Bloodlands (John Milton Series Book 23) by Mark Dawson

Author:Mark Dawson [Dawson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unputdownable Thrillers
Published: 2024-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

52

They drove on, leaving the village behind them. It became more and more barren as they continued to the east. The fields on either side of the road had been battered by mortar rounds and shells. The trees that had once stood here had been flattened or snapped in half. The ground that stretched off to the left was a muddy quagmire with large scoops dug out and sprayed here and there by explosions, the resulting craters gathering water.

They drove down into a barren valley where the ground was studded with craters from the detonation of countless mortar rounds, where wildfowl and foxes disappeared into the vegetation as they rolled past. There was a turning; Tanya followed it into a gorge that swept left and right as the road continued eastward. Milton turned the scope and looked to the left. The road climbed out of the gorge for a moment, and he could see where the Ukrainian boundary was demarcated by a series of trenches and thick loops of razor wire. There was a stretch of no-man’s land after that and then, perhaps sixty metres away, corresponding coils of wire and what looked like another trench.

“That’s it?” he said. “The front line?”

“Yes,” Tanya said. “Say hello to the Russians.”

The road dipped back down into the gorge and then curled away from the front a little. They reached a shielded area that had been cut into the trees, and Tanya reversed the Korshun into it.

She turned off the engine. “We won’t stay long. Keep your eyes open—we’re right in the middle of it here. Get everything unloaded, and I’ll find out where they want it.”

Milton opened the door, climbed down and looked out. Sleeping quarters had been dug into the wall of the gorge to the right. Some soldiers were occupying shell craters, while others had done what they could to dig themselves shallow shell scrapes. Wherever they could, they improvised overhead cover from view to minimise the risk of being spotted and targeted by the small drones both sides were using. It had the distinct look of a temporary position.

The others disembarked. Tanya led Spook to the start of a trench, leaving Milton and Hicks to unload.

Milton took one end of a crate of ammunition while Hicks took the other. “You were here?”

“Not here,” Hicks said. “Similar, though.”

“Rather you than me.”

“There are places that are worse than this,” Hicks said. “At least they have some cover here.”

As if on cue, a mortar round whistled over the gorge and detonated somewhere on the other side. Machine-gun fire opened up in response and then stopped.

Tanya poked her head above the lip of the trench. She pointed to the crates. “It’s all coming down here.”

Milton and Hicks took the boxes and lowered them, one at a time, into the trench. The food and water were stacked in an area that was set aside for storage; the ammunition was required farther along the trench. They took a crate each and followed Tanya to a dugout where the men were taking shelter.

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