He picked up his shovel again and leaned into his work stabbing the broad, sharp blade into the ground with short, powerful strokes. After all, a good deep foxhole might just keep him alive long enough to kill some of his people’s enemies.
A sudden, blindingly bright flash lit up the crest ahead and sent his shadow racing away downslope. The ground rocked. For an instant, Meer froze. Then he dove for cover.
“Down! Everybody down!”
More shells burst in the treetops-spraying jagged steel and wood splinters downward in a deadly rain. Some men dropped without a sound, killed instantly by blast or concussion. Others fell screaming, torn open and bleeding but alive.
Through it all, Sgt. Gerrit Meer and other veterans like him lay huddled in their shallow holes, waiting impatiently for the enemy barrage to end.
A COMPANY, 3 PARA
Maj. John Farwell crouched beside his signaler, ten meters behind the shadowy, motionless shapes of 2 Platoon. All eyes were riveted on the dark mass of the ridge rising above them.
Dozens of bright-white explosions flickered from east to west along the crest line, leaving in their wake a maelstrom of noise, smoke, and blast-thrown debris. Three full batteries of 155mm howitzers were pounding the Afrikaners-pouring salvo after salvo of HE onto defensive positions pinpointed by 3 Para’s patrols.
Then, as suddenly as they had begun, the shell bursts stopped. Silence settled back over the night.
Farwell checked his watch: 2315 hours. The barrage had lifted.
He jumped to his feet, waving his men forward with one arm while the other clutched his Enfield L85AI assault rifle.
“Let’s go, lads! Up and at them! Up and at them!”
Platoon leaders and their sergeants were already repeating his orders.
A Company’s whole line began to move ahead at a fast walk, separating into squads and sections as the men scrambled uphill.
Farwell followed, scrabbling up a slope that seemed to grow steeper with every step. Darkness closed in as they entered the treeline. He couldn’t see more than ten or fifteen meters in any direction, but he could hear gasps, muffled swearing, and the sound of boots sliding and slipping on loose, rocky soil as his men fought their way toward the summit. Jesus, he thought, this bloody ridge is a damn sight higher than it looked on the map.
With a hissing pop, a parachute flare soared into the night sky and burst high overhead-spilling an eerie, white light over the men struggling up the ridge. Oh, shit. The barrage hadn’t annihilated the Boers. They were still there and ready for battle. Farwell lengthened his stride. No point in loitering about.
One after another, three small explosions rippled across the hillside behind the British paratroops. Mortars! Hell’s teeth. They were going to need more suppressive fire from their own artillery. Farwell angled over to his signaler and snatched the offered handset.
“Red Rover One, this is Alpha Four The next Afrikaner mortar salvo fell squarely on target. One 60mm bomb landed barely five meters ahead of the British major and his radioman.
Time and space, in fact everything, seemed to vanish in a single, searing blast of white fire and ear-shattering fury. Farwell felt himself being tossed backward like an unwanted rag doll. Conscious thought fluttered briefly and fled.
He came to only seconds later, propped awkwardly against the trunk of a small, gnarled tree. Small, bloodstained tears in his battle dress and the pain stabbing through his right side told their own story-he’d taken a load of white-hot shrapnel across his ribs. His rifle was gone, ripped out of his hands and thrown somewhere out into the surrounding darkness.
Farwell tried to stand up, failed at first, and looked down to see why.
Christ. His signaler must have taken the full force of the explosion. The younger man’s mangled body lay across his legs, pinning him to the ground.
He rolled the corpse to one side and staggered upright.
More mortar bombs rained down on the slope-lighting up the tangled landscape in brief, deadly flashes. Dead and wounded Paras were scattered across the hillside in bloody heaps. Others, uninjured, lay prone behind fallen trees or half-buried boulders. Some were firing blindly, spraying bullets uphill toward the crest.
Farwell swore violently. His attack was breaking down, losing its cohesion and force. He had to get his men moving again or they’d all die under the Afrikaner mortar barrage. Ignoring the pain in his right side, he hobbled onward.
“Come on, A Company, on your feet! Close with the bastards! Close with them!”
A man rose from behind a splintered tree trunk and grabbed at his left arm.
“Are you all right, Major?”
Farwell recognized 2 Platoon’s senior NCO and yelled back, “I’m fine,
Sergeant!” He ducked as another mortar round landed close by. Fragments whined past.
“Where’s Slater?”
“Dead, sir.
Unbidden, an image of the freckled lieutenant rose in Farwell’s mind, momentarily blotting out the present. He remembered meeting an aging and widowed mother who’d been so painfully proud of her handsome young soldier son. He blinked the memory away. There might be time for sorrow later. If he lived.
He leaned close to the platoon sergeant’s ear.
“We must get the men moving. You understand?”
The other man nodded vigorously. The Paras either had to close with their enemies or admit defeat and fall back down the ridge.
“Right. Then take your platoon forward, Sergeant.” Farwell bared his teeth, camouflaging a sudden blaze of pain as a fierce, tigerish grin.
“Flush ‘em out, Bates. I’ll be right behind you with the rest of the lads. “
The new commander of 2 Platoon nodded once more and moved away at a steady lope-briefly silhouetted by another explosion. His bull-voiced roar could be heard even over the noise of the barrage.
“On your feet, you Terrible Twos! Come on! Let’s go kill those Boer bastards!”
By ones and twos, British soldiers rose from cover and followed their sergeant up the slope. To the left and right, other voices rose above the shelling, echoing his call. One and Three platoons were rallying as well.
Farwell knelt beside a dead Para, tugged the man’s assault rifle free, and hobbled after his men.
BLOCKING FORCE, NORTHERN NATAL COMMANDO
BRIGADE
Twenty meters below the ridge’s jagged crest line, Sgt. Gerrit Meer lay flat on his stomach, sighting down the length of his R-I rifle. At any moment now, he thought grimly, the verdomde English will come swarming over the top. For a few seconds they’d be silhouetted against the skyline—easy to spot and easy to shoot. The sergeant’s finger tightened on his trigger. He and his men would. cut the rooineks to pieces.
One of the wounded men they hadn’t had time to evacuate moaned softly behind him.
“Shut up. ” Meer didn’t take his eyes off the top of the ridge.
Another parachute flare burst into life high above the battlefield, turning night into half-lit day.
Something small and round flew through the air and thudded onto the ground beside his foxhole. It rolled on past and
came to rest against a fallen tree. Meer’s heart stopped.
“Grenade!”
He buried his face in the dirt.
Whummmphhh. A muted, dampened blast sent fragments whirring over his head. Other small explosions echoed from either side. Nothing more.
The Afrikaner looked up into the gray and swirling mist created by a volley of British smoke grenades. He moistened lips that were suddenly dry, peering frantically toward a skyline that had all but disappeared in the manmade fog.