Sniper Ridge

Chapter Seventeen

Cole's glance slid to the kid, who was still glassing the ridge. "How long do we wait?" the kid asked. "Are we gonna stay here all day when there's nothing going on?"

"Maybe you want to head back to camp and take a nap while this sniper picks off whoever he wants," Cole snapped, sharper than he had intended, but the kid had gotten into his craw.

"Seems like a waste of time, is all," the kid muttered. "What sniper?"

Cole couldn't blame the kid. Not everyone possessed a sniper's patience. They had been at this now for a couple of hours, long enough for most of the cloud cover to burn off, except for a stubborn gauze. They could feel the warmth of the sun on their backs as they hunkered down in the hole. The warmth didn't help the smell. In Cole's experience, there wasn't much that smelled good in Korea. This hole surely wasn't one of the good places, with its stink of sour urine and cold mud.

He ignored the smell, staying focused instead on the circle of magnified landscape visible through his rifle scope. The scope moved over the ridge opposite them, the mid-morning light giving the enemy no shadows to lurk in. He had already picked off a few enemy soldiers. They were wise to him now, though, and nothing was moving.

Maybe the kid was right. Maybe the enemy sniper wasn't showing up today.

Somewhere behind him, he heard voices. This wasn't anything unusual because they were surrounded by other soldiers up here on the line, keeping an eye on the enemy. However, there was something familiar about one of the voices.

"He's up there, sir."

"All right. I'll find him."

Aw, hell. It registered now who that voice belonged to. A minute later, he heard that voice right behind him.

"Cole, we're coming to you."

He glanced behind him to see Lieutenant Ballard on his belly, using his elbows to drag himself across the open ground. Another man came behind him, and Cole recognized the reporter from the Stars & Stripes. He was also crawling, but with a camera in one hand, trying to keep it out of the dirt. Cole hadn’t wanted the kid to leave the foxhole for fear that he would be a target, but if these two fools wanted to get shot, to hell with them.

The two men slithered forward into the hole. It had been crowded enough with just him and the kid. Now, they were packed together like sardines in a tin. Somebody accidentally jammed a knee into his back, throwing off his aim. He took his eye off the scope and glared balefully at Lieutenant Ballard.

The lieutenant didn't seem to notice, or maybe he didn't care. "Did you get that sniper yet?"

"Not yet, sir," Cole replied through gritted teeth.

"Well, keep trying. They're anxious about enemy snipers back at HQ. This one in particular. He shot six men yesterday. It's bad for moral. If you can't bag him, then you can go back to the mess tent and I'll find someone who will."

"Cole got a couple for us today to even the score," the kid said. "He just hasn't gotten that sniper yet, sir."

Ballard nodded. "Keep up the pressure, Cole. It's important. Anyhow, I brought Hardy along to write about a sniper in action and how I came up here to the front line to direct you."

"You are doin' a fine job of that, sir," Cole said.

"Maybe you need to try a different spot," Ballard said. "Maybe he's not here."

"Where the hell would he be? Back in Beijing?" Cole snapped. "Sir. I don't reckon we're that lucky. You just got to accept that he ain't never gonna do what you want him to."

"Dammit, Cole." Ballard looked at the reporter. "Don't put any of that last part in the newspaper, you hear?"

"Got it, sir," Hardy replied, who paused scribbling in his notepad.

"What are you doing out here, sir?" Cole wondered. "If you want to help me, you'll get the hell out of here."

"Don't tell me where I should be, goddammit," Ballard retorted. When Cole didn’t respond, he added, “Got it?”

“Have it your way, sir.”

An uneasy silence settled over the trench. Most men wouldn't have dared to talk to an officer that way, but Cole didn't give a damn. Ballard stewed over that for a minute.

To the reporter's credit, he wore an abashed look on his face, as if he might be aware that he and Ballard were just getting in the way.

"Go ahead and ask him some questions," Ballard said. "Then you can take our picture again."

"Sure thing, Lieutenant." The reporter flipped to a fresh page in his notebook, which he proceeded to drop in the mud. Cursing, he picked it up and flipped it open to yet another page. "OK, what are you looking for out there?"

Cole thought about telling him that he was looking for a place to shove that pencil and notebook, but he noticed Ballard waiting for an answer.

"Any bit of movement," Cole replied. "The best thing to do is kind of stare through the scope and not focus on anything. Just let your eye pass over it. Any little flicker, anything out of the ordinary, it catches your eye."

The reporter leaned closer, obviously interested. "Then what?"

"Then you stare hard at it. Try to see what caught your attention. Sooner or later, if it is anything, you'll know."

"Huh," the reporter said, scribbling down Cole's words. Cole found it to be a strange sensation that someone would bother to write down something that he said. The less he said in that case, the better. He clammed up, wishing that Ballard and the reporter would go away.

However, the reporter didn't seem to be through with him yet, although he seemed to sense Cole's reticence. "Just one more question," he said. "What's the number one rule of being a sniper?"

Cole couldn't help but grin. He snorted. "Don't get shot, or better yet, 'Shoot the other guy first.'"

The reporter jotted that down, but kept the pencil poised over his notebook, as if expecting more. Like maybe a real answer. "Anything else?" he prompted.

"Let me tell you something now. Write this down in your little book there. War is a lot of things. It ain't just fightin'. It's making your enemy cold and afraid, cutting off his supplies, making him keep his head down all the time, making him think that, you know what, maybe his whole way of life ain't the right one. Make him reconsider his choices. That's what I am doing here, one bullet at a time."

The reporter took a long time getting every word of that down. Meanwhile, Ballard was staring at Cole. "I thought you were just another dumb cracker," he muttered.

"I reckon most of us see what we want to see, sir," Cole said. "A smart man sees what is."

The lieutenant didn’t have an answer to that.

Having finished with his notebook, the reporter tucked it away and raised his camera instead. He took three or four photos of the three other men, posed in positions with the kid on the binoculars, Cole on the rifle, and Ballard touching Cole's shoulder and pointing.

"We're done here," the lieutenant announced. "I need to get Hardy out of here so he can send his film back and write that article."

"Yes, sir."

The lieutenant and the reporter scrambled back out of the hole, keeping low. Cole wasn't sorry to see them go.

But their going also revealed a truth that Cole still hadn't nailed that enemy sniper. All that he had done was talk about it, which made him feel cheap and hollow.

Why was it that talking about anything seemed to spoil it? Better to keep it to yourself.

Another hour passed. The sun climbed higher. Cole's scalp started to itch, so he took off his helmet. It was easier to get up close to the wall of the trench without it, anyway.

He had the kid waggle the helmet on a stick, but nothing doing. The other sniper didn’t take a shot.

The kid dug some rations out of his haversack and shared them with Cole. They washed it down with a few gulps from their canteens.

It had gotten so quiet on the front line that a soldier a hundred yards away made the mistake of raising his head out of his foxhole, thinking to take a better look at the Chinese on the opposite ridge. Seconds later, a bullet came in and killed him. The sound of the rifle shot followed, echoing across the ridges and valley.

Wherever the Chinese sniper had been, he was back now.

"The shot came from off to the left," the kid said, trying desperately to see anything over there.

Cole knew that he wouldn't see any sign of the sniper. The sniper would be well hidden, just as Cole was here. They would only catch a glimpse of him if they were very, very lucky.

Something that stood out was how far off that shot had been. The echo of the rifle shot had sounded different than how it had yesterday. Same sector, but a different spot. One thing for sure, the sniper was a long way off.

There was no point in trying the helmet on a stick trick again. He had not fallen for it yesterday. Then again, why not?

"Kid, here's what I want you to do." Cole nodded at his helmet. "Go ahead and put my helmet on a stick and raise it above the trench. Let's see what happens. Maybe he'll take the bait."

The kid did as he was told, and Cole waited, tense behind the rifle scope, hoping to catch a glimpse of a muzzle flash or some other tiny sign of where the sniper lay hidden. When the enemy fired, he couldn't miss it.

Nothing happened. The kid raised the helmet and waved it back and forth, like a flag in front of a bull. Still nothing.

"Never mind, kid. Put your helmet back on."

"Guess he's not interested," the kid said. He picked up the binoculars again. "Hold on. That wasn’t there before. Do you see that off to the left?"

"What?"

"It's a… I think it's a bottle."