BOOM! Boom, boom, BOOM!
“Everyone down!” shouted one of the sergeants in a nearby fighting position.
The next five minutes was sheer terror for the infantry soldiers dug in on the side of the ridge. Enemy artillery rained down on them. Trees, parts of trees, rocks, dirt and everything else on the ridge were torn apart and thrown into the air and all around the soldiers. They did their best to ride out the horrendous experience.
Suddenly a shrieking whistle sound pierced their ears, followed by the guttural howl of an untold number of men and women below their positions.
Pop, pop, pop.
Illumination rounds started go off all along the ridge, turning the predawn twilight into full daylight.
“Holy hell, that’s a lot of enemy soldiers!” shouted Private Miller. He brought his M4 to his shoulder and fired.
Specialist’s Ryle’s eyes went wide as saucers when he saw the wave of humanity charging up the ridge at them. He shook himself, then lowered his head down until his cheek was flush with the stock of his M240G. He fired three-to-five-second bursts of automatic fire into the ranks of the charging enemy soldiers, making sure to sweep back and forth across his field of fire.
Lifting his own rifle to his shoulder, Corporal Webster sighted in on one enemy soldier after another as the enemy charged relentlessly up the hill at them.
Pop, pop, pop, zip, crack, zip, crack.
Bullets flew back and forth between the two sides at a dizzying rate of speed, cutting dozens of people down before they even knew what had hit them. At two hundred meters, the enemy soldiers started tripping some of the flares the Americans had set up, which further illuminated them. Then several of the daisy-chained Claymore mines and hand grenades they had boobytrapped began to go off, cutting huge swaths of the enemy apart.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, crump, crump, crump.
Dozens of enemy soldiers were thrown sideways in the air or were blown apart outright as the cacophony of explosions rippled up and down the ridge. More whistles sounded as yet another wave of enemy soldiers charged upward to replace the first wave, which had been utterly decimated by the American Claymores.
“I’m changing barrels. Get more ammo ready!” shouted Ryle. He carefully disconnected the barrel with the specialized glove. It was practically glowing; it had definitely needed to cool. He deftly grabbed the spare barrel and snapped it in place while Private Miller attached a new hundred-round belt to the few remaining bullets left of the belt still loaded in the weapon.
Webster did his best to keep firing at the second wave of enemy soldiers, giving them as much covering fire as he could until they got the machine gun back up and running. Then he heard the most sickening noise of his life — a wet splat.
Private Miller cried out in agony. “I’m hit! Oh God, my arm!” he wailed. His left arm was dangling, barely hanging on by some muscle and tendon. With each heartbeat, blood spurted out on the ground.
Specialist Ryle stopped shooting. He turned his body toward Miller, but Webster shouted, “Don’t stop shooting — I’ll help him!”
Shock and blood loss took hold of Miller, and he slumped down to the bottom of their foxhole.
“Hang in there, Miller! You’re going to be OK,” Webster reassured him. “I’m going to get a tourniquet on, and we’ll get you back to the medics.” He pulled his tourniquet from the medical pouch attached to his IBA and tied off the arm an inch above the wound. With the bleeding stemmed, he stood up and started shouting, “Medic!”
With a half-glazed look and sweat running down his face, Miller looked up at his friend. “I don’t want to die, Shane…I’m scared,” he managed to mumble.
Wiping a tear from his own eye, Webster leaned in to be heard over the roar of Ryle’s machine gun. “You’re going to be all right, Liam. I’ve got the bleeding stopped. I’ll help you get back to the aid station when the medic gets here.” He looked above the lip of their foxhole, hoping to spot a medic.
Seconds later, one of the platoon’s medics came running over and motioned for Webster to help get Miller out of the foxhole. The two of them did their best to carry Miller further back behind their lines to the battalion aid station, where one of the doctors could help patch him up. As they shuffled along, Webster saw the extensive damage from the enemy artillery attack. Then he spotted the aid station; it was inundated with wounded soldiers.
Meanwhile, the roar of battle continued unabated. Before heading back to his foxhole, Webster made a point to grab as much ammo as he could for Ryle and himself, and then he raced back down to their positions. As he got closer to their foxhole, he was horrified to see that the enemy had reached the concertina wire — they were practically on top of their positions at this point.
Jumping back into the foxhole, Webster dumped another four one-hundred-round belts of ammo next to Ryle’s gun.
“`Bout time you got back here. For a minute I thought I was on my own,” Ryle shouted. He stopped shooting just long enough to reload and to pour one of the canteens of water he had across the barrel in an attempt to cool it off.
“Damn, those guys are getting close,” Webster remarked. He took a moment to link another belt of ammo to the one Ryle had just loaded. This would give him at least two hundred rounds.
“Oh crap, they just broke through the wire!” Ryle shouted. Webster saw the enemy soldiers pouring in through a several-meter-wide opening they’d managed to create.
Suddenly, a string of bullets tore into their position, forcing the two of them to duck for cover. A voice somewhere to their right yelled, “Get that machine gun going! We’re going to be overrun!”
“Cover me!” Ryle shouted. Then he popped up and tore into the charging enemy.
Webster grabbed one of the Claymore clickers and depressed it. A fraction of a second later, the electrical charge reached the blasting cap and detonated the mine, spraying hundreds of ball bearings at the enemy like a giant shotgun at point-blank range.
Without pausing, Webster picked his rifle up and began to fire.
Pop, pop, pop!
Then his bolt locked to the rear. His magazine was empty. Dropping the empty magazine, he snatched a fresh one from his IBA, slapped it in place and hit the bolt release. With a fresh round in the chamber, Webster aimed right for a cluster of soldiers that were now no more than twenty meters from them.
He paused just long enough to reach down and grab some grenades. Then he started lobbing them at the enemy.
Crump, crump, crump.
Other soldiers also threw grenades in a desperate attempt to cut down the attackers before they overran their positions. Just as Webster thought they weren’t going to make it, they heard a thunderous roar in the sky. It sounded like a monstrous ripping noise, like some massive piece of paper or fabric was being torn apart. Then what almost appeared to be the finger of God began to rip through the charging enemy.
A near-constant red line emanating from somewhere above them systematically danced across the ground in front of them, obliterating the enemy soldiers just as they were about to overrun the American positions. What they were witnessing was a mixture of red tracers from the 25mm GAU-12/U Equalizer five-barreled Gatling cannons and smaller explosions from 40mm Bofors cannons. Further behind enemy lines, 105mm Howitzer rounds started to hit, decimating a third wave of enemy soldiers that was about to filter their way.
In seconds, the mass of enemy soldiers that had been moments away from wiping out their unit was turned into a torn and bloody mess of bodies as the entire attack collapsed.
“What the hell was that?” shouted Ryle. He stopped shooting and turned to Webster, a look of horror mixed with thankfulness on his face.