Chieftains

Adams and Ginsborough must have been watching through the lenses, for as the two men returned they climbed from the hull and waited for Browning to speak, their faces begging him to say something encouraging. Browning dropped his Remington back into its holster, squatted beside the Abrams and rested against the crippled track. The men stood looking down at him anxiously. He spoke slowly. 'Just over that hill is the end of the war for us. All we have to do is to walk slowly around there, with our hands up. No more shelling or bombing…no more rockets or napalm.' They remained silent. 'One thing I ought to tell you. The Russians took a lot of Germans prisoner in the '39-'45 war; the last ones they released didn't get home until '57. Some never made it at all…they used them as labourers in the Arctic Circle; maybe some of them are still alive, still up there. They'd be about sixty-five years old, could be even seventy.'

Adams said, 'We've got your point.'

'Maybe we could walk out, travel at night, try to reach the lines,' suggested Ginsborough.

'Could be,' agreed Browning. 'We might still have to try. Only the way I see it, we have a problem. The Russians could be advancing faster than we can walk. They do thirty kilo meters a day in their vehicles, we do ten every night on foot. The end of a week, and we're further behind the lines than when we started.'

'They'll be stopped somewhere, maybe at the Fulda river,' said Podini, hopefully.

'I guess we ought to get Utah mobile.' Adams ran his hand along the taut links of the track.' 'All I want is a gas cutter to get this sonovabitch back on the road. I ain't built for walking, and my idea of a vacation isn't ten years down some old salt mine.'

'It occurred to me when I was coming down the hill that there'd be everything we need in Gunthers. There'd be a garage there; I've seen one. The stuff we need could be in the wreckage.' Browning was deliberately avoiding giving the men orders. This was a difficult situation and it was going to get worse. It was essential he had a hundred per cent backing from the crew, and that would be more certain if they developed his ideas themselves.

Podini nodded. 'Maybe we could do it after dark.'

'Hole up until then,' added Ginsborough.

'They might send out patrols…pick us up.' Adams looked up at the hull of the XM1. 'Baby ain't easy to miss.'

'I think we've got a chance.' Browning pushed himself to his feet. 'The Russians' main concern is the front line. They'll use everything they've got up there, and do their tidying afterwards. I think we can make Utah look worse than she is…enough to fool a helicopter. Let's get to work. Gins, dismantle your machine gun and get yourself up on the ridge. Keep your head down, it's busy over there. Pino, you and Mike go and get a few bodies…'

'Bodies!' Podini looked stunned.

'Bodies the man said,' shrugged Adams. 'You made 'em, what you complaining about? I guess they're for decoration!'

Browning leant some of the broken tree branches against the hull of Utah, then lowered her gun until the barrel was fully depressed – it made her look forlorn. He opened all the hatches. There was a twisted sheet of metal a few meters away, part of the shield of some wrecked field-gun. He wedged it against the right track. There was already an abandoned look to the XM1.

Podini was examining the bodies of the men he had killed sixty meters to the right of the Abrams. They lay amongst the wreckage of their equipment, their bodies torn and mangled. It was the first time he had seen the effect of a shell burst on a human target at close quarters; it was horrifying. He wanted to throw up, but kept swallowing the acid bile that rose in his throat. Bodies, Browning had said. Jesus, there didn't seem to be one that was anywhere near complete! He'd seen his grandmother when she had died, but she had looked as though she were sleeping…a little yellow maybe, parchment-skinned, but only sleeping. These men, the bits of them, were wide-eyed, if they had any faces left at all; their mouths grinned through bloody smashed teeth and their bodies were grotesque, shattered, dismembered.

There was one partly covered by the loose stone of the wall. Podini could see both arms, its chest, head. He bent over it, biting his lip.

'Mike…Jesus Christ! Mike, over here.'

Adams was beside him, quickly. 'What the hell?'

'This guy ain't dead. I saw his eyes move. Feel his pulse will you…'

Adams knelt beside the man and stared at him for a few moments, then put the hard outside edge of his hand against the man's neck. He leant forward and pressed down with all his body weight.

'What are you doing, for God's sake?'

'Taking his pulse,' said Adams, coolly. The man's eyes flickered, then opened. Suddenly there was no more movement; muscles relaxed. 'I don't feel none. I'd say he was dead.'

'Mother of God, you killed him!'