“Vern, is it my imagination or are there nowhere near as many Chinese planes and helicopters in the air today?”
“Yeah. And not as many tanks and personnel carriers either. Figures. They must have lost a shit pot full of stuff the last couple of days.”
We are using our binoculars to look carefully through the gap in the sandbags at the Chinese men and tanks in the distance when a breathless Eugene jumped in our hole to rejoin us. .
“General tell Amerikanski comrades be ready go further up the valley. Is better. General tell Amerikanski comrades talk to General. You come.”
******
Chernenko was on the phone in his headquarters BMD parked behind a rocky outcropping when Eugene pounded on the door and it opened. Somehow he had found time to shave and someone had gotten him into a clean shirt and slapped a clean bandage on his face where the mortar fragment had sliced him at Bikin. His pants and boots are even more torn and filthy than they were when we saw him several days ago.
“Ah, my American Comrades,” Chernenko greeted us as he hung up the phone. “How do things look on the other side of the ridge?”
“The Chinese seem to have broken through the line in front of you in a couple of places. It looks like they’ll be handing off to you in a couple of hours.”
“Yes, that is the report I received from Marshal Danovsky himself about an hour ago. He and his staff are trying to organize another line behind us with the troops that have been withdrawing and a couple of General Bulganin’s divisions that are just arriving.”
“There is one thing Vern and I noticed, General. It may be our imagination but it seems that the Chinese air and artillery support has been declining ever since yesterday afternoon.”
******
That night we called in once again to report to General Evans and then watched from a new hole on the top of the ridge as Chernenko’s men on the slopes below us were hit with wave after wave of Chinese human wave attacks. They held all night. Then, just before dawn, the surviving Russians used up the last of their ammunition and ran for their lives under the light of artillery and mortar flares.
It was almost quiet as the sun came up. There was another lull. Perhaps because both armies were totally exhausted after three days of some of the most intensive fighting in the history of warfare; perhaps because on both sides of the front line the troops and armor ran out of ammunition.
No one knows why the lull occurred. Whatever the reason, it was a godsend for the Russians. They had time to reorganize their exhausted troops and two new divisions, the last two to arrive, came up with their armor and artillery under a General Bulganin to strengthen the Russian line. There may be, we are told, as many as three more of the Vladivostok divisions coming—if they can make it past Bikin and a partially damaged bridge on the mainline.
That afternoon the Chinese launched two suicidal regimental-strength infantry attacks with little or no armor or artillery support. The Russians easily beat them back. We watched the whole thing. I can’t put my finger on it but the Chinese seem to be desperate. Almost as if they are engaging in the do or die “forlorn hopes” of the eighteenth and nineteenth century British army.
Late that afternoon Danovsky launched a small counterattack using the newly arrived troops and armor of General Bulganin’s two divisions. It worked. The Chinese just melted away in front of them. By the time darkness fell the Russians were half-way back to the Amur and had reoccupied a lot of the land they’d lost in the previous seventy-two hours.
Chapter Thirty-four
Changes at the top.
The morning’s Chinese Politburo meeting opened in chaos for the first time since Lin Piao and Mao’s widow tried to eliminate their enemies on the Central Committee so they could remain in power and continue the "cultural revolution." All the news was bad no matter how much Chairman Xi and General Wu attempt to spin it as “temporary at most and easily reversible.”
Members of the Politburo were not without their own sources of information. They had spent most of the previous night calling their military contacts and comparing notes. The picture that emerged was beyond grim.
By the time the meeting began promptly at nine in the morning the Politburo members knew the troops north of the Amur were rapidly running out of supplies and reinforcements due to the destruction of pontoon bridges; they know the Russian airfields west of Lake Baikal have been recaptured by the Russians along with every airfield east of the lake; they know about the destruction of inbound tankers and the loss of the coastal petroleum storage areas; they know about the loss of almost all the Chinese submarines; and they know the Red Army has been defeated in front of Chita and that many of their troops were surrendering.
Chairman Xi and General Wu arrived at the morning meeting hoping no one would know how badly the war was going. They were mistaken. A majority of the Politburo members had come to believe the war was lost—and one after another they began to denounce General Wu and Chairman Xi for losing it and misleading them.
First Wu and then Li abruptly decided to leave the meeting as the questions and accusations continued to increase. Wu did so after announcing that he was going to fly to the Front to see for himself what is going on and to take command if necessary. A few minutes later Chairman Xi stood up and announced that he too would be flying out to the Front to help rally the troops.
General Wu’s first thought was not to rally the troops, it was to save himself by organizing a military coup. But that idea didn’t generate the necessary support among the demoralized and fearful senior staff at Red Banner Street. So he announced to his staff that he was going to personally fly to the front and take command. That’s when Chairman Xi decided to go with him. If Wu thinks we’ve lost it’s time to run.
Four hours later the air force transport plane General Wu and Chairman Chen were using in an effort to escape to India was shot down at the order of Li Shanshu, the newly elected Party Chairman.
****** General Evans
Initially the United States knows none of this and everyone is confused, particularly me. First the NSA intercepts suggested General Wu and Chairman Xi had been arrested. Then they suggested that one or both of them tried to escape by flying to India. Then the CIA reported that their plane had been shot down and they were dead.
No one knows what the hell is happening. What we do know from Colonel Lindauer and Major Carpenter is that the Chinese north of the Amur have been defeated and are surrendering in droves.
******
Three days later and the Chinese north of the Amur had either retreated by paddling boats across the river or surrendered. The war was effectively over even though sporadic fighting continued at various places elsewhere along the border. And I was off to China as part of an American peace delegation to meet China’s new Party Chairman and new Defense Minister.
We were, it seems, to shuttle back and forth between Moscow and Beijing as part of a United Nations attempt to broker a peace agreement.
Our first stop was Singapore to meet with the new interim leader of China, Li Zhanshu. He’ll hold the office of Party Chairman until a successor is selected by the Central Committee or whoever is making such decisions in China these days. It was likely, I was informed, that Li would get the position permanently.
The Vice President is leading the American contingent in the peace delegation and for some reason he asked for me to be among the various and sundry officials who will accompany him as advisors. Secretary of State Sanders was not going. She resigned last week to prepare for the presidential primaries.
Epilogue
Not everything and everyone was accompanied by planeloads of media and involved in great events and monumental undertakings. While we were flying to China to promote world peace and assorted political careers, Chief Matthews was welcoming a C-130 delivery out of Tokyo with bundles and bundles of shrink wrapped one hundred dollar bills and a dozen or so Special Operations troops to guard them.
Matthews had a big smile on his fa
ce the next day when he said hello to Carpenter, Hurlburt, and Teniers as he ushered some of his cash-rich swimmers and Spetsnaz operators aboard the plane to join them for its return trip to America. Some of the Russian pilots and his interpreter were with him because they too wanted to start a new life somewhere else.
One reason for the Chief’s big smile might be the two hundred or so pounds of nice new one-hundred dollar bills in his three personal duffle bags.
The End of the Story
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I hope you enjoyed reading Our Next War as much as I enjoyed writing it. If so, I respectfully request a favourable review on Amazon and elsewhere with as many stars as possible in order to encourage other readers. And I would also very much like to know your thoughts about the story. I can be reached at [email protected]. /S/ Martin Archer
Amazon eBooks in Martin Archer’s exciting and action-packed Soldiers and Marines saga:
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War Breaks Out
Our Next War
Israel’s Next War
The Soldiers and Marines Trilogy (the complete first three books)
Amazon eBooks in Martin Archer’s exciting and action-packed The Company of Archers saga:
The Archers
The Archers’ Castle
The Archers’ Return
The Archers’ War
Rescuing the Hostages
Kings and Crusaders
The Archers’ Gold
The Missing Treasure
Castling the King
The Sea Warriors
The Captain’s Men
Gulling the Kings
The Magna Carta Decision
The War of the Kings
The Company’s Revenge
The Ransom
The New Commander
The Gold Coins
The Emperor has no Gold
Protecting The Gold: the fatal mistakes
The Alchemist's Revenge
The Venetian Gambit
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Cage’s Crew by Martin Archer writing as Raymond Sullivan
America’s Next War by Michael Cameron
Israel’s Next War – sample pages
.… Lights came on in the homes throughout the neighborhood and the family’s neighbors, almost all reservists as most Israelis are, rushed for their weapons. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that bursts of automatic weapons fire in their quiet residential neighborhood meant something was seriously wrong. And fighting back was drummed into every Israeli beginning on his or her first day of basic training and every day thereafter—go for the attackers and go fast and hard.
The first man to try to reach the family’s little home was their neighbor from two doors down the street. He’s a taxi driver who, of all things, serves in the relatively small Israeli navy when his reserve time comes up each year. His wife was already on the phone calling the police when he steps out of his front door trying to simultaneously get a clip into his Uzi submachine gun and hold up his pajama bottoms. He hesitates for a second as he steps off his porch. Where did the shooting come from? The night is totally silent and the two street lights on the block are lighting the quiet residential street with a yellowish glow. Everything looks normal.
A split second later the door immediately across the street opens and the taxi driver sees the heavy set older man who lives there alone with two little dogs rush out wearing absolutely nothing except a Galil assault rifle. He heads straight for the house next door on the taxi driver’s side of the street.
The taxi driver instinctively starts that way too, although he almost falls when his loosely tied pajamas start to slide down below his waist and he steps on the cuff of one of his pajama legs. He hops on one leg to pull them up with one hand while holding his old navy-issued Uzi in the other. Lights are going on and doors banging everywhere up and down the street. Somewhere in the background he can hear shouting.
The older man had gotten to the middle of the street, and is clearly illuminated by the two street lights, when the muzzle flames and chattering roar of an automatic weapon reach out towards him from one of the windows of the house he is charging. The older man goes over backwards in sort of a somersault and his weapon skids away with a metallic clatter as it hits the asphalted street.
That is more than enough for the now-running taxi driver – he stops and fires a long burst into the window where the muzzle flashes came from. Then, as his pajama bottoms begin to fall down around his knees again, he dives awkwardly to his right and rolls behind his wife’s car which is parked in front of his house. He’s a modest man and his first move is to pull up his pajama pants again as he peeks around the back of the car.
The first of many police cars arrives two or three minutes later. By that time half a dozen armed neighbors in various stages of dress from only wearing underpants to fully clothed are already crouching up against the walls of the victims’ home. Even before their car begins to screech to a stop the two policemen can see the partially dressed neighbors carrying guns and carefully avoiding the windows of the little house. They instinctively know exactly what it means.
The driver of the police car can also see the naked body sprawled in the street. He takes in the scene in an instant. Then he accelerates again and skids to a stop to place his car between the body and the house.
The arrival of the police car changes everything. It is almost as if the people in the house have been waiting for it to arrive. Once again an automatic weapon chatters and once again red muzzle flashes come out of a window. A different window.
The police car is peppered—both of its occupants wounded before they can finish diving out on the safe side away from the house, the driver quite seriously.
The second round of firing from the house really surprises the high school social studies teacher who lives next door. He’s the one the police saw standing in his boxer shorts with his back against the wall next to the window from where the firing came. So his head is only a foot or so from the roar of the shooting and the muzzle flames when the terrorist, or whatever he turns out to be, begins firing at the police car.
The school teacher jerks back instinctively when the shooting starts, but only for a couple of seconds. As soon as the shooter stops firing he quickly leans forward, twists his Uzi around so he is holding it as far out in front of himself as he can and uses his left thumb to awkwardly fire a burst back in towards the window where the muzzle flashes came from. Then he dives to the ground up against the house and cuts his face on a protruding water faucet.
“Did you get him?” someone shouted. The school teacher doesn’t respond. He can’t hear the question; he is temporarily deafened by his own firing and the firing from the window. He just lays there, unmoving and holding his face for so long that some of his neighbors think he’s been hit.
******
The street in front of the house is absolute chaos as more and more police cars and armed neighbors arrive. Several brave souls use the shot up police car for cover as they crawl from behind the older man’s house in an attempt to reach him and the two policemen on the street. They don’t draw fire and are able to get to them despite serious scrapes and cuts to their bare knees and other tender places.
&
nbsp; A few moments later one of the men sheltering behind the police car shouts out what he intends to do.
“I’m going to shoot out the street lights.”
Without waiting for anyone to answer he fires three or four short bursts until he shoots out the two nearest street lights. In the resulting darkness, and carefully keeping the police car between themselves and the house, the two men each grab the seriously wounded police office by the collar of his uniform shirt and began crawling backward towing him on his back between them. There is nothing they can do for their naked neighbor.
As the seriously wounded policeman is being retrieved, his slightly wounded partner winces from the pain in his leg as he leans around the rear tire of the patrol car and slowly and deliberately empties his pistol into the shooter’s window in an attempt to cover the rescue effort. Several of the men across the street understand what he is doing and do the same. The wounded policeman had to use his pistol because the automatic weapon every Israeli police car carries is still clamped to the dashboard where he and partner left it when they dove out on the passenger side.
There is a lot of shouting back and forth. Everybody is shouting questions and giving orders to everybody else. The confusion and uncertainty is inevitable. There isn’t much of a moon and without the street lights it is a scene of absolute bedlam in the dark. No one knows for sure what is happening and no one knows how many terrorists are in the house.
The would-be rescuers also don’t know the state of the family living there. But they all understand the initial burst of firing probably means some of the people in the house are casualties. But they can’t be sure and within seconds every new arrival knows there are two little girls in there along with their mother and father.
Our Next Great War Page 45