Alarm of War (5 page)

Sergeant Kaelin still hasn’t picked me to lead the Company in any significant maneuver. Getting nervous.

F
or the next two months, Blue Company was in the field at least six days a week. There were ambushes, assaults on a fixed target, long patrols in free-fire zones, and more. Each day the Drill Instructors would pick recruits to be officers for that day’s exercise. Emily quickly discerned that they were given problems, but not taught the solution to the problem until the next training session. The first week they were given maps and a compass, and then were sent on long hikes with half a dozen way-points. They got helplessly lost, and in one case wandered so far outside the training area they did not even encounter enemy troops. They got back to the camp a day late, out of water and food and thoroughly exhausted. The next day there was a lesson in map reading and orienteering. Emily paid very close attention, noted her mistakes from the day before and vowed that whatever other screw-ups she might make; she would never be lost again.

They were run through several hairy fire fights before they were taken to a shooting range, and once there every one of them paid close attention to how to properly aim the Bull Pup. They ran out of battery packs, and learned to check out additional ones from Supply. They learned that water was too damn heavy to carry a third canteen, but to refill the two they had at every opportunity. They learned to never, never pass up an opportunity to sleep.

And they learned about each other: which recruits never complained; who always complained; who would scream and bully; who would listen quietly and take the time to think the problem through; who you could rely on.

For sheer cleverness, though, Emily’s favorite was Hiram Brill. Awkward, gangly, his slow speech masked a chess player’s sense of strategy. Blue Company’s mission was simple: hold a communications center. The building sat next to a small copse of trees in a flat field. The “enemy” was made up of Green and Gold Companies, two hundred soldiers against Blue Company’s one hundred. The jump off point for the attackers was fifteen miles away. They would have to march through hilly, wooded terrain to reach the objective.

When he got the assignment, Brill sat down with a topographical map of the area he had scrounged from the Camp library. He studied it for twenty minutes, then divided the Company into five groups of twenty each. He flipped pages in his notebook, then called out the names of fifteen men and women who had all been long-distance runners in school, and had them dump all their gear except for their rifle, two extra batteries, one field-ration bar and a bottle of water. One man was given a pair of binoculars and a radio.

“You are the rabbits,” he explained. His voice was strong, but Emily saw his face was pasty white. “Green and Gold jumped off thirty minutes ago at the base of this ridge line, fifteen miles away. You guys can run faster and longer than anybody in Blue Company. We need you to reach the enemy as far away from here as possible so that we’ll have the maximum amount of time to whittle them down before they reach this building. Move as fast as you can until you make contact with Green and Gold. Send your three best runners ahead to be scouts. Once you find the enemy, fall back to a good position to set your first ambush. Harass the hell out of them! Shoot like you’ve got all the ammo in the world! They’ll be stunned at first, then they’ll come at you hard. As soon as they do, fall back! Stay in contact, but keep falling back. I want them to chase you. If they don’t chase you, hit them again.” He marked a spot on the map. “When you reach this point, this ridge line right here, another team will take over being the rabbits. You just break contact and come all the way back. There’ll be food and water at these points. Eat a little, have some water, then go. Don’t try to carry anything, just get back here.”

The second rabbit team was to harass and fall back over three miles, then break contact while the third team took over. This way the Green and Gold troopers would continually face fresh defenders, who were traveling light and fast.

It worked like a charm. The Green and Gold companies had only marched four miles, moving slowly with full packs, when they ran into the first rabbit team. They lost ten men FOF before they could muster a counter attack, but try as they might, they could not seem to catch the fleet-footed Blue soldiers. More Green and Gold fell, but they doggedly pushed on. Sometimes the attackers caught up to the Blue soldiers, and even managed to kill a few, but they paid dearly for their meager victories. It was a hot day and soon the pace began to tell on them. The Gold commander urged the men to slow down and not get worn out, but the Green commander urged the men forward, screaming invectives each time the Blue defenders picked off another attacker. The stronger, fitter soldiers soon pushed out in front, while their slower comrades fell behind. Command and control began to break down and the attackers soon became several disorganized, individual groups rather than a cohesive force of two hundred soldiers.

Ten long, hot hours after the first shots were fired, the Green commander led the front elements of the attack force to the hill overlooking the communications center. By then the attack force had lost ninety men killed to twenty of the Blues, and the attack force was strung out over five miles. Rather than wait for the rest of his force to arrive, the Green commander (the Gold commander had twisted his ankle six miles earlier) ordered an immediate attack with the forty men he had at hand. Tired, hungry, and anxious to launch a bold attack against his objective, the Green commander did not bother to make a reconnaissance, and thus missed the last opportunity to save himself and his men.

From his spider hole, Brill watched the attackers emerge from the copse of trees. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, then keyed his radio: “Steady, everyone. They are almost in the kill zone. Wait for my command.”

Brill’s defenders waited until the Green soldiers were fully exposed in the middle of the field, then emerged from the spider holes they had dug on either side of the Communications Center. In three brutal minutes, they annihilated the attackers. Not one attacker survived, and the field was littered with blinking orange troops.

That still left some seventy Green and Gold troops in the hills, led by the limping Gold commander. Brill got on the radio and gave an order, and the small teams he had hidden in the woods formed a line behind the stragglers. The Blue troops crept stealthily behind the attacking forces as the Gold commander led them to the copse of trees near the communications center. When they arrived, the Gold commander was mystified to see so many of the attack force FOF in the field below him, with no Blue soldiers in sight. Had they been driven off? Was the communications center his for the taking? Cautiously, wary of a trap, the attack force moved from the copse and formed a wide skirmish line. Behind them, unseen, the Blue soldiers who had been following them took up firing positions in the trees.

Brill waited until they were in the open, spoke into his radio and ducked lower in his spider hole as the Blues in the trees opened fire from behind the attackers. The Gold commander ordered his men to wheel around and return fire, and that was when the main Blue force emerged from their spider holes for the second time that day and caught them unawares. Only ten Green and Gold troops escaped back to their base.

“Nice job, Hiram! That was great!” Emily shouted to Brill. She couldn’t stop smiling. Her face was smudged and dirty and her teeth gleamed white against the dirt. She had commanded one of the teams that ambushed the last attackers from behind. She was exhausted and exhilarated all at once.

Sergeant Kaelin joined them. “Well, recruit, the odds were two-to-one against you, and you pulled it off,” Kaelin said, nodding in pleasure as he looked over the “dead” Green and Gold troops. “What made you think up that plan?”

Brill, who had not moved more than a hundred feet in the entire battle, looked sweat-soaked and haggard. His eyes were a little too bright and he spoke rapidly. “They key was that we have fought against the Green and Gold companies before.” He waived his notebook in the air. “Green Company has always been bold and aggressive, while Gold has been cautious and methodical.” Brill smiled in satisfaction. “I figured that the two commanders would not work well together and that with some pressure, their command and control would go to hell. I hoped if I could split them up, spread them out by making them chase us through the woods, we could whittle them down to size.”

Sergeant Kaelin nodded. “That was a good job, Brill.” He looked at him for a long moment, pausing as if he were going to say something more, then abruptly turned and left. Emily turned back to Brill.

“All honor to you, Hiram! By my life! It worked like a charm!” She laughed and hugged him. He shook his head somberly.

“You know what, Em?” he said softly, so that only she could hear. “I didn’t know if it would work, I really didn’t.” He swallowed and lowered his chin. “I mean, I thought it
should
work, but I was so scared. Once I sent you out to harass them, all I could do was sit and wait to see what would happen. Gods of Our Mothers, I waited for hours before I had a clear picture of what was going on, and even then I was afraid to believe it.” He smiled weakly. “Harder than it looks, Em. Harder than it looks.”

And that, Emily thought at the time, was the lesson of the day.

There were more missions, and sometimes Blue Company came out on the losing end. Through it all, Emily kept her head down and her mouth shut, anxious not to rile Sgt. Kaelin. A couple of times he made her the officer for a tactical problem, but they were relatively simple and straightforward, focusing more on logistics and movement than combat. She performed the tasks competently and that was that.

O
ne morning late in the third month of training, Sergeant Kaelin assembled Blue Company and told them to stand at ease.

“Alright, most of you know that in five days this training cycle ends and you will rotate to specialized Fleet Training. On that day you will officially become “Cadets” instead of mere recruits. You will begin classes in line with your long-term assignments within the Fleet. Today,” he paused to consult the clipboard he held, flipping several pages before coming to the one he wanted. “Okay, today there is a light schedule in the morning at the weapons range. You’ll be brought back here for your mid-day meal and this afternoon you’ll begin packing your equipment, tagging anything that needs maintenance. Report out front in fifteen minutes with your rifle and two battery packs. No other equipment is needed.” He closed his clipboard with an audible ‘snap.’ “Recruit Skiffington is in charge of the Company for today’s activities. That is all! Dismissed!”

Beside her, Cookie gave a “Whoop!” and grinned broadly. “We are almost outta here! I finally get rid of you candyass Navy pukes and start Marine training.” She turned and started back to the barracks to get her equipment.

Emily laughed and started to join her, then caught sight of Brill. She hesitated. Brill was frowning.

“What?” she demanded. “Aren’t you glad we’re getting out of here? Don’t you want to start all those intelligence school courses you’ve been waiting for?”

Brill glanced at her and then back to the main yard, where transport trucks were already pulling up to take them to the weapons range. “How many days off have we had, Em?”

“What?” she said, confused. “Come on, lighten up, Hiram. What’s your problem?”

“Three days,” he said, answering his own question. “We’ve been here for three months, and in that entire time they have given us three days with no training. Now, with five days left of training, they tell us we have light training today and nothing but packing and cleaning for the rest of the week. Don’t you find that a little…” he groped for the right words, “…too good to be true?”

Emily sucked in a breath, thinking furiously. Five days left…five days to put them in the field, five days to…

“Oh, damn!” She turned and glared in the direction of the Administration Building, where Sgt. Kaelin kept his office.

“What’s with you two?” It was Cookie, who had come back to see what was keeping them.

“Hiram thinks it’s all bullshit. If he’s right, instead of rifle range, we are going to be sent on a major exercise.” Emily quickly explained it. Cookie whirled on Brill.

“Goddammit, tell me you’re makin’ this up!” she said accusingly.

Hiram shrugged. “Think about it. They put us into the field with little ammo, no food or water, then they throw something big at us. It’s perfect, in a gruesome sort of way. Catch us unawares. Lot of stress, have to think on our feet.” He shrugged again. “Think of it as Sgt. Kaelin’s special graduation present as we go off to Fleet School.”

“Aw, bugger me,” Cookie moaned.

In the Administration Building across the field, Sgt. Kaelin stood in the window, watching them through a pair of binoculars.

“You are a mean sonofabitch,” you know that, Sergeant?” Major Korber said pleasantly.

“I never disagree with the Major, sir.”

Korber snorted derisively. “Have they figured you out, Sergeant? Will they escape the full emotional trauma of the dirty trick you are playing on them? Or are they going to be thoroughly and irrevocably screwed, like the last class?”

Kaelin scanned the field once again with the binoculars. “Well, sir, I think some of them sense that something is not quite right.”

Major Korber leaned forward. “Really? Who?”

“Brill, Sir.”

Korber looked blank.

“The smart one. The guy who completely buggered Green and Gold two weeks ago. He’s talking to Tuttle.”

“Ah, the history major. Is she smart enough to figure it out?”

Kaelin grinned ruefully. “Yes, sir. She’s plenty smart. I haven’t thrown much at her yet. Been saving her for this.”