The Chinese dead were starting to smell rather ripe very rapidly in the hot sun, which was another unpleasant facet of fighting here, as opposed to their last battlefield, Germany.
The sun was already high in the sky, and that sky was a deep cloudless blue, just as it had been for the previous three days. The destruction of the desalinisation plant was now the cause of the men’s greatest discomfort and water was rationed to a half pint a day. If the 3rd Marines did not arrive today though, the ration would be reduced to a quarter of a pint.
“Anyone got any buckshee water?” a voice asked from one of 3 Platoon, A Company’s trenches, the occupant wisely not sticking his head up to make the enquiry. The Chinese had some very good snipers out there somewhere.
“Sorry mate.” A voice answered.
“Nope.”
“I’m in a tropical paradise praying for rain, how sad is that?” said the parched enquirer.
“A guy in C Company got shot in the arse last night while doing a rain dance on the edge of his trench.” another said conversationally, somewhere over in 2 Section.
“It wasn’t a rain dance; it was just the Dance of the Flaming Arseholes with different words he made up.” A Welsh voice said from the platoon’s gun pit, and it sang a few lines.
“The tosser got what he asked for then.” someone else offered up harshly. “That was bloody awful.”
“It took his balls off, I heard?”
“Well that’s just nature’s way of ensuring that come World War 4 the gene pool will be rid of wankers doing the wrong pagan themed dance at inappropriate moments, isn’t it like?” offered the gentleman from Llanfairfechan in final judgement. There was little sympathy for the would-be Shaman from C Company but a lot of sniggers.
“A guy in the Assault Pioneer Platoon made a piss still.” another trench added. “He’s selling it for twenty fags.”
“The still or the end product?”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I didn’t think to ask.”
“Well you should’ve.” said the gun pit. “It’s likely to leave a bad taste if you were wrong, boyo.”
“How do you make a piss-still anyway?”
“A long trouser leg and loads of soil. The soil filters it.”
“Anyone got a spare pair?”
“Nah.”
“Well” called gun pit. “There’s a guy on the wire who don’t need his no more.”
‘Really?”
“He’s only a five foot Cantonese Commando like, so you’d have to filter it through twice.”
The crack of a high velocity round brought a second of silence from the men as they listened to the sound of someone’s helmet bouncing away down the slope to the waterway behind them.
“You okay?” gun pit asked. “You didn’t stick yer head up for a look did you?”
“Aye.” the, now, sheepish voice replied.
“Well there’s a silly sod of an Englishman for you, isn’t it!”
“I made a start on the piss-still though…”
In his hide, the sniper wondered what all the laughter was about.
Jim Popham wore a dead man’s camouflage trousers but his jump boots still bore a little colour here and there. He left the two riflemen who had accompanied him in cover as he himself crawled through the rubble, staying low and slow so as to avoid raising any dust. He did not go all the way to the forward O.P though, staying in cover to call out softly.
The O.P near the north west of the island doubled as a listening post at night and had heard noises coming across the water all through the previous night following a mass attack that had forced the Legionnaires across the channel to give more ground. 2 REP’s perimeter was shrinking as attrition began to bite.
Jim had come out to listen when it had first been called in around midnight.
“It sounds like dem guys is doin’ stone masonry over there, sir.” Sergeant Tony Beckett had told him at the time.
‘Over There’ was a bricks and mortar factory on Cebu’s shore, with wharfs along its western side. The south side which faced them was just sun-bleached brickwork. It was the closest point to one of the few spots on Mactan’s northern shore that was not locked in by concrete docks or sea walls.
Beckett had rejoined what had remained of the battalion in the UK during the formation of 111th. The President had delayed Beckett’s return to Germany after the delivery of Colonel General Serge Alontov and the disc that became known as ‘Church’ until the final battle had been decided. Beckett had been with 4 Company in the old Coldstream/82nd lash up, and the President’s action had probably kept the young man alive, although Tony was having guilt trips. All his squad had been amongst the dead on Vormundberg’s muddy hillside.
“Sergeant Beckett?” Jim now called out.
“Just listen quiet like, sir.” Beckett’s voice answered.
Listening was the problem though as the marines had fought their across the mountains and were now noisily stopped by another obstacle, a solidly built former US Officers Club that had been built by the same engineer who constructed the first airbase on Mactan, back in the late ‘40s. Funny how these things can bite you in the ass a generation or two later.
The former officers club the US Marines were loudly attacking was now an exclusive restaurant and hotel, or rather it had been until it became the residence of the commanding general of the garrison, and fortified accordingly. It had an amazing view out across the city, Mactan, the Cebu Straits and to Bohol, and the tenure upon Mactan’s airfield by the stricken USS Constellation’s air wing had been curtailed by artillery observers on its terraced garden. Visiting aircraft now made pallet drops of water and medical supplies without landing.
The single road from Toledo had proved a serious impediment to the US Marines who had lost men and vehicles to mining that had dropped stretched of the road down the steep hillsides and ravines into the valleys below, and those sections required bridging by the engineers before they could continue with the advance.
Jem Stanford of the US Marines and Snowy Hills had already surmised that the Chinese were probably looking to force the bridges, retake the island fortress and pull up the drawbridge behind them, as in blowing the bridges. They would then tough it out until the Chinese fleet and their 3rd Army’s 3 Corps secured the Spratly Islands and came to the rescue.
The US’s own naval units had withdrawn beyond the range of land based aircraft to lick their wounds and repair the damaged vessels. The Tañon Strait was now blocked to anything drawing more in draft than a tramp coaster as the USS Constellation had gone down with her bows toward Cebu and her stern pointing at the Negros coast, blocking the deep water channel.
The US Marines held Toledo and most of the mountain road now, aided by the fact that the PLA’s 86th Mechanised and those reinforcement from neighbouring islands were in and around Cebu and Mandaue.
Serious damage had been both given and received by the resistance forces and their regular troops from the Green Berets and 3 Para at Carcar. The residents evacuated the town before two companies of Type 98 main battle tanks from the PLA 70th Mechanised Brigade that was garrisoning Negros had arrived. With diminished stocks of all types of ammunition, and in particular anti-tank weapons, Major Brooks had planned to try the old fashioned tactic of Molotov cocktails from the rooftops onto the armour passing through Carcar’s narrow streets. but the Chinese infantry burned the town that first night, and had motored through the charred ruins with machine guns blazing at dawn the next day. There was nothing that the small force could do except withdraw back into the hills with those who had survived.