Ian Slater - Force of Arms

By now the news of Beijing’s collapse, confirmed by CNN, was flashed worldwide and to all parts of China, where local underground movements seized the moment against local Communist administrations. And it was at Qinhuangdao, en route to Shanhaiguan, that Alexsandra Malof’s train was met by a huge crowd waving banners of revolution, her Chinese student suddenly filled with courage, and confidence and a feeling of some importance that he had been chosen by fate to be escaping with Alexsandra Malof at the very moment of the Beijing clique’s defeat. With an air of authority that surprised even Alexsandra, he bellowed and shouted, making way for her through the crowd at Qinhuangdao, a place that, with its oil refineries and heavy chemical pollution, was probably one of the ugliest and most inauspicious places for such an auspicious event to occur.

There were Chinese everywhere at Honggor as Cheng’s staff, among them Colonel Soong, continued to fight on in hopes of blunting, if not defeating, the American Marine Expeditionary Force pressing the Chinese right flank. And for several hours at least, with all communications with Beijing cut and by pouring in regiment after regiment of battle-experienced ChiCom troops from Shenyang’s Twenty-fourth Army, Cheng’s staff was not only able to blunt the MEF attack on the right flank but also managed to attack Honggor successfully on the left. It was there, on the left flank, that Cheng’s veteran regiments came upon one of the few unblooded battalions of Freeman’s Second Army, and some of Freeman’s men ran.

It wasn’t picked up by the press because Freeman had done a Schwarzkopf and kept the press well behind his forces. But it was no use, Dick Norton knew, trying to tart up the report to Freeman by saying the men who ran were overwhelmed by the number of ChiComs, which they were, or that they had failed to get proper artillery support or TACAIR — also true — for the fact of the matter was that most of Charlie company—120 men — in Third Battalion broke and ran. What Charlie company’s commander had intended to be a shooting withdrawal was in fact a rout, some men even throwing their weapons away.

And as if a malevolent fate was at work, the old saying that “trouble comes not in ones or twos but in battalions!” had come true. Military police had been sent in to help stiffen the company’s resolve, to help the company find its pride again, but what the MPs found was a thoroughly demoralized force. On walking toward two of the soldiers in a foxhole, in the hope of getting them up and out and back at the front to help stem the ChiCom breakthrough, an MP, a sergeant, heard, “I can’t do it. I can’t—”

“Sure you can,” came another deeper voice. “Just relax, babe. C’mon, Danny.”

“You’ll look after me?”

“Haven’t I always, Danny?”

“Yes, but—”

The MP then heard a low, moaning noise, and when he looked over into the foxhole he saw one of them — the shorter, Danny he supposed — down on his knees, sucking off the bigger, older man.

“All right!” the MP said. “You two faggots are under arrest. Get on outta there — and surrender your arms.”

“You’re just jealous,” the older man said, remarkably unperturbed. “Isn’t that right, Danny?” Danny couldn’t look at the MP.

“So, asshole,” said the tall, hefty one, name strip Sperling, J., zipping up. “When was the last time you got it off?”

“One more word out of you,” the MP said, “and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

“Nasty, isn’t he, Danny? We should teach the mother some manners.”

In the near distance they could hear Chinese infantry advancing. Danny was already out of the foxhole, having surrendered his rifle. Sperling followed, sneering at the MP, who was terrified the Chinese would come over the ridge any moment. Danny still couldn’t look at the MP sergeant. Instead he just kept walking shamefacedly. Sperling mussed his hair. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. It’s all right. Be our word against his.”

To the MP’s relief, an MP Humvee came in sight, having gathered up two or three other forlorn-looking soldiers from Charlie company.

“Is this the faggot train?” the first MP asked.

“No, these boys are runners, aren’t you, boys? Yessir, we’ve got four courts-martial already with this bunch.”

“How do you like it?” Sperling asked the driver. “Up the ass?”

“Listen, you fucking queer, get in and behave or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“So what do you boys do?” Sperling said. “Think of little wifey or Playboy and wank off?”

“Maybe,” said the MP who’d caught them in fellatio, “but we don’t do it when we’re supposed to be stopping the fucking enemy from overrunning us.”

The train carrying the State Council and the remainder of unit 8431 looked no different from any of the other trains that had left Beijing in time, and already two had been stopped by the SAS/D helos and inspected by Aussie, Salvini, Choir, and Brentwood, but had yielded nothing.

The first pass by the A-10 was ignored by the next train’s engineer and only caused his assistant frantically to shovel in more coal. And so on the second pass, the pilot of the A-10 gave the engine a burst. It exploded not with a bang but rather a sound like hundreds of snakes hissing, its perforated boiler rapidly losing power, the train dying quickly.

When the train stopped, no one got out, and from the air it looked to Aussie Lewis like a short, headless snake. He counted three cars and shouted above the rotor noise, “Not exactly hauling freight, are we?”

“Two bucks!” Salvini yelled. “That Humpty-Dumpty’s on the second car.”

“So who’s on first?” Brentwood put in. Aussie Lewis and Choir Williams didn’t get the joke.

“Fucked if I know,” Aussie said, moving the clip of his HK MP5 for full automatic and easing his Browning pistol up and down in the holster. “My guess is Cheng and Co. are in number two — bad bastards in one and three, protecting them.”

The Comanche escorted the Huey, the attack helicopter’s chin-mounted Gatling gun arcing left and right as the copilot followed the readouts of his HUD. But their job wasn’t to kill the State Council — especially not Cheng, who, though commander of the PLA, was not in Freeman’s view your typical dyed-in-the-wool Red Communist but rather a professional soldier. The Comanche had already dropped more of the surrender leaflets. Anyone who held one up in the air and put down his weapon would be taken prisoner and accorded—

“Hey, they’re coming out!” Choir said. “Cars one and three.” They were laying down their AK-47s in the yellowish grass by the railway tracks, the engine still groaning like some primitive beast of burden slowly giving up its ghost in thin curlicues of steam, the riddled boiler making lonely clanking noises.

“Didn’t think they’d chuck it in so quickly,” Salvini opined.

“Balls!” Aussie said. “They know I’m here. No fucking about with colonials, right, Choir?”

“I hear your wee lassie’s train’s been stopped at Qinhuangdao.”

“What?”

“All right, we’re going down,” the Huey pilot informed them.

Aussie was looking over at Williams. “How do you know?”

“Haven’t you been listening to the radio traffic, boyo? Local MFDs”—he meant movements for democracy— “stopped a train at Qinhuangdao. She’s on it.” Choir shook his head. “No BS, boyo. She’s there.”

Aussie nodded. “Thanks.” By now, fifty yards away from the train, the helicopter’s prop wash was flattening the dried grass in shivering waves as the four SAS men got out into a small depression as other Hueys could be seen garnering westward, apparently manned with regular U.S. Army cavalry troops who’d been dispatched to the area to help out.