Molotov Heights VI: Honor the Charge

2:00 PM
MOLOTOV HILL

Groggy stood in position, his still-smoking pistol in hand, looking at the two freshly-killed men below. “Poor Captain O’Brien,” he muttered as he holstered his gun. “Wonder who that was.”

Groggy turned back to his men, who were still engaged in a hot fire-fight with the enemy opposite them. Groggy rushed forward, gaining a second wind of energy. “Come on, lads!” he shouted. “Once more and this day will be won!”

“Come on, boys!” Lieutenant Aclea shouted. “Follow the-“

Aclea’s words were stopped short as a machine gun burst tore him in half. The American troops, who had been ready to make a charge, stood back and simply returned fire. But the Colonel didn’t realize this. With a small group of men – the survivors of Sergeant Beck’s squadron – he had already begun charging. One of Beck’s men was killed, and the Colonel found his entourage pinned down. He suddenly realized what was going on, and while Beck’s troops struggled to cover him, he turned incredulously towards his troops, still in place on the hill, firing.

“What the hell!” Groggy shouted at his men. “Are you DEAF!?! Have you all turned COWARDS!?! At this late a moment!?”

“We didn’t hear you, sir!” Captain Sigel shouted.

“We’re sorry, sir!” Sergeant Falk yelled across the way.

Groggy registered this, then turned back towards the Russian lines. “Well, you can hear me now!” he bellowed. “The best of you brings me the most Russian dead!”

At this, all of the 1st charged forward again, moving as one body, along with the Palacians, leaving a small detachment to man the machine guns and mortars and provide covering fire.

They surged down the valley, running at full speed, not giving their exhausted bodies time to realize just how tired they were.

“Cossack and Russian reel’d from the sabre stroke shatter’d and sunder’d,” Miles continued.

“Don’t push your luck, Miles!” Dan shouted as he ran past.

The Russians opened fire. Several men fell. Steven was among them; shot in the shoulder, he slipped while ascending Kurugen, and fell on his neck, shattering it. All but one of Beck’s squad was killed or wounded in the initial assault.

Propelled by desperate energy, adrenaline, and a desire to avenge their fallen colleagues, the 1st swept forward and tore into yet another line of hapless Russian troops. They reached and gave them the bayonet, the rifle stock, the cold steel. The fighting was hand-to-hand again, vicious, bloody, brutal, cruelly personal, the domain of animals squabbling over food and mates rather than human beings settling a dispute.

Corporal Dan battered away with his gun until the stock broke; then he fell, shot through the eye. Nirvana Naslund channeled his trouble-making in brutal knife work, and it took four separate shots to finally bring him down, his corpse still clutching his bloody knife. Animal lust for blood and vengeance drove Sergeant Falk and Elizabeth into the fray, shooting down Russian and Cuban soldiers and turning on them cruelly with gun buts, as if their blood could slake the agony the two students felt. Corporal Truelove now abandoned poetry for the bayonet, skewering Russians until his blade broke off in the chest of a particularly strong Sergeant. Even Angel, the stout-hearted, gentle, idealistic pacifist, was swept up in the bloodlust; as if possessed, she caved in the skulls and bodies of Russians with her rifle, screaming and shouting like a wild beast. The few professional soldiers present, including Sergeant Beck, managed to maintain their heads, coolly shooting and fighting without the passion and anger that drove their volunteer colleagues.

On the whole, however, the charge on Kurugen was the most pitiless fight of the long and bloody day, the final charge, and the few hapless Russians would have to take the now-completely unrestrained fury of Groggy’s troops. They took few prisoners in this attack, content to defy the laws of civilized war and behave like savage animals.

However, behind the nearest line of Russians, Groggy saw a pleasing sight. The 71st New York was now plunging their bayonets into the quivering flesh of the Russian machine gunners, and it was clear the day was won. A wave of euphoria spread up his body, distracting from the carnage around him. He watched, gun in hand, as his men tore into the Russians like a pack of hyenas, shooting and stabbing and beating and crushing their foes, and then saw as the Russian troops facing the rest of the brigade broke and scattered. The day was won; there was no longer any doubt.

Groggy suddenly stopped in his tracks. Even though some scattered fighting continued around him, he felt all the energy draining out of his body, replaced with a sudden sense of exhaustion. It was the contented exhaustion of a man victorious; but exhaustion it was. The remaining gunshots and explosions around him, the animal howls for blood and screams of dying and wounded men, all faded to the background. Groggy slipped again into the dream-like state he had felt earlier, a reverie that blocked out the outside world completely. He walked nonchalantly through the battlefield, ignoring all that went on around him, simply taking stock of his thoughts. He felt dizzy, about to collapse. But his men had won the day.

2:30 PM

By 2:30, the Battle of the Molotov Heights was over. Molotov Hill and Ft. Belkin were now in American hands, and word came that the Spanish fleet had been destroyed in an air-and-sea attack in Ciudad Verde harbor, spreading even more cheer amongst the exhausted troops. A small Cuban force was fighting a rearguard action at Guapo Hill a few miles south, and remarkably, General Ramsey was still assaulting the Russian left at Belkin, failing utterly to drive the Russians and Cubans from their “easy” positions while Groggy’s irregulars had put to rout a far-superior force with the bayonet. But otherwise, the Battle of Palacios had been won, and the Russian foothold in the New World ended. All that remained was to mop up the mess they left behind.

Corporal Truelove strolled through the command, in a post-battle daze. He looked at the torn, shattered and bloody bodies everywhere, American, Cuban, Palacian and Russian. It was a truly horrible sight, and from that moment on he had it in his mind to resign. The fact that he had taken part in the carnage only made him more disgusted; he was an animal conquered by primal instincts, and had little choice under such circumstances. He was a murderer, and no amount of praise could salve his shattered conscience.

Outside the bullet-riddled blockhouse, a platoon of Russian soldiers was being held at gun point. Major Atlas, in charge of the prisoner detail, came over and asked why they weren’t being transported to the blockhouse on Molotov.

“Russian troops, they murder Palacians,” a Palacian officer said in broken English.

Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck approached and engaged in the officer in a Spanish conversation. He then turned to Atlas, his face white.

“He says that they found the bodies of 150 Palacians, women, children and old men, bayoneted and mutilated in a ditch behind the hill,” Starbuck translated. “They say it’s their right to have revenge.”

“Well, then.” Atlas seemed completely indifferent at this prospect, and saw the angered faces of the Palacians struggling to contain themselves, the wounded and exhausted Russians tensely holding their hands high.

“Major, shouldn’t we do something?”

“Feed the Cubans,” Atlas said, completely indifferent towards the fact that he was being addressed by a superior officer. “Kill the Russians.” He then turned a blind eye and walked off as the eager Palacian troops poured a volley of rifle fire into their helpless prisoners. Starbuck was horrified, but did nothing to stop it.

Truelove watched this act numbly; what were a few more murders to him? He looked around him at his colleagues, all acting like dazed animals awaking from a deep sleep. Angel, her uniform covered in blood, her rifle dented and smashed, sat in the middle of the camp crying and shivering; Elizabeth, tears in her eyes over her dead boyfriend, came over to comfort her. Sergeant Falk stood impassively, giving a thousand-yard stare to no one in particular, clutching his rifle to his chest. Sergeant Beck and the two surviving squad members sat against the wall, conversing with troops from the 71st.

As if there weren’t enough vultures present already, he saw Eric Glenn entering the camp with his female entourage, coolly taking pictures of the post-battle chaos and carnage with a brand-new digital camera.

“Don’t you have any decency, you sick bastard?” Truelove called after him. Glenn simply kept walking and taking pictures, indifferent to the soldier’s cry.

Colonel Dundee walked through the camp, still in his daze. He was overwhelmed, not by the fact of the slaughter but by the sheer fact of the day’s events. He had survived one of the largest battles in American history, his wound not seeming to be fatal – it had stopped bleeding long ago – and he had been victorious. General Slurry might very well be pissed off at him for the initiative he took and the battle he initiated, but Slurry could go to hell for all Dundee cared. He had won, and that’s all that mattered for the moment.

As Dundee walked, he saw Colonel Ackatsis, his old nemesis. The two men coolly saluted one another, then walked on without further acknowledgment.
Dundee walked alone to the side. He sat down, watching as some American soldiers raised a tattered Stars and Stripes on a flagpole. There was still some popping of rifle and machine gun fire from elsewhere, rear-guard fighting and last-ditch pockets of resistance being overrun, but otherwise it was a peaceful, quiet, reflective scene.

Groggy suddenly broke down. Freed from the burden of command, if only for a moment, he lost all composure, crying over the difficulty, the bloodshed, his lost colleagues.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck.

“It’s alright, Groggy,” Starbuck said comfortingly. “Everything’s alright.”

Tears still in his eyes, Groggy could only shake his head. His men and officers began gathering around him, and he slowly became aware of their presence.

“The only thing I regret,” Groggy said through his tears, “is that I called you cowards. There are no cowards here, only the greatest soldiers in the history of the US Army.”

“In the history of the world!” a voice called. Groggy looked up and saw Captain Harriman pushing through the rabble, then reporting excitedly.

“I see you’re better, sir,” Anna said.

A sad smile crossed Groggy’s face, but then he turned to his men, faces ridden with exhaustion, fatigue, frustration and confusion. It had been a long day, a long two months, for all of them – how many friends and brothers and sisters and colleagues had perished on the island? And these boys and girls, whatever else may be said about them, were his.

“Mr. Glenn,” Groggy shouted, catching the attention of the photographer who was still photographing the scene. “Would you be so kind as to take a picture of all of us on this hill, as we will always live in its shadow."

Glenn seemed surprised by the request. “It would be my pleasure, sir,” Glenn uttered.

Truelove watched as the surviving members of the 1st – my God, there must be fewer than half left, he thought to himself – before finally finishing his recitation and putting the most fitting epitaph imaginable on the situation.

“When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made.
Honor the 1st Infantry,
Remember the 600.”

The camera flashed, but the crowd of soldiers did not disassemble. As if in a daze, they stood together, reluctant to leave one another’s side – this suited Glenn fine, as he was able to take several follow-up photographs.

“He who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother,” Truelove said again, then walked off into the blockhouse with tears in his eyes. He had nothing more to say or contribute to the situation.