“I’m not so sure it’s a smart move,” Zachary said into the handset, realizing he was being insub-ordinate.
“I’m not asking your opinion, Garrett. Shoot the artillery. Do it now,” Kooseman retorted. He heard loud explosions amplified by the transmission. Looking through his binoculars as the gray shade of morning lightened ever so slightly, he watched as a shell tore a huge hole in the prison roof.
“What happens when these two brigades turn on my ass?” Zachary asked.
“We’ve got you covered. Have you shot the artillery, yet?”
“Roger. Happening now,” Zachary said, tossing the handset to Slick. Zachary ordered his platoon leaders to his position, and they rapidly arrived, Kurtz limping with a large bandage around his lower leg.
“We’ve got orders to destroy that artillery,” he said, pointing at the dark figures jumping backward each time they fired. They were nearly five hundred meters away, perfect distance for the missile gunners. Zachary hated to use the passive voice regarding an order. Normally he took responsibility for every-thing, but he had a hard time justifying to his men that their company was supposed to attack a two-hundred-strong armored vehicle convoy.
“Then what?” Taylor asked.
“Then we fight like good soldiers, Andy. We do our best. We’ve been given a mission, and we’re gonna do it.”
Kurtz and Barker were silent as Zachary sketched out a new plan. It was simple: Assign each gunner an artillery piece, everyone would fire simultaneously, then the company would move a kilometer to the rear, into the jungle.
He watched as his platoon leaders trod back to their platoons, and could not help wondering about that night attack they had botched in training over two weeks ago.
Just don’t screw the pooch here.
“Packers,” he said into the radio after receiving word from the three platoon leaders that they were ready.
He looked over his shoulder and thought he saw something, something blue, but then watched as his antitank gunners once again scored strikes on the enemy armor.
Despite the pelting rain, thirteen of the sixteen artillery pieces were burning a bright orange hue, the color of a sun.
The sun, yes. Blue skies mean the sun will come out.
Zachary looked back over his shoulder and saw a blue patch of sky moving slowly above a mountain peak, like an old man on a Sunday drive.
Hurry up!
“Knight this is Bravo. Destroyed thirteen of sixteen. Out of missiles,” Zachary reported to Kooseman, ready to pack his bags and move into the jungle.
“I sent you some AT4 yesterday. Get the other three. We’re still taking arty,” Kooseman demanded.
Zachary wanted to tell him to pack sand, but instead obeyed, as he knew he always would.
“Roger, out,” Zachary replied.
“You don’t say out to me, Captain! You say, over, over.”
Zachary threw the handset into the mud and stood. He could still hear Kooseman squawking, but quit listening when he noticed … something was different.
It had stopped raining.
Chapter 97
Takishi told Muriami to move out. They weren’t going to wait for the rain to stop. Muriami gunned the jet engine, tossing Takishi’s ribs into the padded rubber of the commander’s hatch.
Takishi surveyed the wet, gray morning. The rain had continued through the night, and Takishi had decided to move his tanks after the enemy had destroyed his helicopters.
He radioed his commanders and told them to follow him north. He positioned an infantry battalion on each side of his column of tanks. His soldiers, all soaked to the core, revved the diesel engines and began the muddy trek north toward Bongabon, only to cut south from there toward Manila.
The light infantry had been pesky, though, and using the new route, he could avoid them. “Just drive around the bastards!” Mizuzawa had told him. The Marines had made a penetration in the defenses and were bearing down Roxas Boulevard with at least three companies.
He needed an operational victory to counter the weight of the tactical defeat. If Takishi could spring free, then the Americans would have to react to the threat that he posed.
Mizuzawa was desperate, so he had told Takishi if he was not successful, the ship was going into harbor. Takishi had protested mildly, but he knew there was nothing he could do. With Mizuzawa, you either signed up for the entire plan or took a hike. He had been opposed to the idea of the ship, but Mizuzawa had overruled him, saying it was necessary.
“This time, we must make it,” Takishi said to Muriami, as they splashed along the muddy road. The tank tread bogged down briefly, then got a grip, gaining purchase on firmer turf. Takishi looked ahead and saw that the road was strewn with chunks of asphalt. Without a decent surface, the road would be impassable.
After an hour of tough slogging, Takishi slewed his turret 180 degrees and ordered Muriami to stop the tank. The going had been slow anyway, and a brief halt would not make a big difference one way or the other.
Frustrated, he watched the American missiles chew into his artillery, then he saw about thirty men come charging downhill toward the pieces that were still firing. They set up shoulder-launched weapons and fired, setting the remainder of the artillery ablaze.
All he had left was direct-fire capability. He pressed the toggle switch on his CVC helmet and ordered the right-flank infantry battalion com-mander to dismount and destroy, once and for all, the pesky light infantry.
Whether it was for glory or because of pure frustration, Takishi lifted his M4, a prize among all of his troops, and stepped out of the relative protection of the tank turret. He jogged into the fray behind hundreds of his infantry and saw a man running down the hill with a radio handset in his ear and a black coil stretching to another soldier, who was trying to keep up.
Charlie Watts was going solo!
Standing, Zachary predicted that the right-flank battalion would turn on his position. It did.
Soon, a 25mm chain gun was chewing the soggy ground to his front. Barker’s platoon, having just destroyed the remainder of the artillery, was suddenly stranded by the advancing vehicles.
Like army ants, Japanese infantry came pouring from the backs of the fighting vehicles, firing their American weapons at American soldiers.
With horror, Zachary watched as ten vehicles started driving at Barker’s platoon of thirty men, caught in the open like a herd of mustangs surrounded by cowboys. Some of the troops had time to move, but many did not. The twenty-ton armored weapons crushed them, some pivoting atop the bodies.
Zachary saw Barker crouched low, firing his M4 at an oncoming tank, his bullets ricocheting wildly off its rolled steel. The tank impaled him on its front deck, as the tank commander leaned over the turret and emptied a full magazine of submachine-gun ammu-nition into Barker’s body, leaving it glued to the tank by streaming blood. Zachary saw Barker’s head bouncing crazily as the tank stopped, then backed, forcing Barker’s body to slide onto the ground. It pivot-steered to gain the proper angle, finally chewing the wet turf, then Barker, mixing the mud with the blood and bones of the young lieutenant.
“I need artillery, air, and helicopters here now!” Zachary screamed into the battalion net.
“Hold on, Zach,” came McAllister’s voice, “I’m almost there.”
McAllister’s voice comforted him briefly, then the wave of charging infantrymen flushed the thought from his mind. Must be three hundred.
His remaining two platoons, positioned along the open ridge, began firing. The squad’s automatic weapons sang through the morning air, thrumming lightly in contrast to the Japanese 7.62mm machine guns, which made loud, cracking sounds.