Chieftains

There were two periscopes built into the roof of the bunker, their view covering a full three hundred and sixty degrees around the position. Roxforth had been using the one which covered the area towards the north-east in the direction of the East German border town of Oebisfelde a few kilometers away. Beyond the first chequerboard of fields was the 248 highway following the line of the border. Fellows lowered his head to the periscope and adjusted the focus to suit his eyes. The field of vision was blurred at the edges where grass and small shrubs close to the position interfered with the clarity of the lenses. A pall of smoke drifted in the easterly wind, from the direction of the woods beyond Bahrdorf. The village itself must have come under heavy shelling. Even at this distance, its familiar outline had changed. The bell tower of the church was missing, and many of the buildings looked ragged. The devastated farmland no longer had the prosperous and orderly appearance of the previous day, the surface of the fields heavily scarred by shell, bomb and missile craters, the formerly neat boundaries destroyed and tangled. A grain silo some six hundred meters from the bunker was blazing, and through the periscope's magnifying lenses Fellows could distinguish the carcasses of a herd of Fresian dairy cows nearby.

Even as he examined the changed landscape there was a flurry of explosions around the village. It was like watching the silent movie of another war. The barrage intensified as though some artillery observer had called for an Uncle Target and all the guns of the division were joining in. Perhaps a Russian commander had been foolish enough to allow his armour to be drawn into the collection of buildings.

Much closer and, to his right where he traversed the periscope, he could distinguish the movement of enemy vehicles and he was attempting to identify them when the ground they were crossing disingegrate in one single eruption of fire and smoke. The giant explosion separated into individual shell-bursts. It seemed that nothing could survive in the holocaust that Fellows recognized as a defensive barrage from NATO aritllery positions to the west, but the dark armoured vehicles were pressing forward out of the smoke, joined by others on their left flank. Their charge was no longer ordered, the shelling had destroyed any semblance of formation. They were T-72s and T-64s, the latter easily distinguishable by the remote-controlled 12.7mm AAMG sited above the main gun. Close behind the battle tanks were a number of BMPs, tracked infantry carriers.

The artillery were now ranging on individual targets. He saw one tank swerve to avoid a deep crater, only to collide with another which had moved too close. He could almost feel the grinding of metal against metal, but the vehicles separated with a barely noticeable lowering of their speed.

They must have crossed the minefields south of Oebisfelde, and Fellows wondered about the casualties this must have cost them. The mines had been laid densely, and the invaders would have been under artillery attack as well. The tanks he was watching now, and the infantry combat vehicles, were the survivors.

'You want a closer look, sir?' It was Hinton, commander of the platoon of 22nd SAS. A lieutenant, there were no badges of rank on his smock. 'Use the other 'scope.'

Fellows walked with him in silence to the eastern end of the bunker, stepping through the groups of camouflage-streaked men who sat or lay on the concrete floor, many asleep. Hinton nodded towards the second periscope. Fellows put his eyes to the binocular lenses. He pulled his head back in surprise, then stared out again. Not fifteen meters away was the stationary hull of a 122mm self-propelled gun; on the slab side of its turret was a white circle, encompassing a red star.

He looked at Hinton and raised his eyebrows.

'We counted eleven of them,' said Hinton. 'They've positioned themselves in a line running towards the south-east.'

There were normally only eighteen SPGs to a Soviet tank division, thought Fellows. As they would have had to cross the minefields while under artillery fire, the eleven Hinton had seen were probably the only ones to have made it. And they were on the left flank of what appeared to be a Soviet division's main thrust. 'Are they all the same type?'

'I don't think so. There were others, with a flatter profile and a grill on the hull just forward of the turret.'