you.’
Burke brought the skimmer’s speed down to a crawl. ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking. Did you think I would?’
The Iron Cow began to climb a gentle slope towards the dense dark wall of trees at the perimeter of an area of woodland. Very carefully, Burke piloted* the hovercraft between two well-weathered stakes. Barbed wire grated beneath the belly of the machine and then the noise was gone and the tangled mass of undergrowth engulfed them.
Several times, despite the intense care he took, their driver couldn’t prevent the skimmer from nudging trees it had to squeeze past. Angular dark shapes, tantalisingly indistinct, were glimpsed at the edge of the screen as they drove in deeper. Sergeant Hyde stood behind the driver’s seat, scrutinising every inch of the woods and signalling slight corrections of course by tapping Burke’s left or right shoulder.
‘Forward a little more, left, left; a little more. Steady. Put her down.’ The engine note remained the same. Burke made no move to follow the last instruction, maintaining the same ride height. ‘I said put us down.’
Their driver still made no move to comply, finely balancing the controls to keep them hovering in the same spot.
‘Do as the sergeant says.’ Revell added his weight. ‘You do know where we are, don’t you, Major?’ With a slight movement of the left steering pedal Burke corrected a tendency on the part of the machine to drift to the right. ‘This is a bloody minefield. The place is stiff with the ruddy things. Those are wrecks out there.’ He pointed at the screen, to a vague squat outline some yards ahead of them.
Revell looked at Hyde. There was nothing in the man’s face to give him any clues, there was hardly any face, but the sergeant’s manner didn’t suggest he was contemplating suicide and intent on taking them all with him. ‘So put us down gently.’
For a couple of seconds Burke still stubbornly resisted, then began very gradually to reduce engine power to enable the craft to settle. All the time he made minute adjustments to keep the position Hyde had indicated.
Like all of the others Rinehart held his breath until the Iron Cow was safely grounded, then let it out in a sigh of relief. ‘What do you want us to do now, Sarge. Go for a stroll through the woods?’
‘This is the only place the refugees don’t come foraging for metal. They’re like a load of jackdaws, pinch anything...’
‘Hey, Dooley, you got a load of relatives around here some place?’ It was Cohen who interrupted the British NCO.
‘...that’s the reason the Commies don’t lace this area with ground radar surveillance dishes. They’d all be turned into frying pans by the end of the day. About the only things the refugees won’t go near is mines. These derelicts have been here two years and they haven’t been touched in all that time.’
‘How well do you know this camp, Sergeant?’ Revell got in first, before Dooley could take up Cohen on his remark.
‘Pretty well. I expect it’s changed shape a bit since the last time I was here, about four months ago, but the Reds don’t like them to get above a hundred thousand so overall it’ll be much the same. Certainly the inner areas will be. It’s the later additions, the most recently tacked on shelters that alter the appearance and can get you lost.’
‘At that size it’s going to be too big to scout on foot, even if we weren’t spotted as we roamed about. Do you have any contacts in there, who might be helpful with the right persuasion?’
He’d have to answer carefully, Hyde was fully aware of that. Both sides, in theory at least, enforced the Red Cross’s rules about no military interference in the camps beyond minimum policing; but Soviet commanders broke them when it suited them, and few soldiers on either side could resist the obvious attractions of the various ‘entertainments’ the camps offered. Many NATO troops made a point of carrying extra rations and similar
Burke brought the skimmer’s speed down to a crawl. ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking. Did you think I would?’
The Iron Cow began to climb a gentle slope towards the dense dark wall of trees at the perimeter of an area of woodland. Very carefully, Burke piloted* the hovercraft between two well-weathered stakes. Barbed wire grated beneath the belly of the machine and then the noise was gone and the tangled mass of undergrowth engulfed them.
Several times, despite the intense care he took, their driver couldn’t prevent the skimmer from nudging trees it had to squeeze past. Angular dark shapes, tantalisingly indistinct, were glimpsed at the edge of the screen as they drove in deeper. Sergeant Hyde stood behind the driver’s seat, scrutinising every inch of the woods and signalling slight corrections of course by tapping Burke’s left or right shoulder.
‘Forward a little more, left, left; a little more. Steady. Put her down.’ The engine note remained the same. Burke made no move to follow the last instruction, maintaining the same ride height. ‘I said put us down.’
Their driver still made no move to comply, finely balancing the controls to keep them hovering in the same spot.
‘Do as the sergeant says.’ Revell added his weight. ‘You do know where we are, don’t you, Major?’ With a slight movement of the left steering pedal Burke corrected a tendency on the part of the machine to drift to the right. ‘This is a bloody minefield. The place is stiff with the ruddy things. Those are wrecks out there.’ He pointed at the screen, to a vague squat outline some yards ahead of them.
Revell looked at Hyde. There was nothing in the man’s face to give him any clues, there was hardly any face, but the sergeant’s manner didn’t suggest he was contemplating suicide and intent on taking them all with him. ‘So put us down gently.’
For a couple of seconds Burke still stubbornly resisted, then began very gradually to reduce engine power to enable the craft to settle. All the time he made minute adjustments to keep the position Hyde had indicated.
Like all of the others Rinehart held his breath until the Iron Cow was safely grounded, then let it out in a sigh of relief. ‘What do you want us to do now, Sarge. Go for a stroll through the woods?’
‘This is the only place the refugees don’t come foraging for metal. They’re like a load of jackdaws, pinch anything...’
‘Hey, Dooley, you got a load of relatives around here some place?’ It was Cohen who interrupted the British NCO.
‘...that’s the reason the Commies don’t lace this area with ground radar surveillance dishes. They’d all be turned into frying pans by the end of the day. About the only things the refugees won’t go near is mines. These derelicts have been here two years and they haven’t been touched in all that time.’
‘How well do you know this camp, Sergeant?’ Revell got in first, before Dooley could take up Cohen on his remark.
‘Pretty well. I expect it’s changed shape a bit since the last time I was here, about four months ago, but the Reds don’t like them to get above a hundred thousand so overall it’ll be much the same. Certainly the inner areas will be. It’s the later additions, the most recently tacked on shelters that alter the appearance and can get you lost.’
‘At that size it’s going to be too big to scout on foot, even if we weren’t spotted as we roamed about. Do you have any contacts in there, who might be helpful with the right persuasion?’
He’d have to answer carefully, Hyde was fully aware of that. Both sides, in theory at least, enforced the Red Cross’s rules about no military interference in the camps beyond minimum policing; but Soviet commanders broke them when it suited them, and few soldiers on either side could resist the obvious attractions of the various ‘entertainments’ the camps offered. Many NATO troops made a point of carrying extra rations and similar
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