Sniper Ridge

Chapter Twenty-One

Cole knew that he had to get his mind right if he was going to have a chance at getting this enemy sniper for once and for all, and that started with getting his rifle right.

It was time to return to the basics.

What nagged at him from yesterday's shooting match was that he should have hit the target. It wasn't like him to miss anything that he shot at. Well, not miss all that much, at any rate. He especially did not to miss three times in a row, like he had missed that bottle. His sights had been just where they should have been. He had not jerked the trigger or coughed at the last instant, sending the bullet astray.

What if it hadn't been him, but the rifle itself?

There was only one thing to do to find that out, which was to put the rifle through its paces.

Cole went out to the edges of the camp, out to where the plain opened up, away from the hills and ridges where the fighting was taking place. He had stopped by the mess area and procured a couple of empty bottles, not so different from the ones that he'd been shooting at unsuccessfully the day before. He set one of the bottles on a rock and walked back about a hundred yards and then put his rifle across another rock, his rolled-up jacket underneath the stock.

One thing about Korea, he thought, was that there wasn't any shortage of rocks.

He recalled that another soldier who'd had some geology classes had said that these were rocks were mostly something called Jurassic granite, formed into mountains millions of years ago by the collision of the Chinese landmass against the Korean peninsula. Something prophetic there, he reckoned.

Cole laid his hand on the boulder for a moment, trying to imagine the violent forces that had brought it here. It was kind of hard to wrap his head around the concept of millions of years, although it made his own struggles seem puny by comparison.

What had come before the rocks and mountains? Maybe just God himself?

Cole shook his head. I'm just a spark, he reminded himself. Just a muzzle flash. The thought was both humbling and reassuring.

Before his musings got too deep in the weeds, he got back to the business at hand. He studied the bottle, which was a lot closer than the one that he had shot at — and missed — just yesterday.

He put his eye to the scope and his target sprang much closer, considering that the scope was sited in for this distance. All that he should have to do was to put his crosshairs on the target and then watch as the bottle shattered.

Cole smirked. The idea of shooting was the simplest thing in the world. What's so hard about pointing and aiming, right? However, actually hitting what you were pointing at could turn out to be one of the hardest things in the world.

Slowly, he let his finger take up tension on the trigger until the rifle fired.

Through the scope, he was surprised to see that the bottle was still standing. This was like yesterday all over again. Curious now, he worked the bolt and put another shell into the chamber. He then lined up the crosshairs once again and squeezed off another round.

The bottle was still standing. There was a slope behind the bottle, and he had seen the bullet raise a puff of dust as it hit a little high and to the right.

He adjusted the scope, then he lined up the sights again right at the shoulder of the bottle.

Thanks to that ancient boulder that the rifle was resting upon, his aim was literally rock solid.

He squeezed the trigger.

This time, the bottle shattered into a hundred pieces as the bullet struck true.

Huh. At that moment, realization flooded through him and he felt foolish. It wasn't that his aim had been off or that he had flinched at the last minute, but that he had made a different kind of mistake.

Maybe the worst kind.

He had simply thought that the rifle was sighted in, when in reality the telescopic sight was a little off. The telescopic site was a wonder compared to iron sights and it enabled him to hit just about anything he could see. But only if it was properly sighted in.

The optical sight was finicky. It didn't take much jostling to throw the scope off, and that must've been what happened. It could have happened when he jumped down into the ditch. It could have happened when the rifle was jarred at some point when he didn't notice. Maybe even the contraction of going from cool autumn mornings to warm afternoon sun had moved something out of alignment.

How it had happened was less important than the simple truth that the sight hadn’t been lined up accurately.

He went down and put another bottle on the rock, then walked back to his old spot and fired off another round just to double check.

Once again, the bottle shattered.

Cole grinned, feeling an energetic warmth spread through him that he hadn't felt in a while.

The next step in Cole's plan gradually started to take shape about how he was going to bag this enemy sniper for once and for all.

Deep down inside him, the part of himself that he called the critter was waking up. He could feel that cold, killing part of him flexing its claws, gnashing its fangs, sniffing the air. The critter was hungry.

Next, he had to know where to do his hunting.

It was no secret that the Chinese constantly infiltrated the camp, usually at night. Small squads cut communications wires, set fires, even blew up trucks using hand grenades — and then melted back into the darkness.

For the American troops, these enemy raids were a constant source of uneasiness, not to mention frustration. The question was, how did the raiders manage to come and go unseen?

He'd overheard Ballard complaining again that very morning about how a group of Chinese raiders come behind enemy lines and caused trouble. They had lobbed a couple of grenades into trucks, turning them into burning hulks, and generally raised hell.

These incursions didn’t have much strategic value, but served as a reminder that small numbers of the enemy could come and go seemingly at will.

Cole wondered about that. How had those Chinese managed yet again to slip right through the American lines? Clearly, they weren't coming through the very center of the line across from Sniper Ridge. That way was too heavily defended, covered by machine guns and artillery, and troops.

Hell, a mouse could hardly get through the center of the line without catching a bullet. No, he thought, the entry point must be somewhere along the flanks. That was the only explanation for how the Chinese were getting through.

As someone who had been in places where no one wanted him to be, Cole had a theory or two about where the enemy was infiltrating. However, he wanted to hear what others had to say. He knew that the mess tents were the place to gather scuttlebutt.

Toting his rifle, Cole headed toward the mess tent. His career in the kitchen itself hadn't lasted long, thank goodness, but that didn't stop him from stopping by for a sandwich and a hot cup of coffee. Even when regular chow wasn't being served, there was always something to eat and hot coffee if you knew who to ask.

"It's good to see you with that rifle," the mess sergeant said. "I never could figure you for a guy who toted a spatula."

"I reckon someone's got to keep the Chinese from coming over here and stealing all the pancakes. You ain't gonna fight them off with a spatula."

The sergeant snorted. "Don't be so sure about that. We aren't totally defenseless. You shoulda seen our last batch of biscuits. Those things could have doubled as grenades."

Cole grinned. "Thanks for the coffee. Keep that spatula handy."

Hanging around the mess tent, Cole started asking around and struck up a conversation with some guys from a squad that had rotated back from protecting the flank.

"Did you all hear about the Chinese sneaking in here last night?" he asked. "They tore the place up."

"Yeah, we heard all about it," said a soldier, sucking deeply on a cigarette. "I'll bet they came through our section. We can hear them for sure, but we can't see them. It's darker than Mao’s asshole out there at night."

"Well, they can't see in the dark any better than we can," Cole pointed out. "How are they finding their way through our lines?"

"I can tell you one thing, buddy," the soldier said, warming to the conversation now that someone was interested in what he had to say. "We've passed this along, but nobody believes us. They think we're nuts."

"Ain't nothin' them Chinese do that would surprise me anymore," Cole said.

"You got that right. That's what I'm saying, you know? What happens is that sometimes in the morning we'll see a little white trail of powder on the ground. I don't know what it is. Maybe flour. Maybe lime. Maybe the ground-up bones of all the Chinese folks who didn't agree with the Communists."

Cole nodded. "Go on."

"It's real strange, but it seems to me that what's happening is that the Chinese have themselves a scout going through and leading the way, and once they found their way through, they are sending the rest of their squad along that trail. Anyhow, that's what I think."

Cole said, "Makes sense to me. Maybe somebody at headquarters needs to start listening to what you've got to say."

"I won't hold my breath," the soldier said. "Say, is there any more of that coffee around here?"

"Go on back to the kitchen and them 'em that the hillbilly sent you."

"The hillbilly. Hah, I like that." The soldier seemed to notice Cole's rifle for the first time. "You're that sniper I heard about? Shoot some for me. I tell you what, though. If you come through our section, tell the guys first so that they don't shoot you by accident. Some of the guys are getting trigger happy, if you know what I mean. These Chinese have 'em spooked."

The soldier and his buddies went in search of more hot coffee.

Cole had been right about how the Chinese were reaching the American lines. The method that they used to mark their trail was something new and useful. He supposed that he should be thankful that the Chinese had already done the hard part by finding a way between the ridges. Now it was his turn to turn the tables and get behind the Chinese lines to get the drop on that enemy sniper.

He would just have to hurry up and get the job done before the counter-attack on Sniper Ridge.

Darkness was falling by the time Cole returned to his tent. The other guys were sitting on the ground in the last of the light, smoking cigarettes, and starting to shiver as the autumn chill increased. Sometimes, quick fires were made, but no one sat around them for long due to the threat of Chinese snipers, who could easily have crept close enough to pick out targets in the firelight. One by one, the soldiers in the squad peeled off for their tents and the warmth of their sleeping bags.

But not Cole. He was just getting started.

He spread a blanket in front of his tent and lit a candle. He then set his rifle on the blanket, with his intention being to give it a good cleaning. The feeble, flickering light was just enough for him to work by without drawing any unwanted attention from the enemy. There was also something timeless about the flame. It could just have easily have been one of his ancestors, cleaning a Kentucky long rifle by firelight.

Sitting Indian-style on the ground, he set to work. There was already a running joke that Cole had the cleanest rifle in Korea.

Pomeroy used to kid him, "Hillbilly, you could do surgery with that rifle."

"What kind of operation would I do with a rifle?”

“You could remove someone’s appendix, or shoot out their heart—”

“Surgery,” Cole said.

He took the rifle apart now, laying the pieces out on the blanket. He took off the scope, shucked out the bolt, and disassembled the trigger mechanism. He then began cleaning the rifle, working through the bore with the patch and gun solvent, swirling out the powder residue and even tiny unseen bits from the bullet jacket.

Any bit of grit wedged in the rifling could potentially throw off the accuracy of the bullet, so his goal was to make the barrel as clean as when it had left the hands of the machinist. When he was done, that barrel and that rifle would be a slick as a whistle.

He worked several white cotton patches through the bore until they came out clean. When he held the barrel up and looked through it into the candle flame, the rifling reflecting the light in all of its well-oiled, precision-machined glory.

If he could have crawled through that barrel toward that light, he was sure that he could have found God on the other side.

Next, he went to work on the chamber, the bolt, and the trigger assembly. He used a fine brush to scrub them clean of any powder or metal residue, then rubbed them down with gun oil. His fingers began to grow a little numb in the cool air, but Cole was so engrossed in his work that he didn't notice. He worked until the smooth steel felt buttery under his fingertips.

Back home, he had started making custom hunting knives, taking up the trade that his old friend Hollis had practiced in his mountaintop forge. It had been Hollis who made Cole's Bowie knife with its razor-sharp, Damascus steel blade. A soldier now had that knife, having stolen it off Cole. The thought rankled him.

When Hollis had passed, before Cole returned from the last war in Europe, he had left all his tools, even his shop, to Cole. It had been the best thing that anyone had ever done for him. Hollis must have known that someone like Cole would lose himself in the craft. It had certainly kept him away from the darker corners of his mind — and from the whiskey bottle that had been his own Pa's downfall.

Cole had found that he was good at the precision work required for making knives, though not yet as good as Hollis had been. If he ever got home again, he would be glad to get back to turning blanks of steel into knives, improving his craft with each one.

When Cole was finished with the rifle, he looked at all the pieces spread out on the blanket. By themselves, they were simply parts. Chunks of metal. One by one, he reassembled them expertly, each piece of metal fitting smoothly into the other until the rifle was whole again, gleaming and deadly with purpose.

Cole took the rifle back to the tent where, once again, the kid was already asleep, exhausted from a day of sentry duty. Cole felt tired himself, and he felt that pang of hunger in his belly, a good kind of hunger, an ache of animal drive.

He reckoned that maybe he'd just had a run of bad luck up there across from Sniper Ridge, but he was going to show the Chinese enemy that on a good day, there was no beating Caje Cole.

He curled himself around the rifle and slept a blessedly dreamless sleep.