Chapter 371

When the sun went down on that first day, we had three bodies in the spot designated for the dead. I talked to the general and we decided to divide the compound into four sections with our four best snipers in charge of one each. That meant I got the front one, Jerrod got the section off to my right, Deacon the one on the left and Williams and his buddy were responsible for the one in the rear.

I had worn the funky solar vest all day. When I wore it I slipped the fake MP3 player in the vest pocket. That vest and the collection of free electrons could keep me running at about 75%. Practically it meant that during the day time without any other charge I could do everything I normally did, but that at the end of the day my reserve would be down to about 60%. Practically I could still do anything I wanted for about two more hours.

Two hours after dark I needed to plug my ass in somewhere. The cover story I used at the Alamo 2011 was that I had a sophisticated electronics system that needed to be powered. The brain of the system was the MP3 type device. If I used it at night I could tell when and were the attacks was likely to be coming from, because I could hear them preparing for it.

That being the case, I got no arguments about plugging into our portable generator. The compound had a generator, but we brought our own. While I charged I listened and watched the edge of the jungle.

Sure as hell I predicted the first probing attack two hours after dead dark. We broke it up with deadly sniper fire based on infrared imaging, and carpet fire laid down by the Monks on the walls. There were four lumps that had to be dragged away. I did something that was usually frowned upon in warfare. I shot the men trying to recover their dead and wounded.

In the Alamo scenario the people held up in the fort had to create all the dead and wounded possible. A wounded man required someone and resources to care for him. The people inside the fort had to minimize the force outside's advantage any way they could.

I carried one of the M79 grenade launchers to the top of the wall. I fired it at one of the campfires just to see if it would penetrate the jungle night. I have no idea what effect it had on the outside force, I was pretty sure, even at the least, it would shake them up some.

While the others slept fitfully, I sat quietly conserving my energy. I shot anyone I saw all night long otherwise I just ran thoughts through my brain such as it was.

I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. While I did that, one of the Monks was in charge. "I need to move around," I said after four hours on the front wall. "Call me if you see or hear anything. I'm going to see how it is going with Jerrod." I left the heavy ass Remington with the Monk. There was one over at Jerrod's post. I did carry the M79 and a bag of grenades.

I sat with Jerrod and chatted. "Are you sorry yet that you signed on?" I asked.

"Not yet but I might be soon, who knows. So far I am too busy trying to stay alive," he said with a huge grin.

"Would you mind, if I borrow your rifle?" I asked.

"Not at all," he said trading with me. I handed him the M79 and raised the scope of the Remington to my eye. As I had expected from the sounds, the troops outside had moved to the edge of the jungle because they felt safe in the night. The ones on the front side had not done that because I kept them pushed back.

I took aim with the heavy Remington and Killed two of them. I didn't even tell Jerrod that I had killed anyone, he knew. "Wanna have some fun?" I asked quietly after the deafening report of the Remington.

"Sure," he replied.

"Take the 'infrared scope' and find one of the bodies. Then lay one of these grenades on him when some of them come to clean up the mess. They don't have to be kills from the grenade ... Even frightening fire will be something. Please keep your head down though." I said. I don't have a replacement for you.

After I finished with Jerrod, I returned to the front. I shot at a few of the troops dug in there. Just enough to keep them awake. After fifteen minutes or so, I move to my left flank and the Deacon. The bad guys were pushed back into the jungle on his side as well. I stayed on his wall only a few seconds then moved immediately to William's rear position.

William's position was actually the roof of one of the residence buildings for the monks. The rooms that were located at the rear of both floors were actually cells with no windows at all. They had to be pretty miserable to live in, but they made for a great defensive position. Williams and his crew sat on top of a very sound structure. Their one disadvantage was that a mortar could explode behind them and throw hot metal pieces all over them.

A mortar would most likely pass over my parapet and land in the courtyard a full ten or more feet below me. Odds were better that I would not be hit. Still it was a trade off. The parapets were hard to reach and easy to fall from. Since Williams had carried bags of scrap vegetation to the roof for he and his men to hide behind, they had a good chance to avoid the back blast.

By the time the sun came up we had done a pretty good job of keeping the outsiders awake all night. Between the sniper rifles popping all night, and the grenades going off now and then around any signs of life, it was a sleepless night for the opposition. In my case it made no difference. In the case of the others, I had no idea what effect it might have.

Day two began with an assault on the right flank. Jerrod and his men pushed them back to the jungle. There was sniper fire from the walls, there was AK 47 fire from the walls. There was anti personnel mines and punji stakes for the attackers to deal with. Then when they got back into the jungle, there were rifle grenades to contend with. All in all, it had to have been a pretty miserable assault.