His path was blocked by men trying to dig in with their helmets and by the bodies of those caught in the first volley. When his movement drew fire,
Ilvanich froze in place and hugged the ground. Although his face was pressed to the dirt, he could see one of his men crawl up behind the body of a fallen comrade, prop his rifle up over it and, using the body as cover, begin to return fire. The Americans soon located the soldier and began to concentrate their fire against him. Ilvanich listened in morbid fascination as bullets thudded into the body being used for cover. The soldier's lone stand lasted less than a minute. Ilvanich saw a stream of bullets from a machine gun climb up the body of the dead 394 soldier and hit the live soldier in the face, sending him sprawling.
This is madness, Ilvanich thought. He looked around. There were dead and wounded everywhere. The moans and screams of the wounded were momentarily drowned out by a sudden burst of fire and the explosion of a grenade.
Ilvanich decided there was nothing more to be gained from continuing the uneven contest. For a moment he considered grabbing his rifle and charging.
He would at last be able to end his nightmares in a manner befitting a soldier. But he hesitated. If he got up and charged, his men would follow.
And, like him, they would be cut down to no purpose. How easy it would be to end it now, he thought. I have wanted this. But not for them. I cannot do that to my men.
The sound of approaching helicopters in the distance finally convinced him the time had come. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a dirty white rag and stuck it into the muzzle of his AK. Yelling to his men to cease fire, he began to wave the white flag.
Duncan saw the flag as he sensed the slackening of return fire. For a moment, he wanted to ignore it. He wanted to continue firing. For the first time he and his men had the bastards pinned with nowhere to go.
Finally he had the chance to avenge his old platoon leader and all those they had left in their smashed positions on that day long ago.
This was his moment. He stopped firing, though, as did the rest of the platoon. Each man in his turn looked down at his enemy, now humbled and helpless. Whether it was out of mercy or a simple desire to stop the senseless killing, all firing stopped long before the platoon leader gave the order.
When all the men who could stand finally stood up, Ilvanich counted eleven men. A few others, including Junior Lieutenant Malovidov, were wounded and could not stand. As Ilvanich made his way forward, he saw Lvov, still strapped to the makeshift stretcher he: had been carried on. He was alive.
Ilvanich carefully moved over to the captain, watching the Americans as they 395 approached. When he reached Lvov, he knelt down and looked into his commander's eyes.
'Well, Comrade Captain, we have come to the end of the line. At least you have.' With that, Ilvanich reached down into his boot and pulled out a knife. 'You will finally be able to give your father, the great Party man, the only thing that will make him proud of you, death in battle. Goodbye, you miserable bastard.'
Duncan watched from his position as the Russians began to stand and throw down their weapons. He ordered the 1st Squad to gather the prisoners while the 2nd Squad swept the area and checked the wounded and the dead. He stayed with the 3rd Squad, covering the other two. As he did so, the actions of one of the Russians caught his attention. He watched as the man, obviously an officer, went over to a wounded man on a stretcher. The
Russian bent, then knelt. For a moment, Duncan thought he was trying to help the man.
He was about to direct some men to help the Russian when he noticed a sudden glint of sunlight from a piece of metal the Russian pulled from his boot. The Russian then put it to the wounded man's throat. The bastard's pulled a knife! Without hesitation, Duncan brought his rifle up and fired a burst, hitting the Russian in the shoulder and knocking him backward. He watched for a moment until the Russian he had hit began to move. Two of Duncan's men ran over, grabbed the knife from the Russian and made him stand up. Duncan cursed himself. Shit, the bastard was only wounded.
The idea of killing one's wounded appalled Duncan. Animals, we're dealing with animals, he thought.
As the Americans marched Ilvanich off, he looked at Lvov, now being treated by an American medic. He shook his head. Lenin was right, he told himself.
There is no God.
Chapter 21
Look at the infantryman's eyes and you can tell how much war he has seen.
The men began to stir and pick themselves up from the floor of the trench.
Already they could feel the rumbling of the ground caused by the advancing enemy tanks. Had their ears not been ringing as a result of a fifteen-minute artillery barrage, they would have heard the tanks as well. Even as he shook off the dirt and the dust, Captain Neboatov called repeatedly to his outposts for reports, but got only static in return. Sensing that any further attempt was futile, he let the hand mike drop. The first enemy tank was yet to crest the hill before them, but Neboatov knew what the outcome would be. As the senior surviving officer and the acting battalion commander, he had little more than a company's worth of men and BMP fighting vehicles to hold a front that required a battalion by doctrine.
Psychologically, neither he nor his men were ready for the onslaught.
For the first time since entering Iran, Neboatov's regiment was on the defense.
A war, Neboatov knew, is not won by defending. But defend they had to.
Stubborn resistance by the Americans, punctuated by numerous counterattacks, failure of the attack by Soviet second-echelon divisions and an inability to clear the American Air Force from the skies had crippled the 17th Combined Arms Army, robbing it of its offensive capability. With great reluctance, the commander of the 17th CAA had ordered the remnants of the army's first-echelon divisions to assume a defensive posture while a frantic effort was made to gather up enough forces to continue the offensive. Neboatov's unit was part of that defense.
Neboatov had deployed his 'battalion,' the remnant of the 1st Battalion of the 381st Motorized Rifle Regiment, on the reverse slope of a ridge.
By doing so, he reduced his fields of fire but prevented the enemy from hitting his positions directly. In addition, the enemy vehicles could be dealt with a few at a time as they crested the ridge. That was what Neboatov had planned and expected.
The appearance of British Challenger tanks, however, was unexpected.
Having trained themselves so long for a confrontation with Americans and expecting to see the familiar form of the M-1 tank pop over the ridge, Neboatov and his men were momentarily transfixed as the first tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment crested the hill, oriented themselves on the scene that greeted them on the far slope and began to charge forward. As a result, it was the British, not 381st MRR, that fired first. The impact of a high- explosive round on the BMP to Neboatov's rear sent him sprawling back onto the floor of the trench. He lay there for a moment, stunned.
Collecting his thoughts, he listened to the changing noise of battle.
Tanks fired their main guns, and the chatter of machine guns and the pop of antitank guided missiles joined the cacophony. The earth about him shook.
Neboatov rolled over and looked up as a Challenger, racing for the Soviet rear, rolled over his trench. He was showered with chunks of dirt and dust torn from the lip of the trench. When the tank was gone, Neboatov, still on his hands and knees, spat the dirt from his mouth and wiped his eyes with one hand.
Hesitantly, he got up and peered over the front edge of the trench.
Enemy infantry had already dismounted, deployed, and were entering the trenches to his left. Smallarms fire and grenades could be heard close to where he was. Added to this was a noise that sounded like a wounded cat crying out in pain. Neboatov had read that Scottish troops always played their bagpipes when going into battle, but
