He had killed two and wounded another three, and those three would have at least six uninjured troops carrying them to the rear.
He did not know how many they faced from that direction, but he figured that it was more than the fifteen a Chinook could officially carry, but either way the reservists were now short eleven weapons and a bundle of brass they could not replace any time soon.
The road bridge suddenly blew with a flash and a boom that must have carried far further than the sound of the Chinooks demise.
The black and acrid by-products of high explosive, the smoke and stink of burnt almonds was carried away on the wind as two out of the three spans prepared for demolition fell into the river. The third just stayed stubbornly where it was, the explosives wedged into the joins between the span and the supports were visibly still intact.
Rubble fell back to earth, splashing into the river, onto the surviving sections, and into the jungle with a crash.
There was no obvious explanation as to why the third road span had not joined the other two but that was all academic now, thought Li.
They needed to be gone from here, and the arrival of a belt of two 81mm mortar roads just short of the road in front of the gatehouse added further emphasis.
“Back together both, dead slow.” Li ordered.
Two more rounds arrived, uncorrected, merely bedding in rounds to set the baseplates solidly, but in that the baseplate position for each barrel was good for only a half dozen rounds apiece as each round fired drove the mortar baseplate deeper into the sodden earth.
The legionnaires had been put down on the Route de l’Espace by the Puma and Gazelle, and set up their mini mortar line on the verge.
Had they a rifle platoon nearby the mortars would have been sited on the solid but unyielding tarmac with a riflemen acting as a shock absorber, fingers in ears and with both feet on the baseplate.
“Une prochaine!” would summons the next rifleman when the former rolled off the baseplate in pain with one or both ankles broken.
Riflemen were good for an average eight rounds, even on a bad day.
The Bao cast off whilst still fuelling; hungry for every drop of precious diesel they could get into the Kilo’s tanks.
The fuelling probe ejected itself, the hose at full stretch it sprang from the intake valve, clanged against the starboard main ballast tank and flopped into the river with a splash.
Slippery diesel made life interesting for the FAS party but they quickly secured the intake valve and riser.
Something struck the Fliterland’s hull, ricocheting away with a whine. The shooters from earlier on were back, lying prone on the southern side of the now wrecked road bridge, taking pot-shots at Dai. The Dai’s 23mm replied, its gunners first burst going ‘over’ through lack of practice, allowing the jungle warfare schools CO and RSM to make it into cover speckled with shredded leaf matter. Like an evergreen wedding party, plastered with matching confetti, crawling rapidly backwards heedless of gravel-rash on skinned knees and elbows, back beyond the roads camber as cannon shells diced and sliced the overhanging trees canopy. It is doubtful though that the wedding party analogy was befitting the language being issued by both thoroughly alarmed men, especially from the sarn’t major who had a far greater vocabulary along those lines from which to draw on than his colonel.
Aboard the Bao a linesman dropped with a cry, the muzzle flashes of a half dozen FAMAS assault rifles in the jungle on the north bank were temporarily extinguished by the joint efforts of Bao’s 23mm and several armed ratings on the casing.
Dai’s casing doors slid open, the forward pair sucking in oxygen and the after pair coughed, spluttered and gave vent to a throaty roar as her diesels kicked in.
Captain Li’s putting the Juliett alongside the jetty was not as neat and pretty as the first occasion. A screech of steel against concrete announced her arrival and the 23mm gave one last burst towards the bridge before swinging dockside to cover the withdrawal.
They fell back in bounds, working in pairs with one firing as his mate moved back to the next available cover, but harassed by fire from the jungle bordering the car park, and more seriously by an old sweat with the reservists tactical radio.
The still ringing telephone in the gatehouse was at last silenced as the building blew apart and began to burn. The next rounds sent the prefabricated roof sections of the covered car park sailing, only to fall spinning like lethal Frisbees’ amongst the armed ratings. Behind them Sergeant Yen and a trooper lay behind a low wall, liberally dusted in debris from the nearby gatehouse which now silhouetted them in its flames. Incoming fire cracked passed, just overhead or struck the brickwork to ricochet away whining, sending brick splinters flying. Yen cursed, a long cut down the length of one cheekbone from one such shard of red brick. They fired rifle grenades into the jungle shadows, attempting to silence the spotter but the next rounds were ‘on’ and the orderly withdrawal became a sprint to safety by the survivors.
Six of Dai’s crew members lay unmoving on the black tarmacadam, the neatly and precisely painted white lines defining the car parking spaces now marred by flecks of blood.
Crewmen stood on the casing helped their messmates down, dropping off the edge of the jetty where they were grabbed before they could topple into the water from the curving convex ballast tank.
Bao’s 23mm was still firing into the jungle but she had not slowed, the cannon’s fire becoming less effective with each turn of her screw.
Sergeant Yen and the trooper arrived last, Dai’s 23mm working over the darkened jungle as they threw smoke grenades into the undergrowth before running hell for leather down the sloping car park, shouting to cast off and that all who could were already aboard. They pounded along the jetty and arrived as the gulf between it and the submarines casing was widening, caught as it was now by the current. Not slowing as the seamen had but leaping long and high, risking broken bones but they made it and grimaced on sprained ankles as they were helped below.
Dai’s 23mm cannon fell silent, all ammunition expended.
Captain Li looked over at the fallen crew members as the Dai backed away from the jetty, illuminated in the flickering firelight from the burning gatehouse they were unmoving, the wind ruffling tattered and torn uniform clothing.
“All back slow…special sea duty men below!” he leant over the coaming to shout at two armed ratings and the air sentries standing upright on the after casing.
“Air sentries kneel behind the conning tower…you riflemen there, get down!”
The throb of Bao’s diesels reverberated as she too switched from her electric motors. She had reached the bend in the river, her 23mm silent too, either out of ammunition or out of effective range.
The next rounds arrived, fired from mortar barrels pointing up at a high angle, the baseplates now sunk almost two feet.
High angle equals greater flight time equals greater variation of error. One round struck the now empty jetty whilst the other landed well ‘off’ in the small tank farm to perforate several of the cylindrical containers.
“Standby tubes One and Two…helm, give me five degrees to port…’midships, steady, all stop!”
Dai’s stern pointed not safely mid-stream but angled toward the southern bank.
The Fliterland was now once more a darkened silhouette, sat silent and aloof from the mayhem.