A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  A portion of the battery’s ammunition likewise waited in shipping containers. The rest was in bunkers dug into the ground. Only a few hundred rounds per gun, perhaps twenty minutes worth of firing, waited in ready racks. On command, the doors were raised and propped up. They opened parallel to the ground, exposing a nearly five-meter-long barrel topped by a multi-baffled muzzle brake.

  Inside the container holding the gun bearing serial number 12543, Blue-eyed Rodriguez gunning, Rodriguez and his mates heaved to push the gun forward, to get the barrel and especially the muzzle as far out as possible. Once they had it there, they went to work chaining the axle to a large piece of wooden reinforcement to the forward wall, even as others hammered more wood into position to hold the spades. This was all overkill, really, but enlisted and non-commissioned artilleryman liked preparing for eventualities beyond the expected. If their officers expected too much to go right? Well, a good part of that was the junior ranks making sure it did . . . as was right and proper.

  One of the crew cursed when he hit his head on the spare barrel, hanging from the roof. Yet another tripped over the shallow, water-filled trough that would receive an overheating barrel to cool it down completely after the bore had been sponged out.

  Outside, a wet tarp had been laid over the earth to keep down dust.

  Each man assumed his position around the gun as his tasks were completed.

  There was a field phone, connecting the whole unit by wire in what was called a “hot loop.” Standing by the phone, with the handset pressed to his head, the gun chief received the fire command. It came with the proviso “at my command”—from the fire direction center. He shouted it out with the crew repeating it. Rodriguez set the data on the sight then adjusted the gun by its elevating and traversing cranks to bring in on line with the stakes. Other, more powerful guns used infinity reference collimators for aiming, but the lightweight regimental guns, much like their junior cousins, the mortars, kept it cheap and simple.

  An assistant slammed a round, shell plus the brass-washed steel casing for the propellant, into the breach then stepped out of the way.

  The gun chief turned and flicked a switch. Suddenly a very powerful fan began to suck air from outside the container, pull it through a filter, and then release it inside. This created a mild overpressure that forced old and somewhat stale air out the front. It would soon be more than a convenience, as it pushed out the toxic fumes of burnt propellant.

  From the direction of the front, to the south, there came a sound of explosions, some smaller, others larger, together with the cries of some very unamused monkeys, birds, and trixies. That was the commander of the battery—rather the commanders and leaders of every battery and mortar platoon, blowing the remnants of the jungle canopy that still stood between their guns and their targets. Ahead there was a veritable blizzard of falling branches and vines. From overhead it looked like holes appearing in the jungle cover.

  “Incoming,” the gun chief heard in his earpiece. He repeated it to the men.

  “Why are they shooting now, Sarge?” asked Rodriquez.

  “‘Counterprep,’ it’s called,” replied the sergeant. “Counterpreparatory barrage. The purpose—their purpose—is to catch us in assembly areas or wherever we’re concentrated and vulnerable, to try to fuck up our attack. It’s a good technique, but not that useful against infantry or guns dug in as well as—”

  The sergeant’s little lecture was silenced by the sound of many, many explosions going off overhead and all around. Shell fragments and bits of wood pattered like rain from the raised door over the gun’s barrel. Others hit almost silently upon the heavily sandbagged and wood-reinforced roof.

  “And the price you pay for a counterprep . . .” The sky was full of the symphony of very large cannon shell, one-eighties, and rockets, three-hundreds, storming overhead.

  “They revealed their positions, and for not much gain, if you ask me . . . stand to the gun . . . stand to the gun . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . FIRE! FIRE! Continuous fire!”

  On the first “FIRE!” crewman number three gave the lanyard a yank. The gun’s barrel leapt back, even as the carriage strained against its restraining chains and wooden blocks. The expended casing was flung out the back with enough force to hit the rear of the shipping container and bounce. Number seven picked it up and shoved it out a small hole covered with the hinged metal flap. Before the flap had clanged shut the next round was spinning down range.

  In that first minute, Ramirez’ battery put out about two hundred rounds. A few of these served only to clear away any remaining obstacles in the jungle canopy. The rest went on to make the day of someone to the south very miserable indeed.

  Inside his gun bunker, Blue-eyed Rodriguez finally got the inspiration to finish the song he’d been working on for months. He sang, loud enough to be heard, at least by those whose ears were able to tune out the muzzle blast, as artillerymen generally could.

  “We are the cannon of death

  Under our feet you are roaches.

  Ten thousand shells a minute

  Are what we shall throw at you.”

  He sucked in a great chestful of air for the chorus:

  “And we will fuck you up.”

  The rest of the crew knew where it was going from there. They joined in, sua sponte, while feeding the ravenous appetite of their gun.

  “WE WILL FUCK YOU UP

  WE WILL FUCK YOU UP

  THIS IS YOUR LAST DAY.”

  Fan or not, the fumes were getting bad. Some of the men had put on their protective masks, though Rodriguez kept his off in order to serve the gun better. They switched position, occasionally, to give gunners’ eyes a rest and ammo haulers’ backs and hands the same. After putting out about four hundred and fifty rounds, the gun chief ordered Rodriguez and the loader to switch positions.

  After ramming one shell up the spout, and turning to get another, Rodriguez was surprised to take one from the next ammo hauler in line, the old woman who had come with her granddaughters to cook for the battery.

  “Gracias, Madame,” he said, taking the one shell she bore and ramming it in. He didn’t hear the returning, “De nada.” He turned again and this time it was one of the younger girls, fifteen or sixteen, he thought, and really very cute. She had two shells, one over each shoulder. Rodriquez relieved her of one, then decided, Why not?

  “What’s your name?” he shouted, since everyone was more than half deafened at this point.

  “Martina,” the girl shouted back. “Llame me; I’ll get you my number.”

  Parilla Line, Stollen Number One-Twenty-Six

  Ricardo Cruz, sergeant major of Second Cohort, Second Tercio, figured that his position had only a couple of uses, neither of which involved excessive concentration on police call and haircuts. One of these was as a directed telescope, someone who could go out and gather information for the commander and know what it was he was seeing or, in this case, seeing and hearing.

  He was surprised, but only a little, at the counterprep. Yeah, we must have given off enough signals for them to know we were coming. I wonder what it was that was the decisive signal.

  Some of the counterpreparatory bombardment was oriented at the Parilla Line, but not much. Most of it he could hear, and occasionally even see, in the dark, impacting on “Log Base Alpha” which, I am pretty sure is no longer fooling anybody. I hope Carrera evacuated the prisoners and wounded before this.

  Cruz saw a few flashes through the night, which he assumed was counterbattery fire going out. Certainly, it was nothing like the volume he’d been expecting. There were more and then still more such flashes, as the fire direction people received targeting information from the radar. Still, it was nothing like what he thought it should be, not for the kind of do or die offensive they were about to engage. He looked at his watch; Ah, a little too early for that, anyway.

  Not that we won’t at least try, no matter the artillery preparation, but we’re not going to win u
nless . . .

  And then he saw it, beginning off in the distance, an incoming tide of light, flashing, flashing . . . burning . . . rising to the sky. Some of the flashes were obvious, so close together and clawing the same path upward to the sky that he knew what they were: Multiple rocket launchers, and they’re not playing.

  Whether those were the lighter versions, the one-twenty-two jobs, or the heavies, he couldn’t really say. It was useless, too, to try to count the rising pillars of fire to identify what was what. A battery of launchers simply threw out a lot more rockets than could be counted, even though the smaller ones fired forty and the larger fired fourteen. It all got lost amidst the hundred or more from any given firing position.

  The huge one-eighties weren’t hard to discern; they belched forth a flame completely different from the ones the rockets left behind them. Shorter ranged, nearer to the Parilla Line, and still firing quite heavy shells, the one-fifty-twos kicked in. They weren’t the most common piece in the artillery park. Cruz remembered, vaguely, from a briefing he received at one time, maybe at Centurion Candidate School, that there were two cohorts in each legionary artillery tercio. Maybe four or five hundred one-five-twos? That’s about consistent with God’s own strobe light.

  The volume picked up as the tide of light came closer. That would be the one-two-two cannon, I suppose. Not that many of those in the inventory, under one hundred and fifty, I seem to recall, and all with the First and Sixth Armored Legions. Well, no matter, every little bit helps.

  Though one could try to describe the barrage episodically, that wasn’t how Cruz was seeing it. There was no noticeable gap between one kind of gun firing and the next commencing to fire. It was all, he was sure, driven by time of flight to the target.

  And then the wave of sound hit, a palpable force, palpitating his inner organs. Cruz couldn’t say what he heard or felt first, all he knew what that he was suddenly inside a storm of a magnitude he’d never even imagined before.

  All our live firing, all our demolitions training; nothing could prepare us or anyone for this. And on the receiving end? Those poor bastards.

  The mortars, some of which were very close, kicked in then.

  Twelve Miles south of Cristobal, Balboa, at Eight Thousand Feet

  Hauptmann Felton still kept one eye glued to her fuel gauge, but she and the plane had come far enough, and were close enough, that she felt she could relax, if only a little. Three things then happened at once: she felt something like a slight wind buffet her plane, just slightly. It was hardly enough to adjust her controls or attitude for. She heard a rumbling the like of which she’d never heard before. She imagined a volcano could sound like that. Finally, she saw some lights, like fireflies, play across the glass in front of her and above her head.

  She looked out her window and gasped. Across a band that had to have been fifty miles deep—it ran from one sea to the other—and at least fifteen across, there was nothing to be seen but flashes. She tried to count and couldn’t. She tried to identify a discrete area and count the flashes from inside that. She couldn’t.

  There seemed to be more of them coming from the side of the Shimmering Sea, which heartened her slightly. Then she realized that some of those were pouring from Cristobal, and most of the rest had to be incoming.

  “Those poor men,” she whispered.

  “Poor them, yes,” agreed her copilot, who had, apparently, heard her. “But poor us, too, because we have to land and the airfield at Puerto Lindo seems to be under fire, too.”

  The copilot flicked a switch so she could hear the radio from Puerto Lindo. It was all disaster, the control tower allegedly down and people being killed right and left.

  “And the runway is cratered,” said ground control, too.

  She made a decision she’d been putting off. Calling her loadmaster on the intercom she said, “I’m dropping the ramp. Push the cargo out the ass and let it fall into the sea.”

  To her copilot she said, “We’re going to try for the airstrip at El Futuro. Maybe we’ll make it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  You can’t describe the moral lift,

  When in the fight your spirit weary

  Hears above the hostile fire,

  Your own Artillery.

  Shells score the air like wavy hair

  From a forward battery.

  As regimental cannon crack;

  While from positions further back,

  In bitter sweet song overhead,

  Crashing discordantly,

  Division’s pounding joins the attack;

  Mother-like she belches shell;

  Glorious it flies, and well, as,

  With a hissing screaming squall,

  A roaring furnace, giving all,

  She sears a path for the infantry.

  —Alexandr Tvardovsky, Vasili Tyorkin

  Vicinity Volcano Number Nine

  However the Taurans might have behaved amongst other company and in other places, here, Sergeant Sais had to admit, they’d been pretty civilized. Oh, sure, they’d left the possibility of a more rigorous interrogation in the air, but who didn’t? Fear of that was part and parcel of any hostile interrogation, to include by the most civilized and restrained police: “Talk to us now and save us the trouble and I’ll have a word with the prosecutor about a reduced sentence.”

  The principle of the thing was no different than showing someone a dental chair and saying, “And this is where we drill your teeth without Novocain.” More civilized? Yes, it was. Different in principle? Not a bit; reduced pain or no pain for cooperation.

  It didn’t work on Sais at all because he knew, and they hadn’t, that they were all under a death sentence anyway, unless the Taurans withdrew them. Maybe even if they do. My team was one of how many? I never knew. This whole corner of the country could be wired for the biggest non-nuclear, man-made explosions possible. Maybe there is no safe spot.

  Of course, they’d probably pull me out, me and the others, if I show them where the Volcano is. But I can’t, no matter what, I can’t. These things are important to the counterattack when it comes. When? If? No, Sais, permit yourself no doubts; it is when, not if. My life, five or so hundred other lives, against the country we swore to defend? Patria wins so, no, I’ll keep quiet.

  And, no, I won’t even think about putting it to a vote.

  Sais did what he could, making a small scrape hole for himself inside the camp and encouraging others to do the same. It was tough, frankly; most of the Balboan prisoners were so demoralized by capture that they tended toward indifference. The chain of command in the camp . . . well, there really wasn’t much of one.

  When one of the guards asked about it he answered, with feigned innocence, “Well, I saw the others digging in like furies back toward the road when I came here, and thought there was probably a reason for that.”

  “There’s a reason,” the guard said. “Don’t see any reason you shouldn’t know; your side’s supposed to be putting in a counterattack, a big one. There was also supposed to be a convoy to take you lot and ourselves out of here a few days ago. What happened to it I don’t know. I do know that the Indians that raid the road have been very active, so . . .”

  “Yeah,” Sais agreed, “they can be mean little bastards. As for us, I think—I’m quite sure, actually—that we’d be willing to walk out,” Sais said. “Even give our parole, under the circumstances. If you could pass that on to your commander.”

  “That idiot?” said the guard. “Fat chance. You cannot imagine what it’s like to get a thought past that thick skull that didn’t originate there.”

  “Every army has a few of those,” Sais commiserated, “but they really do need to . . . oh, never mind.”

  Sais’ eyes were fixed in the horizon, the horizon that was suddenly lit up like all the Christmases that ever had been or would be.

  The guard turned and looked. “Fuck,” was all he could say.

  “Don’t know about you,” Sais said, “but
I’m going to my hole. Save everyone the trouble of burying me, don’t you know?”

  As it turned out, Sais needn’t have hurried to his shelter. He doubted anyone else this side of the Parilla Line knew why. No need to bomb us, the Volcano is going to kill everyone within about four or maybe five hundred meters . . . and it will do so without churning up the ground.

  Near Hide Position Sierra Two-Nine, Cristobal Province, Balboa

  The heavy equipment engineer company never really knew what hit it. Rather, they’d known something was there, some kind of aircraft stuck in the trees forty meters overhead, but died too quickly to make the connection. One minute the thing was there, with some curious reservists looking up at it with flashlights, the next—WHAMMO! The world lit up as a five-hundred-pound thermobaric warhead first exploded to dispense a mix of propane gas and other things, then let off another small explosion to torch off the propane. The resultant blast obliterated them, both the men, and a few women below the cloud, mixing them as raw—rather somewhat cooked—chemicals with the mud below. Outside of that blast radius the shock wave battered flesh and tossed people about like a spoiled child’s toys, smashing them into trees and rocks or, in some cases, smashing trees and rocks into them. The returning shockwave, basically rushing into the vacuum, almost tore lungs from bodies. And if anybody somehow managed to survive all that? There was no oxygen to breathe, and wouldn’t be for a while, long enough to suffocate.

  Even buried as their hide was, the blast still shook Ramos, Flores, and Domingo.

  “We should go out and look,” said the latter. “They may need a report.”

  “No, son,” said Ramos, who had a pretty good idea of the class of the explosion, if not its precise delivery mechanism. “What we should do is break out the old potash gas masks and put them on. I think we may need the oxygen and very soon. We’ll stick our heads up in maybe half an hour.”