The Sharp End (Raiding Forces Book 10)

by Phil Ward

  “What happened was, about the second village we come to, I cut a deal with the local big shot to the effect that if we took care of his bad cat problem he’d let us recruit some-a’ his men. So we went out and capped ’em.

  “The cats was dead, problem solved—Mr. Big Shot, well, he changed his mind about us doin’ any recruitin.’ Besides, he had been eyeballin’ some-a’ our weapons, animals and Rita and Lana. What was we goin’ to do about it?

  “‘Go away,’ the Big Shot said. Oh—and leave all them things mentioned above behind. If not, he’d rub us out at sunrise the next mornin’ with his army—which was about ten times the size a’ our little troop a’ men, boys and camp followers—meanin’ women a’ low morals,” Waldo said.

  “Now this turn of events put us in a bad spot. The colonel said, and he was right, if we let ourselves get rolled by this dirtbag, word would soon get around and our days was numbered. In Abyssinia, where the national sport is murder, ain’t nothin’ more guaranteed than if you show any sign a’ weakness to a shifta bandit you done committed slow-motion suicide.

  “Bottom line, we was done for, either way it went.”

  “Sounds worse than the Alamo,” ex-Lt. Jaxx said. “What’d you do, Mr. Treywick?”

  “The colonel didn’t appear to have noticed the odds stacked against us—said we was goin’ to attack them,” Waldo said.

  “And that’s when he told me and Butch the story about Miss UCLA—his good-lookin’ high school teacher. We made us a battle plan then and there off her homework assignment to write a report on The Man Who Would Be King.”

  “Rudyard Kipling,” Ensign Teddy Hamilton said. “I read it.”

  “That’s the one, all right,” Waldo said.

  “Worked like a charm. We wiped out the entire village, burned it to the ground, took the men we wanted for our guerrilla army, the choicest women, all the weapons worth havin’ and all the mules—the colonel shot Mr. Big Shot.

  “So, gentlemen,” Waldo said, “the lesson learned here tonight is, everybody needs to get as much education as you can. You never know when it might come in handy.

  “Ask Joe—that correspondence course he took titled ‘The Problem is the Solution’ has done saved us a couple-a’ times.”

  “Wiped ’em out,” ex-Lt. Jaxx said, “just like that?”

  “In less time than it took to tell you the story,” Waldo said. “Thanks, Miss UCLA.”

  “That the way it went down, Colonel?” Lt. Jaxx asked. “Outnumbered ten to one?”

  “Close enough,” Col. Randal said.

  “Ted, this ain’t your first rodeo,” Capt. McKoy said. “Let’s hear about the job you pulled in OPERATION CRUSADER.”

  “My part did not play out the way it was planned, Captain,” Ens. Hamilton said.

  “The army had completed a railhead at the front when CRUSADER broke out. It was a strategic installation, and Field Marshal Auchinleck did not want anything bad to happen to it.

  “I was assigned to Captain Styles to work on military deception. He is the premier camoufler in the Eight Army. The captain came up with a plan—camouflage the real installation and build a decoy railhead somewhere else safe for the bad guys to bomb to their hearts’ content.

  “And that is exactly what we did. Only not enough building materials were to be had so we were forced to construct the railhead to three-quarter scale. Captain Styles said the enemy pilots would never notice the size differential. We had an army of laborers working ‘round the clock. When completed, our decoy site was an amazing thing of beauty.

  “A fake railroad was put down leading to it—we just laid the rails on the ground—but looking down out of an airplane there was no way to know.

  “Bomb away, bad guys.”

  “And, that is exactly what they did,” Ens. Hamilton said. “The captain and I left for a few hours to pick up additional foodstuffs and supplies. When we returned the place had been the target of a major air raid. All the worker’s trucks had been damaged or destroyed—our sleeping tents had been strafed. Everything was a complete shambles.

  “Except for the decoy railhead—it was completely untouched. But the station had been bombed—with a wooden bomb.”

  No one saw that coming.

  The tough, battle-hardened crew around the fire laughed. At least one or two people present were thinking it would have been nice if the bombs dropped today had been made out of wood.

  “I can confirm Ensign Hamilton’s story, gents,” James “Baldie” Taylor said. “Dudley Clarke has a photo of the wooden bomb hanging in his office at A-Force.”

  Ens. Hamilton did not know it, but he was coming close to being fully accepted into Raiding Forces. The Great Teddy had passed the major hurdles: 1) he had attended all the requisite schools; 2) he was a master at his military specialty—deception; 3) he had shown bravery today, continuing to perform his duty under fire in full view of everyone present; 4) he could tell a good story.

  “So, Captain,” ex-Lt. Jaxx asked, “how does that the problem is the solution deal Mr. Treywick was talking about, work?”

  “All you have to do,” Capt. McKoy said, “is when you have yourself a problem, say it out loud while you think in your mind—‘the problem is the solution.’ The answer will jump right out at you.”

  “Really?”

  “Let’s give ’er a try,” Capt. McKoy said. “The entire bad guy air force tried to rub us out—that’s the problem.

  “See Jack—your answer pops right out!”

  “I’m not getting it,” ex-Lt. Jaxx said. “Nothing’s popping out.”

  “I do,” Ens. Hamilton said.

  “OK, Ensign,” Capt. McKoy said, “fire away—let’s hear it.”

  “The problem is Axis Air Force pilots tried to wipe us off the face of the earth,” Ens. Hamilton said. “The solution—‘shoot the bastards down.’”

  Dead silence around the fire.

  “There you go,” Waldo said. “Works every time.”

  “That’s a little harsh, Ted,” Col. Randal said, “considering you invited ’em here.”

  Ex-Lt. Jaxx said, “I was overthinking.”

  12

  ART OF WAR

  One of the Phantom operators arrived at the Command Post and handed Colonel John Randal a flimsy. It was a Frogspawn Code Word message.

  PAM EN ROUTE TO YOUR LOCATION STOP MARK AIRSTRIP AT 2300 HRS STOP BRANDY/PARKER REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE STOP BRING TWO/THREE MEN FOR BACKUP STOP SIGNED J STOP

  Col. Randal glanced at his Rolex. The lime green hands read 1905 hours.

  “Jack, you and King saddle up, we’re being extracted for another mission. General, you were always planning to go out on the first plane—this’ll be it.

  “Taylor, set up a party to mark the airstrip at 2300 hours. Pam will be flying in to pick us up.

  “Jeb, get all six jeeps ready to roll—how many 37mm COWs came out with the supply convoy, Taylor?”

  “Five, sir,” Major Taylor Corrigan said. “I wanted to be prepared in the event we came under attack from mobile ground elements.”

  “Mount ’em on the jeeps with all the machine guns you can,” Col. Randal ordered Major Jeb Pelham-Davies. “Be ready to roll out in thirty minutes.

  “Anyone feel up to a moonlight ride, report to Jeb to reserve a seat on one of the jeeps.”

  “What you got up your sleeve, John?” Captain “Geronimo” Joe McKoy asked.

  “I think we ought to drive over and pay that Italian fort a visit,” Col. Randal said. “What say you, Captain?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Capt. McKoy said. “You know how I like plans, John.”

  “Ensign Hamilton,” Col. Randal said, “give me a rundown on the ‘sonic deception’ device you brought along.”

  “Acting on Captain Styles’ suggestion, sir,” Ensign Teddy Hamilton said, “Colonel Clarke asked Lady Seaborn to arrange for a Cairo movie company—Studio Misr—to use their audio equipment to record the sounds of tanks on the move. Then t
he recording was pressed on a record—awesome sound effect, sir.”

  “We never had the opportunity to use it during OPERATION CRUSADER. How’s it work?” Col. Randal asked.

  “We can hook up the record player to the battery of a truck or jeep, sir,” Ens. Hamilton said. “There is an amplifier that enhances the sound to ten times what an actual tank makes, sir. The idea is to play it within hearing distance of the enemy to make them believe armored forces are on the move.”

  “Put it on Captain McKoy’s jeep,” Col. Randal said.

  “Does that mean I can come along, Colonel?”

  “On one condition,” Col. Randal said. “Your word of honor as an officer you will never tell Jane—ever. Even under torture.”

  “You have my word, sir.”

  “In that case, get the lead out, Ensign,” Col. Randal ordered. “We’re rolling in two-zero.”

  The perimeter exploded into a frenzy of activity. Col. Randal called Maj. Corrigan aside. “Taylor, I’m going to leave Jeb in charge after I fly out tonight. You’re the far more experienced desert hand—he needs the work before he takes over Desert Patrol, with you helping advise him.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Be discreet.”

  “Yes, sir,” Maj. Corrigan said. “Who are you planning to have advise me when I take command of Sea Squadron?”

  “Oh,” Col. Randal said, “Admiral Ransom should be able to handle that job.”

  “I am confident the Razor can, sir,” Maj. Corrigan said, sounding apprehensive. “I hear his bite is worse than his bark.”

  Col. Randal said, “It absolutely is.”

  • • •

  “Situation,” Colonel John Randal said to the group of men going on the hasty mission to attack the fort. “The bad guys are twenty miles that way. We’re here.”

  No one laughed. They were used to Col. Randal’s modified frag orders—knew he used them to lower tension. However, everyone relaxed even though they realized what he was doing was a leadership trick.

  Everyone, that is, except Ensign Teddy Hamilton. He was shivering with anticipation. Tonight was to be his first combat patrol.

  “You only get one first mission,” Captain “Geronimo” Joe McKoy whispered to him. “The idea is to be around to go on a second. Stick to me like glue tonight, young ensign.”

  “Mission,” Col. Randal said. “We’re going to ride over, Ensign Hamilton will serenade the Italians with the sounds of tanks maneuvering, then we’ll fire the 37mm COWs at maximum range to mimic tank guns, shift position and repeat. We’ll do that several times, strafe the place with our machine guns and come home.

  “Time is short—questions?”

  “Typical shoot and scoot,” Capt. McKoy said.

  “Roger that.”

  The six SDF jeeps were bristling with weapons hastily mounted anywhere one would fit. All the Lovat Scouts with their Boys .55s were aboard. Everyone was looking for payback for the intensity of the day’s air raids—not that the Raiders had failed to give more than they had taken. They were after extra payback.

  James “Baldie” Taylor, ex-Lieutenant Billy Jack Jaxx and King led out to locate the fort in the dark and establish an ORP. Col. Randal would ride in another vehicle and switch to their jeep at the ORP. In the event that time expired before the mission was completed, the command jeep would break away and race back to rendezvous with Lieutenant Pamala Plum-Martin at the airstrip.

  The other five jeep’s crews were made up of all volunteers, many of whom had never worked with each other in a patrol or as part of the same jeep team before. At the last minute, the truck with the mounted pair of 20mms was added to the patrol.

  “Guns,” Col. Randal said, “I’ll ride with you to the ORP. Go easy on the 20mm tonight—you’ll likely need all the ammo you can get when the sun comes up.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Guns said. “Like that woman said in the Civil War plantation movie Lady Jane showed at RFHQ, ‘tomorrow is another day.’

  “I plan to be ready, Colonel.”

  “You do that.”

  The moonlight ride to the ORP was uneventful. Once there, an 81mm mortar was set up. Col. Randal briefed Major Jeb Pelham-Davies, who would be commanding the maneuver element, and the six jeep drivers one last time. He repeated their instructions, which were to disperse with a fifty-yard interval between jeeps, drive slowly past where the fort was—somewhere out there in the dark—firing at it once per pass with their 37mm Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) anti-tank weapons. Then circle around, drive back to their start point and repeat the process to give the impression of a long, armored column constantly in motion. Machine gunners were to fire on the fort from time to time; however, they were at the limit of their maximum effective range so the MG fire was mostly for show.

  Ens. Hamilton had the hood up on Capt. McKoy’s jeep, while the ex-Arizona Ranger held a flashlight so he could see to hook up the sonic sound equipment to the battery.

  “Move out, Jeb,” Col. Randal ordered Maj. Pelham-Davies and his vehicle commanders who were gathered around his jeep. “Commence fire as soon as we illuminate the fort. Make three full passes.”

  There was a mad scramble as the Raiders made ready to begin their operation. Ens. Hamilton reported, “Sonic equipment ready, sir.”

  “Do it,” Col. Randal ordered, sticking one of Waldo’s custom-rolled cigars between his front teeth. “Make us proud, Ted.”

  An awful, herky-jerky screeching blared from Ens. Hamilton’s phonograph, shattering the tranquility of the night. The sound a tank makes is not a pretty melody—unless you happen to be a tanker.

  “Horrible,” Waldo said, putting his hands over his ears. “How would you like to be waking up to that noise thinkin’ it was comin’ after ya’.

  “We coulda used somethin’ like this in Abyssinia—wouldn’t-a’ had to fight all them battles. No self-respectin’ shifta woulda hung around long enough to see what was goin’ to happen next.”

  “Sounds like the mating call of a wild boar dinosaur,” Capt. McKoy said. “Too bad ole’ Hawthorne ain’t along tonight . . . ’at’s what I call some serious psychological warfare.”

  “Anybody bring any cotton?” ex-Lt. Jaxx asked.

  “Fire mission,” Col. Randal ordered the mortar team. “One round of illumination.”

  There was a loud THUUUMP.

  After a short wait, a cracking sound came from high up in the distance. The canopy on a parachute flare popped open. The flare ignited, creating a cheese-yellow light that flickered as the burning flare swayed under its little parachute. In the distance the fort could be seen in the mellow light produced by the flare.

  The stop-start, herky-jerky screeching from the phonograph was unrelenting. Off to the left of the ORP, the first 37mm COW fired . . . KAAABOOOM! The high-pitched Vickers machine guns screamed, sounding different at a distance than they did from up close, where the high cyclic rate made only a hissing sound. The tracers were arching high in the sky and burning out about the time they reached the ground around the fort.

  POKKA, POKKA . . . Guns was peppering the target while following his orders to conserve ammunition.

  “Jack,” Col. Randal said, “you and King join the column. Fire ’em up. Synchronize your watches—I want you back here in three-zero.”

  The Merc and ex-Lt. Jaxx hopped in their jeep and roared off to get in on the action.

  Capt. McKoy said, “Ensign Hamilton, that record can play itself. How’d you like to man the Vickers K on the jeep—engage from here.”

  “Sir!”

  “Make sure not to hit our boys when they roll by.”

  As Ens. Hamilton was climbing in the back of the jeep to bring the pedestal-mounted machine guns into action, Col. Randal ordered the mortar crew, “Fire mission—HE on the deck.”

  In the distance, tracers were arching into the fort, and .37mm rounds were detonating intermittently. Not much damage was being inflicted—except to the morale of the Italians inside. The Blackshirts
had to be living their worst nightmare.

  The HE 81mm mortar round landed twenty yards short of the fort with a flat CRUUUMP!

  The next round was a direct hit on the roof of the building. Then the flare drifted down to lay burning next to the fort before fizzling out in the sand. The mortar men fired another illumination round—while their orders were to conserve the HE because they might need it tomorrow, the crew was instructed to keep the fort illuminated continuously.

  The crew consisted of the team of former mortar instructors attached to Ranger Patrol, and they were professionals. The idea was to shake up the Italians—not destroy the fort. The CRUUUUUMPH of the 81’s HE rounds impacting was definitely doing that.

  The Raiders manning the COWs, not being trained artillerymen and used to firing on targets at point-blank range, were not as accurate. The .37mm rounds were impacting all around the fort with the occasional lucky hit. That was fine. The effect was what counted.

  Col. Randal was well satisfied with the performance. He knew that if he were inside the building in the middle of nowhere he would have believed he was under attack by a large tank force and about to be overrun. And, he would have gotten on the phone, reported exactly that and demanded reinforcements.

  What Col. Randal also knew was that there were no significant Afrika Korps combat formations within one hundred miles to come to the fort’s assistance. With a major counterattack in progress, Rommel was not about to be peeling off any of his assault troops to come to the aid of a lonely Italian outpost of no strategic value.

  Col. Randal almost felt sorry for the Blackshirts. Everyone in the position had to think they were about to die. What the defenders did not know was he did not want them dead. He needed at least some of them left alive to keep sending out hysterical messages begging for help.

  If there were any question in Rommel’s mind that a major British tank force was on his flank, tonight should settle it—there was.

  To be perfectly honest, Col. Randal had not expected The Great Teddy’s diversion to produce anywhere near the results it had. The ferocity of the Regia Aeronautica and the Luftwaffe’s air attack on the decoy tanks today came as a surprise—he had not really expected the enemy to bite.