David Healey
Fallen Sniper
Epigraph
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
Chapter One
Caje Cole heard movement on the trail ahead and signaled for the others behind him to halt. Abruptly, the sounds in front of him stopped and the surrounding woods and rocky terrain seemed to be holding its breath.
Whatever was out there knew that Cole’s squad was here. It was too much to hope that it was a deer or wild boar. He hadn’t seen much wildlife in Korea, even here in some of the more remote hills.
No, whatever was out there was likely Chinese, riled up, and well-armed.
He held himself very still, straining to hear something more. Mostly, he heard the permanent ringing that had developed in his ears, a consequence of firing a Springfield rifle through two wars.
At any moment, he half-expected gunfire to come ripping at him through the brush. He held his rifle with its scoped sight halfway to his shoulder, poised to fire — and just as ready to hit the deck.
But Cole wasn’t one to turn tail and run. He sniffed the air like some prehistoric hunter — the rifle could have been his spear — and studied the brush ahead with his intense gray eyes.
Behind him, the kid asked, “What’s the dope, Hillbilly?”
“Ya’ll stay alert,” Cole replied quietly in his soft Appalachian mountain drawl. “Might be some goons up ahead. I’ll take a look. Stay put.”
If they did run into trouble, the squad of four men was on its own out here. They had been sent to scout the surrounding countryside for enemy threats.
The army had air cover, but the pilots couldn’t always see the enemy moving through the heavy brush. If there was one thing that the Chinese had figured out by now, it was how to slip through the landscape without being spotted by the planes that suddenly appeared on the horizon to deal death and destruction on the enemy troops below with bombs, Napalm, or their .50 caliber machine guns. The fact that the enemy couldn’t always be seen from above necessitated the boots on the ground approach of patrols like Cole’s.
As the senior veteran here and with his reputation as the unit’s crack shot, he was in charge of the squad — although truth be told, Cole preferred not to be in charge of anything. He worked best alone, which suited him well as a sniper.
At least two miles behind them lay the bulk of United States and United Nations forces that had probed deep into the Taebaek Mountains. Before they advanced any further, they had to make sure that they weren’t marching right into a trap set by the Chinese.
Cole crept forward, moving silently up the trail. The meandering nature of the narrow path through the brush and woods hinted at the fact that it had been cut by years — maybe centuries — of passing game and Korean peasants moving their small herds of livestock through the hills. The entire mountain range seemed to be crisscrossed by these paths, and the North Koreans who guided the Chinese forces knew the routes well. Cole was moving blindly forward, unsure of where the narrow trail was taking him.
One thing for sure was that whoever — or whatever — was waiting ahead of him must have heard the squad. He sensed that they were keeping still, hoping to hear more. They would also be expecting Cole to move right up the trail toward them, directly into the muzzles of their nasty little Soviet-made machine guns.
Time for a change in plans.
Cole slipped off the trail into the brush. His feet did not make a sound, moving as quietly as if the ground was covered with lush carpet instead of brush and pebbles. Growing up as a hunter had taught him how to move silently as the forest creatures that he had stalked.
Keeping low, he moved parallel to the trail, essentially flanking whoever was on it, waiting to ambush him. The one benefit to the narrow trail was that it forced whoever was on it to remain in single file, or at least, that’s what Cole hoped. If the enemy was fanned out through the woods, then the squad was in trouble.
Cole sniffed. Finally, he could smell the enemy. The Chinese had a particular smell, like onions and garlic and maybe old fish worked in for good measure. When Cole explained that he could smell the enemy he didn’t mean to be derogatory toward the Chinese, as some might think. The simple fact was that they smelled different from Americans.
According to the South Koreans, American troops also had their own smell, and not necessarily a good one — mostly like hamburgers and cigarettes. Being an American, of course, Cole couldn’t detect that odor, but he could sure as hell smell the Chinese.
Through the brush, he saw a figure on the trail, and then more troops behind the leading man. The padded cotton uniforms of Chinese troops were instantly recognizable. The Chinese did not wear helmets, but favored caps or Russian-style ushankas in the colder months. Although the men were in single file, they gazed with singular purpose at the empty trail ahead of them, their weapons at the ready. It was clear that they intended to ambush the Americans headed toward them.
But not all of the enemy was facing forward. The Chinese weren’t that dumb. One or two soldiers kept their weapons pointed into the brush. They couldn’t see Cole, but their precaution marked them as experienced combat troops, prepared for an attack from any direction.
What are those goons up to? Cole wondered.
He could have opened fire and picked off the first couple of men, but he didn’t like his chances with the bolt-action Springfield, which meant that he had to work the bolt each time he fired a shot. The slow rate of fire was a trade-off. It was a good rifle for a sniper — you couldn’t find a more accurate weapon, in Cole’s humble opinion — but a bolt action rifle wasn’t the best weapon for taking on an enemy patrol in a firefight.
He reckoned his chances might be better if he could get behind these bastards and start picking them off. They wouldn’t be expecting that.
Silently, he worked his way up through the brush. The enemy soldiers on the road appeared alert, but none the wiser to Cole’s presence.
Up ahead, the brush seemed to open up, which was typical of this mountain landscape. It was a patchwork quilt of bounders, ravines, brushy swaths, and barren stretches similar to what the mountain people called scald land back home — too rocky for anything to grow except tufts of heather and lichen.
Cole was so intent on keeping an eye on the enemy troops who occupied the trail that he nearly made a fatal mistake. He emerged from the trees and froze. In the opening, he saw dozens of enemy soldiers. Some sat on the ground, drinking from canteens that they had picked up off various battlefields or smoking captured cigarettes. It was clear that the troops on the path were an advance party, probing ahead of this larger force.
Cole had run smack dab into a small army of Chinese.
Although the troops were not on high alert, he had emerged practically into their midst like a barn cat among the mice. The nearest soldier paused with a cigarette halfway to his mouth. The expression of surprise on his face likely mirrored Cole’s own.
What have I got myself into? Cole wondered.
Somebody shouted. Soldiers dropped their canteens and cigarettes, reaching for their weapons, figuring that they were under attack.
Cole didn’t disappoint them. He raised his rifle and shot the first soldier he saw who had leveled a submachine gun in Cole’s direction. He ran the bolt, fired again.
Cole quickly lost the element of surprise. Bullets snicked into the brush at his back. He had gone and kicked the hornet’s nest this time.