by Geoff Wolak
I was a soldier, somewhere. Something had happened. Turning around, my heart skipped a beat as I found a face staring back at me, cold dead eyes, black blood, a cold stiff hand reaching out. It seemed familiar.
The bright light above was moving, arching across the sky quietly, odd shadows created, moving shadows. Looking down, I inspected my hand. Blood. I touched the right side of my head and winced. Something had happened. Patrol, men, Mickey.
I eased up, watching the long shadows paint a moving picture of the forest, the trees starkly lit on one side, jet black on the other side. Men. Bodies. A smell of something, burning maybe. I eased back down and sat back.
Camouflage trousers, green boots. No, black boots, someone over them, a green covering. Cold, a chill. Tyler, Captain Tyler, buying a curry for me, laughter and smiles, a warm something – it felt comfortable. Tyler, dead, and arm and a leg missing, his accusing eyes staring back at me, Tabby shouting at Tyler, something about a radio giving our position away.
I was ten years old, sneaking through the woods and playing at toy soldiers. Bang, you’re dead. Richards, green uniform, Colonel, next door, mum and dad looking worried for me.
I don’t know how much time passed, or how much time had passed before I woke, but second by second my memories returned, and my dire situation retuned with them. With my right glove now off I inspected my head wound. A grazing shot, I was lucky, just knocked out, but I figured the skull was cracked. Good old face mask, it was acting like a bandage and support all in one. Squeezing out a little antibiotic cream, I applied it as best I could, wincing.
Sitting there in the dark, I felt nauseous in fits, and figured that it was the skull damage. I sipped a little water, forced the breath in and out and slowly recovered, although I wish I hadn’t; recovery meant full recognition of where I was, and of my circumstances.
Was it getting lighter? Lifting up, I figured that maybe it was. A moan, a plea for help. Down there some poor bastard was in worse shape than I was.
Sounds, twigs breaking, a little distant. I eased up and peeped out. A patrol, north, at the edge of the dark wood, moving towards the wounded, still fifty yards away. I clicked out the magazine, weighed it my hand and replaced it. Unsure if there was a round in the chamber, I eased the lever back and put my little finger in. Yes, it was chambered.
Getting a fire position, with my boots slipping in the mud, I took aim as the dawn fought to make its presence felt. They were bunched up, at least they were from this angle, and I had the height. They were below me, a difference of maybe ten feet, but it all helped.
They were now in a line pointing towards me, slow moving black figures against a green-grey background. Taking a firm grip of the AKM with my left hand, I flexed my right fingers, forced a breath and again got ready, my mind on automatic.
A final adjustment, and I fired, and I kept firing; quiet coughs from the silencer, the crack of the round, the clanking reload, the occasional metallic tinkle as one cartridge landed on another.
They opened up, but no rounds came my way, and I used their muzzle flashes to adjust my aim by small fractions. By time my magazine clicked empty I could see no one upright, but I could hear the calls for help and the moans, the shouts, sporadic bursts fired into the forest.
Someone got up and ran, a fast sprint, and disappeared from view. I reloaded, finding a grenade in my webbing. Placing down my rifle, I pulled the pin then threw with all my might, my head screaming out in pain at the exertion.
It was a high throw, and I didn’t bother to duck, the flash illustrating the patrol, the grenade detonating ten feet above them. Everyone got a piece of red hot metal, the screams intensifying, and I just stared dispassionately down towards them, my warped logic now clear in my mind; if I killed them they would stop hurting me, and my pain would go away.
Major Bradley was awake early, as were many, and he found many cups of coffee being cradled by the men. He clanked up the stairs with his own coffee in hand, his features tired, his eyes dark, and he entered the Intel Room. Few bothered to look up. He stood waiting.
The Intel boys had taken it in turns during the night, monitoring the radios and collating reports. Now a sergeant with dark rings around his eyes faced Bradley.
‘Ten minutes ago a patrol was shot up and decimated, several during the night, sir,’ he said, sounding tired. ‘They’re going in, but they’re not coming back out. Just one survivor of the last patrol.’
‘Twenty four hours solid fighting,’ a man stated. ‘Got cold last night as well, and rained like hell. Can’t be a pleasant spot right now.’
‘Fresh troops arriving, some units pulled out,’ the Intel Sergeant reluctantly reported.
Bradley nodded, and headed down for some breakfast.
A grey morning mist hung mid section around the trees, and I took a while to appreciate it; it was quite beautiful in a way. Easing up and adopting a fire position, pulling the rifle into my shoulder, I consider my escape, and a chance missed. I had been unconscious, and whatever I did now I would do it slowly, my head hurting every time I moved. I peered through the sights.
To the north east, where the snipers had been killed by their own artillery, I caught a view of a crater, light brown soil in a sea of dark green. Lifting the rifle a fraction, I was focused on an area some four hundred yards away, and there, sat sipping a hot steaming tea, was a man staring back at me. Only he could not see me.
To the left of him sat another man, both partly covered by bushes, but a telescopic sight focused in the distance, and bushes could be seen through to some degree. I put the cross hairs on his face and fired, a quiet cough and crack. He buddy was soon knelt over, attending the man I had shot, and I put a round through his back.
Moving right, a close tree blanked my view, and when the view re-appeared I could see men walking forwards, some five hundred yards away, a patrol of twenty men or more. I fired till the magazine clicked empty, and squinting through the sight revealed one man now frantically attending another, blood on his face.
A magazine reload, and I stopped to take a much needed piss into the bottom of my bolt hole, soon stood in it. Taking aim, now left of the last fire position, I found distant trees and bushes, little else, and slowly panned left, finally seeing movement.
A face, filling my sight - he had to be less than a hundred yards, now peering around a tree. He was an older man, and at least he had cam cream on his face.
I squeezed the trigger and, re-acquiring, I found him face down. A slight movement of the barrel, and I focused just right of him, a man with a radio, a signal being sent. He was keeping low, and he was well camouflaged, but a telescopic sight as a good as put me next to him. I hit him in the throat, ending the message.
Panning left, very slight movements at my end but many metres distance being covered at the other end, I found a patrol, all hunkered down, bushes between them and me, but bushes were not bullet proof. The far side, where they knelt, was light, this side of the bushes was dark, and they were highlighted – but not from their perspective. From their perspective they could not see me, and so could not fathom that I could see them.
I hit five before they lay down and disappeared, or ran, but I found a leg sticking out and so hit it.
Panning left, I was now focused again on the long avenue of trees, and I lifted the barrel, finding the path we had walked down yesterday. No, the day before. I was fogged. At the top of the path, some five hundred yards in my estimation, another radio operator and his boss. I killed both without a second thought.
Behind them, further again, many people moved back and forth, mostly hidden by bushes. There had to be a path back there, some staging area. I fired, but got back just a click, and had to slowly reload, my head hurting. Re-acquiring that staging area, I found an outline, someone behind a bush, and fired. The movement ceased, and now I could see no one.
Surprising myself, I eased out of my hole and crawled west, towards the old OP, soon standing. For some reason I wanted to be out o
f that hole, and I felt that I would die there. I found the man who had shot me, and it looked like my pistol rounds had caught him in the face. His buddy blinked up at me, so I put a round through his chest.
Inching slowly on as the day got lighter, I finished off four men, little care left; what care and compassion I might have once had was being wiped away by my head wound. That head wound was masking my compassion, and telling me that I was going to die soon. Nothing else mattered.
I was cold and numb, but the numbness was not just from the cold; it was as if someone had told me I had ten minutes left to live.
At the forest edge I peered out, a soft mist blanking the grass and looking like a giant duvet, and – oddly enough – several cattle wandered around looking for succulent grass. It was a tranquil seen, and for a moment it made me feel better. In the distance, beyond the copse, I could see a small camp, way out at 700 yards and behind a hedgerow. Still...
I knelt, set automatic, and aimed high, emptying the magazine. Discarding the magazine, I slapped in another and emptied it again, wondering if I hit anything. With a fresh magazine in, lights caught my attention, a truck moving along the road down the slope, some 600yards away.
I took careful aim and loosed off the entire magazine, observing the truck swerve off the road and land on its side, my face frozen into and expressionless non-feature.
Men clambered out of the truck, so I reloaded, my brain on automatic, and I fired at them individually for five minutes, some rounds coming back towards me, but ineffectual.
Standing, I stared down at the cows, and the serene blanket of mist hugging the grass. It was peaceful, I considered as I turned.
A knock on the glass window, and Bradley eased up and opened it.
‘Sir, this is odd, but ... the man in charge out there, a colonel, he just took a round to the shoulder, which pissed him off greatly; he was sat having breakfast at the time, and well away from the fighting, another officer, a captain, reported hit in the head at about the same time.’
‘Without those officers, confusion spreads, and that may help him sneak out,’ Bradley stated, as much to himself as the sergeant.
‘Weather has cleared a bit, but a front is moving in.’
Bradley nodded, and closed the glass.
Duel
I both felt the rain and heard it as I stood staring down the slope at the wounded, counting thirty. I could not have been sure how long I just stood there, next to a tree and covered by a bush, but it was a risk, a risk that no longer computed too well in my brain.
Turning around, I wandered slowly back to those men that had fallen west of me during the night, and grabbed magazines and grenades, kneeling down starting to become painful, my left leg stiffening. I bagged up the grenades and dropped them into my bolt hole, and for some reason I still did not want to get back into it.
I was stood staring down at a man that appeared to be too well to be dead, when a crack knocked me to the floor face down. Gulping, I had to force the air in, having had the air knocked out of my lungs.
Where had I been hit? In the back, the shoulder? I breathed in, and then out. I was fine, no pain other than feeling that I had been kicked in the back by a horse. Easing up onto my knees, and wincing, I took off my webbing and checked it, finding that the round had hit a magazine in my rear bandolier. I tossed it away and put the webbing back on, just as a crack took a tiny piece of my ear off.
Dropping down, I got a hand to the ear, which was intact, just a slither missing. Someone had just cut my hair for me. Leopard crawling, I considered my bolt hole, but decided against it. I eased up against a tree, and tried to picture where the rounds had come from, soon figuring on the position where the snipers had originally set-up home. It was the only high ground north where the shot could have come from.
A crack, and the dirt next to my left boot flew up. I pulled it in. This guy had me zeroed, and had a sight to match mine. Tapping down my webbing, I found a grenade, pulled the pin and dumped it just around the tree. When it detonated, I lifted up and ran to the edge of the forest, no rounds incoming. Turning south quickly, I made it to the bend in the road before the boy scouts camp, and I kept going at a steady pace, soon heading east before the scout camp and down towards the dark wood. There I stopped.
He would think me back up the slope, close to where I had been, not risking a daylight amble through the woods. I needed a distraction. Forcing myself to make an effort, I moved quickly south east, and almost to the edge of the woods, soon peering down at movement some 500 yards below. With a plan in mind, half a plan, I emptied the magazine at the movement, turned and ran as best as I could hobble with my bad knee, back to the track next to the dark wood, a sprint across the track and inside without being shot at.
Now would come the hard part, and I had left the damn grenades behind. I took out my pistol, swapped magazines, and put one foot in front of the other, slowly edging around trees. I found a body straight away, but I had no need of spare magazines yet. Stepping over him, I edged around the next tree, looking and listening, pausing every few feet.
At the next body I stopped and considered my plan of action. Putting down the rifle, I grabbed the man by the collar and placed him at the edge of the woods, against a tree, as if he was peeking around it. Retrieving my rifle, I inched slowly onwards, a groan clearly fixing where the next man was. I stood over him, placed my boot on his neck, and applied my full body weight as I stared down dispassionately at him. The life left him, and he stopped groaning. Lifting him, I placed him at the edge of the dark forest, his face visible to the north.
Another two trees navigated around, and I stopped, kneeling down and easing very slowly to the edge of the dark wood. I had a partial view north. Adopting a kneeling stance, I took a position and peered through my sights, ten minutes taken straining to see a barrel pointing out. Nothing.
Two trees further on, and one body moved into position, I again took position and scanned the area north, over the track and up the steep slope. Fifteen minutes of careful searching offered up no target, so I lowered my rifle and simply scanned the forest for ten minutes, no movement noticed, a few distant groans heard on the breeze, a bad smell coming from somewhere.
Pushing further north, I found a body offering three grenades so I pinched them away. Turning away from that body I found a tree shaped like a set of steps, and after a moment’s thought I clambered up to the top branches, pretty damn sure that no one would expect me to be up here.
My lofty new position offered a commanding view of the area, and I could see my bolt hole and the body next to it. With branches for cover I got comfortable and took aim, soon scanning the area north from left to right and back again. Lowering my sights after ten fruitless minutes, my arms aching, I peered towards my bolt hole, and to where I had been stood, and tried to figure the angle. I then concentrated on that area.
A barrel with a silencer. I followed the barrel back, but could not see anyone; they must have been around the tree. Odd, no hand gripping it. Was he just waiting, hands off the rifle? I lowered my aim, not seeing any boots, and scanning left and right provided no suitable target. Could this barrel be a weapon left over from before? Probably.
The rain then decided to piss me off, and my exposed position had me cursing. Still, who would believe I was dumb enough to be up a tree, especially in this weather.
Movement, a patrol coming in from the northwest, still two hundred yards away or more. Could I hit them without that sniper hitting me? The rain would help.
I adjusted the cloth cover on my silencer to hang forwards, covering any smoke or flash, and took aim as the day darkened, sheets of rain coming in at an angle. Targeting the first man, who looked like he was in charge, I went for a chest shot and hit him, the rest of the patrol scattering.
Then I waited, turning my aim back towards that odd barrel. It had not moved, and I was getting frustrated. Scanning areas at random, I moved the rifle left, and towards the initial OP we had. Ten minutes of getting
wet offered no sightings, but then I focused on a boot. As I was looking at it, it disappeared behind a tree. Could it be a wounded man?
I focused on the tree from my uncomfortable wet platform. If it was a sniper, then maybe he was sneaking up on where he thought he had killed or wounded me. That would make sense; after all, he saw that he hit me, he saw me go down. I waited, scanning the tree. Nothing. Ten minutes passed, and the patrol north west was creeping closer on their bellies. If the sniper was not careful he’d get shot in the arse.
I had to be radical, so I took out a grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it hard into the dark wood, quickly lifting my rifle and focusing on that tree again as the blast echoed. A bush lifted up, and bushes are not alive – and don’t move, so I hit the bush. A trail of blood up the tree alongside that bush indicated a kill.
A crack, and one of the bodies I had placed was hit, the last one, little more than ten feet below me.
There was more than one sniper.
I was back to scanning the woods, but figured that I would tempt him out; after all, he’d not figure I was up a tree. I focused on the patrol, and hit two green-painted faces as they peeked out. Then I waited.
And ten minutes later I was still waiting, so I hit another man in the patrol creeping up. The rain had stopped and the wood had lightened a little, and I whiled away the time scanning the forest with my sight. More than once I found a body, and then discounted it, moving on.
A twig broke, behind me in the dark wood. Now I really had a problem. I was well hidden up the tree, and there were thick branches to shield me, but it was a bad placed to be caught. I had two grenades left, and turning around slowly I zeroed in on the man. Was he alone?
I lifted my rifle and edged around slowly, being as quiet as I could, and focused on him. He was looking every which way apart from up. But was he alone? Scanning the area behind him, I could not see anyone, nor could I hear anyone. But I had to act, so I aimed, waited for him to clear a tree, then hit him between the eyes, knocking him backwards.