The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (40 page)

KABAM!

Michael looked up, expecting to see Roy flying around the quarry, but he wasn’t there. Instead, he saw Faith, up high and circling. He picked up his mike.

“Hi, Faith! How’d we do?”

“Aces, Kemo Sabe,” she responded, cheerfully. “Three more down. Is Roy down there with you?”

She was too high to see for herself. Michael’s Hornet cleared the lip of the quarry and he saw Roy’s Chinook climbing toward Faith. At the same time, everybody started shooting at him again.

“He’s below you, Faith, in your blind spot.” Michael said.

Faith banked around more steeply.

“Roy?” she asked, but there was no response from the Chinook.

“His radio’s probably out, Faith,” Michael stated. “Look, the guns are out of commission. Dump that last egg of yours somewhere and head for home.”

“I’ll keep it for awhile, if you don’t mind, Michael,” Faith replied. “Maybe I can lay it on a tank on our way back. Waste not, want not.”

“Suit yourself,” Michael said. “Not my butt sitting on a bomb.”

He kept the Hornet in a shallow climb until he was out of range of the soldiers below. The Hornet’s engine sputtered and quit.

“Listen up, Faith. My bird’s not going to make it back to Provo. I’m in a glide pattern right now. I can’t ditch because my landing gear’s shot up, so I’ll bail out over Edge Mountain and make my way back to our lines tonight.”

“Roger that, Kemo Sabe,” Faith responded. “Hope you rigged your own chute.”

“No one else,” Michael said. Nobody cares as much about doing a good job packing a parachute as the man who’ll be wearing it. “But I’ll probably just pop the ballistic.” Ultralights come equipped with a so-called ballistic parachute that is designed to let the entire plane down gently when the need arises.

“Okay,” Faith came back. “But pop it while you’re up high enough to climb out if it’s no good. We’ll stick around till you’re down safe.”

“Yes, mother,” Michael laughed.

Then he turned his full attention to keeping his frail craft in the air for as long as possible, while looking for a place to set it down. Michael really hoped the ballistic chute would work. If it landed the plane gently enough, the Allies might be able to salvage it someday. Besides, his fear of heights was no problem while he was sitting in an airplane, but if he had to jump he’d probably puke all over himself on the way down.

Chapter 39: The Ground War: Springville

Daniel Windwalker peered from behind the rubble of a True Value Hardware store at the Patton tank rolling down Main street. He ducked his head back as the turret swiveled in his direction. Another hundred yards... Daniel turned and keeping low, scurried out into 200 S. street to the manhole he’d pried open just a couple of minutes earlier. He lowered himself into the hole to eye level and looked down North Street toward the intersection only thirty yards away.

“Hand it up,” he said to the man standing below him.

Mitch Stonehand held the M72 up where Daniel could reach it. Mitch had made an epic white water run down the Provo River to get fuel for the Huey, but he’d arrived too late to catch any of the Allied flyers before they took off on their mission, so he told Able Emery what was needed and joined the fight. He also told Able about the massacre at Bloody Lake, then repeated the story to Adam and Bob Young when he reported to them for reassignment. The way they looked at each other made him think maybe the Allies weren’t going to win this war after all.

Daniel took the weapon and pulled the safety pins to open the end covers. He extended the inner tube, which cocked the firing mechanism, looked down the barrel, silently cursing whoever had designed such finicky sights for a field weapon and aimed at the intersection. It was very easy to either overshoot or undershoot a target. That was why he was so close.

He didn’t have long to wait. The tank rolled into the intersection and slowed so that its turret could traverse the cross streets. Daniel fired the rocket, cheering silently when it worked well enough to launch. Several of the Allies’ LAWS had been too old and corroded to function. The 66 mm shaped charge on this one took the tank perfectly between two tread-supporting return rollers, impacting on the relatively thin armor on the lower side of the tank, inside the treads. In an instant, the charge burned through the steel, erupting inside and killing the crew even before it cooked off the tank’s remaining ammunition.

The tank blew up. Its turret sailed twenty yards and smashed upside down onto a pile of rubble, where it spun like a kid’s top for a few revolutions before the cannon barrel caught on a piece of concrete and jarred it to a stop. The infantry accompanying the tank, those who weren’t cut down by shrapnel or simply crushed by the force of the explosion, picked themselves up and started hunting for the men who killed their tank. That was when the Allied machine gunners opened up from their concealed positions.

As for Daniel and Mitchell Stonehand--one of several designated tank-killer teams--they were already gone, sprinting through the storm drains, climbing up into the open whenever the drains were collapsed, heading toward the next tank.

*

Adam and Bob Young had been up all night directing men in heavy equipment as they strengthened the breastworks in Springville. Bulldozers, front-end loaders, dump trucks and earthmovers labored to erect tank barriers and to open trenches collapsed by the artillery barrage. They hadn’t quite finished when the enemy attacked in the pre-dawn darkness.

Since then they had directed the battle from their forward HQ at Lincoln Elementary School, across the street from the remains of the police station. Several Pattons had punched a hole in their right flank, crossing Hobble Creek at 400 West St. The tanks had split up, three heading north toward Center street before turning east, another three heading east for several blocks before turning north on Main. The tanks split up again so now there were six of them rampaging through a small 25-square-block area of Springville.

Most communities in Utah name and number their streets in a very logical fashion. The main east-west street is called Center. Beginning at Center, the first street north is called 100 North St. Then next street is called 200 North St., etc. Streets south of Center are 100 South St., 200 South St. and so on.

The main north-south street is called, appropriately enough, Main St. The first block east of Main is named 100 East St. The first block west of Main is 100 West St. At first, to outsiders, it was confusing to be told to set up at the “corner of 300 S. and 900 E.”, but everyone soon got accustomed to the logic.

Such a system made for great artillery fire calls. “Walk it down 300 West between 300 and 200 South.” All the gunners had to do was look up their pre-ranged coordinates for the intersection of 300 West and 300 South and start shooting.

Adam paced back and forth in front of the situation map, staring at the area of the breakthrough. The radio in his hand gave him constant estimates of the numbers of enemy soldiers pouring into the breech. Not as many as he’d expected, as if the enemy commander was holding something back, but, he looked at the map again, probably enough to do the job. If they consolidate that area they can bust out in two directions. And if we aren’t careful we’ll be cut off from any line of retreat toward Provo. True, reports from the men on the front line indicated two tanks had already been destroyed, but that still left four and one of them was less than four blocks away. He radioed an urgent message to Lt. Beeman.

“Walt! Get your Texas rear in gear!”

Lt. Walter Beeman was too busy to respond. In fact, he was hanging on for dear life while the driver of his jeep-mounted 106 mm recoilless rifle swerved madly right and left to evade enemy shellfire and old craters. It was times like these he wished he was still back at the ranch, prodding cattle. Then he remembered the blown-apart shell of the ranch house he’d seen on his last patrol through the area and how he and a few of his men had buried the charred remains of the rancher and his family. Their proud house had stood up to raiders and marauders for a dozen years, but couldn’t hold against tanks.

His driver careened the jeep around a corner and slammed on the brakes as they practically rammed into the rear of a pair of enemy tanks. It was too close to even be called point blank range. Walt yanked the firing lanyard and leaped off the side of the jeep to take cover.

“OOF!” He grunted as his driver landed on him. Thirty yards down the street, the tank exploded.

“Jesus H. Christ, Susie, this here gun has a kill range of 1100 meters,” Walt said as he scrambled to his feet and opened the still-hot breech. “You don’t have tuh poke the barrel up their butts.”

“Didn’t want you to miss, Sir,” Susan Redfeather grinned as she shoved a fresh round home.

Walt grimaced as he closed the breech and tried to sight the second tank through the smoke and flame of the first. At least there aren’t any ground troops with this pair, he thought, then winced as a bullet ricocheted off the side of the jeep. Susan’s M16 began a duel with a couple of enemy soldiers who were sheltering behind the corner of a brick building. She was shooting at them to keep their heads down while she steered the jeep so the burning hulk of the first tank no longer obscured the second. Walt couldn’t worry about the enemy soldiers. He could see the second tank now; less than 300 yards away and its turret was swiveling around to point at them. He concentrated on lining up the shot.

The M106 was a sweet little tank-killer. What it lacked in protective armor (none), it made up for in mobility. Of course, that didn’t help much when it was parked, like now. Attached to the barrel of the recoilless gun was a semiautomatic .50 cal sighting rifle that fired a phosphorous tracer whose ballistics matched that of the 106 mm projectile fired by the bigger gun. The gunner fired the sighting rifle by pulling on a knob. He then watched for the puff of white phosphorous that told him where the bullet struck. If it hit the target the gunner was aiming for, he’d push the same knob and the recoilless rifle would fire and hit the same place.

Walt pulled the firing knob of the sighting rifle and was rewarded by a puff of white smoke on the turret of the tank. He shoved the knob in and watched the round ricochet off the turret and explode against the side of a building farther down the street. The barrel of the tank’s cannon was pointing almost directly at them.

“Bug out!”

Susan gunned the jeep forward, toward the tank. The cannon belched fire and part of the wall of the building behind them disappeared. It was the same building the two enemy soldiers had been shooting at them from. Their tough luck.

Susan swung left around the first corner they came to, slewed the jeep into a U-turn and screeched to a halt. Walt had the breech open and a fresh round in place in an instant. He sighted on the intersection. They could hear the rumbling and creaking of the tanks treads as it ground toward them.

“Susie, if ah had muh druthers ah’d druther not be facing that cannon next time it goes off,” Walt said.

“I knew you had a head on those shoulders.”

Walt just smiled at her. “What do you say we circle this here block and git behind him agin.”

Susan nodded and threw the jeep in reverse, backing down the block. Walt grabbed his M16 and tried to watch both front and rear at the same time. Just before they reached the crossroads, Susan turned the jeep around and darted off around the corner to her right. As they passed an alley, they caught a glimpse of the rear of the tank as it clanked down the block they were paralleling.

Susan spun the jeep into the alley. Bricks rushed past on either side as they sped down the lane. Abruptly, they burst out into the street behind the tank. Susan spun the wheel to the right, bringing the barrel of the recoilless in line with the rear of the Patton. Walt pushed the trigger. “Dammit!” The dud clanged off the back of the deadly machine.

Susan jerked the jeep into reverse, peeling rubber and whipped them back into the alley. Brick from a cannon shot showered them as they sped backwards down the narrow street.

“They wuz a mite quicker that time,” Walt drawled.

“Lucky too,” Susan said, thinking of ricochets and duds.

“Third time’s the charm.”

Susan backed the jeep out into the street turned to Walt.

“Which way do you want to hit him from this time, Cowboy?”

“If’n ah wuz him, ah’d be wundrin’ which way we wuz comin’ from next, so ah’d turn the turret to trail position an’ leave mah machine guns pointin’ forward.”

“Okay,” Susan said, pulling over so they could reload faster. “Now how about telling me which way we go?”

“Ah think we’d best try a crossin’ shot. Swing us on around the block thisaway,” he gestured to their left, “an’ find us a pile of rubble tuh hide behind. We’ll take him as he crosses the street.”

“At least we diverted him away from headquarters.” Susan said as she gunned the jeep forward. “That second shot should’ve convinced him we won’t give up until he chases us down and finishes us off.”

“Jist fer the record,” Walt said. “We’re the ones doin’ the chasin’.”

“Whatever you say, Cowboy.” Susan grinned as she edged the jeep up over the curb behind a pile of busted bricks.

Walt carefully lined his shot up where he expected the tank to appear and settled down to wait.

One thing they had going for them was there were so many Allied snipers around the tank crews had to operate in a “buttoned up” mode. That restricted their visibility to the view provided by their periscopic sights and the thick glass prismatic viewing devices that surrounded the tank commander’s position. Any tank commander who poked his head up for a better look died--a lesson the enemy learned the hard way on the first day of the battle.

Restricted views weren’t so bad out in the open, where it was hard and dangerous work for a tank-killer team to get within LAWS range, but here in town, where buildings and debris blocked the view, it could be deadly. As a result, the enemy tanks proceeded slowly and cautiously and tried to keep some of their infantry with them to act as lookouts. This was as it should be, since tank tactics had evolved to the point where they were essentially infantry tactics: fire and maneuver, bounding overwatch, movement to contact and so on. After all, the tanks were only there so the infantry could take and hold ground.

Unfortunately for Prince John’s tanks, most of the infantry that rode them across the muddy flats had already been picked off. Allied troops were mostly able to evade the tanks, then return to their positions from which they could kill any infantry who were attempting to cross the mud flats and establish a bridgehead. That was the main focus of the Allied effort right now. Don’t let the enemy infantry across and contain and kill those tanks. Easier said than done.

Tanks are the one weapon a foot soldier fears most. It’s the one thing they really have a hard time defeating unaided. Tankers refer to enemy foot soldiers as “Crunchies” from the sound they make when the track is driven over them and the “Crunchies” know it. It scares the hell out of them. No man wants to die like a bug.

These are two “crunchies” that have a little snap, crackle and pop in them, Walt thought as he patted the barrel of the 106.

The front of the enemy tank moved into view. As Walt had suspected, the cannon was in the “trail” position, facing rearward. Susan had to roll the jeep back just a bit to line the 106 up on the tank at tread level. Walt wasn’t taking any chances on another ricochet. The tank’s machine guns were already shooting at them and the turret was swinging to bear on them when Walt fired the “rifle”.

The 106 mm projectile, a HEAT round (High Explosive Anti-Tank), took the Patton just above the treads and below the turret, where the armor was thinnest. In the flickering of an eye, a tough and deadly opponent was converted into a burning ruin.