfire some distance away, but the immediate area was quiet, the silence adding tension to the situation. The landscape was so shell-sculpted it had an artificial lunar quality. Wisps of smoke drifted through the broken woods or hung in the craters. The air stank of diesel fumes, burning rubber and explosive… alien.
It was the same feeling Will Browning had experienced as a child, closing his eyes and counting to a hundred before searching for his friends; discovering they had run away in the woods and left him alone. The impression was strong now, undeniable.
He was trying to think, to reason. Losing radio contact was one thing, but losing your entire squadron another. When they had all entered the smoke and the artillery barrage, Idaho, Oregon and the lieutenant’s tank, Nevada, were all stationed to Utah’s right. And beyond the troop had been the remainder of the squadron; behind them, Browning assumed, the mechanized infantry support. He had listened to the shouted conversations, the orders and comments on the troop and squadron radio networks as they had advanced. He had heard them right through until… until when? Until the noise of battle grew too loud, the jamming had begun, when everything was confusing and demanding his total attention, and all sound had become white and unintelligible. Had he heard them only in his mind?
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Podini yelled from the fighting compartment. Podini always sounded as through he were on the verge of panic, but never quite got there. Browning accepted it as a characteristic of Podini’s Latin background; the gunner made up for it in plenty of other ways.
‘You want to start walking back, alone? No? Then dry up!’ The smoke of the battlefield had thinned to the kind of watery mist that the master sergeant liked to associate with New England valleys on fall days, but this mist stank of war. In scattered places on the landscape fires burnt, spiralling dense and evil thunderheads in the warm afternoon air. Occasionally in the fires there would be small firecracker explosions, but the sounds of battle no longer surrounded them. The noises were still there, but for the time being they belonged to someone else.
