“We know,” Bob Young shot back. Michael checked the notes scrawled on the map.
“Well, did you know the force consists of six thousand men, one thousand horses and no armor or artillery?”
“No,” Bob grunted. “But how did you...?”
“I walked into their headquarters and lifted their situation maps.”
Bob rolled his eyes upward. Of course. It figures. Half a regiment hunting him on Edge Mountain, so he strolls into town and steals their battle plans. Bob sent a man running to fetch Adam.
“Listen, Bob,” Michael continued urgently. “That force is due to hit our airport tonight, but its main mission is to keep us from retreating up Provo Canyon. Two other things. First, from what I can see on these papers, our fallback plan is a go. And second, one of these maps has the Prince’s order of battle for tomorrow. I’m going to try to bring that one out to you, so tell our forward-area gunners that any single vehicle they see coming at them at high speed will be me, okay? I’ll also need a path through the mine field on I-15 and if you haven’t blown the bridge over Provo Bay yet, try not to till I get across.”
“Gotcha. Now get the hell out of there, you nut-case.”
“In case I don’t make it, the attack’s scheduled for 5:07 a.m. and their armor will be coming up the old Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad grade.”
Michael spun the dial back to the Prince’s frequency. One more thing I can do, he thought. He removed the back of the set and popped loose a circuit board. Now the radio wouldn’t work. He pulled the pin from a grenade and wedged it into the set in such a way that when the back was removed to repair the radio, the grenade would blow. Michael shoved the maps back into the briefcase and closed it. As he finished, he heard a vehicle pull up out front.
Michael walked out of the building. The Corporal and Private leapt to attention.
“Your transportation, Sir,” the Corporal said proudly, indicating a beat-up, metal-top jeep. He had good reason to be proud. Even in the King’s army, it was quite a feat to come up with a vehicle, instead of a horse, on such short notice.
“Good work, Corporal,” Michael said, playing his role to the hilt. “I’m sure the Prince will show his appreciation for your efficiency.”
Michael knew he wouldn’t want to be in the man’s shoes, if the Prince got wind he had given Michael Whitebear a jeep after giving him run of the radio room. If the Corporal was lucky, he’d be the one who opened the radio.
Michael hopped into the jeep and sped off toward Provo, the briefcase lashed to the seat beside him. He had to swerve to avoid an APC pulling up to the curb as he was leaving.
*
Captain Parsons supervised his troops as they set up the Allies last remaining M102 howitzer. Thanks to the way earthquakes had devastated the area around American Fork and Pleasant Grove, there was only one feasible route for the enemy to take on their way through Orem to Provo and that was old U.S. 89. The road was far from intact. His men had already blown the bridges that, just a few years before, they had built when they believed they were rebuilding civilization. But intact or not, 89 was the only clear way through the rubble. Parsons had his gun emplaced near the powerhouse on the east side of the now-dry North Union Canal.
His artillery spotters were out. He and Major Cheryl Cummins had strung out the two thousand men assigned to defend the north flank along a hastily erected defensive embankment that paralleled 16th North Street from the Orem cemetery to where the old steel plant stood. A rider from Adam Young had informed them they would be facing about a thousand cavalry and five times that many infantry.
The Captain wondered briefly how they’d come up with those numbers, but mostly he was just thankful they wouldn’t be facing armor. The rider also told him the army coming at them had orders to take and hold the mouth of Provo Canyon. Captain Parson’s orders were to prevent that at all costs. Parsons glanced at the ammo boxes of high explosive ammunition he’d brought along. He also looked at his ace in the hole. Only six shells, but he hoped they’d be enough. He’d been saving them as a last resort and if this wasn’t it he didn’t know what was.
Dan Osaka and Sergeant Buell were up north laying an ambush for the enemy column. They had half of Daniel Windwalker’s scouts with them as well. The plan was to slow the “North Threat” down without incurring too many casualties themselves.
Even as he watched, his men went about the business of demolishing those few standing structures that might interfere with his field of fire. Behind him, mule trains and litter bearers helped the wounded up Provo Canyon. Adam had ordered the hospitals and aid stations evacuated earlier. It was disheartening to Captain Parsons, as it was to many of the troops. So many had died and still they were being forced to retreat and it was likely they would have to retreat again tomorrow. The enemy never seemed to run out of men, whereas the Allies were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Hell, half of his men, himself included, bore superficial wounds. Everybody, men, women and children over twelve, who could walk and pull a trigger with at least one hand was on the line.
Suddenly, he was sick of it all, the poor food, the lack of sleep, the endless fighting; but most of all he was sick of retreating. He decided right then and there that unless he was specifically ordered to give ground, this was where he’d make his stand.
*
Farther north, General Carswell was deciding how he would spend the gold the King would reward him with after this battle was over. His men were advancing undetected and, he chuckled, unsuspected toward the enemy rear. He’d been mildly disappointed the air base at Lehi had been abandoned, but then the Prince had suspected they were out of planes. In another hour or two, his troops would be in position and it would be light enough to begin the attack.
He rubbed his hands together in delight. It often amazed him how far he had come. Before The Dying Time, he had been a supply sergeant in the Air Force, at Vandenberg. His access to those supplies and his “business” friendship with arms dealer Joey Scarlatti, were the only things that enabled him to survive those first years.
And now look at us, he thought. Joey is a King and I’m a General. Though he admitted to himself the latter was due more to his support of Joey than to any military expertise of his own. At least that was what he’d thought until now.
His thrust out his chest and tried to sit more erect in the saddle. He decided, to his surprise, that he should get into the field more often. Judging by the results so far, he was really quite good at this. Of course, there were drawbacks. He missed his favorite concubine, Consuela, and in spite of having soldiers heat water for a bath he still didn’t feel clean. Nothing beats a good hot shower. He wasn’t very fond of horses either and the feeling was mutual. Around him, they tended to become all hooves and teeth.
He was still weighing the pro’s and con’s when the explosions began.
*
From the flanks of Mahogany Mountain, Sergeant Buell watched rounds from his mortars and Captain Parson’s howitzer explode in the ranks of the enemy’s advance element below.
“You’re right on target Sir,” he radioed Captain Parsons.
“Good work, Sergeant,” said Dan Osaka, from behind the man.
“Twarn’t nothin’, Lieutenant,” the Sergeant replied in his best “aw-shucks” mode. Dan was in command of this twenty-man scouting detail.
Lady Di lowered her field glasses, stepped away from the Sergeant and turned to face Dan, amazement showing clearly on her face. “Those idiots were marching in a column, like they were on parade or something.”
“So their commander isn’t very smart,” Dan said. “There’s still six thousand of them.”
“Less now,” Di fired back cheerfully.
“Yeah, less now,” Dan agreed, but in his heart he doubted whether the shelling had accomplished much other than to let the enemy know they weren’t surprising anybody. Oh sure, he thought, we may have taken out a hundred of them. One hundred down, 5900 to go.
Dan had been in the d
umps ever since Windwalker forbid him to go after Michael. It just didn’t seem right to him that his friend should be abandoned that way. Of course, he knew full well Michael could look out for himself, but what if he was hurt? Dan shook his head to throw off the thought. His friend couldn’t be hurt too badly. He’d seen the light show on Edge mountain earlier.
The enemy cavalry was rallying on the flats below and Dan could see that soon they would mount a charge toward his men.
“Okay, people, let’s break it off,” he yelled. He waved his arm and his men packed up and faded back into the trees. It was almost a mile to the next ambush site.
*
KABLAM! The shell blew a hole in the road and filled Michael’s eyes with smoke and dust. His jeep careened wildly off of a pile of rubble, flipped onto its side and slid across the street into a rock wall. Michael was thrown out of the jeep and slapped up against the wall with bruising force.
“You okay sir?” A voice whispered urgently out of the darkness.
“Ugh,” Michael grunted. He took a second to get his breath. “I’ll let you know,” he whispered back, as he checked his body for functioning parts. Everything seems all right. He winced as he sat up. Check that. At least nothing was broken. From the soreness and wooziness he could tell everything was definitely not all right. He’d seen better days. Worse too, he admitted, as he crawled around the jeep and cut the briefcase free.
A dim shape materialized beside him.
“Can you use some help, Sir?” Michael recognized the voice. It was Sergeant O’Malley, from Adam Young’s staff.
“Just get me to Colonel Young as fast as you can.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Sir,” O’Malley replied. He led off into the night. “Oh, by the way, Sir,” he said over his shoulder, “I’m glad you made it. Looked to be touch-and-go for awhile there.”
Michael’s mad dash for Provo had started even before he’d raced through the King’s front lines. One APC had chased him up from Spanish Fork, making him wonder how they had got onto him so fast. When he hit Springville, two more APC’s jumped him and the next mile had been dicey. Then, just after he’d crossed the bridge and while two of the APC’s were still on it, the Allies blew it up. Instantly, or so it had seemed to Michael, enemy artillery and tank fire had begun landing all around him. Half a mile later, on the outskirts of Provo and just outside the Allied lines, one of the enemy gunners got lucky.
He and the Sergeant wormed their way through the ruins. In an open space behind an intact building, two horses stood silently. Daniel Windwalker stood beside them, holding their reins, waiting.
“Now I know why Minowayuh called you Kemo Sabe,” he said admiringly as O’Malley and Michael approached. “You are one crazy dog-soldier.”
“Rats,” Michael smiled. “My secret’s out.”
“Got a present for you from Arnold Begay,” Daniel said, holding out Michael’s Uzi.
Michael grabbed the gun like a lost lover and shook Daniel’s hand. The two men mounted up and rode for Allied headquarters, while Sergeant O’Malley headed back toward his men.
Michael asked, “How’s Chris doing?”
“She was fine this morning,” Daniel responded. “Doc says she’ll be able to ride in another week or two.”
“I’ll stop in and see her after I’m done at HQ.” Michael’s saddle creaked as he shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable.
“Can’t. Adam ordered the hospitals evacuated. They’re up Provo Canyon with the children. Suzie’s back in action though.”
“Redfeather got hit?”
“Yeah, say I’ll make you a deal. I’ll bring you up to date on what all happened here today if you’ll tell me how somebody gets shot down on Edge Mountain and less than a day later crashes back into our lines dressed like a Captain in the King’s army.”
“Done,” Michael replied.
Chapter 46: Carswell’s Charge
Earl Baker stepped off the ladder, threw down his gloves and sank to one knee to catch his breath. The circles under his eyes looked like smeared black mascara. His cheeks were sunken, his lips cracked and bleeding and his hands trembled. He hadn’t slept in three days. Dirt had worked its way into the lines on his face. He braced both hands on his knee and boosted himself to his feet as he heard Jim Cantrell approach.
“We’ve hit water in the southern anchor shaft, Major,” Earl said.
What next? Jim thought. “Are we deep enough for the C-4 to work?”
“I don’t know.” Earl shook his head tiredly. “I just don’t know.”
“Do we have enough plastique for you to use a triple charge in that shaft?”
“Yeah, but these things are delicate,” Earl said. “If the blasts aren’t balanced just right...well, we lost twenty men when part of ten-shaft collapsed yesterday.”
“I know, Earl, but our people have already been pushed back to Provo and it’ll likely fall today. We’re running out of time.” Jim’s communications expert had established radio contact with Provo by climbing Mt. Timpanogos and setting up a relay station.
Jim ran his hand through his hair. They’d all been working around the clock for too long. Tired men make mistakes and exhausted men get themselves killed. Everyone had been pulling double shifts since they’d arrived. He looked at Earl, thinking, he’s had even less rest than most of us this past week. It was time to make the decision he’d been dreading.
“Shut it down, Earl,” Jim said softly.
“What?” Earl gaped. “We can’t do that. We...”
“We have to, Earl. We’re making too many mistakes. Shut down for six hours. No drilling. No shoring. No blasting. No carting. Everybody grabs a meal and sleeps.”
Jim checked his watch. It was 2:42 a.m. He knew they had at most another day or two to get it done. He laid a hand on Earl’s shoulder and looked him squarely in the eye.
“That goes for you, too. We’re all depending on you, Earl. We need that mind of yours fresh and clear.” Jim’s tone was firm and steady; it brooked no disagreement.
Earl nodded and shrugged helplessly. Jim clapped him on the back.
“We’ll fire it back up at 9 a.m.,” Jim said to Earl’s slowly retreating back. He forced his voice to sound enthusiastic.
“You want me to rouse the rest of the mess hall crew?” Earl asked over his shoulder.
“No. We’ll use the MRE’s,” Jim said, referring to the old but still edible prepackaged meals some U.S. Army bureaucrat had tagged Meals Ready to Eat, but common soldiers called Meals Rejected by Everyone. They were actually pretty good and he really liked the Chicken and Noodles as well as the Beef Stew. A full service meal at the mess hall would have been better, but it wasn’t set up to handle two thousand men at once. Besides, sleep was more important.
Against his will, his mind turned to thoughts of Sara. He was still torn between his duty to the Freeholds and his desire to go after her. His heart was insisting he had abandoned her. To make matters worse, he hadn’t heard a word from Raymond Stormcloud and it worried him. He tried to force his thoughts away from that topic, but memories of the scars her body bore from her previous encounters with the King haunted him, rekindling his slow-burning anger and stiffening his resolve. He would not fail. He must not fail. It was the least he could do for her.
*
The sniper peered from between the rocks trying to spot another victim. From a distance of slightly over 800 yards, Ellen Whitebear fired a bullet through his brain.
“Gotcha,” she whispered to herself. For the past two hours the sniper had been killing Allied soldiers. He’d even shot the antenna off the Huey so they couldn’t radio for help. This was the first time he’d given her a clear shot at him.
The sniper and the rest of a company-sized enemy force had found them last night, attacking at 4:00 a.m. Thanks to a few seconds advance warning by a pair of perimeter guards, the attack had been repulsed. Since then the battle had settled down to a long-range sniping war, which the Allies were losing.
Outnumbered by at least five to one, defending a position down near the lake front, while the enemy held the heights to the south, the Allies were facing long odds.
Ellen had lost more than a dozen men since the fight began. Many of them were previously wounded soldiers who had risen from their bedrolls in the infirmary to help repel the initial attack. Of the twenty healthy fighters Jim had left behind, only fifteen were still on their feet.
The corpsmen and nurses were risking their lives in the best tradition of combat medics everywhere, recklessly exposing themselves to enemy fire as they rescued and treated the wounded, occasionally stopping to shoot back.
Ellen smiled in grim satisfaction as she dropped another enemy rifleman. Retreat was out of the question. There were more than one hundred men who’d been too badly wounded in the massacre at Bloody Lake to walk. She wouldn’t abandon them. In addition, she wasn’t about to let the enemy have the Huey. She had a feeling it would be needed.
She had to come up with something. Sounds coming from the rocks above indicated the enemy was about to mount another charge. A gust of wind blew her hair into her eyes and as she tied it back into a ponytail, her knitted brows relaxed. Of course! She handed her rifle to Gypsy and headed for the chopper, picking up Terrell along the way.
A few minutes later, she was back, her trap in place. She passed the word to withdraw to the innermost defense perimeter, then took her empty rifle, a Springfield Model 1903-A4, back from Gypsy and fed five more rounds into its fixed clip. The brute weighed over nine pounds, but she’d never fired a more accurate gun. Besides, the weight helped to absorb the recoil.
A rebel yell from farther up the hill announced the beginning of the enemy charge. Ellen fired three quick shots into the canisters she and Terrell had placed moments ago. A hissing noise, like steam under pressure, reached her ears along with enemy war cries as they advanced. She leaned her back against the rocks and prayed for the stiff up-canyon breeze to continue to blow.
The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time Page 46