Vortex

CHAPTER 35 Bloody Ridge, Bloody Forest

DECEMBER 25-MOBILE HEADQUARTERS, ALLIED

EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, NEAR THE OCEAN TERMINAL, DURBAN

Trailed by a small security detachment of fully armed U.S. Marines, Lt.

Gen. Jerry Craig made his way through the wreckage littering Durban’s waterfront. What he saw was not making him happy. A freshening sea breeze had blown the stench of cordite and sun-bloated corpses inland, but all the clean salt air in the world couldn’t hide the damage inflicted by days of bitter fighting and deliberate sabotage.

Out in the harbor, oil-coated waves lapped gently against the rusting superstructures of ships sunk to block the main channel. Other burnt-out hulks sagged against the docks themselves, entangled in the torn and twisted skeletons of fallen cargo-handling cranes. Mounds of fire-blackened rubble from bomb-and shell-shattered buildings choked off the spiderweb of streets and rail lines spreading out from the port into

Durban proper.

Bulldozer engines, chain saws, and acetylene torches

?”

roared, howled, and hissed as the nine hundred men of Craig’s Marine combat engineer battalion tried frantically to clear paths through the debris. But the sheer volume of work remaining seemed to make a mockery of all their efforts. Although Diederichs’s garrison troops had failed to hold the city, their stubborn defense had left it a smoking ruin.

Two days after all significant Afrikaner resistance had collapsed, South

Africa’s largest deepwater harbor remained closed to Allied shipping. And until its docks and access roads could be reopened, Craig’s British and

American forces would remain dependent on whatever supplies and equipment could be brought in over the beach or by air. Most of his main battle tanks and self-propelled guns were still parked offshore-crowding the decks and cargo spaces of fast transports waiting impatiently at anchor.

Craig frowned. A few heavy vehicles had been ferried in one at a time by the U.S. Navy’s overworked air-cushion landing craft. Not enough to make an appreciable battlefield contribution, just enough to impose even more strain on a supply system already laboring to provide the fuel, ammunition, and food the expeditionary force needed.

All of which left the advance inland toward Pretoria in the hands of a few infantry battalions backed by light armor, artillery, and carrier-based air power. He quickened his pace, skirting a trio of bomb craters pock marking the quay side road. His men were pushing forward as fast as they could, but every hour’s delay in opening the harbor gave Vorster that much more time to rush additional troops into the Drakensberg Mountains-a rugged band of steep mountains and forested ridges separating Natal’s lowlands from the open grasslands of the high veld

The chubby, straw-haired lieutenant colonel commanding his combat engineers saw Craig coming and hurried over.

“Sir.” He saluted wearily. Sweat stains under his arms and dark rings under his eyes showed that he’d been working side by side with his men for nearly forty-eight hours straight.

“Colonel. ” Craig casually returned his salute and gestured at the mess visible on all sides.

“I need your best guess, Jim. How much longer before we can start off-loading here?”

The younger man stared at the controlled chaos along the waterfront as though seeing it all for the very first time. Three days. Maybe four.”

His shoulders slumped.

“My boys are pretty near the edge, General. Some of ‘em are so tired they’re starting to walk right into booby traps a five year-old could’ve spotted.”

Craig nodded. He’d watched the casualty reports climb steadily. In the two days since Durban had officially been 11 pacified,” the engineer battalion had lost more than ten men killed, with another forty or so seriously wounded. Snipers, explosive booby traps, and fatigue-related accidents were eroding the effectiveness of a unit he was sure to need later.

He raised his voice as a bulldozer rumbled by, shoving a burned-out car away from the road.

“We’re bringing in some help from the Cape. Sort of a Christmas present. The One oh one’s putting its engineers on C-141 s right now. Air Force says they’ll be here by the end of the day. “

It took several seconds to sink in. Then the lieutenant colonel nodded gratefully. The Army air assault division’s combat engineers wouldn’t have their equipment with them, but they could be used to spell his own men. Even without bringing in extra gear, doubling the number of skilled people working might cut up to twenty-four hours from the time needed to clear the port.

The battalion commander saluted a second time, this time with more vigor and enthusiasm. The news that he’d be getting reinforcements seemed to have stripped years off his age.

“We’ll get these goddamned docks open

ASAP, General. You can take that to the bank.”

“I already have, Jim. I already have. Now you get some rest yourself when those Army pukes show up, you hear me?” Craig patted the other man on the shoulder.

“I need a smart, tough engineer in charge of this operation-not a walking zombie. “

“Yes, sir.

Craig turned away, already moving back to his waiting helicopter. He’d come to the waterfront himself to show the colonel and his men just how important their efforts were to the whole expeditionary force-not to try micro managing every last detail of their work. In his book, you found the right man for the job, gave him the tools he needed, and then got the hell out of his way.

As he neared the camouflaged UH-60 Blackhawk serving as his command transport, an aide hurried overbent low to clear the helicopter’s still-turning rotor.

“General! Sixth Brigade HQ reports our guys outside

Pietermaritzburg are taking fire from heavy arty!” ‘

Craig grabbed the captain by the arm and spun him back around. Their free ride was over. Vorster’s generals had a blocking force in place.

With one hand clapped onto his helmet to hold it in place, Craig raced ahead and hauled himself aboard the Blackhawk. The Marine riflemen assigned to protect him followed at a dead run.

Thirty seconds later, the command helo rolled forward on its wheels, lifted off, and raced low over the harbor-moving south at a hundred knots toward the shell-scarred runway at Louis Botha International Airport. Radio reports of the fighting continued to crackle through Craig’s headphones.

His American and British troops were securely ashore on the Natal coast, but Vorster’s Afrikaners were clearly serving notice that any further gains would have to be paid for in blood.

3RD BATTALION, 6TH MARINE EXPEDITIONARY

BRIGADE, SOUTHEAST OF PIETERMARITZBURG, SOUTH

AFRICA

The Victorian homes and quiet suburban streets of Natal’s provincial capital, Pietermaritzburg, lay eerily at rest below steep wooded hiNs rising on all sides. No cars moved down the wide N3 Motor Route or rattled along the narrow roads winding off to the farms and small clusters of houses that doffed the forested hollow. Clouds sent patches of shadow rippling over the ground, drifting almost idly from east to west.

A clock chimed the hour from a tall, redbrick tower over the city hall.

Its ringing, melodic tones echoed from building

to building before dying away among the dense groves of mo pane and acacia trees spread across the slopes above the city. Drawn curtains or blinds in every window made Pietermaritzburg and its suburbs look deserted.

They weren’t.

One thousand meters south of the open green fields of the Scottsville

Race Course, soldiers wearing full packs and carrying M16s were visible-moving steadily north along the highway. The U.S. Marines were entering Pietermaritzburg on foot.

Backed by a platoon of four LAV-25s, Bravo Company’s three rifle platoons trudged grimly in single file along either side of the road. Except for a thin screen of four-man recon teams, they were the advance guard for the whole Allied expeditionary force-one hundred riflemen probing far ahead of massive air, sea, and ground contingents already numbering more than fifty thousand men.

Craig’s field commanders were using Bravo Company’s Marines in much the same way that a man would use a stick to poke carefully through the branches of a tree while looking for a hornets’ nest. The trouble was that, in this case, any hornets found were likely to be very hard on the stick.

Whooosh. The long columns of marching Marines reacted instantly to the high-pitched, screaming whirr of a shell arcing overhead. Men scattered into the empty fields to either side of the road. The LAVs spun round in a semicircle and accelerated, racing for the shelter offered by a nearby overpass.

“Incoming!”

Capt. Jon Ziss dropped flat by the left side of the highway. His radioman and the others in the company command group threw themselves down on the dirt beside him.

Whaammm. Flame, smoke, and shattered pieces of roadway fountained high into the air barely one hundred meters ahead. Fragments spattered down all around, clattering off Kevlar helmets and backpacks.

As the smoke and dust thrown by the shell burst rolled past, Ziss slowly raised his head. Although his ears were still ringing from the blast, he could hear agonized screams rising from men of his First Platoon. Three or four Marines lay huddled on the pavement, scythed down by splinters. He risked a quick glance at the surrounding terrain.

To the west, a row of wood-frame, one-story houses offered the only possible cover. The flat fairways and shallow sand traps of a golf course to the east would be a killing ground for enemy artillery. And the same could be said of the racetrack to the north. He and his troops could only run west.

Whooosh. Another round howled in out of the sky, landing farther back this time.

Whaammm. The 155mm South African shell slammed straight into the rearmost

LAV and blew it apart. Pieces of armor and mangled rubber tires spiraled off the road.

Jesus. For several seconds, Ziss stared in horror at the blazing wreck, unable to move. Then reason took over. The Afrikaners had to have an OP, a hidden observation post, directing their fire. So either he and his troops got out of sight or they’d be slaughtered out here in the open.

He scrambled to his feet, shouting, “Let’s move it, people! Into those houses! Over there!” He waved an arm to the west.

All up and down the freeway, individual Marines rose and ran for cover, each bent forward at the waist as though he were pushing forward against high winds. Another shell burst behind them and several more men were bowled over-left lying dead or badly wounded.

Ziss found himself running side by side with his radioman, Lance Corporal

Pitts. He grabbed the handset Pitts offered.

“Mike One Two, this is Bravo

Six Six, over.”

“Go ahead, Six Six.” Ziss recognized the deep Southern drawl of his battalion commander.

“Give me a sitrep.

The two men charged through an open garden gate and slid to a stop beside one of the houses. Panting Marines from Bravo’s First and Second Platoons pushed in after them. The artillery barrage ended-leaving behind a strange silence broken only by moaning from the wounded sprawled across the highway.

Ziss moved across the backyard of the house and crouched low next to a row of rose bushes planted as a hedge. He punched the transmit button on his handset, noticing with

some detachment that both his hands were shaking.

“We took some arty, One

Two. Big stuff. They’ve got the N3 zeroed in and spotters out there somewhere.”

“Do you want fast movers? Over.” The Navy had bomb laden flights of

F/A-18s and A-6s circling overhead on call, just itching for the chance to blow South African guns or troops to kingdom come.

The Marine captain shook his head impatiently, realized what he was doing, and punched the talk button again.

“Negative, One Two. I don’t have any observed targets. We’re gonna have to hunt for their damned OP.

“

“Understood.” His battalion commander paused and then came back on line.

“The Navy says their flyboys didn’t manage to spot any of those guns firing.”

No kidding. The South African artillery battery was probably parked almost forty klicks away-well hidden among the Drakensberg’s woodlands and narrow mountain valleys. A plane would practically have to pass right over an artillery piece while it was firing to see anything. Even then the Afrikaner gunners were undoubtedly moving their weapons from camouflaged firing position to firing position-employing the classic battlefield tactic of “shoot and scoot. “

Ziss shook his head in frustration. They needed counter battery radar to pinpoint the enemy artillery-and all of the MAF’s target acquisition units were still tied down providing protection for the Louis Botha

Airport.

That left the Marines with just one unpalatable option: they’d have to scour every inch of Pietermaritzburg and its surrounding hills in what was very likely to be a vain search for the enemy observation team calling down the artillery. Until then, South Africa’s big guns could sweep the N3 and block any significant advance toward Pretoria. Heavily armored main battle tanks might be able to roll right through a barrage, but fuel tankers and troop trucks would be sitting ducks.

He staggered upright, trying to get a better look at the terrain ahead.

Once past this small spur of residential development and the racetrack, the ground sloped down toward a small stream before rising again into the city proper. Church spires and the tower of a Moslem mosque were sharply outlined against the treelined escarpment.

Terrific. A single rifle company couldn’t even begin to cover that much territory.

“We’re going to need some help on this, One Two.”

“Understood.” Another brief pause while the battalion CO evidently tried to unscramble what had suddenly become a very confused situation.

“Alpha and

Charlie companies are closing on your position now. Plus Brigade has released another platoon of LAVs and some M60s for support. I’m shifting the HQ forward now, so hold up until we get there. “

“Will do.” Ziss saw a medic go by at the run, medkit and bandages in hand.

Oh, Christ. He’d almost forgotten about his wounded.

“I need a dust-off here, One Two. I’ve got several wounded for immediate evac. “

“Roger that. Dust-off is already en route. ETA is five minutes. ” His commander’s businesslike tone shifted, becoming more concerned.

“Hang on,

Jon. We’re coming. Out. “

Ziss acknowledged and signed off, not sure which of the two emotions warring within him was stronger-relief now that help was on the way, or irritation at being treated a little like a panic-stricken teenager. He handed the mike back to his radioman and moved off in search of his platoon leaders. They had some planning to do.

“Captain!” He hadn’t taken more than five or six steps when Pitts caught up with him.

“Rover Three One reports hostile movement on the western slopes of Signal Hill.” Rover Three One was the call sign for one of the recon teams scouting the ground in front of Bravo Company.

Signal Hill? Now just where the hell was that? He flipped open a tattered topographical map. There it was. A nine hundred-foot high, wooded hill just west of the city. He almost smiled. The Afrikaners were starting to show themselves. Fine. Time for an air strike. He grabbed the handset again.

“Mike One Two, this is BravoA sudden loud popping sound made him look up just as a

window in a nearby house shattered. And for the second time in only a few minutes, Ziss threw himself prone.

“Sniper! Hit the dirt! “

He wriggled back to the line of rose bushes as M16s opened up from houses all around-punching rounds in the general direction of Pietermaritzburg.

The company’s M60 machinegun teams were next, indiscriminately hosing down buildings and treetops that might conceal Afrikaner troops. Parked cars hit by gunfire started going up in flames.

Capt. Jon Ziss gritted his teeth and checked the clip in his own rifle.

This was going to be one bitch of a day.

DECEMBER 27-FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, TOWN

HILL, NORTH OF PIETERMARITZBURG

Town Hill rose nearly nine hundred feet above the Natal lowlands, and more than three hundred feet above Pietermaritzburg’s central business district. For years, the city’s wealthiest families had been building their homes on its slopes, drawn by its spectacular views and easy access to the Durban-Johannesburg highway. And now the same factors made Town

Hill the perfect site for the forward headquarters of the Allied expeditionary force.

In the middle of a street once reserved for Mercedes and other luxury automobiles, four camouflaged command vehicles sat parked back-to-back in a rough circle. Tarpaulins covered the open spaces between them, essentially creating a single large headquarters tent. Staff officers from two countries and all four branches of the armed forces crowded the tent-receiving reports from fighting units scattered all across South

Africa, planning the next day’s operations, and generally getting in each other’s way.

Lt. Gen. Jerry Craig stood outside, ignoring the controlled chaos of his forward HQ. His binoculars were focused on the N3 Motor Route as it wound northwest through a narrow valley. He frowned. Right now the road looked more like a serpentine parking lot than a superhighway.

Long columns of trucks, APCs, and other vehicles were backed up all the way south through the city-evidently brought to a dead stop by more fighting somewhere up ahead. An ambush? More harassing fire from South African heavy guns? A roadblock? Craig shrugged. It didn’t really matter. What did matter was that Vorster’s troops were slowing his advance to a nightmarish crawl.

Just securing Pietermaritzburg had taken a full day, three infantry battalions, air strikes, artillery bombardments, and dozens of casualties.

Since then, his men had been forced to fight for every kilometer they gained on the only main road from Natal to Pretoria.

The pattern was always the same. Units moving along the highway would take sudden fire from enemy troops hidden on a hill, behind a ridge, or in a side canyon. In response, they had to deploy off the road, call in air or artillery to pound suspected Afrikaner positions, and then peel off platoons or companies to drive any survivors back into the mountains.

Craig lowered his binoculars and shook his head in frustration. There were enough trails and dirt roads running through the Drakensberg to support small Afrikaner units operating against his flanks-but not enough to sustain his own, larger force. Getting to Johannesburg and Pretoria with a powerful mechanized army meant driving straight up the

N3.

Two AV-8B Harrier jump jets suddenly howled past at low altitude, heading for a battlefield somewhere farther along the highway. Bombs bulked large beneath their stubby wings.

Craig silently urged the Harrier pilots on. C’mon, boys, give the bastards hell, but give it to them fast.

Time, as always, was an enemy. His intelligence officers claimed that the

Cubans weren’t advancing any faster. But the Cubans were just 160 kilometers away from South Africa’s capita) and its richest minerals complex. His own troops were still more than 500 kilometers away. You didn’t have to be a mathematical genius to realize that was a prescription for a losing race.

The sound of squealing brakes drew his attention away

from his strategic problems. He turned around. A U.S. Army Hummvee had just pulled up in front of his improvised command tent.

The Hummvee’s sole passenger, a dapper, bantamweight general whose gray, crew-cut hair still showed flecks of black, climbed out and headed straight for him. The man’s lean, suntanned face showed signs of intense anger and irritation.

Craig stood his ground, preparing himself to exercise a little-used virtue-patience. Holding a unified command sometimes meant having to coddle and cajole fractious subordinates from all the service branches.

He returned the other man’s rigid salute.

“Sam.”

“General. “

Uh-oh. Formality between near-equals almost always spelled trouble.

“What can I do for you?”

Maj. Gen. Samuel Weber, commander of the 24th Mechanized Infantry

Division, tried valiantly to keep the anger out of his voice. He failed.

“I’d like to know why the ships with my tanks are still sitting off the goddamned port. I’ve got a hundred and fifty MI tanks out there-all set to come ashore and blow the shit out of these frigging Boers. And I’ve got the crews to man ‘em, but they’re just sitting on their butts at Cape

Town waiting to fly in to the airport here. So what gives?”

Craig bit back the first words that came to mind. Treating a two-star

Army general like an unruly Marine second lieutenant probably wouldn’t be the best way to foster interservice cooperation. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“The engineers have only been able to clear enough room to dock one ship at a time, Sam. And right now I need that space to off-load mote essential material.”

“More essential?” Weber nodded toward the stalled columns crowding the highway below.

“Christ, Jerry, you need some heavy armor to break this thing loose and gain some running room. Otherwise we’re still gonna be slogging to Pretoria come the Fourth of July.”

Craig shook his head forcefully.

“Your MIs couldn’t do much for us right now, Sam.” He motioned toward the panorama of rugged, broken ridges and patches of forest spreading west, north, and northeast from Pietermaritzburg.

“We have to push through another hundred klicks like that before we’ll reach anything resembling good tank country.”

“Hell.” Weber scuffed at the pavement with one highly polished combat boot. He looked up.

“I’ll tell you what, Jerry. You and I both know the

Boers don’t have much that can even scratch the paint on one of my tanks.

So bring my MIs ashore, and I’ll go tearing up this goddamned highway so fast we’ll be in Jo’burg before Vorster takes his morning dump.”

Craig chuckled, pleased by the Army general’s aggressive instincts. For a second, he was half-tempted to let the man try his proposed hightech cavalry charge. Then reality stomped back in bearing a few ugly and unfortunate facts.

Weber was only half right. His tanks could probably break past Vorster’s blocking force without much trouble or many losses. But just running the

Afrikaner gauntlet of ambushes and artillery fire with an armored column wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. Tanks had to have infantry support to hold any ground they gained, and they had to have gas to keep moving.

And neither the infantry’s APCs nor convoys of highly flammable fuel trucks could advance until his lead brigades finished doing what they were already doing-securing every hill and ridge overlooking the N3, meter by bloody meter.

Craig shrugged, unable at the moment to see any practical alternative to a prolonged slugging match through the mountains. And given that, the

Allied expeditionary force needed fuel, ammo, artillery, and infantry replacements even more than it needed the 24this main battle tanks.

Weber’s M-Is would only come into their own once his American and British troops broke out onto the flat, open grasslands of the veld.

The sound of distant thunder-heavy artillery–echoed down the highway.

Both officers turned and hurried into the command tent, their argument forgotten and unimportant in the face of yet another Afrikaner attack.

DECEMBER 29-A COMPANY, 3RD BATTALION, THE PARACHUTE REGIMENT, EAST OF

ROSETTA, SOUTH AFRICA

Though the lateafternoon sun seemed to set the far-off slopes of the

Drakensberg Mountains aflame, it left northern Natal’s narrow valleys and treelined hollows cloaked in growing shadow. Ten kilometers south of the

Mooi River, real fires glowed orange in the gathering darkness. Soldiers wearing red berets and green, brown, and tan woodland-pattern camouflage uniforms clustered around the fires sipping scalding hot heavily sugared tea. Men born and reared in London’s crowded East End, the isolated West

Country, the rusting, industrialized north, or southern England’s rich farmlands and suburbs stood chatting together-their mingled voices and different accents rising and failing beneath overhanging mo pane and acacia trees. After a hard day’s march north along National Route Three, 3 Para’s

A Company was having a last “brew-up” before digging in for the night.

The muted roar of diesel engines drifted up the road as convoys of overworked trucks ferried supplies inland from the Durban beachhead, now nearly ninety kilometers behind them. The Paras could also hear the muffled thump of mortar rounds landing somewhere back along the road, audible proof that some of their “follow-on” forces were again catching hell from stay-behind Boer commandos.

Most paid little attention to the noise. A weeks’ worth of combat in the

Drakensberg’s rugged foothills had taught them how to ignore the sound of gunfire not aimed in their direction.

Maj. John Farwell, A Company’s tall, hook-nosed commander, moved from campfire to campfire collecting his officers and senior NCOs. His two signalers followed close behind, made easy to spot by the thin radio antennas rocking back and forth over their heads. Soldiers who saw them go past muttered uneasily to one another and began checking their weapons out of long habit. As a general rule, the major disliked formal meetings and avoided holding them whenever possible. So an orders group such as the one they saw forming probably meant action was imminent.

The Paras’s instincts were on target. New information had generated new orders. The six hundred soldiers of 3 Para were being committed to a night attack.

Five minutes later, Farwell had his platoon leaders and sergeants assembled in a small clearing by the side of the road. He looked up into a semicircle of fire-lit faces. Some of the men seemed surprisingly eager, almost elated by the prospect of a real “set-piece” battle.

Others, more imaginative, wiser, or simply more experienced, looked grimly determined instead. All seemed horribly young to their thirty five-year-old company commander.

He unfolded a map and spread it out in the light thrown by the campfire.

“All right, chaps. Here’s the gist of what we’re up to….” He spoke rapidly and with more confidence than he felt, outlining the situation they faced and the broad plan of attack passed down from battalion HQ.

Two hours before, elements of D Company, the parachute battalion’s special patrol unit, had contacted what appeared to be a company-sized

Afrikaner infantry force digging in along the last ridgeline separating the Allies from the broad Mooi River valley. They showed no signs of being willing to withdraw without exacting a steep toll in lives and lost time. And by daylight their defenses might be strong enough to delay the expeditionary force’s advance for several hours-hours the Allies could not afford to lose.

So the British paratroops were going to attack immediately, accepting the inherent risks and confusion of a night battle in order to strike before the Boers finished building their bunkers and fighting positions. To minimize the inevitable confusion, 3 Para’s battalion staff had laid out a simple and straightforward plan. After a brief artillery barrage,

Farwell and his A Company would storm the ridge east of the highway. Its counterpart, B Company, would drive on the heights to the west at the same moment. The Support Company’s machinegun and Milan antitank missile teams would be positioned along the Start Line, ready to move up and “shoot in” both assaults. If all went well, they’d be able to crush the enemy blocking force and unbar the road for a faster advance in the morning.

“And the colonel will hold C Company in reserve … here. ” Farwell’s finger pointed to a tiny stream shown meandering along the base of the enemy-held ridge.

“That should allow those Charlie Company layabouts to reinforce either axis of the attack … if anybody needs their rather dubious help. “

As he’d intended, this last comment prompted a few quick, nervous grins.

A and C companies had a long-standing but friendly rivalry.

Farwell sat back on his haunches and studied his subordinates.

“Well, that’s it then, gentlemen. Are there any questions?”

“Yes, sir.” The freckle-faced lieutenant commanding 2 Platoon leaned forward, his expression troubled.

“Why not use D Company to make a flanking attack? I mean, going straight up that slope seems likely to be a bit sticky.”

Farwell nodded. It was a good question, one that deserved a straight answer. He traced the tangle of gullies and ravines shown extending to either side of the highway below the ridge.

“I’m afraid we simply don’t have time for such subtlety, Jack. It might take D Company hours to work its way into position through that mess.” He shook his head.

“And who knows what the blasted Boers might have waiting for them when they got there?”

The lieutenant nodded slowly, reluctantly conceding the point. No one else spoke up.

Farwell let the silence drag on a few seconds longer and then climbed to his feet. The other men hurriedly followed suit.

“Very well, gentlemen. You have your orders. You may brief your platoons at your leisure. ” He smiled broadly.

“But make sure that happens to be sometime during the next five minutes. We’re moving up to the Start Line in ten, so don’t be late. Dismissed.”

As the orders group broke up, Farwell moved among his officers and

NCOs-shaking hands with one, clapping the shoulder of another. It seemed the least he could do. Privately, he didn’t expect many of these young men would be alive to see the next sunrise. And since he planned to lead the attack personally, he counted himself among the likely casualties.

BLOCKING FORCE, NORTHERN NATAL COMMANDO

BRIGADE, ON THE RIDGE SOUTH OF THE MOOI RIVER

VALLEY

The scraping and rustling noises made by men digging in rocky soil carried far in the blackness under the trees carpeting the ridge. Foxholes and bunkers were being Jug more by feel than by sight, and any necessary orders were passed along the chain of sweating, middle-aged soldiers in harsh, piercing whispers.

One hundred meters east of the spot where the N3 Motor Route cut through the ridge, short, broad-shouldered Sgt. Gerrit Meer laid his shovel to one side and straightened his aching back. Ag, he thought disgustedly, this whole thing was blery stupid-the product of some foolish staff officer’s diseased mind.

He didn’t object to fighting the Uitlanders, far from it. Meer came from the town of Mooirivier itself, and he didn’t want to see a horde of black-loving invaders swarming freely through his hometown streets. But he did object to being asked to commit suicide.

And that was what his commanders seemed to have planned. He’d spent six years fighting along the Republic’s borders before coming home to his family farm. So he knew enough about tactics to view the ridge as a potential death trap. The same trees that sheltered the commando from observation by enemy aircraft would provide cover for any attacker moving upslope. Even worse, with the open countryside of the Mooi River valley behind them, he and his comrades wouldn’t have anywhere safe to retreat to when the time came.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the sergeant didn’t think there were enough men here to hold the ridge for long against a determined assault.

It might have been different if the full

commando had mustered, but more than half hadn’t even bothered to show up at the assembly point.

Meer hawked once and spat. Traitorous rooinek swine. His English neighbors loathed the blacks as much as he did. He knew that for a fact. So what did they do the moment the going got tough? They ran away to save their own skins. He scowled. When this war was over, there would have to be a reckoning with such cowards.

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.

Sounds were amplified by his inability to see anything clearly. Time slowed and finally seemed to stop entirely.

Damn it, where were they? Meer could feel his heart pounding again, feeling as though it might break out of his body with every separate beat.

There! Howling, yelling, defiant shapes raced out of the concealing smoke, lunging forward with fixed bayonets. He saw one man coming straight for him-all glittering eyes and a hate-filled, blackened face beneath a steel helmet.

God. He shot and shot and shot again. The Englishman stumbled, folded in on himself, and fell facedown in the dirt.

Meer’s panic vanished in that same instant. He laughed aloud in exultation and rose to his knees, swinging from side to side-looking for more foreigners to kill.

Another small, round shape sailed out of the smoke and landed behind him.

Whummp. The blast threw him forward against the lip of his foxhole and left him lying there for a split second, bleeding and dazed. Some instinct told him to stay down, to accept defeat.

No! It would not be! Meer spat pieces of gravel and sand out of his torn mouth and pushed himself to his knees again. Vague shapes wavered in front of his watering eyes. He fumbled for his rifle.

He never really saw the British paratrooper who came screaming out of the mist and swirling dust. He was conscious only of a sudden, sharp, tearing pain as the man’s bayonet slammed into his chest, reaching for his heart.

Gerrit Meer fell backward into his half-dug foxhole. He didn’t feel the point-blank shot the Para fired to extract his bayonet. The Afrikaner sergeant was already dead, staring up at the smoke-shrouded night sky with sightless eyes. The ridge guarding the Mooi River valley had fallen.