James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Roger Twelve. Vehicles in sight now.”

The Captain leading the column switched his radio over to the ground channel. “Two-Four and Two-Six, take the street to the east, Two-Five and -Seven, the one to the west. We’ll roll up slowly.”

“Roger Eight.”

“Roger, breaking off now.”

The Captain watched out the slowly opening rear hatch of the IMP he and ten of his men sat in as the first two Growlers behind him peeled off to the right. The next two turned left, each vehicle loaded with five soldiers and equipped with a pedestal-mounted heavy-caliber machine gun.

The IMP rolled sedately along, the trooper manning the belt-fed grenade launcher on the roof nervously scanning the houses to either side. The two pairs of Growlers roared up the parallel streets to either side in hopes of flushing out any potential ambushers.

The Captain watched the nervous faces of the young men crowded into the personnel carrier. Barely more than kids, most of them, looking to him for reassurance and guidance. Once, he’d have been able to give it to them. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The back hatch stopped, fully descended. The soldiers nearest the hatch raised their weapons and scanned the passing houses.

“Eight, this is Four. Got nothing.”

“Seven here. Nothing moving.”

The Captain stood and shuffled up the compartment to stand next to the driver. He peered out through one of the window blocks and saw they were about a hundred yards from the ambushed patrol’s IMP.

“All right,” he called out, turning back to his men. “I want two lines, either side of the street. Keep your intervals. I’m going to keep this thing rolling for a bit. You start taking fire get your ass back in here. Move.”

As his soldiers stood and began hopping off the tailgate of the slowly moving IMP, weapons up and scanning the nearby porches, the Captain got back on the radio. “Four, Seven, you stay on your streets, opposite the smoke, and sing out if you see anything. Five and Six, roll up the south end of this street and hold up about fifty yards out. Keep a man on the gun and one behind the wheel, I want everyone else checking for survivors and hostiles.”

“Roger that.”

“Let’s hope.”

The Captain smacked the leg of the roof gunner and the man looked down through the hatch, hands tight on the grenade launcher. “We start taking fire I want you to put rounds in every fucking house you can see. There’s fifty rounds in that can and it better be empty before you get off the trigger.”

The young soldier grinned. “Yes Sir!”

The IMP rolled to within twenty yards of the idling personnel carrier without incident. The troops moved up either side of the street, moving in quick dashes from cover to cover, searching the houses and in-between them, wondering if they were next in line to be ambushed. They passed the IMP nosed into the rusting vehicle hulk, checking the street half a dozen houses past the burning Growler. By that time the Captain was out of the APC and striding forward down the middle of the street.

It was as bad as he’d feared. The street was littered with silent forms, the bodies of his men. He saw at least one man with this throat cut—the ARF was very consistent, they didn’t leave their wounded, and they didn’t take prisoners. The ambushed patrol hadn’t been under his command, directly, but every man in it had at one time or another served under him. Dead, all dead. Christ, would this war ever end?

His Lieutenant came running up to him. “Looks clear.”

The Captain nodded. “Make sure they keep their eyes open, Reed. Do a thorough check for wounded, every house and yard within a couple hundred yards from here, but I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky. And I want eyeballs on the street at either end of the engagement zone.” He pointed.

“Yes Sir.” Lieutenant Reed started barking out orders and the few soldiers still up near the houses grudgingly moved toward the street to help with the dead. They didn’t want to see the bodies, perhaps recognize someone they’d spoken to the day before, but they all knew they had a job to do.

The Captain stood near the back deck of the lost patrol’s IMP and surveyed the carnage. The Growler was still burning and probably would for hours. It was in the middle of the street and no danger to anything, so they’d let it burn. He peeked inside the IMP.

The floor was awash with blood, but the personnel carrier didn’t appear seriously damaged. He carefully stepped over the mangled body at the rear deck and checked on the driver and door gunner. No surprises. The bodies looked like they’d been hastily searched. They’d been relieved of their spare rifle mags and probably anything that either was or looked like intelligence. The IMP’s driver looked all of seventeen. The Army, which was growing increasingly short on bodies, was now drafting seventeen-year-olds, and talk was they were going to drop the age to sixteen.

“What a fucking waste,” he spat.

There’d been eighteen men in the patrol and out the back hatch of the IMP he could see a dozen or so bodies. The rest, he was sure, would be found in and around the nearby houses, shot as they’d tried to escape the killing zone. He seriously doubted whether any of the soldiers had made it out, but until the body count was in he still held some small piece of hope in his heart.

There was a big ammo box on the back hatch of the IMP, its lid cracked. The Captain frowned at it, then stepped off the deck and looked up at the roof. Yeah, that’s where it came from.

I wonder why they didn’t take it? he mused silently. He walked back to the box and flipped open the lid. There was a faint ting! and he felt something brush past his ear. He looked around, not seeing anything, knowing it hadn’t been a gunshot, then looked down into the ammo can. There was a nearly full belt of grenades filling the can, plus a thermite hand grenade someone had stuck in there against regulations. The Captain had just enough time to notice the grenade’s handle was missing before it blew and set off the whole can.

“Holy shit! What was that?” Cornwell spun Lima Twelve in a tight arc as a massive fireball bloomed near the open rear door of the disabled personnel carrier five hundred feet below him. Bodies flew through the air and the IMP jumped ten feet into the air and toppled over onto its side. The shockwave from what had to be a bomb shook the helicopter and for just a few seconds he had to fight the controls.

“Hotel! Hotel! This is Lima Eleven. We’ve got an explosion on the ground, unknown source, multiple casualties, over.”

“Roger that.”

“Was that a mortar?” Eleven asked, curving his bird away from Twelve just in case they started taking incoming fire. He scanned the horizon for missile exhaust trails. He glanced back at the carnage on the ground. “Goddammit.”

Ed was standing in the kitchen with George as the squad’s number two man sorted gear. They could feel the explosion in their feet.

“What the hell was that?” Quentin asked, sitting on the basement stairs.

“I left them a little present,” Weasel said from the basement shadows. He explained what he’d done.

“Nice,” Mark said. “You think that’d be enough to take out the IMP?”

“Sure sounded like it.” He looked at the squad leader. “Add that to the scoreboard for the inning. A Kestrel, a Growler, and an IMP. All we need now’s a Toad and we win the scavenger hunt.”

“We really ought to be further away, after that,” George said quietly to Ed. Ed nodded, but both men knew leaving the house was riskier than staying put.

George cracked an ammo can and peeked inside to make sure it was the right one, then carried it over to the top of the basement stairs. “Earl,” he called down softly. “How many mags do you have for your rifle?”