Now it was his turn to move, ever so slowly, ever so noiselessly.
Learn from them, he instructed himself. Learn their lessons: patience, caution, calmness, freedom from fear, but above all the discipline of the slow move. He had a complicated thing before him: without making a sound, he had to reach back under his rain cape, release the sling of the M3, draw it forward around his body, ease open the ejection port cover and fingerhole the bolt back. Then and only then would he have a chance, but that destination was long minutes away.
The rain fell in torrents now, disguising his noise just a bit. But these were sharp, trained men: their ears would hear the sound of canvas rubbing on leather or metal sliding across flesh; or they would smell his fear, acrid and penetrating; or they would see his movement irregular against the steadier rhythms of nature.
Ever so slowly, he eased over to his side from his belly, an inch at a time, shifting his hand back over the crest of his body. Now he could hear them calling to each other: they spoke the language of birds.
“Coo! Coo!” came the call of a dove in a part of the south where there were no doves.
“Coo!” came the response, from the right.
“Coo!” came another one, clearly from behind. Now they knew he was here, for the trail had led up the hill but had not led down it; they had not cut across it. He was thoroughly cooked.
His fingers touched metal. They crawled up the grip of the grease gun, pawed, climbed up to the tubular receiver and found the sling threaded through its latch. His fingers struggled against the snap on the sling.
Oh, come on, he prayed.
These little fuckers could be tough; they could rust shut or simply be tightly fitted and need too much leverage to free up.
Why didn’t you check it?
Agh!
Asshole!
He ordered himself to check the sling snap a thousand times if he ever got out of this fix, so that he would never, ever again forget.
Come on, baby. Please, come on.
With his fingers pulling, his thumb pushing, he battled the thing. It was so small, so absurd: twelve men were twenty-five yards away hunting him, and he was hung up on the cold, wet ground trying to get a fucking little—
Ah!
It popped, with a metallic click that he believed could be heard all the way to China.
But nobody cooed and he wasn’t jumped and gutted on the spot.
The gun slid free and down his back, but he captured it quickly with his hand, and now withdrew it, very slowly, bringing it around, drawing it close to him, like a woman to treasure for the rest of his life. He smelled its oily magnificence, felt its tinny greatness. A reliable, ugly piece of World War II improvisation, it probably cost a buck fifty to manufacture from hubcaps and sleds and bikes picked up in scrap-metal drives in the forties. That’s why it had such a cheap, toylike, rattly feel to it. With his fingers he deftly sprung the latch on the ejection port, then inserted a finger into the bolt hole that he had just revealed. With the finger he pushed back, felt the bolt lock, then let it come forward. He dropped down and drew the gun up to him.
“Coo! Coo!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
he message came by radio to the hasty command post dug into the side of a hill. It was from the sapper patrol on the right flank.
“Brother Colonel,” gasped Sergeant Van Trang, “we have the American trapped on a hill half a kilometer to the west. We are closing on him even now. He will be eliminated within the quarter hour.”
Huu Co nodded. Van Trang was a banty little north countryman with the heart of a lion. If he said such a thing was about to happen, then indeed it would happen.
“Excellent,” said the colonel. “Out.”
“There are no shots,” his XO told him. “Not since the unfortunate Phuc Bo was martyred.”
Huu Co nodded, considering.
Yes, now was the time. Even if he couldn’t get the whole battalion through the pass, he could get enough men through to overwhelm Arizona. But he had every confidence in Van Trang and his sappers. They were the most dedicated, the best trained, the most experienced. If they had the American trapped, the incident was over.
“All right,” he said. “Send runners to One, Two and Three companies. Let’s get the men out of the grass, get them going. Fast, fast, fast. Now is the time for speed. We have wasted enough time and energy on this American.”
The XO rapidly gave the orders.
Huu Co went outside. All around him, men rose from the grass, shook the accumulated moisture from their uniforms and formed up into loose company units. A whistle sounded from in front of the column. Behind Huu Co, with amazing swiftness, members of the combat support platoon broke down the hasty command post so that nothing remained, then they too went to their positions.
“Let’s go,” said Huu Co, and with a gaggle of support personnel around him, he too began to move at the half-trot, ahead through the mist and the rain, to the end of the valley where the Americans were under siege.
The long train of men moved quickly, bending back the grass. Overhead, the blessed clouds still hung, low and dense, to the surface of the earth. No airplanes would come. He would make Arizona by nightfall, give the men a few hours’ rest, then move them into position and, sometime after midnight, strike with everything he had, from three directions. It would be over.
From the right it came, at last: the sudden flurry of fire, the sound of grenade detonations, a few more shots and then silence.
“They got him,” the XO said to him.
“Excellent,” said Huu Co. “At last. We have triumphed. Frankly, between you and I, the American provided a great service.”
“The political officer, Brother Co? I agree, of course. He loved the party too much and the fighters not enough.”
“Such men are necessary,” said Huu Co. “Sometimes.”
“That American,” said the XO. “He was some kind of fighter himself. If they were all like that, our struggle would be nowhere near its conclusion. I wonder what motivates a man like that?”
Huu Co had known Americans in Paris in the early fifties and then in Saigon in the early sixties. They had seemed innocent, almost childish, full of wonder, incapable of deep thought.
“They are not a serious people,” he said. “But I suppose by the odds, every now and then you get one who is.”
“I suppose,” said the XO. “I’m glad we killed this one. I prefer the good ones dead.”
e lay very composed, trying not to listen to his heart or to his mind, or to any part of his body, which yearned to survive. Instead he listened to nothing and tried to plan.
They are tracking you. They will come right to you. If you let them carry the fight, you will die. You must shoot first, shoot to kill, attack decisively. If you are aggressive you may stun them. They will expect fear and terror. Aggression is the last thing they expect.
He tried to lay it all out, under the knowledge that any plan, even a bad plan, is better than no plan.
Shoot the visible ones; spray till the mag empties; throw grenades; fall away to the left; fall back into better cover in the trees. But most of alclass="underline" get off this hill.
They were very close, cooing softly to one another, having converged. They were patient, calm, very steady. Oh, these were the best. They were so professional. No problems. Getting the job done.
One suddenly stood before him. The man was about thirty, very tough looking, his face a blank. He held an American carbine. He seemed to have some trouble believing what lay before him on the ground.