“I agree,” said the other officer. “I’ll bet they’re no more than one or two kilometers away from our current position. It’s a good thing you called a halt to the march, Sir. We could’ve walked right into one of their ambushes.”
“I’m so tired that I hadn’t even thought about that,” Ma thought. “I have to get some sleep, or I’m going to get my men killed.”
The only silver lining was that, as his company was leaving their initial ambush point, they had run into the remnants of two other companies that had been a part of the attack on the Americans at the beach. Both companies were down to half strength and were being led by lieutenants. Ma ordered them to fall in with his command and consolidated them for the attack at Fort Mag. Once they knew where he was headed and what his orders were, they gladly joined. That brought his 118-man reinforced company up to 331, a light battalion by many standards. How they hadn’t been spotted by enemy helicopters, drones or aircraft up to that point was beyond him, but he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth just yet.
“Before anyone goes to sleep, we have some work to do,” announced Captain Ma. “Lieutenant Chu, I need you to make contact with headquarters. Let them know where we are, and ask if there is any fire support we’ll be able to call on when we attack. See if you can find out what other units are in the area and if we are supposed to coordinate our attack. If so, at what time and with whom? OK?”
“I understand, Captain. I’ll work on that right now,” he replied. He ducked out from under the poncho to start making calls on the radio.
“Lieutenant Li, you have the most dangerous and most important mission,” said Captain Ma. “I want you to pick two of the more senior sergeants or men who are most adept at sneaking up on someone. I need your team to scout what’s in front of us and find the American positions without being detected. See if you can get their exact locations, strength, and the weapons they have. If we can get some fire support from headquarters, we’ll relay that information to them and see if we can hurt the Americans before we launch our attack.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Lieutenant Li, who seemed excited about the mission.
“I want you to set out to do this around 0400, not right now,” explained Ma. “I want you alert and rested when I send you out, so for the moment, go get some sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
The following morning was going to be busy, and chances were, a lot of his men might not survive.
At 0445 hours, Captain Ma awoke from perhaps the deepest sleep he had had in weeks. Yawning, he stretched out his arms, then his legs, and finally his back and neck, noticing the creaks and cracks along the way.
“There’s no way I can stay in the airborne for my entire career if I survive this war. My body just won’t take it,” he realized.
“Hey, you’re awake, Sir. I was just about to come get you,” remarked Lieutenant Chu, the officer he had tasked with identifying any other potential support.
Ma took a swig of water from his canteen, swished it around in his mouth and spat it out. He then took a couple of long drinks before returning his attention to his lieutenant. “Thanks for letting me sleep, Chu. I really needed it. So, tell me, what did you find out from headquarters?” he inquired.
Chu smiled. He had been the XO of a sister company that had met the American Marines at the beach the day before. After an hour of fighting, they had been ordered to fall back to their rally point, which was several kilometers inland, away from the beach and deep in the jungle. His company commander and the two other officers had been killed, and he found himself in charge. Having just joined the company a month ago, he’d didn’t know a lot of the other officers in the battalion, so when the remnants of his company had made contact with Captain Ma, he was only too happy for him to take over command and let him lead them.
Chu pulled out the map and laid it on the ground next to them. “I’ve listed the location of the other units in the area. What the Americans don’t know is that nearly the entire 128th Regiment moved to this position during the night and spread out across this entire zone,” he said. He pointed to the village of General Tinio, roughly four kilometers from the airfield.
“The 14th Armored Brigade is located here,” Chu continued, pointing to the city of Rizal. “General Toa said he wants us to begin our attack at approximately 0615 hours. At 0600 hours, they’re going to launch a massive rocket artillery barrage on the base. When that happens, the 14th Armor is going to race toward the American positions and try to overwhelm them. I also made sure to give them the location of the American lines in front of us.” A huge smile spread across his face.
Ma didn’t know what to say. He wanted to hug Chu at that very moment. This was going to be a real attack, not some half-measure that would result in most of them being killed or captured.
“But how did the Americans not see that we are massing tanks, artillery, and all of these soldiers?” he wondered. “How have they not already attacked us?”
“Lieutenant Chu, if we live through today, I’m going to recommend that you be awarded the Order of the Heroic Exemplar. You may have just saved the lives of our entire company,” Ma replied. He saw Chu just beam with pride, and he knew in that instant that Chu would follow him anywhere, under any circumstance, for giving him such glowing praise.
“What about the American lines in front of us? How far away are they?” Captain Ma asked. He turned to Lieutenant Li and saw that he was still asleep. Ma realized that Li must have gone out already and given his report to Chu.
“Lieutenant Li came back from his patrol about thirty minutes ago,” Chu answered. “I’ve been updating the map with what he found and relaying those grid coordinates to our own artillery. Like he said last night, it’s a good thing we stopped. The Americans are no more than one kilometer away from us. We would’ve walked right into them had we not stopped when we did. It was still dark, so he could not see their exact numbers, but using the night vision goggles, he was able to make out two roadblocks and a couple of locations where they had strung up some concertina wire. Judging by the way they placed the wires, it looks like they’re trying to funnel us into certain areas. His best guess is they probably have antipersonnel mines set up in the areas they left ‘undefended’ and want us to run through. He marked them on his map, which I transposed to yours. We both suggest that we work our way around to this spot here and avoid hitting them head-on. If we hit their right flank, we can avoid the concertina wire they set up and probably get a good jump on them.”
The two of them looked over the maps for a few more minutes before they woke up Lieutenant Li and then grabbed their senior sergeants. It was time to talk over their attack plan and figure out how they were going to nail this American unit without getting themselves wiped out in the process.
Colonel Micah Tilman finished taking a morning bio break against the side of the building and then turned to head back into the makeshift headquarters Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Jackman had set up the day before. It was now 0422 hours, and despite the sun having been down for nearly eight hours, it was still hot and muggy. As Tilman walked along the side of the building toward the side that faced the airstrip, he saw two V-22 Ospreys land and unload a small group of passengers, all carrying a lot of gear. As soon as they got everything unloaded from the aircraft, the Osprey was gone, headed back out to sea or wherever it had come from.