ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (59 page)

Behind him the M&AWC had reacted automatically,
beginning the business of winning the fire fight.

The single aimed shots from the professionals, the
marines, proving far more effective than what appeared to be ‘point and blat’
by the opposition.

Richard Dewar used the light from the flare to quickly
examine himself, his weapon, and to also see what he could of his enemy.

There was no blood but there were several tears in his
arctic whites. The M4 had been wrecked by a round that had struck the body of
the weapon but had been deflected off the working parts and exited via the
butt. Just a length of decapitated buffer spring was left protruding from where
the telescopic butt assembly should have been.

He removed the full magazine and laid the weapon
aside, it was useless now, so Richard studied the opposition instead.

Five muzzle flashes were apparent from ahead of them,
which he assumed made the Chinese troops of section strength.

An entrenching tool stood upright, visible in the
muzzle flash of their squad’s automatic weapon which explained what the lone
soldier had been doing, supposedly on sentry whilst the rest of his section dug
in.

When Richard Dewar had gone down, Sergeant McCormack
had immediately taken over, directing the marine’s fire. They ganged up on the
enemy’s squad automatic weapon first before pairing up on the riflemen.

The parachute flare flickered, approaching burnout and
a second took its place, but the fading light was good enough to reveal the
smoky launch position for Sergeant McCormack to loft a 40mm grenade from his
M4s underslung launcher, mortally wounding the Chinese section commander.

Someone threw smoke and someone else unwisely broke
for the rear before the smoke had established itself as a temporary cover from
view. A flurry of rounds from the marines cut the man down.

Light filled the valley again, a hundred times
brighter than the tail flame of the ICBM, and when it faded in intensity it was
to take on the reds and gold’s normally associated with the beauty of sunsets,
reflecting off the side of the valley from its source on the other side of the
mountain.

The ground bucked violently, triggering rock falls and
avalanches.

Richard knew without looking what the cause was.
With night vision totally shot he shouted a
warning, telling his men to brace themselves, and then he gasped in shock and
not a little fear.

As if the door of a giant blast furnace had been
suddenly opened behind him the snow began to melt and the ice beneath it
started to thaw. Richard could hear the sounds of the opposing force bugging
out, slipping on the incredibly slick melting surface, crawling backwards, one
or two firing random shots into the smoke cover until they judged they were far
enough away to try to get up and try to run. Those who made it upright were
struck by flying rocky debris, and knocked flat by a blast wave that triggered
further rock falls.

Sound accompanied the shock wave, the most terrible
blast of noise Richard had ever heard. It fractured the soul in its awful
intensity, reducing brave men to trembling shades.

After the blast wave had swept over them and beyond
Richard lay for a long, long moments, his thermal clothing soaked in melt
water, listening to the clap of doom echoing off the mountain peaks.

“The peaks!” he though in alarm,
rolling on his side in a puddle of melt water to look.
 

“Get up!” he shouted to his men, all prone upon the
melting ice, some on their sides, curled into balls hugging their knees with
eyes wide with fear.

“Leave the bergens, leave everything but personal
weapons, ropes and climbing gear…move!”

Men stirred at his words but two did not, remaining in
foetal positions.

Sergeant McCormack rose up onto his knees and looked
to his left, up the rising valley towards the centre of the mountain range, at
mountains that no longer wore a cap of white.

“Get up and follow the boss if you want to live…get up
and
RUN
!” he shouted, reinforcing Major Dewar’s words.

Richard crawled forward to where Rory lay.

The reddish glow was diminishing as the fireball
dissipated but its light still reflected off Corporal Alladay’s left eye, the
bullet which killed him having entered the right. Richard removed the ID disks
from around the fallen man’s neck.

“Sorry Rory.”

Atop Rory’s Bergen was a coiled 60m rope, held in
place with webbing straps and secured with a quick release buckle. Richard took
it and also snatched up the M4 that lay beside the body. He stood carefully,
and then slipped and slithered as fast as possible towards the rock wall.

The only enemy he could see were laying still or
moving feebly.

The closer to the wall he got the more traction he
found beneath his feet, the rock dust and debris from above acting like grit on
an icy road.

Turning about he saw all of his men up and moving but
strung out, although Sergeant McCormack had taken up the tail-end-Charlie
position, assisting a limping marine and chivvying along the remainder in that
gruff and aggressive Glasgow accent of his.

At the wall of the narrow valley Richard slung the
weapon across his shoulders and began to climb rapidly, using the remaining
glow by which to see hand and footholds until he came to a rock shelf after
thirty metres or so. He just hoped it was high enough.

Lifting his smock to reach his hammer and pitons he
furiously drove two into the rock face, grunting with the effort of each blow
and quickly attaching himself to them by his harness, clipping a carabiner through
the eye of each before hammering a further piton into the rock. He attached one
end of Rory’s rope through the eye, tied it off and threaded the other end of
the rope through a chemical light sticks eye and knotted it. Snapping the light
stick, Richard activated it and dropping the rope into the returning darkness.
He had no schermoulies to hand;
it was
Sod’s Law of course, just when he could have used the light to provide
illumination for his men to climb by, there were two in the left side pocket of
his bullet perforated bergen, somewhere out there on the canyon floor and lost
to him now.

He braced himself and set the rope about his
shoulders, belayed on.

“Make for the light, use the rope as a guide…for fucks
sake
CLIMB!
”

The fireball was fading rapidly now, and the fullness
of night returned.

With a ‘whoosh’ a schermoulie climbed into the night,
trailing amber sparks behind it and lit with an audible pop. It had been
launched from above, from the top of this rock face.

Below him three of his men were climbing, two more had
reached its foot whilst Sergeant McCormack and the limping marine were thirty
metres away.

He could hear a rumbling from higher up the valley.
Two Chinese soldiers appeared in the light of
the para-illum, standing upright with weapons held loosely in their hands. They
were looking away from the marines; heads turned towards the noise behind them.
They suddenly discarded their weapons, tearing off webbing equipment and
scrambling across the ice towards the dangling rope.

The first of Richards men reached him, breathing
heavily and perspiring, he did not pause but instead he too pounded a piton
into the rock face and belayed himself on, dropping his own rope to assist his
mates.

Vibration joined the sound now, and Richard was shouting
louder in order to be heard, shouting encouragement, directing his men’s hands
and feet to holds that he could see but they could not.

Another schermoulie arose into the darkness,
illuminating the valley for several hundred yards until it bent around out of
sight and up sharply in the direction of the centre of the mountain range.

“Holy mother of God!” the marine next to Richard
uttered in horror.

To those men climbing, the sight spurred on tired
limbs to greater effort.

It was a truly terrifying view to behold, the melt
water of a glacier bursting around the bend, a great wave breaking upon the
rock wall with a thunderous boom, water dashing higher than their belay point.

A Chinese soldier slipped and fell on the melting ice
floor, looked behind at the approaching wave and froze. He may have screamed
but if he did so that cry was lost forever. In an instant he was gone, and a
moment later his companion too was engulfed.

“Climb, CLIMB!”

The wave reached them, spray showering over Richard as
the once parched and arid mountain valley of only a few weeks before, became
the host to a maelstrom.

It was two hours later that the surviving Royal
Marines of the Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre reached the top of the
valley, climbing in deathly silence, and not a little shock.
Four Green Berets left behind as guides by
Garfield Brooks solemnly shook hands with Major Dewar and three men, the
remaining marines having been swept away by the flash flood.

Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA

“This is General Shaw”. Henry had no noisy
interruptions now; a shocked silence had taken a hold.

“Thank you, stay on the line.” Still holding the
receiver to one ear he spoke calmly.

“Mr President we have a confirmed missile launch from the
remaining silo and we are tracking it on a roughly south easterly heading…” he
was relating in a steady voice the information arriving from satellites and
ground tracking stations that still functioned.

“…sir the weapon has ‘
mirved
’,
we now have nine re-entry vehicles in three groups on diverging courses…central
Pacific…western seaboard.”

The President felt a cold hand close over his heart.

“…Pearl…San Diego…the third group has a slightly
higher orbit…too high for the US.” Henry continued.

“Thank God for small mercies, but where are they
aiming for if not the United States?” asked the President.

The third target was in actual fact geographically the
closest target to the silo from which the ICBM had been launched, but much
further south and therefore its trajectory would require an orbit of the lower
half of the southern hemisphere in order to reach it. 

At the other end of the line the intended target had
just been deduced, along with the times before which the warheads re-entered
the atmosphere.

“Roughly two more minutes to Pearl, three to San
Diego… and seven minutes ten seconds to Sydney, Australia, Mr President…”
Henry had to force his voice to remain steady.

“Air defences are being alerted.” He continued. “….of
the three re-entry vehicles being tracked in each group, two are likely to be
decoys…there are two Patriot sites and three ballistic missile defence capable
Aegis warships on picket at both Pearl and San Diego…”

“And Sydney, Henry?” the President asked urgently.
“What does Sydney have?”

Henry did not look at the President, he couldn’t.

“Just Natalie’s ship.” said Henry Shaw quietly.
“Just the
Orange County.”

“Mr President!” called a navy captain.
“On speaker’s sir…the O.O.Ds of the USS
Chosin
,
Mobile Bay
and the
Nimitz
.”

“Mr President, Lieutenant Commander Fortnum, Chosin
is launching Standard 3 missiles as we speak…AN/SPY2 is tracking three targets
entering the atmosphere above the Hawaiian Islands.” 

“Lieutenant Commander Hastings here…
USS Mobile Bay’s
SPY2 has three targets approaching San Die…we have launched Mr President,
Bunker Hill
is also launching…we are continuing to launch...”

“This is Commander
Willis,
USS Nimitz
…the
USS
Orange County
is tracking a trio of
low orbit inbounds crossing above Christmas Island, Mr President…”

“All missiles expended by
Chosin, Lake Erie
and
Port Royal,
but the Patriot batteries at Hickam are still
launching…we have two…we have…we… we have three confirmed kills…we have three
…all three targets destroyed, Mr President…”

“Shore batteries firing Patriots…
Princeton
has
launched her last Standard 3…
Mobile
Bay
has expended all Standard 3
missiles…
Bunker Hill
has expended all missiles…”

“Mr President…
Orange County
has the three
low orbit inbounds over central Australia…”