The gallant charge of the 1st Volunteer Infantry up the Molotov Heights has been told, with all the horror, excitement, glory and bloodshed inheren. But the decidedly inglorious conclusion remains to be told.
General Slurry's response to the battle was entirely reactive, showing no intiative, common sense or appreciate. He was so angry with Groggy Dundee and his other commanders that he ordered their arrests, even as the charge reached its bloody apex. The fact is that Slurry was an incompetent, with no ability to manage or dictates, baled out of his situation with the gall and sand of his subordinates and more than a little bit of luck. It took him until the end of the day to even realize that General Jenkins had been killed, though the circumstances were decidedly fuzzy.
General Ramsey's regular division had spent over eight hours battering away at the small Russain position at Belkin. They finally overran the position at around 4 PM, long after the Molotov Heights had been cleared of Russian and Cuban troops, with a loss of nearly 1,100 men - more than all the regiments assaulting Molotov Heights combined.
Other than a handful of rearguard actions, the seizure of Molotov Heights affectively ended the campaign. The small garrison in Green City, now under the command of a young Captain Malkin, was surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by Slurry's forces. The Russian fleet and air defenses guarding Green City were destroyed, the last Russian defenses in the interior overrun by Palacian insurgents, and though he was ordered by Moscow to fight to the last man, Malkin was smart enough to realize that so much as drawing a bead on an American soldier would result in just that. After two days of shelling and another day of negotiation, Malkin surrendered the city on May 10th, bringing the Palacian Campaign to its anti-climactic conclusion.
* * *
MAY 11TH, 2009
10:00 AM
In grudging recognition of their liberation of the city, Groggy's regiment, battered and shaken by their fighting, uniforms tattered, equipment a shambles, some of the men racked by disease and wounds, all suffering fatigue, were the first Americans to enter Green City. Lieutenant Emma, promoted to Colonel by direct orders of Secretary Gates (one suspects with arm-pulling), proudly joined Generals Diaz and Cortez in leading; they received cheers from the happily-liberated Palacian populace. But they must have exerted all their energy on cheering their countrymen, for they received Groggy's men coldly and mostly quietly, watching but not showing any emotion. It was more like a funeral march, in the words of Eric Glenn, than a triumph.
"Hardly a rousing triumph," Groggy remarked curtly to Captain Harriman, eyeing the weary Palacians who came out to greet them. Harriman said nothing.
The Americans marched to city square and faced off against the Russian garrison, standing at attention. Only about 80 men were present; perhaps this was the whole garrison, Groggy mused. They were starched and pressed tan dress uniforms, much the envy of Groggy's men and women, still sweltering in their tattered combat uniforms. Emma and most of her Palacians were present; the men were even more weary, and straining at the bit to massacre their oppressors. But needs must for diplomacy; Emma would accept the city's surrender.
An impossibly young officer - Captain Evgraf Malkin, just twenty-six - appeared in full dress uniform, saluted Emma, and hauled down the Russian flag to a somber playing of the national anthem. He then presented the flag to Emma, who handed it to General Cortez. One of Cortez's aides marched forward with a patchwork Palacian flag - a dark green background with three white stars in the foreground. All those present saluted the flag, and then Emma accepted the surrender of Malkin's garrison.
Through all this, Groggy's men were merely onlookers. After the grim ceremony was over, they were to help clear out the remaining Russian troops from their barracks and occupy them. They would run up an American flag over the barracks, but with no fanfare - they were here in a supporting capacity only, to be quiet (as if such a thing were possible) and allow Palacian liberty to run its course. Groggy's men felt slighted; despite doing the lion's share of the fighting, they were receiving no glory, no recognition, no cheers of triumph and happiness and appreciation. They were auxillaries to a doomed cause.
Groggy felt that these celebrations were a mere gesture, that Palacios would only be nominally independent, and that American business interests would inevitably swoop in, dictating to the new country their terms for rubber, sugar and banana purchases at the point of bayonets - his, no doubt. Groggy wanted to no part of an imperial war - at least, not if he was the one on the imperialist side. He didn't have the temprament to be a liberator, but he didn't have the stomach to oppress either.
* * *
News of the American triumph on Palacios, of the surrender of Russia's last New World bastion, flashed around the world instantly. Russia had been humiliated and stymied by America, and the world waited with baited breath a response.
Obama's gesture had been successful; it not only embarrassed the Russians, but cowed them completely. Amazingly, against all predictions, the Russians stood down, their only move in Eastern Europe an invasion of helpless little Moldova on May 7th - a futile eleventh-hour gesture that only won them scorn. Putin and company had been defeated, humiliated, emasculated, and immediately sued for peace - but the presence of their large armies on the borders of Eastern Europe indicated that they would settle for only the most favorable terms.
Regardless of this, Groggy's men. They remained on the island for weeks, as the new provisional Palacian government was set-up and power transferred. Groggy, however, wanted no part of it - and he knew his weary men didn't either.
* * *
MAY 20TH, 2009
3:00 PM
XXII CORPS HEADQUATERS, GREEN CITY
Wearing a hastily-organized dress uniform, Colonel Dundee walked with Captain Harriman to meet with General Slurry. He was dreading the conference, still expecting a reprimand - or worse - for his actions on Molotov Heights. Slurry was not a man to let insubordination go lightly, whatever the results.
Slurry met Groggy in his field uniform, sweating like a pig. He hastily gulped down water, then moved onto something stronger, while Groggy stood impatiently, waiting for the General to notice him.
"Congratulations, Colonel Dundee," he said finally, putting his bottle to the ground and gasping. "You've managed to blatantly disobey orders and get away with it. And not only that, but become a hero to boot! They're talking of you for promotion to Brigadier General, position on the Army Chiefs of Staff - even a Congressional Medal of Honor!"
Groggy was stunned, but he was too tired and weary for his narcissistic side to take much notice - for the moment. Once he recovered himself, he might appreciate this more fully.
"Your regiment is being disbanded," Slurry said tersely. Groggy was quite happy to hear this; he had no stomach for occupation duty, and he knew his men didn't want to remain on Palacios for the summer heat and swarming mosquitoes. "Starting the first of June, your men are to be sent back to America and mustered out of the Army." He then pulled out a handkerchief and coughed heavily. "You're a lucky bastard all around," he continued. "Some of us have actual work to do, you know," he chided, wiping his sweating brow and neck with his handkerchief, then taking another long swig of bourbon.
Groggy said nothing. He merely stood at attention, trying to take in what he'd been told. This would be good news for all of them, he thought. No occupation, no disease, no heat. And home, as soon as practical. Thank God for that.
* * *
Captain Harriman was waiting outside, trying in vain to read a Spanish Cosmopolitan, when her Colonel emerged. She immediately sprung to attention, still jovial even in the face of her commander's exhausted decrepitude.
"We're going home, Captain," the Colonel said quietly.
"That's great news, sir!" Anna replied cheerily. Groggy, however, kept his head down and said nothing more. They hastily exited the headquarters and climbed into the jeep, driving back to the regimental barracks.
He knew this knews. The last nine days had been hard on everyone. Groggy's men were confined to barracks, not allowed to celebrate their victory by boozing or whoring or hitting the town - some misguided moralist leading to even more tension and lower morale amongst the troops. Perhaps it was designed to prevent some Iraq-like incidents from occurring, but surely penning troops so badly in need of rest and relaxation up in sweltering barracks was worse.
Groggy finally spoke up. "Have you spoken to the Commissary about air conditioners?" he asked. The barracks had only two functioning air conditioners, turning the barracks into a sweltering, unbearable hot sty.
"Yes, sir," Harriman said. "They said they only have a few available, and they're being doled out by priority.
"Even one of those little hand fans would do wonders compared to what we have," Groggy said off-handedly. Then he added, "At least we'll be gone in a few weeks."
"Yes, sir," came the reply.
The two then lapsed into silence for the rest of the drive, each caught up in their seperate thoughts. As the jeep approached the crumbling barracks, the two soldiers on sentry duty - Elizabeth and Steven - stood at attention. Groggy stopped as he entered and turned to the sentries.
"Elizabeth," he said to his old friend. "We're going back home in a few weeks
Elizabeth smiled, but said nothing.
"You're a fine soldier, Elizabeth," he added, not knowing how much the bloodshed and the loss of her boyfriend had affected her.
Followed by Harriman, Groggy then walked into the barracks, seeing a bunch of his men, some shirtless, others dripping sweat through fatigues, standing ill at ease, restless, angry, struggling to survive in the sweltering heat. They all snapped to attention, but Groggy marched past them with scarcely a recognition. He immediately entered his office, bare now that the Russian army paraphenalia had been cleared out, and he lowered himself into his desk, dismissing Anna with a wave of his hand. She saluted, smiled and shut the door behind her, leaving the Colonel alone.
Finally, he said. This is over. He then fell asleep in his desk. He strangely did not feel his usual sense of satisfaction at having a job done; he felt as if he could never live again.
And he dreamed about Edith, about home, about his loneliness and emptiness. And he snapped awake, and saw himself still in his office, late afternoon sunlight dappling through the windows. And he felt the warm sweat dripping through the armpits of his jacket.
Well, told himself. Just a few more days, anyhow. Then he chided himself: Plenty of time to think then.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Molotov Heights V: Someone Had Blundered
1:30 PM
While Groggy and Atlas made their triumphant charge on the main Russian line, Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck attacked the hill’s left flank. His troops streamed into the valley between the two main Russian hills. As they went, they could see the rest of Alstott’s troops, the 71st New York and the 7th Florida, belatedly joining the assault, surging up the opposite hill towards Fort Kurugen. Groggy’s scheme was going exactly as planned, the battle taking on a chaotic momentum of its own.
Captain Patrick O’Brien certainly had the heroism and cavalier attitude that had distinguished his cousin in Mexico and elsewhere. He led C Company in a series of bayonet charges against the Russian lines, driving back machine gun nests and overrunning rifle pits. Of course his men suffered casualties – among them Lieutenant Ackt, whose career of making fatally noxious stews came to an end by a Russian bullet that struck him, fittingly enough, in the stomach. However, compared to the gains they were making, O’Brien’s losses were more than acceptable; it seemed only a matter of time until the final victory was at hand.
Finally, O’Brien’s men made me one last desperate charge. He could hear the fighting on the crest of the ridge, from Groggy’s main ridge. Without waiting for orders from his battalion command, O’Brien ordered his company to attack a large Russian machine gun position, which would effectively turn the Russian flank.
O’Brien’s men accomplished the task quickly. They suffered a handful of casualties, mostly wounded, but by now the Russians were demoralized by the wave of Americans which had so quickly swept aside their well-laid positions and overran their guns. Most of them fell back without fighting, disappearing over the crest of the hill, and O’Brien counted himself lucky that he had lost so few men in the charge. He ordered his company to reform and hold the line while the rest of Starbuck’s battalion came up.
One of the men, however, was not so lucky. Private Salem was shot in the chest, and unceremoniously fell backwards. His uniform tangled in the wire. But out of his pocket fell the large, rusty knife of Dave Jenkins, which slid down the hillside, as if under its own power.
1:40 PM
General Jenkins drove as quickly as he could to the front. But that wasn’t very fast at all. There were only a few dirt roads, and they went through thick jungle. Worse, when he finally got to the clearing, he found the road completely congested with a nightmarish mixture of dying and wounded men, scared and routed soldiers running every which way, broken trucks and equipment, and dozens of shell-ridden corpses. A small group of buzzards flew overhead. Jenkins stopped his jeep, and banged on the horn out of frustration.
He then saw a man squatting on a rise above him, as if presiding over the scene. It was, of course, Eric Glenn, stoic and passive as ever, struggling to take pictures of the chaos around him with his Nokia camera. With him was the ubiquitous seniorita, for once fully clothed, with a rifle slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, camera man!” Jenkins shouted to him. “Which way to the front?”
Glenn didn’t look up from his camera. “How should I know?” he bellowed testily. “I’m a non-combatant, goddammit!”
Jenkins spit and flipped Glenn off, then hopped back in the jeep. He slowly began making his way through the tangled mass of shattered men and machinery, driving at 10 miles an hour. He couldn’t go much faster than that for fear of crashing or hitting something.
Then, Jenkins served, as, of all things, a large cow wandered out in front of him.
Jenkins panicked and spun out, crashing his car into a tree. Jenkins sat there, stunned, blood running from a wound in his head, his left arm throbbing with pain.
Just like God to play a trick like this on me, Jenkins thought bitterly as he tried to regain his composure. The Russians will get to Groggy before I do.
1:45 PM
The fighting on Molotov Hill was over. Starbuck’s battalion quickly linked up with Groggy’s main force. The Russian artillerymen were being disarmed by Atlas’s battalion, and for the most part giving up without a fight. Groggy’s men, were still exchanging machine gun and artillery fire with Russian troops on the left face of Kurugen, however. Groggy realized that his men would have to deal with the situation head-on. He watched the rest of Alstott’s brigade struggle up the Russian slope, but their advance was slow, methodical, and seemingly getting nowhere.
Groggy looked around at his men with pride. He saw Matt manning a machine gun, with Elizabeth holding his hand and helpfully feeding the belt into his gun. He saw Corporal Dan taking careful aim at the Russians across the way with his carbine. He saw Sergeant Beck belatedly arrive with his squadron and join the firing line. He saw the rest of them, all the men he had led as a father – not necessarily a good father, perhaps an abusive and neglectful one, but ultimately a loving one nonetheless. So caught up was he in the moment that he forgot his wound, which barely hurt, which had ceased bleeding; it must not have been nearly as bad as it had looked at first glance.
Corporal Truelove, standing back of the firing line, returned to his recitation from earlier.
“Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right,” he said. And quickly Matt, Elizabeth, Dan and others had joined in, reading the poem to the end.
“Flash’d all their sabers bare, Flash’d as they turn’d in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered!” Even Groggy joined in as the poem. The battle wasn’t over yet, but a delirious happiness, a sense of pride and accomplishment and euphoria, swept through the ranks, happy at their seemingly impossible achievement.
On the slope of the hill, a small machine gun platoon had pushed up the mountain and lent their fire to Groggy’s assault, and were now shooting at the Russian defenders of Kurugen. They hardly noticed as General Jenkins staggered up beside them, his pistol drawn. He was nearing the end of a long journey and he wasn’t about to let it be interrupted any further.
Without ceremony, and ignoring the startled salutes of the gunners, Jenkins forced his way up to one of the machine guns, an M-60. He sighted it, ignoring the men who protested it was perfectly cited… and trained it back on Molotov Hill. He could barely make out Groggy through the smoke of battle, but there he was, the bastard. He aimed the weapon and prepared to fire.
“Sir!” A young, boyish Corporal reached over and tugged on Jenkins’ shirt-sleeve. “You’re aiming the wrong way, sir! The Russians-“
The boy didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Jenkins shot him through the mouth, and then turned his pistol on the rest of the machine gun crew, murdering them in cold blood. He turned back to Molotov, and saw, to his chagrin, that Groggy was no longer in plain sight.
Roaring angrily, Jenkins nonetheless aimed his weapon and opened fire.
“Machine gun fire!” someone called on the hill as Jenkins blazed away. A private fell, shot through the neck.
“What the hell-“ Groggy started, but Lieutenant Aclea pulled him to the ground.
“Who’s doing that shooting?” Joe Starbuck shouted.
A bullet tore into Matt’s chest, sending him sprawling backwards. Elizabeth screamed and dove to the ground, and immediately began crying at the sight of her dead boyfriend.
Several other soldiers were killed in the barrage, too. Captain O’Brien was the only one to realize what was going on, and as soon as his mind computed this fact he sprung into reckless action.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Then he drew his pistol and rushed down the mountain, before anyone could stop him. A soldier stood up and tried, but he received a Russian rifle shot through his skull. This was something the Captain would have take to care of himself.
As Jenkins fired his weapon, he felt something fall against his leg, and bent down to examine it. Amazingly it was cousin Dave’s knife, a bit rusty, a bit dirty, but now it was back. Incredulously, Jenkins examined the knife. He didn’t know how it got there, but to him, it was a sign. It was now suddenly clear – he was doing this all wrong. There was only way to proper achieve his task.
As he began ascending the hill, Jenkins didn’t notice his former aide rushing down towards him, struggling to maintain his balance amidst the thud and rocking of exploding shells. Finally, after getting within about ten yards of the General, he drew his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins, who incredulously stared at him.
“Sorry, General,” O’Brien said coolly. “This is as far as you’re getting.”
“GET OUT OF MY WAY, BOY!” Jenkins bellowed, waving his knife angrily.
O’Brien cocked his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins’ head. “I do not condone murder, General,” he said, “and you’re a murderer.”
Before anything else could happen, however, a shell burst a few yards up the hill. O’Brien lost his footing as a result, and fell down the hill, landing just a few feet away from the general.
This gave the General his chance. He leapt upon his treacherous aide, wielding his knife and struggling to keep himself on top of him long enough to run the knife through his midsection. However, the Captain gained the advantage easily; he was younger, stronger, and cheated. He grabbed Jenkins’ broken left arm and twisted it with both hands. Jenkins bellowed an angry roar, and the pain that distracted him was enough for O’Brien to gain the initiative.
O’Brien pushed all his weight against Jenkins and toppled him to the ground. With a decisive movement, he grabbed Jenkins’ good hand, wielding the rusty knife, and jammed it into Jenkins’ chest, piercing his black heart. Jenkins coughed, a flower of dark scarlet blood spurted out of his mouth, and he fell to the ground, finally dead.
Captain O’Brien probably didn’t hear the crack of the .38 – in the midst of such a high-intensity fight it would have been almost impossible – or sense the bullet that was coming to end his life. It came too fast for O’Brien to react, or even realize what was happening; blood and brains spurted out the sides of his head, and he slumped over, killed instantly.
In the most supreme irony of all, it was fired by Groggy – not deliberately, of course, as he had simply been unable to tell the two men apart in their squabble. But as his cousin had before, O’Brien ended up giving his life for the man who destroyed him.
While Groggy and Atlas made their triumphant charge on the main Russian line, Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck attacked the hill’s left flank. His troops streamed into the valley between the two main Russian hills. As they went, they could see the rest of Alstott’s troops, the 71st New York and the 7th Florida, belatedly joining the assault, surging up the opposite hill towards Fort Kurugen. Groggy’s scheme was going exactly as planned, the battle taking on a chaotic momentum of its own.
Captain Patrick O’Brien certainly had the heroism and cavalier attitude that had distinguished his cousin in Mexico and elsewhere. He led C Company in a series of bayonet charges against the Russian lines, driving back machine gun nests and overrunning rifle pits. Of course his men suffered casualties – among them Lieutenant Ackt, whose career of making fatally noxious stews came to an end by a Russian bullet that struck him, fittingly enough, in the stomach. However, compared to the gains they were making, O’Brien’s losses were more than acceptable; it seemed only a matter of time until the final victory was at hand.
Finally, O’Brien’s men made me one last desperate charge. He could hear the fighting on the crest of the ridge, from Groggy’s main ridge. Without waiting for orders from his battalion command, O’Brien ordered his company to attack a large Russian machine gun position, which would effectively turn the Russian flank.
O’Brien’s men accomplished the task quickly. They suffered a handful of casualties, mostly wounded, but by now the Russians were demoralized by the wave of Americans which had so quickly swept aside their well-laid positions and overran their guns. Most of them fell back without fighting, disappearing over the crest of the hill, and O’Brien counted himself lucky that he had lost so few men in the charge. He ordered his company to reform and hold the line while the rest of Starbuck’s battalion came up.
One of the men, however, was not so lucky. Private Salem was shot in the chest, and unceremoniously fell backwards. His uniform tangled in the wire. But out of his pocket fell the large, rusty knife of Dave Jenkins, which slid down the hillside, as if under its own power.
1:40 PM
General Jenkins drove as quickly as he could to the front. But that wasn’t very fast at all. There were only a few dirt roads, and they went through thick jungle. Worse, when he finally got to the clearing, he found the road completely congested with a nightmarish mixture of dying and wounded men, scared and routed soldiers running every which way, broken trucks and equipment, and dozens of shell-ridden corpses. A small group of buzzards flew overhead. Jenkins stopped his jeep, and banged on the horn out of frustration.
He then saw a man squatting on a rise above him, as if presiding over the scene. It was, of course, Eric Glenn, stoic and passive as ever, struggling to take pictures of the chaos around him with his Nokia camera. With him was the ubiquitous seniorita, for once fully clothed, with a rifle slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, camera man!” Jenkins shouted to him. “Which way to the front?”
Glenn didn’t look up from his camera. “How should I know?” he bellowed testily. “I’m a non-combatant, goddammit!”
Jenkins spit and flipped Glenn off, then hopped back in the jeep. He slowly began making his way through the tangled mass of shattered men and machinery, driving at 10 miles an hour. He couldn’t go much faster than that for fear of crashing or hitting something.
Then, Jenkins served, as, of all things, a large cow wandered out in front of him.
Jenkins panicked and spun out, crashing his car into a tree. Jenkins sat there, stunned, blood running from a wound in his head, his left arm throbbing with pain.
Just like God to play a trick like this on me, Jenkins thought bitterly as he tried to regain his composure. The Russians will get to Groggy before I do.
1:45 PM
The fighting on Molotov Hill was over. Starbuck’s battalion quickly linked up with Groggy’s main force. The Russian artillerymen were being disarmed by Atlas’s battalion, and for the most part giving up without a fight. Groggy’s men, were still exchanging machine gun and artillery fire with Russian troops on the left face of Kurugen, however. Groggy realized that his men would have to deal with the situation head-on. He watched the rest of Alstott’s brigade struggle up the Russian slope, but their advance was slow, methodical, and seemingly getting nowhere.
Groggy looked around at his men with pride. He saw Matt manning a machine gun, with Elizabeth holding his hand and helpfully feeding the belt into his gun. He saw Corporal Dan taking careful aim at the Russians across the way with his carbine. He saw Sergeant Beck belatedly arrive with his squadron and join the firing line. He saw the rest of them, all the men he had led as a father – not necessarily a good father, perhaps an abusive and neglectful one, but ultimately a loving one nonetheless. So caught up was he in the moment that he forgot his wound, which barely hurt, which had ceased bleeding; it must not have been nearly as bad as it had looked at first glance.
Corporal Truelove, standing back of the firing line, returned to his recitation from earlier.
“Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right,” he said. And quickly Matt, Elizabeth, Dan and others had joined in, reading the poem to the end.
“Flash’d all their sabers bare, Flash’d as they turn’d in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered!” Even Groggy joined in as the poem. The battle wasn’t over yet, but a delirious happiness, a sense of pride and accomplishment and euphoria, swept through the ranks, happy at their seemingly impossible achievement.
On the slope of the hill, a small machine gun platoon had pushed up the mountain and lent their fire to Groggy’s assault, and were now shooting at the Russian defenders of Kurugen. They hardly noticed as General Jenkins staggered up beside them, his pistol drawn. He was nearing the end of a long journey and he wasn’t about to let it be interrupted any further.
Without ceremony, and ignoring the startled salutes of the gunners, Jenkins forced his way up to one of the machine guns, an M-60. He sighted it, ignoring the men who protested it was perfectly cited… and trained it back on Molotov Hill. He could barely make out Groggy through the smoke of battle, but there he was, the bastard. He aimed the weapon and prepared to fire.
“Sir!” A young, boyish Corporal reached over and tugged on Jenkins’ shirt-sleeve. “You’re aiming the wrong way, sir! The Russians-“
The boy didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Jenkins shot him through the mouth, and then turned his pistol on the rest of the machine gun crew, murdering them in cold blood. He turned back to Molotov, and saw, to his chagrin, that Groggy was no longer in plain sight.
Roaring angrily, Jenkins nonetheless aimed his weapon and opened fire.
“Machine gun fire!” someone called on the hill as Jenkins blazed away. A private fell, shot through the neck.
“What the hell-“ Groggy started, but Lieutenant Aclea pulled him to the ground.
“Who’s doing that shooting?” Joe Starbuck shouted.
A bullet tore into Matt’s chest, sending him sprawling backwards. Elizabeth screamed and dove to the ground, and immediately began crying at the sight of her dead boyfriend.
Several other soldiers were killed in the barrage, too. Captain O’Brien was the only one to realize what was going on, and as soon as his mind computed this fact he sprung into reckless action.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Then he drew his pistol and rushed down the mountain, before anyone could stop him. A soldier stood up and tried, but he received a Russian rifle shot through his skull. This was something the Captain would have take to care of himself.
As Jenkins fired his weapon, he felt something fall against his leg, and bent down to examine it. Amazingly it was cousin Dave’s knife, a bit rusty, a bit dirty, but now it was back. Incredulously, Jenkins examined the knife. He didn’t know how it got there, but to him, it was a sign. It was now suddenly clear – he was doing this all wrong. There was only way to proper achieve his task.
As he began ascending the hill, Jenkins didn’t notice his former aide rushing down towards him, struggling to maintain his balance amidst the thud and rocking of exploding shells. Finally, after getting within about ten yards of the General, he drew his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins, who incredulously stared at him.
“Sorry, General,” O’Brien said coolly. “This is as far as you’re getting.”
“GET OUT OF MY WAY, BOY!” Jenkins bellowed, waving his knife angrily.
O’Brien cocked his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins’ head. “I do not condone murder, General,” he said, “and you’re a murderer.”
Before anything else could happen, however, a shell burst a few yards up the hill. O’Brien lost his footing as a result, and fell down the hill, landing just a few feet away from the general.
This gave the General his chance. He leapt upon his treacherous aide, wielding his knife and struggling to keep himself on top of him long enough to run the knife through his midsection. However, the Captain gained the advantage easily; he was younger, stronger, and cheated. He grabbed Jenkins’ broken left arm and twisted it with both hands. Jenkins bellowed an angry roar, and the pain that distracted him was enough for O’Brien to gain the initiative.
O’Brien pushed all his weight against Jenkins and toppled him to the ground. With a decisive movement, he grabbed Jenkins’ good hand, wielding the rusty knife, and jammed it into Jenkins’ chest, piercing his black heart. Jenkins coughed, a flower of dark scarlet blood spurted out of his mouth, and he fell to the ground, finally dead.
Captain O’Brien probably didn’t hear the crack of the .38 – in the midst of such a high-intensity fight it would have been almost impossible – or sense the bullet that was coming to end his life. It came too fast for O’Brien to react, or even realize what was happening; blood and brains spurted out the sides of his head, and he slumped over, killed instantly.
In the most supreme irony of all, it was fired by Groggy – not deliberately, of course, as he had simply been unable to tell the two men apart in their squabble. But as his cousin had before, O’Brien ended up giving his life for the man who destroyed him.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Molotov Heights IV: Cannons To The Left, Cannons To The Right
1:10 PM
While Beck and Adnan were settling things, the main line of Groggy and Atlas’s battalions reached the summit of Molotov Hill, initiating a ferocious battle the likes of which the Western Hemisphere hadn’t seen since the days of Grant and Lee.
The slaughter was terrible; the Americans fell in heaps, officers, non-coms and men alike, mown down en masse by closely-packed Russian machine guns and Cuban rifles. Now that the Americans were too close for their artillery to be affective, the Russians began firing RPGs and missiles, rockets, mortars, and lobbing grenades into their ranks, and thus the spray of shrapnel continued unabated.
The first few soldiers to reach the line became entangled in wire; struggling desperately to cut it with knives and wire cutters, they were shot down by the Russians. But a few of the men had enough time to create a few breaches. First through the line were Whalestoe and Sven Celeton, who fired and stabbed and clubbed at their opponents with vicious abandon. They were followed by Teacher Tom, who was completely unfazed by the whole affair, seeming to have a death wish.
As Tom staggered over the wire, he watched as Gordon Sumner was felled by a Russian soldier. He aimed his own carbine at the soldier, who immediately threw his rifle down and raised his hands in surrender. Tom ignored this and pitilessly fired into the man’s chest, uttering contemptuously, “He who has no stomach for this fight, let him depart.” Realizing he was out of ammunition, he nonchalantly threw down his rifle and loaded his two side-arms before continuing on.
The fighting now came down to hand-to-hand. Aside from their machine guns, the Russians on this side of the line were lightly armed, and easily overwhelmed. Bayonets flashed, knives stabbed, rifle stocks cracked against Russian heads. Ulysses Bunsher fell in this melee, his body shattered by rifle stocks, his throat pierced by a saw-bayonet, along with C.D., shot and stabbed until his machete clattered to the ground, and innumerable others. But their sacrifice was worth it; after a few bloody, intense minutes, the Russian line broke.
At this critical moment, a battalion of Cuban infantry appeared, rushing on and hitting the Americans from their left flank, rifles blazing. Captain Grenouille, commanding F Company, saw this in the nick of time and ordered his troops to open fire. A fusillade of rifle fire slowed the onrushing Cubans, who nonetheless tore into Grenouille’s men. The fighting was savage, vicious, brutal; chests burst, bones shattered, blood and brain matter spraying every which way. But ultimately, the Americans, spurred on by adrenaline and sheer momentum, forced the Cubans back.
The final line of Russian troops, on the very crest of the hill, now faced the onrushing Americans alone. But to the disbelief of their commanding officers, they did open fire on the American troops. Lieutenant-Colonel Strelnikoff rushed forward, frantically waving his pistol at them. “WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!?!” he bellowed.
“We can’t, Colonel,” one of the gunners “We can’t depress our guns!”
“I said shoot those bastards!” Strelnikoff shouted, ignoring them.
“Sir, it’s impossible!” the gunner shouted helplessly.
An irrational, impotent anger overtook the Colonel. “NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!” he hissed with contempt. He then shoved the hapless soldier and attempted to aim the machine gun at the onrushing Americans. He was right – they couldn’t properly depress the weapon. A broken, defeated man, Strelnikoff just sat at the gun for a long moment, as if in a daze, before he was ushered away by one of his aides. Just then, he realized the extent of the debacle he was overseeing.
A moment later, the Americans fell upon the Russian machine gunners. It was all over in a minute; unable to resist, the Russians simply broke and ran, or else surrendered. Only a handful of men stayed to fight, and they were quickly neutralized.
1:30 PM
Bloody as it was, Groggy’s frantic charge broke the Russians’ will to fight. After the Russian and Cuban troops were pushed back, the Americans came across a last-ditch line of Palacian militia, under the guns of a squad of Russian officers, but they quickly wavered as their comrades had before. One of their Captains, unwilling to die for Russia’s imperial ambitions, began running up and down the lines shouting at his troops, “Run! Run! The bogeyman is coming!” Though Russian officers and machine gunners stay behind them, the Palacians began to scatter. They were soon caught in a hellish crossfire between the advancing Americans in front and the Russians behind them, and were forced to make some sort of stand. Without much hesitation, they turned their guns on their officers and their machine guns, raking them with close-range AK fire. With their desertion, shouts of Palacio Libre swept over the hill, and Groggy received an instant reinforcement of some 500 men.
The only resistance remained in the concrete blockhouse. A handful of Russian soldiers were firing out of the two windows in front with light machine guns, and others carrying rifles could be seen behind them. Groggy supervised as machine guns and grenade launchers were put into place. Now it just remained to clear out the blockhouse by force. Groggy began rushing towards the blockhouse, with a dozen or so soldiers following close behind. A burst of AK fire killed one of the soldiers, but the Russian was shot down by a return blast from the Americans.
Whalestoe was the first in the door of the blockhouse. He shot down a Russian sergeant with his revolver and surged forward, gun and knife in hands, spoiling for a fight. A burly Russian corporal surged towards him, bayonet in his hand, and Whalestoe saw him too late. The Russian plunged his bayonet through his chest, puncturing his lung. Whalestoe let out an anguished cry, muffled by foamed blood, but managed to aim his pistol against the Russian’s stomach and empty its contents into his belly before crumpling to the floor.
An American soldier rushed into the room blindly and was shot down by a squad of Russian troops. Next in the door came Teacher Tom and Sven Celeton. Tom went in his first, aiming his pair of pistols, and engaged the ten Russians. Tom’s foolhardy stand gave Celeton a chance to find his friend’s corpse. Blinded to the gun battle around him, the Finn’s slow-burning rage began to boil inside him, unleashing a primal fury.
As Tom fell, riddled by a barrage of rifle bullets, Celeton let out a savage Finnish roar and rushed forward. He wielded his rifle like a battle axe, knocking one Russian to the ground with a rap to the skull. Before he could land a killing blow, a second Russian, a lieutenant, shot Celeton in the arm with a pistol. Celeton, unfazed, turned on the officer, savagely striking him again and again until he cleaved the officer’s skull, spraying skull fragments, blood and brain matter all over the walls and floor. Celeton knocked down two more Russian soldiers with equal savagery.
Celeton then felt two dull thuds in his chest and leg. He looked down and saw fresh blood oozing from his wounds. He stared ahead and saw a Russian officer aiming a smoking gun at him.
It was Strelnikoff. The hapless commander of the Palacian garrison was reduced to a foot soldier, engaged in an act of reckless, hapless heroism. He fired another shot into Celeton, striking him in the left shoulder; Celeton finally fell, collapsing under the weight of dozens of wounds he had previously ignored.
At this moment, Groggy entered the room, wielding his pistol. He and Strelnikoff regarded each other for a moment, before turning their guns on one another. Two Russian soldiers appeared at the far end of the hallway, but Strelnikoff angrily called them off; this was to be a duel between officers. Groggy acknowledged his opponent’s chivalry by not shooting him in the back of the head, despite the perfect opportunity.
The two men blasted away at each other, nerves and exhaustion impairing their aim even at point-blank range. Bullets crashed into the walls and floors, none seeming to hit their target. Strelnikoff ran out of ammunition, but ducked behind a wall as Groggy sent two slugs hurtling after him. Groggy aimed his pistol, but as Strelnikoff emerged with a freshly-loaded gun, he pulled the trigger and heard a dull click. “Damn,” he muttered stoically as Strelnikoff fired a badly-aimed shot that missed him completely.
What happened next was a blur. Groggy stood pondering his empty gun as if in a trance, even as his Russian counterpart haplessly fired away at him. Finally, his left hand, as if on its own, drifted towards his gun belt, and fingered his .38 revolver, heretofore unused.
Groggy moved with slow deliberateness, as if asleep. He dropped his 9 MM pistol to the ground and methodically, carefully drew the revolver. Strelnikoff was still firing, but he didn’t seem able to hit anything. Groggy aimed his weapon at Strelnikoff’s head. The Russian, now frantic, squeezed the trigger of his gun again and again, but nothing came out; his gun was empty. Groggy deliberately pulled back the hammer on his gun as the Russian Colonel struggled to chamber a fresh clip.
BLAM! Groggy fired his .38, splattering Strelnikoff’s brains all over the opposite wall of the bunker.
The two Russian soldiers from before, wielding AKs, burst into the hallway. Groggy immediately snapped out of his trance and fired, wounding one in the leg, but the second fired a burst of gunfire that narrowly missed the Colonel. As Groggy rolled out of the way, Corporal Dan appeared, and with a quick full-auto burst cut down both Russians. Groggy didn’t move, still aiming his weapon at the dead soldiers. Then Captain Harriman entered, pistol drawn, with a squad of soldiers behind her.
“Colonel, are you alright?” Harriman asked breathlessly. Then she added off-handedly, “That was some damned fine shooting, sir.”
Still not entirely out of it, Groggy stared at her. He then ran his hand down his stomach and felt a warm spurt of fresh blood pooling through his uniform, just below his navel.
“Oh my God!” Harriman exclaimed. She turned to the soldiers and began to ask for a medic.
“No!” Groggy shouted, snapping out of his trance. He rushed over to his old friend and clasped her shoulder with his left hand. “There’s still a battle to be fought, Anna!” He then hurried through the blockhouse, signaling Harriman and her men to follow him.
Groggy, Anna and their entourage swept through the blockhouse. Other than two defiant Russians who had to be neutralized, the surviving garrison members didn’t have any fight left in them. Five minutes after coming in, the squad had cleared out the blockhouse, with 30 prisoners in tow.
Groggy turned to Captain Harriman, regaining his composure. “Captain, you’re to stay here and hold all of our prisoners under guard,” he barked authoritatively.
“Sir, I won’t do that!” Anna cried, her eyes on the blood staining the Colonel’s shirt.
“That’s a friend’s request, not an order,” Groggy asked, staring at Harriman wistfully. Then he added, “One of us has to live.”
After a long moment, with tears welling up in her eyes, Anna raised her hand in reluctant salute. She then led her squad and their prisoners into the main office of the blockhouse. They found two more officers there, who immediately threw down their weapons and joined the rest of their colleagues in captivity. Captain Harriman, brimming with anger over the Colonel’s wounding and her frustration at being left behind, shot one of the officers in cold blood, but managed to restrain herself before turning her weapon on the crowd.
By the time Groggy emerged from the blockhouse, the fighting on Molotov Hill was all but over. Other than a few belligerent Russian and Cuban soldiers, most of the enemy soldiers were either dead or surrendered. The prisoners were being herded by Captain Siegel into the blockhouse, where they were to join Captain Harriman and the rest. Now most of the action was concentrated against the Russian right on Ft. Kurugen, where the rest of Alstott’s Brigade was struggling to force their way up the hill. Groggy’s men turned captured Russian machine guns, mortars and field guns on the Russian positions, joined eagerly by the deserting Palacian militia troops.
I’ll have plenty of time to die later, Groggy thought, struggling to hide his wound from his men. There’s a battle to fight. He didn’t realize that Nemesis was soon to arrive.
While Beck and Adnan were settling things, the main line of Groggy and Atlas’s battalions reached the summit of Molotov Hill, initiating a ferocious battle the likes of which the Western Hemisphere hadn’t seen since the days of Grant and Lee.
The slaughter was terrible; the Americans fell in heaps, officers, non-coms and men alike, mown down en masse by closely-packed Russian machine guns and Cuban rifles. Now that the Americans were too close for their artillery to be affective, the Russians began firing RPGs and missiles, rockets, mortars, and lobbing grenades into their ranks, and thus the spray of shrapnel continued unabated.
The first few soldiers to reach the line became entangled in wire; struggling desperately to cut it with knives and wire cutters, they were shot down by the Russians. But a few of the men had enough time to create a few breaches. First through the line were Whalestoe and Sven Celeton, who fired and stabbed and clubbed at their opponents with vicious abandon. They were followed by Teacher Tom, who was completely unfazed by the whole affair, seeming to have a death wish.
As Tom staggered over the wire, he watched as Gordon Sumner was felled by a Russian soldier. He aimed his own carbine at the soldier, who immediately threw his rifle down and raised his hands in surrender. Tom ignored this and pitilessly fired into the man’s chest, uttering contemptuously, “He who has no stomach for this fight, let him depart.” Realizing he was out of ammunition, he nonchalantly threw down his rifle and loaded his two side-arms before continuing on.
The fighting now came down to hand-to-hand. Aside from their machine guns, the Russians on this side of the line were lightly armed, and easily overwhelmed. Bayonets flashed, knives stabbed, rifle stocks cracked against Russian heads. Ulysses Bunsher fell in this melee, his body shattered by rifle stocks, his throat pierced by a saw-bayonet, along with C.D., shot and stabbed until his machete clattered to the ground, and innumerable others. But their sacrifice was worth it; after a few bloody, intense minutes, the Russian line broke.
At this critical moment, a battalion of Cuban infantry appeared, rushing on and hitting the Americans from their left flank, rifles blazing. Captain Grenouille, commanding F Company, saw this in the nick of time and ordered his troops to open fire. A fusillade of rifle fire slowed the onrushing Cubans, who nonetheless tore into Grenouille’s men. The fighting was savage, vicious, brutal; chests burst, bones shattered, blood and brain matter spraying every which way. But ultimately, the Americans, spurred on by adrenaline and sheer momentum, forced the Cubans back.
The final line of Russian troops, on the very crest of the hill, now faced the onrushing Americans alone. But to the disbelief of their commanding officers, they did open fire on the American troops. Lieutenant-Colonel Strelnikoff rushed forward, frantically waving his pistol at them. “WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!?!” he bellowed.
“We can’t, Colonel,” one of the gunners “We can’t depress our guns!”
“I said shoot those bastards!” Strelnikoff shouted, ignoring them.
“Sir, it’s impossible!” the gunner shouted helplessly.
An irrational, impotent anger overtook the Colonel. “NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!” he hissed with contempt. He then shoved the hapless soldier and attempted to aim the machine gun at the onrushing Americans. He was right – they couldn’t properly depress the weapon. A broken, defeated man, Strelnikoff just sat at the gun for a long moment, as if in a daze, before he was ushered away by one of his aides. Just then, he realized the extent of the debacle he was overseeing.
A moment later, the Americans fell upon the Russian machine gunners. It was all over in a minute; unable to resist, the Russians simply broke and ran, or else surrendered. Only a handful of men stayed to fight, and they were quickly neutralized.
1:30 PM
Bloody as it was, Groggy’s frantic charge broke the Russians’ will to fight. After the Russian and Cuban troops were pushed back, the Americans came across a last-ditch line of Palacian militia, under the guns of a squad of Russian officers, but they quickly wavered as their comrades had before. One of their Captains, unwilling to die for Russia’s imperial ambitions, began running up and down the lines shouting at his troops, “Run! Run! The bogeyman is coming!” Though Russian officers and machine gunners stay behind them, the Palacians began to scatter. They were soon caught in a hellish crossfire between the advancing Americans in front and the Russians behind them, and were forced to make some sort of stand. Without much hesitation, they turned their guns on their officers and their machine guns, raking them with close-range AK fire. With their desertion, shouts of Palacio Libre swept over the hill, and Groggy received an instant reinforcement of some 500 men.
The only resistance remained in the concrete blockhouse. A handful of Russian soldiers were firing out of the two windows in front with light machine guns, and others carrying rifles could be seen behind them. Groggy supervised as machine guns and grenade launchers were put into place. Now it just remained to clear out the blockhouse by force. Groggy began rushing towards the blockhouse, with a dozen or so soldiers following close behind. A burst of AK fire killed one of the soldiers, but the Russian was shot down by a return blast from the Americans.
Whalestoe was the first in the door of the blockhouse. He shot down a Russian sergeant with his revolver and surged forward, gun and knife in hands, spoiling for a fight. A burly Russian corporal surged towards him, bayonet in his hand, and Whalestoe saw him too late. The Russian plunged his bayonet through his chest, puncturing his lung. Whalestoe let out an anguished cry, muffled by foamed blood, but managed to aim his pistol against the Russian’s stomach and empty its contents into his belly before crumpling to the floor.
An American soldier rushed into the room blindly and was shot down by a squad of Russian troops. Next in the door came Teacher Tom and Sven Celeton. Tom went in his first, aiming his pair of pistols, and engaged the ten Russians. Tom’s foolhardy stand gave Celeton a chance to find his friend’s corpse. Blinded to the gun battle around him, the Finn’s slow-burning rage began to boil inside him, unleashing a primal fury.
As Tom fell, riddled by a barrage of rifle bullets, Celeton let out a savage Finnish roar and rushed forward. He wielded his rifle like a battle axe, knocking one Russian to the ground with a rap to the skull. Before he could land a killing blow, a second Russian, a lieutenant, shot Celeton in the arm with a pistol. Celeton, unfazed, turned on the officer, savagely striking him again and again until he cleaved the officer’s skull, spraying skull fragments, blood and brain matter all over the walls and floor. Celeton knocked down two more Russian soldiers with equal savagery.
Celeton then felt two dull thuds in his chest and leg. He looked down and saw fresh blood oozing from his wounds. He stared ahead and saw a Russian officer aiming a smoking gun at him.
It was Strelnikoff. The hapless commander of the Palacian garrison was reduced to a foot soldier, engaged in an act of reckless, hapless heroism. He fired another shot into Celeton, striking him in the left shoulder; Celeton finally fell, collapsing under the weight of dozens of wounds he had previously ignored.
At this moment, Groggy entered the room, wielding his pistol. He and Strelnikoff regarded each other for a moment, before turning their guns on one another. Two Russian soldiers appeared at the far end of the hallway, but Strelnikoff angrily called them off; this was to be a duel between officers. Groggy acknowledged his opponent’s chivalry by not shooting him in the back of the head, despite the perfect opportunity.
The two men blasted away at each other, nerves and exhaustion impairing their aim even at point-blank range. Bullets crashed into the walls and floors, none seeming to hit their target. Strelnikoff ran out of ammunition, but ducked behind a wall as Groggy sent two slugs hurtling after him. Groggy aimed his pistol, but as Strelnikoff emerged with a freshly-loaded gun, he pulled the trigger and heard a dull click. “Damn,” he muttered stoically as Strelnikoff fired a badly-aimed shot that missed him completely.
What happened next was a blur. Groggy stood pondering his empty gun as if in a trance, even as his Russian counterpart haplessly fired away at him. Finally, his left hand, as if on its own, drifted towards his gun belt, and fingered his .38 revolver, heretofore unused.
Groggy moved with slow deliberateness, as if asleep. He dropped his 9 MM pistol to the ground and methodically, carefully drew the revolver. Strelnikoff was still firing, but he didn’t seem able to hit anything. Groggy aimed his weapon at Strelnikoff’s head. The Russian, now frantic, squeezed the trigger of his gun again and again, but nothing came out; his gun was empty. Groggy deliberately pulled back the hammer on his gun as the Russian Colonel struggled to chamber a fresh clip.
BLAM! Groggy fired his .38, splattering Strelnikoff’s brains all over the opposite wall of the bunker.
The two Russian soldiers from before, wielding AKs, burst into the hallway. Groggy immediately snapped out of his trance and fired, wounding one in the leg, but the second fired a burst of gunfire that narrowly missed the Colonel. As Groggy rolled out of the way, Corporal Dan appeared, and with a quick full-auto burst cut down both Russians. Groggy didn’t move, still aiming his weapon at the dead soldiers. Then Captain Harriman entered, pistol drawn, with a squad of soldiers behind her.
“Colonel, are you alright?” Harriman asked breathlessly. Then she added off-handedly, “That was some damned fine shooting, sir.”
Still not entirely out of it, Groggy stared at her. He then ran his hand down his stomach and felt a warm spurt of fresh blood pooling through his uniform, just below his navel.
“Oh my God!” Harriman exclaimed. She turned to the soldiers and began to ask for a medic.
“No!” Groggy shouted, snapping out of his trance. He rushed over to his old friend and clasped her shoulder with his left hand. “There’s still a battle to be fought, Anna!” He then hurried through the blockhouse, signaling Harriman and her men to follow him.
Groggy, Anna and their entourage swept through the blockhouse. Other than two defiant Russians who had to be neutralized, the surviving garrison members didn’t have any fight left in them. Five minutes after coming in, the squad had cleared out the blockhouse, with 30 prisoners in tow.
Groggy turned to Captain Harriman, regaining his composure. “Captain, you’re to stay here and hold all of our prisoners under guard,” he barked authoritatively.
“Sir, I won’t do that!” Anna cried, her eyes on the blood staining the Colonel’s shirt.
“That’s a friend’s request, not an order,” Groggy asked, staring at Harriman wistfully. Then he added, “One of us has to live.”
After a long moment, with tears welling up in her eyes, Anna raised her hand in reluctant salute. She then led her squad and their prisoners into the main office of the blockhouse. They found two more officers there, who immediately threw down their weapons and joined the rest of their colleagues in captivity. Captain Harriman, brimming with anger over the Colonel’s wounding and her frustration at being left behind, shot one of the officers in cold blood, but managed to restrain herself before turning her weapon on the crowd.
By the time Groggy emerged from the blockhouse, the fighting on Molotov Hill was all but over. Other than a few belligerent Russian and Cuban soldiers, most of the enemy soldiers were either dead or surrendered. The prisoners were being herded by Captain Siegel into the blockhouse, where they were to join Captain Harriman and the rest. Now most of the action was concentrated against the Russian right on Ft. Kurugen, where the rest of Alstott’s Brigade was struggling to force their way up the hill. Groggy’s men turned captured Russian machine guns, mortars and field guns on the Russian positions, joined eagerly by the deserting Palacian militia troops.
I’ll have plenty of time to die later, Groggy thought, struggling to hide his wound from his men. There’s a battle to fight. He didn’t realize that Nemesis was soon to arrive.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Molotov Heights III: The Mouth of Hell
12:30 PM
THE BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
Now the 1st was ready to advance. They lacked official orders, but Groggy and his officers would seize control of the helm themselves. And as usual, there was no one there to stop him – the only difference being that the stakes were infinitely higher than they’d ever been before.
Groggy’s troops were immediately galvanized by the call to action. Despite the continuing rain of shellfire and machine gun bullets, they huddled towards the, eager to release their long-standing tension.
“1st Infantry!” Atlas shouted to his battalion, his parade-ground voice overtaking the boom of cannon and rattle of machine guns. “This is what they pay you $2,000 a month for!”
Groggy stepped forward dramatically, instantly commanding the attention of his men. “I’m not Henry V, William Wallace or even Keira Knightley,” he boomed, “so I’m short on bombast and bellicosity. But I’ll say this much to you, ladies and gentlemen. There’s never been a finer regiment in the history of war, not one Mars would be more proud of, and if we can’t whip the Russian host before us, there aren’t any men alive or dead who could.” Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “Today we’ll sup in Green City, or else in Hell!”
The men roared in approval, ready to fight and die and resolve the issue, and Groggy smiled. The high water-mark of his life was undoubtedly upon him, and he savored the brief moment of satisfaction and glory emanating from his approving men.
An artillery shell exploding nearby snapped him out of his narcissist’s reverie. He turned and saw two wounded soldiers being taken to the rear. The eyes of almost 800 men and women were upon him, and he relished the fact. Captain Harriman stood beside him, loading her pistol, inspiring Groggy to check both of his own side-arms. In lieu of anything to say, they simply smiled in acknowledgement of another. A wave of tingling, dizzy vertigo and excitement overtook Groggy.
“1st Infantry, CHARGE!” he shouted. And his men, roaring like angry, blood-thirsty beasts, rose as one onto the field of glory, ready to march into the jaws of Death and the mouth of Hell without a moment’s hesitation – indeed, with glee and excitement.
12:40 PM
They came out of the trenches screaming with bloodthirsty anger, baying like the Hounds of Hell. Their hideous blood-cry was so loud that even the constant artillery and machine gun fire could not drown it out. Even at the top of the hill, under the watchful eye of their commander, the Russian and Cuban troops shuddered as the sound reached their ears.
Casualties began immediately. The advanced machine gun nests began to pelt the onrushing troops with fire, the artillery and mortars exploding amidst their ranks. Some of the men fell, some fell out of line to return fire, but most kept going, heedless to the onrush of hot steel.
A shot thundered. Captain Slick, commanding D Company, fell, his body shattered irreparably by an artillery burst. But his battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck’s command, continued on, hooking to the left, in order to ascend the right slope of the hill and turn Strelnikoff’s flank.
Groggy led the middle wing up the mountain. Atlas attempted to move his men over to the right, but the ridge was too narrow, and there were too many machine guns besides for this maneuver to be practical. His men simply moved up beside Groggy’s wing, reinforcing him significantly.
The men fought their way up the hill, gaining every inch by brute force. Machine gun nests and rifle pits filled with anxious soldiers waited until just the right psychological moment to open fire and hopefully create panic. After the first few such ambushes, however, Groggy’s men were quickly desensitized to the surprise, and quickly overran the positions in a quick burst of rifle fire, lobbed grenades, and if necessary the bayonet. Groggy lost only a handful men in these quick actions.
Still, the progress up the hill was slow going. Groggy’s men hit the first solid line of resistance, a Cuban infantry brigade well-entrenched and supported by machine guns, about 300 yards ahead of the main Russian line. They had been concealed from the base of the hill, but now the 1,300 Cuban and Russian soldiers were all too visible, and all too deadly. After the first wall of Kalashnikoff fire, Groggy’s men were forced to fall back, taking cover in a small ravine, pinned down by their opponents and sporadically exchanging gunfire. Soon, Russian mortars, rockets and artillery were focused; and as before, Groggy’s men were pinned down, at the non-existent mercy of the Russian guns.
“Enough of this horse slop!” Groggy roared, and without further word he leapt up and led his men in another charge. They closed ranks quickly, and after a fierce, bloody, close-range fight, overwhelmed the Cubans, killing 400, taking about 100 prisoners and putting the rest to rout, firing mercilessly into their backs as they streamed towards the main line of defense.
But this wasn’t enough. As Groggy’s men began to climb out of the trench, two artillery shells exploded, killing the first four soldiers to reach the other side. On both sides, machine gun nests began riddling the battalions with gunfire, and more shells and rockets exploded into the dirt above them. Groggy’s men were pinned down again, and they stared longingly, and angrily, at the main Russian lines. But his men could not, at least at this moment, attack the artillery or make them stop, so they had to grin and bear it.
1:00 PM
Sergeant Adnan led the remnants of his squad, already badly bloodied in the opening moments of the charge, towards the largest advanced Russian position, a pillbox guarded by a swath of machine guns and with a squad of concealed riflemen in a trench behind. The capture of this pillbox may have seemed small in the great scheme of things, but given the punishment Adnan’s men were receiving it was, for the moment, of paramount importance.
Adnan and his seven surviving men advanced, one of them, Corporal Greene, wielding a grenade launcher. Adnan led his squad with cool heroism, advancing one at a time closer to the rank, spraying the pillbox with covering fire. Through sheer will alone, the rifles killed at least one of the machine gunners, but they continued firing. Greene lobbed grenades at the pillbox, including one which shattered the roof, but still they kept on firing.
Two of Adnan’s men fell, shot down by the rifles to their flank. Adnan bellowed an order and Corporal Greene began firing grenades into their midst. He managed to kill most of them, but in taking his attention away from the bunker, Greene signed his own death warrant; his torso was completely shattered by machine gun fire and he felt, his grenade launcher tumbling down the hill.
Adnan swore and ducked to the ground. Shouting for his squad to cover him, he threw down his rifle and drew his side arm. He rushed up to the window of and stood beside the firing window, waiting for one of the gunners to stick his head out, which sure enough happened. He then sprung forward and shot the gunner twice in the head at point-blank range, then leaped out of the range of fire as an officer fired a spray of pistol shots after him. The rest of the squad attempted to follow their commander, but soon enough the machine gun was manned again; another man was killed, one more wounded, and the two survivors remained pinned down, leaving Adnan to face his fate alone.
Adnan burst through the door of the pillbox. The Russians were, strangely, taken by surprise. There only five left, an officer, two gunners and two infantrymen with rifles; seven bloody Russian corpses lay strewn at their feet. There was a large, smoking hole in the roof from where Greene’s grenades had struck the pillbox.
After a moment of awkward hesitance, Adnan raised his gun towards the officer. He shot the man in the head, then fired into one of the gunners’ left shoulder. The two riflemen raised their Kalashnikovs and fired as Adnan dove out of the way. Firing his gun sideways, he struck one of his foes in the stomach; the soldier collapsed, spitting blood, but his comrade fired a burst which just missed Adnan’s head. Adnan turned but fell as a bullet shattered his leg; it was one of the gunners, wielding a pistol. Adnan swore and rolled over on his back, realizing that he was done. Nonetheless, he gamely turned back towards opponents, determined to go down fighting.
Adnan heard a metallic clinking noise, and barely had time to register the small hand grenade which bounced across the floor towards the officers. The grenade exploded in the midst of the pillbox, obliterating Adnan and the bunker’s surviving defenders, spraying the walls with blood and tissue. Adnan lived long enough to see the gaping, bloody hole in his right side; then everything went black.
A moment later, Sergeant Beck entered the room, aiming his rifle. Before long, he spotted the body of his old foe Adnan, a bloody mess in the middle of the floor.
I guess God didn’t want our reckoning to happen, Beck thought grimly.
But this was no time for reflection. He rushed over to one of the Russian machine guns and turned it on the rifle pit, shooting down two Russian soldiers. He then aimed it at a machine gun nest across the way, which was raining fire on the Americans below. A few bursts of well-aimed gunfire neutralized them.
After this, Beck realized that the range on his gun was limited, and he could serve little further purpose remaining here. He emerged from the bunker, and his squad, along with the two survivors of Adnan’s.
Just then, two Russian soldiers popped from the rifle pit, firing. A burst struck the man next to Beck in the leg, but Beck ordered his men to fire, and the two soldiers were shot into oblivion by a wall of hot steel. Beck led his men in an over-the-top charge into the pit, finding only one wounded Russian sergeant still living; Beck pitilessly shot the man in the head.
At this, Beck stared up the hill. He could see the artillery from here, belching its noxious smoke onto the troops below, and hear the explosions and screams resulting. He could see the Russian entrenchments, bristling with wire and machine guns and riflemen with gleaming bayonets. And then he saw the rest of the 1st rushing up the hill at full speed, bellowing like demons.
THE BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
Now the 1st was ready to advance. They lacked official orders, but Groggy and his officers would seize control of the helm themselves. And as usual, there was no one there to stop him – the only difference being that the stakes were infinitely higher than they’d ever been before.
Groggy’s troops were immediately galvanized by the call to action. Despite the continuing rain of shellfire and machine gun bullets, they huddled towards the, eager to release their long-standing tension.
“1st Infantry!” Atlas shouted to his battalion, his parade-ground voice overtaking the boom of cannon and rattle of machine guns. “This is what they pay you $2,000 a month for!”
Groggy stepped forward dramatically, instantly commanding the attention of his men. “I’m not Henry V, William Wallace or even Keira Knightley,” he boomed, “so I’m short on bombast and bellicosity. But I’ll say this much to you, ladies and gentlemen. There’s never been a finer regiment in the history of war, not one Mars would be more proud of, and if we can’t whip the Russian host before us, there aren’t any men alive or dead who could.” Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “Today we’ll sup in Green City, or else in Hell!”
The men roared in approval, ready to fight and die and resolve the issue, and Groggy smiled. The high water-mark of his life was undoubtedly upon him, and he savored the brief moment of satisfaction and glory emanating from his approving men.
An artillery shell exploding nearby snapped him out of his narcissist’s reverie. He turned and saw two wounded soldiers being taken to the rear. The eyes of almost 800 men and women were upon him, and he relished the fact. Captain Harriman stood beside him, loading her pistol, inspiring Groggy to check both of his own side-arms. In lieu of anything to say, they simply smiled in acknowledgement of another. A wave of tingling, dizzy vertigo and excitement overtook Groggy.
“1st Infantry, CHARGE!” he shouted. And his men, roaring like angry, blood-thirsty beasts, rose as one onto the field of glory, ready to march into the jaws of Death and the mouth of Hell without a moment’s hesitation – indeed, with glee and excitement.
12:40 PM
They came out of the trenches screaming with bloodthirsty anger, baying like the Hounds of Hell. Their hideous blood-cry was so loud that even the constant artillery and machine gun fire could not drown it out. Even at the top of the hill, under the watchful eye of their commander, the Russian and Cuban troops shuddered as the sound reached their ears.
Casualties began immediately. The advanced machine gun nests began to pelt the onrushing troops with fire, the artillery and mortars exploding amidst their ranks. Some of the men fell, some fell out of line to return fire, but most kept going, heedless to the onrush of hot steel.
A shot thundered. Captain Slick, commanding D Company, fell, his body shattered irreparably by an artillery burst. But his battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck’s command, continued on, hooking to the left, in order to ascend the right slope of the hill and turn Strelnikoff’s flank.
Groggy led the middle wing up the mountain. Atlas attempted to move his men over to the right, but the ridge was too narrow, and there were too many machine guns besides for this maneuver to be practical. His men simply moved up beside Groggy’s wing, reinforcing him significantly.
The men fought their way up the hill, gaining every inch by brute force. Machine gun nests and rifle pits filled with anxious soldiers waited until just the right psychological moment to open fire and hopefully create panic. After the first few such ambushes, however, Groggy’s men were quickly desensitized to the surprise, and quickly overran the positions in a quick burst of rifle fire, lobbed grenades, and if necessary the bayonet. Groggy lost only a handful men in these quick actions.
Still, the progress up the hill was slow going. Groggy’s men hit the first solid line of resistance, a Cuban infantry brigade well-entrenched and supported by machine guns, about 300 yards ahead of the main Russian line. They had been concealed from the base of the hill, but now the 1,300 Cuban and Russian soldiers were all too visible, and all too deadly. After the first wall of Kalashnikoff fire, Groggy’s men were forced to fall back, taking cover in a small ravine, pinned down by their opponents and sporadically exchanging gunfire. Soon, Russian mortars, rockets and artillery were focused; and as before, Groggy’s men were pinned down, at the non-existent mercy of the Russian guns.
“Enough of this horse slop!” Groggy roared, and without further word he leapt up and led his men in another charge. They closed ranks quickly, and after a fierce, bloody, close-range fight, overwhelmed the Cubans, killing 400, taking about 100 prisoners and putting the rest to rout, firing mercilessly into their backs as they streamed towards the main line of defense.
But this wasn’t enough. As Groggy’s men began to climb out of the trench, two artillery shells exploded, killing the first four soldiers to reach the other side. On both sides, machine gun nests began riddling the battalions with gunfire, and more shells and rockets exploded into the dirt above them. Groggy’s men were pinned down again, and they stared longingly, and angrily, at the main Russian lines. But his men could not, at least at this moment, attack the artillery or make them stop, so they had to grin and bear it.
1:00 PM
Sergeant Adnan led the remnants of his squad, already badly bloodied in the opening moments of the charge, towards the largest advanced Russian position, a pillbox guarded by a swath of machine guns and with a squad of concealed riflemen in a trench behind. The capture of this pillbox may have seemed small in the great scheme of things, but given the punishment Adnan’s men were receiving it was, for the moment, of paramount importance.
Adnan and his seven surviving men advanced, one of them, Corporal Greene, wielding a grenade launcher. Adnan led his squad with cool heroism, advancing one at a time closer to the rank, spraying the pillbox with covering fire. Through sheer will alone, the rifles killed at least one of the machine gunners, but they continued firing. Greene lobbed grenades at the pillbox, including one which shattered the roof, but still they kept on firing.
Two of Adnan’s men fell, shot down by the rifles to their flank. Adnan bellowed an order and Corporal Greene began firing grenades into their midst. He managed to kill most of them, but in taking his attention away from the bunker, Greene signed his own death warrant; his torso was completely shattered by machine gun fire and he felt, his grenade launcher tumbling down the hill.
Adnan swore and ducked to the ground. Shouting for his squad to cover him, he threw down his rifle and drew his side arm. He rushed up to the window of and stood beside the firing window, waiting for one of the gunners to stick his head out, which sure enough happened. He then sprung forward and shot the gunner twice in the head at point-blank range, then leaped out of the range of fire as an officer fired a spray of pistol shots after him. The rest of the squad attempted to follow their commander, but soon enough the machine gun was manned again; another man was killed, one more wounded, and the two survivors remained pinned down, leaving Adnan to face his fate alone.
Adnan burst through the door of the pillbox. The Russians were, strangely, taken by surprise. There only five left, an officer, two gunners and two infantrymen with rifles; seven bloody Russian corpses lay strewn at their feet. There was a large, smoking hole in the roof from where Greene’s grenades had struck the pillbox.
After a moment of awkward hesitance, Adnan raised his gun towards the officer. He shot the man in the head, then fired into one of the gunners’ left shoulder. The two riflemen raised their Kalashnikovs and fired as Adnan dove out of the way. Firing his gun sideways, he struck one of his foes in the stomach; the soldier collapsed, spitting blood, but his comrade fired a burst which just missed Adnan’s head. Adnan turned but fell as a bullet shattered his leg; it was one of the gunners, wielding a pistol. Adnan swore and rolled over on his back, realizing that he was done. Nonetheless, he gamely turned back towards opponents, determined to go down fighting.
Adnan heard a metallic clinking noise, and barely had time to register the small hand grenade which bounced across the floor towards the officers. The grenade exploded in the midst of the pillbox, obliterating Adnan and the bunker’s surviving defenders, spraying the walls with blood and tissue. Adnan lived long enough to see the gaping, bloody hole in his right side; then everything went black.
A moment later, Sergeant Beck entered the room, aiming his rifle. Before long, he spotted the body of his old foe Adnan, a bloody mess in the middle of the floor.
I guess God didn’t want our reckoning to happen, Beck thought grimly.
But this was no time for reflection. He rushed over to one of the Russian machine guns and turned it on the rifle pit, shooting down two Russian soldiers. He then aimed it at a machine gun nest across the way, which was raining fire on the Americans below. A few bursts of well-aimed gunfire neutralized them.
After this, Beck realized that the range on his gun was limited, and he could serve little further purpose remaining here. He emerged from the bunker, and his squad, along with the two survivors of Adnan’s.
Just then, two Russian soldiers popped from the rifle pit, firing. A burst struck the man next to Beck in the leg, but Beck ordered his men to fire, and the two soldiers were shot into oblivion by a wall of hot steel. Beck led his men in an over-the-top charge into the pit, finding only one wounded Russian sergeant still living; Beck pitilessly shot the man in the head.
At this, Beck stared up the hill. He could see the artillery from here, belching its noxious smoke onto the troops below, and hear the explosions and screams resulting. He could see the Russian entrenchments, bristling with wire and machine guns and riflemen with gleaming bayonets. And then he saw the rest of the 1st rushing up the hill at full speed, bellowing like demons.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Molotov Heights II: Into the Valley
11:30 AM
BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, but lacking in the usual sweltering humidity of the Palacian clime. And certainly, Groggy’s regiment might have appreciated this fact under most circumstances. But a rain of metal and fire supplanted the water, making such a fact moot; and no one making an infantry assault on foot could truly enjoy even the nicest day.
After about half an hour or so of desultory American shelling, the big Russian guns thundered in response, sending hundreds of shots splashing into Groggy’s hapless infantry. It seemed the extensive pre-battle preparations had all been for naught; the infantry, placed with utmost ridiculousness in their current position, could do little more than hug the ground and try to shield themselves. And even then, too many shells landed amongst his men, inevitably stacking up the casualties.
Groggy watched all this from the midst of his trenches. Without orders, he and his men were helpless, waiting for either an order to an advance, or for Russian bombs and shells to kill them all. He was angry and frustrated, and yet there wasn’t much he could do about it.
To his incredulity, he saw as several wounded men appeared, including Teacher Tom, who saluted with awkward grandeur, and Matt, who reported and then rushed over to Elizabeth, who squealed with delight at the sight of her boyfriend.
“What hell are you doing here, Tom?” Dundee asked.
Tom held out his arms in a stiff theatrical gesture. “Playing the mouse to your Pied Piper, Colonel,” he said, bowing. “At your service, sir.”
“Hell, you were shot in both shoulders,” Dundee replied. “You’re unfit for duty.”
“Not even foulest sepsis and gangrene could hope to keep me from my Destiny,” Tom replied.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Groggy remarked.
“Most of us are,” Tom shouted back before rushing back into line.
Groggy watched him rush into line with admiration, then turned to Captain Harriman.
“Captain, get all of my battalion commanders here right now!” he ordered. Anna saluted and rushed off.
* * *
Further down the line, Sergeant Adnan sat in a trench with his squad, peering over the top of the trench, struggling to do so with getting his head blown off. How the hell did I get myself into this mess? He wondered, unable to come up with a good answer.
He then heard someone rushing up to him and the crack of a salute. He looked up and saw –
It was Beck.
“What the hell are you doing here at a time like this?” Adnan hissed contemptuously.
“Thought I’d come to wish you good luck, old man,” Beck said, smiling. Adnan spit.
“I’m still going to have to kill you, you son of a bitch,” Adnan growled.
Beck shrugged. “We’ll have to survive first,” he replied impassively.
Adnan stared at him with a hard face. “We have to,” Adnan replied. “God demands a reckoning between us.”
A shell burst just at the top of the trench. Adnan instinctively reached over and pulled his foe to the ground, shielding him from the blast.
“And no Russkie’s gonna put either of us down until this thing is properly settled,” Adnan uttered as he rose himself off of Beck.
Beck smiled. “When this thing is over, I’ll buy you a Labatt’s and a big juicy steak at Applebees in Crescent Heights,” he said.
Adnan’s face remained hard. “When this thing’s over, I’m going to shoot you down in the middle of the Government District with a thousand witnesses who won’t dare touch me,” he replied, his cold eyes burning into Beck’s.
Beck could only smile as he departed. There’s nothing this bastard couldn’t do to me that’s any worse than this, Beck reasoned. I can only hope the Russians don’t make his job easier.
* * *
Miles Truelove stood in the middle of camp, stoically indifferent to the pre-battle chaos around him. He realized that today was the day, the Judgment Day, everything this campaign had been building towards. Already a great many of his men, and he had no illusions about what awaited them further up the hill. And while he was all but susceptible to jingoism, he couldn’t but help finding himself swept up – and becoming one of the regiment’s finest rallying points.
A well-remembered verse, beaten into him by a cruel school mistress long ago, began to echo through Corporal Truelove’s brain. He just now realized its appropriateness, not only for the enemy he and the poem’s protagonists shared, but for the situation in general, the stupidity of the officers and their plans, the seeming hopelessness before – and the ridiculous heroism they would need to harness.
“Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,” he began, more to himself than any of his colleagues at first. But gradually his voice gained momentum, even as his colleagues fell killed and maimed around him, frantically trying to reach cover.
“All in the valley of Death, road the six hundred,” he said, watching as an explosion landed in front of a line of entrenchment. He saw his new friends Elizabeth and Matt ducking for cover and the debris and shrapnel pattered down over their heads. He saw Angel praying as she knelt in the trench, her rifle beside her. Dan was flinching nervously, eagerly awaiting the call to action. Truelove watched as a wounded Corporal tried to crawl away, then saw to his horror that he was lacking feet.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Truelove continued, his voice drowned out by two simultaneous explosions.
“My God, what a nuisance!” Teacher Tom said loudly to his colleagues, coolly taking a swig from a flask of rum as the shot and shell sprayed the earth around him.
“Where’d you get that liquor, soldier?” a Sergeant barked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Tom said coolly, downing the whole flask in one go.
“Yes, I would,” the Sergeant remarked, watching with disappointment as Tom threw the empty flask at his feet, histrionically wiped his mouth, and staggered back to the trenches.
“Charge for the guns, he said,” Truelove intoned, just as a shell landed in a trench beside him, kicking up dirt, grass, steel, blood, bones and muffled screams. As the dust cleared away, he saw that among the dead and maimed was poor Suzie, who had so recently been traumatized by the loss of her beloved Kyle; she would now join him in eternal slumber.
“INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH RODE THE SIX HUNDRED!”
Now Truelove’s voice rose to a fever pitch, to the point where the soldiers, though disconcerted by the continued shelling, turned and looked at him. Truelove felt a twinge of self-consciousness, but quickly overcame it. Jim Tate struggled to turn on his iPhone and began recording his speech on video.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” he shouted, now grandstanding with gross irony before his men. “Was there a man dismayed?” Not tho’ the soldier knew, someone had blundered,” he said, pointedly looking at Colonel Dundee, then staring impassively with Captain Harriman and Colonel Starbuck, surveying the field before them, saying these last three words with hateful deliberation.
After several moments, Teacher Tom rejoindered with the next verse. “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die,” he thundered histrionically.
Then he and Truelove finished the verse in unison: “Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred!”
The poem spread among the lines – at least, those articulate enough to know it – as a sort of battle cry. College students, soldiers, poetic dilettantes – anyone and everyone Groggy couldn’t help but smile at their eloquence, and prided himself on the fact that while other regiments might ride into battle singing songs, his men would do so reciting poetry. And he couldn’t help joining in himself.
The less educated could only watch with confusion and dismay. “What the hell are they talking about?” Steven asked as he shoved a clip into his rifle.
Ulysses Bunsher shrugged and spat on the ground. “They’re educated men.”
Jim Tate was trying desperately to capture the high drama of the moment, but it was difficult with an iPhone. While filming the whole spectacle, he struggled to Tweet at the same time. His last message was “Heroism at Palacios! Groggy’s men prepare to take Molotov”
Then his message was cut off. A shell exploded right under him, obliterating Tate into a red mist. Only parts of him were left after the smoke faded – included his right hand, still clinching his iPhone in a disgustingly macabre image. The journalist had longed for glory and excitement, but he didn’t even get a chance to savor his own death.
* * *
While Truelove wreaked his hullabaloo, Groggy called his officers together for a conference. He planned the line of advance up Molotov Hill – they would be divided into three wings as before, and sweep up all sides of the hill at once.
“Goddammit, we need to send someone back to General Slurry and get orders for an advance.
At this moment, there was a loud uproar on the far end of the line. Groggy looked over and saw Captain Elliot, the tough, burly, picturesque commander of H Company, on the ground, a sniper’s bullet having struck him just below the neck and killed him. A group of his soldiers were gathered around his body, some almost in tears.
Groggy registered concern and pity for a good man and a great officer, but he turned back to his officers with an impassive face.
“Now, how in the hell are we going to take this?” Groggy said, suddenly exploding
“Did you ever need orders before, sir?” Harriman asked.
“This is no time for wry and half-witty observations, Captain,” Groggy barked. “I’m at wit’s end.”
“Anna’s right,” Joe said, albeit somewhat reluctantly. “Since when have you taken orders from anyone, sir?”
“Hear hear,” Martinez muttered under his breath.
Groggy was somewhat taken aback by this, which bordered on insulting, but he couldn’t help but acknowledge the truth behind his officers’ statements.
“If one regiment starts moving, Colonel, the others will follow,” Harriman argued, more gently.
“Not even that fool Slurry could stop an army once it’s in motion,” Joe added.
This thought changed Groggy’s mind. He looked around him, at the dead and wounded men strewn amidst the trenches, the shells bursting above the ground and the machine gun rounds spattering into the dirt. He did know that his men couldn’t take much more of this. And just because the Generals were damned fools who didn’t care about the lives of his soldiers, didn’t mean that he was.
He turned back to his officers, and a sly smile slowly overtook his face.
“All right, you sons of bitches,” he shouted over the din of cannon fire. “Do it!”
BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, but lacking in the usual sweltering humidity of the Palacian clime. And certainly, Groggy’s regiment might have appreciated this fact under most circumstances. But a rain of metal and fire supplanted the water, making such a fact moot; and no one making an infantry assault on foot could truly enjoy even the nicest day.
After about half an hour or so of desultory American shelling, the big Russian guns thundered in response, sending hundreds of shots splashing into Groggy’s hapless infantry. It seemed the extensive pre-battle preparations had all been for naught; the infantry, placed with utmost ridiculousness in their current position, could do little more than hug the ground and try to shield themselves. And even then, too many shells landed amongst his men, inevitably stacking up the casualties.
Groggy watched all this from the midst of his trenches. Without orders, he and his men were helpless, waiting for either an order to an advance, or for Russian bombs and shells to kill them all. He was angry and frustrated, and yet there wasn’t much he could do about it.
To his incredulity, he saw as several wounded men appeared, including Teacher Tom, who saluted with awkward grandeur, and Matt, who reported and then rushed over to Elizabeth, who squealed with delight at the sight of her boyfriend.
“What hell are you doing here, Tom?” Dundee asked.
Tom held out his arms in a stiff theatrical gesture. “Playing the mouse to your Pied Piper, Colonel,” he said, bowing. “At your service, sir.”
“Hell, you were shot in both shoulders,” Dundee replied. “You’re unfit for duty.”
“Not even foulest sepsis and gangrene could hope to keep me from my Destiny,” Tom replied.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Groggy remarked.
“Most of us are,” Tom shouted back before rushing back into line.
Groggy watched him rush into line with admiration, then turned to Captain Harriman.
“Captain, get all of my battalion commanders here right now!” he ordered. Anna saluted and rushed off.
* * *
Further down the line, Sergeant Adnan sat in a trench with his squad, peering over the top of the trench, struggling to do so with getting his head blown off. How the hell did I get myself into this mess? He wondered, unable to come up with a good answer.
He then heard someone rushing up to him and the crack of a salute. He looked up and saw –
It was Beck.
“What the hell are you doing here at a time like this?” Adnan hissed contemptuously.
“Thought I’d come to wish you good luck, old man,” Beck said, smiling. Adnan spit.
“I’m still going to have to kill you, you son of a bitch,” Adnan growled.
Beck shrugged. “We’ll have to survive first,” he replied impassively.
Adnan stared at him with a hard face. “We have to,” Adnan replied. “God demands a reckoning between us.”
A shell burst just at the top of the trench. Adnan instinctively reached over and pulled his foe to the ground, shielding him from the blast.
“And no Russkie’s gonna put either of us down until this thing is properly settled,” Adnan uttered as he rose himself off of Beck.
Beck smiled. “When this thing is over, I’ll buy you a Labatt’s and a big juicy steak at Applebees in Crescent Heights,” he said.
Adnan’s face remained hard. “When this thing’s over, I’m going to shoot you down in the middle of the Government District with a thousand witnesses who won’t dare touch me,” he replied, his cold eyes burning into Beck’s.
Beck could only smile as he departed. There’s nothing this bastard couldn’t do to me that’s any worse than this, Beck reasoned. I can only hope the Russians don’t make his job easier.
* * *
Miles Truelove stood in the middle of camp, stoically indifferent to the pre-battle chaos around him. He realized that today was the day, the Judgment Day, everything this campaign had been building towards. Already a great many of his men, and he had no illusions about what awaited them further up the hill. And while he was all but susceptible to jingoism, he couldn’t but help finding himself swept up – and becoming one of the regiment’s finest rallying points.
A well-remembered verse, beaten into him by a cruel school mistress long ago, began to echo through Corporal Truelove’s brain. He just now realized its appropriateness, not only for the enemy he and the poem’s protagonists shared, but for the situation in general, the stupidity of the officers and their plans, the seeming hopelessness before – and the ridiculous heroism they would need to harness.
“Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,” he began, more to himself than any of his colleagues at first. But gradually his voice gained momentum, even as his colleagues fell killed and maimed around him, frantically trying to reach cover.
“All in the valley of Death, road the six hundred,” he said, watching as an explosion landed in front of a line of entrenchment. He saw his new friends Elizabeth and Matt ducking for cover and the debris and shrapnel pattered down over their heads. He saw Angel praying as she knelt in the trench, her rifle beside her. Dan was flinching nervously, eagerly awaiting the call to action. Truelove watched as a wounded Corporal tried to crawl away, then saw to his horror that he was lacking feet.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Truelove continued, his voice drowned out by two simultaneous explosions.
“My God, what a nuisance!” Teacher Tom said loudly to his colleagues, coolly taking a swig from a flask of rum as the shot and shell sprayed the earth around him.
“Where’d you get that liquor, soldier?” a Sergeant barked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Tom said coolly, downing the whole flask in one go.
“Yes, I would,” the Sergeant remarked, watching with disappointment as Tom threw the empty flask at his feet, histrionically wiped his mouth, and staggered back to the trenches.
“Charge for the guns, he said,” Truelove intoned, just as a shell landed in a trench beside him, kicking up dirt, grass, steel, blood, bones and muffled screams. As the dust cleared away, he saw that among the dead and maimed was poor Suzie, who had so recently been traumatized by the loss of her beloved Kyle; she would now join him in eternal slumber.
“INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH RODE THE SIX HUNDRED!”
Now Truelove’s voice rose to a fever pitch, to the point where the soldiers, though disconcerted by the continued shelling, turned and looked at him. Truelove felt a twinge of self-consciousness, but quickly overcame it. Jim Tate struggled to turn on his iPhone and began recording his speech on video.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” he shouted, now grandstanding with gross irony before his men. “Was there a man dismayed?” Not tho’ the soldier knew, someone had blundered,” he said, pointedly looking at Colonel Dundee, then staring impassively with Captain Harriman and Colonel Starbuck, surveying the field before them, saying these last three words with hateful deliberation.
After several moments, Teacher Tom rejoindered with the next verse. “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die,” he thundered histrionically.
Then he and Truelove finished the verse in unison: “Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred!”
The poem spread among the lines – at least, those articulate enough to know it – as a sort of battle cry. College students, soldiers, poetic dilettantes – anyone and everyone Groggy couldn’t help but smile at their eloquence, and prided himself on the fact that while other regiments might ride into battle singing songs, his men would do so reciting poetry. And he couldn’t help joining in himself.
The less educated could only watch with confusion and dismay. “What the hell are they talking about?” Steven asked as he shoved a clip into his rifle.
Ulysses Bunsher shrugged and spat on the ground. “They’re educated men.”
Jim Tate was trying desperately to capture the high drama of the moment, but it was difficult with an iPhone. While filming the whole spectacle, he struggled to Tweet at the same time. His last message was “Heroism at Palacios! Groggy’s men prepare to take Molotov”
Then his message was cut off. A shell exploded right under him, obliterating Tate into a red mist. Only parts of him were left after the smoke faded – included his right hand, still clinching his iPhone in a disgustingly macabre image. The journalist had longed for glory and excitement, but he didn’t even get a chance to savor his own death.
* * *
While Truelove wreaked his hullabaloo, Groggy called his officers together for a conference. He planned the line of advance up Molotov Hill – they would be divided into three wings as before, and sweep up all sides of the hill at once.
“Goddammit, we need to send someone back to General Slurry and get orders for an advance.
At this moment, there was a loud uproar on the far end of the line. Groggy looked over and saw Captain Elliot, the tough, burly, picturesque commander of H Company, on the ground, a sniper’s bullet having struck him just below the neck and killed him. A group of his soldiers were gathered around his body, some almost in tears.
Groggy registered concern and pity for a good man and a great officer, but he turned back to his officers with an impassive face.
“Now, how in the hell are we going to take this?” Groggy said, suddenly exploding
“Did you ever need orders before, sir?” Harriman asked.
“This is no time for wry and half-witty observations, Captain,” Groggy barked. “I’m at wit’s end.”
“Anna’s right,” Joe said, albeit somewhat reluctantly. “Since when have you taken orders from anyone, sir?”
“Hear hear,” Martinez muttered under his breath.
Groggy was somewhat taken aback by this, which bordered on insulting, but he couldn’t help but acknowledge the truth behind his officers’ statements.
“If one regiment starts moving, Colonel, the others will follow,” Harriman argued, more gently.
“Not even that fool Slurry could stop an army once it’s in motion,” Joe added.
This thought changed Groggy’s mind. He looked around him, at the dead and wounded men strewn amidst the trenches, the shells bursting above the ground and the machine gun rounds spattering into the dirt. He did know that his men couldn’t take much more of this. And just because the Generals were damned fools who didn’t care about the lives of his soldiers, didn’t mean that he was.
He turned back to his officers, and a sly smile slowly overtook his face.
“All right, you sons of bitches,” he shouted over the din of cannon fire. “Do it!”
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Molotov Heights I: Half a League Onward
MAY 7TH, 2009
MOLOTOV HILL, MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
9:00 AM
The artillery bombardment commenced at dawn. American artillery and missile launchers, finally in position, let loose a hellish torrent of fire onto the Russian positions. American bombers and helicopters flew low over the Russian lines, delivering their payloads onto the Russian defenses. For all their sound and fury, the American guns and bombs were doing little damage to the intricate defensive system.
Lieutenant-Colonel Strelinkoff sat in the conference room of the army’s blockhouse. He studied a map of the defenses and smiled to himself. Surely General Slurry was no Burnside, he thought. But if he was, he was more than willing to play General Lee. After months of swatting at Palacian flies, he was now fighting a real opponent. He could only hope that all his gambling would pay off.
Strelnikoff emerged from the blockhouse, flanked by two of his subordinate officers. His soldiers stood at attention as he reviewed them, young men ready and willing to die for an ephemeral cause. He surveyed the intricate entrenchments, the tan uniforms, the AKs with flashing bayonets, the glimmering machine gun and mortar barrels. And he looked behind him at his heavy guns concealed in camouflaged bunkers.
Only an imbecile would assault such a position directly, he thought smugly. He then looked over at Ft. Kurugen on Petrov Hill to his right, an equally formidable position. If the Americans want a battle, he thought, I shall give them a massacre.
10:00 AM
MESA HILL
XXII CORPS FIELD HQ
General Slurry looked through the smoke of artillery bursts and bomb blasts to see the formidable Russian defenses across the valley.
“Are your troops in position?” he asked General Ale, commander his first division.
“Yes, sir,” Ale replied.
Slurry wiped off his sweating, heavy brow. He had never led so much as a squad into action, but now he was leading 46,000 men in a huge, classic set-piece battle. Slurry found it difficult to maintain his composure, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse.
An aide rushed up to the General. “Sir, report from General Ramsey,” he sputtered. “Ramsey’s division is meeting heavy resistance at Belkin.”
Slurry had ordered Ramsey and a large detachment of Partisans to commence their flanking movement at dawn, before Ale’s division was in position for their assault. He hoped that the regulars would be able to turn the Russian flank and render Strelnikoff’s position invulnerable. The volunteer division, in whom he had little faith, would deliver a knock-out blow against routed and demoralized Russian troops. Somehow it had never occurred to him that Ramsey’s troops would not quickly brush
aside the Russo-Cuban forces before them.
But Ramsey’s men had rushed into the teeth of Colonel Linares’ veteran Cuban brigade, whom they weren’t expecting at all. One of Ramsey’s brigadiers, General Sylvester, had been killed, and three assaults by his troops repulsed. His division, lacking close artillery or air support, was soon pinned down in the steaming jungle, unable to either advance or retreat.
Slurry took this news in his usual fashion. “Huh?”
“Sir, Ramsey’s forces are pinned down by a brigade-strength force,” the aide continued. “They lack artillery support and haven’t been able to make any progress. General Ramsey requests permission to withdraw and redeploy his troops.”
Slurry shook his head. “Belkin must be taken,” he uttered. “It’s paramount. Tell Ramsey that he has a goddamned numeric advantage and should be able to brush those bastards aside. He has Army regulars, for Christ’s sake!”
“Sir, regular troops can’t just walk over machine guns,” Ale said.
“They’d damned well better try!” Slurry said. He stared across the way at the Russian defenses and sighed.
He really hoped that Ramsey made progress, and soon. Otherwise, he knew whom he’d have to rely on…
10:45 AM
THE BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
“Colonel, what the hell are we doing here?” Captain Harriman asked.
Groggy frowned. “Captain, we just had this discussion last night.”
“No, I mean what are we doing HERE?” she said, gesticulating at their surroundings.
The Captain had a point. The boneheadedness of General Slurry had caused the 2nd Division to advance towards Molotov Heights through jungle before emerging into a treeless ravine. At first, the soldiers were glad to be out of the sweltering forest, only to realize that they now had no cover. As they advanced, Russian artillery and rockets began hitting them, and hitting them hard. Groggy took initiative to march his troops double-time until they reached cover, but even then the tree line only exacerbated the problems, as shrapnel raining through the canopy brought with it a shower of leaves and splintered tree bark. Groggy lost at least eleven men killed and many more injured in this march, not to mention the cohesion of his regiment.
Now they were in a makeshift line with the rest of General Ale’s division at the base of the heights, using a small dip in the earth as an entrenchment to shield themselves from artillery, mortar and machine gun fire. About 2,000 yards away was the prize; even with his naked eye Groggy could see the strength of the Russian entrenchments, and he blanched seeing the intricate series of machine gun nests, pill boxes, bunkers and rifle pits pock-marking the side of the hill. Although he knew what today meant for him and his regiment – indeed, his whole country and perhaps the world – he suddenly felt a twinge of apprehension, an idea that he might actually fail in his endeavour.
“I sure hope General Slurry knows what he’s doing,” Harriman said.
Groggy smirked. “If he did, we wouldn’t be here, would we?” he asked, just as a pair of American cannon discharged, continuing the pre-battle bombardment. He loaded both of his pistols, coolly readying himself for the day of reckoning.
11:10 AM
XXII CORPS FIELD HOSPITAL
NEAR EL GRAPADURA
General Jenkins awoke with a start. He snorted with exhaustion, realizing that he had overslept – the advance, and perhaps even the main battle, had already begun without him. But there was still Jana lying prostrate on top of him.
“Get off, bitch!” Jenkins roared, kicking Jana on the floor and hurrying himself into action.
Jana awoke in mid-air, and landed with a startled thud and oof upon the tent floor.
Jenkins hurriedly dressed himself and loaded his pistol.
“That’s no way to treat a lady what gave herself to you last night,” Jana chided.
“I didn’t ask for it, did I?” Jenkins said, ignoring her.
“Garn, you’re a regular piece of shit!” the nurse shouted, reaching for her discarded uniform.
“And you’re a cunt,” murmured Jenkins. He carefully applied his army hat and grimacing from a tinge of pain down his shattered arm, then rushed out of the tent at full speed.
Jana stared after him, both angry and horrified. So basically I had sex with that monster for nothing? She asked herself. How disgusting. She hurriedly dressed and rushed with a start out of the tent, searching for Jenkins, when a young nurse named Amy confronted her.
“Lieutenant Gladstone, where were you last night?” Amy asked breathlessly.
“Nowhere I want to remember,” Jana uttered sleepily.
“For God’s sakes, Jana, you can’t sleep in,” Amy chided. “There’s a battle going on this morning.”
Jana started; she had completely forgotten about the battle coming up. But she was now galvanized, and immediately took charge of the situation, leaving thoughts of Groggy and his reptilian nemesis behind.
* * *
Jenkins rushed through the camp hurriedly, attempting to find out what was going. He could hear the far-off thud of artillery, and the roar of jets and helicopters overhead, and knew that a denouement was quickly coming. But how to get there?
Then he saw it. In the middle of the camp, a pair of MPs were sitting around in a jeep, chatting over a newspaper. Jenkins rushed over to them, and they snapped to attention.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to trouble you but I need this vehicle,” Jenkins said tersely. Then he rushed into the jeep and immediately began to operate it.
The MPs were too startled to act. “General, don’t you want an escort-“ one of them began.
But Jenkins had already put the throttle down, and was hurtling towards the battle front, just hoping he’d get there in time to take part in, or the very least witness, the fruits of his wrath.
MOLOTOV HILL, MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
9:00 AM
The artillery bombardment commenced at dawn. American artillery and missile launchers, finally in position, let loose a hellish torrent of fire onto the Russian positions. American bombers and helicopters flew low over the Russian lines, delivering their payloads onto the Russian defenses. For all their sound and fury, the American guns and bombs were doing little damage to the intricate defensive system.
Lieutenant-Colonel Strelinkoff sat in the conference room of the army’s blockhouse. He studied a map of the defenses and smiled to himself. Surely General Slurry was no Burnside, he thought. But if he was, he was more than willing to play General Lee. After months of swatting at Palacian flies, he was now fighting a real opponent. He could only hope that all his gambling would pay off.
Strelnikoff emerged from the blockhouse, flanked by two of his subordinate officers. His soldiers stood at attention as he reviewed them, young men ready and willing to die for an ephemeral cause. He surveyed the intricate entrenchments, the tan uniforms, the AKs with flashing bayonets, the glimmering machine gun and mortar barrels. And he looked behind him at his heavy guns concealed in camouflaged bunkers.
Only an imbecile would assault such a position directly, he thought smugly. He then looked over at Ft. Kurugen on Petrov Hill to his right, an equally formidable position. If the Americans want a battle, he thought, I shall give them a massacre.
10:00 AM
MESA HILL
XXII CORPS FIELD HQ
General Slurry looked through the smoke of artillery bursts and bomb blasts to see the formidable Russian defenses across the valley.
“Are your troops in position?” he asked General Ale, commander his first division.
“Yes, sir,” Ale replied.
Slurry wiped off his sweating, heavy brow. He had never led so much as a squad into action, but now he was leading 46,000 men in a huge, classic set-piece battle. Slurry found it difficult to maintain his composure, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse.
An aide rushed up to the General. “Sir, report from General Ramsey,” he sputtered. “Ramsey’s division is meeting heavy resistance at Belkin.”
Slurry had ordered Ramsey and a large detachment of Partisans to commence their flanking movement at dawn, before Ale’s division was in position for their assault. He hoped that the regulars would be able to turn the Russian flank and render Strelnikoff’s position invulnerable. The volunteer division, in whom he had little faith, would deliver a knock-out blow against routed and demoralized Russian troops. Somehow it had never occurred to him that Ramsey’s troops would not quickly brush
aside the Russo-Cuban forces before them.
But Ramsey’s men had rushed into the teeth of Colonel Linares’ veteran Cuban brigade, whom they weren’t expecting at all. One of Ramsey’s brigadiers, General Sylvester, had been killed, and three assaults by his troops repulsed. His division, lacking close artillery or air support, was soon pinned down in the steaming jungle, unable to either advance or retreat.
Slurry took this news in his usual fashion. “Huh?”
“Sir, Ramsey’s forces are pinned down by a brigade-strength force,” the aide continued. “They lack artillery support and haven’t been able to make any progress. General Ramsey requests permission to withdraw and redeploy his troops.”
Slurry shook his head. “Belkin must be taken,” he uttered. “It’s paramount. Tell Ramsey that he has a goddamned numeric advantage and should be able to brush those bastards aside. He has Army regulars, for Christ’s sake!”
“Sir, regular troops can’t just walk over machine guns,” Ale said.
“They’d damned well better try!” Slurry said. He stared across the way at the Russian defenses and sighed.
He really hoped that Ramsey made progress, and soon. Otherwise, he knew whom he’d have to rely on…
10:45 AM
THE BASE OF MOLOTOV HEIGHTS
“Colonel, what the hell are we doing here?” Captain Harriman asked.
Groggy frowned. “Captain, we just had this discussion last night.”
“No, I mean what are we doing HERE?” she said, gesticulating at their surroundings.
The Captain had a point. The boneheadedness of General Slurry had caused the 2nd Division to advance towards Molotov Heights through jungle before emerging into a treeless ravine. At first, the soldiers were glad to be out of the sweltering forest, only to realize that they now had no cover. As they advanced, Russian artillery and rockets began hitting them, and hitting them hard. Groggy took initiative to march his troops double-time until they reached cover, but even then the tree line only exacerbated the problems, as shrapnel raining through the canopy brought with it a shower of leaves and splintered tree bark. Groggy lost at least eleven men killed and many more injured in this march, not to mention the cohesion of his regiment.
Now they were in a makeshift line with the rest of General Ale’s division at the base of the heights, using a small dip in the earth as an entrenchment to shield themselves from artillery, mortar and machine gun fire. About 2,000 yards away was the prize; even with his naked eye Groggy could see the strength of the Russian entrenchments, and he blanched seeing the intricate series of machine gun nests, pill boxes, bunkers and rifle pits pock-marking the side of the hill. Although he knew what today meant for him and his regiment – indeed, his whole country and perhaps the world – he suddenly felt a twinge of apprehension, an idea that he might actually fail in his endeavour.
“I sure hope General Slurry knows what he’s doing,” Harriman said.
Groggy smirked. “If he did, we wouldn’t be here, would we?” he asked, just as a pair of American cannon discharged, continuing the pre-battle bombardment. He loaded both of his pistols, coolly readying himself for the day of reckoning.
11:10 AM
XXII CORPS FIELD HOSPITAL
NEAR EL GRAPADURA
General Jenkins awoke with a start. He snorted with exhaustion, realizing that he had overslept – the advance, and perhaps even the main battle, had already begun without him. But there was still Jana lying prostrate on top of him.
“Get off, bitch!” Jenkins roared, kicking Jana on the floor and hurrying himself into action.
Jana awoke in mid-air, and landed with a startled thud and oof upon the tent floor.
Jenkins hurriedly dressed himself and loaded his pistol.
“That’s no way to treat a lady what gave herself to you last night,” Jana chided.
“I didn’t ask for it, did I?” Jenkins said, ignoring her.
“Garn, you’re a regular piece of shit!” the nurse shouted, reaching for her discarded uniform.
“And you’re a cunt,” murmured Jenkins. He carefully applied his army hat and grimacing from a tinge of pain down his shattered arm, then rushed out of the tent at full speed.
Jana stared after him, both angry and horrified. So basically I had sex with that monster for nothing? She asked herself. How disgusting. She hurriedly dressed and rushed with a start out of the tent, searching for Jenkins, when a young nurse named Amy confronted her.
“Lieutenant Gladstone, where were you last night?” Amy asked breathlessly.
“Nowhere I want to remember,” Jana uttered sleepily.
“For God’s sakes, Jana, you can’t sleep in,” Amy chided. “There’s a battle going on this morning.”
Jana started; she had completely forgotten about the battle coming up. But she was now galvanized, and immediately took charge of the situation, leaving thoughts of Groggy and his reptilian nemesis behind.
* * *
Jenkins rushed through the camp hurriedly, attempting to find out what was going. He could hear the far-off thud of artillery, and the roar of jets and helicopters overhead, and knew that a denouement was quickly coming. But how to get there?
Then he saw it. In the middle of the camp, a pair of MPs were sitting around in a jeep, chatting over a newspaper. Jenkins rushed over to them, and they snapped to attention.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to trouble you but I need this vehicle,” Jenkins said tersely. Then he rushed into the jeep and immediately began to operate it.
The MPs were too startled to act. “General, don’t you want an escort-“ one of them began.
But Jenkins had already put the throttle down, and was hurtling towards the battle front, just hoping he’d get there in time to take part in, or the very least witness, the fruits of his wrath.
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