A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  The cell went deathly quiet, half at Carrera’s outburst and half at the mention of the dreaded name. MPs—it was their job, along with the main band, to guard the headquarters—came in and led an apparently shocked chief of staff out to an awaiting vehicle. Just about everyone else tried to pretend they’d heard nothing and tried very hard to look like they were totally rapt in the work in front of them. It was especially shocking in that the arrested chief of staff was Dan Kuralski, who had been with the legions since the beginning and was known to be one of Carrera’s oldest and dearest friends.

  One boy, though, a young signal corps signifer, maybe nineteen or twenty, had the guts to ask, “Well, how do they stop the Taurans, then, Duque?”

  “With guts and bayoneted rifles,” he answering, striding off to his own quarters, whiskey still in hand.

  Jamey Soult, Carrera’s driver, bit his lower lip and shook his head. His boss wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  North of the Parilla line, Balboa

  Verboom looked down in infinite pity at the Balboan soldier, still smoking and with the better part of his face and both his eyes burned away. Unconsciously, he shook his head at the waste of it all. The kid—well, maybe he’s an old man, he’s too badly burned to tell—kept alternatively keening and mouthing, “Por favor . . . ayudame . . . por favor . . .” but lacked the energy and wind to shout anymore. His legs spasmed and hands fluttered without any control, splashing mud for a short distance around.

  Taking one knee, Verboom thought, I’d hope, if our positions were reversed, someone would do as much for me. Then he placed the rifle’s butt to his shoulder, took extremely careful aim, and squeezed off a single shot. The bullet entered the victim’s face just to the left side of what had probably been a nose. A two-inch plate of skull detached from the head, flying upward and sideways for several feet, before spinning back down to the muck.

  “God zegene,” Verboom whispered, taking the rifle from his shoulder. “God bless.”

  “Was that necessary, Verboom?” asked van Beek.

  “I think it was,” the former replied. “Even if he could have been saved by our side or his, saved for what? To be a blind, one-man freak show. I follow the golden rule; that rule demanded this.”

  Van Beek looked into the shell crater with its now still and silent body. “Maybe so. We’ll let it go for now. Orders are to set up a hasty defense and look into what defenses we’ve found.”

  “Already doing the first part.” Verboom inclined his head to his left rear, saying, “For the other . . . well . . . over there there’s a small wooden crate that’s been buried open side out to look like the firing port for a bunker. But it’s just a wooden crate. There are some shallow scrapings behind us; but you probably saw those. There are some bumps that are nothing more than shipping containers covered with sandbags, rocks, loose dirt, and grass. I haven’t seen anything else.”

  There was a sudden burst of that distinctively fast Balboan rifle and machine gun fire, followed by a long, blood-curdling scream of naked aggression. Van Beek and Verboom looked up to see shadowy figures emerging through the smoke, charging while firing from the hip. Both dived into the hole containing the remains of the late Balboan burn casualty.

  “Fix bayonets!” shouted van Beek. “Fix bayonets!”

  Bella Vista, Balboa

  In the temporary command post, Janier watched as an enlisted man updated the map. He also listened very attentively to the reports as they rolled in from across the front. The Balboans were using mortars, but there was no artillery. They were meeting his thrusts head on, hand to hand and bayonet to bayonet. They were also beginning to infiltrate to the sides of his probes, indicating, It’s just about time to start pulling the troops back before they get cut off.

  Most importantly, he’d been forced to the conclusion that, after all, the Parilla Line faced north, not south. No mines, limited wire, very few positions sited to fire toward us, and those, by reports, of relatively recent and somewhat shoddy construction.

  So . . . okay, I’ll stifle my doubts. And continue bringing the rest of the armies ashore. And continue preparing for a push to the capital.

  Shaking his head, Janier muttered, “You’ve disappointed me, Patricio, you really have.”

  Pointing to some graphics on the map, he told his operations officer, “Begin the pullback to what we want to keep as jumpoff positions. Don’t try to control it from here, just give control of a slice of the artillery to the subordinate commanders and let them extract themselves as best they can, while they can.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.”

  —Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)

  Parilla Line, Balboa

  The Balboans were pressing tightly, probably on the sound theory that the Taurans wouldn’t use artillery close enough to risk having to have to explain to somebody’s mommy why her little precious bundle of joy had been killed by friendly fire.

  Never mind if we’re killed by enemy fire, sneered Verboom, so long as the generals and politicians, to the extent those differ, don’t have to explain anything . . . impolitic.

  If the Taurans were, by and large, bigger men, the locals seemed to have made something of a fetish out of the bayonet. At least whichever unit this crew came from apparently had.

  Bastards.

  Verboom no sooner finished the thought than he heard a shout of panic from Coevorden, off to his left. He turned in time to see three Balboans, one still in the process of rising, charging from that flank. Van Beek, the platoon sergeant, was the first one to react positively. He put a bullet into the throat of the nearest man among the charging enemy. However, it was the tiniest fraction of a second before another from among the Balboans fired a short burst into van Beek’s lower abdomen, laying him out like a sack of fruit that could bleed red. Coevorden, on the other hand, still not entirely himself from his fall, reacted slowly as the Balboans neared to club range. Faced with a thrusting Balboan bayonet, his parry was too slow. The bayonet entered his throat just under his Adam’s apple, and was then brutally ripped out the left side of his neck. Blood, thick and stinking, spurted out in four directions.

  It was only as Coevorden’s dying body fell that the way was clear for Verboom to get a shot off. His first shot, spinning away as it left the muzzle, was also, naturally, yawing like mad. It hit the Balboan’s glassy metal and silk vest at an angle, denting metal without penetrating. The Balboan was knocked back half a pace.

  The sergeant being frightened half witless, two of his next three shots went wild, while one again impacted the vest. Forcing calmness on himself, barely enough calm for the purpose, Verboom took careful aim at the Balboan’s head, firing a single shot that connected.

  The last Balboan, seeing his two comrades fall, dropped his rifle and put up his hands. No sooner had he, though, than a bullet launched from somewhere behind Verboom took him in the face.

  Werner’s instincts were to carefully avoid looking around to ensure he couldn’t see who had done it. After all, it wasn’t the time nor the circumstances for too close an adherence to the finer points of the law of war. Unfortunately, his instincts were overcome by his sense of justice. He looked and saw van der Wege, lowering his rifle and looking self-satisfied.

  Men with their blood up, or half crazed with terror are not entirely accountable for their actions. But that private is still a worthless piece of shit.

  So, Van Beek’s down as well as Corporal Coevorden. The way that bayonet ripped his throat out, he never had half a chance.

  He spared the body a quick glance. Yeah, he’s certainly dead.

  The arterial bleeding had stopped, not through either treatment or coagulation, but through simple lack of any more blood to squirt.

  Looking over at van Beek, he saw the platoon medic working frantically. On the other hand, van Beek’s got half a chance if we can get him o
ut to where we can get an aerial evacuation.

  But I don’t know if we can, thought Verboom. Considering the whole shitty situation, I really don’t think we can. Fortunately, they’re not coming right at us anymore.

  That whole shitty situation under consideration included not only the loss through hysteria of the forward observer, now being led by the hand by an hors de combat private, but the loss to a lucky mortar shell of the observer’s radio operator. This meant no possibility of responsive fire support to cover their withdrawal. The digital fire-control device survived the shell that killed the operator, but, I don’t know how to use that fucking thing. What the hell were they thinking, taking people out of the artillery loop?

  His own platoon’s radio operator was trying desperately to get through to the company, where the commander’s observer might be able to serve as a link between the platoon, in desperate need of fire, and the guns who could provide it.

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  Little brown fuckers aren’t letting up either. I think they’re . . . oh, shit.

  That mental “oh, shit” was the sudden realization that the Balboan infantry—tough little bastards; you’ve got to hand them that—were working around the flanks to trap the platoon, or maybe the entire company, in a double envelopment.

  “Goddammit, can you get through to company or not?”

  “Just did, Sergeant. Here; the exec is on the other end.”

  Werner pressed the talk button and waited for the beeps and blurts of synchronized, encrypted speech. “Verboom here. I am in charge of the platoon now. We’re almost trapped and need some fire support if we’re going to get out of here. Can the FO help?”

  “Lieutenant Jansen here.” With the combination of encryption and known voices and persons it wasn’t strictly needed to use complex call signs. “CO’s hit; not dead and he’ll probably make it but he left me in command. I think you’ve been taking most of the pressure, Verboom, because we got back to our hold line fairly easily and with light casualties. Even the CO’s wound was mostly a result of him insisting on being the last man back. He’d still be out waiting for you and yours if he could be.”

  “Yes, sir, I am sure the CO is just wonderful, a credit to every officer corps since officer corps began, but that doesn’t help me at the moment. Can you have the company forward observer translate my requests into calls for fire?”

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  “Like, in a fucking hurry?”

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  The exec didn’t answer. Instead, after a few seconds’ delay, came a voice Verboom didn’t recognize. “Lieutenant de Groot, sergeant. A word of warning before we begin; we don’t actually train on the old-style call for fire anymore, so I am going to have to ask you questions and punch the answers into my fire-control device.

  “Now, first off, can you give me your exact location?”

  It had taken a while, and some false starts and dangerously off impacts, but shells were now falling along three sides of a box. Only the southern side of the box wasn’t being pounded, barring the odd, fitful, Balboan mortar salvo.

  The shelling was thin, really. It probably wouldn’t have stopped men determined enough. But, Verboom figured, they’re probably as ready to see the last of us as we are to see the last of them. From their point of view, they won, so why get killed to turn a victory into a rout. I think.

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  That, however, didn’t stop the Balboans from firing into the area they could no longer attack bodily.

  Crack. Crackcrack. Crack.

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  This shit’s getting old, too, Verboom thought. He looked behind the thin line composed of the remnants of his squad and one fire team from another squad. The remainder of the platoon, including the walking wounded, were formed up to the north. Some served as litter bearers for such as Sergeant van Beek. One of the walking wounded still had the FO by the hand. Some, holding bandages that dripped red as often as not, crouched on their own for the command to go. Verboom gave it, then turned his attention back to the front.

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  “Yeah, this is getting old.”

  He had two fire teams with him. One was five men, a little larger than normal, from his own squad. The other was composed of four from third squad. He thought it would be less confusing to keep their normal nomenclature, even though they were much reduced. Hence, after waiting about fifteen minutes for the wounded to make their escape, his first order was, “Third squad, bound back seventy-five to one hundred meters. Go!”

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack.

  Werner got back with all but two of his rear-guard men whole and sound. One, he’d had to leave the body behind, what there was of it. The other he’d carried slung over his back.

  The worst part is that he was alive when I draped him across my shoulder, but died while up there. I felt it happen. Horrible feeling. Horrible knowing. And for what?

  Puerto Lindo, Balboa

  Though he didn’t know it, and might not have cared if he had, Janier stood on precisely the same spot from which Patricio Carrera had watched the Megalodon, the first of its class of highly stealthy coastal defense submarines, or SSKs, begin its maiden test voyage. However, where Carrera had been quite nervous and troubled about the former, as well as disgusted at its late arrival, Janier was positively jubilant about the activity he was watching. Moreover, it was happening sooner than he felt he had a right to expect.

  At the harbor’s new edge, a quay rapidly put in by his engineers, rode a mid-sized Roll On-Roll Off civilian transport, chartered to the Tauran Union. The RO-RO somewhat lightly loaded due to the still relatively shallow draft of the bay, was currently disgorging forty-two armored vehicles, from tanks (eleven) to infantry fighting vehicles (seventeen) to armored personnel carriers (nine) to self-propelled artillery (four plus a fire direction center vehicle). There was also a mix of wheeled transport waiting for their big brothers to clear the way before getting in the queue. It was his first increment of armor other than the useful but small and weak Ermine class light armored vehicles of the Sachsen paratroopers, plus the half company or so of equally light, wheeled armor the Anglians had brought by helicopter in lieu of proper assault guns.

  Ah, yes, thought Janier, those things are just like real armored fighting vehicles, only with fetal alcohol syndrome. I confess, while I was still worried that this was all a trap, one of my major worries involved the idea of two brigades or even a full division of Balboan armor coming charging out of the jungle to toss us into the sea. It’s still something to be concerned about; after all, desperate men and desperate measures, but less so. And I’ll soon be able to handle anything less than a corps-sized armored thrust. This package, alone, can buy enough time for the air forces to get here, come to that.

  The RO-RO was a big improvement, but logistics, as much as politics, is the art of the possible. What had once been all that was possible was still, even now, in operation. Out in the bay, in the deepest part, rocked a larger crane ship, the Hermóðr. This was a semi-submersible catamaran-styled freighter with its own integral high-capacity cranes and stabilizing columns that could be lowered into the water. This vessel carefully raised other heavy vehicles from its hold, swinging them over the side and then lowering them to waiting landing craft and lighters. Its tandem cranes, at the stern, did similarly for two smaller vessels tied up alongside. The cranes were overkill, really; capable of lifting as much as nine thousand tons, using the rear ones in tandem, they’d never in this mission been called upon to lift as much as two percent of that.

  Overkill or not, three cranes or not, several dozen landing craft and lighters or not, this was still a slow process, not least because some of the cargos were not self-propelled, but had to be manually moved from the landing craft and lighters to waitin
g trucks ashore.

  Further to the east, by the tiny speck of land called “Isla Pato,” a fuel transport pumped its load into the floating terminus of a short, ship-to-shore pipeline. Still more trucks were awaiting at the landside terminus, filling up and moving off to either the logistics base building between Cristobal and the Parilla Line, or going directly to units to top off their tanks.

  We need this little port so badly. And the enemy still has an air force. I wonder . . .

  “Malcoeur?” Janier asked, in a tone far friendlier, perhaps even paternal, than those he’d formerly used with this particular officer.

  “Mon General?”

  “What’s our air defense status here, now?”

  The aide de camp didn’t even need to consult notes. “There are three pair of interceptors—well, fighters with pure air-to-air ordnance aboard—plus an early-warning aircraft on station continuously. A battery of short-range air defense, missile-armed, is stationed around three sides of the port. That battery has been supplemented with twenty-four teams of man-portable missiles. Also, half at the old Balboan military school and half on a hill to the north, are a heavier, Sachsen-provided battery of self-propelled air defense, some missiles, some thirty-five-millimeter guns. Also at the school is a single battery, though only half unloaded so far, of heavy air-defense missiles.”

  “Hmmmm,” mused Janier, “you know, Malcoeur, the reason they call them ‘missiles’ rather than ‘hittiles,’ is that they miss a lot more often than they hit. How long before we can get another battery of guns in place? No, don’t answer unless you actually have the answer. What I want, rather, is that priority be moved up to get another gun battery ashore and set up quickly.”