Michael Hannigan had served in the Irish Guards during the Great War, and discovered he enjoyed creeping across no mans land, through the shell holes and wire, to silently take out the enemy. His many.. indiscretions… on leave were tolerated until the war was over, despite the complaints of the French.
Discharged, he fought in the Irish Civil War, then made his way to Boston. An easy life as an enforcer for the Irish mob wasn’t enough. Combat beckoned him to serve as a mercenary in the little wars and revolts the world always has, Gran Chaco, Asir, the Phillipines, Bolivia, and Paraguay again. Eventually, he was recruited to be one of HEBCO’s guerrillas, recently plying his trade in the South Pacific. The money was good, and he enjoyed killing mice.
However, Michael Hannigan hated jungles. They were hot, dark and humid, swarming with bugs and the lush greenery stank. The showers that came with the humidity would soak the brush, but provide little relief. Still, he found himself cradling a B.A.R. in a treeblind, overwatching two of HEBCO’s lesser sentry teams outside the compound. God in heaven he wanted a smoke, but didn’t dare light up in the suffocating darkness that passed for night in these parts. Instead, he served as the silent backup to the disposable piquet line. Considering the number of tripmines scattered about, and the local population of biting insects, he was not convinced his time here was well spent.
As good as Michael Hannigan was in most theatres of war, he still smelled of meat and cigarettes, with a faint tinge of alcohol. The wildlife didn’t like to go near that tree, and the vines used to make the blind were not renewed as faithfully as they should. The combination meant the position had been known for sometime.
For Master Sergeant Kama Bomanchala the jungle was far more comforting, the scents odd, but still reminiscent of his childhood. He had been born 40 years prior, as a member of the Bakuba tribe of the Bantu people. Hunting in the jungle was a way of life for the men of his village.
When he was a young boy he had watched Belgian mercenaries, of the infamous Force Publique, impress the people of his village, forcing them to collect a quota vine rubber. Smeared on their bodies for transport, the skin would not infrequently lift off when the sheets were torn from their bodies. When the Force Publique returned for it’s bounty, the leaders who complained, like his father, died. For each bullet the Force Publique expended, they had to produce an ear, so they preferred to use machetes to kill the villagers, saving the ears to offset bullets expended in future hunting expeditions.
He was still young when the Queen’s Marines drove out the Force Publique, turning their fortified compound up the river into a shattered ruin. Village life returned to how it had been, the women returning to their roles, the men to hunting. Kama Bomanchala stayed until he was twenty, enduring the remedial education the new nation on before he could join the Marines. Serving fifteen years in the Long Range Reconnaissance units posted to the Kongo and DEI, he had spent the past five years as an instructor at the Marine Jungle Warfare Center at Dongalla.
The King of Siam had been distressed by the death of his White Mice. However HEBCO’s homicidal campaign had not expended quite the same energy on their Danish partners, and had nearly completely ignored the mole-like Dutch agents. The Dutch intelligence presence had always been more low key, more mercantile and very quiet so not to upset their friends. With the White Mice so badly betrayed from inside, their direct links were suspect, so the Dutch had been asked to provide “trainers” for the Siamese Army, a valid request in any case.
Master Sergeant Bomanchala was just one of many of this training force detailed from the Marines Jungle Warfare Training Center at Dongalla. Officially he had rotated out, unofficially the seaplane had put down on the coast and he got off. He and the other men of “his” kommando had been eating local village food for a solid month, they had been in the jungle for two weeks, and had been observing this compound for a week. It had taken months to find Howards compound, but now the defenses were well known.
Sergeant Kenge was of the Bambenga tribe, he had grown up in the deep jungle and stood 148cm tall. Light and wirey, his stature had made it difficult to join the Marines, they saw little need for pygmies. However, figuring there may be some use for short men, he was brought on as a suttler. In the DEI, he found the local’s martial art of Silat fascinating, now, he was an unarmed combat instructor used to . He was also quite good about moving around treetops. The HEBCO sentries didn’t tend to look up much, and the trees had few mines.
Others like these, born in the Netherlands, Kongo and the DEI, with years of jungle warfare training in the 2nd Marine Brigades Long Range Reconnaissance companies, ghosted through the jungle on carefully cleared attack corridors, launching a careful assault.
The assault was underway for seven and a half minutes when the first non-silenced shot rang out. HEBCO personnel had died by a variety of means, poison darts, hand to hand, an by the whisper of a silenced Nagant revolver. The gas seal of the cylinder made for several problems, but the silenced weapon lacked the noise the action of a silenced automatic has.
When the alert went out, it was nearly to late, not all the files were destroyed by the self destruct charges. The minisub carrying the head honcho was able to make a submerged egress under battery power, slipping into the riverine estuary and silently heading for the sea.
The estuary made a gentle turn to the south before running straight for a thousand yards and making a sweeping turn into the sea. The battery of mountain guns were placed to command this stretch, seeking to stop the power boats they expected may make such a run. The periscope was spotted as it slipped out to sea, and a couple fitful shells fired.
The sub was last seen heading for the sea... perhaps to some secret base in the islands...
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Quoted
Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
Wednesday, May 1st 2024, 11:16pm
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