‘Pull back twenty metres,’ Mallet ordered. ‘Fire for effect.’
Smoke veiled the clearing. More bombs fell on the area close to the rebels, churning up the soil. The ground was starting to look like something out of the Western Front. Metal shredded a trio of rebels on the left of the line, taking them out of the fight. The others held their nerve and ran on towards the breach. Determined not to lose the momentum of their advance, in spite of the death raining down on them from above.
These guys are different to the Machete Boys.
They’re motivated. Trained.
Bowman emptied a couple of bursts at the figures gaining ground towards the stronghold, clipping one rebel as he weaved past an exploding mortar. The defenders kept up their furious rate of fire but the rebels were spread out more thinly than the Machete Boys, reducing the effectiveness of the Gimpy bursts, forcing Bowman and Loader to drop individual targets instead of multiple opponents.
A hideous scream cut through the air as another mortar shell tore into the enemy ranks, ripping four rebels to pieces. Their comrades didn’t stop. They ran on through the explosions and the gunfire, like soldiers charging across no man’s land a hundred years ago. The rebels were now less than forty metres from the destroyed section of the perimeter fence. Mallet got on the team radio again, shouting to make himself heard above the deafening crump of the mortar shells.
‘Pull back, Alex! Twenty metres! Fire for effect!’
As the rebels drew nearer two men in camouflaged ghillie suits promptly stood up from the grass. They quickly moved forward, joining the rest of the attackers. So that’s how the rebels managed to plant the charges, Bowman realised. The men in the ghillie suits would have inched across the clearing to the detonation points while the defenders had been busy watching the trees. With their camouflaged outfits, they would have easily blended in with the surrounding greenery. Once the rebels had placed the charges, they would have retreated to a safe point outside the danger zone, then waited for the signal to detonate.
We’re dealing with pros here.
In the next instant, the rebels poured through the fence line and separated into three loose assault groups spaced twenty metres apart. The groups on the left and right of the line swiftly disappeared from view as they dropped into a shallow depression. Mallet was shouting into his mic, telling Casey to pull the range back to the four-hundred-metre mark. More shells smashed into the area where the fence had once stood, hurling wads of incinerated soil and torn bodies into the air.
Then Bowman saw the middle assault team moving forward. Dozens of muzzle flashes suddenly lit up across the depressions as the two flanking groups opened fire at the rooftop.
‘Stay the fuck down!’ Mallet hollered.
Bullets zipped narrowly overhead, spattering into the wall behind Bowman, gouging out chunks of masonry. Through a slender gap in the parapet he saw the rebels in the middle assault team go static at a baseline four metres ahead of the depression. Tongues of flame licked out of their weapon muzzles as they started putting down suppressive fire on the rooftop. The assault group on the right flank advanced four metres, drew level with the middle team, then half disappeared into the ground cover. The front two assault groups took over the fire-support role, aiming at the parapet while the third team ran forward and hit the same baseline as their comrades.
The rebels are pepper-potting, Bowman realised. Fire-and-move tactics. They were advancing incrementally, one group moving forward while the two others covered them with sustained fire. The most efficient way of moving across exposed ground. Two of the teams could engage their opponents at all times, forcing them to keep their heads down while their muckers rushed ahead to establish a new baseline.
‘This isn’t a rebel force,’ Loader shouted. ‘It’s a fucking army. These guys are trained soldiers.’
Webb yelled at Bowman, drawing his attention to the group of rebels to the left. Bowman shifted round on his belly, shoved the Gimpy barrel through a small aperture in the parapet. He aimed at the assault team as they ran forward, hit them with a couple of short bursts moments before they disappeared behind a dip in the ground.
‘Go right, go right! Rebels moving!’ Webb shouted.
Bowman slid round to a new firing position. The team on the opposite flank was now breaking forward. He put in three more bursts, saw the tracers punching into the rebel ranks, reached the end of the belt.
‘Changing mag!’
He yanked the bolt back, flipped open the top cover and cleared the freed tray. Then he grabbed a fresh belt from the stack, replaced the cover, stared down the sights. Webb bellowed at him to go left. Bowman saw the middle fire team emerge from cover and opened up on them, killing two more rebels before they went static again.
The guys on the rooftop were communicating with one another constantly. Giving orders, making sure that every member of the team knew exactly what they were doing. Webb and Mallet were shouting out enemy movements to the two guys on the Gimpys, directing them on to target and taking out key individual figures. Anyone rallying the troops or whose body language suggested they might be a senior officer. The quickest way to win the battle, Bowman knew. Take out the commanding officers.
Mavinda’s voice sounded in his earpiece.
‘Enemy attacking from the west flank,’ he said. ‘Machete Boys. Forty of them.’
Bowman glanced across his shoulder. Through the gaps in the western parapet, he caught sight of the line of Boys swarming forward, firing on the gun pits on the west side of the garden. The ragtag leftovers of the
