That is a very fair arrangement, Major, very fair. I am sure I can get them to go along with it. If there is anything else I can do?”
“I’ll let you know.” And he would! Revell had to give the man a high mark for initiative, even if it was prompted by self interest. Among the Russian people a display of initiative was considered dangerous, a trait to be stamped on ruthlessly. So rarely was it ever practiced that they didn't even have a word for it in their language. “By what name are you known, if I need you again?”
“It is fortunate, Major, that my late comrade and I shared the same first name. A call for Grigori will soon find me.”
Revell didn't doubt that. The man was obviously an operator. He wondered how long it would be before, perhaps, he had to stamp on him.
“You're ready then?”
The convoy sergeant had been dogging Revell's footsteps, and hovering about him through all the preparations for departure. All of that time he had been carrying the clipboard with the unsigned receipt.
Whichever way he turned Revell found himself faced by it, and a proffered pen, like a supplicant's petition.
On top of the buses the new guards had finally settled in among nests of rearranged luggage. Those of the combat company and the pioneers who were to travel in the trucks and Hummers were already boarding.
Revell took a last look around to check that preparations were complete, then finally accepted the offered board. Crossing through the typed figures at the bottom of the torn and creased greasy paper, he wrote in the actual number he'd received live. Signing it and handing it back, he watched the master sergeant's expression as he read the alteration. He was far from happy.
“Ah hell, Major. There ain't something you could add, just to sort of soften it a little, is there? You know, about the escort going astray, maybe something on those lines.”
“You can explain that for yourself when you get back. Next time leave your captain to do his own dirty work. And if I were you I'd get those wheels changed on your transport. If the military police spot you motoring like that, they can have you on a sabotage rap. You've got enough problems as it is.”
Exhaust smoke plumed above the lengthening column parked on the drive, as the company's transports were jockeyed into place between each of the buses.
The perimeter of the grounds was lined with refugees. Having watched with greedy eyes every stage of the preparations for the move, they now became bolder and began to filter hesitantly toward the abandoned building. Gradually the pace of the cautious infiltration increased as they weren't challenged. Inevitably they began to converge on the kitchen area, and just as inevitably scuffles and fights began to occur.
As he ducked into his Hummer, Revell took a last look at the imposing building. In an hour or two it would be a shell, stripped of everything movable. It was a wonder it had escaped such depredations for so long. For a while yet it might have remained intact, if the presence of the combat company had not drawn attention to it.
Perhaps a few of the refugees would settle there for a while, until every last sliver of furniture and fittings had been consumed by the cooking fires. But it would not be for long. Disease was constantly thinning the numbers of civilians in the Zone, despite the constant replenishment caused by the frequent expansion of its area, as a consequence of fresh battles or advances. Certainly the old hotel would be abandoned the moment the truce ended. A conspicuous building was a dangerous place to be while there was fighting.
That it had escaped serious damage for such a length of time made it all the more likely that its turn for violent demolition would be soon.
For those pathetic displaced persons now struggling over scraps, the only comparative safety would be that offered by the larger refugee camps. There, overcrowding and the total breakdown of any semblance of law made life only marginally better. The Red Cross and the other relief agencies could do little faced with the vast numbers involved.
Taking his place in the front passenger seat, Revell saw that Andrea was already behind the wheel. Her foot tapped out an impatient series of loud revs from the gas pedal. Her action betrayed at least one fresh hole in the much patched muffler.
She looked like she'd been on a three day binge. Her hair was matted and her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. From the slack fit of her battledress Revell figured that she was also losing weight. Where it had been tight over her chest and hips, its folds now concealed her shape. As yet her drinking hadn't affected her fighting capabilities, but then he'd not put her in a position where she'd been really tested. At the rate she was going though, it would not be long before he had to do something about her. Once, because of how he'd felt about her, she would've had special treatment. Not any more.
“We're all set. Give them a blast.” Cradling his assault shotgun, Revell wished his hands were free so that he could stuff his fingers in his ears.
Andrea kept her hand down hard on the air-horn. The blare of the klaxon seemed to make his skull vibrate.
“That'll do. I think they got the message.” Revell estimated they had a three hour journey. With Garrett occupied on his radio watch in the rear compartment and with this silent and unsmiling driver, it was going to seem a lot longer.
ELEVEN
“Scorched earth. With a vengeance.”
Revell had to agree with Sergeant Hyde. It certainly looked as if those were the tactics that had been employed by the Warpac unit that pulled back from the area.
On his map Revell had it marked as an area of extensive demolitions. That told only a fraction of the story. The road here ran through thick woodland and what had once been a Russian encampment. There was little left by which to identify it as such.
What had been a complex of deep bunkers, skilfully linked by an extensive network of trenches and weapon pits was now a wasteland. Powerful explosions had caved in whole sections, and what had been missed by them showed ample evidence of having been churned and bulldozed. Fire had completed the work of destruction and the air still reeked with the distinctive smell of flame-thrower fuel and phosphorus residue.
Even a motorcycle and sidecar, presumably beyond repair and not worthy of salvage, had been crushed into the soft loam, like a modern-day fossil.
Masses of tall pines and firs had been toppled and now formed an impenetrable entwined and splintered mass across the road.
“It looks like they blasted everything, then ran across the whole lot with a squadron of tanks.” Revell pushed the flattened motorcycle with the toe of his boot. It didn't yield. “They didn't mean to leave anything for us, did they? I thought when we drove over the rest of our section our pet Russians were in for an easy time. I see now that they're not.” He turned to Lieutenant Vokes. “You're the expert in this sort of work. Where do we start?”
Vokes surveyed the torn and heavily cratered road. In places it was bared to a depth of several feet where spoil from detonations close alongside had rained down. He had tried counting the trees that lay across it, but had given up when he reached sixty, with at least as many more still to go.
“I think the orders are that we have ten days to open up twenty kilometres?” He looked to the major for an answering nod of confirmation. Another glance at the road and he sucked in air through the gap in his teeth.
“This section is by far the worst. I would think it would absorb seventy-five percent of our work force for the whole of that period. We are lucky it is virtually in the middle. I would suggest we camp and concentrate our effort here. The other road blocks, and that collapsed culvert, we can send working parties out to deal with each day, as they are required. It is a shame we do not have even one power shovel, or dump truck.”
“Haven't, and aren't likely to get. I'll put in a request all the same.” Revell made a note on a message pad. “A few chain saws wouldn't go amiss either.”
A blurred outline of the sun was sitting on the western horizon and among the trees the shadows had lengthened to infinity. As they walked back to where the column stood it became rapidly darker. Here, the trees still stood, crowding out the light.
There might be a truce in force but Revell could take no chances. The previous night had been a rare opportunity to relax in the Zone. Tonight they were right on the edge of the temporary truce strip. A bare six kilometres away was the Warpac side. If anything went wrong, they would be the very first to know about it. A few minutes or even seconds' warning might be enough to save some of their lives.
The guards that were already posted had a dual function though. They were positioned as much to watch that no one bolted into the trees, or appeared out of them.
“So they stay on the buses for tonight?” From the rear of the long file of vehicles Hyde heard the clatter of Scully preparing the evening meal. It would be their first, and only, hot meal of the day. The same would be served up for all of them, NATO troops and Warpac prisoner battalion alike.
“It'll be simpler that way. At first light we'll find a suitable clearing and keep a few of them back to erect a perimeter fence and put up the tents.”
“They'll be better off than us.”
Revell knew what Hyde meant, and knew it would rankle with the men. For the Russians it would be the comparative space and warmth of the buses. No guard duty for them, stumbling about in the dark, hearing and seeing things that weren't there as fatigue played tricks with eyes.
At least there appeared to be no mines, but in the major's mind that constituted something of an enigma. Even in its demolished state it was evident that the unit that had previously occupied the site had been able to call on lavish field engineer support. To have completed such extensive work would have called for a prodigious effort, of a sort not usually available to a formation probably not much above battalion strength.
And yet there were no mines. Hardly any barbed or razor wire either. Without those it was tempting to think the position had been prepared in advance of requirement, needing only those additions to activate it. But that was obviously not the case. Latrine trenches showed it had been occupied, and for some time.
Even more than the absence of mines, it was the lack of wire that puzzled Revell. He could recall several occasions when he had travelled through a landscape scraped clean by nuclear air-bursts. Every building was pulverized to the last brick, trees and telegraph poles burnt to below ground level. In so surreal a place the wisps of smoke from charring stumps had made it resemble an abandoned camp ground. And yet there had been the wire, partially buried or tumbled into giant rust and flame streaked concertinas, it was still there. Mines might be lifted for re-use, but wire?
Such a vast expenditure of effort, for what? An extravagant, almost profligate expenditure of man and machine hours to defend an insignificant unit in a quiet sector. Perhaps the answer would become clear in the morning. Time enough to puzzle over it then. At least he wouldn't be waking up with a hangover again, and the nagging worry as to what he might have caught this time.
“Dooley wants a word with you, Major.”
“Can't it wait until the morning, Sergeant Hyde. And what's come over him that suddenly he should decide to do things the correct way. Usually he simply saunters over and starts a conversation.”
“I've no idea. He's been acting funny all evening.” “In what way?”
“He's gone quiet.”
“I see what you mean. Well, send him over. Let's see what it's all about.” So what would it be this time? Since he'd first had him under his command, Revell had seen their antitank expert materialize a hundred or more ailments or excuses. All were imagined and all were intended to get him off some detail he didn't fancy. He should have asked his sergeant what guard duty Dooley had drawn. That might have offered an explanation. But Dooley going quiet... that was a new one.
“Permission to speak, sir.”
The “sir,” and the salute which accompanied it were definitely unique phenomena. It put Revell on his guard immediately. With the exception of Old William, who never offered more than a nod of recognition to officers, Dooley was probably the least military of any of his men.
“I'm listening.”
“It's a rather personal matter, sir.”
Revell looked about. They were fifty meters from the closest vehicle, as much again from the nearest sentry. “We're as alone as we'll ever be.”
Despite that reassurance Dooley still made his own check of the surrounding gloom. “I'd like to apply for leave, sir. On compassionate grounds.”
That was more like it. They were now on familiar territory. It was a ploy he recognized, and prepared to meet it. In the last twelve months Dooley had alleged the death of all his relatives down to second cousins, in similar attempts. Whatever his reason, it wouldn't take a moment to knock down. They'd had no mail for a month so he wouldn't be easily able to pluck any long lost uncle who languished on the threshold of death.
“Go on.”
“I want to get married.”
All of Revell's stock replies went out the window.
“Why?” Even as he said it he realized it was a stupid damned thing to ask, but in the shock of the moment it was all he could come up with.
“I'm in love, sir.”
“Known the young lady long?” Suspicion lurked in Revell's mind. “It is a young lady, is it? Not one of the, shall we say, more mature females I've seen you with.”
“She's about twenty ... twenty-five ... well, about that, sir.” Understanding began to dawn on the major. “So how long have you known this young lady of twenty or possibly twenty-five, with whom you are so in love.”
“Since about this time yesterday, Major.”
“And her name?”
This time Dooley didn't blurt out his response. He shifted from one foot to the other, looking at the ground.
“Actually ... well we didn't... that is, we didn't get down to exchanging names.” “A case of actions speaking louder than words, I take it. You're not thinking of chasing off after her, are you?”
“You know me better than that, Major. Request denied then, is it, sir?” It would have been easy for Revell to dismiss the matter as a joke, but for all he knew Dooley could be quite serious, if not very practical. Certainly stranger things had happened to others in the combat company. Burke's transformation, for instance.