Every few yards, Hathcock raised a pair of binoculars and scoured the ground ahead. He searched for trip wires or any sign indicating hidden pressure peddles that would release the explosive charge of a mine or booby-trap. He searched for alterations of the foliage that would allow his enemy a clear shot. The two snipers moved forward over thick ferns and wet, rotten leaves.
Hathcock suddenly froze. Raising his binoculars, he focused them on the small, grass-lined burrow twenty feet away. Burke lay still.
The afternoon sun shone brightly through the trees, sprinkling bright spots of light across the forest floor. Small saplings and twisted vines wound their way between the larger trees, filling every available area in which they could grow. Yet at the cave, the forest seemed almost garden-neat.
Had the burrow’s resident cleared it away for his comfort? Hathcock carefully eased himself closer, trying to see how far the clearing extended laterally and how much exposure it offered. He could not tell for certain, but he did know that if he had made the burrow as a hide, he would have left the front yard piled with twisted growth. He would have made alternate escape routes from it, too. It seemed strange there was but one way in or out of this small hole.
“I don’t like it,” Hathcock thought to himself. He drew out a plastic-covered map that he had folded into a six-inch square, with this hill at its center. Tracing the hill with his finger, he found the slight hump near its crest where this cave lay and noticed the tiny draw at its right.
Lifting his binoculars, Hathcock tried to glimpse the ridge that faced the other side of the draw through the thick forest. “He’s over there,” he thought, although unable to clearly see the other side. “He’s bound to have a direct line of sight to that cave.”
Without a sound, motioning Burke to follow, Hathcock moved off the trail to his right and began to make a wide circle around the cave. He pushed through the tangle and thorns around the hide and over the hill’s top, where the draw came to a head.
Across the draw, the dark-faced sniper lay still, covered with ferns and vines, ready at his rifle. He sampled the air, sniffing and tasting, wary of the possibility that his enemy might detect the trap and sneak across the draw to where he hid.
By mid-afternoon, Hathcock and Burke had moved to the top of the draw where it flattened into a saddle on the ridge. As the two men pushed forward, they began to notice many birds pecking and scratching through the leaves. Above them, on lower branches, other birds sat and twittered. Below in the draw, more birds gathered. Hathcock took a closer look with his binoculars and saw what had attracted the many birds—rice. Someone had scattered rice throughout the saddle, and now birds and other forest creatures feasted on it, and by their presence created a natural early-warning system that would alert the Communist sniper to the arrival of an intruder.
The man deserved respect for his cunning. Hathcock knew that successfully stalking this enemy would require a change in strategy. The saddle and hilltop where the two Marines waited offered a clear vantage across the saddle and down the draw. From the place where die birds pecked for the rice, he could get a clear view of die draw below, as well as relatively clear fields of fire through a number of routes that his quarry might take. But Hathcock also knew that it would offer his enemy the same open field toward him as well.
The two Marines found a rest where a rock protruded up from die ground. To die right, a dead tree lay on its side, falling apart with rot.
Once positioned, Hathcock took a branch and tossed it into the flock of birds. The sudden stir of wings flying up to die higher branches in the forest echoed down the draw to where the small, brown man lay behind his MosuvNagant rifle, peering through its short 3.5-power scope. His eyes shifted sharply to his left. A wild pig or big cat might have sent die birds skyward, but another person might have done so, too. The sniper pushed his way over the vine-covered rocks and quietly headed toward the saddle.
He followed the sloping ridge to the draw’s head, but rather than moving across die saddle where Hathcock and Burke lay, he went down the far side of the hill and picked his way through a thicket of thorn bushes on the Marines right flank.
Hathcock lay quietly listening to die sounds of die forest, hearing a bird’s song carried on a breeze that quaked through the treetops and rustled the leaves. He could hear a slight wheeze in Burke’s lungs as his partner breathed in slow rhythm, two feet away. “The kids’s probably caught cold from sleepin’ in the rain,” Hathcock thought. And as his eyes shifted toward Burke, a sharp crack echoed through the brush to their right.
Without a word, both Marines shifted to their left. “He circled around us!” Burke whispered hoarsely, as he quickly pushed his way behind a tree.
“Shoot die gap, Burke!” Hathcock whispered back. “He’s closing right in on us.”
The two Marines scrambled down the saddle and into the thick cover that the draw offered. Once behind its shield of tangled stalks and vines, they dropped to their bellies and began to quietly crawl up the ridge where the enemy sniper had passed on his trek to their former hide.
The crack and thud of the two Marines scrambling into the draw told the NVA sniper that his quarry had flown. When his sleeve had snagged on the thorn bush and snapped its branch, he had known the chances were that they would hear. Still it was frustrating. He crept up the hill and examined the spot where the Americans had lain. Then he looked across the low saddle and surveyed the field of fire that his enemy had covered. It looked good. He would settle into the hide and wait and see if Hathcock and Burke came up the ridge and entered their own killing zone.
Meanwhile, the Marines pushed an inch at a time through the low vines and bushes to where the ridge met the saddle. They were at the opposite end of their former field of fire. Sweat beaded Hathcock’s face and dripped off the end of his nose as he looked across at the rock behind which he and Burke had hidden. Where had the enemy crawled?
From their opposite ends, all three men watched the clearing, waiting for the next move.
Burke swallowed hard to clear his scratchy throat, now irritated and dry. He reached to his hip and quietly unfastened his canteen pouch, allowing the green plastic bottle to slide out. Hathcock watched the young Alabama native press the open canteen to his lips and drink. The green camouflage, which had once covered Burke’s face, now eroded off his jaws by the rivulets of sweat that dripped from his chin, revealing his naturally bronze complexion and the redness that flushed over his cheeks.
As Burke slowly swallowed the water, he squinted his eyes with each gulp, reacting to the soreness in his throat. He glanced to his right and saw Hathcock watching him with concern. Burke cracked a toothy smile and, with liquid smoothness, slipped his canteen back into its pouch.
Hathcock knew that his partner was coming down with something and that the risk of his coughing or sneezing increased with time. It was risk enough for him to take the drink of water.
“He’s got to be here,” Hathcock thought to himself after searching every conceivable hide and seeing nothing. From his low, prone position, he could only see the flat front angle that the rotten log and rock presented. Despite the fact that he and Burke had vacated them only a half-hour earlier, they represented the best cover from which to control the openness of the saddle. But there was no sign of a muzzle or sight protruding from behind either object. “Where could he be?” Hathcock asked himself.