Countdown: H Hour

by Tom Kratman

  The landing craft lurched to a sudden stop. Almost all the men in the well deck were thrown from their feet. Stocker was slammed forward; only the steel rail between the quarterdeck and the well deck kept him from being tossed in and quite possibly breaking his neck.

  “Sandbar!” Kirkpatrick shouted. “Doubt I can get past it.”

  “Never . . . mind . . . drop . . . the . . . ramp,” Stocker gasped. Being slammed into the railing had knocked some of the wind from the man.

  “Aye.” The LCM bounced slightly upward in a sort of recoil caused by the sudden dropping of the heavy steel ramp, forward.

  “GetoffgetoffgetoffgetthefuckOFF!” Warrington shouted, walking aft, picking up and pushing men toward the bow. Instead of being thrown to the deck, he’d been mashed into the ramp. At least that left him still standing, if somewhat bruised. By the time he’d gotten maybe a third of the way back through the well deck, the others had risen to their feet. At that point his major task became not being run over by the human stampede. He avoided it by joining it.

  Stocker, breath mostly recovered now, stepped off the ramp and found himself in calf-deep salt water. He’d expected it from the cries of “shit” and “damn” he’d heard coming from those who preceded him.

  Not so bad. Another step and the water had risen to his chest. Crap.

  He flipped his NVG’s back down, then did a long one hundred and eighty degree sweep. All around and ahead, armed men were pushing their way through the water, weapons raised high over the heads. In the case of the four RPG-29 crews, holding the weapons and ammunition above head was no mean feat.

  “Turn the fuck around, Private Khan; you are walking out to sea. Follow the sound of the pipes.”

  Came back across the water, “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “A little more to your left, Khan.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Funny how the Indian Guyanans speak better English than the whites or the blacks. Course, Khan’s one of the Afghan Guyanans. A good-hearted trooper, if a little weak on swimming and direction.

  Trudging onward, Stocker bumped up against a body floating face down in the water. Shit; there’s been no shooting at us. Where’d he come from?

  Patting around the corpse’s back, he felt no load-bearing equipment or anything to indicate an origin with the corporation. Though it was still too dark to see what the wet material looked like, the clothing didn’t feel like M Day issue. Must have been a local. Oh, well.

  He pushed the body off to one side and resumed his trudge. Then he saw Cagle, probably the shortest man in the group, outside of the Gurkhas, struggling with his nose barely above water. Stocker switched directions to go and give the medico a helping hand. Behind him, the heightened roar of the diesels and the whine of the ramp being lifted told him that the LCM was backing off the sand bar to take on another load, off to the west.

  Warrington saw through his goggles that the sudden drop to deeper-than-expected water had pretty badly disorganized the company. He was about to turn around and go after Cagle when he saw that Stocker had the same idea and was considerably closer.

  And it won’t get any better if they come ashore that way. What to do; what to do? Ah, I know. Use the terrain.

  He told the piper to, “Can it for a while,” then cupped his hands to shout out, “Stop at the shoreline, A Company, and take a knee. Platoon leaders and squad leaders, get control of your own men there.”

  “Captain Warrington?” asked an American voice from farther inland. “I’m here to guide you to your jump off point.”

  “Give us a few, Sergeant. We need to get settled and set before we move.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Turning to Sergeant Balbahadur, Warrington asked, “Can you play ‘Gary Owen?’ ”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Gurkha. “Or pretty much anything.”

  “ ‘Gary Owen’ will do nicely. But wait until I give the signal. No need to kill any more people here than we must and, if we can make them run way, we won’t have to kill them.”

  Pulling back the concealing, Velcro-fastened, band over his watch, Warrington did a quick estimate of how long it would be before the gunships, currently rearming back at the Bland, were back in play.

  Chewing his lip, he thought, Probably not before we’re set to attack, even with this delay. And probably not worth waiting for them. Besides, rather have them fully armed if we need them later on. No, we’ll wade in with what we have. That, and the fixed wings, which ought to be up in a couple of minutes.

  Besides, the hurry isn’t in clearing the perimeter. The hurry’s in getting everything and everyone extraneous out of our hair so that the rest can move in a hurry when they must.

  “We’re ready to go,” Stocker reported, “Bayonets fixed and everything. I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I think I saw some people taking to their heels when they heard the clicks after, ‘fix . . . bayonets.’ ”

  “Might well have,” Warrington agreed. “Sergeant Balbahadur?”

  “Sir.”

  “You accompany Captain Stocker. ‘Gary Owen’ for as long as you and he can stand it, then whatever you like.”

  “And you?” Stocker asked.

  “Here to control third team and the aviation until you’re through and wheeling left. After that, outside the perimeter it’s your show. I’m going to parallel you, inside, and make sure they restrict or cease fire as you pass.”

  Stocker breathed a little easier. “Ah. Good thought. Thank you.”

  Besides amphibious, there were other operations that were less than desirable to carry out. Airborne was another one where the lesson of history was, “If you don’t have to, don’t.” Helicopter landings into hot (which is to say, contested) landing zones, or LZ’s, were almost as problematic.

  But there were some toughies that one really couldn’t avoid. Among these were what is called “Passage of Lines,” offensive or defensive. Those you had to do, whether attacking, patrolling, defending, or delaying. The problems with passage of lines included inherent confusion, misidentification—hence friendly fire, coordination, and the touchy question of who’s in charge, and when. The problems become more severe, of course, with the size of the units involved. But even for a short company, and a single special operations detachment, there are still some issues. In this case, Warrington ordered that Stocker would assume responsibility for the front as soon as the mortars kicked in, then Third Team would take it over again after Stocker’s boys wheeled left.

  One fingered, and ever so gently, the SF sergeant, Staff Sergeant Story, by name and rank, nudged Private Khan’s rifle up and to the right; away from his head, in other words.

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” Khan said.

  “It’s okay, son.” No sense in upsetting the boy before his first action, after all. “Just be more careful in the future. And more quiet.”

  “Quiet?” Khan asked. “You don’t think they know we’re here?”

  “Here, sure,” Story replied. “But not exactly how many, or what we’re getting ready to do?”

  “You sure they’re out there, Sergeant?”

  Khan, two of the men of Third Team, the rest of Khan’s fire team, and Khan’s squad leader, all occupied a bare room, mostly roofless, almost windowless, in an abandoned mud brick house, fronting the street. One of the few shreds of roof remaining held an infrared chemlights, to mark their position. The entire line was similarly marked.

  On the other side, so Khan’s squad leader had been told, were the enemy.

  “They haven’t made a sound since we dropped a dozen or so of them,” whispered Story. “But we didn’t get them all and they all didn’t run away, either. They’re still there.”

  “This place is weird,” said Khan, as softly as Story could have wished. “Where are the trees. I tripped over a stump just after landing. But no trees.”

  “Locals cut them down for firewood would be my guess,” Story replied. “Nothing else to cook with. That’s probably where the
beams for this place went, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s what happens when everything falls apart.”

  “Mortars up,” Stocker heard in his earpiece. “Roger,” he replied. “Time of flight?”

  “We firing high charge and elevation for dis range, to get between de buildings. Twenty-two secon’s.”

  “Roger. Twenty-four rounds, prox”—proximity; air burst—“then twenty-four delay. Traverse and search. At my command.”

  “At you’ command, over.”

  I love it when a plan comes together, thought the Canadian. Even when it’s a plan you’ve pulled out of your ass.

  “Fixed wings ninety seconds out,” announced Warrington. He was looking down at his watch. Stocker felt his heart begin to race as the countdown dropped: “Forty-five . . . thirty . . . ”

  From off to their right they heard the tell-tale buzz of the CH-750s’ small engines.

  “I mark your position,” announced the lead pilot. “We’re coming in with two, repeat two, pods of 7.62 and one, repeat one, rocket pod, each.”

  “Save the rockets for a rainy day,” Warrington said. “Give me a single pass each with machine guns, then standby.”

  “Roger. Starting our pass now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Those skilled in the attack flash forth

  as from the topmost heights of Heaven.

  —Sun Tzu

  Bajuni, former Federation of Sharia Courts, Africa

  God’s farting hail, thought Stocker, as the two CH-750’s made their pass. The twin, four-barreled, machine gun pods mounted underwing provided the cosmic flatulence—brrrrrp . . . brrrrrp—while the expended casings, hitting the ground at a combined rate of a couple of hundred per second, provided the hail. They couldn’t really hear it on the ground, but the planes actually had to crank up the gas to counteract the recoil force of the gun pods.

  Somewhere to the east someone—possibly several someones—screamed in agony.

  “And that’s my cue.” Into his boom mike Stocker ordered, “Mortars, fire.”

  “Shot, over.” From behind him, to the west, came a series of bright flashes as the rounds dropped by the gunners thumped out. In less than ten seconds, the chief of the mortar section reported back, “Splash,” followed in another thirty seconds by, “Rounds complete.”

  The captain didn’t hear that last part, as the high explosive—admittedly not a lot, 60mm being such a small shell—began detonating about a hundred and twenty meters to his front. The flashes of the shells lit up a scene of wrecked, roofless, crumbling buildings, in silhouette, and more than a few bodies. Almost immediately those shells were joined by small arms fire, and four rounds from the two platoons’ Vampire rocket launchers.

  “Platoon leaders, start your assault. Sergeant Balbahadur, some music please, maestro.”

  “Roger . . . roger.”

  Balbahadur didn’t respond verbally. He simply stuck the mouthpiece between his lips and began belting out the strains of ‘Gary Owen.’

  “It’s your show now, buddy,” Story told Khan’s squad leader, at the first crump of landing 60mm shells.

  “Roger. Second Squad, to de windows. On my command . . . FIRE!”

  A wave of tracers from almost eighty rifles and machine guns washed out across the street. Khan added his own measure to the din, though he stopped firing when three sides of one of the buildings almost opposite his perch crumpled into a worse ruin than it already had been from the impact of a Vampire’s fourteen pound shell. The Vampire, also known as an RPG-29, could punch through more than a dozen feet of log and earth. The foot or so of mud brick didn’t stand a chance; it flew away, mostly in the form of powder.

  Though every army’s doctrine calls for a certain amount of spacing between soldiers, any number of factors—tight terrain, darkness, snow or rain, sand storms, buildings, or unusually high concentrations of the enemy—can cause that spacing to be reduced almost to the shoulder-to-shoulder point. Part of that is about control; the small unit leader can’t control what he can’t see. An equal part is moral; soldiers get distinctly uncomfortable when they can’t see, or at least sense, their comrades. “Uncomfortable” is, in this case, code for “frightened.”

  So they cluster. And leaders rarely or never countermand the clustering until it gets very close, at least in those circumstances, because at least they can see and control the clusters, or the leaders of the clusters.

  Night vision equipment is often of only marginal help with the problem.

  The mix of mud brick dust and powder smoke half blinded Khan and did set him to violent coughing. The rest of his team were in about the same boat. They’d backed out through the back door of their assault position, leaving Sergeant Story behind, then clustered at one corner of that roofless building. At a command from their team leader, all five had sprinted across the street, stopping only at the far wall of the building Khan had seen mostly demolished by a Vampire shell.

  There had been a couple of bodies—maybe living, maybe dead—on the floor of that wrecked shack. Neither had attempted to surrender, even if they’d been capable of the attempt. In the darkness, neither had been certain to have been wounded. Khan’s team leader—the only man in the team equipped with NVG’s—had been trained in a very harsh school: Unless it is absolutely obvious, the burden of proof of intent to surrender or having been rendered hors de combat by wounds is on the party wishing to surrender or to be recognized as hors de combat. He saw the bodies; they gave no indication of intent, so he put his rifle’s muzzle to their heads, in turn, and donated a bullet to each man. Bang. Bang.

  This was called either “making sure,” or, in the alternative, “not taking any chances.” The dead, in any case, didn’t complain.

  Stocker was centered between the two platoons. With him were the company supply sergeant and his assistant, plus some reinforcement from the communications section and the cooks. Pointing at the corner where the street met the beach, he said, “Sergeant, go start tossing the mines there. Be sure to toss a fair few out onto the sand, too. Then follow my trail, laying them behind you.”

  “Yessir,” said the supply sergeant, a short, stocky, black Guyanan. He and the assistant trotted off, laden with mine-filled rucksacks, for the spot Stocker had indicated.

  “Okay, boys,” Stocker said into his radio, “start your left wheel now. Simon?”

  “Here, sir,” answered Blackmore.

  “I’ve got the company now. Put your major effort into getting everything we can out of here on the next LCM lift.”

  “Already on it, Captain.” The lieutenant’s voice held a tone of personal hurt.

  Crap; he thinks I’m here because he did something wrong. Hmmm, how to fix that without letting him know that I’m trying to fix it. Ah, I know; “it’s all in the tone of voice”—stern, demanding, fair.

  “You’ve done very well indeed, so far, Simon. See to it that the evacuation runs as well, eh? Good lad.”

  It wasn’t hard for Warrington to keep track of how far Stocker’s assault had gone. Not only were there plenty of tracers, and a fair number of hand grenade blasts, but Balbahadur’s pipes pinpointed the center of the effort fairly precisely.

  In his earpiece Warrington heard, “Slepnyov, Captain. Back on station . . . two minutes.”

  “Keep a low profile, Slep. We don’t need anything right now but when we do . . . ”

  “Roger, Captain. We take up hover by beach.”

  “Works.” And besides, the sound will carry a long way into the city. Ought help keep the other side scared and running.

  “I want you to run to the landing craft, you pieces of shit.”

  Jesus, Feeney, thought Hallinan, standing by the boat’s ramp, what’s gotten into you lately?

  Sergeant Feeney stood exactly on line between the aid workers and the boat, though he was much closer to the aid workers. Nobody moved, probably because they were terrified of getting any closer to the sergeant than necessary. F
eeney flipped down his NVG’s and strode to the nearest one, a female. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to her feet. Shaking her a few times, to ensure he had her undivided attention, he twisted her hair to point her face at the boat. Then he said, “Those lights out there are the landing craft, sweetie. Get your ass there. Now.”

  He released the woman’s hair, then slapped her on the ass, before letting her fall to all fours. He applied a very mild boot to her posterior, knocking her to the sand. Weeping loudly, the woman struggled to her feet and then, hair flying, she ran off. It was with very mixed feelings that Feeney saw she was, in fact, heading in the right direction. He went to grab another one, then stopped himself. This is taking too long. Way too long. But I know how to speed it up.

  Wading through the mass of terrified tranzis, Feeney stopped at the far, which is to say the northern, edge of them. He pulled a hand grenade from his assault vest and flipped off the safety clip. Pulling the ring, he tossed the grenade shoreward about fifty feet. Then he shouted, “Incoming! Run for your lives.”

  The words didn’t do much good. But the explosion that came a few seconds later got them on their feet and scrambling very quickly indeed.

  Yeah, that’s the ticket. Yeah. Feeney smiled very broadly at the grainy-green image of a mass of humanitarians, tearing at each other to be the first aboard the boat.

  An exhausted Dr. Saffron emerged from the water, seallike, which is to say on his sodden belly. Exhausted, and too terrified for his self-righteous anger to have any place, he began crawling toward the civilized sound of a big diesel engine, cranking away somewhere to his right front.