in his turret seat as he usually did before resettling, and then engaged the drive fiercely. The violent tactic brought complaint from more than his intended victim.
‘Fuck it, stop chucking this crate about like it was a fucking stock car.’ Pushing aside the avalanche of ammunition clips and medical kits that had followed him to the floor, Dooley regained his seat on the bench.
Boris had suffered worse than a sudden loss of dignity. Blood oozed from a deep gash high on his forehead, where his head had made hard contact with a hull fitting. He made no complaint, not even when Thorne, acting begrudgingly on their officer’s orders, cleaned and covered the indented cut. No sound came from him when the hair the impact had embedded in his flesh was pulled away, nor when the first field dressing applied proved to be too small and had to be ripped off to be replaced by a larger.
‘Tough buggers, those Ruskies.’ Watching, Dooley saw the deserter immediately resume what he had been doing, pausing only to wipe spots of blood from the respirator lens he’d been replacing.
‘Maybe,’ Hyde didn’t see it the same way, ‘or maybe they’re just so damned thick they don’t even know when they’re hurt. I saw one of their field hospitals once, we over-ran it before they had a chance to scarper, surgeons were still working when we went in. That’s if they were surgeons, I’ve seen apprentice butchers make a better job of carving meat. You should have seen it—crude wasn’t the word. They might have a few fancy show-piece hospitals in Moscow, but for the poor sods they use as cannon fodder it’s swab, stitch, splint and back into battle Ivan. The stupid sods line up like dumb animals to have their arms and legs lopped off without even an aesthetic. Our M.O. did his nut. You saw it Clarence, what did you think?’
‘When I walked through the wards all I was thinking was what a lot of rotten marksmen there must be in the NATO armies. I’ve never seen so many gunshot wounds. In our casualty clearing stations better than three quarters of all cases are from mines and artillery. It was nearer fifty-fifty there, though that might have been because of the human wave tactics the Russians were usmg at the time. When there’s a couple of thousand or more of the ugly swine coming at you, there isn’t always the opportunity to take leisurely aim and go for a killing shot, it’s a case of having to pump as much lead toward them as you can.’
‘I would like the chance to fire on such numbers.’ Andrea hugged her M16 across her chest.
‘Killing them one by one will take so long.’ She looked pointedly at Boris, but he studiously avoided her eye.
He didn’t catch all her words, but Revell could tell by her tone and expression that Andrea was talking about killing. Only rarely did she join in conversation, and then almost invariably on that subject. That alone should have made it easy for him to draw her on the subject of Inga.
After the circle of Russian armour around Hamburg had been broken he’d gone back into the city to search for her. All he’d found was her apartment block a blazing inferno and no sign of Inga. Those other residents he’d been able to find had told him little; shots had been heard, and a dark haired girl had been seen leaving shortly before the fire had broken out in Inga’s rooms.
In a moment he could have set his mind at rest, or had his worst suspicions confirmed by asking Andrea what she knew, but either answer was too frightening to contemplate. One would have left him filled with doubt, the other would have tortured and torn his mind. And so he didn’t ask, and instead of the single conflict that would have gnawed at his brain he was left with elements of both chasing through his thoughts and twisting and warping them until he didn’t know what question to ask, what answer to hope for.
‘We are behind them again.’ On an infra-red scan of the road ahead Boris had detected very
‘Fuck it, stop chucking this crate about like it was a fucking stock car.’ Pushing aside the avalanche of ammunition clips and medical kits that had followed him to the floor, Dooley regained his seat on the bench.
Boris had suffered worse than a sudden loss of dignity. Blood oozed from a deep gash high on his forehead, where his head had made hard contact with a hull fitting. He made no complaint, not even when Thorne, acting begrudgingly on their officer’s orders, cleaned and covered the indented cut. No sound came from him when the hair the impact had embedded in his flesh was pulled away, nor when the first field dressing applied proved to be too small and had to be ripped off to be replaced by a larger.
‘Tough buggers, those Ruskies.’ Watching, Dooley saw the deserter immediately resume what he had been doing, pausing only to wipe spots of blood from the respirator lens he’d been replacing.
‘Maybe,’ Hyde didn’t see it the same way, ‘or maybe they’re just so damned thick they don’t even know when they’re hurt. I saw one of their field hospitals once, we over-ran it before they had a chance to scarper, surgeons were still working when we went in. That’s if they were surgeons, I’ve seen apprentice butchers make a better job of carving meat. You should have seen it—crude wasn’t the word. They might have a few fancy show-piece hospitals in Moscow, but for the poor sods they use as cannon fodder it’s swab, stitch, splint and back into battle Ivan. The stupid sods line up like dumb animals to have their arms and legs lopped off without even an aesthetic. Our M.O. did his nut. You saw it Clarence, what did you think?’
‘When I walked through the wards all I was thinking was what a lot of rotten marksmen there must be in the NATO armies. I’ve never seen so many gunshot wounds. In our casualty clearing stations better than three quarters of all cases are from mines and artillery. It was nearer fifty-fifty there, though that might have been because of the human wave tactics the Russians were usmg at the time. When there’s a couple of thousand or more of the ugly swine coming at you, there isn’t always the opportunity to take leisurely aim and go for a killing shot, it’s a case of having to pump as much lead toward them as you can.’
‘I would like the chance to fire on such numbers.’ Andrea hugged her M16 across her chest.
‘Killing them one by one will take so long.’ She looked pointedly at Boris, but he studiously avoided her eye.
He didn’t catch all her words, but Revell could tell by her tone and expression that Andrea was talking about killing. Only rarely did she join in conversation, and then almost invariably on that subject. That alone should have made it easy for him to draw her on the subject of Inga.
After the circle of Russian armour around Hamburg had been broken he’d gone back into the city to search for her. All he’d found was her apartment block a blazing inferno and no sign of Inga. Those other residents he’d been able to find had told him little; shots had been heard, and a dark haired girl had been seen leaving shortly before the fire had broken out in Inga’s rooms.
In a moment he could have set his mind at rest, or had his worst suspicions confirmed by asking Andrea what she knew, but either answer was too frightening to contemplate. One would have left him filled with doubt, the other would have tortured and torn his mind. And so he didn’t ask, and instead of the single conflict that would have gnawed at his brain he was left with elements of both chasing through his thoughts and twisting and warping them until he didn’t know what question to ask, what answer to hope for.
‘We are behind them again.’ On an infra-red scan of the road ahead Boris had detected very
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