In machineguns the situation was even worse. When the Marines had switched from the 30-06 M1 Garand to the .276 M14, they’d also dumped their trusted BARs and been issued the Ml5. Which was basically the same rifle as the M14 except it had a full automatic option, a bipod, a heavy barrel and a 8 x 50 telescopic sight. On semi it was supposed to be an accurate infantry support rifle, reaching out to a thousand yards, on full auto it was supposed to be a passable light machine gun. Which sounded great until the enemy fired twelve hundred round a minute back.
And then there were the mortars, the Germans had started dropping their big mortar rounds on them again. The Marines on the beach had shot back with their sixties and eighty-ones but what the hell use were those pip-squeak little things compared with the dustbins the Germans were dropping. That was another thing desks were going to get pounded over. When outgunned, outmanned, in an impossible tactical position there was only one thing an honorable man could do. Call for help and if that failed, attack somebody. Admire tapped his radioman on the shoulder. “Charlie-Zero, this is Charlie-Two-Three. The issue here is in doubt. I need support, immediately.”
The issue is in doubt, Admire thought as more mortar rounds pounded the Rockpile. That is a nice way of telling the truth. For the truth was that the Germans were wiping the floor with him
On the Beach, Sinai Coast
The artillery had stopped, that was one good thing. For a while it had been tense with the German heavy mortars landing all over the assembly area but they’d stopped. Now they were back to pounding on the rockpile. Major Michaels thought for a second.
“Comms. Get me Buffy. We need to call in some help down here. Lieutenant Shaeffer, Take your Charlie-Two-Two, pull it out the rocks and swing it around behind Charlie-Two-Three. Be prepared to move through Two-three and assault the German position after our support arrives. Klinger, extend Charlie-Two-One so that its frontage covers the area previously occupied by Two-Two. Move guys or we’ll have Germans joining us on the beach.
“Buffy, Sir.”
“Buffy? This is Charlie-Zero-Actual. We need help down here fast. Can you patch through to Shiloh and get some fast movers over here? Like now? F4Hs or A3Js would be nice but we’ll take F2Gs and Adies if that’s all we can get.”
“Uh Sorry, Charlie-Zero we can’t do that. Shiloh is tied down covering the Phibron, all hell is about to break loose around them. Look, you’re a part of a bigger picture now and this thing is spiraling out of control. There’s nothing to send you.”
“Buff}’, we need help down here.”
“Wait One Charlie-Zero.” The radio went blank for a second. “Right, Charlie-Zero. The Boss says, this is going to cost you more beer than you can possibly imagine but we’ll help you. We’re twelve minutes out. Can you hold that long and can you get your stuff for the ground action together by then. We really don’t want to hang around close to Gaza longer than we can help.”
“Thank you Buffy. Confirm we will hold and we will be ready to go. What are your plans?”
The voice on the radio chuckled. “Let’s just say things are going to get terribly Napoleonic in about twelve minutes time. Buffy Out.”
In the Rockpile, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
Lieutenant Admire groaned and tightened one of the field dressings around his leg. One of the German mortar rounds had shattered the rock behind him and the fragments had lacerated his leg from thigh to knee. Outside, not inside or he’d have bled out by now. He’d been ordered to hold for twelve minutes and he had but it had cost them dearly. The Germans had edged nearer, they were about 75 yards out and their rifle fire was lethal. He’d lost more men. The good news was that Charlie-Two-Two had moved up through the rocks and infiltrated positions beside his own veterans. Admire laughed quietly to himself, dammit, he and his men were veterans now, weren’t they. The men of Two-Two seemed different somehow, boyish almost. Admire guessed his men had looked the same way an hour earlier.
The firefight was becoming patchier now, the periods of silence longer. In one of them Admire heard a quiet drone overhead. A turboprop transport, a big one. Looking up he saw a ghostly grayish shape.
AC-133A “Buffy”, Over the Goat Track.
Captain James Masters aka “The Boss” was sweating, literally and metaphorically. Buffy was swinging right around the perimeter of the prohibited zone around Gaza. In addition, he was disrupting his role as an airborne command post.
If this failed, he would be busted and sent to Alaska, it was rumored there was a duty reserved for special cases up there. Clearing runways of foreign objects in sixty mile an hour winds and sub-zero temperatures. Legend had it a SAC crew had been up there for five years.... no, it was too horrible to think about. But even if he succeeded, he would have a lot of fast talking to do.
“Gunnery here, Boss. We’ve got the terrain worked out and we’ve plotted our friendlies. There’s been a hell of a firefight down there. At least five wrecks we can see.” Masters looked at the map in the cockpit. On course, altitude right and ready to start the turn. This was the moment he’d waited for.
“Battery A. Battery C. Run out the guns.”
Doors slid open in Buffy’s side and the stubby barrels of three 20 millimeter gatling guns slid out. Further aft, the maws of the 105 millimeter howitzers slid into the ready position.
On the Goat-Track, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
Captain Ivan Jaeger heard the drone as well. His binoculars, good pre-war German stock were better than any the Americans had and he recognized the aircraft instantly. High wing, long fuselage, four turboprops. A C-133 transport. But what was it doing here? Were the Americans going to drop paratroopers as reinforcements? Did the Americans still have paratroopers?
Then there was a series of clouds behind the aircraft and a clutch of brilliant flashes. That was logical, the transport was dropping chaff and flares in case missiles were on their way up. But it was also turning and one didn’t drop paratroopers while turning. Did one?
Anyway, it suddenly struck Jaeger that the aspect of the aircraft was remaining constant, that meant that as it described a circle through the air, he had to be standing at the center of that circle. Suddenly that seemed terribly ominous.
In the Rock-Pile, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
Once, when he had been a youngster in Texas, his home had been right in the middle of Tornado Alley. One day, one of the worst twisters on record had come right past his home, well, actually right over his home. He and his family had been in the storm shelter and he remembered the ear-splitting roar, the demented wailing howl and the hideous, never-ending vibration as the twister had leveled everything in its path. Now the twister had come again, only this time it was a column of glowing light.
It had started without warning, one moment there had been the eerie silence that happens sometimes on a battlefield, interrupted only by the faint drone of the aircraft overhead, then the twister had started. It was coming from the aircraft, an incredibly beautiful cone of light that reached down through the darkness to gently kiss the ground underneath. The sound, the earthshaking sound, had started a split second later. Now, as the column of light moved across the desert, the ground underneath was shaking and heaving, fighting desperately to throw off the unwanted kiss of the luminous twister.