“I think it was a suicide charge, General,” Jersey said. “Make-or-break time for them.”
“I’m thinking you may be right,” Ben said, slipping into a dry shirt. He had flagged down and bummed a pair of trousers off a supply-truck driver and had not worn boots while fishing. “The latest estimates are that about four hundred to four hundred fifty of Jackman’s men got out. Including Jackman. So we’ll be meeting him again. And I hope he gives One Battalion the honor. I have some things I’d like to discuss with Mr. Jackman. Now then, what glad tidings did you people bring me from south Texas?”
“Doctor Chase is very angry with us,” Buddy said, waving at the team. “We left without his officially releasing us . . . in a manner of speaking.”
“Actually,” Jersey said, “what we did was, we bribed a pilot into holding a plane for us and slipped out the window of our rooms. You should have heard Doctor Chase on the radio. That man sure knows how to cuss and holler.”
“Yes,” Ben said dryly. “I am well aware of that particular skill of the good doctor. I want you all to check with the doctors at the hospital so they can report back to Chase. Let’s smooth this over and be nice boys and girls.”
For the next ten days, Ben did nothing except look over reports and sleep and eat and watch his team regain their health until they were all so restless they were snapping at each other. Ben had watched other Rebels move into the area around his CP, and he knew Ike had sent them in and ordered them to stick to Ben like glue. There would be no more lone-wolfing it for Ben was the idea.
Ben smiled and thought; Unless I take a notion to do it.
On the eleventh day after Ben fell out of the boat, he told his team, “Get packed up. We’re pulling out in the morning and paying that pack of goose-steppers north of us a visit. We might as well get that over with while we’re up here.”
“My people would be happy to take that task off your hands, Ben,” West said.
“I think Ike has sent enough personnel along to ensure my safety, Colonel. Don’t you?”
The colonel concurred.
At a meeting of platoon leaders, Ben pointed to a wall map. “Our objective is these five areas I’ve highlighted. “It’s an old national forest area that is spread out for about a hundred miles west to east and north to south. We’re going to have to go in and dig the bastards out. They are at least twenty-five hundred strong. They know these areas and we do not. Watch out for all kinds of nasty surprises once we get in there. Be ready to shove off at dawn.”
His team was up and ready to go even before Ben’s feet hit the floor. They had coffee ready and had been to the mess hall and brought back biscuits and gravy.
“You people must really be anxious to get going,” Ben told them, accepting a plate of biscuits and gravy and a mug of coffee. “Tell you the truth, so am I.”
About sixty miles to the north and east, Jackman was anxious to get going as well. If he had his wish, he’d get going about as far as Canada and then bury himself in the woods. But that was not to be.
“Come on, Jackman,” the leader of the Nazi movement in what had once been known as Missouri told him. “Snap out of it. We’ll rebuild, that’s all.”
“The man’s charmed, Robert,” Jackman said, looking down into his coffee cup.
“He’s lucky, I’ll give him that much. But charmed, no. Look, Jackman, we can duck and dodge until Hoffman crosses the border. After that, Raines will have to commit all his troops in Texas. We’re just going to have to stay one step ahead of him.”
Jackman looked at the man. “Robert, I lost seventy percent of my people to Ben Raines. The man takes unbelievable chances. Bullets don’t hit him. I’m telling you, the man is spooky.”
“Knock off that kind of talk, Jackman. You and your boys are beginning to make my people jumpy with all this voodoo crap.”
“Then how come no one’s ever been able to stop him?” Jackman met the man’s eyes. “Do you know how many times Ben Raines has been shot, stabbed, run over, blown off of mountains, beaten half to death, gassed, tortured, and only God—or the devil—knows what else? Huh? Do you?”
Robert DeMarco sat down across the table from his longtime friend and fellow follower of Hoffman. “Do you know what you’re saying, Jackman?”
“Yeah. That Ben Raines is either in league with the devil, or he’s got God on his side. That’s what I’m saying.”
For the first time since Jackman and his men came into camp, DeMarco felt a tinge of worry. He’d heard all the rumors about Ben Raines; heard about the old man with the robe and staff who was sometimes spotted near Ben Raines. What was he called? Yeah. The Prophet, or something like that. The old man could be in half a dozen places at once, so it was rumored. DeMarco frowned and shook his head in disgust. “Jackman, listen to me. Ben Raines is not a supernatural figure. He’s flesh and blood just like you and me . . .”
But Jackman wasn’t having any of that. He waved DeMarco silent. “You haven’t fought him, Robert. I have. The best thing for us to do is pack it in.”
DeMarco couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Jackman was a tough and resourceful man who had survived over the long years and built quite an army of followers. Of course, that army had recently been thoroughly smashed and routed by Ben Raines and his Rebels, DeMarco was forced to admit. And that had obviously shaken Jackman down to his boots.
He looked at the man. Jackman, at least for the moment, appeared to be a beaten and demoralized man. And his men were just as bad if not worse. Since Jackman and his men had appeared, DeMarco had put his encampments on full alert. He had always risen long before dawn. The first morning, it had surprised him to walk into his kitchen and find Jackman up and drinking endless cups of strong coffee. Now he was used to that sight, but not at the rapidly deteriorating condition of Jackman. The man had trouble sleeping and he was drinking far too much. His eyes were constantly red and his face was getting puffy from the homemade booze.
DeMarco left him at the table and walked through the encampment in the woods to his communications building. The buildings in the forest were constructed of wood and painted earth-tone colors which looked startlingly like tree bark. No trees had been cut down in the building of the cabins, and because of that, many of the cabins were of varying size. But damned hard to spot. DeMarco was much more a realist than Jackman, and ten times the woodsman.
He almost collided with a man leaving the snug little cabin in the woods. The man backed up and Robert DeMarco closed the door.
“Raines is on the move, right?”
“Yes, sir. Crossed into Missouri about twenty minutes ago and continued north on 101.”
DeMarco moved to the map. “That’s Holcomb’s territory. Did you bump him?”
“Yes, sir. Told him to get ready and stay low.”
“How big a force?”
“They’re still crossing over, moving at about thirty miles an hour.”
“Damn!” DeMarco said. “We’re in for a real shitstorm.”
“Looks that way,” the man said glumly.
DeMarco cut his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re getting spooky, too.”
“Spooky, no, Colonel. Concerned, yes. All those groups in Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas were sent up to cause the Rebels trouble while Hoffman and his people pushed north. The Rebels kicked the crap out of them and kept right on comin’. And Hoffman is bogged down in southern Mexico. Now we’re left holding the bag up here and the Rebels are closin’ in on us. Yeah, I’m concerned, Colonel. You bet I am.”
DeMarco did not take offense at the communication sergeant’s remarks. They were all in this together. They had voted to join Hoffman’s movement and not a single hand had been raised against that decision.
“I’m concerned, too, Reg. From this moment on, only emergency messages go out on the air. There is a pretty good chance the Rebels won’t find us in here.” He paused and smiled. “Well, not a pretty good chance, but a chance. If we have to die for the things we believe in, so be it.
We all took the oath and I expect all to stand by their word.”
“I’ll stand, Colonel. You know that.”
“I know, Reg. I know.” His right arm shot out, stiffened. “Heil Hitler! Long live his glorious name.”
“Heil Hitler!” Reg said.
“They’re split up into five groups,” a senior scout told Ben, unfolding a map and spreading it out on the hood of the Hummer. “Before they stopped transmitting, our communications people pinpointed the five locations. We believe the largest force, and the HQ of the group’s leader, is up here in this area, just a few miles south of I-44. It would be difficult to say just how many we’re facing. Of course, they outnumber this group, but what else is new?”
“You have had no contact with any of them?”
“No, sir. They’re staying low and quiet. No smoke. I guess we’re going to have to go in and dig them out.”
The sun had just burned the early morning mist away from the land. It was quiet and peaceful and lovely. Rolling hills country, thickly timbered and overgrown with brush. Some of the best ambush country to be found anywhere.
“Corrie, pass the word that anybody still in tiger-stripe change into regulation camouflage. Body armor and helmets on. We’ll enter from the south end and push straight north, one section at a time. We’ll do it slow and easy and right. We enter the timber in one hour.”
Buddy and one company of his Eight Battalion entered the timber on the west side of the North Fork White River. Ben and his contingent pushed in on the east side of the river, and West took his teams in heading straight north toward the end of County Road AP just past the ghost town of Siloam Springs. Every team hit trouble immediately.
DeMarco’s men had dug in deep and were well-concealed, having had months and even years in some cases to prepare for this. A heavy machine gun pinned Ben and his team to the ground behind a small rise.
“See it?” Ben called.
“I got it,’ Jersey called, lying about five yards from Ben. “Too damn close for mortars.”
“On three we’ll bloop some grenades in,” Ben called. “Pass the word.”
Ten .40mm grenades later, the machine-gun emplacement was silenced and the trees surrounding the nest were splattered with blood. The Rebels moved on, scouts leading the way.
“Freeze!” Ben called softly, looking down and seeing the thin black wire stretched about eight inches above the ground. “Everybody stay exactly where they are. We’ve walked into a booby-trapped area. Look around you and check your area, then backtrack out. Check for grenades taped to trees and be careful where you put your feet. Easy does it now. Everybody turn carefully and let’s get the hell out of here.”
When the Rebels were well back of the thickly timbered death trap, Ben called for mortars. The 60mm mortars began sailing in, and the area shook with their impact and the roaring of the booby traps going off.
“Walk them up for five hundred meters,” Ben called. “When that area is clean, we’ll advance.”
Corrie called in coordinates and the mortar crews adjusted and began dropping the rockets down the tubes. Ben and his section started a slow advance into the smoking and hole-pocked area. One mortar round had landed directly on a machine-gun nest, exploding the grenades and the ammo in the hole. The passing Rebels could tell the occupants had been human, but just barely.
Ben kicked a blown-off arm back into the hole and walked on. Jersey looked over at the stiffened, bloody arm, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “Heil Hitler to you, too, jerkoff!”
SIX
Dan sent several of his platoons racing north on the west side of the forest, while Striganov sent several of his platoons hard-charging up the east side. Every few miles a squad would be dropped off, with plenty of food, water, and ammo. They spread out, quickly dug in tight and right, and kept their heads down. They would not be used unless any of DeMarco’s men inside the old national forest tried to make a run for it. Those trying to flee would be in for a very unpleasant surprise. Each squad had at least one M-60 machine gun, a mortar, and all M-16s were equipped with bloop tubes.
Inside the thickly-grown-up forest, with its sometimes impenetrable brush, the Rebels were advancing very slowly, and meeting stiff resistance every foot of the way.
Ben spat out a mouthful of dirt and twigs and rotted leaves, and cussed as the bullets sang deadly songs over his head. “I am getting just a little bit tired of this,” he said, then bellied down tight against the ground as another burst of heavy machine-gun fire cut the air.
Several Rebels tossed grenades and the machine gun was silenced. Moaning filled the air. “Oh, God, help me! Somebody come help me!”
No Rebel moved or spoke.
“I’m a soldier. I got rights accorded me,” the voice called.
Ben looked over at Jersey, lying a few feet from him. “Nobody said it was going to be easy,” the little bodyguard cracked.
“I heard that,” the wounded turncoat said. “It ain’t right for you to make jokes while I’m bad hurt.”
“Who’s making jokes?” Jersey asked.
“Bitch!”
She yawned. “I think I’ll take a nap, General. It’s so nice and cool here.”
“You come help me!” the wounded man shouted. “I’m bleedin’ real bad.”
“It has been a long day,” Ben said.
“If you don’t come help me pretty damn quick, I’m gonna die!” the man yelled.
“I wish you’d do it quietly,” a Rebel called.
“He’s up to something,” Cooper whispered, crawling up to Ben’s side.
“I agree. Pass the word to watch for a grenade.”
Coop looked at Jersey. “Are you asleep?”
“If I was, Coop, you just woke me up.”
“I hate all you bastards and bitches,” the wounded man called. “You’ll win a few battles, but you won’t win the war. Not this one. You’re dead and beat and you don’t have enough sense to realize it.”
“He doesn’t sound wounded to me,” Corrie said.
“Nor to me,” Beth said. She took a grenade from her battle harness and pulled the pin. She released the spoon and tossed it. It was a good throw, landing right in the center of the gun emplacement.
There must have been two or three hundred pounds of high explosives the wounded man had wired to go in the hole, for when the grenade blew, the following blast knocked birds’ nests out of trees, nuts off branches, and shook the ground for a five-hundred-meter radius.
“Jesus Christ!” Ben said, shaking his head and getting to his knees, peeping over the small rise of earth. There was a huge hole in the ground and bloody pieces of people scattered all over the place. The twisted metal of a machine gun lay about fifty feet from the hole.
“He was waiting for some of us to come to his aid and he was going to take a few Rebels with him,” Jersey said, sticking a finger in one ear and wiggling it around.
“Buddy on the horn,” Corrie said, handing Ben the receiver.
“Go, boy.”
“What the hell was that explosion?” his son asked. “We heard it clear over here.”
“A human bomb. How’s it going in your sector?”
“Slow. We’ve reached a good spot to call it a day and I’ve got people digging in.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me. I think we’ll make camp here. Bump you later. Eagle out.”
Ben looked over at Jersey. Her face was streaked with dirt and she looked more like a very pretty wayward street urchin playing at being a soldier rather than the extremely dangerous and highly skilled combat veteran Ben knew she could be. She was also sound asleep.
On this, the first full day of fighting, most of the Rebels advanced slightly more than three miles. Others units could have gone further, but did not want to outdistance their own and get cut off and in a hard bind. Those waiting outside the forest maintained their silent vigil and stayed down.
Ben had perimeters laid out, rigged up booby-trapped trip wire, strung up perimeter
bangers, and posted sentries, making the encampment as secure as possible. Both sides knew where the other was, so there was no point in not heating rations and having coffee. The food was bad enough even when heated, and after eating the goop, while relaxing and feeling the battle tension slowly leave one’s body, coffee or hot chocolate was like a good friend come to call after too long an absence.
Corrie’s highly sophisticated radio was easily capable of picking up transmissions from Mountain Home—and much further than that with properly strung antenna—so Ben spent several minutes that evening going over and sending replies to the messages for him from Therm, down in Texas.
The huge hole in the ground had been cleaned up of the gore and twisted metal, and Ben used that for a roost for the night. It was plenty big enough for him and all his personal team members. Before supper was over, the skies opened and a light rain began to fall. Shelter halves were buttoned together and poles were quickly cut to make braces for the waterproof tarps.
“I am certainly glad we know each other well,” Beth said dryly, as the rain pelted the tarp.
The team was all stretched out, side by side, all against one wall of the hole.
“I think it’s romantic,” Cooper said, knowing that would provoke an acid response from Jersey.
Ben, sitting between Beth and Jersey smiled in the night and waited for Jersey’s reply.
“Cooper,” Jersey said. “We are sitting in the middle of a battleground, in a blasted-out hole in the ground, with our butts wet, and you think it’s romantic? I worry about you, Cooper. I really do. And if you don’t get your hand off my leg, I’m gonna smack you right in the mouth.”
“Isn’t it great to be back together again?” Corrie asked. “Gee, what fun!”
Ben chuckled as the rain pelted the tarp.
“I’m warning you, Cooper,” Jersey said. “I’m gonna hurt you.”
“I’m only trying to find a comfortable place,” Coop said.
“Why don’t you go sleep with Dankowski and Simmons?” Jersey suggested. “You can read yourself to sleep with their Superman comic books.”
Vengeance in the Ashes Page 24
