Nguyen's men re-occupied the rifle pits, moving the bodies of their previous occupants to provide some extra cover. He left enough of them to fill the gap in the line then took the rest back. Keep a reserve, always keep a reserve. The enemy group were falling back now and the observation groups deep in the jungle were reporting that the enemy attack was breaking up.
One OP took the chance of using voice radio instead of the agreed break-squelch codes. They'd just taken out one of the Japanese 50 millimeter mortar teams and captured the mortar. The mortar had only one box of three rounds left, the OP was going to return them to their owners. A few seconds later there were three rapid explosions in the enemy troops hung up in front of the wire. That hastened the movement of the enemy back into the treelines.
They'd be disengaging now, and heading for what they thought was a sanctuary the other side of the border. What they didn't know was that there were Thai regular troops, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol forces, out there who would follow them back to the base. They'd pursue the matter further but, for Ban Rom Phuoc, the fighting was nearly over. The rifle fire slowed down until it was a few sporadic shots then ceased.
When dawn came, the villagers could see the damage. Their wire was down in several places, some of the huts had been damaged, two had been destroyed completely. There was enough smoke to make the eyes sting and the smell of cordite saturated everything. The well had been hit; several of the animals were dead including one of the precious buffalo.
Worse there were eight bodies brought in, seven Tahan Pran and the boy who had been kilted carrying ammunition. Some of the women were crying, an old man watched impassively as his son was added to the line of dead. A Monk in his orange robes was sprinkling their bodies with water quietly repeating the Buddhist chant. A dozen more villagers were wounded, most badly. The Japanese 6.5 millimeter round did a lot of damage for a small bullet. Together, almost a quarter of the strength of the village defense unit was dead or wounded.
The good news was that all five of the two-man OPs had returned to the village safely, one triumphantly carrying its captured mortar. That wasn't the only weapon captured; there was a pile of captured rifles, all Arisakas, mostly the new automatic rifles but some the old-fashioned bolt actions. There were a couple of Type 99 light machine guns as well and some of the villagers had found the Type 93 13 millimeter machinegun. Nguyen shook his head, another rule foolishly broken. The captured weapons pointed straight at the people really behind the attack last night.
The enemy wounded would tell more, the villagers had brought them in and they had been taken to the huts to wait until they could be treated - or until they died. The villagers hadn't brought the enemy dead in yet. There were at least forty, hung up on the wire or in the rifle pits where they'd come close to breaking through. There were more in the jungle and probably more still on the way out. How many more wounded were out in the jungle they had no means of knowing.
His thoughts were broken by a choking cloud of dust, a helicopter was landing. One of the Army's Sikorsky transports. An officer got out, the same one who had been in the village earlier. Nguyen watched while he saluted the village headman and paid respects to the line of dead. The helicopter had also brought a medical team who were starting work on the wounded. There would be more troops coming and a resupply of ammunition. Nguyen saw the officer speaking with the other militia troops.
Eventually, he addressed the village as a whole. It was the usual thing, commending them on a well-fought defense, stressing the strength of the enemy, the skill and courage with which they'd been repulsed. Sympathizing with them on the loss of their friends and family. Then adding that he was writing a report on the action here at Ban Rom Phuoc and would personally make the report to the King himself, describing the courage and sacrifice of the villagers.
“Will you really be telling the King himself of what happened here?” Nguyen asked the officer later.
“You dare to suggest that f would associate His Majesty's Name with a lie?” had been the cold and hostile reply. Then the officer had relaxed, he was speaking with a Vietnamese after all, one who could not be expected to understand such things.
“Yes. His Majesty will be told in person. And the families of those who died or disabled here will receive Royal pensions as a mark of respect for their courage and loyalty. Ban Rom Phuoc will be receiving some gifts as well, so that others can see that resisting the terrorists may require courage but is the way to a better future. Now, Khun Phong what went wrong last night. And how do we fix it?”
Phong Nguyen thought carefully. “We were too light on firepower. We need more light machine guns, automatic rifles don't substitute for them. We need more mortars and we need at least one heavy one. An 82 or 120. We also need a way of lighting the perimeter so we are in darkness and the enemy lit up. The flares from the 60s did a good illumination but they tied down the firepower from those mortars. We need more and better radios. Most of all we need landmines. We must have antipersonnel mines, American Claymores for preference.”
“Some of that we can fix now. There is a truck convoy coming that will replace the ammunition expended last night. It will have extra weapons we can leave here. One of the gifts that is coming is a generator for the village and a grant of diesel fuel for it. We must think of the best way of using it when the next attack comes.”
Baronial Hall, Walthersburg, New Schwabia
Pre-dawn, the horizon in the east was beginning to turn grey before the sun appeared. As always, Model was up and getting to work. The Ivans were building up for the attack, there were at least seven Fronts identified now. Six on his left, in the west around Donetsk, one in the east facing Kapustin Yar. Almost 90 infantry divisions, 14 tank divisions and 12 mechanized division. And an Airborne Army of five parachute divisions. There would be more, much more, the Ivans held most of their heavy assets at Front level. Especially artillery. Russians called the Artillery the God of War. There was a cruder version. “Infantry is the queen of the battlefield, artillery is the king of war, and we all know what the King does to the Queen.” Truly, the Russian artillery was a hammer to be feared.
Then there was the other side of the equation. His own forces, six panzer divisions, two panzergrenadier, nine infantry and one parachute division. Plus his strategic reserve, the SS-Wiking Division. He had his own high-level assets as well of course, but nowhere near the resources the Russians could call on.
That was the real problem of course, the Russians were American allies and could call on American support. Almost superstitiously Model looked up as if he expected to see American bombers about to rain Hellburners on his little country. The Americans didn't fight their enemies, the Americans just destroyed them. Ruthlessly and without conscience. Model didn't think the Americans could fight. They'd done well enough when the First and Second U.S. Army Groups had been in Russia but that was more than a decade ago. Now, they just relied on their bombers.
It didn't matter though, what did matter was that the Russians could call on American funding and had used it to equip their armies. His own forces were ill-equipped and threadbare. Even his supplies of Japanese equipment were only a partial solution to that problem. His units might have proud German names, but the bulk of their strength was Arab trainees and Russian feudal conscripts. The Arabs could fight, sometimes, tf they felt like it, but the Russians? He doubted it. Not for him, not for the Germans. They'd have to be driven into action and driven to fight.