Chapter 24
For two days, Greg and his men made their way towards the coast. The fire road had to be cleared in places, to allow the vehicles to pass. Once, they even had to construct a temporary bridge, to replace an older wooden bridge that had collapsed.
The first night, they camped after only making thirty-seven miles. They came upon a clearing that had good run off, in case it rained again. The men set up tents, and Greg was soon sitting in his GP Small (General Purpose Small tent. Despite it's name, it would be very comfortable and roomy, for a man alone. Two could sleep comfortably inside, even using cots. Generally, a small stove was included during winter months. It was usually issued to senior NCO's, and low ranking officers.)
The second night, they were just eight miles short of the shoreline, when Greg called a halt. Again, they'd had to clear roads. In some cases they'd had to go overland, where roadways had been washed away.
Just two hours after breakfast on the third day, they arrived at the Atlantic Ocean. It was a truly awe inspiring sight. The water was rough and choppy. The wind came in off the Ocean, at 15 miles an hour. They didn't know if this was the norm, as a daily occurrence, or if the wind was just from a windy day.
Greg had spent time at the ocean before. Where he had been the air had been calm, with little wind, and he had gotten a sunburn. That was just a few years ago. Greg quickly had teams going up and down the beach, and a little inland, looking for the best place to start heading South.
During the last day, Greg had seen evidence of the tidal wave that had smashed onto the East coast. Broken and snapped trees had laid everywhere. Fragments of boats and houses were strewn across the earth. No one had made any effort at clean up. He doubted anyone lived here, or if they did, they scavenged for a living.
"Sir! There's a ship run aground!" came the voice of one of the southern scouts over the radio.
"Where are you at?" Greg asked, interestedly.
"About half a mile south of you, just past that big rise. It's in pretty bad shape, Sir," responded the voice.
Greg and the rest of the people drove down, and were stunned by what they saw. Greg identified it as a Destroyer. It was upside down, and it had been battered savagely. A huge section was broken off, and was missing.
It had been there for some time. Greg got the numbers off it, so when he reported in later that day, he could give Cheyenne an update on this particular vessel. He ordered his people to dismount their vehicles. He asked for volunteers to go into the wreck, and see what they could find.
He had more volunteers than was sensible to send in. After setting a perimeter guard, he had Sgt. Langford pick two teams of three men each, to explore the wreck.
They went in and one of the first things discovered was that this ship had been under water at one time. Some compartments and low places inside were filled with water. They only way these sections could have been filled were if the ship had been sunken originally.
Altogether they counted only 47 bodies. Greg didn't know how many people crewed a destroyer, but 47 was hardly even a minority of the crew for a ship of this size. They recovered as much in the way of identification as possible, and that too would be transmitted when Greg made contact.
Finally Greg called all his teams back out. While finding this ship had been interesting, it was not their job. Slowly they made their way further south. It took them the rest of the day to make 15 more miles. They had to keep doubling back, to find different ways to proceed south.
Finally, they had to leave the beach altogether. They traveled inland a couple miles to find a way around a large empty place. The road ended abruptly. It looked as if a huge child had gouged out a large chunk of earth, and left a mile wide gap. It was incredible.
Ocean filled the mile wide gap, and at least a mile farther inland, in a little cove. All the signs were, that was a new cove. Greg filmed this, as he had done the ship they had found. The digitized information would be in the report he made, this evening.
They finally found a good place to camp. Although it was early, Greg had everyone pitch camp. According to the information that had been received last night, the cargo ship that was steaming to meet them, was only about a day and a half south of them.
It was during the night that Sgt. Langford woke Greg up.
"Sir? The southern perimeter guard has spotted lights in the distance."
"Lights?" Greg looked at his watch. 11:30 PM. "How come they weren't noticed before?" Greg asked.
"Could have been they weren't there, or the weather wasn't right to let us see them. I sent a team in to check it out." Langford said.
"Great, now I am wide awake. Is there any coffee on?" Greg asked plaintively.
The recon team that was sent to investigate, moved in slowly. They were using NODS (Night observation devices) and were confident in their training and equipment. They came to within 100 feet of the light sources and stopped. They were still concealed from any casual observation.
What they saw, was three cabins. Since the tidal wave had come this far inland, it was doubtful they were here until after the wave had come and gone. Apparently someone, or several someones, saw fit to make a camp of some sort here.
There were several large boats and nets off to one side. Apparently it was a fishing party. The leader of the recon team called in with what they had, so far. They received instructions to keep the place under observation, but not to make contact.
Slowly the night passed. The recon team observed several people come out. One man went over to a generator that had been running, and shut it off. From the looks of it, it was a mobile 30 KW generator, with more than enough power to light up the three small cabins.
Soon, there were ten men, four woman, and two kids (a boy and a girl); out doing things, to ready themselves for the day. Carefully, the recon teamed pulled back a bit, to avoid being seen. Only two of the men seemed to be armed, the rest were getting the nets ready, presumably to take to the sea to fish.
Two boats were on trailers and these were where the nets were put. While this was going on, another man raised the hood of a vehicle and tried to start it. No luck. Several of the men approached the vehicle, and it appeared they were discussing what to do. The recon team was too far away to hear what was being said.
The recon team reported what was going on, and it was decided to have a member approach the group and see what was going on. One of the team gave his weapons and equipment to a team member to hold. He went around the clearing, and approached from a different direction.
He hollered a hello, and the people in the camp all stopped what they were doing. The kids ran behind a building, getting out of the way in case anything happened. One of the men with a weapon approached, while the another moved off in a different directions, keeping the team man under observation.
The team man, Private Winslow, spoke with the man with the weapon for a couple minutes. He then made an all-clear signal, and the rest of the recon team cautiously rose, and went to join their comrade. The look of surprise on the faces of the people gathered there, was priceless.
"That's correct, General. This is a camp that was set up by a group of people to fish. They intend to send the fish back to their permanent home location. Right now, they are having vehicle trouble, and can't get their boats to the water. The other vehicles have gone, making a delivery of the last two day's catch; over," said the team leader into the radio.
"Ok. Let's see if we can help them. We will be there in about an hour. I think we can afford to fix their truck for them. Maybe we can drop off a few supplies, if they need something badly," Greg responded.
So it was, that Greg and his men found themselves at a temporary fishing camp, which had been set up to feed a community of two hundred men, woman, and children. Fish was not the only staple, but it was a main one.
The small group was amazed to see Greg and his men pull in. They were even more amazed when a couple men broke off from the group and headed towards the disabled truck. Within 15 minutes, they had the problem diagnosed, and the trouble fixed. Smiles broke out all around from the fishermen. Greg had sweets broken out, and given to the children. They ate them as if they hadn't had any for years, which was close to the truth.
Greg asked them when and where they had gotten the generator from (it was military issue). They explained that they had come across a wreck, a couple weeks ago. The generator had been lying on its side. The vehicle that had pulled it, was crashed. It had broken away from the generator, and everyone in the vehicle had been killed.
They had only just gotten the generator working, a few days ago. The rest of their group was with the other two vehicles, and the trailers that had held their catch up to yesterday. They would return, if all went well, in two more days.
Greg asked about conditions to the south. He was told that a road of sorts existed, but it was in bad shape. But with all the men Greg had, they should be able to clear it, easily.
Greg ordered rations to be broken out, and everyone ate. The members of the fishing camp were stunned at the feast set before them. Beef, which they had not eaten in ages... ham, and other treats. Everyone fell upon the feast as if they had not eaten in days!
The bread and butter were the biggest hits, though. These people had
not had any in months. After the meal was over, Greg ordered his men to
get back into their vehicles. The people at the camp were sorry to see
them go, but were excited that the US was doing something. Greg, armed
with specific directions, led his men southward.