“They’re abandoning their position. What the hell?”
“But those guys aren’t even under attack!”
“Who are those guys?”
“See their mustaches? It’s the Borinqueneers. The Puerto Ricans.”
Farther down the hill, an officer moved to intercept the retreating men. He was screaming at them, then drew his pistol and gestured at the men with it, but they ignored him and continued their retreat.
Cole couldn’t believe it. No sooner had the troops pulled out than Chinese soldiers ran in behind them to occupy the position.
The enemy had found their weak link.
Cisco Vasquez was among the Borinqueneers taking part in the attack to reclaim Outpost Kelly. An officer had come by before the attack to explain what was expected, but most of the men who spoke Spanish could not understand him. They relied on one of the noncommissioned officers to translate for them, along with Cisco.
But some things needed no translation. As the men advanced, they fired at the enemy awaiting them. They could see the bright muzzle flashes up ahead as they moved closer to the enemy.
“Dios mio!” a soldier cried, stumbling as he was hit. He fell into the mud and did not rise again.
Cisco felt his legs turn rubbery with fear, but he had no choice but to press forward with the others.
In one sense, they were lucky. This section of the trench did not seem that well-defended. With a final cry and scramble, the Borinqueneers pressed forward and leaped into the trench.
But their luck didn’t last. A sudden burst of fire killed Captain McDaniel. The sergeant ran to help him and was killed as well.
The captain’s death stunned the soldiers because he had been a good officer. Suddenly, the company had no leadership. And nobody who could speak a word of English, other than Cisco.
A runner approached, bearing a message, but he had such a thick accent that Cisco had a hard time understanding him. Americans spoke in many confusing ways and this soldier was from Boston. Finally, the runner patted Cisco on the shoulder as if he was satisfied that he had understood, even though Cisco had only absorbed about half of what the runner had said. The runner ran off through a hail of fire.
“Que?” someone asked Cisco.
Cisco shrugged. “No se.”
What was so confusing was that they seemed to have reached their objective. They had captured the trench. Now what?
From the hill above them, a single rifle shot rang out. One of the soldiers fell, a bullet having drilled right through his helmet.
Another shot stabbed down and another soldier went down. Cisco thought there must be a Chinese sniper up there.
A couple of the men decided that they’d had enough. They climbed out of the trench and started back down the hill. Others soon followed. There was no discussion. At first, the men abandoned their positions in twos and threes, and then by entire squads.
Cisco stayed until there were just a handful of others in the trench. They looked at one another, not sure what to do. Had they been forgotten out here? If they stayed, surely they would all be killed if the Chinese counter-attacked, now that the others had abandoned them.
The remaining soldiers reached a consensus without speaking. One climbed out and the others followed, started down the hill.
Cisco was the last to go, but he soon followed the rest of the Borinqueneers down the hillside.
Behind them, Chinese troops poured into the gap.
Major Wu knew that a wise man takes opportunity where it is given, which is why he volunteered himself and Deng for the attack on Outpost Kelly.
Not only that, but he felt as if he needed to save face after allowing the American pilot to slip through his fingers. They had been so close! However, between the interference of the villagers and the American sniper, the pilot had managed to get away.
“This is close enough,” Wu had said, leading Deng to a ridge some distance away from the outpost.
“Sir?”
Major Wu smiled. “You see, the Americans are going to bombard the hill now. This is what they always do. They have plenty of shells to expend. Would you prefer to be here or there?”
Deng looked around, then replied, “Here, sir.”
“Good.”
They settled down to wait. As Wu had promised, artillery and tank fire plowed the hilltop. Watching the explosions pound the hilltop, they were both glad not to be on it. When the bombardment stopped, Wu and Deng slipped through the defenses and joined the defenders on the hill.
As the light grew in the east, the attack on the outpost commenced. With his binoculars pressed to his eyes, Wu called shot after shot out to Deng. He watched with satisfaction as his sniper killed one soldier after another.
Nonetheless, the Americans still managed to reach the trenches ringing the hilltop. From their sniper’s nest, Deng was able to pick off several of the soldiers in the trench.
“Look, sir, they are leaving!”
“So they are,” Wu said, unable to hide his surprise. “You have driven them off.”
As the American soldiers abandoned their hard-won position, Chinese troops moved back in, giving them a position of strength from which to attack the trenches once again.
“Keep shooting,” Wu encouraged him. “Every soldier you kill is one less imperialist for our men to face.”
Deng kept firing. Through the binoculars, Wu watched, the grin never leaving his face.
To Cole, the thought came to him that they were teetering on the edge of a knife. The attack now felt like that moment when you struggled to keep your balance on an icy trail, but knew you were going to fall no matter what. The best you could do was brace yourself for when you hit the ground.
His squad was holding the platoon’s left flank. Lieutenant Ballard was somewhere off to Cole’s right. He didn’t envy the thoughts that must be going through the lieutenant’s head.
“Dammit all,” Cole said. “There’s not enough of us now to hold this trench.”
It didn’t take the Chinese long to come to the same conclusion. Enemy reinforcements ran down the hill and flowed into the trench, then spread out to attack the troops on either side.
Cole’s squad was soon overwhelmed as a tide of screaming Chinese flowed toward them from the right. More soldiers attacked from the hilltop above.
“Where are they all coming from? Holy cow!”
“They must have been dug in deep on the hill, where the artillery couldn’t reach ‘em. Here they come, for sure.”
This time, the enemy didn’t even bother with their drums and bugles. They just ran down the hill, screaming and firing, bayonets gleaming in the flashes from explosions. They got so close that he could see their eyes, their teeth, their twisted expressions of hatred.
He fired at the nearest enemy soldier and the man went down, but there were many more behind him.
“Kid!” Cole shouted. “Grenade!”
“I’m out!”
Off to his right, Lieutenant Ballard was scrambling out of the trench. He turned and fired a couple of shots up the hill, then shouted, “Let’s go!”
“Sir?”
“We’re pulling out, Cole. There’s no way in hell we can stay here. We’ll fall back and try again.”
Obeying the officer, the soldiers in the squad climbed out of the trench and began to make their way back across the hard-fought ground.
Cole was the last one to leave. He fired a couple more shots at the attackers surging toward him, but the bolt-action Springfield wasn’t enough to turn the tide. Maybe if he’d had a Thompson — or a bazooka.