As they left the cover of the forest, they shook out as planned into diamond formation: Lukša leading, the ODA engineer sergeant forward right, Webb just behind him, Bradley as tail-end Charlie watching their rear, Krauja on the left with Morland front left. As they walked, they swung their weapons slowly from the hips to cover their individual arc of fire; front, left, right and back again, listening for any suspicious sound, looking for any movement. As they moved they peered into and through the darkness, watchful and as alert as leopards hunting the African bush at night. Finally, they entered a field of thigh-high, half-ripe barley, damp to the hand from an earlier rain shower. Now they moved carefully, deliberately, slower than walking pace. After ten minutes they had only covered 350 meters and Morland’s heart began to race. Ahead, he could now see the distinct outline of the hedge along the sunken lane and he realized that dawn was on its way.

Only another fifty meters. We’re going to make it!

And then it happened.

All his mind could register was noise and light, the crack of bullets and a crazy, flashing kaleidoscope of intense color: orange-and-white explosions and the vicious red of tracer rounds smashing through the air as they ripped past him in the darkness. And then, almost blinded by the light of explosions and gunfire, another noise engulfed him. It was louder than everything else and all the more terrifying for it—the deep, steady whump–whump–whump of a heavy machine gun. Morland risked peering for a brief moment over the heads of the barley. There, from a darkened watchtower, came the unmistakable muzzle flashes as the machine gun pumped round after round at them.

Then, to their rear right and also to their left, he picked out the very much faster, higher-pitched, chainsaw-like rat-ratta-tat-tat of what sounded like 7.62 machine guns, the tracer rounds shattering the darkness and cutting strips in the barley off to either side of their group. And as if this wasn’t enough, there was the crump of what could only be a mortar or heavy grenade launcher. It was already bracketing them; loud explosions and shrapnel whistling through the air. But all off to the flank, which did not make sense. In fact, how he had survived the initial maelstrom of steel was an even bigger mystery, but he was not complaining. However, and of this he was in no doubt, the Russians had been waiting for them.

And then instinct and training kicked in. “Take cover . . . !” Morland yelled as he jinked forward and dived down, then rolled to his left, trying to ensure that anyone targeting him would no longer know where he was. He then willed his body deep into the ground to get away from the hell above. His nose was full of the smell of fresh earth, while all around the cacophony of tracer racing past, explosions and mind-bending, psychedelic light continued.