Before the enemy was able to bring too much weight to bear on his forces, Jack ordered 3rd Platoon to withdraw to the south, back the way they had come. He wanted them to move back in-line with Zulu Delta.
As the Regime advance broke itself on his triangular position, Alex ordered his squads to begin to withdraw. He pushed his rear squad back out of the way and moved his two front squads in tandem, fighting back in buddy pairs within their teams. He managed to gain some breathing space from the enemy as he moved back through the trees, getting back online with Zulu Delta, his third squad covering to the east to prevent a flanking assault from upslope.
The sudden withdrawal just after contact had been made had prevented the enemy building too much pressure and had the effect of skipping out from under the hammer blow before it could fall.
As his point platoon made contact with Caleb’s flank protection, Captain Brookings pushed forwards, shouting for his men to advance. They were pinned down, and the fire increased as Caleb brought his squad down to reinforce his flank.
Captain Brookings was getting desperate, he was under so much pressure from Director Woods and he feared for his family. He could not force the issue; his men simply could not move further forwards under the withering accurate fire from the Resistance fighters.
Captain Brookings took his tactical HQ group and moved round to his right, trying to flank the Resistance line. He pushed forwards, showing reckless bravery, trying to skirmish forwards on his right flank, desperate to flank and break the Resistance line.
McCarthy was in a fire position towards the left of Caleb’s flank protection line. He saw the rush of Regime soldiers bounding forwards through the trees, trying to keep up with their commander. The officer was a brave man; he came on firing his weapon as he skirmished through the trees.
McCarthy lined him up in his sights and pulled the trigger, aiming for his belly below his body armor plate. He took the shot, it slammed into Captain Brookings. The round took him in the abdomen, rupturing his aorta and severing his lower spine, sending him crashing to the ground to lay in no-man’s land between the two forces, bleeding out internally into his abdominal cavity.
As he lay there with the life draining out of him, Captain Brookings’ last thoughts were of his wife and two children, and Director Woods’s promise to send them to the FEMA Camps.
Once 3rd Platoon were accounted for and shaken out Jack then ordered 2nd and 3rd Platoons to move back together with a two squad frontage per platoon. The third squad from each platoon would move south ahead of the withdrawal and act as the reserve for their platoons.
Jack told Caleb to begin peeling his platoon southward. Caleb began to do so, peeling one squad at a time back behind the others along the east side of the trail. His force was now oriented westwards, firing over the trail and peeling south, which provided the whole company flank protection from the Regime company assaulting from the west.
Jack began to coordinate the whole show moving back to Zulu. The four squad frontage from the combination of 2nd and 3rd Platoon moved back to the south, oriented north, with 1st Platoon hanging off the left end and covering the flank to the west.
They managed to break contact with the enemy. The jaws of the two pronged attack slammed shut too late, they had avoided its clutches.
Arriving at Zulu, Jim had the casualty collection point packed up and Cobb had his squads covering north along the rim of the ravine. Jack moved his platoons into Zulu into a defensive position before rapidly giving orders for a withdrawal to the south down the valley towards the ERV.
Jack grabbed Cobb and asked if he was ok to use his squads to help carry the casualties, of which there were five who were on improvised stretchers unable to walk. Cobb was ok with it and started to organize his men into teams to carry the stretchers. 1st Platoon took over their security duties.
Jack gathered his commanders and rapidly outlined the plan. It was a move south in a company snake to the ERV. There was no more time to get any more complicated than that. The order of march was 2nd Platoon, tactical HQ, 3rd Platoon, the medical section with Jim and his logistics section, the 82nd platoon with the casualties and the rear guard provided by 1st Platoon.
Jack was moving everyone with a sense of urgency and just as 2nd Platoon started to head out of the ravine on the trail south the Regime forces appeared again in the woods to the north and were engaged by 1st Platoon.
1st Platoon suppressed the lead elements of the Regime force while the rest of the company started moving south along the trail as rapidly as possible. The casualties slowed them down.
Once the Company was clear, 1st Platoon broke contact again and moved south along the trail.
It was now evening time, still light because of the summer. They had been moving for about an hour. There had been no further contact, the two Regime companies somewhere further to the north.
What they did not know was that following the assault on to Victor Foxtrot, with the third Regime company finding it deserted, that company had been ordered to push west over the ridge and down into the valley. They had been tasked with ambushing the Resistance egress route as it went southwards from where the battle was being fought to the north.
As the valley went south it narrowed, gained in height and became more rocky and upland in nature. The Regime Company had pushed down into the valley and found the trail. On the slope just east of the trail was a linear rocky outcrop, back in the trees about fifty meters from the trail.
The outcrop formed a small cliff like feature, only about eight feet high that overlooked the trail down below. At this point the trail ran beside a rocky creek, just to the west of the trail.
The Regime company had placed a hasty L-shaped ambush on the outcrop. Two platoons formed the kill group, lined up along the top of the outcrop, just back far enough to be in the cover of the trees and vegetation. The third platoon formed the blocking bottom arm of the ‘L’, across the trail to the south and facing the Resistance fighters as they walked south.
Unfortunately for Jack’s Company, they were withdrawing in haste and using the trail. They also had not taken the precaution of putting out flankers along their line of march. They were bugging out as rapidly as they could.
As 2nd Platoon reached the far limit of the killing area, just before they hit the blocking force, all of 2nd platoon, tactical HQ and half of 3rd Platoon were in the kill zone.
Suddenly the quiet evening was torn apart by a massive weight of fire pouring into the kill zone. The elements in the ambush itself were overwhelmed by the Regime forces fire and immediately sought cover by the side of the trail and in the creek itself.
The point squad of 2nd Platoon found themselves facing a cross-fire from ahead and to the left and had to orientate themselves to try and fight back. Some in the kill zone were hit, but it was hard to tell the numbers of casualties because everyone was instantly in cover after the initial bursts, now pinned down by the weight of fire.
The saving grace was that it had been a hasty ambush with small arms fire only, no claymores. The use of automatic fire to initiate the ambush also meant that much of the fire had been inaccurate, terrifying yes, but much of it passing over the heads of the Resistance fighters down in the defile.
Trying to recover from the initial shock of the ambush those in the kill zone tried to rally to return fire as best they could, but many remained pinned by the weight of fire now striking all around them.
Jack had dived into cover behind some rocks at the stream edge and he now grabbed the radio and called out the direction of the ambush. Enemy fire was cracking overhead, smacking and zinging off the rocks, with ricochets occasionally whining and buzzing away.