There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 20
Drachev’s tanks swept out to block the escape of the train. He was grinning fiercely. Whoever was on that train was the reason his unit had been given this fool’s errand. They had gotten him saddled with Major Grishin, and thus caused the loss of his men and vehicles at Viluk, and Drachev was eager to make them pay.
Corporal Ulyarin had five men with him on the rearmost flatcar, each officially supposed to be scanning the horizon for activity, but most waving goodbye to the townspeople. Newly promoted, however, Ulyarin took his duty seriously, and no sooner had his field of vision cleared the buildings than he saw the clouds of dust in the distance.
Tanks! And heading for the tracks to cut them off.
What happened next was simply bad luck. Corporal Ulyarin snatched his radio microphone up and keyed it several times before he spoke.
“Captain Rostov, this is Ulyarin. I have vehicles on the track, repeat, vehicles on the track, do you read?”
The microphone made no sound when he released the key, and Ulyarin looked down to see what was wrong with it. In his haste, he had pulled the plug completely free from the jack. Cursing, he resecured the plug, aware that precious seconds had been lost.
Drachev’s tank was the first to crest the embankment of the railbed. His and another light tank close behind crossed the rails in a bone-jarring lurch, their turrets already swinging about to follow the train as it continued to emerge from between the buildings of Suschenko.
Drachev traced the line of cars back to the cloud of smoke that revealed the position of the engine. They were approaching the town from an angle, and the far end of the train seemed very far back; its length had barely been concealed by the total extent of the town itself and their angle of approach.
We might have passed it, Drachev thought. We might have decided to breeze past with just a look and missed it completely.
Drachev’s other two tanks remained on the opposite side of the tracks, their experienced crews finding low points in the terrain and putting the vehicles hull-down to any antitank weapons the enemy might have available to use against them.
Meanwhile, the BMP armored personnel carriers were deploying in a semicircle, disgorging troops from the back ramp doors without even slowing down.
Drachev didn’t bother to think about just who might be aboard that train. Revenant was part of PRG One; PRG One was the voice of Novaya Moskva, and Grishin was the eyes. Thus, PRG One had said to destroy that train, and PRG One was watching.
Drachev was a professional soldier; if he had no love for the KGB that now gave him his commands, it was simply that he had none to spare from the love he gave to his country. The orders came down to him, and he carried them out, hoping that in the long run, the best interests of the Rodina were being served by somebody, anybody, even the KGB, willing to take the responsibility.
“Gunner, spotting round, center of the tracks. Signal.”
Drachev listened to the sound of the plastic-cased shell being fed into the gun, the breech sealing after it.
“Ready, sir.”
Drachev gave the order to shoot before the gunner got the second word out.
Rostov heard the radio on his hip squawking. He pulled up the handset in time to hear Ulyarin requesting a confirmation.
“Ulyarin, say again.”
“Vehicles have crossed the tracks, Captain Rostov, two on our right side, at least two more on our left. Light tanks, hull down, do you read?”
Rostov’s blood chilled. Tanks. Only the KGB still had tanks. “Ulyarin, fall back from the flatcars and get under cover, confirm!”
“Yes sir, we—”
Ulyarin’s signal was cut off. A cloud of red smoke erupted at the far end of the train.
Spotting round, Rostov realized, and a second later the crack of the small shell came back to him. He leaned down to shout to Gyrich and Pilkanis in the control cabin. “Trainman Gyrich, we’re under attack; tanks on the rails.”
Gyrich seemed at a loss. “We can stop, Lieu—Captain, but…”
“To hell with that ‘Captain’ nonsense! Gyrich, if we stop in this town we’re trapped. We’ve got to get out in the open where the men can deploy. We may have to ram these tanks, though, if they’re on the rails.”
Gyrich shook his head vigorously. “I wouldn’t try it, sir. We’ve only got flatcars at that end. Too light. A tank could derail the car’s wheels.”
“How fast can we reverse course?”
Pilkanis scoffed openly. “This is a train, Captain Rostov, not a warship.”
Rostov had seconds to make a decision, and he knew it. “Well, it is a warship now, Comrades. Gyrich, get us out of here, as fast as you can go, through or over anything in our way!”
Rostov keyed the radio handset: “Zorin! Ulyarin’s spotted tanks on the tracks, get back there and help him. Aliyev will meet you with antitank rockets. You coordinate the attack.”
His next call had Aliyev racing to tear open crates that had been packed away only days earlier.
Zorin found Corporal Ulyarin beyond help. The spotting round fired by Drachev’s gunner had been a direct hit on the firing pit occupied by the Corporal and one of his men. The shell was a smoke round, not meant to do any real damage, but that still made it an explosive incendiary. Ulyarin and the man with him had been killed instantly.
The three other men on the flatbed were deafened by the blast and blinded by the smoke. They stumbled forward to the next flatcar; one fell off the train before Zorin could reach him and was crushed under the wheels. The others he led to the side and jumped with them to the railbed.
Rolling to his feet, Zorin began pounding on the walls of the cars.
“Everybody out of there now! Where’s Aliyev?”
“Here, sir!”
“Get an RPG for each man and get your squad out into that grass; those tanks have to be knocked out. And find Dyatlov; have him get some more RPGs to these townspeople in case they break through on our rear.”
“You think they’ve surrounded us, sir?”
“Christus, I bloody well would.”
Drachev was watching through his field glasses and saw three figures leap to the side of the tracks. He couldn’t make out details, but the bandits appeared to be in Army uniforms. Stolen, he supposed, from their previous victims.
“Sons of bitches. Load fléchette. Signal.”
“Fléchette, ready.”
“Shoot!”
The guns of the LT-200 were light by any armor standards in the world, but they were devastating against opponents with no defense against them. Drachev’s tank fired a fléchette round; the proximity-fused shell detonated over the second flatcar, spraying the train with thousands of steel needles. Men with moderate protection were safe, but those exposed died horribly, along with many nearby civilians who had not reached cover.
Drachev raised his field glasses again; the train was accelerating. Perhaps Grishin was attacking the other end by now; Drachev didn’t have time to get him on the radio.
“Ready incendiary.”
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the hatch rim; incendiary rounds were stored well apart from the other ammunition, in nonflammable gelatin. The gunner needed a few seconds’ warning to get one and load the slippery casing into the breech.
Rostov felt like a fool. His men were going into action at the other end of the train, and the curve in the track kept him from even seeing what was going on. All he could do was trust Zorin to deal with it and hope they could get up speed to escape. Many of the people of Suschenko were still on the platforms and sidings where they had been waving goodbye. Now they huddled in panic in whatever cover they could find.
Fedorin was trotting alongside the engine, shouting something up at him. Rostov turned and yelled down at him, waving his arms for emphasis.
“Get under cover; those are KGB tanks out there. We’re going to have to fight our way past them and make a run for it. You can’t be seen helping us, Fedorin. Get these civilians out of here!” Rostov couldn’t be sure the old Major understood him, but the reservists stood for a moment looking up at him, then waved and ran off out of sight. Rostov’s radio started pinging again.
“Rostov here, come in.”
“Zorin here, Aleksei. Looks like two tanks on each side of the tracks, a crossfire. Probably infantry with them but I can’t tell with that grass. Aliyev and I have men moving out with RPG-90s to take out those tanks in the fields. Another squad is taking up positions on the flatcar.”
“Can you see Ulyarin’s position?”
“Affirmative. Ulyarin’s dead, Aleksei; that spotting round, looks like a lucky hit. Smoke is dispersing.”
“We’re making a run for it, Mikhail. We can’t leave any men behind, so either you kill all four tanks or the men will have to catch up with us on foot.”
“Understood, sir. Four tanks it is. Zorin out.”
Rostov was shaking. He’d been running on willpower for days, the adrenaline rush tasted like a mouthful of old copper pfennigs and it looked like there was to be no end to it, ever.
A civilian was shouting to him from the platform below. He turned and felt something tug at his sleeve. The shouting became a scream: “Get down!”
Rostov’s arm felt wet, then numb. He turned completely around to look toward the front of the train.
A light tank was sitting squarely astride the tracks, firing the machine gun in its turret. Rostov instinctively dropped down the hatch, falling eight feet to the control cabin floor. A moment later the open hatch above him rang like a bell with the impact of half a dozen bullets.
“You’re hit, Rostov,” Pilkanis shouted.
Rostov saw a hole in the sleeve covering his numb left arm, pain blossoming around it more quickly than the red stain just above his elbow. Blood began threading over his fingers to drip onto the grating of the engine’s oily floor.
“We have light tanks front and rear.” Looking up at the hatch, Rostov saw his radio dangling from a locking lever in the hatch. “Keep up the speed, Gyrich. I need to get my radio.”
But by the time he got to his feet, he saw Pilkanis was already risking himself to fire to detach the radio, then drop down the ladder amid another hail of bullets.
The big Lithuanian conscript rose from the floor and handed Rostov the radio. “It must have caught on the hatch when you fell.” Adjusting his spectacles, Pilkanis went back to the locomotive’s controls.
Rostov keyed the microphone again. “Sergeant Dyatlov.”
The reply was instantaneous. “Dyatlov standing by, Captain. I have twelve men, each armed with an RPG-90.”
Bless you, Colonel Podgorny, and your damnable list. “We have tanks in the town, attacking the engine, Sergeant.”
“Understood. Dyatlov out.”
The numbness in his arm was gone, and Rostov’s concentration was disintegrating as the pain took hold. Pilkanis had produced a knife and removed the sleeve, wrapping the wounded arm with the makeshift bandage while Rostov was still speaking to Dyatlov. Without a word, Pilkanis secured the dressing and returned to his work station.
“I’ve got to see what’s going on,” Rostov told Gyrich. “There are wind plates at the sides and front of this locomotive; how thick are they?”
“Almost two centimeters, Captain,” Gyrich told him.
Rostov had seen some of the light tanks up close; they were built for speed and ease of maintenance. They wouldn’t have more than 7.62-millimeter mounts for machine guns. Two centimeters might be proof against a coaxial machine gun, Rostov thought. He would never dare to hope that much metal would turn an armor piercing round.
Rostov picked up his weapons belt. A sidearm and four grenades. Well, he wasn’t going out there to fight, anyway. But he might be able to discourage anyone who tried to board.
“Captain, I can vent some steam forward if you think it might help. Could blind them,” Gyrich suggested.
“Better still,” Rostov said, “it should play hob with their thermal imaging sights. Do it. It probably won’t keep them from hitting the train, but it might give some cover to Dyatlov and his men. I’m going outside.” He called back as he went through the door, “You have weapons in here. Don’t hesitate to use them on anybody you don’t recognize.”
Gyrich nodded and threw a lever. From outside came a dragon’s roar, and the tank on the tracks was engulfed in roiling white clouds of steam. He looked over to Pilkanis, who was picking up an assault rifle.
“Incendiary ready.”
Drachev was about to give the fire order when he saw a white cloud erupt over the low roofs of Suschenko. The roar of escaping steam reached him a moment later.
“Hold your fire. Grishin’s tanks must have pierced the boiler of the locomotive. Get him on the radio for confirmation, but start moving in for close assault, anyway. Nobody gets out of Suschenko; pass the word.”
Drachev’s driver opened the throttle to lead the other three tanks and their accompanying infantry forward.
It was Drachev’s only serious tactical error committed in battle in three years; a splendid record. Considering his unfamiliarity with locomotives, it was a perfectly understandable mistake, at that.
Sergeant Aliyev had thoroughly enjoyed his promotion. He hadn’t expected to have to use his rank so soon but, as Captain Wrenn had said, “Those were the breaks.” He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it sounded appropriate.
Aliyev took four men and advanced along a gully. When he saw movement on the other side, they froze, and a moment later one of the light tanks appeared. They were leaving their crossfire positions to move in on the train.
Aliyev signaled to Private Dolin, who tucked an RPG to his shoulder and fired in one smooth motion.
The rocket disappeared into the grass on the other side of the gully, just ahead of the advancing tank. An instant later the turret of the tank shot straight up into the air, followed by flames and a dark shape that might have been a body.
Small-arms fire erupted from the opposite side of the gully, but Aliyev and his men were already gone, falling back even as Dolin had fired.
One down, three to go, Aliyev thought. Much as he hated to do it, he had to ignore the enemy infantry for now. These tanks could destroy the train, and that made eliminating them the first priority. Once they were gone, the odds would be even.
On the opposite side of the tracks from Aliyev, Zorin watched the tanks heading for the train and blessed his luck. He swept his own force wide around and to the rear of the advancing armor, spotting several groups of support infantry without revealing his own unit’s presence. Zorin saw a tank brew up, heard answering fire, and knew Aliyev was on the job.
Zorin’s maneuvering was almost casual. The turret backs of the tanks were clearly visible, and he even caught glimpses of the backs of the KGB infantry in the tall grass. All were shooting as they advanced, pouring assault fire into the area from which Aliyev had attacked. Uselessly, Zorin knew, for he was sure Aliyev was long gone.
Zorin looked again at the backs of the advancing KGB troops before him. They should let their comrades on the other side of the tracks take care of themselves, he thought. These fellows were about to have troubles of their own.
He almost felt sorry for them as he raised his rifle.
When the cloud of steam poured out at them, Grishin had panicked. He had deliberately kept the nature of the bandits a secret from Drachev, so as not to try the man’s loyalty until battle was joined. But Grishin knew he was up against Combat Engineers, and he was positive the white clouds billowing toward him could be only one thing.
“Gas!” he shouted, fumbling to seal the air intakes on the turret. “Secure for gas!” At that, the tank crew panicked as well. They’d been hunting bandits for some time now, and they’d never run into any with chemical weapons. Out of practice, they fumbled about in the tiny vehicle for masks and the hatch seal switches, and the tank’s effectiveness was reduced to zero.
Blinded by the harmless steam, the tank that had been following up their advance crashed into them from behind and threw a thread.
Grishin felt the impact from behind and took it for an attack. “Turret about, AP, fire!” The confusion became absolute.
Rostov couldn’t be sure what was happening in the cloud of steam behind them. He saw Corporal Dyatlov and several men running alongside the engine, using the steam as cover to close with the tanks. Dyatlov stopped when he caught sight of Rostov.
“Captain Rostov!” Dyatlov fairly flew up a ladder to Rostov’s side. “Sir, you’ve been hit. Let me get you back to Comrade Surgeon Blaustein.”
Rostov was about to reply when one tank on the tracks fired point-blank at the tank behind it—and missed.
“I don’t know what’s going on out there, Dyatlov, but I think you’d better deal with them first. I’ll be all right.”
Dyatlov hesitated, then jumped back down to the railbed and disappeared into the dissipating cloud of steam.
Colonel Fedorin sat on a roof overlooking the tracks, looking much as he had when he first met Sergeant Zorin, in half-buttoned pants with suspenders and an undershirt. On the roof across from him were two more of his Rail Security staff. All were armed with two antitank rockets apiece.
It had been a long time since Fedorin had fired a weapon. Sometimes he told himself that the harsh realities of combat in his youth had become the romantic memories of a fat old pencil pusher. Still, he felt now as he remembered feeling then: alive, vital, proud of his past, unsure of his future, but certain of his present. He was in uniform, doing his duty for people who depended upon him.
Fedorin was a simple man, with limited visions of what was important in life. Mostly, he was practical. His bones told him a hard winter was coming, and the fuel which Rostov’s men had treated with Immunizer would be crucial to Suschenko if any of her people were to be alive in the spring. He did not expect much help to be forthcoming from the Party.
