“We have to take the city,” he said, and his staff saluted smartly. Although he hadn’t told any of the enlisted men, who might have been upset, they’d lost contact with the other part of the pincer. Quickly, he issued orders for runners to circumvent the city, hopefully to meet up with the other half of his force, and then ordered a quick rest.
While the soldiers rested and prepared themselves as best as they could for the coming fight, Homma examined the defences. They’d been contrasted along First World War lines and he scowled; the ANZAC veterans had probably seen combat in France. The defences were powerful… and he didn’t have many field guns and only a handful of tanks. He was well equipped with mortars, with plenty of rounds, but he didn’t have enough main guns to knock out their defences.
“We’re going to have to take them on directly,” he said, passing his binoculars over the defence lines. The death toll was going to be horrendous. “Order the troops to stand by; we attack as soon as we hear back from Hirkada.”
A runner crashed through the bush and ran up to Homma, panting. “Sir, General Hirkada reports that he’s reached Darwin and is going to attack in twenty minutes…”
He broke off, panting. Homma waved a hand at the flask of water and considered. Perhaps a joint attack could succeed, backed up by the armour. They would conquer – or die trying.
“That’s Homma himself,” Philip Orozco said. The SAS officer was hidden in a tiny cave, dug underground, peering out through sensors the Japanese couldn’t even begin to imagine. “I wonder what he’s thinking.”
“He’s thinking Banzai, Banzai, Banzai; we can take those Aussie louts,” Samuel Broderick predicted. “Does he have any common sense at all?”
Orozco shrugged. The two officers were lying in the cramped cave, completely undetectable. If the Japanese had known that they were there, they could have dug them up, but they had no way of finding them, let alone digging down to reach them.
“I think they believe that faith conquers all,” he said, and chuckled. “They’re worse than the Jihadis; you have to kill them all to get them to break.”
“One should only use fanatics as cannon fodder,” Broderick said grimly. A mere handful of truly evil men in the Middle East had done that in the last years of the War on Terror, a war that would now never be fought. “Point them at the target and shoot.”
“Heads up,” Orozco said, as the sensors picked up the sounds of a whistle. The sensors continued to relay information; Japanese troops were forming up into lines. “I think the big show is about to start.”
“No kidding,” Broderick muttered. “Just look at them go.”
The crump-crump-crump of Japanese mortars erupted from the Japanese lines, pouring fire into the Australian defences. In return, bigger guns, kept out of Japanese range in the city itself, pounded back, using their heavier rate of fire to overwhelm the Japanese attempts at counter-battery fire. Handfuls of shooting near the front lines testified to the Japanese forces trying to move up under the cover of the shellfire, pounding away at the defenders.
General Sir Leslie James Morshead, commander of the Rats of Darwin, studied the advancing Japanese without concern. The Japanese were mainly infantry, unlike the Germans his duplicate had had to deal with, and they were unprepared for the sheer violence of modern war. The defence lines had been carefully designed and constructed as fast as the resources of an entire city could be deployed, turning equipment for digging drains into digging trenches.
“General, they’re advancing from both directions,” his radio burst out. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the radios – they allowed the High Command to interfere whenever they felt like it – but they were brilliant for commanding his forces. He’d wanted to lead from the front, but the British liaison officer had dissuaded him.
“Order the 4th Infantry to prepare to move east,” he said, considering. His handful of tanks – very light tanks – couldn’t be committed to battle yet. “If they break through, we’ll plug the hole with them.”
“Yes, sir,” his aide said. Morshead smiled; the Japanese had three lines to break before they could reach the city… and then they would be chewed up in the streets.
The whistle blew and the men advanced, jumping forward to avoid the lines of mines quickly laid by Japanese sappers. Sergeant Hitoshi, to give him his due, led the charge, leaving the other sergeants to force the men forward. There wasn’t any reluctance; the men charged forward, intending to win the city for themselves.
“Banzai,” they shouted, and charged. Private Fumihiko ran with them, shooting madly at an Australian bunker, and then threw himself to the ground as a machine gun poked its nose out of the slit in the wall. A stream of bullets passed through the platoon, slaughtering some of the men like pigs.
“Forward,” Sergeant Hitoshi bellowed. The experienced officer had hit the ground at once. “Fire!”
Private Fumihiko watched with genuine admiration as Sergeant Hitoshi jumped up to the slit, pressing himself against the bunker. A knife came out and slashed at the sergeant, but he caught it, tossing a grenade inside the bunker. The explosion blew the machine gun away.
“Forward,” Sergeant Hitoshi bellowed again, and moved carefully around the bunker. Private Fumihiko and the remains of the platoon followed him, absorbing the remains of other platoons as they advanced. A hail of shellfire fell on the bunker they’d killed; enough to blast it out of the ground.
“Missed,” Sergeant Hitoshi shouted, and led the charge to the next position. A hail of shellfire poured down on their heads and Private Fumihiko had only minutes to realise that the Australians had pre-targeted their guns, before the shells exploded. By some miracle, both him and Sergeant Hitoshi had survived, but there was nothing more left of the platoon. The men he’d marched with through China and Indochina, through the Dutch East Indies, had been slaughtered in one catastrophic attack.
A haze descended upon his vision, it was broken by Sergeant Hitoshi shaking him violently. “Forward,” the sergeant bellowed, ignoring the fact that they were alone. The main focus of the battle had moved elsewhere. “Get up, you lazy…”
Private Fumihiko lifted his rifle and squeezed the trigger once. Sergeant Hitoshi’s head exploded before he realised that his death had come for him. His body toppled over backwards, leaving Private Fumihiko sitting in the battlefield, looking at nothing.
“They’re coming in the west,” someone shouted. “We need fire support, now!”
“Order the guns to open fire, pre-set coordinates,” Morshead ordered. He studied the map grimly, imagining the scene. The first eastern attack had been broken, at heavy cost to both sides, and the trenches were awash with blood. The Japanese had fallen back, but he was certain that they would be back.
“Firing,” his aide said. The sound of the guns echoed through the buildings. The hail of Japanese mortar fire seemed to have slowed down. “Sir, the Japanese are advancing with their tanks.”
Morshead glanced up at the display and cursed. The Japanese might not have realised, but they’d given the eastern defenders quite a beating. Tanks might just tip the balance… except he had tanks too.
“Send in the tanks,” he commanded. “They’re to advance at once.”