Trial by fire: a novel

by Harold Coyle

  Without looking back, Childress led the small party out through the river gate and ran for the footbridge. Two men on either side of Alaman, holding him up as well as dragging him along, followed Childress.

  A third man, taking up the rear, waited a few seconds, then ran after them, twisting about every few steps to check for danger from behind.

  As he ran, Childress expected to be fired on at any moment. But nothing happened. Once they were clear of the gate, Childress noted that the smoke that obscured everything within the walls of Chinampas was absent. This both pleased him--for he could finally catch a deep breath without coughing--and worried him, for there was no smoke to cover their flight. Still, as he reached the bridge without taking any fire, Childress began to believe they would make it. He waited until he reached the other side before he stopped and looked behind.

  The two men with Alaman were nearing the bridge and coming on fast.

  The rear guard, still twisting about as he ran, was about twenty yards behind.

  Suddenly, the rear guard stopped, dropped to one knee, and began to fire. Looking at where his fire was directed, Childress saw a group of Mexican soldiers coming around the north corner of the wall just below tower 3. One of the men in tower 3, not realizing the Federales were at the base of the tower until he saw the rear guard firing, leaned over to see

  what was going on below. A Mexican soldier, prepared for such an occurrence, killed the man in the tower with a single burst, sending the dead man headlong out of the tower and into the middle of the soldiers setting up a machine gun below, surprising them and disrupting their efforts to bring their weapon to bear on Childress, Alaman, and his escort.

  Yelling for the men with Alaman to hurry, Childress continued his own flight to the airfield, missing the death of the rear guard when the soldiers finally were able to open up with the machine gun. The rear guard's sacrifice, and the interruption caused by the dead mercenary's body falling on the machine-gun crew, however, allowed the others in the group hustling Alaman along to clear the bridge and reach the airfield.

  There, Childress found the pilots of two helicopters in their aircraft preparing to depart while the guards at the airfield were gathering in the hangar. Running to the nearest helicopter, he ordered the pilot to wait for Alaman. At the next, he told the pilot to wait for him. The second pilot, clearly shaken, reluctantly agreed. Childress next made for the hangar. In his haste, he hadn't noticed the rucksacks stacked up and secured in the helicopters.

  At the door of the hangar he saw Jean Lefleur, leader of the group charged with protecting the airfield. Lefieur, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion, did not like Childress and resented the relationship he had with Delapos.

  As Childress came up to him, Lefleur leaned against the doorframe.

  Out of breath as much from excitement as from exertion, Childress came up to Lefleur and began to issue a string of orders. Lefleur listened in silence as Childress told him to send two reliable men with Alamn and his two men in the first helicopter, while Lefleur led the rest, on foot, north to escape and rally at their old training site, where he would meet Delapos and whatever men managed to escape from the firelight still in progress in Chinampas. Finished, Childress waited for Lefleur to act.

  The sudden appearance of Childress, with Alaman in tow, put Lefleur in an awkward position. If he did as Childress instructed, then he and his men would not have the helicopters to escape in, as Lefleur had been preparing to do. Yet, if they did escape without Alaman, they wouldn't get paid. While he pondered his options, Lefleur stalled, looking down at his fingernails, casually asking if those were Delapos's instructions or Childress's.

  Suppressing a desire to smash Lefleur's face with the butt of his rifle, Childress replied that they were Delapos's orders. Then, so that the other mercenaries gathered about Lefieur could hear, Childress warned Lefleur that unless they got Alaman out safely, not only would there be no pay, their chances of getting out of Mexico alive without Alaman's contacts would be nil.

  For a second, Lefleur considered killing Childress where he stood.

  That thought, however, quickly passed. After Childress's comments about the need to save Alaman in order to get paid, Lefleur had no way of knowing how his men would react. Therefore, Lefleur opted to take the safest option. Still, he was determined to maintain the show that he was in charge. Looking about for a moment, Lefleur paused before he turned to his assembled men. "You two, into the helicopter with Senior Alaman.

  The rest of you, grab your rucksacks out of the aircraft and meet me over there, at the base of the hill. Bring only food and ammo, no personal items. Now, move." When the men had scattered, he looked at Childress, an arrogant smile lighting his face. "Satisfied?"

  Too angry to respond, Childress simply turned and ran to the helicopter he had told to wait for him. Before he got in, he watched his men and Lefleur's bundle Alaman into the other helicopter. Only after they were off did Childress climb in and order the surprised pilot to fly into the courtyard of Chinampas.

  Impatiently, Guajardo watched the engineers he had found in tower 5

  carry out his orders. After blowing a hole low to the ground at the base of the tower near the gate, the engineer sergeant and Guajardo noted that the smoke nearly obscured the garage wall, only a few meters across from them. Cautiously, the sergeant stuck his head out of the hole to see if his men could low-crawl out without'being taken under fire from the barracks.

  Satisfied that it was possible, he yelled back for one of his men to follow, then went through the hole to the gate without pausing.

  Though they worked quickly and efficiently, to Guajardo the efforts of the sergeant and his engineer to return to the safety of the tower before setting off the charge appeared slow and clumsy. From the base of the tower, Guajardo watched the engineers moving back and forth from one side of the hole to the other. Only after the sergeant and his engineer had returned and the cord to set off the demolitions to blow the south gate had been pulled, did Guajardo realize that some of the men he had sent outside the wall might be on the other side of the gate.

  As the fuse burned its way to the demolitions, Guajardo cursed his own stupidity while he prayed his haste wouldn't result in the death of any of his own men.

  The roar of the explosion, followed a few seconds later by a shower of debris, announced that the south gate was gone. Even before the remains of the gate stopped falling, Guajardo was up and running for the opening.

  Once he was in the clear, he looked about, relieved that there were no dead or wounded Mexican soldiers on the other side. This relief was short-lived, however, when he heard the sound of a helicopter leaving the airfield. Although he hoped that it was Group N finally arriving, in his heart he knew it was Alaman leaving. The flash of a red and white Bell 206 helicopter confirmed his fear.

  Dejected, Guajardo stood there, watching the helicopter disappear. All of his efforts, all of the sacrifices of his men, everything, was for naught.

  Chinampas might be gone, but what it stood for still lived. And so long as Alaman lived, he was dangerous.

  As if to underscore his failure, Guajardo watched as a single Army helicopter coming in from the east landed at the abandoned airfield and disgorged Group N troops at exactly 0716.

  Lost in his own dark thoughts, Guajardo missed the final act of the day's drama. Knowing that Delapos would never be able to make it across the bridge, Childress ordered the pilot to land in the courtyard. Both he and the pilot realized that they were in as much danger from friendly fire as they were from the Federales. Still, Childress was counting on the fact that the surprise of a helicopter landing in the courtyard would buy them enough time to get Delapos and a few men out.

  What Childress couldn't know was that he had more than surprise on his side. Guajardo's order that sent most of the men outside the walls, coupled with the engineers abandoning tower 5, had left fewer than six Mexican soldiers in positions that could fire on the courtyard. Rather than a meat
grinder, the courtyard was probably the safest place at that moment for the mercenaries.

  The unexpected appearance of the red and white helicopter dropping into the center of the smoke-filled courtyard worked as Childress had expected. The Federales, unsure of whose helicopter it was, ceased fire.

  On the other side, in the barracks, Delapos knew immediately what Childress was up to. Without a second thought, Delapos turned to the men in the room and yelled for them to make for the helicopter.

  As soon as the mercenaries came out of the barracks, the few soldiers left in the house began to fire on them, but not on the helicopter. While Childress fired out of an open window at the house, Delapos threw the rear door of the helicopter open and jumped in. After two other men piled in behind him, he yelled to the pilot to go.

  For a moment, there was a panic as another mercenary jumped in and a second, missing the door, grabbed the skid of the helicopter. Others, midway between the barracks and the departing helicopter, stopped, watching the helicopter lift off. Seeing that they had been abandoned, the remaining mercenaries turned around to run back to the barracks.

  The soldiers, fully recovered from their surprise, fired at the exposed mercenaries. None, however, fired on the helicopter, or the mercenary hanging onto its skid. As quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

  With all hope gone, those mercenaries still in the barracks, towers 3

  and 4, and the stable decided they had had enough. So too had the soldiers. It was as if the final free-for-all in the courtyard had satisfied their lust for killing. This time, when the mercenaries appeared with their hands up, no one shot.

  Chinampas was finished, but Senior Alaman, Guajardo's real target, was not.

  7.

  Man shall be framed for war, and Woman for the entertainment of the Warrior. All else is folly.

  --F. W. Nietzsche

  Headquarters, 16th Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas 0915 hours, 3 July

  From his office, Scott Dixon could look out his window onto the parade ground in front of division headquarters. He enjoyed his window, especially in the summer, when a large number of units conducted changeofcommand ceremonies on the parade ground. During June and July, a week didn't go by without a ceremony, or rehearsals for it. Despite the fact that most Army parades lacked the precision and pomp of a VMI parade, they were still the best free show in town.

  What Dixon enjoyed about the 16th Division's parades was the ceremonial horse platoon and the field artillery section. At the insistence of a former division commander, the 16th had formed a horse platoon to match the one used by the other armored division at Fort Hood. The next division commander, being an artilleryman, created a two-gun artillery section, patterned after the ceremonial half-section of artillery at Fort Sill, to go along with the horse platoon. The only difference between the guns used by the Fort Sill artillery section, which used World War I-era guns and uniforms, and those used by the 16th Division's, was that the 16th used two 12-pound smooth-bore Napoleons and matching caissons while their crews wore post-Civil War uniforms.

  With the addition of the two ceremonial units, 16th Armored Division parades had a flair that few other units could match. During the ceremony, the horse platoon, outfitted with broad-brimmed Stetsons, dark blue shirts, and sky blue trousers seamed with broad yellow stripes, would form to the left of the battalion or brigade that made up the bulk of the parade. The artillery section, with similar uniforms but red stripes on the seams of their uniform, formed to the left of the horse platoon.

  When the two ceremonial units had been formed, there was lively debate by traditionalists over this, referred to as the great horse debate. According to tradition, the more senior service or branch held the position to the right, the position of honor. Artillery officers argued that the field artillery, the more senior branch, should be posted to the right of the horse platoon. Armor officers, who were in the majority within the division, argued that they deserved the post of honor. The infantry officers in the division, like the third child in a family, switched sides depending on their mood, just to piss the other side off. Before Dixon became the G3, or operations officer for the division, the placement of the guns of the artillery section and the horses of the horse platoon was often switched, based upon the leanings of the officer in charge of a particular ceremony.

  Dixon had no sooner assumed his duties as the G3 than he was confronted by two of his high-speed, low-drag majors concerning the great horse debate. The majors, in an apparent effort to put the bum's rush on the new man, cornered Dixon and tried to convince him that the artillery should be on the right. Dixon, befuddled by the seriousness these men attached to what he considered such a trivial matter, made a snap decision, his first as the G3. Without allowing them to finish their argument, he put up his right hand in order to silence them. When they had stopped speaking, he announced that, so long as he was an armored officer and the 16th remained an armored division, the horses would go on the right, period. Thus, on his first day, he unilaterally ended the great horse debate and established himself as an officer who neither tolerated nor offered bullshit, in any way, shape, or form.

  Now, over a year later, Dixon was pleased every time he saw the horse platoon and artillery section march by. Though he hadn't given the decision any serious thought, it had been the right one, for it looked right.

  The horse soldiers, led by their platoon leader and the guidon bearer, belonged in the lead, as the cavalry always had. Then came the guns, the heavies who did the real killing. And finally, the supply wagon, the ever-necessary tail of any unit, with its four-mule team, teamster, and mascot dog.

  After passing the reviewing stand, while the battalion or brigade performing the ceremony and the division band moved off to one side, the horse platoon would wheel about and come back to form a skirmish line, pistols drawn and at the ready. The guns of the artillery section, galloping up from the rear, would pass around the flank of the horse platoon, unlimber, and prepare to fire. Each gun, under the command of the section leader, would fire two rounds. After the reverberation of the second volley drifted away, the horse platoon leader would raise his saber, signaling the bugler to sound the charge. Bringing his saber down while spurring his horse, the platoon leader would scream "Charge!" so that all could hear and lead his platoon past the guns, at a dead run, on line, across the length of the field while the division band played "Gary Owen." The artillery section, limbering their guns as soon as the horse platoon had passed, would follow at a gallop, the gunners waving their hats at the applauding crowd as they went by. And as a grand finale, the supply wagon would bring up the rear as fast as the four mules could take it.

  Regardless of how many times he saw it, Dixon loved the show. Like most officers, he was conservative, finding security and comfort in the traditions, order, and regulations that governed military life. The horse platoon and artillery section were a link to the past, a salute to the simpler days when soldiers did soldier things and everyone understood what being a soldier was all about. How wonderful, Dixon thought, life in the Army would be if all we needed to worry about was being a good horseman, a decent shot, and a capable leader.

  Leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the windowsill, Dixon was sipping coffee and watching a battalion of the 2nd Brigade prepare for a rehearsal when his sergeant major walked into his office.

  With a booming voice that could wake the dead and a cheerfulness that Dixon could never muster that early in the morning the sergeant major announced his presence. "Ain't it a great day to be in the Army, sir?"

  Without moving from his position or turning toward the sergeant major, Dixon responded with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "Sergeant Major Aiken, every day is a great day to be in this man's Army."

  "This person's Army, sir. Remember, the Sweet 16th is on the cutting edge of social and cultural advancement."

  Although Aiken couldn't see it, he knew Dixon had winced. Dixon winced every time someone referred to the
16th Armored Division as the Sweet 16th, a nickname applied to the division in private conversations ever since it had been selected to be the unit to conduct the Evaluation of Female Combat Officers, EFCO for short.

  "Yeah, right, Sergeant Major. How foolish of me to forget." Not that Dixon could forget. It was easier to forget how to breathe than to be a member of the 16th Armored Division and forget that they were about to become the test-bed unit for the introduction of females into combat arms units. Everyone in the division, male and female, officer and enlisted, had an opinion. Even the wives had an opinion. For three months the division, in particular the three battalions that would be receiving the first female officers, had been preparing for the evaluation. It had not been easy.

  Though most of the officers and men in the targeted units were prepared to accept the inevitable, there were a few holdouts. Some combat arms officers had voiced their objections, and a few had threatened their resignations, including the commander of one of the battalions selected to participate in the evaluation. All of that ended, however, when Major General Alvin M. Malin, the commander of the 16th Armored Division, was "adviced" of the situation. Nicknamed "Big Al" because he was so short, Malin was a man who neither tolerated dissent when an order had been given nor believed in half measures when action was called for.

  Within minutes of hearing of the battalion commander's threat, Big Al personally marched down to the commander's office, walking in unannounced.

  Taking a seat across from the surprised commander, Big Al, in a very friendly voice, told the lieutenant colonel that he was there to personally pick up his resignation and approve it on the spot. Flabbergasted, the battalion commander tried to explain, but Big Al cut him short, telling him to shut up and support the program or hand over his resignation.