I, like many infantrymen before me, have a particular loathing for artillery. No matter how skilled a soldier is, a heavy shell dropped in his vicinity is going to kill him; there is nowhere to hide. A round can come from miles away and obliterate a hundred men with mindless efficiency.
With our army stopped outside Brigham City and arrayed in a line, we pounded the enemy with barrage after barrage of shells. Gideon's forced answered back with an explosive rain.
Our artillery was varied. Our MLRS vehicles, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, were tracked vehicles which could launch unguided rockets up to twenty-five miles away, and these were the most powerful weapons in our arsenal. Each vehicle carried a pod loaded with twelve rockets, which could be launched in less than one minute. We also had some Paladins, which were mobile self-propelled howitzers. They looked like tanks, with treads and armor plating. The Paladins had a range of almost twenty miles and could “scoot and shoot,” firing a series of rounds and then moving to another position before enemy artillery could track them. We had howitzers of various sizes that were towed behind vehicles, and finally the mortars, which lacked the range of the larger pieces, but were portable.
Our heavy pieces were well behind our infantry lines, hurling large shells over our heads toward enemy positions. Most of our indirect fire weapons were designed to utilize GPS systems, and since we did not have satellites any more, both sides were forced to rely on forward observers to relay fire missions back to the fire direction centers. This saved lives, because the rounds were not as accurate. Most of the guns were manned by crews that lacked formal Army artillery training, and had been taught by the few members of our army that had been through Field Artillery School. Calculations were done by hand and pocket calculators, and fire missions were called in based on maps with grids and coordinates.
Still, it was devastating.
*
I led a platoon guarding a forward observer, and saw the destruction our artillery inflicted. We moved among the unforgiving hills to the east of the enemy stronghold. To the west, green cultivated fields gave way to wetlands and Great Salt Lake. I The shells turned the town into a burning and cratered hell scape. I saw a line of smoky haze miles past the town where the enemy artillery was returning fire.
Most of our infantry were in the hills. Colonel Dan reasoned that if we could hold the high ground and prevent the enemy from slipping observers through the hills, we could minimize our losses from enemy artillery bombardments.
But the Gideonites had chosen this battlefield before we arrived, probably because of the natural bottle-neck formed by the mountains and the lake, and they had their observers hidden in carefully camouflaged blinds. We had discovered a few, and captured or killed men dug into the ground wearing ghillie suits, netting and fabric with bits of rock and pieces of Utah juniper stuck to it. The suits were so well constructed it was possible to be standing right over a man and not know he was there.
*
“Sir, there's nothing left in Brigham City. No movement,” said a man-child equipped with binoculars and a laser range finder. His name was David, a small, pale kid whose older brother was one of the men in charge of our artillery. David's helmet was too large for his head. He was a math whiz.
“Wait thirty minutes, then call in for a cease fire,” I said. “We'll see if we can slip through, sticking to the slopes and get eyes on their big guns.”
It was clear we had wasted a tremendous amount of ordinance blasting the town. Gonzo appeared at my elbow.
“They pulled back,” he said.
“Yeah. We're gonna sit and watch, then move forward again.”
“Worried about a counterattack?”
“Exactly. It's what I would try. Try to get us overconfident, maybe lull us in to overcommitting our troops.”
A mile away the town burned. Nothing moved while we waited. It was a clear day but the sky was stained by the smoke. I could see an enemy tank spewing dark black fumes into the air, but the burning town formed a barrier; we had to know what lay beyond.
“Can we get some air reconnaissance?” I asked.
“I'll call it in,” Gonzo said. He pulled out an old field radio and called in to Jackson Hole.
“They can get a bird here in an hour,” he said when he completed the call.
“All right. I don't want to wait. Let's move out. I'm on point. Chewy take our six.”
Our team of nine men crept forward over the rocks. It was hot, and the explosions from enemy shells rolled over the hills like not so distant thunder. Our jet streaked by overhead, flying low and fast. I watched as surface to air missiles shot forth, white contrails in their wake, to meet the aircraft. The jet went into a steep climb, banked hard east, and then dove out of sight.
I called for a halt. We were almost past the town, which lay to our right. The jet swept south and more SAM batteries opened up.
“Can we get a fix on those batteries?”
“I'm looking,” David said. “Got one. Looks like some kind of vehicle.”
“Call in a fire mission,” I ordered.
David called in to the fire direction center. Within a minute, shells blanketed the area. Dirt, rocks, and smoke went high into the air. He called in for an adjustment. An area the size of a football field exploded as multiple shells made impact.
“Enemy KIA,” David said with satisfaction. “They were trying to move.”
“Good job,” I said. “Any more targets?”
“We need to get closer.”
We pushed ahead, finally coming to a steep valley bisected by a road. I crouched behind a boulder and looked down.
“This is no good,” Gonzo said. There was no way for us to continue south without descending the exposed slope, crossing the road, and climbing back up into the hills.
In the center of the road below us sat an Abrams tank surrounded by enemy troops, waiting to ambush our flank when our armor surged forward.
“David,” I said, “I hope you're good at your job.”
“Sir?”
“You need to call down a mission on that tank. We have to keep moving, and we can't get around those guys.”
“We're awful close,” he said.
“Be right.”
“Yes sir.”
David used his range finder and pulled out a grid. He called down the strike. “Be advised,” he added, “friendlies are in the vicinity.”
“All right,” I said. “Take cover. We've got incoming. Danger close.”
We pushed ourselves into crevices between boulders. I heard the first shells whip past a split second before impact. Rocks plinked down on my helmet.
I crawled up the slope and looked down. The shells had landed on the opposite slope and the enemy troops below were scurrying for cover.
“Adjust fire,” David radioed. “Range....”
“Artillery,” Snuffy said. He unleashed a colorful barrage of profanity, and had his words possessed the power of ordnance, the war would have ended right then.
“Incoming!”
The earth shook beneath me and the mountain itself trembled. The rapid explosions were terrible and I could feel the pressure change in the air, feel my insides shift with the concussions. Some of the shells had landed on our side of the road.
I wormed my way to the top of the ridge and looked down. Some of the rounds had impacted the road, which was now cracked and cratered, and below me the tank was smoking. Men lay twisted on the blacktop.
“Chewy,” I called. “Get up here with that SAW. Everybody, weapons free. Let's get this done.” I began firing on the enemy soldiers who were concealed in the shadows of rocks below us. Some of them were retreating up the slope on the opposite side of the road. We cut them down.
The surviving enemies returned fire from cover, and the main gun on the Abrams began to move.
“You've got to be kidding,” I said. “Retreat!”
I scrambled back away from the exposed ridge line as the Abrams opened up. The main gun boomed and the round smashed the rocky escarpment we had just occupied.
“Damn tanks,” Snuffy said. “I hate tanks.”
“David!” I yelled. Another round hit the hillside. “Call in another mission. Have 'em pound the other side of this slope and the road.”
“Yes sir.” He pulled his helmet down tighter on his head and picked up his radio.
“We should move,” Gonzo said. “If they've got a radio, they're gonna hit us back.”
“Good point,” I said. “Let's move east. Maybe we can cut around them.”
“Move out!”
I jogged, moving parallel to the road. We descended into a valley and ran up the opposite slope. Behind us, we could hear the artillery strike David had called in. Finally I turned south again and we slid down a steep hill and ran for the road. We crossed quickly and made it up the opposite slope.
Another barrage of shells blanketed the slopes where we had been hiding. From our new vantage point, I saw that the tank had finally been destroyed. We pushed south for another half mile and during our hike, the enemy fire increased to a frenzy. The continuous explosions echoed down the mountains.
“They're getting ready to attack,” Gonzo said.
We were high up on the ridge, a half mile east of the main road, and more than a mile south of Brigham City. We swept the plains below with binoculars.
Far to the west, a long line of armor was speeding toward our army. A cloud of dust went with them.
David called in more strikes and still the tanks came. From that distance it was difficult to judge the range, and harder still to anticipate lead time and adjust fire accordingly.
“Colonel Dan,” I called on the radio, “you've got a major enemy counterattack headed your way. Tanks and mechanized infantry units.”
“I know it,” came the reply over the radio. “We're saddling up to meet them. We're getting hammered here by their artillery. Have you spotted their rear positions yet?”
“Negative.”
“Keep looking. We're moving up. I'm sending infantry your way. Out.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“All right boys,” I said. “Let's hump it. We can't worry about the armor. Our job is to find those batteries.”
We kept moving. To our west, the tanks and armored vehicles were engaging, and the sounds of battle echoed across the miles to us, bouncing off the hills and seeming to come from everywhere.
Snuffy was on point when we were ambushed. We were climbing up a steep slope, leaning into the incline. Everything was a shade of burnt brown, the rocks, the arid dirt, even the stunted and scraggly plants. The sky itself, which should have been a brilliant blue, had a stain to it. My smock was soaked with sweat and my breath was ragged. We were ascending a gully washed out by eons of snow melt, and above us on either side were sheer cliffs rising a hundred feet. We were about fifty yards from the top, climbing at a forty-five degree angle.
“Oh!” Snuffy said from fifty feet in front of me.
And then he was gone.
The blast knocked me onto my butt, and where Snuffy had been there was a cloud of smoke.
“Ambush!” I shouted. Directly ahead and above, a machine gun fired down the gully. I dove to my right behind a four-foot high boulder and pressed against the cliff wall.
“Smoke!” I hollered. “Put some fire on that position.” I could hear it but I couldn't see it. Someone lobbed smoke grenades ahead and soon the entire ravine was engulfed with an impenetrable gray fog.
“Frag out!” I pulled the pin, and paused, letting the grenade cook, then threw it uphill. I heard swearing from up ahead after the blast. I threw one more.
There was a brief respite, and then the SAW on the top of the hill opened up again.
Behind me, my men were pressed to the cliffs on either side of the gully. I saw that two had been hit by machine gun fire, and they lay crumpled and unmoving on the rocks. As the smoke blew back upon us, I signaled to Gonzo. There was no time for discussion.
I stepped from behind my boulder and climbed quickly, staying as close to the rock face as I could, darting from boulder to boulder. Someone threw more smoke grenades. I was close enough to hear my enemies talking. The machine gun continued to spray lead in long bursts.
“We've got 'em pinned down,” someone said. “Wait till the smoke clears and then we'll pick 'em off.”
“Screw that. They'll just retreat.” The SAW chattered again.
I could see the muzzle flashes through the smoke, not twenty feet above me. I waited.
“Reloading!”
That's what I was waiting for.
I charged uphill with my weapon at my hip and began firing on full automatic into the smoke where I'd last seen the bright muzzle flash. My mag was empty when I crested the hill, and I dropped the rifle and withdrew my father's Ka-Bar.
The machine gunner had been on his belly, lying prone with his weapon balanced on a folding bi-pod. The gunner was trying to push himself to his feet, bleeding from a wound in his right shoulder. Behind the gunner, a man lay face down and motionless.
The third man materialized from the smoke immediately to my left, cursing and swinging the butt of his assault rifle at my head. I tried to dodge and stumbled over the gunner. I fell to my back as the man with the assault rifle took a step and swung his weapon toward my chest. I rolled, waiting for a bullet.
The man's weapon clattered to the rocks, and he fell to his knees as I came to my feet. Chewy towered over him, a bloody blade in hand. The soldier fell face down.
The machine gunner was going for his holster next to me, reaching across his body with his left hand. I leaped onto the soldier's waist, pinning his hand against his body with my weight.
“Wait!” he cried. “You don't—” The man's pleading eyes were locked on mine.
I pierced his belly with the Ka-Bar and thrust upward into his heart, the long blade in him to the hilt. I twisted savagely and the man's voice ceased. His legs jerked beneath me in spasmodic twitches and his last breath was a long, wheezing sigh.
“Sweet Jesus,” Chewy said. He knelt down and wiped his blade on the back of the man he had slain. Our soldiers were coming up the gully behind us. I stood panting, hands on my knees, as Gonzo walked up to me and slapped my helmet.
“Crazy SOB,” he said. “Good job.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Three KIA.”
“David?”
“He's okay,” Gonzo said. “We don't have any wounded.”
I was vaguely disturbed I had killed that man with my blade, but there was no way we could afford to risk guarding a prisoner, and he had been trying to kill all of us moments before. I did not waste remorse on him.
“All right. We need to keep moving. We may have just attracted attention to ourselves.”
“Snuffy got taken out by a mine. He hated mines,” Gonzo said.
“I thought it was a mortar,” I said.
“No. It was a mine. Hopefully it was an isolated thing; they saw this gully and figured we might try to come through here. We're lucky we didn't lose everyone. Keep an eye out for trip wires and booby traps, especially in areas that look ideal for an ambush. We've gotta be getting close enough where we can spot their artillery.”
“Copy that. Let's make for the next ridge and take a better look. I don't want to wait around here.”
“I'll take point,” Gonzo said. “You bring up the rear and keep an eye on David. If he buys it then this is all for nothing.”
*
The sun slid low in the west, and the hillsides were transformed from barren and drab brown to golden, the deep shadows on the land sharp and clear. The salt flats and Great Salt Lake were alive with shimmering light. Behind us, Brigham City still smoldered.
“See,” David said. “There.” I borrowed his binoculars and peered south. I saw the distant line of flashes. Some seconds later, the sound reached us, deep and muffled, like hearing a gunshot underwater.
“I see them. Call in the fire mission.”
I called for the rest of the men and we lay with our bellies in the dirt while David calculated the range and called into the fire direction center. Small explosions sent up white smoke short of the target area. David quickly called in the adjustment, then gave me a tight smile.
“I hope that wasn't it,” I said.
“It wasn't,” David said.
Rockets streaked down at supersonic speed, yellow white blurs too fast for the eye to follow, and then an area the size of a small mountain erupted in a roiling mass of smoke and fire. Some of the shells were designed to burst above the ground, releasing scores of miniature explosives, and there were smaller explosions within and above the larger ones. It was a concentrated barrage, fired from as many units as we had left. Black smoke rose thousands of feet into the sky, and a bouquet of yellow and orange blossomed, followed by hundreds of contrails pinwheeling up and out. A second later, slower moving shells fired from howitzers pummeled the ground.
Several of the men let out whoops.
“Shut up!” Gonzo hissed. “Do you want their whole army to know we're here?” Their smiles faded. “We accomplished our mission, but we're not done yet.”
I called in to Colonel Dan. “Targets destroyed, sir.”
“Roger that. I'll give you a sitrep when we link up, he said. Comms aren't secure. Hunker down and wait. You'll see us coming.”
“Yes sir.”
*
Our mountain was dark and quiet, but in the valley, Brigham City still burned, casting an orange glow onto the desert sky. I had ordered the men to build low walls with rocks. With our infantry still miles to the north, we were exposed and vulnerable on the high ridge. We had a good view of the road to the west, but ahead more peaks and valleys blocked our view.
“You did good today,” Chewy said at my shoulder.
“You too. Saved my butt.”
“Seems like you got some spring back to your step.”
“I saw something I needed to see,” I said.
“Good. It's good to have you back. Lord I'm tired,” he drawled. It sounded like “Lawd I'm tarred.”
“Get some rest. Long day. Long day ahead.”
“I think I will.”
“And, Chewy… thanks.”
“Don't mention it. That was a close thing. My SAW jammed at the last second. And if that guy you shot had been left handed...”
“Yeah. I know. That could have been it.”
Chewy grunted and moved off into the darkness.
I was frustrated by my lack of knowledge. I did not know where the enemy infantry was, how the tank battle had ended, or what was happening with our forces to the east, who were hopefully rushing to engage the enemy flank. I wondered what was happening at Dugway, whether Chilli had successfully secured the base, and if he had found any nuclear weapons, either missing or present.
I thought about Schiller. I wondered what Gideon really hoped to accomplish.
Low clouds had moved in, and the burning city painted them a sickly dull orange. It began to rain.