by Barry Sadler
"Just this," replied Casey. A downward movement of his hand caused the half-track's lights to instantly go out. The men in front of the half-track were blinded by the sudden darkness for a few seconds as Casey dropped and rolled back to one side of the half-track, then leaped over it into the back, crying out, "Ambush! All fire and get moving!"
The Saladin seemed to erupt in a crescendo of automatic fire as its weaponry joined in with that of Casey's half-track. Tracers searched through the darkness for bodies to penetrate.
Instinct had first made Casey suspicious. When he'd seen the uniforms, he knew definitely. The jackets and trousers could have been bought anywhere, but he knew that the hats the N.F.L.K. men were wearing were straight out of Communist China, and the AK-47s they carried were the kind that China exported only to foreign factions she was supporting. They were the more finely finished models that were of much better quality than those issued the regular Chinese Army. That and the body English of the figure near the French sedan gave them away.
Before the startled figures in front of the half-track regained their vision, Casey had hold of his MG 34. Before Yousef left to follow after Beidemann, he'd already jacked a round in the spout and had a full belt of fifty in the drum. Cutting loose with the LMG, he sprayed to the front as the men behind him blasted away on both sides of the road. The mercs in the other vehicles were doing the same, using the steel sides of their transport for shelter as ricochets from return fire sparked off the metal.
One of the black troops in front of the half-track had a knee shattered by a burst from the MG-34 and fell screaming across the road. Casey yelled at Harrison, "Go, you slow son of a bitch, go!" Harrison gunned the motor. The armored beast lurched forward, the treads rolling over the squirming body in the road, crushing him from the waist down. Like a giant hemostat, the tracks pinched off the nerves and blood vessels in the man. From his belt buckle down he felt nothing. The man was dead. It was just going to be a bit of time before he knew it.
George got the Saladin's 20mm working. The heavy slugs, designed for penetrating light armor, ripped through tree trunks to find their targets, hitting more with wood splinters than with steel. Casey's half-track rammed into the cars blocking the road, pushing them aside as if they were a child's toys. Behind him, the Saladin came close on his heels, followed by the truck. A bit further back, the last half track, which by now had its 60mm mortar in operation, was lobbing shells right and left as fast as the bombs could be dropped down the tube.
Casey's vehicle broke clear of the ambush, rushed ahead about twenty yards, then locked one track and spun around to face the way it had come in order to give fire support to the other vehicles. The Saladin took a position on the opposite side of the road, the 20mmm blasting gaps in the jungle wall. Between the two of them they were able to keep most of the fire away from the more vulnerable truck, which rolled on between them, the men in it firing from both sides, tossing grenades right and left.
The whine of a large shell going overhead to burst in the trees to the right of the road said that Van was on his way. The rear half-track was laying out a scythe of fire, tracers cutting through the darkness until they made contact with a tree or a body. There was no way to tell how many N.F.L.K. troops surrounded them, but Casey figured that for them to have enough balls to stage this ambush, they had to have at least two to one odds.
The mercs' countermove had happened so fast, the N.F.L.K. troops were caught with their pants down. From the time the first shot had been fired until Van's half-track raced past Casey and George, less than fifteen seconds had elapsed.
To the would-be ambushers, this was an outrage. They were supposed to have cut down the hated whites with no difficulty.
Van's half-track moved on past Casey and George's holding position for another two hundred yards. It halted and started lobbing 60mm mortar fire and more high explosive rounds from the recoilless rifle. One of the mortar shells, a white phosphorus, landed smack in the middle of the road where a group of six N.F.L.K. soldiers were firing after the mercs. The cries of men in pain could be heard over the firing of the weapons. Burning bits of phosphorus ate holes in the flesh of all it touched. Some pieces the size of silver dollars burned all the way through the hair, scalp, and skull of its victims until it reached the brain and cooked the organ inside its own shell.
They were clear! Casey gave the word for his half-track and the Saladin to pull out. Reforming their convoy, they were out of sight of an infuriated Colonel Mtuba, who was yelling for his Chinese advisor.
The son of a bitch thinks he's so smart, thought Mtuba. It's all his fault this happened!
In seconds the convoy lights were lost in the dense jungle as they made it around a curve in the road and put the pedal to the metal. The Saladin kept its small turret facing to the rear, keeping a steady stream of fire going until it too disappeared behind the line of trees and went full out.
Casey cursed his luck, wondering who had sold them out and why. And he was going to find the answers to those questions. Of that he was damned sure.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Casey had them push their vehicles as hard as they could for another hour. Even at that, they usually went no faster than a crawl. The dusty track they were on was not one of the two paved roads of which Kimshaka could boast; it was more like a goat trail. But they didn't have any choice, and it was heading in the right direction. The first full light of day found the mercs heading south, the capital of Kimshaka eighteen miles behind them. Going over his alternatives, Casey knew that they'd have to get out of the country some way other than the one they'd planned on. He knew the location of the alternate pickup sites, but to get there with the N.F.L.K. this close to them would be impossible. And, he thought, if he were the rebel commander, he would have already called off the pickup, claiming the mercs never showed or were killed in action. It was time to review their options.
Behind him, he knew that Mtuba or someone like him would most probably be on their trail. But he had to stop and get his bearings before they went too far off course and ran out of fuel. He called a halt on the far side of a narrow wooden bridge straddling about fifteen yards of a steeply banked, dry stream bed. From there they'd have a clear field of fire should the rebels come at them while they were resting. Before he had a chance to settle down, Beidemann approached, grinning broadly.
"Here's a souvenir for you." Beidemann's grappling hook of a hand forced a Chinese officer he had captured to his knees. "When me and Ali hit the brush during the ambush, we found him hiding behind a tree. He gave us no trouble at all, and I thought you'd probably like to talk to him when you had a chance."
"Good. I'd like very much to know who sold us out and why. But right now I don't have time for him. Put him in the truck with the wounded and keep him tied. Tell whoever you put on guard that if he causes any trouble, shoot him in the legs first. If he still acts up, tell him to do whatever he has to do to keep him quiet."
Beidemann turned his captive over to a South African mere giving him Casey’s instructions. Taking the Chinese man by the shoulder, he yanked him back up to his feet and aimed him in the direction of the truck with a firm boot in the butt. The merc wanted to be certain that the officer would do exactly as he was ordered without any hesitation.
After the Chinese officer was taken away, Casey gave his commanders their orders. Fitzhugh and Beidemann put the men into position, telling them to chow down now as it might be a long time before they had another chance to do so.
From the side pocket of his camouflage trousers, Casey removed his survival kit which contained emergency rations of dried soup and high potency vitamins, a tiny flare gun, a flexible saw, a fishing line and hooks, and a folded map of the area and neighboring countries. He tried to estimate their distance from the capital and at just what angle they were from it. The trail had headed mostly south, but there had been several long curves that could have taken them as much as six miles from where he thought they should be.
On
ce the men were out of the truck and armored vehicles, Fitzhugh set up a rear guard with the mortar and the 57mm to watch the way they had come. The others did the things they had to: taking a leak or crap, stretching their legs, digging into packs for something to chew on. The medic worked on the wounded, doing what he could with what he had. Van and George moved out, one on each side of the road, going on ahead to get a look at what was in front of them and to see if they could spot any landmarks.
Holding the map in his lap, Casey knew they were in a world of shit and that it was very likely that few, if any of them, would make it back to the airstrip they had so recently left. To the west was Angola, filled with Cuban soldiers; Tanzania, to the east, was not much better. There was no way they could head north without going right back into the arms of the N.F.L.K. By a process of elimination he decided they'd have to keep going south. If they weren't able to get to the airfield, then they'd have to cross Barotseland until they reached the Zambezi River. Once there, he'd have to make another choice: should they follow the Zambezi east to Victoria Falls and try to get across to Rhodesia, or should they cross the river at Sesheke on the Caprivi Strip? It was the only place he knew of where they'd be able to get their caravan across by ferry. Then they'd have no choice except to just keep going south into the wasteland of the Kalahari Desert until they reached the South African border. That was not a thought to bring one comfort.
Coming over and squatting down beside him, Harrison brought up another option. He stroked his trim mustache with what was probably the only clean pair of hands in the group and said, "Look, Casey, if you can get us to an airfield of any kind, I can get us out of here and save a lot of wear and tear on our arses in the process." He rubbed his butt to illustrate the discomfort of the armored car's hard canvas seats. `Besides that, we don't have a hell of a lot of petrol left for these fuel guzzlers. If we don't get some more, I'd guess we won't do more than another fifty miles before they run dry. I really believe that would be the best approach to the matter."
Casey grunted. "That's true, and I'm in agreement. Now," he showed Harrison his map, "just where do you think we'll be able to get a plane without getting a bunch of our people killed first? By now the word is out, and every strip that we know for certain would have planes on it within a hundred miles of here will be armed to the teeth with people who would love to have our guts on a string. However, if we are lucky enough to find a plane anywhere along the way, you'll certainly be the first to know. Okay?"
Harrison walked off mumbling to himself about the "bloody, smart mouthed son of a bitch."
Fitzhugh climbed on top of the truck with a set of binoculars to watch in the direction from which they had come. Casey saw him and nodded approvingly. He was finishing off a smoke, waiting for Van and George to return, when Fitzhugh called down to him, "Dust over the trees about ten minutes away!"
Instantly the mercs went into defensive profiles as they waited for Casey's orders. Should they run for it or fight? The answer was obvious. There was no way of telling what they'd run into up ahead. Here, with the steep banks of the river bed and narrow bridge, they'd have the best chance to slow down their pursuers.
A shadow said that Van and George had returned.
"What's it like up ahead?"
Van shook his head. "Not so good. A couple of hundred meters on, the ground is open as far as the eye can see. Just low hills and brush."
That did it. If the N.F.L.K. were in any strength and caught up with them on open ground, they'd be dog meat. It was time to get things organized. Casey told one of the mercs to take Fitzhugh's place on top of the truck. "Fitzhugh, take some of the mortar rounds and set them to blow the bridge. Van, take over the fifty seven, load it with high explosive, and when they get on the bridge, take out the lead vehicle but give Fitzhugh a few seconds' warning so he can time his charges. Gus, you take four men and cover the left flank. George, you do the same on the right. Use my thirty four." Van, Beidemann, and George trotted off, picking up men as they went to set up their fire zones.
Fitzhugh took four of their precious few mortar shells and a hand grenade for each, and headed for the bridge. In only a few minutes he had each of the shells rigged with a grenade to serve as a detonator and placed where it would blast through a supporting strut of the bridge. The pins on the grenades had been straightened out. It would take only a light tug at the lines attached to their rings to pull them out. Fitzhugh ran the lines back to where he had some cover behind a clump of sun baked boulders near the edge of the riverbank.
The dust clouds of the approaching vehicles could now be seen by everyone. Casey told the merc on top of the truck to come down; they didn't need him up there anymore. The man scuttled over to join two of his comrades in a hastily dug foxhole.
All their vehicles had been moved out of sight behind a small rise where they'd be easy to reach. The badly wounded went with them to be out of harm's way.
From around the bend the sound of motors reached them. Trucks in low gear were navigating around potholes big enough to crack their axles if they hit one hard enough.
Now they had to wait out the next few minutes until the enemy came into view. As always, the minutes stretched into hours. Beads of perspiration gathered on Casey's forehead, then followed the paths of least resistance down his face and cheeks, cutting clean channels through the coating of reddish dust. He licked his lips to moisten them, and waited.
"Here they come!" Casey barked.
The lead truck's motor changes sounds, shifting ... changed sounds, shifting into a higher gear as it reached the clear path leading to the flimsy bridge.
Good, Casey thought. They're too anxious. They've already forgotten that sometimes one's prey will turn and fight when least expected.
Mtuba was in a rage. It had taken him nearly an hour to get the pursuit organized and to add four more trucks filled with additional men and arms from a nearby encampment to his now somewhat depleted force. At any rate, he had the foreigners outnumbered by about three to one with his two hundred freedom fighters. The six trucks and his own Land Rover made up his command, one which he desperately desired to retain.
He had to catch them, or the best he could hope for would be to be put in front of a firing squad for losing the Chinese major. The mercenaries hadn't really mattered that much. It was just not considered prudent to have men of such expertise running around who could be used against them in Africa while they were taking over. But the presence of the Chinese advisor to the N.F.L.K. was a most carefully guarded secret. Even though units of the Front were already seizing power throughout the country in the wake of the vacuum created by Dzhombe's death, it was not too late for foreign interests to interfere if outsiders knew that the Chinese were supporting the N.F.L.K. and that the insurgents had no intention of living up to their agreements with the white contractors. Damn Major Xaun for his arrogance! He had insisted on being present at the ambush. His conceit could lead to the ruin of several years of painstaking, cautious negotiations. Everything had been kept highly secret. Now, when they almost had all they needed in their grasp, the fool screws things up and the foreign mercs had him. The Chinese were said to be a hardy race, but Mtuba had the feeling that the men who broke through his ambush would know how to get every last iota of information out of Major Xaun. If that happened before they were ready, all their plans would be ruined. There would be no highly trained battalions of North Korean volunteers to offset the influence of the Cubans sent into Angola by the Russians. Nor would there be massive shipments of modern arms and equipment to enable them to subdue their neighbors, add strength to their own forces, and once and for all remove all signs of the white pestilence from the African continent.
Mtuba nearly cracked his head against the windshield of his Land Rover as the driver suddenly swerved and hit the brake to avoid a pothole. He slapped the man across the side of the face, then looked ahead to the flat country where he would at last catch up to his quarry and either retrieve Major Xaun or kill him t
o prevent him from talking. He hit the driver again, urging him to use greater caution and faster speed.
Fitzhugh signaled with a jerky up and down movement of his arm. The first of the enemy trucks was in sight. Without seeing them, Casey could feel the tenseness of his men, ready and expectant. He nodded to Fitzhugh. He would let him use his own judgment as to when to pull the pins of the grenades and detonate the mortar shells. Everyone hunkered down even further, out of sight.
The lead truck picked up speed as it neared the bridge. Before crossing the bridge, the truck, a British Leyland, shifted down, then began to ease its weight across the structure. The second truck started across the bridge while the Leyland was still ten yards from the side where the mercs sat in ambush. Mtuba was in his Land Rover between the third and fourth trucks.
They had gone far enough. Van signaled Fitzhugh, adjusted the sight on the 57mm resting on his shoulder, and fired.
The front of the Leyland burst into flame as the high explosive round from the 57mm smashed into it, killing the driver and the man riding shotgun. Before the explosion reached its peak, the mercenaries cut loose on the rear truck, blowing the tires to stop any retreat. Fitzhugh had timed the speed of the lead truck and pulled the cords to the grenade detonators five seconds earlier. While not as effective as detonator cord and C 4, the combined blast effect of the 57mm mortar shells cut the supports out from under the bridge, dropping the two trucks into the dry gully. The screams of the N.F.L.K. troops merged with that of the machine gun and automatic rifle fire from the mercs who were taking advantage of the "fish in a barrel" situation.
Mtuba's Land Rover swerved to the side into a clump of brush. Behind and in front of him, his four remaining trucks screeched to a halt as their cargo of men unloaded and raced for cover.
Casey's mercs rushed to the edge of the riverbank, pouring every round they could into the trucks, cutting down anything that moved. Back and forth, they raked the river bottom. Most of the nearly one hundred and sixty men in the ambushed trucks had not been able to get out of them and were badly hurt when they hit the riverbed. It made no difference; wounded or whole, they all got the same treatment. Several hand grenades finished the action, exploding the gas in the trucks' tanks. Three men ran from the burning vehicles, their, bodies covered in oily flames. Casey knew what fire like that felt like. To end their pain, he gave the word for them to be shot down.