Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  That evening, the first of the kommandos assembled to strike, as they had struck the ranchers and the mercenaries, and before them the Zulu and the Matabele.

  Did the men of Slachter’s Nek quail at the might of the murdering British? Did Jopie Fourie? Did the men who swore a Covenant to dedicate their victory to the glory of the Lord turn away from their God? God chose the Afrikaner Nation for a special destiny. This and each Geloftedag is a day upon which the heartstrings of the Afrikaner are tuned in harmony with the great Divine Plan of the Lord; and is there one, single underminer among you who is so dyed in sin as to deny God’s Divine Plan for His Chosen People?

  Yet on this Day of Remembrance, I look; I see doubt and fear, fear and irresolution in Afrikaner faces. I see faithless, irresolute Afrikaner hearts quailing at the might of a heathen oppressor! Do you have trust in the Lord? Do your irresolute hearts not know that the Lord is sovereign and intensely busy at every turning point in the affairs of His Chosen? That the suffering of the Volk is a testing of us and a sign of His Divine Favor? Remember! For after suffering comes deliverance!

  Did the Voortrekkers quail? Were their hearts faithless and irresolute? No, never for a minute! Inspired, selfless, ennobled by their cause, they struck forth into the wilderness like the people of Israel fleeing Pharaoh. They set forth to do the work of God protected by Divine Providence. God called them, God guided them, God raised them up and showed them the path even as He calls to us and guides us this day.

  But I speak to you this Day of Remembrance not of these things, but of shame! And sin! And sloth! For the People of the Lord have turned their eyes away from Him, they have bowed their necks before brazen idols, they have sold their children and their children’s children into the bondage of Egypt! They have lost their faith in The Lord and His righteousness, they have submitted meekly, cravenly. Must the Lord endure this from His People? I say to you, never! For we are a Volk which has been called to a high estate, which can only be maintained so long as our Volk understands and proves itself to be the bearer of its rightful culture-mission; I say to each of you, lift yourselves, come forth and raise up the hand of the Lord!

  Excerpted from a sermon delivered by the Reverend Louis Pretorius Snyman, Paulskerk, Johannesburg, in commemoration of the Day of the Covenant.

  ZENITH

  The pig cleaned up his webbing, and he shined his bayonet Some people started shooting, so he shot them with regret He couldn’t work an office, and he couldn’t be a clerk For pigs who like to whistle like to whistle while they work

  Monday(13)

  Proclamation From The Provisional Government Of The Republic Of Suid-Afrika Reborn To The Afrikaner Yolk

  In the Name of God and of the dead generations from which we receive our tradition of nationhood, through us, the spirit of our great nation summons us all to our flag to strike for our freedom.

  Having organized and trained our manhood through our Christian-national organizations, having patiently perfected our discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal that spirit, we now seize this moment, and relying from the first on the strength of our nation assembled, we strike in full confidence of victory.

  We declare the right of the Afrikaner Volk to the ownership of Suid-Afrika and the unfettered control of the Afrikaner destiny, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished that right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Afrikaner name and the Afrikaner Volk. In every generation, the Afrikaner Volk have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the worlds, we hereby proclaim the Suid-Afrikan Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of all our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

  The Republic of Suid-Afrika is entitled to and hereby claims the allegiance of every Afrikaner. Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the entire Afrikaner

  Volk and elected by the suffrages of all true Afrikaners, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for all the Volk.

  We place the cause of the Suid-Afrikan Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms. In this supreme hour, the Afrikaner Volk must, by its valor and discipline and its readiness to sacrifice for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

  Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government

  Three meters in, the first Afrikaner through the warning wire hit a locust in the blue darkness on what he supposed was a cleared path. As his foot left the mine, an explosive charge blew the body of the mine into the air where it exploded belt-high. Two more Johannesburgers behind him also died. A fourth was on his knees spitting up metal pellets when a shower of projectiles from the s-mortars arrived to pin the storming party for the attention of Mekhlis’s 105mms.

  Sanmartin was awakened by the rumbling from the mortar pits as the mortars returned fire. Pedestal mountings afforded the mortars a full traverse. Steel plates crafted on NovySibir with trapdoor openings cut into the surface gave them protection. Steel rang off the plates.

  Rudi Scheel added his personal signature by flinging something hard and heavy at the door. Scheel whistled heavily through his teeth when excited.

  “Outposts five and six are in. The sensors are ringing like chimes. I flipped the safeties on the mine field.”

  The primary mine field, command activated, was laid underneath the pebble mines the Boer sappers had spent blood to clear. Dead ground around the knoll that hadn’t been graded out of existence was mined and sensored beyond belief.

  Strapping on his webbing, Sanmartin spared a glance at Col-dewe’s empty mat. Coldewe was picketed in the Johannesburg staatsamp with Gavrilov and two sections out of No. 10. If the rest of C caught a cold, they would sneeze.

  He came into the passageway as the second of No. 10 emerged, Wanjau’s team leading. Wanjau was methodically stuffing cotton waste into his trousers with one hand. Isaac hated mortars. One had dropped a dugout on his head once. He smiled. “Colonel Lynch should protest.”

  Sanmartin made a smile. Even a bad joke was better than screaming out loud, which tended to unsettle people.

  The last of No. 11 was already gone, through trenches scooped beneath the steel and concrete of the sidewalks, to cover the perimeter solidly, the s-mortars returning fire undetectably in the darkness and drizzle. No. 11 boasted a dozen s-mortars, nine more than they were authorized. C Company had invested too much in concealing their scattered firing positions to betray them lightly. The civilian telephone was ringing.

  Mischa was sitting next to it, a portrait of innocence. Sanmartin picked up the receiver.

  “Is this the Van der Schlacht Funeral Emporium?”

  “What’s up, Hans?” Outside, rocket and recoilless rounds were slamming into the top and sides of the bunker. The sound of scraping metal was likely the phony radar dish going down.

  “We have problems.”

  “I’ll keep the matter under advisement.” Sanmartin handed the receiver to Mischa. “How many?”

  “Two wounded so far, not serious,” Mischa answered.

  Sanmartin nodded. He leaned back to listen to the chatter on the nets, section by section.

  THERE WAS A MINOR EXPLOSION ON ONE OF THE SIDE STREETS

  out of Coldewe’s field of vision. In the predawn, they’d spent an hour affixing directional mines in inconspicuous locations, and overhead, two Hummingbirds were reaping the fruits of their labors.

  The Boers who hadn’t seen fit to call it a day were aggressive enough. Coldewe and No. 10 had already been forced out of the Burgerstraat. Their position was somewhat delicate. The rocket launchers the militiamen kept tr
ying to set up in what was left of Majubalaan were becoming annoying. The problem for the Boers was still the staatsamp with its thick brick walls of Flemish Bond over a concrete base.

  A fortified position is a tactical expedient that allows a small force to pull on someone’s nose while his legs are being broken. The Boers would find this out very quick when Der Henker showed up selling crutches. The eager, young Afrikaners still hadn’t quite grasped that the first of No. 10 had spent a few hours with a few power saws turning the dark, decorative bricks into loopholes. Reinikka’s engineers had done the measurements and left a choice collection of graffiti. Although brick walls were hardly protection against the singleshot rockets the

  Boers were tossing away, behind the deceptive facade, Coldewe’s riflemen were cocooned in composite matting, snug and at least partially amused by the passages he was quoting from Beau Geste.

  As Coldewe watched through his slit, a young man in a brown coat jumped to his feet and spilled into the courtyard firing full auto from the hip. He actually got about four paces before the laws of statistics and probability caught up with him in the form of a light machine gun.

  HANNES VAN DER MERWE GRIPPED THE HEAVY MACHINE GUN

  under his fists, wilting in the rain. He waited, praying his nervousness would not be noticed as the Imperials’ knoll shuddered under the impact of rockets and shells. He himself had fired off three belts although he’d seen nothing to shoot.

  The maps were all wrong. A rumor had gone around that the Johannesburg kommando had been wiped out to a man, and that the other kommando leaders had politely told the Provisional Government’s supreme commander to sit on a nail.

  Kurt Voerward suddenly pitched backward and flopped, a sniper’s bullet in him. Hannes crouched lower, mumbling prayers, waiting for the tank.

  At least they had the tank. General Pienaar was somewhere else, but he’d given them that.

  FEELING USELESS, MUSLAR LAY FACEUP IN THE RAIN, NUMBED

  by the sound of battle. He had Beregov and the second of No. 9. Half of them were out on local security. The rest were asleep or playing tarok with waterproof cards, flashing finger signs. The stay-behind party was hollowed up twelve hundred meters southwest of the caserne and half a kilometer in the rear of the nearest Boers. Although their life expectancy was distressingly short if discovered prematurely, Platoon Sergeant Beregov, whose tarok was unscientific, was obviously far more concerned about being down four hundred yen.

  Berry’s job was to take his sixteen men and pitch into the back of the Boer horde at an opportune moment. Muslar’s was essentially to keep out of his way.

  The radio whined. “Sanmartin. Edmund, Berry, we’re having some problems. Execute G for Gifu. Acknowledge.”

  Looking disgusted, Beregov scooped up his cards and issued a few terse orders over the section radio net.

  They broke into four-man sections and began heading for the back side of the ridge eight-tenths of a kilometer away. Otherwise of negligible value, the north-northeastem extension of the sprawling, ill-defined ridge had military consequence. A pack of missile teams there would make the Hangman’s desired axis of advance untenable, at least until kind souls put flanking fire where it would do some good.

  Sanmartin needed them. He tuned out the No. 9 net, cursing the copters and the Hangman who were somewhere else and cursing the Boer who’d thought of armoring a road train. “Mi-scha, what’s the Hangman say?”

  “Forty minutes.”

  “Are the big boys upstairs ready yet?”

  “They’re still waiting for the weather to tail off a little more. They say conditions are not optimum.”

  “Chiba point three. Break. Sanmartin. Rudi, how about the road train?”

  “We’ll have to take the damn thing out. Now.”

  “Can we use the mortars?” Sanmartin asked. With dark eyes and matching rings under them, Kyriakos was manning the counterbattery radar topside, shoving the folding grid around with his hands, heedless of the fire. Sanmartin could see Mekh-lis wheezing, “Ulcers to your soul and trousers, Kyriakos, give me a fix!” The dummy mortar pits had been blasted out of existence.

  “No,” Scheel told him, “they got steel plate all over the thing, especially around the road wheels.”

  Without the Hangman to break things over, Sanmartin’s sections were outnumbered ten or twenty to one. The hastily armored road train creeping up the gentle grade cloaked by a curtain of fire was enough to break their backs.

  "All right, Rudi, let the 88s take it. ’ ’ The 88s had a distinctive dust signature thrown up by the venturi. They would be pitifully exposed. “Use the mortars and the grenadiers on everything. Yes, I know, don’t belabor the obvious. Give me about three minutes on this end to try something. Out.”

  He turned to his com specialist. “Mischa, we can’t wait. Ask the navy if they’ll try anyway. Firmly. Especially since it probably won’t work anyway. Put me through if they say no.”

  The Boers were using commercial 81mm mortar rounds with the old-style electronic fuses. Rytov had dissected a few shells they’d turned up searching here and there, and Rettaglia had correlated the batch number with fuse settings. If the ships could blanket the area where the Boer mortars were positioned with charged particles punched through the clouds, it would be very interesting if the Boers had more shells from the batch.

  “Exeter and Achilles say they’ll try. There’s somebody who calls himself Veldt-General Malherbe on the landline for you. ” Sanmartin wrinkled his eyebrows. “What does he want?” “Something about the manifold destiny of the Afrikaner nation and the effusion of useless blood.”

  “Put him on hold.”

  “I’ve got him on hold.”

  “Canned music?”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m going up.”

  As his face emerged in the tainted air, single explosions were followed by two double explosions that caused the building to tremble as Boer mortar shells on the far ridge blew themselves up and took others in sympathetic explosions. A storm of fire burst from the knoll to give the 88 gunners shelter, and a fourth explosion came, larger than the rest, as an 88mm round placed a fireball in the vitals of the Boer road train and lit its fuel. Almost at the same moment, he heard Beregov’s voice say, “Beregov. G for Gifu executed. No casualties. Beregov out.” Around them, the Boer fire slackened. C Company had paid for that mad minute, Sanmartin did not want to know how dearly. But the Hangman was coming, and the choppers. If the Boers didn’t run now, Cadillacs would eat their flak launchers and helicopters would whistle in. If C Company stayed on Suid-Afrika a hundred years, Sanmartin didn’t think they could duplicate the preparation and imagination that had gone into stacking this deck as ice-cold as they could make it.

  From her window, Bruwer looked out through a hole in the armored matting Kasha had put up. At the foot of the hill she could see the ruin of the road train. Framed against the sky on the ridge, the drab plastic skin on a burning truck was curling toward the sky in long strips.

  VERESHCHAGIN HAD HIS PERSONAL RADIO TUNED TO YOSHIDA,

  trying to make sense out of the situation and Yoshida. It was somewhat difficult to determine where hysteria began and left off. The Boer assault on the Pretoria facilities had fortunately developed as little more than a holding attack.

  With Sanmartin preoccupied, Shimazu was acting as IO, processing a trickle of useful information. The Boers had kept their secret admirably until the phone system lit up like the brothel district when the kommandos discovered they were not being called out for semilicit drill and began franticly phoning their wives.

  A price had been paid for that secrecy. Despite a veritable miracle of organization, of five assault groups only the one attacking the spaceport had formed up as intended. The turnout of the kommandos who were supposed to storm the Complex had been so poor that they had been diverted to reinforce the attack on Johannesburg, which Sanmartin had finally reported secure. Bloemfontein had been an even greater fiasco. Instead
of collecting in villages outside the city, the Boers had apparently been persuaded by Piotr’s incessant patrolling to form up further out and ride in over the farm paths. Ambushes and staccato gunfire from Wojcek’s helicopters darting in and out of the rain clouds dissuaded most of them. The shock of finding their assembly areas under mortar fire was enough for the few who ran the gauntlet. One kommando hadn’t even made it as far as where the helicopters were operating; a team from the second of No. 2 had set off three directional mines in succession over the stretch of ground the Bothadorp lads were crossing.

  Haerkoennen tapped Vereshchagin on the wrist. “Sir, Acting Major Dong, calling in to the battalion net. He’s ordering you to come to the line. He sounds very excited.”

  “Please tell the little catamite that I am busy, Timo. No, wait a moment. What does the little catamite want?” Vereshchagin replied.

  “Hold on, I’ll ask. . . . Sir, he says that headquarters is under attack. He demands two companies immediately.”

  “I presume that he means the spaceport is under assault. Matti?”

  “Is he crazy? Even if we had two companies to spare, we haven’t any transport for them, ’ ’ Haijalo replied. "I would also like to know where the Dutch boys scraped up enough men to hit the port hard considering what they’ve thrown at us.” “Dong is still on the line, sir. He insists that the order comes directly from Colonel Lynch,” Haerkoennen added.

  “That’s what I thought. When the little sodomite gets excited, he tends to forget details, including the fact that there’s a certain separation between him and Colonel Lynch, at least during duty hours,” Haijalo commented.

  “That was not very funny, Matti. Who over there has some sense?”

  “Fuwa seems cool enough.”

  “Timo, ask the little catamite to put Lieutenant Fuwa on. Then get me Raul.”

  “Sir, Dong is too busy screaming at me.”