For Queen and County

[James G]

FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY

–

The British Armed Forces During World War Three

Prologue – Time-Bomb


January 26th 1990
No. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London, Great Britain

The Foreign Secretary was still in Washington talking to Britain's allies across the Atlantic so in his place George Morris MP – Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) – came to Downing Street this Friday morning in his stead. Morris knew that the Prime Minister wasn't one of his biggest personal supporters in Government yet she like most of the Cabinet was aware that he knew his brief.

Junior minister's such as himself were expected to stand in for their secretary of state at times like this.

The full Cabinet wasn't meeting this morning in Downing Street; just certain ministers and senior officials from the armed forces, the intelligence community and the civil service. As per convention and for the benefit of the official minutes of the meeting, the Prime Minister begun by summarising for a few moments why they were all present and then asked the Director-General of the Secret Intelligence Service to explain further of what his organisation knew.

The MI-6 head got straight to the point: “The C.I.A has their hands upon a Soviet national in Iceland. He has been persuaded to defect and is currently on his way to the United States if not having arrived there by now. This man is a K.G.B officer with their First Chief Directorate and previously known to the Americans as a bomb-maker.

He built and then planted an explosive device aboard the General Secretary's aircraft before it left Reykjavik yesterday afternoon.

My opposite numbers in the Soviet Union would usually do things like this in the same manner as a Mafia clan would do. They will have a man at the top give the order in person to a subordinate who would then relay that to a subordinate of his own and so on further down the chain-of-command until such a command reaches those at the bottom who would carry out such a deed. This, as you can imagine, eliminates the possibility of such an act being tracked back to the top by… let us say people like myself. Bombing aircraft to kill heads of state, as we know the K.G.B have done before, isn't something that the Soviets want others to be able to prove they have done.

In this instance, the defector which the Americans have claims that he received his order straight from the very top: K.G.B Chairman Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov.”

“Could this be a ruse? A trick, a deception? Do you suspect that the Americans might have unfortunately stumbled upon an agent provocateur?”

“I will admit that there is a strong chance that you might be correct there.”

Morris noticed how un-fazed the professional spook was by the suggestion from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that his organisation might have been taken in by a complicated plot; he was left rather impressed at such an admission. Another man might not have been so willing to admit such a thing.

“Either way,” the MI-6 head continued, “Kryuchkov has already had a statement issued by the Soviet Foreign Ministry claiming that the aircraft was destroyed over the ocean by an 'Imperialist bomb' and declaring that the 'assassins of the General Secretary' will be 'punished'.”

“That is the language used by someone preparing for war.” The comment from the Secretary of State for Defence didn't sound at all like that was something that he wanted to see occur. Morris looked over at the man after he spoke and saw him move in his chair slightly in what was no doubt an uncomfortable manner at the thought of such an outcome.

The Home Secretary spoke up next: “Are we sure that Gorbachev has been killed? The aircraft exploded above the ocean but do we have any confirmation of that?”

“No, unfortunately we do not.” The MI-6 head sounded regretful. “I would suspect that the use of a time-bomb to have the blast occur over the ocean was deliberate to hide all available evidence.

Nonetheless, even if his aircraft did not explode and landed elsewhere for whatever unspecified reasons, the coup d’état has still taken place. It is not just Kryuchkov's statements but other actions which have taken place which shows without uncertainty that his regime has been toppled. We have information from our sources inside Moscow – confirmed by some of our allies too – that key members of the Soviet government known to be supporters of the General Secretary are missing with other suspected hard-liners having taken their posts. The announcements made on Soviet television and radio, in addition to an intercept of an official communique we saw delivered to the Polish government, leave no room for misunderstanding on what has happened.”

“Are we to see a return to the dark days of Stalin?”

“I fear so, Chancellor.”

In the pause that followed such remarks, Morris again swept his eyes across the room to the faces of those here. He saw only depression at the news of what had occurred and the fears evident in the faces of those here. These were people who had been hearing bad news and disturbing developments coming out from behind the Iron Curtain for many months now. Yet, Gorbachev had always been there at the head of the Soviet Union.

The now-deceased General Secretary was a man whom the Prime Minister had always believed that she would work with. He was the head of a regime that was fundamentally opposed to that which she led in all aspects but he himself had been long trying to change that and reform his nation. Maybe representative democracy would never break out in Gorbachev's country yet the influence of his murderous security services was supposed to have been weakened, the threat of warfare – conventional or nuclear – lessened and the puppet nations across Eastern Europe reigned-in from some of their excesses and maybe one day allowed to go their own way.

In the latter case, since the troubles had begun in East Germany in October, Gorbachev had given all the signs of being willing to stop the madness that had been unleashed there. He had soothed the fears of some that war would erupt as a consequence of the East Germans killing their own people and also made public efforts trying to stop the actions of those new leaders in East Berlin. At the same time there had been many failures from the man. Morris's work at the FCO dealt with Eastern Europe and he knew how the situation in Poland had started to mirror that of East Germany with public protests met with bullets from the security forces and then changes to the top levels of the government. He himself hadn't held Gorbachev in as much esteem as the Prime Minister had because those events still occurred on his watch. It was said that Gorbachev didn't have the power to influence everything and Morris regarded that as accurate enough that too much faith shouldn't have been placed in him.

And now he was dead, killed at the hands of his own countrymen.

“George,” the Prime Minister was talking to him, “I spoke to Douglas through the embassy in Washington. Is there any input that you feel that the F.C.O needs to add to this meeting?”

Whilst realising that he was being chastised, Morris nonetheless remembered his duty as a servant of the crown as he was here on behalf of the Foreign Secretary and added his superior's view to the conversation; he too had spoken with the man. “The Foreign Secretary believes that Kryuchkov poses a serious danger to Britain's interests and those of the West too. He will need to consolidate his position first yet the danger that he poses is very real.”

Morris had spoken fast and what he said had sounded rather artificial put in such a fashion yet it summed up the feeling of the Foreign Secretary. The Prime Minister had brought the other top tiers of the government here to hear their views on the issue and Morris had now given the considered opinion of his superior.

“I find myself in agreement with this expressed view.” The Prime Minister took back charge of the meeting. “This Kryuchkov is a rather dangerous man and what he has done is an outrage. These are not the actions of a reformer nor a man which we can work with at all.

As to how this affects us, I would like to remind you all of events last November during the war scare that occurred. I worry that it will happen again and the difficulties which it presented us with could be worse a second time around. We cannot stop this information eventually becoming public knowledge. The fears that will follow it should not be allowed to get out of control like they did before though.

We need to work together to decide how best to react publicly.”

The Prime Minister had spoken of events last year when there had been a rather serious war scare in the West following the wave of unrest across on the other side of the Iron Curtain which first occurred in East Germany and then afterwards in Poland. Irresponsible people had spoken in the public arena of the possibility of those being precursors to war and there had been some unfortunate events afterwards ranging from a collapse of the London Stock Exchange – 'Black Thursday' they called it – to isolated instances of minor civil unrest in urban areas across Britain. Unlike behind the Iron Curtain, the British authorities hadn't started shooting rioting civilians as those people were stealing electrical goods, jewellery and other items of monetary value when they looted shops along high streets: they were not engaging in violence to attain human rights and political freedoms.

Nonetheless, those had been terrible events which had caused much harm to the nation. The war scare there had been unnecessary and started by those with no concept of the trouble they unleashed and not much regret afterwards either.

As he recalled those events those present with him now were discussing what remarks would be released to the media as the official government reaction to the toppling of Gorbachev and how what was said would be best phrased to not alarm people too much. They were talking too of making sure that others with influence understood the need to make a calm and measured response rather than overreact.

All of this was sensible, but there remained something else that he yet to be discussed properly. The Foreign Secretary had spoken to him about it and Morris didn't want to not raise it with those here in Downing Street this morning and leave that to another time. That stakes were far too high for that and he didn't want to leave unaddressed what the Foreign Secretary had called another potential ticking time-bomb.

“Can I just interrupt for a moment?” Morris was as polite as possible in the words he used yet aimed with the tone which he employed to make sure that everyone paid attention to him.

“Yes, George?”

“Thank you, Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary asked me to bring attention to something else which he thought was an urgent matter for discussion.

He believes – and I share the opinion – that we should all be prepared for the possibility that this is a situation that we will be unable to deal with and come to a satisfactory conclusion. Kryuchkov has acted in the manner which he has not just on a whim. He has arranged for the murder of the General Secretary and then afterwards launched his coup. This is something to worry about because of what it would be the start to.”

“Carry on, Minister.” Morris had paused for a moment to get his thinking straight on what he had to say to finish his point and if there was dissent to what he was saying then no one raised that; instead he just received encouragement to continue from the Prime Minister's most senior foreign policy adviser.

“This could be the beginnings of a path to war.”

There was no outburst of opposition to what he said as Morris worried that there might have been. No one accused him of being a warmonger or an alarmist or called for him to at once provide something more to support his statement. There was instead just silence that met his comment.

Was he just the first one to say aloud what everyone else was thinking?

After just a few moments, the same civil servant who had spoken beforehand, the man who also held the chairmanship of the Joint Intelligence Committee in addition to his role as adviser on foreign affairs to the Prime Minister, broke the muteness which had overcome them all.

“That might be an accurate reading of the situation and something that we should prepare for, yet…”

“Overreacting could cost us dear.” Dissent emerged from the Home Secretary and the consensus that Morris might have achieved for a few moments was gone.

“If we could please let Percy finish?” The Prime Minister wasn't ready to have her confidant cut off so quickly.

“As I was about to say, I do not believe myself that we should overreact. There are no other intelligence indicators apparent at this time which would point directly to the possibility of open warfare occurring. Kryuchkov is not by extension known to be a man who would act without considering the consequences so if we do start to see such indicators – the movement of significant numbers of troops, strategic missile submarines being put to sea, an increase in terrorist attacks with links that can be traced back to the K.G.B and such like – then we will know that the fears George here speaks of and what the Foreign Secretary says he worries about then we will have to make a reaction.”

“I feel that we should make some necessary preparations even now.” The Defence Secretary again vocalised the worry that Morris had witnessed in him earlier. “There are things that we can do that wouldn't have to take us to the Transition to War stage but would allow elements of our defences, in a military and security sense, to have those preconditioned to rapidly move to a stage where if Kryuchkov does the unthinkable and gives us those warnings then we will be ahead of him.”

“If I could add my agreement to that point?” The country's most senior uniformed military officer, the Chief of the Defence Staff, echoed his secretary of state.

“That is only reasonable; I agree.”

Consent came there from the Prime Minister to what had been spoken of and there was an agreement to return to that with a separate meeting involving some of those here at the moment along with others when it came to that. Morris didn't speak up again as the Cabinet here returned to discussing what they had been beforehand about a public reaction to events in the Soviet Union. He was satisfied that he had done what was necessary.

He hoped that it was all unnecessary in the long run though. He wanted to be wrong about Kryuchkov and the fears that the coup there was the first step to war. For he believed that if he was correct then the consequences would be too horrible to contemplate.

War was what no one sensible desired to be a part of!

[James G]

Chapter One – Race Against The Clock

February 1st 1990
Erskine Barracks, Near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Great Britain

It had been a terrible week for Lieutenant-General Patrick Maguire with no signs of coming improvement. The stresses of his position as Deputy Commander-in-Chief Land Forces were usually minor but that hadn't been the case following the continually worrying series of ongoing events which had kept him at work for the past seven days in a row now. He had barely slept, let alone seen much of his wife, and remained at Erskine Barracks near Salisbury almost constantly. There were meetings to chair, briefings to attend, telephone calls to be made & receive and visitors coming and going whom he needed to see.

He was a prisoner here.


The crisis had started late last week following the apparent assassination of the Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev. There had been a meeting the next morning in Downing Street among ministers and senior officials he was informed afterwards where hope had been expressed that the effects of such an action wouldn't be felt immediately in Britain. Maguire had also been told that the fear of the opposite had been raised too and that – as well as currents events – had set about causing him to work as hard as he was and which had given him the look of concern etched across his face that he saw in the mirror every time he remembered to shave.

Those who had raised those fears that the coup d’état in the Soviet Union might bring about a war were now looking increasingly correct in such an initial concern. Where there had been international tension first with claims from the new regime in Moscow that Gorbachev's murder had been committed by the West those had followed counter-claims that such an action was an act of state-sponsored self-terrorism committed by the KGB and it's chairman who had taken Gorbachev's place. Following that had come official statements of support from nations worldwide as they fell in behind their superpower backers and allies while the heads of other nations had called for calm.

Away from the spotlight shone upon the diplomatic tension on the international stage had come moves in the shadows to add to that. Strategic reconnaissance assets of the West – primarily those of the United States and first shared with their NATO allies such as Britain – had spotted the movement of nuclear-capable weapons systems into what were regarded as positions where they might be located in a conflict situation. Intelligence services had started to receive warnings that the Soviets and their allies were making ready to launch a war. Troop movements and those of warships and aircraft had started to be seen; only glimpses at first then as the days moved on more and more observations were made.

These signs had pointed to a coming war of aggression about to be launched. Maguire hadn't wanted to believe it, especially as a conflict could start as a nuclear one or move to that stage very quickly, but there had been no denying it. Whereas the war scare last year had just been the expressed idiocy of some in the public eye what had occurred as January came to a close was very real.

The politicians hadn't wanted to believe it either and far too many of them were determined that diplomacy could work to avert such a conflict even if that level of diplomacy meant that any overt military preparations were put on hold to give talking a chance over military forces shadow boxing across the Iron Curtain. Maguire had silently fumed – so too had everyone else in uniform – but there was an understanding that such a course of action was necessary even if it was painful. There had been tense times of East-West crisis’s in the past and dialogue had always overcome difficulties or if not calmed the situation to avert a shooting war.

There were politicians and public figures who said that the Soviets hadn't attacked throughout the forty-five years of the Cold War and weren't about to do so now. The Cold War would always be cold, it was protested, for the risks of nuclear war were far too much for anyone to seriously consider. The Soviet economy was on its death knees and their empire was on the verge of collapse: with a war against the West the Soviets would bring their whole nation down and so won't do that. It was even claimed that Kryuchkov's seizure of power might be a good sign as he would stop the impending chaos that some had predicted might happen. Either way, war wasn't going to come and Kryuchkov would be just posturing to defend his own regime. Many of these people had access to the same information that Maguire had or even more and they had plenty of influence too.

It had all been 'jaw-jaw instead of war-war'… at least in public.


However, Maguire and other senior officers within the British Armed Forces had received the order to implement DRYPOOL.

The name was chosen at random by the computers in the basement of the MOD Main Building on Whitehall. There was no qualifier as it wasn't an official Exercise nor Operation. The paper trail was very light and there weren't that many people aware of it; the security measures were against external interests both domestic and foreign.

It had been DRYPOOL that had consumed Maguire's time for the past week as he had followed the instructions passed down from the Defence Secretary though the chain of command to the Chief of the Defence Staff, the Chief of the General Staff and Maguire's own superior who commanded the headquarters of the UK Field Army. What the British Army was to do, not just here in the UK but also where there was a large concentration of troops based in West Germany, was to lay the groundwork for if war became unavoidable. No decision had been made on mobilising the British Army yet with reserves reporting for duty and troops being redeployed but instead administrative actions were to be taken with the shells of headquarters activated and ready units of troops being put on stand-by to move.

All of this was to be done without public attention being paid… something that was not an easy thing to do.

Maguire had to inform those subordinates of his why they were being tasked to staff an operational headquarters and others as to why their men were being put on alert to move at a moment's notice. These officers were informed of the national security concern about the information leaking out but he knew that they talked to one another about what they were doing. Trying to stop that was impossible and, more-importantly, counter-productive: co-operation between different elements was key to having the British Army getting ready for a war that no one wanted to fight. Yet this was what he was tasked to achieve as his political masters were relying upon diplomacy to solve the crisis with the Soviet Union that was getting worse every day. They didn't want the news in the public arena that the British Army – like the rest of the Armed Forces – was making preparations with the fear that such a revelation would be labelled as warmongering.

Of course, it could have been worse: Maguire and the rest of the senior officers in uniform could have been told to do nothing while the world lurched towards a third world war.

Therefore, he worked with his superior and the hand-picked cell of experienced staff officers here at Erskine Barracks on DRYPOOL. They studied previous war-games run of how a conflict in Continental Europe was anticipated to take place when it came to the clash of opposing ground forces and drew as well upon previous exercises where reinforcement of the British Army in West Germany had taken place. With these taken into consideration, new plans were drawn up to be implemented the moment that mobilisation started – when Queen's Order Two was given – to send troops to the continent; Norway and Denmark were included as well as West Germany following long-standing NATO commitments to both nations. Timetables were created for the movements of which units, using which method and to where exactly. Consideration was made for units at a low-level of current capability to be in the follow-up reinforcement and also which were the best reserve forces to employ. Furthermore, the needs of home defence and also a continuing presence within Northern Ireland was also addressed with DRYPOOL.

Fighting men were one matter but so too was their equipment and supplies in addition to other issues such as transportation, communications and security for them. Which elements of the British Army to use, the timetables for movement and then the actual deployments were further factors of the readiness level that was raised discreetly. All of these matters needed great and careful attention paid to.

Thoughts of a personal matter interfered with this for Maguire. One of the staff officers who was to be reassigned was an experienced major with the Berlin Infantry Brigade; he was currently on leave in Britain and wouldn't be racing back to his post in West Berlin as his talents were needed elsewhere. Maguire's son was in West Berlin too, serving in the Irish Guards as they were posted there. That was his home regiment as well with Maguire Senior being born in Country Longford whereas his son had come into this world when his father was posted to West Germany in the late Sixties. Where his son was would put him in remarkable danger should it come to a shooting war and Maguire could do nothing to save him from that even with all of the preparations he was making.

As those had gone on, Maguire had regarded it all as a race against the clock.


Diplomats talked of how to address issues and politicians tried to tell the public that there wasn't going to be a war. At the same time what was being deemed the Grey Terror was occurring. Starting yesterday, all across the West there had been explosions, acts of arson, shootings and kidnappings. Britain wasn't alone in being stung by acts of violence. The United States, continental Europe and other parts of the West saw such events happen on their soil too.

Fear spread among the public because of this and the emergency services were overstretched to intervene. The British Armed Forces were yet to be brought into assist: in other countries that hadn't been the case. Politicians were distracted by such events as a deliberate fire set on the London Underground which killed almost two dozen people, a bombing of the ticket hall at Heathrow Airport and the brutal murder of an influential MP in the Midlands: just to list a few acts of the Grey Terror.

The name came from the plausible deniability of these acts to Soviet-controlled or -influenced sources. The Defence Intelligence Staff, MI-5 and MI-6 all knew, and could in select cases prove, who had set these attacks in motion yet there were buffer layers between those who gave the orders and those who carried them out. The media had been instructed to stop reporting them after the fire at Oxford Circus tube station and politicians weren't making statements either. Maguire had had his briefings on what was occurring and measures were taken to improve security at military installations and around certain senior officers – him included – in response.

Nonetheless, the focus of the government remained upon working with their allies to achieve some sort of diplomatic solution. They had the bigger picture in mind, it was said, and gave the security services Carte Blanche to do what was necessary but it was all meant to stay out of the public sphere for the time being. Those politicians had the focus of trying to get ready to form what was to be a national government at the same time with all of the attendant dramas that came with that too: further distractions.


Maguire had come to see war as inevitable and therefore all of his plans as not being something which was as theoretical as believed by some.

He knew little of this Kryuchkov who was now in charge of the Soviet Union beyond what he had been told in a short intelligence briefing. The KGB head was reported to be an effective spymaster and a critic of the vast majority of Gorbachev's reforms. The man's early life in the law profession as a prosecutor and then his time spent as a diplomat were the only further hard facts about the man that Maguire was given; he assumed that more was told to others who needed to know more… or, on the other hand, there wasn't more information that the intelligence services had.

Either way, this man was the head of the KGB and whom had just toppled the leader of his country. He was clearly a man of action who had taken such a dangerous step because he believed that it was necessary. Moreover, the way Maguire saw it, Kryuchkov had believed he could get away with it too. Kryuchkov had then publicly blamed the West for the assassination which he had carried out in an attempt to turn those countries against each other. Next, he had started moving nuclear-armed submarines and missile-launchers around within his nation and given the orders for the unleashing of a wave of terrorist attack against civilians in Britain and elsewhere.

Maguire believed that this man was going to do what many said he would and launch open warfare. Already defectors had fled from his country: diplomats posted worldwide and noted as reformers were betraying their country because they feared this man and what he might do. When the politicians finally understood that – once they gave up hope of diplomacy – there would be one hell of a race on to get everything and everyone in-place ready to meet that war.

All he could hope for was that he and those others trusted to take steps like DRYPOOL would have done their best in time.

When the orders finally came, Maguire would be overseeing the transfer of vast elements of the British Army into combat positions. Mobilisation of individual reservists and the Territorial Army too would add to the numbers. A combat division, brigades, regiments, battalions and companies were all to be transferred with haste to where they would be needed to meet an enemy attack. As examples, Maguire and his staff planned to send the 5th Airborne Brigade – Para's and other airmobile troops – from Aldershot to Norway by way of the transport hub of RAF Lyneham, the infantry battalion currently-based at Tern Hill in Shropshire to join the 4th Armoured Division on the North German Plain and one of the independent Gurkha companies based in Britain as a training force to provide headquarters guard for the UK-led Northern Army Group with NATO.

These and all the many other moves for reinforcement and operational deployment of elements of the British Army remained on hold though as diplomacy was given it's chance to avert war.




February 1st 1990
The North Sea

Captain Mark Brooks left the Operations Room after the exercise had been run with the simulated airborne missile attack. He went up high into his ship – his command was the Royal Navy's (RN) frigate HMS Campbeltown – to the bridge and spoke briefly to the officer on watch. Afterwards he stepped to the side and stared out towards the seas outside.

The officers and seamen on the bridge all gave him room knowing that their captain had much on his mind.

Brooks was of course not unaware that his actions might cause some disconcertion among his crew who observed him acting in such a manner. His mind was racing though with worrying thoughts and he had needed to get away from the Operations Room where he had just watched a mock-up of the destruction of his ship and the deaths of those who sailed under his command. If the computer-based exercise had been for real, if those anti-ship missiles had raced just above the waves straight for the Campbeltown, then that was what would have been in store for those aboard. The simulation had shown how weak the ship's defences – weapons and crew – were faced with such an attack as one which ran on their console displays.

It had been the second of three computer-based scenarios ran today where failure had come and the Campbeltown had been 'sunk'; during the other one only last minute luck had 'saved' Brooks' ship. If it had been for real maybe the same would have occurred though he was certain that maybe the MOD programmers had out such a thing in on purpose so as to not crush the morale of those engaged in the simulations completely.

Trying to forget the exercises, he paid attention to now what was outside that he had come to look at. Waves broke over the bow of the Campbeltown as the Type-22/3 frigate crossed the surface of the storm-swept North Sea. They were on a course taking them back westwards at the minute and into the winter storm which had swept over mainland Britain and was being driven this way. It was the early afternoon yet the skies were dark and with heavy clouds depositing rain as well as blocking out much natural light. He was warm and dry here inside the bridge yet down below him he saw a pair of his sailors there near the main gun located forward, ahead one of the Sea Wolf missile-launchers. They were doing something necessary there he knew and attached to safety lines as well as wearing survival gear but he wouldn't want to be out there himself.

More men would soon be outside on the flight-deck; at the rear where he couldn't see from here. Within the next fifteen minutes a helicopter was expected to arrive to join the one he already had giving the Campbeltown it's full complement of two Lynx HAS2 multi-role maritime helicopters. The crew of the Lynx were flying all the way from Portland with a stop made on the way at an RAF base in Suffolk to refuel; this was a long journey and would require plenty of attention to be paid to their instruments by the crew with this weather and the overwater flight.

It was the delayed arrival of that second helicopter (it had meant to be here earlier but a maintenance issue had caused a hold-up) that saw Brooks not ready yet to undertake the mission that he had been ordered to perform with the Campbeltown. Only once the extra Lynx arrived aboard to give the frigate increased combat potential would Brooks turn his vessel around and start racing eastwards at flank speed heading for the Baltic Exits. The Skagerrak, the Kattegat and the Oresund lay in that direction where his orders stated that the frigate would commence a patrol in what was regarded as a high threat environment with the international situation as tense as it was.

When he reached those waters around Denmark, on the edges of the Baltic, Brooks was to remain following his established rules of engagement as the Campbeltown would exercise her right to innocent passage and cooperate with allied naval forces from other NATO countries who had their own warships there. Both Denmark and West Germany had Baltic coastlines and the presence of Brooks' command there was meant to help reassure them as well as to deter any aggressive intentions towards both nations.

The Campbeltown was only commissioned eight months ago and one of the most-capable combat vessels of the RN. She bristled with armament – guns, missiles and torpedoes – and had state-of-the-art electronic systems as well as a highly-trained crew who would strive to uphold the best traditions of the Senior Service.

Those who had issued the orders for the Campbeltown to head for the Baltic Exits hadn't seen the results of the attack simulations that had been run nor seen the looks upon the faces of some of Brooks' crew as those came. For those high up in the RN operations staff his warship was more than capable of preforming the mission of patrol and deterrence alongside Britain's allies. He would usually agree with that yet if many of the fears that there were concerning whether the stand-off with the Soviets would go all the way past heated diplomacy to open warfare then the Campbeltown would be in trouble. The waters were restricted there in the Baltic Exits and while there may have been friendly or neutral territory all around that was all in peacetime: in war things would be very different. There would be a great number of threats from all directions should the shooting start.

And Brooks was to take himself, his crew and his warship there as fast as possible.

Trying to push those worrying thoughts aside, Brooks turned away from starring outside and walked over to the watch officer. He passed a few more words with the young man given the responsibility of not just conning the Campbeltown in this weather but making sure that the ship was as steady as possible for when the Lynx arrived. He wore a false smile hoping to make an attempt at keeping morale up as much as possible. Everyone aboard was hoping that the crisis with the Soviet Union would be resolved by the time the frigate reached the Baltic Exits and he pretended that there was a good chance that that would succeed.

His fellow sailors hadn't seen the intelligence summaries that he had.



February 1st 1990
Yeomanry Barracks, York, North Yorkshire, Great Britain

“Good evening, Major Slater. Captain Wood reporting as ordered!” A crisp salute came from the junior officer to the senior man and was at once returned.

“Congratulations on the promotion, Chris; you deserved it… though maybe this might not be the best time.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Walk with me, Chris. Let's get some fresh air, shall we?”


Moments later, Major Andrew Slater and Captain Christopher Wood stepped outside into the inner courtyard. There were a few other men around, other officers and NCO's, yet not too many to call the place busy. Slater believed that by tomorrow there would be a couple of hundred men here but at the moment as no official mobilisation had come there were just a few key people holding rank here at this Territorial Army (TA) facility which lay in the southern part of the historic city of York.

“How was the drive up from Sheffield?” As he asked the question, Slater held out a cigarette on offer to his new squadron second-in-command.

A groan: “Horrible, Andrew.” The two of them had formality in front of others as they had been friends for years. Wood took the cigarette and lit it before continuing. “They should have closed the motorway. Plenty of people have decided to leave Sheffield, Doncaster and Leeds if they are able to. Where they are going, I do not know. But they are in their cars after deciding that staying in a city might not be the best of ideas.”

“What did the news say on the radio?”

“That there was an intention to have a conference in Geneva to avert a war: it didn't sound very hopeful.” Wood sounded to Slater's ears to not believe that the chances of diplomacy averting a conflict were possible. “The news also said for people not to panic and flee their homes.”

“No one appears to have taken any notice! Where are they all going, Chris?”

“They probably have as little idea of that as I do.”

For a few moments, neither had anything to say and just smoked their cigarettes. Slater watched as a few more civilian cars arrived bringing fellow senior TA men like themselves here to Yeomanry Barracks and he recognised the faces of men like he and Wood who had come from all across Yorkshire to here.

The nucleus of Y (Yorkshire) Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry was forming up in an unofficial manner.

“Did you speak to the Colonel, Andrew?”

“Yes, not an hour ago. He reminded me that regimental headquarters has a directive stating that we are still unofficially mobilising and this is just an alert exercise.” The conversation with the commanding officer of the Queen's Own Yeomanry who was at Cramlington near Newcastle upon Tyne had been rushed as the man was very busy and Slater hadn't got much information from him apart from the make sure that officers and senior NCO's were all available should the mobilisation become official. Telephone calls should be made to all enlisted members alerting those reservists that they were on standby and should wait for an official announcement which would come over national news channels rather than personal contact should it come to that.

This was for not just the Yorkshire Squadron nor the rest of the Queen's Own Yeomanry – it's squadrons from Ayrshire in southern Scotland, Cheshire and Northumberland – but the whole of the TA.

“What is the plan if this all goes official?

No one else was close by and so Slater was able to speak freely to his deputy squadron commander without worry about breaking operational security. They were here among friends but at times like this it was always best to be careful indeed.

“We mobilise mainly here though with some East Riding elements across in Beverley. Then it is down to Hull to take a trip across to Holland: a Dutch Dash to Rotterdam. The rest of the regiment will also concentrate there and we're under Fifteenth Brigade command for Second Division operations on the North German Plain. Rear-area security duties supporting the poor-bloody infantry. Our Fox's will end up going against Soviet paratroopers and some of their airmobile armour if we are lucky, their heavy tanks – in the hundreds – on the breakout if we are unlucky.”

More silence followed as they both reflected upon the role that they would undertake in war if mobilisation happened and the TA went to West Germany.

“Natalie? Work?” Again it was Wood, the always talkative junior man, who restarted their conversation.

Slater dropped his cigarette butt, stubbed on it with his work boots that he was still wearing and then turned to look at his friend.

“I called her before I rang the Colonel. She wasn't happy, Chris, not happy at all that I came straight here rather than back to Howden first.” Mrs Natalie Slater was the love of his life and the two of them had made their home in the market town between York and Hull. Howden was also not that far from where Slater worked as a prison officer at HMP Full Sutton; as a TA officer he was a part-time reservist with a full-time job too.

“Peter Clarke is here from Full Sutton too.” As he continued talking to his friend, Slater mentioned a fellow prison officer and a staff sergeant with the Yorkshire Squadron before next another co-worker who was a Lieutenant with a further TA formation based in Yorkshire. “The Yorkshire Volunteers is on unofficial alert like us with my colleague David Ainsworth having left in the middle of his shift too and going to Scarborough. We have a few other T.A men as well as special constables on staff. Those part time coppers are already on duty supporting the regulars and now all of us T.A men are likely to be gone for a while.

What happened down in Sheffield with you, Chris?”

“My boss wished me luck and I jumped in the car. I'm sure that the accounts office will survive without me!” Wood was an accountant for a large manufacturing company in the South Yorkshire city. From the Pennines across to the coast, from the moors down to Wood's home city, there were Yorkshiremen serving under Slater's command and many other units.


The two of them went back inside after their cigarettes and joined those other men who had arrived here when requested. Some had come from home and others direct from work. They all had questions to ask of Slater as well as unspoken fears concerning the international situation.

Slater's task was to instead make sure that these men were ready for war in case the diplomacy underway didn't work and the rest of the Yorkshire Squadron started to arrive here ready to then go across to the continent. If the men from Yorkshire like him had to fight for their country, then they would.



February 1st 1990
RAF Brüggen, Near Mönchengladbach, North Rhine–Westphalia, West Germany

Since yesterday evening, the airbase at RAF Brüggen had been closed off to the outside world. A security incident at the nearby RAF Laarbruch where an armed intruder had been shot and killed had seen all facilities operated by the command RAF Germany shut off from the outside world. Access to civilians was forbidden and for anyone inside to leave permission was needed from the highest levels of the station command.

Flight Lieutenant Lawrence Fletcher understood fully and wasn't about to complain. Whatever exactly had occurred at Laarbruch was a serious matter, one which couldn't be underestimated. There had clearly been an intention to launch some sort of attack there against those serving in uniform. No one was going to make a successful attempt to do something similar here though.

He was part of the effort into making sure that wasn't the case.


Fletcher was a pilot officer with No. 31 Squadron – the 'Goldstars' – who flew a dozen Tornado GR1 strike-bombers from here. He and his navigator were highly-trained commissioned officers with plenty of experience between them in their aircraft. Nonetheless, they were still serving RAF personnel and this was an RAF base that needed to be protected to guard the aircraft, all those who served here and the station facilities. Everyone was required to play a role in the security effort here even Fletcher.

This evening, he was currently taking part in the overseeing of the sentries posted internally within Brüggen. This involved him walking around outside under the floodlights to physically check up upon those armed men standing guard at the entrances to administrative buildings and hangars. He was joined by a sergeant and a corporal – carrying rifles while he had his pistol – as they walked from one sentry was to another. A few words were shared with each man to check their level of alertness though there were no salutes given.

Fletcher did his duty without complaint because this was all very necessary. There were men from the RAF Regiment and other Goldstars personnel around the perimeter grounds, inside and outside the fence, who had machine gun pits and foxholes to fight from should the need come as well as their own patrol areas yet there was always the chance that someone could have got past them and here. The sentries he spoke briefly with were the last line of defence.

Whilst doing so, he paused for a few moments when the runaway landing lights blinked on and Fletcher observed an aircraft arriving. He heard it first and realised that it was a propeller-driven light transport coming into land: a Hawker Sidney Andover CC2. He was a fast jet pilot who had never flown such an aircraft as that. There was a squadron of them based in West Germany at RAF Wildenrath (again nearby as the majority of RAF Germany was concentrated west of the Rhine near the Dutch border) as well as others back home in Britain in the light transport and electronics calibration roles. He wondered for a few moments what that aircraft was doing here though soon moved back to carrying on with his duties.


One of the buildings he reached was where he had only a few hours ago been given a very unsettling briefing inside. There were two men on duty outside, enlisted ground operations personnel standing here in the cold but armed and seemingly alert. Fletcher let the sergeant speak to them while he briefly looked at their weapons but his attention was upon recalling what had been said inside earlier.

The Goldstars were a frontline squadron with RAF Germany. Their Tornado's were some of the RAF's première aircraft, capable of undertaken the most dangerous of missions. Low-level precision bombing was what they were optimised for over other tasks that could be done such as 'normal' bombing at medium altitude or battlefield interdiction. At that briefing Fletcher and other aircrews with the Goldstars – there were more flying officers than aircraft – were informed that 'if the balloon went up' then they would be undertaking precision strike missions in support of NATO. They had been informed that there was currently an effort underway to solve the crisis with the Soviets using personal contact in Switzerland yet not too much hope should be held that that might be successful following other Soviet actions of a highly-aggressive nature. Therefore, the aircrews were all given preliminary information on what they would be expected to do should war come.

The Tornado's would be sent to strike at targets which lay to the east the moment that a conflict broke out. Flying from here at Brüggen (yet if necessary a move could be made elsewhere to another base in West Germany or across in the Low Countries if the need came due to enemy action) they would hit locations inside East Germany. Across the IGB on the other side of that dividing line which split Germany into to ideologically opposed armed camps there were airfields, bridges and logistics centres where bombs dropped from aircraft flown by the Goldstars could do much good to assist in a conflict. Defences were discussed from enemy fighters to missile defences. A lot of detail was held back at the minute but there was still enough of an understanding given to Fletcher and the others about those targets and the opposition which they could expect to face in attacking.

That was what was covered if any conflict was conventional; the briefing also covered what would occur should it become nuclear. In such a scenario those JP233 cluster munitions dispersers and Paveway laser-guided bombs would be replaced with WE177 thermonuclear bombs and the targets different as well as methods of attacking them.

Fletcher had his duty and had listened carefully taking all of the information in. None of this came as a surprise to him as he was trained for wartime operations, even if they were of a nuclear nature. Regardless, he hadn't been happy to hear that the employed diplomacy wasn't having much success nor that briefings such as the one he had attended were occurring. He and his fellow RAF officers were being prepared for war by those senior men who were starting to believe now that one was soon to start.

He just hoped that it wouldn't.

[James G]

February 2nd 1990
Near Helmstedt, Lower Saxony, West Germany

Mobilisation of Britain's military forces had begun at midnight and Transition to War had come into effect back home.

Brigadier Nicholas Johnson knew full well that there would be problems across Britain this morning among civilians when they came to understand what it meant for them as the country made overt and drastic preparations for war. Diplomacy had failed though and Britain along with her NATO allies were now on a course for war with the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact and nothing else could be done apart from to be as ready as possible for that.


Between midnight and dawn this morning, the 7th Armoured Brigade – the Desert Rats – had moved from their garrisons around Bad Fallingbostel and Soltau into the most forward positions possible. Johnson had followed orders coming from divisional command to have the whole of his command move first down Autobahn-7 southwards and then eastwards along Autobahn-2 to almost within touching distance of the IGB. Both of those major roads had been closed to civilian traffic to be used by military convoys only by the West Germans with assistance from the Royal Military Police provided.

Several hundred tracked and wheeled vehicles had rolled across the tarmac-covered highways with Johnson nervous all of that time in the darkness about the war suddenly starting. No air attacks had come nor nuclear blasts and there hadn't been any explosions during the way of the multiple bridges that the roads crossed over rivers.

As instructed, he had the Desert Rats in position by the time it started to get light.

The famous Checkpoint Alpha was no more than a mile from where he was now. That lay where Autobahn-2 crossed the frontier between the two Germany's at the Helmstedt-Marienborn connection, a strategic point for peacetime communications between the two countries. It was also somewhere that was anticipated to be a major point where in wartime Soviet or East Germany military forces would attempt to make a crossing during an invasion of West Germany using the road network for their post-attack logistics.

Should that occur, as it increasingly looked likely, then an invading force would run into the tanks, the infantry and the artillery that Johnson had under command just behind the Checkpoint Alpha area blocking the way forward for an advance upon Braunschweig and Hannover beyond. He had his command spread out into pre-scouted positions where they had initial and fall-back fighting positions. A massive ambush could be sprung upon an attacking force even if they tried using copious levels of fire support to assist them because as his orders that he had read before departing from Bournemouth Barracks back in Soltau stated Johnson had his men fast digging-in to give them plenty of overhead cover as well as to make sure that falling shells or bombs were unable to hit many of them. There were plans to fight using an ambush first and then to conduct a strategic retreat back westwards when faced with large numbers of the enemy making them bleed for every yard they moved forward; Johnson would follow those orders and was certain that the Desert Rats would cause untold levels of destruction to an invading force.

At the same time, Johnson would rather not fight here… nor anywhere else. So many would be killed even if everything went to plan as it was meant to. His duty was to get ready for such a fight though and when it came to do everything that he could to secure a victory.


Johnson was not the only brigade commander with the British Army of the Rhine out here this morning up close to the IGB taking up fighting positions. He was aware that the rest of the forces based here in West Germany were doing the same as him as they took up fighting positions along predicted access routes for an invasion. There was a major fear that the Soviets might order their armies in East Germany to just pour over the border and race into West Germany aiming to seize territory before NATO had its armies mobilised and in-place. According to that theory of what the Soviets might do, their spearheads would avoid contact with NATO forces still in their barracks or moving out of them and concentrate instead on scoring a political victory while taking large portions of territory.

That threat had been serious enough to have Johnson, who wasn't that sure is was as real as perceived, move the Desert Rats down here to Helmstedt in the darkness rather than wait until this morning or even until further reinforcements that were meant to be attached to his command arrived after a fast transit from the UK mainland. There was to be no Soviet move such as that with his command and other NATO combat forces right up near the IGB along routes that the Soviets would need to use if they were to do as feared.

The rules-of-engagement (ROE) which he had also made certain that if an attempt was made to effectively 'snatch' large parts of West Germany – possibly cities like Hamburg, Hannover, Frankfurt and Munich – using fast-moving Soviet tank spearheads it wouldn't now succeed. If the border was crossed by Soviet, East German or even Polish units then Johnson was to open fire. He was required to inform the 1st Armoured Division headquarters (the Desert Rats' parent formation) and they would pass that message up the NATO chain of command, but permission to engage a Warsaw Pact force had already been given to him.

Such an ROE told him everything that he needed to know about how serious the threat of war now was.

Helmstedt was being evacuated by the West German authorities while the Desert Rats were getting ready to make war all around the small town. Civilians who were not being called up to serve in the West German military reserves were being moved to buses to get them away from the frontier and the area over which war was soon to be fought. Johnson had his men away from the town itself in the nearby countryside but what was going on there was easily observable. He tried to push the humanitarian concern for those poor people out of his mind. The best thing for them was to get as far away from here as possible even if it meant leaving their homes behind.

He believed that if they stayed they would die. Helmstedt would face air and artillery strikes – targeted or ill-targeted – and there was also the possibility of gases being used in this area. Those civilians really needed to be very far away when that occurred.

That area over which the Desert Rats were now located wasn't that large. Johnson commanded a strong force yet it wasn't overwhelmingly large. He only had one battalion of infantry available with two battalion-sized regiments of tanks, a battalion of self-propelled guns (again titled as a regiment), and a host of other combat support and service support elements that numbered no more than four thousand men. NATO military police units along with West German federal border troops at Checkpoint Alpha were not under his command at the moment though should the Soviets come racing through that crossing then they would be and serve in whatever capability they could as dismounted light troops.

What Johnson needed the most was the reinforcement he was promised. He had been informed that with mobilisation in effect, he was to gain an extra battalion of infantry. He already had the first battalion of the Staffordshire Regiment (1 STAFFORDS) with him who were garrisoned in Bad Fallingbostel and now the 1 RHF was on its way to him: the first battalion of the Royal Highland Fusiliers coming from Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Regular units of the British Army were supposed to have first priority over TA units back home in moving to the Continent. Johnson had been told that those Scotsmen – of which he had plenty under command with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the 40th Regiment Royal Artillery being Scottish units; the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment recruited from London and Kent – should be here by tomorrow evening at the latest.

He could only hope that those extra men got here in time.



February 2nd 1990
RAF Lyneham, Wiltshire, Great Britain

Coaches had brought Corporal Daniel Edwards and many other Para's from Aldershot across the southern part of England through the night across to RAF Lyneham. Some of the others men had slept during the journey yet Edwards had been unable to despite being tired. He had tried to tell himself that he wasn't frightened but excited though he knew in his heart that wasn't true. Now he wished he had got some sleep whilst aboard the cramped conditions of the coach among his fellow Para's who snored and released gas while they had done so. Since arrival here, still during the early hours, there had been no time for any rest and Edwards really needed to lay down and close his eyes.

He was unable to though, not with the preparations underway to get all of those here ready to board the Hercules transports and off to Norway.

The 5th Airborne Brigade was now at RAF Lyneham waiting to be transported by air to somewhere in the northern part of Norway. The ultimate destination hadn't been revealed to those like Edwards lower down the chain of command though he believed that it would be somewhere such as Bodo or the Narvik area where in peacetime exercises he had gone to beforehand. At this time of year such places would be several feet deep in snow and freezing cold too. The Norwegian Arctic at this time of year wasn't a pleasant place to be yet he had been taken there many times in the past including during the winter.

Edwards knew what to expect from the weather, the terrain and even the local people there yet that had always been in peacetime… now they were getting ready to go off to war.


Sergeants and officers were aplenty this morning on the flight-ramp. Edwards spotted all of the senior people fussing around as he himself as a junior NCO was doing just the same. All of the Para's here were to have their gear checked before they boarded the aircraft which were parked up and waiting for them to be loaded inside. Back at Aldershot everything that each man was carrying had been checked there when they departed Normandy Barracks but the same was being done again now. Edwards was looking for items of equipment that might be missing as well as other things that the men might be trying to bring with them. Sergeant Proctor had said to him that the rifles and the ammunition for them that the men carried were more important than anything else though as Edwards quickly but efficiently went through the packs of those men in his squad he was looking for other things in addition to just their SA80's and spare magazines.

Did they all have their canteens?

Was each man carrying all of his cold weather gear?

Were their gas masks with them?

How about the rifle cleaning equipment?

No one was bringing any unauthorised personal items, were they?

And so on.

Edwards fast moved to check that everything he should have seen was there and came away with success each time. Soon enough his Sergeant would inspect at least one man's gear and also his own to make sure that while Edwards had checked everyone else's he hadn't neglected his own.

Once finished with his task, Edwards joined the men as they remained standing out on the flight-ramp. Proctor had told him that they could relax and not have to stand to attention but not sit down as other groups of Para's nearby were doing so. Those were the orders from the platoon commander who apparently didn't want to see the men looking 'unsoldierlike'. He pushed that annoyance to the side like he did as with the tiredness he felt with the knowledge that once they finally got aboard one of the aircraft there would be some time to rest.

While he waited for Proctor to come over, he took a few moments to look around beyond the small group of men he was with.


The whole of 2 PARA – the battalion in which he served – was here along with their sister unit 1 PARA and also some Gurkha's as well. Other groups of men also waiting upon aircraft to transport them would also be from the Blues & Royals with their light armoured vehicles then there would be airborne gunners, airmobile engineers and plenty of other necessary personnel here too all waiting to go to Norway this morning.

It was on the Hercules' which they would be taken there. Those grey-painted four-engined transports were everywhere at the minute all with RAF ground personnel around them from men undertaking last-minute maintenance to loadmaster duty making sure that each was filled correctly with men, equipment or both. Edwards knew that the RAF had between fifty and sixty of these aircraft built in America and each was capable of lifting ninety plus men in one go.

Could the whole of the brigade assembled here be lifted in one go?

He quickly did the maths in his head and the answer was a yes yet he didn't know if all of those Hercules were here this morning. Such aircraft would have other duties he was sure and he didn't think there would be the need to have everyone go at once in one wave to Norway.

Maybe there could be two or three flights?

Edwards could only hope that if there were multiple flights using the same aircraft to make the trip to Norway and back, he was in the first wave. Waiting around here all morning, maybe all day, was not something that he wished to do! He would rather get some time to relax aboard one of the Hercules but also get to Norway first because waiting around here wasn't much fun at all.



February 2nd 1990
RAF Pitreavie Castle, Fife, Great Britain

The headquarters of Air Officer Scotland & Northern Ireland was at RAF Pitreavie Castle near Dunfermline. The country house was built in the Eighteenth Century and retained a lot of its imposing exterior; inside and especially below it was a major administrative headquarters with officers, desks, telephones and staff officers at work. Air Commodore John Cooke had reported here late last night just before mobilisation occurred and today remained here despite the intention to have him move down to RNAS Prestwick (the RN-run facility at Glasgow-Prestwick Airport) by this point. His new commanding officer who he had reported to last night after Cooke had come up from Middlesex wanted him to remain here for the time being though to assist in the expansion of the staff here and the transformation from a peacetime headquarters to one capable of directing wartime operations.

Air Marshal Colquhoun had been insistent that the air defence specialist who had come from RAF Bentley Priory to be his Air Defence Deputy was to stay for some time to make sure that those needs were met.


RAF Scotland had been stood up as an operational headquarters last night under Colquhoun's command. All air operations which took place originating from Scotland (and Northern Ireland too) that took place above the constituent country and above the seas nearby were to be under the control of this new headquarters. There were deputies under Colquhoun for maritime air operations, ground defence and supply/support as well as Cooke's duties for air defence. Assets formerly reporting to No. 11 and No. 18 Group's in peacetime but now based in and due to arrive in Scotland were to have centralised control over them to ensure wartime cooperation was at its best.

There were multiple airbases across Scotland which were to be used: RAF Kinloss in Morayshire, RAF Leuchars not far from here also in Fife, RAF Lossiemouth again in Morayshire, RAF Machrihanish across in Argyll & Bute and RAF Stornoway up in the Western Isles. In addition, there was the civilian airport in Ayrshire where there were facilities for RNAS Prestwick, Aberdeen Airport was to be made use of and over in Ulster there was RAF Aldergrove.

Furthermore, the Danish civilian field in the Faroe Islands at Vágar was to be made use of too under a NATO cooperation agreement for a relief landing strip out in the Norwegian Sea.

The task of RAF Scotland was two-fold. Firstly, there was the maritime operations to undertake in support of the Royal Navy and the rest of NATO. Nimrod MR2 armed patrol aircraft would be hunting ships and submarine coming from the north and even the east too if any slipped through NATO defences in the Baltic Exits. Joining them would be Buccaneer S2B strike aircraft which could carry bombs and missiles to pounce upon any hostile surface contacts while the Nimrod's themselves went after submarines with torpedoes and depth charges.

Cooke was here to command the air defence efforts to guard the UK mainland from attacks coming from across the seas. Back in the early Seventies, he himself had been the pilot of a Lightning F6 based here in Scotland and flown that beautiful interceptor from Leuchars. Those aircraft were all retired now replaced with Tornado F3's in the main as well as some Phantom FG1 / FGR2 models for the same role of defending the skies above northern parts of Britain. Long-range, off-shore interception of attacking aircraft was the key to what Cooke was here to oversee though the Phantom's would be held back along with the Hawk T1A point interceptors being brought here soon enough to add to those defences after coming from training schools.

In support of the combat aircraft there would be the old and ill-equipped Shackleton AEW2 airborne radar aircraft; the RAF had Sentry aircraft on order from the United States but they weren't even built yet let alone in service. Wessex HAR2 search-and-rescue helicopters in RAF colours would be joined by a few more modern Sea King HAR5 helicopters flown by the Fleet Air Arm (under RAF Scotland command) also in the role of rescuing downed pilots when possible as this was their main role even if they were better known in peacetime for aiding civilians in need. No electronic warfare aircraft were under direct command though they would be available to assist and such was the case with airborne tankers to undertake airborne refuelling missions.

There were soon to be Americans arriving at Machrihanish too bringing with them aircraft flown by the USAF (a squadron of F-15A fighter-interceptors) and maritime aircraft & helicopters crewed by the United States Navy. Everyone was waiting with anticipation for their arrival with Cooke already prepared to move the shadow squadron of Tornado's – No. 229 Operational Conversion Unit had become No. 65 Squadron under that principle – out of Machrihanish where they had been first sent to give the Americans room to operate from that stand-by base… and also prepare to follow his orders of having the those F-15's coming all the way from New Mexico brought under his command in a NATO-aligned agreement over what he expected to be American protestations.


Operating as RAF Scotland's Air Defence Deputy, Cooke would be based at Prestwick as per the plans long ago made. He would use the facilities there to link-in to the UK-wide air defence network and do everything possible to protect the UK from attack. Stand-off missiles were expected to be fired from aircraft and submarines as the main form of attack yet there was too the danger from aircraft on bombing missions as well as warships firing their own land-attack missiles.

Fighters under his command were to stop the airborne threats. The best defence was to engage those aircraft long before they could fire their missiles against Britain by intercepting them far beyond their launch points. Moreover, if those aircraft unfortunately fired first then the missiles themselves were to be engaged as well as efforts made to shoot down attacking aircraft retreating after missile launch; they then couldn't return for a second strike if they were splashed over the ocean.

Military targets in Scotland, northern parts of England and possibly across in Northern Ireland were expected to be attacked by those aircraft which Cooke was charged to stop. Airbases, naval facilities, radar sites and communications stations were anticipated to be high on target lists but so too was civilian infrastructure, major transport links and such places as power stations and refineries connected to the North Sea oil & gas network. There might be strikes against 'special' targets of a propaganda nature that an attacker would see as important in Edinburgh or Glasgow, maybe Belfast too.

There were, of course, the strategic nuclear bases at Faslane and Holy Loch (used by the RN and the Americans respectively) to consider as targets too.

This was an immense responsibility for Cooke. He had spent many years in the air defence field working in multiple staff roles and climbing the career ladder as he did so. Courses had been taken by him across Britain and with NATO partner nations too so that if a day like today ever came he could be at the forefront of protecting his country from airborne attack. Now he was here in Scotland getting ready to do that yet still waiting for all the necessary elements to conduct that defence to arrive in their proper place. Time was running out to be prepared, he knew, yet how long he, Britain and the rest of NATO had he didn't know.



February 2nd 1990
Bindon Barracks, Hameln, Lower Saxony, West Germany

The Royal Engineers who were usually based at Bindon Barracks had left here earlier in the day. They were amphibious engineers trained in bridging operations and assigned to the British I Corps. A few members of the garrison remained behind for the time being though they soon would be leaving too with those sappers sent elsewhere.

Upon arrival here at the barracks outside Hameln, after what had been a long trip from Hereford, Warrant Officer Class 2 (WOII) Simon Jones couldn't wait to join them.

Jones and all the men who were gathered in the barracks canteen this afternoon were here for a briefing by the commander of B Squadron of the first battalion with the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (B/22 SAS). That major commanded all of these special forces soldiers who were waiting for instructions as to their war role. They had flown across from their base in Britain this morning and then been transported here by road to their forward staging location before dispersal.

Waiting for the major to start speaking, Jones took a few moments to look across at the men with him.


There were no supermen here, no action heroes. They were all just soldiers who had passed through some of the most intensive training undertaken by any military force worldwide. As Jones was, they were all members of other regiments within the British Army from infantry units to armoured formations to combat support commands on detachment to the SAS for a time before they would return. He himself came from the Royal Regiment of Wales where he had been serving as a Company Sergeant Major yet at the moment he was only Trooper Jones: the equivalent of a private.

He wondered if the thoughts that these other men were having at the moment were like his. Jones didn't want to see a war fought yet it was clear that one was on the cusp now of breaking out. Everyone was getting ready for it as all the plans long made were being enacted so it could be fought. He pondered over whether others were secretly frightened of combat or hyped up with intense patriotism ready to see that fighting take place.

No one was saying much at the moment though as they were all waiting for their commander.


“Gentlemen,” Major Young addressed all of his men in a formal fashion, “I have a few words to give to you and you can be assured that your troop and patrol leaders will add to them afterwards.

You are certainly all aware now that efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the current international crisis appear to have failed miserably. There seems to be an intention on the part of the Soviets and their allies to launch a war against us. Plenty of others have their own ideas as to what the grand strategic intention will be of that. All I can say is that it has become apparent that the Soviets are far ready than us to launch that war with a longer mobilisation period. We are all racing against the clock to get our own troops ready.

Yet here we are: ready to go.

Our mission is simple. Once the Soviets launch their attack we are going to disrupt that as much as possible. As their armies pour across the Inner-German Border, we will be dispersed and let their spearheads race past us into the waiting fire of the main line of resistance, wherever that is chosen to run. Afterwards, we emerge and undertake against the invader what we are trained to do. There will be no defensive counter moves and we will not be providing static guards for anyone or any place.

No, Gentlemen, that will not be how the Regiment will fight in this war. Instead, we are to operate in an offensive manner against the invader.

We will strike against their supply lines. We will hit their command and control. Ambushes and raids is what our task is to cause as much trouble throughout their rear areas. All of that shall relieve the pressure at the frontlines and make the task of the Soviets impossible to keep moving forward as we tear apart their rear.

I won't lie to you all. The opposition we will face will be deadly. They will strike swiftly in counter-moves after we have attacked. They will hunt us with every weapon at hand and there is a good chance that we can expect little mercy if caught from the Soviets. The more men that they send against us, as we unleash a wave of destruction, will help the situation at on the frontlines though. They will have to catch us first and all of us here know how to evade hunters, don't we?

I can only order you to fight and to do your best. Detailed mission orders will be passed down to you all in four-man groups so the security of others isn't comprised. Yet we all understand what needs to be done.

Make the enemy bleed and bleed again and again.

Thank you.”


Jones had never heard a speech like it given in all of his time in uniformed service. Major Young was effectively saying goodbye to them all but telling them goodbye in such a manner as to raise their morale. He knew that he himself was smiling at the thought of being unlashed upon an invading enemy just like he was trained to do, to put all of his training and experience to the best use, despite the clear knowledge of the dangers involved.

Yet he kept smiling and was eager to get away from here now and out into the field. There would be hides to set up where he and the rest of the SAS men here with him were to wait until they were given permission to strike.

That was when the war got underway.

[James G]

February 2nd 1990
The North Sea

Standing up on deck amidships above where the internal cargo hold was and with more equipment stacked behind him secured in-place, Lieutenant Owen Leigh was waiting for it to finally get dark. The Royal Marines officer was watching the skies slowly fade with little light left as the sun sunk below the western horizon. He believed that the Orkney Islands were the landmass where what he could see in that direction though he wasn't sure exactly. The progress being made by the ship he was on, RFA Sir Bedivere, a landing ship with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, was rather good yet there was still a chance that he was looking at the furthermost reaches of the highland part of mainland Scotland rather than the Orkney's.

Either way, should it have been those offshore islands or the mainland, they had still come quite far north since departure this morning from the barracks of 45 Commando at RM Condor outside of Arbroath. Tromsø in Norway was the ultimate destination of this ship and the two others nearby: the near-identical RFA Sir Tristram (repaired from damage in the Falklands eight years ago) and a Royal Navy frigate acting as an escort. That was quite a distance away, almost right at the top of northern Norway inside the Arctic Circle and Leigh didn't think that they would get there in time for the war to start.

Regardless, the effort was being made to try to do so.

Leigh, a platoon commander with Z Rifle Company which was part of 45 Commando, hoped that they would get to Tromsø in time. He didn't fancy his chances of swimming back to the nearest island should this ship come under attack. That was what he regarded as a strong possibility with a ship such as this laden with not just all of the men of the Royal Marines that it was carrying but everything else too: much of which if not explosive then certainly combustible. He hadn't been there to see it, let alone even been a Royal Marines officer at the time, yet he knew what had happened to Sir Tristram during the Falklands War at Buff Cove. The ship which at the minute was less than a mile away from the Sir Bedivere had been hit by falling bombs from Argentinian aircraft there when loaded with men from the Foot Guards. War was fast approaching, he had been told, and the Soviets had aircraft as well as submarines too.

Out here in the North Sea and heading for the Norwegian Sea – even closer to where Soviet forces getting ready to launch a war on their own timescale when they were ready to do so – these ships loaded with him and the others would be a tempting target for an air attack. He had no idea on the weapons aboard that frigate nearby or what such a vessel was capable of doing in a defensive manner, yet he didn't want to find out while at sea.


Tromsø.

That was all that Leigh had been told about what they were going and what the mission was to be. Whether they were to stage on the island around that town or remain aboard ships in the nearby area hadn't been revealed to him nor anyone else of junior rank. Maybe the commander of 45 Commando knew more…

There were further unanswered questions that Leigh had but which he was keeping to himself. He didn't know if they would be working with the rest of the 3rd Commando Brigade or even if other Royal Marines were going to Norway; 40 & 42 Commando's were based near Plymouth at the other end of Britain. Maybe they in 45 Commando would be fighting with the Norwegians or possibly the US Marines, maybe even a combined NATO amphibious force. Where would they end up fighting when it came to that was something else what he had no idea about. He hadn't been informed whether there was to be a fixed main line of resistance making use of the natural geographical features of Norway or instead if there were plans for raiding operations along the coast to take place.

It was all unknown to him and the other officers of junior rank which he had spoken with immediately before the haste to leave RM Condor and then during the day as they sailed aboard the ships on their way northwards.


Leigh left the deck and made his way back down inside the vessel where the men were. Accommodations aboard the Sir Bedivere were basic as this wasn't a boat for pleasure cruises yet Leigh believed that they could have been better. There were four hundred men here all cramped in together and he reckoned that many of them would have like him managed to get themselves some fresh air and a little bit of personal space too, even if it was for only a little time.

He walked among the men and spoke to some of the senior NCO's whom he knew. These were long-service experienced men not just under his command but from other elements of 45 Commando. Unlike him, they had been Royal Marines for many years and had seen far more than he could ever hope to… maybe want to as well. All were polite enough to him yet he knew some would be looking at him with weary eyes as he was a new officer and they had been in uniform for far longer.

He held no grudge towards such people for such thoughts as he was certain that they were having. When it came to a fight, he would be looking to the NCO's for the necessary guidance as under fire they would all be Royal Marines in it together rather than officers, NCO's and ordinary ranks. Of course, these were thoughts again that he would keep to himself rather than express them due to the ingrained and necessary rank hierarchy to make the Royal Marines – like any other military organisation worldwide – work yet that was the truth of the matter.

All he could hope for was that when that time came, when combat was met, he wasn't at sea aboard what he regarded as one big, fat floating target begging to be sunk but rather on land where there was cover and a chance to fight back!



February 2nd 1990
Westminster, London, Great Britain

Despite amalgamations, the Inns of Court & City Yeomanry (IC&CY) could trace its lineage back to the Sixteenth Century. Other regiments would claim much older history's and there was always dispute over dates. Nonetheless, since he had joined the IC&CY, Lance Corporal James Rose had been pleased to be part of a formation with such a long history even if it wasn't as long as some others; he really didn't give that much of a damn for the sometimes silly arguments! Moreover, seeing as they were now a communications unit, part of the Royal Corps of Signals, rather than acting as some petty-minded members wanted them to as traditional yeomanry in armoured vehicles – even horses! - he thought those disputes redundant. Regimental history was always important and when younger as a member of the Royal Military Police he had understood that. Moreover, since leaving the Redcaps and joining the City of London Police he had again been surrounded by those interested in the history of whom those around him served within.

Oftentimes some people forgot about the here and now.

The reserve TA signallers with the main body of the IC&CY were on their way to the Continent at the moment as they linked up with their parent formation the 71st Signal Regiment. Rose remained behind though here in the middle of London where his wartime station was due to his reserve military commitment away from his role as a special constable was with the Home Service Force (HSF) semi-detached from the rest of the IC&CY.

Only a few years old in creation, the HSF was the modern day Home Guard. Members like Rose were all former service personnel who had volunteered to be available in exceptional circumstances to assist in national defence that wouldn't mean going overseas but rather remaining close to their mobilisation bases and undertaking protection of key points. There were a wide variety of men and women within the HSF spread across mainland Britain with a range of ages and skills all put to use in forming units which would relieve other TA formations from such tasks.

For a man such as Rose, membership in the HSF had meant retaining a part of the British Armed Forces and continuing to serve his country even though he was well into middle age now. He had been a senior warrant officer when with the Redcaps yet here he was just a junior NCO. His age and particular experience accorded him more responsibilities than that rank did too – there were limited places and plenty of volunteers within the HSF – which he far from minded to have.

What he hadn't expected when mobilised was the teenagers he had with him today.


Rose had never married nor had children and it had been a very long time since he had been a teenager. When a Redcap he had had very few dealings with those under eighteen though when that had occurred his patience had never been the best with young soldiers that age who didn't have the respect which he believed he deserved from them. To have half a dozen of them with him today – six of them! – wasn't what he had wanted. His orders were for him and the other Lance Corporal alongside Rose to quickly integrate these young soldiers into the HSF detachment that they served within here in the heart of London.

Due to the deaths of several teenagers below the age of eighteen in the Falklands War, MOD rules meant that those aged sixteen and seventeen were not meant to go off on combat deployments overseas. There were thousands of teenagers of that age who every year signed up in the British Armed Forces and contributed to a major part of the available manpower across all of the different services. None of those were meant to be going aboard at the moment though. Many were still in their training periods and wouldn't have been taken off to war anyway yet there were others who had passed all of the necessary training. There would have been many almighty protestations and Rose had no doubt that in some cases those almost eighteen might have seen the rules bent for them but many, many more of those teenagers were left behind in Britain.

Some bright spark in the MOD had decided that they should be deployed across the country to bolster numbers everywhere of formations such as the HSF. He assumed that there was some legal fiction saying that these were non-combat roles and of course the rules said teenagers couldn't go overseas.

Well… Rose was almost certain that the HSF wouldn't be leaving Britain's shores but to say that the tasks they were to undertake wouldn't have the very real chance of seeing combat wouldn't be true at all. That was what the HSF was in existence for. There was judged to be the very real threat of hostile military action in commando or terrorist form taking place in wartime across the country. Guarding of fixed points where there was an expectation of attack was where the HSF was deployed and with men like Rose armed ready to defend those.

To do this, Rose would have these teenagers with him!


Other HSF forces were active in London following nationwide mobilisation. There were men serving in the point defence role with the Honourable Artillery Company, the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Green Jackets. Rose had wondered whether any men attached to their HSF detachments had suffered a similar fate like him and been given youngsters like he had to look after as if he was a paid babysitter.

Anyway, those formations had men all across London as the IC&CY did because there were plenty of those locations within the city that were regarded as possible targets for enemy military action in whatever form it came. In addition, supporting the civilian police force – the Metropolitan Police, not the City of London Police whom Rose was retained by – were further tasks that would have to be undertaken. Britain was a country at war with TtW ongoing and there would of course be trouble with that.

In response to the latter task for the HSF, Rose was currently south of the river in Walworth. He was here with his fellow NCO and the six teenagers. His orders were to assist the policemen here in dealing with the latest outbreak of civil disturbances which were rocking London today. It was dark now with the power off in many places – an unofficial blackout – but there were fires burning to aid vision. Rose had made certain personally that everyone with him understood that this was not to be a time when they were to use their weapons.

The ongoing trouble which he was here to assist in bringing to an end wasn't one where the HSF would need to use their rifles. This was Britain after all.



February 3rd 1990
RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset, Great Britain

HMS Illustrious had finally left Portsmouth an hour ago and the aircraft carrier was heading westwards along the English Channel with the destination being the North Atlantic. There had been a gap in Soviet reconnaissance satellite coverage, Lieutenant-Commander David Hedges had been told, and during that time the departure had been made. It was still rather early in the morning with sunrise a long time off to light up the sky, yet he was to meet the carrier before she could get too far distant to make the flight for him and the other aircraft leaving from here too much of a risk.

Hedges had flown the Sea Harrier FRS1 many times in the darkness before and would be leading the whole of his command – No. 801 Naval Air Squadron with a dozen attack-fighters – out to meet the Illustrious. He would be extra cautious in making that flight and had made sure that his men all understood that he expected the same from them too. The last thing that he wanted was to see one of his fellow pilots and their aircraft lost before they even made it to what would be their new home base for the foreseeable future.

The aircraft had been pre-flighted already by the ground technicians with the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Hedges trusted them, had to have faith in their abilities, but as he sat in the cockpit he again checked all that he could. He didn't regard himself as fastidious man, just someone who was careful. It was him, not them, who were to fly this aircraft out to sea in the dark and then land it on the flight-deck of the Illustrious. Clearance would be coming soon for him to lead 801 Squadron out onto the runaway and to lift-off. In these last few moment before that, as he ran those checks, a smile came to his lips even under the stressful situation he was in having to concentrate as much as possible.

Hedges wore that smile because his squadron second in command wasn't coming with them.

The lieutenant who usually served as his deputy was remaining behind here at Yeovilton. Hedges personally despised the man for a whole host of reasons pertaining to the man's character; he regarded him as a liar, a cheat and a show-off. He was an unlikeable officer who treated everyone around him with arrogance, especially those junior to him with officers and enlisted personnel sharing that distaste for him that he had for them. Promotion was the man's only interest in life and he climbed the career ladder by brown-nosing those senior to him – Hedges included – so he could gain personal advancement. The lieutenant wasn't even a good flier and his staff work was what Hedges regarded as shoddy too. He had connections though with senior FAA people and so his whole career was a disgrace.

Maybe Hedges should have been the better man and done his best to get on with the man yet his deputy had been wholly unreasonable with everyone in every situation and Hedges had been more than a little ecstatic when he had been told the other day that a reassignment had come for the man due to necessary needs with the situation as it was with 801 Squadron then preparing to go to war.

There were two standing squadrons within the FAA flying Sea Harrier's: 800 & 801 Squadron's, both based here at Yeovilton. In addition, there was 899 Squadron which was training formation with twice as many aircraft on strength including several Sea Harrier T4 in the two-seat configuration. As had been the case during the Falklands War, though with much more haste this time and even before official mobilisation had occurred, 809 Squadron had been stood-up with aircraft from that training squadron assigned in addition to pilot officers from across the FAA. Hedges' deputy had wrangled himself command, something which had irked Hedges because it was over many more deserving men, but the man was out of his hair. He did feel something for those men who would have to serve under the lieutenant's command, but Hedges wouldn't have to see him again for some time.

There were now a trio of Sea Harrier combat squadrons because the Royal Navy (of which the FAA was a component part) was making an effort to get all three of it's carriers to sea.

Hedges was taking 801 Squadron to join the Illustrious after delays had been incurred getting that vessel out of Portsmouth; 800 Squadron had left here yesterday to join the Ark Royal. There remained the Invincible, which Hedges had been told was at Devonport rather than Portsmouth. When that carrier would sail, he didn't know. He was under the impression that again it was mechanical issues with that ship as it had been with the Illustrious though he was certain that herculean efforts were being made to have the third carrier at sea.

He understood completely the need for a squadron of Sea Harrier's to be flown from that ship and that personnel such as his second in command should be reassigned. To put that man in charge though, even with him being out of Hedges' way, wasn't something that should have been done. Such was his considered opinion should anyone think to ask him… which they hadn't.

Hedges pushed that man he was now rid of out of his mind and focused again on more of his checks on his flight systems. Everything was showing that the aircraft was in a perfect state and ready to fly. He moved to his weapons systems afterwards despite having few aboard. There were bullets for his 30mm cannon and two Sidewinder missiles carried; weapons he really didn't expect to need during his flight out to the Illustrious! No more were being carried – further air-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and bombs could be carried – as hanging below the fuselage at the moment was an extra fuel tank. The external load was there for emergencies as he had enough internal fuel carried to reach the carrier but he had no issue with that spare fuel. The weather off the coast was appalling, according to the briefing he had attended, yet the Illustrious was meant to avoid the worse of that and stay close to the coast for the arrival of 801 Squadron.

It was best to have more fuel than not enough though, such was Hedges' thinking on that matter.

Now, the tower came on the radio calling him and Hedges keyed his radio mike to respond and therefore gain permission to start getting his squadron airborne and off to war.



February 3rd 1990
Harsum, Near Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, West Germany

Sergeant Adams screamed at Guardsman Martin Taylor and the rest of the rifle squad with what seemed like all of his might.

“GAS! GAS! GAS!”

The echoes of his repeated calls bounced off several of the buildings inside this small village where they had unexpectedly stopped and been ordered to dismount from their tracked vehicles. Taylor was aware of those echoes and also how red in the face his sergeant went but he also automatically reacted as he was trained to do: on went the chemical warfare suit.

He had no idea if this was another field training exercise or maybe it was all for real. No one had told him and the other men with the Grenadier Guards he was here in this West German village far away from their garrison whether the war had started or when it was meant too. Either way, it really didn't matter. As his sergeant had told him and the others repeatedly every time that they practised fighting for war the less chance that it would be that they would die in combat. Repeating the process again of fast getting into their chemical warfare suits was one of those exercises that Taylor had no issue learning to do with haste for he had listened to the briefings on the effects of nerve gases with horror.

He really didn't not to be protected if or when such weapons were used against the Grenadier Guards.

“Faster, faster!” Taylor's sergeant bellowed again with his booming voice. “Get your gear on or the gas will kill you!”

He himself then dropped his hood down in-place and sealed it. Taylor was almost as fast as his sergeant though just not that quick. He reckoned that he was second or third behind the man.

Now he was in the bubble world of what the other squaddies liked to call the 'spacesuit'. The overpressure expelled all previous trapped air and fresh air was instead filling the space between his body and the all-over suit. The seals around his ankles, his wrists and now his neck were all closed linking his boots, his gloves, the main body of the suit and his helmet all together. With it sealed like it was, nerve gas particles could not get to him and give him a terrible, painful death which when described to him had truly been the stuff of nightmares.

His sergeant was now making hand gestures and pointing for the guardsmen like him and the others to spread out around their vehicle. He understood that he was being ordered to rush around to the other side of the Warrior and take up a covering position and did as he was told in an instant. It was hard to move within the spacesuit yet Taylor got more and more used to that every time.

He was also extraordinarily careful in how he moved less he rip a tear within it to let the air outside in.


Once he reached where he had been sent, Taylor crouched down and pointed his rifle away from him. He chose the nearest greenery: a hedgerow. Why he had been told to do this, standing guard ready to fight from near the parked Warrior in the middle of this street far back from the Inner-German Border in the middle of what might or might not have been a nerve gas attack he didn't know. His sergeant had given the order and so he did so.

There were civilians looking at him, not enemy soldiers coming this way ready to kill him. Of course there were no young men in West Germany not now in uniform. Instead there was a woman with two young children: a boy and a girl both dressed up rather smart. The former waved at him and the latter smiled briefly. Their mother then took hold of them rather forcefully and started moving them away down the street.

If this was a real gas attack then…

Taylor never got the chance to finish his thought. His sergeant had come around to this side of the vehicle and had his helmet off and under his arm.

“Mewse!” He pointed accusingly at another guardsman who was beside Taylor. “You are dead!” A pause and then a nod of the head towards Taylor. “Taylor, well done; you are not dead.”

It had been another test of their speed at getting prepared. Soon enough their sergeant was pulling at Guardsman Mewse's suit, around the connection between the other squaddie's left wrist and berating him for not having made that seal correctly. Then there were more shouted instructions for everyone to form up around him.

“Listen to me again, will you all?” Exasperation was evident in Sergeant Adams. “If you do not seal your suits properly and we are hit with nerve gas you will die. There will not be a chance to say to me 'Oh, but, Sergeant Adams, it was almost closed and I was in a rush and I meant to do it but I didn't have the time and I am an idiot who is now dead'.

You will just be dead and unable to whine. There will be no opportunity to make an excuse if you are dead.

Do you all remember what I told you about how you will die if your suits are not sealed?” As often with Taylor's sergeant, this was another rhetorical question and not one you were meant to answer unless you fancied him shouting at you for being 'an idiot'; though he would always make a deliberate effort never to use swear words.

“You will wet yourself before you die; you will defecate inside your pants. You will throw up and there will be blood in that. Your eyes will bleed too, making you blind. You will be left deaf and dumb just before you die. You won't be able to breath. Your nose will run and if you are really unlucky puss may escape from your peckers too.

Stomach cramps of the most severe kind you have ever had will occur. Your knees will go weak and you will lose your grip. You will fall to the ground and rattle around in such pain you will think – if you can at that point, mind you – that you might be burning in the fires of hell. You will be overcome with sudden madness and would babble if you could.

And, then, only after all of that agony, with all of your mates watching you suffer in such a manner, you will die.

Seal your suits properly when you are told to!”

[James G]

February 3rd 1990
RAF Gütersloh, Lower Saxony, West Germany

The RAF Regiment held several combat squadrons that fulfilled different roles. There were those for air defence who had SAM-launchers on strength, others with just dismounted infantry and then those with a light armoured role. These squadrons were spread between the mainland UK and overseas station in peacetime with most of them expected to go to West Germany in preparation for wartime service.

II (Parachute) Squadron was home-based at RAF Hullavington in Wiltshire and fulfilled the latter role with the company-sized formation having Scorpion light tanks and Spartan armoured personnel carriers. There were also armed Land Rover's on strength as well with II Squadron having those where other 'light armour' formations of the RAF Regiment didn't have them. This was due to the capability that was maintained for the unit to have an airmobile role; it was trained to be parachuted into action should that be necessary to assist in securing an airfield in a combat situation.

All during the history of II Squadron – including when it was first formed as No. 2 Armoured Car Company and saw action in the deserts of North Africa and Iraq during World War Two – such a capability had never been put to the test. Some men who served within the squadron would have like to see that occur away from exercises but not the current commanding officer.

Squadron Leader Alexander Ford wasn't one of those who would have liked to witness such a sight that would probably be a suicide mission nor was he of the opinion expressed by one of his subordinate officers yesterday that when movement orders came for II Squadron they should have gone to Norway. He understood full well like his superiors had done that the fast-moving capabilities of II Squadron wouldn't be best used there in the mountains and valleys of the Arctic at this time of year. Not with all of that snow and how his men in the Land Rover's especially would be exposed to the elements there. Instead it was to West Germany Ford had taken his command to come under the command of 5 Wing that had transferred here too across from Britain.

His task here wouldn't be the rapid seizure of a fixed airbase that would be defended but rather to undertake distant protection of quickly-established air-strips for Harrier's with the RAF who would be moving from one to another to avoid the enemy and whom needed the fire-power to keep up with them. Ford couldn't be any more pleased at such a demanding, challenging wartime duty.


Harrier GR3's & GR5's were stationed at RAF Gütersloh. Those short-range attack-fighters were lethal weapons of war who practised flying from here where Ford had just arrived with II Squadron yet they were not to be operating for here in wartime. The two squadrons of them had already left to be joined by another RAF Regiment formation operating in the light armoured role – with more Scorpion's and Spartan's and no Land Rover's – and gone to pre-scouted dispersal points. All of the aircraft were to fly from those multiple sites all over the West German countryside in flights of four, maybe six and those locations would change at will. An immense supply effort would be needed to keep the Harrier's flying due to the constant movements made and with that came the security needs.

The aircraft needed protecting when they were on the ground and so too did the men who would fly and maintain them. There was no fixed intelligence upon what would be the intentions of the Warsaw Pact when it came to going after the Harrier's yet it was believed that they would because the Harrier's were as capable as they were. There was already anticipated to be a general commando threat in the rear areas once the war begun and the Harrier's which had departed Gütersloh were thought to be in danger of attack when on the ground.

Static defence of the temporary air-strips wasn't what Ford and his men were to do. Instead, their task was to let that be done by men with the Harrier squadrons themselves and operate in a mobile patrolling fashion. They would hunt for those hunting the Harrier's and if combat was met deliver overwhelming defensive fire. Ford had full confidence in the men under his command and the weapons available to them.

Those Rockapes – the name had a long and complicated history – were all combat-capable infantrymen. Even the drivers, the radio operators and the vehicles technicians who served within II Squadron were trained to the highest standards as this was one of the première formations within the RAF Regiment. Ford would expect them to fight as hard as they could when the time came to do that and he intended to join them in doing their assigned duty.

There would be no other choice once the war started.



February 3rd 1990
Crossmaglen, County Armagh, Ulster, Great Britain

Sergeant Claire O'Brien walked into the farmhouse outside the village of Crossmaglen and into a torrent of verbal abuse. She was Greenfinch, a female volunteer soldier with the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and normally unsurprised at such a welcome yet here it was something exceptional indeed. Every single curse word that the woman and her children present who lived here could hurl were being used. The man of the house was silent but the rest of his family weren't holding their tongues at the intrusion of their home by those they regarded as their mortal enemies. O'Brien herself was called all sorts of names along with a different sort directed against the male UDR soldiers. The shouts directed at them were that they were murderers paled in comparison to what she was called.

O'Brien was deemed a whore, a baby-killer and – of course – the C-word. To hear even the little children say such words and then to have them spit at her while their faces wore masks of pure hatred might have upset her some time ago yet it was something that she had gotten used to over time. There were no other Catholics that she knew and all that she met when in uniform acted in such a hostile manner towards her.

Moreover, today it was even more expected that usual.


This was Bandit Country, the badlands of South Armagh where IRA activity had made much of it a virtual no-go area for regular troops of the British Army deployed to Ulster and until today the UDR rarely ventured here too. Movements were usually made round and through South Armagh in heavily-armoured convoys or by helicopter and house-to-house searches through Crossmaglen and the neighbouring farms were unheard of. Yet not today: today the UDR had been turned lose on the area near the Internal Irish Border in an effort to 'pacify' the region.

Over the past week, as the world tethered on the brink of war, war had already come to Northern Ireland. It was a small war but a war nonetheless. Armed clashes occurred everyday with shootings and bombings taking place. Many people were killed and oftentimes those who lost their lives had no desire to be part of the fighting. The official line which O'Brien had been told was that the war was being launched by Catholic Republicans against the British state and the Protestant people of Northern Ireland with those attacks launched by Loyalist groups to be only acts of self-defence… even when they were clearly pre-emptive. Such was why the UDR had been mobilised three days ago rather than yesterday as she had been told was the case with the rest of the British Armed Forces. There was now at least half of the regular military forces leaving Ulster to go to Continental Europe and in their place to man the frontlines against Republican terrorists was the UDR: a 'local' volunteer defence force for the whole Province with more than ninety-eighty per cent of its members being Protestant.

Many of those armed attacks had come in the South Armagh region against security forces stations: those manned by some of the regular British Army troops remaining and the Royal Ulster Constabulary too. They had been struck at with mortars, heavy machine gun fire and sniping. Vehicles had been hijacked and used to try to deliver bombs against those fixed points too. Checkpoints strung up across the countryside where armed IRA men stopped and searched vehicles with shooting occurring due to those on occasions.

This was a war and it was being fought by the IRA here with their South Armagh Brigade. Many of the members lived in places like Crossmaglen or other villages whose names were sometimes spoken of with the same level of concern: Cullyhanna and Jonesborough. In addition, others had homes across the border in the Irish Republic. This was their base of operations where Irish tricolours had sprung up over the past few days flying openly over British soil.

Now the UDR was here to bring an end to that with unofficial word coming down the chain of command that the best way to do that was to meet it with more violence than was given.


The UDR was a family regiment more than any other within the British Army. In others there would be cases of sons following their fathers down several generations in the same regiment and fighting for the same colours through the decades. O'Brien and her husband served in the UDR though – the same battalion – with his uncle also. Family groups rather than fathers and sons were a regular feature of the make-up of the UDR with community links being rather strong too. Several of her neighbours from back in Loughgall were with D Company, 2 UDR here including close friends of both hers and her husband Michael's (another sergeant though serving at battalion HQ rather than with D Company).

It was Michael's closest friend, Billy Gallagher, who attacked the woman who lived at the house. They were here to search for weapons – or anything else 'incriminating' – and nothing more with O'Brien and Gallagher being in the living room where the family were as other soldiers tore through the house causing havoc with their searching. In the living room, on the wall behind the sofa, there was another one of those Irish tricolours and Billy had ripped it away ready to take it away with him. There came the further use of strong verbal abuse directed against O'Brien which she was about to ignore again but that was interrupted when Billy used his rifle to silence the woman kneeling on the floor alongside her husband and children. He delivered a blow with the butt of his rifle but it was enough to at once silence her mid-abuse and cause her to topple over. Reacting out of instinct, O'Brien at once tightened her hand around the pistol-grip of her rifle but the man only shook his head while the children became as silent as him and their mother now was.

This was Ulster though where worse things were happening every day now. The woman might or might not have deserved it. O'Brien felt the pang of sudden guilt though because she was here and had done nothing to stop what had occurred nor was minded to openly speak up even afterwards.

What would have been the point anyway?



February 3rd 1990
SHAPE, Casteau, Hainaut, Belgium

There was a countdown to H-Hour underway though no one – apart from the Soviets it seemed – knew when that would exactly occur. Everyone at the partially-evacuated SHAPE complex had their own theories which some expressed with the most pessimistic believing it would occur sometime in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Whether when that ticking clock reached the point of the coming attack the opening salvo contained a conventional invasion, a thermonuclear strike or maybe both was another point discussed among those who remained here.

Second Officer Laura Whittaker had only arrived here this afternoon at the command complex for NATO in the middle of the Belgian countryside and tried to avoid voicing her own opinion on that.

She had more pressing matters to address such as starting work here and dealing with her new superior: someone who caused her skin to crawl with his comments, his stares and his innuendo. Whittaker was a serving officer with the Women's Royal Naval Service (the WREN's used their own officer structure and she was effectively a lieutenant) on attachment to the Defence Intelligence Staff and had experienced sexual harassment beforehand elsewhere yet upon first impression of meeting Lt.-Colonel Gordon Mackenzie she knew at once that here in Belgium even with a war about to erupt it may be the most serious she had ever faced. He had undressed her with his eyes upon first introduction – that thing that many men did to most women and always denied doing so – with his mind clearly turning over with internal desires. Afterwards he had spoken to her breasts rather than her face. Then had come the question about how well her service blouse fitted her and whether she had a boyfriend or was 'agreeably friendly with her affections' as he said that WREN's 'were all known to be'.

It would never be something which she would do, but Whittaker had wanted to punch him in the mouth.

There was nothing in such behaviour which she could have mistaken. He wasn't shy and making mistakes nor unsure of just how to be a gentleman around a woman. This was all deliberate. His overriding aim was clear: he wanted to use her for his own needs and didn't give a damn about her thoughts on the matter. She told herself that no matter what happened with how this war went, wherever they went if they left SHAPE as she anticipated they might, he wouldn't get the opportunity to have his way with her. He struck her as someone who might not be bothered whether she gave consent or not (which there certainly wouldn't be any even if he wasn't as physically repulsive as he was because of his personality) but she wasn't going to be put in the situation where he would make the attempt.

That just wasn't something which was going to be able to do to her… not while she had breath if her lungs.


This was all something that Whittaker had to push aside for the time being as she was here with a duty to undertake. Trained as a capabilities analyst to assist the Royal Navy she was used to staff work and the sudden, last-minute assignment to SHAPE had come as a surprise. She had welcomed the idea though because no matter what happened she had expected that it would be a career-boosting move and she could hope to progress to the rank of First Officer afterwards. Careers were made with such appointments and she had been happy to take it… until she got here and met Mackenzie.

At least half of the staff who worked at the SHAPE complex were gone and many reservists had taken their place; orders for the former to return to combat units had arrived and the latter had then appeared to take their place. Whittaker discovered upon her arrival that she was expected to replace a young RAF officer working under the British Army staff officer that was Mackenzie on the staff of the British Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (NAC). The NAC was the decision-making council of NATO with professional diplomats on that body supported by intelligence personnel in and out of uniform. It wasn't her knowledge of naval matters that she had been brought here for but rather her language skills. She spoke French and German to a high standard and was conversational passable in Italian as well: important languages within NATO in addition to English. Her passion had always been foreign tongues long before she had become a WREN and someone somewhere must have seen her name on a list with such languages printed alongside that.

The result was Whittaker at SHAPE to act as a translator to the diplomat at the head of the UK mission to the NAC. It was still a move that would benefit her career but not one which she wanted to be preforming as there was the expectation that she undertook secretarial duties as well. This wasn't what she had hoped for yet what she was here to do.

The NAC had met this morning before she got here though might do again later tonight. It was late in the evening now on what many people believed would be the last day of peace yet that remained a great unknown. Whittaker was inside a tiny, windowless office at a desk typing up a report on the important points of that meeting between those diplomats earlier. There were official minutes that she was working from though Mackenzie had instructed here to highlight certain points for the Permanent Representative that he would wish to look over again.

Within the report she was typing she couldn't help but ponder over certain subjects. There was the information that the Soviet Military Mission based at Bünde – a hold-over from World War Two with reciprocal missions of the Allied Powers in East Germany – had been evacuated of its staff of trained intelligence personnel. Those spooks had gone back over the IGB as fast as possible early this morning in what had been said among the NAC to be a clear sign of imminent military action.

West Berlin was surrounded by Soviet and East German troops with the Allied garrisons there and the West German civilians trapped with no chance of help coming to them once the shooting started. Questions had been raised about the composition of hostile forces there and the chances of some sort of air evacuation; the latter had been dismissed due to impracticability and political considerations too.

Whittaker learned many other things as to how the world stood on the eve of war, all of it interesting and worrying at the same time. One of the other major items which she paid attention to was how united and disunited at the same time NATO was right on the eve of conflict. Soviet efforts with their Big Lie that the West had killed Gorbachev to try to split NATO on a diplomatic level had failed miserably as no one seemed to believe the improbability that the CIA or another intelligence agency such as the British MI-6 or French DSGE had done that. The whole of NATO was putting on a united front in mobilising and standing together on a military and diplomatic level.

However, at the same time the disunity came behind the scenes. The West Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians and the Danes too all informed their allies that they would not support the use of nuclear weapons on their soil or anywhere else too unless it was in direct response to identical attacks. They were firm on this matter with no mind to change their position. The French had made semi-independent decisions regarding their nuclear deterrent – as expected – and hadn't linked it into the NATO command structure. Moreover, they had also not deployed their conventional forces as per expected NATO doctrine but rather to suit their own needs which while part of NATO were still what France wanted. In Southern Europe the countries there were all standing with their allies but differences remained between the Greeks and the Turks which had boiled over into arguments about deployments. Italy too was unhappy with how few reinforcements from their NATO partners had joined with them ready to defend their nation from attack.

War was certain to erupt very soon yet all this disunity was, as far as Whittaker was concerned, worrying indeed.



February 4th 1990
Europe

The Third World War started in Europe in the early hours of the morning on February the fourth. It was a semi-conventional attack with chemical weapons used but neither biological nor thermonuclear deployments. Warsaw Pact forces on the ground, in the air and at sea struck against NATO and non-aligned Austria.

The British Armed Forces were at the forefront of the defence of the West.

[lordroel]

This would be a good cover for this timeline.

[James G]

That's an amazing cover. Thank you, lordroel.

[lordroel]

Jan 23, 2017 16:32:31 GMT James G said:

That's an amazing cover. Thank you, lordroel.

Well thank Google, with out it i would never have found it.

[James G]

Chapter Two – Opening Salvoes

February 4th 1990
Koge Bay, the Baltic Sea

Less than an hour ago the war had opened with immense violence across many theatres of conflict worldwide.

HMS Campbeltown, which should have been right in the firing line for one of those opening salvoes launched by the Soviet war machine, had miraculously been unmolested during that short time. Considering that the warship was heading right towards where enemy naval forces were reported to be active, along with maritime aviation assets as well, this was rather surprising for those aboard. The darkness of the early hours plus thick fog helped greatly with this though so too did the orders which Captain Brooks gave to avoid unnecessary distraction and get where he was himself ordered to be.

Moreover, the airwaves were full of all sorts of electronic interference – hostile as well as friendly – which further aided the situation. Sophisticated jamming equipment was active everywhere with some of that coming from the Campbeltown in addition to multiple external sources.

Now Brooks ordered that coming from the Type-675 system to be temporarily ceased while his already-prepared technicians moved to minimise what else was filling the air nearby. As anticipated, the displays coming from the radar systems fitted to the Campbeltown and 'Chariot' (the call-sign of one of the Lynx's reflecting the history of the last RN warship so named as Brooks' command) showed just what he expected to find here in the Koge Bay to the southwest of the Oresund: multiple targets.

“Confirm targeting data, Lieutenant Brown.” Calmly, even though he was under immense stress yet at the same time full of excitement, Brooks spoke to one of his principle combat officers within the Operations Room deep inside the Campbeltown.

The reply was measured, accurate and on-point: “Sir, just as what that Danish submarine reported. We show seven vessels moving north-west-north. A Kashin-class destroyer which appears to be the Polish-operated Warszawa, the frigate is a Riga-class ship which will be Soviet and the landing ships are five Polnochny's: a mix of Soviet and Polish boats.

Chariot is ready to fire against the Kashin, Captain.”

This small amphibious force with escorts had already been attacked before Brooks brought his ship into position to finish them off. It was heading in the direction of Zealand coming from Stralsund on the East German coast. Intelligence reports which had been received stated that Polish marines would be aboard those amphibious ships each rated as a 'landing ship, tank' on their way to invade Denmark. The Danish Navy had struck first putting one torpedo into a landing ship and another pair of torpedoes into a Soviet Krivak-class frigate that was part of the escort force; the latter was sinking more than a dozen miles behind. The submarine was waiting now to finish them off and, whilst manoeuvring to do so against intensive anti-submarine efforts to kill the Danish vessel first, had sent off a spot-on contact report allowing Campbeltown to come and help.

“Order Chariot to open fire.”

There it was: the order was given.

Brooks gave the instruction for his airborne helicopter far out ahead scouting the way to launch a pair of its carried Sea Skua anti-ship missiles against the biggest enemy vessel. The helicopter was flying low and would come in close to strike using the skills of the aircrew to launch as close as possible putting missiles into that destroyer which was armed with long-range if dated surface-to-air missiles and plenty of guns. Those probably wouldn't be mission-kills on the Polish warship but would hopefully knock it out of action for the time being and also cause one hell of a distraction for the escorts with the amphibious ships.

“Chariot is making her attack run, Captain.”

“Excellent.” Brooks was pleased at the fast response; no one was hesitating at firing war-shots. “Lieutenant Dawson,” he turned to his Surface Warfare Officer, are the Harpoon's ready?”

“Yes, Sir!” That was an affirmative if there ever was one. “Six ready to launch as per your orders with flight data already set.”

“Wait for my command, Lieutenant.”

For the next few minutes, there was silence within the Operations Room. Only those officers and enlisted men who needed to be here were present and all of those were busy at their tasks of monitoring radar displays, sonar screens and communication channels. Elsewhere aboard there were men on the bridge guiding the big and fast frigate across the waves as gracefully as possible for a ship of her size while others were at damage control stations, in the engine room & machinery spaces and aft in the hangar where the second Lynx – call-sign 'Normandie' – was being readied to fly.

Brooks waited nervously. He forced himself to not pace up and down but rather stand in the centre of the compartment surrounded by those at work here. His own worries should he express them physically would only unnerve those around him who needed to see him confident at this moment.

Finally, there came the radio call from Chariot: the helicopter had fired two small missiles at the Warszawa and was fleeing afterwards.

Now.

“Lieutenant Dawson open fire with the Harpoon's, target spread Alpha.”

“Firing missiles, Captain.”

Topside, the GWS-60 missile-launchers sprang into action. There were eight of these individual containers for the Harpoon missiles as the later models of the Type-22 class of frigates which the Campbeltown was carried these American-built weapons rather than the French-manufactured Exocet's that earlier subclasses had. Six were launched with an outpouring of sudden noise, light and grey smoke leaving two remaining. There had been three target spreads plotted with Alpha being favoured yet the others available in case the situation had unexpectedly changed.

“Successful launches, Captain.”

Again, there was a wait for the missiles to reach their targets. Those were being illuminated by the Type-986 radar and Brooks watched them on one of the displays as he couldn't help but move close to where one of his seamen was at the monitor. The enlisted man and Lieutenant Dawson would understand what he was seeing better as they were expertly trained upon this equipment yet Brooks had some knowledge himself. He was watching the radar echoes of those vessels now under attack as they reacted first to the strike upon the Warszawa and now to what their own sensors would be picking up in the form of the inbound missiles that he had fired at them. The previously tight formation was scattering with what was marked as the frigate moving into a position between the amphibious ships and the approaching Harpoon's. Those Polnochny's were slow vessels anyway and had to be heavily-laden with cargo while the Riga didn't have the firepower to pose a threat to the Harpoon's programmed to ignore her and focus instead on the wounded destroyer and the five amphibious ships.

The countdown to impact ran unspoken by everyone here though Brooks could feel the tension inside the compartment and not just within him as the radar tracks merged.

“Multiple impacts! Missiles one, two, three, five and six have hit… number four appears to have missed.”

No cheer followed the report as might have been expected in an exercise yet it was clear that everyone here was elated. There came a collective sigh of relief from so many of those present that it might have even echoed. Brooks himself was jubilant inside though just nodded with a smile at the officer who delivered the report before making the necessary comment: “Can we confirm?”

“Yes, Sir. We have an impact upon the destroyer and more upon four of the landing ships. Our radar shows that and Chariot's does too.”

“Excellent work, everybody.” Brooks remained pleased though it would have been even better if the other Harpoon hadn't inexplicably missed its target. All the intelligence reports his officers had reviewed between the submarine report and the missile launches stated that no electronic jammers known to be capable of defeating a missile like an RN-operated Harpoon was available to those targeted vessels. In addition, those Harpoon's were of the model which had a terminal pop-up attack profile making the chances of a successful missile-to-missile or gun-to-missile engagement from the opposing vessels extremely unlikely too. Maybe there had been chaff launched at the last minute, a malfunction with the missile or just plain bad luck involved. Brooks didn't know and would like to, but not at the moment.

He ordered Lieutenant Philips – his Communications Officer – to send off a secure contact report over NATO channels before following the rest of his orders and making a hard turn to starboard. He still had his main gun, two remaining Harpoon's and his pair of helicopters for further offensive surface action which he expected when operating deeper in Koge Bay. That amphibious force which he had engaged wouldn't be the only one and maybe even one of those landing ships might not have been sunk and instead damaged but able to make it to land with its human or vehicle cargo. There would be other targets with more amphibious ships, assault hovercraft, minesweepers and small warships expected to be present all taking part in what would be an invasion of Denmark.

Brooks had his Sea Wolf anti-air missiles, his Goalkeeper anti-missile gun and torpedoes to defend himself should there be attacks launched against the Campbeltown. That first engagement had been near perfect yet he couldn't expect the next one to be so well organised nor unopposed. He had his orders though, which were to fight, and his duty to take his command and the men with whom he served into battle again to defend their country's interests here in the Baltic.

The Campbeltown moved at near full speed under his orders ready to do just that on what was sure to be a very busy day indeed.



February 4th 1990
Königslutter am Elm, Lower Saxony, West Germany

It was a stupid error to make. Born of ego and pride rather than sense and command responsibility, Brigadier Johnson had made at best a bad judgement call and at worst a possibility fatal mistake in coming forward as he had this morning away from where he should have been far in the rear supervising his combat brigade. He had wanted to see how things were closer to the fluid frontlines but shouldn't have come at this moment when the battle was still being fought between the Desert Rats and the invading Soviets in such a manner as it was. It was the levels of attendant fire support which the Soviets were using to assist them which put Johnson in danger and left open the possibility that the 7th Armoured Brigade might lose its commanding officer only a few hours into the war.

No one else was to blame for his folly but himself.

He told himself this as he sheltered inside his armoured vehicle as the tracked FV436 rocked side-to-side from nearby artillery impacts. First it had been the bombs delivered from enemy aircraft and then the long-range rockets before the Soviets had opened up with their howitzers firing at great range far ahead of where the forward lines of their troops were fighting against his. This was always what they were going to do ahead of their advance where they anticipated that defending NATO forces such as his would be positioned and Johnson himself had lectured his subordinates on making sure that when they deployed their men and vehicles that those were as best covered as possible from such action against them.

The Challenger tanks of the 2RTR (the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment) along with their own command vehicles were partially protected by earthworks to dampen the force of the impacts but his FV436 along with the accompanying FV439 mobile signals post – both versions of the FV432 tracked infantry fighting vehicle – were not in a similar position.

Alongside him inside the command vehicle there were a few staff officers from the brigade headquarters which he had left behind to foolishly come forward as he had. They were monitoring radio sets and if they were as worried about what would happen if one of those 152mm or 175mm shells which were landing impacted upon this vehicle then they didn't show it. Johnson hoped that if such a thing did happen death would occur in an instant and he wouldn't feel a thing. He didn't want to survive such an unlucky strike and left injured for he had already learnt this morning that those in similar situations found that their chemical warfare suits were usually torn when that happened… and the Soviets were using nerve gases mixed in with their conventional high-explosive warheads in many of their artillery barrages. Death in that manner was not how he wanted to leave this earth.

Those radio operators weren't being able to communicate much with the outside world but they were at their posts and continuing even when the airwaves were filled with electronic interference as well as having broken conversations as such jamming was temporarily overcome but then returned. Johnson was paying the price for coming forward as he was left near incommunicado at this crucial time. He had a capable deputy and staff at both his main headquarters and the standby headquarters – both in the field and mobile back to the west – yet he should have been doing what they were doing now in his absence.

Once this artillery barrage was lifted and the Soviets moved their attention elsewhere then he would be fast on the move not just to get back commanding his brigade but also to get away from this immediate danger which there had been no valid reason to expose himself to. He silently berated himself for his selfishness in putting so many others at risk just so he could tell himself afterwards that he had been near the frontlines, a place where he had no need to be at this time with everything else that was going on.


Königslutter am Elm lay within the Helmstedt Bowl, an historic trade corridor between the IGB and Braunschweig. It was located in this region of farmland inter-spaced with hill ranges that dominated the landscape. In addition to the Lappwald, the Dorm Ridge and the Elm Hills also significant as part of this region where the Desert Rats were positioned were the two main highways which ran east-west towards Helmstedt: Autobahn-2 and Bundesstrasse-1. The former was the wider of the two main roads and took a winding course from the border between the two Germany's with the latter more direct in its course offered to an invader moving westwards aiming to move against that large West German city. The small town had only been partially and unofficially evacuated by the West German authorities though those who had chosen to stay in their homes and face whatever came would be regretting that now… if they were still alive.

The little town, a focus for the local farming community, was being blasted apart as the Soviets had correctly guessed that Johnson would station some of his men around it. It was in the general area of Königslutter not in the town where he had the 2 RTR though. With their fifty-seven tanks, sixteen Scorpion and Ferret armoured reconnaissance/scouting vehicles, ten armoured personnel carriers, four armoured command vehicles and hundreds of professional British soldiers they were here under his direct orders. He had kept the battalion-sized armoured regiment together as one rather than have it split up into two mixed task forces of tanks and infantry – as the 1 STAFFORDS and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards were – that were fighting along the course of the Autobahn behind Helmstedt. The 2 RTR was his immediate reserve force positioned here to guard against a Soviet flank attack too; if they undertook the latter role he had the Scottish infantry with the 1 RHF for that reserve role as they were being held back a little further westwards.

Such dispositions of his command followed established doctrine. His forward-deployed units were to engage in combat with the enemy and conduct a fighting withdrawal as they bled the invader without being overwhelmed themselves and rely upon flank guards where they were possibly exposed to such with further reserves behind.

Before leaving his main command post, where he should have been rather than still at Königslutter under this artillery barrage, Johnson had monitored the progress of his troops since the war opened in the early hours and then the dawn ground attack had come over the IGB. The forward scouts were in vehicles and also dismounted and they had met Soviet led recon elements which had moved the moment once there was light on the horizon behind them. Johnson's men had clashed with those scouts who were moving fast deep into the border region. Losses had been taken but they had followed orders to withdraw after stinging the enemy back to the main lines of resistance, lines which were meant to move as they were. Where those first clashes had taken place had been between Helmstedt and the border itself: inside the forest that was the Lappwald. The two highways as well as the inter-German railway line ran though the southern part of that forest there and in that corridor between the trees British and Soviet forces had fought each other in mobile engagements at close-range before a withdrawal was made in a northeastern direction by his forces there and the Soviets started to follow them. Helmstedt itself was avoided by both sides with the Autobahn and the snow-covered fields either side of it being fought across instead of that town.

The Desert Rats elements there conducted their withdrawal as they were trained to by making the Soviets they fought pay for every yard they advanced. Smashed vehicles and dead men soon littered the countryside as the Soviets tried to advance only to run into ambushes, localised counterattacks and an enemy that fell backwards but not in a hurry. Air power came into play with the Soviets having aircraft and helicopters and Johnson calling in his own in the form of RAF Harrier's first and then Luftwaffe Alpha-Jet's afterwards.

It was from those clashes in the early morning dawn and just after sunrise itself (the latter not something so significant today with so much cloud cover above) where Johnson heard about the gas attacks against his men. Urgent messages had come to him once war erupted but before the Soviets came over the border at Helmstedt telling him that strategic targets far in the rear had been struck with missiles carrying nerve gas warheads and mass casualties were expected. When the tactical artillery barrages begun on the border and his recon elements fought there they didn't have to face such weapons despite being prepared to. He had sent that report up the chain of command to the 1st Armoured Division HQ and pondered over why that had not happened. Where the Soviets worried about their own men being exposed to such weapons or possibly civilian casualties near to the border area just across in East Germany as a result of such weapons? He hadn't known why at the time and been caught up in monitoring the fighting as well as making sure that his battlefield intelligence kept him up to date on other nearby developments.

Only when the 1 STAFFORDS and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards battle-groups (each with tank squadrons and infantry companies combined into battalion elements of Challenger's and Warrior's) had reported back casualties from chemical warfare at small places along the route of and near to the Autobahn at Mariental, Barmke and Emmerstedt did he understand. The Soviets had correctly anticipated that he, like other NATO field commanders, would have his men at the very front initially spread out but they would concentrate once combat was met back from the border. By using their nerve gases then at that point they achieved the desired levels of damage to justify their use.

The gases used were Sarin and Soman: non-persistent agents known also as GB and GD respectively. Their toxicity wasn't as high as other weapons of a more persistent nature but still killed many of those exposed either through carelessness or by wounds inflicted in combat to their protection within chemical warfare suits or armoured vehicles with overpressure systems active. Moreover, what few West German civilians who remained in the general areas where the gases were employed were wholly exposed to the effects of those weapons.

It was the Soviet Army's 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Division which had moved over the IGB and engaged the Desert Rats in combat. This was one of their Category A formations at full-strength in peacetime and now in war with the latest equipment fielded and well-trained men. It had come across from Poland early last month from where it had been stationed to deploy into East Germany; in the past few days it had been identified as it was watched moving up to the border with West Germany. Johnson had been told by the divisional intelligence staff that it was under the operational control of the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army now. There were four combat regiments attached along with another of artillery; unlike the 'regiments' in the British Army, those the Soviets fielded had multiple battalions rather just the strength of one of those building blocks used by armed forces worldwide.

There were T-80 tanks operated by the 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Division. Johnson was told that they had at least two hundred of them, maybe two hundred and fifty if an extra non-regimental tank battalion was included with this formation. Of the armoured infantry vehicles there were BTR-60 & -70 wheeled personnel carriers and BMP-1 & -2 tracked fighting vehicles. Up to five hundred of these would be on strength and all carrying weapons of their own in addition to the infantrymen inside them. There would be plenty of artillery support, as always expected with the Soviets. There were reported to be as many as one hundred and eighty self-propelled howitzers, towed guns and towed heavy mortars. Two dozen multiple-barrelled short-range and single medium-range rocket-launchers were also reported as forming part of the 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Division's fire support and those fearsome weapons could easily be added to with attached reinforcements or external support on-hand.

Johnson and the Desert Rats weren't alone facing this huge force. There were the two other brigades with the 1st Armoured Division, the 4th Armoured Division to the south, the 3rd Armoured Division behind and the West Germans had a panzer division to the immediate north. Nonetheless, there would be other tasks for those nearby forces to undertake as they too fought the invader. The rest of Johnson's parent division could reasonably be expected to combat the 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Division but it wasn't an even match in numbers. Thankfully though, the ground here was suitable for defensive missions and the Desert Rats were trained for this mission here near the frontiers.

Yet that opposing formation, moving across the IGB up through the Helmstedt Bowl towards Braunschweig and against his command, was just the first wave of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany. There would be all of those tank divisions behind for Johnson to combat too if they were employed here as well: something to think about indeed with their combat potential.


The artillery barrage ceased.

Johnson could no longer hear the exploding shells around Königslutter and the vehicle didn't rock under the force of some of those. One of his radio operators who had maintained an on/off radio link with the 2 RTR headquarters reported to him that they were saying that there were no longer any shells falling. He fought the urge to suddenly give the order to move and waited instead. To rush away from where he was wasn't the best of ideas as the Soviets might open fire away at any given moment after delaying for whatever reason they had.

No further fire came after five minutes and so Johnson decided that their guns must be targeting somewhere else for now. He would have liked to know where that was, needed to know in fact. Moreover, he wanted to know what efforts were being put into counter-battery fire or directing friendly air power against those guns that the Soviets were using.

To find out all of the information as well as start commanding his brigade again, Johnson needed to get out of here and back into the rear. He wouldn't be an idiot like this again and instead stay where his duty was: in command of the Desert Rats as they fought to defend this little part of West Germany. One Soviet regiment (plus recon attachments) was over the IGB with another sure to be close behind them and those under Johnson's orders were to fight them by withdrawing from cover to cover and hitting back to cripple that advance and bring it to an eventual halt all the while minimising their own losses to maintain combat strength. It had been difficult already even with a few hours of it underway and would only get harder, but he believed that it could be done.



February 4th 1990
The Teutoburg Forest, North Rhine–Westphalia, West Germany

Squadron Leader Ford climbed out of the rear of the Sultan tracked command vehicle when it came to a halt and walked briskly through the snow and mud to where Flight Lieutenant Williams was waiting for him.

“Frank,” he called out to the man as he approached, “not a good start to that day, eh?”

“No, Sir, not at all.” The comment came with a downcast gaze and a brief look over his shoulder at the still-smoking wreck of a Scorpion armoured reconnaissance vehicle.

“Your report?”

“Polish commandoes, Sir. They must have parachuted in sometime in the early hours and are here up to no good. There was a squad of them – I believe – travelling light and on foot though with a few man-portable weapons: machine guns and shoulder-mounted rocket-launchers.

We ran right into them and they ran right into us. There was no ambush set up but they reacted fast, very fast indeed. The Scorpion here was hit with an R.P.G that was a kill shot and a one of my Spartan's also took a hit but that one wasn't fatal. I have three men killed, another two injured.

Five bodies have been recovered and we have another Pole in custody who is shot-up a bit. It appears that two more commandoes got away, with personal weapons at most. I have my men looking for them now and hope to get them soonest.”

C Flight was Williams' command, one of four platoon-sized elements within II Squadron. He had five armoured vehicles and a pair of Land Rover's on strength just over thirty men. Ford regarded him as a good officer, one with much promise for the future within the RAF Regiment, yet sometimes a little unsure of himself when he shouldn't have been. There was too much of an apology in the tone of his report as if he had done something fatally wrong in running into the enemy unexpectedly, defeating them in battle despite the surprise and now pursuing the beaten remains of that scattered force through this difficult terrain. Ford had met many other officers in his time who would never amount to much and wouldn't have handled the sudden combat as Williams had.

“You spoke to the prisoner? Does he speak English?”

A shake of the head. “Senior Aircraftman Kawczynski's father is Polish, Sir: one of Anders' Army from World War Two who settled in the Midlands. Kawczynski's Polish is a bit rusty and not dictionary standard but he could understand what the prisoner said.”

“They are commandoes and the prisoner just told your enlisted man that?” Ford hoped that no pressure had been applied to the injured man who would have to be treated as a POW with all of his rights as such recognised.

“He's hurt but it isn't as bad as he looks, just a lot of blood over his white camouflage uniform. The prisoner was given a version of the Last Rites by Kawczynski – who isn't a Catholic but doesn't mind anyone thinking he is – and he opened up to him thinking that he wanted his last words to mean something… that's how I read the situation, Sir.”

Ford held in a laugh. The story was so ridiculous that it had to be true. If the information was genuine then it was valuable and he was pleased to have gained it without anything being done that would have troubled his conscience.

“Make sure that he is patched up and treated well. We'll hand him over to the West Germans as soon as possible. So...” Ford had to pause to consider what was to be done next. “I have A Flight with me. Do you need their assistance in tracking down the last two escapees?”

B and C Flight's were both assigned to patrol along the northern slopes of the ridges of the Teutoburg Forest south of where the town of Bielefeld lay. D (Machine Gun) Flight was currently remaining with the Harrier's which II Squadron was protecting while Ford had A Flight under his personal control as a reaction force. In breaking up his company in such a manner, Ford was following his orders of defending the Harrier's scattered away from RAF Gütersloh by conducting long-range patrols to safeguard them. About half of those from that RAF station were out here on the northern side of the high-ground – near Bielefeld – with the rest on the other side closer to Gütersloh and defended by Ford's counterpart commanding No. 15 Squadron.

Those Harrier's had been flying from and returning to their temporary air-strips all morning with missions undertaken away to the east near the IGB where the Soviet Army was crossing. Ford knew nothing of their successes (or failures) in doing so just that the landing sites that they were making use of were his task to guard from a distance against enemy action. It was paratroopers, maybe airmobile troops with their own light armour, that he had expected to face who would be sent after those aircraft and those on the ground keeping them flying. C Flight thus appeared to have done just what was needed and clash with enemy forces which had arrived by air. Those Polish troops must have landed in the high-ground here taking advantage of the darkness and been preparing to either strike themselves against the Harrier's or guide others in. They would have first had to locate the dispersal sites though, which wouldn't be an easy thing to do.

It had been through happenstance that they had been encountered but they had got lucky with one of their RPG's knocking out one of his Scorpion's. Defeat had come afterwards though and Ford was glad of that.

“No, Sir. We'll find them soon enough. They won't get far in this terrain on foot and if they go to ground somewhere I'll have my two remaining Scorpion's blast apart any patches of evergreen vegetation that looks threatening with canister shot to keep them on their toes.” Like many in the RAF Regiment's armoured units, Williams was known to be a fan of the striking power of the 76mm gun fitted to the Scorpion which had all sorts of ammunition available for dealing with infantry opponents.

“Anything else, Lef-tenant Williams?” Ford didn't want to rush away if his subordinate needed something and so prompted him to ask.

Another one of those looks came from Williams where there was regret, maybe sadness evident. Then there was a confession: “I hesitated, Sir.” A pause. “When the call came of dismounted men came over the radio, before they opened fire, I didn't give the word to open fire.”

“Why not?”

No immediate response came. For all of them this was their first time in combat and perhaps it was that… or something else.

“They could have been friendlies, Sir.” It hadn't been a case of making the transition from peace to war for his subordinate but rather something which Ford knew was a valid and more pleasing to hear reason to delay opening fire.

“West Germans you mean?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Across the length and breadth of West Germany, the rear areas such as where Ford was with II Squadron there were tens upon tens of thousands security troops deployed by the Territoralheer. Those reservists were well-organised and heavily-armed to conduct patrols and static guard duties supporting not just their own domestic needs but those of their allies too. Ford reported to the RAF Regiment's No. 5 Wing along with 15 Squadron within his own established chain of command with his higher headquarters working closely in this region with the Territoralheer's VKK-345: a battalion-sized command with security detachments based in and around Bielefeld, Gütersloh and the parts of the Teutoburg Forest between those two towns. The urban areas were where their static troops could be found with their mobile patrols focused upon the main highways that crossed their area of responsibility. A stretch of the Autobahn-2 crossed the Teutoburg Forest several miles to the south of where they were now but even closer was the Bundesstrasse-61 that went through the Bielefeld Pass.

“They'll be down in the Bielefeld Pass, Frank. You didn't do anything wrong in stopping to think.”

“Three of my men are dead, Sir.”

“You'd feel just as bad if you killed friendly troops. Your men did well, your Polish-speaking man especially, and we have a prisoner to hand over for further interrogation as well as an enemy force taken apart. It is the first time in combat for all of us and regrets are bound to occur afterwards where we question ourselves.” Ford stepped closer to the man and lowered his voice despite being sure that none of Williams' men were in ear-shot before continuing. “Keep your chin up, Frank. Make sure that the men don't see any doubts that you have: they look to you for guidance.”

“Yes, Sir.” Williams straightened himself up and met Ford's gaze.

“One more thing: make sure that your men have their chemical warfare suits on at all times. Helmets and gloves can be off, as we are now, but ready to go back on within seconds of the alarm sounding. The Soviets have been unleashing plenty of gases and while they haven't used any near here yet – as far as I know anyway – that doesn't mean that won't change. Do not let anyone get sloppy.

Find those two missing Poles and if you can take them prisoner as well so the Intelligence people can talk to them. We'll need all the help we can get with this war.”

Back to his command vehicle Ford now went and left behind the subordinate whose morale he hoped he had just raised enough to get all the potential that there was in that man. The first engagement of the war for II Squadron was over with and success achieved. It was hardly likely to be the first though. He gave the order to start moving once inside and the Sultan started moving after the vehicle commander had had the driver keep the engine going and therefore the overpressure system active.

As the Sultan moved, those other vehicles with the reaction force too got underway as they rolled across the broken ground and back down the slope towards the road where they had come from.



February 4th 1990
The Humber Estuary, Great Britain

When his deputy came back up to the passenger recreation deck, Captain Wood asked if this was the 'Love Boat'. Major Slater gave him a quizzical look before his fellow TA officer related what he had just witnessed a few decks beneath them aboard the MS Norsea through the open door of one of the cabins. There had been a RAF Regiment officer conducting 'Horizontal Romance' with one of the civilian female crew members who was one of many who worked aboard this car-ferry and whom had volunteered to stay with the passenger ship after it had been requisitioned for military service.

Wood had smiled throughout his short tale of what he had observed while Slater just shook his head. There was a war going on across on the Continent, where all of those military personnel aboard were on their way to take part in too, but before then some were taking the time to have some personal pleasures. He wasn't angry at what he had been told but still rather displeased.

That was before the music started playing though and the Love Boat became the Party Boat.


The Anglo-Dutch company North Sea Ferries operated four car-ferries on the Hull-Rotterdam and Hull-Zeebrugge routes. These made nightly round trips to the Netherlands and Belgium carrying passengers and cars for short trips or on the start of their holidays. In addition, lorries and coaches would too make use of the connections with the Continent from East Yorkshire. They were large vessels with facilities for those aboard to not just park their vehicles but to enjoy themselves as well as sleep for the voyages were usually made overnight with it being a ten-hour trip to Rotterdam and fourteen hours to Zeebrugge.

Slater had himself made a Dutch Dash late last year. He and Natalie had taken a short weekend break to Holland in November, the week before the war scare which had then occurred. They had driven from Howden to Hull, boarded one of the boats, slept aboard and then driven off the next day to go up to Amsterdam; the return journey had been done in reverse. This very ship which he was now aboard making the trip again, this time off to war not for a romantic getaway, had been the one which he had taken coming back.

MS Norsea and MS Norsun were assigned to the Hull-Rotterdam route, near identical ships built on the Clyde and in Japan respectively. The two other ships which had been in the Port of Hull throughout the morning loading up alongside them for an escorted voyage of all four across the North Sea were those who ran on the Hull-Zeebrugge route: MS Norland and MS Norstar. They were all in military service now with both the RFA and the Royal Netherlands Navy (Norsun and Norstar sailed under Dutch registry) and had left Hull less than an hour ago aiming to meet a small escort waiting for them beyond Spurn Point.

Before departure, Slater had learnt some of who and what was going aboard the four ships while they were all tied up alongside. RFA personnel and their Dutch counterparts had linked up with those crew members who had in some cases been compelled to stay aboard but in other instances had volunteered their services to make sure that best use was made of the capabilities of these vessels. All had been upon the four ships when they had made a post-mobilisation identical run to the Netherlands and back during the preceding two days carrying men and equipment to the Continent already and for their second trip they had the experience of how that had gone to work with.

Most of the 15th Infantry Brigade was loaded onto the car-ferries including the whole of the Queen's Own Yeomanry of which he and the Yorkshire Squadron were part of. Fox & Ferret armoured cars, Spartan tracked armoured personnel carriers, Saxon wheeled infantry vehicles and plenty of Land Rover's had been driven aboard the car-ferries as if they were civilian vehicles being taken for a peacetime voyage. Thousands of TA soldiers joined them with more passengers than usual being able to be accommodated as they all didn't need berthing spaces and personal comfort wasn't high on the list of priorities.

Those other units with Slater's parent brigade were all expected to fight dismounted and so only a few Land Rover's for officers were aboard the ships therefore making more room available for other vehicles that Britain wished to send to the Continent to support its armed forces there. Engineering vehicles, trucks of all shapes and sizes, and even some older bridging vehicles had been loaded aboard though with consideration for the weight of such vehicles aboard each ship. He knew too that there were at least three dozen tanks that had gone onto the Norsun: Leopard-1's which were based in Wales with a West German training unit that had come all the way to Hull aboard low-loaders and then carefully driven aboard that ship so they could go to assist in the defence of their country. West German military officers had come with those tanks and joined a variety of other men in uniforms denoting their service in many elements of the British Armed Forces. Slater had seen reservists from the Royal Military Police, the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, TA artillerymen with the Northumberland Gunners (without their howitzers as those with the 101st Volunteer Regiment Royal Artillery had been loaded onto a freighter at Teesport rather than Hull), those from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and RAF Reserve ground crews.

Something which had concerned him a little was that the ships hadn't been combat-loaded. As was the case with those West German tanks and the majority of the vehicles with the Queen's Own Yeomanry, what had arrived in Hull together after trips from across the country was driven aboard a ship together so when it reached the Netherlands it would come off all as one load ready to move off fast. He had expressed his fear to his regimental commander that if one of the ships was hit and sunk then all of that particular unit's vehicles would be lost; he believed that there should be a separation between ships to guard against such a possibility, especially since the war had now started and the North Sea was hardly likely to be 'safe' for a crossing.

However, the rush to get everyone and everything loaded and on the way had meant that this hadn't occurred. Slater was told that there had been a rush to sail before an incoming storm and to make it to Rotterdam before the end of the day too.


Slater had just sat down to read the copy of the Yorkshire Post which he had found available for sale in the near empty Duty Free area. He had been happy to see that all of the alcohol which was usually there aboard a vessel such as the Norsea had been removed though disappointed at the level of censorship he found in the day-old regional newspaper he had picked up: the newspaper would tell as Soviet agent far too much! It had been afterwards that Wood had told his tale of what he had seen below decks and Slater was still shaking his head when the song by the American artist Prince titled 'When Doves Cry' started blaring out of the speaker system. This was a civilian vessel with a ship-wide entertainment system and on his voyage on the Norsea last year there had been music playing across the recreational areas… but this was not a pleasure cruise. The music was loud and many of the soldiers who stood or sat all around him started to sing a little.

“They'll have Madonna's 'Like A Virgin' playing next, Andrew!”

Wood laughed at his own remark that Slater understood for the jokey reference to his recent observation but he didn't. This just wasn't right. He wanted to see the men keep their spirits up but the pop music that had come on with no warning, at such volume too, was more than he thought appropriate.

How many men were dying at the minute in West Germany who would have liked to be aboard a Party Boat instead of there?

He looked around for the regimental commander to talk to him about this so maybe the volume could be turned down some at least but couldn't see the man. Slater got up off his seat without saying anything to Wood to go look for him as the record was changed and next up was 'Holding Out For A Hero'. The instant fast beat seemed to suddenly bring even more joy to the soldiers all around him and he witnessed some of them practically dancing. They might not have known the majority of the words but they knew that beat and the chorus anyway.

Slater continued walking around to try to locate his commander. He could feel himself getting angry at what he was witnessing with the soldiers around him starting to enjoy themselves. That was acceptable, he kept reminding himself, but not in this manner when everything else was happening elsewhere.

Then there came a second power ballad sung by the Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler: 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart'.

Within moments the soldiers were belting out the words to that song too. Again it had an impressive beat to it and a very powerful chorus, which many of the men almost screamed instead of singing – “I REALLY NEED YOU TONIGHT!” – and more of them were dancing than before. He did take a few seconds to understand the irony of the soldiers aboard all singing along to love songs such as these sung by a woman about desiring men yet he was still focused upon finding his commander to get the volume turned down some here.

When that third song came to a halt next over the speakers was a West German one. When '99 Red Balloons' came on, the soldiers stopped singing. The crew member who must have put this music on probably had the best of intentions to cheer up these men off to fight a war, but that was an anti-war protest song all about a nuclear conflict breaking out. The men stopped singing, they stopped dancing and an icy quietness came over them as the sudden reminder of the horrible danger which they and their country faced with those 'red balloons'.

Slater gave up the search which he realised was going to be difficult and so he himself tried to find out where that music was being played from so he could deal with the issue personally. He would be reasonable but forceful too in making sure that the Party Boat atmosphere came to an end.

Before he could do that, there was a blast of the ship's horn. It was terribly noisy and drowned out the music as it echoed all throughout the Norsea and everyone stopped what they were doing and saying at that moment. It was then repeated with another blast and a chill sweeping through him because it sounded like a warning.

Wood was beside him and touched his arm before pointing out of the window.

“Over there, Andrew.”

“Is that still the Lincolnshire coast?” That was what Slater was sure he was seeing and was about to ask Wood what was so urgent. Grimsby and Immingham were over there if his bearings were correct but what could have caused the ship's horn to be blown twice and Wood to react as he did wasn't something he could understand.

“No, no.” Wood wasn't pointing at the shoreline. “Look at the Norsun.”

Slater had missed the other ship at first but could now see what the fuss was all about: the car-ferry with those tanks, trucks and hundreds of men aboard was unnaturally low in the water at the bow. If there'd been an explosion he'd missed it but something had caused what he was seeing now. A mine, maybe a missile was going to sink that ship still here far inside British waters and he couldn't imagine what could be done to save it or those and what was aboard.



February 4th 1990
The Celtic Sea

HMS Illustrious was on her way to a position behind the GIUK Gap where anti-submarine barrier operations were to be commenced in supported of that line drawn across the ocean anchored upon the island groups there. The aircraft carrier was bringing quite a few further submarine-hunting helicopters herself to join those operated from other warships including those in her flotilla, yet it would mainly be the presence of a trio of Sea King AEW2A maritime radar helicopters and the dozen Sea Harrier's that was to make the difference that the RN sought by having the Illustrious take up station west of the Faroe Islands. With those additional aircraft, especially the latter dozen under Lieutenant-Commander Hedges' command, the threat to NATO operations across the North Atlantic was to combated on the frontlines.

The carrier had to get there first though. This afternoon she was making good progress on her voyage despite the terrible weather and also not one but two separate submarine scares already today that had caused a distraction and temporary delay. Sailing northwest at the moment, Illustrious would soon be going around the southwestern reaches of Ireland before turning directly northwards and racing for the plotted position where combat operations were to begin aiding the hunt for Soviet submarines as well as offering airborne protection for that effort. As evident by the worries over a submarine threat posed before the time came when the Illustrious reached that patrol station, the journey was not one where guard could be let down. Britain was at war and her maritime warfare assets like the carrier were at risk of attack at any and all moments wherever they should be.

Hence while Hedges had his Sea Harrier in the sky this afternoon.


Hedges commanded 801 Naval Air Squadron yet flight operations while assigned to the Illustrious were under the control of the Air Officer Commanding, a senior FAA officer to whom Hedges reported to. He quickly found Commander McGuigan to be a tough but fair man to fly for who expected the very best from the Sea Harrier's whose operations he now supervised and wanted Hedges and the other pilots aboard in the air as much as possible. McGuigan let Hedges operate 801 Squadron how he wanted in terms of how they would be tactically organised, fly and fight when it came to that but he retained overall supervision to ensure that all of that worked with what his own responsibilities were as commanding all flight operations from the carrier.

To be airborne was what McGuigan wanted from the Sea Harrier's. He had informed Hedges that he regarded the air threat to the Illustrious as a serious matter and that all measures to defend the carrier from the sky were to be taken. Moreover, the reaction role that the Sea Harrier's would offer in regard to any surface threat was also regarded as something that should be made the best use of too.

Corsair Flight was formed with Hedges and Lieutenant Murray each in one of the Sea Harrier's and flying thirty miles to the north of where the Illustrious currently was… which put them in the recognised sovereign air space of the Irish Republic. Hedges had chosen the name personally for the two-aircraft flight while there were a further pair of aircraft – Cutlass Flight – to the west at the moment. He had personally decided that he would be with Corsair Flight rather than flying ahead of the carrier and the warships with her due to being inside the air space of a nation which had declared its neutrality in the war which had begun this morning, a neutrality which Hedges had been briefed by McGuigan wasn't one that was anticipated to be observed by the maritime air forces of the Soviets and therefore represented a threat to the Illustrious which needed meeting.

Those matters of relationships between nation states were something which Hedges had to force out of his mind as they were beyond the scope of his mission. Many countries had declared neutrality, he had been informed when given a short briefing on the current overall situation with the war this morning, and it hadn't done some of them any good at all: Austria being the best example as they had been invaded yet Finland and Switzerland had both had their air space violated. Regardless, no offensive operations by British or NATO forces were going to take place against the Irish: it was just a case of their inability to defend their own skies that meant that when deemed necessary those would be flown in by aircraft like Hedges' in case they were used by the Soviets to threaten the Illustrious. He was certain that all of this would bring plenty of work for diplomats, maybe lawyers later too, but for now he was in these skies. He wasn't over Ireland itself anyway, just above its sovereign coastal waters.

Hedges was on the guard against the appearance of Bear's.


Those Bear's were Soviet Naval Aviation versions of the four-engined, propeller-driven Tupolev-95 given that NATO designation. For more than a week, since the claims were made that the West had killed Gorbachev and the international situation rapidly destabilised, Bear's had been flying long-range missions from the Kola Peninsula down over the Norwegian Sea and out into the North Atlantic and waters a-joining the ocean. There were some which were observed as carrying cruise missiles which might or might not have had nuclear warheads (many flown by the Soviet Air Force rather than their maritime air arm) and others which were full of all sorts of reconnaissance and electronic warfare equipment. They had been spotted again and again on radar screens and met by British and NATO fighters to shadow them. Yet, on other occasions, those huge aircraft had done what had seemed impossible and avoided being detected by radars and suddenly showed up close to Britain's shores after what would have had to have been dangerous flights low over the water using the curvature of the earth and passive jamming to avoid being spotted. Hedges had been told that when they had done so they had caused immense alarm, especially with the occasions when Bear's had made their flights over the Irish Republic and then suddenly made appearances on radar screens when over the Irish Sea on a course taking then towards mainland British with no defences positioned in their way.

That had been until very late yesterday though when right on the eve of war those Bear's stopped coming south on their intimidation and scouting missions. There was expected to have been an immediate stand-down period on the eve of combat occurring for military aircraft such as those and when the activity of the Bear's had ceased as they had in such a fashion that had been another last-minute indicator for intelligence analysts of imminent military action.

He himself had yet to see one of these Bear's. HMS Ark Royal, which had put to sea before nationwide mobilisation, had been shadowed by such aircraft as she had sailed out into the middle of the North Atlantic to take up position for anti-submarine protection of trans-Atlantic convoys from North America to Europe. The briefing which Hedges had received upon the Bear's had included information on how they had been intercepted by the Sea Harrier's with 800 Naval Air Squadron and intimidated themselves by the close flying undertaken by Hedges' command's sister squadron. What weapons were observed being carried, the attempts to evade and technical information on the capabilities of their systems which could be monitored had been given to Hedges and his men though with the warning that all might not have been as appeared due to the Soviets not being stupid and giving away everything that they could when they knew NATO was watching them.

There could still be a few surprises in store in a wartime.

Hedges had only believed that any surprises would be in the form of electronic jamming equipment when he encountered a Bear. Such an aircraft was very unlikely to be capable of endangering his fighter even if short-range air-to-air missiles were fitted – something not easy to do overnight yet be put to use by a Bear – or given manoeuvring capabilities that would allow it to evade a Sea Harrier or it's own missiles. This wasn't complacency just common sense.

First of all though he had to see one of these Bear's.


There was terrible weather below him yet Hedges had Corsair Flight just above the storm clouds that continued to roll in from the ocean and towards Britain. Getting off the Illustrious and up through the clouds had been an experience indeed yet once done Hedges would fly without being thrown about all over the place. The thinner air at higher altitude also gave him more flying time than had he been lower down and therefore saved him fuel. When flying from an aircraft carrier out over the sea, fuel was more important than anything else in Hedges' opinion.

As was the case with his wingman's aircraft, the weapons layout today was perfect for this combat mission. He had two gun pods for the 30mm cannons, a trio of Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and a single Sea Eagle anti-ship missile; there was an external fuel tank fitted to the remaining weapons station. All of those weapons were linked to his Blue Fox radar though the guns could be aimed visually too. The Sea Eagle was present in case there was a surface contact that might need to be attacked due to the warnings of the Soviets having ships at sea in disguise and armed.

It was for an airborne contact which Hedges was alerted to this afternoon of the war's first day though, not a ship.

“Corsair Lead this is Control. Acknowledge?”

“Corsair Lead receiving you, Control.” His response went over what Hedges hoped was a secure communications channel and not one which could be intercepted let alone understood by enemy snoopers.

“Airborne contact spotted: possible Bear. Five zero miles due north of your position. It's heading southeast through Irish air space. Targeting information being sent to you now. Confirm data transfer and move to engage after visual inspection, repeat, after visual identification.”

The information was received promptly to his aircraft's combat computer and Hedges was shown on the display the exact position, height, speed and course of the aircraft which one of the Sea King radar helicopters from the Illustrious had caught glimpses of off in the distance. The information upon the speed of the contact matched what he had been told what was thought to be the optimal cruise speed for a Soviet Bear. What that aircraft was doing over Ireland and where exactly its ultimate destination was for whatever nefarious means no longer mattered because now that the war was being fought there would be no shadowing nor intimidation of that aircraft let alone worries about air space violations.

He was going to bring down that Bear.

“Transfer received, Control. Corsair Flight moving to engage now and will advise once mission achieved.”

“Good luck, Corsair Lead.”

The conversation came to a halt at that point as Hedges switched channels to his wingman: “Two, confirm that data transfer?”

“I have it, One. Ready on your mark.”

“Let's go. Follow me, Two!”

Hedges made the necessary turn to line his Sea Harrier up for a straight course towards where the target would be when he arrived near to it though made sure that he would come in from behind and above the target while keeping clear of the rear-mounted 23mm autocannons located in the tail of most of the operational versions of the Bear. He then pushed the throttle forward and his aircraft shot across the sky with Hedges' wingman racing to catch up.

There was no doubt in his mind that in very soon he would be unleashing one of his Sidewinder's against that aircraft spotted. He would make a visual confirmation because they were still above Irish air space but it was hardly likely to be anything else than a Bear up to no good. Well, that aircraft was soon to be blasted from the skies and Hedges would gain what he hoped would be the first of many aerial victories that he would have during this conflict. He couldn't care one iota if they were all going to be helpless targets like a Bear which couldn't defend itself.

A kill was a kill.

[James G]

February 4th 1990
Soignies, Hainaut, Belgium

If it had been a nuclear warhead then Second Officer Whittaker would have been killed in the blink of an eye when the SHAPE headquarters complex had been hit. However, impacting less than ten minutes after H-Hour, at 04:09 local time (03:09 GMT, 22:09 EST the day beforehand in the American capital) this morning in Casteau had been a missile on a ballistic trajectory which had carried a warhead that released a nerve gas previously unknown before to Western intelligence. The gas had killed hundreds not just at SHAPE but nearby too with Belgian civilians being those who lost their lives in locations south and west of the target due to the wind.

That missile had been one of what turned out to be nearly a hundred as part of the Soviet's opening salvoes in their war against NATO as they were fired against fixed targets in Western Europe of a strategic nature. Sites in West Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium had all been hit with those chemical weapon strikes with mobilisation bases and military storage locations making up the majority of the target list while at the same time there were a few clear propaganda hits made too with SHAPE being foremost among those but so too the government quarter in Bonn.

Whittaker had been informed afterwards that no chemical warfare agents had been used against either mainland Britain or France which were also in Western Europe nor the United States' territory either. Each was a nation state armed with their own weapons of mass destruction – those others which were struck were pointedly not – yet their military personnel aboard had been targeted and killed by those Soviet weapons whose use broke countless international treaties.

She had been present when this was discussed along with some of the implications too as the Permanent Representative had survived the missile strike against SHAPE when some of his colleagues on the North Atlantic Council had not. Previous to that conversation, Whittaker had been one of those who had without doubt saved his life and managed to get him and herself out of there and away to a standby location in the nearby town of Soignies. Colonel Mackenzie had been another who had assisted in getting the diplomat into his chemical warfare suit straight away and helped carry him out of there in the frightened state he had been in. Furthermore, she and Mackenzie had also saved the life too of the spook that was David 'not from the Foreign Office' Baxter in securing the same lifesaving equipment for him in the midst of all of the chaos at SHAPE and getting him enclosed within that too.

Having never saved someone – let alone two people! – from certain death before, Whittaker hadn't been sure how to react afterwards. She hadn't been able to properly accept their thanks but concerned herself with all the images that had filled her mind with what she had witnessed in getting away from SHAPE and up the road to Soignies. The dead bodies but more so those in their death throes were imprinted on her mind. She kept telling herself that she was in shock and that once she had some time to relax, maybe sleep a little, those would fade. It was her only hope for if she kept picturing those images she knew that she would eventually go crazy. The weapons effects of nerve gases against those unprotected had been just as bad as she had been warned about.

Seeing it up close and for real was something very different though.


Here in Soignies they were at a secondary school whose buildings and grounds had been overtaken by survivors from SHAPE who hadn't travelled that far away from where so many of their number had been killed. SHAPE had been a fixed headquarters complex known to everyone and clearly it had been long targeted yet Whittaker didn't think that Soviet operational intelligence would be able to miss the presence at Soignies for very long and would soon send another missile their way to finish the job if they didn't move soon enough.

Whether that would happen would be up those not in uniform though… probably the same people who had decided that remaining at SHAPE in the final countdown to war and intending to stay there once it begun was a good idea. She had briefly considered it something not very smart yesterday upon her own arrival but had been too busy with her new duties to think upon how insane that intention had been. There had been media teams outside broadcasting images of the complex and talking about senior NATO figures meeting there right up until the missile warhead blew up and released the cloud of gas which she had been told also took the lives in the most horrible manner of many of those journalists too.

Mackenzie, the odious man, had said that it was a stupid idea to try to make some sort of statement by staying in-place at SHAPE when the Soviets had been observed making what were clear last-minute moves to launch their war. Yet, it had been done, the Permanent Representative had explained in the calm and careful manner which he was known for, to not show aggressive intent on the part of NATO as drastic last-minute diplomatic efforts were being made to forestall conflict at the very last moments. Whittaker had herself spoken up and pointed out that NATO was mobilising every military asset it could and evacuating SHAPE should have been done yet her opinion hadn't mattered.

That final conversation had occurred moments before word came that the shooting had actually started and she could clearly recall it now. Whittaker sat on a chair behind a desk in a classroom where everything written on noticeboards and posters on the wall of this classroom was in both Dutch and French. She paid no attention to any of that though as she remained awkwardly perched here on her seat due to the side of the suit which she wore to protect her from any further chemical attacks. She could smell only herself – she needed a bath – and what she would hear was limited due to the helmet which came with the equipment. The Permanent Representative was currently on the telephone and why she didn't know to whom he was talking he didn't need her translation services at the moment. Mackenzie was somewhere else and she hoped that he would be gone for some time. She needed just to be left alone. Yet Baxter came over to here and pulled a chair across the floor to position it in front of her before he sat upon it and looked right at her.

They were both wearing thick gloves but she could swear that she felt the warmth of his touch through them when he held her hands in his.


Baxter was someone assigned to the Permanent Representative's staff alongside Mackenzie. He didn't wear a uniform and Whittaker had been told without no hesitation from her new boss that Baxter was a spy. She hadn't asked anything about him but had been told by Mackenzie – leering at her as he had spoken – that Baxter was with MI-6 and 'not from the Foreign Office' as he would say he was. Despite being distracted by all of the last-minute work that she had done and with the fears about the then coming conflict, Whittaker had been a little bit infatuated upon meeting him. He was what her mother would have called 'marriage material' and certainly prodded her daughter in his direction. She wore the uniform of her country and had so much to do of great importance yet upon that first meeting with him she had fallen for him in the manner of a schoolgirl with a crush. He wasn't particularly attractive nor seemed someone who exciting times would always revolve around but what else he had in terms of his mannerisms, how he carried himself and the confidence which he gave off just threw her.

It was a crush that she had told herself she would fast get over and she had been glad that her mother would never get to meet him and drive her to distraction about the man!

Of course, that was all before the missile blew up above the SHAPE complex and the gas alarms went off with their ear-piercing scream that had put everything into perspective. There had been the maddening rush to act rather than to wait to find out what exactly was going on and therefore run the very real risk of dying in the meantime. Baxter had helped her and Mackenzie seal the straps for the helmet, gloves and boots which had attached to the suit which the Permanent Representative hadn't wanted to bother wearing all through the evening and the night up until that point and then aided them in checking their own. Only then had he put on the protection for himself. Maybe it had been at attempt at gallantry, maybe he had wanted to impress her or the diplomat who he was assigned to assist and advise. Whittaker didn't think it was either then and nor did she now.

No, instead he was one of those people who put others first: marriage material.

Being a WREN, Whittaker had learnt a lot about herself with her military service and about others too. She had grown as a person from a shy teenager with few friends and maybe no prospects for the future into someone with confidence in her own abilities to succeed. When challenges and injustices were thrown against her – the sexism which came with being a woman in uniform was extraordinary! – she always tried her best, even if she ultimately failed, to overcome. What she had never been taught was how not to fall for a man you are supposed to be working with nor allow a terrible situation to bring you as low as she had been feeling before that man held his hands in hers and suddenly she felt better.

It was the warmth of human contact by someone who she actually believed cared that made all of the difference. It now brought her back to her senses and pushed away all of those terrible images. She met his gaze as they both looked at each other through the plastic visors on their helmet and saw that he smiled at her. She arched her eyebrows instead in what was hoped was a different sort of thank you than just a smile would have meant. He then let go of her hands and stood up before waddling as he walked (they all did so in these suits which weren't meant for combat use so were rather unwieldy) away over to where the diplomat was on the other side of the room.

Now, Whittaker's mind started racing. She wanted to be back in the loop, to know what was going on. What was the progress of the war so far now that it had to be coming up to twelve hours old? She had her duties to attend to as the Permanent Representative would still need her due to the remnant of the NAC still being active and certain to have new members appointed to replace those lost.

There was a war which was being fought and she had her role to play in it. Her duty was to do as her orders stated and those were to be here with these people playing the small but surely vital role which she had been tasked to. She told herself that she would undertake her responsibilities to the best she could despite all of the horror so far witnessed and let nothing, not feelings for a man nor continued repulse for Mackenzie, get in the way of that.



February 4th 1990
RAF Machrihanish, Argyll & Bute, Great Britain

RAF Machrihanish hadn't been struck at this morning by Soviet cruise missiles fired at distance from missile-carrying bombers (known to the Soviets as 'raketonosets') and remained one of the very few military facilities in Scotland to escape the first attacks undertaken. It was the Royal Navy which had made sure of that with the destroyer HMS York, at sea more than a hundred miles off the Western Isles at the time, having a pair of those raketonosets blunder right into it's Sea Dart SAM envelope: a perfect engagement had caught the Tupolev-22M2 Backfire bombers off-guard and downed the two of them before they could undertake their mission which appeared to have been trying to make a sneak approach at low-level to launch their own missiles.

Air Commodore Cooke had wished that such luck had been shared elsewhere but it hadn't.

The Soviets had showed daring and careful thought with how they launched their first air strikes against the UK mainland coming from the northern direction where air defence was his responsibility under RAF Scotland. Their raketonosets had remained far off-shore and launched at great distance allowing for those aircraft to then turn back and head for home leaving his interceptors to focus their attention on those cruise missiles rather than the near-defenceless bombers. Many missiles had been shot down and others had shown poor accuracy used in their targeting though others reached those locations selected for attack and made impacts. All of the other RAF airbases in Scotland, manned & fixed radar stations, and RN facilities had been impacted by a few missiles each; the strategic nuclear submarine bases at Faslane and Holy Loch had been left pointedly alone. Damage had been caused and lives lost. While the strike had been far from crippling it was the Soviet's first, opening move and they had shown themselves capable of striking at the British mainland from aircraft based very far away and getting the best of the RAF in the opening round of what was sure to be many similar engagements where larger salvoes were employed. In addition, they had done so after sending their aircraft the maximum distance by going around and past the Norwegian and NATO air units based and on alert in northern Norway unobserved too when Cooke had been anticipating getting warning if not direct assistance in countering that.

No one was talking disaster but when Cooke thought of the loses in human lives that he had personally witnessed at RNAS Prestwick by the trio of cruise missiles which hit there he had considered such a thing. Everything had been in-place to defend UK air space and they had been on alert for it yet the Soviets had managed to pull that off and slam missiles home. When they came back for round two once it got dark again tonight – which they had to – they would be aiming to do more damage with their follow-up attacks especially if what Cooke had been told was the current air situation over northern Norway and the Norwegian Sea was true and the Soviets had possible air dominance at the moment.

He told himself that the lesson had been learnt. Cooke believed he knew what had gone wrong and the Soviets had the element of surprise too: tactical surprise, not strategic surprise, but they had been able to chose when and how to strike against defenders who had been told that they would yet many whom still hadn't thought that the war would start. He himself had been silently praying right up until the first raketonosets were spotted off in the distance on radar screens that maybe last-minute diplomacy would work despite everything that he had been told about the impossibility of that. That initial advantage which the Soviets had was now gone and so too was the other when it came to the unknowns concerning their weapons as intelligence personnel poured all over data from radar contacts and electronic intercepts in a combat environment as well as the wreckage of downed and crashed cruise missiles.

Air Marshal Colquhoun had spoken to him on the telephone link-up from where the former remained at Pitreavie Castle and explained how the losses of some aircraft on the ground would cause them only a little trouble. The Canadian C-130H refuelling at Prestwick (which Cooke had witnessed exploding along with those aboard), the Nimrod MR2 maritime patrol aircraft at RAF Kinloss and the Tornado F3 at RAF Stornoway were all blows when they were destroyed but not the end of the world. More important was the cratering at Stornoway and RAF Leuchars which had temporarily knocked those runaways out of action as well as the major damage done to the radar station at RAF Benbucula where the immensely important Type-92 was hit. Thankfully the runaways were soon repaired and the radar at RAF Buchan was active but how the Soviets had acted in striking hard against the defences was worse than a few aircraft lost who hadn't been in shelter or airborne when the sixty plus cruise missiles arrived as they did.

Cooke had informed his superior that he was working hard to rectify what had gone on to make sure that that wouldn't happen again and kept his own fears of failure a second time around to himself. One of the elements to making sure that the Soviet initial success wasn't repeated was to come across here today to Machrihanish and talk with the commanders of the newly-arrived Americans here at this airbase in the southwest of Scotland.


The helicopter which Cooke had taken to fly here across from Prestwick currently sat out on the flight-ramp being refuelled. The Wessex HAR2 was part of No. 22 Squadron, an RAF squadron with four detachments now spread across RAF Scotland's operational area: two each were based at Aberdeen Airport, Kinloss, Stornoway and where Cooke had his base of operations in Ayrshire. These, along with a trio of FAA Sea King HAR5's (a far more capable machine), had seen action since the war begun rescuing the crews of two aircraft which had been lost in non-combat incidents.

Cooke had just left successful meetings with the Americans and stood watching that refuelling, which was the second occurrence since it had brought him here as the fastest and most efficient transport to get across the Firth of Clyde to Machrihanish. During his talks and the briefing that he had attended, the Wessex had been sent on an ultimately aborted search-and-rescue mission – Cooke didn't know the exact details at the minute but it involved an issue with one of the inbound American F-15's that had subsequently recovered – that had brought about a topping-up of its fuel tanks even if little aviation fuel had been expended. He hadn't objected for the rescuing of aircrew was what the SAR helicopters were for more so than his personal transport. Once the Wessex was fully refuelled, he would have to wait to get airborne anyway as there was currently plenty of flight activity above with many aircraft arriving and having priority in the busy flight pattern here.

He therefore waited ready to watch the Americans arriving as he reflected upon what the senior Americans who were now based here had said to him, especially their USAF operational commander.


Lt.-Colonel Antonio Martinez, a veteran fighter pilot who had flown combat missions in Vietnam, was in charge of the mixed detachment assigned to the command of RAF Scotland. He had a squadron of F-15A Eagle fighter-interceptors from the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing (49 TFW) – the two other squadrons were in West Germany now rather than elsewhere in the UK as many in the RAF had hoped they would be sent – under his supervision as well as two E-3B Sentry AWACS aircraft too along with aircrews and ground personnel. The airborne radar warning & air battle command aircraft had gone to RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland (where the detachment senior officer had some autonomy in how he operated his aircraft) and some ground personnel had been sent to Stornoway as that was to be a divert field for Martinez's F-15's yet most of his command was to be based at Machrihanish. This was an RAF reserve facility yet made much use of in peacetime by the Americans and they had part funded it, including the huge runaway and the bunkers for naval nuclear weapons. Martinez usually served within the command staff of the 49 TFW when it was based in New Mexico yet he was combat-certified on the F-15 and would be flying in those fighters which were here. He told Cooke his call-sign too: 'Tex-Mex'. This had been issued to him – not one he had chosen – many years past by his colleagues when a young pilot and reflected upon his heritage as a Latino, yet, as he explained to Cooke, he was from Oklahoma not Texas. Regardless, Tex-Mex would be in the skies the next time the Soviets returned.

The US Navy had arrived with their P-3C Orion's first at Machrihanish and those aircraft from South Weymouth Naval Air Station in Massachusetts had first priority here as the US Navy formed the small but significant peacetime presence here. Those maritime patrol aircraft had been here when the war started while Martinez's fighters were still in the middle of their deployment. C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft had been bringing in the lead elements of personnel and weapons loads before the F-15's could successfully operate as a valid military force. Only afterwards had the first flight of four fighters made their trans-Atlantic ferry flight to get here and they had been too late to make a difference to earlier events. Martinez would soon have the full squadron present and assigned to RAF Scotland's overall control. He would be answering to Cooke not anyone else nor even the US Navy at Machrihanish who had their own senior commander, a man Cooke had met just before talking to Tex-Mex. Martinez had explained that he believed in fighting an aggressive defence – not tied to reacting to the enemy – and would link his F-15's into that alongside the Tornado's, Phantom's and point-defence Hawk's that were to defend the skies above the northern reaches of the UK. In addition, the presence of the AWACS aircraft were to be made the most of with their capabilities. He and Cooke had talked of how the ancient Shackleton's had had their systems jammed from powerful distant sources but that wasn't going to happen with his Sentry's flying. There were some RAF officers who were in the United States learning how to operate the Sentry's too (in preparation for their delivery timetabled for next year) and those few men were with his detachment at Aldergrove.

When the Soviets came back for their second attempt once it got dark tonight, Martinez would have his up fighters with Cooke's Tornado's far off-shore. The radar stations on the ground which the RAF depended upon would be used including the standby mobile emergency posts but it would be the Sentry's which would do all of the major work. Ambushes were to be sprung to show the Soviet's how to really use offensive air power.


That meeting with Martinez had cheered Cooke up and made him hope for the best. There was though still the worrying news from elsewhere about what was occurring in Norway with so many Soviet aircraft in the skies. In addition he had been told how the British mainland had been struck at from the east as the skies above the North Sea had been an aerial battlefield and then there had been Soviet strike-bombers (Sukhoi-24M Fencer's) over parts of the English East Coast.

When talking with the US Navy commander also at Machrihanish he had been informed that there was only one American aircraft carrier currently active on wartime operations in the North Atlantic, one which was now racing for the GIUK Gap to enter the Norwegian Sea. Two more were in the Mediterranean but another was meant to have come across to the Norwegian Sea: the USS Abraham Lincoln. That brand-new carrier, destined beforehand for the American's Pacific Fleet before urgent wartime need for Atlantic service, had been knocked out of action in a naval debacle off Norfolk where it had sailed from right before being engaged. Cooke was informed that a cruise missile attack had been conducted almost inside American territorial waters where afterwards that carrier was left alight from bow to stern in a stunning blow using submarine-launched missiles. Other carriers were soon to depart from the American East Coast but the Abraham Lincoln should have been with the USS Theodore Roosevelt out front at the frontlines; there would be a wait now for further carriers to arrive.

At the moment he watched other US Navy assets here with one of their Orion's arriving after a patrol flight ahead of the inbound F-15's that he had been told were soon to arrive to get established here before nightfall. There was a helicopter too flying around: a UH-1N. That 'Huey' would have come by cargo aircraft and Cooke believed that it was currently engaged in security duties. Machrihanish was again like other military bases in Scotland of which some had suffered from ground security threats where none had occurred here. At Leuchars, Lossiemouth and Prestwick there had been armed intruders who had penetrated the outer defences of each and made moves to strike at aircraft and personnel on the ground. They had been combated by elements of the RAF Regiment, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and the RAF Police all working together to defeat those without any appreciable damage being done and not many lives lost… not to the defenders anyway. The US Navy was in charge of security here while the SEAL commandos that were here in peacetime – a small, mobile force – had long since left for what Cooke was sure was either the Baltic or the Mediterranean. He was sure that those departed supermen would have made just as short work of self-declared and unorganised revolutionaries with outdated weapons as had been the cases elsewhere in Scotland but at the same time the those more regular security troops here now would do their duty too.

Also present on the flight-ramp was one of the Tornado F3's from No. 65 Squadron. The rest of the RAF interceptors from the training force which had been sent here when RAF Scotland had been activated and had moved to Lossiemouth now after Cooke had ordered their departure. He had heard that one with serious maintenance issues had been unable to fly for the time being and it was here with technicians working upon it. Cooke's commander had wanted to break up 65 Squadron just after it had been formed when the Americans were persuaded to send their own fighters to Machrihanish but he had talked Air Marshal Colquhoun out of that notion of using those aircraft and their vastly experienced crews to reinforce other two squadrons: No. 25 Squadron at Stornoway and No. 43 Squadron at Leuchars. Instead, Cooke wanted to keep them together as a fighting unit. He told himself that he would take a few moments when back at Prestwick to find out about 65 Squadron as he did with the other interceptor squadrons under his command ahead of tonight's anticipated action as he contacted commanders in the field. Any problems which could be addressed would be.

This morning had only been the preamble for what was going to be a war where the Soviets made serious attempts to strike at the UK from the north into Scotland and the military forces there to achieve their own strategic goals. Cooke could only hope that the problems he had identified had been solved and that the addition of the Americans – their Sentry's as much as the F-15's – would change things in addition to the wartime experience that those underneath him now had after this morning. The mood within the RAF was already one for vengeance and he wanted to see that come to fruition.

A second smile of the day came to Cooke's lips now on this day of self-doubt, worry and hope too. The first had been when Martinez how described how his squadron mates as a young pilot fresh out of the academy had given him the call-sign which he would fly by over his stringent objections. The second was caused by the sight of the rest of the F-15's arriving. There had been four already here with Martinez but now the rest of them started to fill the skies stretching away to the southwest as the rest of the two dozen were stacked in pairs above and started landing. He already had almost forty Tornado's, twenty plus Phantom's and nearly thirty of the small Hawk's in RAF colours but now he had this welcome addition of highly-capable American fighters to add to them.

He was certain that the air situation was going to be very quickly reversed.



February 4th 1990
Erskine Barracks, Near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Great Britain

UK Field Army was not a combat command but rather an administrative headquarters. Of course, should the situation arise where there was the case for the active command of troops fighting on British soil which needed overall supervision then there were the facilities at PJHQ Northwood beneath Middlesex. That facility on the outskirts of London was currently being used for other national defence missions and had all of those bunkers deep under the surface. Erskine Barracks did have a few below ground parts though with Communications being housed in such a fashion to give protection against the possibility of airborne attack.

It was in this semi-bunker where Lieutenant General Maguire was this evening as Communications was where all of the news that flowed into here from various locations which he had official – as well as personal – interests in arrived.

There was no news from West Berlin. That was what Maguire had come down here to find out for certain after being above ground in his office and telling himself that there would remain no word of what was going on there but still coming down here just in case. Immensely powerful Soviet jamming of the electronic spectrum was focused upon that enclave inside East Germany denying the city and the NATO garrisons there communication with the outside world. Telephone connections had been cut alongside the jamming to deny radio and satellite links. Maguire didn't know if the British Army garrison there could hear but not respond to the messages being sent to them from various sources but they certainly weren't able to reply to those. His son, along with the rest of the Irish Guards, and the British Berlin Infantry Brigade too, were all cut off from the rest of the West and presumably fighting for their lives alongside their American and French allies while surrounded on all sides. The Americans were due to send a reconnaissance satellite that way some time tomorrow morning to try to get some images from there yet Maguire didn't know what the cameras from space would see and whether he would be in the information loop to see the results of that mission, if there were any.

To not know the fate of his boy – along with all of the other fighting men there and the citizens of the city too, he had to force himself to remember – was far worse than knowing.

There was news that was constantly arriving in Communications to be received by those who worked here. Staff officers and enlisted personnel were busy making those connections, preparing to pass on to whomever was meant to see what arrived and sending replies too. Maguire had his duties here and he moved through the room taking note of what was important and needed his attention. There was information from the British Army of the Rhine / NORTHAG headquarters (one and the same now) as well as the British I Corps that came from West Germany. Other status reports came from other deployed elements of the British Army already on the Continent and moving that way too. Maguire took the time to act upon these where needed and to made sure that certain elements of those reports were to be addressed by those here and elsewhere. He then moved to reviewing the latest follow-up news from RAF Chicksands.

Chicksands was an RAF facility in Bedfordshire shared with the Americans for strategic signals purposes. During Transition to War the base had been judged as a high-risk for enemy action with a commando attack thought a strong possibility. A detachment of the Royal Anglian Regiment assigned to home service duty had been sent there to assist both the RAF and USAF security forces in-place to guard the antennae arrays, the offices and those who worked there too. This morning there had come that attack as anticipated though it had had plenty of success despite the high state of alert. Soviet Spetsnaz troops had assaulted the facility killing many and destroying much before eventually being overcome and all either killed or captured. Maguire was now looking at the revised casualty numbers in a message that included damage assessment: the numbers of British dead were what had his attention. It had been a deadly attack and clearly had been long planned by the Soviets who had managed to get men and arms into Britain at some stage before today and then move them into position to make the attack this morning. The inability to stop that attack was a major failure especially since it had been anticipated too.

Chicksands had joined a few select other locations across Britain where Soviet commandos had struck today. There weren't as many attacks as had been feared would take place and those that had been launched had been directed against military targets rather than civilians and elements of the government as terrorists had done in the week leading up to the war. Maguire had agreed with his superior, the Commander-in-Chief Land Forces, that the speed with which the crisis with the Soviets moved had meant that they wouldn't have been able to get many of their Spetsnaz as far west as Britain in time and sent more to targets in mainland Europe due to those time constraints and it had been a case of ease there on the Continent rather than on the island which was Britain. Nonetheless, the partial destruction of Chicksands' facilities and the deaths of so many who worked there – quite a few killed execution-style with shots to the back of the head after being captured – was a major blow. Similar scenes had occurred at an RN command centre located at Devonport with that facility being hit by Spetsnaz in number, Royal Marine reservists putting up a fight but being suddenly overwhelmed and then the killings of those who worked there afterwards.

An attack against the American satellite communications and electronic interception station at RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire had nowhere near the same level of success as those at Chicksands or Plymouth though. The commando team there had been killed almost to a man when they had been spotted just before their attack was about to commence.


The Chief would want all of the details and Maguire would have a report ready for his superior when he spoke to him much later during the evening. That conversation would take place from here in Communications connecting Maguire to Northwood where The Chief had been based since yesterday away from Salisbury Plain.

The commander of the UK Field Army was on his way at the moment into Central London alongside the British Army's most senior officer, the Chief of the General Staff. There was a meeting due to take place with those Crown Ministers – the Prime Minister and her War Cabinet – in their fixed location beneath Downing Street, another below ground structure that wasn't in truth a bunker just a secure location. Other ministers were spread across Britain in their regional command bunkers ready to assume immense individual responsibility should the worst happen and the conventional fighting turn unconventional and nuclear warheads rain down on the UK. The Monarch herself was somewhere unknown to even Maguire along with those at the top of the line of succession; British Army troops with the mixed detachment Special Duties Force were with all of those royals and he wasn't in the loop as to their locations.

The War Cabinet was still in Whitehall though, a political move whose security and that of the rest of London was tying up a number of troops: Foot Guards, TA men and HSF sub-units.

Discussions there with those in uniform briefing the politicians would concern the conduct of the war so far foremost. In addition, The Chief had told Maguire that conversations there would turn to matters such as full mobilisation. Anywhere up to five and a half million young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty could be mobilised from the population of Britain. Some were already in uniform while others were unable physically or mentally to serve or needed to remain in certain occupations. Still, a substantial number of men could be mobilised for military service for Queen and Country. It had been done in both previous world wars and national service had lasted for years after 1945.

No one in uniform wanted that scale of mobilisation though. Selective mobilisation of reservists and recently discharged military personnel had already taken place with the British Armed Forces being expanded greatly in size over the past few days. Those men – and women too – had recent military training whereas the millions of men that certain politicians wanted to see in uniform did not. There was the issue of arming and supplying an army of millions as well… something which just couldn't be done. The struggles underway at the minute to do so with all of those recalled to active service and even organised in having them equipped were mighty. The Chief and his high-ranking colleagues across the armed services had no desire to be given so many men to deal with. Should there be time taken for a staged mass mobilisation and the transforming of Britain to a state fully engaged in war it could possibly be done but even then the thought of how to best employ so many civilians which needed to be suddenly made into soldiers, sailors and airmen was a little bit overwhelming.

Maguire knew that it was going to be a struggle to get those politicians to understand that when other NATO countries were doing it with sudden haste. The United States, France and West Germany were different cases though with their own individual circumstances which were not the same as Britain's.

Furthermore, The Chief and his uniformed colleagues were sure to be asked by those in Whitehall about the TA and the large parts of that which weren't already on or soon to arrive on the Continent. They would look at the numbers of units committed to support the regular units of the British Army and ask why the rest, the majority in fact, weren't on their way there too with haste so British interests could be defended there aboard. If not in West Germany, would come more questions, then why couldn't those large numbers of TA men who were remaining behind in Britain be released to support the county and especially metropolitan police forces in maintaining civil order across the nation. The response that would be given was that large parts of the Home Service Force elements within the TA were already doing that yet the remainder needed to stay where they were. Some were tasked with anti-Spetsnaz duties, in East Anglia especially due to long-standing consideration with regards to British and American military facilities there, but the rest were already undertaking intensive and urgent realistic combat training. This was all being done at a local level were they where and focused on allowing them to fight if necessary on a mechanised battlefield within a chemical warfare environment. All of those part-time volunteers needed rapid transformation in their warfighting capabilities.

If the frontlines collapsed in West Germany and the war moved closer to Britain's shores then those men would be going overseas. Maybe that might be the end of the war as if that occurred all might be lost, but those men needed to train for that eventuality: it would be criminally negligent not to have them prepared for what modern warfare was with the possibility that they could be thrown into it in desperate times. Maguire wouldn't stand for that and neither would those going to meet with the politicians this evening.


Maguire had been working under The Chief since last summer. The two of them got on rather well personally and to a very good degree professionally too. Maguire's superior was the one who made the decisions and he was the one to implement them with his own input being often influential.

It had been the decision of The Chief to not rush sending the 1st Infantry Brigade to Denmark. For a long time that formation based here in the South-west of England was assigned to what was called the 'UK Mobile Force' (UKMF) and destined to cross the North Sea to deploy first into Denmark and then join the multi-national corps command that was meant to operate in the Schleswig-Holstein region of West Germany. The brigade was a light mechanised force though with little armour and would be operating not alongside other British forces on the North German Plain but rather with NATO units, not many of which were in-place there either. The supply links for the UKMF plan had always been a worry and so too was the issue of the brigade being in mid-deployment when conflict opened. Just as feared, and justifying the decision to hold back the UKMF, the war had started when the brigade would have been engaged in arriving into a combat zone. The Americans and the Danes didn't have their troops in Schleswig-Holstein either with just the West Germans there now. Behind them, the port at Esbjerg on the Danish coast was heavily-struck by aircraft and missiles: where ships would have been unloading British troops.

Instead, the 1st Brigade was now on its way to Antwerp from where it had been left in standby mode at Harwich. It was going to West Germany still as part of Britain's NATO commitment to her allies but now as part of what was to be a second wave of troops which the UK Field Army was deploying to the Continent and not attached directly to the British I Corps at the frontline. Already there combating the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces crossing the IGB were regular British Army forces and high-readiness TA units embedded within. The Chief, with approval from his own superior, was having Maguire oversee the deployment of additional forces again of regulars and mid-readiness reservists. There were units like the UKMF but also the 24th Airmobile Brigade with its anti-tank missile teams ready to be deployed from helicopters. Troops from Northern Ireland, elements of the Foot Guards no longer assigned to the London District, and Gurkha's coming halfway across the world from the Far East were joining TA units who didn't have a peacetime-decreed assignment to the British I Corps for immediate reinforcement there.

There were the headquarters for one division and a total of seven combat brigades with this second wave of troops all which The Chief had told Maguire to send to the Continent. They were to come under NORTHAG command once there but initially kept back from the frontlines. The process had already begun with the 24th Brigade being joined by those two TA brigades with it assigned in peacetime to the 2nd Infantry Division: the 15th and 49th Infantry Brigade's. Now the 1st Brigade was to be joined by the 39th Infantry Brigade (the headquarters and some of the troops from Ulster), the 48th Gurkha Brigade (men from Brunei and Hong Kong making a long flight) and the 143rd Infantry Brigade (some TA men but also Foot Guards and the Demonstration Battalion from Warminster).

Though he had yet to discuss it with The Chief, Maguire believed that maybe some of the well-trained TA men from East Anglia who unless something unforeseen was afoot might end up sitting out the war waiting for Soviet Spetsnaz that might never turn up, should be further additions to this second wave of UK troops as well.


Alongside this work to move elements of the UK Field Army overseas ready to fight, Maguire had other duties to attend too. His continued presence in Communications saw him read incoming messages, one of which concerned what one of his aides was reporting. Colonel Graves was a supply officer with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps attached to Maguire's staff and indispensable. A personal troubleshooter, Maguire had him out in the field getting things done. Through DRYPOOL and then mobilisation there had been 'issues' where certain officers tried fudging direct orders – not disobeying them directly – concerning the movements of personnel and units. They did so often for what they thought were the right reasons and because rules and tradition dictated that their actions were right. Those officers had failed to see the big picture and firm intervention was needed to get things moving. It was frustrating and Maguire had been driven mad by such resistance to rightful orders given to subordinates not being implemented.

Graves was a supply officer but not a bureaucrat and understood the need for immediate action. He was in Shropshire at the minute and his progress in addressing some of the issues at British Army facilities there was reported back to be a success: his winning personality plus the direct written orders he carried worked their charms. Maguire would rather court-martial many of these officers safe and secure in their own world potentially causing indirect deaths to fighting men at the front due to their stupidity but for now he needed such men to do their job while note was made of what they had done. Others were good officers just influenced by their own superiors and once Graves arrived they at once followed orders and offered apologies rather than excuses.

The headaches to keep track of this all were immense and Maguire was thankful that he had aides like Graves.

In that report along with others and what he had heard from Northwood too, Maguire knew that Britain had yet to be hit with chemical warfare attacks like locations on the Continent. Conventionally-armed cruise missiles had struck at a few locations but high explosives had been used not nerve gases. He knew that if that had not been the case where instead there were chemicals his job in supervising the supply network that was a large part of the UK Field Army alongside its troops departing would have been impossible. He couldn't imagine what it was like on the Continent though what had been said in the briefings given and the messages he had read gave some idea of that.

The training of those low-readiness TA units who were staying in-place at the minute across the UK was another one of his duties as deputy commander of the UK Field Army. The Chief was to remain busy in the big-picture role yet would make sure that Maguire had everything that could possibly be given to have those troops trained to the required standard. Whatever it took to get them chemical warfare equipment, tactical radios, better rifles and additional junior officers & NCO's with some combat experience would be done. The hope was that they would never have to see battle because even when fully-trained, they would be dismounted infantry possibly facing tanks charging for the English Channel but the need was still there.

One thing that Maguire wouldn't be doing alongside all of his other duties was leading men himself into combat. He knew that the tasks set for him were of great importance yet he would have wanted to be at the front in West Germany where so many of those who wore the same uniform as he were fighting at the moment.



February 4th 1990
Above East Germany

It wasn't a video game nor a practise exercise in a simulator. The flashes from the ground below were those of anti-aircraft guns firing shells into the sky and the streaks of light were SAM's coming up. Those air defences beneath Flight Lieutenant Fletcher may have been blind-firing and hoping to get lucky but with so many of them in action putting an awful lot of ordnance into the sky they might just do so and hit a NATO aircraft flying above East Germany tonight.

He had to rely upon his own luck to make sure that those air defences didn't get fortunate yet also his training and the capabilities of the Tornado GR1 he was flying.

Seated behind Fletcher in the two-seat strike-bomber was his navigation officer. Flying Officer Sullivan functioned as his bombardier too with further responsibilities for electronic warfare whilst in flight; Fletcher himself flew the aircraft and would operate the weapons for self-defence should the need arise. The two of them were a long-established team with hundreds of hours of flight time in the Tornado individually and together. The division of the duties between them during flying was well practised in training exercises when airborne but also on the ground too. They had to rely upon each other at all times when flying.

Sullivan was the one guiding them towards their target. He was operating the terrain-following radar which was taking them on a course low, very low, above East Germany and heading northeast at the moment above the pitch black ground below. Fletcher could see nothing but that light show outside as thick clouds above him blocked out the moonlight and the whole of the country whose air space he was invading was under a blackout too. Magdeburg off to the north, Dessau to the south of him and Berlin far off in the distance ahead were invisible and so too were the military facilities between them of which many were being targeted for attack like the one he was flying towards.

Focusing upon his flight instruments as well as the radar display, Fletcher just had to stay on course and get them to their target and then make the turn for the departure route back westwards for the return to Brüggen. That course was proving rather difficult to stay on though and he had already deviated slightly from it to avoid enemy activity before returning to the route planned for. The radar was supposed to guide him around hills and as close to natural cover as possible but it wasn't infallible. Should there be an obstruction – power lines for example, maybe an industrial chimney – that the radar should spot that so that he didn't fly into it yet those deviations had not been pre-scouted as the established route to the target and back home was through years of surveillance at distance of the terrain of East Germany for a night like this when the RAF sent its aircraft eastwards.

With his vision useless in the darkness everything depended upon that radar and his training to make the best use of the data it fed him. He had to keep the aircraft under complete control less he crash into the ground without hitting an obstruction. The pressure was immense yet this is why Fletcher was a combat pilot: for the rush of this mission. The stress and the danger would all be worth it when he reached the target and struck there a blow for the RAF, his country and the NATO military alliance.


The Goldstars were assigned to the command of the Second Allied Tactical Air Force (2 ATAF) like almost all of the rest of RAF Germany. This NATO command had since the end of World War Two operated as a wartime-only headquarters ready to stand-up in a conflict to support NATO in northern parts of West Germany with all air operations of a tactical nature being centrally commanded: RAF Germany's peacetime commanding officer was now heading 2 ATAF. There were British, West German, Dutch and Belgian formations all under command with a large fleet of combat aircraft and with already significant American units which were fast being reinforced. Their missions were to conduct air support in direct support of the ground war at and behind the frontlines as well as further missions into the enemy rear-areas to disrupt their offensive war-making capabilities. Control was exercised from a bunker called Castlegate near Linnich – just west of the Rhine – with an alternate headquarters further westwards inside Belgium. 2 ATAF assets such as the RAF squadron in which Fletcher served were flying from established peacetime airbases as well as smaller facilities all across Lower Saxony, North Rhine–Westfalen and into the Low Countries too following dispersal measures.

RAF contributions to 2 ATAF included Tornado strike-bombers as well as Phantom FGR2 strike-fighters, Jaguar GR1 attack-fighters and Harrier GR3 / GR5 close support aircraft. The other NATO allies who had attached aircraft included plenty of Tornado's from the Luftwaffe and many West German Alpha-Jet's. The Dutch had multi-role F-16's and some older NF-5 light fighters while the Belgians contributed more F-16's and Alpha-Jet's plus Mirage-5 attack-fighters. Then, there were USAF components based in peacetime in the Netherlands, the UK and back in the United States too. They had their full range of tactical combat aircraft in the form of F-15's for fighter duties and F-4's & F-16's for strike, attack and combat roles. Further American aircraft included many A-10 attack-aircraft: tank-busters. It was with the Fourth Allied Tactical Air Forces (4 ATAF) in central and southern parts of West Germany where American air power reinforcements were to arrive in Europe in bigger numbers – in addition to strike aircraft in the UK which would preform a strategic air role – yet there would still be many Americans joining their NATO allies in 2 ATAF.

2 ATAF had sent Fletcher, Sullivan and the aircrew in the other RAF tornado flying just behind Fletcher's aircraft against Zerbst Airbase tonight to deliver JP233 anti-runaway cluster munitions there. This was to be their second mission of the war after flying just before midday against Soviet armour again on the other side of the IGB though much closer to the frontlines and in direct support of the ground war. Cluster munitions had been used in another low-level strikes where those on the ground had been surprised and only started launching SAM as the Tornado's flew away. That mission had been set up with haste yet had achieved success with Fletcher feeling elated at bomb release straight above the targets and knowing that the munitions released would be exploding atop and all around tanks and armoured vehicles lining up to pour over the border.

Another mission in the late afternoon had been cancelled though just before Fletcher had managed to get airborne from Brüggen when the Soviets had struck back. They had launched a low-level attack themselves with attacking aircraft evading NATO fighters and starting to drop bombs across where the Goldstars remained based: bombs of a high-explosive nature mixed with chemical warheads too. Murderous losses had been taken before the bomb run to that attacking force and then the RAF Regiment squadron defending Brüggen had successfully hit one of those MiG-27's with a Rapier missile. He, Sullivan and their aircraft along with the ground personnel had all been inside the sealed Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) at the time with the dome-like structure keeping them safe from the explosion. Defence against the released nerve gases had come in the form of the chemical warfare suits that all had raced to get into less their lives be taken in such a dreadful manner.

The damage done by the bombs wasn't that severe to impede flight operations to a major degree but the gas was different. Decontamination had taken time and so too had the elimination of several sub-munitions which hadn't detonated releasing the chemical agents inside them. Whether that was a deliberate intention or accidental it didn't matter for those had to be located and destroyed less they go off later. In the meantime the mission which had been planned had been assigned to another 2 ATAF element before later on came new orders for the strike against Zerbst: one of those locations in the target folders which Fletcher had been briefed upon in the days leading up to the war breaking out.


The Elbe ran across the approach route that Fletcher and Sullivan were taking. The plan was to cross it southwest of Zerbst in a rural area where there were no fixed crossings and it was anticipated that temporary crossings of the Elbe wouldn't be built to avoid NATO air attention because of the lack of other transportation links. No observation had been made in recent years of the Soviets or East Germans basing air defences in the area during exercises nor was this part of East Germany suitable for such. That intelligence might be faulty or the Soviets might have decided that to cover their airbase from this direction was suitable yet it was the route chosen over others more likely and in other cases known to be defended.

Fletcher couldn't see the river ahead but he did see the SAM launch giving lie to the hope that there would be no defences here. He spotted the flash of what had to be a rocket boost launch ahead and below before Sullivan called out to him over the aircrew intercom.

“Missile, missile! Gecko launch!” Sullivan used the NATO brevity code for the Osa surface-to-air missile, the SA-8 Gecko.

“Second missile in the air!” Fletcher himself called out the second warning as he could see a follow-up launch being made from where the first had just come from. That launch point was two, maybe three miles up ahead on the other side of the river and that meant that they and the other Tornado were right inside the engagement envelope of the Gecko. “Breaking left!”

As per countless practise sessions for a SAM engagement at close-range by radar-guided missiles, Fletcher slammed the control stick over to the left as he pulled it back too. In addition, he pulled the throttle back with his other hand. He was turning away, climbing and increasing speed all at once to evade the attack. The other Tornado would be doing the same thing only moving suddenly turning right: the two aircraft were avoiding the potential of a mid-air collision as they tried to escape.

The Gecko was a short-range missile and long in Soviet and Warsaw Pact service. Much was known about it's capabilities and how it was guided from intelligence gained from multiple sources including the wars of Israel. Fletcher knew what he was facing and was certain that he could get away.

He and Sullivan did.

However, the two other men in the second Tornado weren't so lucky.

One of those Gecko's struck the aircraft carrying Flight Lieutenant Keane and Pilot Officer Hawkins. There was an explosion and the starboard wing disappeared along with part of the tail too. Fletcher heard the Mayday call from the junior of the two men and then the report that he was ejecting but no word came about Keane. He was still climbing to make sure that he was clear of the SAM that his jammers should have been stopping – why that hadn't been the case with the second Tornado he didn't know – so he couldn't see anything and could only rely on those hasty radio calls.

Fletcher made the decision to abort the mission moments later following the surprise of strong defences right on his approach route and the loss of his wingman.

[James G]

Chapter Three – Allies

February 5th 1990
Bodo Harbour, Nordland, Norway

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships were anchored in Bodo Harbour with the Royal Marines remaining aboard for the time being. Lieutenant Leigh still didn't like the idea of being stuck in a target such as the Sir Bedivere – with the Sir Tristram nearby – though had to admit that at least the ship was stationary in shallow waters now and no longer at sea after the long trip here from Scotland. It was snowing outside and bitterly cold in the early morning darkness; nor were conditions more pleasant aboard the still-cramped landing ship either with the chill evident inside too. In addition, there was an atmosphere of tension aboard among the men: everyone had questions to which answers hadn't been forthcoming.

Were they to disembark here at Bodo?

Why were they not further north fighting to repel the invasion of Norway, one of Britain's NATO allies?

When would someone tell them what was going on?

Called to see 45 Commando's commanding officer in the internal compartment which he and his staff were using as their headquarters, as Leigh moved through the ship towards there he had a feeling that he was about to get those answers which eager, hyped-up but apprehensive fighting men aboard wanted to be informed of.


Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson was a man who Leigh barely knew. He was his senior commanding officer who led 45 Commando yet among the junior officers when back at Arbroath Wilson was much unknown for he hadn't been in his role long and during that short time had been extremely busy due to the international period of tension with the Soviets. Wilson had been away much, in London and Plymouth, and when at Arbroath he had been with his planning and operations staff most of the time preparing for all sorts of variants of deployment plans. When seen he was often in a rush and seemed distracted. Some of Leigh's fellow junior officers had taken a disliking to him for he wasn't as sociable with them as his predecessor had been but Leigh himself hadn't had those feelings. He just didn't know the man well yet was aware that Wilson knew who he was… which was more than some of his colleagues believed about their relationship with their commander.

“Good morning, Owen.” A Welshman like Leigh was, Wilson's accent at once reminded the younger man of home.

After the customary salute to the senior man, Leigh gave his necessary response: “Good morning to you too, Sir.”

“I need a new battalion adjutant, Owen, and your company commander recommended you for the post. I've been over your service record briefly and see that you are high on the promotion list and have been taking a course in the Dutch language preparing to make an exchange posting new year.

I understand that the role of adjutant is usually for a senior N.C.O yet we are soon to link up with our Dutch allies and go into combat alongside them and I no longer have my adjutant. You will be perfect for the role and, of course, it can only benefit you in the long-run.”

Leigh said nothing as he stood before the battalion commander as well as 45 Commando's S-1 (the Personnel Officer) and listened to his new assignment. His mind was weighing up what would be expected of him as an officer now to undertake a role usually preformed by a senior enlisted man in what would be a staff position rather than the combat role which he was trained for. He wanted to ask what had happened to the man he was replacing and who would replace him now in Z Company while he was with the battalion staff. Moreover, he had taken in what Wilson had said about him having some understanding of Dutch when the Royal Marines were long trained to fight alongside their marines. The mention of 45 Commando seeing combat soon had too be taken note of.

Nonetheless, what concerned him more was why he had been chosen over the choice of what had to be many suitable NCO's or even another junior officer from the headquarters staff rather than him from a combat unit especially when the talk was of fighting coming up.

“Any objections, Owen? Or concerns?”

Wilson had been waiting for him to response he realised yet he hadn't and so his commander broke that silence.

“No, Sir. I was just a bit surprised but nevertheless I have no objections, Sir.”

“Excellent!” Wilson sounded genuinely pleased. “I knew your brother Michael.”

“Michael, Sir?” Stunned at the comment, Leigh was thrown for a second.

“We served together before the Falklands and I was at his funeral afterwards. You were probably too young to remember me there.”

Michael Leigh was one of the twenty-seven Royal Marines to lose his life in the Falklands War. He had been a pilot with the 3rd Commando Brigade's Air Squadron and killed when his helicopter was shot down there leaving a wife and three very small children. His much younger brother had followed him into the Royal Marines afterwards.

“Erm… yes, Sir.” The numb grief which Leigh kept to himself at all times – something that hadn't dissipated in the preceding eight years – came forth though only to a small degree. His eyes felt like they were about to water and he took in a sharp breath before telling himself to bring that under control. He wasn't about to break down yet the pain was still strong even at the mention of his brother.

“He was a fine officer,” Wilson was wholeheartedly sincere in what he was saying, “a credit to the Royal Marines and his family too.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You'll assume your duties straight away, Lef-tenant Leigh.” It was back to business now. “Your company commander will appoint someone in your stead because I need you at once. This will not be a back-room role but a hand-on task where I will need you with me at all times before we see action and during that, Owen.

There's a battalion staff and company commanders briefing planned to start in twenty minutes.”


The briefing was late to start due to the late addition of the battalion commander of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps (the Korps Mariniers) unit which had arrived by air in Norway coming aboard the Sir Bedivere through the weather outside which made movement even in the shelter of Bodo Harbour difficult. Once that Dutchman was aboard, Leigh was sent by Wilson to meet the him first. Leigh's Dutch language course had only started in September and been interrupted by November's war scare when 45 Commando had stood ready to deploy overseas and then the further movement readiness through late January. He was able to make himself understood to the visitor and vice versa though he wished that he had had brought along some of his classwork notes and given some time to prepare. There were other Royal Marines who could have conversed better with the man as exchange postings to the Korps Mariniers were as frequent as they were to the US Marines. It was him who had been ordered to met the man though and then escort him to the briefing. Thankfully, the Dutchman had his own aide with him whose English was far better than Leigh's Dutch.

Senior staff officers from 45 Commando's headquarters as well as the company commanders were at the briefing. They like Leigh listened with rapt attention as the battalion S-2 (Intelligence Officer) informed them all of what was going on further north.

At the opening of hostilities yesterday, while 45 Commando had still been sailing towards Bodo, Soviet forces had moved into northern Norway in a limited invasion of the NATO country. They had filled the skies with their aircraft and the waters with their ships. Clashes with the Norwegians had erupted at once with other NATO forces already in Norway fighting alongside their allies. If the weather here was bad it was far worse further north deeper inside the Arctic Circle. Such conditions had hampered both offensive and defensive operations yet at the same time contributed to successes in certain instances of conflict too. Better information than yesterday when things were at oftentimes confusing on the war's first day was now available though what was known then about Tromsø being in enemy hands was confirmed as correct. Whereas there had been some doubt whether that city and the island on which it sat had been captured that was now certain.

Airborne and amphibious assaults had been launched by the Soviets into Norway with what were very limited moves on the ground in the border area between the two countries. Plenty of elite Soviet soldiers with their Airborne Troops and Naval Infantry had been employed to take key points deep in the rear behind where long-standing Norwegian defensive plans had them deploying the main bulk of their army. Engagements in the air and at sea had curtailed much of the Soviet's offensive though meaning that while they had troops in various locations many of those had been killed before they got there or immediately suffered crippling loses once they got off their aircraft and ships. Tromsø was fully under Soviet control with the airport and harbour captured there though the ships which had brought Naval Infantry amphibious forces there having suffered many losses going through minefields and mobile coastal defences. There were further Soviet marines occupying Andoya Airbase near Andenes; there had been better access from the sea to the ships carrying those men and their light armour but they had been heavily-engaged by Norwegian warships, submarines and aircraft on their way to land there. Paratroopers had arrived at Evenes Airport, the port at Harstad and in the area around Bardufoss Airbase. Evenes had been captured by Soviet Airborne Troops units while they were still fighting against dug-in Norwegian forces for control of Harstad. Bardufoss, the important airbase within the mountains and where RAF Harrier's had gone to on the eve of conflict, hadn't fallen to the initial Soviet assault though their paratroopers had done much damage before being beaten back into the snow-covered terrain which surrounded that facility. Moreover, Soviet special forces, their Spetsnaz, were active across a wide area. The airstrip far to the east at Banak had been taken by them but they had failed in what had been an attempt to take Alta Airport. The port facilities at Narvik, Norwegian military storage at Bogen where they kept pre-positioned equipment and near to here at the Reitan command centre had all seen attacks by such commandos that had caused casualties and destruction with other Spetsnaz groups active elsewhere and to be considered dangerous opponents.

When Wilson and his S-3 (Operations Officer) afterwards both spoke to those here including Leigh they stated of how 45 Commando was to still go to Tromsø.

Before the war started that was to be their staging area for operations within northern Norway but now they were going there to retake it. That city was some distance away and the arrival of Soviet forces in the Lofoten Islands – at Andoya and Evenes because aircraft could be based at both places – was going to complicate that yet it was what had been decreed by higher headquarters. A plan was being drawn up now by the new higher command which 45 Commando was reporting too: a conversion into an operations headquarters of the previous administrative UK/NL Landing Force. Dutch marines – 'Cloggies' – were to join with 45 Commando in going into battle once their Arctic-trained 1st Marine Group had fully arrived here in Norway. There were to be separate ongoing operations by the Norwegians themselves and other NATO units such as the US Marines, British Para's with the 5th Airborne Brigade and the rest of the Royal Marines with the 3rd Commando Brigade. Those were to take place before, alongside and after the Anglo-Dutch marine contingent moved against Tromsø. Plenty of details still needed to be worked out from centralised command, air support, naval support and logistics.

However, very soon 45 Commando along with those Cloggies they had long trained with were to see action going up against their Soviet counterparts.



February 5th 1990
Hordorf, Lower Saxony, West Germany

The casualty lists from yesterday's fighting gave lie to the statement from Division that what had been fought had been 'skirmishing'. The Desert Rats had taken immense losses numbering almost three hundred men whilst conducting a fighting withdrawal backwards from the border. Through fighting units to those in the rear deaths and serious injuries had occurred among the men under Brigadier Johnson's command. He had been told that elsewhere the casualties taken by other British and NATO units were far worse yet he could only reflect upon those inflicted upon the 7th Armoured Brigade.

My men, those whose lives were entrusted to me…

Further losses were already being taken today as the Desert Rats was again engaged in fighting against Soviet forces aiming to move deeper into West Germany than they already had. Since the first light of dawn, before the sun rose itself, more men under Johnson's command had been killed or maimed. It was to continue to like this until whenever the fighting would stop, whenever the war came to an end – something which wasn't going to occur anytime soon.

If he himself survived then he could have to live with the fact for the rest of his days that those men died under his command. He had and would continue to do everything within his power to try to avoid the losses being taken but of course that wasn't up to him. Acceptance of this was never going to occur; instead Johnson was upset at all of the deaths and injuries as the Desert Rats continued to fight the invading Soviets.


The fighting yesterday had been about bleeding the Soviets as they came over the border. Inflicting casualties among them was one objective of the action which the Desert Rats had undertaken though in the main it had been about smashing apart their well-ordered units and causing chaos among their ranks. All the signs after the fighting in the border area had pointed to that being done with Johnson receiving praise from the commander of the 1st Armoured Division for preforming his assigned mission just as desired. The Soviets may have come over the IGB and advanced a significant distance into West Germany yet that attacking division had been torn apart by the hit-and-run tactics of the Desert Rats as ambushes were sprung and localised counterattacks made. Their reconnaissance units had been shot up and most of the lead regiment considered destroyed as a fighting force. In the fighting withdrawal made, the Desert Rats hadn't been outflanked nor seen units overrun as they pulled back to fight from new positions each time.

Today, there had been new orders for Johnson. He was instructed to stop the Soviets from getting any further west, not just make them pay for every yard they advanced.

The Desert Rats were joined by other elements from Division. The 12th Armoured Brigade was fighting alongside Johnson's men and so too were the majority of the 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards (1 QDG) fighting out ahead in the forward reconnaissance role while most of the divisional artillery group was engaging the enemy at well; the 22nd Armoured Brigade was fighting to the south against further Soviet forces on the flank. Division had their headquarters inside the woodland of the Buchhorst and was providing overall supervision of the fight yet Johnson still retained great autonomy with the Desert Rats.

The operational area assigned to where the Soviets were to be stopped from advancing and beaten in combat was defined by natural and manmade features. To the north was Autobahn-2 running east-west with the 12th Brigade positioned to cover that highway (which in theory provided the boundary between West German and British forces here near the border) in the area around the forested Beienroder Holz, the small town of Lehre behind and the major junction where Autobahn-2 met with the north-south running Autobahn-39. Johnson's men were just to the south and in-place from where the 12th Brigade was down as far as and into the Elm Hills. Autobahn-39 was behind where Johnson had his men while ahead was Königslutter am Elm. There was too the route of the Bundesstrasse-1 and the railway line that ran towards East Germany where the Desert Rats were seeing action. There were only streams in this area, no major waterways, and plenty of rolling countryside that was perfect for continued armoured movement. Minefields and scouts were out ahead and heavy guns in the rear. If things went badly wrong then Johnson was to conduct a fighting retreat south of the city of Braunschweig which lay behind him though not through it; Division didn't anticipate that there would be the need for that though not with what should have been an attack by only part of the Soviet 6th Guards, not their full division.


By eight o'clock the fighting was truly underway as the initial 'skirmishing' was out of the way. The 1 QDG fell back with their tracked Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles and Striker anti-tank missile vehicles joining the ranks of the massed armour and infantry that Johnson had available. Here in Hordorf – a small village to the northwest of where his brigade's frontlines were – he listened to on the radio command net as their reports and then those from the other sources were collated and interpreted as to the strength of the enemy attack. Two regiments were coming towards the Desert Rats and the 12th Brigade: one of armoured infantry first followed by another of tanks.

Nowhere near enough to push us back, let alone beat us!

The full strength of Soviet artillery now came into play. Hordorf wasn't being targeted itself yet Johnson could hear the distant rumble of guns even inside his command vehicle located this far away. Their howitzers, heavy mortars and rocket launchers were sending barrages of high-explosives towards the British troops located under cover. Reports reached here of air attacks too with aircraft and helicopters. The Desert Rats command staff supervised counter-measures in the form of their own supporting guns on counter-battery missions and then bringing in the NATO air support on-call.

Johnson could see nothing wrong with how his staff exercised control of the battle raging not far away. They all had plenty of peacetime training then yesterday had shown them how to put that into practise as well on a few unfortunate occasions how not to as well. He personally checked upon the air support and was pleased to find out that the first of that was very quickly over the frontlines and moving west aiming to seek out the approaching enemy forces. There were RAF Harrier's moving in first followed by Luftwaffe Alpha-Jet's behind them. Lynx AH7 and Gazelle AH1 helicopters assigned from Division were waiting behind in the rear for now due to the known heavy anti-air defence that the Soviets had though once they were strung out he would bring those in action using them to strike the enemy's flanks. Further air support with some West German helicopters well as RAF Phantom's and some Belgian F-16's would come into play if needed afterwards.

2 RTR was in action first. Their Scorpion's and Ferret's took shots against BRDM-2 scout cars and some of the few surviving reconnaissance versions of the BMP-1 which hadn't been knocked out yesterday. The fighting across the countryside around the village of Bornum was as fierce as Johnson knew that it would be Bundesstrasse-1 running through there and the edge of the Elm Hills being in that area too. Soon enough the Challenger tanks were in action and they were engaging T-80 tanks and BTR-60 armoured personnel carriers. The latter were struggling through the thick snow on the ground to follow the road up from Königslutter but the tanks were making progress and it was those who could fight back against the Challenger's of the 2 RTR anyway.

Johnson let the commander of the 2 RTR fight his battle there and didn't have his staff harass the man for every little detail of the fighting; the commander on the ground knew his task and had the support of what the Desert Rats' fire support could give him. If he needed help then he would have his own staff request it and Johnson would do all that he could.

Scheppau was next, the village in the centre of the Desert Rats' position where the battlegroup built around the 1 STAFFORDS was. The infantry in Warrior's there was supported by their own light armour (Scimitar's and Ferret's) as well as dismounted anti-tank teams with MILAN missiles; there was a squadron of tanks from the 2 RTR attached. Initial reports had been of an enemy approach towards Scheppau from the southeast where Lauingen was and the 1 STAFFORDS engaged those first though with a focus upon falling back to allow the Soviets to get strung out before the Challenger's would be unleashed to support the infantry. A second attack was then detected coming towards the area from Rieseberg, off to the northeast. The commander of the 1 STAFFORDS requested immediate air support as he himself prepared to meet that threat of a combined attack from two directions. Johnson watched as his brigade S-3 immediately tasked a flight of Harrier's meant to strike along the road from Königslutter to redirect their attention towards Rieseberg and the approached towards Scheppau from there. They had their gun pods and rockets on-hand though with tanks spotted it would be the flight of helicopters that afterwards was to be sent there which would be expected to stop them rather than slow them down. The Gazelle's would scout the way for the Lynx's which carried heavyweight TOW missiles. An approach for them would come above Scheppau so a message was sent to air defence assets there with the 1 STAFFORDS to hold weapons-tight so that the helicopters could then approach from the left-hand flank of the oncoming Soviets.

As these two fights were going on in the south and centre, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards met with the enemy in the north of the Desert Rats' operational area. Around Rotenkamp – near the Autobahn and where the 12th Brigade had their men from the Royal Irish Rangers deployed – the main attack commenced. It appeared that Soviet tactical reconnaissance had located where the seam between the two brigades was and a decision had been taken to strike there. The reports on the enemy numbers grew repeatedly as the engagement started with what was first a mixed battalion of tanks and infantry reported changed to a battalion of each… then maybe two battalions of tanks and one of infantry.

Johnson intervened at that point. One air strike was called in though he ordered a second flight of Alpha-Jet's to make an attack while making sure that word was passed down to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards that they had a priority to hit any observed mobile anti-air defences before the aircraft arrived. He also then gave the order for the 1 RHF to join the fighting there. Committing his reserves so soon was a gamble but he didn't see any other choice than to have the men fighting around Rotenkamp overwhelmed if that extra battalion wasn't sent there. In addition, what his own intelligence sources and those of Division had shown on the enemy's strength it was clear that they had all of their assigned forces engaged: they had used both available regiments in the attack and weren't holding any back as an exploitation force but rather pushing everyone forward at once.


The fighting continued as the morning did. Clouds arrived above bringing falling sleet and in the sky too there were aircraft: those flown by both the Soviets and NATO. Bombs fell from some of those Soviet aircraft who escaped NATO fighter attention with a major hit against the guns fielded by Division operating around Schandelah.

Johnson was in contact with Division who wanted to check on the fighting and confirm that two enemy regiments were in action against his forces, with most of one of those at the Rotenkamp fight. He confirmed that and then heard 12th Brigade report they were facing what was clearly a supporting attack by third regiment north of the Autobahn that were engaging before it could get near the Beienroder Holz. He ran the numbers in his mind and through his brigade S-2: with one regiment confirmed destroyed yesterday and three more fighting today that meant that the whole of the Soviet 6th Guards' peacetime strength was involved now. Last night there had been a report that one of the independent tank regiments assigned to the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army was with that attacking division yet that was contested as it went against established enemy doctrine.

What does that leave facing the West Germans and their 1st Panzer Division just to the north?

There wasn't much time to ponder over that thought as the Desert Rats kept on fighting. Bornum was held though the 1 STAFFORDS infantry company with the 2 RTR (all of Johnson's brigade was broken up into mixed battle-groups with three-to-one and two-to-two armour and infantry company components) had a close-call when the Soviets pushed along the course of the railway line north of the town. Missile teams knocked out many of the wheeled BTR-60's which were still struggling through the fallen snow and then the infantry moved in for close-combat fighting against those Soviet infantry squads which emerged to fight it out dismounted. The Warrior's with their 30mm cannons and the machine guns also fitted to them added to the fire-power that the infantry had when they left their vehicles giving the British infantry there a marked advantage. Many casualties still occurred on both sides though.

At Scheppau the air strikes against that Soviet armour coming in from the northeast did their worst and brought that advance to a halt to allow the 1 STAFFORDS to concentrate on the attack coming from their southeast. What Soviet survivors there were afterwards did try to sort themselves out and get moving again though turned to the right, not the left. They hadn't been moving towards Scheppau after all but instead as part of the move towards Rotenkamp. The 1 RHF engaged them yet the Scottish infantry there ended up strung out themselves with temporary breakdowns in unit cohesion as they met that enemy force in a meeting engagement and then had other Soviet forces closer to Rotenkamp turn against their flank. The situation on the ground should have been controlled by the battalion commander but when the skies filled with Soviet aircraft again his command vehicle was hit by a missile and the company commanders forgot all of their peacetime training and started to do their own thing.

A disaster was avoided as the two separate Soviets forces were unable to coordinate their attacks and the squadron of Challenger's with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards attached to the 1 RHF kept their heads. Johnson was furious with what happened there but could do nothing but have firm orders to retreat issued. He pulled the battalion battlegroup back to Rotenkamp and had their retreat covered by heavy artillery firing at distance. Instead of the guns assigned from Division to support the Desert Rats, there was a battery with the 39th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery assigned to the I Corps and those guns sent waves of high-explosive 203mm shells towards the Soviets so he could keep what artillery support he was already using where it was needed. Of course, Division wanted to know what had happened and Johnson told them what he knew and what he was doing about it.

A black mark against my name for those under my command forgetting their training, their orders and their sense!

Rotenkamp was soon the battle for the Desert Rats. T-80 tanks and BMP-2 were all over that area with the latter bringing infantry forward and then fighting themselves to support their dismounts. Challenger tanks shot off their cannons and missilemen joined them in breaking up this armour to allow the infantry to fight it out. With those troops there from the initial 1 RHF company assigned to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and then the rest of their parent battalion better performance was shown. All around the village and in the fields outside small infantry engagements took place where tactical control of platoons and company's was exercised to the expected standard. The Soviets couldn't defeat the Desert Rats there and Johnson was doing what his orders were and stopping the enemy in their tracks… yet the losses in terms of life were mounting greatly.

Division contacted him by eleven o'clock and Johnson spoke to his commander rather than the general's staff this time. The 12th Brigade was detaching an infantry-only battalion from their reserve – the 1 CHESHIRES – to move into the neighbouring village of Boimstorf after crossing the Autobahn. Like was the case with Johnson's reinforcement by the 1 RHF in the final days before hostilities, the 1 CHESHIRES had come to the Continent from their home-base back in the UK. The 1 RHF was a mechanised infantry unit though whereas the 1 CHESHIRES were organised as a Light Role formation with dismounted infantry. He questioned whether that was the best idea and instead suggested that a mechanised unit should be sent to reinforce him due to so much enemy armour and with that unit having a low number of MILAN missile teams as well as not as much training in chemical warfare equipment. Moreover, at the same time Johnson said that he was confident that despite the initial problems with part of the 1 RHF he was now sure that the Soviets could be stopped here.

No, that was not what the general wanted done. He told Johnson that the 1 CHESHIRES' were fast on their way to Boimstorf in lorries – the men in their spacesuits even though chemicals weren't being used by the Soviets so far today – and to come under the command of the Desert Rats; they would have assistance from several Troop's of the 1 QDG bringing their Scimitar's as fire support. No matter what, the Soviets were to be held at Rotenkamp and now Boimstorf too on the southern side of the Autobahn. Then he explained why: the West Germans were about to make a major attack and he needed the Soviets held for the time being to increase the effect of that.


At midday the West Germans struck.

Two brigades from their 1st Panzer Division launched a massive armoured advance across the countryside away to the east – inside occupied parts of their own country – and charged southwards behind where part of the Soviet 6th Guards was stuck fighting against the 12th Brigade. They lanced through the enemy's rear areas shooting up combat support and service support elements encountered and kept on going after they reached the Autobahn which ran across their line of advance before turning to the southwest. The brigade on the left reached Uhry and then the western end of the Dorm Ridge; they were forced to slow down when faced by anti-tank guns in the rear positioned to stop a counterattack (but not on this scale!) yet still made it as far as Königslutter. The other brigade made a slight turn once over the highway and bypassed Ochsendorf where there were more of those troublesome anti-tank guns setting up to instead crash their Leopard-2 tanks and Marder armoured vehicles loaded with infantry into Rieseberg in strength with a detachment racing for Lauingen too.

Johnson listened to the incoming reports of the master-stroke that was the counterattack over the radio while having his operations people update the map showing the progress of the West Germans until they came to a stop. The brigade's had travelled light with only what was needed for their raiding mission and so they had moved damn fast indeed! He couldn't help but be jealous at all they achieved. They had cut off Soviet troops fighting at the front attacking both his brigade and the 12th Brigade and were moving to hit them from behind. Of greater significance was the destruction of the Soviet rear. All of their artillery support, their divisional air defence assets, their engineers, their supply units and their command-and-control was gone.

Wonderful, just magnificent!

During an overnight briefing which he had gone to conducted by Division, mention had been made of the much stronger enemy efforts being made by the Second Guards Tank Army to tear apart the West German I Corps located much further to the north. The 1st Panzer Division was nearest to the British I Corps and not caught up in that so much but he had been anticipating that with less numerous Soviet forces closer to here that the West Germans would tighten up their operational area to better defend their ground while the 1st Armoured Division would have to extend theirs. He had wondered why that hadn't been done overnight yet now saw why that was the case.

Only now, after this, would the West Germans probably move northwards now they had aided their British allies so successfully in tearing apart the enemy threat to move upon Braunschweig and Hannover beyond from the Helmstedt Bowl area.


Orders came to Johnson as the West Germans were completing their manoeuvre and he was expecting just what they were. The Desert Rats were to push forward in their own counterattack. Slow and steady was the additional instruction because there was no need to cause needless casualties through recklessness. Moreover, there was to be a warning sent to all combat units to be careful to not accidentally engage their allies: friendly fire was to be avoided.

He had those orders passed on to those subordinates of his commanding his battle-groups before telling his headquarters staff that they had done well indeed today. One of them, a captain from the operations staff, asked whether Division would be crossing the Soviet 6th Guards off its list of enemy units identified as a result. That question was more of a statement and smiles came all round though Johnson only nodded a response because he was thinking of some issues more than just this one victory, no matter how well it had been achieved.

To start with the Soviets had far more than just one combat division invading West Germany and stacked up behind in East Germany ready to assist. Furthermore, soon he would be starting to see the casualty lists again.



February 5th 1990
Near Sundlia, Troms, Norway

Everyone was cold.

Not just cold, but absolutely freezing with the shivers and dull aches starting to form in fingers and toes despite gloves and two pairs of thick socks underneath boots. The supposedly-warm outwear over their winter uniforms did no good to warm up Corporal Edwards nor any of his fellow Para's with him. Sergeant Proctor – the Platoon Sergeant – wanted them to stay still for the time being too as they crouched down in the snow and therefore only adding to the cold which Edwards and his mates around him felt.

“What's going on, Sergeant?” One of Edwards' fellow Para's hissed the same question to Proctor that had previously come unanswered from another because they'd all been told to get down, stay still and shut up just a few moments ago. This time it was Private Mortimer where before it had been Private Gray.

No response but a foul look was shot their way and Edwards gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders when several of his mates turned to look directly at him.

What did he know?

Proctor had told the whole platoon to get down because their platoon commander, The Lieutenant, had seen something up ahead and must have wanted to wait for whatever reason it was.

“It is the Ruskies again?” Gray piped up again and spoke with an attempt at some sort of American accent that actually sounded more Scouse than American especially when he used the word 'Ruskies'.

Edwards allowed himself a smile at that because Gray was from Manchester and wasn't a known fan of anyone from Liverpool. If it had been any other time apart from now Edwards would have started some good-humoured banter with him declaring that a Southerner he preferred the company of Scousers over Mancs. Now wasn't the time for that though, especially since Proctor finally let his self-control slip.

“Shut the fuck up back there!”

Smiles came from those Para's all around as they all knew that they had finally got at Proctor and their morning was made. They were cold, they weren't sure of what exactly what was going on and they were in a 'hot' war zone yet at times like this to keep their own morale up cracking jokes and causing their ill-tempered sergeant to react like that was what they needed. His face had been a mask of rage and they knew that he'd be furious at them though as always he'd soon forgive and forget while continuing to afterwards look after them.

Proctor was that type of man: a 'proper Para' they called him.


They were south of where Bardufoss Airbase was and deep inside the barren, mountainous terrain of Norway in the winter. Most of 2 PARA was here though spread out across the whole region after arriving late yesterday in the Bardufoss area following an overland truck ride from Narvik. Edwards had been told that, according to the unofficial grapevine anyway, the airport where they had initially landed in a few days beforehand at Evenes was now in Soviet hands. Bardufoss had been hit by an enemy parachute assault, that was certain at least, and the rumour was that Framnes (the smaller airport closer to Narvik) was a smoking ruin after a major air attack which had included chemical weapons. He personally thought that if Evenes had been taken, Bardufoss was unusable for major flight operations at the minute in response to all of the damage caused when the assault was beaten off and Framnes was out of action then they might be in a little bit of trouble. All of the facts about what was going on with the wider war weren't being told to any of the enlisted men – not even the mid-level NCO's like Proctor – apart from that it was a conventional fight and Norway had been invaded but he understood enough that there was some serious issue here with 2 PARA and the rest of the 5th Airborne Brigade possibly having a limited chance of getting out of here if things went wrong.

His opinions on this, which he was keeping to himself, were reinforced with what they were doing today chasing after Soviet forces which had not been fully defeated upon landing at Bardufoss but driven back into the mountains afterwards. He believed that they were being chased after even through this difficult terrain because some people high up in the chain of command were worried that they would reform and come back at Bardufoss again to finish what they had started. He didn't know any of this for sure and no one was telling him anything on the matter but that was how he saw it anyway. Bardufoss was somewhere that was feared could be lost again and it was a very important airhead for reinforcement of northern Norway but also evacuation should the situation up here go badly wrong.

As to the enemy, before they had set off down here to this place alongside a frozen river near to the tiny village of Sundlia, the word had come from The Lieutenant through the sergeants that they weren't Soviet paratroopers which were to be fought but airmobile troops, yet with some acting in the parachute role when they made their attack. Of course there was a difference between the two yet Edwards and everyone else who had spoken of such information given to them agreed with the remarks that another sergeant had made: when those Soviets faced British Para's they were dead men anyway.

They just had to be found first.


Lance Corporal O'Donnell – Edwards' deputy in-charge of their Rifle Section – was talking just below normal conversational level but still enough to be heard among them about the 'possibility' of a naked girl emerging from the snow and running towards them to be 'rescued' when the armoured vehicle just emerged out of nowhere about two hundred yards up ahead. There came the sudden noise of its engine and thick black smoke belching out of its exhaust as it broke whatever cover it had been in. The tracked vehicle with a turret atop was painted white though there were scorch marks on the side and that camouflage didn't look like the best of jobs done.

“B.M.D ahead!” Proctor called out almost at the top of his voice. “Infantry too!”

Edwards turned back from looking at his sergeant to see than men on foot were following behind the vehicle making its way slowly across the broken ground in a clumsy fashion while throwing snow up everywhere from its tracks. Some of those men, all carrying rifles, turned towards the Para's to their left. He tried to make a count of them but there had to be at least twenty, maybe thirty already.

There was a shout that Edwards couldn't hear from The Lieutenant to some of the men in another section of the platoon over where their lone officer was and then Edwards witnessed two men raising their Charlie G's: the Swedish-made Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifles favoured by the Para's. Those weapons would probably be enough to take out the enemy vehicle, Edwards told himself, but what if there were more of them than just the one and more infantry too. Everything was moving so fast. He was waiting for one of the NCO's who had seen action before – and there were quite a few of them – to slow things down a bit…

…but that wasn't to be: the Charlie G's opened up upon the Soviets up ahead.

Whether it was a BMD-1 or BMD-2 vehicle, Edwards didn't know exactly because they were similar and he couldn't recall at the moment his training in vehicle recognition. Either way, the BMD was a vehicle which could be dropped by parachute of come out of the back of a medium-sized transport aircraft. It was armed with its own weapons so after transporting the carried infantry to where they needed to be it could fight to support them or even act independently. The armour on the BMD wasn't that good though which was supposed to be made up for by its own firepower and speed. This BMD didn't have the time to fire back nor get away though before two HEAT rounds from the recoilless rifles blew it apart. There were muffled explosions first followed by a bigger one which Edwards thought might have been an ammunition detonation aboard the vehicle.

Some of the infantry around the vehicle were blown all over the place while others were quick enough to dive for cover first. Edwards watched all this with fascination as this was the first time he had been in combat and his training had never given him a sight like this before. It was amazing to witness despite his worries that all might not be right at the moment.

“Open fire! Shoot them fuckers over there! You: Edwards! Open fire, you draft bugger!”

Being brought back to his senses as he looked at Proctor when the sergeant shouted his name, Edwards saw that before he had finished speaking he was opening fire himself with his SA80 in the direction of the Soviets up ahead. Edwards silently cursed himself for getting so distracted and pulled his own rifle up and started firing from his crouching position. He fired off a three-round burst in the direction of where the enemy was but before he opened fire again he swung his gaze left and right.

Everyone including himself was out in the open and had no cover.

A second and then a third BMD again emerged from out of nowhere along with plenty more infantry on foot. The turrets on those vehicles were soon turning this way. Edwards tried to aim his rifle at some of the infantry whom he was now just shooting at without thought because he understood that they were in trouble though he wasn't having much success in hitting anyone. Bullets were starting to come back their way too.

Mortimer screamed that Gray was down and dead before Proctor shouted at him to open fire against that machine gun. Edwards couldn't see a machine gun yet he could hear it. Then he was being shouted at again: “Edwards, sort your section out! Deploy into fire-teams and get some fucking cover!!!”

All he could do was to say over and over to himself in his head though was that this was the end for him. They had stumbled into an unequal fight and were all about to die.


The image of Jessica filled his mind, his Northern Rose. He hadn't seen her before they had mobilised and left Aldershot. He wished he could have called her to say Goodbye and tell her all that he felt about her. To say that he was sorry for being an idiot over and over again too would have been what he would have done. He also would have asked her why she treated him like she did though with how she played with his emotions like she did. Why did she want him to chase her like he did but then not give anything back either would have what he would have asked her too had he seen her before he left for Lyneham first then Narvik. He reckoned that he knew what she would have said in reply. Jessica, the twenty-two year-old girl from Doncaster studying at an agricultural college near to where Edwards was based and lodging with a family in the garrison town while working several evenings a week in one of the pubs off the High Street, would have said that he wasn't fully honest with her.

She would have been right too that he was keeping things from her.

Harriet was someone who he hadn't told the complicated girl that was Jessica about. Edwards pictured here in his mind's eye next, his girlfriend from back home in Tunbridge Wells. The two of them couldn't have been more different. Their looks, their personality and his relationships with them each stood in stark contrast. He loved Harriet though was infatuated with Jessica. Harriet and he had been together since school and could easily have been together forever. She boasted to everyone about her boyfriend the big, tough Para and was always over-the-moon when he was home on leave.

His Mum came into his thoughts next. She was someone else who again he had wished he had said Goodbye to before he came to Norway to be killed. In Tunbridge Wells too, his Mum was proud of her only son and always welcomed him back so wonderfully when he was able to return on leave. She wanted him to marry Harriet and give her grandchildren… and like Harriet didn't know anything about his Northern Rose.

When O'Donnell had mentioned the fictional naked girl in the snow, right before the enemy had appeared, Edwards had been waiting for his fellow Para to start talking about how that girl looked. He knew that she would have been described with red hair, curvy in all of the right places and rosy red cheeks too: Jessica. There would have then come a description of what he, O'Donnell, would have done to 'rescue' her. Edwards would have got mad at that point and not been impressed with what would have been said. O'Donnell would have continued nonetheless telling everyone how he would have stuck it in her because no one else, not the Para who chased after her with gifts and not even a kiss in response, would do so when the girl so clearly wanted that from someone man enough to do it too her.

This drama had been played out before – not with a girl in the snow but one in other imagined situations – just as the banter was had with Proctor to get him mad. Edwards had fallen for it before and probably would have again today.

Yet he wouldn't be seeing Jessica again nor Harriet nor his Mum nor arguing with O'Donnell either because they were in serious trouble with so many Soviet soldiers supported by enemy armour coming at them.


Edwards had to push all of these thoughts out of his mind as he called out to his section. There were six of those whom he shouted at following the death of Gray: O'Donnell, Mortimer, Grant, Holmes, Massey and Underwood. The lance corporal and the five privates were all quick to react when he shouted at them to head to the right where the ground was uneven and he hoped that those were rocks, boulders of something solid beneath the snow. He raced that way with his rifle dangling from the shoulder-strap and found out soon enough that he had made the right choice as he banged one of his shins into what had to be a rock and then when he threw himself to the ground pain erupted seemingly everywhere. Bullets were whizzing their way now and there was the crack of a cannon mounted to one of those BMD's that brought his attention back to the situation at hand.

“Paul,” O'Donnell was right beside him with his rifle and a Charlie G too, “did you get Dezzie's pack with the reloads?” Edwards referred to the reloads for the Carl Gustav which Private Dereck Gray had. He couldn't see them with O'Donnell but held out hope that he had then.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! No, I left 'em behind!” It had been a forlorn hope. The usually always cheerful, always boisterous Irishman that was O'Donnell looked at him with a terrible dread.

“There's one in the gun though?” A nod followed the question. “Then aim it at one of those damn machines and give it your best shot! Everyone else, covering fire.”

Edwards still believed that he and everyone else was about to die though he was doing all that he could to save them. O'Donnell was one of his mates despite everything and so too were the others including Gray who was no longer with them. If they were going to go out, then they were going to go out fighting.

Before O'Donnell could open fire on the BMD's, another Charlie G was launched by one of the other sections. Edwards saw it crash into the ground ahead of the vehicle and throw up plenty more snow into the air from the explosion with the ground but the vehicle, the other BMD and all of the infantry were coming forwards. Some of them had been brought down but not many. There was the rattle of light machine guns and he thought that any minute now they would open up with mortars too.

Thinking of such weapons he wondered why the platoon mortarman wasn't firing his own weapon yet. He couldn't see the man nor Proctor or either The Lieutenant. He asked himself had they all been killed or where they under cover; he hoped that if it was the latter then The Lieutenant would at least have the sense to be on the radio now calling for support. There had been some Norwegian light armour back in Sundlia and there had to be some aircraft about somewhere.

O'Donnell then opened fire. There was a WHOOSH of the anti-armour projectile from the Charlie G and then an explosion upon the leading BMD. The blast wasn't massive and it didn't look like a kill-shot but the vehicle did come to a halt. Edwards had risen his head to look and was trying to confirm whether the BMD would be able to carry on fighting when bullets flew his way. He was damn lucky that they missed him! Once he was back under whatever little cover he now had he wondered what they were going to do now.

Then came the shout from someone else in another section nearby: “Air Attack!”


They weren't Soviet aircraft as Edwards had first feared but rather F-16's. Two of them with their distinctive air intakes underneath came in low from up ahead, behind where the enemy was, and rockets or missiles came off their fuselages.

Both BMD's blew up with far bigger explosions than the first had when hit with Charlie G's. Those blasts were close, so close that bits and pieces of them were thrown everywhere including where Edwards was with his section. All of them ducked down as parts of those vehicles and maybe pieces of the enemy soldiers rained down around them. The noise had been something spectacular but being showered with all of that wreckage, machine and human, was someone else.

When he put his head up again there was just devastation ahead. The enemy had been caught out in the open like that and eliminated as a fighting force.

“Who the hell were they?” Mortimer asked no one in particular.

“Americans.” Holmes' answer was only speculation not fact.

“Norwegian I reckon.” O'Donnell sounded more sure of his conclusion than Holmes had. “The Yanks would probably have hit us instead.”

Whoever had provided that close air support, whichever one of Britain's allies, had saved them all from certain defeat.

Proctor soon appeared and was shouting again: “No time to be having a gossip like a bunch of old ladies! Edwards, all of you, get up and get out there. See if there is anyone left who wants to make a fight of it still after all of that. If there is anyone who wants to surrender see to them too.

Move it, move it!”



February 5th 1990
The Øresund, the Baltic Sea

Lieutenant Holger Nielsen had moved with his family to Britain when he was a young boy and he spoke his native Danish very well indeed along with the English he had learnt growing up in Warwickshire as his father ran a successful trading company there. He had told Captain Brooks that they had lived by the sea when in Denmark and he had always wanted to be a sailor. Brooks had given him a smile while keeping his own thoughts about the young officer's capabilities apart from speaking Danish to himself.

This man was never going to go far in the Royal Navy because he just didn't have what was necessary to be successful in him.

However, he was proving mighty useful at the moment after HMS Campbeltown had been transferred to the command of Allied Naval Forces Baltic Approaches (NAVBALTAP) and Brooks needed a translator aboard. There were English-speakers with NAVBALTAP on the radio links to their headquarters in bunkers beneath Karup yet having a native Danish-speaker aboard when issued orders by the Danish-dominated command there was use made of Nielsen by Brooks to limit translation delays over the radio, delays which could endanger his command. Another junior officer with the frigate spoke some German as well and that would be of additional help as there were West Germans in senior positions with NAVBALTAP yet the Campbeltown was in the waters to the north and east of that command's area of responsibility and it was with the Danes here in these waters that Brooks had his frigate operating.

Yesterday's invasion of Denmark had come in both airmobile and amphibious forms to bring Warsaw Pact forces into the Danish Archipelago. There were elite Soviet and Polish troops in multiple places with the East Germans giving some partial assistance to mainly Soviet and Polish efforts to support those landings on Danish soil with attacks in the air and at sea. Koge Bay had turned out to be a distraction, a flanking manoeuvre to support the main effort on the part of the invader to take Copenhagen. Their landings near the Danish capital had been concentrated upon Amager Island. To there the Soviets had landed most of a brigade of marines who were holding much of the island already and closed in upon Copenhagen while the Poles had their small division of marines in multiple places along the shores of Zealand from Koge Bay including close to Copenhagen from the south. Airmobile lifts had brought in troops afterwards to Copenhagen's airport on Amager though Brooks hadn't been informed if those were Soviet or Polish yet he believed that they would probably be the former rather than the latter.

Efforts made by the Campbeltown and other NATO naval assets alongside the considerable presence of both the Danish and West German navies hadn't been able to stop the invasion of Denmark from occurring especially when there had been so many warships and aircraft assigned in support. Nonetheless, the blows which had been struck – such as his against those Polish landing ships – had caused chaos with the enemy's plan to deliver what they must have thought would have been an instant knock-out blow by taking the Danish capital on the war's first day.

They hadn't got enough troops ashore to do that yet would be aiming to try to bring in follow-on forces (supplies and armour as well as fighting men) today in what transport ships they had left after more than a few had been sunk or left abandoned following missile hits. All through today Brooks was to have his frigate working with his allies here against such enemy intentions.


The terrible weather from late yesterday, overnight and this morning had cleared up some. There were still strong gusts blowing and clouds above yet the seas weren't as choppy as they had been and the rain downpours had ceased. The Campbeltown was built to survive the wilds of the North Atlantic and the conditions here hadn't been as bad as what could be encountered out on the open ocean yet that didn't mean that operating a ship here in the stretch of water between Denmark and Sweden in winter was easy. Radar performance and flight operations had been adversely affected by that weather and they would be again later today when more bad weather returned. Brooks had this afternoon to operate in easier conditions though and he was planning to make use of it as he headed westwards away from near where he had been on the edge of Swedish territorial waters on the eastern side of the southern part of the Øresund back to where the enemy was certain to be found.

As to the Swedes and their neutrality, Brooks didn't share the views expressed in the wardroom and elsewhere aboard that some of his officers had made. Yes, two of their neighbouring countries had been invaded by the Soviets and there were reports that their airspace had been infringed by Soviet military aircraft in the very far north yet that didn't mean that they should suddenly enter the war in response. They had their own interests to look after, the lives of their own people took priority over those in the other nations nearby. The Swedes feared too entering a war that at any moment could go nuclear. They had no treaty obligations to do so either and so something of the things which were being said here – and no doubt elsewhere too – he found unfair.

It was radars from the Swedish coast which the electronic systems aboard the Campbeltown were detecting as the frigate moved away and back towards where combat was anticipated. There were search radars from ground and airborne sources though, thankfully, no fire control radars. Information which Brooks had received from NAVBALTAP stated that the Swedes had their military forces on full-alert with their weapons at the ready in case they were attacked despite not moving to do that to anyone else. Brooks wasn't about to do anything like that though had to admit that in a world gone a little bit crazy the Swedes would just want to make sure so therefore they were keeping a watchful eye upon him and his frigate.


Brooks had his own radars in passive mode this afternoon. It limited what he could see ahead but allowed for the near invisibility of his presence. His Lynx helicopter Normandie was airborne with its search radar active anyway and the information which was being fed to the Campbeltown gave him a good enough radar picture. Ahead, over towards the Koge Bay area and below Amager, there were surface contacts denoted as friendly, hostiles and unknowns… with the latter certainly being hostile just not confirmed as being so yet. Engagements were taking place at distance and Brooks' orders allowed him to chose which one to enter adding the firepower of the Campbeltown too. He and his operations staff held a quick conference within the Operations Room to decide where the frigate could make the most impact with what weapons were available. There were still two Harpoon's remaining for anti-surface work along with the main gun. The two helicopters – Chariot and Normandie – had further Sea Skua's to use against warships or amphibious ships too.

Where best to put those weapons to work after bringing the Campbeltown into an equally good position to give those weapons the best chance of succeeding was what the officers discussed with their captain. Mention was made of the equally-dangerous air and submarine threats too and how this affected what the frigate was to do. The possibility of enemy air action was a serious concern with the Campbeltown having the means to defend herself yet with everyone knowing that it was safer to avoid air attack than to fight against it. It was the same with submarines with the task here not being to hunt them as if would have been done in the North Atlantic but to move fast to avoid them; the anti-submarine weapons carried could engage a subsurface contact but finding one and holding track of it while engaging in shallow waters like this would be difficult.

Short-range missile duels were currently taking place between Danish missile boats and what were reported to be East German missile boats in an area located to the southwest with further ships behind those enemy vessels seemingly being screened by those in combat ahead of them. Intelligence on the trailing contacts was flimsy but they were large and slower moving that those out ahead. Brooks believed they were amphibious transports and a target whose engagement by the Campbeltown would be of great benefit; his officers agreed and moved to carry out his subsequent to avoid the back-and-forth exchange of missiles between their allies and the enemy and take on those more valuable targets.

A message was sent off to NAVBALTAP and then the Campbeltown changed course, increased speed and set off to intercept.


Nerves affected Brooks this afternoon far more than they had yesterday morning. He had felt like he was in complete control then with that ambush and while he was doing something similar today it wasn't the same for how he personally felt about it. Like NATO forces had fast being given tough lessons so too would the Warsaw Pact forces. Anyone who survived after showing hesitancy beforehand wouldn't be doing so again. He could expect his attack to be defended against properly this time and a prompt counterattack to be tried against the Campbeltown.

He worried over his approach route too, the sweeping manoeuvre to come at the enemy vessels from the flank while their screening forces were out ahead already in action. It all looked good when hastily drawn upon the charts as he and his officers had discussed it and there was room to modify that less those targeted vessels changed course. It all seemed perfect, maybe too perfect…

Interruption to the plan came not in the form of an enemy attack though but instead actual good fortune.

“Sir, three surface contacts spotted ahead of us.” There was urgency in Lieutenant Brown's voice as he spoke loudly within the calm of the Operations Room and read off the coordinates, course and speed of those which Normandie had just detected. “They're hovercraft: Aist-class models heading for Amager Island.”

“They're not at full speed, Captain, so I think that they are fully loaded.” Lieutenant Dawson spoke up and added a little bit of his known encyclopaedia of knowledge upon vessels operated by the Warsaw Pact nations at this time. “With them at sixty knots they are ten off their top speed and certain to be laden with tanks or other armoured vehicles. Each Aist can carry four light tanks or three heavy armoured vehicles along with plenty of troops too.”

Brooks made the decision: “Change our engagement, we are going for those hovercraft. Let's get this set up.”

Reacting quickly but efficiently like he had trained them yet as they too worked together to achieve themselves, Brooks' crew made the transformation from an underway ambush against slower transports behind a protective screen to the sudden engagement against very fast vessels who had plenty of manoeuvrability to them. All information which had been gained upon those transport ships was sent to NAVBALTAP who were going to reassign the mission to the Campbeltown's allies with the USS Kidd with that American destroyer currently in the area too and therefore allowing for a concentration upon the hovercraft.

Orders were issued for Chariot to get airborne as fast as possible from the heli-deck at the rear of the Campbeltown but it was hoped that action by Normandie along with Harpoon's coming from the frigate would do the job the first time around – the second helicopter was in case the targets escaped the first attack.


To make the attack simultaneous, the pair of Harpoon's from the Campbeltown were fired first. The launches were successful and they were guided to their targets by Normandie which was arming two of it's own shorter-range Sea Skua's. Brooks watched the progress of the Harpoon's on the radar displays showing what the Campbeltown first saw then when they left the coverage of passive detection from the Type-986 radar to what Normandie's Seaspray radar was showing. Normandie soon took both Harpoon's under control as they made the last leg of their flight and guided them towards two of the hovercraft while launching both of its own Sea Skua's against the third.

At this moment that hovercraft had tried and failed to engage first the RN helicopter which they had detected then the inbound missiles. They failed to strike at the Harpoon's either and last-ditch manoeuvring couldn't break the lock that the missiles had. First one, then the second and finally the third hovercraft were hit.

As was the case yesterday, there was no elation in the Operations Room. Everyone was aware as their commander was that their presence had just been announced far and wide by firing missiles. The need now was to change course to avoid any counter-retaliation from unseen aircraft or warships armed with a big missile battery. Brooks had his crew do that while inwardly celebrating the second successful engagement that the Campbeltown had during this war, again without casualties inflicted upon the frigate's crew aboard or in the helicopters.

More combat was soon to come too as these waters remained a hotly contested battlefield.

[James G]

February 5th 1990
The Liebenburg Forest, Lower Saxony, West Germany

Whether it had been a combat battalion command column for the East German Army division being torn apart by the counterattack going on away to the west or maybe an air defence radio team within the three vehicles which had just suffered from a perfect ambush it didn't matter. The BRDM-1 armoured car and the two BTR-70 armoured personnel carriers, all with plenty of antenna, had been blown up and the men inside either dead or left wounded. The initial blast from a shape-charged bomb emplaced along the track had stopped them and then the fire from the pair of LAW80 one-shot, disposable rocket-launchers had done the job on them. They hadn't been expecting to be attacked as they had when making their way through the Liebenburg Forest yet really should have been by moving slower and with machine gunners riding atop with eyes open. Even then they wouldn't have been able to spot the SAS team that ambushed them, but they should have been alert. Warrant Officer Jones still thought that the East Germans shouldn't have been so careless as they had been: this forest was clearly somewhere that was the right location for such a strike against any small column that came through here in a rush to get away from all that was going on along the Innerste River.

McSherry (the patrol leader), Bishop, Fryatt and himself were all now moving fast away from there through ground they had rigorously patrolled and monitored throughout the past few days leaving behind that destruction and heading back in the general direction of their hides through keeping an eye out for any other targets of opportunity that may come their way. Operating in the daylight was dangerous for them being so few and lightly-armed in what was now enemy-held territory and they were planning to wait for the darkness of the night to conduct further strikes. They had only emerged from their concealed position due to the noisy presence of that command column and other retreating East Germans coming through the forest here because they knew that in the chaos of retreat there would be such targets open to attack. Once the East Germans better understood the danger that lay in the forest they would be more careful… but such caution would only help them in daylight and not once night fell.

Covered head-to-toe in camouflage from his uniform to his war-paint, Jones jogged along with his fellow troopers. They didn't move in a column-line along a designated path but rather in a box-like formation through the bare branches across uneven ground stopping every so often. Jones had his rifle slung over his shoulder and amongst his webbing grenades were carried: a light load considering what he had in his pack that had been left at the hide dug into the mud beneath a rocky outcrop. His eyes scanned from left to right as he moved keeping an eye upon the three others but mainly upon their surroundings. He was watching for the approach of anyone else here. They would have to be on foot rather than in a vehicle and that meant a long trip for such a person up here but it wasn't something impossible.

In the past couple of days there had been others in this forest who they had come across unexpectedly when patrolling and scouting for ambush sites against those foolish to enter unawares.


Two days ago, in the evening before the war started, it had been civilians.

The West Germans had only launched a mandatory evacuation of the villages and small towns right next to the IGB. Everyone else had been told to stay in their homes and not to flee making themselves refugees in their own country. Some civilians had listened but many had not; thousands upon thousands of them across West Germany had left their residences fearing that when the war started those would become part of the battlefield where not just bullets and high-explosives would be used but poison gases, even tactical nuclear weapons, would be employed. Near to the Liebenburg Forest was the urban area of Salzgitter-Bad and small towns such as Liebenburg and Othfresen along with many villages. All of these hadn't been evacuated like the town of Schladen on the border had been but civilians from them fled with the majority of them travelling as far west as they could. A few had chosen to leave their villages and enter wooded areas as the Liebenburg Forest instead. Why such a choice had been made no one knew for it was a stupid idea for those involved because this forest would be fought over like everywhere else. Moreover, such people weren't prepared in what they wore and what they brought with them – or, in fact, didn't bring with them – to suddenly try to make a forest their home!

There had been people on their own and others in pairs or in small family groups. They had come on foot, bicycles or in their cars. They brought tents, sleeping bags and camping equipment. None were prepared for being out here especially with what would occur once the war started.

It had been the family of four and what he feared for them who had stayed with Jones and strained his conscience even while knowing that he could do nothing to help such people from their inevitable fate. They had pulled up their Volkswagen into a recreational area and then locked the vehicle before walking away only a few hundred yards into the trees. There the father – a man in his late thirties who Jones couldn't understand wasn't in uniform somewhere as the West Germans had mobilised so many men as reservists – had started setting up a family-sized tent with the aid of his teenage son, a boy of twelve or thirteen. It was quickly erected like they had done this before and stood out for great distance with its gleaming yellow colour. There had been the mother and daughter too in the nuclear family unit. Both of them had fussed around getting clothes, blankets and sleeping bags into the tent in addition to having an electric cooking stove set up. A portable radio had come with them and a cassette tape was put in to play music after initially there had only been news on the radio channels.

He had wanted to go over to them from the hidden position where he, Bishop, Fryatt and McSherry had observed them and remonstrate with this family. Jones would have shouted at them to go west, far away from here for remaining where they were would only mean the end for them. If they stayed and were 'lucky', Soviet artillery would strike their tent and end their lives in an instant. If not, then this family would share a horrible fate when eventually invading soldiers found them. Jones had watched the pretty teenage daughter – older than the boy – do her make-up and hair between her mother shouting at her for not helping with their camping gear: Soviet or East German troops would see or hear them or maybe smell their cooking. Then those troops would gang-rape the girl given the chance for she was rather attractive. The mother would probably share a similar fate among brutalised Warsaw Pact troops who had spent their entire service without women and would do what invading troops often did to helpless female civilians. The father and boy would either be shot or carried off as prisoners for forced labour. That radio, the food and their blankets that this family had with them would be stolen.

After moving away from where the West German family where, McSherry had said that the boy had reminded him of his own son; the girl had made Jones think of his own teenage daughter. Grace was safe back with her mother in Swansea… as safe as anyone could be less the war went to the nuclear level. This girl here, with her mother & father & brother, would certainly suffer when the war was sure to reach them. Yet he could do nothing about that at all.

Once the war had started early yesterday, the distant sound of fighting had come closer and closer to them with the East Germans advancing and fighting soldiers with the British 4th Armoured Division. It had been a dangerous time for Jones and those with him in this patrol yet they had stayed down in their hides waiting for the war to pass them by. Some enemy troops had come into the Liebenburg Forest though in vehicles and moving through to where they were going on the western side with an aim to outflank the regular British troops conducting their strategic withdrawal for a counterattack that he had known would surely come when the moment was right. Those vehicles had made slow but steady progress through the forest yet word must have gone up the chain of command that the trails used weren't suitable for mass movement of vehicles with the ground being covered with snow in places still or otherwise wet making it difficult to move across and full of potential dangers.

Then there had come the two aircrew late in the day.

First had been the Soviet from a Mil-24 helicopter. That Hind had been hit by a missile that Jones hadn't seen the source of and smashed into the ground far too close to where they were concealed. An explosion on the ground following impact of the wreckage that was the Hind had killed most of those aboard though one man had been thrown clear. He had cried out in obvious pain but then dragged himself across the ground and through the mud to get away from the wreckage. Where he was going no one, even him, knew. He had come straight towards where Fryatt was though as he had continued to howl in pain and leave a bloody trail behind him. Fryatt had killed him. Instead of shooting the injured man he had used the bayonet on the end of his rifle to deliver a sharp, fatal wound to kill the man at once. Nothing else could have been done; the man's screams and presence could have brought others right to where they were hiding. The body had then been pulled under cover and no comment made by Jones or the two others.

There had been no other choice. Medical assistance couldn't be given to him, he couldn't be taken prisoner and he was endangering them. The only thing to do, the humane thing to do, was to stop him suffering… and risking their lives too.

Not an hour afterwards, with no warning at all, another pilot had come crashing down through the bare trees above and landed near them as well. His parachute had slowed his approach though the man had bounced off trees and then the ground too. Jones had seen at once that he was a friendly, a pilot flying an aircraft of their allies. The Belgian (recognisable from the insignia on his uniform) was hurt but able enough to walk about and realise that he needed to act fast. He had pulled down his torn parachute from above then buried it as best he could in the almost bare undergrowth. The man had looked around and drawn his pistol but hadn't seen the SAS men all around him.

Such a possibility as this had been discussed as it had been as to what to do with an enemy pilot. The Belgian had no idea that they were here and couldn't betray their presence if caught and interrogated later. He was relatively uninjured and armed too still with his sense of direction in walking away to the south where there was less chance of him running into the enemy than going east or west and certainly to the north where the East Germans were in number.

Jones had silently wished the man luck as he left where they were unseen by him.


He had been thinking of that Belgian and pondering over what had happened above to whatever aircraft he had been flying before being forced to eject during the final approach to their hides when there came an almighty torrent of noise, light and soon afterwards heat too from behind them. Jones turned around and could see that what had to be a massive fire was underway down below to the north where Salzgitter-Bad was. That whole town and the area where the east-west running main road lay was alight in furious flames which were spreading fast to cover an even bigger area very quickly.

“Napalm.”

Bishop's lone word summary of what they were seeing was all that was said as they moved onwards leaving that inferno growing far behind them. No one else made any more comment though Jones thought that maybe they would have had they not been in such a rush to get moving away from where they had made their ambush.

He himself would have… no, might have had something to say. Many West German civilians would have left Salzgitter-Bad and others would have been killed before someone had just hit the place with such a terrible weapon as napalm. Maybe others down there in what was occupied territory like here yet which the invading forces actually controlled were suffering horrible fates such as he had been certain were in store for that family he had seen. Regardless, there would still be civilians alive there.

West Germans.

Friendlies.

Allies.

A people being burnt to death in what would be similar to the fires of hell.



February 5th 1990
Outside Silly, Hainaut, Belgium

Clearly, no one had chosen to move across from Soignies to Silly because of the humorous name of the latter location. It had just been deemed an appropriate place where a huge operation could commence to set up facilities for the NAC not in one building or a group of structures but rather under camouflage out in the open. Second Officer Whittaker believed that they should have moved to Mons, to Charleroi or even across the border into a French town such as Lille if the need had been that great. It would have avoided using the interconnecting tents with their airlocks to keep out any further gases yet which kept in much of the exhausts from the many tracked vehicles inside the coverage of the canvas spread above. She was concerned that instead of being gassed by the Soviets they would all instead be slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide. It was surely those fumes which made her feel a little bit sick tonight and had her come outside for a few minutes to get some fresh air.

With so many of the Belgian soldiers who had been at SHAPE either killed or injured there (and casualties very high among their officers), it was French troops deployed here in Belgium which now guarded all of the diplomats assigned to NATO and their associated support staff. One of those Frenchmen had been pleased when she had responded in his native tongue to him when he had spoken to her but she had walked away from the entrance he was posted to guard. Whittaker wanted that fresh air along with a few moments of peace and quite.

That was not to be though.


“Laura?”

She turned around to see Baxter there complete with an already lit cigarette: “Evening, David.”

“Would you mind if I joined you? I've got something to ask you.”

“Sure.” She watched him come closer and he stopped right beside her without saying anything but rather stared ahead across the darkness of the open field where mist was forming this evening. “What can I do for you?” Whittaker broke the silence herself, eager to hear what he had to say after the manner in which he had asked that question and also to have him ask what he wanted so afterwards she could get that alone time she desired.

“Can I trust you? Do you believe in your country?”

“Yes.” The reply was instantaneous because it was such an equivocal affirmative.

He nodded at her and his gaze met hers. “I need your help and it won't be an easy matter but it will be important.”

“Will I be helping the Foreign Office, or do you need me to be a Bond Girl?” The moment she gave the flippant response she regretted it. She was tired though, Whittaker told herself, and Baxter was being just a little bit conspiratorial in talking to her out here away from everyone else. Still, she should have known better. Before he could reply, she quickly added to what she had said yet this time was more serious: “What can I do to help?”

“Be a Bond Girl!” Baxter gave a little laugh before he returned to seriousness. “There is an issue with Lef-tenant Colonel Mackenzie.”

“Him.” It wasn't a question that Whittaker gave but rather a statement in the harsh tone she used there with that one word to hopefully portray to Baxter how she felt about Mackenzie.

“I'll be honest with you, Laura.” Baxter took a brief moment to finish his last puff of his cigarette then dropped the butt on the muddy ground before stubbing it out with the bottom of the boots that went with the chemical warfare suit he was now wearing at all times: everything but the helmet on though with that under his arm. Then he continued. “There is a worry among some people in my organisation that he cannot be trusted. Issues with him have been raised before and accusations have been made against him. Those allegations are that he might be a spy for the Soviets.”

Whittaker was left momentarily dumbstruck at such a suggestion. Baxter was serious but she didn't believe that could be the case. She didn't like Mackenzie but he didn't seem like a spy, a traitor for the enemy.

“He has an excellent service record of activities in Ulster,” Baxter continued when she didn't reply, “against Republican gun-running and their own attempts to gain intelligence on British Forces activities there. There are people high up in the British Army who would defend him to the end due to his work there. He got this posting to Belgium after his name was found on a captured Irish National Liberation Army hit-list… a document he himself recovered and it appears too that he then asked to be transferred here.

Make of that what you will.

Those incidents of assertions made about him come from several sources. A civilian contractor in Belfast working on radio intercept equipment came to my organisation to express concerns of some of the conversations that he had with Mackenzie when it came to the Soviets: that man killed himself a few weeks later by jumping to his death off a building. Another concerned acquaintance of Mackenzie's, an R.A.F officer who worked here in Belgium doing what you are now, approached one of my colleagues with similar concerns regarding conversations he had had with Mackenzie when it came to the Soviets. Mackenzie appears to have got wind of those suspicions and noted that what documents he had access to were being monitored by the young man in uniform.

The R.A.F officer disappeared off the face of the earth just after the New Year.

There's an unexplained large money that we found within a concealed space within Mackenzie's home in Dumfries – I won't go into details about that – that opens up more worries.

The concern appears that he is, maybe was because that might be a tad difficult now, passing intelligence to the Soviets in exchange for financial reward.”

“And killing those looking into him too?” Baxter hadn't finished but Whittaker interjected into his tale at this point just to confirm something.

“That is a concern, yes.”

“Jesus Holy Christ!” Whittaker turned upon Baxter with what she knew would be incredulity but also anger written all across her face. “You want me – me! – to help you out with this? Don't you have any of your own people? You are saying that he kills people that look into him? This… this is just too much, David! Surely there are other means of dealing with this rather than asking me to help you? They detained all sorts of people back home on just the suspicion of sympathising with the Soviets when Transition to War started.

Throw a black bag over his head and cart him off to some interrogation centre somewhere! Failing that, reassign him despite these 'high-level contacts' within the Army that you talk about.

Just don't have me, me of all people, try to help you catch him spying, especially at a time like this with all that is going on!”

Whittaker knew that she had been ranting and raving. There had been too much emotion expressed, she had lost her cool. Yet, it had all been just overwhelming with what Baxter told her and wanted from her.

The spook said nothing in return.

“Give me one of those cigarettes, will you?” Whittaker needed the nicotine rush to calm her down.

Baxter handed over a smoke along with a matchbox. She lit her cigarette and handed back to him the box of matches all while neither of them said anything. The rush that she had desired came at once; Baxter himself lit up another cigarette.

“He's not a bully nor a rapist, you know.” Baxter was talking about Mackenzie again after clearly deciding to give her a few moments. “That is the mark of a good spy to give that impression among people when you are committing espionage.

I know, I know, it sounds a little odd.

But, you see, people will think him obnoxious and maybe someone who might take advantage of a woman. Then if there is an allegation made by someone else that he might not be trustworthy around state secrets those who know him and don't like him for the flaws they see in him won't rush to say he is a traitor too. Their inner conscience will tell them that such accusations are too much and unfair.

You did it yourself, Laura.

You didn't agree when I suggested that he was a traitor because without realising it, the fair and just person you are decided that you didn't like him for other reasons – which might not be morally right to have without any proof, because you've never seen him directly do any of those bad things you think he might do – and so the allegation that he was a traitor was just too much.

It made you angry afterwards, angry at me.

Gordon Mackenzie did this though. He subverted your conscience by acting as he did towards you so that should anyone ever tell you that they believed he was a traitor you would react so strongly in opposition to that telling yourself that such accusations are unfair.

As I said, he did that. He manipulated you, and everyone else around him too, into having such thoughts and therefore he is protected.”

“David, I just don't know what to say to that.” Whittaker just couldn't take all of this in. It was all too fantastic to believe.

Baxter put a hand on her shoulder: “Don't take it all personally. He knows how to play this game. Someone taught him this, how to have people not like him but at the same time to give those around him no suspicion that he is a traitor and to react strongly too to the suggestion.

A lot of effort has gone into Mackenzie by those who he is working for. They would have helped him get the transfer here to the N.A.C to work directly for the Permanent Representative. They had either helped him to or done for him the killings of the two people which we know about – and there might be others too, don't forget – who raised suspicions about him. He would be passing top-grade intelligence for that to happen.”

Whittaker noted that the hand was kept there even as Baxter got rid of his second cigarette and she did the same. She had to silently ask herself was this spook manipulating her too knowing that she had feelings for him… well, maybe had, before this whole conversation.

“We need you, Laura, I need you.” Still the hand remained with the light touch of intimacy. “You were selected not by chance to come here because we thought you would be able to help us and we could rely upon you.”

She stepped back and his touch was released with that movement. “What do you mean? Who would have… how did you come to… what made you...” Whittaker couldn't express into words what she wanted to say in response to these further shocking remarks from Baxter.

“Let's leave that aside for now, shall we. It wasn't me who picked you but I'm glad that you were.” He might or might not have been telling the truth. “Can you help us, Laura? You said you wanted to help your country and this is what is needed.”


Back inside the cover of where the NAC was now meeting, Whittaker was present at the late evening briefing given. Intelligence upon the war was being shared through multiple sources and politicians within the NATO countries were talking to each other through other channels. This was the formal diplomatic setting for the cooperation between allies though.

She sat on one of the uncomfortable folding metal chairs where the UK party was grouped between the Americans on their left and the Belgians to the right. There were no tables, no desks and a rather uneven ground beneath them. Mackenzie was there and so too was Baxter. Whittaker herself was right next to the Permanent Representative whispering in his ear a fast translation of what the assigned West German diplomat was saying. There was plenty of emotion being expressed by the man about how civilians from his own country were dead from Soviet chemical weapons and more from being in the way of conventional weapons too from air strikes to long-range artillery. His point was coming soon, she just didn't know what it was. She spoke fast and ad-libbed where necessary yet her mind was elsewhere on the conversation which had taken place outside and the consequences of the answer she had given as to what the spook wanted from her.

Behind her, she could overhear Baxter and Mackenzie talking to each other.

She only caught part of their conversation but from what she could understand they were discussing when diplomats from other countries outside NATO would soon join the NAC, or if they would. Austria was mentioned and so too were other countries which weren't supposed to be neutral like the Austrians were: traditional allies of the West across the world. Many countries in the Americans, across selected parts of Africa, through Asia to the Far East and then to the Pacific had declared themselves as part of what was now being officially called the Allies. Were there to be Brazilians & Mexicans, Moroccans & South Africans, those from Oman & Thailand & Japan and Australians and New Zealanders coming here? Those were just some of the many countries which were now part of the Allies but would their diplomats be making their way to Silly or to the next place where the NAC was to move to?

She overheard part of what Baxter was saying about Pakistan too while translating for the Permanent Representative; the effect of the cigarette she had had had sent her mind rushing after so long without one and she was convinced that she could for the time being concentrate on several things at once. The communist regime in Afghanistan, abandoned as they had been by the Soviets the other year, had declared its neutrality in the conflict between the Allies and their former supporters. That neutrality had done the Afghans as much good as it had done for Austria: the Pakistanis had invaded today as they declared for the Allies. Mackenzie intoned that the Pakistanis were taking a risk as Afghanistan wasn't known as the graveyard of empires for no reason and that they should be aware of the Indians on their other flank maybe taking advantage. What response Baxter gave, Whittaker missed as the French diplomat here at the NAC meeting started speaking and she had to concentrate on her French to translate what he was saying after the West German.

In addition to all this going on, Whittaker also had her mind upon the answer she had given to Baxter when he had pressed her upon working for him, MI-6 and for her country. Yes, she would be a Bond Girl, she had said before telling him that she would need his protection less she share the fate of others before who had gone up against Mackenzie.



February 5th 1990
Regent's Park, Central London, Great Britain

Lance Corporal Rose and his fellow junior NCO, Lance Corporal Fenton, arrived on the road outside Winfield House with the half dozen teenagers which they had with them. They were just in time for the hasty briefing being given to all of those who had been sent here in reaction to the fires which were burning inside that mansion which was the official residence of the US Ambassador. There was a Guards Major who was out at the front of them and behind one of the fire engines. He quickly went over what was known and what was to be done in response.

Shadows danced around behind the Major due to the ongoing efforts of firemen to fight those flames which were lighting up the whole area in the stage drama being put on. He spoke of an organised arson attack against Winfield House that had killed plenty of people inside. Outside, the bodies of security personnel had been found with their throats cut and wounds from bullets. This was a deliberate attack to harm relations between allies, he stated, and couldn't be allowed to be gotten away with by the perpetrators of the attack. Those who had done this were either professional enemy commandoes active here in the heart of London or domestic terrorists who could possibly be anarchists. Either way they were dangerous and had to be caught.

The whole area was to be checked including Regent's Park behind them on the other side of the extensive grounds which came with Winfield House. He started assigning groups such as Rose's to areas which he pointed in the general direction of. Some men were sent to search through the houses and grounds of nearby expensive private homes, others along the course of the Grand Union Canal which ran along the edge of the park. London Zoo was to be searched and so too were the grounds of Regent's Park Mosque; the Major himself would be going there due to cultural sensitivities with regard to that site. More men were to be sent out of the park grounds and up onto Primrose Hill and others to The Terraces on the southwestern edges. However, the majority of those here were to go into the park proper and look for those who had carried out the attack here who might have the intention of staying in-place through the hours of darkness and then trying to escape tomorrow morning.

Rose, Fenton and the six young soldiers who had come across with them from Albany Street Barracks across on the far size of the park were some of those going into Regent's Park in the darkness to look for armed and very dangerous men who might be in there.


“Mister Rose, Sir,” one of the teenagers, possibly Myers if Rose remembered his name correctly, spoke to him like a child would to a schoolteacher moments after they started their search, “wouldn't it have been a better idea to split up into four groups of two instead of two groups of four. We could cover twice as much ground, Sir, and there are some of us who could lead each group.”

“That's an idea, isn't it, young man?” Rose could have swung his torchlight into the teenager's face to see if it was Myers or Donaldson, or maybe even Sprigg – he really couldn't tell in the darkness the difference between them on just their voices – but chose not to and settled for 'young man' instead.

“If I could put myself forward to lead one of the pairs, Mister Rose, then I would do my best, Sir.” The youngster clearly didn't think that Rose had got the hint the first time around.

“No, we'll do it my way.”

Rose ended the conversation there. He could have been more patient and said that he'd think upon such a notion to encourage the teenager's clear eagerness but he didn't have the motivation to do so at the moment. He was never going to allow that to happen for the dangers involved to themselves, everyone else and also him and Fenton of having these children running around with live weapons unsupervised. There was plenty of danger already even without doing such a thing.

Fenton had three of the teenagers and he had the other trio of youngsters taken from their training with the British Army for last-minute attachment to the HSF. These were all youngsters whose parent units had gone off to Germany or elsewhere on the Continent without them and whom he had to now babysit. Some were keen and eager even if misguided while others were beyond hope. Rose couldn't turn them into soldiers and they really shouldn't have been here with him.


They were at the southern end of the park, among the grounds of the site of Regent's University London, a private and international learning institute. The buildings themselves were all shut up and the land around them fenced off yet Rose had brought his charges easily into this area that was supposed to be shut off: a whole section of the fence was down.

“Spread out! Spread out!” There was some light coming from inside one of the buildings where a classroom or office inside was bathed in artificial light so Rose could see the teenagers with him. He pushed one of them to the side with probably more force than was necessary so as to not keep them all bunched up because he suddenly got worried about them all being too close together. “Keep walking forwards, boys.” This time he was more friendly.

“I'm watching for snipers, Sir.” One of them gave this helpful comment.

“Good for you, young man.” Rose didn't have time to laugh but instead raised his hand-held radio. “Foxtrot, are you inside the fence yet?”

“We just came in behind you, Romeo.” The reply was fast and Rose could actually hear Fenton not just through the radio but somewhere behind him and off to the right a little bit.

“Excellent. Foxtrot, do you see the light up above?”

“I do, Romeo. Are you thinking of going inside and talking a look?”

“Yes, that is what I think we should do. Report when you find a door, an open one would be best, and we'll link up.”

“Roger, Romeo.”

There was a laugh from one of the teenagers and Rose spun towards him with the flash-light lighting up the youngster. It was Donaldson, one of those who wouldn't make it as a soldier.

“Yes?” Rose hoped that his tone showed that he wasn't ready for childish antics.

“If you're Romeo, Sir, shouldn't be he Juliet? It would make more sense.”

“Do you want to go and kiss Mister Fenton, Stevie?” Another one of the children had what they regarded as a witty remark to join Donaldson's: Rose thought that it might have been Sprigg rather than Myers.

“Shut up!” Far too loud, Rose shouted at them. They did what he wanted at once though he knew they were only mildly chastised. Those two needed a good clip around the ear, yet Rose wasn't able to give them such. It would work though, that he was sure.

He gave them orders instead: “Move towards the building ahead, quickly now. And keep your safeties on!”


One of Fenton's teenagers – Acott, the most-promising of the six who was from a Foot Guards unit and a month or two away from his eighteenth birthday – had found a fire exit door that was ajar and showed signs of being forced open. Rose had a look himself when he got there and confirmed that. There had been burglaries he had investigated when a Redcap and this looked like those forced entries which had been committed with a crowbar or something similar.

Fenton wanted to go into the building first with Acott behind him and Rose raised no objection. There was a stairwell just as thought on the other side with access down towards a basement and then upwards too. The two NCO's had discussed the chances of running into serious trouble and thought that whoever was upstairs weren't those responsible for the attack upon Winfield House for those perpetrators must have been professional and not those who would leave an overhead light on like whoever was above them to announce their presence. Nonetheless, they radioed-in where they where and what they were doing before Rose personally spoke to each one of the teenagers baring Acott who would be with him following the leading two men as he checked their weapons.

“Keep yourself and your rifle under control.” He said to one. “Don't lose your head if we run into anyone.” That remark to another. “Remember your training and stay calm.”

And so on until each of the five he would be taking up the stairs to what had to be the second floor had all had him in their face with the fear put into them about letting him down.

Then in they went with Fenton and his young protégé leading the way.


There was no need for gun-play when they reached the classroom where they found the four people making use of the light. These were not the Spetsnaz or anarchists who had attacked Winfield House where the official representative of Britain's closest ally lived. Instead these were just unarmed civilians who had broken in here.

While Fenton and Acott covered them with their rifles pointed at the clearly scared three men and lone woman, Rose joined the rest of the teenagers in searching these people and their belongings while he questioned them. Who were they? What were they doing here? What did they know about the fire on the other side of the park? Who else had they seen in the park grounds? He shot the questions at them asking one a question and then another a different enquiry.

The woman was a Northerner, the trio of men Londoners. They were homeless but not alcoholics or drug abusers they assured him despite the presence of empty cans of cider and drug paraphernalia. They smelt terrible too and Rose allowed himself a quick smile at the discomfort shown by the teenagers at touching these people and their possessions. He had to shout a warning to Donaldson who touched a hypodermic needle which was without a protective cap. Sprigg asked him (rhetorically, of course) if he wanted to get Hepatitis or even HIV.

“Myers, empty anything that remains in those cans out of the window but don't drop them too, just put them in the bin in the corner.”

Eager and always keen if misguided, Myers sprung into action doing just what he was told. There were only drops in each can though one of the homeless men seemed distraught watching this.

“Read,” he turned to one of the others, “get your gloves on and drop that needle, the spoon and that lighter into the bin too but take care.”

“I'm Connor, Sir.” Read was not Read and pointed to one of the other's who had come here with Fenton in what must have been an attempt to identify who was Read.

“Good for you, young man. Remembering your own name always shows initiative.” Only one of the homeless civilians seemed to find Rose's remark funny and sniggered so Rose carried on. “Do that with that rubbish and be careful doing so.”

“Yes, Sir… and it's Connor, Sir.”

Rose ignored the final remark and turned to those seated on the floor who were still covered by the rifles. “You have two choices and none other. I'm not in the mood to brook any argument.

Number One: wait here and be arrested when the police arrive.

Number Two: go now and don't come back.

Which is it to be?”

The woman spoke for them. “We'll be on our way.”

“Excellent choice, Ma'am: I think that you might be the brain trust of this little posse. Pick up your belongings – leave the bin alone – and down the stairs you go. If I was you, I'd get out of the park too because there are plenty of squaddies running around with guns and you might not meet such understanding armed chaps the next time.”

They were gone without a word and not long afterwards Rose and Fenton led the teenagers out too. It hadn't all been a waste of time coming in here. It had actually been good practise to get the youngsters a bit more serious about their role. They needed far more training in soldiering than he could give them but a start was a start. None had fired their gun unnecessarily and they had done what they were told. One had been stupid in almost touching that needle and another had chosen to run his mouth a little, but that was it.

Now it was back to the searching for people Rose hoped that he didn't run into. Enemy special forces troops or armed terrorists would make short work of these teenagers. Anyone in the park was likely to be homeless people taking advantage of the lack of usual police patrols or maybe low-level criminals on the run: there was plenty of crime going on in the city at the moment with the war on and a blackout in effect.

This was London at war for the third time this century.



February 5th 1990
RNAS Prestwick, Ayrshire, Great Britain

The importance of the assistance given by Britain's American allies to the air defence of the UK from threats coming in from the north was significant yet the task to repel those attacks mainly fell upon the RAF when it really came down to it. Those USAF F-15's flying now from RAF Machrihanish, the E-3's out of RAF Algergrove and the availability of extra airborne refuelling support after a squadron of KC-10A Extender tankers (which could refuel NATO aircraft as well as those flown by the USAF) had arrived at Manchester Airport were doing all that they could and doing well. The RAF had the greater numbers of aircraft and the in-place organisation to do this though with Air Commodore Cooke having the weigh of his mission on his shoulders of commanding the air defence tasks and also coordinating the efforts of that aid which the Americans were given. Thankfully the level of cooperation went back for decades with the Americans within and outside of NATO channels. Those Americans were under his operational command and he had spent last night using their help to smash Soviets efforts to devastate the defences of Britain and that was continuing tonight.


RNAS Prestwick – also known as HMS Gannet, a stone frigate – was chosen for its location as well as its command facilities. Cooke would have preferred to be in the more modern operations centre at RAF Bentley Priory or even PJHQ Northwood but they were too far away from where RAF Scotland was engaged in combat above land and over the water. Like RAF Pitreavie Castle the equipment here was very basic and there were plans for an upgrade to give Prestwick up-to-date computers and sophisticated radio gear but what was here would do for the task especially since there was other equipment used aboard airborne radar aircraft, the fixed radar sites and the mobile command stations active. Here at Prestwick there were also briefing areas and established multiple fixed communications links allowed command and control to be exercised even with enemy action against them. Prestwick did really need a series of deep-level bunkers unless the Soviets threw nuclear weapons at them or used precision bombs and so without those it would remain operational.

From the command centre here Cooke oversaw the direction of the air battles last night and was doing so again now. There were patrols and engagements going on now with more to come. It was the staff officers and NCO's in RAF uniforms – with a few from the RN and USAF as liaisons too – who did the actual work with him being in charge to keep his watchful eye on things. These men and women were using their peacetime training mainly yet also what they had learnt from the nearly two days of war now too.

Those under his command spoke of Backfire's, Badger's, Bear's and Blinder's as well as Kelt's, Kingfish's and Kitchen's: the NATO code-names for Soviet weapons of war.


It was the Backfire's first, those long-range missile-carrying bombers with swept-back wings. As on the first morning of the war and last night too, the Tupolev-22M's had made a long journey from their distant bases on the Kola Peninsula first around or maybe over the northernmost reaches of Norway before coming down the Norwegian Sea and crossing out into the North Atlantic between Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. To complete their approach they would have then headed directly south until they were about two hundred, maybe three hundred miles due west of Northern Ireland before coming towards Britain above what were historically known as the North-Western Approaches with targets across Scotland and the north-western coast of England. Those bombers would be laden with anti-radar versions of the Kh-22 cruise missile – the Kitchen – to again aim to knock out air defence radars. This time their attack was to be stopped, not stung on the approach and weathered once it commenced as before, but stopped.

American air assets in Iceland had reported the incoming raid using their electronic warfare assets first and then trying to maintain a track of the incoming bombers using the E-3 Sentry's they had there. A squadron of Backfire's was what the Americans reported and they sent some of the F-15's from there to intercept despite all of the jamming which the Soviets were using and their high-speed too. While the Americans scored a few kills in the chase against the Backfire's, it was down to the Royal Navy next with the destroyer HMS York again being on station out in the North-Western Approaches. She raced towards an intercept point to try to loft Sea Dart missiles at maximum range against the bombers to add to her kills made early in the war though tonight she just couldn't reach the right position in time. Moreover, the bombers were damn high too and would have been out of her engagement range even if she had been in-place in time.

Cooke's air defence staff were ready for the Backfire's. They couldn't be firmly tracked and kept breaking the radar lock of the Sentry from Iceland being left behind them but their general route of approach was plotted and their intentions firmly assessed as to do what they had done before only this time in greater number. One of the Sentry's out of RAF Aldergrove – with RAF personnel aboard – took over the task of trying to keep a track on the Backfire's and was able to send updates on their probable course, speed and altitude by following the pattern of jamming. During gaps in that interference – which came and went – the bombers were shown split into two groups before they reached what was considered to be where they would commence their missile run with one of nine aircraft and the other of eight. The smaller of those two groups turned earlier than expected, about fifty miles short, and came racing towards Britain at very high speed…

…and right into an ambush. There was a flight of Tornado F3's with 65 Squadron above The Mitch and the aircrews on those interceptors had been moving into place a little bit late. This fortunate occurrence for them and RAF Scotland didn't mean good news for the incoming Soviets as the Foxhunter radars were activated aboard the Tornado's. There was information being fed to the aircrews from the Sentry aircraft over NATO Link 16 datalinks but they would want their own guidance for missile control and also sought to gain a better fix upon their targets with the directional jamming coming from the Soviets being focused southwards, not to the east. Once acquired at the very edge of radar coverage, afterburners were lit and the Tornado's raced after the Backfire's.

The second group of bombers was heading towards F-15's operating far off-shore. The American pilots released their external fuel tanks – hoping that their later promised tanker support came – and lit their afterburners too. They were flying high up in thin air and were able to get the best out of their engines yet their fuel reserves would be soon gone with such speed that they flew at: they had their radars off unlike their British counterparts.

Other air defence tasks with patrols being up and also aircraft getting ready to lift off to try to go after whatever Backfire's managed to escape the ambush – so they couldn't come back in the early hours or again tomorrow night – but most attention at Prestwick was focused upon the joint efforts to get the bombers before they could launch their missiles. Cooke monitored the radar feeds hoping that his interceptors would get the Backfire's before the missile launches commenced. It was a stressful time even if quite short due to the closing speeds of the aircraft up in the distant skies.

The F-15's fired first. They launched Sparrow missiles at the very edge of their range with one missile from each fighter first to get the Soviet's attention, break up their ranks and hopefully get lucky. Most of their missiles would be expended at closer ranges yet they wanted to hit bombers before they could launch their cruise missiles. First one, then a second Backfire was hit and the F-15's got closer to a formation of bombers who weren't expecting to meet enemy fighters so far away from Britain in such an area over the water to the west. They weren't yet at their launch points and their Kitchen missiles weren't ready to go. The other seven bombers, soon cut down to six when a further Sparrow arrived blowing the tail of another Backfire, broke off their attack run. They dipped their noses and went to full speed while ejecting cruise missiles from beneath their wings to save on weight (the Kitchen was a big, heavy weapon) as they hoped to evade the fighters bearing in upon them with more missiles at the ready.

Cooke and his staff were alarmed when the radar pictures showed missiles coming away from the Backfire's which the Americans had engaged but within seconds it was clear that those were free-falling and not on courses which would take them tearing through the sky towards Britain. Attention shifted to the rest of the bombers with the Tornado's, bombers which would have their radar-warning equipment telling them that they were being lit up by intercept radars. Whether they would evade too and race back out over the sea to try to fight through and achieve missile launch was the question. Time ticked away and radar tracks merged on displays. The Backfire's stayed on course and so too did the Tornado's. It was quite something to watch even in such a detached manner as the drama was shown here far away.

Immediately once in range, the Tornado's did as the F-15's had done and each released one air-to-air missile first which flew off towards the enemy formation. Their radars went into target acquisition mode as further Skyflash shots were lined-up while the Sidewinder's were armed too just in case it came to needing them at short range. The Western Isles were behind the Tornado's now and they were a long way out over the open water down in the darkness far below. Unbelievably, the Soviet's didn't break off their attack. Whether it was orders being followed blindly or a belief that they could somehow avoid the first and then second wave of Skyflash's launched at them, they carried on regardless of the threat.

Four Skyflash's, two Sidewinder's and ammunition for the 27mm cannon were the armament carried tonight by those 65 Squadron Tornado's along with two drop tanks full of fuel. Only the Skyflash's, not the Sidewinder's or cannons, were used to engage and destroy all eight Backfire's. Proximity fuses from those missiles went off and blew away parts of wing's, fuselages and tails of the sleek bombers who only had ineffective jammers and tail guns to defend themselves from RAF interceptors which they couldn't see. Later on, the aircrew who had flown those Tornado's would be filling the radio channels with a little bit of unnecessary chatter repeating the phrase 'Eight-Nil home win for Lossiemouth', which would leave listening Americans – who had seen their fighters claim four kills in the end out of nine targets – not sure what was going on.


To get two thirds of those bombers was a stunning success. None had launched their anti-radar missiles before being killed and those which survived the attacks made against them meaning that those missiles landed in the sea and weren't going to be brought back towards Britain again mounted to another aircraft. Cooke allowed the air defence staff at Prestwick to give a little cheer before making sure they were all back at work again getting ready for what was coming next. He was expecting that even with the absolute failure of the planned massive and overwhelming attack against his radar sites there would be more missile-bombers. There would be distant Tu-95 Bear's attempting to fire more of those during the night from greater distance with lone aircraft firing one or two Kitchen's at once. There would be the Tu-16 Badger's operating in full or half squadron groups with KSR-2 Kelt and KSR-5 Kingfish land-attack cruise missiles carried too: big weapons again but with much shorter-range and needing to be launched by aircraft that got closer to British shores. Finally, Tu-22 Blinder's (a wholly different aircraft to the Backfire despite the Soviet designation) would be in the skies either on reconnaissance and electronic warfare missions or carrying out attacks in smaller numbers with more anti-radar configured Kitchen's or maybe massive conventional bombs too.

Cooke watched patrols shown on radar screens and listened to the communications between them and the Sentry aircraft as well as here. There were messages back-and-forth between fighter bases up and down Scotland where more aircraft were getting ready to go and then more distant stations where tankers were due to fly from as the business of fighting to night was underway.

He himself spoke to another one of Air Marshal Colquhoun's operational deputies concerning maritime activities ongoing. Air Commodore Mitchell was the Maritime Deputy whose responsibilities were more than just the Nimrod patrol aircraft and the Buccaneer strike aircraft, the latter which had yet to be put to use because there were no ships for them to attack. His conversation with his counterpart was in regard to the SAR efforts ongoing with helicopters from both the RAF and the RN as well as civilian models now in service: those who in peacetime supported the North Sea oil industry. Several of those helicopters were looking for the wreckage of a Nimrod which had gone down unexpectedly earlier today in an accident still and Cooke wanted to make sure than no pilot was foolish enough to go high when flying and get in the way of an air-to-air missile. Mitchell wanted to know Cooke's opinion on whether there should be an effort made to look for survivors of downed Soviet aircraft tonight like there had been last night. Cooke told him that at the moment such aircraft had been shot down far away with little chance of rescue for those aviators though should aircraft come down closer than they would try to help anyone they could… as long as it didn't interfere with rescuing British and American fliers. Adding to this, Mitchell mentioned that he had given approval for efforts to be made on land and sea should any enemy aircrew come down where they could be reached. There were vessels with HM Coastguard and civilian fishing vessels whose crews had volunteered to be out in the waters off Scotland; those aboard those ships were also supposed to radio-in any opportune sighting they made of aircraft too. Other pilots – enemy and friendly – may come down on land and to help rescue such people there was the RAF Mountain Rescue Teams in addition to more volunteers – many of these people had been involved in the aftermath of the terrorist action above Lockerbie just over a year ago. Cooke asked about Irish involvement in that and was told that there were aircraft, helicopters and ships from the Irish Republic – military and civilian – who were making a presence felt near to their western and northwestern shores looking for aviators and that his and Cooke's commander was talking unofficially to the higher levels of the Irish military too from Pitreavie Castle.


After that conversation had ended, there quickly came further action to be monitored. Another flight of Tornado interceptors, this time those with 25 Squadron flying from RAF Stornoway, were being sent after aircraft suddenly detected coming directly south towards their own base. Those Tornado's were up ahead and away to the east so conducted a flank attack at high speed against what turned out to be a force of seven Badger's. Three were hit by Skyflash's but the others suddenly switched on powerful jammers that caused massive interference to the radars of the Tornado's. That jamming effected the radar aboard a Shackleton aircraft too that was in the area and left Cooke wishing that he had more Sentry's; he assumed that the jamming might have been overcome by the more modern and powerful systems aboard the newer aircraft. Those Badger's which had managed to not get struck by Skyflash missiles launched their own and then started to turn back north. The Tornado's were directed to engage the cruise missiles rather than the quartet of fleeing bombers while Stornoway was alerted to what was first eight then seven inbound missiles (one was seen on radar screens falling helplessly towards the sea in a clear misfire of its rocket motor).

The inbounds were identified as Kingfish's with speeds in excess of Mach 3 once they got going and were carrying 2'200lb warheads. They were very difficult for the Tornado's to try to shoot down with Skyflash's and were all the time accelerating away from the interceptors. Remarkably, one was hit leaving six heading towards Stornoway where another pair of Tornado's on strip-alert were racing to get airborne and come at those remaining missiles head-on. The Kingfish's won the race though and hit Stornoway before any more could be shot down. Cooke at once listened to the first reports which came from there to Prestwick even though he knew they might be inaccurate being first reactions. There were at once worrying signs that a knock-out blow had been achieved there. Only a few above ground structures were hit and no aircraft there knocked out; one missile was reported to have hit the beach nearby while another apparently went out of control and slammed somewhere into the wild terrain of the Isle of Lewis. However, there were two hits on the runaways where the Kingfish's dove into the tarmac and blew up. It would take time to get a full summary of whether Stornoway was closed and Cooke was far from happy as well as impatient to find out the state of the flying situation there at his northernmost airbase.

He was further upset when he realised that it could have been avoided if the Faroe Islands had been defended better when attacked earlier today. They sat directly to the north and at Vágar there was that relief landing strip in-place following what had been called Operation HURRICANE to set things up there. Aviation fuel, Sidewinder's and key spare parts for partial repair of Tornado's which might have had to put down there had been only one part of HURRICANE; the other had been to get a mobile radar station there working and linked-in to the RAF Scotland command net. This had been achieved after a major effort undertaken in terms of the logistics of the operation so that the relief strip and the radar both went active early today… before a trio of Blinder's appeared at two o'clock in the afternoon and made dramatic toss-bombing attacks with giant bombs. Those bombs were FAB-9000 weapons – with a warhead size of 20'000lb no less! – sent spinning through the air with great skill shown by the aircrews of the Blinder's when flying at supersonic speed. The stand-off attacks made in this manner only worked if everything went perfect and the two bombs sent against Vágar failed to hit their target but the radar site was obliterated with a direct hit. Casualties were immense among those there and that was the end of the detachment providing radar warning. Cooke had no idea how that strike especially had been targeted to perfection; there had been no pre-strike detection of someone focusing upon the radar with electronic means but it must have occurred undetected, which was rather worrying indeed.


After the ambushes against the Backfire's and then the strike upon Stornoway, Cooke was ready for the rest of the night's action. He had all of his available assets in fighting position, including those of his American allies, and believed that despite set-backs he would defend Britain from air attack enough to limit damage and bleed the Soviets of their long-range air power. They had lost many aircraft already tonight but would need to lose many more before they decided that RAF Scotland was too strong to be overcome.

He anticipated a long night of this with the enemy intention, for now at least, focused upon military targets rather than civilian installations of those of a propaganda nature.

[James G]

Chapter Four – Frustration

February 6th 1990
Jonesborough, County Armagh, Ulster, Great Britain

Sergeant O'Brien marched over to the men standing around the body of Corporal Billy Gallagher. “What happened?”

They ignored her and kept on looking down at the body of their fellow soldier who lay on his back in the middle of the road. Part of the side of his head was crushed in a macabre manner. She thought that she could see his brains oozing out of his skull with all of the blood and the rain pushing out that muscle. It was a sickening sight but that didn't mean that she was to be ignored.

“What happened to Corporal Gallagher?”

“He was hit by one of the Saracen's, Missus O'Brien, and then run over by a second.”

“It's 'Sergeant', Private.”

Because of whom her husband was within 2 UDR it was always 'Missus O'Brien' rather than her rank, a rank she'd earned off her own merit too.

“Yes, Missus… Sergeant O'Brien.” It was Private Collins who she was speaking to, one of Billy's boys in 11 Platoon: his favourite band of merry men.

O'Brien had to do something about this because no one else was. “Get him off the road, will you?”

“Where to, Sergeant?” This time it was Private MacDonald, another one of those closest to the deceased Gallagher when with the UDR and also for 'off-duty activities' too. Like Collins and the other one here – O'Malley if she recalled the name of the third private correctly – MacDonald was in shock not just at what they were seeing but at the death of a man with such as Billy whose personality was that of an indestructible force.

“Lift him off the road onto the grass verge, please. All three of you do it, I'll help.”

“Shouldn't you… well… we shouldn't touch him, Sergeant. There'll have to be an investigation.”

“We're moving him!” She snapped at them with the best Sergeant-voice she could muster and grabbed hold of one of his arms. Collins copied her taking the other and, after a momentarily hesitation, MacDonald and O'Malley each took a leg. “Do it fast.”

They lifted him off the road and soon put him down on the soaking grass.

A trail of blood and more of his brains had been left behind them.

Men from the Saracen armoured personnel carriers were standing around nearby. The passengers were from A Company and the drivers with Battalion. They all did nothing but watch: no move was made to help.

“Why did he run out in the road in front of us?”

The question came from one of those other men and didn't elicit a response. O'Brien herself was just as eager to know though and turned to Collins: “Why was he in the road?”

“One of the terrorists run off, Sergeant, and Billy gave chase to get him back.

They both just got too far ahead of us and the next thing we know we know there's a screech of breaks and then we find Billy and then you get here and…”

Collins didn't finish: he had run out of steam.

“What happened with the other prisoners?” O'Brien hoped that someone was guarding them with several members of the rifle section in 11 Platoon which Billy and his close friends were assigned to clearly not being with them.

“We were shooting them when the third one run off and Billy went after him.” It was a matter-of-fact statement, one devoid of all emotion.

“WHAT!?”

As she stood in the downpour of rain she looked at the three of them with what she knew was her mouth open aghast at the answer that had come from MacDonald.

How had it come to this?


They had been here all night without any form of a break and certainly no sleep. 11 Platoon had come across up from Crossmaglen to Jonesborough to assist with C Company's operations here following a major outbreak of trouble. O'Brien had wished that D Company's commanding officer had chosen another platoon but Major Jackson had wanted them to make the trip fast across the countryside to assist at Jonesborough. The rain had started the moment they had arrived and hadn't stopped since then in what her platoon leader had called a 'biblical downpour': O'Brien hadn't contested such an assertion.

Jonesborough hadn't been 'pacified' like Crossmaglen had been. This village right next to the border with the Irish Republic was alive with continued enemy activity despite C Company being here for the past couple of days with an immensely strong presence and sweeping the area. They had been inside every house, every other building, through the fields and into the woodland which ran right along the Inner Irish Border. Everywhere and everyone had been searched for weapons and plenty of residents identified by the catch-all term 'troublemakers' already shipped off back to the 2 UDR holding site at Newtownhamilton; many of those civilians-cum-terrorists had gone to that secure site battered, bruised and bloodied.

Then gun-fire had erupted yesterday evening with C Company losing one man to that and having another injured. Petrol-bombs had been thrown afterwards and the targets of those had been fortunate to get away. Then a couple of mortar rounds had come sailing over the border line and crashed into the Company HQ's mobile site outside the village; those mortars must have been guided from someone on this side of the border though at the same time their launch from the other side where the Irish Defence Forces was meant to be out in strength was rather concerning. Civilians had spilled out of their houses afterwards with pistol shots coming and shotguns being used to fire in the general direction of the UDR men here. Those were all weapons which had avoided being found but were now being put to use when another C Company man was killed and a trio wounded by bullets. A tactical withdrawal had been made in response while 11 Platoon had been called-in to assist in taking back control of the village.

Such a thing had been easily done between midnight and one o'clock in the morning using force though not overwhelming so. Only four terrorists had been killed when taking back the village with a few minor wounds to the reinforced UDR presence which also saw multiple houses being set alight. Again only few weapons were retrieved with the conclusion made that those were in the hands of terrorists who had escaped out into the darkened countryside. O'Brien and everyone else had then waited until the very first streaks of light appeared on the distant horizon before going out into the fields and the woodland looking for those who had fled the village but were armed and dangerous.

O'Brien hadn't seen any of the enemy herself. Those 'terrorists' – another term like 'troublemakers' that she was having difficulty using as freely as everyone else was – knew this ground better than any of the UDR men and were only caught through luck and mistakes made. When caught they were hog-tied (effective but not pleasant) and bundled into trucks ready to go off to Newtownhamilton and all of them were male and therefore not needing to be physically searched by a female NCO or officer. Instead, she was in the village going up and down the streets and through gardens with her fellow soldiers in what the platoon leader had told her C Company's commander wanted in an effort to intimidate those in the houses here. She'd done what she was told, followed her orders, though not been happy at all to be part of this.

Then there had come the bombing in Newtownhamilton.

Her platoon leader came over to her and pulled her away from the others. She could see he was concerned and struggling with his emotions but unsure of how to start what he had to say. Impatiently and with growing frustration she had waited until he had composed himself before he finally got his words out. The battalion command column moving out of Newtownhamilton with A Company (the full-time soldiers with 2 UDR) had been struck by a roadside bomb on the edges of that village to the northwest of here. Many men were dead and others badly wounded as they left the holding site for prisoners and it appeared that Staff Sergeant Michael O'Brien was among the casualties: his actual fate unknown at the moment beyond what had come over the radio.

She was asked whether she wanted to take a break and go the Company HQ while waiting on more news; O'Brien told him no, she didn't. What she wanted to do was to carry on until something more concrete was known. Like many in 2 UDR did despite their rank, whether they were an officer or enlisted, all because of her husband, the young officer allowed her to do as she wanted for the time being. O'Brien didn't regard this as an act of kindness but rather weakness and only once she walked away she told herself that actually she would have wanted to be pulled out of the firing line and her platoon leader should have insisted.

What had been done had been done.

Not long afterwards there came the news that Billy Gallagher and his men had come across some of those terrorists and were engaging them. O'Brien got the word that the rest of 11 Platoon was to move on foot fast to where that fire-fight was happening to support their fellow soldiers. Word had meanwhile gone out throughout the ranks that her husband was among those killed or hurt at Newtownhamilton. No one said anything to her though she heard them talking about it and caught the looks in her direction. He had not long ago served here within 11 Platoon before taking a post at Battalion HQ and was active with the (legal) Ulster Defence Association as Billy and many others were.

Her husband was a popular man though in a different vein to his friend Billy.

Not long afterwards she came across Billy's body surrounded by his boys and was told about those captured and disarmed terrorists who had been shot.


Major Jackson came up from Crossmaglen and met with Major Kerr, the latter C Company's commander. O'Brien was not party to their conversation nor present when they spoke to those intimately involved in the deaths of the two prisoners and who witnessed Billy's death. She was waiting for them to speak to her though beforehand was with her parent formation's Company Sergeant Major (CSM) who had come across to Jonesborough with Major Kerr. She was informed that her husband was alive and well: the bombing in Newtownhamilton hadn't killed or injured him as first thought. She was given the opportunity to speak to him on the radio but told the CSM that when Michael arrived here – he was on his way to Jonesborough – she'd see him them.

While she waited near to where the officers and senior NCO's were discussing the course of events and how to react, O'Brien heard comments made by them and also others concerning Billy's death and those of the two prisoners who were shot too.

Opinions were voiced that those shot were not Prisoners of War by any recognised standard. They were terrorists and not in uniform while conducting armed attacks against the 2 UDR and with South Armagh under martial law their deaths were justified. A counter-argument made was that that martial law hadn't been officially declared and, regardless, they hadn't been given even the pretence of a fair trial. Someone else said that they might have been Irish nationals rather than citizens of Jonesborough or Northern Ireland: they were therefore international terrorists, foreign mercenaries at best, who deserved to be shot. Again, the counter came from another voice that no matter what they shouldn't have been killed when disarmed and certainly not by Corporal Gallagher acting without any form of higher authority.

Excuses were given for Billy's behaviour. He'd lost his father many long years ago to an IRA bomb and had heard the news – even if it turned out to be incorrect – that Staff Sergeant O'Brien had been killed: the O'Brien family had taken him in as a teenager. And again, as before, it was put to those who defended his actions that he shouldn't have shot those two captured men and attempted to chase the third with a view to killing him as well.

When talking of his own death, there were only a few remarks made. Yes, it was agreed that it was a tragedy and avoidable. The drivers of the two Saracen's who had run him over one after the other had been apologetic but said he had run carelessly straight out into the road. The second driver had said he had tried to bring his six-wheeled vehicle to a halt after the first impact of Billy against the vehicle ahead but had skidded on the wet road. It was all regrettable and an accident with no one to blame.

O'Brien noted that no one asked about that third prisoner, the one who got away. She was waiting for the conversation to turn to that when there was some commotion.

Her husband had showed up and she went to see him.



February 6th 1990
The Port of Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

All through yesterday and much of the night just gone the MS Norsea had been riding at anchor waiting to be unloaded of the vehicles, stores and equipment aboard. The fighting men had all come off the ship not long after arrival and a caretaker crew was left aboard to keep the car-ferry manned but otherwise she had been sitting there as a big fat target for enemy action in the form of an air or missile attack. Like his fellow British officers present who had their military hardware aboard, Major Slater had been furious at the delay to get that ship unloaded. His men had been taken off using lighters and they were all dispersed away from here but the ship painted white and blue had just sat there. There was chaos elsewhere throughout the port with war damage and civil disturbances and other ships had been given higher priority with unloading: that was what he had been told was the reason for the delay in not getting what was aboard off. Such a delay hadn't kept just the Yorkshire Squadron waiting nor the rest of the Regiment but the whole of the 15th Brigade from moving too because the smaller MS Norland – with more vehicles and other cargo – had been waiting too. He had wanted to know why the two ships couldn't do as the MS Norstar had done and unload further downstream at the Europoort terminal around the Hook of Holland. No, instead the two ships had been brought upstream closer to the city and left sitting there waiting to be blasted apart by enemy action.

He was utterly amazed that that hadn't occurred.

Unloading had started at three o'clock in the morning – in the pitch-black darkness – with Slater aware that he was had contradicted himself as he had demanded a delay to that process. He thought that it should have been done in daylight to limit the risk of accidents occurring but his concerns mean nothing to those senior to him wearing British and Dutch military uniforms. They wanted to get the ships unloaded and out of Rotterdam for the morning tide and also to avoid the attentions of those people who weren't allowed to get onto the car-ferries when they sailed back to Britain. Those who were allowed aboard were British nationals who had gathered here in Rotterdam from not just across the Netherlands but from further afield too. They were ex-pats, tourists and those working in Western Europe who were citizens of the UK and all stranded on the edges of the active warzone which was Continental Europe. Military families had long since departed – through the French ports on the English Channel he had been told – but civilians had been instructed to come to Rotterdam where they would be shipped home and out of danger… relatively anyway. Such people had been waiting for days and told one thing then another. There were men and women and children here who all wanted to go home.

Unfortunately, word had spread further than British nationals. Other civilians had found out through various means that ships from Rotterdam were taking people across the North Sea to Britain and they were determined to get aboard those vessels. They came from across Western Europe too and descended upon the Port of Rotterdam eager to get aboard the ships. They weren't allowed to do so though: the rules said that only Britons were going back across the North Sea.

Earlier disturbances, before the Norsea and the Norland docked and started to unload, was replaced with absolute chaos once that unloading process got underway. The civilians with permission to board were being loaded at the same time as what was coming off was being driven or towed out of the ships in an effort to speed up the process of turning the ships around to meet that favourable tide. Those who weren't supposed to go aboard tried to join them. Horrible scenes of human drama unfolded in response to this. There were foreigners who were aided by Britons and others who attached themselves to other Britons who looked the other way or who didn't realise. Other civilians tried to push past barricades or steal the paperwork of those already granted permission – this wouldn't matter as every single person boarding was being spoken to. There were a few people who tried to avoid the crowds and get aboard the two ships through other means including climbing a crane with the intention of jumping down onto the deck of the Norsea and leaping into the water between the dock and the Norland with a view to somehow getting aboard that way: both damn stupid ideas which almost cost each idiot his life.

Yet those people were all desperate to get away.

What Slater was surprised about was the behaviour of those in-charge here. With everything that was going on, almost everyone in uniform kept their heads. They were like him worried that any minute enemy action would see death and destruction occur yet kept on doing their jobs. Slower than hoped the vehicles and everything else came out of the two ships: Bedford troop transport trucks, Fox armoured cars, Spartan tracked armoured personnel carriers, Land Rover's for scouting and liaison work, armoured vehicles fulfilling many support roles from command to communications to medical aid (the Samaritan armoured ambulances), and then all of those trucks and trailers too laden with cargoes for support of the 15th Brigade. As to those wishing to board the car-ferries, there was no shooting despite some close calls and who was meant to go aboard was and everyone else refused entry to the ships. It just took longer than usual and so the Norsea and the Norland were still here beside the dock and not going out to sea because they had missed the tide.

Slater had been told that some bigger tugboats than where already here were coming to try to get the car-ferries out rather than have them wait here all day with their human cargoes. There was too the issue with them meant to return to Britain again – Hull maybe though he wasn't sure – to unload those civilians and take on military vehicles for a third, delayed crossing to the Netherlands laden with such much needed wares.

The vehicle convoys were all now underway and off to link-up with where all of the fighting men such as those under his command were waiting. His friend and deputy Wood was with the Yorkshire Squadron at a place called Poortugaal where Slater himself had yet to visit but he was intending to go there soon. Before he could leave the Port of Rotterdam though he had to deal with the man wearing the uniform of the Yorkshire Squadron brought to him by a Dutch Navy military police team.

They had detained Corporal Gareth Lambert on suspicion of trying to desert and get aboard the Norsea among those British civilians.


One of best storesmen Slater had ever worked with, Sergeant Adkins spoke for the man as he was one of his. Lambert had a pregnant girlfriend – the term fiancé wasn't employed – back home in Wakefield and the corporal had been concerned ever since they were mobilised about leaving her. He had tried to do his duty but emotion had overcome him and driven him to try to get back to her. There had been no malice in his attempt to get on the Norsea as he hadn't hurt anyone nor stolen any documentation; there was no evidence of fore-planning either. He'd just acted without thinking and was very sorry too.

All in all, Adkins had given a good account of a defence for Lambert's actions… though Slater knew how the sergeant would want to protect one of his own men when in as much serious trouble as Lambert was. He had tried to desert though and leave his comrades-in-arms during wartime: that was what it came down to.

Slater thought of Natalie. She would be in Pickering now, that village at the edges of the North Yorkshire Moors were her parents had retired to. The boys would be with her as there was no school for them at the moment with the war on. Maybe their grandfather, that wily old chap, would have them near the ruins of the medieval castle there playing soldiers. He was a former soldier himself: he'd done his twenty-two years with the Green Howards and was a stubborn but fair man whom Slater got on with well-enough when it suited them both. That was where his family was. They were safe back home and (hopefully) nowhere near a target in a nuclear war and possibly safe from any initial fallout should the war go that way.

This soldier before him had wanted to get back to the family he was making.

He couldn't be allowed to get away with it though. To act as he did was a crime of the most severe nature. He had tried to flee when questioned by those Dutchmen after running away from all of those he served with within the Yorkshire Squadron. They had families too and fears for them back home but he stayed at their posts. The Yorkshire Squadron was part of the TA too and Lambert was a volunteer as they all were. Yes, mobilisation had meant that he had to come across the North Sea but no one had forced him to sign-up for the TA in any form of enforced conscription. All throughout his time with the Yorkshire Squadron they had trained to go off to war and during that time he could have left if he didn't feel that he would be able to do so for real.

These were the cold hard facts of the situation and what Slater had to base his actions on reaction to what Lambert had done upon, not with what Adkins had to say in his defence.

Slater was surprised that the Dutch hadn't at once handed Lambert over to the detachment of the Royal Navy Police here at Rotterdam. Those were reservists who had come over here to assist with maintenance of order with the British military units moving through here and Slater respected their capabilities after seeing how ably they had assisted the RFA personnel when it came to securing the unloading of the Norsea and the Norland. There must have been more to the story with how Lambert was caught and possibly Adkins or someone else had got to the Dutch first. Either way, Lambert would be handed over to them now. He had no wish to have the man held by his tiny and over-worked TA Redcap detachment plus the drama which he could foresee coming as the corporal was dragged halfway across the Netherlands with them if they were unable to find anyone suitable to hand him over to for some time.

He wanted rid of the man and to get off to the war which Lambert had been running away from.



February 6th 1990
Near Harenberg, Lower Saxony, West Germany

The roar of the aircraft engines low above them stopped those eating breakfast dead in their tracks. Conversations came to a halt as the poles holding up the camouflage netting above them shook and a sudden rush of warm air was all around. There was panic for a moment among the men of the 1 GREN GDS as the fear that they were under air attack when they were supposed to be protected came upon them.

Guardsman Taylor moved to grab his rifle like many of those around him were doing because it seemed the only thing to do. It should have been beside him yet his grip couldn't find it.

Sergeant Adams had us leave them all together inside the back of the Warrior.

Bombs didn't fall upon them. There was no air attack against their section, their platoon, their company or their battalion. The Grenadier Guards, sitting in reserve and far away from danger, wasn't under direct attack. Instead enemy air action in defiance of the much-trumpeted NATO air dominance was targeted nearby.

The artificial coverage only shielded them from observation from above with the sides being open. Therefore Taylor and everyone else was able to watch as the devastation unfounded below and ahead of them where the main road was and the railway lines too. He stood still witnessing this as explosions begun along those transport links from where all of yesterday, through the night and this morning too vehicles and trains had been making use of those connections between Hannover to the east and elsewhere away to the west. There were the flashes of those blasts, then the noise before all of the smoke. He didn't see the aircraft themselves and didn't know if anyone was engaging them. Instead, all that there was was the hell incarnate which they unleashed.

Further explosions came afterwards. Sergeant Adams was calling out something though Taylor was more interested in what he was seeing and hearing. Smaller blasts occurred where that road was – Bundesstrasse-441, he'd been told last night – as what he assumed were explosions of fuel within vehicles or maybe even fuel trucks themselves. That road there had been very busy with traffic flowing both to and from the frontlines in the distance in what he knew would be the use of a major logistics artery by supply columns. There had been freight trains too, especially during the night with the rumble caused by their presence and what must have been the weight of their cargoes.

All of that smoke and the growing fires too blocked his view at the moment so he couldn't gauge how much destruction had occurred and whether those road and rail links were cut but it could easily have been the case. Taylor had never seen such a strong air attack before and he was aware that being this close maybe made it seem worse than it was. Regardless, it did appear to have been effective if the objective was to cause mass destruction to military convoys making use of the transport artery below and the civilian refugees also moving through.


“Taylor! Yes, you!”

Sergeant Adams now had his attention as Taylor turned towards him.

“Get back over here and get your gear into the back of the Warrior!”

Everyone else in the section was doing that already and he had without realising left his gear and them behind while walking forwards down the slope through the field a little.

“Yes, Sergeant.” Taylor responded to the NCO with a firm tone in his voice like he was back on the parade ground. The platoon sergeant wasn't someone who could abide by the retiring type, those quiet or unsure of themselves, in his platoon and not in his beloved Grenadier Guards either.

Taylor walked back up to where everyone else was, surprising himself as it was more than twenty paces. He had got that far away from them just watching the air attack. He noticed two things as he covered that short distance.

All of a sudden the morning had got a hell of a lot warmer. The fires below which he wanted to look back upon – but wouldn't dare to with Sergeant Adams staring right at him – would have done that yet such a change in air temperature had come mighty quick.

Maybe the wind was blowing this way?

Secondly, Guardsman Bates and Guardsman Sipple, who were standing together to the left of where Sergeant Adams was, were talking about him in hushed undertones. He didn't have to hear them nor have someone tell him that they were. He knew from past experience that the two of them would be. What they were saying would be something which they wouldn't want their sergeant to hear though would be glad if everyone else did.

What would it be this time?

Maybe… 'Go back to Brixton, you black bastard' or something along the lines of 'where's your tree, monkey?'. And along such lines as those. Neither of the two of them who made their racism as clear as day would be any more imaginative than that; such would come from others and not with whom he spent the majority of his time with.

They stopped talking when he reached them, the others in his section and Sergeant Adams. Their platoon sergeant would have said something if he'd heard them though no one else would have: Flowers, Mewse, Robinson and Watts would have all pretended that they hadn't heard.

Ignorance must be bliss!


When they were all inside the Warrior and the rear hatch was shut Sipple had a question for Sergeant Adams.

“Sergeant, what are we doing? Are we going down to help?”

“Don't be an idiot.”

'Idiot' was the nearest the NCO had come to swearing all morning. It betrayed the mood he was in, one which Taylor knew well. Like most of them – idiots such as Sipple, and Bates too, excluded – he was just as frustrated as everyone else was. Since the war had begun two days ago now they had been moving from one place to another, like they had been before conflict erupted as well, and staying far away from the fighting that was taking place away to the east. They had all been told that the 1 GREN GDS was to stay far in the rear waiting in reserve with the rest of the 4th Armoured Brigade as a counterattack force therefore keeping them at full-strength. If – when – an enemy breakout came they were to rush to meet it and bring that to a stop and surprise the enemy who wouldn't expect their appearance.

Until then they were to wait.

Such was the cause of the frustration Taylor felt and was sure that everyone else did too. All that they were told was sweeping statements about how the war was being won and the enemy defeated in the air and checked on land: nothing more. More was what they all wanted though. They were out in the field and cut off from everyone else and being told nothing more than that. Everyone, Taylor included, wanted to be given further information. Of what exactly wasn't the point, just more needed to be said to them as they were left with their own ideas.

Ideas such as fear.

Taylor was frightened. He hadn't told anyone that and wasn't likely to either. It wasn't a case of feeding the fire with Bates and Sipple to give them any ammunition – they had long ago created their own friendly fire to direct his way – but more than that. This was the Grenadier Guards, the elite Foot Guards unit of the British Army. No one here was meant to be scared and fearful of fighting when it came to that as it was what they were trained for. Everyone was though including Sergeant Adams. Bates and Sipple would be, those so-called big tough guys who gave it all the talk but were jelly underneath. The others here in the back of this vehicle were just as frightened too.

He reckoned that once they got to the fighting, it wouldn't be too bad. They might or might not be fighting on a chemical battlefield but either way they'd go into the fight protected against gases. The weapons they carried and the support from this and other Warrior's, in addition to tanks too when battle-groups were formed up, would allow them to give the other side a real fight. The whole of the 1 GREN GDS had practised again and again for this despite everyone always saying that it wouldn't ever happen for real. It was just this waiting for it and not knowing when that it would occur that had everyone on edge.


“Are we moving Sergeant?” After a few moments of silence, it was Bates who spoke next. Bates: the guy from somewhere called Nuneaton, the 'best place on earth, the whitest place in England'.

“I'm waiting for the word to come, Guardsman.” The stress he was under, the same as theirs, was evident in his voice.

“Shouldn't we have taken the nets and poles down?”

“The vehicle crew would have done that.” Sergeant Adams had been over this the last time, when they were somewhere else, and Taylor knew that he wouldn't want to repeat himself like he was.

Bates must have got the hint because he said nothing in reply. Instead, his gaze fell upon Taylor where it was met.

Taylor locked eyes with the man. This was his comrade-in-arms, his fellow Guardsman. This man was meant to be here doing what he was in fighting for (well, waiting to anyway) his country. They were meant to be in this together. All there was though was hatred. Bates probably wouldn't want him dead but he didn't want him here. This man was the ring-leader of all of the trouble which had occurred before. When Taylor had broken Sipple's nose in a good old-fashioned scrap before Christmas, that had been Bates who had led the fellow Guardsman he called his friend but who instead was his puppy into that hiding Taylor had given him.

It would have been better to have smashed his face.

Throughout his life Taylor had been told that violence solved nothing. He worked hard in school, stayed out of trouble where he grew up in South London – not Brixton but Camberwell – and joined the army to be all he could be. He had been the best recruit during training and earned all that he had achieved in not just getting into the Infantry but being with a Foot Guards regiment too. His life wasn't been about his mother being born in Grenada nor the colour of his skin but the man he was and who he could further himself to be too. That all came through hard work and not breaking anyone's nose.

It had still felt good to hit Sipple though.


There was the rumble of an explosion somewhere outside, somewhere far off. Taylor took his eyes off Bates and looked at Sergeant Adams. The NCO was working the radio now trying to contact the platoon lieutenant to find out what was going on. He was waiting for a connection to be made.

Like the rest of them he waited and waited only adding to the strain that Taylor knew his platoon sergeant would be feeling and trying but failing to hide such frustration and fear from everyone else.



February 6th 1990
Above West Germany

The air attack against the command post inside the town of Celle was conducted with perfection.

Flight Lieutenant Fletcher brought his aircraft closer to the ground during the final moments of approach following a high-level flight most of the way here and into the exact position where his navigator Sullivan wanted the Tornado to be. No anti-aircraft guns opened fire upon them, there were no SAM launches and enemy radars were inactive here as while Celle was a small part of occupied enemy territory inside West Germany the surrounding area was friendly. Fletcher was ready to evade any opposition from a surprise missile launch but there was no need for that as the electronic systems didn't detect any sign of an attack nor was there a warning from Sullivan over the radio link up with those on the ground.

The combat computer released the bombs at the most opportune moment. Wind, humidity and the target itself were all factored into this with the need being for precision and to get full weapons effects from the pair of bombs. The lights came on giving notice of impending release and then they flashed once the bombs were dropped. There was nothing more to it all than an immediate lift being given now that 1000lb of ordnance was gone and Fletcher now sought to correct the disturbance in the flight path coming from that while sharply gaining altitude again and also turning away to the west.

Behind his aircraft the two Paveway bombs, each weighing 500lb, fell towards the ground in an attack no one there would have had any warning of.

There was a special forces team who would guide the bombs in, Fletcher had been told. Sullivan had been in contact with them using the briefest of communication and the mission summary like that communication gave no hint as to their identity or where exactly they were located. They would have two designators pinpointing with laser beams invisible to the naked eye where the bombs were to fall though and that was enough.

That was behind he and Sullivan now as they took their Tornado back home to refuel, rearm and get new mission orders. They might later attend a debriefing on the success – or even lack of success – with their attack though that wasn't guaranteed with the way that the air war was going at the minute. Fletcher was sure that nothing had gone wrong and that the targeted enemy command post, located inside the basement of a solidly-constructed building inside Celle, was now buried beneath the rubble of that structure with those present out of action.

With such a mission as this being conducted by him, his navigator and his aircraft, Fletcher had questioned what it was all about before they had left RAF Brüggen. The operations staff with the Goldstars were hard-pressed for time and had actually tried to dodge the issue claiming they had other pressing matters to attend to, yet Fletcher had managed to corner a young Pilot Officer attached to Operations. The air attack was desired by the West Germans who were going to make a move against the airmobile force – of a battalion-size, maybe larger – which had taken control of that town on the first morning of the war and especially the crossing sites over the Aller River. Those elite enemy invading troops were dug-in there right in the rear areas of the West German I Corps and making plenty of trouble launching small attacks outwards. Previous attempts to hit them with artillery had failed and there was soon to be a big attack made using armoured ground forces to retake control of Celle but before then they wanted the command post taken out after identifying it. One of the senior people up in the 2 ATAF chain-of-command, a Luftwaffe officer, had then issued the order for an attack with laser-guided bombs to ensure accuracy and surprise with such an order being approved elsewhere within the chain-of-command before it was passed down to 31 Squadron.

Recalling that information again now, Fletcher was furious at such a thing. Those two bombs he had just dropped could have been guided against a bridge over the Elbe just across the IGB or even a command bunker of the invading Soviet Army established for regimental-, divisional- or even field army-level rather than that of a cut-off and surrounded enemy battalion contained within the rear. He had just risked the lives of him and Sullivan plus the valuable aircraft too for what he considered to be a futile waste. This had happened before too, making the frustration he felt at this attack greater. He kept control of the Tornado and spoke briefly with the air battle controller aboard an AWACS aircraft though his attention was still elsewhere even when it should have been on staying in the safe travel line drawn with imaginary lines in the sky. Those enemy airheads taken by paratroopers and airmobile forces across the NATO rear were having far too much attention paid towards them. There were other locations such as Celle that he had been told about where small invading forces had seized somewhere of some questionable strategic value and having attacks on the ground and from the air directed against them with great frequency. He was willing to admit that he wasn't in full knowledge of the wider geo-political situation where politicians were making decisions but the attack he had just made against Celle had been a waste as far as he was concerned. If he had been sent against what he was told were far bigger enemy-held airheads north of Bremerhaven and down around Hann. Munden – on both flanks of the NORTHAG area – then he would have seen the military value, but Celle was just a distraction put there by the enemy.

He could see that, why couldn't those above him?


Once back over the Weser and heading for Brüggen, Fletcher was transferred from the control of 'Nebraska One–Six' to 'Maryland Two–Three'. The two American AWACS aircraft were directing airborne traffic over different regions of West Germany with the former being more involved in combat missions of an offensive nature and the latter directing defensive tasks. Both E-3B Sentry's could multi-task with their experienced airborne controllers doing both (simultaneously too) yet Maryland Two–Three guided him into a new safe travel lane where friendly SAM's on the ground had very tight rules-of-engagement against opening fire upon an aircraft even unidentified unless it could be positively identified as hostile.

He found himself taking a more southerly routing once had had gone past the Ruhr to the southeast of the Dortmund area and wondered what was going on. Soon enough came the answer.

Brüggen was closed to inbound air traffic at the minute and so Fletcher was being directed elsewhere. He cut in before given his destination – breaking radio etiquette because he was still distracted by his anger of the waste of resources against Celle – and asked if they were going to RAF Wildenrath. That fighter base was very nearby to Brüggen. Negative, the response came from the patient fighter controller, Geilenkirchen Airbase was the destination. Local weather conditions were given to him while over the data-link was sent an approach that would bring Fletcher over the Netherlands (Geilenkirchen was right up against the West German–Dutch border) first before touching down. He was also given the frequency channel of Air Operations there over the data-link with a request that he confirm that he had that.

It was the Rhine next to go over, between Düsseldorf and Cologne and then the edges of the Eifel Mountains off to the south were passed by as Fletcher made the last leg of his flight while coming closer to Geilenkirchen. He made contact with ground control and looped around the airbase to the north before going further down to come in over the extreme reaches of the Netherlands.

He had been to Geilenkirchen before though not since the war started. Those were familiarisation flights made by all aircrews with the Goldstars so they could get a feel for airfields operated by NATO partners in the Rhineland and the adjacent regions. This airbase was on West German soil though was a true NATO facility unlike his home-base at Brüggen were almost all of the presence was of the RAF or Eindhoven Airbase in the Netherlands for example were the Dutch Air Force operated almost exclusively. This was where the fleet of Sentry's operated together by mixed NATO aircrews – and wearing the colours of the Luxembourgish Air Force – called home; those big converted Boeing-707's were elsewhere now further from the frontlines and Fletcher had been told that the Luftwaffe and the USAF too were making use of Geilenkirchen with tactical strike aircraft.

As he took a few glances away from his flight instruments, he saw why that had been the case. Those big aircraft would have been at grave risk on the ground here. Some were in Scandinavia, he'd been told, and others in Southern Europe. Those which remained over the skies of Western Europe were fewer in number than they should have been due to enemy action – the details of which he knew nothing about just that more than a couple had been downed – were not flying from this airbase where there were impact craters from short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM's). Fletcher couldn't count all of those there on the ground unless he wanted to make a smaller impact with him and Sullivan at the centre of one but there had to be at least a dozen. Most wouldn't have hit anything significant and there would be other impact craters outside the airbase on both West German and Dutch soil too. Should the big Sentry's have been here they would have been damaged or destroyed though, he was sure of that. Those fighter-sized aircraft which now called Geilenkirchen home, whom he was bringing his Tornado to join though only on a temporary basis until whatever was occurring at Brüggen was solved, were protected in improvised – and small – shelters invisible to him from above and moving fast: the Sentry's wouldn't have been able to hide so well.

The impact craters would have come from Scud's.

Fletcher suspected that versions of the SRBM designated as such by NATO had closed Brüggen at the minute and maybe Wildenrath therefore bringing him here. Those missiles were fired from launch sites of a mobile nature far away to the east and arched above the atmosphere before raining down on military targets on this side of West Germany with what was a random frequency and pattern apart from to those who were giving the order for their launch. Many missed and hit unpopulated areas though others came down by error where there were civilians. The actual damage caused by the warheads within those Scud's was surprisingly little. Sometimes luck could come and a success scored but it was the shrapnel or the nerve gases which were dispersed from their impacts which was of most effect. In addition, there was a propaganda effect that the Soviets were after with their Scud's as they used them to caused fear and alarm: Fletcher had seen plenty of both when those missiles came.

He had been told that the Americans further south with 4 ATAF were making use of their long-range Patriot SAM systems to engage some of those Scud's directed against them. He knew no more than that yet suspected if the technology was proving to be effective there would be more mention of it in intelligence summaries given and maybe those systems might have shown up further north. What he did know was effective when it came to stopping such SRBM attacks was to bomb those launchers before the missiles could be fired or even resupply vehicles. The RAF nor any other NATO combat organisation operated anything like what the Americans had with the Patriot's and so going after those launchers and the missiles on the ground was how they were being dealt with – with admittedly not much success by 2 ATAF.

Fletcher stopped thinking about all of that and now brought his aircraft into land. The smallest of mistakes would kill him and his navigator and this wasn't a time to have his mind elsewhere! His business was flying and bombing leaving the big decisions to those who had no time for his opinions on the matters at hand.

There would be time later to consider about getting back to Brüggen and what would be the missions undertaken later today or maybe tonight against tactical targets. Since the decision had been made yesterday to have only UK-based NATO long-range strike aircraft – other RAF Tornado's joined by many American F-111's – conduct semi-strategic missions it would be back over occupied parts of West Germany for Fletcher and Sullivan later or just across the IGB, not deep in the rear areas.

That was later though, not now. He lowered his landing gear on cue from the ground control and ever-so-carefully brought his Tornado in to land at Geilenkirchen.

[James G]

February 6th 1990
Erskine Barracks, Near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Great Britain

A motorcycle courier, accompanied by two further men on high-powered bikes and serving with the Military Provost Staff Corps who were well-armed, had come from the MOD Main Building on Whitehall down to Erskine Barracks this afternoon to deliver a series of documents to Lieutenant-General Maguire. Those riders had crossed Southern England at high speed and gone through multiple fixed roadblocks as well as been cleared by roving patrols during their journey too. It had been an easy ride for them though with the main roads and motorways being cleared of all non-essential traffic and their bikes allowing them to go around slow-moving military convoys likewise making use of open transport links. When they delivered the secure case containing those documents, one of Maguire's aides gave those serving soldiers permission to take a short break here before heading back to London.

Maguire didn't see those visitors himself though made sure that his aide passed his praise on to the trio for the speed with which they had got here. He then set down to go over the contents of what The Chief had had typed up at the MOD and then sent down to him in such a secured fashion.


The first of those documents was a summary of certain aspects of the meeting which The Chief had been to this morning alongside other senior British Armed Forces men to talk with politicians, civil servants and top-level figures from the UK Intelligence Community. The official minutes were still being worked upon, though these were notes made by one of his aides during that meeting beneath Downing Street where the War Cabinet remained. What had been addressed during that meeting had been several key issues with relation to how the war was going not just on the battlefields of West Germany and where British Army soldiers were fighting there but wider war issues too. Maguire read though plenty of details of the conduct of the war which he already knew though there were other matters that he hadn't been aware of too that as second-in-command of the UK Field Army his superior wanted him to be kept up to date on.

One of the key concerns expressed at that meeting when it came to the war was the tremendous expenditure of munitions that had taken place in less than three days of conventional conflict. The British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force had been deploying all the weapons that they had at-hand to combat Soviet-led attacks against NATO. Bullets, artillery shells, bombs, missiles and torpedoes were fired and launched against enemy forces when engaged every second of the day. The stockpiles on the UK mainland and on the Continent too had been emptied before war came as distribution to combat units and dispersal to guard against destruction had taken place: those were now starting to run at low levels and couldn't be replaced overnight. There were issues with manufacture in Britain and elsewhere in addition to assistance from the stockpiles of allies which had been talked about but it wasn't a simple matter to bring those levels back up. The constant series of engagements with opposing forces meant that this had to continue without interruption and it was a great challenge to keep British military forces with ammunition as all pre-war predictions – undertaken by expensive studies – had been shown to have been short-sighted at best, criminally inadequate at worst.

How the war was progressing where the British Armed Forces were directly involved was covered too with short briefings being given to that meeting about the combat which the British I Corps was facing on the North German Plain first followed by the Para's who had seen fighting in northern Norway. What the RAF had been doing with the air war over the Continent and in defence of UK skies was addressed and then there was the action with the RN had seen too. Losses were discussed in terms of equipment but also men with a note in that summary which The Chief had sent Maguire concerning the reactions from the politicians when it came to deaths and injuries. On top of this were mention made about selected elements of the war being fought with a focus being paid upon how the West German Army's I Corps was taking a battering on Lüneburg Heath; they were fighting right next to the British I Corps and if forced back (or even broken) then that would expose the flank of the ever-so successful efforts to combat the invasion across the IGB made there. The situation in Norway with the Soviets having so many of their assault troops in key locations and combat being given to drive them out had been discussed. Moreover, Maguire read about how that meeting was informed as to the initially-alarming situation in the Baltic Approaches now calming somewhat; one of those meeting attendees had spoken about a Canadian general taking command of the mixed NATO land component there following the assassination of the previous West German commander.

The final part of this first document addressed how British Army forces on the Continent were still in a state of flux away from those directly engaged. Those reinforcements which had arrived before and after war broke out which weren't first assigned to the I Corps had yet to see combat. Airmobile anti-tank forces with the 24th Brigade had linked up with the Belgian Para-Commando Regiment to wait upon an enemy breakthrough and smash into it's flanks. The rest of the 2nd Infantry Division and what was becoming the new 5th Infantry Division were still being brought into place and up to strength before being readied for a role as part of NORTHAG reserves. Maguire knew about the problems already there getting those troops and especially their support units ready; this was an ongoing issue and down to enemy long-range attacks far forward into West Germany and into the Low Countries.


Moving to the second document delivered to him, which again focused upon what had been said this morning with the War Cabinet, Maguire read about wider aspects of the war. There had been talk about the rest of NATO was holding up not just on the battlefield but politically too. All signatories to the alliance were fighting despite some fears before the shooting started especially concerning the Greeks and the Turks with their 'differences' – to put it mildly. Other nations in Southern Europe where there had always been other concerns over were too involved in combating the war of aggression launched with the Italians fully involved in previously-neutral Austria and the Spanish moving forces there alongside French assistance already given to Italy.

Maguire was interested in the situation with the Greeks due to other events he had been dealing with overnight and saw that that particular matter had been discussed in London. There were US Marines fighting with the Turkish Armed Forces against Soviet airmobile and amphibious forces who had struck in the Turkish Straits region but the Greeks had been calling for NATO assistance as well. The NAC in Belgium had agreed to send a mixed NATO force to aid the Greeks in repelling a Bulgarian invasion of their country which was to include Portuguese paratroopers and marines as well as French amphibious armoured forces; there was also to be a small British contingent added. The Chief had told those in London that he remained opposed to what was no more than a gesture with the assigned force being too small and cut off from the UK logistics network but to no avail: the politicians wanted to send some help to the Greeks alongside other NATO nations. The movement of the battalion-group of light infantry had been what Maguire had been involved in where men from the garrisons in Gibraltar and Cyprus were detached from those and sent to the help their NATO allies. Those from Gibraltar – a rifle company and the fire support company from the third battalion of the Royal Green Jackets – were on their way already by air to link up with two companies of Foot Guards out of the British sovereign bases in Cyprus (those from the second battalion of the Coldstream Guards) already on the ground near Salonica.

Maguire had fears about a repeat, admittedly a smaller one, of 1941 occurring there and his frustration at such a waste of resources and the possibility of the loss of lives for no gain was present whenever he thought about that issue.

Where the ongoing situation in Korea had been discussed with less length, Maguire was pleased to see that there remained no talk of a British military commitment there. Most of the Gurkha's based in the Far East had already come 'home' (to join British forces in West Germany) with only some remaining alongside other regular British troops deployed in Hong Kong. Those were needed there, Maguire saw that The Chief had again told that to the War Cabinet and they couldn't be sent to South Korea where both Australia and New Zealand had already pledged to send troops to fight alongside the Americans there defending that country against the North Korean onslaught. What would happen with China as the war played out was a great unknown – especially since the events of last April – and so those men were to stay in Hong Kong and not join the fight on the Korean Peninsula.

Diplomatic events were mentioned in the document and Maguire saw nothing that he wasn't aware of when it came to unofficial channels to talk with the Soviets being unavailable and official efforts by neutral nations getting nowhere. Those politicians in London were not prepared to see any form of comprise made with the Soviets and their allies who had launched a war such as this and Maguire was pleased to hear that. The war was costing so many lives and causing so much destruction but it wasn't being lost and there was no way that any form of an agreement to halt it at the moment could come with the two sides being so opposed to what the other would want. He had been briefed yesterday about Soviet 'offers' made through Indian sources and left as outraged as the War Cabinet was about those. Nothing less than a return to the status quo ante in terms of where the Warsaw Pact had its troops was going to be accepted and then there would be the political and diplomatic issues too.

Such was and would remain British as well as official NATO policy on that matter. To do anything else at this time would mean that the British lives lost so far in the defence of their country by those in uniform (and without too) were for naught.


Plan PETERBOROUGH was the subject of the third document sent by The Chief.

Maguire groaned when he read the title as he had absolute hate for this concept which had been approved by though not discussed this morning by the War Cabinet. Maguire was being tasked to implement it despite being long opposed to the whole thing and knowing too that while his superior had his own misgivings this is what he wanted done.

PETERBOROUGH was known by some as 'Grow the Army'. It was a plan drawn up over many years with the involvement of far more people than should have been involved, especially those who had never served a day in uniform let alone left their desks at the MOD or whatever outside consultancy company had been brought in. The concept was for how to enlarge the British Army during a full-scale conventional conflict not using direct mobilisation of millions of young men who had never served before in the volunteer-only Britain Armed Forces. Instead, experienced reservists who hadn't been sent to the frontlines to link-up with combat units needing extra manpower would be issued with older equipment taken from storage, formed into new tactical formations and be prepared within two weeks from the opening of hostilities to fight.

Maguire hated PETERBOROUGH because it assumed that everything would work out unmolested by enemy interference or the inevitable internal pressures of war. Those who had created the concept had no experience of doing anything like this yet nor had those who were to implement it or take part. The British Army just couldn't grow overnight like that… especially during a conflict. Mobilisation of individual reserves and the TA, then bringing them over the West Germany, was already enough of a headache and not fully completed yet PETERBOROUGH was a go with Maguire ordered to start it at once.

Armoured and mechanised infantry units were to be formed up from weapons and equipment that had recently been replaced in front-line service; manning those formations would be old soldiers who would (according to the plan) need only basic refresher training. Such combat units with Chieftain tanks, Saracen armoured personnel carriers and Humber Pig armoured trucks would be loaded with men and those battalions added on an ad hoc basis to reinforce fighting units in combat. They were not to fight in brigade-level or even divisional-level groupings because all of the necessary combat support and service support wouldn't be there, just to plug holes in the frontlines and act as localised counterattack forces. Maguire would oversee the PETERBOROUGH units being formed up in Britain and possibly see them shipped over to the Continent when all of those TA light infantry units with a previously-fixed 'home defence' role were to move to should the military situation at one point get that desperate. Across in West Germany, a smaller version of this concept had already occurred where Chieftain tanks which had recently been replaced in regular units by new Challenger's were formed into extra company-sized units and attached to infantry formations in certain places using reservists. That was all experimental and had worked – so far anyway – with those tanks and their crews so recently leaving service and it all kept small: now it was to be done on a grand scale.

Furthermore, as an extra element of PETERBOROUGH, The Chief instructed Maguire in the orders which formed the document that IRIS was a go too. This was something similar though a reinforcing concept for the British Army which met with his approval. There was a mass of British military equipment kept in western parts of Canada for use at the training sites made use of in Alberta. While that equipment was far away, very far in fact, it was all top quality and mighty useful when IRIS brought it all to the Continent. The tanks, armoured vehicles and everything else would all be issued as like-for-like replacements to combat units because eventually the very small War Reserve Stores in West Germany were going to be empty. A major effort was going to be needed to get all of that equipment to where it needed to be involving a long train ride across Canada and then being shipped across the North Atlantic, but before today the preparation had begun with it being readied to move. Now IRIS was to begin officially because no matter how long the journey, that equipment was needed.

PETERBOROUGH and IRIS confirmed to Maguire what The Chief and those above him at the top-levels of the British Armed Forces were thinking: that this conflict had the prospect of going on for some time if it stayed conventional and didn't move to the nuclear level. Like before with the lower-readiness TA units which Maguire was already in charge of making sure that they were trained ready to go to war, further efforts were now being made despite all of the problems which were unfortunately going to come to have the British Army fight an extended, long war.



February 6th 1990
The North Atlantic

Lieutenant-Commander Hedges had flown one of the Sea Harrier patrols from HMS Illustrious earlier today and would again be airborne tonight should the need arise. With twelve aircraft and fifteen aircrew the task set for 801 Squadron to provide air defence for the carrier was a demanding one with one or two aircraft being constantly up in the skies with another one or two (it depended upon the threat level as well as maintenance issues) on deck-alert. He like everyone else was tired yet had to keep his wits about him for flying from a moving ship afloat in the wilds of the North Atlantic oftentimes in darkness and with an ongoing war was a physical and mental struggle.

During that flight this morning, conducted all alone with just him and his aircraft and another one waiting full-fuelled and armed back on the Illustrious, Hedges had observed the American battleship USS Wisconsin crossing the GIUK Gap and entering the Norwegian Sea. That mighty warship and the small combat flotilla which formed the Wisconsin Surface Action Group (SAG) had been heading for the waters between Iceland and the Faroe Islands – the middle section of the chain of landmasses stretched along the gap separating the North Atlantic from the Norwegian Sea. He had silently wished those aboard the Wisconsin and inside the warships of her SAG good luck for they were certainly moving into very dangerous waters there and heading right for the enemy.

Meanwhile, he had been flying where the Illustrious was helping to protect the exits from the threat of enemy ships, submarines and aircraft heading in the other direction.

With HMS Ark Royal out in the mid-Atlantic and the last Hedges heard HMS Invincible heading for the Baltic Approaches, the third of the RN's carriers, the one which he was now calling home, was to remain here behind the GIUK Gap. There were the operations of RN frigates engaged in anti-submarine warfare efforts to support as well as to conduct anti-air patrols looking for the enemy's reconnaissance aircraft doing like those Soviet submarines were and trying to break out into the North Atlantic. The submarines and aircraft had to be stopped if Britain and her NATO allies wanted to have any chance of winning this war and so Hedges, 801 Squadron and the Illustrious were to not go charging off like that battleship was to take the enemy head-on as he was sure that the Wisconsin was.


It was only the early evening though fast getting dark. Hedges was inside the Illustrious inside the compartment where Air Operations was based yet he knew that outside what little light there had been was fast disappearing, especially with all of the cloud cover: winter this far north in the North Atlantic. He had just attended an important briefing though had been distracted by thoughts during that of being here instead and so had rushed afterwards to come and be present as the patrol made by two of his pilots was underway.

Lieutenant Quinn and Sub-Lieutenant Reynolds (the former being more senior in rank than the latter) were currently up with their Sea Harrier's over the stretch of water between Iceland and the Faroe Islands; they were closer to those Danish-administered islands than the independent and sovereign Iceland where the Americans now had aircraft in large numbers. They were flying at medium altitude and at moderate speed while above several warships in the area. The mission to cover the GIUK Gap was being run by the RN at the moment but as a NATO task so there were other vessels in the area too. Below Hedges' two pilots were HMS Brave and a Canadian frigate with both hunting for submarines transiting through the waters underneath them. The frigates had their own sonars active and helicopters airborne while also linked to the information coming from the SOSUS Line on the bottom of the ocean: the chain of hydrophones atop sea-mounts linked to multiple land bases where computer processing power was put to use to understand what sounds in the ocean they heard before being passed on back to ships at sea.

Reynolds was a much-experienced pilot with many years flying the Sea Harrier while the younger Quinn was new to the aircraft and Hedges' squadron command too. They were trusted by Hedges to undertake this mission otherwise they wouldn't have been flying this evening. It therefore hadn't been a concern for their abilities which had brought Hedges away from other duties which had needed to attend to as 801 Squadron was technically engaged in operations twenty-four hours a day but in relation to a passing comment that Reynolds had made earlier. It had been silly, almost meaningless but had struck with Hedges even though common sense told him that whatever Reynolds claimed about a 'feeling in his bones' tonight wasn't going to be the night when their Soviets sent their missile-bombers this way.

Hedges should have ignored it and pushed it out of his mind when there was so much else to do… but here he was in Air Operations.

Those who worked at the radar screens, the communications terminals and the Air Plot along with their commander for all air operations – Air Officer Commanding, Commander McGuigan – were busy at their multiple tasks overseeing his two pilots as well as those aboard submarine-hunting and radar helicopters as well as working with Nimrod's and P-3's in this area after flying from land bases. Hedges kept out of their way and sought not to distract them from their important tasks; if he was to, McGuigan would have him out of here in an instant. He listened to those at work as they made contact with those flying and worked through available intelligence data. Illustrious was moving fast through rough seas and aiming to move northwest at the minute and away from the position where she would have last been caught by Soviet satellite coverage (that satellite would have used a powerful overhead radar to see through the clouds) and so the vessel moved all around these sailors yet all kept their focus upon the tasks set for them.

As he waited for something to happen, while also not wanting anything to occur because of the possible consequences if Reynolds had been correct, Hedges briefly recalled that briefing he and his squadron intelligence officer had been to.


Hedges had been informed not so much about the major events of the war on the bigger scale but rather issues which would affect the Illustrious and her mission as well as the fighter operations he and 801 Squadron were taking part in.

The Soviet Navy's Northern Fleet had sent their submarines far forward and not their surface fleet. Their somewhat impressive array of missile-armed warships, from battle-cruisers to frigates all of whom had large batteries of powerful weaponry, had taken part in amphibious operations against the north of Norway but afterwards remained in the general area off Norway's Arctic coastline in a defensive posture. Their submarines had meanwhile set off for more open waters to engage NATO warships and also civilian vessels now supporting the war, in particular the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes. Many had been stopped here along the GIUK Line using aircraft, warships and NATO's own submarines yet others were still active and sinking ships. Aircraft assigned to Soviet Naval Aviation (AV-MF) had flown missions too with their own anti-submarine aircraft active again at the northern end of the Norwegian Sea and in the Arctic Ocean too, while their surveillance aircraft to support the fleet of missile-bombers that the AV-MF maintained were out in force: those reconnaissance models of the Bear along with less-capable Ilyushin-38 May's.

Those missile-bombers, Backfire's and Badger's, had been flying alongside those with the Soviet Air Force (VVS) in conducting attacks against land targets in Scotland, Iceland and southern parts of Norway so far without making a major strike against NATO warships or even convoys of shipping going across the North Atlantic. That strategy of employing the same aircraft though which wore the colours of different Soviet air arms against fixed targets was soon expected to change with the arrival of the Wisconsin and her SAG to join smaller NATO surface forces and groups of amphibious ships too. Moreover, once the USS Theodore Roosevelt got on station in the Norwegian Sea as well – the nuclear-powered fleet carrier was at the moment moving through the Denmark Strait, the treacherous waters between Greenland and Iceland – those missile-bombers would have another naval target.

The Illustrious was going to be joining that target list in addition to the others when the Soviets turned from cruise missile strikes using their aircraft against land to what was at sea, so it was thought. When that happened ('if' wasn't used during the briefing), it was stated to everyone listening that while protecting the RN frigates and other NATO warships here from air attack was important for the Sea Harrier's and the Sea Dart missile systems aboard the three destroyers present, the safety of the Illustrious topped those. The smaller ships were expendable should it mean the preservation of the carrier and the ability to conduct flight operations from her.

Weapons capability and summaries on the combat systems of Soviet missile-bombers where it came to new information was given to those with Hedges and there was also some addition intelligence when it came to the small force of Forger's aboard the carriers Kiev and Baku. Those two vessels, each a 'light carrier' like the Illustrious though bigger and with large missile batteries integral to their design and purpose, were at sea off Norway with a dozen Yakolev-38 Forger aircraft deployed to each. The Norwegians had managed to conduct a partially-successful air attack upon the Baku and damaged it with Penguin lightweight missiles though it was still operational like the Kiev and sending Forger's up. Those aircraft were similar to the Sea Harrier though, just as the carriers where, a direct comparison couldn't be made. The Forger's were tied on a short-leash to the carriers and not ranging far away due to fuel issues when it came to operating weight and also the lack of effective Soviet airborne radar coverage.

If those carriers and their Forger's did manage to successfully get anywhere near the Illustrious, all of the intelligence pointed to those fighters being out-fought in any foreseeable engagement.

Moreover, when talking about the Norwegian air attack, Hedges was told about the F-16's which they were flying. Those capable aircraft had good range and excellent combat systems with the pilots of them being very experienced yet they were hampered by a lack of long-range air-to-air missiles. The Soviets had taken advantage of that during their invasion of Norway using their own land-based fighters firing missiles from distance during airborne combat and the Norwegians had paid the price. Should there be further unfortunate developments on the ground in Norway where more of that country was overrun and allowing for the basing of Soviet aircraft in the central part of Norway – which didn't look likely at the minute but had to be considered just in case – then Soviet land-based fighters might be met by the Sea Harrier's which Hedges commanded. Any MiG-25's, MiG-31's or Sukhoi-27's (Foxbat's, Foxhound's and Flanker's respectively) would be operating at a very long range in such a scenario yet those were capable aircraft who would be deadly opponents for Sea Harrier's. A lot of things would have to go wrong for such hypothetical engagements to happen and there would be warnings first, but again the capabilities of those aircraft and summaries on their carried weapons was given at the briefing along with new intelligence gained from where they had already been met in combat by other NATO units.

His fighter pilot ego aside, Hedges didn't want to be in a situation where he and the Sea Harrier's with 801 Squadron faced aircraft such as those.


What Reynolds had said would happen did.

The first reports came from Iceland where an American EP-3E in US Navy service and flying from Keflavik Airbase picked up electronic signals consistent with electronic passive jamming systems used by Badger's flown by the AV-MF. Such intelligence on that electronic interference pointed to the jamming coming from one of those aircraft flying with other Badger's as strike escort. Estimates upon range, course and speed were made before the warning was sent to the Illustrious that it was looking likely that a strike force might be heading in their general direction.

McGuigan and his staff had to assume that the carrier was under attack. Those aircraft being protected from positive identification could have been heading to strike at Scotland or maybe even Iceland using a roundabout route and armed with land-attack weapons. However, there was a good chance that the Illustrious was the target of a maritime strike especially since the satellite overfly would have given the Soviets a general idea as to where the carrier could be found. In response, many things started to happen at once. Assistance was called for from the American fighters in Iceland and from Tornado's with RAF Scotland. Another one of Hedges' pilots – Lieutenant Murray who he had flown with the other day and taken down that Bear over Ireland with – up on deck-alert was prepared for immediate flight while Quinn and Reynolds were instructed to move into what was to be an intercept position. Ships nearby were told to arm their missiles and have their air defence radars on stand-by for activation to guide missiles. Once the commander of the Illustrious' combat group was informed he had the ship change course again and this time turning south while bringing Brave in closer and behind the carrier: that frigate alongside HMS Active (serving as the anti-submarine guard-ship for the Illustrious) would both be for close-in defence against missiles but also missile-bait should it come to that too.

Hedges meanwhile stayed where he was and unable to do anything. He had no role here at such a time as this. He wanted to help but there was nothing that he could do apart from stand around and having the frustration of inactivity at a time like this get to him. Three of his Sea Harrier's were to be involved in any aerial engagement and he had already heard one of McGuigan's staff officers issue the instruction – bypassing him – to have every possible effort made to get another two Sea Harrier's brought up onto deck and armed for flight operations despite the almost certainly that they wouldn't get airborne in time if the Illustrious was now under missile attack.

Further efforts to ascertain certainties with those Badger's were made. The knowledge of how many they were, where they were going and what they were doing was needed. That task was being undertaken by that Aires aircraft, a heavily-modified P-3 Orion, but it was no easy one. The Soviets weren't winning the electronic war overall yet in places their capabilities – especially when it came to brute force techniques – did win out. That jamming was something which the Aires could detect but not get around. The aircraft had exposed itself in such an attempt though and unless all available intelligence was wrong the Soviets wouldn't have fighters this far out with those Badger's. The electronic battle was underway and those waiting to extend that engagement to physical combat had to wait.

Hedges couldn't see the Plot though he knew that by now the Illustrious would be getting further and further away from where it had been when the warning had come. Of course, even at full speed the carrier wouldn't outrun an aircraft and the rough weather conditions with the waves such as they were outside and a wind blowing from the south too meant that they weren't going to get away. Regardless, to put as much distance between the enemy and the carrier was necessary and he mentally willed the ship to go further and further away. He knew that there was no shame in the carrier running away at this moment with the vulnerability that the Illustrious would have when faced with a force of missile-bombers carrying cruise missiles. The carrier had her own Sea Dart system and so too did the two destroyers for missile defence – HMS Southampton and HMS Manchester – to join the shorter-range SAM's with the frigates (Brave had Sea Wolf's and Active old Sea Cat's) but even with all of that firepower a massed cruise missile attack undertaken successfully would be death for the Illustrious. The hope was to remain undetected or failing that have those bombers engaged by fighters before they launched their missiles and before then the carrier was trying to get out of the way.

And then the jamming stopped.

One aircraft was being tracked using the radar of one of the Sentry's from Iceland: just a lone Badger which was now turning back away. Tornado F3's out of Scotland were racing after it but it was going fast too and had the advantage of being far distant from them. Hedges heard the comment made here that it stood a good chance of getting away. Others started to speculate what had happened though McGuigan soon made sure that that came to an end as there still needed to be a watch made. Whatever that aircraft had been up to had come to and end but they were still at war.

As to Hedges himself, relief washed over him at first when the danger passed. Like those around him he wanted answers yet for now the worst fears that he had had of the carrier coming under attack and his Sea Harrier's being unable to do anything about that had passed.

For now.



February 6th 1990
The Teutoburg Forest, North Rhine–Westphalia, West Germany

The dispersal strips which the pair of RAF combat squadrons flying their Harrier GR3's & GR5's from were officially known as 'Forward Operating Locations' (FOL). Each FOL was pre-scouted and chosen specifically for the ability to handle up to four of the Harrier's for not just take-off and landing of the aircraft but to make sure that maintenance work could be done on the aircraft. With all the effort made to move the Harrier's away from their fixed peacetime airbase to therefore avoid enemy action to halt their operations, it was no good to have them relying on returning to such a known site for work to be done upon them where they could be knocked out of action. The RAF wanted these aircraft flying again and again to take part in the fight against the invading Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies with no hindrance. The FOL's sites alongside small roads on both slopes of the Teutoburg Forest were capable of undertaking major work upon the Harrier's including wing and engine changes. This was complicated to do yet there were many aircraft engineers and heavy equipment present at several of the FOL's where such work would be done.

After a call from the West Germans, Squadron Leader Ford arrived at one of those heavy maintenance FOL's this evening to find all of those who had been taking part in such work all lying dead along with two aircraft destroyed. Those killed were RAF personnel, some supporting Royal Engineers (RE) and some of his own RAF Regiment men who had been protecting them.

There had been an attack conducted a little over a mile away against a West German military convoy using the network of small roads that went through the Teutoburg Forest where those trucks and their security detachment had been ambushed. Rockets and machine gun fire had torn into them yet the West Germans had fought back as they had radioed for help and a reaction force from VKK-345 had managed to quickly arrive. Trucks were burning and men were dead and injured though it had been judged by the West Germans that their convoy had not stumbled into an ambush but rather an enemy force who had come across them by chance. They had started searching the wider area for those who had attacked them and then come across the FOL with all of the British military personnel who had been killed by what had initially seemed like the same enemy force which had struck at their convoy.

When Ford had arrived with A Flight he found that some of his men with D Flight were among those whose corpses lay here with men serving with 4 Squadron RAF and 38th Regiment RE. He spoke with the apologetic West German local commander – a man who Ford found to be doing his best though really out of his depth when faced with something like this – and told him that this was the work of a Soviet commando team, not more Poles as his Territoralheer men had previously engaged. Questioned as to how he could tell the difference, Ford told him that it came down to the amount of blood spilt.


The intelligence information which Ford was party to – delivered by 5 Wing – had informed him that there were both Soviet and Polish forces active in the Teutoburg Forest as well as across large parts of Lower Saxony west of the Weser. They had come by air with multiple para-drops made by both high- and low-flying aircraft which had taken their chances against NATO fighters. Those Soviets were from their Spetsnaz with what was believed to be a brigade broken down into small teams and sent forward with all sorts of missions to undertake from direct strikes against fixed points to gaining tactical intelligence to conducting roving ambushes; the last of those included attacking NATO air operations on the ground such as those of the RAF Harrier's with a secondary focus of tying up security forces.

As to the Poles, the Polish Armed Forces operated nowhere near as many dedicated special forces units as their Soviet overlords did. Some of their naval commandoes had been reported active in the Baltic where they had assisted the landings on Zealand while the deployment of the lone battalion of true airborne commandos had not yet been identified. The Poles so far met across NATO's rear were not in fact special forces detachments in the same vein as Soviet Spetsnaz but rather elements of their 6th Airborne Division with professional soldiers from that formation and not the conscripts who made up the majority of its peacetime strength. Hundred of small raiding teams had been deployed into undertaking forward roles far ahead of where the frontlines were; the rest of the division was waiting in reserve for a traditional parachute assault somewhere else at a later stage, possibly in mainland Denmark.

The attacks which had taken place, those in not just in this area, had shown that when they were undertaken by Soviet forces they were different to what the Poles would do. There was a greater element of self-preservation shown by the Polish ambush teams: they weren't pressing home their attacks to the full extent. It wasn't a matter of cowardice or lack of dedication to their mission but rather a desire to 'live to fight another day'. In addition, the Poles weren't shooting prisoners, those wounded or not, afterwards. The Soviet Spetsnaz units left no one alive at all after they had struck and were thoroughly destroying the targets which they chose to attack, attacks which seemed to have had plenty of fore-planning gone into them too. What that meant was that the Soviets weren't attacking just anybody they came across as the Poles were but were striking hard and with care to make sure that they had their opponents covered before they struck and then moved into eliminate them. Spetsnaz teams weren't making errors when it came to the strength of their opponents and so didn't need to withdraw as the Poles did.

When it came to that blood, the Soviets were killing everyone afterwards so there was no one left alive to talk about exactly what had occurred in what sequence or to give any indication of the strength of the attacking Spetsnaz nor where they might have gone afterwards. Bodies with multiple bullet holes were left in their wake after they had departed and no one had gotten away.


Two attacks had taken place this evening in close proximity to each other. The FOL had been hit by Soviet commandos and the truck convoy had been run into Polish paratroopers: they been uncoordinated but both deadly.

Thirty-six men had been killed at the FOL, four of those were men under Ford's command. Corporal Cooper – a good man indeed and a possible candidate for late entry as an officer – had been in charge of three other enlisted men with a Land Rover's for their Minimi machine gun. The others were RAF ground personnel and aircrew who had been here with a pair of Harrier's and assisted by some British Army engineers working to expand the FOL. One of those aircraft had been having work done with it's hydraulics while the other had been undergoing major work where a whole engine was being winched out using a mobile crane and another one sitting ready to be attached in it's place when the attack came. The equipment, vehicles and aircraft were blown apart and the remains smouldering while the highly-trained men dead. Some were grouped together while others had fallen all by their lonesome. Ford's men found two had tried to crawl away when injured – one of those was a D Flight man – and who had been shot afterwards. Rifles and pistols here present though the Minimi was gone and all ammunition appeared to have been gathered and then blown up. Maps and paperwork were missing and so too was the radio that Ford's men had been using: the other radio for the RAF personnel had been found destroyed with bullet-holes in it.

Ford had some of his men look for signs of the enemy taking casualties themselves while others moved to secure bodies and anything salvageable. He made sure that his Scorpion's were set up with their cannons ready and several men posted as lookouts while this went on in case the enemy hadn't fled far and was waiting to possibly strike again to this time hit his reaction force. That had been done before to the West Germans, he had been told, and in cases those secondary attacks had been more devastating than the first ones who the reaction force came to respond to. He wasn't going to allow that to happen to him.

Meanwhile, he stood among all of this. The blood, the bodies and the destruction was all around him. He told himself that he could do nothing about this now and his job was to make sure that it didn't happen again. He had to fight off his emotions when confronted with this and ignore his frustration at it happening on his watch and instead do something to stop a repeat occurrence elsewhere with this taking place again.

That was going to be a challenge though with whom he was up against.



February 6th 1990
Nytroen, Troms, Norway

“Danny, have you seen any Cabbage-Heads?”

Corporal Edwards shook his head in response and hoped that Holmes would get the message that he didn't want to talk at this moment about anything… even the usual jokes and banter between mates serving together.

“Are they sitting this fight out? Are they too scared of facing what we are, do you think, Danny?”

Holmes wasn't giving up trying to engage him in meaningless conversation whilst they moved through the tiny, abandoned settlement which had been the scene of much fighting and so was a ruin.

“I don't know.” Forced to give a reply, that was all that his fellow Para was going to get from him. He really didn't fancy having a long conversation about what he knew, well… suspected anyway, about the current situation being with the Soviets holding the coast and therefore the Cabbage-Heads being unable to land. Talk of how the Para's who had arrived in Norway before the war being started being somewhat cut off had been shouted down by others who wanted to spot such rumours, even if Edwards knew that they were more than rumours or scaremongering or anything like that but actually fact.

Holmes gave an odd laugh, one which Edwards could only think was one of nerves. Why he had done so, he didn't know. Yes, it was dark at the minute and they were moving through this collection of buildings which until a few days ago had been the homes of some people but then fought over, but the enemy was gone. The Norwegians had just driven some of their light armour through here and followed that up with infantry mounted in their over-snow vehicles. All the Para's like the two of them now had to do was to move through looking for any dropped weapons or supplies as the Norwegians had already checked the place for the enemy.

The danger was minimal indeed.

Holmes' talk of the Royal Marines – 'Cabbage-Heads' referring to their green-coloured headgear; the Para's were 'Cherry-Berries' (maroon berets) in return – and now the awkward laugh showed that he had he was concerned. This wouldn't be like yesterday though. There would be no stumbling into the enemy, a lot of them with armour too, and knowing that the platoon lost three men including one of their own guys. The memory of that was still fresh and The Lieutenant was with them again today, that foolish idiot, but that was yesterday and it wasn't here.


“Edwards,” Sergeant Proctor called out to him, “go inside that house there. Take your half section with you and search the place, will you?”

Looking where his sergeant was pointing, Edwards gave the building a quick once over from the outside. It was one of the very few houses left standing and undamaged here in Nytroen. The building was a one-storey structure built of wood and looked rather large. The front door was wide open but the storm-covers over the windows were shut. It gave the appearance of being sturdy to face the weather up here at the top of Norway and lacked any beauty. Edwards looked at it from a different perspective though, he was looking for any danger and thus ways to counter that.

To the left of where the covered porch was over the door, there was a big window with those storm-covers and one looked ajar somewhat. He decided that he and his men weren't all going in through that front door but rather through the side too. This area was cleared and he wasn't worried about encountering the enemy unexpectedly again yet this was no time to be stupid. Soviet paratroopers who had either missed their initial drop over Bardufoss or been driven back from there to locations such as Nytroen had been here in this little settlement and caution was the watchword.

He didn't want to see anyone else suffer the same fate as the deceased Gray or the others from the platoon such as Parsons and Thornton.

“You all heard the Sergeant, lads!” Delegated to preform this task as a junior NCO, Edwards got his men's attention. “Now, listen to me about how we're going to go about this…”


Others had been in the house before them.

Edwards brought Massey in with him through the front door while having Holmes and Mortimer go in through that window. There were muddy footprints from boots across the wooden floor along the corridor and all of the internal doors leading off from here were wide open. He heard and then saw O'Donnell entering what was a living room and ahead of them there were footprints across a thick rug laid in the middle of that room in front of the fireplace.

In the darkness and with that caution that Edwards had wanted, he had Massey behind him with a torch while Mortimer in the other party had one too. They shone them ahead of where the Para's went with their rifles at the ready to engage anyone who might fall into that torchlight. There was no one here though, just as thought, not least anymore.

A bloodstain was on the floor in one of the bedrooms: a child's bedroom by the look of it.

That blood was dried and had been here for a while. There was a lot of it too. Edwards reckoned that someone had died here within the past couple of days. He couldn't imagine anyone losing that much blood and living. There were no signs of combat nor a blood trail leading through the house to show what had happened, much less a body to be sure, but he believed that he was looking at where someone had died and then their body afterwards carried off.

Both Holmes and Massey talked about the state of the house though he nor anyone else had anything to add to that conversation about how it hadn't been looted. There was a television, a video recorder, a stereo system and other electrical appliances (a hair-dryer and a digital alarm clock foremost) that Holmes said he would have expected to see looted if there had been enemy soldiers here. Massey mentioned warm clothes that were still in the wardrobe he looked in before Edwards told him to stop doing so. The two of them said that these things should have been stolen and carried off maybe dumped nearby when a senior NCO or officer shouted at the men who had taken them. They were all in-place though. Massey had a view he was trying to make about Soviet paratroopers – their Airborne Troops – being disciplined to not steal which Holmes wouldn't let him finish as he mocked the idea that any 'invading Communist horde' would 'flinch anything valuable they could quicker than they could run back to their red mothers'.

Eventually Edwards had enough and let his frustration show: “Shut up, will you? Let's get moving and back outside.” Under normal circumstances, this would have been the time to tell Holmes that he spent too much time watching films like Rambo, but this was hardly the time for good-natured banter. It was a bit warmer in here than outside, especially being out of the biting wind, but he knew that Proctor would be waiting for them along with the rest of the platoon. There may not have been anyone in here to find yet the snow-covered mountains nearby were still home to Soviet paratroopers.

He led his men back outside to join the others and carry on with their mission.

[James G]

Chapter Five – Panic

February 7th 1990
The Liebenburg Forest, Lower Saxony, West Germany

The Liebenburg Forest was cut into two halves by the presence of the Landestrasse-500, a small district road linking Schladen in the east to the bigger Bundesstrasse-6 nearby in the west. The lesser road ran through villages such as Liebenburg, Heimerode and Othfresen in the immediate area where the forest lay and was a two-lane through-route. Warrant Officer Jones and the three other SAS men with him who were tasked to operate in this area had been briefed before their mission that the East Germans might intend to use it not as a Main Supply Route (MSR) initially but NATO air activity along other roads might make that the case after a few days of warfare where other routes were bombed.

Such an anticipation had been proved to be correct.

This was unfortunate to say the least as the plan had been to cross that road in the early hours of this morning to move their operational area from the northern part of the Liebenburg Forest across to the south. The road was now full of military traffic and there were scouts posted by the East Germans on the lookout for NATO personnel in their rear: either stragglers from the regular British forces who had made their staged withdrawal to the west, downed NATO pilots or those doing what Jones and his fellow SAS men were doing as special forces detachments intent on causing chaos.

McSherry was insistent that they make this crossing in the face of the enemy even though it was guarded. He reminded Jones and the two others that they had scouted this area right before hostilities opened and knew how to get across the road unseen in the darkness and move away to the other side. There was the operational orders which he had too which stated that they were to go further south in the general direction of Goslar and the slopes of the Harz Mountains.

Bishop and Fryatt had no comment to make and neither did Jones when their patrol leader reminded them that they needed to follow their orders. His mention that they had been here before and looked at methods of crossing the road whilst staying unobserved was a good point especially since they had done that in daylight and practised not being seen then; now they were to make the crossing in darkness. So he shut up and did what he was told because there should have been nothing to worry about as long as they all kept their heads and didn't panic if something unexpected happened.


When the noise came of the latest aircraft to be flying high up above – NATO or Warsaw Pact, it was impossible to tell – came, McSherry went first. Like them all he was weighted down with weapons and his tightly packed Bergen. He sprinted right at the perfect moment through. McSherry moved from cover to cover either side of the road and was on the tarmac for only a few seconds. There was no traffic at the moment with the tail-end of the last convoys of trucks having disappeared a few minutes beforehand. Those sentries which the East Germans had here were all out of sight or staring stupidly at the dark sky above them.

One down, three to go.

It was Bishop up next. He was to dart across the road too and then disappear into the cover on the other side too. Jones was only a few feet away from where the soldier from Lincoln with more than a decade of service in the Parachute Regiment was laying and he couldn't see him at all. He could hear the man's low breathing, but that was it. Like here in this field alongside the embankment, the road just above and ahead was bathed in darkness. Clouds covered any moonlight – some of those clouds could be artificial from all of the fires burning across Europe at the minute caused by war damage – and there were no road-lights working; Heimerode to the right and Liebenburg further up the road to the left were both without light either.

Bishop was waiting either for the imitation owl call which McSherry was soon to make or the noise of an aircraft if that came first. Whichever one he heard, he was to make his move. Clearly the unnatural rather than the natural noise was preferred as the former only meant that McSherry thought that they were waiting too long. In the last few moments before Bishop would make his move to run, Jones did as he had before and aimed his American-built M-16 rifle (the SAS was able to chose it's own weaponry away from standard equipment issued to the rest of the British Army) along the road away to the left. He could see nothing there but had his weapon should that feared unexpected occur.

The owl call came and Bishop made his sprint. Jones heard the man's heavy breathing and then a crash as he dove to the ground on the other side but it wasn't that loud and nor had his equipment that the man carried made any noise either. There had been a worry that maybe his LAW80 rocket launcher might come lose during a sprint but that had been secured and stayed with him.

Two down, two to go.

It was to be Fryatt next. He had his Bergen, his rifle, his pistol, ammunition for both weapons and their explosive charges all to carry fast across the road. There was the sound of an aircraft which came right after Bishop had reached the other side and so he was up on his feet and away. Jones barely knew that his comrade-in-arms was moving before the man was away. No sound came from his movements as everything was covered by whatever aircraft was above them. That aircraft sounded as if it was heading to the east and Jones hoped that it was a friendly on the way to strike the East Germans deeper in their rear than they were; he didn't want it to be a Warsaw Pact aircraft successfully making it back after a mission to the west.

Three down, one to go.

However, there suddenly came some lights visible on the road where he was looking and Jones froze not just every muscle in his body but intentions of moving too.


It was jeep-type vehicle. Jones forgot the official Soviet designation for a moment and so it was just a jeep: four wheels, open top and up to five seats. The headlights were on as it came speeding down the road from the direction of Liebenburg. He started to hear it as it came closer as the rattle of the vehicle plus it's loud engine could be heard over the fading aircraft sounds. He couldn't believe that those lights were shining as bright as they were (not even dimmed!) at a time like this and after every other vehicle which was travelling throughout the East German rear was obeying the vehicle-light blackout.

He kept his rifle fixed upon it, sure that his three fellow SAS men across the road were doing the same, but it posed no danger at all as it carried on with its occupants having no idea or care of the danger that they were in let alone his presence. It carried on past him and heading for Heimerode at at least forty miles per hour, maybe faster. There was a roadblock at the eastern edge of that village, one located a third of a mile away. Jones watched as the jeep carried on tearing towards it…

…before the gunfire started coming from that direction.

He had no idea what was happening there. Those who were in that vehicle, what they were doing and how they thought they stood a chance tearing through the countryside where there were roadblocks everywhere were all questions which he had no answers to. All he heard was that owl call coming from over the other side of the road before there was a further exchange of automatic gunfire down the road.

He was up on his feet at running.

His rifle, slung from his shoulder strap, banged into him as he sprinted though like the Browning Hi-Power pistol on his hip this was no time for him to use his weapons. He focused upon covering the short distance while he was in the darkness and then tried to crash into the bush there on the other side in the manner which he planned: without doing himself any damage.

Four down, all across and all safe.



February 7th 1990
Off Bønnerup Strand, The Bay of Aalborg, The Kattegat

The rendezvous between HMS Campbeltown and RFA Regent took place not far from the fishing village of Bønnerup Strand. Within the shipping channel about a mile off the coast along the northern side of the Djursland Peninsula, Captain Brooks brought his frigate to meet with the replenishment ship. Both vessels met in the darkness just before the first signs of sunlight would appear on the distant eastern horizon and the transfer of ammunition begun. The cranes of the bigger ship started to move across the missiles to the smaller warship. There was haste with first light coming soon though at the same time everyone was being careful due to the potential explosive capabilities of the cargo if something went wrong.

Brooks left the Control Room to come up out on deck amidships and watched some of the cargo transfer operations. The Regent was a much larger vessel than his command; she displaced over four times as much water, had an extra one hundred and fifteen feet in length and more than fifty per cent of width than the Campbeltown. His watch officer on the bridge was someone he trusted to keep the frigate steady and he had spoken to the captain of the Regent over the radio who promised that he himself would oversee station keeping. These waters were sheltered somewhat from the weather though it remained no easy task to keep the two vessels alongside each other and not crashing into one another.

It was cold out here even with all of the heavy outerwear that Brooks was wearing. He shivered in the biting wind though braved it out for those men of his who were working out here to get everything aboard had to put up with such conditions too. It would do good for their morale he knew to see him here even if he wasn't directly assisting himself.

There wasn't much to move across from the Regent. No Sea Wolf anti-air missiles, 114mm & 20mm shells for her main & side guns, 30mm shells for her Goalkeeper anti-missile gun or Sting Ray torpedoes (the ship's or those for her helicopters) had so far been used in combat yet. It was only Harpoon's and Sea Skua's that had been expended and they were being replenished with what the Regent had brought with her. Those sealed crates which contained the missiles were lifted across the short distance between the two vessels from the deck of the larger ship to that of the smaller one and once on the latter moved to the GWS60 launchers (the Harpoon's) or the internal magazines (for the Sea Skua's). His men were all over the task and nothing was going wrong or taking too long as far as he could see.

What the Regent wasn't bringing him was something else that he needed though: aviation fuel for his Lynx's. Within the internal fuel tanks aboard the Campbeltown there was still plenty of fuel for his four gas turbines – two for cruising, two for high speed – yet the levels of aviation fuel were starting to become a concern. Brooks was operating two helicopters rather than the usual one from his frigate and both of those were engaged in seemingly continuous flight operations where they were flying night and day often on long patrols and low over the water too. He wanted aviation fuel yet the Regent wasn't a multi-role vessel such as those bigger ones that the RFA would have supporting RN operations out in the North Atlantic and just had weapons with her.

He would have to get more aviation fuel from elsewhere and soon too because curtailing flight operations was not something that he wanted to see done.


Quicker than he had expected, the replenishment was over with. The last of the cargo was aboard and he watched those on the Regent set about securing their forward crane: that was not something to be left unsecured and any seaman worth his salt would do no such thing. He himself turned to watch his junior officers and senior enlisted men here on the Campbeltown moving about with purpose now that the transfers were done with. They were making sure that nothing was left over from the cargo transfer in terms of packing material and a head count was run upon men too, just in case.

Brooks was soon to go back inside to get out of the cold though he took a few moments to stare straight ahead as he stepped out onto the deck a little bit closer to the edge. He strained his eyes to see the part of Jutland up ahead, where Bønnerup Strand lay.

Down below in the Control Room, his watch crew would be keeping a keen eye fixed in that direction too. They wouldn't be seeing the dark shadow of the landmass like he was but instead observing their radar screens looking for aircraft which may be skimming above there and heading this way. The meeting with the Regent was taking place behind the Djursland Peninsula not just for the partial shelter from the weather but to hide from enemy radar observance from distance too while both vessels were stationary and thus exposed… especially with what had been moved from one to the other. It wasn't only the threat of the enemy stumbling across his ship through chance that he was concerned about: there was also the possibility that Brooks believed that they could have found out he was here. He didn't like his current command arrangements working under Danish command here in the Baltic Exits. He didn't doubt the patriotism of the Danes to their country when it was under attack and therefore their safeguarding of their allies but full faith in their communications wasn't something he possessed.

If the rendezvous with the Regent had been too widely disseminated…

Leaving the deck, Brooks went back inside his ship through the aft superstructure. He didn't go towards the hangar at the rear nor the flight-deck above the stern but rather downwards two decks and towards the central passageway which ran the length of the Campbeltown and towards the Control Room.

On the way there he heard an announcement being made over the voice-activiated tannoy system for him to go there. There was no urgency in what he was hearing from Lieutenant Philips and no alert issued such as a call to action stations. Brooks guessed that a message for him had come and he hoped – while keeping in mind his concerns over the security of those external, non-RN communications – that he was being told that a second replenishment was being arranged, this one for aviation fuel. He knew that the tanker RFA Blue Rover had been in the North Sea and he wondered whether that vessel (smaller than the Regent) was coming into the Baltic Exits: she could refuel other NATO ships as well as his. Failing that, he speculated that maybe he would be ordered to make a dash to a Danish port if need be.

He really wanted that aviation fuel for his pair of helicopters.


The message was not as Brooks hoped it would be. Once in receipt of it he addressed his senior officers away from the Control Room in the nearby officers wardroom in a hasty briefing that he gave to them away from others.

Signals intelligence pointed to a major enemy effort being undertaken by the United Baltic Fleet to break through the Øresund and head for the Kattegat, the Skagerrak and the North Sea beyond. There was a submarine report from a RN diesel-electric patrol boat (the identity not related to the Campbeltown) which confirmed the movement of warships moving between that stretch of water between Zealand to the west and Sweden in the east. There were minesweepers present attempted to clear a passage through the minefields which the Danes had so thoroughly laid and plenty of aircraft in the skies too. Use was being made of Swedish territorial waters by those Soviet, East German and Polish vessels too, something which had been done before during Warsaw Pact naval operations to the south of the Øresund.

The orders for the Campbeltown were not for her to go into the Øresund directly. Instead, she was to remain at the northern exit on the edges of the Kattegat where other large warships of several NATO navies would be present: including another RN frigate en route from the North Sea (again, the name of that vessel not revealed at the moment). There was to be tactical air support from land-based NATO aircraft and Brooks took that to mean West German Navy Tornado's configured for maritime warfare as well as Danish aircraft too.

As to NATO forces in the Øresund, there was no direct mention of those in the orders Brooks received though he anticipated that small warships of the Danish and West German navies would be fighting there in a fight where mines and shore-based missile batteries had to be figured in as well as air power too. That was a battle which he was glad that the Campbeltown was to stay out of because it would be vicious and confusing with multiple players attacking wildly and not somewhere that the full capabilities of his frigate could be brought to bear: someone somewhere had shown some sense in ordering bigger warships with long-range weapons and sensors to stay out of that and deal with those that would make a breakthrough rather than acting in panic and sending forward every available ship.

Hopes for that refuelling were now pushed out of his mind as well as those worries over communications security – there was no justification for the latter, just a fear – as he returned to the Control Room to give the United Baltic Fleet the battle which it had come to this war to have.



February 7th 1990
Outside Silly, Hainaut, Belgium

With a coy smile, Baxter had suggested that the two of them act like they were romantically involved with each other and go off to talk with privacy in a manner which would suggest to anyone watching that maybe the two of them were planning to 'go at it like rabbits before the world ends'.

Second Officer Whittaker had been just about able to stifle a giggle at such a notion and agreed to take a walk away from the field headquarters complex with the spook from MI-6.

Being a spy sounded fun!


Once they were alone, Baxter moved towards her and stopped her walking with both of his hands resting upon her upper arms. He was directly in front of her and his face only inches away from hers. For a moment she wondered whether he intended to actually follow through on what she thought had just been a playful private joke between them. Alas…

“Laura, what have you got for me? Have you done as I asked?”

The urgency wasn't just in his voice but in his face too: Whittaker could see how eager he was to find out whether she had been doing as he wanted. His eyes were glued to hers with a desire to hear what she had to say. All of his usual calm demeanour, that laid-back but all-knowing easy confidence which she had fallen for, had in an instant disappeared.

“Yes, I have. Earlier today, I…”

“Tell me, tell me. Tell me quick.”

Again, this was so unlike him. The interruption to what she was saying was coming not from the Baxter she knew, the man she thought she knew anyway.

“David, let me talk, will you?” She took a purposeful step backwards to release herself from his grasp due to it making her feel just a little bit uncomfortable. “I did exactly as you asked and have found out all of the information that Mackenzie has accessed. I included what I have seen myself too for comparison, just as you asked. I've had my eye upon him at every moment that I can spare to see who he has been talking to and whether he is somehow going somewhere discreet to use a radio or a telephone line.”

“Excellent!” The urgency was still evident though not as strong as it had been before. He extended a hand: “Do you have those documents with you?”

“Of course.” That was what he had asked her to do and so she had. She unzipped her chemical suit halfway down and removed the bundle of papers she had secured inside.

Baxter took them from her.

A nod of the head then a smile came from him. “You've done well, Laura, very well indeed.”

“What will you do with all of that?”

Whittaker had copied and removed those documents from where they shouldn't have been taken from. She had circumvented the rules to do so yet had done that for the right reason as Baxter had told her that they couldn't be sure if Mackenzie had co-opted anyone into his espionage. He knew she had done what she had and had informed his superiors so she wouldn't later get in trouble.

Regardless, she still would like some reassurance.

“Oh… erm… well… you see…”

He was absolutely thrown by her question. It was as if he hadn't considered that she would ask such a thing after before she had made clear that she was worried about the consequences for her in unofficially helping out the Secret Intelligence Service.

Whittaker didn't know what was going on with the man!

“I have a colleague coming by,” after a moment came the response where the 'usual' Baxter returned, “and I'll pass it all along to him so we can analyse what we get from other sources. That will be done away from here and we'll check to catch Mister Mackenzie out with you have worked hard to give us, Laura.”

He put an arm back on her shoulder and stepped closer to her again while at the same time opening his own over-suit and placing the bundle inside.

“I'm worried, you know with what has been happening and all of the security with…”

He interrupted her again: “I'll handle everything, don't worry yourself.”

Baxter took off his gloves as he kept his eyes locked upon hers and then stepped even closer and up against her.

He then had a one word question for her: “Rabbits?”


Once they were finished, Whittaker got up off the ground and sorted out her clothes as well as zipping back up her open suit. Baxter was doing the same though she moved quicker as there was a concern that she found herself having that maybe someone had been spying upon them while they had been doing what they had. There was meant to be no one around and they had gone into the undergrowth a little but the worry had been there. There was no panic, just haste. Once done, she moved to get a cigarette from her box next and then searched her pockets of her uniform under the chemical warfare suit looking for her matches: no luck came in that hunt.

“David, have you got any matches?”

“I've got to get back.”

He didn't even look at her as he spoke. He spoke fast and almost dismissively to her as if she didn't mean anything. This was yet another Baxter she was seeing and not one she liked either.

“You're going now?”

Whittaker silently chastised herself for how that sounded aloud rather than in her head. It had come across rather desperate yet Baxter was turning away ready to walk off.

“As I said, my colleague is coming by and I need to give him these to pass… to have them analysed.” He had turned back to her with a box of matches in hand and another smile. “Laura, thank you for your hard work… and also everything else. I must be getting back though. We'll talk soon, I promise.”

And he was gone, walking away back towards the air-lock at the ever-expanding field complex where the NAC was now staying put.


She sat on the grass and smoked her cigarette.

Whittaker had enjoyed playing 'rabbits' with Baxter but was more than a little bit upset at what he had just done with the method of his departure. His abruptness in leaving had come as a rather unwelcome surprise. She asked herself where were his manners and did he have any consideration for her feelings. The answers which she gave to those questions were not ones that she liked to understand.

There was more that kept her sitting here with her thoughts even when she stubbed out the cigarette telling herself that she hadn't been used and he was just distracted and busy. Instead, she turned her mind for a few moments to the task that Baxter had her doing for her country.

There had been a nagging voice in the back of her head that she had been unable to get rid of since yesterday when it came to how Baxter had convinced her to assist him. What he had told her about Mackenzie remained a bit odd. If she had read that somewhere or seen it in a film then it could have seemed a bit too much: too complicated and too fantastical to be real. Or course the business of espionage would be convoluted as those who spied against their country wrapped themselves in lies and tried to outwit everyone yet for Mackenzie to have done all of that and fooled everyone apart from Baxter…

It just seemed too much to believe.

Baxter had explained it though and she had believed him then because it had all made sense. She remained convinced that Mackenzie was an unpleasant man and wanted to aid her country. At the same time, she had to consider that maybe Baxter and his organisation had made a mistake with the man and he wasn't spying for the Soviets after all.

Finally standing up now, Whittaker wished for a mirror to take a brief glance at her appearance. She had none to hand and had to hope that those she worked with wouldn't be able to tell from how she looked what she had been up to outside with Baxter. Beforehand it had all seemed fun when he had suggested that they let anyone interested think that yet not now. With him in her mind again she told herself as she traced his steps back that if she was right and he was wrong when it came to Mackenzie than at least he could now have all of that evidence – those intelligence reports and operational summaries – to prove Mackenzie's innocence.

She had done the right thing and everything would sort itself out in the end.



February 7th 1990
Üfingen, Lower Saxony, West Germany

Brigadier Johnson's command column arrived at Üfingen just before midday. The collection of tracked and wheeled vehicles had just come over one of the crossings being used by the Desert Rats as they again fell backwards deeper into West Germany and further away from the IGB when the rain which had been falling since darkness fell last night finally came to a halt. He was informed about the brief respite in the weather by one of his headquarters staff though knew that it would mean little to his men as they completed the tactical withdrawal: it wasn't like all of the mud which they were fighting through was suddenly going to disappear. More concerned with the combat his men were facing, Johnson called for a quick commander's summary from his operations and intelligence staff. He wanted an update on what exactly was occurring with his scattered combat command.

Since the sun had started setting yesterday, when the rain had begun, the Desert Rats had been conducting that withdrawal which Johnson hadn't wanted to make but had been compelled to undertake due to a variety of factors surrounding the current wartime situation. The task to fall back from where they had fought the day before and then held onto into yesterday had come due to events to the north with the West Germans being under immense pressure and developments to the south too. He had instructions from the divisional commander that he was to break contact with the few opposing units that still were active and pull back to the Salzgitter Canal: to the west of Braunschweig and leave the enemy far behind. That city itself was being hastily evacuated by the West German authorities with what civilians who had stayed in-place through the past few days supposed to be moved in an orderly fashion to the northwest while the Desert Rats moved around the city to the southwest and back to the vertical line drawn across Lower Saxony where the canal and the new defensive line was to run. Such had been Johnson's orders yet achieving them exactly as desired had been difficult with those civilians not doing as they were meant to, the enemy not cooperating and also much hostile air activity causing further interference.

That manoeuvre was meant to have been completed by first light this morning.

Johnson's briefing was short and on-point. He was informed about the progress of the formations under his command first as to how far to the west they had got with who had reached the new defensive line yet and who had not. The status of the defeated Soviet units which were refusing to accept their defeat was updated with their progress too in following the Desert Rats; in addition the movement of elements of that East German reserve division moving towards Braunschweig was addressed. There was information concerning the air attacks which had come along with the uncomfortable news that he would be getting less friendly air cover through the day as that was shifted northwards towards the battles raging on the Lüneburg Heath. Finally, the engagement at Denstorf – a village a couple of miles away to the north along the canal – was discussed with more information as to what had happened there when a Soviet airmobile rifle company in helicopters had tried to seize the crossing and run into his rear-area troops who were there at the time.

He was unhappy with all that he heard.


The West German civil authorities hadn't effectively controlled the flow of people out of Braunschweig. Thousands had moved southwards along Autobahn-39 in the general direction of Salzgitter and been halted by military police roadblocks (this time West German military reservists) on that highway because the Desert Rats were moving across it after driving over crossings erected along the narrow Oker River. As could be expected in such a situation, the civilians – desperate to get away – had tried everything they could to keep moving and blocked the road on many occasions. Some of Johnson's men had been held up and exposed when stationary to Soviet air attacks: the bombing runs made had killed and injured many of those West Germans too. Other civilians had come out of the city directly to the west and followed roads leading to the Salzgitter Canal and those new defensive positions too. Furthermore, an evacuation of civilians from the smaller Wolfenbüttel had been taking place at the same time with West Germans from there meant to head directly for Salzgitter and again not through areas where the Desert Rats were moving yet instead a large number had moved northwards towards Braunschweig (confusion must have occurred) also getting in the way of the withdrawal being made by Johnson's command.

As to the Desert Rats elements who had been pulling away from their previous positions, there had been instances where some of his men had gotten temporarily lost in the darkness, others had been victims of further enemy air activity and some had been actively pursued by the Soviet Army. Their 6GMRD had been torn to pieces in battle yet company- and battalion-sized elements remained combat-capable and were being driven forward to the point of destruction. Throughout whole night and into this morning small-scale engagements had repeatedly occurred on the ground to match those made from the air to the ground too. No evidence was given to Johnson in the summary he was given of any major errors committed by those under his command that he didn't already know about yet he knew that some would have occurred during those instances of combat.

The Salzgitter Canal ran north-south from where it met the east-west Mittellandkanal down to the city after which it was named. In the map briefing which came with the operations and intelligence summary he ordered, Johnson again was able to see why the new defensive line was chosen to run along there. The 12th Brigade was to the north on the other side of the bigger waterway and the 22nd Brigade was taking up positions near Salzgitter and running their lines southwest. There were multiple crossing points over the canal, such as the now-downed Autobahn-39 bridge right near here along with smaller ones for roads and railways. It was a good position to fight for as it lay behind Braunschweig and the enemy would have to control that city to make effective attacks against the Desert Rats. There were open fields of fire for Johnson's command to make use of in stopping a full-scale attack and good ground to cross if a further retreat needed to be made to the Hildesheim Canal (a fall back position already identifed) more than a dozen miles back to the west as well. What he didn't like about this position was how far back from the border it was with all the ground which he and his men had so successfully defended now being given over to enemy occupation. The strategic need was understood yet it aggrieved Johnson to have pulled back like he had after the victories won there.

He had a concern in his mind that this might continue too. Next it might be the Hildesheim Canal, then the Weser, then the Rhine and finally the English Channel. The Desert Rats might win victory after victory and never break yet be forced back again and again! If it hadn't been for the needs of maintaining flank security then Johnson truly believed that instead of going backwards he could lead the 7th Armoured Brigade – not on their own of course – straight to the IGB and even beyond due to the weakened state of the enemy before him who were a nuisance and causing him to lose men under his command only because they were withdrawing.

With regards to Denstorf, that little village lay on the eastern side of the Salzgitter Canal and beside Bundesstrasse-1. It was westwards of where Braunschweig lay and with the planned defensive area for his 1 STAFFORDS battle-group where the infantry and tanks who had so successfully defeated attacking enemy units in the previous few days were to do so again when they reached there and went over the canal. The highway bridge was to be used for that crossing though also the smaller fixed crossing at Wedtlenstedt and two temporary bridges put in-place by the Royal Engineers using vehicle-mounted assault crossings. The Denstorf bridge and the one at Wedtlenstedt were both wired for demolition by those same engineers and the mobile crossings were to be lifted out of place of blown up too if something went wrong. Soviet helicopters had appeared at Denstorf aiming to take the crossing though with troops in some of the helicopters and others acting as armed escorts: Johnson had been told that Mil-8 and Mil-24 helicopters were used in the enemy assault. Two of those helicopters had been downed at the last minute by shoulder-mounted SAM's but the others had fired back while also landing troops. It hadn't been men from the 1 STAFFORDS which had ended up repulsing the assault and defeating those troops who managed to land safely but rather a mixed force of RE demolition sappers, men from a supply convoy crewed by the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) and also a company-group of reinforcements being sent to provide replacements for lost men of the Desert Rats. Those latter troops were mounted in FV432's which had come from storage and the men themselves were individual reservists thrown together and sent towards the frontlines. Johnson had several of these company-groups, with tanks and infantry, assigned to the Desert Rats and such had been their first taste of combat. He was glad at how well they had preformed yet there had been losses there at Denstorf with men killed and that RAOC convoy smashed. Furthermore, those helicopters had avoided engagement in their flight where NATO air power should have stopped them until the very last minute and that had been after flying from what would be forward locations in territory which the Desert Rats had withdrawn from.


Üfingen was with the area which the battle-group built around 1 RHF was to defend and far too close to the frontlines for Johnson to have even a mobile forward headquarters located once whatever enemy forces who managed to make it this far reached the Salzgitter Canal. He gave the order for the column to get moving again and follow the road leading away towards the village of Vallstedt: he had one of his aides in the area around there looking for suitable locations in the countryside where they could set up with some cover from aerial observation.

Once his FV436 command vehicle was moving alongside the rest of the column – many vehicles had men atop armed with SAM's too – Johnson was getting ready to make a report to division on his tactical situation and ask his commander if what had been deemed another 'hammer and anvil' operation was certainly impossible with how things currently stood. Such had been the description of what had occurred the day before last when the West Germans had assisted him in defeating the bulk of the Soviet 6GMRD using that flank attack while keeping the enemy fixed in the rear. There had been discussions with the 22nd Brigade doing this against the East Germans off to the south (they being the hammer) alongside the 4th Armoured Division (the anvil). During the planning outline which he was party to, the Desert Rats were meant to have widened their operational area. If that was to occur – unlikely now, but not impossible if the West Germans managed to hold on the Lüneburg Heath – then he would need to know to make his dispositions to reflect any attack made by the 22nd Brigade.

A combat report was brought to his attention while they were underway though and this took his attention for the time being. The headquarters convoy kept on moving while he spoke to his operations officer (in his own vehicle) over the radio and they both looked at their maps.

Soviet tanks had been encountered at Lieferde and they were T-80's. None of those were reported to be with the Poland-based 6GMRD and they were certainly weren't crewed by East Germans with their reserve division (accurate identification was uncertain but it was possibly the 10MRD) moving to occupy Braunschweig. The report from beside the Oker River where the rearguard-tasked 2 RTR battle-group had been covering the demolition of the fixed crossing there stated that a company of them had been met in battle. Before the bridge had been destroyed with explosive charges there had been a delay in waiting for stragglers to arrive with Scorpion's escorting Spartan's carrying both Royal Artillery and RAF liaison personnel who had been busy guiding in artillery and air strikes. Those vehicles with such important personnel aboard had been unable to get over the river a couple of miles upstream due to an air attack on a bridge they were meant to use and had come to Lieferde… and along with the Scorpion's into the fire of the 125mm cannons firing shells and guided anti-tank missiles from those T-80's which had engaged them.

Three Spartan's full of highly-trained specialists in guiding-in fire support and four Scorpion's with the 2 RTR's reconnaissance troop had been blown up along with two Challenger tanks who had rushed to their aid in what sounded like a move made in panic and haste rather than caution; they had met accurate shooting from those T-80's too in what was appearing to be an ambush laid. In return, two of the T-80's were reported to have been eliminated as well with possible destruction of another two as the 2 RTR had fought back. The bridge was afterwards blown as planned and urgent requests were now being made for air support with the 2 RTR using their own RAF liasion team on-site.

The brigade intelligence officer was soon consulted about where those T-80's could have come from. He stated that the intelligence he had received from Division said that two of the three regular-assigned motorised rifle divisions with the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army had those latest-model tanks on strength and so did the tank division too. All of those divisions were fighting against the West Germans or just behind the frontlines there on the Lüneburg Heath unless something had gone very wrong with NATO intelligence. That left either an unidentifed Soviet formation (only the Soviet Army fielded T-80's) who had just made contact with the Desert Rats' rearguard. Only a company of tanks had been reported but that didn't mean that they were on their own.

Johnson made sure that the intelligence officer was to talk to the 2 RTR for further details and he had the operations officer get back to his task of overseeing the last of the withdrawals being made back to the Salzgitter Canal. Meanwhile, he would make sure that this was mentioned first when he soon spoke to the divisional commander. He needed to get his headquarters column stopped and radio transmitters set-up – a short distance away, not directly beside the vehicles – before that was done. What had been discovered through the blood shed by some of his men there was something that needed to be passed up the chain-of-command.

The Soviets could be up to something here on the flank of their major move against the West Germans that had all NATO attention fixed upon it and those higher above him needed to be aware of that.