Sniper Ridge

Chapter One

Caje Cole heard a distant rifle shot and thought, trouble.

The thing about trouble was that it always seemed to find him. He couldn't avoid it. Here in Korea, trouble was about as hard to lose as his shadow.

Cole froze, listening for more gunfire, cocking his head toward the faint echo. His gray eyes were so clear that they looked out at the world with the ghostly gaze of Civil War soldiers in old photographs. His eyes also glittered with something like excitement now. He sniffed at the air. Deep down inside him, some part of Cole actually welcomed the trouble to come.

"Spread out," he warned the others. He was with a squad of a dozen soldiers. They were all good men, and he knew that he could trust them not to get each other killed out of sheer stupidity. However, exhaustion from humping up the steep hill had dulled their edge.

"C'mon, that's a long ways off," someone grumbled.

"If you can hear them shooting, then it ain't far enough," Cole snapped. He didn't bother to explain that the same rules applied to both gunshots and thunder. If you were close enough to hear either one, then you were close enough to be struck by a chunk of lead or a million volts of electricity — both of which had about the same result.

Cole was nominally in charge of this squad, which had been sent out to reconnoiter the hills beyond the U.S. and U.N. position near Triangle Hill. One thing about their platoon leader, Lieutenant Ballard, was that he was big on reconnoitering. Cole supposed they were lucky that the lieutenant hadn't decided to lead the squad himself. If that had happened, there was a good chance that none of them would have been coming back. The lieutenant probably had more pressing business, anyhow, like having to shine his butter bars.

Reconnoiter. That there was a fifty-cent word if he'd ever heard one.

Cole muttered, "Dang officers."

"What are you going on about?" the soldier to his left wanted to know. It was Pomeroy, another WWII veteran who'd had the bad luck, along with Cole, to find himself caught up in this Korean mess. Whereas Cole was lean and knotty like a locust fence post, Pomeroy was chunky with weight he'd put on after the last war and hadn't managed to lose in this one. Considering the lousy food and the constant exercise, that was something of an accomplishment. Pomeroy was breathing hard from the climb up the steep trail. Cole got a whiff of Pomeroy's fresh sweat and wished he hadn't. To be fair, didn’t none of them smell too good. He took a couple of quick steps to stay upwind.

Pomeroy was also a veteran of the disaster that had been the retreat through the frozen landscape surrounding the Chosin Reservoir. Pomeroy had lost a couple of toes to frostbite for his trouble, but like an idiot, he had gotten himself sent back to Korea, when he should have been on his way back to the States. Cole shook his head, just thinking about that.

Off to his right walked Tommy Wilson, who had also been at the "Frozen Chosin" but who had managed to keep all of his toes, if not his innocence. Baby-faced and boyish, the kid looked a lot younger than he was. Cole recalled how he had seen this kid scream like a banshee as he plunged his bayonet into the belly of an enemy soldier. Still a teenager, the kid was definitely growing up fast here in Korea.

As much as he did, in fact, enjoy the company of Pomeroy and the kid, Cole would have preferred to be alone. But in the United States Army, there was no such thing, even when reconnoitering.

They moved higher onto the hill, onto open ground that was too rocky to grow much more than brambles and scrub trees. Scald was the word for this kind of barren landscape back home in the mountains.

Cole cast a nervous glance at the sky. The Corsair pilots tended to drop bombs and napalm — flaming jellied gasoline — on anything that moved in these mountains. From the air, it would be hard to tell them apart from a Chinese or North Korean patrol. So far, the drab sky appeared empty.

"What are you thinking?" Pomeroy asked quietly, which for him, sounded nearly like a shout. Pomeroy was a regular bull in a china shop most days. He was also going deaf from being too close to things that went bang. But the landscape and stillness at the top of the hill compelled them all to silence, as if they were in a church. Even the birds had fallen quiet.

"The lieutenant told us to take a look-see, so I reckon that's what we'll do."

"We could go back and tell him that we didn't see nothin'," Pomeroy said. He hawked and spat something thick and phlegmy into the dirt. "Wouldn't be a lie."

"Let's see if we can figure out who is doing that shooting."

"Screw the lieutenant," Pomeroy said. "Let's head back. We're pushing our luck as it is. You know as well as I do that if we run into anything bigger than a dishwashing detail, we're toast out here on our own."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist just yet."

"It's gonna be dark in a couple of hours," Pomeroy persisted.

Cole looked around at the squad. He could see from their faces that they were probably thinking much the same thing as Pomeroy. They’d be glad to return to the relative safety of the American lines. He saw faces pale with tiredness under the grime and stubble. "Let me just go on up here and take a look. Then we'll head back. Kid, you come with me."

Cole started forward, moving toward a higher point in the scree, from where he hoped to get a view of the next valley below. If he didn't see anything, they would turn around and head back. Even Cole didn't want to be caught out here after dark.

Not for the first time, Cole considered what a strange war this was in Korea. He almost missed World War II, just thinking about the difference. In Europe, the objective had been rather simple: land on the beach and push across Europe, all the way to Berlin. With a few exceptions, such as the Battle of the Bulge in the snowy Ardennes Forest, the American and Allied troops had mostly pushed forward as the Germans steadily retreated. Of course, the Germans had not given up easily… in June 1944 in particular, it had seemed as if each acre of ground was hard won and soaked in blood.

Here in Korea, the war was more like some deadly football game. Both sides pressed back and forth, sometimes taking ground and sometimes losing it. Instead of yardage, they mostly fought over possession of these godforsaken hills and valleys. It was hard for an average soldier to define the objective, whereas in the last war, everyone in uniform knew that the goal was to march into Berlin or Tokyo.

Reaching the high point, Cole could see for miles. But it wasn't the distant mountains that caught his attention. In the valley below him, he could see a good-sized Chinese patrol about to attack a much smaller American squad. Like Cole's own group, they had likely been sent out to reconnoiter, but had gotten more than they bargained for.

That explained the rifle shot that they had heard earlier. Now, there were more and more shots. The distinctive cracks of rifle fire carried clearly on the clear air.

He and the kid had both crawled out onto the flat slab of rock, keeping as low as possible. No point in becoming a target for any pilots or sharp-eyed enemy soldiers. There were more than the soldiers in the valley to worry about. It was likely that a few pieces of Chinese artillery were hidden in the hills. Those big gunners had itchy trigger fingers.

"Look at that," said the kid, practically into Cole's ear. "It's like we have the bleacher seats at a football game… one that's a long ways off."

"Ain't no game," said Cole, who had never sat in the bleachers or been to more than a pick-up football game — neither of those things existed back home in Gashey's Creek. "Our boys are about to get wiped out."

"Can't we do anything?" the kid asked. "We can go down there and help them out."

Cole shook his head. "Look at this ground. Steep and rocky. It would take us too long to get down there. Even then, there are an awful lot of the enemy and not enough of us."

"We've got to do something," the kid said urgently as the rate of fire increased below. Already, a couple of the Americans were down. Someone ran out and started dragging them toward cover.

Cole grunted, considering their options. "They're about a quarter of a mile away."

The kid was quiet a moment, then said, "That's about four football fields."

"Yeah? I call it half a second."

"Huh?"

"That's about how long it will take my bullet to get there. If whatever I'm aimin' at moves before then, there's a good chance that I'll miss."

The kid was staring at him. "Nobody can shoot that far, can they?"

"We'll see," said Cole, who wasn't one for bragging.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Take those binoculars and call me any targets you see. Once I get on scope, it's a right narrow field of view. And keep your eyes peeled. Pomeroy and the others are right behind us, so they've got our back, but for all we know this hillside could be crawlin' with the enemy."

He made a few adjustments to the telescopic sight on his Springfield rifle. He had picked it up at the end of the bitter Chosin Reservoir retreat and held onto it ever since. So far, Lieutenant Ballard hadn't taken it away from him, although that remained to be seen. The Springfield was essentially the same rifle that Cole had used in the last war. He knew it well, just the way a man might know every curve on the body of an old lover.

He put the rifle across a rock that he had padded with a rag. It made a damn near perfect bench rest, solid as the hill itself. Cole got comfortable behind it, spreading out his feet, locking his elbows into the ground, pressing his belly into the rock.

He fit the stock into the pocket created by his shoulder, then welded his cheek to the stock. Instantly, he smelled gun oil, gunpowder, and finely machined steel — three of the best smells on earth, in Cole's humble opinion. He put his gray eye to the scope until the scene in the valley below sprang closer. He shut out everything else.

As Cole's breathing slower, nearly stopped, he touched the pad of his right index finger to the trigger.

"Kid?" he exhaled.

"Machine gunners are setting up," he said. "Once they open fire—"

"Where?"

The kid told him and Cole found the target, a crew of two men getting a Degtyaryov light machine gun set up on its tripod. The Degtyaryov was a cruel bastard, cheaply made by the Soviets, with a circular magazine, jammed full of rounds, that sat atop the barrel. That weapon alone would literally cut the American defenders to pieces. The enemy soldiers were setting up behind a rock that gave them plenty of cover. Cole could barely see their heads and shoulders. Wasn't much of a target.

The kid was watching through the binoculars. "Nobody can hit that," he said. "Maybe if we head down there and get closer—"

Cole's crosshairs touched the helmet of the soldier on the right, the sight picture unwavering, thanks to the solid rock on which the rifle rested. His finger took up the last fraction of tension on the trigger.

The rifle fired.

At Cole's shoulder, the kid made a sound of surprise, eyes still glued to the binoculars. "You did it! I don't believe it."

Cole ran the bolt and loaded another round. Visible through the scope, the second machine gunner seemed to have frozen, surprised that his partner was now dead on the ground. He must have wondered where the shot had come from. Cole didn't let him wonder for long.

At this range, the round was still traveling at nearly 2000 feet per second and hitting with 1400 foot-pounds of energy — more than half a ton of whomp ass.

When another two men moved to man the machine gun, Cole shot them, too.

Cole pulled himself away from the rifle long enough to look back and see Pomeroy approaching with the rest of the squad. They took up positions on the ridge and began to pour fire down at the enemy troops. It was a long way for them to shoot and hit anything, but he reckoned that even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.

"That officer there," the kid whispered, as if the Chinese soldiers far below could hear him. Cole himself could barely hear the kid over the ringing in his ears. After all, each detonation of a .30–06 round smacked his eardrum like a thunderclap. He was developing a permanent ringing. "He's organizing things."

"Got him," Cole said.

He could see that the officer was trying to set up an attack on the outnumbered Americans down there. The Chinese favored swarm tactics, throwing everything they had at a section of the enemy line in hopes of overwhelming it — never mind how many soldiers they themselves lost in the process. One thing about the Chinese and North Koreans was that they never thought twice about getting their own men killed.

Still, the enemy tactics were just a bit more complex. At the same time that the swarm attack was happening, a smaller force typically tried to flank the defenders in the confusion and wreak havoc in the rear by attacking supply vehicles or even hospital tents. The little squad down below had neither, but that didn't mean some of the attackers wouldn't try to get in behind them.

Cole put his sights on the Chinese officer and fired. The man flung out his arms and died as dramatically as some two-bit actor in a war movie.

Barely pausing, Cole fired again and again. Now, instead of being pinned down, the squad below was on the attack, slamming into the now-disorganized Chinese ranks. The enemy began to scatter before the onslaught. Cole reloaded and fired, adding as much chaos as possible to the enemy's situation.

While the enemy troops below hadn't figured out the location of the sniper, someone else had. A couple of bright flashes appeared on the gloomy hillside in the distance, followed by the telltale whistle of artillery shells. The Chinese gunners hidden in the hills must have spotted Cole and his squad on the ridge.

"Cole!" the kid shouted. "Time to go!"

The kid started to get up, but Cole reached up and yanked him off his feet just as the first shell hit a tree no more than a hundred feet away. Whirling fragments of metal and jagged splinters of pine filled the air like a sudden squall of rain. The second shell hit the hillside and showered them all with rock and dirt.

"Go!" Cole shouted, leaping up and screaming at the squad. Miraculously, none of them had been hit. They didn't need to be told twice, but scrambled off the crest of the ridge. Two more shells hit, just short of where the men had been positioned only moments ago. Before the Chinese battery could fire again, the squad was on the other side of the ridge, out of sight.

"All in a day's work," said Pomeroy, who was limping after the sprint off the hilltop. Most of the time he hid it, but it was clear that his feet still hurt him. "Guess we showed them."

Cole thought about the officer he had seen die through the rifle scope. In the last war, at first, he had kept count of how many enemy soldiers he had killed. Then, he had stopped. Enemy or not, a man's soul was not a trophy to be tallied.

"Let's move out," he said, raising his voice so that the whole squad could hear. He had a surprisingly high-pitched, twangy voice. It was easy to imagine him suddenly breaking into a Rebel Yell. "Go on now! We best get back before dark. Keep your distance and keep your eyes open — there's no telling how many other Chinese squads might be out here. I hope to hell that we ain't gone and woke up the dragon."

Leading the way, rifle at the ready, he moved silently into the dense scrub trees and seemed to disappear into the gray underbrush.