“Build a fire,” the old hunter said.
The pilot shook his head. Despite his broken hand, he was an aggressive young man. “We can take a little cold, but if the Chinese see us warming ourselves by a fire we’re dead.”
“I don’t like them hanging people either,” the old hunter said. “But we’re not going to do much more if we’re all sick. We need to be warm for a while and regroup.”
“Make the fire,” Bill told the old hunter. He was sick of shivering, and he was dead tired. Tramping through the snow in the wilds, with Chinese chasing them—it amazed him how the tiredness sank into his bones. It gave him a new appreciation for David when King Saul had chased him through the deserts of Israel. The next time he gave a sermon on those passages, he would add these experiences to make the Bible come to life for his parishioners.
“I still don’t understand who put you in charge,” the pilot said.
“Bill is a sergeant,” Carlos said from where he squatted.
“Yeah?” the pilot said. “Well, I’m a captain.”
“Bill’s led the group successfully,” Carlos said. “We’ve destroyed thirteen trucks full of supplies. And he rigged the perfect bobby-trap with Chinese artillery shells, blowing up two IFVs and their naval infantry. What have you done again?”
“I got myself shot down because it was three against one,” the pilot said angrily. “Look, I don’t want to hang from the trees. If we do anymore now, they’re sure to send the patrols after us into the woods, where we’ll probably freeze to death.”
Bill had seen Americans hanging from trees. It had shocked him even more than the invasion itself. The dangling corpse had been in plain sight along the highway. He’d worked near and had read the placard around the neck. In block letters the Chinese had written, ANY PARTISAN CAUGHT WITH A WEAPON WILL HANG. He had stared at those letters, thinking about having his arms tied behind his back and a rope looped around his neck. Something dark had entered his soul then. The Chinese wanted to play rough. He’d nodded. He would play rough all right.
“If the Chinese are hanging people,” Bill now told the others, “it means they’re desperate. It means the attacks behind enemy lines are taking a toll. I say we increase that toll.”
“What are you suggesting?” the pilot said. “Have you seen the latest convoys? They’re guarded by infantry fighting vehicles.”
“That’s right!” said Bill. “That’s another sign we’re hurting them. They’re pulling back combat vehicles from the fight to make sure they get enough supplies to the front. Now we have to hit them even harder.”
“I hope you’re not talking about slipping into the big supply dump near Sterling,” the old hunter said. He clicked a lighter, touching the flame to wadded paper crumpled under a teepee of broken sticks.
“They’ve seen that supply depot,” the pilot said, jerking a thumb at the National Guardsmen. “They said it’s guarded pretty tight.”
“The smart thing is to stick with what works,” Bill said. “I don’t want to get greedy and try to swallow too much. The idea is to nibble them like mice.”
“That’s great,” the pilot said. “Mice.”
Bill sympathized with the young man. Chinese tanks were better than American ones, just as Chinese aircraft were better than American fighters. It must be a terrible feeling to be shot down behind enemy lines. He hated the fact that he’d been left behind. Sometimes he just wanted to pack it in and try to walk back to Anchorage. Remembering that hanging corpse wouldn’t let him do that.
“Mice can burn down a house by nibbling enough electric wire-lining,” Bill told the pilot.
“And how does that apply to us?” the pilot asked.
“It should be obvious.”
“What should we attack next?” asked the old hunter.
Bill squatted beside the crackling sticks. He held his stiff fingers before the flames. Even the trickle of heat felt wonderful, like hope. How much longer could they do this? He was out of aspirin now. He wanted that almost as much he wanted more food. Soon, they would be out of food, too, and their .50 caliber ammo was running low. They had plenty of shotgun shells and .30-06 cartridges. He forced a grin onto his tired face. These men needed hope. The old hunter had been right. They needed this fire.
“I’ve been thinking of a spot, said Bill, as he dug out a worn map. “We’ll set up the M2s there and wait for a rich target like Robin Hood and his merry men.”
“So now we’re archers?” asked the pilot, squatting beside him and holding out his good hand to the flames. He stared at Bill. “I wish you’d make up your mind. Mice, men wearing tights, I need to get back to our side and see if I can get another fighter.”
Their side, Bill nodded. It would be nice to go home. It would be glorious. But right now, he was David on the run from Saul. This was the hard time when he had to prove himself.
“Build up that fire,” Bill said. “Then let’s get everyone around it. We have some hard planning to do.”
GIRDWOOD, ALASKA
Stan’s tank rattled-clanked-squealed its way along the road as it towed another Abrams. The towing was hard on his tank, but he couldn’t leave this one behind and there was no other way to move it. It gave him three M1A2s, the last of their heavy armor.
Standing in the hatch, Stan could see the line of American soldiers marching wearily from Girdwood. On the other side of the town came flashes of red. A few big guns spoke, slowing the Chinese. General Sims had given the order. This was the last retreat to the forward defenses in Anchorage’s city limits.
It had been a long series of battles since the Junction of Highways One and Nine. Stan was sick of retreating. His eyelids drooped. He yawned. He badly needed sleep. Everyone did. The soldiers marching to Anchorage…even now one stumbled and slumped on the snow. The man didn’t move. No one helped him. Few had the strength to do more than march.
“We’re not going to hold the city with soldiers like that,” said Jose, his head sticking out of the gunner’s hatch.
Stan was too tired to reply. He was sick of retreating and he was sick of seeing men die. He just wanted this to end. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a year, maybe two.
The big guns boomed again, flashes of red. It was all that was holding the enemy back.
PRCN SUNG
For the first time in thirty-four years, Admiral Ling was feeling seasick. He sat at a table in the operations room of his carrier. He could no longer study the detailed map of the Kenai Peninsula. Shoved by the raging sea, the ship and therefore this room violently tilted back and forth.
“We must move the fleet out of this,” Commodore Yen said beside him.
Ling felt his age today. Yen looked worse.
An Arctic storm howled upon his fleet, an ice age blizzard with sleet, hail and near hurricane-force winds. Everyone in here could hear the hail striking outside, and everyone in the operations center felt the monstrous waves heaving the carrier in giant swells.
“What will this do to our drive on Anchorage?” asked Ling. He’d been worrying about this ever since the fleet’s weathermen had told him about the direction of the approaching storm.
“Ships can’t attack in this kind of weather,” said Yen. “I don’t know about soldiers.”
Admiral Ling shook his head. “We’re close to victory. After weeks of fighting and bloodletting, we’re near our objective. Once we have Anchorage and its airport and the surrounding towns—”
“And the Anchorage storage tanks,” said Commodore Yen.
“And those as well,” said Ling, “if the Americans don’t destroy them first.”
“What then, sir? What if the Americans blow those storage tanks as they did in Seward?”
“I am not so troubled by that now. Once we break into Anchorage, we have the victory. Then our superior numbers can finally spread out to attack the Americans all at once and at many different points. Then at the Navy’s leisure, we can sweep the mines from Cook Inlet and ferry our supplies directly into
the city. Once we have metropolitan Anchorage, the Chairman will understand that victory is ours. He will release the rest of the fuel tankers.”
Commodore Yen nodded thoughtfully as he studied the OBS.
Admiral Ling did likewise. It had been a bitter fight through the Kenai Peninsula. The battle for Portage had been extremely difficult. Now the naval infantry fought through Girdwood. Afterward, would begin the direct assault upon Anchorage, the great and glittering prize of the campaign.
The nine naval infantry brigades used in the invasion, each twice as large as an American brigade, had taken losses to get to this place. However, China had men, far too many men. Ling didn’t like losing so many soldiers, but that wasn’t his great fear. The fuel supply had approached a critical situation. The constant pinprick partisan attacks had made things even worse. The planners should have foreseen that, given the American love affair with guns. According to his charts, the patrols and especially the White Tigers had killed countless partisans and destroyed vast quantities of civilian weapons. Yet these Alaskans kept popping out of their woods and were always well-armed. It had become so bad that his commanders used combat vehicles to patrol the main supply route of the Number One Highway. The fuel used in the patrolling vehicles and helicopters had eaten into the campaign’s remaining stocks.
Admiral Ling shook his head. The Kenai Peninsula was mostly mountains and pines, endless trees, making a thousand ambush sites. With everything taken together, his ground forces only had several more days of fuel while operating at full combat capacity. Every ounce of that fuel needed to get to the front so the ground commanders could keep the pressure on the battered Americans and smash through Anchorage. Even if the Americans blew the vast storage complexes, the naval soldiers could use the airport and receive fuel via air-tankers, maybe even straight from China.
The ground commanders at the front kept reporting that victory was in their grasp. Their battle-weary soldiers saw Anchorage now. The soldiers saw the fantastic mountains beyond and realized in this amphitheater there was a chance to regroup and redeploy. Once the city was in their grasp, every soldier realized that China could pour Army formations into Alaska, making it impossible for the Americans to think of ever trying to drive them out. The seen prize urged on the tired brigades and their soldiers. All the expended sweat, tears and blood would have meaning with the conclusion of this final push that would give them victory.
Tall Commodore Yen studied the OBS beside Ling. Yen stirred, adjusting his uniform as if he was before yet another TV camera. The man acted as if the political officers were recording every one of his actions and pronouncements for review. “The heart of the storm will hit our formations. Will that hurt our chances for victory?”
Another pang of worry filled Ling. To have come so far—they could not fail now. It was inconceivable. He shook his head. “Whatever this storm does to our soldiers, it will also do to the enemy.”
“If it halts the fighting, it will give the Americans time to rest. You’ve read the reports, sir. Some of our soldiers have stormed the latest trenches and found every American fast asleep. The enemy desperately needs a respite, and now it looks as if this storm will give it to them.”
With his single hand, Admiral Ling rubbed his forehead. For weeks, his ground commanders had used meat-grinder tactics to attrition the Americans, exchanging gallons of Chinese blood for American blood. Now a thin crust of Americans kept him out of Anchorage. The Americans fed the fight by airlifting reinforcements to Fairbanks and sending the troops by rail to Anchorage. Yet his naval infantry needed rest, too. The Chinese brigades had relentlessly flung themselves against the scrambling Americans. If it wasn’t for the bad fuel situation….
“We will move the fleet,” said Ling. “Our ships can’t take much more of this pounding, and we’re only at the fringe of the storm. Before the storm descends on our ground forces and afterward, we will send every fuel truck to the front for a final push. Radio the ground commanders. Tell them to attack and to maneuver for the best advantage. I can feel the victory, Commodore. Tell them that after they have done all these things, that they are to smash through to the city no matter the cost in men and vehicles. One more push, and we win. We cannot fail now.”
“It will be as you say, Admiral,” said Commodore Yen, as he signaled the communications officers. “Our coming victory will add to the greater glory of China.”
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
An Arctic ‘whiteout’ blanketed Anchorage. It blanketed everything in South Central Alaska, including the Kenai Peninsula. A red-eyed and exhausted Stan Higgins stood in the National Guard armory with his gunner Jose.
Outside, hail, sleet and snow battered the armory. It was one of the worst storms Stan had ever witnessed. It had brought everything in the city and at the nearby front to a standstill as temperatures plunged fifty degrees below freezing.
“Can you imagine what it’s like out there?” asked Stan. He meant for the enemy, for the Chinese who kept coming and never gave up.
Jose seemed to creak as he turned bloodshot eyes on him. The green scarf tightly wound around Jose’s neck had become singed at the ends. That had happened outside Portage when the gun-breach had become hot from endless firing.
Stan felt a squeeze around his heart as looked into his friend’s eyes. They were haunted, with a faraway gaze. It was as if Jose had vacated the premises for a time, finding real life too much to handle.
It had only been several weeks ago that the HETS had hauled their Abrams out of the armory. Since reaching Cooper Landing, they’d been fighting almost non-stop. Now they were back where they’d started, but missing most of the company. Three battered Abrams had returned. Once, there had been ten. Two of the tanks could still run on their own power, but just barely. The third M1A2 had been towed back. Stan could remember countless company barbecues and the bowling leagues. Most of those men were now dead. A few were badly mutilated and in the Army hospital. During the retreat, Stan had seen hundreds of burning vehicles, helicopters, and hundreds more dead or bloody body-pieces lying in the snow. Most of those who had fought and survived the retreat looked like Jose.
Stan better understood Civil War General Sherman. The man had said, “War is Hell.” In Alaska, it wasn’t a biblical Hell, but a Viking Niflheim of ice, snow and shrieking storms.
Thinking of storms, of the hail pounding the armory, Stan stirred and managed a bitter smile. He clapped Jose on the shoulder. “Do you hear that out there?”
Slowly, awareness returned to Jose’s eyes. He nodded.
“That storm is our ally,” said Stan. “No one can move and certainly no one can fight in that. You go get some sleep. You look terrible.”
Jose’s mouth creaked open as he muttered, “First, I must help with the tanks. I must make sure they’re ready for tomorrow.”
Stan stifled a yawn. He was so tired, just deep down achy. Yet he nodded. He’d help with the tanks, too. His dead friends, his living ones, his wife and his dad—
One of the armory’s barn-sized doors creaked open. Snow howled in, and a freezing wind whistled through the armory so Stan shivered. He hated the cold. He’d never known he could hate and loathe something so badly. There had been too many days in the snow fighting under horrible conditions. Several of his toes had turned blue, and it had been agonizing reheating them back into life. If they’d turned black, a surgeon would have amputated them. A lot of Alaskans—too many of them Militiamen—had lost fingers, toes, noses and ears during this winter war. Deep in his mind, Stan could still hear the screams of the dying. The exploding shells, the hammering machineguns….
A big truck roared and slowly entered the armory as snow swirled around it. Behind the truck on a towline came a battered Stryker. Once the two vehicles were inside, men jumped out of the truck and closed the big door. The icy cold no longer swirled everywhere, but it hammered and pelted outside for admittance.
The men from the truck moved toward Stan. They were tired-looking mechanics w
ith grease on their parkas, particularly their sleeves.
“You guys ready?” one of the grease monkeys asked. He was a young man with a week’s growth of whispers.
Stan had to concentrate in order to speak. The weariness in his bones was making his eyelids droop. “I want my tanks ready to go as soon as this storm lets up.”
“That’s our orders, too,” the mechanic said. “We work until we drop.”
Stan nodded. He was just about ready to drop himself. “Let’s start with that tank.”
The mechanic shook his head. “No, not you, Captain. You help us by showing us the worst problems. Then you go and get some sleep. You look like crap.”
“Now see here—”
“No,” said another man, climbing out of the Stryker.
Stan had to blink several times. He knew the man. It was Brigadier Hector Ramos.
“You see here, Captain,” said Ramos. The brigadier had black and blue circles around his eyes, but there was still a strange brightness to them. “You’re being attached to what’s left of the 1st Stryker Brigade. It isn’t much, either. I lost my 105s somewhere and I’ve heard we’re almost out of TOW2s. My men are exhausted. I can see by your face that you are too. This storm won’t last forever. When it’s done, I want you well rested and eager to go. Your tanks are going to be the heart of what’s left of my brigade.”
Stan wasn’t sure he liked hearing that. It sounded too much like what Major Williams had once said outside of Cooper Landing. And that hadn’t ended so well. Stan frowned as he summoned his remaining energy.
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