The Red Alert Story

The Red Alert Story.
by Gareth Bird

CHAPTER XIV
After a few hours it began to get dark, not that it had been very light all day. Jack had found his way back onto the road he wanted to take but now had to pull the car off the road as it began to splutter as the fuel ran out. He ate a meal consisting of a small bun and a slice of cheese. He flicked the heater on full and sat until the car's battery ran flat. By now, he'd fully drained the car's potential and although he just wanted to sit and sleep, he forced himself out of the car and trekked along the road.

A couple of hours later, Jack's attention was focussed on a small village, whose lights were becoming more and more noticeable. He cut across a field, and with the exception of getting caught in deep snow drifts every so often, reached the village quite easily.

However, the village was not as it had appeared, as it was surrounded by a tall, barbed wire fence. Jack peered through, but it was definitely a normal village; it had a church, several houses and what looked like a shop, or pub. Jack looked up at the fence again. It looked fairly ordinary, but decided not to risk touching it. Instead, he threw a branch at it. It bounced back.

"Not electric." thought Jack. He wandered along the outside of the fence until he found a sign. Although it was in Russian, a translation was unnecessary. It clearly spelled out a warning and that visitors were unwelcome. Just by standing still for a few seconds, as he scanned the area, let Jack could feel the cold biting at him. He carried on walking along the fence, passing another similar sign before he saw the main gate. It was unmanned.

Jack walked cautiously forward and waited when he got close to the gate. There was nothing but the eerie sound of the wind blowing gently across the fields around him. He sneaked over to the hut by the gate. There was no light from inside and Jack rubbed off the snow and icy from a window allowing him to peer inside. Jack looked around again. From here he could see a large building, possibly a hanger. There were several roads, all with quite fresh tracks running along them.

Jack frowned, and tried to open the gate. It was securely fastened with heavy bolts and padlocks. He shook at the gates in frustration, sending plumes of snow into the air. He stepped back and contemplated the gate, before taking a run at it and jumping onto it as high up as he could. He struggled for grip as he scrambled onto a bar running the width of the gate.

Jack spent a couple of minutes dangling from the fence, desperately trying to climb over, but found he had little strength left. He found a safe foot hold and clung on for a while trying to catch his breath in-between shivers. Eventually, he tried again and hoisted himself up to the top of the gate. Its barbs dug into his coat and scratched his hands, but Jack managed to get over the top and drop to the other side with minimal damage to himself.

Jack jogged over to the nearest building, which turned out to be some sort of assembly hall. Its windows were grilled up but the door gave little resistance and fell back off its hinges after a few kicks. Jack found the small kitchen at the back of the hall and the mains electric switch. Jack switched it to the 'on' position. Two striplights burst into life in the kitchen and Jack routed around for anything to eat and drink.

He found a few barrels of water, which lay under half an inch of ice, a few pans and a simple cooker. It wasn't long before he was making himself a drink of hot water while he searched for something to eat. He was unsuccessful, but drank the water anyway. Jack stayed there for some time trying to thaw out, but finally left to explore one of the houses.

He broke into one of the identically built houses, upon which his suspicions were confirmed. It was an army base, quite a large one at that, considering it had facilities for soldiers with families. From one of the windows, he could see the runway, indicated by the flat expanse of snow between several patches of snow covered grass. The house had been carelessly stripped. Every so often, Jack would uncover a few items of little use, such as kitchen utensils, stationary and occasionally personal items such as photographs and clothing.

After giving up any hopes of finding anything of any use, Jack set himself up a fire and lay under a pile of blankets, pondering his next move. His soggy map showed that he could possibly make it to Vyshniy Volochek by the next day if he could find some suitable transport, otherwise it would be several days of heavy-going trekking by foot. A few minutes later, Jack banished these thoughts from his head, trying to allow himself the luxury of a clear head and a good sleep. He failed and spent an uncomfortable night unsure of his next move.

He finally woke, feeling cold and hungry, and bent double after feeling his nagging chest pain tighten up himself as it had every morning since the day of the Soviet attack. However it was not that which had caught his attention, but the terrific noise coming from outside. He peered through the frosty window and could make out several moving lights along the runway. When his eyes were able to differentiate the shadows, which clashed with the contrasting lights, he could see several vehicles. They were large, and not particularly fast. Jack squinted, trying to make out what they were.

At first, Jack considered that they were Mobile Construction Vehicles, but he could make no sense of that. Why would there be half a dozen of them driving up and down the runway. Besides, they were turning on the spot and MCVs were, basically speaking, a construction site of wheels - not tracks. Suddenly, another vehicle drove past, within a few yards of Jack's window. This took Jack by surprise and instinctively jumped back. The vehicle drove by, apparently unaware of Jack's concerns.

From this distance, Jack could see that it was heavily armoured, similar to that of a tank, but was surely too big to be such a vehicle. It would be too heavy, and not manoeuvrable enough to be an asset. In the field, it would be valuable though, for it would take a lot to do that any real damage. But regardless of that, it would never fit along the mountain passes in Eastern Europe, it would have to take specially made roads - and bridges.

Jack's mouth dropped open when it finally hit him that these could well have been the reason why the bridges they had been building were so necessary. He shuddered at the thought that some of these monsters could already be wreaking havoc around Europe. Another tank growled past the window, and Jack couldn't help stare at the awesome machinery.

By now he could see that they were similar to some of the other tanks the Soviets had been using throughout their campaign. They had dual, independent turrets, and Jack could only guess the size shells they would fire. He had only ever seen larger barrels on naval vessels. Jack quickly drew a sketch of the tanks of the back of his somewhat battered map, but had to give up - not just because his hands could not grip the pen properly, but because of the earth shattering booms which came from outside.

Jack rushed back to the window to see several of the tanks, even a distant V2 rocket launcher, bombarding another tank with their arsenal. The onslaught continued for several seconds and after the smoke cleared, Jack could barely believe his eyes when he saw that the tank appeared unscathed. "I want one..." muttered Jack to himself.

He shook his head and looked again. The tank was immediately surrounded by scientists and high ranking officers who began to check the tank all over. Two men in civilian clothing walked over to the tank and spoke briefly to one of the scientists, before shaking his hand and saluting the officers. They took a file of papers and walked back to a waiting Jeep which finally drove the men from the site.

However, what was even more alarming for Jack was that when the scientists opened up the hatch of the tank, two soldiers appeared, having sat through the bombardment, seemingly without effect. They were given a quick on the spot check-up and then were allowed to leave, along with the officers. The scientists then had the tank loaded onto a large truck which drove off the site, followed by the other vehicles involved in the test.

Jack waited for what seemed like an eternity, then ventured out of the building, hoping that there was no-one left to see him. A brilliant beam of sunlight slipped through the gaps in the clouds which towered above. There was total silence. With every step, Jack felt the noise of crunching snow and was sure it was echoing around the base. He walked over to one of the hangars from where several of the scientists had been seen earlier that morning and peered through the glass of the darkened windows. He wiped them clear of frost-glazed coats and could see that there was little inside. Finally, he decided it was safe to try to enter the building and tugged at a side door. It was typically locked. He rattled at the handle in disgust, before instinctively glancing around, wincing at the noise it made.

Jack threw his shoulder against the door and it gave a little. He tried again, with a slight response. He made a final effort and the door broke off its lock and swung freely open until it slammed into an obstruction. Jack squeezed through the gap and closed the door behind him. Jack looked up and down the hanger to see it was just as empty as he'd suspected except for a small desk at the far end, by the rear door. Jack quickly walked over to find it littered in bits of dubious looking equipment. It was a radio, or at least it looked like one. Jack followed some of the leads and saw that they all appeared to be hooked up somewhere or another. Jack smiled. For the first time in a long while, Jack felt he'd made some sort of progress.

He flicked on a couple of switches and began to methodically test its frequencies whilst tapping a simple Morse coded message. Jack waited for over half an hour but then picked up a reply; it too was in Morse code. It appeared that his message had been picked up comparatively locally (probably in the Baltic) and had been relayed to Britain to check for authenticity. Eventually, after several messages it was agreed that the Morse code was unnecessary and they could talk via more normal means.

Jack found himself talking to Major Toby Whalley. He uploaded all of his information to Whalley who reciprocated with war news. Jack listened with disbelief to the Major who explained the weight of casualties suffered on both sides of the conflict. The giant tanks Jack had witnessed had indeed been involved in battle and accounted for a vast number of allied losses. Whalley also explained briefly about Jack's observations. The Soviets had invented the so-called Iron Curtain, a device which could, for short periods of time, render certain units invulnerable to conventional attack. Something the allies had understood in principle, but had chosen to ignore due to two existing projects. The A-bomb Jack knew about, but it was also common knowledge (even to the Soviets) that the Allied forces were constructing a chronosphere - something Einstein had suggested as a spin off of his A-bomb project. He claimed he had once used a prototype chronosphere in a past experiment.

Whalley also explained that he had had similar word from a man named Black who had radioed the previous night, although his current whereabouts were unknown. It had been made clear to Jack also that Soviets were indeed winning the nuclear race and for all that was known, it was possible that they already owned small nuclear devices.

Jack asked about the crew of HMS Resistance and their plan to reach the Soviet Research Centre. He was told that they had received no word from anyone else and they were presumed to still be behind enemy lines. He was also told to proceed with the mission to the centre and attempt to sabotage the Soviets' work. Jack agreed, and with that, the transmission was terminated.


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