Tales from the Hot War

Another idea I had at work, this time from listening to an audio book from the Cold War. I pictured a squad or platoon fighting its way to its objective in a charred and gray Cuba in 1962. It was a short story idea, of these soldiers heading towards their assigned target, fighting across a nuclear wasteland, not even knowing if their target, or homes, still existed.

Obviously, the attack on Cuba prompted a Soviet attack on West Berlin, and it all spiraled out of control quickly. It's a thought, and I'm not going to start working on it until I finish the Stardust: Apocalypse outline, which should (and it better be) done by the end of the year.

Tales of the Hot War.png
 
Not so sure about the dates. Well, here's the first attempt....

November 2, 1962

Shores of Cuba


Was he dead? The world had remained still for so long that he was not sure any more. No, he could not be dead. If he were, surely his head would not feel like some jazz player was using it for drums. Or a pin cushion. After the explosion, he could feel a thousand needles in his ears, his sinuses and even the back of his head. Must be the shift in air pressure, like when you were coming in for a landing in one of those unpressurized aircraft. His eyes hurt too. The instant he saw the flash, Private Daniel Jefferson threw himself into the soft sands upon the beach.

After assessing he still lived, Daniel began to wonder if he was deaf. The explosion was beyond anything he ever imagined. The earth lay still now, minutes, hours– maybe even days after the blasts, Daniel was clueless as to how long he be laying face down on the beach. The rustle of the breeze broke the momentary silence. No, he was not deaf, but the sounds of the wounded and dying that soon rose up made him wish he were.

He knew full well he could not just lie on the beach. The fact that he was not already chewed up by machine guns said any Cubans on the beach were just as dead. He risked a quick peak. Against agonizing pains in his head, he turned it sides ways and gazed down the beach. Where once stood groves of palms and white sands, was now a blackened and shattered landscape, covered with a light rain of ash that began to fall. Not a single palm stood upright, and those thrown about like discarded matchsticks were almost as black as he. The stumps were nothing but mounds of charcoal, probably good enough for his old man to use in the barbeque, if not for all the radiation.

A large shadow soon fell over Daniel. “You alive, boy?” he asked with a slow drawl that came from the back of beyond, Alabama. Daniel would recognize that voice anywhere. Sargent Simmons always called him boy, but did so in a casual way, like one who talked that way to colored men all his life. The Sarge was not as malicious towards Daniel as were the white folk in Key West. Actually, Daniel thought to rephrase that. The Sarge was not particularly malicious towards the colored soldiers in the squadron. It was one of his redeeming qualities; he hated all enlisted me equally.

“Yeah, Sarge,” Daniel cracked, started by how his own voice sounded. If he looked half as bad as he sounded, he should probably be hauled off to some hospital ship. If any of those were left.

Simmons stood over him with little patience. “Then get on your feet!”

Daniel slowly forced himself upwards, dizziness striking the moment he tried to stand. Shock struck him life a Louisville slugger. It was not the pain in his body, but rather the full sight of the world around him. The white sands were ashen, and the tropical forest that lay further inland was charred. The landscape and all upon it was monochromatic, black and white and all the shades between. Even the Sarge, his face burnt and covered in soot, making him a few shades darker than Daniel. It would have been comical, if not for the sight out to see.

It could not have been more than an hour ago when the invasion started. Hundreds of ships bobbed up and down in the coastal waters, half of which were on fire. A few capsized, and settled on the shallow coastal waters. The once blue waters were black as millions of gallons of oil spilled from broken hulls, and was now ablaze. Off in the distance, no more than a few miles, the flat bow of an aircraft carrier stuck upwards at a forty-five degree angle. The stern was nowhere to be seen.

High in the sky, several circular clouds rose columns of smoke and ash, miles into the air. Off to the east, where another landing was suppose to take place, Daniel saw the sure-tell signs of an atomic explosion; a hideous mushroom snaking its way up into the sky. A sudden lump fell into the pit of his stomach. Did those same clouds now rise over his home? His whole family lived in Chicago– or at they did this morning.

Did the whole world now look like this beach? If atom bombs were used to thwart the invasion, and it was looking like it did a fair job at that, were they used elsewhere? No doubt there was retaliation. Did missiles or B-52s destroy Havana? Was the objective even still standing, or just a slagged radioactive ruin? Where the few soldiers on the beach all that remained of man? The invasion should have been supported by fighters and bombers, but not a single jet flew in the sky, American or Cuban.

“Shake a leg, boy!” the Sarge barked as Daniel dawdled. “You gonna get yourself killed, and me too, if you stand out in the open like this.” He shoved Daniel towards the charred forest further inland. “Get under cover before the Commies dig themselves out and get their wits together.”

“The others?” Daniel asked. There were thousands of soldiers storming the beach last he remembered. Surely they were not all vaporized by the bomb? No, there would be a million charred bones scattered around the beach, and he noticed none. At least not that he could tell was bone. His old man was in the barbeque business back in Chicago, and Daniel had seen plenty of blackened bones in his short life.

The Sarge shook his head. “These poor saps won’t live to see the night. I ain’t no corpsmen and neither are you. Nothing we can do except find the rest of the squad.” The Sarge was right. Despite all the meanness the Army bread into its NCOs, Sergeants had a way of always being right. Daniel’s own NCO was a veteran of Korea. He seen combat and knew what he was talking about. If was saying get off the beach, then that was sound advice.
 

Macragge1

Banned
I am fucking loving this. Nothing else constructive to say right now, but felt I should put that out there.
 
Later that Day

Further Inland


It took only a few minutes of their four mile march inland before Daniel decided there was nothing on Cuba worth seeing. Not anymore. He and the Sarge came to rest, along with a gaggle of fellow soldiers and Marines, at what was once a fine vacation home. At least he assumed it was. Now, nothing remained but the concrete imprint of its foundation, like a giant’s footprint. The acrid stench of smoke permeated the air, much to the point that one could not breath without his gasmask without choking.

Since all of Cuba could very well be ash and smoke, those few men donned their gas masks, at least until the air cleared. He doubted the Cubans or Ruskies would use chemical weapons; after all, why bother bombing the rubble? By the looks of the distant hillsides, blanketed with smoke and flickering reptilian tongues of flames, the air would remain a hazard for some time to come. The sight of his comrades almost made him want to laugh. They looked more like a group of bug-eyed aliens from some Saturday matinee.

Humor died almost as quickly as it started when his thoughts took him home, assuming he even had one anymore. Did his folks get out alright? Did his brothers? He knew one of them was on board the USS Wilkinson, but whether that ship was still afloat was another matter. The desolation that was once a tropical paradise brought horrifying images of a burned out Chicago, its skyscrapers nothing but steel skeletons overlooking a ash covered Lake Michigan.

He thought little about it during the march here. Instead, his attention was focused on any cover large enough to hide a Cuban. If he so much as blinked, they would nail him right between the eyes. Taking breaks, on the other hand, gave him time to think. Time to dwell. He glanced around at the other men, all their faces masked by protective breathers. Surely he could not be the only one to dread what awaited him at home.

The bought of optimism struck him as absurd. As he fidgeted with his M-14, he realized that even if home was still there, odds of seeing it again were nil. They were trapped in a radioactive wasteland, low on supplies, potentially surrounded by enemies, and no support from the Navy. All it would take is a Cuban Mig to fly over and drop a single bomb, and they would all be wiped out. Assuming any jets remained on the island. By the look of this villa, and absence of jungle sounds he half expected to hear, it was a fair bet they were as extinct as the dinosaurs.

He half listened to his platoon command, a Lieutenant Charles, as he went over their plan of action. He was from Ohio, Cleveland was it? Or maybe Dayton. Daniel could not recollect. Somewhere where plenty of factories belched out smoke and feed the American economy. Somewhere that would make a mighty juicy target for Red missiles or bombers.

“We head east,” Charles said, his voice skewed by the gasmask. “Our objective is the port in Mariel. Taking it will allow reinforcements and supplies to land. I don’t need to tell you that our supplies are mostly vaporized.”

The Sarge spoke what many thought. “Assuming that town’s still on the map. We might just be wasting energy.”

Even through the mask, Daniel could see the Lieutenant scowl. “Sargent, there isn’t a whole lot else to do around here but march, now is there?” Better to be doing something, anything, than waiting for fate to take you.

“No sir,” the Sarge put simply. He knew that they could either stay put and die of radiation sickness, or march east and die of radiation sickness. Either way, after getting a nuclear explosion in the face, the radiation sickness was a given. Even Daniel admitted it was better to do something instead of waiting idly for inevitability. The lot of the foot soldiers and marines had to be infinitely better than the paratroopers. Did any of them even make it overland?

Charles slammed his fist into an open palm. “If there are no further questions, then let’s get out of here. The sooner we take the port, the sooner we can go home.”
 
It's not much, but I think I'm back in the writing groove now....

Two Days Later

A gloomy overcast liberally sprayed the Marines as they trudged their way through a swamp. The rain was not a balm for the tropical sun, not the way Daniel had hoped. After two days of relentless bombardment from the sun, a good shower should have refreshed the survivors. Instead, the filthy water falling upon their heads only added to the gloom. Ash from a thousand fires that must have consumed the island, was finally being washed from the atmosphere. Ash of forests, towns and probably people as well. The soot was the least of his worries. Daniel knew, like all other Marines in his contingent, that other, less pleasant, and more radioactive, materials were falling upon their heads.

At first sight of the dark clouds, some hours ago, Daniel wondered if a hurricane was headed for Cuba. Somebody voiced this concern aloud, Daniel could not remember who. The Lieutenant assured them all that no hurricane was anywhere near the island. Storm or not, the ash-choked rain added to the misery of trudging through an ash-choked swamp. Around him, Daniel saw little in the way of green. Most of the swamp’s canopy was burned off by nuclear fire. The water was a sickly gray, with burnt logs floating past. Daniel did not worry about alligators, not too much anyway. Surely they died with the rest of the island.

He wondered if the whole world looked like this. If so, the world would be a dead place, just like after the dinosaurs died out. He briefly remembered seeing the fossil skeletons of the those behemoths as a child. Like all children, he was fascinated by them, at least until he aged to the point where more pressing matters of life drove such interests away. Seeing the Cuban swamps, he toyed with the idea that dinosaurs must have developed the bomb, and that was why they were all dead. No, he had to dismiss that. They were too stupid to come close.

The sound of a couple dozen men sloshing their way through the swamp suddenly struck him as very loud. With not jungle sounds; be it birds singing or monkeys screeching, Daniel suddenly felt very exposed. After three days and not a sign of a single Red, he and the rest of his comrades were growing complacent. The Lieutenant– and more importantly the Sarge, had not come down on their heads like a ton of bricks. Noise discipline was not so important, not when you were one of the last men alive on all the Earth.
 
Nice start on that TL ... will the rest of world be like that or only Cuba ?

What happen to Nato/US and URSS/Pact of Warsaw ?
 
Nice start on that TL ... will the rest of world be like that or only Cuba ?

What happen to Nato/US and URSS/Pact of Warsaw ?

You'll just have to wait and see. I want to get the short story part done first, because a timeline would most certainly have spoilers.
 
End of the Week

It was just typical. As Daniel lay face down in the muck, he was not overly surprise the first humans he and his band of Marines met were hostile. He had never been a pessimistic man, not in his civilian days, nor even after he enlisted. Machine gun and rifle bullets zipping over ones head changed that attitude in a hurry. As all the bullets did fly, he found himself not so concerned about the ones with his name on them. They would punch his clock, it was that simple, but he did learn there was a lot of lead out their addressed simply to whomever it may concern.

He glanced up long enough to take a bead on muzzle flashed with his M-14, hoping the rifle would not jam at such a crucial moment. It did not. He let out a short burst, but how much effect it would have only God knew. He was not the only American replying in kind. A few around him lay prone and returning the gift of lead. A few Marines just lay prone, and he was guessing they would not rise any time soon.

Strange enough, with death nipping at his ankles, Daniel felt not a twinge of fear. He did not dwell on fear, not when he was trying his best to stay alive. He did not even have time to feel depressed at this fire fight in the middle of a dead forest. Had somebody not pressed the button, the Cubans would have had excellent cover in a lush, green forest. Instead, they lay in the ash or kept tight behind a burnt tree trunk, doing their best to kill him.

“Move it, Marines!” he heard the Sarge bark. It was sage advice; better not to stay in one place too long otherwise that annonymace bullet would get him. Daniel crawled forward, giving the enemy as little of a target as possible, while returning bursts of fire along the way. It was too much a temptation to let out a sustained stream of lead, but he fought it. The M-14 could exhaust his whole stash of ammo in half a minute. Maybe even less. Better to make each burst count.

Some Marines were going for precision instead of effect. Daniel saw only a few Cubans fall, but could not tell if it was for cover or for keeps. More Cubans were down for good was his guess, otherwise they would not have been so eager to bug out. Only a handful of them withdrew from battle, and not all were successful in their escape. Three more went down, .308 rounds finding their backs. The skirmish could not have lasted more than a couple of minutes, but they felt like hours to Daniel. Like many Marines, he stayed down until the Cubans were gone.

“Get up!” barked the Sarge. “War ain’t won on account we licked a few Reds.” He was right, as he usually had the habit of being as of late. Daniel would never admit it, same as any private in the Corps would give his NCO credit openly. He stood, not even bothering to brush the dust from his clothes. Depression sank in the moment he realized just how few Marines stood. More than half were dead, their bodies crumpled on the gray and red ground. Flowing blood gave the ashen forest more coloring than it had since before this war began.

He was not the only Marine in shock. This brought on the rather of the sargent. “Don’t just stand their gawking. If you need ammo or food, now’s the time to get it. These poor saps won’t be needing it anymore.”
 
Later

After more than a week on this now desolate island, Daniel saw his first greenery since before the landings; that terrible day when the world was set afire. He only wished he could truly enjoy the forest. Unlike the parts of the islands he and his comrades had marched and fought through, this stretch of land, tucked away in a little valley, still had leaves on the trees. Atomic fire had not purged them of life. Signs of the war were still around. Ash had settled upon the leaves, giving them a grimy look.

The trees were in far better shape than the Marines. Daniel glanced over at the gruff Sarge, who had lost all of his hair. The tough old man sat himself on the ground, and leaned against a fallen log. He was not looking so well. Since the firefight, several Marines had fallen to an invisible enemy. Even as he stood, healthiest of the survivors, he knew that radiation was eating away at his flesh. His hair was starting to come out, not in clumps, not yet anyway.

The Sarge pulled out his map and examined it closely. Too closely, as if he were having trouble seeing the markings. The Sarge was sick, that much was clear. He might not let on about it, putting on a tough show for his men, but Daniel knew better. The Sarge was coughing up blood before they entered the valley. It was hard to believe such a mean old man could ever fall ill.

“Shouldn’t be too far, a couple of hours more,” he said softly. Gone was his classic NCO bark. He had not the energy to spare. Most of the other survivors groaned in anguish, not wanting to march any further. “Stop your bellyaching; we’re almost there.” When he tried to rise to his feet, the Sarge’s knees refused to listen, and he slumped back to the ground. “On second thought, take five.”

The Sarge summoned Daniels over with a wave of a hand. In a low voice, he spoke. “Jefferson, I don’t reckon I’m going to make it.”

Daniel looked at him, mouth agape. “Shouldn’t talk that way Sarge. You yourself just said it was a couple of hours march from here.”

The Sarge snorted. “For a healthy man. Not sure how many of us left would make that two hours. Even if we did, don’t know there’s much good that can be done for us now.” Daniel did not have to be a genius to read between the lines. The Sarge was dying and he knew it. So were most of the Marines. If he was too die today, the Sarge preferred to die in this little heavenly corner of this irradiated island.

“Now you,” the Sarge continued. “Boy, you’re still in working shape. I’m going to need you to scout ahead. Check out Mariel, see how many of how fellow Marines are in the city.” The Sarge did not sound hopeful. If the boondocks of Cuba were wasteland, what must the cities look like? He did, however, have no doubt whatever might remain of the port was in the Corps’s hands.

Daniel stood tall. “You can count on me, Sarge.”

The Sarge nodded. “Good. Now get moving. I want you back before sundown.”
 
November 11, 1962

Near Mariel

Daniel dropped his M-14 and fell to his knees. For days, the only thing keeping the surviving Marines going was the mission. To take the port at Mariel. What Daniel saw before him crushed any remaining morale. The city was no more. It was nothing but a black and gray pile of charred ruins. If anybody was left alive in the city, they gave no indication of doing so. He knew now that the whole island must be dead. Except for that little grove, where Marines awaited his return, and the ambush they ran into days ago, there was no sign of life anywhere.

Daniel bit back the frustration within. So this was it; this was how the world ends? He would have to return to the Sarge, and the rest of the survivors, and report his mission a failure. The Marines did not hold Mariel, nor did the Cubans. Mariel simply no longer existed. He turned his head skyward and peered up into the clear sky. It was almost too clear. The tropical sun shone fiercely in the blue sky. If not for the death below, it was a nice day. Perhaps even a nice enough one to die. With little to no rations left, and no hope of finding anything edible, it was now a race between starvation and radiation as to what would kill the survivors.

Just as the last strand of hope was about to snap, Daniel heard a roaring sound not far away. He turned his gaze from above to the horizon, spotting two shapes moving inland at incredible speeds. He recognized the silhouette. Those were Crusaders. Naval fighters meant aircraft carriers, and that meant the world had not came to an end. There was still life out there. What sort, he would never know. Daniel found a strange solace in knowing his own fate was sealed. He rose to his feet, picked up his rifle and turned away from the ruins. His comrades awaited him.
 
The Invasion of Cuba

November 2, 1962, went down in the annuals of both the United States Navy and Marine Corp as their most spectacular debacle. Over ten thousand sailors, and nearly twice as many Marines and soldiers, were killed during the botched attempt to invade Cuba. The initial plan was to land north and west of Mariel and seize the port, allowing the Army to offload more soldiers for the march on Havana. The goal of the invasion was simple enough; remove Castro from power and the Soviets from the Western Hemisphere.

The CIA knew the locations of short-ranged and intermediate-ranged ballistic missiles, but dropped the ball when it came to tactical nuclear weapons. Local Soviet commanders had leeway in using these tactical weapons, and made liberal use of their orders when the invasion began. Not only did the regional commanders use these weapons to destroy the carrier battle group and invasion force, but carried out strikes against the Florida Keys and even Miami. This attack on American soil forced Kennedy to authorize a retaliatory attack against Cuba, ending in the destruction of Mariel, Havana and several other cities, along with millions of Cuban lives. Only the destruction of SRBM and IRBM launchers by air strikes prevented more American cities from being destroyed.

In response to the attempted invasion of Cuba, the Soviets responded by not only occupying West Berlin, but by invading West Germany. The Hot War had begun.
 
Top