Уильям Дитц - Battle Hymn

Platoon leaders, and in some cases platoon sergeants, responded to the calls. But there was only so much they could do. The battalion was starting to bleed out. Mac turned to Duke. The RTO heard everything, which meant that he knew everything. “Where do we stand, Larry? How many wounded? How many killed?”

Duke flipped a page on his notebook. “Fifty-six wounded, eighteen dead,” he said. “Company Sergeant Bader was killed ten minutes ago.”

Mac felt something cold trickle into her veins. The situation was even worse than she had feared. “Put a call in to Kingpin. Tell them we have five-six WIAs to get out of here, plus at least one-eight bodies. And tell them we are prepping for Final Protective Fire.”

Duke’s eyes were huge. “‘Final Protective Fire’? What’s that mean?”

“It means this is the fucking Alamo,” Evans answered from a few feet away. “And you are Davy Crockett. Get on the horn. Maybe we can get some people out of here.”

Duke swallowed, keyed the handset, and went to work. “This is Reacher-Four-Six, calling Kingpin-Two-Two-One…”

Mac didn’t have time to hang around and see what Trenton would say. She grabbed an M4 carbine, and as she made her way down the ramp, Mac heard bullets snap overhead. The combination of Burns’s AA fire and the incoming F-14s had been enough to clear the sky for a moment. And that was a good thing.

The rebs were so close that Mac couldn’t separate the sound of outgoing fire from the sound of incoming fire. She was careful to keep her head down while she dashed from position to position. Mac wasn’t there to give orders. Lieutenants and sergeants could handle that.

No, Mac’s purpose was to be seen and to give her soldiers hope. Little things could make a difference. Like when she called a soldier by her name, helped to shift a machine gun from one location to another, or held a dying soldier’s hand. She’d done it before but never so many times. Tears cut trails through the grime on her cheeks as Mac trudged from place to place.

But the worst, the very worst, was the battalion aid station—where PA Lieutenant Tom Brody and his medics were sorting the Marauders into three groups: those they could help, those they couldn’t help, and those who were dead. The blood-covered medics looked more like ghouls than angels as they made their rounds. When Brody saw Mac, he came over. The PA accidentally wiped some blood onto his forehead. “How bad is it?”

Mac forced a smile. “I put in a call… Help will arrive soon.”

Brody nodded. “Thanks, I’ll try to believe that.”

Then they heard a burp of static from Mac’s radio followed by the sound of Duke’s voice. “This is Bravo-One-Zero to all personnel. We have two, repeat two friendly aircraft inbound from the east, ETA one minute. Put your heads down—and don’t fire on them. Over.”

“See?” Mac said. “I told you so.”

Brody grinned. “No offense, Major… But you’re full of shit.”

“And none taken,” Mac responded. “I’m not sure if this is the close air support that we asked for or the prelude to an extraction. Let’s hope for the latter. Prep your patients for the trip out. I’ll send a squad to help you with the KIAs.”

Brody was giving orders as Mac left. Once she was outside, Mac made her way forward, entered a fighting position, and was staring at the eastern horizon when the A-10s appeared. Rockets flashed off their wings as they came in low, 500-lb laser-guided GBU-12 bombs fell free, and the results were nothing short of spectacular. A Bradley took a direct hit and blew up. All of the enemy troops had to go facedown in the dirt, and the volume of incoming fire dropped accordingly.

Mac looked past the circling Hogs and up into the sky beyond. Yes! The navy F-14s were still there, keeping the reb fighters at bay. And that was crucial since the A-10s were especially vulnerable while operating that close to the ground.

A .50 caliber machine gun was sited just forward of the hole. “Uh-oh,” the loader said. “Here they come!” As the gunner opened fire, Mac saw that the soldier was correct and made a grab for her M4. The Confederates were on their feet and charging forward.

Were they brave? Hell yes, they were brave. And they were smart, too. If the rebs could reach the battalion’s front line, and if they could break through it, they’d be safe from the Warthogs. Because once the two sides were intermingled, the planes wouldn’t be able to attack. “Stop them!” Mac yelled into her boom mike. “Stop them now !”

Every Stryker was firing, and all of the troops were, too. The first rank of enemy soldiers appeared to wilt as the defensive fire swept across them. But there were more, at least a hundred of them, and they were only two hundred yards away when the A-10s returned.

Each A-10 was armed with a GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm Gatling-style auto cannon. And the fearsome weapons roared as the Hogs came in. Mac saw puffs of dirty gray smoke blow back from the nose of each plane and trail away.

Mac stopped firing as the armor-piercing shells plowed bloody paths through the rebel ranks and brought their charge to a halt. A noncom managed to plant a Confederate flag in his native soil before falling forward next to it. His body marked what amounted to the attack’s high-tide mark. Mac couldn’t help but admire the man’s courage.

There were very few survivors, and most of them were wounded. Those who could waved scraps of white cloth. Mac keyed her radio. “This is Six actual… Cease firing. Allow the rebs to pull back.” Then, to Cassidy, “Notify the A-10s. Tell them to lay off. Over.”

Once the firing stopped, voices could be heard. Some were calling for medics. One soldier wanted his mother. And another was singing. He had a beautiful voice, and the lyrics seemed to float over the battlefield.

Then Duke arrived, and the moment was over. “There you are,” the RTO said crossly, as if Mac had been hiding from him. “I just got off the horn with Kingpin. They’re going to pull us out. We have one hour in which to destroy all the pumping infrastructure we can, prep the wounded for the dust-off, and collect the dead. The F-14s and the A-10s will remain on station.”

“Thank God for that,” Mac said. “Let’s get to work.”

There was a lot to do. And as the minutes ticked away, Mac dashed from place to place. Were the truck commanders ready to destroy their vehicles? Check. Had the LZs been cleared and marked? Check. Had the Confederate POWs been loaded onto one of the barges? And set adrift? Check. And so on as Mac ran through a mental checklist of all the things that needed to be done.

And while all of that was taking place, more rebs were closing in. Except that the newcomers weren’t Confederate soldiers, they were Mexicans, at least a thousand of them according to Sergeant Evans.

But why ? It was clear that the Marauders were getting ready to pull out by then. So all Oxley, or whoever was in charge, had to do was sit back and wait. Maybe the counterattack was a matter of honor. Or, and this seemed more likely, the Confederates were out for revenge. Whatever the reason, the Mexicans were coming in hard. So hard, and from so many directions, that it was difficult for the A-10s to hold them off.

That forced Mac to roll a dozen Strykers and position them around the LZ facing out. And not a moment too soon. Six Jaguar armored cars appeared from the south and opened fire. The Marauders responded in kind, and with Stingers, too, in hopes of scaring the shit out of the foreign troops.