Distant Valor

by C. X. Moreau

  He moved the selector lever on his rifle to full automatic and stepped into the corridor, his back pressed against the wall. Moving from door to door in the long hallway he quickly gained the far end where he observed a door identical to the one at the other end now guarded by Ferris and Smith. Downs leveled his rifle and reached for the knob, expecting his entry into the stairwell to be met by a hail of fire from an unseen adversary.

  Easing the door open he could not detect the presence of anyone in the stairwell and turned to give a thumbs-up signal to Ferris who nodded nervously. Downs softly shut the door and began ascending the steps. He paused every few seconds to listen for movement from above. Remembering the small radio in his flak jacket pocket and fearing that it might emit a burst of static or a friendly transmission he felt for the knob and turned it off. Downs realized that he was now completely isolated from the squad. Even the act of communication would have to be preceded by turning the radio back on and hoping the signal would penetrate the concrete walls of the building.

  He thought of the possibility of his rifle jamming and paused long enough at a landing to fix his bayonet. The click of the handle locking onto the lug on his rifle seemed to be deafening. He again began to ascend as the sound of a shot rang out from above. He was now convinced that the sniper would be on the top floor of the building, and that the man was aware of his presence.

  Realizing that his squad was under fire and that the sniper had enough daring and presence of mind to fire even after he had seen them cross the road to assault his position, Downs began to grow angry. He crouched against the wall and debated his next move. Once he gained the top flight of stairs he would almost surely be confronted by the sniper’s security force. He guessed that they would number between two and four men, probably poorly trained militia. As he sat debating his next move he heard the door two flights above open and an exchange take place in Arabic.

  The men continued to talk as Downs rose and began to quickly but silently ascend the steps. The pungent aroma of sulfur floated down to him as the man struck a match and undoubtedly lit a cigarette. Downs hesitated one flight below, just out of sight of the men. He had heard only two voices, and now the men were probably enjoying a smoke. He tried to imagine the scene above. They would be standing by the door, cigarettes in their hands, not expecting him to materialize on the landing below.

  He knew the cigarettes could only last a few moments more, and all his training told him that this was his moment. Without further thought Downs swiftly rose and rounded the corner, his rifle already in his shoulder, his feet seeking the steps that would bring him into the view of his prey.

  The two men came into his view as Downs pointed his rifle at the chest of the nearer one and squeezed off three rounds. The man’s mouth formed a perfect circle and the small deadly projectiles slammed into him with terrific force. The sound of breaking glass reached Downs through his excitement as the second man released his small coffee cup and reached down to pick up his rifle that was leaning against a wall. Before the man’s hand met the weapon Downs fired and the man slammed into the wall, the rifle clattering noisily to the floor.

  Without hesitating Downs raced up the remaining steps and flung the door open. Two men stood in the narrow hallway looking in his direction and he quickly fired a long burst at them. Both fell and Downs ducked back inside the door and changed magazines. Without exposing himself he pointed the rifle around the door jamb and into the hallway and emptied a second magazine in the direction of the men.

  He quickly changed magazines, careful not to let the empty drop to the floor and alert any remaining militiamen to his predicament. Praying that Ferris and Smith would not now assault the other end of the hallway he stripped a fragmentation grenade from his flak jacket and laid it carefully on the floor next to the door. He then switched on the small radio in his pocket and said, “Samson, this is Downs. Do you copy?” His heart stopped as he waited for Samson’s reply. After a few moments of silence he again said, “Samson, this is Downs. Can you copy me?”

  His second request was met by a long burst of static followed by silence. Downs detected movement in the hallway and fired twice down the corridor. He then stripped a smoke grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and tossed it into the corridor. A heavy curtain of yellow smoke began to fill the hallway. Downs again keyed the small radio and said, “Samson, this is Corporal Downs. I’m on the top floor of the hangar and I’ve got the sniper pinned between me and Ferris. If you can hear me I want you to put down some suppression fire on the window where you think he’s at. You should be able to see yellow smoke any second now. If you copy give me three short burst on the radio. Over.”

  Mercifully, the radio crackled three times with a heavy cloud of static and Downs muttered “shit” under his breath. As Sampson began to fire the machine gun at the window where he imagined the sniper to be, Downs crawled down the corridor, grenade at the ready. Rounds from Samson’s firing penetrated the walls and ricocheted wildly down the corridor. Fearing that one of the stray rounds would hit him, Downs rose to his feet, trotted down the corridor to the door where he knew the sniper to be, and tossed the grenade in through the transom window. He backtracked down the hallway and gained the safety of the stairway, fighting the urge to cough and gag on the acrid smoke that filled the hallway.

  The grenade went off with a resounding explosion and shattering of glass, blowing the door completely off its hinges and tearing ragged holes in the smoke. Downs again keyed the radio and ordered Samson to quit firing. In a few seconds the firing stopped and Downs strained to hear any indication of movement in the corridor.

  Hearing nothing he leaned out of the doorway and glanced briefly at the scene in the darkened corridor. The bodies of the two militiamen remained where he had last seen them, and a heavy pall of smoke hung in the passageway. Ceiling tiles were strewn across the floor and electrical wiring hung in loose loops down the walls in several places. Downs inserted a fresh magazine and stepped into the corridor, his eyes fixed to the front, searching for the slightest movement.

  In the back of his mind a warning came to him that militiamen might still be behind the other doors along the corridor. He decided that the best course of action would be to clear the room where the sniper had fired from, then return to the other rooms and clear each one individually. He silently hoped that no doors connected suites, but logic told him otherwise.

  Downs gained the edge of the door and eased around it as it flopped lazily on its broken hinges. The interior of the room emitted a sharp, acrid smell from the explosion as Downs froze just outside and listened for any sign of life. With one quick movement Downs rounded the door and stood in the broken frame, sweeping his rifle from one side of the room to the other. In an instant his eye took in the crumpled form of the sniper against a far wall, his rifle smashed against the overturned desk he had improvised as protection from the fire of the Marines below.

  Downs quickly drew back into the corridor and checked to see that none of the doors had opened to reveal a rifle muzzle pointed in his direction. The corridor remained a silent scene of devastation. In the next instant his mind’s eye replayed the scene in the ruined room and Downs knew that he had gotten a glimpse of a half-opened connecting door and a large blood trail leading into the next room.

  Downs searched for the proper solution. If he reentered the room and followed the trail he was very likely to walk straight into an ambush. A wounded enemy might still be alive and waiting for him on the other side of the doorway. Downs had no desire to confront such a situation. He also reasoned that the rest of the Marines across the street would be watching the window for any sign of movement and would fire at the slightest provocation. Using the radio to let them know would be impractical as he wasn’t sure that they would be able to clearly copy his transmission.

  The obvious choice was to assault the room through the door that opened onto the corridor. This would still leave the wounded man with a number of advantages. He would hear t
he door being opened and simply shift his aim to that entry point. Even assuming that the door was unlocked, or could be kicked in, Downs was no better off with this point of entry. It also occurred to him that perhaps the man in the other room wasn’t wounded at all, but had merely taken a wounded comrade across the room after the grenade had exploded. Downs realized that the man might have been in the other room when he threw his grenade and had not been even slightly wounded.

  Without further hesitation Downs decided on his course of action. He couldn’t descend either flight of steps as he had already alerted any other militia in the building to his presence. Ferris and Smith would have to hold their position while he cleared this floor himself, then he would signal down to them.

  Downs took two quick steps across the open doorway and again glimpsed the shattered interior of the office. He edged away from the wall and peered into the room, focusing on the partially open door with its menacing trail of blood. Downs searched the grimy floor and an icy chill ran through his stomach as he saw the footprints in the powder of dust on the floor tiles. There had been another man in the other room and he had moved his comrade to safety.

  The plan now hardened in Downs’s mind and he removed another fragmentation grenade from his flak jacket and shifted his rifle to his left hand. Reaching through the trigger guard of his rifle he removed the pin of the grenade, holding the spoon fast to the cool metal canister. Downs’s lips moved slightly as he muttered the word “Jesus” to himself and he grasped the spoon with his left index finger and began counting down the seconds of the grenade’s fusing device.

  With the peculiar coordination born of a thousand summer days spent on the ballfields of his hometown, Downs stepped away from the wall and into the doorway of the room, all the while facing the half-open door leading to the connecting office. His left boot made a slight crunching noise as he planted his foot eighteen inches inside the room and his right arm moved forward in a low graceful arc toward the opening between the door and the wall. As Downs rolled the metal sphere off his fingertips he knew intuitively that the grenade would strike the wall just where he had aimed and bounce obliquely into the next room. If the grenade had been fused correctly it would explode in the room, hopefully while it was still in the air.

  After hesitating a fraction of a second to watch the grenade sail toward the wall Downs shoved off with his left foot and spun out of the room and back to the far side of the wall. He knew the blast from the grenade would send shards of glass and metal debris through the door and the concussion would echo around the room searching for an outlet. From this side of the doorway he would at least be out of its direct path. As he knelt to cover the other doors in the hallway with his rifle Downs heard an exclamation from inside the room.

  The explosion ripped through the room, sending a shower of debris through the two doors. Before the concussion had fully subsided Downs was on his feet and racing for the corridor door that had mercifully been blown open. He stepped around the metal door and fired a quick burst into the room. Realizing that Samson would shortly open up on the front of the building he knelt and peered into the smoke along the floor. Seeing two bodies Downs quickly pumped rounds into each of them, then swept the room with fire before retreating to the corridor. As he flung himself against the wall Samson began to rake the front of the building with fire from his machine gun. Downs prayed that the grenadiers from his squad and the other squads would have enough presence of mind not to put rounds through the windows of the offices.

  Within a few seconds Samson had sprayed the entire front of the building with fire from his machine gun and Downs reentered the small room with the bodies of the two men prostrated obscenely in death. His eye followed the muzzle of his rifle around the room looking for any sign of life. Seeing nothing Downs backed into the corridor and keyed the small radio, “Samson, this is Downs. Do you copy?”

  “Roger, Corporal Downs. I copy. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Hold your fire on the top floor. I just cleared the room the sniper was in and I’m in the corridor now. If you see movement up here it will probably be me. I don’t want you to fire on me by mistake. Make sure the other squad tied in on your north knows I’m up here. Got that?”

  “Roger, Corporal Downs. I copied your last. Also be advised that a squad from Bravo Company is across the street and sweeping the building bottom to top. They are aware of your position and Smith and Ferris have already made contact with them. Their squad leader wants you to move to the top of the southern ladderwell and sit tight. He says they’ll come up to get you. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Yeah. I copy. The southern ladderwell. Tell him I’ll be there, Samson. Unless you have further traffic for me I’m going to move now. Over.”

  Downs quickly stepped inside the room and checked the two bodies for movement. Both of them lay in the exact position he had last seen them and the office was barren other than overturned and shredded furniture. Downs debated disabling the two rifles carried by the men then quickly decided not to. He realized that to break them he would have to put his own weapon down, a thought he didn’t relish since other rooms in the corridor might still hide some militia. Before leaving the room he grabbed the long Soviet-made sniper rifle and slung it across his back, then headed for the southern end of the building.

  He opened the door at the top of the stairs and peered at the deserted landing through the narrow crack between the door and the jamb. Assured that the landing was empty he stepped through the door and listened for movement. His heart froze as he detected sound below. He waited for a few moments before deciding that it was the squad from Bravo Company moving up the ladderwell. Downs could now hear the team leader directing his Marines up the narrow concrete steps.

  He edged the door open and stepped back inside the hallway. He prepared to yell down to the other Marines but was afraid that a nervous rifleman might fire straight up the ladderwell, the rounds ricocheting wildly off the concrete walls. Leaving just a crack in between the door and the jamb Downs said in a loud voice, “Hey, Bravo Company. Is that you down there?”

  A long pause was followed by a voice echoing up the concrete, “Yeah. Who the fuck are you?”

  Downs suppressed a chuckle and answered, “Corporal Downs, First Platoon, Alpha Company.” Another pause followed and Downs detected murmuring below as the four Marines no doubt discussed their next move. He struggled to remember a name of someone in Bravo Company that he could use as an identifier. The same voice came back to him, “Okay. If you’re Corporal Downs, then who is the baddest fucking Marine to ever live?”

  Downs knew he should give the pat answer of Chesty Puller or Dan Daly, but instead he said, “I’m the baddest motherfuckin’ Marine you’ll ever meet. Are you comin’ up here or not?”

  He heard laughter below followed by, “Okay, smart-ass, then who is the biggest asshole in the battalion?”

  Downs smiled and answered, “Easy. The Alpha Company First Shirt.”

  “Okay. Don’t move. We’re on our way up,” said the voice. Downs stepped back inside the stairwell and lowered his rifle to point at the flight of steps below him. If some militia were trapped between him and the Bravo Company fireteam he wanted to be ready. To his relief he saw the helmet of one of the Marines appear, followed by the three others.

  Downs smiled at the corporal and said, “I’m glad to see you. This corridor still hasn’t been properly cleared. There’s rooms off both sides of it and only two of them have been cleared. What’s the rest of your squad up to?”

  Without hesitation the corporal answered, “We’re clearing all the floors by working south to north. All we have to do is hold here until they tell us the floors underneath have been cleared. Then they’ll come up and we’ll clear this floor. Any hostiles left will be pushed toward the northern ladderwell and allowed to go out the north side of the building. We’ve got a fireteam in place down there for when they make their exit.”

  “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I don’t think anybody is
left on this floor, but you can’t tell. They could be hiding in one of the rooms. Are your guys securing the doors down below us?”

  The corporal nodded and said, “Yeah, and we’re using your two guys to hold one of them. Did this guy get one of your fireteam? You’re short a man.”

  “No,” said Downs, “we came over with only three.” Downs motioned toward the door and said, “Let’s open that up and put your rifleman there in case anybody breaks for the ladderwell on the far side or has any ideas about assaulting us. At least we’ll see them coming.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” He nodded toward the door and the rifleman and grenadier opened it and took up positions observing the corridor. “You can head back down if you want, Corporal. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Okay,” said Downs. “Why don’t you use your radio to let them know below that I’ll be coming down.”

  “Yeah. Good idea. See you later.” Downs paused while the corporal notified the fireteam leaders on the lower floors that he was coming down, then nodded and descended the stairs. When he reached the second story he found Ferris and Smith had already been relieved and were waiting for him outside.

  Downs nodded to them and the three crossed the street back to the compound in silence. The great shattered mass of rubble that had been the BLT headquarters building loomed over them as they reentered the compound. Downs walked directly to Samson and asked, “Any of ours get hurt during the shooting?”

  “No,” said Samson. “One of the guys from Bravo Company got nicked, but he didn’t even come off the line. The round just passed between his flak jacket collar and his web gear.”

  “No shit,” responded Downs. “He’s a lucky bastard.”

  “Yeah, that’s for sure.” Downs indicated the M-60 with a nod of his head and asked, “The gun give you any trouble?”

  “Nope. Worked just fine.”

  “Well, that’s yours until further notice, Samson. Understood?”