develops.”
“What’s Division going to do if the NVA decide to overrun Hathcock?”
“They have units ready to move by chopper. They can be in there in less than an hour. I think Division wants to see if the enemy goes in to pull their pork out of the fire, and then they’ll hit ’em.
“You think those two can hold for an hour if they’re stormed?”
“No. But I don’t think they’ll storm Hathcock. He probably has those gooners scared shitless.”
Rain partially obscured the valley, but it did not provide the cover for which the pinned NVA soldiers had hoped. The two snipers lay in their leafy blind and watched heads pop above the dike and quickly drop back down.
“Those hamburgers are getting ready to move,” Hathcock whispered to Burke. “Sun’s going fast and I’d stake my stripes on them making a run for the trees or them hooches down the valley soon as it is dark. Just hope those cannon cockers give us the illumes when we need ’em.”
Burke nodded and put his binoculars back up to his eyes. Hathcock lay behind his rifle and slowly moved his scope along the paddy dike, watching and waiting.
The afternoon showers faded and left the sky orange above the western mountains as the sun set behind them. Long shadows from the high peaks crossed Elephant Valley, and as darkness descended, the two snipers watched for movement emerging from behind the dike.
“I can’t see a thing,” Burke said, dropping the binoculars from his eyes.
“Call in an ilium,” Hathcock said.
Humid air hung through the dark valley, and only water dripping from the jungle’s leaves offered any sound for the two snipers to hear.
High overhead a muffled bang echoed, and like a miniature sun dangling beneath a small parachute the illumination round exposed the NVA soldiers nearly one hundred yards from the dike, moving eastward down the valley toward a group of huts that lay another one thousand yards away.
Without a word, both snipers’ rifles fired on the line of men who ran toward the huts.
“Turn ’em back,” Hathcock told Burke. “Concentrate the fire at the head of their column.” As quickly as he could squeeze the trigger, Burke fired on the fleeing men. Hathcock followed as rapidly as he could work his rifle’s bolt.
One after another the soldiers at the front of the column fell. The rest of the company hurtled back to the dike, leaving their fallen comrades behind them.
“Well, I guess they won’t try that again for a while,” Burke said.
“Don’t count on it. If I were them, I’d make a run for it right now.”
A second illumination round burst overhead, lighting the valley with its eerie glow, showing no movement.
“Sergeant Hathcock, those guys are just plain scared to move. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”
“Let’s give ’em some dark for a while and see what they try. Tell them to hold the illumes for a few minutes. Maybe they’ll make another run for it.”
The two snipers lay quiet, listening to the sounds of the dark jungle. Croaking gecko lizards and small tree frogs chirped. Echoing through the jungle came the shrill cry of a foul-sounding bird, “Fauk-U, fauk-U, faaauk- uuuu.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Hathcock mumbled.
Down below, in the rice paddies of the valley, they could hear only a deep silence, but, as soon as they called for another flare, it exposed a squad-sized group dashing for the huts that were just beyond the trees, east of the dike.
“Don’t let ’em get to those huts. We’ll lose them in the trees and they’ll be on our backside in no time.”
Both Marines fired as rapidly as their rifles could chamber rounds. The running NVA soldiers dropped to the ground and began returning fire.
“Tell that battery to keep the illumes rolling in here. We can’t let it get dark or we’re dead,” Hathcock commanded Burke.
The soldiers who remained behind the wall now joined in the fire, shooting toward the muzzle flashes that gave away the Marines’ position.
“Concentrate on those hamburgers out in the open. Well-aimed shots—don’t waste your fire,” Hathcock told Burke, as he rejoined the battle. Hathcock laid his cross hairs on one prone NVA soldier after another and squeezed the trigger, killing a man each time.
Burke shifted his fire to the NVA company’s main body, which now appeared to be charging over the dike. “They’re coming at us!” he shouted at Hathcock.
“Well-aimed shots, Burke, well-aimed shots.” Hathcock turned his rifle on the charging company and began dropping a soldier with each shot.
“If they don’t give up, we’re going over the ridge and up the draw, and let them have this place,” he told Burke, pumping his bolt back and forth as rapidly as he could shoot.
“I’m ready any time you are.”
But, just at that moment, the steam went out of the attack, and the soldiers who were left dashed toward the dike.
“Keep shootin’, Burke—don’t cut ’em any slack.”
Hathcock turned his scope to the right of the dike where the escaping squad had thrown themselves down. “I don’t see any life out there. If anyone made it, he got to that hooch down yonder. We better watch our backsides real close from here on out.”
The night passed. The Marines lay listening for any sound mat might mean attack. Under the dim light of the illumes, they potshot at any enemy soldiers whose heads popped up.
“You reckon we ought to call in the cavalry? We’ve been hammering those guys nearly twenty-four hours. Sun’ll be up in an hour,” Burke said.
“I’ll wait till we run out of lead or Division sends in troops. We can hold here awhile. We’ve knocked out a good third of mem already.”
The sun rose, and the two men began rest cycles—one watched while the other napped. Throughout the second day, the North Vietnamese stayed behind their mud wall. During the twelve hours of daylight, the snipers fired three shots, merely letting the enemy know that nothing had changed.
The first illumination rounds came at sunset and lit the valley at intervals throughout the night. This small battle had reached a stand-off. For the two Marines, time meant little. They took turns shooting and resting, eating their rations of cheese, peanut butter, jelly and John Wayne crackers (large round crackers packed in C ration cans). They felt confident and completely in control.
They lay in the shade with water and food, while die enemy starved in the sun and exhausted what little water remained to mem. Yet the NVA continued to wait.
The third day began as die second had and followed through to the fourth without change. Hathcock knew that unless something happened, he and Burke would move out on the afternoon of the fifth day and leave the NVA company to a sweep team from the 26th Marine Regiment.
Hathcock rested against a tree trunk and spread cheese on a cracker. Burke lay behind the sniper rifle, staring through die scope, slowly moving it along the length of the dike. “Sergeant Hathcock, you reckon that we set some sort of record pinning these guys for as long as we have?”
“I don’t know, Burke. Reckon we’ll find out when we get outa here. Anyway, it don’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t tike we were holding mem off. These guys just want out of here. But I imagine that if we were to let them go, they’d come after us once they reached the jungle. When we leave, we’ll slip off before they know we’re gone and let the sweep team have ’em.
“When you compare it to some of the times we had when we started up the sniper school last October, this is pretty tame.”
Without lifting his eye from the rifle scope, Burke said, “Wonder how Captain Land is getting along back home?”
“I imagine he’s enjoying life one hell of a lot more than we are. He’ll be getting ready for the Division Matches down at Camp Lejeune. I may see him when I get home. Those matches go about a week after I get back to New Bern—about six weeks from now.”
