Returning fire with rockets, missiles, and chain guns, the gunships suppressed any location that opened fire. Garrick had heard the assault commander declare the LZ “cold,” and still in formation, the slicks started coming in. The Apaches and scout helicopters moved off to predetermined areas, covering both the landing zone and the town itself.
“General, we’re at bingo fuel.” The voice in his headphones pulled him back from the landing zone to his noisy metal perch. Helicopters could not stay airborne forever, and the pilot had a long way to go.
“Right. Take me to the division’s forward command post, please.” Garrick sighed. Oh, well, once the men were out of the slicks there would be little to see from the air anyway.
LADY SMITH
Korster and his technicians watched the landing and the right from their hilltop. Since the initial attack on their position, the enemy had not molested them, and Korster and the others
had maintained a low profile. Three more R4 rifles and a pistol were not going to influence events below.
The small group hugged the earth and watched as wave after wave of
American helicopters landed and disgorged soldiers and heavy equipment.
The firing in town started almost immediately, with Korster listening on the field telephone to the surprised garrison commander’s orders to dig in and hold in place.
The South African defenders numbered no more than a weak battalion, but they knew the town and refused to budge from a building until they were blown out or killed in place.
Korster visualized the Americans advancing up Poorte Street, and he heard his colonel radio the order to abandon the Royal Hotel, one of the buildings being used to billet the men. He waited, hoping that the defenders would somehow hold, but it was clear who the eventual victor would be. The kommandant gave them another hour at most.
He stood up suddenly, surprising the other men.
“Come on, we have work to do.”
The technicians looked at him with amazement. They had followed and discussed the progress of the American attack. They had seen gunships and other helicopters fly directly over the ruined van. What did he think he was doing?
“The sergeant needs to have his wound tended. I want every document shredded and piled in the center of the radar van. We will burn them and the van with them and deny both to the enemy.”
For him, the fighting was over. He’d see what the Americans could do with this land.
CHAPTER 37
Death Trap
JANUARY 2-44TH PARACHUTE BRIGADE REACTION FORCE, NEAR SKERPIONENPUNT
Maj. Rolf Bekker burrowed farther under the camouflage awning he’d rigged over his foxhole and then lay motionless-imitating other animals he’d seen survive the desert’s bone-dry air and sun-drenched heat. Movement meant sweat. Sweat was lost water. And water was life.
His watch alarm beeped softly. Time for another drink.
He uncapped his third canteen and took a careful swig, swishing the body-temperature liquid around the inside of his mouth before swallowing.
Despite the flat metallic tang imparted by the canteen itself, the water tasted good. And it felt good trickling down his parched throat. He recapped the canteen and hooked it to his web gear.
Still thirsty, Bekker settled back to wait. It was ironic, though a self-imposed irony. While he and his three hundred paratroops rationed their precious water mouthful by mouthful, one of South Africa’s two significant rivers, the Oranje,
lay only eight kilometers away-flowing northwest on its way toward the
Atlantic. Eight kilometers south, that was all. Only a brisk two hours’ walk, perhaps less.
Right now, though, the river might just as well have been on the far side of the moon. His own strict orders kept his men under cover in their fighting positions.
There was a good reason for that. Bekker’s northernmost outposts were already reporting dust rising in the distance. Henrik Kruger’s renegade battalion was coming south down the only road he’d left open and apparently unguarded. In reality, the men of the 20th Cape Rifles were being lured right into a killing zone.
The Afrikaner major studied his handpicked battlefield through slitted eyes. If anything, the brown, barren valley seemed even more suited to his purposes now than it had when he’d ringed it on the map.
Bordered by the rugged foothills of the Langeberg to the east and an only slightly less rugged ridge to the west, the valley sloped gently downhill from the Kalahari Basin before falling away sharply into the Oranje River basin. An unpaved secondary road ran down the eastern edge of the valley flanked by a long, low hill topped only by small patches of brush and three solitary, stunted trees.
Bekker’s two infantry companies were posted along that hill, carefully dispersed in six camouflaged platoon strong points surrounded by thin, hastily em placed minefields. To give his infantry a stronger long-range punch, he’d attached a Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle team to each platoon. Indirect fire support would come from the two sections of four 81mm, mortars in place behind the hill-their crews crouched ready and waiting in shallow pits scraped out of the dirt and sand. And finally, he had his two Puma gunships on standby several kilometers away.
His battle plan was simple. Use HE from the mortars to kill Kruger’s truck-mounted infantry. Hit the enemy’s APCs with rounds from the Carl
Gustavs. Finish any vehicles left moving with 30mm cannon bursts from his helicopter gunships, and then mop up with his rifle-and machine gun armed paratroops. Bekker smiled to himself. Simple, yes.
And also damned effective. That was what combat experience taught you.
Simple things worked. Complicated plans or weapons usually looked good on paper and then got you killed.
His radio crackled softly.
“Rover Foxtrot One, this is Tango Zebra
Three.” Tango Zebra Three was the call sign for his northernmost observation post.
Corporal de Vries passed the handset across the foxhole.
“Go ahead,
Three.”
“Enemy scouting force in sight. Four Land Rovers ahead of the main column.”
Bekker propped himself up against the lip of the foxhole and raised his field glasses. The lead Land Rover leapt into view-dented, travel stained, and armed with a heavy machine gun on a pivot mount. Four men in South African uniforms rode in the vehicle-a driver, gunner, and two others. He lowered the glasses and pressed the transmit switch.
“Keep your heads down, Three. Let them pass.”
“Roger your last, Rover One. They’re rolling by now. Out. “
Bekker felt himself start to sweat. The next few minutes were critical.
He was gambling that Kruger’s recce units wouldn’t spot his carefully prepared ambush. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have risked it. An alert scout commander would be too likely to send a team up the hill for a look-see.
But Kruger’s men had been on the run for more than two weeks now-traveling for hours on end each day through empty deserts and desolate mountains. And Rolf Bekker was willing to bet that they’d lost some of their edge.
COMMAND RATEL, 20TH CAPE RIFLES, NORTH OF SKERPIONENPUNT
Even with the hatches closed and the air-conditioning going full blast, the Ratel’s crowded interior was still almost unbearably hot. Ian
Sheffield sat across a narrow fold-down map board watching Commandant
Henrik Kruger methodically charting their course. The South African’s calm, cool
appearance made Ian even more conscious of the sweat stains under his own arms and across his back.