The Best Defense

by Todd A. Stone

  Eddie Cruz’s first shot struck Dutsenko at a downward angle, piercing Dutsenko’s heart and killing him instantly. Dutsenko was not alone.

  ~*~

  Despite the heavy volume of well-aimed rifle fire, six of the eight Russian platoons designated to assault the entrance made it to the main wire barrier, though not without serious losses. The Russians fired back wildly, but the combination of hidden positions and obvious, but dummy, targets, kept most of the Russian fire ineffective. With buildings masking them from the front, M203 gunners added to the carnage, blowing small holes in the packed waves of attackers. Then they shifted their fires to the supporting Russian machine guns, and the level of Russian covering fire dropped off sharply as the crews either moved or died. Dead and wounded Russian Special Security soldiers littered the open area between the fence and the first row of buildings.

  The two remaining platoons were still trying to negotiate the holes they had cut in the depot’s fence line or work their way through the main gate when the leading edge of the assault wave, ragged but still strong, hit Val’s main wire obstacle.

  Private First Class Debra Jenkins made fine-tuning adjustments to the elevation and traversing handwheels on the M60 machine gun tripod, centering the line of Russians against the wire in her sights. “Good bursts of six when they stack up along the wire,” Sgt. Carrie Ricci coaxed over the battle din, “just few mils deflection left and right after the first bursts, natural dispersion will do the rest.”

  Jenkins thought about calculating the standard deviation from the gun’s axis, but decided to save it for another time. The Russians were now a solid black line along the wire, and Jenkins could see several of them going to work on the obstacle with wire cutters and other tools. She took a deep breath, held it, and pulled the trigger. With her first burst three other M60 positions, two at the far left end of the wire, and one other, like Jenkins’s, at the far right, did the same.

  “Enfilading fire” is the technical term for fire that cuts transversely through the target. In this case, the target was a long line of assaulting Russians, stacked up where they had ended their rush against the wire.

  The guns worked in pairs, one gunner firing, the other adjusting her sight picture then picking up a split-second before the first stopped, then the first gun taking over the target. This back-and-forth trade-off among Val’s M60s meant that a continuous stream of bullets cut through the Russian assault platoons from their blind sides, and the exposed Russians fell like wheat before the 7.62mm scythes. The Russians that lived through the deadly torrent dropped back, using the bodies of those not so lucky for cover.

  Jenkins was running out of targets when bullets beat against the walls around her. While their recessed firing position hid the M60’s telltale muzzle flash, evidently the Russian guns in the support positions had followed the lines of tracers back to their source. The Russians near the entrance tossed smoke grenades to cover their withdrawal, effectively ending any further aimed fire.

  “I can’t see anything out there, Sergeant.”

  “It’s just as well,” said Sgt. Dee Loaran hurriedly, putting down her radio. “Their supporting guns are going to work on us. They’ve already taken out one gun on Alpha’s side. C’mon, Jenkins, we’re going to reposition to see if we can take the pressure off.”

  Jenkins wrestled the M60 off its tripod and followed her team leader up the stairs and down the hall, eventually sliding into a pre-made supplementary firing position. Loaran crawled up to look out a viewing loophole while Jenkins’s ammunition bearer loaded the weapon.

  “Over there, about your two o’clock. Range about four hundred.”

  “I see them—there’s a couple of positions down there.” Jenkins adjusted the gun’s bipod legs and indexed four hundred meters on the machine gun’s range bar. Then, because she was firing down on the target, she took a kneeling position. She pulled the bolt to the rear, slipped off the safety, and let loose a burst. The bullets chewed up dirt, well short. Along the forest’s edge, Russian gun crews ducked as bullets bounced around them, then looked up to try and locate their source. Jenkins saw them point and tried again. This time she was over. Five feet from her, a window disintegrated as enemy fire poured through. Jenkins’s third burst was wide, but so wide that another Russian crew lost an assistant gunner.

  The ensuing machine gun duel unreeled as though in slow motion. The gun was a quarter of Jenkins’s body weight, and the kneeling position was awkward and her arms grew tired holding the heavy weapon at such an odd angle. Yet she had found the range and her aim was good, and the Russian gun crews, though three of them were working against her, had to constantly flatten or move. They also had a problem hitting their target, for to elevate their guns enough to hit her second-story position they had to take their weapons off their mounts and prop them up on other soldiers’ backs. It was an unsteady arrangement from the start, and when Jenkins returned fire the Russian soldiers on whose backs the guns rested naturally ducked, thus sending bullet sprays everywhere.

  While Jenkins’s gun was not the only American weapon firing, hers was the most visible, and it attracted the angry attention of other surviving Russians. Bullets beat steadily against the position, some coming—at an angle—through the nearby window.

  The heavy machine gun wobbled in her grasp, and Debra Jenkins cursed her lack of upper body strength. “Give me some support for this thing!” she yelled as squeezed off another burst and ricochets dug into the wall behind her.

  Her ammo bearer checked to make sure the linked belt of cartridges wasn’t twisted, and Loaran awkwardly reached in to help hold up the weapon.

  “No, no! Put some sandbags under it, under the barrel and handguards!”

  They worked feverishly, pulling bags from the position’s protective walls and stacking them under the weapon to take the weight off of Jenkins’s arms. With the next wash of enemy fire, Debra heard a groan and some swearing behind her, but didn’t dare take her eyes off the enemy or give the Russians a break in the bullet exchange. When they were finished, Ricci pulled out her bayonet, cut two bags open and emptied out about half the dirt, then wedged them in. The construction project went on even as the inside of the room buzzed with incoming rounds. Then the tension went out of Jenkins’s arms.

  “That’s got it. Now we’ll see.” Jenkins slipped the weapon off her shoulder just enough to extend the shoulder brace on the butt plate, locked herself back into a tight firing stance, then let loose three six-round bursts. Oblivious to the return fire, she only had to swivel a little to engage a second target, then again for a third. Suddenly, there were no more machine guns firing back. Then the forest’s edge went white as the Russians there also used smoke grenades to cover their disengagement.

  “Sergeant Loaran,” Debra said, eyes still trying to pierce the smoke, “I’m out of targets again, but I think I got ‘em.”

  No answer.

  “Sergeant Loaran? Dee?”

  Nothing. Where did she go? Debra thought. She turned her head. Loaran lay propped up against the far wall, fighting for breath. Jenkins’s ammo bearer was trying to stuff something into a hole in Loaran’s chest. Debra let the M60 rest on the sandbags and crossed the room.

  “She’s hit in three places,” said the ammo bearer, “the worst one’s here—sucking chest wound. I think one lung’s already collapsed. I can’t seem to stop the bleeding.”

  Loaran looked up at them through pained, half-closed eyes. Where her camouflage paint had sweated off, her skin was already turning a sickly, pale yellow. “Forget it,” she mumbled weakly, “forget it. Take the radio. Call the Major.” She coughed bright red blood. “You two did a good job. Especially you, turnip head.” Dee Loaran’s eyes closed and her head fell to her chest.

  Jenkins slid her arm behind Loaran to move her, then pulled it back. Her hand was slick with blood. She pulled her sergeant away from the wall. In Loaran’s back was a small hole. She got it from a ricochet, Jenkins realized. It went in there and out t
he front. We didn’t know. She didn’t have a chance.

  Her eyes met her ammo bearers’. Both sets were wet.

  Ricci pulled the radio from its carrier on Loaran’s belt. “Take the gun. I’ll call the Major.”

  “We tried, didn’t we, Sarge? I mean, we really tried?”

  “Yeah. Get on the gun.”

  Debra shuffled over to the M60 and knelt behind the weapon. Ricci took the radio carrier, ammunition, and M16 from her dead sergeant. From the radio transmissions she heard, she knew that Loaran was not the only casualty.

  “Let’s get back to the primary position.”

  “And just leave her?”

  “We’ll get her later. She won’t mind waiting. She’s in good company.”

  ~*~

  Among the bunkers on the other side of the depot, Christine was only seconds away from combat.

  “Lightfoot, Team One. Set.”

  “This is Two, same here.”

  “Three in position, rounds ready.”

  “Lightfoot, Watchdog Three-One. The Russians are moving on you.”

  Christine put down the handmike and flashed a “thumbs-up” signal at the M203 and SAW gunners, who were positioned about twenty meters to her right. She got the same signal in return. They’re ready too, Christine thought. Good. An M60, four SAWS and five 203s, that ought to be enough.

  They had fired only enough to keep the Russians from spreading out, and now all three enemy platoons were advancing down the lanes between three bunkers. Christine decided that there were still a few leaders left in the enemy force, because somebody was making the Russian infantrymen stay on line. They’ve got all three platoons abreast, Christine noted as she studied the oncoming wave. They still don’t know what hit them. I guess they’re about to find out.

  “Teams, this is Lightfoot. Pop the decoys!”

  ~*~

  Each of Second Company’s surviving platoon leaders—all squad leaders who had moved up to fill the positions, for the officers and senior sergeants were all dead or wounded—saw the enemy positions and firing signatures at the same time. Unable to see, much less strike back, at the enemy who tormented them with rifle grenades and long-range machine gun fire, both Second Company’s leaders and its soldiers were elated when three enemy positions—one in front of each platoon—gave themselves away.

  Ahead of them were clear silhouettes of American soldiers in two-man fighting positions. The white cloud that sprouted from each American emplacement was obviously from the grenade launchers that had so stung Second Company—they had begun the attack with over two hundred Special Security soldiers; now over a third of them lay sprawled behind the lead platoons. Automatic rifle fire also came at the Russians, but it was ineffective, only causing two casualties.

  The sergeants in charge could not have stopped the company’s headlong rush if they had wanted to, and the sudden rain of rifle grenades on top of and behind them only fueled their fire to grab their enemies by the throat. The American positions lay little more than two hundred meters away, just beyond the narrow access road. Firing wildly, Second Company put its head down like a mad bull and charged.

  ~*~

  Christine saw them coming, and even from a distance she felt their charge gain speed and momentum. Watchdog One-Three reported that despite the toll taken by the volleys of M203 rounds, the Russians were picking up steam. From behind her, near the decoy positions, those soldiers detailed to set off the charges and raise the target silhouettes were firing full automatic—trying to replicate the SAWs—which now lay quiet, waiting for the Russians to enter the kill zone along the access road.

  “A war of attrition,” the instructor’s voice again rang in her head, “must eventually culminate in battle of annihilation. History tells us that attrition alone cannot be decisive. In other words, the process of wearing down the enemy must, at some time, come to a head in an event where the two antagonists meet and resolve the issue. While Viet Nam was America’s longest war, it did not end until North Vietnamese Armor rolled over the South’s forces and occupied what is now Ho Chi Minh City. Such was the case, too, with the air and ground wars in Operation Desert Storm.”

  ~*~

  As the lead elements of Second Company poured across the access road, Christine hastily raised her binoculars and glanced at her team’s positions. The SAW gunners lay tensed behind their weapons. Her M60 team looked like statutes, frozen behind their gun. The soldiers carrying M203s had lowered their weapons, switching from high-angle fire and preparing to pump the grenade rounds directly into the charging mass. She slipped the safety catch off the Claymore firing device, her runner raised her rifle, and Christine thought Major Ecanston would be pleased with her practical application.

  By the time they hit the access road, the hundred-plus meter dash in full combat gear had sapped only a little of the rage out of Second Company. But as those in the lead ran out of breath and those behind closed up, the rush also took away what was left of the unit’s meager dispersion. Second Company bulled its way into the Lightfoot element’s kill zone as one huge moving wall of Master Warriors.

  The four Claymore mines—one per team plus Christine’s command group’s—went off more or less simultaneously, literally shredding the first two ranks of charging Russians off the battlefield. Christine dropped the “clacker” and picked up her rifle. Her four SAWs swept the kill zone, catching the still charging Russians and cutting them down. The momentum of those caught in the crossfire carried their lifeless bodies into the remains of the first two ranks. Christine’s M203 gunners were now pumping 40mm fragmentation shells directly into the attacking mass. Those few Russians who survived the lashing and broke through were hit by fire from individual rifles.

  Christine went from leader to fighter in an instant. She tracked two figures in the sight of her M16, gave them the lead for a running target, took a breath, held it, then squeezed the trigger. One figure fell. The second dove for cover, but fell like a rag doll when Christine’s next two shots hit him. What was left of the two trailing, center platoons stopped in the open for a confused, lethal split-second. The bunched, stationary mass of Russian soldiers attracted the full attention of two SAWs, two M203 gunners, an M60 machine gun, and Christine’s M16.

  Third and Fourth platoons, Second Company, absorbed the ambush’s finishing blows and went down.

  ~*~

  Her rifle still locked into the pocket of her shoulder and finger still on the trigger, Christine swept its barrel across the kill zone, then down the lanes between the bunkers. Nothing moved, no shots came at her people. She slipped the weapon onto “safe”, put the rifle down, and picked up her binoculars. The result was the same. Christine had a too-brief moment of triumph.

  “Lightfoot, Team One. Negative enemy movement. One whiskey, one kilo my element. We’re really low on SAW and ‘203 ammo, and we need to get my whiskey back quick.”

  So it wasn’t all one-sided, thought Christine. One badly wounded and one dead. Damn.

  “Team Two. One minor whiskey. Same on ammo.”

  “This is Team Three. Two minor whiskies. My ammo status the same as One and Two.”

  “Lightfoot, Watchdog One-Three. You still have a few individuals moving out there. It looks like they’re trying to crawl back.”

  “Lightfoot, Team Two. Do you want us to sweep the kill zone?”

  Christine thought for a moment. “This is Lightfoot, negative. I want each team to put two rounds down each lane. Make them close-in. I want to send a message.”

  Her teams acknowledged, and a moment later the M203 rounds exploded across the access road.

  “Lightfoot, Watchdog One-Three. You’ve got some stragglers pulling back towards the woods.”

  Good, thought Christine. The Russians figured it out.

  “Team One, move your whiskey back now. Two, Three, wait until Watchdog One-Three says they’re clear, then we’ll move to police the area.”

  “Ma’am,” interjected her runner, “we could take t
he command group and chase them down. We got more ammo left than anybody else.”

  Christine shook her head. “We’ve got to take care of our people. They surely left security; we don’t want to be running around out in the open where the Russians can nail us—that’s what we just did to them. And out in the woods is their home court, not ours.”

  She stared down the lanes between the bunkers. A few hazy forms were laboring back towards the Infernesk forest, their slow movements telling her that they were dragging back the wounded. There was enough movement to also tell her that despite the beating she’d given them, a good number of the enemy company was still alive. To fight another day? Christine asked herself. Maybe not. Maybe they’ve learned something about violating boundaries. Maybe this was enough. She stared into the woods, wondering how many other Russian companies it held.

  Not likely, she told herself. She picked up the radio to report.

  “Leprechaun, this is Lightfoot. Mission complete, holding along Access Road 4. One kilo, four whiskies. I’ll need ammo plus-up to do this again. Will sweep area once enemy stragglers pull back—I don’t want to expose my people to their stay-behinds. Estimate most of one rifle company destroyed.”

  Val confirmed Christine’s plan

  The lieutenant settled in to wait.

  ~*~

  Corporal Ida Menendez wrapped a bandage around Pfc. Sarah Lunt’s shoulder, which was now just so much bloody hamburger.

  Lunt looked up. “Where’s de Franco?”

  Menendez shook her head. “She didn’t make it out.”

  Lunt stared at the floor. “All that planning and rehearsal, and all that fire. How did they make it past us?”

  “They didn’t. We just got chased out of the building, that’s all. You couldn’t stop a wave like that, but we killed an awful lot of them.”

  ~*~

  Crouching in the middle of the support element’s position, Denight shouted orders to the machine gunners to shift fire as he watched the assault element go in. Despite the near-massacre along the defensive wire, some of the enemy had burst into the closest buildings. Now it was the Hornets’ turn to eject them from the most critical.