Plan B

1: Dammit


Harry was tired. Not just mildly sleep deprived, but comprehensively fucked. Balls to the wall fucked. With bells on.

That wasn't the crux of his problems though. What worried him was that the Whistlers were waiting in the wings. With 7.62 calibre bullets. He had been tabbing through the jungle for three days now. Classic E&E. His pursuers always just a ridgeline away. The bastards weren't giving up and Christ knows how they managed to follow his trail. He had been pulling every single technique he knew to disappear off their radar. And now shit was starting to get serious.

Time for plan B. The words of his old Master Sargeant Henri percolated through the fuzziness of his fatigued brain: "Son, when you're about toesed up and starting to make more noise than a skeleton having a wank in a biscuit tin: Attack. Attack without hesitation. Give no quarter and go apeshit. Its better than being gifted a new asshole." Thing was, he didn't have a great deal to attack with.... two claymores that had seen better days on behalf of the relentless humidity in the jungle, well that and they were old Chinese ones he had found in a derelict bunker about six hours after he had dropped in to his AO. The Chinese weren't well known for the longevity of their weaponry. You'd have better luck with a capgun... 30 metres of parachord (at least he could rely on that), an 'entrenching device' which, to be fair, struggled to even pretend to be a spade. A machete (full points for the QM on that one). Four and a half mags of 5.56 for his M4, two mags of 9x19 Parabellum for his P226, four M67 Frag grenades and 3 incendiaries of indeterminate manufacture, given he had found them in an old box next to the claymores. At least he hoped they were incendiaries, they looked like it but they could be anything...

All he needed to do was find an appropriate killing ground and ascertain how many pursuers he actually had. He figured probably no more than five given that any force larger than that would have trouble keeping up. So, five plus the dogs. Dogs. Not ideal. Dogs were notoriously hard to fuck up given they were so low to the ground. He needed somewhere where he could enfilade from on high, like a gully. A gully would be nice. With a stream. To confuse the dogs before he unleashed the living demons of hell upon them. 'And I will strike thee down with great vengeance and fuuuurious anger' he thought to himself. Bloody Sam Jackson...

He needed time. Enough time to set it up, which meant he needed to put as much distance as he could between himself and his enemy. He had been going silent which was slowing him down. 'Okaaaay....' Harry thought, 'time to go noisy, they know I'm here, they have managed to follow me for three days. Fuck 'em'. So Harry went noisy. Well not noisy noisy, he just didn't bother trying to keep quiet. The first thing he did was fart, loud, proud and long. Then with a quick gulp from his canteen and three squares of chocolate from his rations (well he figured it was chocolate, it could have been Bovril) he set off like a hare with its ass on fire.

Six hours later things had improved. Marginally. He couldn't hear the fucking dogs for a start and he figured he had managed to put an extra click or two between himself and his pursuers. He was still screwed, but at least he had some time to prepare. Now all he needed to do was find an appropriate death zone. He had stumbled on one about three hours ago and had even considered leading his pursuers round the proverbial garden and doubling back to it, but he wouldn't have had time to set up what he had in mind. At least the terrain wasn't showing any signs of changing its spots. Still steep narrow hills, lots of vines and trees. Lots of trees. Which meant lots of wood. Sharp wood. Wood that when traveling at great speed was pretty effective at making holes in living things. Which is what he needed. Holes. Lots of bloody holes.  

Hauling his ass up yet another steep ridge and over the top (he'd ditched the cross graining, too slow …and right now he needed to put some jungle between himself and his rattan and AK toting mates). Harry just managed to stop his, relatively uncontrolled, descent down the far side of the ridge before being swallowed by the gaping hole that emerged out of the bush. 'Jesus...' Harry thought, 'it looks as though Godzilla has mistaken this hill for a twinkie'. A massive slip had eaten away half the hillside with the missing half now lying at the bottom partially (well mostly) damming a stream. He stared at the maelstrom of trees, mud, rocks and foliage in the nadir of the valley 40 metres below. A small lake had formed upstream and downstream was a ravine, with a mere trickle of water meandering its way along the streambed. The trickle edged its way around the perfect outcrop. A plan formed in Harry's mind. Granted it was different from the original idea. But boy oh boy it was so much better.

Quickly he descended the slip, sliding his way over the unstable ground to the dam. 'A fucking beaver could not have done a better job' he thought.  

Harry reckoned he had about 25 minutes before his mates arrived, which left him about 20 to set shit up, then five to make it real. He only had one shot at this end game. Fuck this up and he was a dead man. Dropping his burgen on the ground he quickly undid a few of the many pockets that graced its camo skin and hauled out the explosive contraband.  Grabbing the parachord, the clamores, the indeterminate incendiaries and two of the M4 grenades he scarpered over to the dam face and set to work. On closer inspection he figured that it wouldn’t take much to do what he intended. In fact he may well be overkilling it slightly, but what the fuck, at least it would be quite a show…

Setting the first claymore up at 45 degrees to the face on one side, on a slight downward angle, then the other on the far side 10 metres away, he ensured a full overlapping field of high-speed shrapnel would spray downstream. He then ran the parachord at tension across the dam face (camouflaged by the odd branch and piece of foliage), threading the grenades and incendiaries through double loops he made in the chord. After installing a dead man’s safety – he then ran the remaining chord up the far side of the valley and to a dead tree, whereupon he tied it to a heavy branch which he then (gently) balanced in a perfect v that had been formed by the tree’s lower branches. One shot from his M4 and all hell would break loose.

Just as he heard the dulcet sounds of hounds barking he deactivated the dead man’s safety. After quickly covering his tracks, he grabbed his burgen and high-tailed it down the ravine and up into the foliage at the base of the outcrop. He needed to be in place before his mates came over the crest of the hill. The valley had to be as still as a catholic priest in a pre-school - with nothing moving. Relaxed airs, relaxed airs…

Creeping slowly through the bush that covered the top of the outcrop, Harry slipped into a thicket just as he clocked the first of his pursuers at the top of the slip. Within 2 minutes they had all gathered and were threading their way down. Not much time left. Harry hauled up his M4, checked his mag (very quietly), then using his arms as a tripod (yay for the M4, that shit just ain’t possible with an AK) he lined up the balanced branch in his holo-sight. Now all he had to do was wait.

Ten minutes later his mates were all moving into the valley just below the dam. A couple of dog handlers leisurely dragging on the ubiquitous Asian cigarettes that everyone over eight years old seemed to inhale.  The dogs had picked up on his scent and were straining at their leashes. Although fuck knows how they could smell anything through the cloud of smoke their handlers were blowing into the air. Froth sprayed from the dog’s mouths. Very excited wee Cliffords they were. They looked like a cross between a Dobie and a Shewolf. Fuckin’ ugly. Probably smelt like a hookers undies after a night out at the proms. The world wouldn’t miss ‘em...

It was time. Taking a deep breath, Harry centred his holo on the branch and took the pressure on the trigger. His pursuers were now all in the field of fire.

Crack!  He fired. The bullet hit his branch dead on and it slipped between the ‘v’ yanking the parachord a good 2-3 metres - plenty of tension to pop all his bangers. The effect was instantaneous.

He now knew the clays were still functional. Mostly. Each side of the dam erupted in a spray of sharp metal bits and flying ball bearings. Everything living within a 20m range downstream and 2m out from the dam face wasn’t living any longer. It was either in more pieces than a Wasgij or it had disappeared. Completely. This wasn’t like those action movies when the hero running through the jungle, accidently sets off a claymore then hides behind a small log as it detonates … Jumping up to continue on his (or her) way once the smoke clears. No, this shit was real. Nothing, absolutely nothing survived within 10m of a claymore. And that was only the opening gambit. Now the grenades did their bit, detonating one by one in a storm of shrapnel and pieces of wood. As if it wasn’t enough to be shredded by a claymore. Insult had now been added to injury.   Through the smoke Harry saw the dam collapse and a wall of water surge down the valley and into the ravine. The noise was terrific. He thought he saw a dog’s head bobbing in the flow. Whether it was still connected to the rest of the dog was unknown.

Two minutes later the water had receeded and Harry took a good look around the AO with his binocs. The dam had gone (obviously) and downstream had been thoroughly scoured clean. Nothing at all was left except puddles. There appeared to be the odd rag and bloody giblet hanging from a few branches but that was about it. Looked like a win then… Slowly Harry backed his way out from the thicket he was concealed in, gathered his gear, and slipped down the hill. He still maintained his battle readiness just in case one of his pursuers had miraculously managed to survive, but all signs so far indicated that he had prevailed. Not even a dog would have made it.

A quick recce confirmed it. Nothing was there. If anything had managed to survive the initial explosion and dam collapse, it would be halfway to the ocean by now.

Excellent news. Now he needed to put a good few clicks between himself and this place. He didn’t know how often his pursuers had maintained contact with their superiors or when they last checked in. He just figured they did both and it didn’t pay to fuck with any gift horses. So after a quick bearing check he gapped it up the side of the ravine and into the jungle. He needed to be at least 10 clicks away before he could settle down for some scrag and a kip… about a two hour tab through this sort of ground. He’d arrive about an hour before sunset.