Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (76 page)

“On.”

“
Fire.”

The gunner had
slowly traversed back, leading the M5 tractor and was confident of a hit. The shell missed the fully tracked prime mover and ploughed into the 3” anti-tank gun it was towing.

Kagamutsu slapped the gunner
’s shoulder.

“
You lucky bastard.”

“
The ancestors smiled upon me, Sergeant Major.”

“
They can do it again then. Zero, eight fifty metres.”

Another shell sped across the battlefield, missing its intended target by some distance.

“Again.”

The jittery gun crew were bailing out of their vehicle when the HE hit the front plate. The tractor was destroyed and one of the crew was stripped of every appendage and hurled onto the roof of a small hut. He died before a medic could reach him.

Hirohata’s force had also split, the Marquis himself standing back, overwatching his tanks and infantry as the remaining two Panthers drove hard into the few units that had crossed the bridge unharmed.

Gradually, the slaughter abated as the three Panthers started to run out of viable targets, the main guns falling silent, leaving the machine guns to pick up
off a morsel here and there.

Perversely, it was Kagamutsu who spotted the new danger.

“Ashita to all units. Enemy tanks coming out of Dasong. Type unknown. Over.”

Every tank commander looked south but, with the extra height of his position, it was Hirohata that could see best.

“Masumi from Takushi. Four enemy tanks on the railway line, coming north. Pershing type, over.”

Hamuda, always aggressive and equipped with a tank that supported his idea of
modern combat, debated quickly.

The temptation to stay and slug it out with the monster enemy tanks was clear
, and very tempting.

But, where there were four, there could be more, and all of his tanks had taken punishment already.

His head won the day.

“
Takushi from Masami, over.”

Hirohata obviously expected the order, which momentarily reassured Hamuda that it was the right one.

He polished up the finer details.

“
Takushi, stay in the woods but keep an eye on us as we move up through 2nd. Over.”

Clear on his orders, Lieutenant, the Marquis Ito Hirohata
, ordered his two lead Panthers back into cover and melted away before the Pershings could engage.

The
last but one shell had landed inch perfect.

The Japanese guns had been relocated to the river bridge but some shells were already on their way when the order came.

Colonel Bloomquist, 343rd Infantry, had left two minutes beforehand, intent on rallying the men and guns to the south.

The decision spared his life.

Those of the 343rd’s staff that had remained behind were less fortunate, although none of them suffered.

The blast had ripped through the headquarters position
, and few men escaped without some injury.

Three of CCA
’s personnel were dead, with another five badly wounded, including the Chinese Battalion commander.

The radios were smashed
, and the whole headquarters was a shambles.

Edgar Painter had sustained a most unusual injury. Not one that overly incapacitated him, but it was painful for sure.

Halfway between his wrist and elbow, a pair of scissors protruded from his flash. The blast had picked them up from one of the field desks and sent them flying like a knife, striking the Colonel in the right arm.

It didn
’t reduce his movement, but every change in posture brought a stab of excruciating pain, and he had no grip worth a damn.

Through the fire of his wound, a sound
broke through, one new to his experience, but one that registered with him because of stories he had heard from men who had been on the receiving end.

“
Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”

In relocating some of his force, Painter had thinned out the men in between him and 2nd Group.
Two Chinese platoons had run away as soon as the opportunity presented itself, leaving AT positions, and precious little else, between the CP and the enemy.

The shell
, in destroying his radios, had deprived him of the means to plug the gap.

Infantry from the 2nd
/3rd rose up and charged forward, closing upon a brace of 3” AT weapons and their infantry support.

“
Banzai!”

Painter had to admit that it was f
rightening.

One of the 343rd
’s piss-ant 37mm guns, weapons that had been universally mocked when discussed in conjunction with the possibility of enemy Panther and Tiger tanks, spat out a hail of shot, its canister round proving extremely effective at wiping away groups of charging Japanese soldiers.

“
Banzai!”

A .30cal crew worked feverishly to unjam a weapon that had fired but a single bullet before falling silent
; the approaching screaming, the glistening bayonets, the growing covering fire from enemy guns, all combining to reduce their calmness to a nothingness of fear. The gun would not fire again this day.

“
Banzai!”

The 37mm coughed
once more and a dozen enemy soldiers were thrown over in disarray. The screams of the charging men mingled with the screams of the hideously wounded.

The AT gunners started throwing grenades
, and looking to their small arms as the ‘medieval horde’ grew closer.

“
Banzai!”

The
Japanese commander, waving his pistol and sword in encouragement, ran straight onto an exploding grenade, which gave him more forward momentum, but robbed him of his life in an instant.

Another canister round was fired and more men were wiped away by the stream of steel balls.

An armoured car dashed forward on the flank and its German machine-gun lashed the 37mm’s servers, silencing the weapon.

“
Banzai!”

The headquarters officers and soldiers had come into action, picking off men here and there, careful to avoid hitting their own.

A running Japanese threw aside his rifle and slammed his hand against his helmet, immediately throwing himself into the first anti-tank gun position.

More experienced soldiers would have realised that the man was arming a grenade by striking the primer on the metal protecting his head.

The grenade went off, killing or incapacitating the whole gun crew.

The next three Japanese soldiers in
to the position used their rifles and bayonets to finish the job.

“
Banzai!”

The surviving Japanese officer
, 2nd Lieutenant Tanji, leapt the shallow trench and dropped beside the two men at the .30cal; both were paralysed with fear.

Their hands were half raised but the officer
’s sword was unforgiving and he swept the blade into them, two blows each.

Behind
Tanji, the rest of his unit was either on or over the defensive line.

“Banzai!”

A knot of enemy formed behind some small rocks and started to pick off his soldiers.

Before he could organise an attack, the
friendly armoured car rolled around behind them and removed the threat.

The other anti-tank gun position was taken and the gunners slaughtered to a man.

However, the doughboys of the 343rd were proving a sterner test, and Japanese victory was not yet assured.

He called a small group around him and swept down the trench
line from east to west, bringing an advantage to every little fight as the small force moved along the position.

The
Marmon-Herrington was suddenly lashed with machine gun bullets, two M20’s charging out of the town to do battle.

Tanji spared a moment to take in the unusual sight of warring armoured cars
, as his men completed the rout of the defending infantry, a few GIs running back as fast as they could.

His own men celebrated.

“Banzai!”

Tanji realised what the next enemy position was.

“One more effort! The Emperor demands it of us! There is the enemy commander! There! Follow me!”

The
surviving forty-two soldiers rose up as one and charged.

“
Banzai!”

Haro and his crew were having a bad time of it with the six-wheeled enemy cars, who were not only faster
, but also packed a bigger punch with their .50cal machine guns.

The
MG34 equipped Marmon-Herrington was decidedly outgunned, even before men appeared in the open-topped structures of the M20s, each armoured car introducing a bazooka to the fight.

The MG34 fell silent as the belt ran out.

“Reload, you moron!”

This was no time to lose firepower.

Both enemy vehicles slowed to give their weapons a better chance to hit, providing Haro with an unexpected opportunity.

“
Right, pull right now and head to the river. Weave, but push quickly.”

The driver responded instantly and the South African built vehicle bounded, its acceleration making
all the difference as two rockets cut through the air near where it had been a moment before hand.

The MG34 chattered briefly, the slowed M20 nearest presenting a better target than previously.

Haro noted the pieces fly off the machine gunner. He was also sure that the reloading bazooka man had taken a good hit in the head.

“
Good shooting. Maybe not such a moron after all.”

The exchange was good-humoured;
the gunner had been with Haro for years.

.50cal bullets struck the rear of the vehicle and more than one passed through the crew compartment
. Haro felt the loss of power immediately, which was quite strange as the engine was in the front. The engine picked up again quickly, but the bigger armoured car was gaining.

However, Haro
’s manoeuvre had not really been about making it to the river. He had brought the pursuing M20 into a place where it could clash with an all together different proposition.

“
What’s that fish breath doing?”

“
I nearly killed him, Commander.”

“
Hmm.”

The Marmon-Herrington had just
bounded out of cover, racing at top speed for the river, surprising everyone on Masami.

Behind it
, and following the same path, the M20 emerged, seemingly oblivious to the Panther’s presence.

“
Gunner engage.”

It was a difficult shot as the enemy vehicle was moving fast. The gunner followed the vehicle, the traverse just about keeping up before settling in because of the decreasing angle change.

The driver of the M20 made a mistake.

Turning left to round an obstacle, he presented a moment of advantage to Masami, one the gunner took
full benefit of.

Even then, he only just clipped the armoured car, but its armour offered no resistance and the nearside front was destroyed in an instant.

“Fakku! Load high explosive!”

The
M20 was a sitting duck and the 75mm HE shell completed the work done by an ordinary armour piercing round.

The American armoured car died spectacularly.

Hamuda ordered the Panther forward again and returned the wave from the commander of the strange armoured car, who had obviously deliberately risked himself to draw the enemy vehicle across Masami’s bows.

‘
The man has courage.’

The headquarters personnel stood their ground and fired everything they had at the screaming horde.

To no avail for, although they knocked a number of men down, more than enough made it to the bunker to ensure the Japanese victory.

“Banzai!”

Colonel Edga
r Painter calmly fired his Colt left-handed, selecting a different target with each shot and, to his surprise, hitting with most.

His officers and men went down under the surge of bodies
, and the screams of dying men invaded every part of his consciousness.

The 1911
A hung open on an empty magazine, and he quickly tried to put another magazine in, his right hand unable to contribute to the process.