Forty Days at Kamas (47 page)

When the tanks crashed in from the east, the remaining defenders in the Service Yard seemed to sense that the moment to expend themselves against the enemy had come. The veterans saw this first and leapt out of their trenches with a fury that impressed the raw recruits, who gamely stuffed back their fears and followed.

The defenders hurled themselves upon the approaching tanks, smashing their Molotov cocktails and incendiary grenades in the precise spots where they had learned to do so in practice. Anti–tank squads rushed forward carrying steel rails and other tread–busting tools and thrust them between the tanks' wheels. And one young vandal, having found a turret hatch unlocked, crammed his Molotov cocktail down the cockpit and ignited a fire that forced the wounded crew members into the open, where they became easy prey for the defenders' arrows and spears. But for every defender who made his mark that way, gunfire mowed down scores of others.

As soon as the tanks reached the camp's western wall they turned south and regrouped along the southern boundary of Division 2 for a sweep into Division 3. Until now prisoners of the camp's largest residential division had been pinned down by tear gas and gunfire. When they heard the tanks approaching, most of the non–combatants in Division 3 flocked south to seek refuge in the concrete cellblocks of the camp jail. To make their neutrality clear, one prisoner fashioned a white flag from a bed sheet and flew it from the flagpole outside the isolator.

But the surviving defenders in Divisions 2 and 3 did not yet consider themselves defeated. They hunkered down in their trenches and waited. By now their leaders had communicated with each other and had agreed that the best time to inflict serious damage would come after the APCs had entered the camp and disgorged their troops. In their initial confusion, the enemy infantry would be vulnerable to a sudden and overwhelming counterattack.

The cue for the APCs to enter the camp was a red flare fired overhead. Once it came into view, the APCs swept in along the southern edge of the Service Yard and headed south, moving slowly enough for their dismounted infantry to follow. As soon as the infantry came within close range of the defenders' slit trenches, the defenders let fly with arrows, bolts, and spears. Then platoon after platoon charged the enemy infantry and closed in for hand–to–hand combat.

But as the arrows and spears bounced harmlessly off the attackers' body armor the defenders' valiant charges into the hail of gunfire became nothing short of suicidal. Still the defenders fought on with the determination of men who had nothing to lose. Every casualty inflicted upon the Unionist enemy brought forth cheers from their surviving comrades and every captured firearm paid a dividend in blood.

At one point during the battle, a platoon of fleet–footed vandals overwhelmed a squad of government troops as they emerged from their APC, seized their assault rifles, and carried the rifles off into the hands of experienced rebel marksmen. The marksmen set up covering fire against the closest two watchtowers while a squad of Gary Toth's commandos made their way with homemade incendiaries to the base of the towers. Within minutes, the towers were ablaze and their machine guns silenced.

The invaders, however, had firepower to spare. As soon as they caught on to the defenders' hit–and–run tactics, they learned to use the machine guns and firing ports of their APCs to better advantage and began mowing down the defenders the moment they emerged from their trenches and foxholes. The trailing infantry then wiped out remaining pockets of resistance to the rear of the APCs. As more infantry poured in and more defenders perished trying to halt their advance, the surviving commanders of the defense passed word to abandon Division 2 and regroup in Division 3.

Little more than half the original defense force was left now and the rate of attrition was horrific. But the survivors included some of the fiercest fighters in the camp, sworn enemies of Unionism who preferred death to surrender. Their superior military training and combat experience enabled them to adapt and evolve their tactics far more swiftly than the less experienced government troops. The survivors withdrew with as much weaponry as they could carry and prepared to make their last stand.

By now the government forces seemed to recognize that the tide of battle was running strongly in their favor. Bodies in orange coveralls lay in heaps all across the Service Yard and the open spaces of Division 2. The defenders' hit–and–run attacks were far less frequent now, though no less ferocious than before, and by this time attacks on tanks and APCs had largely ceased. Having impregnable machines like these to lead the advance gave the attackers supreme confidence, as did their bullet–resistant helmets and body armor. For the first time in the battle, crewmen began opening hatches and raising their heads to view the carnage. Infantrymen clambered aboard tanks and hitched rides rather than walk.

By the time the invaders finished their sweep through Division 2, dawn was already brightening into day and the prisoners' occasional pop–up ambushes rarely succeeded in drawing blood. Tank commanders congratulated each other over the din while ground troops exchanged high–fives. As they approached the rows of flattened barracks in Division 3, the terrain looked all but deserted and the silence was eerie. The deeper the armored vehicles penetrated into the grid of destroyed buildings the less they could see of one another through the dusty haze. When the tanks reached the southernmost row of barracks and emerged onto the parade ground, they gained speed as if suddenly relieved to be in the open again.

The APCs followed the tanks down the same alleys, with the infantry creeping along behind. The troops walked more gingerly now, peering over and around the flattened barracks but often failing to see their comrades in the adjacent alleys. It was a highly vulnerable spot for the invaders, which is why Pete Murphy and his Military Department staff had worked so hard to plan the ambush that the defenders now unleashed upon the unsuspecting foot soldiers.

From their places of concealment in slit trenches, foxholes, and burrows dug beneath barracks foundations, the remaining defenders fell upon the enemy within a narrow corridor between two rows of barracks, attacking from front and rear and on both sides along a fifty–yard stretch. The ambush was so swift, the space so confined, and the audacity of the prisoners so great that the attack succeeded in killing or disabling five or six invaders for every prisoner lost. The surviving prisoners immediately turned their slain enemies' weapons against the invaders in adjacent alleys, proving more than an even match for them.

But by now the defenders were few and the invaders many. All available government reinforcements were rushed to the ambush site, including APCs that had initially run too far ahead of the ambushed troops to support them. Once again, the prisoners saw them coming and detected an opportunity.

The hitchhiking troops that had ridden on the sides and rear of the APCs now faced forward as the vehicles reversed direction toward the battle. These hitchhikers proved easy targets for prisoners who had once served their country as professional soldiers. The warders Grady and Mills were the first to fall headlong off their APC when a Russian POW saw them coming and squeezed off two perfect shots from a captured rifle. Any crewman caught peeking out the hatch of a tank or APC also put his life in danger. The camp's two staff doctors, Nagy and Fell, joined the casualty list when a Canadian sharpshooter pasted each of them in the forehead with a small–caliber round.

As the APCs came closer and the enemy commanders climbed out to direct their men in the final stage of this final skirmish, the defenders gave no sign that they intended to surrender. Instead, each of the surviving prisoners appeared to seek the highest and best use for his last bullet. For Gary Toth, the target worth dying for was General Jake Boscov. Toth spotted Boscov's broad chest protruding from an APC that barreled toward him and resolved on the spot that the General would draw his last breath before he did. He dodged the APC as it roared past and grabbed hold. Hoisting himself undetected onto the vehicle’s side, he clambered forward in no time and caught the General in the throat with a fatal thrust of his Bowie knife. Toth raised his arm for a second thrust when a burst of submachine gun fire felled him.

While this was happening, Glenn Reineke lay out of sight in a burrow dug under a barracks foundation. Bullets kicked up plumes of dust all around him but always wide of their target. His face wore an expression of quiet determination and, with a squad of attackers closing in, he appeared to be weighing the alternatives of capture or death. Then with a wild war cry he fixed his gaze on the shock trooper directly in front of him, scrambled out of his burrow, and fired. He no sooner rose to his feet than he toppled forward with a bullet in his chest.

Like Reineke, the handful of surviving defenders were down to their last rounds of ammunition and faced the same choice between surrender, capture, or death. Several veterans of the Chinese war followed the example of Toth and Reineke and sprang forward to a certain death. Many younger men held out, clinging to life. Then a booming voice called out from beneath the same barracks that had sheltered Reineke.

"Hold your fire !
Hold
–
your
–
fire!
We surrender!" It was Colonel Marshall Majors.

The clatter of gunfire trailed off and soon died away.

"Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up," another voice ordered. It was the no–nonsense little lieutenant who had escorted me to Colonel Tracy's tent before the attack began.

Slowly and cautiously, the defenders did as they were told. D.J. Schultz wept. Jimmy Vega's dry eyes smoldered with hatred. Colonel Majors shuffled forward as if in shock.

The young lieutenant took charge of assembling the prisoners in the nearest open space and recording their names. A few minutes later Colonel Jim Tracy arrived in a tank to assume formal command. He echoed the lieutenant’s order to have the prisoners lie on the ground with their arms outstretched, then strutted from prisoner to prisoner, cursing and insulting them and kicking those who dared insult him back.

One of those he kicked was the Texan, Jerry Lee, weakened from loss of blood but still feisty. Jerry Lee's friend and mentor, Ralph Knopfler, was at that moment being led forward with hands behind his head to join the other captured prisoners. Knopfler watched the strutting Colonel stand arms akimbo over the vanquished Jerry Lee and muttered a curse. In the blink of an eye, his hand drew a captured pistol hidden inside his coveralls and fired three shots that killed the colonel before he hit the ground. Knopfler lowered the pistol and didn't move until he, too, toppled from a burst of submachine gunfire.

Having learned the hard way, the lieutenant ordered his prisoners to be searched for weapons. While the search was underway, the young officer mounted the nearest APC and conferred with his command post by radio. Moments later he ordered the APCs to resume their advance toward Division 4 and the camp jail, where the vast majority of the remaining prisoners had gathered to surrender.

When the APCs arrived outside the jail, a self–appointed prisoners’ committee assured the victors that all prisoners who had fled to Division 4 were unarmed and would cause no trouble. The APCs then surrounded the Division 4 parade ground while ground troops drew the prisoners into columns, ordered them to sit with arms linked, and recorded their names and serial numbers.

A short while later an APC delivered several of the deserters who had volunteered to help identify the revolt's ringleaders. An angry growl spread through the prisoners' ranks when they recognized George Perkins, Steve Bernstein, Kevin Gaffney, and other Unionist sympathizers. A second APC pulled up with Jack Whiting and a team of security officers whose job was to sort the prisoners according to their degree of involvement in the revolt: combatants, passive supporters, neutrals, and non–combatant thieves.

The identification process continued throughout the morning while the sun rose higher in the sky and temperatures reached the high eighties. No water was offered. Tempers flared and from time to time a prisoner lunged at a deserter who had denounced him as a rebel. A young thief who had fought to defend the revolt spit in the face of his former capo, Frank Brancato, when Brancato accepted classification as a non–combatant thief. While Brancato would be returned to a conventional prison, the vandals who had been the revolt's vanguard faced execution or transfer north to Yellowknife with the politicals.

The vandals' hostility reached a fever pitch when Jack Whiting singled out Jimmy Vega and a half dozen other thieves as combatants. Jimmy seethed with rage but said nothing as long as the Wart remained at the front of the assembled group. But as Whiting paced up and down the columns in his search for rebels, Vega's right hand slipped inside his coveralls, as if hunting for lice. When Whiting came within three rows of him Vega pulled a pair of throwing darts from his waistband and hurled them one after another at Whiting's back. One hit Whiting over the left kidney and penetrated the full length of its four–inch, steel tip, while the other dangled from the back of Whiting's right thigh.

Whiting screamed in agony. His face turned dark as he reached behind him to remove the dart from his back and toss it to the ground in disgust. Then he pulled the dart out of his leg and examined it. But as he did, his nose twitched as if he smelled something strange and he held the dart by its fins to sniff at it.

"Oh, my God!" he wailed when he identified the smell. "Medic!"

To his horror, the Wart had discovered that the tip of the throwing dart had been smeared with feces like the blade Brian Gaffney had used to attack Glenn Reineke.

I watched the guards search for the prisoner who had tossed the darts but no one would betray him; the attack had happened too quickly for the guards to be certain who had carried it out.