Dead Hand by Harold Coyle

Author:Harold Coyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

WESTERN SIBERIA, RUSSIA

07:50 HOURS ZULU, APRIL 9

Out of breath and frustrated, Franz Ingelmann took several moments before rendering his report. Squatting next to the panting legionnaire, Stanislaus Dombrowski waited patiently while the Austrian corporal collected himself. “I found no trace of Juan,” Ingelmann finally blurted. “Of course,” he continued after another moment’s pause, “things are so bad out there, I could have passed within a meter of him and not seen him.”

“I daresay,” Dombrowski stated dryly, “that poor Juan is either hopelessly lost or, like Anton and Kim, hors de combat.”

As he reached around for his canteen, Ingelmann looked over to where their captain lay propped against a tree stump. “How’s he doing?”

Dombrowski didn’t bother looking back at his injured team commander. Instead, his gaze dropped down to the blackened patch of earth at his feet. “Rather well,” he mumbled as he repeatedly jabbed at the dirt with a stick, “for a man with two broken legs, perhaps a broken back, and God knows how many internal injuries.”

“Isn’t that going to make moving him a bit risky?” Ingelmann asked cautiously.

Ceasing his assault on the ground between them, Dombrowski looked up and gave his companion a cold, hard stare. “We are not taking him with us.”

Ingelmann blinked. He wanted to say something. He felt the urge to voice his disapproval of this decision. But he knew that such a gesture would be for naught. As a member of les Commandos de Recherche et d’Action dans le Profondeur, the young Austrian knew that the price of being a part of that unit was high. The risks they took during training exercises or in the course of combat operations often bordered on gambling. Yet the sacrifices that individual legionnaires were called upon to pay, no matter how steep, were seldom taken into account when determining if a mission should or should not be undertaken. Only the feasibility of achieving the desired goal of the exercise and the cost of not doing so mattered. Perhaps this is why there is often a wide psychological gulf between staff planners, who deal in the abstract, and ground combat troops, charged with carrying out their plans in a very real and often harsh world.

After taking another sip from his canteen, Ingelmann forced himself to look over to where his captain was slumped. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

The Polish legionnaire didn’t answer. Instead, he jabbed the stick he held into the ground, again and again. The question of what they could do for their injured commanding officer had been plaguing Dombrowski ever since he had discovered him twisted about in his parachute and bent backward over a fallen tree. That Captain Pascal was conscious and yet had made no effort to free himself from his harness had told Dombrowski just how severe the man’s injuries were. “I’ve already given him all the morphine in his first-aid packet. Mine as well,” the Pole finally stated. After glancing back over his shoulder to where Pascal lay, he looked into Ingelmann’s eyes.

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