marshy back there. The terrain would slow them up too much and there isn’t enough natural cover.”
Ben adjusted his headset and pressed the talk button. “Mortar crews, slack off firing. Just let them know we’re here. Chiefs, readjust every other tube to
the coordinates at the timber and brush lines east and west. Pronto.”
“Yes, sir,” came the immediate reply. “Readjusting.”
Removing the headset, Ben walked to the crest of the ridge, stopping behind old fallen trees and newer felled trees the Rebels had chain-sawed down and then covered with natural brush and other foliage. He lifted his binoculars and caught the rustle of leaves at the timberline a few hundred meters from the base of the hill. He turned to a machine gunner, sitting patiently behind a big .50. Another Rebel squatted beside the heavy man-killer, ready to assist-feed the belt into the weapon.
“Adjust down a few degrees, son,” Ben told the machine gunner. “I want the fire from this weapon directed left and right of that old lightning-blazed tree. See it? Good.” Ben patted him on the shoulder. “You three with .60’s-over here.” Ben pointed silently and those Rebels manning the lighter .60-caliber machine guns nodded and slipped into position.
“Let them think we’re not aware of their plans,” Ben said. “Let them get clear of any cover before opening fire. When you do commence firing, I don’t want any left alive. All right? Good. Hang in there, people.”
Ben walked across the wide tabletop of the hill, now cluttered with instruments of war and hastily dug bunkers, housing mortar teams and communications equipment. He studied the base of the hill and its westward lie of underbrush and stunted timber. The mortar teams were laying down a slow
but steady fire. Those men who had attempted the push from the front were retreating, leaving behind them their dead and wounded.
Ben studied the land below through his binoculars, James Riverson standing patiently by his side, the big senior sergeant towering over Ben’s own six-feet-plus height.
“There,” Ben muttered, catching a slight wave of tall grass, brittle-appearing now in late fall. He looked at Riverson. “You catch that, James?”
“Yes, sir. They’re amateurs.”
“Direct the operation from this flank, will you, James?”
“Yes, sir.” Riverson began calling softly for machine gunners and mortar crews to readjust degrees.
The men below the ridges were not amateurs, but they were not much better, certainly not professionals. All the men and women with Ben were trained to the cutting edge. They were as professional a group of soldiers as any left anywhere in the nuclear and germ-torn world. And they were far superior to most. Every man and woman in the Rebels was cross-trained in at least three specialties. A machine gunner might be a qualified medic and a demolition expert. A medic might be a sniper and a tank driver. That type of training was a holdover from Ben’s days in the U.s. Army’s elite Hell Hounds, a spin-off of the Ranger/special Forces units. The old Hell Hounds had been such an ultra-secret group that even among top ranking officers of the military, many did not know of their existence. Ben and his people waited motionless, deliberately
allowing the men on the ground below them to get into position. They waited until the flanking attack began, and still waited, waited until the men w clear of any near cover. Then the Rebels opened up with everything they had at their disposal.
The Rebels caught the troops of Tony Silver and the Ninth Order in the open. The screaming of the wounded and the dying on the slopes of the flanks filled the air as heavy machine gunfire literally sliced the foot soldiers to bloody rags and bare bone and steaming, ripped-open bellies. Mortars pounded the earth and grenade launchers lobbed their payloads into the smoky air.
The firefight lasted no more than two minutes. Two minutes that to those receiving the lead and shrapnel and feeling the pain seemed more like two years.
“Cease fire,” Ben spoke into his mic.
Just as the last echo was fading into memory, the radio operator called out. “General? I’ve got the fix on their radio frequency. You want to listen, sir?”
Ben held one headphone to his ear and listened, a smile playing across his lips.
“Pull back!” the voice shouted hysterically. “Goddamnit, pull back.”
“Give us some covering fire!”
“Shit! They ain’t shootin” no more.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I ain’t moving “til I git some coverin” fire.”
“Goddamnit, they’re creamin’ us. They’s too goddamn many of “em and they got better firepower than us.”
A firm voice overrode the frenzied, frightened voice.
“Platoon leaders-report.””
“First platoon here. And I’m it! I got no more men left. Every fuckin” one of them is dead. I’m gettin’ the hell outta here.”
“You men stand firm!” the hard voice of command nipped the order.
“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you! And fuck Ben Raines
.”
“Yeah,” another man’s voice took the air. “And fuck the horse he rode in on, too. I’m takin’ my boys and gittin’ the hell away from this death trap.”
“This is Tony Silver,” a calmer voice took over. “All my men fall back. We’ll regroup over at a town called McCormick. Move out now and gather at the trucks.”
“Ten-four, Tony,” a man said. “We’re pulling out how.”
“Silver! You have your orders from Sister Voleta. If you disobey them, I’ll-was
“Stick it up your ass, Wally,” Silver cut him off. “I’m not sayin’ we run away. Just usin’ common sense and orderin’ a regroupin’. Think about it, man. Look at them dead bodies down there. Hell, they didn’t even get close to Raines’ position. The goddamn creek is runnin’ red with blood. Everything is all fucked up at Base Camp; Willette’s people blew it, man. Use your head. We got no mortars, no artillery. No way we’ll ever get to Raines. He’ll sit up there on stinkin’ hill and kill us all, one at a time. And You can bet on this, too: Anytime he wants to leave, him and them people with him can punch a hole in lines bigger than a whore’s cunt. OK. So we lost a battle. One battle, man. That don’t mean we lost the whole war. Some famous dude said that, long time
back. There is always another time, man. Think about it.”
Silence for several heartbeats. “All right, Tony. You’re right. Sister Voleta will just have to accept the loss and draw up another plan. All troops around the hill withdraw and backtrack to McCormick. We’ll regroup and map out plans there.”
“What about the wounded, Wally?” another voice was added to the confusion.
“You wanna go out there after them?” the challenge was laid down.
No one picked it up. The airwaves remained silent.
“That’s what I thought,” Wally spoke.
The wounded lay beneath the guns of those on the hill. They lay screaming as life ebbed from them, staining the ground under their broken and bodies.
“Fuck Ben Raines,” someone finally spoke. “And fuck them people with him. Jesus. Them people fight like crazy folks.”
“Pull out,” Wally said.
Ben laid the earphones on top of the radio. He winked at the radio operator and she smiled at him. Ben said, “It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue.”
“That’s pretty, General,” she replied, the admiral don she felt for the man shining in her eyes. “Did you just make that up?”
Ben laughed. “No, dear. A man by the name of Douglas MacArthur said that, a long time ago.”
“Oh. What was he, sir, a poet or something?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“How far are we from the South Carolina border?” Sam Hartline asked his driver.
was “Bout three hours, sir. We’ve really been pushing lit.”
