' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (54 page)

Operation Vespers

metres between the bridges and shouting to the vehicle commanders to speed up. The Legionnaires began a slow jog as ‘their’ Blues and Royals crews acquiesced. Moments later the British Paratroopers began to draw ahead. It was as well that both units were superbly fit as the men ignored the incoming small arms fire bouncing off the protective Scimitars and were soon sprinting behind them, urging the vehicles to even greater speed. 
The distance between the foot of the ramps and the defensive block houses at the two bridges was at a variance and the fast moving troop on the eastern bridge were therefore warned just in time that automatic weapons were not the only weaponry the blockhouses had. The troop commander’s vehicle on the western bridge was engulfed in fire as flame throwers sent streams of burning fuel a hundred metres.The crew of the stricken vehicle bailed out only to have the streams of flame played over them. In mortal agony they leapt from the bridge, falling to their deaths in the water far below.

The remaining Blues and Royals Scimitars of those lead troops braked hard and pounded the structures with armour piercing fire, first one and then the other. A hand appeared from a gun port, waving a piece of white cloth but it went unseen or ignored, the 30mm cannons continued until satisfied that all resistance was ended. The Rarden cannons were then levelled at the second pair of blockhouses further along each bridge.

Snowy and his brigade commanders watched the paratroopers on both bridges leave the cover of the vehicles and employ fire and maneouvre to hunt down the snipers and Chinese infantry.

The remainder of the Anglo/French airborne brigade flooded across the bridges and began digging in on the far side.

“Too close to call.” he said. “But those guys are going to be arguing for the next hundred years about who reached the far bank first.”

The burning Scimitar began to blow itself apart as the flames reached the ammunition but
thanks to the Blues and Royals the bridges had been taken in less than fifteen minutes.

In Toledo the marines of 3
rd
Expeditionary Force were ashore and moving inland, the point section of an armoured reconnaissance platoon had forged ahead to reach the foot of the mountain road and encountered Chinese heavy armour in well concealed and sited positions.

As a garrison guarding against, and combating, guerrilla forces, the 86
th
Mechanised Brigade of the Chinese 6
th
Army were mediocre, but engaging in conventional warfare against regular forces they were back in their comfort zone and very good indeed. The US Marine Corps had come to Cebu looking for a fight and it had found one.

An air battle ensued north of Cebu between land based fighters from Chinese bases on Luzon and the CAP from USS
John C Stennis
; consequently a Sea Stallion off USS
Boxer
took the lengthy roundabout route from Toledo to Mactan skimming the waves of the Tañon Strait. As it rounded the southern tip it spotted tanks and IFVs being ferried across the strait from Negros. An AV-8B sank the ferry and its sisters at the Sibulan ferry dock but an unknown number of reinforcements were heading up the coast road. Garfield Brooks small group of Green Berets and resistance fighters had ambushed one armoured column at a choke point along the road, in the narrow streets of Carcar, and were already calling for help in light of the resulting street fighting. He had acquired some members of 3 Para from a shot down British C-130 and their professional help was a bonus, but Garfield’s force was seriously outnumbered.

The marines were fully engaged and that left Major General Hills with the decision to either send some of his already depleted force or advi
se Garfield to return to the mountains and preserve what he still had.

The Sea Stallion landed and unloaded thirty two bound and hooded prisoners, the survivors of the submarine
Zheng
, plucked from the waters of Tañon Strait after their vessel had been forced to the surface by depth charges and then sunk by gunfire. Not all the crew had made it out before it made its final dive; her captain was not among them.

At lunchtime the first artillery rounds began to land on Mactan, targeting two buildings at first, pounding first one and then the other.

In the newly set up field hospital in the basement beneath the old airport Departure Lounge the lights went out and darkness fell before the field generators kicked over noisily and gave the surgeons light to see again. Ten minutes later the water stopped running as the desalinization and pumping plant were destroyed.

The first organised attacks came an hour later after the artillery switched to the 2 REP positions in the grounds of the University of Cebu, next to the bridge. Mortar fire joined in and did not lift until the Chinese infantry, supported by tanks, were themselves taking casualties. ‘The REP’ admired the training, courage and discipline of these troops but they killed them all the same.

After a pause it was the turn of 3 Para, and the results were the same.

The city garrison fell back and reorganised. The costly reconnaissance in force o
n both units positions now gave the Chinese a clearer picture of what they faced. Reinforcements from other islands began to arrival in the early evening and the shelling began of both positions before the bridges.

Politburo, War Bunker 21, Nanking Province.

Marshal Chang, Defence Minister Pong were the only two remaining in the chamber after Chairman Chan ordered the rest to depart.

The Chairman had been trying to cut down but he was now chain smoking.

“Why have the Americans led us to believe that troops from Europe were coming through the Suez Canal?”

“To make us reinforce Singapore?”

Marshal Chang wondered if the West was also cursed with politicians, the holders of dumbed down degrees, who somehow felt they were some kind of ruling elite by right of birth?

Minister Pong’s answer was studiously ignored by the Chairman.

“A distraction,
or a deception plan of some kind, Mr Chairman.” Marshal Chang replied.

“You know this for a fact Marshal?” the Chairman asked. “I don’t, and I am not afraid to admit that I don’t know that Europe’s veteran armies are coming via Suez, or if they ever left Calais for that matter?”

The Chairman glared at them before going on.

“We are losing submarines in the north Indian Ocean to those curry eating bastards next door, and all because you, the experts, did not recognise the signs.” His fist hit the surface of the desk. “Where are the European armies?”

“I don’t know, Mr Chairman”

“Does anyone?”

Day 2: Operation
Vespers
Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma.

It was the final
Choir Practice
, the last time the entire
Choir
would be gathered together and dealing with
Church
business.

“
So when will they be able to see us?” asked Terry Jones. “Can they see
Evensong
for the hoax that it was, in a week’s time or a month?”

“
Church
is no longer of any use to us but they cannot see our ships either, not yet anyway.” Sally Peters assured him. “They have one great big nightmare ahead of them debugging their system before they see anything that they can trust.”

“Excuse me for one moment while I remind you all of three things.” Terry said. “Never assume an opponent is
less
smart than you are, never assume an opponent is
not
smarter than you are, and of course never assume he will tackle a problem from the same direction that you would.”

“It is inconceivable that they can have debugged
the system in a day.” Sally protested. “No matter how smart they are.”

“Is our system secure, Sally?” the President asked.

“Yes sir.” She replied emphatically.

“Then they
would need to get their intelligence from someone else as a stop gap measure.” Terry stated. “It is what I would do.”

“I don’t think that they have any friends left, and we would know pretty damn quickly if anyone started moving their stuff into orbit above the region.”

“What about Russia?”

“They don’t have enough left to risk losing more and as agreed they are informing us of any changes in orbit.”

“Nothing coming south, no geocentric RORSATs to tip the Chinese as to where our ships are?”

“No Mr President, just their Kondor-138, a photo recon bird, and they tell us it is going to be repositioned and shifted down to low orbit to watch the Spratly Islands.”

“Seems reasonable, so let us move on.”

The Indian and Pakistani navies had been having some success in
locating and sinking Chinese submarines waiting in ambush for the convoys carrying the European armies to emerge from the Suez Canal.

“
If they have not worked it out yet, they will soon, but we won’t know when that is, not anymore.” Joseph said with regret. “They will be poring over these satellite images of Ms O’Connor’s.”

“The days of
‘Church’
were numbered once we elected to use it for
Evensong
, but it served its purpose well. Their 3
rd
Army was already having a lean time of it in Australia with our own submarines putting on the squeeze to its supply line, and now we put a hitch knot in it.” The general said. “
Matins
can proceed as planned, as it is too late for them to intercept the convoys now. The best they can do is to collect their 2 Corps, which was defending Singapore from our digitised phantom convoy borne army, and either reinforces Cebu or their 1
st
Corps in Australia”

“
Vespers
is looking desperate though, particularly on Mactan. The attacks of last night were reportedly pretty much Korean War era human waves, for God’s sake” The President was looking at the casualty lists. “Those boys are surrounded by a sea full of mines on three sides and the Chinese on the other.
“Don’t worry about the paratroopers; they are in airborne hog heaven, Mr President.” Carmine stated. “If they weren't surrounded they’d have nothing to brag about and blame the other services for, between this war and the next.”

Day 4: Operation
Vespers
(Airborne element)

1119hrs.

Several attacks during the night had managed to get quite close to 3 Para’s positions, right up to the thickly strung coils of concertina wire, all
of which had come from the Chinese own defence stores that had been earmarked for Australia. The M18 Claymore mines that had been placed in front of the wire were supplemented by Chinese Type 66 mines from the PLA 3
rd
Army’s supplies, and these differed from the M18 only in the idiots guide on the back being in Chinese script.

The night attacks had been determined affairs which had exhausted the emplaced Claymores and their copies but the attacks kept on until dawn, when the snipers took control of movement in the British and French lines. There had been no opportunity to replace the Claymores so work parties were already been warned for the task after last light, this coming evening.

The Chinese dead were starting to smell rather ripe very rapidly in the hot sun, which was another unpleasant facet of fighting here, as opposed to their last battlefield, Germany.

The sun was already high in the sky, and that sky was a deep cloudless blue, just as it had been for the previous three days. The destruction of the desalinisation plant was now the cause of the men’s greatest discomfort and water was rationed to a half pint a day. If the 3
rd
Marines did not arrive today though, the ration would be reduced to a quarter of a  pint.