Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  Over the intercom, they heard an unintelligible stream of sounds, which only the soldiers understood, and reacted to.

  Had the students spoken Chinese, they would have understood the following:

  “Attention! This is Colonel Yip. The enemy is about to attack. We do not have sufficient forces in place to hold this town, and we must immediately withdraw to the east. Take whatever transport you can get your hands on and run for your lives. We will regroup fifty kilometers to the east. Do not harm any more civilians. This is a direct order from General Bing!”

  And then Sunny added in English: “Run for your lives, kids! They are going to kill you all when you get to the racetrack!”

  He then switched the PA system off and headed to the exit.

  Without missing a beat, David had already flicked on the lighter and held it under the heat sensor of the fire sprinkler; Jeff pulled the fire alarm.

  As soon as the heat-strip softened and crumpled, setting off the sprinklers throughout Lord Byng Academy, Sunny and David each grabbed a length of pipe from Jeff. The three boys burst out the fire exit at the west end of the complex and ran for their lives.

  Inside the Academy there was pandemonium in two languages. In Chinese, soldiers were arguing with each other about the order to retreat. Many believed that it was a real order, somehow broadcast from Colonel Yip directly. However, a few, including the Captain, believed that they were being tricked.

  With the alarm bells ringing and soldiers rushing about and looking out the windows for signs of the enemy, the students were forgotten for the moment and began to slip out through the exits and main floor windows.

  Most of the students got out of the building and ran away in all directions, quickly disappearing in the pre-dawn darkness. But around forty still remained, believing that they would find answers with the promised Red Cross. Even knowing that a number of students had already been shot they clung to the hope that if they co-operated with the soldiers then they would get through this.

  The Captain motioned to all the remaining students gathered in the hallway to come forward. Cautiously, a few moved forward. They saw the Captain bark an order to a soldier standing beside him. The soldier looked to the left and to the right, obviously confused. He answered the Captain, in a panicked tone of voice. The students couldn’t understand Chinese, but they could see that the soldier was having a disagreement with the Captain.

  The argument ended as fast as it had begun. The Captain pulled a revolver out of his holster and in a brisk, business-like manner, he aimed at the soldier and shot him in the head. As the soldier’s knees buckled under him and he crumpled to the floor, the students understood what they were dealing with. They turned and ran in all directions, disappearing like ants under a lifted rock.

  The Captain was only able to shoot a handful of them before they were all gone.

  Sunny and his mates were a dozen or so meters in front of the group of students that were fleeing in the same general direction, and wanted to stay ahead. They all had an extra spring in their stride with the knowledge that they had saved most of their school mates. But then David pulled at Sunny and Jeff to follow him, and take cover behind a wood-pile after they had clambered over somebody’s fence.

  In the safety of the back yard, they caught their breath, and assessed the situation. There were shouts in Chinese, all about. But none were close. The boys could see a few groups of students passing their area, some walking along the sidewalk, looking back nervously to see if they were being hunted.

  They were not.

  Suddenly, a single, loud, CRACK broke the silence, followed by the fire-cracker popping sound of automatic gunfire. Then there were screams of “Don’t’ shoot! We surrender!” followed a few seconds later by more shooting, and then silence.

  “Shit. This is real, guys,” said Jeff. “They really were going to kill us all. What else did they say in Chinese back there, Sunny?”

  “The guy in charge told someone to tell everybody that they would not be harmed. You heard that bit about the Red Cross, right? Well, just before that, the guy in charge, a Captain, I think, told his men to kill everyone. But then he changed his mind, and said to take them to the Racetrack, where the other civilians are being taken, and then all of them will be killed there.”

  “Oh my God! They’re rounding everybody up and then they’re going to kill them? That’s insane. Why would they do that?”

  “Because they want to make an example of this town, so that other towns will hear about it and not make any trouble.”

  “Sounds like something the Germans would have done in the Second World War,” said Jeff.

  “Yeah, it’s brutal. But it means that we are in some kind of really big war, where the Geneva Convention or whatever the rules of war are – is completely off the table,” said David.

  “So what should we do? Try to get a car?”

  “No way, Jeff. You saw what happened to that red car earlier. And by now they’ll have road blocks set up all around town. No, we should stay on foot for now, and stay away from the main roads. Let’s just cut through the back-yards, stay out of sight, and make our way out of town. That way is west, right?” Sunny said, pointing west. Then he turned his head in the opposite direction, towards the glowing horizon to the east. “Yeah, look, the sun’s coming up so that is definitely east, where their forces are coming from.”

  “Coming? They’re already here, mate!” said Jeff.

  “No. This is a small number that came in through the airport. I heard them talking about it. No, they have a much larger group, something called a Group Army, that’s landed in Cairns. They talked about something called the “124th Division” coming to base out of Charters Towers before pushing west to Darwin, and that Charters Towers will be the base of their supporting logistics.”

  “Wow, Sunny, you really got a lot of information out of that conversation we overheard. Good thing you speak Chinese.”

  “I heard more,” Sunny said. “A lot more.”

  “Can you remember it?” David asked.

  “I think so.”

  “I bet it’s important stuff,” said Jeff. “We should get you to the good guys, in Darwin.”

  David gave Jeff an ‘are you an idiot’ look. “Sure, no problem, dude. That’s just a tad over two thousand kilometers from here. And we’re on foot!”

  Sunny’s face remained set. “Doesn’t matter. We have to get this information passed on somehow. I know who we need to get it to. My girlfriend’s Dad. He’s a Major with the U.S. Marines, That’s where I’m going. You want to come?”

  “Yeah,” said David.

  “Yup,” said Jeff. Just one-word answers, but the way they both said it was with resolve. It would be all the way.

  With that the boys began moving westward, picking their way through back-yards and watching for soldiers before dashing across the streets. They continued south-west for about two kilometers until they reached the outskirts of town, south of Rainbow Road.

  There had been a few close calls as there were numerous groups of soldiers going house-to-house, ferreting out the citizens and loading them onto buses. On a few occasions the man of the house struggled and was beaten savagely, or his loved ones were threatened until he complied with their instructions. More often than not, the boys observed, people went along with the soldiers, no doubt believing the Red Cross story or simply too afraid to do anything else.

  From time to time they saw people running off into the bush, as they themselves were doing, making their way out of town on foot. Those that tried to drive generally ended up dead, with more and more motorized patrols zipping around the streets. It seemed that the longer the Chinese had been on the ground the more organized and spread out they were. The boys looked at the way that the invaders were quickly locking up the town and herding the population into detention at the racetrack. It terrified them and made them sick. It was a horrible, unspeakable nightmare that they could not do anything about.

  But their
fear helped to drive them on. There was no disagreement between them about what was to be done. They had already seen enough evidence; and with Sunny’s information, they now had a mission. They stayed away from the houses, which became easier as they passed the larger houses on larger plots of land at the end of town. Soon they were into the sparsely treed scrub land. The going was rough as they approached the rolling hills, but less dangerous with fewer roads to worry about.

  They were drawn to the large water tanks atop the hills beyond, by the prospect of water, but when they reached the graffiti-covered blue tanks they were disappointed to find that there were no faucets, no way to get water from the town’s water supply.

  Exhausted and bewildered, they plunked themselves down with their backs to the one of the tanks and looked over the townsite below. The twenty meter hilltop they were sitting on gave them a commanding view of the area. They could see all the way to the racetrack, at the far side of town.

  “Hey, there’s smoke rising from the racetrack! Do you think the Army has come, and rescued the town?” asked Jeff.

  “No way,” Sunny said, “We would have heard some tanks or heavy weapons.”

  “All we heard was gunfire,” David said in between heavy breaths.

  “When?” asked Jeff, “Just now? I haven’t heard any gunfire.”

  “A few minutes ago,” David answered. “Back when we crossed Mossman Street! There was a whole whack of shooting.”

  The three boys looked over towards the Racetrack in silence. Then Jeff turned to Sunny. “Those Chinese guys in the school, they said they were going to take everybody to the Racetrack and kill them?”

  Sunny’s response was soft but grim. “That’s what they said.”

  Three boys stared down at the burning pyre at the Racetrack. Boys who were sick and stunned at the evil in front of them.

  They continued on. When they had gone at least a dozen kilometers from town, and had not seen any Chinese soldiers for a while, they decided to take a risk and try to find someone at a cattle ranch they came to.

  They approached with great care, keeping the white-skinned boys in front so that Sunny would not be the first person the rancher saw.

  Just as they paused at the front gate, and read the sign: “Blackjack-4” at the rural-style mailbox, the ranchers’ dogs heard them, and came yelping at them.

  Then a big man came out, shotgun in hand. But he soon determined that the boys were harmless, and invited them in. The boys were relieved to be in a safe place, with a man armed with a gun. But it was the connections that the rancher had – to the School of the Air radio network – that really got them excited. Sunny nearly leapt out of his shoes in excitement. But his hopes were soon dashed, as the rancher informed him that his radio set was unserviceable, as he had not had to use it since his son had grown up. But he said that he could probably fix it if it was that important to send a message.

  He asked Sunny what he knew of what was happening in Charters Towers. The rancher listened in disbelief. But he must have had some military training, as he suddenly snapped to a more serious bearing, got out a notepad, and had Sunny go over it all gain, in careful detail, as the former soldier-turned-rancher took notes.

  “When I get my set working I’ll transmit this information along the line to the military. That I promise you,” he said, and then sat back and exhaled, shaking his head. “God Almighty,” the rancher said, “It’s more than a soul can believe!”

  They stayed at the ranch for three days. Three days! It was a miracle. The boys had been convinced that the Chinese were only minutes away. But the rancher was a good guy, offering them food, drink, and a place to rest. After their terrible ordeal, they were glad for the chance to eat and get their strength back.

  Their stay was not a pleasant one. Sleep came fitfully to the boys. Each would wake in the night, startled by a nightmare, or convinced that any creak in the house was the Chinese coming for them. The following day, the rancher offered the boys a beat-up old vehicle so that they could make their way to Darwin. They accepted; and for the rest of the day they gathered fuel and supplies for their journey while the rancher serviced the vehicle.

  As the boys got into the four-wheeler, Sunny turned back to the rancher. “I don’t know how we can repay you. I don’t even know if we can get there, let alone bring your vehicle back.”

  “Hell, boys,” the rancher said with a glint in his eyes, “I don’t know if any of us, me or my mates, will be here in another day or two anyway. Just get there, for us all, will you?”

  The boys were escorted to a road-block about one kilometer west of the cattle station. The road-block seemed like it was well defended, with wrecked vehicles and other junk piled up on either side of the road and a large truck used as a moveable gate. The checkpoint was operated by a well-armed group of cattle-ranchers, calling themselves militia, some ten kilometers west of town where the two roads leading out of Charters Towers intersected with Highway A6 to Cloncurry, and from there as the A2 to Darwin.

  Leaving the “Blackjack” checkpoint, the boys drove through the day and into the next night. Sunny was driving while the other boys slept when they drove over the Queensland – Northern Territory border. They had not seen another eastbound vehicle for hours and had been overtaken a number of times by faster-moving westbound vehicles.

  On the local radio, they heard that night driving was forbidden as the roads were required by the military, and that martial law was in effect. They had debated pulling over, to wait for daylight, but Sunny wanted to press on through the night.

  Nearly asleep at the wheel, he drove headlong into a column of armed civilians driving east, with their headlights off. Sunny slammed on the breaks and jumped out, waved his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he shouted. He had left the headlights on, and saw that the driver of the lead vehicle was wearing something strange on his face. Are those night vision goggles? thought Sunny, his hands still high in the air.

  Sunny saw the man raise his weapon, focus his eye on the target, and squeeze the trigger.

  The driver of the lead vehicle had been intent on taking action to interrupt the massacre taking place at Charters Towers; the RAA Sergeant-Major from 1st Bde was on a personal mission. His daughter was among those trapped in the enemy occupied town and something in his heart told him that she was already dead.

  He was in a rage and desperate to find her, so when he had been forced to halt his vehicle and deal with the approaching vehicle he had become infuriated. When he saw the Chinese man get out of the vehicle, waving madly at them as if to surrender, he lost all composure. I’m not taking any Chinese prisoners today, he thought, as he took careful aim and squeezed the trigger.

  The sound of the round glancing off of the Chinese man’s vehicle told the Sergeant Major that he had missed, even before his trained eye re-focused on the target for a follow-on round. But before he could pull the trigger again, and even as his aim-point followed the man in his desperate leap towards the relative safety of the ground, he sensed something solid coming into contact with his F88 Austeyr assault rifle.

  The second round disappeared into the darkness without making contact with anything other than dirt, some three hundred meters beyond where his aim-point had been. “What the fuck!” he shouted, as he shifted his weight and turned to face the source of the unexpected interference.

  “Stand down, RSM!” commanded the officer.

  “What the hell are you talking about? No more than two hours ago you told me that we would not be taking prisoners,” complained the Sergeant-Major, struggling to free his weapon from the steady pressure being applied by the Marine’s weapon pressing up against his own.

  “Prisoners, no. But we had agreed to rescue as many civilians as we could, if the opportunity arose during the raid.”

  “The raid hasn’t even begun, and you’re jeopardizing our mission by letting that yellow bastard live another minute!” the Regimental Sergeant-Major spat in disgust. “How do you know he hasn’t found a w
ay to alert his kind?”

  “His kind?”

  Looking at the officer as if he were a lunatic, the RSM sneered: “The Chinese, Mate. His people!”

  “Because, RSM, I am his people.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “That’s my future son-in-law, and he is an American citizen. Now stand down and let me introduce you to the man you were about to murder,” said Major Blakely.

  13

  ROAD TO CLONCURRY

  Master Sergeant Rideout scanned the outback landscape as his vehicle sped along the trail. He was looking for any familiar feature that might jog his memory – anything to ensure that he and everyone else would find their appointed destination.

  It had been a while since that magic time there with Guay and Hayman. So much frenzied preparation, and then everything else since. He was hoping that this Task Force would be able to make a difference – but in the present situation, was that hope just a forlorn luxury?

  His driver broke his concentration.

  “Top! How much longer before we get to the TP? Isn’t it somewhere along this stretch, where we’re no longer right next to the railroad?”

  Looking at the topographic map on his knee, and then at his watch, he replied: “That’s right, Corporal Roebuck; we’re coming up on the Turning Point in a few more minutes. So you were listening this time! It should be in visual range within the next couple of minutes.”

  “Too bad the GPS don’t work no more.”

  A soldier called out from behind in the vehicle. “Yeah. We’ve got to rely on basic map reading. But don’t worry,” he continued with a smirk, “Top’s got some topless local knowledge.”

  “She had a bra on, Lance Corporal. When telling stories about me, make sure to keep your facts straight,” said Rideout.

  Dumbass, Rideout thought to himself. His focus suddenly shifted back to the landscape as he noticed an outstanding detail. “Okay, Corporal,” he said to the driver.