“I feel fine. That mini-mansion over there bothers me. You people go on eating. Buddy, come with me, son. Let’s check that place out.”
Jersey rose and followed him, as did the rest of his team, munching on crackers as they walked. They all knew that Ben liked to lone-wolf it into mischief, and there was no way they were going to let him go it alone.
The home had once been a grand place, that was evident from half a block away. But what had bothered Ben were the dark drapes still hanging in place over not just a few of the windows, but all of them, top and bottom floors.
“What’s up, General?” Jersey asked, walking between Ben and his son.
“That house there. It bothers me.”
Jersey stared at the grand old home for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. It looks... spooky.”
“Or creepie,” Ben replied. “Spread out. Buddy, you take the back of the house in case we flush something. Wave a couple of your Rats over here to join you. Find the outside basement exit. I’m going in the front. Easy does it, now.” “We’re going in the front,” Jersey said.
Ben smiled. “Right you are, Jersey.” He climbed the broad steps to the concrete-and-brick porch, his team to the left and right of him. Ben walked to the door and started to close his hand around the knob. Slowly he pulled his hand back.
“What’s the matter, General?” Corrie asked.
“Order all troops back a full block from this house, Corrie. Tell them to move right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Buddy!” Ben yelled.
“Here, sir.”
“Back off. Get your people out of this area right now.”
“Yes, sir. We’re gone.”
“Let’s get out of here, gang,” Ben said. “Like right now. Move.”
With every Rebel at least one full block away from the silent yet strangely ominous old house, Ben called a Rebel with a rocket launcher over to him. “Put one right through the front door, soldier.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the rocket impacted with the front door, the blast that followed completely demolished houses on all sides of the small mansion, and virtually destroyed others within two hundred yards of the blast site. Flames leaped out of all sides of the home that was no more and started small fires all around the site. Debris rained down like shrapnel for hundreds of feet. The shock wave staggered Rebels who were standing a full block away and put some of the smaller and lighter ones on the ground.
“Jesus Christ!” Cooper said, looking around for his helmet, which had been knocked off by the blast. He found it and plopped it back on his head. “There must have been five thousand pounds of explosives in that house.”
“At least,” Ben said, digging a finger into first one ear and then the other. Everyone’s hearing was temporarily impaired from the enormous explosion.
Ben looked around him. “Anybody hurt from falling debris?” he yelled.
A half dozen people had taken pretty fair licks on the head because they had not been wearing helmets. One had been knocked cold and would require some stitching.
“Put your goddamn helmets on your heads and don’t take them off until your squad leader tells you to,” Ben yelled. “Pass the word.”
Pat O’Shea roared up in a pickup and hopped out. “Good Lord, General, what happened?”
“Booby trap, Pat. It’s all part of it.”
Ike and Dan were in the area right behind Pat. “We got to talk about this, Ben,” Ike said. “We’d better lay down some ground rules.”
Ben shook his head. “That’s what they want us to do, Ike. They want us to become ultra-careful, to slow us down so they can dig in deeper and be harder to root out. From now on, fire a rifle-grenade into each home before troops enter. It won’t destroy the dwelling – in most cases – but it’ll damn sure set off any traps the creeps might have in place. We’ve never encountered any sophistication in their booby-trapping and I see no reason to suspect any now. Corrie, pass the word about entering buildings and tell CO’s to provide plenty of grenades for everyone with a launcher.”
Ben looked around at all the destruction caused by the enormous explosion. He shook his head and put out of his mind what might have happened had he not played his hunches. “Let’s get back to work, people.” He took a deep breath and yelled, “And God damn it, put your helmets on! ”
Ten
The Rebels encountered no more booby traps to equal the one Ben had discovered, but they did find several much smaller ones planted in old homes in the suburbs of Dublin. They were very unsophisticated ones and all went off when the grenades blew, with no loss of Rebel life.
Ben had ordered gunboats to be on constant patrol just outside Dublin Harbor in case any creepies tried to flee in that direction. Then Ben ordered the noose to be tightened from all sides.
Rebels found a large pocket of creepies at Dublin Airport and called in that news to Ben. “Let’s go see what we have,” Ben said, adding, “I have never understood the creepies’ fascination with airports. It never fails but what we find a large concentration of them there.”
Ben stood on the edge of the battle zone and inspected the airport through binoculars. He turned to his daughter, Tina, whose battalion had discovered the creepies. Little by little, Ben was giving his son and daughter the temporary reins of command. “How would you handle it, Tina?”
“We can knock the buildings down with artillery and keep the runways intact,” she said. “I think we can take it without losing a single Rebel life.”
Ben smiled at her. “Exactly what I would do.”
She returned the smile. “Yes. I know.”
“Take it.”
The Night People wanted the Rebels to come in after them so they could inflict heavy casualties on them during close-in fighting. They knew they were going to be destroyed and wanted to kill a lot of Rebels. But the creepies never quite figured out the Rebels’ style of fighting, and again, they were disappointed.
“Snipers with .50’s up,” Tina told her radio operator. “Get artillery in place and stand by for my orders.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said.
Ben sat down in a folding camp chair, rolled a cigarette, and accepted a cup of coffee. “Beats the hell out of being down there smelling those stinking creeps and having lead whistling all around you,” Ben remarked. “Let it bang, kid.”
Tina laughed at her father. “Right on, Pop!”
Ben sighed at the decades-old expression that was enjoying a revival among his troops.
“Tell artillery to fire when ready,” Tina ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The terminal buildings began erupting in flame and shattered rubble as the 105’s and 60- and 81mm mortars began howling and snarling, dropping in their deadly mail. Snipers firing the long-range. 50 caliber rifles methodically and without emotion shot down the creepies as they tried to escape the devastating artillery rounds.
Ben sat in the shade provided by the bulk of a main battle tank and sipped his coffee and watched his people work. Totally professional, he thought; I’m watching the finest fighting force in the world.
“Bor-ing,” Cooper remarked, stretched out on the grass, taking in the sun.
“It’ll damn sure pick up when we enter the city, Coop,” Ben told him. “Enjoy this while you can.”
“General,” Beth said, during a lull in the artillery barrage. “Are we wrong to be so ... well, nonchalant about this? I mean, it’s like we don’t think any more of this than the folks back at Base Camp One, going to work in the hospital or the factories or the offices.”
“Does the sight of abused and wounded and sick children still bother you, Beth?” Ben asked.
“Sure!”
“Do starving and hurt and crippled animals bother you, Jersey?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve bawled a lot of times at the sight. And I will again.”
“Corrie, can you feel compassion for the good and decent people these ou
tlaws and scum have abused and raped and tortured and enslaved?”
“Yes, sir. Everytime I witness it.”
“Coop, do you feel outrage at the sight of wanton and senseless vandalism of priceless works of art and the enslavement of human beings?”
“I damn sure do, sir.”
“Then you’ve all answered Beth’s question, and you’ve all spoken for every Rebel in this army. Because that shit down there,” he pointed to the bodies of creepies sprawled in death on the tarmac, “and all the other outlaw, trash, and scum we’ve scooped into mass graves over the years, if they had responded truthfully, would have answered no to every question I just asked. There is no reason for any of us to feel one iota of guilt or remorse about what we’re doing. We’re just doing a very distasteful job that needs to be done.”
A man everyone assumed to be from the Free Irish Army had come up and had listened to Ben. He was dressed in military green, wore regulation boots that were bloused, and was quite definitely Irish. “You’re quite the philosopher, General. You’re an odd combination of things. Warrior, tactician, philosopher, and as cold as any English banker’s heart when you have to be.”
Ben waited until after another hard barrage of artillery had passed over. “Well,” he said with a smile, “I used to be a pretty good writer, I think. But as far as those other things you mentioned ... I never wanted to be any of them.”
No one noticed as Ben slipped an over/under 410 derringer from behind his web belt.
“But you felt the call, seen your duty, and done it, ain’t that right, General?” The man stepped closer.
“Cease fire,” Tina ordered. “Mop-up teams in.”
“That’s certainly one way of putting it,” Ben replied.
“Freshen up your coffee, General?” Cooper said, getting to his feet.
Ben gave him the cup. “Thanks, Coop. That’d be fine.”
“Jersey?” Coop asked.
“No,” she said shortly, never taking her eyes off the stranger with the strange smile. “Get out of the way, Coop.”
“What’s your problem?” Cooper muttered, heading for the ever-ready coffeepot in the mess tent.
Corrie was busy at her radio, Linda had gone off to help with any wounded that might straggle in to the MASH tent of Tina’s battalion, and Beth was writing in her journal.
“You ready, Jersey?” Ben asked.
“Anytime, General,” the petite bodyguard replied.
The stranger suddenly lifted a pistol and Ben and Jersey fired at the same time. The 410 round completely wiped off the man’s face and Jersey’s M-16 punched holes in his chest. The stranger was dead before he hit the grass.
The area was suddenly swarming with Rebels at a run.
“Are you all right, Dad?” Tina asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Ben said, reloading the derringer. “Somebody fan the body for I.D.”
“Nothing, sir,” a Rebel said, after fanning the body. “Just this pistol. He’s not dirty or smelly, so he couldn’t be a creepie. I wonder who he is – was?”
Ben had a pretty good idea that the man was from one side or the other up in Northern Ireland. They didn’t want Ben to bring his Rebels up there and put an end to their by now intensely personal war. They needn’t have worried about it. Ben had no intention of getting involved in that mess.
“I don’t know,” Ben said, keeping his opinions to himself. For if the Rebels felt that a factor in the northern part of the country was putting death sentences out on their general, Ben would be hard pressed to contain his people, who would immediately want to set off on a mission to wipe out the whole lot of them.
“Bury with the creepies, sir?” Ben was asked.
Ben shook his head. Most of the Rebels gathered around looked strangely at Ben when he said softly, “No. Not with them. He deserves better than that. He’s an Irishman. And I’ve a strong feeling he was not a collaborator. He was just fighting for a lost cause, that’s all.” Be looked all around him. “Bury him over there, on that rise. Close to that fence with the wild roses.” Ben pointed. “Where he can feel the morning sun and maybe smell the sea every now and then.”
As Ben and his team were pulling out about an hour later, Ben could see Sgt. Dempsey standing over the mound of earth, a harmonica to his mouth. Ben couldn’t hear the tune, but he’d bet it was “Danny Boy.”
The airport runways were functioning the next day and planes could now land, mostly old transport planes bringing in material from the docks at Galway.
The suburbs had been cleared of creepies and the few among Hunt’s army who had been left behind in the hurried bugout, and a few Irish collaborators. Many of those who collaborated killed themselves rather than fall into the hands of the Free Irish.
Inside the silent city of Dublin, the creepies were dug in tight, as ready as they could be for the Rebel invasion. Flyovers showed that most of the bridges within the city had been destroyed by the creeps.
“The battalions who clean out this area,” Ben said, pointing to a map, “are going to have to work slow and careful. All the bridges over the River Liffey and the Grand Canal have been destroyed. This spot will be the hottest, so I’ll take my battalion and one other in, supported by light tanks.”
“You get your butt cut off in there and you’re in trouble, Ben,” Ike pointed out.
“Yes. So here’s the way it’ll go. My One Battalion and Dan’s Three Battalion will take the area between Liffey and the Grand Canal. Thermopolis and his Eight Battalion will be behind us to prevent any creepie swing around to box us. Ike’s Two Battalion, West’s Four Battalion, and Danjou’s Seven will work the area north of the River Liffey, and Striganov’s Five, Rebet’s Six, and Tina’s Nine Battalion will take everything south of the Grand Canal. We’ll link up at the Irish Sea. We’ll call this Operation Clean Sweep. Any questions?”
The battalion commanders knew better than to attempt to dissuade Ben from taking the hot area, so none tried. He was going to go where the action was until the day he died and that was that.
Ben looked at Thermopolis, Emil Hite standing by his side in the big room of Ben’s temporary CP. Emil, the little con artist who had worked most known scams both before and after the Great War, had proven to be a fine soldier. But on this campaign he had been unusually silent.
“Is he sick?” Ben asked Therm, pointing his finger at Emil.
“A psychiatrist would probably say yes,” the hippie-turned-warrior replied.
“I feel fine, General,” Emil said, drawing himself up to stand as tall as he could. The top of his head came to just about the center of Ben’s chest. When he wasn’t wearing cowboy boots and a turban. “This has been a very sobering experience for me. My mother’s people came from this fair and green isle. Just being here has brought out the Irish in me. The misty breeze and the rolling hills, the scent of wild roses and the smell of freshly-turned earth have moved me so deeply I sometimes weep for joy at returning to the place of my ancestry. Why, just the other morning I removed my boots and socks and ran light-hearted and lithe through the dewy grass ...”
“Emil ...” Ben said wearly, now sorry he’d brought up the subject.
“... A hundred Irish melodies filled my heart as an invisible choir, a children’s choir, sang so pure and sweetly I could not contain my tears of joy . . .”
“Emil ...” Ben was getting a headache.
Georgi Striganov had covered his ears with his hands. Ike was grinning at the expression on Ben’s face. Lamar Chase was looking for a way out of the room.
“... I felt as if I had finally come home.” Emil was really getting into it now. “This ancient land where Vikings and Celts and Normans had trod was a part of me ...”
“Jesus, Emil!” Ben said.
“... No, He never got this far, but I’m sure He blessed this emerald isle. I threw all my cares and woes to the gentle breeze as I ran like a carefree and happy child. I ...”
“Emil!” Ben roared.
“What, my General
?”
“How’d you get that bruise on your face?”
“While I was racing willy-nilly through the dew, I stepped in a pile of sheep shit and busted my ass and knocked myself goofy for a time. When I regained my senses, a flock of sheep had gathered around, looking at me. Have you ever looked deeply into a sheep’s eyes, General?”
Ben was laughing so hard he had to sit down. “No, Emil,” he finally managed to say. “I’ve been spared that pleasure.”
“They’re lovely. I shall never eat mutton again.”
Ben wiped his eyes and said, “Everybody firm on what to do?”
Everybody was.
“Watch my back, Therm,” Ben said.
“You may advance with not a worry nor a care about sneak attacks from behind, General,” Emil said. “The fighting Eighth will cover you like a protective blanket on a cool night.”
“Thank you, Emil,” Ben said, trying to keep a straight face. “You just erased any worries I might have had.”
“We shall fight in the hedgerows and in the streets. We shall fight until our enemies are vanquished from this land!” Emil shouted. “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor fog, nor gloom of night shall deter us from our duties ...”
“Oh, God,” Striganov said, looking around frantically. “He’s going off his bean again.”
“Come on, Emil,” Thermopolis urged.
“Don’t stop me now, baby!” Emil said. “I’m beginning to cook.”
“That’s what concerns me.”
“No evil power on this earth can stop the Rebels when we get going!” Emil yelled.
Jersey had picked up a two-by-four and was moving menacingly toward Emil. Ben grabbed her by the back of her web belt just as she was preparing to conk Emil on the noggin.
Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet, so it probably wouldn’t have done him much damage had she busted him one. But Ben preferred to keep his troops healthy.
“Easy, Jersey,” he cautioned her, and held on firmly.
Beerbelly picked Thermopolis up like a sack of feed, tossed him over one shoulder, and carried him outside.
“Just think,” Ben said, breaking the numb silence that always followed one of Emil’s outbursts. “And I thought he was sick!”
Terror in the Ashes Page 9
