Even if he couldn't possibly hope to hit the enemy sniper, Cole could give him something to think about by sending a couple of bullets in his general direction.
But in the process, he had managed to give himself away. Maybe there had been a glint off the lens of his telescopic sight. Maybe it was a glint off Pomeroy's binoculars.
Whatever the case, a bullet came in and he heard Pomeroy go, "Unnhh." Delayed, he heard the crack of the distant rifle shot an instant later.
He still hadn't seen a thing, so he put down the rifle and turned toward Pomeroy. He was sitting in the mud at the bottom of the trench, clearly stunned, one hand pressed to the side of his head. Blood ran between his fingers.
"You're hit, you're hit!" Cole said, crawling toward him. He pulled Pomeroy's hand away, afraid of what he might see.
Pomeroy's hand looked managed, and also his ear. A ribbon of torn flesh dangled from it. Some of his scalp was ripped up. Miraculously, the bullet had just missed his skull.
Cole realized what had happened. Pomeroy had probably let down his guard and stood too far above the trench to get a better view. He had still been holding the binoculars when the bullet had hit his left hand and then his ear.
"How bad is it?" Pomeroy asked.
"You'll be all right," Cole said. "Missed your head. Chewed up your ear and some of your fingers."
In Cole's mountain drawl, it came out as fangers.
"Hurts like hell."
Pomeroy's ear and scalp were also bleeding like hell, with blood running down his neck and soaking into his uniform tunic. Cole shouted, "Medic!"
He got a gauze pack and used it to staunch some of the flowing blood. A medic was running toward their position, stooped over as far as he could go, hoping to dodge the next bullet.
To give the medic a better chance of reaching them in one piece, Cole got back on the rifle and put a round into the spot where he thought the sniper might be hiding. This time, the spotter was nowhere to be seen.
"Dammit that stings," Pomeroy said. "The worst part is that they'll send me home now for sure."
"Some folks have all the luck," Cole said.
Chapter Fifteen
Wounded and bleeding, Pomeroy was too dizzy to walk himself down the ridge to the field hospital. The medic wrapped his hand and bandaged his head, then called for a stretcher.
"We'll have to carry you down part of the way," the medic said. "It's too steep for an ambulance to get up here."
"I can walk," Pomeroy said, but he didn't sound all that convincing. His eyes had gone a little glassy.
"Good thing you've got a hard head," Cole said. He never had been good at jokes or small talk, but this was one time where he felt like he had to try. What he didn't say was that if the bullet had gone an inch in the other direction, Pomeroy would've been a goner. He didn't have to say it because they both knew it.
A couple of stretcher-bearers came along. They were black soldiers because the military claimed to be integrated but gave jobs like this to them, rather than combat roles. They managed to get Pomeroy loaded on the stretcher. Everybody kept their heads down because the sniper was still out there, for all they knew.
Just as they started down the slope, Pomeroy told them to wait. He waved Cole over.
"You have got to get that sniper," he said, suddenly clutching at Cole's arm. "Don't let him shoot anybody else."
"I reckon I'll try," Cole said.
"It's up to you, Hillbilly. Nobody else can do it. It ends here and now."
Finally, Cole promised to find him later at the field hospital, and the stretcher-bearers carried Pomeroy away.
Cole crept back into the trench. He rarely felt at a loss, or uncertain about what to do next, but he did now. He needed to regroup. For a long time, he just sat in the bottom of the hole, his back to the wall and his rifle propped between his knees. He felt that he had let Pomeroy down in some way. Sure, Pomeroy was lucky to be alive, but he'd be a whole lot luckier if he hadn't gotten shot in the first place.
When he was ready to get back on the scope, he slipped out of the trench and into a new position, crawling in among some boulders. There was no point in making it any easier for the enemy sniper than necessary by staying in a position where he knew Cole to be. He stretched out on his belly, keeping low to the ground.
Cole positioned the rifle so that the muzzle barely protruded beyond the rocks. It would have taken eagle eyes to spot him. Meanwhile, he put his crosshairs over the spot where he had spotted the enemy sniper earlier. However, there was no sign of movement. If the sniper had any sense, then had found a different location from which to shoot, just as Cole had done.
If he was even there at all. As the day's shadows lengthened, no more bullets came from the opposite ridge. Perhaps the enemy sniper had called it a day. Clouds built to the west and began to move up and cover the sun, dispelling any of the autumn day's warmth. As the ridge slipped into shade, the wind picked up and Cole felt the cold begin to seep up through the ground. A rock was digging into his ribcage, but he ignored it. He felt a few hunger pangs and ignored those as well. The only concession to comfort was taking a few sips from his canteen when his mouth started to feel dry as cotton. The metallic-tasting water was not exactly refreshing.
What most people didn't know or understand about being a sniper, especially someone like Lieutenant Ballard, was that being able to shoot and hit a target was only part of it. Being a sniper required patience. Being a sniper also required a certain ability to turn off all those signals of discomfort that the body normally sent. That you were cold, or hungry, or that your bladder was full. All that mattered was the circular world that he saw through the rifle scope.
Cole tightened his grip on the rifle, feeling the familiar texture of the wood grain with its dings and divots from hard use. Staring through the scope for so long, without so much as blinking, was exhausting. He was glad when it started to get dark, putting an end to the day's business. Can't shoot what I can't see. He backed out of his hidey-hole like a spider.
The red evening sky touching the mountaintops had faded to black and purple as Cole got back to the camp, then made his way down to the field hospital to check on Pomeroy. He found him there on a row of cots, looking miserable, and heavily bandaged.
"Did you nail him?" was the first thing that Pomeroy wanted to know.
"No," Cole said. "He didn't show himself again."
"I meant what I said. You've got to settle his hash."
"I will," Cole said, although the words sounded doubtful to his own ears. Something about that Chinese sniper had rattled him. He decided to change the subject.
Leaning in to take a closer look at Pomeroy's heavily bandaged face, he concluded, "I've got to say, that's a face that could drive rats from a barn."
Pomeroy groaned. "Spare me the hillbillyisms."
"Ain't nothin' hillbilly about that. It's the simple truth."
"Yeah, well, I won't be here long for you to make fun of. Doc says they're gonna fly me out to Seoul, or maybe even to Tokyo."
"You done that before," Cole said, thinking of Pomeroy's serious case of frostbite after the Chosin Reservoir. During that campaign, Pomeroy had also been hit by shrapnel, receiving a flesh wound in the side. He was starting to think that maybe Pomeroy had nine lives. "Them doctors fixed you right up last time, and they will again."
"I won't be coming back this time, Cole. They wanted to send me home after the frostbite, but I talked my way out of it. I thought that I could still do some good. This time, I'm going home."
"I reckon you deserve it."
"I'd tell you to look me up sometime when you get back to the states, but I think that you'd just scare my wife and kid."