“Looks like a Union officer,” the first swimmer to reach him called. “He’s breathing but unconscious.” It took the two women a couple minutes to untangle him and bring him back to the boat.
“Amazing he didn’t slip off the tree and drown,” Roger said. He helped Peta drag the soldier into the boat.
“Luke!” Peta said the moment she saw his face. “Luke, can you hear me?”
Luke’s eyes fluttered open, searching for her face. “My men?” he asked. “How are my men?”
Peta didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “We’re still searching,” she said. Luke closed his eyes and drifted off. “Let’s get him back to Objective Hilo ASAP,” she ordered. As Roger spun the craft around, she got on the radio and ordered her other two boats to keep searching.
47 - JAKE
Coleman Falls, Virginia, CSA, 0630 hours, Saturday, April 18, 1863
Jake sat in the vehicle commander’s seat of his M4 Bradley command vehicle, his head poking out of the hatch. He watched the horizon brighten to the east, but his mind was elsewhere.
If the disastrous landslide hadn’t been bad enough, Raven’s Roost had lost contact with his mother. There hadn’t been any word since she’d called in the strike on the Confederate Capital. Normally, Spec Ops would have been dispatched to find and retrieve her, but Peta was out searching the river for additional survivors while the rest of the Task Force tried to salvage what was left of the field trains. Along with the command staff, the aviation, maintenance, and quartermaster units had been hardest hit, losing most of their men and supplies.
Well, that’s not quite right, he reminded himself. Luke Barns’ Union cavalry troop had been wiped out, along with the rebel prisoners they were guarding. Barns himself appeared to be the only survivor. Peta had found him three kilometers downstream and taken him back to the MASH unit. He’s probably on his way to Saint Patrick’s by now. Thank God Jennifer and Peta left for the southern end of the island before the landslide happened.
“Sir, you think they’ll leave Major O’Malley in charge?” Jake’s driver, Corporal Kelly, asked over the internal vehicle com.
“Good question, Ricky,” Jake said. “With both Brigadier Coyle and Colonel Forte missing, along with a good portion of the command staff, I’m guessing they’ll bring down Colonel Keating and his staff from the Republic on the next Osprey. If it were me, I’d leave O’Malley in charge of the task force, and put Keating in command of the regiment.”
Kelly made a face. “Colonel Keating and his staff are Motorized Infantry, sir. What do they know about commanding Dragoons?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jake said. “The Infantry Regiment’s got a Grenadier company just like this one, so we’ll be fine. You worry about those two rebel cavalry brigades coming our way.” And whether there’s enough ammo left to hold off whatever comes behind them, he added silently.
* * *
Big Island, Virginia, CSA, 0950 hours, Saturday, April 18, 1863
Jake’s guess that Mack would be promoted to Brigadier and given command of Task Force Javelin was correct. He was surprised, however, that instead of turning to Colonel Keating, Minister Keefe had pulled in his father-in-law to command the Dragoons. In retrospect, he should have expected it. Dwight had previously commanded the Dragoons, before Jake met Jennifer.
Dwight had flown to the Republic on a C-2JEP Greyhound and then flown south, packed aboard an Osprey with replacement mechanics and logisticians. Mack ordered the surviving commanders to report for a status update as soon as Dwight arrived. The setting was a much less comfortable than the previous night’s command briefing. The three Gator command and control vehicles, along with the briefing tent, had been swept away in the maelstrom, so the group gathered around Mack’s LTV.
Among the command staff, only Mack, the S2, and an Assistant S1 had survived the landslide. The S2 opened the briefing with an update on rebel movements. A.P. Hill’s diminished division was marching towards Chandler Crossing, as expected. Early’s Division had stayed east of the river and was advancing south towards the now destroyed bridge over the Pamunkey River north of Hanover. That was good. It would take them longer to move towards the James River Gap, once J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry reported the task force’s presence.
“Stuart’s cavalry brigades are the most immediate problem,” the S2 said. “Three of them are moving through the Blue Ridge passes, where they’ll find nothing but beat up remnants of A.P. Hill’s first and second brigades. My guess is that they’ll head south looking for us, and eventually come at us from the western end of the Gap.”
“Timeline?” Mack asked.
“Best guess is forty-eight hours, Monday mid-morning,” the S2 replied. “The other two brigades, headed in the direction of the James River Gap and Humphreys Gap respectively, moved out of Charlottesville early this morning. Each brigade consists of three cavalry regiments of about twelve hundred men each.” The S2 indicated their position on his map, near Kingswood, Virginia. “I expect one brigade will turn west towards us this afternoon and the other one will cross the James River before they learn we’re here.”
“Which means we could be facing attacks coming up both banks of the river,” Dwight said.
“Yes, sir,” the S2 said. “It’s a definite possibility, depending on their ability to communicate with each other.”
“Thanks Two,” Mack said. “One?” he asked, turning to the Assistant S1, Lieutenant Marcy O’Toole.
Jake expected the report to be bad. It was. “Sir, at this time we have two hundred and eleven ISRM soldiers missing-in-action or confirmed dead. Ninety-two Union soldiers and one hundred and ten rebel prisoners are also missing or dead. Eighteen ISRM soldiers and one Union officer with traumatic injuries have been transported to the Republic for medical treatment.” Jake heard Peta inhale sharply at the last item.
“How many more injured do we have awaiting transport?” Dwight asked.
“Sir, we have sixteen soldiers with one of more broken bones that will be on the next transport,” Jennifer answered. “Another thirteen are being treated at the MASH unit and are expected to return to duty sometime today.”
“So our strength is down to-,” Dwight said.
“Eleven hundred and thirty-one effectives,” O’Toole said. Dwight nodded, and she went on to detail the remaining personnel strength by unit, emphasizing the critical losses in command staff, logistics, maintenance, and aviation.
Mack did the operations portion of the briefing himself. “One of Operation Grim Reaper’s goals was to convince General Lee that Richmond and Petersburg were in imminent danger of attack, so that he would send some of his strength to help defend the Confederate capital and logistics center. As we hoped, Lee ordered Jackson to send Jubal Early’s Division and a brigade plus of A.P. Hill’s Division south, as the S2 briefed earlier.”
“And I assume we reported the movement to the Army of the Potomac?” Dwight asked.
“Correct,” Mack said. “Hooker ordered a Union attack. With near half Jackson’s strength pulled off the line to confront the perceived threat to Richmond and Petersburg, Lee was unable to prevent Hooker from crossing the Rappahannock at Skinker’s Neck with three full corps. The Confederates retreated to the high ground above Fredericksburg and the Union attack faltered, just as it did in March.”
“Still, Hooker has at least a two-to-one advantage in numbers, he’s got our radios to coordinate his attacks, and our eyes in the sky. He should be able to push Lee into the Wilderness,” Dwight said, referring to the near-impenetrable forest west of Fredericksburg.
“That was our original plan,” Mack said. “Task Force Javelin would cut off his supply lines and then attack him from the south. The landslide has put a crimp in that plan, obviously, allowing Stuart’s Calvary Division to get in place between the task force and the Army of Northern Virginia. Before long, Lee will realize that Richmond and Petersburg are safe and recall Early and Hill, putting Hooker in danger of another stinging defe
at.”
“Okay, I get the big picture,” Dwight said. “What’s our situation here?”
“The Grenadiers are deployed along the western edge of this farmer’s field, about one kilometer east of Coleman Falls.” Mack pointed out the position on the map. “They’re guarding the entrance to the James River Gap along the northern bank of the river. Jake has three platoons of Grenadiers with four M1 Abrams main battle tanks and four M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles each, plus a mortar platoon and elements of the combat engineer platoon. He can also call on reinforcing mortar fires from Alpha company’s mortar platoon.”
“To Jake’s south, across the big river, the Pathfinders are guarding the narrow space between the riverbank and a steep hillside. Peta also has Bravo company’s mortar platoon in support. Additionally, her three SOCR boats are patrolling the river as far as the Pedlar, where a stretch of rapids impedes their movement further downriver.”
“We could go past the rapids,” Peta said, “but getting back upriver afterwards would be tricky.”
“So you’ve pulled two-thirds of my organic fire support away?” Dwight asked.
“I’m afraid so. I’ll explain why in a minute,” Mack said. “Further upriver, to Jake’s rear, the Dragoon scout platoon with eight Gator-RSTAs, is watching three narrow valleys in the mountains between Big Island and Coleman Falls.” Mack pointed out the valleys on the map. Jake didn’t expect any rebel attacks from that direction, but with three Confederate cavalry brigades to their north, the valleys had to be guarded.
“One of our big problems is mobility,” Mack continued. “We lost eight of our ten Mobile Assault Bridges in the landslide, so we can’t bridge the river. The remaining rigs can ferry vehicles across, but you know how slow that process is. Upriver, the only road is on the northern bank, so we’ll have to swim any blocking force we send back towards Glasgow across the river, unless we send Jake’s Grenadiers.”
“And the western end of the gap ain’t tank country,” Dwight observed.
“Correct. Plus, if we are ever able to resume the offensive, we’ll want the Grenadiers in the lead.”
“Okay, so we send Charlie company upriver,” Dwight said. “Three platoons of Gator-mounted Dragoons and a mortar platoon ought to be able to hold anything out of the Gap for a while. What about my two other companies?”
“They keep working to dig our ammo, food, and water supplies out of the muck,” Mack said. “Especially ammo.”
“How bad is the supply situation?” Dwight asked.
“Four?” Mack asked. It took Staff Sergeant Josiah Townes a moment to realize Mack was talking to him. Jake sympathized. The only survivor of the logistics staff section, he must feel overwhelmed.
“Sorry, sir,” Townes said, recovering himself. “We’ve managed to dig out a few containers, but it’s slow going. Right now we have about three days’ worth of food and water, and enough small arms and mortar ammo for one big fight. But we are critically short of 25mm and 120mm canon rounds for the Grenadiers.
“Sir, we are basically down to basic loads for the Abrams’ and Bradley’s,” Jake interjected. “Maybe an hour of heavy combat.” Dwight winced at the news.
“Which is why I chopped the additional mortar platoons to Jake and Peta,” Mack said.
“ISRM Aviation Branch is bringing in supplies by air, but the Osprey’s can’t haul much of the heavy stuff Captain Carlton needs and the heavy lift helicopters won’t arrive until tomorrow,” Townes said. “The Greyhounds will start airdropping ammo later today, however.”
“Half the stuff will probably end up in the river,” Jake said.
“What’s our own aviation situation,” Dwight asked.
“Peta’s three Little Birds are up and flying,” Mack said. “And Jennifer’s three Blackhawks are operational. Beyond that, we only have the UAVs. The combat aviation and aviation transport platoons were hit pretty hard.”
“Minister Keefe told me before I left that they were going to chop the Motorized Infantry’s combat aviation platoon to us, but not to expect them before Monday,” Dwight said. “They’ll have to airlift their entire ground support operation down here.”
Without much more to be said, Mack dismissed everyone. Jake caught up with Dwight before he left. “Any word on my mother?” he asked.
“Sorry, Jake,” Dwight said. “Intel Branch has every available asset searching for her, but so far they’ve found nothing. The good news is that she isn’t in any of the hospitals and there aren’t any reports of someone matching her description in the Richmond morgue. She checked in after the Confederate Capitol attack, so she likely wasn’t hurt during it. Their best guess is that she was captured moving into position for the Confederate White House attack. But there aren’t any public reports of a spy being captured in Richmond either.”
“They could be keeping it quiet,” Jake said.
“Of course. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
Jake said thanks and saluted, preparing to leave.
“Jake,” Dwight said, placing his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Keep the faith. Your mother is a born survivor.”
48 - PETA
Coleman Falls, Virginia, CSA, 1230 hours, Saturday, April 18, 1863
The special operations MH-6JEP Little Birds were very similar to the AH-6JEP attack version, except that the former had six external passenger seats, and the latter had a rocket launcher pod and a Gatling Gun pod. Converting one to the other was not easily or quickly done in the field, but the Spec Ops crew chiefs had come up with a field expedient conversion kit that allowed them to mount two M240 medium machine guns on brackets attached to the passenger seat frames. This gave the Little Birds some firepower. Peta thought she might need it, so she ordered CWO Harlan Wasser’s team to make the conversion.
She then had one of her SOC-R boats pick her up and ordered the skipper to take her downriver all the way to the rapids. She scanned the southern shore of the river carefully, searching for any avenue of approach she might have missed.
Finding none, she ordered the boat back to the Pathfinder’s blocking position, a kilometer east of Coleman Falls. She could see Jake’s M4 Bradley pulling into line across the river as they approached the steep riverbank.
Master Sergeant Keefe was there to greet her. “Welcome back, ma’am. Any changes to our orders?”
“None. The best news is that they haven’t taken the Little Birds away from us,” she said. “Yet,” she added a moment later. She surveyed her tiny unit’s position again. All six Geckos were lined up, practically fender to fender across the narrow strip of land that lay between the river on the left and a two hundred-and-fifty-foot-high embankment on the right. They had a clear line of fire for about four hundred and fifty meters downriver, until the road turned around a bend to the right.
She knew Corporal Murray was located in a hide position at the top of the embankment near that turn in the road. From there, he could see all the way to the rapids, although there were some blind spots along the road.
With the deaths of Gunny Smith and Corporal Cody, and the disabling wounds to corporals Devlin, Lane and Lynch, she was left with twelve Pathfinders to crew the six Geckos, not nearly enough to fight off a rebel cavalry regiment, let alone a full brigade. Fortunately, her Pathfinder’s primary role was to identify targets and call in fire support. And she had plenty available, including the guns on her own SOC-R boats and Little Birds, and a 120mm Dragon Fire II mortar platoon in direct support. Additionally, Jake’s Grenadiers were only a hundred meters away across the river, and they could turn their guns and provide flanking fire on any units attacking her position. And Jake had not one, but two mortar platoons on call. If they aren’t engaged in a fight of their own. And that’s a very big if.
Satisfied with the positioning of her own troops, Peta and Keefe huddled together and came up with a pre-planned artillery target list. The list was uploaded via the WIN to all three mortar platoons.
Keefe headed back to his Gec
ko and Peta settled into the commander’s seat of her own vehicle. Activating the commander’s display, she called up the view from the mast-mounted visual camera twenty feet above. Three of the unit’s six Skyblade UAV’s were orbiting overhead, and she called up those video feeds as well. Seeing no movement, she sectioned the display into six parts and called up the views from all six of the Gecko mast-mounted visual cameras. Noting a gap in the coverage, she ordered Doc Wilson to adjust the view of his camera, then pushed an icon that caused the computer to knit the six views into one continuous 270 degree view.
Satisfied that she had good coverage of the entire front, she switched the feeds to the mast-mounted thermal imaging cameras. Spotting a rabbit in the undergrowth three hundred meters away on the other side of the river, she double-tapped its image on the screen and listened as the overhead CROWS unit rotated and elevated the M47 grenade launcher into firing position. A moment later the “ready to fire” icon blinked on her screen. She tapped another icon and the display view switched to the gun camera mounted on the CROWS unit. She confirmed the weapon was indeed sighted on the unsuspecting bunny. Satisfied, she hit the “center position” icon, and heard the CROWS unit respond accordingly. She changed the display view back to the 270 degree thermal image, and relaxed.
* * *
Shortly after sundown, Peta received a spot report from Raven’s Roost indicating that a Confederate cavalry squadron was moving west along the southern bank of the James River. The unit was about five kilometers away from her position, and moving about fifteen kilometers an hour. Enemy strength was estimated at four hundred soldiers. There were no cannons detected.
Jake called over the radio less than a minute after she acknowledged the spot report. “Juliet One Sierra Three Six, this is Delta Two Delta Oh Six, over.”
“Delta Oh Six, this is Sierra Three Six, over,” she replied.
The Legend of Indian Stream Page 27