Civil War II

by Eric Gurr

  When they had defeated the southern rebels they would bring in another one-hundred thousand to take the city.

  Hartwick and Davis were with a group at the front. They stopped and used binoculars to scan the interchange exit ramps.

  Their troops kept off of the main highway just on the side. They could see no traffic on the loop, and very few cars moved along I-64.

  Two thousand men in their group were hiding in an industrial park just on the north side of 64. Across the highway was farm land. No one was moving anywhere.

  Behind what has called “Group EA” was “Group EB”. These were the East groups. Off to the south Group C and D would be getting in to position. These men would be arriving in about thirty minutes. They would converge on the farm area with more than ten thousand when all was set and take the interchange.

  “What do you see?” Hartwick ask one of the men with binoculars.

  “Not much. There are twenty or thirty armed men on the overpass.”

  Hartwick looked behind him for the sergeant. He was one of the military deserters who had joined the group. He had combat experience.

  “Hey Sarge! Can they see us from here? Or are we okay to move in to position in the farm land?”

  The sergeant grabbed the binoculars and scanned. He could see nothing other than the men on the overpass. But they were still more than half a mile away.

  “Let’s circle back to 157 and then use the trees as cover along the south side. Then we can surprise those thirty or so men up there and take the overpass.”

  Hartwick nodded. They used cellphones to call the other groups to have them maintain positions. Even if there were twice the number of men on the overpass Hartwick and the sergeant agreed they would have no trouble taking them.

  As they moved south there were no problems. After just a few minutes they saw the tree line and turned towards the cover and the overpass. They were trying to stay low and move slow.

  The sergeant grabbed the young kid with the binoculars. He raised his hand to get the line to stop so he could make sure nothing new had happened.

  “What do you see kid?” He growled.

  “Still just the same thirty… Oh holy shit!”

  The first shot rang out dropping the young soldier. The sergeant was hit next and fell dead instantly. From the trees was a barrage of gunfire and rebel yells.

  Hartwick grabbed Matt Davis. “Get to the back, get to the back!”

  They fell back as quickly as they could. After running a hundred yards he noticed everyone else was retreating. Some were yelling to hold a line and return fire. A few stopped and fired blindly in front of them towards the trees.

  This stopped the advance, but the gunfire continued. A small creek offered cover and hundreds of men jumped in to take positions. But most just kept running.

  Hartwick and Davis were on the southern edge crouched down and peering cautiously over the bank.

  “Call group B to the south and tell them to return fire from the flank.”

  Davis nodded and fumbled for his cell phone. The gunfire slowed to a few shots every minute. They were pinned in at the front, and too afraid to run to the back.

  Hartwick and others were able to rally enough of their soldiers to fire back in between the enemy fire and stop them from advancing. But some shots were now coming from the fields to the North West.

  Davis was screaming into his phone so Group B could hear. As soon as he hung up he told Hartwick they were coming. He tried to call the group behind them. The second part of group A but his phone buzzed first.

  “What!” He screamed as he answered.

  He couldn’t understand what the person at the other end of the call was screaming. “Calm down! I can’t hear you.”

  The person started to talk again but more gunfire drowned out his voice. Davis waited a moment for the gunfire to stop and then told the caller to try again. He could hear gunfire on the other side.

  “This is Jones from Group N, we’re getting slaughtered up here. We tried to call the west group but they are engaged as well. We’re pulling out! Get up here and help us or meet us back in Illinois!”

  The call ended.

  For twenty minutes gunfire was exchanged sporadically. Then it began to pick up and Hartwick could see the enemy soldiers were slowly advancing.

  “We better get the hell out of here!”

  Someone from his right yelled back at him. “We can’t. As soon as we stand up and get out of this creek bed they’ll mow us down!”

  “How many do we have left?” Hartwick yelled.

  “Don’t know. Along this little section of creek it looks like about two-hundred, maybe three hundred tops.”

  “How many do they have?”

  “Can’t tell that either. But there are more coming off the overpass. Hundreds more probably.”

  “So it’s fight or die?” John yelled.

  “Looks that way sir!”

  “You a soldier?” Hartwick asked.

  “You mean right now? Yeah!”

  “No, I mean were you in the army or marines or something?”

  “Yes sir. But I’ve been out about ten years. Saw combat back in Afghanistan.”

  “Get over here!”

  The man crawled over and settled between Hartwick and Davis. “What’s your name soldier?”

  “Troy Evans sir. I never rose to sergeant in the army, but I did see a lot of fighting.”

  “Well, what the hell should we do Evans?”

  “Best bet is to hold our position and try to contact Group B behind us. Get them to crawl up here, and from the creek bed we can form a line. We should be able to wear them out.”

  Evans looked over Hartwick’s shoulder to the man crouching to the left of him.

  “Dobbsy, is that you?”

  “Hey Troy.” The man answered.

  “Sorry sir, just makes you feel good during battle to see a familiar face.”

  “Davis, can you reach Group B behind us?”

  “No luck. I keep getting calls from the north and West groups. West is pulled back about five miles. They think they lost about one hundred killed. But the group is holding a line, they’re just too far back to help.

  The North group is in real bad shape. They are heading back to Springfield. That was our biggest group and they say they have already lost thousands of men.”

  “You mean thousands ran away?” Hartwick asked.

  “No John, thousands killed or wounded.

  “So, at best we’re down to what, twenty-thousand men?”

  “No John. At best I figure we have five-thousand men. I’m calling back to Springfield to get them to come here and get us the hell out.”

  “What would you do Evans?”

  “Sir if we can’t reach them by phone we need to send a couple of runners back to get them.”

  “All right then. Evans, you’ve been given a battle field promotion. You’re Colonel Evans now. Let’s get ourselves out of this jam.” Hartwick said.

  Troy Evans smiled and saluted Hartwick. Evans was the kind of soldier who was in trouble during his time in the military. He chased girls and drank too much. He was also the guy that never got in to as much trouble as he deserved.

  He was on the short side of six feet tall, a little too skinny, and had longer hair than most military men. He smiled constantly and it always looked like he had more teeth than could possibly fit in his mouth.

  When he left the army he went to college for a year but didn’t like it. So he got a job selling cars. Then he got married and quickly had a young daughter. When the economy tanked he was one of the first to lose his job. When things started to get bad in Indianapolis he knew he had to do something.

  So he had joined the gang north of the city at the same time as Hartwick. And now, he was somehow a colonel. He realized it didn’t mean much, but maybe he could help get these guys out of here.

  “Dobbsy! Get your shit together and run like hell back to the east. Keep going until you find Group
B. Tell them to crawl once they get within five-hundred yards. Slow and steady.” Evans said.

  The young kid ‘Dobbsy’ started to stand but Evans stopped him. “Hang on! Someone needs to go with you.”

  “I’ll go.” A man to Evan’s right said.

  “All right. Let us get some covering fire for you.”

  Evans rallied the men quickly. He was going to count down on his right hand from five to a fist. When he made is fist all were to start firing on the enemy until they needed to reload. He told ten men closer to him not to fire at all.

  When the covering fire stopped they were to wait. If they sensed it was calm they could stand down. If the enemy detected the lag, return fire quickly so they thought we weren’t all out.

  “When you two see my fist, run like hell but stay low.”

  He raised his hand, fingers spread wide apart and counted down. When his fist clenched Dobbsy and the other man scrambled out the back of the creek and started running. The barrage of gunfire was deafening and Hartwick knew instantly something was wrong. Men started falling left and right.

  “Stay down! Stay down!” Evans yelled.

  About half of the men had stood up to start firing. The rest correctly peaked over the bank to fire. Of the men who stood many were instantly killed.

  Hearing Evans yell to get down, most of the rest of the men stopped firing.

  Evans looked behind him. Jimmy Dobbsy, the young kid he had met on the way down, just eighteen years old, was shot in the back and fell dead. The other man kept running.

  “Ten, return fire but stay down!”

  The ten men held in reserve started firing. When their ammo was spent it was quiet.

  “Fuck! Fuck! I’m hit!” Hartwick was screaming.

  “Easy man easy.”

  Evans leaned over to him and wiped the left side of Hartwick’s face. His glasses were cracked and Evans knew it was a shot gun blast.

  “It’s just a shotgun blast. It broke the skin but you’re okay.”

  Hartwick calmed himself and wiped his face. He could feel the bbs under his skin. There were only two, but the one in his forehead was bleeding enough that it ran into his eyes.

  All around him men were moaning. Hartwick wiped his face with his sleeve. Evans yelled instinctively for a medic. A lone man with a backpack scrambled towards him.

  “You’re it?” Evans asked?

  “Yeah. We started off with twenty but I think the rest left or were killed.”

  “Shit. Fix up Hartwick and then get to the other men.”

  For several minutes the soldiers helped to patch up the wounded. The dead were covered with coats and blankets.

  Hartwick and Davis sat with their backs to the enemy along the bank of the creek.

  “How did I ever get myself into this mess?” Hartwick asked.

  Davis shrugged his shoulders.

  “Is this worth it?”

  Davis shook his head and put his finger to his lips. He leaned towards Hartwick. “Don’t say that out loud man. Keep your cool.”

  Hartwick nodded that he understood. He regained his composure and took his hat off. He searched around for a stick and stuck the hat on the end of the stick. He slowly raised the hat. Four quick shots rang out and the hat was gone.

  “Them southern boys are some good snipers eh?” Evans said.

  Hartwick just nodded.

  “Alright, listen up!” Evans yelled. “Everybody reload. When we see Group B coming we’re going to need covering fire again. Keep low. Just peak over the bank and fire. You don’t have to be accurate. We’re just trying to stop them from firing on us for a minute. Last ten guys on the edges. You guys shoot more north and south to your direction. Ten guys in reserve, same thing as last time.”

  And then they waited. A shot or two would zip overhead every few minutes.

  Someone yelled out. “They’re coming. I can see them crawling this way.”

  “Okay, everybody get ready. Same thing. On my clenched fist start firing. But keep your damn heads down and your bodies low!”

  Evans waited. The men were all staring at him intently. When the few random enemy shots started to pick up, he knew Group B had been spotted. He started the countdown but at four he stopped.

  “Shoot slow. Don’t empty your mags too quickly. Just a shot every second or two. That will give our guys more time.”

  And then he resumed the count.

  At first, the men in Group B stopped. Then they realized it was covering fire and they all sprinted for the creek bed. Only two were hit.

  When the initial barrage was complete Evans told the ten reserves to get ready. When the enemy returned fire, he clenched his fist.

  The second barrage started and hundreds of men poured over the edge and into the creek bed.

  Evans organized the men as quickly as he could. He found other men with combat experience and made them sergeants.

  As he crawled back to Hartwick he noticed a man with two backpacks following him.

  “What do you need soldier?” He asked.

  “Can you find Hartwick? I’ve gotten something for him.”

  When they made it back to Hartwick the man unzipped the backpacks. He was an older guy. Mid-fifties with graying hair and a scruffy beard.

  Most of the man had some form of camouflage. But this man had overalls and a baseball hat. Over his right shoulder was a rifle. Around the middle of his overalls at the waist he wore a belt. Tucked in the belt were two revolvers.

  “You Hartwick?” He asked.

  “Yes I am. What can I do for you?”

  “I got a present for you. I’m a farmer up in Indiana. We use Ammonium Nitrate and diesel fuel to blow stumps out of the ground. So I made you some hand grenades.”

  The man opened his backpacks. In each one were five footballs. Then he emptied his pockets and there about twenty M80 firecrackers.

  “These are just backups.” He said. Sticking out of each of the ten footballs was a fuse. “I tested these back on the farm. The fuse gives you about four or five seconds to throw the football.n

  Light it and let it go quick. They’re a bit heavy, so you really gotta heave them. If you don’t throw them far enough, the bad guys could throw ‘em back. So throw ‘em far.” He smiled.

  “It’s ammonium nitrate?” Evans asked?

  “Yeah, but I also packed some nails in there to give them some extra kill power.” He smiled.

  “We may get out of here yet.” Evans said.

  “John, Matt, let’s round up the ten guys with the best arms and clear these bastards out.”

  Davis and Hartwick nodded and then Hartwick raised his hand.

  “Wait a minute. We still have guys pinned down up north and maybe even out to the west. Why don’t we through three of them and keep the rest? If three works, we can take the rest and try to help the other guys?”

  Evans looked to the farmer who had built the bombs. “How powerful are these things farmer?”

  The man inched his way towards the banks. “Show me where the bad guys are at.” He said.

  “Most are directly ahead. Some may be just thirty or forty yards away. From what I can tell the bulk of that middle group is about right there.

  Off to the right and left there are two smaller groups. Mostly snipers. I think they are about fifty or sixty yards back. It’s hard to tell.”

  “How wide are they spread?” The farmer asked.

  “Just that tree line. I figure there must be a good thousand men bunched together right there. More came down later so I don’t know how many are behind them. We can see them move back and forth though. At least a few thousand all together.”

  “Two of them footballs will clear out the front easy enough. But you’ll need to make sure you throw them as far as you can. The snipers on the edge you should get as well. Those are gonna blow nails out for about fifty years around them easy, maybe a hundred.”

  Evans looked at Hartwick. “How about four. Two in the middle and one each on the edges
.”

  The plan took another few minutes to come to fruition. Four of the best throwers would launch the football bombs. The rest of the men would be in firing position. When the smoke started to clear they were to start firing.

  When the footballs were flying through the air Hartwick said a prayer. He knew if this didn’t work there wasn’t much chance of getting out alive.

  The explosions caused a ringing in his hear louder than he could ever remember. Davis was yelling at him but he couldn’t hear a single word. He turned and started firing. The enemy were in a frantic retreat.

  John Hartwick had his first kill. He saw the man running away through the scope of his newly acquired rifle and pulled the trigger. The man fell instantly.

  He scanned and fired again. A miss this time. The adrenaline was coursing through him and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

  Another appeared in his scope. He fired. The man stumbled and grabbed the back of his leg. Hartwick kept him centered. The man rose and started running again. He aimed for the center of the back and fired. Another miss as at the last second the man had darted to the right.

  He raised his head away from the rifle. The shotgun blast he had taken to the face had shattered the left lens of his glasses. He could see figures moving around and lowered his head to look through the scope. He fired one more shot and missed again.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Evans yelled.

  After a few more seconds the guns fell silent. There was no return fire.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He said to Hartwick.

  “We have them on the run, shouldn’t we advance on them?”

  “Hell no. We have less than a thousand men. They have at least a few thousand more. Maybe much more, who knows?

  We need to swing around and head to the north. If we charge, they’ll take up position on the other side of that freeway and start picking us off. We need to go sir. We need to go now.”

  “Let’s get out of here boys.” Hartwick screamed. He looked to the farmer.

  “You stay with me or Evans. And thanks farmer.”

  They talked as they ran. After a few hundred yards they were able to walk. The cars were still five miles behind them. The newly appointed sergeants got the men who could, double timing the march. Many fell back. It was nearly two hours before they were back at the big parking lot, well outside of the range of fire. But they were still nervous.