Standing at the Edge

by William Alan Webb

  Then, with perfect clarity, an answer cut through the crackling. “Used the last ammo on self-propelled artillery, took unknown damage from ground fire, low fuel. Am setting down behind a ridge to the east. Come back soon, Joe, and bring some gas with you.”

  He thought of an old Army joke that fit the occasion. “If you want gas, talk to the Marines. They’re full of it.”

  #

  Vapor’s collective blood loss, combined with falling adrenaline levels and plain old fatigue, left him too weak and tired to move. Jane sat beside him and didn’t seem much better. Streaks ran through the dirt on her cheeks.

  To their south, the headquarters building, made of cinder blocks and a white shingle roof so old the tiles had curled and leaked during rainstorms, burned with a pale flame. The smoke added to the generally hazy pall hanging over the base. When Vapor spotted the outlines of figures advancing from the east, he knew the end had come.

  He poked Jane’s arm. “Put your hands up.”

  “We’re surrendering?”

  “We don’t a choice.”

  Once the hazy figures got close enough, he called out, “Bùyào pāi! Don’t shoot! We surrender! Bùyào pāi!”

  The figures all dropped to one knee and rifles went to shoulders in a ready-to-fire motion. Then one stood and approached more slowly. At twenty feet, the contortion around his lower face and nose clarified to a wrapped cloth. The soldier approached him directly, gun ready but pointed at the ground, and paused right in front of his feet. He squatted and pushed a tied T-shirt onto his forehead.

  “Who said you could take a break?” Green Ghost asked.

  #

  Chapter 82

  Be polite, be professional, but be prepared to kill everybody you meet.

  General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis

  Sierra Army Depot, Herlong, CA

  0803 hours

  Fleming had liked Major Samuel Ball the instant they’d met. Wiry and tough, he could have been the poster boy for joining the airborne. One of Ball’s distant ancestors had been a freed slave who’d owned a lot of property in Nova Scotia in the 19th century, and Fleming had once read a biography about the man. Now they knelt atop the low hill and scanned the army base spread out before them with binoculars.

  “Major, we need a blocking force on our left flank. Do you think two platoons is enough if we give them two fifty-caliber MGs?”

  “If that’s a Chinese infantry battalion out there to the south, it could be dicey, General. What are you planning to hold back as reserves?”

  “You’re the tactical officer in command, Major. It’s your battalion.”

  “Yes, sir, but I’d like to take advantage of your experience.”

  Fleming couldn’t tell if this was a test of his combat leadership, a genuine request for advice, or simply a junior officer covering his ass. Regardless, he needed to suggest a solid combat plan and he needed to do it immediately.

  “Very well, Major, here’s what I suggest. We have eight platoons plus heavy weapons. Block the left flank with two platoons, and send a third into those buildings over there with instructions to hold in place. Send two platoons to capture the ammunition bunkers before the enemy can seize them. Barring that, we must retake them before they can be emptied or destroyed. We leave one platoon here on the reverse slope with the mortar squads as a reserve. That leaves two platoons to send around the right flank as an enveloping force. If we can hit their left flank from in front and behind, they’ll break, and then we can roll them up.”

  Major Ball stroked his thin mustache. “That flanking movement could take several hours, sir. And there’s that lake protecting the enemy’s flank. How do we get across it?”

  “The lake is our ace in the hole,” Fleming said, more to sound confident than because he meant it. “The C-people won’t expect attack from that direction, so they won’t have any flank protection.”

  “Yes, sir, I agree, but that still doesn’t explain how we get across.”

  Fleming was stumped. He was about to say they’d wade through a shallow part when cries came from their skirmish line in the fields, directly to the west. “Medic! Medic to the front!”

  Both officers spotted a group of wounded staggering toward the ridge. It took a moment for Fleming to decipher it. Green Ghost carried one soldier in his arms, while another soldier and a woman, both covered in blood, supported each other and hobbled forward.

  Major Ball didn’t wait for Fleming’s orders. “Get those people behind this ridge!”

  A dozen troopers leapt to obey.

  Once the wounded were safely in the medics’ care on the reverse slope, Green Ghost slumped down next to Fleming. Blood stained his chest, waist, and the tops of his thighs, but none of it was his. The general had never seen his face so drawn and lined with so many deep furrows. Fleming outlined the deployment plan and left hanging the matter of getting across the lake.

  “Whatever you’re do, you’d better do it fast,” Ghost said. “The Chinese are pushing forward. Twenty minutes and you’ll be defending this ridge.”

  “I’m ordering everything but the flank attack into motion, sir,” Ball said, leaving to issue the orders.

  “Flank attack?” Green Ghost was still gulping down deep breaths.

  “I want to turn their left flank, but we can’t figure out how to get across that lake.”

  Twenty feet below them, Vapor twisted around. “Use the Blackhawk.”

  Fleming’s lifted eyebrow meant how did he hear that over all the racket?

  “It’s like his superpower,” Green Ghost explained. “Where is it?” he said to Vapor.

  “It’s hiding somewhere behind those mountains. It’s low on fuel, but I’ll bet they could ferry you over that lake. Use my radio; it’s already on their frequency.”

  #

  Sierra Army Depot, Herlong, CA

  western defensive line

  0803 hours

  Marcus Lamar leaned back in the foxhole and gritted his teeth against the pain. A jagged slice of steel stuck out of his leg just below the knee. The still-hot steel burned, but Marcus knew better than to pull it out. Blood only oozed out of the wound’s edges because the steel plugged the hole. If he pulled it out, he’d bleed out in minutes.

  Twisted arms and legs stuck out of a mound of dirt on the foxhole’s other side. Explosions had buried his two co-defenders under rocks and chunks of topsoil. He smelled something combat veterans from ancient times to the present knew so well, the reek of blood and excreta from bladders and bowels relaxed in death. Lamar’s temples pounded as his heart raced and he tried to calm himself. Earlier he’d managed to haul the machine gun back into firing position after the mortar round had driven its shrapnel into his leg. All he could do was refocus on fighting to stay alive as Chinese voices rang out nearby.

  While dragging himself across the pit, he made sure to keep the splinter in his leg facing upward so it wouldn’t tear his flesh even more. Pain lanced into his lower back and he almost passed out, but finally settled himself beside the gun and collapsed back to rest.

  A wild idea came to him. Honey Lake was only a hundred yards away. If he could make it into the water, he might be able to hide and swim to safety. But where were the Chinese? He grabbed the lip of the hole with both hands to pull himself up, but jerked them back when an AK-47 set to full automatic tore up the dirt near them. He wouldn’t be getting away.

  A belt of fifty-caliber rounds still draped from the left side of his M2 Browning, the fabled Ma Deuce America had used since World War One. He pulled back the bolt, loading a round, and gripped the handles. Gasping for breath, he tried to ignore the screaming agony in his leg.

  #

  Shaped like a pair of giant lungs, Honey Lake’s size and depth varied greatly depending on rainfall amounts. In dry years the lake could shrink to 3,000 acres, but that year had seen heavy snows during winter and the lake spread out to more than double that. Never deep even in the wettest of times, the water was still too dee
p to wade from the north shore into the Chinese rear on the south bank.

  Green Ghost led the two selected platoons on a five-mile run around Sierra’s northeastern corner. BH-1 and Hell’s Hammer, flying on fumes and limping from shell damage, flew to meet them. He allotted forty-five minutes for the run, but the men might be too tired to fight if they set that pace. It would take that long for the two helicopters to arrive, so by the time the birds had ferried eighty-something men across Honey Lake, they couldn’t go into the attack in less than ninety minutes, and maybe as long as two hours.

  #

  Fleming watched the battle’s progress from the ridge top. The fighting had moved so close that binoculars were almost unnecessary. The Chinese kept trying to turn the far left flank and the platoon commander on the spot kept denying them by withdrawing far enough so they couldn’t get around, but that could only last so long. Like a bow pulled back too far, either the pressure would be relieved or the bow would snap.

  In the center, the Americans had met the leading Chinese elements at a row of buildings near the flaming headquarters. Fires and explosions showed that Chinese numbers were telling there, too, and the Americans had been pushed back. The two platoons on the right were in the most danger, because the only cover was the ammunition bunkers themselves.

  Major Ball stood beside him, using his own binoculars. Dirt occasionally kicked up near them as errant rounds struck close by. Like the entire battalion, they both wore body armor. Fleming also wore the experimental mesh armor that had saved his life the previous year. A radioman knelt on the reverse slope. M249 light machine guns mounted on tripods and served by gunners flanked them, while two mortar squads served their tubes to their left. Below the mortars, the reserve platoon awaited orders.

  “I don’t like this,” Ball said. “The left flank’s turned, sir. We’re going to have to pull ’em back.”

  Fleming closed his eyes but kept the binoculars in place so Ball couldn’t see how overwhelmed he felt. Rapid breathing threatened to become hyperventilation, so he forced himself to inhale slowly. He’d never had to make such decisions before, because that had always been Nick’s job. Who had he thought he was? All those men’s lives were in his hands and only he knew what a fraud he was.

  “No,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “We have to buy Green Ghost time to get behind them. Send a squad to reinforce that position and tell them to hold or die. If they pull back, they’ll expose the center platoon’s left flank.”

  “A squad’s not enough, General.”

  “It’ll have to be. The center’s giving way and they’ve got a much broader front. I’m taking two squads to reinforce there.”

  “You, sir?”

  The surprise in the major’s voice did what Fleming’s personal self-discipline hadn’t. It pissed him off so bad, he forgot his anxiety. “Yes, Major, me. I might not have two monster pistols like General Angriff does, but I’ve a rifle, a sidearm, and plenty of ammo, and I know how to use them!”

  “I’m sorry, General, I didn’t mean anything. But sir, those are my men out there. If anybody’s going into action, it should be me.”

  “You can’t, Major. Like you said, this is your battalion. You’re their leader; they need you, not me. In this moment, I’m expendable and you’re not. Stay here. This ridge is our Last Stand Hill. There’s nowhere to run after this. If your men can’t hold the front, they can retreat here for a final stand.”

  “Yes, sir. General?”

  “What?”

  “Good hunting, sir.”

  #

  Chapter 83

  Old men scowl at dreams unfulfilled,

  They send the young to war and get them killed;

  Their speeches speak of honor and will,

  But never about the blood they’ve spilled.

  Sergio Velazquez, The Spider in His Lair

  Sierra Army Depot, Herlong, CA

  0835 hours, April 21

  The warehouses were all identical, each five hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, with sloped roofs twenty feet high. The Americans held the two eastern-most rows of them, the front-facing one with five warehouses lined up end to end, the rear line with six. That sixth warehouse was now held by part of 1st Platoon, holding the southern flank.

  The Chinese had captured the first block of warehouses, four buildings in each of four rows, after vicious close-quarters fighting. The paratroopers had grenade launchers on their rifles and those partially offset the enemy advantage in numbers, but only partially.

  Fleming had stayed with the rear guard until the rest of the men had retreated to the second block of warehouses, where they’d dug in. The space between the two blocks had once been a parking lot, hundreds of steel storage containers still lined up in neat rows. That gave them partial protection for their retreat and they made it with no further casualties.

  He ran inside through an open double doorway, and friendly hands pulled him the last few feet. Inside he slumped against an interior wall, panting.

  “You the last, sir?” asked a platoon sergeant.

  Fleming nodded.

  “You hit?”

  He nodded again. But when the sergeant called for a medic, Fleming stopped him. “I’m all right, Sergeant. Caught it on my armor.”

  “You should still get it looked at, General. That hurts like a mother.”

  Fleming chuckled and then grimaced. “Yes, Sergeant, it does.”

  “Might have cracked some ribs.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant, but I’ll be fine.”

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

  Chinese machine-gun fire sounded like baseballs hitting the warehouse’s outer brick walls. Stray rounds zipped through windows, shattering glass and ricocheting around inside. Paratroopers returned fire through windows and doorways at the Chinese across the parking lot, covering behind the same cargo containers.

  Fleming took as deep a breath as the pain would allow and struggled to his feet. Crouched over, he joined Lieutenant Hemmeker, commander of 3rd Platoon, who knelt beside a radioman behind an old steel workstation.

  “Any idea what’s going on around us?” Fleming said.

  “Left flank is barely holding, sir,” Hemmeker answered. “Second Platoon has withdrawn to the buildings on our right and report heavy pressure. No word from Fourth and Fifth Platoons on the far right.”

  “We’ve got to buy more time—”

  A series of explosions against the outside wall interrupted him. Before Fleming could react, a blast blew holes in the wall and sent two men sprawling. Several rounds sped through the hole and smashed into a long workbench, wrecking it.

  “Autocannon!” Hemmeker shouted.

  “IPCs, Loot!” someone yelled. “Here they come!”

  Fleming ran to the wall but didn’t have to peek through the door or a window to see outside. All he had to do was focus through several fist-sized holes smashed in the wall by the Chinese autocannon. It sounded a lot like a 25mm American chain gun.

  Chinese infantry poured from behind either end of one warehouse, about five hundred feet away. More raced out through the warehouse’s sliding double doors, and more from behind the cargo containers. As they ran the Chinese took advantage of the debris littering the parking lot between them and the Americans, making it hard to get a good shot.

  At least ten holes had been knocked in the wall. Fleming fired a few rounds through one, then moved and fired a few more. Return fire bit at the holes’ edges and flew through, chewing up the warehouse interior.

  He glanced through one hole before firing. Three Chinese paused at the corner of a container seventy-five feet away, preparing to charge the warehouse. Fleming slid a 40mm grenade into the M320 launcher slung beneath his M-16 and pulled the trigger. It made a sound like schwupp and lobbed the grenade in front of the little group, then exploded and drove them back. One man fell and twitched. Fleming finished him off with a clean rifle shot to the head.

  During a pause for breath, Fleming c
ounted about twenty men still fighting in the platoon he aided. The other survivors of the two and a half platoons committed to the sector fought on from the warehouses to his right and two o’clock position. But the Chinese seemed to be focusing on his warehouse, the sixth one at the far corner, with at least a hundred men supported by the two IPCs, and all of their reserves had been committed.

  “On the left, on the left!”

  Fleming looked. An IPC with a rotating turret headed straight for the warehouse’s double doors. The paratroopers slammed and locked them, but 25mm cannon shells immediately ripped through the thin steel. Something blew them in and men coughed and staggered away. Again looking through a hole in the wall, he saw the IPC driving straight for the ruined and smoking doors.

  “You two, come with me!” he said to the two closest paratroopers. Together they ran for the breach in their defenses. They arrived as the IPC stopped before a heap of wreckage outside. The turreted autocannon swiveled toward them and Fleming dove away from a three-round burst of 25mm fire. His chest felt like somebody had slammed it with a sledgehammer.

  Without exposing himself, he peeked around the wall. Chinese infantry dismounted from the IPC’s rear. He fired a burst before ducking back from counter-fire. The two troopers who’d followed him also engaged the infantry, but the autocannon drove them back under cover, too. Fleming knew that unless something happened instantly, the Chinese would be inside the warehouse and their defense line broken.

  The warehouse rang with the echoes of gunshots, explosions, and screams. Fleming shot a Chinese soldier at point-blank range, but dozens more sprinted across the parking lot. Others shot back from behind the IPC. Another paratrooper appeared next to him and together they emptied their magazines, but even as their bullets smacked into the Chinese infantry, the paratrooper fell. Fleming pushed his last magazine into place, pulled back the bolt, and loaded a grenade into the launcher. He looked into the eyes of the two men on the opposite side of the smashed doors and nodded.