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Old 12-31-2020, 08:48 PM
cawest cawest is offline
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When the M-60 machine gun started to do its death chant. The pirates knew where the attack was coming from. They might have been pirates, but that didn’t mean that they were not brave. It also did not mean, that they were that smart either. They were going to have to charge, uphill, to get at the defenders. The attacking pirates did not even pause, when the PKM started to fire at them. Maybe they were smarter, because with their ride home now stuck in the wet sand behind them. There was nowhere they could go, but up.

The M-60’s first burst had hit high, and it stitched a line of holes just below the rail line at the bow of the pirate sailboat. Still two pirates fell, as the heavy 10g 7.62mm bullets hit them. The RPK threw up a line of sand fountains, in front of the growing wave of attackers. Wilkes, and the only other riflemen did not miss with their first shots.

The main wave of twenty-three attackers only had SKSs and AK-47’s to defend themselves with. Some of the key members of the pirate band had AK-74s. They were attacking, just like they had been “trained” to do. They were attacking in a running human wave and using their weapons to suppress the enemy with high rates of fire. The Americans, Kenyans, and French just called it spray and pray. They would agree that it looked impressive as hell, but it did nothing against troops that had been trained. And the SF detachment was very well trained, and they had years of combat experience already under their belts.

It only took a few seconds, for the whole ten-man team to fill into one side of the paired trenches. They were shooting from the high ground, and that can cause a few issues, for green troops. This team was not green, not even a little bit. After a few little adjustments, the second burst of fire hit the human wave. The SF teams were not going full rock and roll with their weapons fire. They were using short burst of 3 to 5 rounds at a set of targets.

This was a dance they had done many times, and this time it was almost like range time. The zone of fire or impact zone did not have any cover, and the targets were coming toward them. It was just too bad that the SF team had been in such a rush, and the rest of the north side team had not brought the 2 MGs from the north side trench with them. But the added firepower from the 16s, had an effect on the attackers.

The attackers were only 200m from their home, when the mass attack fell apart. They had left over a dozen bodies behind them, and that had been enough. The surviving attackers broke into two major groups, and a bunch of individuals that had dropped to the ground. One group tried to fall back towards the sailboat, and the other one tried to put part of the metal hull of the grounded warship between them and the devils on the ridge line above them.

Chill and Wilkes saw the pirates break, and both tracked the more organized group heading towards the destroyer. Chill put a round in the lower back of what looked to be a leader of the group, and she gave a self-satisfied smile when he fell face first into the wet sand. Wilkes elevated his weapons and a 40mm grenade went out the tube. After so many years in combat? He knew that the round would land, where he had wanted it. The wild card would be if there were any enemies in the area, when the explosive filled round landed.

Wilkes could not help but flinch, when Corporal X fired off his M-79 Thumper only 4 feet from the SSG’s head. The two flying explosive filled packets landed only seconds apart, and within 4m of each other. They caused a pair of donuts of death, and three single shots later. The whole group nearest the warship was bleeding out into the sand.

The rest of the team poured fire into the backs of the retreating enemy. Four pirates made it back over the side of the sailboat. If they would have stopped firing and reset the sails. The SF team might have let them go. But after they scaled the side of the boat, they started to try to return fire towards their tormentors. One had even tried to make it to the bow mounted light MG.

That did not go over well, to the people neck deep in the trench. When there were no more threats on the beach. All of the fire started to fall onto the fishing boat. Chill was kept busy by firing round after round into any sail covered movement, which was near one of the two MGs the boat carried. Then a fire started, and it was not weapons fire. It was good old cave man level fire. The SSG called for everyone to stop shooting, as the flames started to take hold. He had to wait for five minutes of not a round being fired by both sides before he could take the next step.

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“X take your team and check out that sailboat.” The SSG was scanning the area below threw the iron sites of his weapon.

X nodded and yelled for his team to follow, and he jumped out of the trench and started to jog down the slope. The second team would give them any cover fire, which might be needed. The first group moved smoothly, and they didn’t slow down to check any of the bodies they passed. They were halfway down the hill, when X waved his 2 point troopers and fastest runners to make for the now burning boat. The rest of the team would be there to give any needed fire support.

The two men sprinted with weapons at the ready, the last 500m. They were barely breathing hard, when the pair made it to the side of the boat. As X watched, much to his horror. As his two man team went over the side and onto the pirate boat. They should have waited for the last three members of the team to join them, before doing something like that.

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The SSG saw the first two men go up the sides of the burning boat. He did not understand what was going on any better than Tim. When he pulled the field glasses from his face? His blood went ice cold in his veins. With a quick order, only Chill and the 60 gunner would stay in the trench. The other two members would join him, at the run, going down the hill. They only slowed down to grab shovels, to go with their rifles.

Tim made it to about 4m from the side of the boat. Now he understood why part of his team had gone up the sides of the boat. He could hear the just muffled screaming and thumping coming through either and open hatch or threw the side of the wooden vessel. Several images flashed through X’s mind. He orders his team up the side of the burning boat. While he is giving those orders, he sees his boss and two teammates running down the side of the hill.

He had no idea what was going on today, with everyone breaking combat rules. He threw up one hand and decided to wait at the base of the boat, until the SSG could explain to him what the hell was going on today. He did not have to wait long. The SSG had leather lungs.

From almost 200m away the SSG started to yell, and clearly be heard at the boat. “Get the fire out!!! Get the fire out!!”

X had no idea why the SSG was worried about the fire. Then he looked up and saw the tall pillar of black and white smoke rising into the air in an ever-growing size. In his mind, he saw it as a finger of god pointing down for the world to see. That was so not good. SF teams did not make a habit of wanting others to know where they were.

X and his two team mates quickly attacked the burning boat with their Kabars and machetes. They started to cut off anything that was burning or looked to be getting close to catching fire. They didn’t know that much about sailing craft, and in this case, it was to their advantage. They were worried about fire, and not their safety, or making sure the boat would remain operational after the fire had been taken care of.

Wilkes was almost to the side of the still growing inferno of a boat, when he saw four bodies being thrown over the side of the craft. They were still hog tied and looked to have smoldering hair and clothes. One part of his mind noted that they were tied up, and not an immediate threat. He focused on stopping the growing threat. With a quick flip of his hand, and Wilkes’s rifle was across his back and out of the way. It was time to do some hard labor, and not shoot something.

With eight people now fighting the fire with knives, ship’s buckets, and the last one was best not to look too closely at what they had held before the fire. With shovels of sand being thrown up from the beach. The fire was first gotten under control from spreading any further, and then they started to put out the fire. A big step in that had been when one of the team had been able to use a found heavy bladed ax. He had quickly cut down part, a major part, of the aft mast. He had not needed to cut all the way through the mast. He was only about a third of the way through, when the tension and weight pulled it down and put a lot of burning material into the sea in a single large splash.

X was panting for breath, and for the first time he truly looked around. The boat was sitting lower in the water, and it was surrounded with floating or half sunk flame scarred and smoking junk. The wooden boat was still smoking, but his teammates were going around putting fresh wet sand or sea water, on any wisp of smoke. He almost fell over when a big hand slapped him on the back. He rocked on his toes and turn to look into a soot covered face.

###########

The SSG gave his Bravo team leader a tight smile after the heavy pop on the back. Then he pulled out a small handheld radio. They only had two of the devices. They used to have more but, between the Nuks, combat, and just wear and tear. They were down to only two of the devices that still worked.

“Jill, what do you see?” Wilkes released the button and waited.

“Boss! We can’t see anything on the horizon on this side.” The voice stopped for a few seconds. The SSG knew that Chill would have sent the only other person in the trench with her, to the other side of the ridge. After it seemed like there was not any threat to the exposed team fighting the fire.

Wilkes was brought back to the real world, when squelch was broken. “Mouth said that the north side is clear. The smoke is blowing south by southeast, and it seems to be thinning out. We have some clouds coming down from the north. That might blend in, and cover some of the visible smoke.” Chill knows that there were very few ways to cover the smell of smoke, but if the clouds would make it harder to see where the smoke had come from. It would cut down on the threat, unless someone was close enough to smell the burnt stuff.

“Thanks. If one of you two see anything, let me know ASAP. We are going to start Post Battle, as soon as this hunk of junk stops smoking.”

Wilkes looked at X but pitched his voice to carry. Bravo team! Keep this POS from catching fire again and check her out. Alpha team! We get to do Post Battle on the beach.” The SSG’s orders were met with groans from both teams. That did not mean, that they wouldn’t do the assigned jobs with skill and speed.

Wilkes hopped over the side of the boat. He quickly could see that the boat was sitting at an odd angle. All of the water and sand had seemed to have changed the center of balance of the little vessel. He had no idea if it would be salvageable or not. That was not his lane. There would be some navy pukes out here soon. They could figure that out, he had other ideas on what was worth saving. Something was twitting his combat sense, and he was trying to work out what it was. As he was looking up at the now visibly thinner and lighter colored clouds. He felt a rock move under his freshly landed left boot.

Wilkes’s head shot down, and now he noticed all of the crabs moving around the beach. He could not remember the last time that he had seen this many crabs moving around in the day light. As his eyes moved around the beach. He noticed that the dead bodies were covered with them. It didn’t take him very long, to work out what all of the crabs were doing. Not after the screams started, anyway. They were eating the bodies.

The image of the four tied up people landing in the sand flashed threw his mind, as he ran towards the sound of the screams leaking threw his weapons fire damaged ears. They were coming from the other side of the boat. Wilkes skidded around the sharp bow of the ship. As soon as he made the turn, he could see four bodies writhing in pain and covered in different types of crabs. Only the pair that were not fully gagged, were telling the world about their pain.

The SSG hit turbo, and full sprinted to the first body. He had to use his bare hands, to sweep some of the crabs away from the face of the first POW. He received more than a few painful clamps by the powerful claws. Wilkes just sharply wave the stricken hand in the air, and the claw arm would be pulled out of the crab. It took him almost a minute to get the flailing hands cut free, so that the man could help defend himself against the many leg monsters.

With the hands free, the man did not even try to finish removing the gag, he just started smashing the assaulting crustaceans. His legs were still flailing, and the SSG had to dive onto them so that he could cut the ropes. It took a few tries, but when those ropes were damaged enough that the man could break them. Wilkes went to the second person, this one had a gag fully in his mouth, but now the SSG could hear the muffled screams.

Now that Wilkes had some experience on what to do. He cut the legs free, before he started to work on the arms. By the time he was heading to the third person, the first person was helping him. At first, he was pulling the crabs off one at a time. That was before his higher brain functions kicked in and helped hold the arms, so that the SSG could cut the hands free. The fourth man was closes to the water and was covered with a thicker blanket of the animals.

The first man yelled something in French, and the four strong group assaulted the crab infested ungagged man. They were too late. The fourth man stopped moving, before they could get the ropes cut. One of the crabs had finally eaten down to the femoral artery and cut it, with a clip of his three inch long claws.

Wilkes wanted to collapse on the ground, but after seeing crabs everywhere. He just put his back against the sides of the burnt sailboat. He was spent. Between the long night, a short battle, a run down the spine of the island, fighting a boat fire, and then battling a million crabs. That said, his battery was done. He was huffing and puffing to recharge his body with O2 and get the CO2 out of his blood. While he was trying to recharge, he watched the three men. They were beaten, you did not get black eyes, broken noses, and lips like that from a crab’s claw.

When they also joined him in the shade of the boat, they did not sit on the ground. It would be some time, before they would ever sit near water waves of any kind. Wilkes looked over at the three men, and he could not help but have a thin-lipped look on his face. “Well, you all don’t look like Somalis. French?”

The SSG was rewarded with three heads nodding up and down. “Well at least they understand English. That will be a help.” Thought Wilkes.

Now that Wilkes had caught his breath. He needed to get back to work, and he went into command voice. “X get over here! We have some friends, which need some looking after!” Besides being the Bravo team leader, he also was the group’s field medic. He was not trained as an 18D, but he could hum the tune. And he was pretty good, after all of the experience he had gotten on the job during this war.

While X checked out the surviving Frenchmen, Wilkes needed to check out his team. The rest of the group had started first to check out if any of the pirates were left alive. They would move any found alive, to a holding area. Then the rest of the team that was not helping patch wounds, or on over watch for new threats. They would start to look over each of the dead bodies.

Wilkes would be the one searching the dead bodies. It was a gruesome job, but it had to be done. Before nuclear weapons had started to fly and cities started to disappear under mushroom clouds. You would only search for items that might generate some Intelligence for your military or civilian overlords. After a few years of war? You would search for Intel, and to collect any weapons. That was to keep them out of the growing number of marauder’s hands. By now you not only wanted to keep them out of marauder hands. Your own unit might need those weapons, and any recovered ammunition you could find. Even after all of these years in combat, putting your bare hands on a dead body was not a natural thing.

It did not take long, for a pile of useful and maybe useful items to start to grow. During one of the SSG trips to the two piles, after field stripping a crab covered dead pirate. He looked over, and he could see what might be six bodies laid under what was left of some of the sailing canvas. He knew that they were not his people. He would have been told by now, if any of his people were hurt that badly. When the SSG’s arms were cleared of the Chinese made SKS, a half-filled bandolier of ammunition, and a pair of cheap maybe handmade knives. He walked over to see what was going on.

He was only about a dozen feet away from the shade covered area when he could see that none of the wounded were his, and that they were not on the ground. He was not surprised. He doubted that he would ever eat crab again, even if it was on a menu he could afford. X meets him about three steps from the stretched-out sail.

Before the SSG could say anything. X knew what was coming. “Six, all theirs. And I will not be able to save any of them. At least not unless, the rest of the group gets here, or we can get them to a better than average hospital. Damn crabs!!”

Wilkes could not help but shudder at the words and tone that had been used by X. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

X got a lost look in his eyes. “I don’t know? I know they will eat anything dead. But I didn’t think about any blood covered or only slightly moving target near the water line. That was enough, to finish off most of the wounded. They were eating them while KOed from shock, but very much alive. They had just bled out between the gunshot, frag wounds, and the little monsters making their own or excavating the existing wounds we gave them.”

“How about the Frenches?”

X did a chin nod toward the half burn pirate boat. “They are okay. The three that are still alive were healthy enough to kill a lot of crabs, by thrashing around. Until they could not move any more. They are dehydrated and could use some food. They are not talking, beyond anything related to medical needs. I bet they are DSGE, or they were trained by them.”

Wilkes nodded his head. “Keep them down here. We are on the same side, but you heard the rumor about Kony and his group. Do you have enough to take care of them?” It there was no help for the gravely wounded pirates. They could use a mix of heroin and cocaine to let them go to sleep at least without pain.

X gave a slight nod. He would not “release” someone, unless he knew that there was no help for them. He would contact headquarters back in Mombasa, to find out how far out the rest of the team might be. He thought that he was going to lose one or two pirates, before he could get into contact with them. It would be his call to make and he would only give someone a shot, if he needed to. That was just how it was, in this part of the world. The time of helo evacuation, and then a direct jet flight to a major hospital in a first world nation were long over.

Wilkes looked up at the ridge, and then to the two piles of recovered items. He didn’t want to drag all of that stuff up that steep hill. Then they would have to dig another few holes, which he would have to cover to keep them from being seen by any unwanted eyes. Then he looked over to the ship. The tide was going out, but the warship’s hull would not be dry at the low tide. The old crew had used a pair of chains used to launch the small warship’s lifeboat for other missions. This team had now set up a chain ladder to assess the old warship, but the two sets of lines were still hanging down from the old destroyer.

With a slightly evil grin, he went about his plan. A small boat was pulled off the bow of the pirate’s boat. It might have been a lifeboat. But more than likely, it was a launch to act as a tug to dock the pirate ship in a harbor with unfavorable winds. It took about half an hour to patch a few bullet holes on the long boat. Then it was put into the water, and salvage was loaded into the small boat. They would tie a rope to the bow, and the other line to the warship. It would be pulled up to the deck of the warship, and then unloaded into a room in the aft deck house.

It would take three loads of the small boat to clean the beach. It was not due to the huge amount of stuff, but the mass. The hardest part had been collecting most of the spent brass out of the sand. The pirate boat only had its twin mgs pulled off. Anything else would have to wait. The pirate ship did have a few supplies, which had proven to be useful. They used boarding hooks with long lines to drag the dead bodies into the sea water. They wanted to clear the beach of crabs, and anything they might like for dinner. Each person had their own images of sleeping in the trenches and waking up with crabs starting to eat them in their sleep.

The sun was directly overhead, and the temperature was still not to its maximum. That was when the last body had been dragged into the knee-deep water, no one wanted to go deeper into the warm ocean water. The crabs, and sharks were known to like the scent of blood. And there was now a lot of blood in the ocean right about now. The last six bodies were the only ones that were not covered by crabs. They all had died from their different wounds. X had not needed to use a full shot. He only had given them enough to take most of the edge of their pain away and then their wounds had done the rest.

The walk back towards the ridge defensive line was slow. Part of the slow pace was the need to help the three very weak Frenchmen up the steep sand dune. It was noticeably cooler under the cover in the trench, then on the surface of the dune. Water was broken out from one of the deeper hand dug caves. It was as cool as could be found on this island. Field food, some of it was MRE’s or some local made dried food, was passed around. The three Frenchmen were given a double set of bags of food. Wilkes took his time eating, drinking cool water, and relaxing. He wanted to be as rested as he could, when he was going to have to update headquarters. He had kicked around the idea of not sending the message, until it was time to check in. That was only a wishful thinking thought, which he knew he could not do. He just hoped the three new additions would not try something, before more US forces made it to the island.

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Note.
The idea about the Crabs came from watching a Documentary show about looking for Amelia Earhart on an island in the Pacific. What they did to a pig carcass was scary.
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