Engine noises wafted up from behind the ridge where two troops of Major
Visser’s armored cars, eight vehicles in all, were toiling slowly up the steep slope. Ratel APCs carrying B Company’s two remaining infantry platoons were supposed to be following the recon unit.
Satisfied that his troops were settling in, Riekert turned his attention to the desolate, tangled landscape to the north. Ugly country to fight a war in, he thought.
“See anything?”
The sergeant shook his head.
“Not a damn thing.”
Riekert focused his binoculars on the nearest thickets of brush, panning slowly from left to right.
“Maybe they’ve gone, eh? Pulled back closer to the city.” He winced as he heard the hopeful note in his voice. He didn’t really want to fight in a pitched battle. He’d seen the statistics too many times. Junior officers died fast in close contact with the enemy. And Robey Ri&crt wanted to live.
“I doubt it, Captain.” The sergeant jerked a thumb northward.
“No birds, see? You take my word for it. Those bastards are still out there.”
“Perhaps, but…” Riekert froze. There. Outlined vaguely against dead, brown brush and tall, yellowing grass. A squat, long-hulled shape.
Oh, my God. The enemy had armor, too. He whirled to his radio operator.
“Get me the colonel. Now!”
A high-pitched, whirring scream drowned him out, arcing down out of the sky. Whammm! The ground one hundred meters below Rickert’s position suddenly erupted in smoke and flame-ripped open by an exploding shell.
The young South African officer sat stupefied for an instant. He’d never been under artillery fire before.
Whammm! Another explosion, closer this time. Rock fragments and dirt pattered down all around.
Riekert snapped out of his momentary paralysis.
“Cover! Take cover!
Incoming!”
The whole world seemed to explode as more and more shells rained in-shattering boulders and maiming men, blanketing the ridge in a boiling cloud of smoke and fire.
Capt. Robey Riekert, SADF, never heard the Cuban 122mm shell that landed just a meter away. And only a single bloodsoaked epaulet survived to identify him for burial.
FORWARD COMMAND POST, 20TH CAPE RIFLES
“Damn it!” Henrik Kruger pounded his fist against the metal skin of his
Ratel as he watched the barrage pound his forward infantry positions.
“Sagger missiles, armor, and now artillery! Goddamn that stupid, bootlicking bastard de Wet! What the hell has he gotten us into?”
His staff looked carefully away, unwilling to comment on his tactless, though accurate, assessment of the SADF’s commanding general.
Kruger forced himself to calm down. Rage against his idiotic superiors could wait until later. For the moment, he had a battle to conduct and a battalion to lead.
Unfortunately, his choices were strictly limited. Tactical doctrine said to suppress enemy artillery with counter battery fire. But tactical doctrine didn’t mean squat when the nearest artillery support was still six hours away by road. And the battalion’s heavy mortars didn’t have the range to reach the enemy firing positions.
That left him with just two options: either retreat back behind the ridge, pinned in place until friendly guns could get into position; or charge into close contact with the enemy troops, making it impossible for them to use their artillery superiority for fear of hitting their own men.
Time. Everything always came down to a question of time. The longer he waited, the longer the Narnibians had to bring up reserves and fortify their positions.
Kruger thumbed the transmit switch on his mike.
“Delta
Charlie Four. Delta Charlie Four, this is Tango Oscar One. Over. “
Hennie Mulder’s bass baritone crackled over the radio.
“Go ahead, One.”
“Are you in position?”
Mulder’s reply rumbled back.
“Sited and ready to shoot.”
Kruger nodded to himself. Good. D Company’s 81mm mortars were his only available indirect fire weapons. And Mulder’s heavy weapons crews were about to earn their combat pay for the first time in this campaign.
8TH MOTOR RIFLE BATTALION, CUBAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Karrumph. Karrumph. Karrumph. The first South African mortar rounds landed fifty meters in front of the thin Cuban skirmish line. Gray-white smoke spewed skyward from each impact point, More rounds followed, each salvo closer still to the soldiers and vehicles scattered across the valley. In seconds, a gray haze drifted over the line, billowing high into the air and growing steadily thicker as more and more shells slammed into the ground.
Senior Capt. Victor Mares stood close to the open side hatch of his parked BTR-60 and stared south, straining to see through the South
African smoke screen. Nothing. Nothing but the dull, dark mass of the ridge itself. Damn it.
His hand tightened around the radio handset. The smoke made his Sagger teams useless. The wire-guided missile had to fly at least three hundred meters before its operator could control it. Visibility was already down to one hundred meters or less.
He clicked the handset’s transmit button.
“All units, report in sequence!
“
Negative sighting reports crackled over his headphones, rolling in from the platoon commanders stationed left to right along his line. Nobody could see through the smoke or hear anything over the deafening noise of the mortar barrage.
Crack!
Mares jumped. That wasn’t a mortar round exploding. It was the sound made by a high-velocity cannon.
Whaamm! A BTR near the middle of his line blew up in a sudden, orange-red fireball, blindingly bright even through the obscuring smoke screen. Greasy black smoke from burning diesel fuel boiled into the air.
“Here they come!” Panicked shouts poured through his headphones as South
African Rooikat and Eland armored cars surged out of the smoke at high speed with all guns blazing. Three more BTRs exploded, gutted by 76 and 90mm cannon shells that tore through thin armor intended only to stop fragments. Machinegun fire raked the nearby thickets and boulder fields-slicing through brush, ricocheting off rocks, and puncturing flesh.
Cuban soldiers screamed and toppled over, some still twitching, others already dead.
Helmeted South African infantrymen were visible now, advancing in short rushes, firing assault rifles and light machine guns from the hip. Squat, boxy shapes trundled out of the concealing smoke behind them-armored person el carriers armed with machine guns and 20mm semiautomatic cannon.
Mares stood motionless, shocked by the ferocity of the South African assault. His troops were being cut to pieces right before his eyes.
A BTR roared past him, sand spraying from under spinning tires. Hatches left open by its disembarked and abandoned infantry squad clanged to and fro. Other vehicles followed, fleeing the carnage spreading up and down the
Cuban front line.
The 8th Motor Rifle Battalion was collapsing.
FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, 20TH CAPE RIFLES
Henrik Kruger’s Ratel command vehicle lurched abruptly as its front wheels bounced over a rock the driver hadn’t seen. He braced himself against the open turret hatch and kept scanning the steep, brush-choked slope stretching before him.
Three Ratels were moving a hundred meters out in front
-spread wide in a wedge formation. More APCs were farther ahead, already down on the valley floor and vanishing into the smoky haze. Incandescent, split-second flashes from inside the smoke screen showed where vehicles were firing. Flickering, molten-orange glows marked the smoldering funeral pyres of their victims.