Larry Bond - Vortex

“More essential?” Weber nodded toward the stalled columns crowding the highway below.

“Christ, Jerry, you need some heavy armor to break this thing loose and gain some running room. Otherwise we’re still gonna be slogging to Pretoria come the Fourth of July.”

Craig shook his head forcefully.

“Your MIs couldn’t do much for us right now, Sam.” He motioned toward the panorama of rugged, broken ridges and patches of forest spreading west, north, and northeast from Pietermaritzburg.

“We have to push through another hundred klicks like that before we’ll reach anything resembling good tank country.”

“Hell.” Weber scuffed at the pavement with one highly polished combat boot. He looked up.

“I’ll tell you what, Jerry. You and I both know the

Boers don’t have much that can even scratch the paint on one of my tanks.

So bring my MIs ashore, and I’ll go tearing up this goddamned highway so fast we’ll be in Jo’burg before Vorster takes his morning dump.”

Craig chuckled, pleased by the Army general’s aggressive instincts. For a second, he was half-tempted to let the man try his proposed hightech cavalry charge. Then reality stomped back in bearing a few ugly and unfortunate facts.

Weber was only half right. His tanks could probably break past Vorster’s blocking force without much trouble or many losses. But just running the

Afrikaner gauntlet of ambushes and artillery fire with an armored column wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. Tanks had to have infantry support to hold any ground they gained, and they had to have gas to keep moving.

And neither the infantry’s APCs nor convoys of highly flammable fuel trucks could advance until his lead brigades finished doing what they were already doing-securing every hill and ridge overlooking the N3, meter by bloody meter.

Craig shrugged, unable at the moment to see any practical alternative to a prolonged slugging match through the mountains. And given that, the

Allied expeditionary force needed fuel, ammo, artillery, and infantry replacements even more than it needed the 24this main battle tanks.

Weber’s M-Is would only come into their own once his American and British troops broke out onto the flat, open grasslands of the veld.

The sound of distant thunder-heavy artillery–echoed down the highway.

Both officers turned and hurried into the command tent, their argument forgotten and unimportant in the face of yet another Afrikaner attack.

DECEMBER 29-A COMPANY, 3RD BATTALION, THE PARACHUTE REGIMENT, EAST OF

ROSETTA, SOUTH AFRICA

Though the lateafternoon sun seemed to set the far-off slopes of the

Drakensberg Mountains aflame, it left northern Natal’s narrow valleys and treelined hollows cloaked in growing shadow. Ten kilometers south of the

Mooi River, real fires glowed orange in the gathering darkness. Soldiers wearing red berets and green, brown, and tan woodland-pattern camouflage uniforms clustered around the fires sipping scalding hot heavily sugared tea. Men born and reared in London’s crowded East End, the isolated West

Country, the rusting, industrialized north, or southern England’s rich farmlands and suburbs stood chatting together-their mingled voices and different accents rising and failing beneath overhanging mo pane and acacia trees. After a hard day’s march north along National Route Three, 3 Para’s

A Company was having a last “brew-up” before digging in for the night.

The muted roar of diesel engines drifted up the road as convoys of overworked trucks ferried supplies inland from the Durban beachhead, now nearly ninety kilometers behind them. The Paras could also hear the muffled thump of mortar rounds landing somewhere back along the road, audible proof that some of their “follow-on” forces were again catching hell from stay-behind Boer commandos.

Most paid little attention to the noise. A weeks’ worth of combat in the

Drakensberg’s rugged foothills had taught them how to ignore the sound of gunfire not aimed in their direction.

Maj. John Farwell, A Company’s tall, hook-nosed commander, moved from campfire to campfire collecting his officers and senior NCOs. His two signalers followed close behind, made easy to spot by the thin radio antennas rocking back and forth over their heads. Soldiers who saw them go past muttered uneasily to one another and began checking their weapons out of long habit. As a general rule, the major disliked formal meetings and avoided holding them whenever possible. So an orders group such as the one they saw forming probably meant action was imminent.

The Paras’s instincts were on target. New information had generated new orders. The six hundred soldiers of 3 Para were being committed to a night attack.

Five minutes later, Farwell had his platoon leaders and sergeants assembled in a small clearing by the side of the road. He looked up into a semicircle of fire-lit faces. Some of the men seemed surprisingly eager, almost elated by the prospect of a real “set-piece” battle.

Others, more imaginative, wiser, or simply more experienced, looked grimly determined instead. All seemed horribly young to their thirty five-year-old company commander.

He unfolded a map and spread it out in the light thrown by the campfire.

“All right, chaps. Here’s the gist of what we’re up to….” He spoke rapidly and with more confidence than he felt, outlining the situation they faced and the broad plan of attack passed down from battalion HQ.

Two hours before, elements of D Company, the parachute battalion’s special patrol unit, had contacted what appeared to be a company-sized

Afrikaner infantry force digging in along the last ridgeline separating the Allies from the broad Mooi River valley. They showed no signs of being willing to withdraw without exacting a steep toll in lives and lost time. And by daylight their defenses might be strong enough to delay the expeditionary force’s advance for several hours-hours the Allies could not afford to lose.

So the British paratroops were going to attack immediately, accepting the inherent risks and confusion of a night battle in order to strike before the Boers finished building their bunkers and fighting positions. To minimize the inevitable confusion, 3 Para’s battalion staff had laid out a simple and straightforward plan. After a brief artillery barrage,

Farwell and his A Company would storm the ridge east of the highway. Its counterpart, B Company, would drive on the heights to the west at the same moment. The Support Company’s machinegun and Milan antitank missile teams would be positioned along the Start Line, ready to move up and “shoot in” both assaults. If all went well, they’d be able to crush the enemy blocking force and unbar the road for a faster advance in the morning.

“And the colonel will hold C Company in reserve … here. ” Farwell’s finger pointed to a tiny stream shown meandering along the base of the enemy-held ridge.

“That should allow those Charlie Company layabouts to reinforce either axis of the attack … if anybody needs their rather dubious help. “

As he’d intended, this last comment prompted a few quick, nervous grins.

A and C companies had a long-standing but friendly rivalry.

Farwell sat back on his haunches and studied his subordinates.

“Well, that’s it then, gentlemen. Are there any questions?”

“Yes, sir.” The freckle-faced lieutenant commanding 2 Platoon leaned forward, his expression troubled.

“Why not use D Company to make a flanking attack? I mean, going straight up that slope seems likely to be a bit sticky.”

Farwell nodded. It was a good question, one that deserved a straight answer. He traced the tangle of gullies and ravines shown extending to either side of the highway below the ridge.