I hope I have made the correct decision, Bai thought. I must give General Nung the means so he can achieve another battlefield miracle.
“You know what this is?” Paul asked.
“Tell me,” Red Cloud said.
“A Chinese wave assault.”
Paul and Red Cloud lay in their gully, both men using binoculars to scan the pack ice. On it approached more than three hundred Chinese soldiers. They were spread out on the ice, with weapons ready. Behind them followed more Chinese soldiers.
“They mean to storm our island,” Red Cloud said.
Paul cradled a grenade launcher. It had advantages over a heavy machine gun. The biggest was that firing it wouldn’t give away their position. The enemy was still much too far out of range.
“We need some mortars,” Paul said.
“The lieutenant has the mines.”
They had been busy two hours ago, placing mines in the ice.
“Look there,” Red Cloud said, pointing to the left.
Paul turned his binoculars to where Red Cloud pointed. Snowtanks circled the island. His stomach curdled. The Chinese were trying to trap them by flanking around.
Paul’s headphones in his helmet crackled. “We have to do something now!” a man shouted.
“We will,” Paul said. “We’ll do one thing at a time. The trick now is to kill Chinese.”
“Roger that,” the lieutenant said over the radio. “We let them bastards get close. Then I’ll trigger the mines.”
“What about the tanks circling us?” a man asked.
“One thing at a time, like Kavanagh says,” the lieutenant answered. “So don’t crap your pants. Just get ready.”
“Yeah,” Paul whispered to himself. He gripped his grenade launcher and lay on the cold soil, watching the three hundred Chinese soldiers. Particles of snow like sand drifted across the ice, mingling with the mass of Chinese.
They waited another twelve minutes. By that time, Paul didn’t need binoculars. He could make out the red stars on the helmets of the approaching Chinese. The walking soldiers had drifted into squads. There were about forty Chinese moving directly toward him. A second wave followed in the distance.
“Get ready,” the lieutenant said over the radio. “…now,” he whispered.
Several seconds passed. Then loud explosions occurred on the ice. The fiery blasts of the mines sent Chinese soldiers flying, those of the second wave. The mines took a frightful toll. The explosions caused many of the first wave to turn around.
“Here we go,” Paul said. He aimed the grenade launcher and fired. The round was magnetically ejected, and it flew as a dark object. It landed between the nearest Chinese and exploded.
“We need the tanks!” an infantry commander shouted over the radio to Bai. Bai was still in the command vehicle, with the majority of the snowtanks in his vicinity.
During the infantry advance, the snowtanks had crawled forward, staying outside of TOW2 missile range.
“Our soldiers are exposed out on the ice,” the tank commander radioed Bai.
Bai clutched the receiver. If the tanks moved too fast, they would create wave-action under the ice. But it was a short hop now to the island. General Nung would order the tanks to charge. Some might fall into the freezing water, but most would make it to land.
“Attack,” Bai said.
“Sir?” asked the tank commander.
“You are to charge the island. Help the infantry kill the Americans.”
“We must retreat inland,” Paul said as he ducked down into the gully.
Enemy bullets caused frozen tundra to spit into the air. The surviving Chinese infantry on their part of the battlefield had spotted them. The enemy soldiers lay on the ice and fired light machine guns.
“The snowtanks are coming,” the Marine lieutenant said over the radio.
Paul glanced at their TOW2 launcher. There was no way they could fire it now. Chinese infantry had gotten near enough to lay down suppressing fire. It would be suicide to try to do now what they’d done to the hovertanks days earlier.
“Leave the TOW,” Red Cloud said. “Take the LAWS rocket.”
The LAWS rocket was old. It fired a shape-charged round. It was a one-shot disposable tube. They had two LAWS.
Paul didn’t argue. He crawled along the bottom of the gully. Behind him, Red Cloud followed. It was too bad they hadn’t placed the TOW elsewhere along the gully. But they couldn’t think of everything in advance. At least the mines had worked.
Soon, Paul stood hunched over. He carried the grenade launcher and the LAWS, a strap around each shoulder. Behind, on the ice, snowtanks roared for the island.
Paul and Red Cloud ran up a slope and slid behind it. The snowtanks came from many directions.
“Look,” Red Cloud said.
Paul saw it. A TOW2 missile streaked across the ice. Several seconds later, it hit, and there was one less Chinese tank. More TOWs fired.
“Ha!” the Marine lieutenant shouted over the radio.
“What happened?” radioed Paul.
“The Chinese tanks are moving fast,” the lieutenant informed them. “I just saw the ice open up under one, and it disappeared.”
“It would be good if that happened to all of them,” Red Cloud said.
Paul cursed and slapped a hand on Red Cloud’s shoulder. Then he pointed. Three snowtanks approached the island. No infantry had made it here. Those had been some of the flanking tanks.
Explosive sounds occurred, and on the ice under the first tank appeared a zigzagging crack. The Chinese tanks kept coming.
“Open up,” Paul whispered. “Break apart.”
It didn’t happen. Instead, the three snowtanks made it to Cross Island, leaving the pack ice to clank over tundra. Each snowtank was made up of two separate sections or cabs, linked together by an articulated joint. On the first section was the main tank gun. The second section had heavy machine guns and an ATGM launcher.
“Our luck has run out,” Red Cloud said.
“We’ll have to make our own luck,” Paul said. “Come on, this way.”
They had the combat suits. It muffled their thermal and infrared signatures, and they were white like ghosts. Paul crawled. Red Cloud followed.
The snowtanks clanked up the slope and then turned toward the Chinese infantry. The two teams were likely going to link up. Tanks with infantry support would be almost impossible to kill on the island with the weapons they had.
“This is it,” Paul said. He got up, and he ran down-slope toward the three tanks. Red Cloud followed.
The clanking-rattle sound of the snowtanks was ominous. The hovers were the king of the ice. The snowtanks would rule on the tundra. If they reached Dead Horse….
Paul threw himself onto his belly, and he flipped up the sights on his LAWS. “This is for you, Murphy.” Paul squeezed the trigger.
A second later, the LAWS whooshed, and the shape-charged round sped at a tank. It hit the front section and exploded. There was a loud squeal, and the tank stopped.
Paul crawled like mad. He slid into a gully just as the tank’s machine guns opened up at him.
“Are you ready?” Paul asked.
“Roger,” Red Cloud said, who had stayed behind.
Paul got up and ran in a crouch.
“There’s two on your tail,” Red Cloud radioed.
Paul sprinted with everything he had. It felt like his football days. A tank appeared at the top of the slope behind him. Paul dove and rolled behind an outcropping of soil. At the same moment, a kneeling Red Cloud fired his LAWS, and it scored a hit, stopping the enemy tank.
Paul thrust himself up, and he kept moving inland toward the center of the island. His suit cooled his sweat. That helped. He sucked on a water tube. That helped more. His side began to ache, but Paul kept running over the tundra, Red Cloud right beside him. The last of the three tanks must have joined the infantry.