“I’m sure the women in Denver will be waiting when we get back.”
“But, at my age, will they have their own teeth?”
“How are those civilian M-16s holding up?” Stapler asked, squatting down beside the three. “And what is our ammo status?” The Marines had flown in with a normal pack out of five cartridges per Marine. Thirty bullets per cartridge. The destruction of the helicopters had stranded them with only the supplies in their packs.
The oil riggers had ten civilian M-16A2 5.56 mm rifles, making the ammunition compatible with the newer variant of the M-16 the Marines carried.
“We still have the one crate with fifty cartridges in it, Gunny. I talked with the lieutenant earlier. The crate is against the front wheel of that humvee,” Bearcat said, pointing to the second one in line. “The top is just lying on the crate. All you have to do is lift it and take out a magazine.” “I thought we had another crate of 5.56 millimeter bullets so we could replenish the magazines.”
“No, I don’t think so. Gunny. If we did, I don’t remember.
All we had was the one crate.”
Lieutenant Nolan caught up with Stapler. “I think they’ll be all right. Gunny. I’ve told them not to worry.”
Stapler looked back at the LT. “I’m sure that will do it, sir,” in as serious of a tone as he could muster.
He stood up, hoisted his rifle, and strolled off to the next foxhole a few feet away. “Good luck, Bearcat. Kellogg, look for the whites of their eyes’
“They have whites?”
Corporal Heights’s and Private Hank Jones’s two-man foxhole, about six feet away, ran parallel to Catsup Kellogg’s. Three riggers balanced the two Marines like matching bookends, with one in the center.
“Hello, Gunny, LT,” said Heights when the two approached.
“How’s it going, Corporal?” Lieutenant Nolan asked.
Heights raised his hand to salute, realized what he was doing, and dropped it. “We’re fine, LT. Just waiting for an opportunity to kick some native ass.”
“Yeah, that be what we gonna do all right,” Private Jones added sarcastically. “We gonna kick a hundred native asses before they kick ours.” He looked up at Stapler.
“Gunny, I wanna put in for a transfer.”
“See me once we get back, Jones.”
“Naw, Gunny. 1 wanna do it now so I can get the hell out of here before they get the hell down here,” he replied, elbowing Heights and laughing. “We in one hell of a mess, ain’t we, Gunny? One hell of a mess.”
“Marines have been in other situations and won the day, and we will this time, Private Jones,” Lieutenant Nolan answered. “We will win the day, and never forget that.”
“Oh, I ain’t forgot it, LT. The problem I have is that I remember it all too well. And, I tell you this, LT, Gunny, when those assholes get down here and discover we are United States Marines, it is gonna be one Kodak moment in their memory.” He elbowed Heights again and laughed.
“Yeah, man, it gonna be one hell of a Kodak moment.”
“Keep those shirtsleeves rolled down, Jones,” Stapler said. “The sun will be up soon, and if they are going to attack, they may do it then.”
“You’re black, Jones. You don’t sunburn,” Heights said, grinning.
“Yeah, man. Just like all us Afro-Americans are hung like horses. Another myth shot to hell.”
“We have to conserve our ammo, Marines. Make each shot count.”
“We will, Gunnery Sergeant,” Heights said. “Good luck, sir.”
“Good luck, Corporal Heights,” Lieutenant Nolan replied. “And, Private Jones, we are going to make it one hell of a Kodak moment for them.”
Just hope we live to see prints, thought Stapler.
The two moved along the line to where Privates Darren Garfield and Luc Lerfervre had dug in. Along the front of the foxhole, the two Marines and the two riggers had stacked rocks like the others to make the position more defendable. The foxhole butted against the front wheel of the lead humvee. Under the humvee, an oil rigger — Stapler tried unsuccessfully to recall the man’s name — had taken position. He wasn’t sure, but one thing he knew, the boots sticking out from beneath were not Marine Corps issue. Private Gonzales had dug his own foxhole in the narrow space between the two humvees. The foxhole was on the far side of the two vehicles. Stapler bent down and looked underneath the humvees. No one was there.
“Where’s Gonzales?” he asked.
“He’s with the camels. Gunny,” Heights replied, pointing toward the base of the cliff behind them.
The day had lightened considerably in the past few minutes. The sun chased the shadow downward on the cliff behind them as it rose into the sky. A few minutes, and the hot, dry heat of the Sahara would rush across them.
Stapler looked to where the camels had been moved and saw the silhouette of Gonzales moving among the animals, forcing them to their knees and a resting position.
Even Stapler knew once gunfire started those animals would bolt.
He looked back between the two vehicles. Gonzales’s position in the center of the two humvees limited the coverage area to forty-five degrees on either side, but that’s what he wanted. Just a small amount of overlapping fire.
Each Marine’s area of coverage was a ninety-degree angle projecting from forty-five degrees to the left, revolving to forty-five to the right.
On both sides of Gonzales’s position, an oil rigger lay beneath the humvees. The one on the far side Stapler recognized as Heinrich Wilshaven, the maintenance guru for the vehicles. Heinrich saw Stapler and gave a halfhearted salute. “At least here, Gunny, I haft the shade.”
“LT, we are about as ready as we are going to be.”
“Where should you and I position ourselves, Gunny?”
“LT, I recommend you take position near the front of the first humvee when the battle starts, and I. will be over near Corporal Heights’s and Private Kellogg’s positions. I think they will try to come through there first. There is little to stop them other than firepower. You may even want to try the radio while we wait to see what they are doing.”
Nolan nodded. “I’m trying to conserve the battery as much as possible.” He saw Stapler’s eyebrows bunch even as the Gunnery Sergeant tugged his earlobe. “I see, Gunny. Won’t matter about the battery if we don’t get out of here.”
Stapler nodded. “We can always jump-start from the second humvee if we have to, LT.”
“Okay, Gunny,” Lieutenant Nolan replied. He looked down at his combat boots and then back at Stapler and whispered, “Gunny, I don’t mind telling you that I am scared shitless.”
Stapler grinned. “Ain’t we all, LT. Ain’t we all.” Stapler left the lieutenant to squat beside the ammo crate.
This small crate was going to determine how long (hey lasted. Behind him came the sounds of radio static as the LT tuned the radio and began calling Base Butler. He looked down at his watch. Stapler had little hope the LT would establish contact. Even if he did, Base Butler could do little for them. They were still a hundred miles from reaching a point where the Army’s CH-47 Chinooks could reach and extract them. But the key to good military organization was consistency and hope, even when the odds against you were poor and getting worse.
Stapler removed the lid. The loaded magazines were stacked neatly on top of each other. All anyone had to do was reach in, grab a magazine, and ram it home. But everyone couldn’t do that. Someone had to keep these bullets going to those who needed them.
“Gunnery Sergeant,” someone said from behind.
Stapler looked up. Karim Abdul Washington stood there. “Yeah, Karim?”
“I want to help. What can I do? I am not used to standing back and letting others do my fighting for me. So, if you’ve got a spare pistol, rifle, even a knife, tell me where you want me, and I’ll be there.”
Stapler looked down at the crate. His hand went automatically to his ear. “Squat down here beside me, Karim.”
Five minutes
later he finished explaining what he wanted the Baltimore native to do.
“And, this is all we have left?” Karim asked, hefting one of the cartridges, turning it back and forth to look at it.
“That’s it, Karim, with the exception of one other thing. It’s not a pleasant thought but a simple fact of battlefield life. A weapon not firing is useless. If someone is wounded to the point where they are unable to fight or if someone — we don’t like to think about it — is killed, then we need to get that weapon back into the fray as soon as possible. At the minimum, we want their ammunition recirculated.
That’s your job.”
Karim put the cartridge back into the box. “Bummer, man.”
Stapler nodded. “Yeah. A real bummer.”
Stapler stood and wiped the sweat from his brow. Night had gone while he was talking with Karim. The daytime temperature had already chased away the cool, desert night. Sunlight had chased the shadows from the cliffs like shades rising inside a house. He tilted his helmet back on his head and searched the surrounding countryside, looking for signs of an advancing enemy. The campfires were gone in the light of day. There was quiet stillness to the morning. It was going to be a hot day with the walls of the wadi blocking any breeze from the desert.
Nothing but waterless terrain marked the transition from flat desert to this first in a maze of small valleys.
Where were they? A hundred warriors do not just disappear.
He tugged his ear slightly. Let the fight decide the outcome rather than a siege. Don’t let the sun win the battle.
He hoped they felt the same way.
“Gunny! Gunny!” shouted Private Lerfervre, motioning rapidly for Stapler. The others looked in his direction.
Stapler pulled his helmet down and advanced to the foxhole where Lerfervre and Garfield lay between two of the riggers. Stapler didn’t know the names of the two riggers, though the American Legion tattoo on the arm of one of them indicated the man was a veteran.
“What is it, Lerfervre?”
“Gunny, look out there,” he said, pointing toward the front.
Stapler looked. “Okay, I’ve looked. What am I supposed to see?”
Everyone had gone quiet, trying to hear Lerfervre.
From the humvee the sound of the LT calling Base Butler filtered over the alert Marines and nervous oil riggers.
“The rocks, Gunny. We didn’t have any boulders out there last night.”
Lieutenant Nolan backed out of the humvee and threw the microphone into the vehicle where it wedged against the seat belt buckle, the Transmit button lodged in the open position. “Not a damn thing, Gunny. Just for a moment, I thought someone might have been trying to respond, but it was only ghost.”
The edge of the desert sun burst over the top of the cliff, blinding Stapler briefly as he cupped his hand over his eyes. He shut them for a moment as they became accustomed to the morning rays. When he opened them a few seconds later, it seemed to Stapler that the rocks surrounding the encampment were moving.
“Here they come!” shouted Corporal Heights from the other side.
The rocks weren’t rocks. The Tauregs had curled up on their sides and draped their abas over their bodies so that in the shadows of the night they blended into the rocky terrain of the wadi.
“Hold your fire!” Stapler shouted. “Make each shot count.” The Taureg charge was several hundred yards away and uncoordinated. Now that the battle had begun, his anxiety eased. The years of exercises, training, and combat experience burst forth within him.
“Get down, Gunny!” the LT shouted from the humvee.
Stapler turned to the order. A loud oodalooping noise rose from the desert, cascading across the encampment, as the war cry of the Tauregs increased in volume and sound.
Stapler raised his M-16. The sun was in their eyes, aiding the attackers heading their way.
“Gunny, get down, I said!”
A bullet went past his ear so close he felt the breeze.
Stapler dove to the side, rolled twice, and came up against the front wheel of the lead humvee. A moment of pain shot up his side from the cracked rib. Won’t try that again.
The static from the radio bled into the battle sounds.
He lifted his weapon and flipped the safety off to burst as several Tauregs reached the perimeter. He fired two bursts of three bullets, killing the three. The Marines and riggers, who waited for the gunny’s command, opened fire together, sending a wave of bullets out to greet the Taureg horde.
One Bedouin fell on the rigger to the left of Garfield, who shoved the dead man off. As the rigger turned back toward the front, an attacker jumped across the small barrier, drew back, and brought a huge knife down into the man’s back. Stapler shot him. The rigger’s screams filled the air, his hands grabbing for the knife sticking out of his back. Garfield jerked the man down, and he thankfully passed out.
Stapler looked over at Heights’s and Kellogg’s positions.
A wall of Tauregs charged, screaming their weird war cry, like a rushing tidal wave of black water. The Tauregs didn’t aim their old rifles but fired from whatever position they held them. Enough bullets went in the same direction that one of them was going to hit something.
Two attackers rolled across the hood of the second vehicle, their sandals exposed as their robes rode upward.
Stapler flipped onto his back and shot the first one. A third and fourth attacker followed, knocking the second one off his feet and saving him from Stapler’s next volley. The burst meant for him hitting the three behind, sending them tumbling into a bleeding pile of wounded rolling and shouting in the Taureg dialect. Stapler whipped the M-16 back and forth racking the wounded Tauregs as they stood up.
A shadow crossed his eyes. He glanced up into the eyes of two Taureg natives as they crawled over the top of the lead humvee. The barrel of a gun never looked bigger to him.
A moment later, Stapler was opening his eyes. He was in the center of the encampment, about twenty feet from the boulders. How did he get here? The LT and Karim stood over him. Gunfire filled the air. He recognized the distinct popping sound of the M-16 and even recognized the slight difference of the older variant the riggers used.
He looked at the LT and saw the young officer’s lips moving, but for some reason he couldn’t make out what the LT was saying. It seemed the inside of the perimeter was covered in unmoving bodies dressed in black, like an overdone scene in one of those Hong Kong karate movies.
He tried to move his lips, but nothing emerged. His arms felt like lead weights, and then pain rippled through his body, seeming to center on his left side. Stapler lifted his hand to discover it covered in blood.
Another face emerged into his vision. Sterling, my medical school dropout, he thought. So tired. The LT’s lips moved, and the officer disappeared.
A voice filtered through the haze of gunfire. “Don’t you go to sleep on me, you old bastard!”
Sterling! Calling me — a gunnery sergeant in the United States Marines Corps — a bastard! Only Top Sergeant Macgregory called him a bastard and only jokingly. Sterling must know me better than I thought. Even so, I’m going to have to whup his ass.
He felt pressure on his chest and coughed. Stapler turned his head to the side and spat out red fluid. He opened his eyes and for a brief moment wondered about the red stuff soaking into the sand.
“Gunny, can you hear me?” Lieutenant Nolan asked.
Where did he come from? Stapler nodded his head.
God! His head felt so heavy.
“Gunny, I’m leaving you with Sterling. I have to go.”
The LT’s face disappeared again from Stapler’s vision.
When was the officer going to realize he didn’t have to ask Stapler’s permission for everything?
He took a deep breath, and pain whipped through his body, starting on the left side of his chest and rippling up to his brain. Fight the pain, came the thought, and it sounded like that asshole Top Sergeant Macgregory shouting
it at him. Macgregory needed to stay at the club and leave the fighting to us younger men, he thought.
Somewhere he had heard that pain travels at 325 feet per second. He felt this pain exceeded that speed.
“What happened?” he mumbled, surprised at how the words sounded slurred.
“You old bastard! You got yourself shot is what you got. Man, you supposed to be leading us, and you got yourself shot! What the fuck are we going to do now?”
Sterling spoke more to himself than to Stapler. The Marine cum medic’s hands moved fast as Sterling jerked gauze off a roll in long strips, ripping with his hands, folding it rapidly, and. applying it with pressure over the chest wound.
The bullet had entered Stapler’s chest at an oblique angle, piercing his lung before exiting on the left side.
Only three inches separated where the bullet entered and where it exited. A more modern weapon and bullet would have ripped half his back off during the exit.
Stapler looked past the Marine turned corpsman, raised his hand slightly and pointed. “Look out,” he said.
Sterling rolled onto his back, whipped up his M-16, and shot two attackers rushing toward them. His head turned from side to side, searching for others. Satisfied, Sterling turned back to Stapler.
“And, you know what, Gunny? Naw, you don’t know, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. You gonna live. You gonna live because, by God, I ain’t scared of losing any patients. I ain’t scared.”
“ammo, I need ammo!” came the shout from Garfield’s direction.
Karim stood and ran to the ammo crate. He snatched up four of the cartridges. Bent over, he hurried around the perimeter, dropping them off to those who needed them.
Little puffs of sand followed him as bullets traced his steps.
Karim slid to the ground, like a base runner sliding into home plate ahead of the ball. A slight sting in his left leg grew into excruciating pain. “Damn,” he said, bringing his Hand to his face and rubbing the blood on it between his fingers. “I’ve been shot.”
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