Islands of Rage and Hope

CHAPTER 27

“Well, as I live and breathe,” Sergeant Major Barney said. “It’s bloody Cloggies.”

Some of Sint Eustatius’ history had been well known to Colonel Hamilton. During the American Revolutionary War it was held by the Dutch, who were generally contemptuous of Continental customs enforcement. So it was the primary weapons supply point of the American Revolution. A certain British lord had claimed in Parliament that if Sint Eustatius had only sunk into the waves, “George Washington would have been dealt with years ago.” It was also the place that American forces were awarded their first recognition as a new country when Fort Oranje rendered a salute to an American man-o-war.

This laissez faire approach to business had resulted in a booming economy during the late 1700s. Warehouses lined Oranjestad Bay, sugar and rum flowed like honey and the island was referred to as “The Golden Rock” for the immense wealth made from the trade transfers.

However, the support of the Colonial Rebellion resulted in a great deal of ire on the part of the British and it was it was subsequently conquered by the British and then the French after the revolution. The traders, mostly Jewish, were deported, the economy more or less collapsed and the island was at one point virtually depopulated. It was eventually returned to the Dutch and again, for a while, became a linchpin of trade in the Netherland Antilles. Eventually that faded to generalized farming and tourism. Just prior to the Apocalypse it had been selected as the perfect site for an oil transfer station. The deep waters and sharp shoaling in humorously named “Tumble-Down-Dick Bay” meant that tankers could, carefully, come close in shore to hook up to an off-shore oil-transfer pier that led to a series of large containers on the hills overlooking the bay. It was upgraded to provide refined products as well and smaller support tankers and even large freighters were stacked up nose to nose waiting to either off-load or onload various forms of liquid gold. So, once again, Sint Eustatius was in trade and the economy was booming…

And now it was depopulated again. There were all the signs of the Apocalypse—the burned houses, the infected picking the beach and fighting seagulls for scraps. But there were two good signs. The oil transfer point appeared to be intact. There were, or had been, two high volcanic hills with a narrow valley, more of a gorge, between. The northern hill had clearly been flattened and now held several dozen oil tanks ranging from multimillion gallon to a few tens of thousands of gallon. None of those appeared to be damaged nor had the area been swept by fire: the area had been thoroughly brushed to prevent just that. The oil pier appeared to be in good shape from the close pass they had made. Although they were going to have to raise a tug that was sunk nearby. There were some support buildings and large generators that were near the waterline which might have taken damage but even those seemed to have survived whatever tropical storms came through with minimal damage. The numerous tugs that supported the pier were, unfortunately, missing, other than the one upended by the pier. But the squadron had tugs. Now they might have fuel for them.

The second good sign was revealed as they came in sight of the town of Oranjestad. Fort Oranje, the antique defense of the town, was occupied. There was an untorn Flag of Orange flying from the mast, indicating it had been taken in in bad weather, and people were gathered on the ramparts watching the approaching Force.

“Cloggies?” Colonel Hamilton said.

“There appear to be persons in the uniform of the Dutch Marines on the ramparts, sir,” Barney replied. “We refer to them as cloggies, sir. Sorry.”

“I see,” Hamilton said. “I see who you’re talking about. Signaller, send a standard code signal and see what we get. In this case, we sort of need permission to perform an assault.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Petty Officer Simms said. He began flashing the Aldis lamp at the fort.

“Very good,” Sergeant Pier Niels Roosevelt said reading the transmission. Americans frequently asked Sergeant Roosevelt about his name, given that he was both black and Dutch. He would calmly tell them that Roosevelt was originally a Dutch name and that, in addition, his great-grandparents had changed their name to Roosevelt in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, whom they much admired.

One company of Netherland Marines was stationed on Curacao, which was where Sergeant Roosevelt was born. He’d joined the Marines when he was eighteen and managed to wangle a transfer from MARSOF, the Marine Commandoes, back to the “regular” Marines in Curacao just in time for a zombie apocalypse. As soon as the situation was clearly getting out of control, the company commander had dispatched one platoon to “maintain security” in Sint Eustatius. Given the strategically critical oil terminal, it was a no-brainer decision.

Unfortunately, what he hadn’t sent along was vaccine. Two-thirds of the platoon had succumbed to either the direct flu-based plague or bites from infected before the sergeant, a remnant equaling about a squad, and a handful of locals fell back on the fort.

They’d been holed up there ever since. Fortunately, his platoon leader had immediately recognized its utility and laid in food stores. Water had been a potential problem but simply fixing up the original cisterns, which had taken some work, and waiting for the inevitable rainfall in the summer had taken care of that problem. There were thirty-three survivors in the fort and he had calculated that they could hold out for another six months. After that, they’d starve.

“What are they saying?” Counselor Michel Roelof Van Der Beek asked.

“They are asking permission to perform a dawn assault,” Sergeant Roosevelt said.

“Why are they here?” Counselor Van Der Beek asked.

The relationship was touchy. Counselor Van Der Beek was, as far as anyone was aware, the senior remaining member of the Island Council, the local governing body. From his point of view, that put him in charge.

Martial law had been declared before everything fell completely apart. So that put the military in charge. And Sergeant Roosevelt only took orders from his chain of command. He’d accept orders from, say, a civilian member of the Ministry of Defense or the Prime Minister’s office. A local official could not give him orders, legally. And Counselor Van Der Beek could not seem to get his head around that fact.

“It really doesn’t matter,” Sergeant Roosevelt replied. The fort was in view of Saba and they had seen the dawn attack the previous day. They couldn’t make out much more than that but he was prepared to let them have the whole island if they wanted. “We can’t break out on our own and we have only three months’ supplies left. Would you prefer I told them to go away?”

“Are they here to take the oil is the question?” Counselor Van Der Beek asked.

“If they were simply here to take the oil, they would not have cleared Saba,” Sergeant Roosevelt replied. “None of which matters. This is clearly a military decision.”

“Concur ground assault. Thirty-three survivors this location. Ten Marine, rest civilian. Intentions?”

“Send this:” Colonel Hamilton said. “Aggressive day and night clearance purpose establish green zone Statia AO. Reestablish oil point to support ongoing military operations. Drop civilian refugees, Saba, St. Barts for recolonization. Link up by zero eight hundred hours tomorrow to discuss ongoing operations.”

“So they are really here for the oil,” Counselor Van Der Beek said triumphantly. “I told you.”

“Which they obviously need to continue their operations, Counselor,” Sergeant Roosevelt said. “I’ll remind you that both the Netherlands and the United States are members of NATO and required to give assistance in times of need. This, Counselor, is very much a time of need. Their assistance is obviously clearing the island. We will discuss it with them tomorrow. At least now we know there will be a tomorrow.” He began to signal the cluster of ships, wondering if they were really who they said they were.

“Good morning, Marines!” Faith said, standing on the body of a good infected and looking up at the Marines on the guardhouse of Fort Oranje. “Are you going to open the door? Or do you want us to just take the ammo boxes back to the ship…?”

“This is all?” Counselor Van Der Beek asked, stunned.

“You’re looking at about half the remaining USMC, sir,” Faith said. “Colonel Hamilton is on his way up. I’ll let him handle the rest of the negotiations, if you don’t mind, sir. My men and I have some more zombie hunting to do….”

“Colonel, I understand your concerns,” Counselor Van Der Beek said. “And I fully support your mission. However, we are Dutch, Colonel. We trade. You could say it is in our blood.”

Colonel Hamilton forebore to comment on the fact that Counselor Van Der Beek was blacker than Sergeant Roosevelt. He had enough history to know that the Netherlands, like the United States, had always been a nation of immigrants.

“What are you looking for in terms of trade, Counselor?” Hamilton asked.

“The island is somewhat poor for farming, and the refugees you want to land are going to need to be fed,” Van Der Beek pointed out. “We would like a weight for weight measure of materials for oil products from the supply point. And before the point is accessed, we are going to need some boats. The storms destroyed all of ours.”

“We cleared your island and intend to put the supply point back into operation, Counselor,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Which will take some doing. Not to say that your points don’t have merit, but I’d have to put a value on those items as well. If we calculated the costs based upon pre-Plague numbers, we could more or less pump everything out of the oil point for the cost of that operation alone.”

“This is not pre-Plague,” Van Der Beek pointed out. “Do you know of another point with similar quantities of material?”

“Not available,” Hamilton admitted. “But that one wasn’t available until we cleared the island. Our current standard on salvage of ships is that survivors retain fifty percent of material onboard. That would seem to be equitable. U.S. military, in return for clearing the island and getting the oil point back in operation, retains fifty percent of the material at the oil point with the Dutch local government retaining the other fifty percent. When or if we burn through the first fifty percent, we’ll negotiate what we pay for additional material. Or you can finish clearing the island with your Marines and try to get the oil point back in operation yourself.”

“I’ll accept on the condition that you throw in thirty days’ supplies for the refugees.”

“I’ll see what I can do on that,” Hamilton said. “I’ll need to get it from Gitmo. We should have the materials available, but I’m not sure what Squadron’s needs are. I’ll also see what I can do on the boats. They’re scarce throughout this area due to the storms. But both points obviously have merit and I fully support them.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Colonel,” Counselor Van Der Beek said, smiling and standing up with his hand out. “We look forward to becoming the grand refuge of the Caribbean…”

“We can run the Eric Shivak down with a general load of supplies,” Steve said, frowning. “And we’ll see what we can figure out on boats. Last year’s storms must have been doozies; all the satellite images show pretty much nothing but wrecks from Puerto Rico down to the Windward Islands. Any luck with your primary mission?”

“No, sir,” Hamilton said. “Dry hole again. More medical texts but we’ve got about every standard and nonstandard text you could want at this point.”

“Finish clearance, then hold in place,” Steve said. “There’s another possibility in the wind I’m discussing with the Joint Chiefs. If the local authorities are comfortable with it, have your platoon engage in training local militia. Eventually other groups will start clearing and moving around and at a certain point we probably have to worry about raiding. So it’s for more than zombie clearance. I’m going to do some consulting to higher about what better potential targets are.”

“Roger, sir,” Hamilton said.

“What’s the status of our astronauts?” Steve asked.

“They’re all still with us, sir,” Hamilton said. “About to get their booster shots, which is the trickier injection but…still with us, sir. Lieutenant Lyons is chomping at the bit, I’ll tell you that.”

“I can imagine,” Steve said. “Clear the island, get started on the oil point, train the locals. And I’ll look at a new mission.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Mission,” Faith said, pointing to the sand table scale model of the island. “First Platoon, USMC, reinforced by Dutch Marine personnel, will perform night clearance of the island of Statia with purpose of reducing infected presence to the level of lightish green, sort of an aquamarine would be nice but we’ll settle for chartreuse…”

“Rigged up like this, the infected can’t get to you,” Sergeant Smith said, his voice muffled by the gas mask. “But we only use it at night on land. It’s hot as hell any time and fucking horrible in the daytime.”

The Dutch Marines had chosen to “augment” the U.S. Marines clearing the island by night. They had been detailed, one to each clearance team, to get some training on night clearance. Fortunately, they all spoke English.

Smitty thus had Sergeant Roosevelt, who seemed like a steady guy, and PFC Haroldson in the car, cruising down a darkened street called “Kapelweg” with the windows down and the tunes going full blast.

“So if we have to, we’ll go to scrum,” Smith continued. “That’s hand-to-hand. With this stuff they can bite all they want and they’re not getting anywhere. Target.” He was driving so he just lifted his M4 one-handed and fired three rounds into the infected stumbling out of the darkness. “Biggest concern is not getting stuck, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Sergeant Roosevelt said.

“Questions, comments, concerns?” Smitty asked as Haroldson called “Target” and took a shot out of the back.

“Not really,” Sergeant Roosevelt said, firing into the darkness at another infected. It dropped like a stone. “It is…odd. I was MARSOF, our version of your Recon Marines. The technique is to be as invisible as possible. This is…strange.”

“Tell me about it,” Smitty said as Haroldson took another shot. “I was a scout-sniper. Making noise is against my religion. But you want to draw them to you…”

“Missed that one, Sergeant,” Haroldson said. “Could you stop to wait for it to…Never mind. Damn Barbie guns…”

“One question,” Roosevelt said. “Is your lieutenant as young as she appears?”

“Younger,” Smitty said. “But let me tell you about Shewolf, brother…”

“Target, two thirty,” Sergeant Hoag said, tapping Condrey on the shoulder and pointing.

The road past the airport ran through a low cut that led to the oil point. Since firing up the oil point was, obviously, out of the question, Sergeant Hoag’s machine gun team had been augmented with two Dutch Marines for security and placed on the edge of one of the hills that made the cut. With three cars shining their lights onto the road, they were drawing a trickle of infected. Which Condrey was studiously mowing down.

“Target two thirty, aye,” Condrey said, targeting the infected.

“Fire.”

“Firing, aye.”

The latest infected tumbled to the ground, scythed by three 7.62x51 rounds. Hoag had carefully waited until it was clear of the road. There were a few bodies blocking it but just below them was a gravel pit with some front-end loaders. They’d be easy enough to clear come daylight.

“So, you guys are just called ‘Marines First Class’ and stuff?” PFC Edwards asked. They had one of the cars turned away from the machine gun team and beaming its lights up the hill.

“Yes,” Marine First Class Henk Geert Cloet said. “Makes it easier.”

“Makes sense to me,” Edwards said. “We’ve got most of the same ranks as Army and people ask me what I do in the Army sometimes. Pisses me off. Well, it used to. I think we’ve only got one Army guy and he was SF and now he’s one of the doctors.”

“Do you always talk this much?” M1C Adam Vogels asked.

“Got anything better to do?” Edwards said as the machine gun barked again.

“No, not really,” Vogels replied. They were spread out and keeping an eye on their sectors but nothing seemed to be moving in the brush. “What is the American expression? This is shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Better than clearing liners, that’s for sure… Speaking of which, you guys better get the skinny on Shewolf…”

“Attention on deck!” Sergeant Roosevelt boomed, snapping a parade ground salute as Faith dropped out of the five-ton. “Good morning, ma’am!”

It was just past dawn and the island was “as clear as it’s gonna fucking get for now.” The Marines had assembled in front of an old church near Fort Oranj. The cars they’d been using were lined up with military precision.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Faith barked, returning the salute. “You guys all straight?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sergeant Roosevelt said.

“Listen up, Marines,” Faith said. “Refugees start landing at twelve hundred hours. Between now and then, I want you to do a rotating stand-down, thirty percent on security, thirty percent getting your shit cleaned and chow and thirty percent getting a doze. We’ve got to keep going all day. We’ll get refugees into secure points for overnight, then start training local militia tomorrow. Just hang in there and remember that sleep is for the weak. Oorah?”

“Oorah,” the U.S. Marines responded.

“Status, Lieutenant?” Hamilton said, returning her salute.

The Dutch Marines were tearing into the first hot meal they’d had in months. The rotation was by squads and Second Squad was cleaning weapons and gear, having taken a “whore’s bath” with baby wipes while First Squad had the unspeakably hard job of keeping awake while manning the walls of a fort.

“All good, sir,” Faith replied. “Island’s pretty clear. After we get through the training period, I’d like to do some foot patrolling of the outer areas, that volcano…” she said, pointing to the Quill, “and over past the oil point. Probably some betas hiding out, still, but getting all of those is pretty tough, sir. And they’re not an excessive threat, sir.”

“Sounds good,” Hamilton said. “Lieutenant, I got sleep last night. I want you to stand down until tomorrow morning. I’ve got this.”

“I can keep going, sir,” Faith protested. “I just told my Marines that sleep is for the weak, sir! Mission, men, me, sir!”

“This is physiology, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “A thirteen-year-old cannot keep going the way that someone nineteen can. And dealing with the refugees is going to require a certain amount of tact. When you are tired and frustrated, tact is not your strong suit. You’re off until tomorrow at zero five. The gunny and I can handle this. You’ve done your usual excellent job at killing infected and breaking things. Now go get some sleep.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Faith said.

“Oooh…” Master Sergeant John Doehler said, holding his head.

The senior imagery analyst in the Hole could blame many things. He could blame the fact that he only had one other analyst, and the kid, while pretty experienced at this point, was still a kid. He could blame the fact that there was an entire world to sweep and only two people to do it. He could blame the fact that, since the remaining birds were the only ones that would ever be up there in anyone’s lifetime they could no longer retarget for things they might be interested in. Once their onboard fuel was used up they’d eventually start to degrade orbits and then, well, he’d be out of a job. Most of the world was empty and only occasionally did the spysats on ball-of-twine orbits cross something that they were really interested in. He could blame generally crappy weather in the target area as well as frequent mass-fires that often obscured the rare city shots.

However, he knew that one reason was that nobody thought there would be any critical survivors in London. So he just basically hadn’t looked closely enough.

He really, really, should have spotted this months ago. Especially since the imagery had been sitting on the drive for, well, months. He’d just checked two previous passes and each clear pass had the same image.

He looked at the image again and checked it against the file photo. There was no real question. The facial recognition software was just a cross-check and it was saying eighty-seven percent accuracy. The low value was due to the angle and the weight loss, probably.

He looked at the images, especially the placards held overhead, one more time and picked up the phone.

“Sir…We may have a priority target for Wolf Squadron…”