“Captain, Captain, what do we do?” somebody yelled.
Alex only had two heavy automatic weapons, the M-60 from the van and the H&K-21, but he knew he had to break the assault’s spine in the very first second or fall victim to a messy perimeter fight that would sap the energy of his men.
He’d therefore placed the two guns together in the center of his line, thereby, of course, violating all infantry doctrine, because a single grenade or even a well-placed burst of fire could destroy them both. He’d also directed that several two-hundred-round belts be ripped from their canisters and linked, so that they could fire continually without reloading for one full minute. This meant the barrels overheated dangerously; thus, stationed next to each barrel there crouched a trooper with — an astonishing improvisation, come to think of it — a fire extinguisher from the ruins of the installation. As the guns fired, these men squirted cold carbon dioxide onto the barrels and works.
The guns fired for one minute, one solid minute of full automatic. It didn’t really matter, Alex believed, how accurate they were; what was important was the volume of fire and the impression of endless ammunition hurtling at the attackers. Still, they were very accurate.
“Bravo, this is Delta Six. This is Delta Six, do you copy? Bravo, what is your situation? We can hear heavy fire. What is your situation? Bravo, don’t let your men bunch up, keep them moving. Act aggressively, Bravo, you’ve got to act aggressively.” Puller gripped the phone. He was aware he was violating his own most precious principle, which was not to interfere with ground forces during maneuver, knowing from bitter experience at Desert One that a staff commander on the radio merely screwed things up. But the sound of the fire from the mountain was heavy and terrifying.
“I think you’re talking to a dead man, Colonel,” said Skazy.
Down at the girl scout camp they could hear the gunfire rising from the mountain for a long minute. Then it stopped, and there was silence. Then, now and then, the pop and crack of a single rifle, or a burst of automatic fire.
“Return their fire, goddammit,” Barnard yelled back, coming out of his shock. Anger, confusion, finally bitterness, began to gnaw at him. He groped around for his M-16, found it, and rolled over. Other shots were beginning to rise from his troops. At least we’re answering them, goddammit, he thought.
So where was the great Delta? Back on its ass down the mountain! All this shit about Delta in the magazines, and Delta sits on its ass while Bravo Company of the 123d Light Infantry, Maryland National Guard, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, gets ripped to ribbons.
Barnard got his black plastic rifle up against his shoulder. Squinting over the sights, he could see the gun flashes from Aggressor Force, yet he felt in no particular danger. Languidly, he began to fire, jerking off rounds one, two, three at a time. The rifle had very little kick. He fired a magazine, reloaded, fired another one. After a while it seemed a little stupid.
“Captain!”
Someone slid into the snow next to him. It was a Lieutenant Dill from the second platoon, a phys ed teacher at a Baltimore high school.
“Captain Barnard, I have a lot of hurt men, a lot of dying men. Jesus, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The captain just looked at him.
“God, sir, are you — you’re all covered with blood! Medic, get over here.”
“No, no,” said the captain. “I’m not hurt that bad. Look, if we just pull back they’ll chop us up. I’m going to slide over to where the machine gun should be and see if I can’t set up some covering fire, okay. You wait a minute or two; when I get the fire going, you get the men out of here. Don’t leave anybody behind, Lieutenant!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the men firing. If they’re not firing, they’re not helping.”
Barnard began to crawl through the snow. Now and then a bullet would come whipping in his direction. But he made it down the line and found his company’s machine gun, lying on its side half sunk in the snow, a loose belt nearby and a batch of dead shells lying around. He recognized his gunner, a steelworker; half his face was gone where a heavy-caliber bullet had punched through.
The captain wiggled forward through the snow, breathing hard. God, it was cold now. He seemed to have stopped bleeding, but he was so wet with the snow that he’d begun to go numb. Pulling the gun to him, he managed with his stiff, fat fingers to get the latch off the breech and get a belt unrolled, and set the lead cartridge into the guides. He slammed the latch shut and drew back the bolt.
“Movement?” Alex asked his gunners.
A bullet hit the logs before them, kicked up a cloud of smoke.
“On the left; there’s a group on the left.”
The gunner swung the H&K-21. Indeed, a wretched huddle of men appeared to be crawling forward. Or perhaps not crawling forward, but merely crawling anywhere, forward being the direction they’d settled on.
“Yes, there”—Alex pointed—“take them down, please.”
The gun fired a long burst and Alex watched as the tracers flicked out and seemed to sink toward the men. Where they struck they kicked up snow and the men disappeared in its swirl.
“Some in the center,” somebody said. “However, I think they’re retreating.”
“You have to fire anyway,” said Alex. “It will give the next assault team something to think about.”
The H&K-21 fired briefly; more tracers streamed down the mountain, found their targets.
“Rather horrible,” said one of the loaders.
“Not a good attack,” said Alex. “I don’t think these are elite troops I’d anticipated. I think they were amateurs. Casualties?”
“Sir, two men dead in the covering fire and three wounded.”
“Well,” said Alex. “They did do some damage then. And ammunition. We used a lot of ammunition in a very short time. That, too, I suppose, hurts us. But it cost them so much. I didn’t think it was their style, to die like that.”
The captain drew the gun to him. He couldn’t see much now, just barbed wire, some smoke, the aerial, the damned tent, and lots of high blue sky above.
He wished he weren’t so tired. On the slope before Aggressor Force’s position, he saw bodies. What, thirty-five, maybe forty? Jesus, they caught us in the open. They just let us get close and they blew us away.
He squinted over the gun barrel. Nope, nothing. Couldn’t hit a goddamn thing with a machine gun, even.
It occurred to him that he might see a little better if he stood up. He thought about it; yes, it made sense. He’d just — oof! — stand up, yes, and then he’d be able to see much better to shoot.
He stood. It worked! He could see them now, or their heads moving, clustered at the center of their line behind the barbed wire. He thought, boy, sure am glad I thought to stand. It seemed entirely logical. He’d worked it out. With his covering fire, most of his guys could get out of the kill zone. That’s why they made me a captain, he thought. ’Cause I’m so smart.
With that thought, he fired.
The gun bucked through twenty-round bursts. He fired at the center of the line. He could see the far-off puffs where the bursts struck. The gun was surprisingly easy to control, though a bit muzzle-heavy, with the bipod out there pulling it down. Trick was to keep the bursts short, then correct for muzzle drift. Firing it was actually quite a bit of fun. He could move the thing slightly and watch as the bullets stitched small disturbances into the earth. He felt the hot brass pouring out of the breech like the winnings at a slot machine. The gun began to steam; its barrel was melting snow packed in the cooling vents. He had no idea if he was hitting anything. He fired a belt that way in about thirty seconds.