Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

Meanwhile the CO of Adak was trying to assemble the civilian survivors as best he could down by the shore of Kulak Bay and to find enough boats that were still seaworthy enough to take them out beyond Sitkin Sound, through Asuksak Pass, and on to Atka Station a hundred miles to the east. Many of the women who had rushed out from the burning huts clad in no more than night attire were in the early throes of hypothermia, which only added to the commanding officer’s problems. As if this weren’t enough, Atka could not be raised on the radio by the communications officer, as the microwave repeaters on the island had been destroyed in the raid, along with the sea-to-shore SOSUS connections.

One of the mothers, whose children, oddly enough, were contentedly playing amid the ruins of the base, approached the commanding officer, asking him what she could do. The CO paused, not knowing what to tell her and, for want of anything helpful to say, directed her toward the MASH tent down by the bay’s edge, where dozens of casualties still lay awaiting attention from the overworked staff, many of whom were also injured.

“It’ll be a hell of a squash,” the communications officer reported to the CO after the woman had left. “I’ve done a quick check on the waterfront. Most of the fishing boats are holed.”

“We’ll just have to do the best we can. By now the boys on the Salt Lake City will sure as hell know we’ve been hit. Their combat patrols should keep those bastards busy. If we can hold out till they come, we should be all right.”

The communications officer didn’t say anything but thought maybe the CO should go down and join the line outside the MASH tent. Hell, even if the Salt Lake City sent every fighter they had, there was nowhere on Adak they could land now with the runway destroyed. Anyway, every marine left on the island — there wouldn’t be enough boats for them — would be a hostage. If the Tomcats bombed, they’d kill as many marines as Russians.

Suddenly the valley was filled with the staccato echoes of machine-gun fire — firefights breaking out as the marines engaged the Russian paratroopers. But the Russians had the overwhelming advantage in that the dark camouflage of the American marines’ uniforms, so ideal in the summer months on the wild, windswept islands, was disastrous for them now.

In a desperate defense, the marines began to dig in, but the SPETS had planned the operation with great detail, and soon a telltale shuffling sound in the air above them gave them only seconds warning of a murderous heavy mortar attack from the mountainsides.

Spumes of dirty snow leapt high in the air, and the screams of the wounded could be heard above the muffled thumps of a fire so concentrated that it was evident to the commanding officer as well as the hysterical civilians in the ruins of the base that they would soon be either killed or taken prisoner. A mortar bomb, exploding barely twenty yards from the MASH tent, sent a hail of shrapnel, killing two small children, one of the bomb’s fins slicing through the tent and decapitating a surgeon who had been in the final stages of suturing a stomach wound.

As a hospital corpsman and two others carried the doctor outside, the Wave in charge of nurses called out brusquely, “Brentwood, finish that suture, then lend a hand here.”

So busy she didn’t have time to be afraid, Lana moved quickly to take over the surgeon’s task, using the suture gun to finish up, then, turning the patient over to the junior nurses for postop, she turned to the next casualty in line.

“This one’s in a coma, Lieutenant,” said the corporal. “Some facial lacerations. X-ray shows a sprained wrist, but can’t find anything else. I’ve taped the wrist.”

Lana knew there wasn’t much she could do for the man, his face bloodied and dirty with gravel rash, his cheeks swollen. They could come out of a coma within twenty-four hours or stay in it forever. “Next one,” she called out to the medical corpsman. Quickly glancing at her watch and grabbing the admission sheet, she jotted down, “0814—superficial lacerations. Coma.”

The corporal reached for the dog tags from beneath the man’s flying suit. “Shirer—” he said. “Frank J.”

Lana suddenly felt immobile, aware only of his face, trying to see if it was him or merely the same name.

“All right, everyone,” boomed a chief petty officer. “Down to the wharf. We’ve got to get these wounded loaded fast as possible. We’re pushing off.”

“Load ‘em on what?” someone shouted.

“Whatever floats. We’ll do the best we can. Women and kids first, then the wounded. Let’s move!”

“Where the hell are we going, for God’s sake?” a frightened orderly asked.

“Anywhere,” said the petty officer, throwing open the flap of the tent. “One of the other islands nearby. All I know is the CO wants everybody down there on the double.”

“Watch that IV!” called out the head nurse, a saline pouch swinging wildly on its stand.

“Is he dead?” Lana heard someone say. “Lieutenant Brentwood! Did you hear me?”

“What — yes. Sorry, Major. No, he’s in a coma.”

“Then get him out with the oth—”

The MASH tent shook violently, and outside, Lana could hear the screams of wounded and children and return fire from the few marines who were left, and a shattering, ringing noise as the Russian heavy mortars, finding the range, began pounding the beach. Now she could see white figures moving in the gray fog through the smoking black remnants of the base. Russian paratroopers.

The trucks carrying the POWs had stalled outside Stadthagen, the snow falling so heavily and the temperature dropping so fast that by nightfall, black ice covered the snow-plowed road from the huge fuel depot twenty miles behind the front, so that the prisoners were made to get out and push the trucks up a long one-in-twenty incline. The guards were yelling at them to work harder, but to no avail, as prisoners like David Brentwood, Waite, and Thelman, despite loud exclamations of intent, merely leaned against the trucks, grimacing ferociously but doing as little as possible to aid and abet their captors. Military police were in evidence everywhere, directing convoys of tank refuelers moving slowly out of the dump of countless drums of fuel hidden under enormous camouflage nets in woods several miles north of Stadthagen.

David Brentwood was surprised to see, in lines of other prisoners all wearing distinct white POW armbands, hundreds of Bundeswehr troops. Before the American airborne had left for their ill-fated drop outside the DB pocket, they had been told that the only NATO troops they might run into, should they be blown off course, would be members of the Dutch Forty-First Army.

“Looks like the whole German army surrendered,” Brentwood said casually, blowing on his frozen fingers. He had no idea that his comment to Thelman about why there were so many Germans would trigger a series of events that would have a profound effect on his life and thousands of others’ in a chain of fate over which he had no control.

“Yeah,” added Thelman. “Thought we were told we’d only be running into the Dutchies. Where’d all these Krauts come from?”

“Germans to you,” said someone amid the scrabble of boots and curses of men clambering back into the trucks, their breath in the frozen air creating a mist that momentarily made the four Stasi guards look as if they were in a steam bath.

“All right,” said Thelman. “Germans. No offense.”

“How the hell should we know where they came from?” retorted an infantryman grumpily. “What is this—’Let’s Make a Deal’? What’s it matter? We’re all in the same boat.”