Authors: Alan McDermott
Chapter 12
Friday 20th
April 2012
While Len and Sonny slept soundly on
their bunks, Sam Grant lay awake staring at the ceiling. Despite the
events of the past few days, it wasn’t Farrar or Abdul Mansour that occupied
his thoughts, but rather Vick Phillips.
In the short time spent in her company
he had seen an inner strength that he’d found alluring, even more so than her
considerable physical attributes. She had obviously been deeply affected
by the death of the Filipino girl and her parents shortly after her capture,
and the constant run-ins with the local forces must have taken their toll,
too. Still, she remained resolute, determined not to let the situation
completely overwhelm her.
If only Dina had managed to find such
courage following Daniel’s death, they might still be together, but she simply
hadn’t been prepared to deal with the tragedy. Her life had been an easy
one, brought up with private schooling and all the privileges her parents could
bestow, whereas he had been dragged up on a South London council estate and had
fought to survive from a very early age. They were as different as could
be, and it came as no surprise when Dina’s parents objected to the
engagement. The fact that he was coming to the end of his military career
went some way to appeasing them, and when his business took off his star rose a
little higher, but there was always the underlying class gap that he couldn’t
seem to overcome.
He had loved Dina, of that there was no
doubt, but they were from different worlds. She had never been more than
dutiful in the bedroom. It was as if love-making was just a necessary —
and not entirely pleasant — part of the pregnancy process. Following the
birth of their son Daniel the passion had almost completely disappeared, with
her focus turning to the needs of their child.
The short relationship with Alma had
been much the same to this point. The physical aspect aside, his own passion
had been on the wane as with every passing day he realised just how little they
had in common.
With Vick, though, it was
different. They had only spent a couple of days together, but during their
snatched conversations in their rest periods he had felt a real
connection. They were both physically active, enjoying running and
cycling, and they had similar tastes in music, books and films. An only
child, she had never married and had infrequent contact with her parents, who
had retired to Australia a few years earlier. She had been offered the
chance to go with them but had turned it down in order to continue her career
in journalism.
He tried to push thoughts of Vick out of
his mind. He was with Alma now, but as he considered their relationship
the realisation hit him: he could never return to his Manila home. His
life in the Philippines was over, and Alma was not the kind of person who would
be suited to a life on the lam. He would do what he could to ensure that
she was taken care of financially, but he knew he could never see her again.
His thoughts once again turned to Vick,
and he knew it would not be fair to drag her any further into his
business. Despite his feelings for the girl, he knew he had to steer
clear of her lest she become embroiled in the fight which lay ahead.
His priority was to get out of the
cell. After that he had to get word to Jeff and Carl to let them know
they were in danger. Beyond that, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t willing
to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.
He was in the process of figuring out
the next step when the first mortar round hit the fuel dump a hundred yards
from the guardhouse. The shockwave almost picked the building up, and all
three were thrown from their bunks. Len and Sonny instinctively scrambled
for their weapons, but they soon remembered where they were and realised they
had nothing to protect themselves with.
The solitary guard rushed to what was
left of the window and looked out at the devastation just as another shell fell
in dead ground.
“You have to let us out of here!” Grant
shouted. “Those rounds are getting closer!”
The guard ignored him and stuck his
rifle through the broken window frame, desperately searching for a
target. The sound of small arms fire could be heard between mortar
blasts, and the tree line beyond the runway sparkled with each incoming bullet.
“Hey! You have to let us out!”
Len and Sonny joined in, all three
trying to get the guard’s attention, but his focus was on the attackers.
He let off a five-second burst towards the trees but all he managed to do was
empty his magazine. As he fumbled for another he suddenly became aware of
the prisoners shouting at him.
“Let us out!”
He grabbed the keys from his belt but
rather than open the cell he simply looked from the men to the keys, back and
forth, wondering if it was such a good idea. Before he could make a
decision another mortar round burst a few yards away, showering the hut with red-hot
shrapnel. The guard, standing too close to the already shattered window,
took the brunt of the force. His shredded body hit the opposite wall and
bounced to the floor a few feet from the cell.
Grant tried to grab the keys but they
were tantalisingly out of reach. He looked around for something he could
use to extend his reach but nothing seemed available, so he whipped off his
T-shirt and tried to snag it on the keys in the dead guard’s hand. Again
and again he tried, but with no luck.
The next shell to land in the camp gave
him the help he needed, destroying the guardhouse door and sending chunks of
wood in his direction. Grant grabbed a piece around three feet long and
finally managed to wrest the keys from the corpse.
He opened the cell and they poured out,
looking for weapons. The guard had his M16 but there was nothing else in
the room.
“We need to find the Colonel,” Len said,
snatching the weapon up and inserting a fresh magazine taken from the
Filipino’s pocket.
The others followed him to the door and
they took in the situation. A truck was on fire away to their left,
caught in the blast that devastated the fuel dump. Three other buildings
were also alight and others had suffered bomb damage. Several Filipino
soldiers were firing blindly into the tree line from behind whatever cover they
could find, while a few lay dead, having been caught out in the open during the
initial barrage.
Sergeant Garcia was trying to get a
defence organised and the American troops were doing their part, but his efforts
were hampered by the inexperienced local troops, who ignored his orders and
continued to fire ineffectively at targets they couldn’t see.
Grant pointed to a building with several
antennae on the roof. “Comms building,” he said, and they all moved towards
it at speed. They had to break cover twice but made it safely to the
building just as Dog emerged with his rifle. The surprise on his face was
obvious but there wasn’t time for explanations.
“We need air support,” Grant said as he
led the group behind the shelter of the building. “The fire is coming
from the trees. What have you got in the air?”
“Nothing local. I called it in but
SOCPAC say it will be at least forty minutes before they can get anything
overhead.”
“We’ll be lucky to last ten minutes,”
Len said, a feeling shared by the others.
“What about heavy weapons?” Grant
asked.
“We have mortars but they don’t have the
range to be effective.”
“So how come theirs can reach us?” Sonny
asked.
Dog led him to the side of the building
and pointed towards the chain link fence separating the base from the
runway. “On the other side of the airstrip there’s Junk Town, built from
scraps of corrugated iron and anything else the locals can lay their hands
on. They must be holed up in there.”
“We need to clear them out. Can
you spare a couple of men?”
Dog got on the radio and two of his
troops were with them within thirty seconds. The pair couldn’t have been
more different. One looked like he’d come straight from a Mr. Universe
contest, while the other had a similar frame to Sonny — only without the good
looks.
“Harrison, Keane, I need you to clear
Junk Town. You’re looking for mortar teams, number unknown.”
“I’ll go with them,” Baines said.
“I can’t sanction that. You stay
here.”
“Sonny was a CRW instructor for three
years,” Grant said. “No-one does house-to-house better.”
Dog thought for a moment, then
nodded. He had been through the Counter-Revolutionary Warfare programme
whilst on secondment to Hereford a few years back, and knew how good you had to
be to pass the course, never mind teach it.
To Keane he said: “Grab their weapons
from the command room and bring three comms units.”
The soldier disappeared and was back
within a minute, doling out the equipment as well as ammunition. Len
handed Grant the M16 as well as a spare magazine, preferring the Heckler &
Koch. With everyone geared up, Keane led Harrison and Baines to the main
gate to make their circuitous approach to the shanty town. Meanwhile, Dog
surveyed the chaos inside the camp.
“We need to help the Sarge get the
defence organised,” he said, nodding towards Garcia.
They ran from cover and Dog sprinted
over to Garcia, who was still struggling to get the Filipino marines to
conserve their ammunition and pick their targets. A few National
Guardsmen were scattered around the camp, but not as many as Grant had expected
to see.
Smart peeled off to the right while
Grant took the left and dropped himself between two Filipino soldiers.
The shock on their faces barely had time to register before he broke into tutor
mode. He tried explaining that they should conserve ammunition but got
blank stares in return, so he mimed the actions as he spoke.
“Ba-
ba
-
ba
-
ba
-bang! No good!” he said,
making the universal “cut-it-out” motion with his arms.
“Bang....bang...bang, good!”
To force the point home he checked
chamber on his weapon and squeezed off three staggered, aimed rounds towards
the jungle.
“Okay?”
He got nods in return and slapped them
on the back before moving on to the next panicking soldier. This one
understood English, negating the need for sign language, and Grant took a
moment to catch his breath.
As he gulped the cordite-filled air he
felt something wasn’t quite right.
Images of his previous encounter with
Abdul Mansour flooded his mind, and he knew what the problem was. He got
on the radio.
“Colonel, who’s manning the front gate?”
“No-one! What you see is all we
got. Most of the locals live off base and one of the first buildings to
be hit was the accommodation block housing the National Guard. Barely ten
people made it out.”
He was astounded that the Filipino
troops were not on base with an attack imminent but this wasn’t the time to
discuss it. “It’s a feint. Mansour doesn’t attack head-on: he draws your
resources and exploits the weak points.”
A moment of silence, followed by: “I’ll
send someone back there.”
“I’ll go,” Grant replied, and he grabbed
the soldier he had been sheltering with.
“Come on!”
Together they ran across the open ground
towards the laundry building. From there it was a left turn to the main
gate fifty yards away, but something caught Grant’s attention as he peered
around the corner. It wasn’t coming from the gate, but rather from behind
him. He turned in time to see the outline of a pick-up truck blazing down
the runway, headlights out but a stream of fire erupting from the rear of the
vehicle. The accompanying buzz-saw sound told him what was approaching.
“Colonel, mini-gun!” he screamed into
the radio as the lance of fire devastated wooden buildings and shredded the
wire fence, but Dog had already seen and heard the danger and the net was
suddenly alive with his own warnings to get the fuck down.
The truck on the airstrip continued to
rain havoc on the camp, puncturing the fuel tank of a jeep and killing the two
soldiers who were taking cover behind it. With those deaths they were
down to a couple of dozen men, and the number was falling fast as more mortar
rounds found their target. From the truck an RPG round shot into the compound
and took out the command building, sending flames high into the sky.
Grant got the pick-up in his sights but
held fire as the truck moved closer and was illuminated by the fires burning
all around him. A plank of wood rose from behind the cab and he could see
a figure strapped to it. He couldn’t see the face but the white skin and
fair hair told him it was certainly not a local, which meant it was one of
their prisoners, and only one of them had short, fair hair. He quickly
got on the radio.
“Colonel, they have one of their
hostages tied to the truck.” As an afterthought he added: “His name is
Eddie Halton and he’s American.”