ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold (23 page)

CHAPTER 24

‘Jim!’  Ali called me over.

‘Whit?’

‘Look.’  The men who had got away came rushing back over the hill as if the devil himself was snapping at their heels.

‘Will I open fire?’  Gigs asked.

‘Don’t know.  Fit d’ye thinks happened Ali?’

‘If I ken Frankie, he’s caught them, given them a good skull fucking, then sent them packing we a slap on the back,’ he grinned.

‘Ye think so?’

‘Positive.’

‘OK, you ken him better than I do, hold your fire Gigs.’

‘OK hold your fire,’ he passed down the line.

Our mortar opened up on the OP.  Grizz and Nommy were being very careful, making adjustments for every shot.  I reorganised our defences moving the .30 to the apex so it could cover both sides.  Then I ripped a wooden crate to bits and we experimented with it.  We jammed a length between two sand bags and while I fired on the far side of the bridge, Buff shoved it under the barrel to support it.  ‘I think that’s it.’

‘OK.’

I closed my eyes and dropped the butt, then raised it again until it touched the plank of wood and fired.  ‘That’s on I, it works, traverse it.’  I slid the barrel along until it hit the corner of the crate.

‘Cease fire.’  I stopped firing.  ‘Wait a second.’  He moved to the other side of me and moved one of the sand bags a bit.  ‘Try that’   I fired again.  ‘On.’

I opened my eyes and rolled aside.  He tried it with his eyes closed to, ‘that’s on Buff.’  We did the same for the near side of the bridge.

‘Crude I, but it works,’ was Buff’s assessment of our efforts.

‘Right, let’s see if we can flush some of the bastards out before their ready and start laying smoke again.  Are ye ready,’ I shouted.  Fists were raised in reply.  ‘Nommy, swing fire and hit the streets behind the waterfront.’

‘OK Jim, give us five to brush out this barrel again and stack some shells.’

‘OK, if anyone requires a cigarette gentlemen, I’d grab one now.’  We’d finished our cigarettes by the time Nommy called out.  ‘Whenever you’re ready Nommy, stand by, stand by.’  I settled in behind the gun.

The streets were packed with men ready to cross the bridge.  The mortar found the range quickly and marched up and down the length of them, hitting houses and throwing burning debris, bricks, slates and whole walls into the streets to add to the carnage.  The attacking force scattered up side streets and alleys to escape.  Others fled down to the waterfront where they were mown down.

Danken had barely finished giving his full report to the general, he omitted nothing, not even the most embarrassing moments.

‘Thank you for your honesty corporal, it has been most helpful.’  He turned to his aid.  ‘I want this man promoted to sergeant immediately.’ 

‘Yes sir.’

‘Thank you sergeant, you may leave.’

Danken snapped to attention and fired off a salute.  ‘Thank you sir.’

The general waited until he left before gathering his commanders round the map.  He was shaking his head.  ‘Mad men, eight down here and twenty more up here, each unit well armed with plenty ammunition.  If we attack uphill, we are exposed to fire from the eight down here including a mortar, which until now they have used with devastating effect.  The sergeant took thirty men up and lost over two thirds of them before he reached the crest here.  Thirty men well spread out and each one a veteran.  If he had not surrendered, they would have been wiped out.

As it was they made a mistake and let them go, providing us with valuable intelligence.  The situation gentlemen, The European peacekeeping forces opposing us consisted of one under strength platoon.  We managed to knock out their entire command structure and communication capabilities.  Apart from a request for a medical evacuation sent in clear, there has been no farther communications with their HQ.  We have also been informed that there has been no significant increase in radio traffic between their HQ and other units or their brigade.  It would seem that they are still unaware of our intentions and an attack is still viable.

That is a situation that cannot exist for much longer, sooner or later they will try and replace the officer and NCOs we killed.  We must attack now if we are to maintain the element of surprise.  It seems that knocking out their command structure was a big mistake.  Until then, they had acted like frightened rabbits and stayed in their holes under the lightest bombardment, all except this section here, which was out of direct sight from their command post.

It was these men who, undercover from our own bombardment, came down from their cliff top positions and occupied the government position at the bottom.  A position, which had already surrendered, leaving their weapons and ammunitions on site.  Our rabbits have turned into wolves.  They seem to have no structured plan or aims other than to fight.  However, fight they can as I am sure you are all aware by now.  They have us boxed in; to take the positions on the hill could prove costly.  We must remove the eight men on our flank first, while we keep the rest pinned down out of sight with mortars and artillery.  Once they are dealt with, we will go straight up the hill, swing wide and round the position.  There is a man in the OP, but we will keep up the barrage.  You should be able to sneak past him.

When the barrage stops take him out and fan out along the back of the ridge and attack the positions from the rear, but don’t waste time, if they put up too much of a fight, pin them down with machine gun fire and make your way to the pass, reorganise here, we’ll drop the bombardment and-.’

The door burst open and a radio operator rushed in.  ‘Sir, this just came in, it’s important, urgent.’

The General paled as he read the signal.  ‘Send this, all artillery and mortar units to open fire immediately.’

‘Yes sir.’  He dashed off.

He turned back to his commanders.  ‘It seems our wolves-are getting restless; they’ve opened fire on our assembled troops.  Get back to your commands as fast as you can.  Take them across that bridge and attack.  Remember gentlemen, there are only eight of them and over a thousand of you, good luck.’

His aid remained behind.  The general slowly lowered himself onto his seat.  ‘Are you alright Sir?’  His aid asked.

The general shook his head.  ‘What kind of men are these colonel?  They are mere privates, yet I feel they have been one step ahead of us all the way.’

‘We have their measure now sir, even with sophisticated viewing devices to see through the smoke they cannot hold out against a concentrated attack of over a thousand men.’

‘Yes, yes of course your right colonel or should be, but we have never before faced troops of this calibre.  I pray to god they have nothing else up their sleeves.’

The commanders found their troops scattered amidst the burning streets and set to rounding them up.  Some seeing smoke falling round the old government position had already run the gauntlet of steel that lashed the bridge and taken cover in relative safety on the far side.  The result was complete confusion.  One commander was killed and another mortally wounded as they tried to cross the bridge.  A falling mortar bomb vaporized another as he searched the burning streets for his men.  Some found their units decimated, while others found them whole and unscathed but before they could organise properly a couple of things entered the equation.

CHAPTER 25

Buff howled. 

‘Whit?’  I shouted.

‘I burnt my fucking hand.’  I couldn’t stop myself grinning.  We’d found a Jerry can of water and once we had drunk our fill, I’d laid it flat and cut a big hole in it.  Buff had been throwing the white-hot barrels into it and the last one had brought the water to boiling point.

Our position was being pounded by mortar & artillery, high explosives and smoke.  I was half expecting to see a kitchen sink falling from the sky.  A near miss ripped my aiming sticks away.  I let the butt drop.  ‘That’s that then.’  We could see jack shit.  Anyway, I was glad of the rest.  Sweat ran down my face and into my eyes.  Between that, the cordite fumes and the smoke they were stinging like buggery and my shoulder was numb from the constant pounding.

‘So what now?’  He asked sucking on his burnt fingers.

‘Don’t know, I thought we’d be dead by now.’  I unloaded the gun.

‘Fit d’ye think you’re doing?’

‘Giving it one last oil before it’s too late.’

‘Why bother, we can see sod all.  They’ll be on our lap before you can pull the trigger.’  That set off an idea.  He recognised the look.  ‘Oh fit nooh?’

‘Here, get this thing ready, I’ll be back in a minute.’  I handed him the oil tin and crawled my way through the barrage to the mortar pit.  ‘Ceasefire, how many rounds have ye got left?’

‘No many, about twenty or thirty.’  Nommy informed me.

‘Leave them just now then, have ye any smoke.’

Grizz pointed to two piles separated from the rest, they were stacked ten high like the rest but only five across.  ‘One of that lot probably.’

We had a look at them, but the Cyrillic writing gave no clue to their purpose.  Both were different colours to each other and the dark green of the high explosive shell; which we’d recognised immediately.

‘We could fire one straight up on full charge.  If it’s Para-illume we should see it, if it’s smoke, we won’t,’ Nommy suggested.

I saw the sense in that, ‘Aye OK let’s go for it.’

They removed one from its holder, pulled the pin and dropped it down the tube.  It seemed to take forever but a bright glow lit up the smoke from above.  ‘Para-illume, the three of us concluded together.’  Looking up at that glow, I had a very bad thought.  ‘Nommy.’

‘Aye.’

‘D’ye think you can find the town again?’

‘Easy, there’s a thing on the side of the tube, it’s a bit of an idiots guide to aiming but it’s got numbers on it and we’ve been recording them.’

‘What do you think would happen if we fire the Para-illume straight into the town?’

Nommy and Grizz passed a look and it wasn’t a nice one.  ‘That Para-illume is white phosphorus Jim, it’s bad shit.’

‘Aye, I ken, but come dark we’ll probably already be dead, they’ll be no use to us then.’

Grizz nodded.  ‘Good point Jim and if we light enough fires it might slow down their reinforcements, Nommy.’

‘Aye OK Grizz we’ll dee it.’

‘Thanks guys and mix them up wee a bit of HE, help spread it about a bit.’

Nommy nodded.  ‘Aright Jim, anything else?’

‘Aye, I need a smoke screen, we canna see an inch in front of our faces out there.  Why should they have all the advantage?’

‘Pit down our own smoke screen.’ 

‘Aye.’

They both thought I was mad but listened as I told them what I wanted.

‘OK Jim, leave it to us.’  Nommy grimaced.

Buff was lying behind the gun straining to see.  ‘I’m going to check on the rest of them.’

He nodded, ‘OK be careful.’

‘Always.’ 
 

I picked up a rifle on my way round and stuffed my jacket full of magazines.  I found Gigs and told him what I was going to do.

‘You’re mad,’ was his assessment of my plan.

‘Maybe, tell the rest of them what I’m going to do, but not Buff, he’ll just try and follow me.’

‘OK.’

I grabbed a bag of grenades and a reel of wire.  There might be a big treaty on the banning of mines but there’s fuck all about booby traps.  I left at Gig’s position and made my way out to where their smoke screen began to thin.  There was about thirty meters of clear ground then ours started.  They had done well.  I could see fuck all.

I kept going until I could hear voices.  I expected to find a line of troops advancing on us, but found instead small and large groups of men quickly becoming disoriented.  NCOs moved round bawling orders while officers seemed to be moving around countermanding them.  I began to lay booby traps around the groups.

I walked into an officer, his mouth opened to shout, but I was faster hooking him under the chin with my AK, his head went back with a click and he fell flat on his back stunned.  I instinctively went for my bayonet and fell on him.  Pressing the butt of it against my chest and using my whole body weight to impale him through the heart.  I held him tight during his death throes and face-to-face I watched the light leave his eyes.  A jet of urine spurted down my leg in protest at the fear that gripped me at that moment.

I got up shakily and moved on but somewhere within that dense cloud of smoke I pushed through the final hurdle, my mind worked with a clarity and purpose I had never known before.  I started lobbing grenades into tightly packed groups of men causing mayhem, driving them into booby traps.  I even managed to get a few groups to fire at one another.  I kept the potty boiling by firing a few rounds here and there, then moving off.

I reached the bridge and almost ran into a hundred well-organised troops crossing in good formation taking advantage of the fact we were no longer firing on it.  I ran back out of sight and threw grenades as quickly as I could, then moved on, the screams of the wounded ringing in my ears.

The wind began to pick up a bit and there was no more smoke falling.  It began to thin rapidly.  Time to go.

I ran as fast as I could, making it safely into their smoke screen.  I found our positions easily by the artillery fire that poured down on it.  About a hundred meters out, I used the last of my grenades to lay a ring of booby traps around us. 

I finally crawled back in through Gig’s position he was waiting for me. 

He was grinning, ‘I was beginning to get worried there.’

‘I would stay worried; there’s hundreds of the fuckers out there.  Their nae organized though.’  I gave him a brief account of what I’d seen, then moved onto the next man giving him a briefing, then the next.  I was relieved to find them all still alive.  I crawled back to the mortar pit.  ‘Is everything fired off Grizz?’ 

‘No we’ve about fifteen HE left.’

‘OK fire them on the same elevation as you did the smoke, then grab your rifles, and join us on the perimeter.’

‘OK.’

‘By the way you did a brilliant job out there.’  I gave them the same briefing as the rest and crawled back to Buff.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’  He snapped.  I quickly explained.  ‘Ye stupid cunt you could have been caught.

‘I damn near was.’

‘What happened?’  I pulled the bloody bayonet from its sheath and showed it to him.  ‘Jesus Christ.’  His complexion paled a little under the dirt.  I washed it in the hot water we were using to cool the barrels.  ‘Och dinna.’

‘Dinna fit?’

‘Och it disná matter.’

I realised he was objecting to me cleaning the bayonet in water he was going to have to put his hands in.  ‘Och- sorry mucker.’

He shook his head.  ‘Forget it.’  So I gave the sheath a swill as well.

I took over the gun again while he nicked my rifle.  We checked our ammunition.  There were still piles of it for this thing.  The ironic thing was we probably wouldn’t have much of a chance to use it.  The high explosives stopped and only smoke rained down on our position.

‘Won’t be long now Buff.’

‘D’ye think we’ve given them enough time?’

‘Oh, fuck aye.’

‘Aye if the manny D’Ord listens to Andy and Buggs.’

I was nodding my head, ‘he’ll listen, he’s a good manny.’

We lapsed into a short silence.  ‘D’ye think they’ll ship our bodies back to Scotland Jim?’

‘I dinna ken.  Suppose it’ll depend on whit happens later.’

‘It would be nice though wouldn’t it?’

I agreed, ‘aye it would.’

We lapsed into another short silence.

‘Whit wiz it like?’

My whole body tensed for a minute, then relaxed.  What did it matter?  ‘It wiz horrible.’  He was looking at me expectantly.  I took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh.  ‘He came at me out of the smoke, instead of going for his rifle; he tried to shout for Help.  I belted him we my rifle butt, decking him, took out my bayonet and fell on him wí it.’  I shifted uncomfortably.  ‘He should have been out for the count but he wizná.  I… had to put my hand over his mouth to stop him screaming.  I… could feel the bones in his jaw grate under my hand.  They were smashed.  He died looking right in to my eyes.  Like I said, it was horrible.  There was hardly any blood though.  On the blade aye, bit there was nae spurting like ye see on films.  I suppose his heart must have stopped straight away.’

‘You poor bastard.'

I didn’t see the point in pointing out it was the other man who was dead as we’d probably be joining him soon enough, but talking about it had eased my burden a little.

‘They say it’s instinctive.’  He ventured.

‘Ye react instinctively aye, but ye can still think and feel.’

‘Wiz ye feart like?’

‘Feart, I fucking pissed myself.’

‘Ye didna?’

‘Fucking did.’  He began to laugh.  ‘It wasn’t funny OK.’  That made him laugh all the harder.  ‘Look I didna pish, pish ma-self OK, it wiz mair ó a kind a dribble, a wee spurt.’

He seemed to find that even funnier, but he was shaking his head.  ‘That’s no whit I’m laughing at,’ he gasped for air, ‘I did the same thing earlier on.’

‘Ye didna.’

‘Aye, I did.’

‘An ye said fuck all.’

‘I wiz to fear too.’  I somehow felt myself laughing too.

Abie sat beside Gigs ready to feed the .30 calibre.  He craned his head round.  ‘Fit are that pair laughing at?’

Gigs glanced round.  ‘Fuck knows.’

Inexplicably Abie found he relaxed a little.  If Jim and Buff could still laugh, maybe there was a little time left.

‘Whit are ye thinking about Abie?’

He shrugged.  ‘I don’t know.’

‘This isna the time to be shy man, speak your mind.’

Abie found himself grinning.  ‘Aye your right.' it’s just that I keep wanting to ask you what you would do if we got home.’

‘Noo, that’s a sair ane.’

Abie’s head dropped, ‘I’m sorry.  I just canna help thinking.’

Gigs shook his head, ‘dinna apologise.  I know exactly what you mean.’

‘De ye?’

‘Aye.  I can’t stop thinking about it either.  Fit would you have done?’

‘Nay sure, I trialled for Aberdeen juniors few years back, bit I didna really pit my heart in to it.’

‘Did ye?  Ye never told us that.’

‘Didna want to bum off, the coach had seen me play before and kent I wizná really trying.  He told me I could come back and try again if I wanted to.  I’d like to try that now if I could, that and heaps of other things ye ken.’

Gigs smiled, ‘aye, it’s a paradox in it, yesterday I was quite happy to go along the way I was, writing wee ditty’s to amuse the boys.  Now I’d like to try and get some of my poems printed.  Maybe try my hand at a novel or two, leave something behind.’

Abie took a deep breath, ‘Aye, are ye feart?’

‘Shitting myself.’  They burst out laughing.

Ali and Fritz had just held a very similar conversation.  ‘What the fucks keeping them?’

Fritz shook his head.  ‘Dunno.’

‘Hey, d’ye hear that?’

‘Whit?’

‘Shh! listen.’

Fritz cocked his head.  ‘Aye like a hissing noise.’

‘Aye, hey look the smoke’s going.  The winds picked up.’

‘It disná feel like wind, it’s funny.’

Para-illume is designed to be fired on full charge, high into the air.  When it reaches a pre-designated height the casing separates deploying a parachute and the phosphorous beneath ignites on contact with the air giving off a bright fluorescent white light designed to illuminate a large area.  The Para-illume fired at Bertrovich never reached its pre-designated height instead it smashed open on impact spraying its deadly cargo through the streets of the town.

Everything it touched burst immediately into flame.  They had done their calculations well.  Every bomb fell between the square and the riverfront.  Without anything to stop it the flames caught quickly and began to join together building up a tremendous heat.  As the hot air rose, it began to suck in the cooler air from the flood plains below.  As the fresh air hit the oxygen, hungry flames fanned them.  Buildings began to spontaneously ignite and the faster the air was sucked in the hotter they burned.  Those close to it said it started with a hiss slowly rising to a shriek as the flames screamed for air.  There is a name for this phenomenon, firestorm.