Terror in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  And Jack’s grand plan had backfired. He could not pull his men back, because the teams of Rebels were working all over the place, turning the once peaceful green hills and glens of the countryside into a massive killing field. Jack Hunt had tanks pulled back and running on a line north from Monaghan down to Waterford. But he couldn’t use them because Raines’s Rebels had wired explosives to every damn bridge Jack would have to cross and had members of that damnable force called the Free Irish ready to hit the button or flip the switch.

  “God damn it,” Jack cursed. “The man doesn’t fight textbook-style. He’s writing his own textbook. He’s using the most unconventional tactics I have ever encountered. Everytime you think he’s going to do one thing, he does the opposite. Who in the hell would have thought he’d split up all his forces and send them out all over the country in five- and ten-man teams and fight like a bunch of damn red Indians?”

  A grim-faced aide handed him a note. Jack read it, wadded it up, and threw it on the floor. “Tralee just fell to the Free Irish and the Rebels. The Rebels now are in control, or very nearly in control, in ten counties. Jesus Christ, we outnumber them twenty to one and so far all we’ve managed to do is get our butts kicked.”

  “Damn it, Jack,” a weary battalion commander said. “How do you fight shadows? If we do spot a team and give chase, they lead our people straight into an ambush. They come out mostly at night and they’ve got our people so damn jumpy they’re shooting at the slightest noise.”

  “Jack,” Poole said. “Maybe Butch was right. Maybe we ought to just let him have this country. Hell, I’ve lost over a hundred people and I ain’t never even seen a Rebel. I ain’t never fought no bunch of people like this. Mack’s lost almost a hundred, and he went back to Dublin. You ain’t even got contact with almost two battalions, so you can figure they’re dead. I say, take what we’ve got left, throw up a defensive position, say, from here in County Meat,” he pointed to the map, “down to here in County Wicklow. There ain’t no way in hell Raines will ever punch through those lines.”

  “And then do what, Poole? Defensive lines, defensive lines. That’s all we’ve done since that goddamn Ben Raines landed. Defense, defense, never go on the offense. I’m sick of it. I planned for a head-on. But he won’t fight that way. Why in the damn hell didn’t my intelligence people let me know that Rebels are trained to fight both conventional and guerrilla? Nobody has an entire army where everyone is trained that way. Nobody.” He picked up an ashtray and hurled it across the large room. It shattered against a wall. “Nobody except Ben Raines.” He faced the gathering. “I’ll tell you this, people. We’re going to be the laughingstock of Europe if we don’t pull this off. Either here or in England. Preferably here. You better understand that. We’re counting on our allies on the Continent to help us settle there. But they’ll laugh in our faces if we don’t stop Ben Raines and stop him cold, right here!”

  “We could stop him better in England,” King said.

  “How? Why? There’s more resistance groups in England than over here. Somebody better come up with a plan,” Jack said, resignation in his voice. “ ’Cause I damn sure don’t have one. I hate Ben Raines.”

  The Rebels regrouped and began mapping out plans for a massive assault against the forces of Jack Hunt. The Rebels now had cleared almost two-thirds of Southern Ireland and were in control of fifteen counties and had lost only five people, with thirty-eight wounded, and only four of them serious.

  Jack had also drawn his battle lines, stretching out his people from about the center of County Monaghan in the north, down to the mouth of the River Nore in County Wexford in the south. He had positioned tanks and artillery and was ready.

  “We going to play it his way, Ben?” Ike asked.

  “I don’t know. We’ll take a lot of casualties if we do.” He looked at Pat O’Shea, the commander of the Free Irish. “It’s your country, Pat. What do you say?”

  “I say, get the scum out of this land. We can always rebuild, General. I’ve canvassed the people. Ninety-nine percent of them say go for it.”

  Ben nodded his head. “Dan, have scouts start probing for weak spots. Pat, get me maps of the region, from north to south.” The man turned to go. “And, Pat?” Ben’s voice stopped him. “We don’t take creepie prisoners. Dublin is very likely going to be destroyed.”

  “It will be a shame, General. But a man’s life is worth more than a building. Your people have been very considerate of the landmarks and such. Now it’s time to win the war. We have to do whatever is necessary to free Ireland. And then we’ll accompany you to England for the bigger battle.”

  Ben shook the man’s hand. “And we’ll need your help. Pat? What about Northern Ireland?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll not interfere up there. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve all gone mad since the Great War. Them with any sense – and they was more than a few – made peace and headed down south. It ain’t the folks out in the country — hell, most of them has lived in peace for years. It’s them crazy people in Belfast and Londonderry. It’s come down to gangs, now. When you look at it, it’s senseless. There is no more England, or for that matter, Ireland or France or any nation in darkest Africa. Northern Ireland doesn’t belong to England anymore. The fight is senseless. Let them fight until they kill each off, then we’ll go in and scrape up the mess and bury what’s left and it’ll be dead and forgotten. I got no use for them people up there, Protestant or Catholic. It’s all hate now. Stupid hate. To hell with them all.”

  Ben laughed. “You’re a good man, Pat O’Shea.”

  Pat winked. “That’s what me wife says.”

  The people left in the Irish countryside, and like the United States, there were more than met the eye at first glance, had never seen anything like the Rebel Army and its mighty machines of war. Helicopter gunships and attack choppers hammered the air as they moved into position. Huge tanks lumbered up and down the narrow and twisting roads, and where there were no bridges, Ben ordered his engineers to lay down metal scissors bridges. So with that done, Ben’s armor pulled into positions that Jack Hunt’s people could not possibly reach, for Hunt lacked the bridge-building equipment or the M60 AVLB’s to launch the bridges.

  “I ain’t seen nothin’ like this in fifteen years. We ain’t got a prayer,” one of Hunt’s forward recon people said to his buddy.

  “Shit, man! What are you talkin’ about? We got them outnumbered twenty to one.”

  “That don’t make no difference. We’re fightin’ for booty and pussy and slaves and the like. Them Rebel people is fightin’ for a cause.”

  “So?”

  “So if somebody come up to you and offered you better food, finer women, and nicer quarters to go and fight for them, would you?”

  “Damn right!”

  “Them Rebels wouldn’t. You could offer them the world, they wouldn’t leave the Rebel Army.”

  “Then they’re fools.”

  “No. They’re just right and they know it.”

  “You gonna quit Jack?”

  “And go where and do what? Surrender and be tried by the Irish? Not bloody likely. You know what they’d do to us. No. We’re in this to the death, Jimmy-boy. Call in, Jimmy. Tell General Jack Hunt that Ben Raines is preparin’ to throw everything he’s got at us. And it’s awesome.”

  Jack had moved his CP over to Dublin, into the old General Post Office building on O’Connell Street, and met with the leaders of the Believers. Butch Smathers had already taken his people back to England; he had seen that the Rebels were going to retake Ireland. It was going to be a hell of a fight, but they would eventually win. England, Butch felt, was going to be quite another matter.

  Jack and the creepies agreed to fight together against the common enemy: Ben Raines and the Rebels.

  Neither side liked the other – Jack Hunt despised the stinking cannibalistic Believers – but each knew their lives depended on them banding together. The Night People – the Rebels called them creepies �
�� would fight out of sheer desperation, for they knew, having monitored the fighting in the United States, that the Rebels did not take any creepie prisoners. They were executed on the spot.

  Inside the boundaries that Jack and the creepies were defending were the Believers’ breeding and fattening farms, where men and women and children were kept alive for a constant source of food.

  “Here and here,” Ben said, pointing to the map. “North and south of the city, only a few miles from the coast. The breeding and fattening farms of the Night People. But I have my doubts that we’ll be able to free those poor people. As soon as those defending the city sense that we’re about to bust through, they’ll bug out for England, taking their... food source with them.” Ben always choked when discussing that. Of all the perverted and degenerative groups the Rebels had fought over the long years, the creepies were the most hated.

  “Commando-type raid?” Dan suggested. “From the sea?”

  “I thought of that and rejected it,” Ben said. “This area is strong creepie and Hunt territory. Intelligence states that coast watchers are all up and down this area. They’d pick up any type of seaborne assault long before you could get ashore. SEAL teams would be able to get in, but then they’d be stuck with no way to get the prisoners out.” He shook his head. “Too risky. Getting people in is no problem; getting them out with the prisoners is the rub.”

  He turned back to the map. “Rebet and West, your battalions will be in the northernmost counties. My battalion, along with Ike’s Two Battalion, will punch through to Dublin. Directly south of us will be Dan and Georgi, then Danjou and Tina, then Thermopolis and the Free Irish. Those north of Dublin will drive to the sea, neutralizing all sections, then cut south. Those south of Dublin will punch through to the sea, then cut north. Dublin County was just about a million population before the Great War. It’s not going to be a cakewalk. Our Scouts report that Jack and his people are dug in hard with heavily reenforced bunkers. A near hit is not going to take them out. It’s going to take a direct bump. He’s laid down minefields and cut out tank barricades. That’s fine. We’ll just lay back and pound his ass with artillery. His long-range artillery does not have the range nor the accuracy of ours. He has light mortars, we have heavy mortars. The heaviest mortars he has are the 60mm. Our 81’s outrange him by a good fifteen hundred meters. I don’t want a single Rebel sent in until an area has been pounded by artillery. Pat O’Shea and his Free Irish did a fantastic job of clearing the civilians out of that area. They didn’t get them all--no one expected them to. So we’ll have some collateral damage, 1 but that’s something we’ll have to live with. That about does it, gang. Any questions?”

  The room was silent. No one needed to ask a thing. They had all done this many times in the past.

  Ben smiled. “Let’s rock and roll.”

  Eight

  Ben’s heavy 203mm howitzers laid back some thirteen miles from the battle zone and began pounding Jack’s positions along the front. The huge projectiles were high explosives, some antipersonnel warheads carrying up to one hundred and ninety-five grenades. When they struck, it sounded to Jack Hunt’s mercenary soldiers like the end of the world, and for many of them it was.

  Closer to the front, 81mm mortars, with a range of over three miles using some rounds, laid down a seemingly never-ending barrage of death, using Willie Peter and HE. Artillery is the most demoralizing of all warfare – there is no rest from it. Those receiving the incoming are constantly battered. Even if one is not physically wounded by it, the mental state it leaves is devastating.

  And Ben kept it up day and night. He was relentless with the artillery assault. For a five-mile stretch, from the southernmost edge of Northern Ireland south to the sea, the ground never stopped trembling and shaking.

  Most of the men in Jack’s army were trained to some degree or another, and all had seen combat. But few had ever experienced anything like this. The sight of bunkers taking a direct hit and body parts flying in bloody chunks for hundreds of feet caused many to bolt in fear and panic. Some lost their minds. Others became so numb from battle fatigue they were rendered useless as fighting men.

  And still the mind-numbing barrage from the Rebels continued. Day and night. Never-ending. While Dublin had yet to receive even one Rebel round, it became a city that was rapidly filling with trembling, vacant-eyed men who had wandered in from the front lines, some of them reduced to weeping shells of their former selves.

  Jack tried to attack. His people ran into some of the most hideous ambushes they had ever experienced. Hunt’s men were learning — the lessons written in blood – that the Rebels played by no rulebook. They were the most vicious guerrilla fighters the world had ever known. They were trained and armed with most of the weapons the world’s armament people had cooked up, and they did not hesitate to use them.

  King took his men back across the Irish Sea to England, and Mack and Poole took their people on the next ship out. They tried to convince Jack and the others that they should do the same. But Jack was determined to fight until he was literally looking down the muzzles of the Rebels’ guns.

  “And that ain’t gonna be that long off,” the warlord Acey muttered. He wasn’t about to get caught on this damn island. When things started going really bad, he and his boys were gonna haul their asses out.

  Ben kept up the cold and unrelenting pressure on the troops of Jack Hunt. The first ships back from America brought hundreds of tons of rifle and machine-gun rounds and artillery shells. A day behind them were ships carrying food and medical supplies. Behind that convoy were ships carrying grain for planting, clothing, and ewes and rams to replace the herds the mercenaries had eaten and very nearly wiped out. Bulls and cows were shipped to the Emerald Isle, as well as lumber and nails and sacks of concrete and hammers and saws and very human technicians to help the citizens of the battered land more easily put their lives back together.

  Slowly the troops of Jack Hunt fell back. Rebet and West took their battalions to the seacoast town of Dundalk and then turned south just as the battalions of Ben and Ike were rolling into Kildare. Dan and Striganov pushed fifteen miles in and stopped at the town of Baltinglass, while just south of their position, Danjou and Tina set up outside of Bunclody. And to the south of them, Thermopolis advanced to about fifteen miles west of Wexford and halted.

  Several of Jack’s battalion commanders came to his CP and laid their feelings on the line. “Jack, we can’t hold out much longer. And as far as we’re concerned, it’s stupid to try. We’re holding on to just a tiny piece of this island and the Rebels are knocking on the door, Jack. And the door is splintering.”

  “This island was mine! 1 ran this island. I was a king here, and you men lived damned well.”

  “Yes, we did, Jack. And we can do the same over in England. But this time we can prepare for Raines’ invasion. That’ll be our kind of fighting over there, Jack. That’s what we all do best: house to house. We’ll have time to boobytrap and mine and get set. There is nothing left for us here, Jack. We’ve had it. All we’ll do here is be destroyed.”

  But Jack was not convinced. “God damn it, people, we can hold him outside Dublin. I know we can.”

  “Jack,” Frankie told him. “We can’t hold. Some of the men are already deserting. That ain’t thunder out there, Jack. That’s artillery, and Raines is damn near in striking distance of this city Hell, there’s six to eight thousand of them stinkin’ damn Believers here in the city. Let them see if they can get lucky with the Rebels. Jack, we were goin’ to leave anyway.”

  “Yes. But with honor.”

  “Honor! Jesus Christ, Jack! Honor? We’re a pack of thieves and murderers and rapists and God only knows what else. You want to stay here and have someone chisel the word ‘honor’ on your tombstone? Providin’, of course, that anyone can find the body and take the time to bury it. Which I doubt they will. Look yourself in the mirror, man. You haven’t shaved or taken a bath in two weeks. Two weeks, Jack. That’s how long Rain
es has been hammering us. We all stink. We’re scared and tired and a lot of the men have reached the breaking point. Now, you’ve still got a mighty army left. Probably twelve or thirteen battalions ...”

  “Twelve or thirteen?” Jack’s voice was numb with disbelief. “But I had nearly twice that.”

  “They’re dead, Jack!” Harris shouted. “Raines uncorked some high-tech shit and sent it in. Helicopter gunships that pop up out of nowhere and launch rockets and chain guns and Jesus Christ alone knows what else. Now listen to me, Jack. We’ll hold on these conditions: you get our armor and artillery on board those damn ships in the harbor and get it the hell out of here and over to England. You have ships ready to receive us on a moments notice when it’s time to bug out. Now that’s it, Jack. I’m tellin’ you what the men tell me. They’ve had it. They’ll follow you, man, but not to their deaths when it can be prevented.”

  General Jack Hunt sat behind his desk for a silent moment. His unshaven face was ashen, and there were bags under his eyes. He sighed and shook his head. “Vernon, get the ships ready to load what equipment we’re taking with us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jack looked at the battalion commanders in his office. “But tell me this, gentlemen: what happens if we can’t contain the Rebels in England? Do we retreat to France? And if he pursues us there, what then?”

  Frankie smiled. “I got that figured out, too, Jack. We’ll bug out all right, but we leave well ahead of Raines and he ain’t gonna have no idea where we are.”

  “Where will we be?”