Red Metal

CHAPTER 79

The tent flaps burst open as the three men entered, a gust of hot evening wind followed them in.

The Russian headquarters staff turned to see a wounded Colonel Kir flanked by two medics holding him up, one on each shoulder. The colonel’s face was covered with blood and dirt; he had a shell-shocked expression and his mouth hung open. His left leg bled freely.

Several majors and captains rushed to him.

One of the medics said, “He would not allow us to take him to the medical shelter. The colonel insisted on coming here even though he is badly wounded.” The man’s frustration with his orders was evident.

Kir was helped over to a folding chair and he collapsed into it. His breathing was labored; he gripped his knee where the uniform pants had been torn off. Blood seeped through his fingers. Soon he looked away from the wound, put his head in his bloody hands, and rubbed his eyes.

One of the majors handed him a canteen of water, which he drank from while a medic knelt and began dressing his knee.

Kir looked up from the canteen. “You men there… have you heard from the general?”

A radioman shook his head. “We have not, sir. Glatsky’s XO has reported that the lead company of 3rd Regiment has been practically wiped out. The general was with 1st Company. That is all that has been reported at this time, sir.”

Kir just sat there a moment. Finally he said, “Tell Glatsky to suspend the attack. Pull back and reconsolidate his forces. And tell him to find General Lazar.”

Colonel Yuri Borbikov, flanked by four Spetsnaz officers, stormed into the command tent while Kir spoke. All five wore body armor and weapons.

“Belay that command!” He looked around the room quickly. “Where’s General Lazar?”

No one answered at first; then a major said, “He went with 3rd Regiment. He is not reporting in.”

“So… he’s dead?”

“We do not know. We haven’t been able to raise him since American aircraft attacked Glatsky’s advance.”

Borbikov stood near the flap to the tent, taking in the dimly lit space in front of him. He turned to Kir. “Colonel, you are wounded. I insist you go to the medical shelter immediately.”

Kir looked up at Borbikov, his daze quickly fading. “I will do nothing of the sort.”

The Spetsnaz colonel boomed in a deep and commanding voice, “Colonel Kir, you are relieved of your responsibilities, now and on this spot! You are in shock and your actions are causing panic in the ranks. This is unforgivable in the face of the enemy.”

Without waiting, he turned to the radioman. “Tell Glatsky he can take a brief tactical pause to reconsolidate his forces and to search for the general’s body. We will reinstitute the surge on the north side of the hill shortly. Inform him that I am sending him a battalion of paratroopers.”

Lieutenant Colonel Fedulov, the airborne battalion commander, stood at a map table with a cluster of captains. He looked up at Borbikov in surprise at this. He’d been told they’d be used only in close quarters, for “mopping up” on the hill, and defending the mine once it was taken.

Fedulov said, “Sir, the infantry’s BTRs are armored and are better suited to punching through the American lines than my paratroopers.”

“The arrival of you and your men will embolden Glatsky and his soldiers forward.”

“Respectfully, Comrade Colonel, providing inspiration to the infantry is not our role.”

Kir stood up on his wounded leg now; the medic had not finished tying off his bloody bandage, and the wrappings unwound and fell to the floor. Pointing a finger at Borbikov, he said, “Under what authority do you issue such a command, Colonel? Your only role here is as a headquarters advisor, and only an advisor.”

Borbikov replied, “You are the one who no longer has authority, Kir. Your commander is lost and you are wounded and unfit for command.”

Kir wiped blood from his eye and shouted in a loud and agitated voice, “Watch officer!”

“Here, Colonel,” said the captain, just meters away.

“What is the report? Do we have any unit commanders in the northern sector responding after the American strikes?”

“We do, sir. Two of the commanders report present. Second Regiment has halted their attack but is firing onto the Marines as the general ordered. First Regiment is making slow progress, and they continue to receive attacks on their BTRs from dismounted anti-tank weapons. Both regiments have suffered heavy casualties. Nothing further at all from 3rd Regiment yet. The commander reported the lead company destroyed, then went off the air.”

Kir turned to Borbikov. “There you have it: the next field commander is 1st Regiment’s colonel. He will come and take command of the brigade while I receive treatment.”

Borbikov shook his head. “Nonsense. Captain, call the medical orderlies back and have this man escorted from the tent. Note in the logbook that under the authority from the Group South commander, I am taking command of the brigade at this time.”

The captain looked back and forth with wide eyes at the two senior officers; he was clearly conflicted and momentarily unsure about his chain of command.

Borbikov didn’t wait for further debate; he signaled to the Spetsnaz in the tent, one of whom radioed to others outside. In moments, four more of Borbikov’s men with AK-12s entered, making eight in all. Two grabbed Colonel Kir by the arms and led him from the tent, muscling him out despite his loud protestations.

None of the headquarters staff got in the way of the big special forces soldiers.

Borbikov grabbed the radio from the stupefied twenty-four-year-old watch officer and began a broadcast. “All stations, all stations, this is Colonel Yuri Borbikov. It is with great regret that I announce the death on the battlefield of comrade Colonel General Boris Lazar. I have assumed command of the brigade. We must now come together, comrades. We shall mourn the passing of our great leader and friend when this is all done. In the meanwhile, Moscow and Mother Russia expect every man to complete his mission. Acknowledge.”

The officers of the headquarters section just stood there looking at the radio. For a moment the only sounds were those of the distant battle; Glatsky’s forces intermixed in the Marine lines remained in heavy contact.

Soon, one by one, responses came over the radio.

“First Regiment acknowledges,” came the strained voice of Colonel Nishkin.

“Colonel Klava acknowledges the order,” came the subdued response from the 2nd Regimental commander.

“Third Regiment acknowledges receipt. This is the operations officer. Colonel Glatsky has just been confirmed dead on the front lines, but as yet we still have not found General—”

Borbikov interrupted. “I understand. Everyone now has sacrificed deeply, but it is time to fight. To accomplish the task at hand so these sacrifices are not in vain. I will provide instructions in a moment, but expect the offensive to resume within two hours. We will use our elite paratroopers to assault the enemy’s position, timed with reattack against all frontages, by all regiments, to pin the enemy down.”

Colonel Borbikov put the radio down and turned to the men of the command post.

“You have heard the plan for this evening’s attack. I want you to prepare all forces. Get me a count of casualties.” He turned to the paratroop commander. “Lieutenant Colonel Fedulov, you have your orders.”

The square-jawed thirty-eight-year-old held his ground against the senior officer. “Colonel, the reports from the front are dire. Third Regiment has been badly battered. Do you really believe we can make the progress you require to seize the mines?”

“The situation is not dire and you will not use such terms.”

“I only mean that the other regiments—”

Borbikov cut him off. “The other regiments will hold and pour fire onto the Marines. You will then be clear to advance.”

“But—”

“Enough of this! Do you not understand the simple advantage we have? Even just in numbers?”

“I’m not questioning the mission, but the tactics appear questionable. I have been told the other regiments are severely depleted as far as the light armor necessary to close the distances successfully goes. Our artillery has been all but wiped out.”

Borbikov glared at the paratroop commander, and he knew what the man was thinking. He was insinuating that Borbikov did not understand the master workings of tactics as well as General Lazar had.

Borbikov did not confront his allegation head-on. He just said, “The Americans will have another carrier battle group here in a day, and they will fill the skies with ground-attack aircraft. Once we take the mine, they won’t be able to dislodge us, but we must take the mine.

“You and your men are to be my shock troops for the final assault. If you can’t handle that mission, Lieutenant Colonel, I’ll take over command of your men just like I did with Colonel Kir’s troops.”

The battalion commander from the 23rd Air Assault Regiment of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division knew the conversation was over. He nodded and reached for the radio to send the logistics forward into pre-assault positions to support the paratroopers’ attack.

Borbikov sighed. Now even the most loyal men were questioning their orders. It was time for the final push, to hit these Marines with everything, and if these paratroopers failed to make the gains he demanded — failed to penetrate the Marines’ perimeter — then he would have to resort to more drastic measures to defeat the enemy.

Lieutenant Colonel Dan Connolly’s fires team had zip-tied two wounded Russian survivors of the attack on the Darkhorse command post. The battalion commander passed the word that India Company had taken heavy casualties, but they’d been able to wipe out the remainder of the BTRs that had crossed into the perimeter. They were still being hit by Russian 30mm cannon and 82mm mortar fire, but their own snipers, their Javelin teams, the LAVs, and the remaining tank seemed to be holding back any new attempts at a renewed attack.

This would not last long. They were almost out of Javelins: more had been transferred over from the eastern and western sectors, where the Russian contact was lighter, but the next concerted push by the Russians would use up the last of the Marines’ best anti-tank systems.

Connolly pulled out his remaining canteen and upended it into his mouth. It was dry. He looked around for any water close by, because he didn’t want to leave his position next to the radios in the slit trench for an instant.

He found a half-empty bottle and drank while he watched Navy corpsmen pick their way through the wrecked headquarters, treating the injured and carefully marking fallen Marines for later retrieval.

An air officer handed Connolly a dehydrated coffee packet. He ripped it open and swallowed the acidic dry crystals to give himself some needed energy before the next enemy wave appeared from the ripped and smoldering woods. More packets were passed out to other men nearby in the trench, and everyone took advantage of them.

The headquarters men, along with Connolly and his team, remained in the trench, eyes still fixed on the area to the north. Several here had been hurt, but they all deferred any treatment to the guys more severely wounded.

Connolly tasked a man with listening to the radio for the regimental commander and walked over to confer with the Darkhorse commander. Lieutenant Colonel Ben Dickenson stood in his trench. One of his sleeves had been ripped off, and dried blood was caked up and down his arm and across the back of his hand. He’d wrapped a field dressing around his elbow to stanch the bleeding, but it had soaked through and was now covered in dirt, leaves, and bits of splintered wood. A small pile of red-stained bandages lay stacked in front of him.

“Jesus, Ben, you need to get that arm looked after,” Connolly said, kneeling next to the trench, eyes facing to the north as if another BTR might dart into the clearing at any moment.

“I asked the old man for a platoon of tanks to sweep out front and send some long-range fires to the Russian APCs.”

Connolly noted the fact that his medical advice had been ignored, but he let it go. He understood. The commander of 1,200 men wouldn’t give a damn about his elbow with danger to his Marines all around. “Hope he gives it to you, Ben. How’s Darkhorse holding up?”

“We’re beat to shit, but still rock-solid in our defense. I’m headed out to tour the front lines to check them out in a few. Hey, Dan. When you radio back to Caster, tell him Darkhorse can’t be broken.”

Connolly smiled at his old friend. “I agree with that statement, brother, and I’ll ask him to hustle those tanks your way.”

For the next two hours the exhausted Marines of Darkhorse prepared for the next assault. Connolly wiped fatigue from his eyes and peered out into the darkness around the command post. After digging slit trenches and fighting holes, the men had now mostly gone underground. The rest of the men in Connolly’s small forward-fires liaison team were half-asleep on their feet, leaning against the dirt wall.

A commotion behind Connolly drew his attention away from the fires support maps he was trying to study. He pivoted in time to see the big French special forces officer walking toward his position with three other filthy but strong and heavily armed Dragoons.

Connolly called out in a hushed tone, “Captain Apollo, over here.”

Apollo led his men over to Connolly’s trench. “Mon col-o-nel,” he said. “Good to see you.”

“You, too. What are you doing here?”

“We are to perform reconnaissance on enemy staging locations and then attack forward of Darkhorse battalion defenses. If the Russians start their advance, I am to call artillery on them, and hit them hard.”

“Christ, Captain. We don’t really have a good bead on the Russians’ positions. Since their last attack, they are spread out all in front of Darkhorse, some six or eight kilometers wide. There’s been a pause in fighting since we hit their artillery park, but now there’s a no-man’s-land between us, a crisscross of machine-gun fire, razor wire, tank ditches, and mines.”

“Oui, that is why we will plot in all the Russian staging areas so you can fire artillery upon them. We have instructions to link up with a squad from India Company. They will proceed with us as guides and security.”

“Okay, I can coordinate with India. I’ll tell them to have a squad of their best waiting for you.”

The French captain asked, “Do you have any intelligence as to why the Russians paused the attack?”

“Not really, but we grabbed a couple of prisoners. They told us there is a battalion-sized element of paratroopers waiting to be sent forward into the attack.” Connolly looked down at his watch. “Don’t know if they’ll be in the next wave or not, but I’m guessing the attack will come around dawn, less than eight hours from now. Watch your ass, Captain, and don’t get caught out there in no-man’s-land when their final assault comes. I can pretty much guarantee Darkhorse will hammer the area with everything they’ve got.”

“Always careful, Col-o-nel.” Apollo signaled back to the rest of his platoon, who emerged from the dark wood line.

Including Apollo and the three men with him, there were fifty-six able-bodied Dragoons remaining in the unit. Connolly saw AT-4 rockets, heavy machine guns, and light weapons on display. They would be a formidible force for a recon element, especially when augmented with a Marine rifle squad.

Connolly added, “If you’re able to get the locations of each of their staging areas — if you spot the infantry, fuel trucks, ammunition stores, and such — I’ll fire a ‘shake-and-bake’ strike.”

Apollo gave a smile, barely visible in the darkness, understanding the military phrase. If Apollo succeeded in the reconnaissance portion of his mission, Connolly would hit the Russian infantry with a mix of high-explosive and white phosphorus artillery shells before they could step off in their final push against Darkhorse. The high-explosive shells, coupled with the burning phosphorus, were a cruel mix of indirect fires to use against troops. If successful, the shock and destruction could stop infantry and light vehicles caught in the hellish mix of razor-sharp shrapnel and the inferno of phosphorous fires that burned at over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Connolly watched Apollo and his men disappear into the broken foliage in front of the Darkhorse command post area and shook his head, recognizing anew that this venture might just become a tragedy of epic proportions.

Who knows? It might actually work. He tried to think positively, although he found optimism to be damn difficult to come by at the moment.