John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“No excuse, ma’am,” Barnard said, stone-faced.

“The point to this stuff we just did was not to make you look or feel like a fool, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, still not looking at her. “I know I don’t work real good when people make me feel stupid. I figure most people are like that. I just realized a couple of things after the colonel was done ‘counseling’ me. Since you didn’t trust me you didn’t trust that I knew what I was talking about. You didn’t trust my experience ’cause I was a kid and a second lieutenant. You were, Staff Sergeant, assuming. And you didn’t understand what I meant. Not with this. I don’t mean to cut you down in any way, Staff Sergeant. But you’re a clerk. You’re not infantry. I don’t know if you wanted to be infantry but you couldn’t ’cause you were a girl. But you’re not, and you’re not real experienced at it.

“You don’t know how shit fucks up at the best of times in combat. Forget that ‘fog of war’ crap. I’m talking about an M4 jams with a bunch of infected running at us and the guy has to remember how to clear it and ends up ADing his buddy in the ass. And our M4s are gonna jam. ’Cause we have to cover them in oil to keep the salt from fucking them up but as soon as we hit the fucking beach that fine sand is gonna stick to them and jam them like a son of a bitch. That kind of ‘shit fucks up in combat.’

“Now, I realize that you probably didn’t understand that and you so you didn’t understand the order . Again, my bad. That doesn’t mean I think I know everything, Staff Sergeant. I’m not…what’s that word? I’m not salty. I don’t know shit about the Marine Corps. You’ve got me in spades on that. I can find Parris Island on a map, now, but all I know is that Quantico is in Virginia someplace. And what the fuck is that thing about a Tavern?

“And you can probably score high expert on a rifle range and I’d maybe score marksman. Hell, if you hadn’t been getting the platoon in tune, I’d have brought you in to explain all the paperwork crap the colonel’s been throwing at me ’cause I spend most of my time trying not to cry I’m so fucking clueless. And I hate feeling stupid. I’m getting so fucking frustrated with all this paperwork and planning crap …

“But day after tomorrow we’re going ashore on what is sure to be a really great little island, the overheads are awesome, to go do the only thing I do know, which is killing the fuck out of infected. And Staff Sergeant, for God’s sake, if you don’t understand one of my orders, please, Cindy, ask . Because if you don’t, you’re going to get some of my Marines killed. And that will really piss me off. And, Cindy, you don’t want somebody like me pissed off.”

She turned and looked the staff sergeant in the eye.

“Because I don’t do words real good, Staff Sergeant, and I don’t know how to do that crap where you write an evaluation report that sounds good but makes people look like shit. I can’t do that stuff good. When I say I’m gonna kill somebody, Staff Sergeant, I ain’t talkin’ about their career . Oorah?”

“So this is Anguilla,” Ensign Joseph Buckley said, conning his way into Road Salt Pond Bay. “Not much to look at.”

The island was low and sandy with a few small hills. The shore of the bay was a nearly perfect crescent-moon-shaped beach with bright white coral sand and waving palm trees while the waters of the bay were a gorgeous mixture of turquoise and cerulean. There were low, one-and two-story, block buildings scattered among the trees. There were two piers, one to the east and one to the west, located at about the one third position on the beach. The westerly pier was their primary target, a medium sized “cargo” pier which, unfortunately, did not have cargo cranes but appeared to be intact and unblocked. The easterly pier was a small pier for small boats. A large “deep water” outboard was still attached by one line but it was sunk to the gunnels.

The picturesque beach was littered with the debris of a destroyed civilization—trash, bits and pieces of clothing, grounded boats and picked clean skeletons, their bones as white as the sands. Many of the buildings had been scorched by fire as had many of the trees. In fact, it looked as if a fire had swept across the entire island. There was a small ship, an island support ship like the Erik Shivak , grounded at the tip of the eastern cape.

“Christ,” Ray Hoover said, shaking his head. “This place is a mess.”

The first mate of the Bad Juju was in his thirties and covered up male pattern baldness by shaving his head. A former “renta-slave” in the IT business, he’d volunteered for small boats after being stuck in a liner compartment for months. However, he’d long before regretted his actual posting. The name was bad enough but the captain…

“Yeah,” Buckley said, trying to figure out where to anchor. “Even the Canaries weren’t this…”

What, exactly, they weren’t would have to wait as the, fortunately slowly moving, boat ground to a halt with a rather nasty crunching sound from below.

“Aw, crap,” Buckley said, tossing his captain’s cap over the side.

“Hey, Skipper?” Kevin Schlossberg yelled from below. “We’re taking on water?”

“Not again !”

“All divisions,” Lieutenant Commander Chen radioed, shaking his head. “All divisions. Be on the lookout for submerged wrecks…” He set the microphone down and shook his head again. “Including the Bad Juju …In retrospect…”

“No gunboats on Forest Bay?” Colonel Hamilton asked, looking at the operations map. “It would seem closer to the anticipated high infected density around the Quarter than Sandy Hill.”

The final touches were being placed on the landing operation. The island was the first assault designated for “Operation Leeward Sweep” so they were trying to get each item as set as possible to develop SOPs. The entire command team was present but most of them were keeping their mouths shut.

“Overheads and charts indicate that Forest Bay has some significant reefs, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Chen replied. He was the senior Navy officer for the operation. “Sandy Hill is more safely approachable and the cape provides wind and wave protection, making for a more stable gun platform. We have no detailed information on how far our nightly…activities will bring the infected but indicators in the Canaries were from as much as five miles away. We believe that this lay-out will draw something like ninety percent of the infected. The question, of course, is if they can all make it to the target beaches before dawn.”

“Out of pure curiosity,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Who came up with this technique?”

“Captain Wol—Smith, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Chen said.

“Simple, brutal and effective seems to be his call sign,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Lieutenant, the scuttlebutt is that there tends to be a bit of a party when you’re drawing in the infected.”

“That has, occasionally, been an aspect of this procedure, sir,” Chen said carefully. “It is necessary to make noise and rather than, say, continuous air-horn blasts we generally play music. And…there is some drinking. And I will admit, sir, that that has occasionally, notably at Las Galletas, gotten out of hand. I’ve been dialing down on it, sir.”

“Pass the word,” Hamilton said. “Not this time. With a reason. In this case, we’re dealing with a very small island and we’re more or less surrounding it. Fifty-caliber rounds go quite a ways. To be exact, they are lethal at up to seven miles. If we get too free with fire, we’re going to end up shooting one of the other boats that’s not even in sight . We need to ensure that the gunners stay strictly within their fire limits. Alcohol and such assurances simply do not match. I’m aware that you should not give an order that won’t be obeyed and that keeping liquor off the boats is impossible. So pass the word the party is after we clear the damn island and all the guns are put away. Roger?”