Chieftains

Bed. Energetic, warm, damp and then comforting afterwards.

‘Why you never married, Will?’

‘Who knows? Never got around to it.’

‘Sergeant Acklin’s married.’

Del Acklin. He was out there now, in the wreckage of Idaho. Maybe he was still alive, lying there in the twisted steel and smoke, trapped, wounded. And he’d told him this morning maybe it wouldn’t happen. No, Del Acklin was dead… Browning could sense it. Like Jones, Stromberg, Woolett, Hughes, Valori, Erikson, Scarsdale… Browning could name twenty more. Vietnam! Just names, rifles dug into mounds with helmets on the butts. Identity discs wedged between teeth… plastic sacks. All they’d found of Stromberg was a kneecap, and that could have belonged to someone else. They’d put it in a bag and sent it home in a coffin, just like a real body. Whoever carried the coffin to the grave must have thought Stromberg had starved to death; he weighed less than a kilo.

Harvey Kossof had been killed in the tank sheds, rolled along the wall by the hull of an XM1 only five weeks ago. Kossof had never even seen the war! He was just signalling a tank into the service bay and didn’t leave himself enough room. He’d screamed until they gave him a heavy shot of morphine, and then died. Now he was a name, just like all the others. They promised you a stone in Arlington; the only bit of land most of the guys ever managed to own.

Podini was snoring, his thin face buried in the crook of one arm, his helmet cradled protectively like a kid’s teddy bear in the other. Podini had a fiancee; Italian, very respectable. Her father ran a pizza bar in Jersey City, decorated with Chianti and Frascati bottles, so Podini said. He would marry her when he was Stateside again; a hundred guests, all in tuxedos or dark wedding suits. Then he’d quit the army, start work in his father-in-law’s pizza bar, and get fat. If Browning ever dropped in there, Podini would beam a welcome. ‘Hi, well I’m damned, Will, Jeez, great to see you. Heh, Momma, see who’s here… you remember Will! Best table, Will…it’s on the house, vino, anything. How are you? You look great! Remember how it was; you, me, Mike and Gins. Jeez, those were the days! How about that?’

The days? It was one of those days, today. They’d all forget how bad it had been…one day.

TEN

‘This is London. Seventeen hundred hours Greenwich Mean Time. BBC World Service. Here is the news, read by Hugh Dermot.’ The newscaster’s voice was grave. ‘A state of war now exists between Great Britain and the Soviet Union.’

‘Switch that fucking tranny off, Corporal.’ The staff sergeant’s temper was barely under control. Not a minute previously he had been requested to organize coffee for the C-in-C and his staff; as it wasn’t his job and he was already busy, he was feeling as though he had been demoted to a mess orderly.

‘It’s the BBC, Staff… first news we’ve managed to get.’ The corporal was speaking over the newscaster and the men standing nearby leant closer to catch Dermot’s voice.

‘…Soviet troops, backed by mechanized infantry from the Warsaw Pact countries and with heavy air support, simultaneously invaded the territorial sovereignty of West Germany, Turkey and Austria at dawn today.’

The staff sergeant wanted to hear it himself. ‘Okay, two minutes then.’ There was a gangly private standing beside a filing cabinet, he made the mistake of catching the staff sergeant’s eyes. ‘You, Roberts, go and get a can of coffee from the cooks. And about two dozen cups… get ’em up to the boss, fast… get a move on, lad.’

Someone said: ‘Shhh…’ and the staff sergeant glowered, angrily.

‘…our ultimatum, delivered to the Soviet Foreign Minister by the British Ambassador in Moscow, gave the Soviet government until noon to indicate it would order the immediate cessation of hostilities, failing which Her Majesty’s Government, in conjunction with its NATO allies, would consider a state of war to exist between the invading members of the Soviet bloc, and the Western Alliance.

‘This assurance was not forthcoming. Consequently, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and our European allies are now at war.

‘First reports of the Soviet attack were received in London shortly before 04.00 hours this morning. Soviet artillery launched a heavy barrage along an entire front from Lubeck in the north, to the Austrian border; shortly afterwards, armour of the Russian Second Guards Tank Army invaded West German territory to the east of the city of Lubeck, and Soviet airborne troops were landed in the Fulva valley.

‘Soldiers of the 1st British Corps of the NATO Northern Army Group have been in action since the onset of hostilities in the British zone of responsibility to the east of Hannover.’

‘Too fucking true, mate,’ agreed the corporal sitting beside his transistor.

‘Shut up, Nash,’ growled the staff sergeant.

‘…NATO Defence Headquarters, now evacuated from Brussels to minimize the risk of attack on the Belgium capital, reported in a communique issued a few minutes ago that forces of Belgium, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and United States are all involved in the fighting, and that there are at present eight major defensive actions along the entire front.

‘The communique said that the Soviet advance had been slowed down, and although no casualty figures were available those of the Soviet Union were very high.

‘Soviet fighter aircraft and medium range bombers, bearing the insignias of the Frontovaya and Dal’naya Aviatsiya have made repeated raids on the north German towns of Lubeck, Hamburg, Hannover and Braunschweig. Heavy casualties are reported among the civilian populations.

‘At 06.00 hours this morning, ministers of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s governing body, were called into immediate session. We will have more news of that later in the broadcast.

‘In New York, the United Nations Security Council emergency debate on the crisis was resumed. Earlier today, the Soviet and Chinese delegations staged a brief walk-out when the Japanese delegates denounced the invasion of Western Europe as 'wanton treachery by insatiable expansionists!' ‘

‘Sodding Chinese! Last bloody Chairman was supposed to be a mate of ours. … they’re like the bleeding Vicar of Bray.’ The staff sergeant had a pinch of dark tobacco in the palm of his hand and began rolling a match-thin cigarette.

‘…here, at home, the Prime Minister, Mr James Newlin, called the invasion an “act of unparalleled insanity and barbarity, more dangerous to the future of all mankind than any the world has ever previously experienced”. He called on all world leaders to support the determined fight to maintain the freedom of the West, and congratulated the President of the French Republic, Monster Charles Dupre, on his government’s decision to join those of the NATO alliance in the defence of West Germany. Five divisions of the French First Army, including three mechanized divisions, are expected to move eastwards in support of the American forces.

‘In Turkey, Soviet forces crossed the frontiers at Batumi, Yerevan and Nachichevan, while a Soviet naval assault force has made landings on the Turkish Black Sea coast between Sinop and Samsun. Concentrations of Bulgarian troops have been reported on the Turko Bulgarian frontier at Malko, three hundred and twenty kilometers from Istanbul.

‘In Yugoslavia, despite strong resistance, Soviet authorities this morning announced the capture of Novi Sad and Belgrade. Throughout the early hours of today Belgrade Radio played continuous recordings of the Yugoslav national anthem. This was silenced a little after 09.00 hours…’

‘That’ll do, Corporal. Turn it off now.’ The staff sergeant’s slim cigarette was already a butt between his lips. He picked it out carefully, and dropped it into a near empty mug on the table. ‘All right you lot, don’t hang around… get back to your work… this is an official war we’ve got… earn your bloody money…’

The headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Northern Europe was situated, temporarily, a few kilometers east of Munster. Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Alexander Dormer, had moved his staff two days previously eastwards from Rheindahlen to its present battle headquarters. He had slept for less than three hours in the past twenty-four, but a Benzedrine tablet had cleared fatigue from his mind. There would be time for rest when the situation in NORTHAG became more settled.

Dormer was feeling satisfied with the intelligence reports he was receiving. The Russian forces were