Arc Light (62 page)

Monk looked around and found two dry sticks. Exposed as he knelt in his hole, he jammed one stick into the dirt in front of his pack to the right, and another to the left as the familiar
z-z-z-zings
split the air all around him. Relieved to lie back down in the relative safety of his shallow hole, he leveled the SAW so that it would “graze” along parallel with the ground; he lined the barrel up with the rightmost stick, pointing blindly into the smoke.

Cra-a-a-a-a-ack
erupted with a stream of five bullets, fired in one third of a second. His rifle beat into his sore shoulder. He moved the rifle slightly to the left and again squeezed the trigger.

Out of a thin spot of smoke to Monk's left he saw the back of a Russian creeping up toward the line. He was beyond Monk's left stick so he kept to his pattern of fire, now slewing back to the right. As the man rose up to toss a grenade, he froze on his knees, his legs preventing him from tumbling backward after being shot through with rifle fire. The grenade that he had raised to toss went off behind him, illuminating his human form in profile before shredding it to pieces in the storm of fire that engulfed his body.

Monk caught sight of an object bounding along the ground toward
him at the very last second, bouncing straight toward his hole and smoking.

He threw his head down.
W-H-A-A-A-N-N-N-G!

He tumbled over and over and over through pain that gripped his head in a vise. When the spinning didn't stop, Monk tried to decide whether he was lying on his stomach, back or side.
Lying,
he realized,
on my back—no, no, my stomach.
The pain that Monk felt now, from his ears across his forehead and at his eyes, made his earlier headache seem trifling in comparison. He had no idea how long he had lain there but all was silent, the fighting over. He tried to lift his head to look around despite the intense wave of pain the movement caused, but a rush of nausea caused him to retch immediately in great heaves right where he lay. As the heaves became dry and less forceful, he lay still in utter exhaustion.

I gotta open my eyes,
Monk thought as he braced himself. Lying still, he forced his eyes open and saw Mouth, spent shells flying out of the ejector of his M-16 at a frantic pace. Behind him, Gunny was pulling grenade after grenade from the platoon's resupply pouch and throwing them football-style. They were close. They were coming to kill him!

Monk mustered all his strength and looked up. He could see figures running through the thinning smoke toward him.

The mouths of the grimacing Russian soldiers were wide with shouts as they charged, bright orange flames blazing from guns fired from their hips. The clatter of noise from the raging battle was overwhelmed, however, by the whooshing throb of his pulse in his ears, pounding his head with pain. Monk winced and closed his eyes as another stab of pain pierced his ears like ice picks. With each jab of pain, however, the volume of the fighting worked its way through.

Monk reached for his M-16, surprised to find it was a SAW, and pulled it up onto the pack. Pain shot into his shoulder as he seated it against his skin.
We're being overrun!
he realized when all at once he saw the huge number of men rushing at them. Monk felt the jarring blow of a grenade from behind and between Mouth and him, the jets of fire and sprays of dark earth mere feet away as he took aim. Debris showered down onto him.

Monk fired point-blank at the nearest Russians, squeezing his finger full back and holding it, knocking down first one, then two, then three Russians as easily as he knocked down the two flimsy sticks on either side of his weapon's barrel. He sprayed back and forth and back again. Fifteen, ten meters in front they fell in swaths as his SAW pummeled the hollow of his shoulder, the pain there an incessant sickly-sweet itch.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Monk watched their faces
explode in pink mist and chests spurt fountains of frothy orange blood. He watched the thudding impact of his bullets stand stooped men straight up or send helmets strapped securely to men's chins off heads creased with deep red gashes.

He ran out of ammo and dropped down to release the empty box quickly, his breath coming in pants and his larynx emitting random sounds through his clenched teeth as he feverishly worked to slap another magazine heavy with bullets into its place, counting down the strides that separated the approaching Russians from his hole. Searing pain shot through his hand as he grasped the barrel of the burning-hot gun.

Half rolling back onto his stomach to fire, all he saw was a running man. He jerked himself up to the sitting position, bringing the weapon up with him. The Russian's assault rifle was leveled at his chest but he didn't fire as he fumbled with a new magazine on the dead run. His stubby black bayonet was at Monk's eye level, five, four, three strides away.

Monk pulled the trigger back for one brief jerk, “stitching” the man, as they taught, from crotch to head. Before his face exploded in a puff of red, Monk caught a glimpse not of pain or terror, but of astonishment. The force of the four rounds had stopped him dead in full stride.

A sudden blow, like a sledgehammer to his side, knocked the breath out of Monk, and he fell onto his pack and then slid his body down behind it.

Monk felt another set of heavy thuds through the earth, and his ears popped like on an airplane, instantly admitting the roar of battle all around. He looked up into the trees above him and tried desperately to draw air into his lungs. Movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to twist around and see Mouth, digging his heels into the dirt and pushing himself away from his hole on his back as he fired his rifle in bursts between his knees, indescribable terror writ over his face.

Without thinking and in searing pain from his ribs Monk rolled over onto his knees again and raised the SAW, the trigger pulled full back. The hot breath of a rifle fired on full auto brushed by his cheek as he killed its owner, who fell draped over the top of Monk's pack. He went on spraying bullets in all directions into the mass of attacking Russians. In front he saw two men—Monk squeezed and they died. Over to the right, straight down the line—squeeze and die. “You basta-a-ards!” Monk yelled.

“Sappers in! Sappers in!”
Gunny yelled distantly over the hum in his ears. Monk didn't heed the call to get down, the call that signaled all friendlies to hug the earth and fire all around at anything
above ground level. Monk was killing from his knees; his gun was rocking.

He laid waste until another 200 rounds were gone, and he dropped to load a magazine into the SAW, which stank from the smoke rising from its barrel. The woods ahead exploded with grenades. Still the Russians came.

His breathing was labored and painful now as he grew dizzy. He raised the weapon to his right hip and sprayed. Through the painful chimes sounding in his ears Monk heard the distinct string of cracks from the SAW that sounded in time with the vibrations he felt in his hands and at his side. Monk screamed from the pain of the left side of his chest, the sound inhuman, like the cry of some animal, but lost in the noise and confusion of the killing.

A man rose, running slowly forward with a limp and firing his rifle from his hip.
Splat!
Monk's mind added as his burst swung across the man's midsection and he split apart, spilling the contents of his abdomen as his legs continued to carry him forward.

Pull! Pull! Pull!
Monk yelled in his head and each time the weapon bucked, each time men fell dead. Monk's helmet slammed down on his nose, pain and a white splash of light shooting across his face. Reaching up to raise the brim of his helmet, Monk felt a trickle of blood onto his upper lip.

“You can't kill
me-e-e-e!”
Monk thought or yelled as he sprayed one long burst from his SAW.

They kept coming.
Gonna kill 'em all!
Monk barely noticed the pain of his jaw's firm clench.
One on the right—squeeze—dead! To the left—rifle jammed—bang! Hah!
“You bastard, you're
dead!” Straight ahead! Come on, you fucking—Z-Z-Z-I-P! Hah!
“Meat!”

Monk raised the SAW to his shoulder to blast the Russians who crawled away. With each pull of the trigger he yelled it. “I got the rhythm!” he said to himself or out loud. “The killin' rhythm—
MOTHER-FUCK-ERS
!” Squeeze the trigger—drop—
“dead!”
Monk shouted over and over again. When nobody crawled, Monk's rage built rapidly from lack of release.
Where are you, you bastards! Come on! Come an' get it!
His fury blinding now, he rose to his feet and fired at the squirmers. When nobody squirmed, he fired into the green shapes of the dead. It did no good. He got no release. His breath came in shallow pants, and he hated everything. His head jerked, but he could find nothing in the thinning smoke, nothing to kill. Grinding his bared teeth so hard that the pain shot through his face, he jammed his eyes shut and yelled, holding the trigger down and spraying the smoky woods from right to left until the gun ceased bucking.

Monk felt a hand jerk him around and a foot placed behind his
trip him to the ground, pain again shooting through the ribs on the left side of his chest.
“Cease fire!”
Gunny yelled as he knelt and shook Monk by his webbing. “It's over! It's over, Goddammit!”

His nostrils filled with the smell of burned gunpowder and he could hear now the crackle rising from the length of his SAW's white-hot barrel. He slackened the pull on his cramping trigger finger, which was jammed full back on the empty weapon.

“Hm! Hm! Hm!” came the mewls from Monk's chest as he fought back the tears that welled up in his eyes. Gunny moved on, checking the other men.

Monk gazed down the smoky line of marines. Mouth lay with his face almost flat in the dirt, mouth open and eyes jammed shut, crying. Marines rose slowly from their fighting holes exhausted, not from the physical strain of the battle but from the mental, the emotional. As after every such firefight, tears streaked down grimy faces in dirty streams as men sat on the edge of their holes in a daze. Monk's attention was drawn again to the floor of the woods around and in front of their line. There were bodies everywhere, as far as the eye could see through the light haze that remained. Above the brush Monk could see elbows and shoulders and heads marking the fallen. The air was still thick with the acrid smell of smoke from the guns. By tomorrow it would be thick with a different odor.

Chandler and Barnes walked down the rows of M-1A1 main battle tanks parked barrel to barrel under camouflage netting.

“Who ordered these tanks parked so close together?” Chandler asked.

“Cap'n Loomis, Sir,” Barnes replied, referring to the battalion's executive officer, second in command. “The men are working in teams instead of by tank crew. One team'll brush the barrels. Another'll lube the road wheels. We gotta take the tracks clean off 'cause they been in storage—ain't been lubed in a while. Wouldn't git ten clicks.”

“Yeah, well, I'm just worried about the placement,” Chandler said looking up into the hazy summer sky through the small holes in the netting.

“It goes quicker this way, but you're right, sir, it's a risk.” Barnes stopped. “Here she is.”

Chandler looked at the hulking dark green vehicle. Squat—the turret barely as high as the top of his helmet—the huge, low-slung tank spread wider and longer than the old M-60, its predecessor with which he was familiar from a decade before. Chandler felt Barnes's eyes on him.

“Get these tanks spread out, Master Sergeant. Stagger 'em, at least thirty meters separation. Individual netting for each tank.”

“Yes, sir,” Barnes replied, leaving Chandler alone.

Chandler walked up to the vehicle, rubbing his hand down the finely grained armor—the ceramic-metallic honeycomb so different from the smooth metal of the older models. He found a step loop by the front fender and climbed up onto the deck, grabbing onto the thick barrel of the 120-mm main gun. He would have to remember
not to do that after firing: even one shot would heat the barrel so hot that his hand would fry to the bone.