Black Knights, Dark Days

by Fisk, J. Matthew;

  His hearing began to come back. Davis was saying something to him. What was it? He squinted, concentrating intently. “—see the Doc.”

  Aguero shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  Davis shrugged and walked toward the black door to the four story building.

  Bellamy, who had caught some of the blast without injury, said, “Sir, you’re bleeding. Let the medic take a look at that.”

  Aguero shooed him off with a dismissive, impatient wave, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He leaned against Swope’s Humvee and tried to collect his senses.

  

  Bourquin tried in vain to put his broken weapon back together. The rifle component was fine and the grenade launcher component was also intact; they had simply separated. Perhaps it was missing a nut or something. Inspiration struck him. Chen also had an M203. He would be too busy using the .50 cal to need a grenade launcher. He would go ask if he could switch weapons with him. The rifle was still good if Chen needed something smaller.

  He trotted out to the alley and was a little puzzled to see the L-T staggering around. The P-L’s trousers looked as if they were stained with chocolate milk. What happened to him? Bourquin looked up and opened his mouth to get Chen’s attention. He paused, confused, when he caught the profile of the gunner. Chen wasn’t a long-nosed Caucasian with glasses.

  “Fisk. Where’s Chen?”

  

  I turned to Bourquin, my heart heavy. “Chen is dead.”

  Bourquin was young, and in that moment he looked like a child. His lower lip quivered, his blue eyes filled with either fear or sorrow or both. “No,” his voice was small. Then anger flooded his face and he shouted at me, “NO, HE’S NOT!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly and turned my attention back down the alley.

  

  Bourquin whirled and saw Wild emerging from the gate. “Wild, where’s Chen?” Bourquin’s voice was deep, loud and thick with emotion.

  “He’s dead, Sergeant.”

  “No. No, he’s not. He’s not dead.” The young NCO spat the words as if Wild had just questioned his mother’s virtue.

  “Believe me, Sergeant. He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do. He’s dead.”

  An eerie change came over the heavily tattooed young man as if he had flipped the switch in his brain that controls sorrow. “OK,” Bourquin said calmly. “Help pull security.”

  

  Bourquin was silent beside me for a moment longer. “Hey, why don’t you let me use your 203? You’ve got the .50 cal and my grenade launcher came apart.”

  “The deuce is down,” I replied. “I think the timing got thrown off when we plowed through the debris, and I don’t know where Eddie put the tool to fix it. I gave Sala’am my rifle.”

  “Well, dude, find it,” he said. “Look around in the vehicle while I cover you.”

  I dropped down, glad to give my burning legs a break. Several frantic minutes of scrambling among the ammo cans turned up nothing. “No dice,” I said as I resumed my post.

  Bourquin told Wild to go search Chen for the tool.

  

  As soon as Wild entered the CCP, Guzman spat at him, “Wild, I don’t need your help.”

  Like you were doing anything anyway. Wild stopped and regarded him coldly, “I’m not here to freaking help you. I’m here to get his stuff.” Wild rifled through the dead man’s ammo vest, pulling out some 40mm grenades and all of the magazines. However, the tool was AWOL. He stuffed everything into his cargo pockets and went to relay the bad news.

  

  Doc turned his attention to Haubert. The man was in shock but not badly wounded. A bullet had penetrated the windshield and taken off the tip of his ring finger. Flying glass shards imbedded in the man’s face caused, he assumed, only superficial injury. Guzman fished through his aid bag and pulled out a “two-by,” a two-inch square gauze bandage, and secured it around the missing fingertip with a Band-Aid.

  “How are you doing, Sarge?”

  Stanley Haubert muttered unintelligibly. His eyes stared into the far distance.

  “Think you can still fight?” Doc knew that the man could technically still use a rifle if his trigger finger was OK. He could tell by Stanley’s unresponsiveness, however, that the man was out of the fight. Probably for good. He looked up from his patch job and saw Perry in the doorway staring down at Chen’s body.

  

  Private Perry had the deepest respect for Chen. He saw most NCOs in the infantry as blustering, arrogant a-holes who loved to throw their weight around. Chen had always been gentle and unassuming with Perry. He never pushed the issue of who outranked who which bought instant credibility with the young man. They were often paired together for Charge of Quarters (CQ), a duty that entailed spending a solid 24 hours together manning a desk in the company Area. While they sat together, Chen—with his unique quiet humility— would teach the young private about military issues he thought the young man should know. Or admonish the private when he had been acting foolishly.

  Now that gentle voice of wisdom was forever silent. Chen was gone and Perry felt the loss keenly. He couldn’t bear to look at the body and his eyes began to burn. The Iraqi man under their protection stirred quietly, shifting his position to relieve discomfort from sitting on the concrete floor. The movement drew Perry’s eye. Robinson had asked Perry to come inside and guard the family. Now that he knew that Chen was dead, he was struggling to subvert his base impulses to what he knew was his clear duty. He wanted nothing more than to kill them. Execute them. Make them pay for what they did to Chen. His chest heaved with the effort of suppressing his desire to exact retribution. He had been a preacher’s son, a gangsta’ thug and a soldier, and now all three personalities were battling for his soul. Forgive the family for a crime that others had committed, assassinate the family for being party to Chen’s death, or guard the family because that was the Law of War. A mad drum beat resounded in his brain, near his temple, as the voices of who he had been, who he was now, and what he would become shouted to be heard.

  Private Perry looked away from the Iraqis under his protection and relaxed his finger, only now aware that it had been on the trigger.

  

  On the roof above them, Riddell and Denney finally had some eager customers looking for lead at bargain-basement prices. Rooftops to the south and west were mostly one or two stories, with a three-story building or two thrown in for flavor. After they had been defending this dismal piece of Iraqi soil for almost 20 minutes, he saw a dozen figures clothed in black karate suits trotting toward them across the rooftops, jumping from one to the next like a platoon of comic-book villains. Denney saw heads popping up closer to them. Riddell went through two magazines in short order as he attempted to halt their progress.

  “I got one,” cried Denney as one of the attackers fell.

  “You’d better shoot faster if you want to keep up with me. I’ve got three.”

  

  Denney climbed down the stairs on trembling legs and stopped briefly in the middle of the courtyard to glance in the kitchen at Chen’s body, plainly visible. That’s going to be me soon. But something kept him moving. He couldn’t quit, not while his brothers needed him. Not while his family waited for him to come home. He stepped out into the alley to see how he could help.

  

  Davis couldn’t remember a time when his arms had ever been so tired. He had been using the heavy machine gun as an assault rifle for a half an hour past the point where his body told him he was exhausted. He was not built like a professional wrestler. He didn’t power lift or spend much time seeing how much he could bench. He had developed toughness growing up on a farm in the Dakotas. He could chop wood or use a shovel all day long. Now that endurance was being tested. His biceps and forearms burned with the effort of using the big gun in a way that doctrine had never intended. Davis managed to take out a few more unlucky souls w
ho attempted to storm the alleyway.

  Davis had the driver’s side door of Red 4 open to provide cover as he continued to light up every dumb son-of-a-buck who set foot in their alley. With the door open, he could hear the radio traffic on the speakers when either he or Coleman weren’t making a racket. He spoke briefly with the platoon sergeant, noting number of kills, number of personnel they were still attempting to engage, so that Swope had a clear picture of the battle to communicate to higher. When they had been defending the alley for 30 minutes he heard a welcome sound: the thumpa-thumpa of approaching helicopters.

  

  Swope heard one of the pilots call to confirm their location. The call sign they used identified them as Kiowas, known also as “Little Birds.” Armed with machine guns, Hellfire rockets, and serious attitude, the choppers were as welcome as water to parched lips. However, the Kiowa pilots would not engage the enemy until they knew exactly where the platoon was defending. The lessons of fratricide prevention from the first Desert Storm had been well learned. Three days in sector had not been enough for Swope to learn all of the Route names in the City. He knew the major routes. Delta, of course, Gold, Silver, Aeros, and a few others. He even knew exactly where they were on Route Delta, but didn’t know the name of the next street up. Finally, he coaxed a grid coordinate from his large military GPS device and read it off to the pilot. The pilot repeated the grid exactly and was silent for a moment. Swope and Davis looked at each other as the helicopters passed overhead, moving quickly in order to evade a massive volume of small-arms’ fire. Over the speakers he heard, “Cannot identify. Cannot identify.”

  

  Lieutenant Aguero was hobbling around from one vehicle to another. He could definitely feel the pain from the grenade blast settling in deep into his bones. He knew that if he gave into the notion of being wounded, if he sat down and let someone treat him, he would lose momentum and freeze up. He had already lost one soldier, and he would be damned if the enemy thought they were going to take another. So he kept moving, relentlessly, denying his body’s strident demand to stop. He looked up as the Kiowa attack helicopters passed over them.

  Swope leaned out of the vehicle and said, “Hey, there’s birds in the air but they can’t locate us. We need to mark our location for them.”

  Aguero thought quickly. We could use yellow smoke grenades; I think we have some of those. Or- “Listen up,” he called to everyone around him. “I need a VS-17 panel, time: now. Who’s got one?”

  Bellamy called out, “There’s one in Swope’s vehicle.”

  The L-T limped over to Red 4. He wasn’t feeling much pain, but his body was slowing down. No matter how much he wanted to, he just couldn’t move quickly. Coleman told him that the panel was under the rear driver’s side seat. A VS-17 panel is a large swath of extremely durable material—something like the lovechild of silk and vinyl—one side of which was subdued olive drab and the other a two-tone hot pink and hunter orange. The express purpose of the cloth was to serve as a marker or beacon for aircraft. They were a part of a vehicle’s basic load and usually kept folded up and stuffed away in some dark corner collecting dust.

  Aguero removed the seat cover revealing a compartment full of stuff, mostly large heavy tools. The panel, of course, was at the very bottom. Aguero grabbed the corner and yanked on the material, struggling to free it. His right arm was not cooperating. He felt so tired.

  “Coleman, a little help.”

  Coleman bent down and grabbed the material to assist. The two of them began to pull until they were red-faced, frustrated and swearing profusely. They gave a final, herculean heave and the signal cloth came free, unfolding into a cumbersome mass as it did. Aguero gripped it with his right hand and turned to walk away. He dropped the panel from his numb fingers. He indulged, at high volume, his penchant for variations of the f-bomb. He bent down wearily and began to gather the yards of cloth together with his left hand. Gotta get this up there quick. He started to run toward the stairwell to the tall over-watch building. I’m not going very fast. Why can’t I go faster?

  He staggered to the doorway and took the stairs three at a time. At least that was what his mind told his legs to do. His body offered the compromise of one stair at a time. His mind kicked it around for a second then made the counter-offer of two steps. The body, having made the down payment of a single flight of stairs, told the mind in no uncertain terms what it could do with its offer and walked away from the bargaining table.

  His bold plan to storm up the stairs with the life-saving signal panel met with the crashing reality of only being able to take one step at a time and that with only his right foot. He could only use his left foot as a stabilizer, a prop to keep him vertical against the wall, while the right power-hopped to the next step. Aguero was left standing on the first landing, sweat pouring from his face. A daunting pile of old window-unit air conditioners, chairs, and other junk blocked his path forward. He had absolutely no strength left to climb up and over the mound to get to the roof. Screw it. This blows.

  “Rob. Sergeant Rob.”

  A second later the Georgia gentleman’s head appeared at the next landing.

  “Hey, take this VS-17 panel and lay it out for the choppers.” Aguero drew back and threw the panel with all the strength left in him. It failed to travel three feet. Damn it. “Never mind.” He spied Bourquin in the courtyard. “Hey, Bourquin.”

  The lanky NCO trotted over quickly. “Put this out where the birds can see it.”

  “Roger, Sir.”

  Aguero turned around and limped back down the stairs as quickly as he could. He managed to hobble over to the driver’s side of Red 4 and tapped Davis’ shoulder. “Take the 240 upstairs and help provide over-watch. We can handle these turds down here with the fifty. When you get up, there make sure they have the man-pack radio set up and give me a radio check.”

  “Roger, Sir.” Davis disappeared up the stairs with a speed the L-T now envied. Aguero assumed the spot Davis had occupied, both doors open to provide cover fore and aft. He looked around to assess their situation. He wanted, needed, to move about more. A leader was supposed to circulate the battlefield tirelessly, keeping the ever-evolving picture of the fight clear in his mind. His leg was betraying him. He could hardly stand now on his stupid numb foot.

  

  Bourquin ran into the courtyard with the signal panel. He saw Wild ascending the courtyard steps leading to the lower roof. Yelling to get his attention, Bourquin explained what the L-T needed—what they all needed. Get the panel set out so the Birds could see it and not kill them by mistake. A fine plan, indeed.

  Wild ascended to the first rooftop that the platoon had occupied and quickly stretched out the large piece of fabric, colors to the sky. He found pieces of broken brick and cinder block to weigh down the corners. Wild looked over the edge and asked Bourquin, “You think that will do it?”

  “You’ve got a 203, right?”

  “Yeah.” Wild waved the grenade launcher at him.

  “Here, use this. Mine’s broke.” Bourquin pulled a 40mm smoke grenade from his Load Bearing Vest and threw it up with a gentle underhand pass. Wild caught it dexterously, so thrilled to shoot the M203 in combat for the first time that his hands were shaking. So excited that he didn’t think about where he was aiming. He pointed the grenade launcher at a high angle, tucked the weapon under his armpit, and pulled the trigger. The weapon bucked hard and spit the projectile far out of sight.

  “Uh…Got another one? That one didn’t work.”

  Bourquin threw him a small olive-drab cylinder. The pull-ring indicated a smoke grenade; the purple top indicated the color of smoke that would emanate from said grenade. Wild grinned. This day just got cooler. He looked down at Denney and Riddell, who were engaging from the CCP rooftop, and called down in a loud voice, “Guys, I’m getting ready to throw a smoke grenade. Don’t freak out.”

  Apparently, with their atten
tion focused on feats of marksmanship, or perhaps because of the rising wind, they heard nothing he said before or after ‘grenade.’ They both immediately screamed, “Grenade!” and dropped down with their ears covered.

  “SMOKE grenade, guys,” yelled Wild. “Smoke.” He laughed hard as he pulled the pin and rolled the smoke canister next to the signal panel. There was a small pop as the fuse ignited the minuscule charge. Purple smoke began to trickle out of a small hole in the top of the can. The trickle grew to a jet to a plume as purple smoke issued forth as if for a Prince concert.

  

  The rooftop OP was about 10 feet wide on the alley side and almost 15 on the side facing Delta. A demi-wall about four feet high made of mud brick was their only protection. Robinson had carefully placed his men so that they were evenly spaced and covered the surrounding neighborhood. They were in the perfect position to rain down devastation on the enemy. All nine of them were busy picking off targets.

  Robinson looked over the edge of the roof and saw the panel was laid out and visible on their original OP. A palm tree provided a little bit of shade for the roof, which he had enjoyed earlier, but it probably wouldn’t obscure the view from the air. He saw Bourquin toss up a grenade, laughed to himself when Denney and Riddell hit the deck, and nodded approval when the purple smoke began to flow. As he started to turn back to the business of directing his troops, however, he noticed something wrong. A strong wind was gusting now, had been for a few minutes. The smoke, instead of rising to the heavens as sign of their deliverance, was being forced down off of the roof by the atmospheric pressure. Not good.

  Robinson strode to the middle of the roof and snatched up the radio. He informed Red 4 that they had deployed the VS-17 panel and a smoke grenade. He asked if the Birds had seen their display of plumage. Stand by. Negative. No ID.

  They needed to think of something else, and quick.