Chapter 28

The morning of the third day after we had arrived at Brooke finally dawned. It was still hot in Texas, even though the summer was over and some of us -- especially the Canadians, and Bridgett, from Northern Minnesota -- were amazed at the continuing hot weather.

We had gotten through the night without another attack. Not too surprising. The enemy was waiting for the arrival of their tanks -- their big guns. What was the hurry? We weren't going anywhere. Like our own people, they probably had to learn to handle those huge machines. A tank was a lot more complex to handle than our Bradleys. Raymond said it would take them awhile, to learn halfway how to control those monsters, and how to handle their heavy cannons.

Still, you didn't need Advanced Armor Training to hit a building seven stories tall. We were going to be in for some trouble.

Umberto asked Raymond to come around to examine our machine gun emplacements on the sixth floor. When Raymond got there, Umberto demonstrated how he was unable to get the gun to fire down on a target close-in to the building itself. The angle of fire was too steep. If the enemy got close enough to Brooke, the machine guns couldn't be trained on them at all, and we'd be limited to use of only light automatic weapons for our close-in defense.

It was a major hassle, with all the work that had gone into building an effective shield around the guns, but the decision was made to move the machine guns -- all three of them -- to a lower floor. Five of us pitched in, and, one gun at a time, we moved guns, ammunition and defensive shielding to the third floor.

It was better, though. We could still cover the wide-open spaces in front of the hospital, and we would be able to keep firing, even if the enemy got in very close to the building.

Obligingly, the enemy's tank attack wasn't materializing very rapidly at all.

Raymond was prepared to lead the defense against the tanks with his AT4 rockets. Angle of fire, from the rooftop, was not an overwhelming problem for the AT4. However, Raymond was very vulnerable to sniper fire while up there. There wasn't any help for it, though. Back-blast from his weapons would have been an enormous problem, were he to try to fire off rockets from the building's interior.

We still had no notion where the sniper was positioned. There were no nearby buildings. Wherever he was, it had to be a difficult, challenging shot. But we already knew that the enemy sniper was very good at what he did.

Range was also a problem for Raymond. If the enemy was smart enough to fire at us from their tanks at long range, they would likely be able to avoid much of the risk of being hit with one of Raymond's rockets. It was a powerful weapon, but it was point-and-shoot, and at long range, its accuracy would be very suspect.

There was absolutely no doubt that tanks could attack us effectively from well outside the AT4's maximum range. If, however, they didn't take the time to read the manual, our enemies might perhaps wheel in too close with their heavy weaponry... Close enough for Raymond to have at least some chance of killing a tank.

It was getting late in the day. I wondered whether they were just waiting until after dark. I wondered whether they were waiting until tomorrow. They could be off somewhere, miles away, learning to steer those terrifying machines around effectively... Learning how to load and fire those big ugly cannons.

And what about the New Start people? What kind of help were they going to be able to give us? And how soon? Would it be soon enough? Would it be help enough? Where did they have to come from, in order to help us? How many people did they have? Commander Prentice had said to radio them, if we were attacked.

Did that mean, "call us, any time," or "call, and find out if we've gotten there yet"?

Whatever he had meant, it was good -- very good -- that, so far, no attack had come.

It was good... Except for the waiting. The waiting was awful. The fighting -- Christ! The fighting was terrible, when it was happening! I'd wet my pants, for God's sake! Next time, maybe I'd shit my pants! It didn't get any easier. I wasn't at all confident that it wouldn't happen!

But as horrific as the fighting was, the waiting, maybe, was even worse.

Edward, breathless from running, skidded to a stop next to my spot at the machine gun emplacement. "Radio!" he said.

I ran up one flight to our radio room. Martin was there. "It's Prentice," he said.

"THIS IS CARTER JOHNSON, SIR! OVER."

"WE ARE IN PLACE, CARTER. AM I CORRECT THAT YOU HAVEN'T TRIED TO CALL US? OVER."

"NO, SIR. ALL QUIET HERE. OVER."

"WE HAVE ASSETS REASONABLY CLOSE TO YOUR POSITION," Prentice said. "WE'RE ESTABLISHING A BASE OF OPERATIONS. SOME ELEMENTS WILL CONTINUE IN YOUR DIRECTION. BUT WE ARE ALREADY IN A POSITION TO BE HELPFUL. IF YOU HAVE TO DEFEND, YOUR PEOPLE, AT LEAST INITIALLY, SHOULD CONDUCT THE BATTLE FROM YOUR CURRENT POSITIONS. OVER."

"WE HAVE SMALL CHILDREN, SIR. CAN YOU DO... ANYTHING... TO EVACUATE THEM? OVER."

"YES. BUT, NOT YET. NOT YET. CALL -- IF NEED BE... OUT."

Edward and I ran to all the positions within the building, spreading the good word. We had some help. They were "already in a position to be helpful."

Lovely words, those.

It was around 5:45 in the afternoon when we heard the tanks.

We couldn't see them. But they were out there, right out in front of us, somewhere. The nearest structures were those same apartment buildings -- perhaps 400 yards away, across the great open space in front of Brooke. The grinding noise of the tanks was distinct -- menacing. And it seemed to be coming from those apartment buildings.

Tactically, it seemed to me that the enemy could have caused us more disruption by coming in from the rear. There was a complicated series of low-slung structures back there, and more cover for attackers.

OK, so they weren't being led by a great military mind.

Neither were we.

Maybe, though, they figured that with those tanks, they were invincible now. Nothing much we could do about it, no matter which way they came in.

Or maybe they simply didn't have enough faith in their ability to control those giant machines, to attempt an attack from the rear.

Finally, we could see them. Two big-assed, major-league tanks. Monstrous machines. They had good separation, they were moving slowly but steadily in our direction, and each one was followed by several men in armored Humvees, each with a machine gun, mounted front and center.

Two tanks. Four Humvees. Four or five other men coming in on foot, carrying automatic weapons. We were not only outgunned, we were substantially outnumbered.

I ran back up to the radio and put in my call. Prentice wanted to know everything. Where, which direction, how many, how far -- the works. Finally he just said, 'WE'RE ON OUR WAY. OUT."

Well. Fine. I hoped they didn't have that far to come.

The tanks were still a good 300 yards away when each of them let fly with a volley from their big guns. The noise was deafening, their target was damned near incapable of being missed, and, in fact, neither shot missed the building. The shock wave from the impact of those projectiles was like nothing I had ever experienced. From my position, the damage inflicted on the interior structure of our building wasn't visible, but it must have been tremendous. I could only hope that no member of our scattered crew had been directly in the path of those shells.