men in the entire United States Army in Europe who had survived a direct hit on a previous tank by a communist shell fired From a Russian-built T-54. He had been in action below Mutter’s Ridge, north of Dong Ha in Vietnam.
Browning tried to think about the incident as little as possible. His survival was miraculous… a mistake had been made… he should have died with his crew. Almost superstitiously, it seemed better not to remind a God that he had overlooked a heavenly candidate who was now living on stolen time.
The 100mm high explosive shell had struck between the centre of Browning’s M48’s track and the bustle of its turret. The US tank’s gunner had been following a VC target moving away to the right.
The M48’s cast-steel turret was torn clean from the tank and hurled fifteen meters away. Somehow it carried Will Browning with it, still in one piece. A fraction of a second later the tank’s ammunition exploded, tearing the already wrecked hull and the bodies of the crew into fragments. Browning was protected from greater injuries by the casing of the turret. He had suffered multiple fractures, burst eardrums and shrapnel wounds in his thighs and buttocks. Had he been a conscript the wounds would have ended his service, but as a regular cavalryman he was pronounced fit for further service eight months later.
It had not rained in the mountains of the Hohe Rhon east of Fulda, and the night had been clear and sharp with a touch of frost in the air above the high ground. To the front of the cavalry position the River Ulster followed the line of the East German border, before dissecting it two kilometers to the north. Backing them, three kilometers to the rear of the hill, was the highway linking Tann with Fulda where the Black Horse 11th Cavalry had been stationed.
Like most of those guarding the eastern frontier at this time, Master Sergeant Will Browning had been thinking about his own future. There was every possibility of war, and he knew that unlike most occasions in the past it would not begin with the signing of a declaration. Pearl Harbour had taught the USA a hard lesson, and with modern weapons a determined enemy would be foolish to give formal notice of its intentions by more than minutes. The preparations he had watched during the past hours no longer resembled those of an exercise. Three minefields had been laid in the fields beside the river; meadows which normally contained grazing cattle were now empty. Helicopters had flown across the woodland on the far slopes, seeding the forest tracks and glades with anti- personnel mines. When he had left Fulda, he had seen a party of German combat engineers placing demolition charges in the bridge. It was a simple and precise task, for every bridge of possible strategic importance built in West Germany since the Second World War had been constructed with future demolition in mind: special chambers to hold explosives were sited at critical points of their structures.
War? Maybe. Another war, another tank! Browning thought about Utah, his Abrams; she was a hell of a lot bigger and tougher than his old M48, safer too. They claimed her Limey armour was almost shell-proof. Goddamn Limeys… they could invent something good like this, and then not be able to afford it themselves! Browning hadn’t met many British soldiers, but knew their reputation as tough fighters and drinkers; someone in the Pentagon even cared enough about the latter to print a warning in a pamphlet issued to all American personnel serving in Europe. Limey soldiers were supposed to be a bad influence on John Does! When he had read it, Browning had laughed; it was only a year since the American Armed Forces had solved one of their own problems, the taking of drugs by almost fifty per cent of their men. The solution had been simple — remove the crime and you improved the statistics. They had legalized the smoking of marijuana in the US. Overnight, the illegal use of drugs by servicemen was cut by three-quarters!
Armour. Browning stared up at the Abrams silhouetted against the night sky like a desert rock, indestructible, angular, solid, sleeping. Awake, Utah was a fearsome powerhouse. The regiment had only recently been equipped with the Abrams, the Chrysler XM1s, heavier and faster than their old tanks, and capable of a useful fifty kilometers an hour from an engine producing six hundred horse power more than that in the M60A1s. The Abrams’ profile was low, sleek and functional, the weaponry familiar: a 105mm gun, a Bushmaster co-axial cannon, a 12.7mm machine gun mounted on the commander’s cupola, and a lighter 7.62mm machine gun on the loader’s hatch. The fire-power was impressive.
Browning wondered how they would fare against the Soviet armour. If the East Germans were involved in the assault they would probably use T62 and T72 tanks… perhaps a few T10s. It was unlikely that they would yet have the new T-80, for US intelligence claimed these were in limited production and available only to the Soviet armoured regiments in small numbers. But intelligence was often incorrect.
Browning realized he was allowing himself to grow apprehensive. He knew what war was like, he knew the feel of it, the stink, and he knew this was going to be different from all the others; the ultimate horizon perhaps, for mankind.
Less than four kilometers away were the enemy, waiting, as he waited, for the signal that would hurl them forward into action. It was believed they were part of the Soviet 8th Guards… what a title, Browning thought, for aggressors! They were somewhere in front of him, hidden in the forest beyond the first ridge of hills. Sometimes when the wind had blown from the east, he had heard the engines of their tanks, the distant squeals of labouring tracks, the roar of exhausts.
Browning had been in Germany for a little over a year. He enjoyed the posting, though it would have been better if the dollar exchange rate had been more favourable, Before that his appointments had been at Fort Sam Houston, Fort McClellan, and finally Fort Dix. Down Barracks in Fulda was a pleasant break from the routine of Stateside army life. ‘Smile, the border community cares’, advised the notice at the barracks entrance; some of the men seemed to interpret it as an order and intensified ‘their gloom deliberately. Browning spent far more of his free time out in the German countryside than most others in the camp.
‘Coffee?’ It was Del Acklin, the commander of Idaho, the neighbouring Abrams. He was a hundred meters from his vehicle and, in view of their orders, was taking a risk leaving it. He held an aluminium mess tin towards Browning.
The warmth of the metal was pleasant, and the smell of the coffee sweet in the cold air. ‘Thanks.’ He sipped it, the hot liquid was laced with Austrian Stroh rum.
Acklin said: ‘I’m scared, Will.’ He kept his voice low so Browning’s gunner, above them in the turret, wouldn’t hear the remark.
‘We’re all scared.’
‘I keep thinking about my kids.’
‘Well, that’s good.’ Browning could hear the nervousness in Acklin’s speech, almost feel the tension of the man’s body. He and Browning drank together a couple of times a week and were fairly close buddies, but Browning wasn’t feeling like conversation now. ‘You’d better get back to your tank before the lieutenant decides to take a walk around.’
‘It’s going to happen, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘The war is going to happen.’
‘Maybe not a real war, just a limited action to straighten out a few of the kinks in the frontier. Perhaps it won’t even happen at all. We’ve got pretty close before… this could be the same.’
‘You don’t think I’m chicken, do you?’
‘Nope.’ He handed back the mess tin. ‘Thanks.’
Del Acklin half turned away, then hesitated. ‘I just, er, thought it wouldn’t be good for my kids to grow up without their father.’
‘Then don’t let it happen.’
‘No, sure.’ He walked away a few paces until he was barely visible in the gloom of the woodland. ‘Good luck, Will.’
Browning ducked his head to light mother cigarette in the shelter of his overalls. How long had it been since the last battle… since Dong Ha? 1968! Seventeen years! He had been nineteen years in the cavalry! Good God, be was an old man… thirty-eight! Maybe that wasn’t too old, though. Too old for what? He hadn’t got any special plans! He didn’t want to quit the service to open a shop, or become a salesman, or find a job as a clerk in some government bureau; he liked things as they were… nicely regulated… no hassle. Retirement? He didn’t think about it too often. A small house somewhere, in a small town… a stoop to relax on… wasn’t that what all vets wanted? A place to fade away in.
Shit! He was getting maudlin. Browning had never married; it seemed like making trouble for yourself, perhaps he would sometime… settle down. Settle down! Jesus, you were in the army or out of it! Being army was
