The plan was to charge across the top of the valley, putting down enough fire to keep their opponents at bay, until they could safely drop down on the other side of the armoured vehicles. Then they could move steadily along the valley, fighting running skirmishes if necessary, until they reached the Government lines.
It wasn’t much of a plan, Steve acknowledged. And right now, it didn’t look as if it was working.
A grenade had exploded ten yards in front of them, and in the smoke and flame it kicked up, there was no choice but to stop. Dan had rolled one of his own grenades down towards the attacker, but it didn’t detonate close enough to the soldiers to do any real damage. The valley was fiercely illuminated in the explosions and tracer fire, and the noise of the detonation mixed with the thunder to create a murderous barrage of noise that screamed and swirled around your ears.
Steve dropped to the ground, wiping the mud and grime from his face. ‘We’re not going to get through!’ he shouted.
He glanced backwards. The men from the first armoured vehicle had sent a patrol up the hillside, trying to flush them out. They couldn’t retreat now, he realised. There was nowhere to go.
Only straight into the fire.
He looked across at Ollie. The man’s face was a mixture of determination and fear. All of them had dropped down into the mud to avoid the bullets spitting across the hillside. Ian had pulled Tshaka down with him, but the man was struggling like a caged bull and it took a pair of vicious blows across the face to calm him down.
They couldn’t survive for long like this, Steve knew. They’d be taken to pieces by the grenades and the advancing troops. He pointed towards the first armoured vehicle. It had been damaged when the RPG round struck it, and the machine gunner had abandoned his post. If there were only one or two men on board, they could take it, use it for cover, and launch a fight back.
‘Think we can charge it?’ he panted.
‘If we can’t, we’ll die trying,’ Ollie gasped back.
Each member of the unit knew they had no choice but to risk their lives on one last desperate throw of the dice. If the machine gunner got hold of his weapon, they were all corpses. The chances of dying were far higher than the chances of surviving, and that simple fact was hammering into the hearts of each one of them.
‘Bayonets?’ said Maksim.
Steve nodded. ‘Fix ’em.’ He slotted the sharp steel blade onto the underside of his AK-47 and snapped the last of his full mags into place. He waited for five seconds whilst each man did the same, then waved them forwards. With guns outstretched, a small, human wave of steel and gunpowder rose up out of the mud, like corpses rising from a graveyard, and started to advance on the enemy position.
Steve began to run towards the vehicle. It was fifty yards away, all of it downhill, and they could cover the ground in a few seconds. He loosed off a few rounds just to the let the enemy know they were in a scrap, then accelerated hard. To the right, the men in the other armoured vehicle were starting to fire into them. Up on the hills, the soldiers flushing them out were turning their fire downwards. Steve pushed harder, driving himself forward: every second you were exposed to the murderous fire increased your chances of getting hit.
Nick was the fastest of them, and he bounded onto the vehicle first, a roar blasting from his strained lungs as he vaulted into the wall of thickly armoured steel. Dan, Chris and Maksim were on it in a flash, and suddenly the blades of their bayonets were everywhere. It was savage, hand-to-hand combat. In total, there were four men manning the vehicle, but they had been taken by surprise, and were now outnumbered. Nick had sliced open one man’s stomach with his blade, whilst Chris slashed his own bayonet across his throat, emptying a pint of blood instantly. Maksim had shot one man straight in the face, sending him reeling backwards. A third was standing straight in front of Steve, reaching for his hand gun, but before he could get a grip on the pistol, Steve had already stabbed him hard in the chest with his bayonet, puncturing a lung and leaving him gasping for oxygen. The gun dropped from his hand. Steve drew out the blade, blood still dripping from its tip, and was about to stab him again, but Ollie had already put a bullet straight into his heart.
Dan and Chris crouched behind the vehicle.
‘Take cover, take cover!’ shouted Chris.
Steve flung himself behind the vehicle, looking around. He counted the bodies as they took over, checking each man in turn to make sure they were OK.
We’ve survived.
For now, he reminded himself.
Up ahead, the three remaining armoured vehicles had seen what had happened. And they were turning their fire straight into them.