Turning to look back at the soldiers behind him, Webster held a lone finger to his mouth. “Shhhh, I saw this in a movie. I’m going to make sure no one else is around that corner.”
Taking the gum out of his mouth, Webster attached it to the back of his mirror and then affixed the gooey mixture to his knife. He dropped down to his knee and slid the setup past the corner to give him a better angle on what was down there waiting for them.
While the hallway was still poorly lit, with just a small light every twenty feet or so, at the end of the tunnel, he saw something. Squinting a bit, he thought he could make out a pile of sandbags maybe a meter high. He focused his eyes more. On top of the sandbags was what looked to be a Type 67 machine gun on a tripod with a couple of soldiers sitting next to it, looking back at him. He quickly pulled his bayonet back and whispered for one of the other soldiers to do what he had just done and tell him what he saw.
At this point, Staff Sergeant Sanchez had caught up to them, with another six soldiers in tow.
“What’s the holdup, Webster?” he asked quietly.
The corporal filled him in on what he had seen and then handed his knife and mirror over for Sanchez to take a look.
Looking at the contraption, Sanchez shook his head. “What are you, MacGyver or something?”
Then he bent down on a knee and used the mirror to look around the corner; it didn’t take him long to see what Webster had found.
“Smart, Webster, damn smart. That gun would have killed us all in this tight little corridor,” Sanchez remarked. He handed the knife and mirror back to Webster, who proceeded to stuff the mirror back in his pocket and put his knife away. Then he grabbed the gum and put it back in his mouth.
“No reason to waste it,” he thought. Plus, it helped calm his nerves.
Sanchez signaled for the flamethrower. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Harvey here,” he said, pointing to one of the guys with the M203 grenade launcher mounted under his M4, “is going to pop out around the corner here and fire one of his HE frags down the hallway to hit that position, and hopefully either kill or wound them. As soon as he does that, I need you to haul butt down that hallway as far as you think you need to in order to use that bad boy.” Now he was signaling to the guys with the flamethrower.
“If you need to go ten feet or twenty feet, you get as close as you need, and then blast that gun position with your fire stick. Once you’ve hit it once or twice, then kneel down and step aside while the rest of us run past you and capture the position, OK?”
The soldiers all nodded. Several of them stole a nervous glance at the flamethrower, hoping they wouldn’t end up dying in glorious ball of fire if it took a stray round to its tank.
Everyone quietly got themselves ready for the assault. Private Harvey double-checked his grenade launcher, then nodded to the rest of the guys. Sanchez nodded back, then held up a hand with all his fingers spread out. He silently mouthed a countdown as he pulled each finger down into his palm one by one. When he reached zero and his hand had formed a fist, he pointed to Harvey to begin his attack.
Private Harvey moved out around the corner, leveling his M203 at the soldiers at the end of the hallway. Just as he was about to fire, his body was hit with a barrage of bullets — the gun crew must have known they were down there, preparing to attack. Harvey didn’t even have any time to react as his body was pounded relentlessly by dozens of 7.62×54mm rounds. They punched right through his body armor, and he collapsed to the ground.
In the flash of a second, everything slowed down as if the world was moving by one frame at a time, one fraction of a second after another as Webster dove for Harvey’s now-dead body. He landed right next to him and grabbed him by his MOLLE gear, throwing Harvey’s body in front of him like a shield. He grabbed Harvey’s M4 with the grenade launcher, and before the gun crew at the end of the hallway could react, Webster fired the high-explosive projectile down the corridor. The round slammed into the wall directly behind the gun crew. Flame and shrapnel hit many of the enemy soldiers.
Instantly, the soldier with the flamethrower jumped around the corner and charged down the hallway like a man possessed, screaming obscenities as he ran. He moved maybe ten feet down the hallway before he stopped and unleashed a torrent of fire on the enemy soldiers who were still trying to recover from the blast that had just wounded them.
Several other soldiers in Webster’s fire team ran down the hallway past the flamethrower to capture the enemy position. Looking over Harvey’s dead body and past his soldiers, who were charging down the hallway, Corporal Webster saw one of the enemy soldiers screaming wildly, his body completely engulfed in flames. The Chinese soldier shrieked for another minute or so, turning and running down the other hallway before his voice went silent, probably because he had finally collapsed and died.
When two of his soldiers reached the enemy positions, they rounded the corner and a quick firefight ensued. One of his soldiers took several rounds to the chest and fell backwards onto the burning bodies of the dead enemy soldiers. His comrade unloaded the rest of his thirty-round magazine at whatever enemy soldiers they had encountered.
Another soldier joined him and tossed a hand grenade down the corridor.
Crump.
Silence followed. More of the soldiers rushed the position.
Sergeant Sanchez walked up to Webster; he pushed Harvey’s lifeless body to the side and took the hand Sanchez offered to help him up.
“It’s too bad about Harvey,” Sanchez said. After a momentary pause out of respect, he added, “We’re going to have to start calling you Rambo, Webster. That was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anyone move or do something like that,” Sanchez exclaimed with a look of pride on his face. “Let’s get down there and finish clearing this place out. I can’t image them having more internal security positions like this.”
The two of them quickly caught back up to the rest of the squad as they moved through the rest of the tunnels. Every few hundred meters, they’d find a metal door leading to a gun bunker. When they found the back entrance to a new bunker, they’d usually throw a grenade inside to stun the defenders and then stand aside for the lone flamethrower guy to do his deed. He’d pop out from around the corner and fire a five-to-seven-second burst of liquid flame into the enemy position. Then they’d slam the door and lock it and move down the hallway to find the next one.
The rest of the day went by in a blur as Corporal Webster’s unit moved from one corridor to another, silencing enemy gun positions from the inside. More and more American soldiers filtered in through the new entrances they were opening up in the mountain fortress. By the end of the day, nearly an entire battalion of soldiers had found their way inside the fortress, tearing the enemy stronghold apart. They had transformed a small tear in the enemy lines into a full-blown rip. The way before them now stood clear.
Chapter 10
Operation Sandman
Lieutenant Colonel Grant Johnson looked at the map one more time as his company commanders filtered into the meeting tent. The air was hot and stifling outside; the sun had broken through some of the morning clouds that had been shielding them from its bright rays. He lifted his coffee mug to his mouth, imbibing the warm liquid. “I don’t care how warm it is outside — coffee is supposed to be hot,” he thought.
Caffeine now on board, Johnson determined this was as good a time as any to get started. He cleared his throat to get their attention. “At ease. Take your seats. We have a lot to go over before the start of this next offensive.”