When the trigger broke, the North Vietnamese captain lieutenant turned as if to look at Bob just once before he died. All the details were frozen for a second: he was a small man, even by NVA standards, with binoculars and a pistol. An instant ago, he had been full of life and zeal. When the bullet struck him, it sucked everything from him and he stood with grave solemnity, colorless, as all the hopes and dreams departed him. If he had a soul, this would be where it fled to whatever version of heaven sustained him. Then it was over: with the almost stiff dignity of formal ceremony, he toppled forward.
Bob threw his bolt fast, tossing out the spent sh.e.l.l, but never breaking his eye relief with the scope, a good trick it only took a lifetime to master. In the perfect circle of nine magnifications, he saw the men who were his targets looking at one another in utter confusion. There was no inscrutability in their expression: they were dumbfounded, because this was not supposed to happen, not in the rain, in the fog, in the perfect freedom of their attack, not after their long night march, their good discipline, their toughness, their belief. They had no immediate theory to explain it. No, this was not possible.
Bob pivoted the rifle just a bit, found a new target, and felt the jolt as the rifle fired. Two hundred yards out and two tenths of a second later, the 173-grain bullet arrived at 2,300 odd feet per second. The tables say that at that range and velocity, it will pack close to two thousand foot-pounds of energy, and it hit this man, a machine gun team leader standing near his now dead commanding officer, low in his stomach, literally turning him inside out. That was what such a big bullet did: it operated on him, opening his intimate biological secrets to those around him, not a killing shot, but one that would bleed him out in minutes.
Quickly Bob found another and within the time it takes to blink an eyelash, fired for the third time and set that one down, too.
The North Vietnamese did not panic, though they could not hope to pick out Bob in the fog, and the muzzle blast was diffused; they only knew he was on the right somewhere. Someone calmly issued orders; the men dropped and began to look for a target. A squad formed to flank off to the right and come around. It was standard operating procedure for a unit with much experience and professionalism.
But Bob slithered away quickly, and when he felt the fog overwhelm him, he stood and ran ahead, knowing he had but a few seconds to relocate. Would they take the casualties and continue to march? Would they send out flanking parties; would they take the time to set up mortars? What will they do? he wondered.
He ran one hundred yards fast, slipping three new cartridges into the breech as he jounced along, because he didn"t want to waste time loading when he had targets. That was shooting time, precious. He slipped down off the incline onto the valley floor and crouched as he moved through the elephant gra.s.s, an odd nowhere place sealed off by vapors. He came at last to the center of the track, and got a good visual without the gra.s.s: he was now three hundred yards away and saw only the dimmest of shapes in the fog. Sinking to a quick, rice-paddy squat, he put the gla.s.s to them, put the crosshairs on one, quartering them high to account for a little drop at that distance, and squeezed the trigger. Maybe he was shooting at a stump. But the blob fell, and when he quartered another, it fell too. He did that twice more, and then the blobs disappeared; they"d dropped into the gra.s.s or had withdrawn, he couldn"t tell.
Now what?
Now back.
The flankers will come, but slowly, thinking possibly they"re up against a larger force.
Not even bothering to crouch, he ran again, full force through the mist. Suddenly the NVA opened up and he dropped. But the sleet of firepower did not come his way and seemed more of a probing effort, a theoretical thing meant to hit him where, by calculation, he should be. He watched as tracers hunted him a good hundred yards back, liquid splashes of neon through the fog, so quick and gossamer they seemed like optical illusions. When they struck the earth, they ripped it up, a blizzard of splashy commotion. Then the firing stopped.
He dropped, squirmed ahead and came to a crook in a tree. Quickly he slipped four more rounds into the M40"s breech, throwing the last one home and locking the bolt downward with the sensation of a vault door closing.
The rifle came up to him, and he seemed to have lucked into a thinner spot in the veil of fog, where suddenly they were quite visible. An officer was talking on the radio phone as around him men fanned out. Bob killed the officer, killed two of the men. Then he got a good shot at a man with four RPGs on his back squirming for cover, put the crosshairs onto a warhead and fired once. Force multiplier: the quadruple detonation ripped a huge gout in the earth, possibly driving others back, possibly killing some of them.
He didn"t wait to count casualties, or even take a quick look at his results. He crawled again through the high elephant gra.s.s, the sweat pouring off him. He crawled for what seemed like the longest time. Tracer rounds floated aimlessly overhead, clipping the gra.s.s, making the odd whup whup sound a bullet fighting wind will make. Once, when the firing stopped, he thought he sensed men around him and froze, but nothing happened. When at last he found some trees so that he could go back to work, he discovered he was much farther back in the column. Before him, as the vapors drifted and seethed, were some men who seemed less soldiers than beasts of burden, so laden were they with their equipment. This was simple murder; he took no pleasure in it, but neither did he consider it deeply. Targets? Take them down, eliminate them, take them out. Numbly he did the necessary. sound a bullet fighting wind will make. Once, when the firing stopped, he thought he sensed men around him and froze, but nothing happened. When at last he found some trees so that he could go back to work, he discovered he was much farther back in the column. Before him, as the vapors drifted and seethed, were some men who seemed less soldiers than beasts of burden, so laden were they with their equipment. This was simple murder; he took no pleasure in it, but neither did he consider it deeply. Targets? Take them down, eliminate them, take them out. Numbly he did the necessary.
Huu Co, senior colonel, had a problem. It wasn"t the firepower; there wasn"t much firepower. It was the accuracy.
"When he shoots, brother Colonel," his officer told him, "he hits us. He is like a phantom. The men are losing their spirit."
Huu Co fumed silently, but he understood. In a frontal attack his men would stand and fight or charge into guns: that was battle. This was something else: the terrible fog, the mysterious bullets singing out of it with unerring accuracy, seeking officers and leaders, killing them, then ... silence.
"Maybe there are more than one," someone said.
"I believe there are at least ten," someone else said.
"No," said Huu Co. "There is only one and he has only one rifle. It is a bolt-action rifle, so therefore he is an American Marine, because their army no longer uses bolt actions. One can tell from the time between the rounds, the lack of double shots or bursts. You must be calm. He preys on your fear. That is how he works."
"He can see through the fog."
"No, he cannot see through the fog. He is in the hills to the right, clearly, and as he moves, he encounters disparities in the density of the mist. When it is thin, he can see to shoot. Get the men down into the gra.s.s; if they stand they will be killed."
"Brother Colonel, should we continue to march? How many can he kill? Our duty lies at the end of the valley, not here."
It was a legitimate point, raised by Commissar Tien Phuc Bo, the political officer. Indeed, under certain circ.u.mstances, duty demanded that officers and men simply accept a high rate of casualty in payment for the importance of the mission. Rule No. 1: Defend the Fatherland; fight and sacrifice myself for the People"s Revolution.
"But this is different," said Huu Co. "The fog makes it different, and his accuracy. Indiscriminate fire may be sustained as fair battle loss. The sniper presents a different proposition, both philosophically and tactically. If the individual soldier feels himself being targeted, that has disproportionate meaning to him and erodes his confidence. In the West they call it "paranoia," a very useful term, meaning overimaginative fear for the self. He will give himself up to a cause or a mission, in the abstract, but he will not give himself up to a man. It"s too personal, too intimate."
"Huu Co is right," argued his executive officer, Nhoung. "We may not simply accept losses as we travel, for the weight becomes immense and when we reach our goal, the men are too dispirited. What then have we accomplished?"
"As you decide," said Phuc Bo. "But you may be criticized later and it will sting for many, many years."
Huu Co accepted the rebuke; he had been criticized in a reeducation camp in 1963 for nine long months, and to be criticized, in the Vietnamese meaning of the term, was excruciating.
Bravely, he thrust ahead.
"A man like this can inflict a surprisingly high number of casualties, particularly upon officers and noncommissioned officers, the heart of the Army. Without leadership, the men are lost. He can attrit our officer staff if we do not deal with him now and immediately. I want Second Platoon on the right, supported by a machine gun team on each end for suppressive fire. They are to maneuver on a sweeping movement, while the rest of the unit holds up in the high gra.s.s. I want radio contact with Company Number Two sappers, and recall them and a.s.sign them in the blocking role. They must move quickly. Latest reports say the weather will not break. We have some time and I prefer by far to maintain unit integrity than to push on at this time. We will take him in good time. Patience in all things; that is our way. Communicate with your leaders and the fighters. Now is not the time for rash action; this is a test of discipline and spirit."
"That is understood, sir."
"Then let"s do our duties, brothers. I antic.i.p.ate success within the hour and I know you will not let me down."
Donny lay in the high gra.s.s, working the spotting scope. But the range was too far, a good four hundred meters, and in the valley he just saw the drifting mist, and heard the gunfire.
He took his right eye away from the scope and looked out with both of them. Again, nothing. The shooting rose and fell, rose and fell, punctuated now and then by two or three heavy rifle cracks, Bob"s shots. At one point some kind of multiple blast came. Had Bob fired a Claymore? He didn"t know but he didn"t think the sniper would have time, as he"d been moving this way and that through the hills.
He was well situated, half buried in a clump of vegetation, halfway up a hill, a little above the fog. He could see far to the right and far to the left, but he didn"t think anybody could get the drop on him. He had a good compa.s.s heading to the Special Forces camp at Kham Duc and knew if he had to he could make it in two or three hard hours. He drank a little water from his one remaining canteen. He was all right. All he had to do was sit there, wait for air, direct the air, then get the h.e.l.l out of there. If no air came, then he was to move under cover of nightfall. He was not to go into the valley.
He thought of a familiar remark scrawled in Magic Marker on Marine helmets and flak jackets: "Yea, though I walk in the Valley of Death, I shall fear no harm, because I am the meanest motherf.u.c.ker in the valley!" Bravado, sheer, thumping bravado, chanted like an incantation, to keep the Reaper away.
I"m not going into the Valley of Death, he thought. Those aren"t my orders. I followed my orders, I did everything I was told, I was specifically ordered not to go into the Valley of Death.
He accepted that as both a moral and a tactical proposition as ordered by a senior staff NCO. No man could challenge that, nor would one want to or try to.
I am fine, he told himself. I am short, I am fine, I am three and days till DEROS. I have my whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned life in front of me and no man can say I shirked or ducked or dodged. No one can ever wonder if my beliefs were founded on moral logic or my own cowardice. I have to prove nothing.
Then why do I feel so s.h.i.tty?
It was true. He felt truly sick, angry at himself, almost to the point of revulsion. Down there Swagger was probably giving away his life and Donny had somehow missed the show. Everybody cared about him him. Trig, too, had cared about him him. What was so special about him that he had to survive? He had no writer"s gift, he was not conversational or charismatic-no one could listen to him, he could be no witness.
Why me?
What"s so special about my a.s.s?
He heard them before he saw them. It was the thup-thup-thup thup-thup-thup of men running, coming at the oblique. He didn"t jerk or move quickly and in an instant was glad he hadn"t, for sudden moves like that get you spotted. of men running, coming at the oblique. He didn"t jerk or move quickly and in an instant was glad he hadn"t, for sudden moves like that get you spotted.
They pa.s.sed about twenty-five meters ahead of him, in single file, fastmovers, stripped of helmets and packs and canteens, racing toward duty and combat. It was the twelve-man flanking patrol, recalled by radio to move on the sniper from behind.
He could see how it would work. They"d form a line and flankers would drive Bob into them, or they"d come upon him from the rear. In either event, Bob was finished.
If Donny"d had the grease gun he might have gotten all twelve in a single burst. But probably not; that was very tricky shooting. If he had a Claymore set up, he might have gotten them too. But he didn"t. He had nothing but his M14.
He watched them go and they pounded along with grace, economy and authority. They disappeared into the fog.
I have my orders, he thought.
My job is the air, he thought.
Then he thought, f.u.c.k it!, and got up to take them from behind.
They came as he thought they would, good, trained men, willing to take casualties, a platoon strength unit fanning through the high gra.s.s. Bob could make them out in the mist, dark shapes filing through the weaving fronds; he thought of a deer he"d once seen in a foggy cornfield back in Arkansas, and Old Sam Vincent, who"d tried to be a father to him after his own had pa.s.sed, telling him to fight the buck fever, to be calm, to be cool.
He heard Sam now.
"Be cool, boy. Don"t rush it. You rush it, it"s over and you can"t never get it back."
And so he was calm, he was death, he was the kind hunter who shot for clean kills and no blood trails, who was a part of nature himself.
But he wasn"t.
He was war, at its cruelest.
He had never had this feeling before. It scared him, but it excited him also.
I am war, he thought. I take them all. I make their mothers cry. I have no mercy. I am war.
It was an odd thought, just fluttering through a mind far gone into battle intensity, but it could not be denied.
The platoon leader will be to the left, not in the lead, he"ll be talking to his men, holding them together.
He hunted for a talking man and when he found him, he shot him through the mouth and ceased his talking forever.
I am war, he thought.
He shifted quickly to the man who"d run to the fallen officer and almost took him, but instead held a second, and waited for another to join him, grab him, take command, and turn himself to issue orders. Senior NCO.
I am war.
He took the NCO.
The men looked at each other, dead targets in his eyes, and in a moment of utter panic did exactly the right thing.
They charged at him.
He couldn"t possibly take them all or even half of them; he couldn"t escape or evade. There was only one thing to do.
He stood, war-crazed, face green-black with paint, eyes bulged in rage, and screamed, "Come on you f.u.c.kers, I want to fight some more! Come on and fight me!" "Come on you f.u.c.kers, I want to fight some more! Come on and fight me!"
They saw him standing atop the rise, and almost en ma.s.se pivoted toward him. They froze, confronting him, a mad scarecrow with a dangerous rifle atop a hill of gra.s.s, unafraid of them. For some insane reason, they did not think to fire.
The moment lingered, all craziness loose in the air, a moment of exquisite insanity.
Then they ran at him.
He dropped and slithered the one way they would not expect.
Right at them.
He slithered ahead desperately, snaking through the gra.s.s, until they began to fire.
They paused a few feet from him, fired their weapons from the hip as if in some terrified human ceremony aimed at slaying the devil. The rounds scorched out, ripping the stalks above his head to land somewhere behind. It was a ritual of destruction. They fired and fired, reloading new mags, sending their bullets out to kill him, literally obliterating the crest of the hill.
He crawled ahead, until he could see feet and spent bra.s.s landing in heaps.
The firing stopped.
He heard in Vietnamese the shouts: "Brothers, the American is dead. Go find his body, comrades."
"You go find his body." go find his body."
"He is dead, I tell you. No man could live through that. If he were alive, he would be firing at us even now."
"Fine, go and cut his head off and bring it to us."
"Father Ho wants me to stay here. Somebody must direct."
"I"ll stay, brother. Allow me to give you the privilege of examining the body."
"You fools, we"ll all go. Reload, make ready, shoot at anything that moves. Kill the American demon."
"Kill the demon, my brothers!"
He watched as the feet began to move toward him.
Get small, he told himself. Be very, very small! Be very, very small!
He went into a fetal position, willing himself into a stillness so total it was almost a replication of genuine animal death. It was a gift he had, the hunter"s gift, to make his body of the earth, not upon it. He worried only about the smell of his sweat, rich with American fats, that could alert the wisest of them.
Feet came so close.
He saw canvas boots, and a pair of shower clogs.
They won this f.u.c.king war in shower clogs!
The two pairs of feet sloughed through the gra.s.s, each vivid in the perfection of its detail. The man in shower clogs clogs had small, dirty, tough feet. The clogs were probably just an afterthought; he could fight barefoot in snow or on gravel. The other"s boots were holey, torn, taped together, a hobo"s comic footwear, something Red Skelton"s Clem Kadiddlehopper might wear. But then the boots marched on, pa.s.sing by, and Bob scooted ahead, slithering through the gra.s.s until he came to a fold in the earth. He rose, checked around, and saw nothing in the mist, and then raced off to the right, down the fold, toward the column, which had probably resumed its movement toward Arizona. had small, dirty, tough feet. The clogs were probably just an afterthought; he could fight barefoot in snow or on gravel. The other"s boots were holey, torn, taped together, a hobo"s comic footwear, something Red Skelton"s Clem Kadiddlehopper might wear. But then the boots marched on, pa.s.sing by, and Bob scooted ahead, slithering through the gra.s.s until he came to a fold in the earth. He rose, checked around, and saw nothing in the mist, and then raced off to the right, down the fold, toward the column, which had probably resumed its movement toward Arizona.
Then he crashed into the soldier.
NVA.
The two looked at each other for one stupid moment, Bob and this obvious straggler, the idiot who"d wandered away. The man"s mouth opened as if to scream even as he fumbled to bring his AK to bear, but Bob launched at him in an animal spring of pure evil brutality, smashing him in the mouth with his skull, and driving downward on him, pinning the a.s.sault rifle to his chest under his own dense weight. He got his left hand about the man"s throat, crushing it, applying the full pinning weight of his body while at the same time reaching for his Randall knife.
The man squirmed and bucked spastically, his own hands beating at Bob"s neck and head. Then one hand dipped, also for a knife, presumably, but Bob rolled slightly to the left and drew his knee up and drove it into the man"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es with all the force he could muster. He heard the intake of breath as the concussion folded his enemy.
Then he had the knife, and no impulse halted him. He drove it forward into the belly, turned it sideways so the cutting edge sliced into entrails, and drew it to the left. The man spasmed, fighting the pain, his hand flying to Bob"s wrist, gagging sounds leaking from a constricted throat. Bob yanked the knife out and stabbed upward, feeling the blade sink into throat. He fought for leverage over the dying soldier, got himself upright and astride the heaving chest and drove the blade two or three more times into the torso, the man arching with each stroke.
He sat back. He looked about, saw the Remington a few feet away. He wiped the Randall blade on his camouflaged trousers, and slipped it back into the upside-down sheath on his chest. He checked quickly: two pistols, a canteen. He picked up the Remington but had no time to look for his hat, which had fallen off in the struggle. A lick of salty blood ran down from the point on his crown where he"d head-b.u.t.ted the North Vietnamese, and it arrived at the corner of his mouth, shocking him. He turned, looked at the man.