The Last Marine

by T. S. Ransdell

  Li Wei had hung a white sheet out the window of his two-bedroom apartment, where he lived with his wife, teenage daughter, and his in-laws. He was scared, but his fear was overridden by the hope of a better future. He had spent the last twenty-five years working as an instructor at the local teachers’ college. His career had consisted of teaching to indoctrinate the younger generation. That was not how he had seen his career at first. He’d felt enthusiastic in the early years. The People’s Republic had seemed on the rise. Their economy had exploded thanks to the high price of labor in the West. Factories had opened. New buildings and new technologies were created, but not new freedoms. The promised acquisition of a better life turned out to be as empty as many of the new buildings the government constructed. They looked good from the street for all the Western tourists and TV cameras, but there was no one inside to enjoy them.

  Over the years Li had seen many benefit and prosper from political connections, not from merit. He had worked to build a better Republic for the next generation. However, to his dismay, many of his peers killed scores of that generation when they aborted their babies for being female. The legacy of the People’s one-child policy was a severe shortage of women. He’d raised his own daughter with the fear of her being kidnapped and then forced into a marriage.

  As his career progressed, he was ordered to report students for having the wrong ideas, opinions, and reactions to the material he was told to teach. He was even ordered to report the names of students he thought were romantically involved with one another. And for what purpose? Was this not natural? Could a mind grow if it did not question? Could mankind exist without attraction to the opposite sex? For years Li could not understand, nor could he talk about, why the People’s Republic of China always insisted that the people deny themselves as people. Yet that was the system they lived in. From what he’d seen over the decades of his life, it only benefitted those that ran the system. No more. He would not tolerate any more now that someone was standing up to it. He and his family would embrace the new China. As he saw it, they had nothing to lose.

  When he heard gunfire erupt nearby and then attack helicopters shooting up the street, Li decided it was a good idea to move his family. The last thing he wanted was to be in the middle of a gunfight.

  When his family exited the building, Li became desperately afraid. Why was his the only family leaving? Had others already left? Was he too late? Should he take his family back inside? He audibly exhaled with relief when he saw the ROC patches worn by the group of soldiers approaching him.

  “Excuse me, sirs, please, can you help us?” Li called out to the soldiers.

  “Yes, sir, of course,” what looked like the senior man yelled back. The soldiers approached, smiling. Their guns were pointed at Li and his family, but they were smiling. Li thought that had to be normal; they were an invading force, after all. He would be very polite and show them he was on their side. They’d have no reason to hurt him or his family.

  “Sir, where can we go where it is safe?”

  “Papers, do you have papers?” the senior man asked. This baffled Li. What PRC papers could he possibly have that would satisfy the ROC? The hairs on his neck stood. He realized too late he’d made a mistake.

  “Keep your hands up where we can see them!” another soldier barked.

  The Li family complied. They were shoved over to the nearest wall. The soldiers began to pat them down. They took their identification and any money they had. One of the younger soldiers, he looked barely more than a boy, kicked the leg out from under Li’s elderly father-in-law. The old man cried out in fear and pain. Li saw a smile on the young soldier’s face.

  “Please, my father-in-law has weak legs. He needs his cane,” Li pleaded, to no avail. He, his wife, and daughter were being frisked when he heard a loud ripping noise. His wife’s blouse had been torn by a soldier, who proceeded to molest his wife. Li protested, but found himself forced to the ground. The air kicked out of his lungs. He fought to breathe again. His mother-in-law began yelling and chastising the soldiers. Li saw her abruptly and harshly silenced by the young soldier’s rifle butt. He watched as the young soldier brought the butt of his rifle down over and over until the old woman’s body was silent and lay twitching. The other soldiers laughed and began to molest his daughter as well as his wife.

  “Please! No! Please! We are on your side! Please!” was all Li could say to defend the people he loved. He watched in horror as his wife and daughter were raped, and the young soldier went on to beat his father-in-law to death. Then the others invited the young soldier to rape his wife. They cheered and laughed as he awkwardly assaulted his wife. Li sobbed; he was heartbroken to be so weak and impotent in protecting his family. They had had so much to lose after all.

  As a cruel reminder that things could always get worse, once the young soldier was done, he stood, looking proud of himself. He even smiled at Li as he sobbed on the ground like his wife and daughter.

  “No! No! Please don’t!” was the only defiance Li could offer at that point after a life of communist indoctrination and compliance. The young soldier tilted his head a bit, but his smiling expression didn’t change. With a choreographed-like elegance, the young soldier pulled out his knife, reached down, and slit the woman’s throat from ear to ear. The woman Li had built a life with for the last thirty years convulsed and bled to death. The young soldier straightened, still smiling. The other soldiers were silent and seemed, ironically, in shock given the violence they had instigated. Li’s cries were only outdone by his daughter, who had watched the whole thing, to her terror. Before a word was said, the young soldier slit the throat of the young girl. Li had lost everything. His only solace was that his own death would end his pain.

  “Enough! Stand down!” the senior soldier ordered. “We are not to kill everyone.”

  “Kill me, kill me, you fucking bastard!” Li screamed when he thought he was about to be denied that as well.

  “Go on, get out of here!” the senior soldier ordered as the others lifted Li up and kicked him on his way. The young soldier just stood there smiling. The soldier’s gall, Li’s loss—it was too much. Li didn’t care anymore. He’d spent an entire life being compliant, being careful, never offending anyone; and all it had gotten him was misery. All he had ever gained was pain. He screamed and charged the smiling soldier. Come what may, he would not tolerate any more.

  With cold and swift precision, Private Liu raised his rifle and shot the screaming man running at him. It felt good. The power over life. The power of death. Liu loved it. The sight of the man’s shattered skull was a beautiful thing to him. Within the course of fifteen minutes he had exercised the power of death over five people. Liu had truly discovered his passion. He knew at that moment this was what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

  “Liu! Don’t be foolish! We’re to leave survivors to blame the ROC. Dead people don’t talk!” Sergeant Zhang worried that his rebuke might have been too strong. He liked Liu and saw potential in the boy. “Don’t let your passions get the best of you.” His toned softened as he placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The People’s Republic of China needs your talents.”

  Lieutenant Kai looked at his watch. Almost zero five hundred. It would be twilight soon. He desperately awaited daylight. Perhaps that would make things easier. Perhaps. This battle had not gone the way he’d envisioned it. For the first time in his short military career, he thought he might not make a good general. He had no idea if what he’d done today had been the right thing or not. All he knew for sure was that he’d lost four men. His platoon had come across bodies of butchered civilians, yet he’d not seen any PLA who were not surrendering. He had not seen one PLA plane or helicopter, yet he’d seen buildings explode and collapse. He understood more fighting was in the north of the city towards the river, but there was death all around in the south. None of it matched up. The fear and paranoia had led to him and his men shooting surrendering PLA. They weren’t taking prisoners. Was
it murder? Was it survival? It was more than his brain wanted to comprehend. He shoved the thoughts from his mind; he needed to keep it clear. He was responsible for the lives left in his platoon. He would focus on that for now. Any price he had to pay, he’d pay later. If he was still alive.

  Harris had always preferred the cover of night during this war. Now he prayed for daylight. He didn’t know if it would make the fighting any easier, but at least he could have a cigarette. He thought he’d experienced chaos earlier in the war, but he was wrong. He’d given up trying to follow what was going on in the big picture. He’d leave that to Edwards, although he was probably just as confused and just trying to make it through the night like he was.

  They’d gone to secure the bridge outside of Tongling, and the GPS told them they were in the right area. Of course the bridge was gone, like Edwards had said it would be. Then all hell broke out. There were trees every place they didn’t need them. There was some kind of quarry or factory where they were. Harris didn’t really care what it was, it just seemed to get in the way of killing Pricks.

  The commie bastards had tanks and artillery across the river and infantry on this side of the river. The tanks across the river had been hard as hell to see, and every time he got a good bead on one, Prick infantry would pop out of the woods. The Pricks coming out of the woods reminded him of those old zombie shows he used to watch with his dad. He’d spent more time with the SAW than the TOW.

  Harris thought, so far, that Hawke had really proved himself. Earlier in the night Harris had lost track of a tank in his thermal sight right as he’d fired. It was too early to have been from the back blast, and he wondered if it was some type of new thermal camouflage the Pricks were employing. He’d held the gun steady to ride out the blindness, but to no avail. Prick riflemen had popped out of the woods. Rounds had ricocheted off the LSV’s armor. Harris was lucky not to be dead. Hawke had floored the LSV and took out three of the bastards, stopping only when he’d smashed a small tree that was no match for the LSV’s grill guard. Edwards got some others with the SAW. Harris told himself if they survived this, he wanted to see Edwards demonstrate how to shoot out the passenger window. He had been deadly that night.

  There never was what seemed like a coordinated assault, just small groups coming at them here and there. Or somebody taking potshots at them. Then throw in Prick artillery and jets. They’d call in airstrikes on the Pricks, and the Pricks called them in on them, as well.

  Bombs, rockets, mortars, and small-arms fire had been going on around them all night. It was hard, if not impossible, to tell whose was what. They had been in contact with others in the section throughout the night, but had yet to get a visual on any of them. They felt isolated and vulnerable, but not helpless. They’d killed a lot of Prick infantry, and Harris had managed to take out a PLA attack helicopter.

  Schmitt and Littlejohn were a whole other matter. Harris thought the tank he was shooting at was shooting at them. That was when they were attacked by Pricks creeping out of the woods. They’d not seen or heard from Blue Three Bravo since then. Perhaps the daylight would bring answers. Perhaps not.

  By dawn the north bank of the river looked clear. Prick artillery was still dropping in batches of two or three rounds every so often. Harris wanted to see Americans on the other side of the Yangtze, but as yet had not. They had decent cover from a berm the Pricks had constructed along the road. Harris had an all right visual of the Yangtze’s north bank across the quarry. Bohanan wanted them to hold up until he could catch up with them. His GPS was damaged and he was trying to track everyone down. Edwards had also complained that theirs was not working efficiently as well. Schmitt and Littlejohn were not showing up on it, nor could they reach them on the radio. Was their equipment not working? Were they on the wrong frequency? Had they been killed?

  Three Marine riflemen emerged from the quarry compound. Hawke had a bead on them with the rifle, and Edwards had the twelve gauge on them until Harris visually confirmed they weren’t Asian through the TOW gun’s day sight.

  “Where can a Jarhead get a goddamn hotdog around here?” one of them asked as they approached.

  “Same place you get peanuts,” Edwards responded with agitation. He knew these guys weren’t PLA and found the passwords redundant.

  “I’m Corporal Jacobs, Third Platoon, Charlie,” the leader of the approaching gun team introduced himself.

  “Corporal Edwards. What can we do for you?” Edwards offered the other corporal a cigarette.

  “Thanks.” The three riflemen looked black from all the mud, face paint, and whatever else they had been crawling through during the night. Harris lit up a smoke, as did the other riflemen, who took it as a cue that the smoking lamp was lit. However, all three kept looking around, watching the woods, watching the skyline, watching everything.

  “You TOWs are missing an LSV.” The entire TOW squad noticed that Corporal Jacobs was not asking a question.

  “The gun team?” Edwards spoke. The other corporal shook his head no, but said nothing.

  “Don’t know how it happened. We found them last night. Thought they were dead PLA. Wasn’t until dawn we got a visual on the Death Squad logo y’all use. I’d have brought you their dog tags, but the fucking Pricks took them.”

  “Fuckin’ Pricks took the dog tags,” Edwards repeated. Harris noticed a change in Edwards’s tone, unlike what he’d heard before. Edwards always struck Harris as a man under control. Never too relaxed. Never too angry. Edwards’s voice had an emotional edge to it that Harris had not heard from him before. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. “Show us the LSV,” Edwards demanded. “You want a ride?”

  “No, thanks, we’ll walk.” The riflemen turned around and spread out and led the way. Harris didn’t blame them for not riding in the LSV. At that moment it was the biggest target around.

  Harris thought it was a cruel twist of irony that Schmitt and Littlejohn had not been that far away from where they just were. They’d had no way of knowing where they were when they were killed. The armored LSV had not been a match for the Prick 12.7 mm machine gun that had ripped up the front end. By the look of it, Littlejohn had taken a shot in the head while in the driver’s seat. Schmitt had not been that lucky.

  “This is how we found them,” Jacobs informed Edwards as they passed into the rifle squad’s perimeter. Another Marine pulled back the poncho they’d covered him with.

  Schmitt’s left leg had been torn off below the knee. The PLA soldiers had put a tourniquet on, but not to save his life. Schmitt’s clothes had been stripped off. His eyes had been gouged out, his body mutilated, his skin sliced to ribbons, his genitals removed and placed into his mouth. Harris had seen plenty of dead and torn bodies, of friends and enemies, since he’d been in China. This was of a grotesqueness and horror that he had not yet seen. Hawke immediately walked back to their LSV. A Marine from the rifle platoon re-covered Schmitt’s body with a poncho.

  “We checked the LSV for any of their personal effects. Couldn’t find any.”

  “Fucking Pricks took ’em. They pulled this shit in Mexico and Luzon. That way we can’t send personal items home to their families.” Edwards stared at the poncho covering his friend. Jacobs put a consoling hand on his shoulder and then stepped back.

  The solemn moment was interrupted by Hawke vomiting next to the LSV. The Marines looked away and ignored it, to let Hawke have his privacy and maintain some dignity. Edwards turned and walked over to Hawke. Harris had an uneasy feeling about Edwards; he didn’t tolerate displays of weakness easily from his squad members. Hawke wiped his mouth with his sleeve and straightened himself. He looked as white as a ghost and embarrassed.

  “Hang in there, Devil Dog,” Edwards said in a quiet, but strong voice as he patted him on the back. Then he sat down in the front passenger seat. “Blue Leader, Blue Leader. Blue Three. Over.”

  “Go, Blue Three,” cracked over the speaker.

  “We found Blue Three Bravo. What’s left o
f them anyway. Over.”

  “Are you at a new location, Blue Three?”

  “We’re in the quarry.” Edwards unkeyed the mic. “What’s our location?” Edwards asked Jacobs.

  “It’d be easier to bring him in. We can watch your buddy for you,” Corporal Jacobs offered.

  “Blue Leader, we’ll meet you at original location and bring you in. Over.”

  “Roger, Blue Three. Be there in about five mikes. Over. Out.”

  As they left the quarry compound to go back to the road, Harris saw six bodies walking along the road about two hundred yards off.

  “Bodies ten o’clock,” Harris shouted. He had the SAW trained on them as they approached. All six men threw their hands up. All waved some kind of makeshift white flag.

  “Stop the vehicle,” Edwards ordered when they got within fifty yards of the enemy prisoners of war. Edwards opened the door, but stood behind it with the twelve gauge pointed at the surrendering ChiCom soldiers. “Halt. Ting zhi, ting zhi!”

  The EPWs stopped. Edwards knew Bohanan should be there in a few minutes, but that could be an eternity in combat. The ChiCom soldiers began to mumble among themselves.

  Shit! What’s the word for quiet? Edwards tried to recall. One of the Pricks pointed his finger towards the LSV. Is that a fucking smile on his face? What the…

  Edwards jumped a bit when the gunfire started. He saw Hawke do the same. He went prone under the LSV door until the shooting stopped. All the EPWs were down. Edwards got up and scanned the tree line. Nothing. None of the downed ChiComs moved. Hawke was out with the rifle and had them covered.

  “Stupid Prick bastards don’t know when to shut the hell up,” Edwards heard Harris from over his shoulder. He turned around to looked up to see Harris, who had just lit a cigarette and was leaning forward into the SAW. “Wouldn’t you agree, Corporal Edwards?”

  Sergeant Bohanan didn’t know whether to believe his Third Squad or not, nor was it his priority. He had lost two gun teams during the night. Equipment failure had made it difficult for him to keep track of his section, on top of a less than ideal environment for TOWs to have been deployed.