Besides, Cole wanted to see for himself what Task Force Ballard looked like.
He wasn’t impressed. Discounting the squad members, Lieutenant Commander Miller, and Jang-mi and the two villagers, the bulk of the task force was made up of the disgraced platoon of Borinqueneers. Technically, they remained former Borinqueneers, having been stripped of their old sobriquet.
To Cole’s eyes, they looked like men who had lost something — their self-respect. They were all fresh-shaven, having been ordered to shave off their mustaches, but instead of making them look more soldierly, their stark faces added to the overall impression of loss. They looked naked and exposed.
Many of them wore muddy uniforms and a few still sported bandages from the minor wounds they had received during the fight on Outpost Kelly. Cole wondered about that. Typically, even slightly wounded men would not be rotated right back into duty. Maybe they had volunteered? If that was the case, maybe Cole and the others had misjudged these boys.
As part of their assignment to Task Force Ballard, the Puerto Ricans had been reissued weapons.
Cole stopped in front of one soldier holding a rifle.
“When was the last time you cleaned this weapon?” Cole demanded.
The Borinqueneer stared at him blankly. “Que?”
Looking more closely at the rifle, Cole could see that part of the stock was caked with dried mud. Spots of rust bloomed on the action. In the wet, humid conditions of the last few days, metal needed to be kept oiled to keep corrosion at bay.
“I said, when was the last time this weapon was cleaned?” In frustration, Cole had repeated his question, much louder this time, as if the problem was that the soldier hadn’t heard him, rather than not being able to understand him.
Again, the soldier replied, also louder this time, “Que?”
Cole shook his head in disgust.
One of the Puerto Ricans stepped forward. “He can’t understand you, sir. He speaks no English.”
“Too damn bad for him,” Cole said. “Anyhow, a rusty rifle don’t need no explanation in English or any other language. Any soldier ought to know better.”
The Puerto Rican soldier turned and barked something in Spanish to the men around him. Word spread to those who had been farther away. Within a couple of minutes, the entire platoon was busy cleaning their rifles.
They were doing a lousy job of it, though.
“You’ve got to get some oil on there,” Cole said in irritation, reaching to help a soldier who was just wiping down the outside of the rifle with a dry rag.
The Puerto Rican soldier who had given the original order now repeated what Cole had just said. The men turned to their rifles with fresh attention. “I told them to make sure there was no rust, sir.”
“I ain’t an officer or a sergeant, in case you ain’t noticed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, to hell with it. You can call me a general as long as these boys clean their rifles.”
Cole and the other man moved among the Borinqueneers, showing them how to clean the worst of the mud and rust off their weapons. There wasn’t time to field strip the rifles and give them a real cleaning, but at least the weapons now had a better chance of functioning if they ran into any Chinese.
“Better,” the Puerto Rican soldier said, looking around at the other troops.
Cole assessed the young man. He wasn’t as old as several of the veterans, who were cleaning their weapons in a more practiced fashion. However, he spoke English and seemed to have enough natural authority that the others listened to him.
“What’s your name?”
“I am Private Vasquez.” He paused. “Mis amigos call me Cisco.”
“Then I reckon we’re amigos now, Cisco. My friends call me Hillbilly.”
Cisco nodded at Cole’s rifle with its telescopic sight. Unlike most of the Borinqueneers’ weapons, Cole had worked so much oil into the dark metal of the Springfield that it had a dull gleam, like a black snake in the sun. “You have shot many of the enemy with that rifle?”
“I suppose I’ve killed more than most and not as many as some,” Cole said matter-of-factly. “But what matters is, how many are you ready to kill? You and the rest of these Borinqueneers, that is?”
Cisco looked grim. “We are not cowards. We will fight, Hillbilly.”
“Cisco, I sure as hell hope so.”
At the end of the line, they heard the growl of big engines and were surprised to see two tanks moving into position. Cole left Cisco and walked down there to see what was going on.
He spotted a lieutenant standing half in, half out of the turret of the lead tank. “Sir, these boys don’t speak English. You want me to have somebody tell them to get out of the road?”
The tank commander shook his head. “Not necessary, soldier. We are coming with you.”
A soldier jumped down from the deck of the tank, where he had been riding. He was a big, rugged guy, but instead of a rifle, he was carrying a camera and a notebook. Something about the soldier looked familiar.
“I’ll be damned,” Cole said. “Is that you, Hardy? Since when did you become a tanker?”
“I’m just along for the ride,” Hardy said.
Up in the turret, the lieutenant looked surprised. “You two know each other?”
“I wrote about Cole here back at the Battle of Triangle Hill,” Hardy explained. “It turns out that he has quite a record as a sniper, in this war and the last one.”
The lieutenant squinted at the flag on the front of Cole’s helmet. “That looks like a Confederate flag.”
“Sure, Cole here is a hillbilly,” Hardy explained. “They make the best snipers, don’t you know?”
The lieutenant laughed. “You’re the one digging up the facts, so I’ll take your word for it,” he said. Deep within the tank, the powerful engine revved impatiently. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’d like to get wherever we’re going before dark.”
“Afraid of boogiemen, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, Chinese ones.”
The tanks could rev their engines all they wanted, impatient to get rolling, but it was another hour before the task force was ready to move out.
Cole felt heartened by the tanks. What infantryman didn’t? It was the same feeling as walking into a dark alley, knowing that the big guy next to you had your back. Also, to some extent, the tanks made up for the Borinqueneers. They were some of the sorriest soldiers that Cole had seen. He had detected a glimmer of fight in their eyes, however. When push came to shove, could they be counted on? Only time would tell. With any luck, he and Sergeant Weber would have at least a day to try to whip them into shape. Cole knew that there was no hope of training a soldier in a day, but you could teach a man the basics of fighting for his life. You might say that survival was a good motivator.
This fight could very well turn out to be a last stand, even if nobody wanted to call it that yet. Last stand sounded better than suicide mission, he reckoned.
Finally, the order came to move out.
“Let’s go!” Ballard shouted, walking alongside the column. “We’re going to keep up a stiff pace, men. I want us to be at this so-called fort by nightfall.”
“So-called fort, sir?”
“If it was built by a bunch of Korean villagers, I’m expecting to find a pile of rocks.”
“We’d be halfway there if we hadn’t stood around playing grab-ass most of the morning,” Cole muttered.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind playing grab-ass with her,” the kid said quietly, looking in Jang-mi’s direction. She was busy talking with the pilot.
“Looks like that flyboy has the same thing in mind. I’d say you’re out of luck.”