Fight at the Ubangi River

When he had seen what the terrorists had done to the girl staked out at the top of the hill Trooper Rwezi had gone slightly mad. I could see that his eyes were wide and sweat dripped from his forehead, he started to shake and before I could stop him he swung up into the saddle and tore off down the hill at a gallop.

As hard as I had trained my native troops to ignore emotion and stick to obeying orders, what he had wittnessed on top of that hill erased all my training in an instant. All he could think about was the fact that the ones who had done these terrible things to the young girl were at that very moment getting away across the river into French Cameroon where we could not follow them.

I jumped on my horse and tore down the hill after Rwezi shouting and cursing at him to stop. I could see that the force crossing the river was much smaller than the one that we had been tracking from the devestated farm house some five miles back to the south.

I could also see that there was a stand of trees between the bottom of the hill and the river crossing. As I tore down off the hill I was thinking that those trees would be a very good place to set up an ambush.

I had just left the slope and reached the flat ground about a fifty yards in front of the nearest trees when I heard a shot and saw Rwezi tumble backward off his horse.

Shortly after that I felt a blow to my left knee and just as that happened, my horse let out a scream and pitched over bakward landing with my left leg pinned under him, his body between me and the trees.

I was now taking steady fire from the tree line but thankfully, the now dead horse was absorbing most of the bullets that were meant for me, it was good cover for now but I knew that it wouldn’t last long, for even now the rounds were slowly turning the horse into hamburger. I was throughly covered in horse blood but I was still alive. Thankfully, most of the rounds were passing harmlessly over my head as these terrorists were known for spraying lots of bullets but had very little marksmanship training.

I started to take stock of my situation and soon discovered that I was firmly pinned with my leg under the body of the horse. At least the weight of the horse on my leg was mostly stopping the bleeding from the wound at the side of my knee and felt very little pain from it. I could see my rifle lying about six feet beyond my reach to my left.

After some manouvering I found that I could reach the standard issue Spanish Star 9mm pistol pistol that I carried in a holster on my belt. I pulled this out with some difficulty and fornd that it looked to be in working order. I dropped the magazine, removed the top round and put it my shirt pocket.

I did this as insurance in case I was about to be captured. I had resolved long ago to never let myself be captured. It was well known that white Mercenaries didnt fare very well when taken alive by these terrorists. I had personally seen the remains of men castrated, stripped of their skin or simply raped untill blood loss killed them. I had resolved long ago to never let myself be captured alive. The round in my pocket insured that I had the means to keep that from happening.

After extracting the round I found that I had six rounds left in the magazine. Those, along with the one in the chamber left me with only seven rounds to defend myself from a force of over twenty. I started to look around for other weapons. I remembered that I had a Colt Woodsman .22 Pistol in my saddle bag. I carried it just for putting down horses and had even been forced to use it to relieve the suffering of a couple of badly wounded men who had no hope and were miles form any medical treatment. With some streching and well timed movements to avoid getting shot I managed to pull the small Colt out of my the saddle bag.

Just as I brough the Colt out I heard some yelling from the tree line that sounded like it was in Spanish. As I was processing the idea of someone yelling in Spanish here in the middle of Africa, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye from the treeline about fifty yards to my right. The next thing I saw was a short brown man in a tan uniform run out of the treeline firing an AK47 form the hip.

I would like to say that what happened next was due to superior training or outstanding marksmanship, but the truth is, I just pointed the Colt in the direction of the movement and fired without thinking. The man suddenly dropped the AK and reached up to the left side of his face and started screaming. I shook my head in disbelief as the man fell and started to thrash around on the ground. Soon the screaming turned into cursing in Spanish. I had grown up in Texas and had learned to curse in Spanish about the same time I had learned in English, and I had to say that the guy on the ground was making colorful use of the language, alternitavely calling for help and cursing me, his men, and just about everyone else within earshot.

I was then startled to see two men suddenly burst out of the treeline and headed to where the first man fell. I dropped the Colt and grabbed up the 9mm and braced my hand aginst the flank of the dead horse and squeezed off two quick shots. The first man fell and the second nearly fell right on top of him.

Before I had time to lower the pistol another man came out of the trees firing an AK from the hip. I leveled the pistol and he too dropped and lay there unmoving. I saw movement to my right and to my suprise another man was heading toward the still thrashing and cursing man. I waited untill he was as close as I thought he was going to get and I let off a round that must have hit him high in the head because I could see blood fly off the top of his head and he too dropped to the ground.

I heard a slight noise behind me and turned around as much as my trapped leg would allow. There to my suprise I could see my number two man, Corporal Andy Sims crawling through the grass on his belly toward my position. I grinned and waved to him. Just as I did, a tall thin white man in what looked like an East german Field uniform came running out of the bush firing from an AK in each hand. Andy rose up on one knee and put his issue FN Fal .308 rifle to his shoulder, pulled the trigger twice and I could see two red blotches appear on the man’s chest and he too went down.

When the white man dropped it had an effect on the folks in the trees beacause the firing almost stopped and that gave Andy time to reach my position. As he crawled up to me I said, “About time, you lazy bastard.” Andy smiled and replied, “Sorry I was late but I was finishing tea and had to clean out the pot and put away the dishes, anyway it looks like you had everything under control Captain.”

Andy then reached into his pocket and pulled out a half full bottle of Irish Whiskey and passed it to me. I turned the bottle up and took a long drink before passing it back to him saying, “I knew that you were good for something after all.” Andy smiled and said, “Never leave home without it.”

About that time another two fellows started out of the trees and I shot the one on the Right and Andy got the one on the left. I looked over at Andy and said, “That little guy thrashing around on the ground out there must be someone really important since they are willing to lose so many men to get him.” Andy grinned and said, “Yeah, they sure seem determined alright. Also you should know that most of my ammo is back there behind us on my horse. I’m down to about five rounds, How about you?” I grimmaced and said, “I have only two rounds left, so what do you say that when they go after the guy again, you drop one and I’ll let the other one just have him before we both get stuck out here unarmed.” Andy nodded because just at that moment two more men started out of the trees. Andy dropped the one in the lead and then we both fired over the head of the second man who when reaching the guy on the ground pulled him over his shoulder and headed back into the trtees with him. Shortly after that all firing stopped.

We sat there watching the treeline for what must have been five minutes or so when I heard a noise from behind us and turned to see two more of my Troopers cautiously approaching us from the tall grass behind us.

Trooper Ncube was the first to reach us and when he arrived his eyes became as big as saucers in his big black face, he started to wring his hands and said, “My god Captain, how are you still alive after loosing all that blood. How many times are you hit?”

Corporal Sims stood up laughing and said,“Ncube you ignorant bastard, its the horses blood, not his. Now bring your big ass over here and help me lift this dead animal off the Captian so we can get the hell out of here.”