Pressed against the front crater wall, he couldn’t see or hear anyone else. Just the crushing noise of gunfire. And the oppressive sense of isolation. No friendly gun fired from a nearby position. He hated them for leaving him to fight alone.
He popped up and held the trigger, firing until the magazine was empty. Before he could duck he heard the zing next to his head and felt the rush of air beside his face almost like a slap. There was no pain, but still he touched his face and then examined his hand, seeing only that his fingers shook. Twice he tried before being able to seat a new magazine.
The round had had his name on it. But somehow it missed. He dropped his face against the dirt. To die alone was not what he’d envisioned. He stretched out his leg to touch his foot to the unmoving one behind him.
Between explosions he thought he heard the murmur of a voice, the words indistinguishable. But then he wasn’t sure. He wanted to rise up look around to assure himself he wasn’t the lone survivor, but that would be madness. Instead he pushed his body tighter to the ground, covering his head with his left hand. The near miss had stripped away his courage.
A faintness rose from his gut until his head felt weightless and drifting. He wasn’t sure he could pull his face away from the dirt. The smell of the earth was intoxicating and took him home. Running through the fields as a small boy, he could feel the mud collecting on his feet until his feet grew almost too heavy to lift, and the birds that had settled on the freshly plowed ground rose up only to settle back a bit farther on, teasing and taunting him with their calls.
A sound startled him alert and he lifted his head, then held perfectly still, listening. Within the sound of rifle fire he heard it clearly. He swallowed the panic that rose in his throat.
“Medic!” The word came out a strangled wail.
“Royce? Red?”
Together the three of them might have a chance. What chance was there alone?
The sound was still there. Clearer. Unwavering. As soon as he heard it he knew what it was. Men crawling. Death coming for him.
His mouth was dry with terror and any thought of more screams died in his throat. With the M16 above his head he sprayed the area, jamming the trigger even after the clip was empty.
Still they came, crawling toward him. How many, he couldn’t determine.
He had to look, to expose himself to see them. Flock shooting never worked. His father taught him that. You had to focus, pick a target. First one, then another. He could do this. Wasn’t it just like hiding in a duck blind, then at the last minute jumping up to take them? Wasn’t it just like that?
After checking his magazine and chamber he started to raise his head, slowly lifting his face from the pull of the earth, inching up into the buzz of bullets, hoping to see them first, when the flash of an explosion seared his face. He ducked or was pushed down and the air whooshed above his head. Debris showered the crater.
Almost before the roar faded, the sound returned. A scratching, padding sound from all around, as though big cats were creeping through the grass toward their prey. Relentless. Growing closer.
How long had he been in the crater? A minute? Maybe five. Not more than ten. Already it seemed like forever. Like he had always been here. He knew no other place. Life had started and would end here.
Time and space shifted. He was floating. Everything became surreal. The rifle fire and explosions faded into the background, as though on a separate soundtrack that someone had turned down. Just the sound of enemy soldiers creeping toward him. Isolated and magnified.
He squeezed his rifle in both hands, his hands growing white with the pressure. He clamped his eyes shut just for a second and tried to shut his mind to the sound. Pressing out the fear. When he opened his eyes, the crawling and the fear persisted.
The spirit of the bayonet fighter is to kill. The mantra of his training ran through his mind. He steeled himself against what was to come. The spirit of the bayonet fighter is to kill. The spirit of the bayonet fighter is to kill . . .
After a deep breath he started up again, seeing the crater lip far above him, imagining what he would meet beyond it. His teeth cut into his lip. He tasted his blood. He edged his rifle and then his face just enough, firing without aiming. The recoil slapped his shoulder as rounds ripped from the gun.
The crawling never paused.
He fired wildly where he thought he heard the sound, then thought he heard it somewhere else. It was hard to think or see.
“Stop crawling!”
If he could get just a little higher he could see more and make his fire more effective. Focus, find the target. Close now, he had to be able see them.
The agony made a few seconds seem like an hour. His throat constricted and he labored to breathe. Streams of tears rolled down his cheeks, mingling with his sweat.
“Doc. Goddamn you. I don’t want to die alone.”
The explosion rolled him and the ocean roared in his ears. The vegetation towering above the crater blurred. The pain slammed against his skull from the inside out when he moved his head. He rubbed his eyes. Spent brass and empty magazines were scattered beside him. The ocean noise stilled. Crawling took its place. They were still coming for him.
The spirit of the bayonet fighter is to kill. He pulled his left hand back from the handguard of his M16 and shoved the rifle and himself higher, pressing his cheek tight to the stock. He looked down the barrel. Movement. A target. He sighted and pulled the trigger. His rifle exploded in his hands.
The blow of the round dropped him back and his left hand fell from the rifle. He slid off the crater lip.
“I’m hit,” he said, without thinking there was no one there to hear it.
There was no pain, though he was sure he’d taken a round. He studied his chest then brought his hand up and searched, but found nothing. Only on his left cheek did he find a cut and a thin trickle of blood, which he wiped away.
When he looked at his rifle for reassurance, what he saw drained away any residue of hope. His rifle took the impact of the round meant for his head. The plastic handguard was smashed, pieces gone, and the gas recycling tube that ran the length of the barrel was severed, the broken ends torn and bent by the bullet’s force. What the effect was on his rifle’s function he wasn’t sure.
He tensed his body against the impact of the next shot, the one that would kill him, his will more damaged than his rifle. He gave no thought to going for Rhymes’s M79. Even if he could get to it, he’d be dead before he could load it. In close quarters, fighting alone, he judged its single shot as nearly worthless. It failed to save Rhymes.
The world fell away. He was drifting now. Listening to them coming. Waiting. He was going home. He closed his eyes and laid his head against his broken weapon.
The rapid AK fire just behind his back thundered in his ears as if his head were exploding. He jerked at the first concussion of rounds. His mouth opened in a scream. He knew he was about to die, that the AK-47 was the last worldly sound he would record.
Still, he wanted to turn to face his killer. Or maybe it was an instinct born of hours wing shooting in a duck blind, when the whirl of wings at his back would startle him and he would rise, swing, and fire in one smooth, unconscious motion, sending a bluebill or a late-season mallard plummeting to hit in a geyser of water, where it drifted, dead.
With his M16 in his right hand, he pushed off the crater wall with his left and rolled, pivoting in place, propelling the M16 around in front of him as he spun. From the sound of the AK, the NVA was nearly in the crater, firing. Everything would be decided in a second.
10
May 5, 1968
0947 Hours
Vietnam
Singer’s roll was smooth. His one-handed grip of his M16 was strong, the barrel moving in an even arc. He had no thought, no plan. In the terror of believing he was dead, his mind shut down. Some part of him died the instant the AK fired near his back. Yet he was still alive, his move driven by reflex.
The NVA was at
the crater’s edge. His head tilted, his face down on his AK-47 pointed across the hole at where Sergeant Royce and Red had been. The AK’s muzzle flashed and bounced.
He must have caught a glimpse of Singer’s movement because he raised his head and turned. His eyes changed with what must have been understanding. He started to shift his fire. The AK’s muzzle moved toward Singer, rounds etching their way across the crater.
But the muzzle of Singer’s M16 was already crossing the man’s face. His only hope hung on a weapon he wasn’t sure would work. Singer slapped the trigger hard and held it. He saw the impact high in the man’s cheek. The NVA’s head jerked back, his expression froze, then his head fell forward. The AK went silent. His left hand hung in the crater just below the barrel of his rifle. The man’s helmet tumbled down into the crater, settling at Rhymes’s feet. Rhymes offered the same near-smile, unchanged from before.
Though he buried the trigger to deliver a burst of shots, Singer’s M16 fired one round and quit. One round was not enough. He had to kill this guy and the others coming with him. He slammed the trigger again, trying to keep his rifle on target, fighting the momentum of his roll. Nothing happened.
“Goddamn it.”
He struggled to bring his left hand to the shattered handguard of his M16 and get it back around to finish the man. The ejection port was closed, his rifle armed. Repeatedly he slapped the trigger to no effect, before the extent of the damage to his rifle registered.
The shattered handguard and severed gas tube. The gas from the exploding round that would normally drive the bolt back, ejecting the spent shell and chambering a live round, was escaping through the torn end of the gas recycling tube. Thus, after the shot, the bolt never moved. The rifle was uncocked, the spent round still in the chamber.
He released his trigger grip and worked the bolt. Unless he was quick he would die with his hand on the bolt instead of the trigger. As soon as the bolt closed on a new round he fired directly on the NVA slumped on the crater edge just ahead of Stick’s body. The NVA barely quivered with the impact of the round. Again the rifle quit after just one shot. Again he worked the bolt.
“Royce? Red?”
He raised up and turned, risking a glimpse at where the NVA had fired. Red’s body, his back wet in blood, slumped on top of Sergeant Edwards. Neither of them moved. There was no sign of Sergeant Royce.
“Goddamn them.”
He spun back to the NVA. From the bottom of the hole, he fired again and again as fast as he could work the bolt and pull the trigger. Steady now, just a few feet away, he couldn’t miss. He killed the man over and over again, unwilling or unable to stop.
The crawling faded back into the sounds of battle. He held a new resolve free of fear. He would kill them all.
Then the NVA moved. It was impossible, yet he did. Singer shot him again and then again, but still the NVA backed away, though he never lifted his head nor fired his AK that remained caught under him. Singer screamed with rage and fired.
Nearly from the first he realized the dead NVA was being pulled backward by another NVA who must have crawled up with him. He wasn’t letting them get away. He counted his last two magazines, loading one.
The gunfire, explosions, even the crawling didn’t matter. When he stood, stretched his neck up and raised his head back, he caught a brief glimpse of the second NVA hiding behind the first, inching awkwardly backward and dragging the first man’s body by the feet. He raised his gun above his head to fire one shot, then had to lower it to eject the round and chamber another. He fired as fast as his rifle would allow. Still the NVA inched away, affecting his escape using the body of his comrade as a shield.
“Goddamn this rifle.”
He ejected the empty magazine.
“Ammo! Ammo!”
He slammed in his last magazine, cursing his limited firepower. Without help, he’d have to crawl out to get ammo and look for Stick’s or Red’s rifle. With a working rifle he could kill this bastard. Never had he hated anyone more. He pulled the trigger with more force, willing each bullet to strike the man.
Around him the company’s battle raged, but Singer gave it no thought. His singular focus was on his lone battle to hold the crater and his efforts to kill the retreating NVA.
When his rifle quit, he heard the firing pin hit against an empty chamber. He slammed it to the ground. Stick’s body was the closest, but he was uncertain where Stick’s rifle was. He never considered Rhymes’s M79, its single shot worse than his broken rifle. He turned toward Red’s and Sergeant Edwards’s bodies to size up a move to their weapons and ammo and saw him.
Sergeant Royce was sitting behind the bodies with head slightly bowed, his right hand resting on Sergeant Edwards’s face.
“Royce! Goddamn it, throw me a rifle!”
Sergeant Royce blinked once and his mouth twisted, but he never turned his head or lifted his hands.
“Royce! Sergeant Royce! Throw me a rifle!”
Slowly Sergeant Royce turned his head and looked at Singer without showing any recognition.
“For Christ’s sake, throw me a rifle.”
Sluggishly, Sergeant Royce picked up Red’s rifle and flung it. Singer had to stretch his arm out of the crater to reach it. With a functioning rifle, he searched for the retreating NVA along the drag path and saw a form nearly lost in the jungle growth. The movement gave the man away. When the M16 ripped off what was almost a full magazine, Singer nearly laughed.
“Try to get away now, fucker.”
He grabbed a magazine off Stick’s chest and emptied it in the same direction, though he couldn’t really see the man or make out any movement.
“I got you, goddamn it. I got you.”
Looking at Rhymes was still too hard to bear, so he left him without a glance to stare at the sky alone. He scrambled out of the crater, crawling back to where Sergeant Royce still sat beside the bodies as if there were no incoming at all.
“For Christ’s sake, get down,” Singer said.
Singer rolled Red’s body over to get at his ammo. Sergeant Edwards lay still and without protest as Singer stripped ammo and grenades from his body, too.
“Get down!” Singer said, pulling Sergeant Royce roughly to the ground.
“Help me,” Sergeant Royce said.
“Are you hit?”
“I need to get Sergeant Edwards out.”
“It’s too late.”
“He’ll be okay,” Sergeant Royce insisted.
“He’s dead.”
“I heard medevacs.”
“It’s Cobras.”
Sergeant Royce cocked his head but didn’t let go of Sergeant Edward’s arm.
“We’ll get him out when we can. Where’s your rifle?”
“I saw him kill Red,” Sergeant Royce said.
“Are you hit?”
“I thought he would kill me.”
Singer found a rifle next to Sergeant Edwards and shoved it into Sergeant Royce’s hands.
“Everyone’s dead,” Sergeant Royce said.
“We’ll be dead, too, if you don’t start firing.”
Singer cut loose a long string of shots.
“They’re all dead,” Sergeant Royce said.
“I know. You got to fire, Sarge.”
Again Singer sprayed across the front. Let them come, he thought. He wanted them to come so he could make them pay. After another burst he quickly checked the rear. They wouldn’t surprise him again. His terror was gone, replaced by something more primeval and sustaining. Something that felt good.
11
May 5, 1968
1203 Hours
Vietnam
Grenade!”
The grenade arched above them, floating out of the vegetation. Singer lost sight of it as he rolled. The explosion came from the crater. The walls of the shell hole and Rhymes took the blast. He fired a burst at where he thought the grenade came from.
“Fire, goddamn it,” Singer yelled at Sergeant Royce.
Once more
he pulled Sergeant Royce’s hand away from Sergeant Edwards and pushed his rifle back at him.
“You can’t do anything for him, Sarge. You got to keep shooting.”
It was incredible to him that after all the artillery and the Cobras worked with their rockets and miniguns, the NVA where still fighting. The AK fire even surged once the gunships pulled out. Only Sergeant Royce seemed to believe things were over.
The roar came fast, building until it blotted out the gunfire. The first bombs were so close his body shook along with the ground, and he thought the pilot had made a mistake. Still, Singer laughed.
He raised his head before the debris had settled and fired, believing he was driving them into the bombs. And he laughed more. Had it been safe he would have stood and cheered.
The jets made run after run, working farther out on later passes. The escape routes, Singer imagined. “We got you fuckers now,” he muttered. As the thunder of the next jet grew overhead, he rolled on his side, tilted his head up and watched a lone fighter streak in low from his right and then get lost below the jungle canopy, followed shortly by the concussions, frightening even with the distance. The jets would end it soon.
Hueys started coming in behind him. The first medevacs. He could hear the pitch of the rotors change as they settled briefly, then raced away. Sergeant Royce was up on one arm looking anxiously toward the road, but Singer didn’t turn to look. There was nothing there he wanted to see. Besides, there was no rush. Rhymes, Stick, Sergeant Edwards, and Red were past caring. They would ride one of the last Hueys out.
He spun around and nearly unleashed a volley, scaring himself with how close he’d come to firing.
“Hey, take it easy. It’s over,” Bear said.
Bear stood there, towering over the scene, his rifle casually at his side, looking unworried by the rounds still being fired. Behind him at a distance Ghost crouched, reminding Singer of a sprinter’s set.
“Fuck,” Bear said, drawing out the word as though it were a lengthy eulogy. His glance shifted from one body to the next. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head back and forth, looking as though he would say more. Finally he looked down at his own chest, where Singer was staring.
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