The men began to shout as they burst out into the open. Chin felt the slope fall away under his feet. The full-throated roar of the attacking battalion filled the valley. It inspired Chin with its volume and mass. He was not alone.
Down the hill they ran. The only sound in the valley was that of their voices. He felt a part of a great process many thousands of years old. Chin looked across at the American positions. Always the outsiders came. Always this was the way they left.
Chin’s whole body flinched as if struck by a blow. A phenomenal burping and cracking roar had erupted from the American lines. The battalion’s shouts trailed off to silence as men began to fall. Some stumbled. Others stood straight up, then slid to the ground awkwardly. Still others cartwheeled or spun to the ground with a dramatic flourish. Some men emitted bloodcurdling screams. Some not so much as a grunt. But all had one thing in common. All died from their devastating wounds…
‘Buzzes’ and ‘zings’ rushed by Chin’s ears. An almost electric sense of alertness vibrated every nerve ending. His legs continued to propel him forward. But the rest of his body awaited the impact that would end his life.
Fully half his tightly packed men fell before they reached the valley floor. Small geysers of earth erupted with sharp ‘booms’ as American mortars dropped in their path. Machine-gun fire came at them in sheets. His platoon’s advance slowed as if running against a stiff wind. The line quickly began to grow ragged. Chin clenched his teeth and ran harder to catch up with his flagging platoon.
‘Keep moving!’ he yelled as he pulled nearly even with them. ‘Faster!’ he ordered as he came up behind one man and shoved. But the sound of his voice was lost in the stunning noise from the guns toward which they raced. Looking back to make sure no one lagged, he saw the slope littered with wounded and dead. Behind them appeared 1st Battalion. They charged out of the treeline with their mouths wide with shouts. The first men in their long line began to fall. The ground on the floor of the valley flattened. Chin almost stumbled before turning back toward the enemy. As he regained his balance, he noted that his men were still advancing. But their shoulders were hunched as if a heavy rain beat down upon them. Large gaps had been opened in their line.
A series of explosions suddenly burst up and down the battlefield to each side of Chin. The remaining men from his platoon came to a complete stop. They pressed themselves to the ground. They didn’t return fire. They curled themselves into fetal positions and held their helmets or hugged their bodies. It did nothing to ward off the bullets that hailed death from 150 meters ahead.
Chin dropped to the ground. He opened his mouth to yell at the man lying barely five meters away. Great splashes of frothy orange blood erupted from the smooth white parka that was stretched over the soldier’s broad back. Chin watched in frozen terror as the helpless man jerked with each devastating blow.
The sod next to Chin’s head splattered into his face. The ‘whiz-z-z-z’ of bullets passing and the thud as they pounded the earth around him grew nearly continuous. Death was mere seconds away. He willed himself up to a low stoop. It was as high as his rebellious body would go. And he ran. He zig-zagged up the hill toward the low wall.
In his path lay a small round object. Its green plastic was meant to blend into grass. But it stood in stark contrast to the gray patch of ice beneath it. Wires like a spider’s legs radiated outward in all directions.
They were everywhere. A minefield!
But Chin didn’t slow down. He couldn’t There was only one way out. High-stepping as if through puddles, Chin wove his way through the web. He was unable to see the sinister tentacles. He simply stayed as far as possible from their explosive center. He concentrated on the ground just before his feet. He completely lost track of his platoon and its fate. His toes dug into the uphill slope. He dodged and weaved. Each second was a game of chance with bullets that sliced through the air all around. Giant explosions burst on both sides of him. He thought nothing. Saw nothing. Felt nothing. He was frozen in motion. Eyes peeled to the ground. Legs pumping. He was neither alive nor dead. He instead walked a tightrope in between — awaiting the outcome.
Suddenly, Chin was confused. He was running, but it was like running in a dream. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing. A choking smoke made him begin coughing. A wave of great nausea swept over him. He was sure now that he wasn’t running. But nothing in Chin’s world seemed right. As he sought out reality, the first thing he found was terrible pain emanating from his ears and the center of his head. The pain deluged him. His body hummed with the agony of it.
He opened his eyes and lifted his wobbly head. He saw a smoking hole. Behind it was a hill with trees on top — the ridge from which his battalion had attacked. A ragged collection of men crawled across it or flopped from side-to-side. And in their midst, geysers of dirt erupted into the air in great sprays. He heard jarring sounds — a jumble of very loud noise. In the woods behind the writhing men Chin saw flashes and puffs of smoke from the treeline. 3rd Battalion, he remembered. That’s 3rd Battalion.
A pair of jets flew wingtip-to-wingtip. They banked steeply to align themselves with the hill’s treeline. He fought to focus his blurred vision. Four canisters — two from each plane — tumbled end over end. They fell into the trees on top of 3rd Battalion.
Billowing flames mushroomed skyward. The heat was searing even at 200 meters. Chin’s eyes teared and he jammed them tightly shut. The heat and noise grew more and more painful as the air rumbled and ground shook. Oily fumes filled Chin’s nostrils and mouth.
Just as suddenly as it had erupted, the noise was replaced by the crackle of a roaring fire. The valley was quiet. Then the cracks of individual American rifles resumed their methodical killing.
Chin forced his watering eyes to look back across the dale. A huge black cloud rose into the air above the ridge. The entire crest was charred black and flattened. It was broken only by small licks of flame that still found nourishment from unburned wood. A forest of trunks pointed skyward like broken spears. It and everyone in it had been incinerated in seconds.
The pall of thick black smoke drifted in the gentle breeze. The taste of petroleum fouled Chin’s mouth. He lowered his head to the ground in great fatigue. Several of his men cowered behind the stone wall, which was being chipped into fragments around their hunched shoulders.
We took it, Chin thought as he lay down to die. We took it.
When Chin awoke, it was night Thick snow fell from the still sky. The noise and the smells of battle were gone. He raised his head. He could make nothing out under the heavy blanket of clouds. He was all alone. And he was alive.
Chin ran his hands over his body. He patted and squeezed in search of pain. But as best he could tell he was uninjured.
In the darkness he felt for and found his rifle. All was as he had left it
He had survived! The Americans hadn’t policed the battlefield to kill the wounded. For all Chin could tell from listening, the Americans might even have withdrawn.
Chin rose hesitantly to his knees. Despite the cold, he felt the prickly sensation of sweat rippling across his torso. They could see him in the dark. They had special binoculars that lit up the night, but only for them.
Just in case, he decided to raise his hands in surrender. Both arms rose by his sides, and he knelt on the ground in that pose for almost a minute.
There was no sound.
Without lowering his arms Chin labored to his feet. There he stood — surrendering to the invisible army with their bat-like view from above. His throat was thick with fear. If they were there, their rifles would be aimed at him now. Strangers with the power to kill him with one squeeze of the trigger. With no more care for him than for a stray dog.