A Unimog with the dozer blade led most of the way from Cape Girardeau, smoothing the path for those following. It was not unusual to have to pull a stuck vehicle from clinging mud, since the rains continued, off and on, heavier than they’d been further north, due primarily to the proximity of the rather larger Gulf of Mexico.
It was outside of Osceola, Arkansas that the group had their only pitched battle with bandits. Percy and the Lieutenant had information, both from the government and from locals that a band hiding in the Mississippi bottoms were raiding both river traffic and road traffic. They were reported well led and well-armed.
But the members of the group were seasoned travelers now. They knew what potential ambush sites looked like. Lieutenant Pastolori had all five Hummers leading the way, and checked every potential ambush site. They found the bandits along a stretch of relatively good road. Each end of the particular stretch had a fallen overpass blocking it. Both blockages had been cleared, but the material was still piled precariously alongside the road.
Percy and the Lieutenant studied the situation from the basket of the aerial lift on the Kenworth utility/service truck. They’d lifted themselves just to the tops of the trees at a ridge a mile from the first overpass.
“This has to be it,” Pastolori said. “The road is pretty good, but the ditches are wide and deep. You go through the first cleared overpass… They shift the rubble to block it and the one on the far end. You’re trapped on the stretch of road. They have clear fields of fire from the forest on the one side, and probably some emplacements out in that field.
“I’m sure they are there, though I have to admit, I can’t spot them. I think the reports are right. These guys know what they’re doing. We would have checked this out, but we’d have sent someone through if Charlie hadn’t spotted the movement at this first overpass.”
“So what do we do? I have no problem backtracking a ways and going around. Take some time, but we have it.”
“That’s the safest approach,” Lieutenant Pastolori said. “And that’s what I recommend we do if you don’t want to do the plan I’m about to explain to you. I’d like to put these bandits out of business. You’re in overall charge. I can’t order you to have your people go into a fight. But I think we can take these guys with minimal, if any casualties.”
“I don’t like the idea of knowingly risking any lives. We’ll lose three days, but we should go around.”
“And if they have people watching and move their ambush?”
Percy frowned. “You think that is likely?”
“I’m not sure likely, but definitely possible. We’re reasonably sure the bandits are here. Even if they’ve had someone watching us, they really can’t have a true idea of the capability of your equipment. It wouldn’t take long to rig some shields on front of your trucks. They have the capability to take to those fields at speed.
“The Hummers with their firepower can take those that would be at the tree line. They may or may not know about the grenade launchers. Their people have to be right at the edge of the trees. Once they fire, we can direct deadly fire right onto them. “I don’t think those in the fields would be able to stand up to a charging wall of fast steel with concentrated fire coming from it behind barricades.
“We would come up like we would normally, but would stop and pour fire into the area where those that are to block the road would be. The Hummers would advance on the woods, and your team, with soldiers behind the barricades, would attack those in the fields, if there are any. I have to be honest. All the attackers might be in the woods, but I suspect there are some in those fields.”
Lieutenant Pastolori fell silent and waited for Percy’s comments. “The country can’t afford to tolerate banditry. I say we do it, but I’m going to be careful who goes and doesn’t.”
“Of course,” Pastolori said.
Percy lowered the aerial basket and the two of them began to detail the plan to the group. Percy was more than a little amazed at the outpouring of rage toward the bandit’s plan.
Tom said it best perhaps, when he commented, “They would murder women and children in an attack like that. I, for one, don’t want them doing that to anyone, not just us. If we go around, they will prey on others. From what we’ve seen on this trip, there will be others following us. I don’t want the knowledge that I could prevent something from happening and didn’t do anything about it.”
“I’m not going to lie about it,” Lieutenant Pastolori said. “There is a significant chance of casualties on our side. And we will be killing people. I will give them a chance to surrender, but I imagine they’ll just laugh. Killing people is not easy. It stays with you the rest of your life. Anyone that doesn’t think they can handle that should stay in the group that stays back.”
The consensus was to attack the bandits as the Lieutenant had suggested. The timbers from the bridging sections were quickly removed and attached to the fronts of all three Kenworths and the three Unimogs, leaving only small view ports for the driver to see through. Secure platforms for two riflemen were incorporated on each vehicle, with firing ports for the riflemen to use.
Percy would not let any family men participate, including Tom. They had sharp words over it, but Percy told Tom that he wanted Tom in charge if something happened to him. It was just as difficult to get Sara to stay behind, too. She wanted to drive The Beast, which was where Percy would be with his HK-91. He finally convinced her, too. Other than him, at one of the gun ports on The Beast, all of his people either stayed with the bulk of the group or were driving the vehicles.
It went even better than Percy had hoped. Like the other attack, many of the bandits broke and ran when the firepower of the group became obvious. There were six trapdoor hidey-holes in the fields along the road. Each had two riflemen. The rest of the bandits, twenty-three more they learned later, were in the edge of the woods.
There were three bandits at each of the overpasses. The ones at the first overpass were all killed almost instantly when the withering fire erupted from thirty weapons when the lead vehicles stopped and everyone in them opened up with rifles.
The Hummers charged toward the edge of the woods, drawing fire. As soon as a bandit fire point was identified, the Hummers used their machineguns and grenade launchers to good effect to silence them one or two at a time. By the time the first half a dozen bandits were dispatched by the gunners in the Hummers the others turned tail and faded into the woods.
The bandits at the far overpass were seen running for vehicles that disappeared quickly down the road. It was an absolute rout in the barren fields. The three Kenworths, on their high flotation tires didn’t even slow down when they left the road. They hit the fence that bordered the first field.
Only a couple of rounds were fired from the first hidey-hole. The sight of the six onrushing trucks panicked every one of the bandits in the fields. They all climbed out of their holes and began running. But there was no place to run. A few rounds from those holding on securely behind the barricades on the trucks and, to a man, the bandits threw down their weapons, stopped running and lifted their hands into the air.
Percy was a little concerned that the twelve men might just be shot by his people, but a few words about turning them in to the authorities in Memphis would do more good in the area than their executions would, calmed the situation.
The soldiers went into the woods a little ways on foot, but there was no sign of the rest of the bandits, besides the eight they’d killed in the first few minutes of the short battle. That was a total of eleven killed, including the three at the first overpass. With the twelve captured, Lieutenant Pastolori was sure the bandits had been broken up as a force. One of those killed at the overpass had been the leader of the band. The second in command had been killed in the woods. Their third in command was one of the captives.