Specialist Ryle ducked just as a string of bullets hit a tree stump he was using for cover. He pulled his ruck off his back and unstrapped the AT4 he was carrying. He made sure the rocket was ready to fire and then called out for covering fire.
Private Miller popped up from behind the boulder he had been hiding behind and let loose a string of 7.62mm rounds at the cement machine-gun bunker that was shooting at them. The face of that bunker was dimpled with pock marks from all the shrapnel and machine-gun bullets that had hit it.
Ryle saw this as his moment and jumped up with the AT4 on his shoulder, ready to go. He took quick aim and depressed the firing button.
Pop, whooosssshhh…BAM.
The rocket flew fast and slammed right into the bunker, just next to the machine gun. A ton of sparks flew out in all directions, and the gun fell silent.
“Charge that bunker now! Get some grenades in it!” screamed Sergeant Jacobson, the assistant squad leader. He jumped up and ran toward the bunker, firing his weapon at the gun slits and screaming like a madman.
Webster looked over to his friend, Miller. “Let’s go,” Miller said as he lurched forward around the boulder they had been hiding behind.
Webster struggled briefly as he tried to catch up to Jacobson, who was nearly to the edge of the bunker. Specialist Ryle was hot on his heels when suddenly the machine-gun bunker returned to life and resumed its killing spree. Ryle was hit multiple times in his chest as he fell backwards, each slug acting like a punch to his chest.
Jacobson ducked to his right just as a string of rounds flew right past where he had just been. Webster ducked to the left behind a large tree stump, maybe ten meters away from the bunker. Looking at Sergeant Jacobson, he saw him signal that he was going to use his M203 grenade launcher on the bunker. “Once I fire it, you charge forward!” he yelled.
Webster nodded as he readied himself to cross the remaining ten meters to the enemy position.
Thump, BOOM.
Webster jumped out from his covered position and ran for all his worth toward the bunker. He jumped past Specialist Ryle, who was still lying on his back, pleading for someone to help him. In seconds, Webster found himself flush with the side of the bunker. He waved to the others below him that he had made it and then grabbed one of his grenades from his vest. He inched around to the front of the bunker and got to just beneath the gun slit. The machine gun was still firing away at his comrades below. He pulled the pin, counted to two, and then shoved the grenade through the gun slit. He felt the grenade fall inside the bunker and heard a lot of frantic yelling before a loud blast assaulted his ears and vibrated the ground around him.
Not trusting the one grenade to do the job, Webster pulled the pin on a second grenade and dropped it in the same slit. A second later, another boom rang out, only this time, there were no more voices to be heard. At this point, several other soldiers ran forward toward Webster and joined him at the bunker.
“How do we get inside this thing?” asked one of the guys who’d joined them.
The bunker had been built into the mountain, so it was tied to a series of tunnels and rooms from the inside. Sergeant Jacobson crawled around the right side of the bunker until he was on top of it. Once there, he noticed a steel hatch on the top.
“In here, guys.”
Several of the soldiers crawled around to join him on top of the bunker and saw what he saw. While they were still figuring out how to get inside, the next layer of bunkers several hundred meters higher up the mountain began shooting down on them. They scrambled down the sides and sought cover from the incoming bullets. By now, the entire squad had made its way to their position and had taken cover around them. Specialist Ryle was being treated by one of the medics as a couple of soldiers helped to escort him back to one of the aid stations.
Lieutenant Fallon crawled up to Sergeant Sanchez. “Any thoughts on how we get inside?” he asked. “I’ll bet this thing connects to other rooms and bunkers inside the mountain. It could be our ticket to clearing them out.”
Sanchez poked his head back up to look at the hatch again. “If we had some C-4 or det cord, we could probably get this hatch open,” he answered. “Do you think we could call someone over who might have some? Hey, also — before we do that, we need to get those two bunkers up there taken out, or they’re just going to keep shooting at us.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Let me see if I can get the rest of the company to head our way and try to take them out.”
Fallon sat down below the lip of the bunker and called for an engineer to come up to their position, so they could inform Captain Garcia of what they’d found. Meanwhile, the other platoons pushed past them as they continued to engage the other enemy bunkers further up the mountain.
Boom, boom, ratatat, ratatat, zip, zip, zap!
Bullets flew all around them as they waited for an engineer and their captain to arrive. Explosions rocked the mountain as the other companies and units did their best to root out the enemy, one bunker and fighting position at a time.
Eventually, Captain Garcia trudged up to them with a couple of soldiers in tow. Two of them were engineers. When they got to the bunker, Sanchez explained to them what they needed done, and the two engineers examined the steel hatch.
“Let’s try the det cord first,” suggested the first engineer.
“Yeah, and if that fails, we’ll go for the C-4,” the other countered.
A few minutes went by as the engineers pressed the det cord into the cracks and crevices of the hatch until it was neatly packed in, despite the bullets that were snapping all around them while they worked. Once the engineers had done their work, the group moved away from the bunker as they prepared to blow it.
BOOM!
As the dust from the explosion settled, several of the soldiers ran to the top of the bunker to inspect the hatch. To their satisfaction, they found it now accessible.
Sanchez turned to the engineers. “Could you stick around?” he asked. “We may need you to blow open some additional doors once we get inside.”
The engineers nodded and smiled. They clearly enjoyed it when explosives were a part of their day.
One by one, the members of Second Squad filtered into the bunker. They fanned out as they moved their way to a rear door, lining up against the walls as they approached it. When they reached the door, they tested it and found that it was unlocked.
Sanchez held his hand up. “Stand by and wait,” he ordered.
Stepping over several dead Chinese soldiers, Sanchez climbed out of the hatch. He found the lieutenant and the captain. “There’s a door at the other end of the bunker,” he said. “We’ve tested it, and it’s unlocked. We didn’t open it yet, since we’re not sure if its boobytrapped, but I wanted to see if we could get the rest of the platoon or even the company to work with us on clearing it out. Who knows? It might link up to other rooms or levels inside the fortress. If we clear it out, we might be able to silence a lot of these really tough machine-gun bunkers.”
Captain Garcia thought about that for a second and then nodded. “OK, Sergeant,” he responded. “Lieutenant Fallon, I want your platoon to work on exploring and clearing the tunnels out. I’m going to place a call back to battalion and let them know what we’ve found. I’ll see if we can’t get a couple of flamethrowers sent over here to help you guys clear them out. God only knows what’s inside. I also want to get the rest of the company in on this. You guys just might have found the chink in the armor of this fortress.”
Nodding, the lieutenant signaled for Sanchez to lead the way. The two of them crawled back down into the main gun room. Several of the soldiers had picked the dead Chinese bodies up and stacked them in a pile along one of the walls, out of the way. The rest of the squad was lined up on both sides of the door, ready to go.