The Ceylonese Bush War
Aftermath of A26
A26 Highway, Hurricane District
As the sun sets over the Ceylonese horizon, a cleanup crew of Mine Protected Armored Vehicles and Unimog Trucks move along A26 Highway, towards a pair of coordinates given to them. They're on a piece of paper, pinned atop the viewport of the lead vehicle.
The paper also includes their orders.
The coordinates prove redundant, as a pillar of smoke can be seen rising from the location of the previous battle. The cleanup crew begins to leave their MPRVs to sweep the area before clearing the bodies.
"What the hell..."
In front of them lays a gruesome scene, SADF marked trucks lay abandoned, dead bodies hanging over the side of their truck beds, while some men still lay on the floor, clutching their M76 Rifle. Other trucks lay on their side, hit blasts from insurgent RPGs. On the sides of the road lay piles of dead insurgents, hit by a combination of precise rifle shots and sweeping machine gun fire. Just behind them, a large crater formed by SAAF AGMs can be seen, with the barely recognizable remains of insurgents scattered in and around it. In the back of an overturned truck, a radio can be heard playing, still looping the same track it had been playing when the battle first started.
"In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence"
The cleanup crew split off into teams, one moving down the main road, the other advancing towards the crater. Vehicles are hitched to the back of the SADF MPAVs, while bodies are stored in the bed of one of the Unimog trucks. The other Unimog carries abandoned ammunition and weapons. Meanwhile, the team in the forest hauls the insurgent bodies towards the crater. The bodies are tossed in, before being doused in gasoline. The team lights a stick on fire, before tossing it in. The fire erupts, singing the hair of some of the closer soldiers.
As the teams clear bodies, the EOD Team looks for UXOs. They find 3 unexploded AGM missiles, which are controlled detonated on the spot. They find multiple unexploded 20mm HE rounds, which are disarmed before being thrown into the crater with the insurgent bodies in it.
As the men reenter the IFVs, they can take solace in the fact that the battle itself was a resounding SADF victory. Though some could not help but wonder, "At what cost?"