“I’ve got Slick calling the embassy right now. We’ll get a medevac here ASAP. You stay here and command your platoon while I go check on Cartwright.”
“Yes, sir,” Taylor said, eyes darting back and forth in the darkness. The thick haze of gunpowder was a phantom wafting through the air, devilishly grinning at the young lieutenant. So you thought you wanted to be a soldier, he could hear it saying. Welcome to the real world.
Zachary told Teller to call back to Slick and have him contact the embassy and order a dust-off immediately. One of the few morsels Fraley had thrown Zachary’s way was medical support.
He then high-crawled to Sergeant Cartwright’s position. The screaming served as an audible beacon in the darkness. The fighting position had been reduced to rubble, splintered plywood, and dirt. The medic had pulled the squad leader from his foxhole and placed a dressing over his upper thigh area.
“You gonna be all right, man,” he heard the medic saying, confidently. “Nothin’ but a little cut. Old doc here fix you right up.” The screaming continued into an otherwise momentarily, yet dangerously, silent night as the mortars failed to repeat their previously voluminous fire.
“Hey, Wheels,” the captain said, referring to one of his best squad leaders. Cartwright was exceptionally fast, having made it to the last cut for the Washington Redskins and losing out to another wide receiver. Captain Garrett laid a hand on his soldier’s knee and could feel it trembling. Zachary looked at the medic, whose face he could see in the moonlight. The medic looked at the captain with reassuring eyes, indicating that he really would be fine with some proper medical attention, that his words to Cartwright were not just shock prevention.
“That you, sir?” Wheels said, comforted by the sound of his commander’s voice. His voice was raspy, punctuated by rapid breathing. Sometimes all a soldier needed to hear was the calm and reassuring voice of his commander. Surely the commander knew things that he did not, and if the captain was in control, then the situation must be under control.
“Yeah, Wheels, it’s me. Doc says you’ll be fine,” he said, glad that Cartwright had recognized him. It was a good sign that he was not going into shock. Still, it was unnerving for Zachary to see one of his own soldiers writhing on the hard-packed dirt.
“You believe him, sir?” Cartwright asked, half-joking, looking at the commander with white eyes illuminated by the contrast to his black skin.
“Yeah, Doc gave me a behind-the-scenes thumbs-up. Only a scratch,” he said, personally inspecting the bandage and acknowledging the fact that everyone knew the game. The medics were trained to reassure the wounded no matter what their condition. “I’m gonna check on the rest of the company. We’ve called the embassy for a medevac, and they should be here shortly. Doc, stay with him until the helicopter gets here.” The medic nodded.
“Sir,” Cartwright said, before Zachary could stand up, “thanks for being here.” Zachary slapped Cartwright on the shoulder, noticing the medic starting to elevate the leg to slow the blood flow, and ran back to Taylor’s foxhole. When he updated Taylor on Cartwright’s condition, the lieutenant stared blankly and nodded with a glazed look in his eyes, as if some part of his brain had been fried momentarily.
Zachary wanted to talk to him, but did not have time as he heard the first gunshots ring out in the western part of his sector.
I know those sounds too well. He grabbed Teller by the shirt collar the way a football coach snags a player’s face mask before sending him into the game, and they ran toward the fight.
Chapter 35
Meanwhile, through his night-vision goggles, Kurtz could see some black figures scurrying across the open ground. He made a quick radio check with Barker to see if he had any men moving in that direction. He did not. He had tried to call the commander, but got an urgent radio message from Staff Sergeant Nichols, his second squad leader, that they had nearly thirty enemy personnel moving in their direction. Before he could respond, the advancing Filipinos noticed second squad moving into position and began firing from the hip as they continued to run.
Nichols’s men eluded the first salvo of bullets, kicking up dirt around them and zinging overhead. With the goggles, the Americans had the advantage, and the Filipino fire remained glued to the south, where they had seconds earlier spied the soldiers running for cover.
“If you can acquire the enemy, open fire,” Kurtz said, making a decision on the spot, not having time to consult the commander.
The exhilaration surprised him. He was in complete control and could sense the enemy movement like a blind man can feel his way around a familiar room. So far, he had planned accurately. They seemed to be coming directly into his engagement area, where first and second squads could simultaneously destroy them. He remembered his reserve, guarding the ammunition and the approach along the pier, considering whether he had any mission for them. Deciding against moving them, he heard the first burst from a squad auto-matic weapon sing through the night air and echo down the valley with resoluteness. Bright muzzle flashes appeared from both first and second squads, orange tracers dancing low through the darkness, sometimes ricocheting and careening magnificently upward to the heavens. The tracers converged and crossed paths, creating a surreal X like a neon sign flashing in the night.
He watched through his goggles and listened to the radio for sitreps. There was no need to bother his squad leaders, who were busy conducting the fight. He could see two of his squads lying in the prone behind whatever cover they could find in the hard-stand, some using old railroad ties, others lying behind discarded appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.
The fight raged, M4s popping softly but consistently producing a cadenced rate of fire, indicative of good fire discipline, countered by the intermittent distinctive cracking of AK-47s. Kurtz was astonished at his own clarity of mind. He was in a chess match that he knew he was going to win. It was only a matter of time. The son of a bitch had already made one move to which he had accurately responded. What’s next asshole? Kurtz said beneath his breath, trying to outthink his adversary. The ammo. It had to be the ammo.
“Red six, this is red three, over,” Staff Sergeant Quinones said urgently into the radio.
“Go,” Kurtz responded to his third squad leader.
“We’ve picked up about thirty enemy moving directly toward us along the pier.”
“Roger, can you defend from where you are?”
“We’re really too close together. This pier’s only about fifty meters wide, then it drops into the water.”
“Roger. Leave one fire team on the pier behind some cover. Remember that they can’t see you. Move the other team near the back to my location by the tire pile. You stay with the pier team, and I’ll take charge of your other team,” Kurtz commanded with crispness.
“Roger. Happening now, out,” Quinones said.
“Red six, this is red two, over.”
“Send it,” Kurtz said, his eyes fixed on the dark horizon to the west.
“Fifteen enemy soldiers wounded or killed, two Enemy Prisoners of War, continuing to observe, over.”
“Roger, red one, status?” Kurtz said to his first squad leader.
“Seventeen enemy dead, five EPWs, continuing to observe, over.”
“Roger, break,” he said, releasing the handset momentarily, and he was back to Quinones, who had called in the advancing enemy element. “Red three, sitrep?”
“Roger. Enemy still advancing. About two hundred meters out,” Quinones whispered.
“Sitrep, Mike,” Captain Garrett said, sliding into position behind the tire pile. Teller was still tethered to him, and Zach was glad that the young man was in good physical condition. Able to listen to all of the action on the radio, Zachary had personally inspected the positions of all three platoons and decided to command from Kurtz’s position, where the largest threat seemed to be.