by FARMAN, ANDY
Richard’s job was to control the fight, not squirm about attracting the incoming but he had to first get himself into a position where he could do that job. The bergan was being used as an aiming point so groping for the pistol grip of his M4 he rolled clear of the bergan and awkwardly brought the weapon up one handed with the intention of putting some rounds down, inaccurate or not, in the general direction of their attackers but he sensed, rather than saw, that something was amiss with the weapon. The weight and balance were all wrong.
Behind him the M&AWC had reacted automatically, beginning the business of winning the fire fight.
The single aimed shots from the professionals, the marines, proving far more effective than what appeared to be ‘point and blat’ by the opposition.
Richard Dewar used the light from the flare to quickly examine himself, his weapon, and to also see what he could of his enemy.
There was no blood but there were several tears in his arctic whites. The M4 had been wrecked by a round that had struck the body of the weapon but had been deflected off the working parts and exited via the butt. Just a length of decapitated buffer spring was left protruding from where the telescopic butt assembly should have been.
He removed the full magazine and laid the weapon aside, it was useless now, so Richard studied the opposition instead.
Five muzzle flashes were apparent from ahead of them, which he assumed made the Chinese troops of section strength.
An entrenching tool stood upright, visible in the muzzle flash of their squad’s automatic weapon which explained what the lone soldier had been doing, supposedly on sentry whilst the rest of his section dug in.
When Richard Dewar had gone down, Sergeant McCormack had immediately taken over, directing the marine’s fire. They ganged up on the enemy’s squad automatic weapon first before pairing up on the riflemen.
The parachute flare flickered, approaching burnout and a second took its place, but the fading light was good enough to reveal the smoky launch position for Sergeant McCormack to loft a 40mm grenade from his M4s underslung launcher, mortally wounding the Chinese section commander.
Someone threw smoke and someone else unwisely broke for the rear before the smoke had established itself as a temporary cover from view. A flurry of rounds from the marines cut the man down.
Light filled the valley again, a hundred times brighter than the tail flame of the ICBM, and when it faded in intensity it was to take on the reds and gold’s normally associated with the beauty of sunsets, reflecting off the side of the valley from its source on the other side of the mountain.
The ground bucked violently, triggering rock falls and avalanches.
Richard knew without looking what the cause was.
With night vision totally shot he shouted a warning, telling his men to brace themselves, and then he gasped in shock and not a little fear.
As if the door of a giant blast furnace had been suddenly opened behind him the snow began to melt and the ice beneath it started to thaw. Richard could hear the sounds of the opposing force bugging out, slipping on the incredibly slick melting surface, crawling backwards, one or two firing random shots into the smoke cover until they judged they were far enough away to try to get up and try to run. Those who made it upright were struck by flying rocky debris, and knocked flat by a blast wave that triggered further rock falls.
Sound accompanied the shock wave, the most terrible blast of noise Richard had ever heard. It fractured the soul in its awful intensity, reducing brave men to trembling shades.
After the blast wave had swept over them and beyond Richard lay for a long, long moments, his thermal clothing soaked in melt water, listening to the clap of doom echoing off the mountain peaks.
“The peaks!” he though in alarm, rolling on his side in a puddle of melt water to look.
“Get up!” he shouted to his men, all prone upon the melting ice, some on their sides, curled into balls hugging their knees with eyes wide with fear.
“Leave the bergens, leave everything but personal weapons, ropes and climbing gear…move!”
Men stirred at his words but two did not, remaining in foetal positions.
Sergeant McCormack rose up onto his knees and looked to his left, up the rising valley towards the centre of the mountain range, at mountains that no longer wore a cap of white.
“Get up and follow the boss if you want to live…get up and RUN!” he shouted, reinforcing Major Dewar’s words.
Richard crawled forward to where Rory lay.
The reddish glow was diminishing as the fireball dissipated but its light still reflected off Corporal Alladay’s left eye, the bullet which killed him having entered the right. Richard removed the ID disks from around the fallen man’s neck.
“Sorry Rory.”
Atop Rory’s Bergen was a coiled 60m rope, held in place with webbing straps and secured with a quick release buckle. Richard took it and also snatched up the M4 that lay beside the body. He stood carefully, and then slipped and slithered as fast as possible towards the rock wall.
The only enemy he could see were laying still or moving feebly.
The closer to the wall he got the more traction he found beneath his feet, the rock dust and debris from above acting like grit on an icy road.
Turning about he saw all of his men up and moving but strung out, although Sergeant McCormack had taken up the tail-end-Charlie position, assisting a limping marine and chivvying along the remainder in that gruff and aggressive Glasgow accent of his.
At the wall of the narrow valley Richard slung the weapon across his shoulders and began to climb rapidly, using the remaining glow by which to see hand and footholds until he came to a rock shelf after thirty metres or so. He just hoped it was high enough.
Lifting his smock to reach his hammer and pitons he furiously drove two into the rock face, grunting with the effort of each blow and quickly attaching himself to them by his harness, clipping a carabiner through the eye of each before hammering a further piton into the rock. He attached one end of Rory’s rope through the eye, tied it off and threaded the other end of the rope through a chemical light sticks eye and knotted it. Snapping the light stick, Richard activated it and dropping the rope into the returning darkness. He had no schermoulies to hand; it was Sod’s Law of course, just when he could have used the light to provide illumination for his men to climb by, there were two in the left side pocket of his bullet perforated bergen, somewhere out there on the canyon floor and lost to him now.
He braced himself and set the rope about his shoulders, belayed on.
“Make for the light, use the rope as a guide…for fucks sake CLIMB!”
The fireball was fading rapidly now, and the fullness of night returned.
With a ‘whoosh’ a schermoulie climbed into the night, trailing amber sparks behind it and lit with an audible pop. It had been launched from above, from the top of this rock face.
Below him three of his men were climbing, two more had reached its foot whilst Sergeant McCormack and the limping marine were thirty metres away.
He could hear a rumbling from higher up the valley.
Two Chinese soldiers appeared in the light of the para-illum, standing upright with weapons held loosely in their hands. They were looking away from the marines; heads turned towards the noise behind them. They suddenly discarded their weapons, tearing off webbing equipment and scrambling across the ice towards the dangling rope.
The first of Richards men reached him, breathing heavily and perspiring, he did not pause but instead he too pounded a piton into the rock face and belayed himself on, dropping his own rope to assist his mates.
Vibration joined the sound now, and Richard was shouting louder in order to be heard, shouting encouragement, directing his men’s hands and feet to holds that he could see but they could not.
Another schermoulie arose into the darkness, illuminating the valley for several hundred yards until it bent around out of sight and up sharply in the direction of the c
entre of the mountain range.
“Holy mother of God!” the marine next to Richard uttered in horror.
To those men climbing, the sight spurred on tired limbs to greater effort.
It was a truly terrifying view to behold, the melt water of a glacier bursting around the bend, a great wave breaking upon the rock wall with a thunderous boom, water dashing higher than their belay point.
A Chinese soldier slipped and fell on the melting ice floor, looked behind at the approaching wave and froze. He may have screamed but if he did so that cry was lost forever. In an instant he was gone, and a moment later his companion too was engulfed.
“Climb, CLIMB!”
The wave reached them, spray showering over Richard as the once parched and arid mountain valley of only a few weeks before, became the host to a maelstrom.
It was two hours later that the surviving Royal Marines of the Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre reached the top of the valley, climbing in deathly silence, and not a little shock.
Four Green Berets left behind as guides by Garfield Brooks solemnly shook hands with Major Dewar and three men, the remaining marines having been swept away by the flash flood.
Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA
“This is General Shaw”. Henry had no noisy interruptions now; a shocked silence had taken a hold.
“Thank you, stay on the line.” Still holding the receiver to one ear he spoke calmly.
“Mr President we have a confirmed missile launch from the remaining silo and we are tracking it on a roughly south easterly heading…” he was relating in a steady voice the information arriving from satellites and ground tracking stations that still functioned.
“…sir the weapon has ‘mirved’, we now have nine re-entry vehicles in three groups on diverging courses…central Pacific…western seaboard.”
The President felt a cold hand close over his heart.
“…Pearl…San Diego…the third group has a slightly higher orbit…too high for the US.” Henry continued.
“Thank God for small mercies, but where are they aiming for if not the United States?” asked the President.
The third target was in actual fact geographically the closest target to the silo from which the ICBM had been launched, but much further south and therefore its trajectory would require an orbit of the lower half of the southern hemisphere in order to reach it.
At the other end of the line the intended target had just been deduced, along with the times before which the warheads re-entered the atmosphere.
“Roughly two more minutes to Pearl, three to San Diego… and seven minutes ten seconds to Sydney, Australia, Mr President…” Henry had to force his voice to remain steady.
“Air defences are being alerted.” He continued. “….of the three re-entry vehicles being tracked in each group, two are likely to be decoys…there are two Patriot sites and three ballistic missile defence capable Aegis warships on picket at both Pearl and San Diego…”
“And Sydney, Henry?” the President asked urgently. “What does Sydney have?”
Henry did not look at the President, he couldn’t.
“Just Natalie’s ship.” said Henry Shaw quietly. “Just the Orange County.”
“Mr President!” called a navy captain. “On speaker’s sir…the O.O.Ds of the USS Chosin, Mobile Bay and the Nimitz.”
“Mr President, Lieutenant Commander Fortnum, Chosin is launching Standard 3 missiles as we speak…AN/SPY2 is tracking three targets entering the atmosphere above the Hawaiian Islands.”
“Lieutenant Commander Hastings here… USS Mobile Bay’s SPY2 has three targets approaching San Die…we have launched Mr President, Bunker Hill is also launching…we are continuing to launch...”
“This is Commander Willis, USS Nimitz…the USS Orange County is tracking a trio of low orbit inbounds crossing above Christmas Island, Mr President…”
“All missiles expended by Chosin, Lake Erie and Port Royal, but the Patriot batteries at Hickam are still launching…we have two…we have…we… we have three confirmed kills…we have three …all three targets destroyed, Mr President…”
“Shore batteries firing Patriots…Princeton has launched her last Standard 3…Mobile Bay has expended all Standard 3 missiles…Bunker Hill has expended all missiles…”
“Mr President…Orange County has the three low orbit inbounds over central Australia…”
“Three…I can confirm three targets destroyed!”
“What..?” the President was frowning. “Three targets where, Dago or Sydney?”
“San Diego, Mr President…this is Lieutenant Commander Hastings, O.O.D of the USS Mobile Bay, I can confirm three targets destroyed, SPY2 is clear, there are no further targets!”
“How many?” the President asked urgently. “How many missiles did you launch in order to destroy all three targets?”
“Over a hundred at Pearl, Mr President…perhaps more.”
“Two hundred and four SM3s and thirty Patriots were launched here at San Diego…I don’t know at what point we killed all three…”
Commander Willis interrupted at that point.
“I am stepping out on the bridge wing Mr President…there is no longer light pollution here since the blackouts were imposed…beautiful night…okay, the air raid sirens have just begun to sound in the city…police car sirens too…ships in the harbor are sounding ‘collision’…”
Over the speaker they could hear the wailing of the sirens on shore, it sounded reminiscent of old news reels of London’s Blitz, but the combined ships sirens input seemed celebratory rather than a warning of approaching danger.
“Orange County is launching!”
Only several hundred yards distant the air defence picket for the aircraft carrier began launching her entire inventory of sixty eight Standard 3 missiles, ripple firing continuously. The noise was horrendous, drowning out the words even though Commander Willis was shouting in order to be heard.
It was midnight in Sydney, the ships sirens and the missiles launching vertically created the impression for some residents that perhaps the war was over?
“That’s it…” shouted Commander Willis’s voice over the speakers. The sirens on shore and in the harbor were again audible. “’Rounds complete’ as my father would have sai…”
The shriek that emitted from the speaker at that point was electronic, not human; it tore at the senses while it lasted, only as long as it took for an electro-magnetic pulse to burn out the microphone and transmitter at the other end.
All eyes were on the now silent speaker, willing the voice of Commander Willis to resume.
A small tiny voice broke the silence, issuing from a telephone receiver hanging by its cord.
Terry lifted the receiver and listened before speaking.
“I’m sorry, he is not available right now but please repeat what it was that you were just saying?”
General Shaw was walking with a straight back to the conference room’s door. Only the marine sentry could see his expression and the look on the young man’s face spoke volumes.
“Mister President, the Missile Defence Agency confirms a nuclear detonation in the ten megaton range, one minute ago above Sydney, Australia.”
Little Rock: Montana: Same time.
In a hardened shelter in Colorado code named ‘Church’, a plasma screen displayed icons for two helicopters lifting off the carrier Mao, both machines were designated for an anti-submarine sortie, and both headed unerringly toward a small submarine icon bearing an Australian flag…
To be continued in Volume 4 of Armageddon’s Song, the final part of the series ‘Crossing the Rubicon’.
I will be posting updates on the series page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArmageddonsSong
and my Blog at http://andyfarmansnovels.blogspot.co.uk/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Farman was born in Cheshire, England in 1956 into a close family of servicemen and servicewomen who at that time were serving or who had served i
n the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and British Army.
As a 'Pad brat' he was brought up on whichever RAF base his Father was posted to.
Andy joined the British Army as an Infantry Junior Leader in 1972 at the tender age of 15, serving in the Coldstream Guards on ceremonial duties at the Royal Palaces, flying the flag in Africa, and on operations in both Ulster and on the UK mainland.
In 1981 Andy swapped his green suit for a blue one with the Metropolitan Police.
With volunteer reservist service in both the Wessex Regiment and 253 Provost Company, Royal Military Police (V) he spent twenty four years in front line policing, both in uniform and plain clothes. The final six years as a police officer were served in a London inner city borough and wearing two hats, those of an operation planner, and liaison officer with the television and film industry.
His first literary work to be published was that of a poem about life as a soldier in Ulster, sold with all rights to a now defunct writers monthly in Dublin for the princely sum of £11 (less the price of the stamp on the envelope that the cheque arrived in.)
The 'Armageddon's Song' trilogy began as a mental exercise to pass the mornings whilst engaged on a surveillance operation on a drug dealer who never got out of bed until the mid-afternoon.
On retirement, he emigrated with his wife to the Philippines.
