Castro's Bomb (11 page)

A second shell slammed into the bunker.
 
The tank was firing at almost point blank range.
 
The inadequate roof collapsed and Andrew could see unwelcome daylight.
 
They'd been opened up like a can of sardines.
 
Men were down, killed and wounded.

"Out of here!" Andrew yelled, and Sergeant Cullen joined in.
 
They grabbed the wounded and spilled out into the area behind the tents.
 
"Down to fallback," Andrew ordered.
 
He would be the last man out.
 
He looked about and saw that anyone left inside was dead.
 
He ran.

For a few precious moments, the ruined bunker was between them and the advancing tanks, but then they were exposed.
 
Machine gun bullets flayed the air and Andrew ran as hard as he could.
 
Bullets chewed up the ground by his feet and he threw himself onto the ground and began to crawl furiously.
 

Finally, he made it to the dubious safety of the gully.
 
Others tumbled in with him.
 
Cullen was one of them.
 
Andrew caught his breath and counted noses.
 
Seven including himself.
 
That's it?
 
He looked over the edge of the gully and back to the bunker.
 
A number of crumpled forms lay on the ground.
 

He counted again.
 
Still seven.
 
He had started with twenty-one men, counting himself, and now he had seven.
 

Worse, the Cuban column was grinding past the bunker and the fallback position.
 
The tank that had destroyed their bunker opened fire with its main gun and chewed up both the remains of the bunker and the men lying dead or wounded on the ground.

"You want us to shoot up another truck?" Cullen asked.

Andrew thought quickly.
 
If they did that, they'd come under attack from either a tank or a personnel carrier and they had damned little to fight back with.
 
Still, he didn't feel like giving up just yet.

"Everybody.
 
Get ready to fire one full clip at the last truck in the column.
 
Then scoot like hell for the hill behind us, and don't even think of wasting time reloading.
 
When we've done that we'll try and make it back to the base."

He paused and gave the signal.
 
It took only a few seconds for the seven of them to fire off eight rounds and the people in the truck gave no indication they'd even noticed.
 
Maybe it didn't carry people, only supplies.

Andrew wanted to cry but he was too angry.
 
He'd lost all those men and they hadn't done a damn thing to slow down the Cuban advance.

John F. Kennedy had dressed hurriedly.
 
He was unshaven and unkempt.
 
And angry.
 
He glared at the young Air Force captain who stood before the table with all the phones.
 
He shook his head.
 
It wasn't this poor guy's fault.

"You drew the short straw, didn't you, captain?"

"Sir?"

"Duty in the White House on Christmas."
 
He looked at the man's name tag.
 
Dudley.
 
He wondered if his buddies called him Dudley the Dud.
 
Right now he felt like Kennedy the Dud.
 
He wondered if this was how history would remember him for being in charge during what appeared to be yet another monumental debacle and disgrace for the U.S.
 
At least much of the blame for the Bay of Pigs had fallen on his predecessor, Eisenhower.
 
In history he'd read of an Old Saxon king called Ethelred the Unready.
 
Would that be his legacy?
 
Kennedy the Unready?
 
Or maybe John the Easily Fooled?
 
Damn it to hell.

"So what can you tell me, Captain Dudley?"

"Sir, it appears that the base at Guantanamo Bay is under attack by large elements of both Cuban air and ground forces."

"Appears?
 
Dudley, are they being attacked or not?"

Dudley flinched.
 
He'd been hanging around politicians too long and had almost forgotten how to give a straight answer.
 
"They are, sir.
 
Reports are scattered and confused, but the base is definitely under attack and it does appear that both air fields at Gitmo have been bombed and shelled and put out of commission, and that Cuban armor is moving to overwhelm the base.
 
Attacks are moving quickly and coming from several directions."

So the report from the CIA was true after all, Kennedy thought, sickened by that fact.
 
And I will be blamed for this and rightfully so.
 
"Are we responding, or are the generals all waiting for my authority to do something."

Now Dudley was a little more assured.
 
"The men at the base are defending it as best they can, and there are Air Force and Navy planes headed to Cuba.
 
Unfortunately, it will not be a coordinated response, but they will shoot down whatever the Cubans have up there."

"Did the base itself have any planes up?"

"Don't know, sir."

"Two," said a voice from one of the phones.
 
It was Admiral Anderson.
 
"One was shot down and the other has ditched at sea after running out of fuel.
 
Before he ditched, the pilot claimed the two of them had shot down three Cuban MiG 17s."

"Was the pilot rescued?" Kennedy asked.

"A Coast Guard cutter is closing in on him now.
 
As to the other pilot, the one who crashed, he's presumed dead."

Along with a lot of others who are presumed dead, Kennedy thought.
 
He couldn't allow himself to be preoccupied by one or two men.
 
He had to focus on the grand scheme of things.

Like how to inform the American public that they were at war.

However, that was already somewhat out of his hands.
 
CIA Director McCone came on line and informed the president that Castro was already on the radio bragging about the attack and the imminent fall of the base that he said was a cancer on Cuban soil.
 

McCone continued.
 
"Sir, he's saying he attacked with three full divisions and we had no idea it was coming.
 
The obvious implication is that we were stupid."

And he may be right, Kennedy thought.
 
American radio and television news broadcasts had begun to broadcast the reports.

Kennedy shook his head.
 
"Then the base has fallen?"

"No," said Anderson, "or at least not yet.
 
There are several reports that the Cubans have penetrated to the Bay itself, and that's only about five miles from the boundaries of the base.
 
We're looking at a very small piece of real estate, sir, and it won't take long before it is overrun."

There's just a still hope, Kennedy thought.
 
Maybe it can be reinforced and protected.
 
This was quashed almost immediately by General LeMay who sounded both sleepy and angry.

"In an hour I'll have fifty planes over Gitmo and we'll blow their MiG asses right out of the sky.
 
But by that time, the Cuban soldiers will be so mixed in among the Americans on the base that we won't be able to distinguish enemy targets from friendlies.
 
Hell, sir, that’s likely happening already."

The president checked his notes for the names of the commanders at Guantanamo and turned to Dudley.
 
"Where are Colonel Killen and Admiral O'Donnell and what are they saying?"

Dudley shrugged.
 
"We haven't heard a thing from them, sir.
 
They may be killed or captured."

"Then who the devil are we talking to?"

General Shoup answered.
 
The fury in his voice was barely controlled.
 
His men were dying.
 
"A Major Sam Hartford, USMC, is in charge of the backup command post.
 
The primary command post is not responding.
 
Everybody's taking a lot of artillery along with the bombing and the main command center may have been hit."
 
Which would, of course, explain why Killen and O'Donnell weren't talking, Kennedy realized.
 

JFK was pleased that the executive committee was getting together so quickly, considering the circumstances and if only by telephone.
 
He needed good advice and he needed it now.
 
He wondered if anyone was snooping in on them and decided that, again, he didn't care.

"Can this Major Hartford’s radio be patched into here?" Kennedy asked, and was assured that it could be done.
 
"Then make it happen.
 
And then let's get everybody here as quickly as you can.
 
I don't like all this talking on the phone crap.
 
I want to be able to see people."
 

 
JFK had another thought.
 
Castro might be addressing the Cuban people and the world, but he would have to speak to the American people and explain to them just what had happened and just what the devil he was going to do about it.

Of course, he would have to figure out what to do before he said anything.
 
He didn't want to start World War III on Christmas Day, 1962, anymore than he had wanted to just about two months prior.
 
Then, he and the Soviets had managed to back away from the flames.
 
Could they do it again?
 
They would have to.
 
But what was Russia's role in this current mess and what the hell was Khrushchev's involvement in this new crisis?
 
Damn it, the man had to have known what was going on.
 
What the hell did he want?

He would try to stop it, just like before, but, back then, people weren't fighting and dying like they were now.
 
Oh, Jesus.
 
What had happened to a quiet Christmas with Jackie and the kids?
 
He'd been looking forward to playing with the children.
 
He managed a small smile and admitted that he'd been looking forward to playing with their mother as well.

Ross had his few remaining men spread out as they approached the ruins of the bunker and the equally ruined men who lay, burned and shredded, on the ground and inside.

Andrew blanched.
 
He had seen death before but it had been quiet, orderly and dignified death.
 
It had always been death in a casket and an embalmed corpse that everyone insisted that looked like he or she was sleeping.
 
He always thought that was stupid; nobody ever slept in a casket.
 
They were dead.
 
And nobody ever dressed up in a suit or a good dress to take a nap in a casket, either.

This kind of death was new to Andrew and he could tell it was new to his pitifully small command.
 
Even Cullen looked disconcerted.
 
He caught Andrew's eye and shook his head.
 
One of the other Marines started to vomit and a couple of others followed.
 
Andrew felt his stomach churning at the sight of body fragments and raw meat that was already turning black and attracting swarms of flies.
 
Hands and heads, legs and torsos were scattered about what was supposed to have been his home for a quiet weekend on duty.

If this is war, Andrew thought, you can keep it.
 
Let me get the hell out of this and into law school.
 
But in order to get into law school he had to first get out of this mess.
 
He ordered two of his men to watch each way down the road.
 
The Cuban column was long gone, but who knew what might come next.
 
Probably trucks with supplies and reinforcements for the Cubans fighting for control of the base.
 
They could hear the battle that was still raging a couple of miles behind them.

"What are we doing, lieutenant?" asked Cullen.

"Checking for survivors, even though that's probably a lost cause.
 
Then we're going to search for supplies and extra ammo and then we're going to bury the dead."

Cullen shook his head.
 
"The Cubans will come back and realize that we survived.
 
It's ugly, sir, but why not leave the men where they are?"

Andrew bristled.
 
"Because they are Marines, that's why, and we take care of our people, dead or alive.
 
Besides, they might think we buried them and then skedaddled back to the base.
 
Or they might think some of their people did it.
 
Or they might think we escaped and aren't important enough to worry about.
 
Regardless, we're burying them."

Cullen nodded.
 
"Then it's a good plan."

"Gunny, were you testing me?"
 

Cullen grinned and shrugged.
 
"If I was, you passed."

Incredibly, they found two men alive outside the bunker.
 
One, Lance Corporal Stillman, was badly wounded and unconscious, while the second, Pfc. Levin, was found under debris that had fallen from the bunker.
 
He only had a broken arm and collarbone.
 
Only, Andrew thought ruefully.