"Yes, sir."
"In other words, make these Americans pay for their imperialist arrogance."
Chen nodded, and began to climb the ridge to take up his position as a sniper.
Two days after Don Hardy had finished typing his opus on a borrowed typewriter, the result finally made it back to headquarters in the form of the newspaper. A few copies always found their way even to the front lines, and these were passed around. Lieutenant Ballard came through camp with a copy tucked under one arm. What stood out was the fact that Ballard was whistling.
"What's he so happy about?" Cole wondered.
"Oh, he's famous now," Pomeroy said, walking up from the other direction. "Or I ought to say that you're famous — there's a picture of you taking a shot with Ballard leaning over your shoulder."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. That reporter fella was busy taking lots of pictures when we attacked that ridge."
What article didn't say was that the next day, the Chinese had taken back the ridge, pouring out of the network of defensive tunnels and trenches to overwhelm the attackers. Counter-attacks were surely being planned, but no one was eager for them.
Nobody was surprised. This was how the war in Korea worked, trading hilltops back and forth as the bodies piled up and the letters went home to the families of the dead.
With the two armies facing each other across the ridges, the enemy sniper had also gone back to work.
Orders came down for Cole. The enemy sniper had to be eliminated.
It was Lieutenant Ballard who brought him the news, along with a box of ammunition that he handed to Cole.
“Take him out,” the lieutenant said.
Chapter Thirteen
Cole didn't have many fond childhood memories of growing up in Gashey's Creek, which had mostly been a hardscrabble existence, but the few good memories he had were mainly of going hunting in the morning. Those were always special mornings. He recalled being awakened before dawn by his father shaking his shoulder and saying gruffly, "C'mon, boy. You gonna sleep all day?" Never mind that it was still pitch dark out.
His father had not been a demonstrative man, but the closest that he’d come to affection was making sure that his boy wore two pairs of socks to keep his feet warm, and that he had a biscuit and a piece of venison jerky in his pocket. His father sometimes made him take along an apple or two, if they had any.
"I ain't that hungry."
"You'll want it later."
"What about you?" His pa rarely took anything to eat.
"A man ought to be a little hungry when he hunts. But it ain't right to make a young 'un go hungry."
He and his father headed out into the dawn, sometimes with one of his brothers, but usually just Cole and his father. As the oldest boy, it was a rite of passage to learn the woods and mountains in the same way that the Coles had been doing since the days of buckskin and flintlocks.
While it was true that his father was a failure at many things, including staying sober and providing for his family, he was a natural outdoorsman. He was what the old-timers called a woodsy. When he wasn’t drinking the moonshine that he made back in the hills, his pa had been good at teaching Cole everything that he knew about the woods and the mountains and the animals that dwelt there. Cole had absorbed it all in the way that only young boys can, soaking up the lessons like the moss of the forest floor soaks up the rain.
Now on this autumn morning in Korea, he was going hunting again, but this time the game was far more dangerous. He was going after the Chinese sniper that had taken up residence on Sniper Ridge, which overlooked Triangle Hill and the American position.
The enemy sniper had picked off half a dozen men yesterday alone and was causing consternation among the Americans. While mortars and artillery did more damage, there was something intensely personal about a sniper. A lot of boys were just plain scared to poke their nose out of a trench or foxhole, and with good reason.
It was time to put an end to the sniper's reign of terror.
"Cole, I'm sending you up there to take care of that sniper once and for all," Lieutenant Ballard had said. "You know what? This isn't even coming from me. This comes directly from company HQ. They want that sniper over and done with. I told them, I have just the man for the job. Don't prove me wrong."
"Yes, sir," was all that Cole replied, hoping that the enemy sniper would cooperate and put himself in Cole's sights in short order.
He was taking Pomeroy with him this morning as a spotter.
"You ready yet?" he asked impatiently, looking toward where Pomeroy was stuffing a rucksack with a few things to bring along this morning. They had canteens, a handful of rations, and spare ammo, but aside from these essentials, they traveled light.
Cole had his rifle, of course, and Pomeroy carried binoculars to scan the opposite ridge. Cole's rangy legs warmed to the climb, while Pomeroy struggled a bit on his damaged feet — how he had managed to stay in the Army, Cole wasn't entirely sure. Either Pomeroy was a good liar, or else the military was so desperate for veteran soldiers that the doctors had agreed to return him to active duty when he asked. Pomeroy had gumption; he'd give him that.
They headed toward the front line. The camp around them was still sleepy and shaking off the dawn. The air felt chill, and they were glad for their jackets, but so far, the autumn days turned pleasantly warm once the sun had been up for a few hours.
No one challenged them on any of the paths up toward the ridge. Cole had found that carrying a scoped rifle eliminated most questions. Nobody felt inclined to ask a sniper for too many details.
"What did you have in mind this morning, Hillbilly?" Pomeroy asked.
"I reckoned we should start out in the sector that the sniper shot up yesterday," Cole said.
"You think he'll return to the scene of the crime?" Pomeroy asked, a little surprised. "I thought you said that snipers like to move around."
"I don't know if he'll be back," Cole admitted. "It wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to return to the same place, but he knows he's got himself easy pickings up there. Nobody was even shooting back at him."
"Might not be so easy this morning once we get there," Pomeroy said.
"That's the plan," Cole agreed. "But let's see how it turns out. He might pick an entirely different section to hunt in today."
"Hunt in? That's one hell of a way to put it. Hunting for our guys."
They climbed higher up the ridge, the exercise keeping them warm against the morning nip. They tried not to break a sweat, though, because sitting around in their damp clothes was a sure-fire way to feel chilled to the bone.
The morning was cool, but nothing like the Chosin Reservoir had been last winter. It had gotten so cold that the gun oil froze inside of rifles, rendering them useless. Some men who lacked proper winter gear had frozen to death in their foxholes. Their staring eyes frosted with a rime of ice wasn't a sight that Cole was going to forget anytime soon.
And that was just the cold. The situation had been compounded by nearly suicidal assaults by waves of Chinese troops, some of whom hadn't even been carrying weapons.
Cole glanced over at Pomeroy, who had been there alongside him at that godawful place. The kid had survived it, too. It was hard to get the memory or the chill of that place out of your bones. Cole shuddered all over again, just thinking about it.
"Hold up," Pomeroy said, breathing hard.
"You got to cut back on them coffin nails."
"Yeah, yeah."
They both paused for a few minutes and drank from their canteens, catching their breath. The sky had taken on a pale pink tone above the crest of the hills. A hunter's dawn, if ever there was one, Cole thought. He took that as a good sign.