Reinforcements and Raids
Disclaimer: Read the disclaimer in the chapter before this one.
We have been reinforced; seventy new billets have been filled. These new boys are in fresh desert brown uniforms. They're uniforms aren't faded to an almost whitish-yellow that ours have faded to after six months in the desert. They are children really, seventeen or eighteen years old, with uniforms that hang off their bodies like rags. No tailor has ever made a uniform to fit child-like measurements. I'm sure I must have appeared similar to them when I first joined Army Corps Africa.
El Agheila seems a long and distant memory, Tripoli where Army Corps Africa came ashore six months earlier is even more so. It is at least fifty kilometers behind our frontlines. Ivy has recently written me saying that Zack is already registered with Selective Service and is over seventeen. She's worried, as are his parent's, that he will be drafted. If he does, I hope he winds up in the North Africa Theater, and becomes one of "The Africans" so I can at least attempt to take care of him. If not, I hope he ends up in the Pacific theater, clearing the islands of Biohazard infestation. If anything I hope the boy doesn't wind up in Dyson City or the rumored Europe operation. France, Germany, and the Low Countries are fighting a Biohazard outbreak of their own. Wherever he winds up, I hope he encounters a friendly and experienced old hand that will take care of him as Kat has done for me and the others.
I hear the first rifle shots as Staff Sergeant Burton, Weapon's Platoon, an easy going hunter from Alaska, is helping our reinforcements sight their rifles. I scratch again at the lice that have been infesting my clothing. The delousing chemicals for our clothes have yet to be delivered so those of us from the front lines, and even the new recruits, suffer from the infestation to a varying degree. Kat, the old front hound that he is, with a nose for bad weather, good food, and soft duty, is already throwing on his fatigues and getting to the delousing station. I throw on my boots hastily and walk alongside him, donning my forage cap.
"Do you think there are any delousing chemicals at the station?" I ask.
"Hopefully, but I'll find some, wake Fressan and the others when we do find any." Kat says.
At the delousing station, medics take our clothes and rinse them in the chemical we seek. Already I see Kat negotiating with a nurse for a quantity of the stuff. I already see several of the gray bugs lying dead on the surface of the soapy substance in the pan where our clothes are spread. Now it's time to lie in the delousing baths. They come in two varieties, the hot water or the cold water. I like the hot water delousing baths because they bring to mind memories of lying in a hot bath at home. I enjoy the sleepy feeling it brings about, the way it evaporates all cares in the world.
The best feeling is climbing out of the delousing baths, I see several of the dead bugs floating in the warm water mixed in with delousing chemicals and as I go through the short rinse off shower I wrap my towel around my waist and find my clothes, folded and deloused, atop a bench.
I wait for Kat outside the delousing station and see him walk out, carrying a jerry can full of the delousing chemical. We wake Fressan, Wiersbowski, Bronsky, and Pilgrim who all help us in pouring the jerry can's contents into a large pan. We all douse every piece of clothing we have into it and Kat saves the remainder of the jerry can to see if he can't trade it for anything else we might want or need.
As the day wears on, rumors of another big offensive, aimed at taking Benghazi. We have already taken Agedabla with elements of the 9th Sicilian Infantry and 3rd Egyptian Armored Divisions. These rumors are being substantiated because of the seventy new reinforcements, the hasty weapons training these seventy men are receiving and the almost daily arrival of ammunition trucks to our position. It is now October, 2141, six months ago we arrived in Tripoli and reoccupied many of the Biohazard infected areas as well as reinforced the 9th Sicilian Infantry Division, 115th Libyan Infantry Division, and 3rd Egyptian Armored Division.
We see a cloud of dust over the horizon, several half-tracks and tanks of the 27th Armored Division, reinforcing our position. We are sure our fearless leader General DeRutyer, Army Corps Africa, intends to use Agedabla as a springboard to retake Benghazi. Our original orders stated we must aid the Libyan, Egyptian, and Sicilian forces fighting to contain the spread of the Biohazard into Libya. DeRutyer, however, is deciding to take the offensive.
There is an expectant and jubilant mood among several of the men in the barracks. Even some of the once dispirited Sicilians, who have billets close to where we are encamped, are in high spirits. They are hardy, weary men who had been fighting in an ever shrinking perimeter, to keep the Biohazard from spreading any farther into Libya. The tankers are especially happy, because they form the spearhead of our offensive. Those of us in the infantry often have to pick up the pace quite a bit in order to keep up. Several large 90mm anti-tank and 105mm howitzer guns are taking up positions a kilometer ahead of us.
The next day we march off to the front lines, passing a column of Libyan infantry that were occupying our positions. Their uniforms are ragged and dirty, their faces covered with fine layers of dust and almost hidden under their helmets, they hunch forward under the weight of their gear.
We settle into our trenches, and as we do so, we automatically become conscious of the ground, we take note of every shallow depression, every shell crater, every wadi in the dunes, every dried creek bed. We know these are great areas to take cover whenever we are under bombardment. We dig in and prepare for the offensive we are about to take part in.
We have a four hour watch at the machinegun in my dugout. Wiersbowski, the Wraith gunner in our squad, holds his fully automatic 20mm Wraith cannon cradled across his knees as he naps in our dugout. Many pouches of 20 round magazines are worn on his web gear as well as two spare barrels in a tube across his back.
Pilgrim awakens me from a shallow and light sleep at 0100 and I take my watch at the machinegun. My tired eyes scan the landscape, lit by the light of the full moon. The desert is far from the dreams of oasis and balmy tropical breezes that inspired many in our ranks to become one of "The Africans" it is extremely hot in the daytime, yet freezing cold at night. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a starburst flare. I shut my eyes, reopen them, and let them adjust. All of a sudden I can identify ogres creeping up towards our foxhole. I kick Pilgrim awake and he proceeds to wake the other soldiers in our dugout.
I squeeze the trigger and let the MG 70 light machinegun do its dirty work. Almost as soon as I realize I've zipped through an entire belt of ammunition, the ogres are gone, either dead or retreated across the no- man's land. Fressan takes my place at the machinegun and I settle into the hazy and uneasy sleep common to the frontline soldier.
I am awakened, as are we all, by the bursts of shells from our artillery just before dawn. I check my watch, 0200. The tanks speed forth, firing their own main guns toward the infested sections of Benghazi, barely visible in the distance. From our dugouts the infantry swarm out, advancing behind the tanks. The Sicilians fill in as our rear guard and I do not envy them in the least. They must be ever more vigilant for flanking attacks, delaying actions, or anything else that may come their way for if they fail, we will be cut off in Benghazi from our base in El Agheila.
I run forth, as the tanks fire their main guns at forward enemy positions. The great metal behemoths are followed by mechanized infantry in their half tracks and with assault guns, a 75 mm anti-tank gun mounted atop the chassis of a tank with a little armored shield to protect the crew from frontal attack. We follow behind and are at enemy forward positions.
Our patrol makes contact with a contingent of ogres and rifle fire begins again. The fighting starts to go hand to hand. Kat buries his sharpened entrenching tool into the neck of a huge ogre, sending black blood spurting from the ceratoid artery all over him and the desert sand. Wiersbowski fires a short burst of 20mm shells that rip an ogre in half. Several zombies lurch toward us. I drop to one knee, focus my sights and squeeze the trigger. I see Pilgrim bury his bayonet deep into a zombie's chest and kick it back out again from the corner of my eye. Bronsky fires bursts from his electric gun that burn down a pair of zombies that has crept in behind me. An ogre comes charging my way. I stand up, step sideways and bring the butt of my rifle down onto the side of its skull, caving it in. Almost as soon the ogres break contact, only to be ambushed by several Egyptian half- tracks up the road.
Battle at night could almost be as beautiful as any illumination show ever created if it weren't so dangerous. Bursts of light from flares, Verey lights, and starburst shells light up the sky almost as bright as day. Tracer rounds from machinegun belts arc in a terrific and terrible display. Shell bursts from our anti-aircraft guns and rockets and missiles from our Predator gunships flying overhead add to the display.
An energy orb explodes behind me, and as soon as I hear it coming, I dive for the ground and roll away from it. Sand explodes in a geyser and covers us over. My helmet falls from my head as the flash from an illumination round explodes over my head. In it's brief flash I see Andi's smiling face, in that lovely green dress that I had taken her to her high school prom in.
I feel a hand behind me and hear Kat yelling, "Get up! We're still advancing. Are you alright?"
I shakily recover my helmet and place it atop my head, I grab my rifle and feed a new clip into the magazine and join the attack which has already reached Benghazi's outskirts. The tanks are firing shells into buildings ahead of us as well as firing their .50 caliber machineguns at expected hiding places. We hunker down behind the tanks, the advance slowing through the narrow streets of Benghazi's casbah.
A Gollum pops out from a manhole cover twenty meters away from me. Kat shoots it right in the face and I toss a grenade down the tunnel after it. I can hear scurrying feet and then a loud boom. The Gollum must have had some kind of help. We are sent forth to clear a house to our front just as several D9 Armored bulldozers drive up to smash down walls.
I am tasked with watching the squad's back as Kat kicks the door down with Sergeant McCron behind him. McCron throws a grenade into the room and is rewarded by hearing the thud of a body hitting the ground. A dead zombie falls out of the kitchen and into the foyer. A zombified Egyptian soldier comes towards me, his sand brown uniform ragged, the stench of decay and death coming off him in waves. I level my rifle and squeeze of two shots to his chest and one to his head. He falls.
I check the corpse for ammunition, finding a full magazine pouch as well as a 9mm pistol and two fifteen round clips. This find is lucky for the next close in fight I get into, I have a suitable firearm. I put the dead man's magazine pouches and pistol on my web gear and follow the rest of my squad.
We have secured our objective and more. The other half of Benghazi remains, but that is to be done later. Tired, we hunker down in improvised billets and await the next attack. I make sure the pistol I acquired is clean and place it on a lanyard attached to my web gear, the safety is on and a round is chambered in case we are attacked tonight.
A curious yet terrible sight follows our advance at all times. From refugee camps to the rear of our positions, long columns of displaced persons follow. One toothless old woman pokes among piles of dead zombies we had killed yesterday. She does this as Kat soaks them with a can of petroleum. She finds one body, stops, and then falls to her knees, wailing in agony. We cannot set the pyre alight until she moves away, and she refuses. An Egyptian soldier comes to our position and explains that the body of this zombie is her son's and she wants to bury it. We are under orders to destroy all corpses created by the plague. The old woman is insistent but the Egyptian persuades her that we have to follow our order. She breaks away, wailing as Kat lights the pile ablaze.
We go out on patrol, now at the fringes of our territory, the eastern outskirts of Benghazi. Kat, Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, and myself are the more experienced members of this patrol. Sergeant McCron with Fressan on point and Bronsky operating his radio are to the front. Wiersbowski is further to the rear of the formation, watching our backs.
The replacement in front of me is obviously inexperienced, for I frequently have to push down on his shoulders to keep him low. He is an ashen, terrified youth of seventeen at the youngest and eighteen at the very oldest. There are about five other replacements we have to keep an eye on, all young privates fresh out of Basic and sent to the Replacement Depots in Tunis and El Agheila, they will need watching.
We try to teach them what we know, such as to listen for smaller energy spheres with their insect like hum as opposed to the larger spheres which can be heard long before impact, how to time grenades so they explode a half second before hitting the ground, how to take cover during a barrage or mimic a dead man when overrun in an attack. They listen intently, but when the carnage starts again they revert to their old ways.
An energy sphere explodes near our position; the enemy is attempting to cover his retreat from Benghazi with delaying actions and mines. The more experienced of us duck for cover, almost hugging the ground. I crouch low; the replacement in front of me is lying in the middle of the street, regarding me with wide, terrified eyes. I beckon the child closer, at first he refuses to budge, and then another explosion makes him crawl quickly to the relative safety of the alley I have taken refuge in. I place his helmet, which has fallen from his head, atop his rear end. I do not do this as a joke or to humiliate him, I do this because this is the highest part of his body and one would not like to take a quarrel through the rear end. The wounds there are not generally fatal but one will spend a considerable amount of time on one's stomach and one will develop a limp from such a position.
Then suddenly several ogres and zombies jump the squad from behind. Wiersbowski sees them and flattens them with a burst from his Wraith cannon. Kat, who is our MG 70 gunner, immediately sets up his weapon and fires off bursts of ammunition at our attackers. I join in returning fire, there's no shortage of targets. It is not long before the creatures start to get closer and I am infinitely happy that I found that pistol. I switch the safety off and shoot a zombie in the face less than ten meters from my position. At the same time I yell for the replacement crouched next to me to man his weapon. The boy raises his rifle and shoots, managing to hit an ogre that was rushing at him with two shots to the chest.
"Aim for their heads, you waste less ammo that way!" I shout as I pull a pin from a grenade, time it and throw it at the feet of a pair of Gollums that are creeping towards Wiersbowski from the alley across the street. The grenade explodes, throwing both creatures airborne and into the alley walls.
"Fall back!" Sergeant McCron shouts.
This means we're going to have to find our own ways back to our lines which are about four kilometers away. Creeping and running through the rabbit warren of streets and back alleys I become separated.
I kick down a door, pistol in hand, rifle slung, creeping slowly through the remains of a school house. A zombified school teacher comes out from a desk, or rather half of her body, for her legs have been blasted away. She grabs at my ankle and tries to bite through my boot. I stomp down with one foot, crushing her skull and run out of the building.
For what seems like an eternity I am lost. I am certain that I will die in a far away from all I know and love in an African city. I take stock of my ammunition, one of my four pouches is empty, the other has two of the four magazines it carries left, and the other two are full to capacity with two sixty round clips a piece. My pistol has one magazine with ten of its fifteen rounds remaining. Not good, if I have to fight my way back, which I probably will.
I hope Kat has made it back, because my farewell letters to my family and to Andi are in his possession. For all the six months of experience I have, I am terrified, alone, and lost. I remove my helmet, taking my picture of Andi out of it, that picture is less than seven months old. Before I shipped out to Africa, I took her to her high school prom. It was a heady experience for a private fresh out of Basic, we had our picture taken one of me in my dress uniform and Andi in her prom dress that picture is folded in the outer pocket of my field pack. It is then that experience takes over; I place my helmet atop my head, picture still inside, and continue my lonely trek back to our lines.
Ahead I see two soldiers crouched behind a car with an MG 70 machinegun. I walk slowly towards their position only to hear bullets flying by my head. In my confusion and fear I failed to properly identify myself. "Thunder!" one of the soldiers shouts our code word, it's Kat.
"Flash! You fucking idiots you nearly killed me!" I shout back.
"Gallatin? Is that you?" Wiersbowski shouts, "We thought you were dead."
"Yeah it's me you morons!" I shout back, angry and relieved at the same time. I join them at their position.
"Do you have any idea where our lines are?" I ask.
"What?" Kat asks.
"I said do you have any idea where our lines are?" I reply.
"I can't hear a damn word your saying, fucking Wiersbowski fired off that thing too close to my head!" Kat replies, pointing at Wiersbowski's Wraith cannon.
Wiersbowski looks around and says, "Wait, our lines are about two klicks from that billboard."
"Let's get to it then." I reply.
"Huh?" Kat asks.
"Let's go!" I reply and point towards our lines.
I go out first with Wiersbowski watching my back. Then Wiersbowski runs toward the next point of cover. Kat covers us both and then he runs over with us covering him. We leap frog like this for what seems like an immeasurably long time, actually engaging a band of ogres that was creeping towards our lines in a running gunfight a klick from friendly territory.
Running and shooting we manage to reach friendly lines where Kat goes to the infirmary to get his hearing checked. Two of our new recruits failed to make it back. Fressan comes up to me and says, "Did you hear about Josha?"
"No? What about him?" I ask. I remember a somewhat geeky kid that was obsessed with Ivy and who enlisted with us as he talks. He was Pilgrim's room mate, as well as his good friend, at ACME.
"He was a grenadier with the 91st Armored Division; he was killed at El Mechili yesterday." Fressan says. El Mechili was a secondary objective attacked simultaneously with the 115th Libyan Infantry supported by Josha's unit, the 91st Armored Division.
I see Pilgrim sitting on a pile of sandbags. He hands me my mail, "I didn't think you made it back."
"I heard about Josha. Sorry." I reply.
"He was driving his supply truck to the front lines, with shells and water for the artillery gunners. It was supposed to be a safe job." Pilgrim says, flatly, "The kid tried so hard to stay level during Basic, when the drill sergeant was always harping on him. He managed to graduate and be a soldier, and then what does he do. He's driving down the road and a Gollum with one of those crude energy sphere tubes shoots a grenade through his engine, blows up the fuel tank and kills him."
"There are no safe jobs in the army." I reply.
I open my mail; today is October 11, my birthday. So far the day has brought me the gift of nearly getting killed by both the enemy and my friends, and the death of a colleague and a friend. I distinctly remember Josha always asking me for advice on how to approach Ivy on any given day. I pitied and later befriended the kid almost a year ago, and now he's dead.
My mail consists of a birthday card from my family, and one from Andi. I turn my attention to it, savoring every word. Andi tells me about her sister Brianna's 7th Grade school play and how she's gotten the lead role in Wind and the Willows, about how Gavin's doing in college, and she jokingly asks if Pilgrim still wants to eat her hamsters. Mom and Dad and my little brothers are talking about how Paul Bevel, the son of the owner of the Rose and Crown pub on Main Street just got drafted, that Nutwood just had an emergency shelter built, and how Dad's vegetable garden has been fairing. Those emergency shelters are a combination of medical clinic, evacuation point, and defense center. They don't always fair well in these biohazards. We have come across many a shelter that's been overrun and the sight is always the same, bodies lying about the floor, barricades torn down, zombies lurching about in a gruesome feast.
It's as if the world they live in and the one I inhabit now are two separate worlds. The other is impossibly far away and these letters are a portal into the far off world. Gazing at the picture in my helmet is like staring at a moment, a much happier moment, frozen in time. I stare at it until nightfall, wanting to return to the happier moments and not even daring to dream of when I may have them again.
Disclaimer: Read the disclaimer in the chapter before this one.
We have been reinforced; seventy new billets have been filled. These new boys are in fresh desert brown uniforms. They're uniforms aren't faded to an almost whitish-yellow that ours have faded to after six months in the desert. They are children really, seventeen or eighteen years old, with uniforms that hang off their bodies like rags. No tailor has ever made a uniform to fit child-like measurements. I'm sure I must have appeared similar to them when I first joined Army Corps Africa.
El Agheila seems a long and distant memory, Tripoli where Army Corps Africa came ashore six months earlier is even more so. It is at least fifty kilometers behind our frontlines. Ivy has recently written me saying that Zack is already registered with Selective Service and is over seventeen. She's worried, as are his parent's, that he will be drafted. If he does, I hope he winds up in the North Africa Theater, and becomes one of "The Africans" so I can at least attempt to take care of him. If not, I hope he ends up in the Pacific theater, clearing the islands of Biohazard infestation. If anything I hope the boy doesn't wind up in Dyson City or the rumored Europe operation. France, Germany, and the Low Countries are fighting a Biohazard outbreak of their own. Wherever he winds up, I hope he encounters a friendly and experienced old hand that will take care of him as Kat has done for me and the others.
I hear the first rifle shots as Staff Sergeant Burton, Weapon's Platoon, an easy going hunter from Alaska, is helping our reinforcements sight their rifles. I scratch again at the lice that have been infesting my clothing. The delousing chemicals for our clothes have yet to be delivered so those of us from the front lines, and even the new recruits, suffer from the infestation to a varying degree. Kat, the old front hound that he is, with a nose for bad weather, good food, and soft duty, is already throwing on his fatigues and getting to the delousing station. I throw on my boots hastily and walk alongside him, donning my forage cap.
"Do you think there are any delousing chemicals at the station?" I ask.
"Hopefully, but I'll find some, wake Fressan and the others when we do find any." Kat says.
At the delousing station, medics take our clothes and rinse them in the chemical we seek. Already I see Kat negotiating with a nurse for a quantity of the stuff. I already see several of the gray bugs lying dead on the surface of the soapy substance in the pan where our clothes are spread. Now it's time to lie in the delousing baths. They come in two varieties, the hot water or the cold water. I like the hot water delousing baths because they bring to mind memories of lying in a hot bath at home. I enjoy the sleepy feeling it brings about, the way it evaporates all cares in the world.
The best feeling is climbing out of the delousing baths, I see several of the dead bugs floating in the warm water mixed in with delousing chemicals and as I go through the short rinse off shower I wrap my towel around my waist and find my clothes, folded and deloused, atop a bench.
I wait for Kat outside the delousing station and see him walk out, carrying a jerry can full of the delousing chemical. We wake Fressan, Wiersbowski, Bronsky, and Pilgrim who all help us in pouring the jerry can's contents into a large pan. We all douse every piece of clothing we have into it and Kat saves the remainder of the jerry can to see if he can't trade it for anything else we might want or need.
As the day wears on, rumors of another big offensive, aimed at taking Benghazi. We have already taken Agedabla with elements of the 9th Sicilian Infantry and 3rd Egyptian Armored Divisions. These rumors are being substantiated because of the seventy new reinforcements, the hasty weapons training these seventy men are receiving and the almost daily arrival of ammunition trucks to our position. It is now October, 2141, six months ago we arrived in Tripoli and reoccupied many of the Biohazard infected areas as well as reinforced the 9th Sicilian Infantry Division, 115th Libyan Infantry Division, and 3rd Egyptian Armored Division.
We see a cloud of dust over the horizon, several half-tracks and tanks of the 27th Armored Division, reinforcing our position. We are sure our fearless leader General DeRutyer, Army Corps Africa, intends to use Agedabla as a springboard to retake Benghazi. Our original orders stated we must aid the Libyan, Egyptian, and Sicilian forces fighting to contain the spread of the Biohazard into Libya. DeRutyer, however, is deciding to take the offensive.
There is an expectant and jubilant mood among several of the men in the barracks. Even some of the once dispirited Sicilians, who have billets close to where we are encamped, are in high spirits. They are hardy, weary men who had been fighting in an ever shrinking perimeter, to keep the Biohazard from spreading any farther into Libya. The tankers are especially happy, because they form the spearhead of our offensive. Those of us in the infantry often have to pick up the pace quite a bit in order to keep up. Several large 90mm anti-tank and 105mm howitzer guns are taking up positions a kilometer ahead of us.
The next day we march off to the front lines, passing a column of Libyan infantry that were occupying our positions. Their uniforms are ragged and dirty, their faces covered with fine layers of dust and almost hidden under their helmets, they hunch forward under the weight of their gear.
We settle into our trenches, and as we do so, we automatically become conscious of the ground, we take note of every shallow depression, every shell crater, every wadi in the dunes, every dried creek bed. We know these are great areas to take cover whenever we are under bombardment. We dig in and prepare for the offensive we are about to take part in.
We have a four hour watch at the machinegun in my dugout. Wiersbowski, the Wraith gunner in our squad, holds his fully automatic 20mm Wraith cannon cradled across his knees as he naps in our dugout. Many pouches of 20 round magazines are worn on his web gear as well as two spare barrels in a tube across his back.
Pilgrim awakens me from a shallow and light sleep at 0100 and I take my watch at the machinegun. My tired eyes scan the landscape, lit by the light of the full moon. The desert is far from the dreams of oasis and balmy tropical breezes that inspired many in our ranks to become one of "The Africans" it is extremely hot in the daytime, yet freezing cold at night. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a starburst flare. I shut my eyes, reopen them, and let them adjust. All of a sudden I can identify ogres creeping up towards our foxhole. I kick Pilgrim awake and he proceeds to wake the other soldiers in our dugout.
I squeeze the trigger and let the MG 70 light machinegun do its dirty work. Almost as soon as I realize I've zipped through an entire belt of ammunition, the ogres are gone, either dead or retreated across the no- man's land. Fressan takes my place at the machinegun and I settle into the hazy and uneasy sleep common to the frontline soldier.
I am awakened, as are we all, by the bursts of shells from our artillery just before dawn. I check my watch, 0200. The tanks speed forth, firing their own main guns toward the infested sections of Benghazi, barely visible in the distance. From our dugouts the infantry swarm out, advancing behind the tanks. The Sicilians fill in as our rear guard and I do not envy them in the least. They must be ever more vigilant for flanking attacks, delaying actions, or anything else that may come their way for if they fail, we will be cut off in Benghazi from our base in El Agheila.
I run forth, as the tanks fire their main guns at forward enemy positions. The great metal behemoths are followed by mechanized infantry in their half tracks and with assault guns, a 75 mm anti-tank gun mounted atop the chassis of a tank with a little armored shield to protect the crew from frontal attack. We follow behind and are at enemy forward positions.
Our patrol makes contact with a contingent of ogres and rifle fire begins again. The fighting starts to go hand to hand. Kat buries his sharpened entrenching tool into the neck of a huge ogre, sending black blood spurting from the ceratoid artery all over him and the desert sand. Wiersbowski fires a short burst of 20mm shells that rip an ogre in half. Several zombies lurch toward us. I drop to one knee, focus my sights and squeeze the trigger. I see Pilgrim bury his bayonet deep into a zombie's chest and kick it back out again from the corner of my eye. Bronsky fires bursts from his electric gun that burn down a pair of zombies that has crept in behind me. An ogre comes charging my way. I stand up, step sideways and bring the butt of my rifle down onto the side of its skull, caving it in. Almost as soon the ogres break contact, only to be ambushed by several Egyptian half- tracks up the road.
Battle at night could almost be as beautiful as any illumination show ever created if it weren't so dangerous. Bursts of light from flares, Verey lights, and starburst shells light up the sky almost as bright as day. Tracer rounds from machinegun belts arc in a terrific and terrible display. Shell bursts from our anti-aircraft guns and rockets and missiles from our Predator gunships flying overhead add to the display.
An energy orb explodes behind me, and as soon as I hear it coming, I dive for the ground and roll away from it. Sand explodes in a geyser and covers us over. My helmet falls from my head as the flash from an illumination round explodes over my head. In it's brief flash I see Andi's smiling face, in that lovely green dress that I had taken her to her high school prom in.
I feel a hand behind me and hear Kat yelling, "Get up! We're still advancing. Are you alright?"
I shakily recover my helmet and place it atop my head, I grab my rifle and feed a new clip into the magazine and join the attack which has already reached Benghazi's outskirts. The tanks are firing shells into buildings ahead of us as well as firing their .50 caliber machineguns at expected hiding places. We hunker down behind the tanks, the advance slowing through the narrow streets of Benghazi's casbah.
A Gollum pops out from a manhole cover twenty meters away from me. Kat shoots it right in the face and I toss a grenade down the tunnel after it. I can hear scurrying feet and then a loud boom. The Gollum must have had some kind of help. We are sent forth to clear a house to our front just as several D9 Armored bulldozers drive up to smash down walls.
I am tasked with watching the squad's back as Kat kicks the door down with Sergeant McCron behind him. McCron throws a grenade into the room and is rewarded by hearing the thud of a body hitting the ground. A dead zombie falls out of the kitchen and into the foyer. A zombified Egyptian soldier comes towards me, his sand brown uniform ragged, the stench of decay and death coming off him in waves. I level my rifle and squeeze of two shots to his chest and one to his head. He falls.
I check the corpse for ammunition, finding a full magazine pouch as well as a 9mm pistol and two fifteen round clips. This find is lucky for the next close in fight I get into, I have a suitable firearm. I put the dead man's magazine pouches and pistol on my web gear and follow the rest of my squad.
We have secured our objective and more. The other half of Benghazi remains, but that is to be done later. Tired, we hunker down in improvised billets and await the next attack. I make sure the pistol I acquired is clean and place it on a lanyard attached to my web gear, the safety is on and a round is chambered in case we are attacked tonight.
A curious yet terrible sight follows our advance at all times. From refugee camps to the rear of our positions, long columns of displaced persons follow. One toothless old woman pokes among piles of dead zombies we had killed yesterday. She does this as Kat soaks them with a can of petroleum. She finds one body, stops, and then falls to her knees, wailing in agony. We cannot set the pyre alight until she moves away, and she refuses. An Egyptian soldier comes to our position and explains that the body of this zombie is her son's and she wants to bury it. We are under orders to destroy all corpses created by the plague. The old woman is insistent but the Egyptian persuades her that we have to follow our order. She breaks away, wailing as Kat lights the pile ablaze.
We go out on patrol, now at the fringes of our territory, the eastern outskirts of Benghazi. Kat, Wiersbowski, Pilgrim, and myself are the more experienced members of this patrol. Sergeant McCron with Fressan on point and Bronsky operating his radio are to the front. Wiersbowski is further to the rear of the formation, watching our backs.
The replacement in front of me is obviously inexperienced, for I frequently have to push down on his shoulders to keep him low. He is an ashen, terrified youth of seventeen at the youngest and eighteen at the very oldest. There are about five other replacements we have to keep an eye on, all young privates fresh out of Basic and sent to the Replacement Depots in Tunis and El Agheila, they will need watching.
We try to teach them what we know, such as to listen for smaller energy spheres with their insect like hum as opposed to the larger spheres which can be heard long before impact, how to time grenades so they explode a half second before hitting the ground, how to take cover during a barrage or mimic a dead man when overrun in an attack. They listen intently, but when the carnage starts again they revert to their old ways.
An energy sphere explodes near our position; the enemy is attempting to cover his retreat from Benghazi with delaying actions and mines. The more experienced of us duck for cover, almost hugging the ground. I crouch low; the replacement in front of me is lying in the middle of the street, regarding me with wide, terrified eyes. I beckon the child closer, at first he refuses to budge, and then another explosion makes him crawl quickly to the relative safety of the alley I have taken refuge in. I place his helmet, which has fallen from his head, atop his rear end. I do not do this as a joke or to humiliate him, I do this because this is the highest part of his body and one would not like to take a quarrel through the rear end. The wounds there are not generally fatal but one will spend a considerable amount of time on one's stomach and one will develop a limp from such a position.
Then suddenly several ogres and zombies jump the squad from behind. Wiersbowski sees them and flattens them with a burst from his Wraith cannon. Kat, who is our MG 70 gunner, immediately sets up his weapon and fires off bursts of ammunition at our attackers. I join in returning fire, there's no shortage of targets. It is not long before the creatures start to get closer and I am infinitely happy that I found that pistol. I switch the safety off and shoot a zombie in the face less than ten meters from my position. At the same time I yell for the replacement crouched next to me to man his weapon. The boy raises his rifle and shoots, managing to hit an ogre that was rushing at him with two shots to the chest.
"Aim for their heads, you waste less ammo that way!" I shout as I pull a pin from a grenade, time it and throw it at the feet of a pair of Gollums that are creeping towards Wiersbowski from the alley across the street. The grenade explodes, throwing both creatures airborne and into the alley walls.
"Fall back!" Sergeant McCron shouts.
This means we're going to have to find our own ways back to our lines which are about four kilometers away. Creeping and running through the rabbit warren of streets and back alleys I become separated.
I kick down a door, pistol in hand, rifle slung, creeping slowly through the remains of a school house. A zombified school teacher comes out from a desk, or rather half of her body, for her legs have been blasted away. She grabs at my ankle and tries to bite through my boot. I stomp down with one foot, crushing her skull and run out of the building.
For what seems like an eternity I am lost. I am certain that I will die in a far away from all I know and love in an African city. I take stock of my ammunition, one of my four pouches is empty, the other has two of the four magazines it carries left, and the other two are full to capacity with two sixty round clips a piece. My pistol has one magazine with ten of its fifteen rounds remaining. Not good, if I have to fight my way back, which I probably will.
I hope Kat has made it back, because my farewell letters to my family and to Andi are in his possession. For all the six months of experience I have, I am terrified, alone, and lost. I remove my helmet, taking my picture of Andi out of it, that picture is less than seven months old. Before I shipped out to Africa, I took her to her high school prom. It was a heady experience for a private fresh out of Basic, we had our picture taken one of me in my dress uniform and Andi in her prom dress that picture is folded in the outer pocket of my field pack. It is then that experience takes over; I place my helmet atop my head, picture still inside, and continue my lonely trek back to our lines.
Ahead I see two soldiers crouched behind a car with an MG 70 machinegun. I walk slowly towards their position only to hear bullets flying by my head. In my confusion and fear I failed to properly identify myself. "Thunder!" one of the soldiers shouts our code word, it's Kat.
"Flash! You fucking idiots you nearly killed me!" I shout back.
"Gallatin? Is that you?" Wiersbowski shouts, "We thought you were dead."
"Yeah it's me you morons!" I shout back, angry and relieved at the same time. I join them at their position.
"Do you have any idea where our lines are?" I ask.
"What?" Kat asks.
"I said do you have any idea where our lines are?" I reply.
"I can't hear a damn word your saying, fucking Wiersbowski fired off that thing too close to my head!" Kat replies, pointing at Wiersbowski's Wraith cannon.
Wiersbowski looks around and says, "Wait, our lines are about two klicks from that billboard."
"Let's get to it then." I reply.
"Huh?" Kat asks.
"Let's go!" I reply and point towards our lines.
I go out first with Wiersbowski watching my back. Then Wiersbowski runs toward the next point of cover. Kat covers us both and then he runs over with us covering him. We leap frog like this for what seems like an immeasurably long time, actually engaging a band of ogres that was creeping towards our lines in a running gunfight a klick from friendly territory.
Running and shooting we manage to reach friendly lines where Kat goes to the infirmary to get his hearing checked. Two of our new recruits failed to make it back. Fressan comes up to me and says, "Did you hear about Josha?"
"No? What about him?" I ask. I remember a somewhat geeky kid that was obsessed with Ivy and who enlisted with us as he talks. He was Pilgrim's room mate, as well as his good friend, at ACME.
"He was a grenadier with the 91st Armored Division; he was killed at El Mechili yesterday." Fressan says. El Mechili was a secondary objective attacked simultaneously with the 115th Libyan Infantry supported by Josha's unit, the 91st Armored Division.
I see Pilgrim sitting on a pile of sandbags. He hands me my mail, "I didn't think you made it back."
"I heard about Josha. Sorry." I reply.
"He was driving his supply truck to the front lines, with shells and water for the artillery gunners. It was supposed to be a safe job." Pilgrim says, flatly, "The kid tried so hard to stay level during Basic, when the drill sergeant was always harping on him. He managed to graduate and be a soldier, and then what does he do. He's driving down the road and a Gollum with one of those crude energy sphere tubes shoots a grenade through his engine, blows up the fuel tank and kills him."
"There are no safe jobs in the army." I reply.
I open my mail; today is October 11, my birthday. So far the day has brought me the gift of nearly getting killed by both the enemy and my friends, and the death of a colleague and a friend. I distinctly remember Josha always asking me for advice on how to approach Ivy on any given day. I pitied and later befriended the kid almost a year ago, and now he's dead.
My mail consists of a birthday card from my family, and one from Andi. I turn my attention to it, savoring every word. Andi tells me about her sister Brianna's 7th Grade school play and how she's gotten the lead role in Wind and the Willows, about how Gavin's doing in college, and she jokingly asks if Pilgrim still wants to eat her hamsters. Mom and Dad and my little brothers are talking about how Paul Bevel, the son of the owner of the Rose and Crown pub on Main Street just got drafted, that Nutwood just had an emergency shelter built, and how Dad's vegetable garden has been fairing. Those emergency shelters are a combination of medical clinic, evacuation point, and defense center. They don't always fair well in these biohazards. We have come across many a shelter that's been overrun and the sight is always the same, bodies lying about the floor, barricades torn down, zombies lurching about in a gruesome feast.
It's as if the world they live in and the one I inhabit now are two separate worlds. The other is impossibly far away and these letters are a portal into the far off world. Gazing at the picture in my helmet is like staring at a moment, a much happier moment, frozen in time. I stare at it until nightfall, wanting to return to the happier moments and not even daring to dream of when I may have them again.