‘Get back to the line, you crazy motherfucker!’
In a rush of panic Andre realized he’d crawled right past the American lines. He was in No Man’s Land in between the two armies. He scampered back as fast as he could. The man who’d called out to him blazed away with an M-60 machine-gun.
Andre rolled over the log behind which the two-man gun crew had set up. The noise of the weapon was so loud that he couldn’t yell out to them. He slapped the gunner on the boot.
The man scarcely paid him any attention. He glanced Andre’s way then returned to the gun’s iron sights. The yellow fire from its heavy muzzle lit the snow and ice-coated brush ahead.
‘You got the extra ammo?’ the man’s helper asked Andre. He lay beside the gun, holding aloft the last few rounds in a belt.
‘Naw! I’m lookin’ for the LT!’
‘Shit! Where’s our fuckin’ ammo?’ the man shouted to no one in particular.
‘Where’s the LT?’ Andre asked.
‘He headed down that way!’ The man jabbed his gloved index finger to their right.
Andre nodded and began to slither through the snow. ‘Oh!’ he remembered. ‘Keep your heads down! There’s an air strike comin’ in!’ Neither man looked his way. The gunner’s face was lit in the yellow flame from his gun. ‘You hear me?’ Andre shouted.
The man didn’t acknowledge his warning. Andre looked into the woods toward which the machine-gun blazed. A phosphorus grenade illuminated the scene. Men were firing at the Americans as they trudged forward through the snow. A solid wall of tightly-packed attackers — maybe a company of Chinese!
Andre’s skin crawled. His body clenched up from his shoulders to his crotch like a string was drawn. Dozens of grenades went off almost simultaneously up and down the American lines. Andre was stunned by the violence of their blasts.
The machine-gun fell silent. The ammo bearer opened fire with his rifle. The gunner rolled back into position and tossed a hand grenade all in one motion.
Andre watched the metal pineapple hit a tree squarely not ten feet in front of where he lay. He grabbed his helmet and ducked. His last sight was of the grenade rebounding off the tree. The entire world jumped. The ear-splitting burst left him covered in powdery snow. His head throbbed. He was dizzy and nauseous. A pain like an ice pick pierced both ears deep into his skull.
When his head steadied, however, he registered the image of blazing muzzles not twenty meters away. Andre looked down and saw that he still held his rifle. Swallowing hard, he raised it to his shoulder. A Chinese soldier paused and tossed a grenade. It got caught in the upper branches of a tree. The guy shouted something. His comrades dove to the ground.
It burst in front of them. After a few more shouts they rose again. Andre switched the selector to ‘Semi’ and lined up his first man. When his aim was perfect, he pulled the trigger. A single round cracked out the end of his rifle. The butt plate jammed hard into Andre’s shoulder. The man — his target — fell.
Andre snorted, half smiling. He looked over at the machine-gun crew. They were gone… machine-gun and all. He rolled on his back and looked toward the rear. There was nobody. Nobody but Andre and the Chinese.
He began to fire. He squeezed off rounds, one after the other. Just about every shot dropped a target. Up ahead, the muzzles blazed but Andre couldn’t imagine who they were shooting at. Until, that is, the underbrush around him began to snap to pieces.
Andre felt himself leave his body. In his mind, he split in two. There was the part of him that winced at every passing bullet. The air grew so thick with them that the wincing became a constant grimace. And then there was Andre the functioning rifleman. Up pops a target. Swing the barrel. Squeeze… bull’s eye! The two halves were totally distinct. One raged and screamed and cowered, too afraid to flee toward safety. The other counted rounds, put blinders on and aimed straight ahead — focusing on the job of saving his life by taking others.
Low-flying jets screamed by overhead. The atmospheric pressure changed as they passed. Andre’s sinuses squealed and ears popped.
A staggering roar shook heaven and earth. Great geysers of flame rose high into the air. Blazing trees fell to the ground. His ears reported not sound, but feeling. They itched and stung from the wave of compressed air as yet another string of bombs exploded in a long snake not two hundred yards away.
Andre saw a target. A kneeling man waved his arm at Chinese soldiers who cowered on the ground. Andre had the man dead to rights. Crack. His rifle recoiled. The man disappeared in the snow.
Three more waves of jets passed. Andre saw from their bright tailpipes they flew two abreast. Then all fell still save the crackling fires.
The Chinese were still out there, Andre realized. Probably less than a hand grenade’s throw away. What they gonna do? the calculating part of him pondered. Andre fished another thirty-round magazine from his pouch. He pressed the release to drop the nearly empty magazine from his rifle. He seated the full mag with a faint clacking sound.
The noise attracted a spray of fire from a single Kalashnikov. Its aim was wild. Andre laid his sights on the muzzle flash but held his fire. He had the shot. But now that they’d all taken to ground, they would see him if he fired. Their return fire would then be unhurried, calm, straight into the white lump in the snow.
Andre carefully reached into the canvas bag and began to pile the hand grenades in front of him. Several single shots were fired in his direction. Brief bursts of intense gunfire broke out all up and down the line to both sides. Artillery still rained down on the Chinese-held ridge line. But that was another theater of war. Andre’s world measured thirty meters by thirty.
There was whispering. They were talking. Discussing. Planning. When they fell silent, Andre pressed himself as low as he could get. Another Chinese gun lit the night. It sprayed the trees all around. They know I’m here, he thought. But they don’t know where.
He was totally calm now. He pulled the pin on his first grenade. It was a game. They were trying to bait him. To draw him out. Once he revealed himself, they’d kill him. Until then, the leaderless unit was paralyzed. A Mexican standoff, Andre thought. Well, let’s see if this shakes ’em up.
He had to rise to his knees. That was the tricky part. But he’d sunk fairly deeply into the snow. And he was partially covered by a thick tree trunk. He slowly raised the grenade to his chin. He let it fly like a football with a rustling of fabric. The handle sprang off. He heard a terse shout. Andre grabbed another grenade and pulled the pin.
The first grenade exploded dead center between the two muzzle flashes from before. A host of new guns opened up. Andre knelt there exposed. He mentally noted the positions of the flashing muzzles. He tossed grenade after grenade at the flaming bursts. The process was rapid and mechanical.
Bullets passed so close he could feel their wake. The gentle kiss of air belied the grievous wounds the supersonic round would cause.
He pulled the pin on his last grenade. The sack had held at least a dozen. Its burst lit several running men in profile, felling two.
Andre dropped and wrapped his index finger around the trigger. He surveyed the woods for a target. The artillery had shifted to some more distant target. The woods all around were still. The only sound that broke the silence was the distant smack of a tree branch.
They were gone.
Andre settled into the snow to wait. To wait for sunrise. To wait for friendly troops. To wait for the Chinese to regroup and come back. An American patrol found him at dawn. He was numb from the cold but alive.