arm was almost blown off between the shoulder and elbow. Joe and Senior Chief Buford Dawkins joined him.
'Oh, man,' Joe said softly.
'Let's put him on his poncho and wrap him up,' Dawkins said in a low voice. He spoke into the LASH. 'Mills, Olson, Malachenko! You guys stick to your positions.'
Brannigan came over from the CP and looked down at the dead SEAL. 'Godamn it! You've got to be doubly alert when it's raining. That's when those bastards are going to launch these sneak attacks. Pass the word, Senior Chief!'
'Aye, sir,' Dawkins replied.
'Put him in the ground,' Brannigan ordered.
The Skipper walked back toward the CP as Guy and Joe began digging a grave with their entrenching tools. Joe worked methodically with the small shovel. 'Wild Bill must think we're gonna be here for awhile.'
'Maybe he figures we ain't ever getting off this fucking mountain,' Guy remarked.
Chapter 18
THE SELVA VERDE MOUNTAINS
THE BATTLE
16 JANUARY
GENERALISIMO Jose Maria de Castillo y Plato began the violent proceedings by ordering a coordinated attack on all sides of the mountain defenses held by the Yanquis. The Falangists moved from their attack positions, holding their skirmish formations as well as they could while struggling against both the steepness of the mountain and the heavy vegetation that seemed to reach out and grab at them.
Less than a quarter of an hour later, the first contacts were made, and numerous firefights broke out all over the mountain. The detonation of hand grenades blasted within the rat-tat-tat sounds of rifle and machine gun fire. At this preliminary portion of the battle, no casualties were suffered by either side, but the combatants moved around a bit to find more advantageous positions to inflict punishment on each other.
* * *
THE fighting flared up heavier first on the east side of the battlefield. Comandante Gustavo Cappuzzo and Capitan Roberto Argento led the attack by example, going to the front of their men, pumping out fire bursts with their submachine guns. The Falangists cheered, and a footrace of sorts broke out as they all attempted to catch up with their senior officers.
The Second Assault Section under Senior Chief Petty Officer Buford Dawkins bitterly resisted the assault. Joe Miskoski's SAW spat streams of rounds that swept along the entire front while the riflemen of the team used three- round automatic bursts between tossing grenades down on the attackers. A couple of Falangists who managed to run past Cappuzzo and Argento paid with their lives for their recklessness. Now the enemy formation tightened up, getting low in the brush to exchange shots with the norteamericanos.
Andy Malachenko spotted an opportunity for a one-man assault when a Falangist to his front pulled back. Andy bounded from his fighting hole and ran a few paces down the mountain before throwing himself into a thick tangle of shrubs. He'd no sooner began pumping rounds at the enemy to the front when Joe and Guy Devereaux joined him. All three put out heavy overlapping salvos that finally broke the back of the enemy attack. As the Falangists withdrew to regroup, the three SEALs quickly returned to the perimeter. They found Milly Mills putting a compress on a slight wound from a shrapnel fragment in his right deltoid muscle. Milly was more pissed off than hurt. 'I'd've been out there with you fuckers, but one of those bastards tossed a grenade at me:'
'Well, ol' buddy,' Joe said. 'The next time the son of a bitches come this way, you just toss one right back at 'em.'
'Yeah?' Milly said sarcastically. 'I was already planning on doing that very thing.'
north side of the perimeter. Comandante Javier Toledo and Capital! Francisco Silber were using a closely coordinated tactic of basic fire-and-maneuver to get in close to the SEAL position. After laying down a final fusillade, the Falangists leaped to their feet and charged into the perimeter with wild yells.
Hand-to-hand fighting broke out as the two lines collided. All the combatants were wielding rifle butts and bayonets while bellowing at the top of their lungs. Garth Redhawk even threw a wild left cross that sent a Falangist to the ground. Nobody was shooting during the melee of trying to club, kick, punch and stab each other until Mike Assad caught a nasty butt stroke to his chest from a burly Chilean sargento. He staggered backward, firing instinctively just as he hit the ground. This stimulated fresh bursts of shooting until the Falangists, still in the direct front of the perimeter, had to break off and pull back. They left the body of one comrade behind as the SEALs settled back into their fighting holes, cutting loose several salvos at the fleeing enemy. These mostly smacked into tree trunks.
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GORDO Pullini and his gang stumbled uncertainly forward with the submachine guns of Capitan Pablo Gonzales at their backs. Their firing was miserably inadequate as they worked the bolts of the old Mauser rifles with each shot. After twenty minutes of the frustrating work, the firing from above suddenly increased. With bullets zinging around their heads and knocking spinning chunks of bark off the trees, the convicts turned and ran until they once again came upon Gonzales.
'You miserable scum!' the capitan screamed at them. 'Turn around and get back up that hill, or you'll die here this moment!'
The convicts slowly turned around but did not move until the submachine guns were fired over their heads as warning shots. 'Ya vamanos, muchachos!' Pullini yelled. 'Let's go, boys!'
They stumbled over their dead as they once again scrambled up the slope. Now the original two dozen were down to eighteen.
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PETTY Officer First Class Gutsy Olson was the only SEAL on the south side of the perimeter. He had been stationed there to give the alarm in case the Falangists launched an attack from that direction. Although this had not happened, incoming machine gun fire splattered all around him as the enemy crews farther down the mountain sent numerous grazing fusillades onto the apex.
Suddenly a spent round struck Gutsy just above his right eye, cutting a gash. The wound immediately began, swelling, and his vision blurred as he wrapped a field compress around his head. After tying it off as tight as possible, he settled down to hang in tough, wishing he had an ice pack to put on his eye.
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1400 HOURS LOCAL
GUTSY'S vision was cleared, but his right eye was swollen completely shut. He had an old-fashioned shiner, looking like somebody had delivered a haymaker to his head during a barroom brawl. By then the machine gun fire had come to a stop, and no more rounds zapped into the immediate area, but he had to stay in his fighting hole since he didn't want to be caught in the open if the automatic weapons renewed their plunging salvos.
He kept his CAR-15 ready to fire as he peered into the jungle to make sure no attackers or infiltrators tried to penetrate the perimeter on that side. He was aware of the mysterious hit-and-run tactics that had occurred on the lines during the fighting, but the raiders seemed to be avoiding the south side. Gutsy yawned with nervous boredom as the shooting and detonations went off around the other parts of the defensive position. He had never felt so lonely in his life.
A figure suddenly emerged into view at his direct front.
A small man, walking unsteadily, moved through the jungle from west to east. The guy had a rucksack on his back, looking as if he were out for no more than a hike. However, the Falangist insignia was visible on his sleeve, so Gutsy took his weapon to his shoulder and carefully aimed.
Then Shorty changed direction and went from east to west.
Gutsy decided the guy had to be either looking for something or was lost. And he wasn't carrying a rifle. The SEAL watched for a moment more, then yelled, 'Halt!'
Shorty stopped and turned toward him, raising his hands. 'I quit! I no fight! I quit!'
'Come up here real slow, Shorty,' Gutsy said. He waited as the guy moved up toward the perimeter, then the SEAL spoke into his LASH. 'Hey, Senior Chief! I got an EPW!'
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1430 HOURS L0CAL
