Craig sat quietly for no more than a second. He tried to think objectively, to weigh his own strengths and limitations dispassionately.
But he already knew his answer. It was impossible for him to say no.
The flight back seemed even shorter than the trip north. Strapped into the Hornet rear seat, he could barely open the briefing book they’d given him. Nevertheless, what he saw as he leafed through summaries of his force structure and the latest intelligence strengthened his original belief that he could do the job. 6 .
Then he got to the thick annex labeled “Political Considerations.” For the first time since receiving his orders, Lt. Gen. Jerry Craig began to have doubts.
NOVEMBER 15-HEADQUARTERS, 3 COMMANDO BRIGADE, ROYAL MARINES,
DEVON PORT
ENGLAND
Brig. Neil Pascoe was sound asleep when his bedside command phone rang.
It trilled loudly six times before his hand fumbled past the nightstand lamp and found the receiver.
“Yes. What the bloody bell is it?”
The brigade’s duty officer sounded properly contrite.
“Major General
Vaughn on the line, sir. “
Pascoe came fully awake instantly. The commander of
Great Britain’s Commando Forces wasn’t known for calling his subordinates without good reason. Most especially not at half past two in the morning.
The line hummed and clicked.
“Pascoe?”
“Yes, sir. “
Vaughn came right to the point.
“I’m afraid events in South Africa have taken rather a nasty turn for the worse. I’ve just spoken with the PM, and he’s asked us to come to seventy two hours’ notice to move.”
CNN MORNING WATCH
The reporter stood in front of the main gate to the U.S. Marine Base at
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Behind him, a small crowd milled outside the base-workers entering or leaving, well-wishers waving small American flags, curiosity seekers, and a thin scattering of fringe-group protestors with signs. A mixed force of Marine MPs and North Carolina state troopers kept the two tiny groups apart-skinheads and KKK supporters to one side, leftists and aging Spartacus Youth League members to the other.
Green-painted trucks lumbered in and out of the gate, mixing with civilian cars and semitrailers. It made a picturesque background for his narrative.
“.. . catapulted into furious action by the events of the last forty-eight hours. Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, home of the Second
Marine Expeditionary Force, has erupted as the Marines prepare to embark on every available Navy hull and on several commercial vessels chartered by the Military Sealift Command. The container ship Gu~f Galaxy and several bulk cargo carriers are only the first of many that will be needed to carry the Marines and their equipment across the Atlantic to
South Africa.
“Ships are loading at Navy and commercial ports all along America’s
Atlantic coast, and overseas in Southampton, England, as the Royal
Marines embark as well.”
The image cut away to an aerial view of Wilmington. It was normally busy with merchant traffic and warships bound
for the shipyard or for the naval base there. Now it was choked with traffic, with dozens of ships literally filling the marked channels leading in and out of the busy waterway.
The camera zoomed in on the Navy base itself, showing cluttered gray ships pulled up to several piers, all the centers of frantic activity.
“These Navy ships will carry what official sources describe as ‘the leading elements of the Allied peacekeeping force.”
“Other Marines we’ve talked to used the term ‘assault echelon. “
CHAPTER 25
Thunderhead
NOVEMBER 18-ADVANCE HEADQUARTERS, CUBAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, LOUIS TRICHARDT AIR BASE, SOUTH AFRICA
The South African air base showed all the signs of fierce resistance and thorough demolition. Mile-long concrete runways were peppered with craters torn and gouged by heavy artillery fire. The control tower, hangars, and storehouses were all pounded into burnt-out masses of scorched aluminum, twisted steel girders, and broken shards of brick, concrete, and rock.
Hanging over everything was the sickening, pungent tang of death, decay, and thousands of gallons of jet fuel poured out and left to evaporate or go up in flames.
Louis Trichardt Air Base had died an ugly and lingering death. But now its new owners were hard at work resurrecting the freshly captured corpse.
Four six-wheeled vehicles were parked at various points along the main runway, each mounting four “Romb” surface to-air missiles. NATO called them SA-8A Geckos. An acquisition radar mounted on each vehicle scanned the skies
above for any indication of an incoming air raid. The SAM battery had a conventional backup-eight towed 23mm antiaircraft cannon spaced at regular intervals along the rest of the airfield perimeter. Their long, twin gun barrels pointed toward the sky, ready to throw a fiery curtain of high-explosive rounds at any attacking plane.
Behind this protective screen of SAMs and automatic weapons, teams of
Cuban combat engineers supervised sweating gangs of black South African laborers filling in craters and clearing away wreckage by hand-volunteers” in the service of their own liberation. Other blacks were busy carting off the last few dead Afrikaners for disposal in a mass grave beside the main runway.
Gen. Antonio Vega watched the blacks working with a practiced eye, a slight, worried frown on his stern, narrow face. There were fewer genuine volunteers than he’d hoped for. His political officers and ANC liaisons blamed the dearth of willing labor on civilian casualties caused by artillery and air bombardments directed against SADF positions inside the black townships surrounding Louis Trichardt.
Well, perhaps that was so. The Cuban general shrugged. Did these South
African blacks expect to win freedom and a proper political structure without loss? If so, they would be bitterly disappointed. Wars and revolutions were always brutal and bloody affairs, he thought. And he should know. He’d fought through enough of both during more than thirty years of service to Fidel Castro and his people.
Some of the ANC officers assigned to him reported that a few of their people believed the Cubans to be nearly as racist as the Afrikaners they displaced. And why? Simply because the army of liberation needed their strong backs and unskilled hands. Vega scowled. Racism! What nonsense.
Why, he had black Cuban officers on his own staff. Brave and competent men-every one of them.
As for the charge that he used South African blacks only for manual labor, what of it? Hadn’t Karl Marx himself said it best?
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
He dismissed the problem from his mind. Let the rear-area commissars worry about such matters. He had a war to fight and win.
Vega turned to the stout, mustachioed colonel of engineers waiting silently beside him.
“Well, Luis? How soon before our planes can land here?”
“Twenty-four hours, Comrade General.” The colonel sounded certain-always a safe tone to use around Vega.
“My heavy equipment should arrive before sundown, and when it does…” He waved away the waist-high piles of debris still littering the runways as though they were nothing more than dust before a broom.
Vega patted him on the shoulder and glanced at the shorter, thinner Air
Force officer attached to his personal staff.
“You hear that, Rico.
Twenty-four hours. That’s good news, eh?”
“Yes, sir. ” The Air Force major pointed toward the sweating work crews.
“Once they’ve got the main runway cleared, we can start flying in ground elements of the brigade. And once they’re here, we’ll have this base back in full operation within half a day.”