by J. B. Craig
As his Sheepdogs filed past him, hopping and covering in retreat, as trained, he fired as quickly as he could at the men gathering for an assault at the new hole in the berm. “Well, since the berm is breached,” he said to himself, we might as well take advantage.
“Mortars, adjust fire 10 meters South, 3 East, Shot Over.” As the first mortar hit on the wrong side of the berm, Top called for a minor adjustment, but the dozen or so already across rushed his position. Upon seeing the mortars move from the prior kill zone, those still on the other side of the berm rushed for the road opening. Things were going to shit quickly.
Top emptied his magazine and was hit in the right side of his chest while trying to reload. As he fell back against the berm, he hissed out his last radio call. “This is Top. Initiating Inferno One. Suggest immediate Eagles Nest retreat. At least 30 tangos coming, not all in kill zone. Sua Sponte!”
As more enemies crossed the roadside gap, Top popped the Napalm detonator buried in a plastic 55-gallon drum in front of the murder hole. A scene from hell exploded in front of the berm. This was nothing as impressive as Napalm drops seen in newsreels from Vietnam and other wars, but it was an explosion of gasoline mixed with other household chemicals to make it a gelatin-like, sticky substance. All of the enemies in front of the berm opening were covered, and ran, screaming as they burned to death. The Napalm did spray more than planned, and some came over the berm. Top’s torso was covered by the angle of the berm, but he screamed as his legs were hit with a splash, and they began to burn. He quickly pushed dirt from the berm onto the fire, then looked up to see the bikers advancing out of the heat and smoke. He emptied his rifle at the bikers on his side of the berm, and then his eyes closed when he was hit again, in the side.
The remaining invaders ran past a still and smoldering Top, towards the front door of the mansion.
Gunny
The lull in the .50 Cal was because Gunny was dropping it to the ground with a rope, the planned retreat protocol. She was indeed starting to reload, and saw the battlefield situation evolving from a height, and knew that they’d need to retreat, just before Top called for it. She called up the stairs to Esteban as she ran by them, on her way down with 2 cans of .50 caliber ammunition. She heard the heavy tread of Esteban on the stairs. When they were on the ground, Este hung the .308 from Gunny’s neck and picked up the .50 caliber. Soldiers from the berm were moving through the house, shooting at the attackers through the windows facing the berm. Simmons took a shot in the head and dropped down without a sound. Another part-time defender from the kitchen crew, one of the wives from Dahlgren went down, with no doubt she, too was dead.
“Retreat out the back, Sheepdogs. You know the plan! We have a surprise for these fucks. Este – set up Ma on the dock!”
Este nodded, cringing at the burns on his hands but never slowing down. Gunny followed him out with the ammo cans and the .308 still hanging around her neck. The rest of the defenders made their way along the pre-planned path of retreat along the Harbor’s edge.
The attackers went from room-to-room through the mansion, looking for women, loot, and defenders that were not there. They gave rebel yells and shot their guns at nothing. Finally, 2 men came out the back door facing the dock. Gunny exploded them with the M2. There were parts all over the back entrance. Then she yelled on the radio “Fire in the hole – Blowing the mansion!” She clicked the detonator, and Rock mansion burst into flames. The brick mansion was too well-built to explode, but the windows blew out, and screams could be heard coming from most of the areas of the mansion.
As they watched the mansion burn, Gunny attended to Este’s burned hands, and they cried together for their lost Sheepdogs.
Phoenix
When Greg turned off the circle towards the mansion, he saw the smoke and fires from the first Napalm blast burning out. There was no activity back-lit from his angle. It appeared that the fight was no longer at the berm.
At that moment, Greg heard the M2 pop off a dozen rounds or so. Then he heard, saw and felt the “whoosh” of Napalm going off inside of the mansion, and knew that retreat was in progress. He heard muffled screams from inside and hoped that their defensive plan was taking out most of the attackers. Seeing no movement, he decided to turn around to receive those evacuating along the pre-planned harbor retreat trail. He returned to the house, to see Jennifer sitting on the edge of the roof. “I can’t get down without help, Cowboy. My leg is no good.”
“OK, I’ll be right up, sweetness. Keep an eye out for any of our folks emerging from the shoreline. Retreat is in progress.” She aimed her .357 at the water line, although visibility wasn’t good. “Sorry, I dropped the Mauser when I got shot, I think it slid into the gutter.”
“No worries, Baby. We don’t need any more sniping today. I’ll be right up.”
Greg climbed the ladder, and as he was shifting Jennifer around to get her down, the firefight in the sea grass at the water’s edge started. Greg saw it happen in the flashes of the firefight about 2 houses down – halfway between the Osprey Nest and the Mansion.
Angel led the retreat from the mansion towards the Osprey Nest, their designated fallback position. Luis and Marcy followed close behind, followed by the fire fighters and a few more stragglers. As they entered a stretch of sea grass – grass that was underwater at high tide, and in the ankle-clinging mud at low-tide, the bullets started incoming. He yelled for everyone to get down, as Marcy got shot. Angel returned fire to the shadowy figures in the grass. It was dark, and muddy, and everyone was down low. It smelled bad, but mud was a good bullet-stopper.
Greg and Jennifer saw the two groups facing each other from about 50 feet away. It appeared that some of the sunken attacking “navy” boat crews had been able to swim to safety. Greg called for a flare over the harbor. A satisfying thunk and a few seconds later the harbor was illuminated in red. Greg saw a bald, tattooed head shouting orders to about 10 attackers. He aimed, and fired at Phoenix, and missed, hitting another attacker in the leg. Phoenix turned and sprayed his Automatic rifle at Greg, who ducked behind the roofline, covering Jennifer.
Greg got on the radio and called for a shift in fire, and a mortar crumped into the water about 10 yards from the attackers. Greg called in a mortar adjustment, which hit where the bad guys were – 10 seconds ago. They were retreating! Phoenix called for order and was shot at by Angel. He ducked, and low-crawled away from the defenders, towards the cover of a sea wall 2 houses up from the Osprey nest.
Greg whispered for Jen to stay low and keep quiet. He crawled to the front corner of the roof, nearest Phoenix. He aimed and pulled the trigger as the man approached. Nothing happened, as his magazine was empty. He reloaded quietly, pulled the charging handle and eased it forward quietly, this earned him a mis-feed! In his attempt to be quiet, he didn’t seat the magazine properly by slapping it into the well! Clearing a mis-feed in the dark may be easy for the Special Ops guys, but for a mediocre shooter like Greg, not so much. Clearing one quietly in the dark is impossible for anyone out of practice like Greg was. Silence was his friend right now. He had the element of surprise. He reached for his hip, and his trusty .40 cal – which wasn’t there. He vaguely remembered losing it in the bunker when he slid in with Les to see about his wounds. Despite reminding himself to grab it, he was focused on bringing the 90MM flechette end to the scumbags on the boat ramp.
At about this time, Tattoo-Head made his way around the sea wall and was now climbing up the stairs to the deck. Greg had not much of choice, so pulled his Gerber combat knife, and dropped the 12 feet from the roof going for a glorious killing blow. The only flaw in Greg’s plan was that his empty .40 holster hooked the gutter and made a noise while changing his trajectory. Phoenix looked up and jumped back, getting a nice slash through his leather vest, and across his pectoral muscle. Greg got a more-sprained ankle, and limped backwards, as Phoenix smiled.
“You!” he growled. “Satan has delivered what he promised. I’m gonna sacrifice your bitch ass to lo
rd of night, then take your woman with this same knife.” He pulled a hideously long Bowie knife from a sheath at his back. It was right out of the “That’s not a knife, this is a knife!” Movie scene.
Greg limped back along the deck towards Leilani’s place, trying to get some distance, and find something to use as a shield. Having seen nothing, he dropped to the fighting stance taught by the army, and was hoping for a quick kill. The best move in a knife fight is to do a thrust horizontally across the torso, up or down, creating either edge of an ‘X’ from hips to opposite shoulders. In other words, disemboweling quickly is your best chance at living through a knife fight, with only one wound, if you’re lucky. Only a very lucky, or superbly trained fighter survives a knife fight without at least one wound. Greg was not superbly trained, as he only had a half-day training on knife fighting in BASIC training. He was simply hoping to inflict more damage, more quickly than his opponent.
Greg saw a fishing rod, grabbed it, and threw it at Phoenix, hoping to distract him. He followed in with an upward slash, only to see Phoenix bat the rod away, move sideways quicker than Greg thought could be done, and land a slice across Greg’s cheek. Greg was starting to think that maybe he should have grabbed Jennifer’s sidearm, or just stayed on the roof to clear the jam. That said, being Batman and dropping on the unsuspecting prey would have been a much cooler story. He hoped his ego didn’t get him killed.
With a smaller knife, and half a day’s worth of hand-to-hand combat training in BASIC, Greg thought that his chances of a straight-up win in a knife fight were near zero. He had been trained in Tae-Kwon-Do when he was a kid and thought back to the One time he impressed his instructor by knocking him on his butt, with the side kick. This involved loading his hips, and then putting the weight of the body into kick at anywhere from knee to chest level.
Greg feinted with an overhand attack as he took the 2 forward steps, right toes forward, left heel forward and behind the right, load leg, hip pivot, leg punch, and CONNECTED with Phoenix’s forward knee – with his doubly-sprained ankle. He thought how cool it would be if the asshole’s knee bent backward, but there was no crunch. He was too tentative on the kick-through, because of the pain.
Despite his tepid kick, his weight was still significant, and Tattoo-head grimaced. Greg rejoiced in his partial success, then Phoenix buried his knife in the extended calf of Greg’s leg, as he fell back. Then, with very little grace or aplomb, Greg fell to the ground in pain. In a perfect world, at least the knife would have been left in his calf, but Phoenix was good enough to pull it out quickly, and circle for a kill.
Greg fell to the deck, and crab-walked away from Phoenix with his arms behind him and his feet scuttling. Well, he did it as well as a crab with their back fin broken can crawl. He felt numerous splinters from the weather-worn deck going into his ass, and laughed out loud that one of his last thoughts were that the deck needed a good pressure-washing and refinishing.
“What’s so funny, asshole? You’re about to die.”
“I was just thinking that revenge is a bitch, Phoenix.”
“It is sweet, but not as sweet as it’s going to be when I take your woman with this knife.” Phoenix took 2 limping steps forward, so Greg had done some damage to him. Greg had probably broken, or at least torn muscles in his own ankle doing it, and above that, there was a 2-3” gash through his calf, bleeding profusely.
When Greg was backed up to the railing of the deck, Phoenix raised up his knife to his full height… Then he kept going higher as Leilani snuck up behind him. How someone as bulky as she was could sneak was beyond him, but she moved with grace, grabbed him by the ears, lifted and twisted. An audible snap was heard, and she dropped him into a puddle of ex-person, at Greg’s feet. As he dropped his knife, she picked it up and shoved it into his heart, just to be sure, then wiped it off on his jeans.
“That’s for my Bruddah. May my ancestors have peace now. I shall keep this knife as a reminder of my vengeance. She un-did Phoenix’s belt and pulled off the sheath and sheathed the Bowie.” She kneeled down, and evaluated Greg’s wounds, then used Phoenix’s belt to make a tourniquet below Greg’s knee, but above his cut.
“Let’s get you fixed up, Gregory. You fought well. That was an outstanding diversion.” She smiled and helped him to his feet. We need to get you stitched up.
Greg smiled. “Diversion?!?! I had him right where I wanted him! Look up.”
Leilani looked up, and Jennifer was leaning over the edge of the roof with her .357. She had a look of concern and love for Greg, while the blood rushed down Greg’s face. He saw her look and said “I heard chicks dig scars. I’ve got 2 new ones.” He smiled, laughed out loud, then leaned back on the roof and passed out.
Gunny
Gunny took control of the clean-up while Greg was out. Doc and Kim were busy giving first aid to Manuel, Marcy and Greg, who were closest to them, at the circle. Greg momentarily regained consciousness, but was told to LIE STILL by Jennifer, who was also having her leg bandaged. Leilani was hovering over the wounded, who all ended up being taken to the living room of ‘Greg’s house’ under the Osprey’s nest. Greg saw that a Hawaiian was once again in charge of the house, and passed back out, thinking that all was right in the world.
The retreating wolves were chased out of the community by Gunny, Este, Luis and the firefighters plus a few other community members. Nellie stayed back at the berm and had some well-placed shotgun shots into the center of mass of the retreating bad guys. Not all killed at that distance, but each of the buckshot rounds staggered, and slowed them enough to be finished off by the community pursuers. In this way, a few more of the half-dozen or so remaining attackers were gunned down on the way to the quickest way out – the previously mined path to the road.
As the rest made it to the forest entry, they turned and shoot at their pursuers who ducked behind the berm, as bullets thunked into dirt harmlessly. Obstacles are force multipliers.
“They’re going to get away!”, Lindsey screamed in anger and despair. Nellie pumped a few more rounds at them, but they disappeared into the trees.
“Not if Sun Tzu has anything to do with it.” With a radio call from Gunny, Bill put the final part of the plan into action. He fired up the 5-ton and drove it through the hay that was in front of it as camouflage. He plowed through it like it wasn’t even there and kept driving towards the entrance/exit to landmine alley. He made a wide turn on Rock Harbor road, and pulled the 5-ton, bumper first, into the entrance to the mined lane. As the remaining wolves came around the last bend, they looked at the truck, without a gun in the mount on the roof and laughed!
“One old man, and no gun, we’ve got a big ride home, brothers!!!”
Bill lifted the detonator to the claymore attached to the bumper. He showed it to them, flipped them off, dropped below the windshield and detonated it. Claymores are directional explosives, with the shape of the charge set up so that the 5-ton only suffered minor charring on the bumper. They are idiot proof, not that Bill was an idiot. They do say, in big plastic letters “FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY”. That was probably the last thing these ass-hats saw, before it exploded. The rest of the payload, consisting of dozens of steel ball bearings went outward from the front of the truck – into the faces and bodies of the fleeing wolves. All 5 of the remaining wolves were shredded, with blood and bits filling the woods behind them. The second battle of Rock Harbor was over, with more losses on both sides, but a victory for the residents, again. This time, it seemed there would be no bad guys left to go out and recruit, or tell stories about the
Post-Mortem
Greg came to once again, surrounded by Jennifer, Kim, and Annie. Annie was crying, with a bandaged face and holding his hand. “What’s going on?”
Kim put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re OK, Greg. I’ve got your leg patched up, and your face… well, you won’t be so pretty any more, but there doesn’t seem to be any major nerve damage. I’ve got you glued up with some Kra-Z-Glue, but I don’t want you puttin
g your weight on your leg.”
“I’ve got to get to the front. Who’s in charge? Who’s hurt?” This was said with a bit of a slur, based on both his facial injury and recent unconsciousness.
“Top and Ski are both hurt pretty bad. They’re in the community center with some of the other wounded from that side of the peninsula. Doc and Gunny are over there with Manuel and Marcy, who will probably make it if your fish antibiotics work – nice move! Angel has things under control. All Enemy are KIA. We made sure of that.”
Jennifer kissed Greg on the lips and said “Annie was looking out the window and a stray bullet shattered it. She’s got some bad cuts on her face, but she’ll be OK. You’re my hero! But If you had just stepped back, I could have capped that ass-hat before he cut your leg.”
Greg replied, “And let you take all the glory? Hell no! Did you see my kick? A little harder and I would have busted his knee.” He smiled, then got serious. “Help me up, I have to see my troops. PS – I’m glad you had my back. I love you. Let’s not tell anyone about the kick, though, OK? I have a reputation as a bad ass to protect.”