Chieftains

'Well, I reckon t' be warrant officer, tha's got to have more brains than a sergeant.' The northern accent was deliberately heavy, broad.

Davis was going to interrupt the banter, and then decided to let DeeJay finish. He didn't want to appear sensitive about his sudden promotion.

'Well, yeah, that's probably right.'

'In that case, stands to reason Inky we got to be better off than this morning, ain't we? Cus, we've got a warrant officer with us now.'

'How would you like some fatigues instead of R and R when we get out of this, Hewett?' Davis thought a little controlled annoyance might be beneficial.

'There y'are, Inky. Our warrant officer said "when we get out". See…warrant officers are bloody optimists, too!' DeeJay began whistling again, this time 'Colonel Bogey'.

Inkester twisted around in his seat. 'That's meant to be a joke, sir. You know DeeJay.'

'I know both of you; that's why you're with me.'

'We're bloody glad we are, sir.'

The moon was beginning to rise and Davis could see movement a few meters away across the corner of the field. He watched carefully. There was a hedgerow to the right, neatly trimmed, below a row of poplars that had been planted as a windbreak for the crops. A fox! He could see it better now, stalking a rabbit that was feeding a few meters out in the stubble. Everything is killing everything else, he thought. One day there'll be only one living thing left on earth, and it'll be so lonely it will have to kill itself, and that will be the end of it all. The earth might be a better place then. Green, lush, peaceful, soundless. Green? If everything killed everything else, it wouldn't be green. It would be brown…dry rock and sand…mud. It would be the battlefield again.

Davis's new troop in Charlie Squadron had retained its designation 'Bravo'. Davis wasn't sure if it was deliberate or accidental, but somehow it seemed to indicate continuity; it certainly made life easier for himself. All he had to remember was that his new Chieftain was Charlie Bravo One, and that as troop leader, he might use the call sign Nine. Captain Willis' voice was on the squadron net now. 'All stations, Charlie, this is Shark. Wolf griddle five seven six zero nine two. Out!

'Charlie Bravo One. Roger, Shark. Out.'

The radio clicked to silence again. The shorter the time a sender spent on the air, the less likely the call would be intercepted or its source located by enemy listening posts.

Wolf. That was the code name for a Soviet recce battalion. The numbers were a coded grid reference. Davis worked it out on his knee-pad, and then found it on his map. God, they were less than three kilometers away, and a recce battalion could move quickly in their light vehicles.

'How long?' asked Inkester. His voice seemed to have aged in the past hours. Perhaps it was only fatigue.

'Depends. They could try to cross north or south of us. Unless they're delayed, they should reach the river in twenty minutes to half an hour.'

'The minefields will slow them.'

Slow them! Inkester had learned fast, thought Davis. This morning he would have said: 'Stop them'. Sometimes it seemed nothing would ever stop the Russians; they'd keep rolling right the way to the Channel.

'Well get plenty of support,' Davis said. At least that was true. They hadn't intended to hold them close to the frontier, only slow them down, inflict as many casualties as possible to the armour. Here, it was different. The defences were much stronger, the minefields denser and deeper. There had been a little more time for preparation, and information on the enemy's movements and tactics was clearer.

'You been keeping score, sir?'

'Score?'

'Kills.'

'No,' admitted Davis. Christ, trust Inkester! The lad thought he was Von Richthofen. The first opportunity he got, he would paint a line of red stars on the side of the turret.

'Me neither.' Inkester sounded disappointed. 'I got as far as five, and then I lost count. It was more than that though, maybe eight.'