Olchak thought he had the rhythm of the recoilless now, chanced a look outside, could see nothing but the bright explosions of the mortars.
He grabbed the handset, intending to ask for flares, but obviously Sergeant Stankow was way ahead of him. He heard the pop! as the mortar shell shed its cover, then saw the bright magnesium glow, shimmering slightly as the burning flare drifted down under its parachute.
The perimeter was thrown into bright relief, catching dozens of soldiers working away with their wire cutters at the outer edge. Olchak was already on the M60, feeling the comfort of the butt in his shoulder, the trigger under his finger. He fired in steady bursts, six rounds each time, directing the bullets at individual targets. None of the long chattering bursts so beloved by the movies. He pulled the trigger, and a man fell, and he went to the next man. He barely heard the roar of the other guns, so intent was he on his own targets.
The next flare was in the air before the first one burned out. He once again saw the flash, screamed to get down, hit the floor, felt the explosion, was up again. More men had rushed into the breach he’d cut in the ranks. And more and more. The sheer weight of bodies collapsing on the wire pushed it down enough that others could rush through.
Son of a bitch, he thought. We’ve got a problem.
Sergeant Young was giving a running commentary on the battle of the north wall. Finn McCulloden listened and tried to decide. Probe or main attack? The other parts of the perimeter were suspiciously quiet. Mortars were falling all over, of course, but as yet none of the direct-fire weapons had engaged the other bunkers.
If he rushed his reserves to the north wall and it was only a probe, they could become pinned down there while the main attack took place elsewhere. On the other hand, if this was the main attack and he didn’t get the reserves there on time, the camp could be penetrated. What to do?
That’s why they pay you the big bucks, he told himself. Make a decision.
He summoned up a mental picture of the camp. To the west was the runway, and beyond that the river. Terrible avenue of approach. The NVA wouldn’t have had a chance to extend their bunkers any closer than the other edge of the runway, and assaulting across it would expose them to fire for at least a hundred long yards. Unlikely they’d be coming from there.
Besides, he suspected that they’d have their casualty stations there, where wounded men could be treated quickly and then shipped back across the border to the field hospitals. They wouldn’t want to chance the bombardment attacking across the runway would bring.
To the east? Better terrain, just like on the north side, heavily jungled until you reached the area the camp defenders had cleared. Possibly from the east.
But he would have bet good money on the south. The ravine they’d deforested earlier still provided the best covered approach into the camp. And at night it didn’t matter much that the vegetation was gone.
He decided to hold the reserve in place, at least for right now. Fight the battle as it came, worry about how it developed as it developed.
“Think we can get a little fire on this recoilless rifle?” Olchak said. “It’s wearing our asses out down here.”
“Roger that,” Finn said. He turned to Becker. “I’m gonna go find out what happened to Epstein. He should’ve blasted that gun to hell by now. I’ll be on the radio.” He shouldered a spare PRC-25, grabbed his rifle, and headed out of the bunker.
“Tell Gutierrez,” he said.
“Tell him what?”
“Tell him we’re in shit up to our noses, and we’re standing on tiptoe. And some son of a bitch is starting to make waves.”
He was hit by the sound as soon as he left the bunker. The crash of mortar rounds impacting throughout the camp. The plonk of their own mortars, some shooting flares, some engaging targets outside the wire as best they could. The heavy beat of automatic weapons fire. The crack of bullets snapping somewhere close to his head. It was enough to overwhelm the senses, make you want to curl up into a ball and cover your ears and hope nobody found you.
From his vantage point he could see the steady streams of red tracers coming from the bunkers, cutting down the unseen enemy. And the answering green tracers from obviously well-emplaced guns somewhere outside the wire. Like fingers of fire reaching for each other, hitting and spinning crazily, drifting like fireflies until the tracer element finally burned out.
And for each brightly glowing tracer, there would be four more rounds seeking their target. Embedding in the ground. Richocheting off the steel flagpole just to his right in a shower of sparks. Finding soft flesh.
Crossing the open toward Epstein’s 106 recoilless position seemed little better than assisted suicide. But it would take far too long to make his way through the warren of trenches.
Screw it. He drew a deep breath, scrambled over the edge of the trench, and hit a dead run across the compound. Unaimed fire—they’re not shooting at you. Can’t see you, can’t hit you. Catch a bullet now and it’s just pure bad luck, and you’ve been lucky so far. Depend on it.
The mantra was repeated over and over as his feet hit the ground, as the mortars seemed to seek him out, as that one special bullet, the one that didn’t necessarily have his name on it, but instead was inscribed “To whom it may concern,” made its long way from the barrel of someone’s rifle to its ultimate resting place somewhere in his skull.
Once again he wondered what the hell he was doing here, why he continued to risk his ass. And thought, Doesn’t make much difference now, does it, you moron? You’re here. Deal with it.
“Down!” Olchak screamed again. This time the shell hit right where he had just been, smashing the machine gun into a piece of useless junk. Shrapnel flew its whining way through the bunker, cutting sandbags and flesh alike. He felt a sharp pain, reached down to feel wetness spreading down his leg.
It wasn’t spurting. Thus it wasn’t important. He struggled to his feet, made his way to the back of the bunker to pick up the spare machine gun he’d stashed there for just such an eventuality, cursed at the Montagnard lying in front of it.
“Get up you cowardly bastard!” he screamed, kicking the man soundly in the chest. Realizing only then that the man would never again get up.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, grabbing the gun and making his way back to the front of the bunker. The surviving Montagnards were already at their guns, pouring fire into the ranks of the screaming enemy troops now less than a hundred yards away.
Sergeant Young was suddenly there beside him, gently taking away the weapon. “Siddown, Sarge. Put a dressing on your leg. I’ll take care of this for a little while.”
Olchak started to protest, realized that he was swaying, and that his legs wanted to give out. Must have lost more blood than I thought. He sat down heavily, unclipped the angled flashlight from his harness and turned it on. The red-filtered light matched exactly the blood that was flowing from a hole about the size of a baby’s fist, just above the knee.
“Shit,” he said, pulling a field dressing from its pouch and quickly applying pressure to the wound. He ignored the hot brass raining down on him from where Young had gotten the gun into action.
He grabbed the mike with his free hand. “Goddamnit, we need some help down here,” he screamed. “Somebody? Anybody?”
Finn reached the recoilless rifle position to find a bloodied Epstein struggling to right the weapon. Dead crewmen lay all around him.
As Finn helped him heave the heavy tube up and settle the tripod back into the ground, Epstein told him about the mortar round that had exploded just at the edge of the bunker.
“Hoa hadn’t been standing between me and it, I’d be laying there too,” he said. He gestured toward one of the Montagnards, now scarcely recognizable as human. “Good man, Hoa. Wife just had another kid. That’s five.”
Finn looked at Epstein’s face in time to see tears stream down to wash away the blood. “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamn it,” the sergeant kept saying.
“You need to g
et to the dispensary,” Finn said. “Get checked out.”
“My ass,” Bucky Epstein said, settling down behind the sight, traversing and elevating the tube by means of micrometer dials. Satisfied, he fired the spotting rifle. They followed the tracer, seeing it hit just to the right of where the last flash of the enemy recoilless had been.
Epstein adjusted again. “Stand clear!”
Finn had already moved from behind the weapon. Bucky slapped the trigger, and the weapon roared. A gout of flame six feet long spurted out the back, and one almost as long followed the high-explosive round he had just sent on its way.
Finn had already opened the breech, removed the spent shell, and was preparing to shove a live one home when the round hit. The night lit with a flash more bright than the dangling flares, and in that light Finn saw pieces of metal and man, now inextricably fused.
He shoved the next shell in, closed the breech, shouted, “Clear.” Bucky was already traversing the weapon, training it on a clump of North Vietnamese who had somehow survived the massed machine-gun fire and were now perilously close to the moat. Another roar, and the men simply disappeared.
“Target right,” Finn shouted, but Bucky Epstein had already started traversing.
It was tempting to feel godlike, up here in the position with the fire and the lightning at your beck. Another shell in the tube, another crash, more men sent to their deaths.
But God had nothing to do with it. If God were to look down right now, Finn thought, he’d wash his hands of the whole damned mess.
Or maybe he already had.
“Think I ought to go over there and help?” Sergeant Curtis asked Washington.
“I think you better stay your white ass right here,” Washington replied. “Looks like they’re doin’ okay on their own. And this ain’t over yet.”
Curtis nodded. He scanned the perimeter with the starlight scope again. He’d been seeing movement, but it was well outside the wire and thus out of the range of his weapon. Reinforcements heading for the battle on the north wall? Shock troops gathering for their own assault? He didn’t know, but he did know that things didn’t sound too good. If the NVA broke through the defenses on the north, they would be behind his position. The bunkers hadn’t been designed for defense of the rear. They’d have to evacuate and fight it out in the trenches.
Sergeant Washington had, wisely in Curtis’s opinion, picked one of the bunkers in the vee of the star, rather than on the point, for his command position. The way the camp was built, in a six-pointed star, the north and south walls each had one point, while the east and west had two. Placing the command post in the vee meant that you were in the exact center of the zone of responsibility.
Their far-left position was assisting in the north wall defenses by directing long-range machine-gun fire at the enemy attempting to penetrate Olchak’s position, but that was about the sum total of what they’d been able to do thus far.
Be a hell of a thing, Curtis mused, we fight this whole damned battle and I don’t get a shot off.
His thoughts were cut short by a white glare in the starlight, temporarily blinding him in the right eye. The glare was followed by the heat, felt even at this distance, of an explosion so powerful it shook the very ground they stood on.
“What the f—!” Washington started.
Through his good eye Curtis watched the glare of the explosion fade, and in its place, lit by the glare of the flares, the column of smoke go up from where the right-hand star point had been.
Looks like we’ve got our fight.
“Here they come,” Washington said, quite unnecessarily. Curtis, sight now returning in his dazzled eye, could clearly see masses of troops storming out of heretofore concealed trenches just outside the outer perimeter. As he directed machine-gun fire toward them, several flopped down on the ground, quickly pushed their bamboo bangalores under the wire, and were consumed by the explosions as the bangalores were command detonated.
Their sacrifice cleared a path through which the assault troops stormed, more of them than Curtis would have believed possible.
He heard Washington on the radio reporting the situation, asking for help from the guns on the south side, directing the flanking fire from the remaining left-hand star. The steady streams of fire cut down dozens, perhaps more, but there were others to follow.
Another sacrificial set of sappers, and they were through the second line of the defenses. Christ, is anything going to stop them? At this rate they’d be swarming over the destroyed bunker within a few minutes.
“Stay here, keep the guns going,” Washington commanded. “Got to get somebody in the backup trenches.”
“Watch your ass, Sarge.”
Washington grinned. “And you watch yours, cracker.”
Curtis focused his attention back on the Montagnard machine gunners. They were firing steadily but not wildly, six-round bursts just as they’d been taught. The smell of cordite and the hot smoke of burning gun oil filled the bunker. Along with the fear sweat that, he realized, was coming from him.
Bullets from a heavy machine gun thumped into the top of the bunker as the enemy gunner found his range. From the heavy report just now making its way to his ears, Curtis surmised these were 12.7 millimeter, the Chinese equivalent to the .50 caliber. Hoping to suppress our fire, let the troops get through.
Sorry, Charlie. The gunners barely flinched as the rounds continued to hit, the embrasures built in such a manner that it would only be the occasional round that got through. The effect was more psychological than physical.
Bring it on, you assholes, he wanted to shout.
Instead he contented himself with observing the battle, watching as the attackers breached yet one more line of defenses.
Be to the claymores soon. He opened the improvised firing box, connected the wire leading to the nail that would serve as the contact to the jeep battery. Ready.
He stood by.
Washington, by running crouched down in the trench, reached the last surviving defender without suffering anything more than a sore back. Better than a bullet in the head, he thought.
Beyond the Montagnard gamely holding his position despite the blood that streamed down the side of his face, there was nothing but a great, smoking hole. He couldn’t even imagine what Charlie had fired at it to achieve this level of destruction. For a moment he was consumed with a horrible thought. Captain McCulloden had earlier spoken about Sky Spot bombing. Had they made a run and missed? A five-hundred-pounder would do this. Clouds had been moving in all evening; now the flares gleamed against solid overcast. Could have happened.
He shook his head. The smell was different. The explosives used in U.S.-made bombs was completely different. This had a more sulfurous tinge to it. No, they’d managed to get something in here somehow—maybe a sapper not spotted through the starlight.
Doesn’t matter now. Thing is, get the defenses reorganized. He pulled the wounded Montagnard from his position, pushed him forward down the trench, gathering up others as they went. A secondary communications trench cut across the star just to the rear of the destroyed bunker. They’d set up there, close the gap.
He chanced a look over the top of the trench. Holy Mary Mother of Christ, he swore. More Vietnamese than he’d seen since his last trip to Saigon, and they all appeared to be shooting directly at him!
He fired a full magazine from his M16 into their ranks, more in defiance than in hope of doing any real good, reloaded, and kept pushing the ’Yards in front of him. Within a few seconds he had them placed, their firing positions protected by sandbags to either side, their fields of fire directly across the open ground where the bunker had once stood. He rushed to the other side of the star, did the same with the troops there.
Now we wait. He checked his weapon, felt for magazines, found to his surprise that somewhere along the way he had shot up four more of them. Gettin’ old, Wash. Can’t remember what you’re doing.
He looked up over the lip of the trench aga
in, saw the front ranks of the enemy even closer.
Now would be about the right time, cracker, he said silently.
Curtis had come to the same conclusion. He flipped open the firing box again, grasped the nail in his hand, and quickly ran it down the series of pins that would complete the firing circuit. As the momentary pulse of electricity sped down the wire, it superheated a smaller wire in each detonator. The wire glowed red-hot, setting fire to the extremely sensitive material surrounding it. The heat produced then detonated the tiny bit of mercury fulminate, which then detonated the slightly less sensitive main charge at the tip of the detonator. The resulting explosion ran through the main charge in the claymore, well over a pound of C-4 plastic explosive.
The ball bearings in front of the explosive swathed their way through the flesh and bone of the troops standing and crouching and lying in the beaten zone, impartially cutting down private and lieutenant and sergeant alike. The power was such that weapons shattered, and the grenades they carried went off, adding to the damage.
There was shocked silence, even the troops on the north wall ceasing fire for a few moments. The carnage was complete. Where once there had been a two-company assault force—at least 150 living creatures—there was now only the mangled heap of corpses. The silence of the dead, followed shortly by the moans of those soon to be.
Then, at the edge of the perimeter, Curtis saw yet more men swarming up from the trenches.
“Keep it up!” he told the gunners. Quite unnecessary, he saw. They were happily pouring fire into the oncoming ranks. He went out to help Sergeant Washington.
“I think they’re gonna need some help over there, LT,” Noonan said.
“Quite right,” Sloane answered.
Noonan looked at the lieutenant in something like amazement. He’d gotten on with the officer even worse than the other men in the camp and had fully expected Sloane to scoff at him, ask him what he thought he could add to the fight. He grabbed his M16 and left the bunker before the lieutenant could change his mind.
Napalm Dreams Page 22
