Blood in the Ashes ta-4

by William W. Johnstone

  “It will be raining by two o’clock this afternoon,” Ben told him, not taking the binoculars from his eyes. He viewed the wreckage below with a soldier’s satisfaction.

  The young Rebel looked toward the skies. The sky was clear and cloudless. But if General Raines said it was going to rain … get your poncho out.

  “Continue lobbing them in,” Ben spoke into his headset. “Drive them back. Let’s clear their ranks out as heavily as possible during the first wave.”

  The mortar crews continued working steadily for two more minutes before Ben called for them to cease firing. Lifting his field glasses to his eyes, he viewed the ripped low ground before him. He smiled as he looked at the smoking battleground.

  Broken, shattered and bleeding bodies littered the scarred landscape of the earth. Arms and legs and heads had been torn from torsos and flung yards from the mangled trunks. Small fires were burning on the south side of the creek. A burning pine tree suddenly exploded like a bomb going off as the sap ignited.

  “I count almost a hundred dead, General,” Captain Rayle said, appearing at Ben’s side. “They’ve probably dragged forty or fifty wounded out of our line of sight, back into the deep timber. We hurt them, all right.”

  “They’ll leave us alone from that direction for a while,” Ben said. “You lookouts on the flanks and to the rear, heads up, now. They’ll be sending out sniping teams.” Ben walked to the hastily dug communications bunker. “What’s the word from the Base Camp?”

  “Nothing since last night, sir.”

  “Mopping up,” Ben told her. “The worst job of them all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “How many did we lose?” Tina asked Colonel Gray.

  “Too bloody many,” the Englishman replied. “Counting the wounded, the dead, the desertions, we have had our strength cut by about forty percent. Old General Walker was killed, along with about half of his old soldiers who joined us. Walker died with a rifle in his hands, though. Reports say the old boy killed several of Willette’s men before they gunned him down.”

  “Eagle Three is reporting some pockets of resistance still to the east of us. The Scouts say they’ll have it contained in a few hours. I’m sorry about General Walker. I liked that old man. Did he really fight in World War II?”

  “He sure did,” Dan replied, just a touch of awe in his voice. “With Merrill’s Marauders in Burma. He was a hero again in Korea, and was a general during the early days of Vietnam.”

  Cecil strolled up, his face grim. “I have ordered our people in the field to offer surrender terms only once. After that, if our teams are met with armed force, the coup members are to be destroyed. I want this put down hard!”

  “That’s all we can do, Cec,” Mark Terry said, joining the group. There was a bloody bandage tied around his head and he had taken a nick on his left arm. He was grim-faced. “About twenty percent of my people were involved in the takeover attempt. I’m having those who survived shot at this moment. I warned them after that fiasco with Hartline and the IPF forces that any breech of orders would result in a firing squad.”*

  The group was silent for a moment, listening to the punishing shots roll from just north of the camp. Mark’s eyes were tortured as he listened, knowing those were his people he had ordered put against the wall.

  “How is Peggy?” Dan asked gently.

  Mark sighed. With a visible effort he pulled his attention away from the shots of the firing squads. “She’s OK. Her wounds were not serious. Doctor Chase and his medical people just returned to camp. That old man is randy, folks. He was leading a team of guerrillas in the woods. His people killed two teams of Willette’s people.” Mark kicked at a pebble with the toe of a jump boot. His eyes were downcast, as if something heavy was weighing on his mind.

  “Something on your mind, old man?” Dan asked.

  Mark blurted, “Sally McGowen was among those killed at the football field.”

  “Oh … balls!” Dan said.

  “How about the children?” Tina asked.

  Mark shook his head. “Dead. Sally tried to protect them with her body, shielding them. It was a brave but futile gesture. The .50-caliber slugs went right through her. The kids bought it.”

  “That’s not going to set well with Ike,” Dan said. “He and Sally have been experiencing some troubles in their relationship, but he adored those children.”

  Juan Solis and his brother, Alvaro, walked up. Both were bloodstained and dusty. “Willette and what was left of his bunch are gone. Disappeared into the timber, witnesses say. And it was Willette and some of his men who killed those people at the football field. Shot them in cold blood. Laughing as they murdered them. Witnesses who survived say Willette treated the entire matter as one big joke. Some of the Rebels guarding them, when they saw what was happening, dropped their weapons and ran to aid the wounded. Abe Lancer and his men were attacking the stadium, got there just in time to see the guards running. They thought the guards were a part of the murderers and opened fire on them. It was a night of confusion all the way around.”

  “That couldn’t be helped,” Cecil said. “I’ll speak to Abe and his people. We’re at the point where a traitor is a traitor is a traitor-to paraphrase Gertrude Stein.”

  “What outfit was she in?” a young Rebel sergeant asked the ex-college professor turned guerrilla fighter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “They’re pulling out of the timber,” Ike said, after listening for a moment to his walkie-talkie. “But before we make any hasty moves, let’s lay low for a few hours. It could be a trap.”

  “You mean, they may know we have communications, now?”

  “Yeah. But from what we just heard, the coup attempt at the Base Camp failed. But we took a lot of casualties puttin” it down. Lots of folks got killed.”

  “Your wife?”

  “I don’t know,” Ike replied. “I’m worried about the kids.” He looked at Nina. “Don’t read that as hard as it sounded. Kids and olds folks always take it on the chin in any war. I’ve seen too much of it not to know that’s the way it goes down.”

  “I don’t wanna grow old,” Nina said flatly. “I feel sorry for old people. I seen it time after time, old people just pushed aside. Bad people abusin’ them. It ain’t right.”

  “That’s the way it was when the government of the United States was operatin’ at full tilt, too, Nina. Don’t get me started on that subject. I always did feel there should have been special laws for the punks and crud who attack and abuse old people.”

  “What law would that have been, Ike?”

  “Put the punk sons of bitches against a wall and shoot them.”

  Together they lay in a thicket and listened to their walkie-talkies. Within moments of the initial pull-back order, the radios fell silent as the searchers pulled out of range. Ike and Nina waited for an hour. The surrounding timber was silent except for the singing of the birds and the barking of squirrels as they went about their yearly tasks of gathering nuts for the fast-approaching winter months.

  “Pretty and peaceful,” Nina said. “I wish the whole world was peaceful.”

  “Maybe it will be someday,” Ike replied.

  “Don’t put no money on it,” her reply was pessimistic.

  The pair ate a cold lunch, washing it down with fresh water from a rushing mountain stream. At Ike’s orders, they gathered up their weapons and other gear and moved out, heading south.

  This time they moved slowly and as silently as possible, stopping every hundred or so yards to check for sound or movement in the deep timber.

  But only the natural sounds of forest inhabitants greeted them. They neither saw nor heard any of the men who had been chasing them.

  Nina touched Ike’s arm. “I think they’re really gone.”

  “Yeah, I agree, little one.” He looked at an old road map and then glanced around him, getting his bearings from deep in the timber. He pointed to a spot on the map. “We’ll head out for this little town. This s
tate road right here shouldn’t be too far off.

  We’ll find it, and take it into town. If we have any luck at all, we’ll find some wheels and barrel-ass back to Base Camp. I wanna find out what’s happened to Ben.”

  “You’re really worried about Mr. Raines, aren’t you, Ike?”

  “Worried maybe ain’t the right word. Ben is tough as wang-leather. It’s just … well, we’ve been together for a long time.”

  “Kinda like the way brothers is supposed to feel?” Nina questioned.

  “Yeah,” Ike said with a smile. “Brothers.”

  “OK. So lead on, Mr. Shark.”

  Ike wore a pained expression. “I keep tellin’ you, damnit. It’s SEAL, not shark. SEAL!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Here they come,” Ben’s headset whispered the lookout’s words. “They’re gonna try to make the creek and that little stand of timber this side of it. They reach that timber, we’re in trouble.”

  “Settle down,” Ben said. “They won’t make it. Mortar crews! Commence firing. Snipers, in position, ready when and if they get into range. Hold your fire, all others. They’re too far off. We don’t want to waste ammo.”

  Ben was thoughtful for a moment as the first rockets left the tubes. He turned around and looked the area of the Rebels over. “Flanks and rear!” he yelled. “Stand ready. I think this is a diversion tactic. Keep your eyes glued to your perimeters.”

  Captain Rayle came to Ben’s side. “Too few of them for a major assault, sir. I’ve ordered snipers to the flanks and rear.”

  “Concentrate your people to the east and west, Captain. Leave a few at the rear. It’s much too wet and marshy back there. The terrain would slow them up too much and there isn’t enough natural cover.”

  Ben adjusted his headset and pressed the talk button. “Mortar crews, slack off firing. Just let them know we’re here. Chiefs, readjust every other tube to

  the coordinates at the timber and brush lines east and west. Pronto.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the immediate reply. “Readjusting.”

  Removing the headset, Ben walked to the crest of the ridge, stopping behind old fallen trees and newer felled trees the Rebels had chain-sawed down and then covered with natural brush and other foliage. He lifted his binoculars and caught the rustle of leaves at the timberline a few hundred meters from the base of the hill. He turned to a machine gunner, sitting patiently behind a big .50. Another Rebel squatted beside the heavy man-killer, ready to assist-feed the belt into the weapon.

  “Adjust down a few degrees, son,” Ben told the machine gunner. “I want the fire from this weapon directed left and right of that old lightning-blazed tree. See it? Good.” Ben patted him on the shoulder. “You three with .60’s-over here.” Ben pointed silently and those Rebels manning the lighter .60-caliber machine guns nodded and slipped into position.

  “Let them think we’re not aware of their plans,” Ben said. “Let them get clear of any cover before opening fire. When you do commence firing, I don’t want any left alive. All right? Good. Hang in there, people.”

  Ben walked across the wide tabletop of the hill, now cluttered with instruments of war and hastily dug bunkers, housing mortar teams and communications equipment. He studied the base of the hill and its westward lie of underbrush and stunted timber. The mortar teams were laying down a slow

  but steady fire. Those men who had attempted the push from the front were retreating, leaving behind them their dead and wounded.

  Ben studied the land below through his binoculars, James Riverson standing patiently by his side, the big senior sergeant towering over Ben’s own six-feet-plus height.

  “There,” Ben muttered, catching a slight wave of tall grass, brittle-appearing now in late fall. He looked at Riverson. “You catch that, James?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re amateurs.”

  “Direct the operation from this flank, will you, James?”

  “Yes, sir.” Riverson began calling softly for machine gunners and mortar crews to readjust degrees.

  The men below the ridges were not amateurs, but they were not much better, certainly not professionals. All the men and women with Ben were trained to the cutting edge. They were as professional a group of soldiers as any left anywhere in the nuclear and germ-torn world. And they were far superior to most. Every man and woman in the Rebels was cross-trained in at least three specialties. A machine gunner might be a qualified medic and a demolition expert. A medic might be a sniper and a tank driver. That type of training was a holdover from Ben’s days in the U.s. Army’s elite Hell Hounds, a spin-off of the Ranger/special Forces units. The old Hell Hounds had been such an ultra-secret group that even among top ranking officers of the military, many did not know of their existence. Ben and his people waited motionless, deliberately

  allowing the men on the ground below them to get into position. They waited until the flanking attack began, and still waited, waited until the men w clear of any near cover. Then the Rebels opened up with everything they had at their disposal.

  The Rebels caught the troops of Tony Silver and the Ninth Order in the open. The screaming of the wounded and the dying on the slopes of the flanks filled the air as heavy machine gunfire literally sliced the foot soldiers to bloody rags and bare bone and steaming, ripped-open bellies. Mortars pounded the earth and grenade launchers lobbed their payloads into the smoky air.

  The firefight lasted no more than two minutes. Two minutes that to those receiving the lead and shrapnel and feeling the pain seemed more like two years.

  “Cease fire,” Ben spoke into his mic.

  Just as the last echo was fading into memory, the radio operator called out. “General? I’ve got the fix on their radio frequency. You want to listen, sir?”

  Ben held one headphone to his ear and listened, a smile playing across his lips.

  “Pull back!” the voice shouted hysterically. “Goddamnit, pull back.”

  “Give us some covering fire!”

  “Shit! They ain’t shootin” no more.”

  “I don’t give a fuck! I ain’t moving “til I git some coverin” fire.”

  “Goddamnit, they’re creamin’ us. They’s too goddamn many of “em and they got better firepower than us.”

  A firm voice overrode the frenzied, frightened voice.

  “Platoon leaders-report.””

  “First platoon here. And I’m it! I got no more men left. Every fuckin” one of them is dead. I’m gettin’ the hell outta here.”

  “You men stand firm!” the hard voice of command nipped the order.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you! And fuck Ben Raines

  .”

  “Yeah,” another man’s voice took the air. “And fuck the horse he rode in on, too. I’m takin’ my boys and gittin’ the hell away from this death trap.”

  “This is Tony Silver,” a calmer voice took over. “All my men fall back. We’ll regroup over at a town called McCormick. Move out now and gather at the trucks.”

  “Ten-four, Tony,” a man said. “We’re pulling out how.”

  “Silver! You have your orders from Sister Voleta. If you disobey them, I’ll-was

  “Stick it up your ass, Wally,” Silver cut him off. “I’m not sayin’ we run away. Just usin’ common sense and orderin’ a regroupin’. Think about it, man. Look at them dead bodies down there. Hell, they didn’t even get close to Raines’ position. The goddamn creek is runnin’ red with blood. Everything is all fucked up at Base Camp; Willette’s people blew it, man. Use your head. We got no mortars, no artillery. No way we’ll ever get to Raines. He’ll sit up there on stinkin’ hill and kill us all, one at a time. And You can bet on this, too: Anytime he wants to leave, him and them people with him can punch a hole in lines bigger than a whore’s cunt. OK. So we lost a battle. One battle, man. That don’t mean we lost the whole war. Some famous dude said that, long time

  back. There is always another time, man. Think about it.”

  Silence for several hea
rtbeats. “All right, Tony. You’re right. Sister Voleta will just have to accept the loss and draw up another plan. All troops around the hill withdraw and backtrack to McCormick. We’ll regroup and map out plans there.”

  “What about the wounded, Wally?” another voice was added to the confusion.

  “You wanna go out there after them?” the challenge was laid down.

  No one picked it up. The airwaves remained silent.

  “That’s what I thought,” Wally spoke.

  The wounded lay beneath the guns of those on the hill. They lay screaming as life ebbed from them, staining the ground under their broken and bodies.

  “Fuck Ben Raines,” someone finally spoke. “And fuck them people with him. Jesus. Them people fight like crazy folks.”

  “Pull out,” Wally said.

  Ben laid the earphones on top of the radio. He winked at the radio operator and she smiled at him. Ben said, “It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue.”

  “That’s pretty, General,” she replied, the admiral don she felt for the man shining in her eyes. “Did you just make that up?”

  Ben laughed. “No, dear. A man by the name of Douglas MacArthur said that, a long time ago.”

  “Oh. What was he, sir, a poet or something?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “How far are we from the South Carolina border?” Sam Hartline asked his driver.

  was “Bout three hours, sir. We’ve really been pushing lit.”

  “We have made good time. OK. Let’s take a break and get some rest. Our forward patrol reported the interstate out up the road a few miles. They’re scouting an alternate route now. We’ll angle up toward Clark Hill Lake when we get cranked up again. Our last frequency scan showed Raines and his people to be around the town of McCormick. I want us to hit them just at dawn. This time I’m going to wipe the I pavement with Ben Raines” ass.”

  The driver chuckled. “Won’t Raines be surprised? Hell, he thinks we’re still in California.”