For Queen and County

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.