[center]------------------------------------------------ The Siege of Mombasa May 24th, 1960 ------------------------------------------------[/center] "So you ladies are leaving?" Commander Trevor stood in the open door of the small house that the Rhodesians had been occupying. "Take one casualty and you tuck your tails and run." The Rhodesians for the most part ignored the man but their new leader, a lean Sergeant who might remind others of a Cheetah, stood to face the Commander from where he was packing his rucksack. "Any fool can see you're going to loose this little fight, Commander." He spat the last word with an intense scorn. "Your treatment of their prisoners, lack of resources, poor morale, and their numbers are going to carry this day, anyone can see that. You played your cards and you played damn fucking poorly." "A Rhodesian woman lectures me on warfare!" Trevor laughed but the Sergeant cracked a partial smile instead of lashing out. "Aye, we won in Mozambique, we have stability and a homeland. How's that been going for you?" The Commander's face turned red in an instant and he swung a heavy blow at the Rhodesians head. Caught off gaurd, the Sergeant managed to twist away and the blow glanced off his skull and he took a half step backwards. In an instant the other Rhodesians were on their feet as the Sergeant rocked back and launched himself in a spear tackle at the Commander. The two men hit the ground with a thud and several punches were exchanged before the remaining Rhodesians managed to pull the two men apart. Two held the enraged Sergeant back while two others bodily hurled the Commander through the door and into the street where his surprised escort scrambled up from the dusty roadway. For a tense moment the two groups faced each other, hands slowly going to weapons. Then the Commander spat in the dust between them. "Alright then, you will fight me but not the real enemy. Get out. But you'll have no help from me or mine." He turned on his heel and stormed down the street towards Fort Jesus. The Rhodesians waited until he was gone before relaxing and backing into their house. The Sergeant, wiping blood from his face, turned to a man sitting huddled over a radio that had not moved the whole time. "Any luck Perkins?" The man looked up from his apparatus and nodded. "Aye Sarge, I have good and bad news. While you had your little tussle I was able to make contact with the Fast Destroyer [i]Balla Balla[/i]. She's off the coast doing trial runs with new engines on board. They have direct orders not to interfere with the Communist action here due to the current state of peace between Rhodesia and Ethiopia. They will however stand to off the coast and take us aboard if we can find a boat." As one the men looked through a shattered window towards Fort Jesus and its imposing bulk where it squatted over the bay. All the boats on their side of the river had been drawn up below the fort to protect them from the Communist forces and their ramshackle catamarans. It was a daunting prospect. Commander Trevor was hardly like to let them just have a boat at this point, and, if they didn't get one, they would be fighting the final battle with him whether they liked it or not. "Well, no time to waste them. Let the [i]Balla Balla[/i] know that we're going to try and make it out to them. Any boat not coming from the Fort should be considered hostile. We will pop blue if needed." The radioman nodded and spoke rapidly into his radio. The reply was scratchy at best but the rest of the squad heard the reply. "Roger that FRV, [i]Balla Balla[/i] standing by for twenty four hours. After that, you're on your own lads, we've got our orders." One of the men snorted and made a dismissive comment but the Sergeant waved the objection down. "Easy lads. We're not a regular army unit, we got ourselves into this, they don't even have to wait twenty four hours if they don't want to. We owe them now." A grudging round of nods went around the room. The First Rhodesian Volunteers had indeed landed themselves in the midst of the this shit storm. Initially they had answered the call to help defend another white nation against the tide of darkness that had been sweeping across Africa with Rhodesia as the sole shining light. What they had found on arrival was a regime led by a man who slaughtered blacks like cattle. The FRV were hardly what you might call "civic minded" but they had all served with black soldiers against Mozambique and seen what was possible when the white minority worked with the black population rather than creating an atmosphere of fear and hatred. It was a moot point now, their survival was at stake. They had seen how poorly Commander Trevor had handled the siege to this point. His men were well armed but badly led, running short on ammunition and even shorter on reinforcements. White folk were pretty thin on the ground in this area and soon they would be an extinct species in this part of Africa. "Forget your gear. Weapons and ammo only. We're going to have to make a run for it. Or, we can ruck up and try and walk out of here?" The Sergeant said the last words were said with a sly smile at the chorus of good natured curses he got in return. The men emptied their recently packed bags onto the dusty floor. They stuffed their pockets with ammunition, some food stuffs, and personal mementos they did not wish to leave behind. A few knelt in prayer, others checked the sharpness of their hand weapons, and everyone checked and rechecked the action on their weapons. Dark was beginning to fall when the Rhodesians stepped out into the street. The sound of gunfire from Fort Jesus was sporadic at the moment, the fires on both sides of the river the only real light to be seen for miles. The odd civilian hurried by through the streets as the men made their way toward the fort. There were still several hundred white civilians in the city and they would surely die, or get raped and then die, depending on the victors tastes. The Rhodesians did not fancy sticking around to see that. The relative quiet was shattered by three explosions near Fort Jesus that sent towering columns of water into the air. One of the men cursed quietly as he stumbled, startled by the explosions. No one laughed. This could only mean that an attack was coming. They began to walk faster. The time it took for the next shells to land was puzzling to the Rhodesians. They had fought with artillery before and well served pieces could lob rounds within minutes of each other but whatever the Communists had took nearly twenty minutes to fire their next barrage. One of the Rhodesians stopped abruptly so that two others had to move quickly to avoid him. "Fuck me lads. They're using catapults..." In the gathering dusk they could just make out the heavy wooden throwing arms of the Communist weapons several hundred yards away across the river as they hurled their next load at Fort Jesus. "Not Catapults, Trebuchets." Corrected another soldier as he squinted in the dark. "They must be throwing artillery shells. Unless they built explosive pots or some such. Clever fellas." "And this is why that Trevor cunt is going to lose. No imagination and these black bastards are using medieval weaponry. We need to hustle." The Sergeant cut in. The shells were beginning to strike the fort now and the crack of a rifle saw one of the siege engineers topple into the blackness below. At least someone in the bloody fort was trying to fight back. The Rhodesians began to run. They ignored shouts from the defenders they passed and instead of taking the high road towards the fort they turned left and went down the well worn stone stairs toward the harbour, the bulk of Fort Jesus hiding the siege engines from their sight. The defenders were light here as they got close to the harbour, far fewer than expected, it was evident that Trevor had even less men than he had led them to believe. They reached the beach at a sprint to find a number of small craft, only a half dozen with engines, drawn up on the beach or tied to the stone quay. Several sentries were crouched on the stone staring into the darkness and as the Rhodesians reached them one raised his rifle and fired a shot into the gloom. "Catamarans!" The sentry yelled, his next shot was rewarded with a scream and a splash in the darkness beyond. The white splash of oars could be seen clearly now coming around the edge of Fort Jesus just as the gunfire on the far side began to rise in intensity. "Bloody attack is underway. Head for those two boats and give the blackies hell!" The Sergeant called out as he gestured to two sleek wooden yachts that rested in the deep water at the end of the pier. Without further prompting the Rhodesians laid down a blistering curtain of gunfire. The white bursts of water showed as machine guns stitched their way across the surface to hit the catamarans and the war cries of the attackers turned into screams as the bullets tore into them. The fight was hardly one sided however and there was nowhere to hide on the pier as the Communists returned fire. The sentry who had called the alarm fell with a bullet his throat and choked to death next to a Rhodesian who had fallen with a bullet hole in his forehead and a surprised look on his face. More catamarans appeared from the darkness until the whole bay appeared to be covered with their slim white figures, their crews paddling madly as if they could sense victory at hand. The fire from the fort was slackening and the sound of hand to hand combat came loud to the Rhodesians below who were inching their way along the pier on their bellies. Two more of their number were hit and died on the stone, one clutching at a belly wound that would take hours to kill him. Bullets tore overhead like angry wasps and only the movement of the catamarans and the darkness prevented the Communists from wiping the Rhodesian contingent out. The sound of bullets striking stone, steel, and wood, was all around them, and one of the boats they had picked out on the far end of the pier was slowly settling in the water as bullets shattered its hull. The Sergeant, lying as low as he could, did the only thing he could think of. He pulled a blue flare from his pocket, lit it, and tossed it back towards land. It illuminated the pier but also brought help in the form of a massive geyser that exploded between two catamarans, sending them spinning through the air like toothpicks in a gale. The blue flare, used widely by the Rhodesian Security Forces to signal "I need help right fucking now" had evidently been expected by the Navy. The sound of a heavy gun rolled over the bay and a moment later two more catamarans blew apart as another shell struck one and exploded against some piece of metal. Smaller cannons, 5 inch guns from the sound of them, joined in the action and several more catamarans simply dissolved into nothing as the shells slammed into them. Out in the darkness the muzzle flashes of the [i]Balla Balla's[/i] guns were drawing closer and her bow wake was clearly visible now. The Communist gunfire subsided drastically after the first few shells and now ended all together as the catamarans fled before the ship that bore down on them. The big guns fell silent as the catamarans scattered, either grounding themselves beneath the fort or returning the way they had come. "MOVE!" The Sergeant roared and his remaining command, some fifteen able bodied soldiers and nine wounded, piled in the remaining boat, dangerously overloading it as they did so. The engine coughed to life and the boat pulled away from the pier, her decks almost swamping in the gentle surf that was buffeting the shoreline. They were halfway to the [i]Balla Balla[/i] when a launch appeared around her stern and bore down on them. Rhodesian Marines lowered their weapons when they saw the white faces and friendly hands pulled the exhausted Rhodesian survivors into the launch. "Anyone left behind?" A Naval Lieutenant asked as the Sergeant was pulled aboard. "Only the dead." Gasped the Sergeant as he slumped onto the anti-skid decking, never had he been so glad to be so uncomfortable in his life. The Lieutenant nodded and flashed a light at the [i]Balla Balla[/i] who acknowledged the signal and began to get underway, heading back out into the darkness with the launch racing to catch up. For the Rhodesians, the Siege of Mombasa was over.