Grid Down Perceptions of Reality

by Bruce Buckshot Hemming

  Preston said. “If we do this correctly the top of bridge is going to kill or wound a lot of the troops.”

  John and the others liked that idea. They needed to have their fastest men light the fuses and escape. Ken and Chris volunteered, and all agreed that they were the fastest and could do the job. The important thing was getting the timing of the fuses correct. If they went off too soon, the army would simply stop and prepare for battle. If they went off too late, the troops would be able to escape.

  Scott found two men that had worked with explosive before, and put them to work on the timing of the fuses. They also needed to tell them where to place the charges on top, so it would give them the desired outcome. They only had 390-feet of slow burn fuse, so the planning had to be precise. 54 seconds a foot burn time.

  The two men chose the spots for the charges and men started chipping away, making the holes for the black powder. One cement drill was found and they shared it with the others to drill the holes deeper.

  Black powder was packed and tamped into the holes. Next came the wooden plugs, with the fuses in place, these were pounded into place on the bottom side. The black power was stored in plastic bags to prevent moisture. The fertilizer soaked with diesel fuel fill the rest of hole. A mixture of cement and gravel was used as a cap for the top. The hole on the top side was about 4 inches round and taper down to ½ inch at the bottom side. After the cement had dried a 10 pound rock was placed over it. Rumble in the street was nothing unusual to be seen.

  John looked over at Joe and said, “I understand you’re pretty good at training people. I’m putting you in charge of training the two fuse lighters. You need to figure out how they are going to light the fuses and make their getaway. They should have preplanned places to hide before the charges go off.”

  Joe accepted the responsibility and sat down to think out a plan of action.

  Chapter 25

  Blowing the Bridge

  Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.

  Euripides

  The four scouts were to constantly keep an eye on the progress of the Army, and report back. Everyone else was either gathering supplies, drilling holes, or finding tools they needed to make the plan work. They were all constantly working on something.

  Joe started training Chris and Ken. “All right, between the two of you, we are going to have a contest. It will be to see who can safely climb up and down the pilings quickly. See these crossbeams,” he pointed up to them, “I’m thinking we could build a ladder in the center, or strap a ladder to the top, allowing a guy to quickly climbed down. If we can find a long aluminum ladder, we will have to wrap cloth and rags around it to make sure it isn’t banging and rattling, making a lot of noise.”

  Joe told the guys looking for tools to find a 20-foot ladder. Preferably a wooden one, but an aluminum one would work.

  They picked the side of the lakeshore that had the most brush, and Joe said, “Okay, I know this can be a pain, but we have to find out how far you both can swim underwater. We have to clear a spot underneath the brush where you can pop up, breathe, and then swim another distance. The second spot, we will take driftwood and make you a well camouflaged hide.”

  “The man on top is going to have the hardest job. He will have to light the fuses and then climbed down the ladder without making too much noise. And then, about 10 seconds apart, you are going to swim to the first breathing hole, get a breath, and then swim to the hide. Once we get a ladder, we can time it and figure out how much fuse time we have.”

  “You two are going to be totally on your own. The whole plan depends on you getting these fuses lit. You will have no cover and no backup. The only chance of surviving is to train and don’t make any mistakes. Are you sure you guys want to do this?”

  That afternoon, they had been given a wooden ladder, so they attached it to the crossbar. Joe timed them going up and down. Chris was a little bit younger, and a little bit faster, so he was going to be the top man. Ken was just going to have to hide on a platform they had built and covered with brush. All he had to do was light the bottom fuses. They had two minutes from the time the fuses were lit, to reach their safe spot.

  The bombs were placed in the holes, with the fuse sticking out the bottom, under the bridge. After two days of cleaning up the area, everyone left, with Chris and Ken staying behind. They would sleep under the bridge until it was time to blow it.

  They knew from the scout reports, that there was 10-man patrol out in front of the main force, about an hour ahead of them. It was reported that they had scouts in the fields on both sides of the road, sweeping the area to make sure it was clear. They were being very cautious, the cannon were at the end of the troop column and a wagon with the shells followed it.

  John ordered the men to fall back, not really wanting to engage the enemy with so few men. Joe and Preston were their eyes on the bridge, and hidden across the lake, watching with binoculars.

  Ken and Chris had been hiding since first light, ready at the moment the troops began crossing the bridge. Chris was carrying a Light My Fire Mora knife. He simply needed to turn the top of the handle, pull out Swedish fire steel, use the back of a knife to scrape it along the blade, and a shower of sparks would ignite his mini torch. He would have to open the can of lighter fluid and soak the rag wrapped on a stick, and then hit it with the sparks. Ken was using a Zippo lighter to light his fuses. 8 poles with 4 fuses tied together from the time he lit the first 1 he had 54 seconds to get the rest of the fuses lite.

  He was timed pretend lighting fuses walking to the next pillar and so on he could get them all lit in about 45 seconds. The fuses were timed for him walking along the beams. 3 seconds to lite each pillar.

  As daybreak came, there was fog laying over the water and a light mist in the air. Waiting was the worst part. Minutes seemed like hours and hours seem like days. They were committed now and there was nothing they could do but wait.

  A slight breeze from the north was giving them a morning chill. A few pigeons flew under the bridge and landed on the crossbeams. They cooed back and forth. Ken watched them with interest.

  About 9 o’clock, they heard the patrol ride over. They were surprised how well they could hear from underneath the bridge. The shoed horses were easily heard, and this brought their anxiety levels even higher. Still, the minutes slowly clicked by. As the day warmed up, the fog seemed to intensify under the bridge.

  Ken guessed it must be because the cooler waters under the bridge were hitting the warmer air radiating from the bridge, but it gave the fog a thick, hollow, oppressive feeling. Like he was in a dream state and this was not really happening. He thought he would soon wake and up his mission would be uncompleted. “Knock it off,” he told himself, “it’s just fog.”

  The fog was thick on the topside also, and Chris was having his own doubts and anxieties. He stared at the pigeons and saw one turn into a Raven right before his eyes. He thought wasn’t a Raven the sign of death for one of the Native American tribes? He blinked his eyes and it changed back to a pigeon. His mind was playing tricks on him. Just relax, he told himself, Joe said nothing in the whole world matters, but to just do my job and don’t think, just react and do as I’ve been trained.

  They heard the army coming long before they made it to the bridge. The sounds of 500 men on horseback echoed off the shores and through the bridge. There was no doubt that the time of action was coming soon.

  Chris peeked his head under a beam and looked at Ken. He was staring off into the lake. Each man was lost in his own thoughts.

  When they got closer, Chris sat up on his knees, pulled out his knife, and had his striker ready. His hands were shaking badly as he heard the first of the Army enter onto the bridge. He opened the can of lighter fluid, sprayed the fluid onto the rag and then he waited until they were at the halfway point. They were directly above him. He tried to scrape the fire starter with the back of the knife blade, but his hands were shaking too badly. He pressed the fir
e starter firmly down onto the rag, pushing it firmly onto the beam. Both hands were still shaking, but taking a deep breath, he waited until he calmed down, and then he firmly scraped it down as hard as it could. A shower of sparks lit the rag. He locked the flint back into the handle and using two hands, he carefully put it in his sheath.

  He picked up his mini torch and waved it down. That was the signal for Ken to light the fuses. He peeked down and saw that Ken’s torch was burning brightly. The sound above him was deafening and the clacking of that many horses on the cement reverberated to his very bones. He stood up and started lighting fuses. With the fog and light mist, the fuses didn’t take off right away. He had to hold the fire on them for a couple seconds before they took off. He did just as he trained, lighting each of the charges on the pillars. Last step the explosives in the bridge itself. When the last one was lit, he dropped the burning torch straight into the water. He looked down at Ken and saw that he was already waiting for him in the water.

  In his haste, he stepped too quickly and tried to jump on the ladder. The wooden rungs were slick from all the moisture, and his left foot slipped off, going straight down, while his right leg went into the inside of the rung. He couldn’t get a firm hold on the wet rung and losing his grip, over he went. His right leg straightened out and slammed into the rung above the one he had slipped off of, snapping his leg. He yelled out in pain, but luckily there was so much noise above that nobody heard him. He bit down on his tongue and forced himself not to cry out. He was hanging upside down like he was caught in a snare, in some bad B grade movie.

  Ken swam over to the ladder and quickly climbed up. Chris whispered, “Get the hell out here. Those fuses are lit, it’s going to blow any second.”

  Ken didn’t say a word. He placed his shoulder to Chris’s shoulder and climb straight up, lifting Chris up until he could get a hold of the ladder. Climbing down, he whispered up, “Quit screwing around. We’ve got some swimming to do.”

  Chris, using two hands to hold on a rung and leaving his right leg straight, hopped down, one rung at a time. He looked up at the fuses and thought, “How much time? Got to move faster.” He staggered his hands between two rungs and let himself drop. Reaching the water, Ken whispered, “Can you swim?”

  He responded, “Not fast, but I can manage.” He didn’t feel the pain as much, due to the cold water, and was trying to ignore it, knowing his survival was on the line.

  They swam up to the edge, took a deep breath and dove under. They were almost to the first breathing hole when they heard the explosions go off.

  Ken made it to the first breathing hole and popped his head up into the brush, took a breath and quickly stuck his head back underwater, looking for his friend. He saw Chris and then a large black shadow racing toward him. Like a monster out of a nightmare, one you could not escape, one of the support beams came down directly on top of Chris just as he was coming up for air. The beam smashed his head wide open. Blood and brain matter shot out in the water around his body.

  Ken stood up as if having his head above water would somehow be different. Just then, as the bridge hit the water, a wave hit him, knocking him back under water and against the shore.

  He came up again and was spitting out water, shaking his head and wiping his eyes clear. He saw horses and men in the water, swimming around in shock. He saw the bodies, the water turning blood red from the men and horses floating everywhere. He didn’t feel happy, or excited, that the plan had worked so well. He felt revulsion, sick to his stomach, and in shock. His eyes were glazed over as he looked at the destruction he had caused.

  Like coming out of a dream, he noticed men running towards the shore to help their follow wounded comrades. The screams of pain penetrated his thinking, but he knew he had to get out a there before they got organized. He took three quick breaths and swam off. Crawling into the hide, he shivered in the wind and thought, “All I can do now is wait, wait for darkness.”

  He tried to get comfortable as he thought about Chris and all of the years they had known each other. All of the fun times that they had together. He would have to tell Chris’s parents what happened, and how he failed to save him. Would they ever forgive him? Would God forgive him for what he’s done against these men? He had no beef with those men. He felt so miserable he just laid his head down and closed his eyes. He silently prayed that Chris would be welcomed into heaven. He prayed for forgiveness, and he prayed for the men he had killed.

  Joe and Preston were watching through the binoculars, when they heard the explosion and saw the flames, but the fog had been too thick for them to see what happened to Ken and Chris, nor could they tell what happened to the troops on the bridge, but they could clearly hear the screams of pain echoing across the lake.

  Joe smiled and said out loud, “That’s for my farmhouse, you bastards.”

  Preston asked, “How many do you think we got? 20 or 30?”

  Joe said, “I was hoping for a 100. Who knows the count. It really depends how many were on the bridge when it blew. Maybe 50 or 60 would be my guess, and if we got really lucky, 70 or 80.”

  The charges blew 10 huge 3 foot diameter holes in the concrete showering the Rainbow Warriors with high velocity concrete shrapnel.

  The Major in charge of the Rainbow Warriors was a man of action, unlike other officers, he led his men from the front, and that was the only reason he was still alive. He and 50 men had made it across the bridge before the explosion took out the bridge. The ensuing chaos from the shockwave had knocked them off of their horses. The Major stood up, covered in gray cement dust, and looked back toward the bridge. There was an empty space where the bridge once stood. On other side of the bridge, there were men knocked off of their horses too. He ran up and looked down into the water, and started barking orders. “Get those men out of the water.” Some of the men woke up from the shock and ran down to help. He wondered, “How many men did we lose, and why didn’t the patrol check under this bridge?”

  The bridge didn’t fall straight down into the water, but broke in the middle, each side collapsing into the water. The men just entering the bridge, were violently thrown down into a melee.

  “Somebody was going pay dearly for this.” he thought. He found one of his sergeants and told him to get 10 men and collect the horses. Some of his men were pulling people out of the water and to the bank. He called down for them to take the wounded to the other side. “Swim over with them if you have to. The medics are on that side, in the rear I think.”

  He saw one of his Lieutenants standing on the other side. “Lieutenant.” He called out. When the man looked up at him, he barked orders for him to get all of the wounded to the medics right away, adding, “Then I want an accounting of how many men we’ve lost and how many are wounded. I also want to know how many horses we lost.”

  Whoever they were up against wasn’t playing games. That’s okay, he wasn’t about to let his men be picked off by a bunch of stupid rednecks, like that incompetent general who lost almost half his men.

  He finally collected all his men and they swam their horses across to the other side, becoming one force again. He had sent two men to bring back the forward patrol. He was going to give a lesson in discipline to men who failed to follow orders.

  When they returned, he took the sergeant in charge in front of everybody and made him stand at attention. He asked him why he allowed 52 men to die, and 26 to be wounded. Why did he not do his job and thoroughly check under the bridge?

  The man said, “I’m sorry sir, my bad. It won’t happen again.”

  The major flew into a rage. “You’re damn right it won’t happen again, because you are now a private. Your punishment is 10 lashes. Guards, tie him to that tree and remove his shirt.”

  They ripped his shirt off and the Major called out to a gorilla of a man, Boris, “Ten lashes from the whip.”

  The whip whistled through the air, cracking on the man’s back. The man yelled out in pain. Some of the men flinched each time the w
hip cracked, breaking the flesh and leaving a bloody mark.

  After eight lashes, the man passed out from pain and slumped down against his ropes. The major called a halt to it and called out to all the men. “The next man who ever uses the phrase “my bad,” will get 10 lashes automatically. You are all given a job to do and I expect you to follow my orders to the letter. Sloppy patrol work cost us 78 men, dead or wounded. I will not allow this to happen. The supply route is broken and we have to find a detour around this. I will shoot the next man in a patrol that allows us to walk into an ambush. Is that understood?”

  A few men mumbled, “Yes sir.”

  He yelled out, “I can’t hear you. What was that.”

  All of them yelled, “Yes sir.”

  “That’s better. I am sending out two patrols and one of them had better come up with a route around this mess. Now let’s get to work.”

  The fog had burned off and it turned into a beautiful day. Preston and Joe had worked their way around to the opposite side of where the army was. They waited there to pick up Ken and Chris. About 1:30 PM, they saw the Army pull away. Backtracking, they worked their way closer.

  Preston said, “Why don’t you stay here old man. I’ll go get them two and be back in a flash.”

  Joe smiled, “Old man? Just for that you can stay here and I’ll go get them.”

  Preston laughed, “We are both of equal rank, so I’ll flip you for it.”

  “No. You go right ahead and I’ll cover you. I’m the better shot.”

  With that, Preston started sneaking up to the hide. It took him about 20 minutes and he was about 20 yards away when he called out, “Come on guys. Let’s go.”

  He was met by an eerie silence. They had not heard any gunshots after the bridge came down, so he called out a little louder, “Guys. Let’s go.” But there was nothing but silence. He crawled up to the keep and looked inside. He could only see one person. He tapped him on the shoulder, “It’s me. Are you okay? Are you hit?”