“Hang in there, kid,” Cole said, hurrying to drag the young soldier behind a pile of rocks. There wasn’t much cover, not with fire coming at them from below and now from a sniper on the hilltop. Another shot rang out, and another defender fell. Then another shot. Cole realized that there was more than one shooter on that hilltop.
The kid had passed out from the initial shock, but had reopened his eyes. He groaned.
“How bad am I hit?” the kid asked. He seemed to want to say more, but no sound came out when his lips moved.
“I’ve seen worse,” Cole lied. “Save your breath, OK? You hang in there.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, it hurts.”
Cole knew it was bad if the kid invoked the savior’s name in anything other than a prayer. Looking around, he shouted, “Medic!”
After a minute that seemed to stretch on forever, a medic ran toward them and slid behind cover like he was sliding into third base. “The lieutenant is hit bad,” he said reaching into his kit for morphine. “Sergeant Weber too, but the old bastard is too tough to quit.”
Cole nodded. The medic could patch up the kid’s wounds. But it would be up to Cole to eliminate this new problem created by the snipers. They had been outfoxed and outflanked. Those snipers up on the hilltop would shoot the defenders to pieces.
Desperately, he looked around and saw the watchtower standing in the middle of the fortress wall. It had already been hit by mortar fire, the roof shattered and the soldiers there killed. But it still stood and it was the only structure on the wall that would offer Cole the height he needed to be able to shoot back effectively at those snipers. All along the parapet, bullet strikes raised puffs of dust. If he made it as far as that watchtower, it would be a miracle.
Cole took a deep breath and ran.
Chapter Twenty-One
A bullet plucked at Cole’s sleeve, but he didn’t stop running. A burst from a machine gun cut the air, tracers inches from his eyes. If he stopped now, he was a dead man.
Cole reached the watchtower and ducked inside, a bullet smacking the stone beside the doorway as he did so. Fragments of stone stung his cheek as he threw himself into the dark interior.
Dang, that last shot was close.
It was hard to say if it had been a random bullet or if he had been targeted by those snipers on the hilltop. If they had already picked him out as a target and seen him enter the watchtower, he would need to make extra sure that he kept his head down.
Considering that the best way to stay alive as a sniper was to make sure that nobody noticed you, he already had a big strike against him.
The interior of the watchtower was a jumble of rubble, having taken a couple of glancing mortar hits. One more round, and it looked as if the whole place might come down.
He noticed a couple of bodies among the stones and debris. They were Koreans who had planned to use the tower as a vantage point. A couple of old-fashioned rifles were still gripped in their hands. Cole checked them for any signs of life, then shook his head. Instead of a vantage point, the tower had proven to be a death trap. Cole knew that he might be pushing his luck if he thought that he could do any better.
A ladder gave access through a wooden floor to a loft, its walls featuring narrow arrow slits instead of windows. It didn’t look as if the Koreans had made it up here before they had been taken out. The only sign of recent occupation was evidenced by the thick layer of bat droppings covering the floor.
Cole crept to one of the slits and looked down at the road below. There were a great many Chinese bodies, but the enemy had gotten organized after the initial carnage. At one end of the clearing, a work detail was struggling frantically to remove the barrier blocking the road. The far edge of the road ended at the cliff, but more soldiers had found whatever cover they could and now poured fire up at the fortress walls.
As Cole watched, the tanks let loose with a couple of rounds, one of which whistled over the heads of the Chinese. It hadn’t been aimed low enough. However, the second round struck the base of the cliff rising beside the road, detonating with telling effect on the troops trying to hug the cliff face for shelter.
How long can we hold out? he asked himself. It wasn’t a question that he could answer. They had every advantage from a defensive standpoint, but they were severely outnumbered.
He crawled around to the arrow slits in the wall facing the hilltop occupied by the snipers. This was the hill that anchored the western wall of the fort. From up there, those snipers had a clear shot at anything that moved along the parapet. He kicked himself for not seeing the danger earlier and making sure that they had some men up there. Then again, who could have expected the enemy to make their way up there?
Glancing at the steep hillside, he had to give the Chinese credit. It had taken some brass balls to climb that cliff in the middle of a battle.
Beneath him, Cole heard footsteps as someone picked their way across the rubble. The ladder shook and creaked as someone put their weight on it.
Cole reached for one of the grenades on his belt. He was prepared to toss one down the ladder to take care of any unwanted company. As far as he knew, no Chinese had scaled the wall yet, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Anybody up here?” somebody shouted.
Cole relaxed his grip on the grenade.
A moment later, Lieutenant Commander Jake Miller’s head popped into the loft.
“Dammit, I almost dropped a grenade on your head.”
“Bet that would’ve smarted.”
“What are you doing up here, anyway? I thought you were with Jang-mi, keeping an eye on her?”
“Believe me, Jang-mi doesn’t need any help from me to fight the Chinese. Not after they killed Chul.”
Cole nodded. He knew all about the motivating qualities of revenge. Some said that revenge flowed through the mountain folks back home like blood in their veins or cold water in a mountain stream.
Right now, Cole didn’t feel that sense of revenge. Instead, he felt an old sense of helplessness.
Briefly, he thought about the kid, lying wounded behind the parapet. Cole wasn’t sure how badly he’d been hit. He had left the kid in the hands of God and the medic, which was all that he could do on the battlefield.
Cole should have felt that sense of burning revenge now, but instead, he felt curiously hollow. The Chinese had gotten up there on that hilltop and outsmarted him. They had shot the kid, along with Lieutenant Ballard and maybe even Sergeant Weber, from the sounds of it.
He was supposed to be a sniper — the best in Korea, some claimed. And yet, he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to keep his unit from being shot to hell.
He leaned the Springfield against the wall and put his face in his hands, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
Lieutenant Commander Miller looked at him curiously. “You all right?”
Cole snorted. “What do you think? We’re getting chewed to pieces. Now there’s a nest of snipers up on that hill. They even shot the kid. Aside from all that, I’m just dandy, sir. How about you?”
The grounded pilot climbed the rest of the way into the loft, dragging himself onto the piles of guano.
“What’s all this stuff?”
“Bat shit.”
The officer looked alarmed. “Can’t you catch rabies from bats?”
“Sir, I’d be a lot more worried about catching a bullet right about now.”
“I came up here to see if I could help.”
“Where’s your rifle? You can’t hit much from here with a pistol.”