“Look at that,” Jake said.
“What now?” asked Chet.
“Over there. Look.”
“All I see is that trucker spray-painting a flipped Chinese jeep. Is he writing graffiti on it?”
“No, idiot,” Jake said. “He’s leaving a mark that says he’s already tapped out the jeep.”
“Oh,” Chet said. A second later: “That’s a good idea.”
Jake agreed, and they kept guard for another thirty minutes. Afterward, the fuel tanker backed up and turned around. He was heading for the front again. He must have found enough fuel to make the trip worth it.
“And so we keep a blitzkrieg alive,” Jake said. “Using whatever we can to keep the Chinese off balance.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Chet said. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
That was good news. Jake could use some sleep, but he wouldn’t get it until the platoon reached its bivouac area.
Stan knuckled his eyes, trying to keep alert as his tank climbed a steep path out of the riverbank. Checking his watch, he saw that it was half an hour to dawn.
According to his calculations, they were forty miles behind the main Chinese line. Harbin would be thirty miles south the other way. What would a quick dash to over fifteen million Chinese bring him? It would surely surprise the enemy. But given his paltry number of tanks, the city people could likely swarm him in a sea of bodies. Thirty-seven Lees didn’t seem like so much now. Thirty-seven lightly armored tanks and a bunch of IVFs against hordes armed with RPGs able to penetrate the thin skin. No thank you; he wanted no part of that.
It was time to surprise Chinese soldiers to the north of them and attempt quick overruns. How big a pair of balls do you actually have, Stan Higgins?
The feeling in his gut told him why Hasdrubal’s forces had failed so miserably against Counsel Nero’s Roman legionaries. Hasdrubal had been the brother of the famous Alps-crossing, elephant-riding Hannibal Barca of Carthage. Hasdrubal had also marched over the Alps, bringing many more of his soldiers through alive than his brother had been able to do. That had been eleven years after Hannibal’s feat—eleven years of the great Carthaginian rampaging up and down Italy. In 207 BC, Counsel Nero of Rome took a picked force of legionaries from the toe of Italy where he watched Hannibal. The legionaries marched fast on the Roman roads, and met Hasdrubal in the north. There, the brother of Hannibal attempted a night march against the Romans, to surprise them in the morning. His men got confused in the forest, though. They panicked, and lost the Battle of the Metaurus the next morning. It meant Hannibal would never have enough troops to conquer Rome.
Until this moment in his Lee, Stan had never truly understood the panic of Hasdrubal’s soldiers. Reading about something is so much different from living it.
He screwed off a canteen cap, guzzling water. What he’d really like was some coffee. Next time he did something like this, he’d put some coffee in a thermos. Ah… He’d do even more than that. He’d make sure all his drivers, commanders, everyone, had their own thermoses of hot coffee. The great captains of the past had worried about such details and they had won era-shattering victories because they took such pains.
“It’s time,” he radioed his Intelligence captain.
Soon, because Stan knew where to look, he watched a model-sized drone buzz into the air. It was going to scout out G1011 and see what waited for them up the road.
Forty-five minutes later, Stan gave the orders to his commanders. The infantrymen would stay in their IFVs for now. He wanted to keep everyone fast.
Then his Lees clanked up a rise in the road. Five light tanks had Hellfire IIs in the tubes. The rest of them had loaded up with the heavier dumb rockets.
A battalion of Chinese trucks waited on the other side of the rise, together with a growing mountain of ammo and fuel supplies. It would be nice to capture the diesel, but that wasn’t going to happen this time.
“We rush up the road and spread out,” he said into a throat-microphone. “Then pound them unmercifully. Don’t give anyone a moment’s rest. I want that place burning like an inferno.”
After giving his order, Stan watched it carried out from the turret hatch, with his hands on the butterfly controls of his fifty-caliber machine gun. He swayed as the tracks clanked and squealed across the Chinese blacktop. The fear in his gut had moved up to his chest, squeezing, making each heartbeat thud with purpose.
“Come on,” he whispered to himself.
Then the small Lee reached the top of the road. With a loud squeal, the tank turned sharply to the left. At the same time, Stan’s gunner swiveled the turret, aiming the barrel at the enemy.
Stan saw the big enemy trucks lined in rows down there, painted black instead of American government green. A few Chinese civilian drivers opened their cab doors, climbing in. All of them had cigarettes dangling from their mouths. He saw some mingling enemy troops with carbines slung over their shoulders. Those looked like MPs. He even spied a squad of East Lightning officers standing around a table, drinking their morning jin-jin from tiny porcelain cups.
Swiveling the heavy machine gun into position, Stan’s thumbs jammed down onto the butterfly controls. He knew he should wait and give the enemy a concentrated, withering salvo from all the Lees at once. The race of his heart told him he was too keyed up for that. Perfection only came in the movies, not in real life.
The fifty-caliber chattered with its loud sounds. The vibration of the controls felt good in Stan’s hands. Even better, the fear vanished in him as adrenaline took over. Stan’s mouth opened of its own accord and he began to laugh with pent-up emotion. It wasn’t laughter at the enemy, but sheer joy to be fighting at last, to be hitting back at the bastards instead of sneaking around and hoping no one caught him.
“We caught you!” he roared at the enemy.
Every fifth bullet was an incendiary. Because of it, the first Chinese fuel hauler blew up, sending a giant column of fire into the air.
That’s beautiful, Stan thought. I did that.
A loud whoosh alerted him to the first 178mm rocket launched from a Lee. The puppy roared at a Chinese supply dump, and it hit something flammable, creating a fantastic boom. The blast sent wood chips and burning fuel everywhere as a column of smoke billowed skyward. The heat of the explosion reached him, and it ignited Stan’s heart with a fierce desire to destroy.
“Charge!” he shouted. He fired the fifty-caliber as he said it, his arms shaking because of it, and he realized he hadn’t spoken into the radio microphone. As he released the butterfly controls, he rethought the idea. No. Why take the Lees down there. Some Chinese soldier might get brave and pick up a RPG. He should let the Lees fight here from range first.
As the light tanks kept spreading out along the top of the ridge, firing their heavy machine guns and 178mm missiles, two Chinese IFVs rushed them. A Hellfire II hissed out of a Lee. With unerring accuracy, the missile struck the front of the enemy IFV. Its machine gun quit as the entire front lifted, and the enemy IFV toppled sideways.
Now American IFVs got into the action, blasting with their 25mm cannons.
That was too much for the enemy. Those that could ran away, some north up the road toward the front. Others ran east and west.
“Kill the troops,” Stan said. “We can’t leave anyone alive to fight later.” It was a bloodthirsty command, and yet, he didn’t see it that way now. Stan Higgins was in the midst of combat when a different part of his brain took over. Blood, guts, mayhem, the reptile in him delighted in butchering the enemy. Later, the better half of him might loathe what he did. Taking human life, even in battle, had a spiritual or psychological cost for most people. Now wasn’t the moment a man felt any of that, though. Now, the last drop of fear drained out of Stan because he killed those who might have killed him. It was one of the greatest feelings in the world to destroy the ones threatening you with death.