39
The mortars began at dawn, falling on the perimeter defenses.
Frank Leopole was already up, supervising the dispersal of the militiamen. He warned two groups to spread out, but had language problems. Finally he grabbed Rami Hamadeh and shouted over the explosions. “Tell them to keep their interval! One round could take out four or five of ‘em!”
The Druze officer nodded, already having noted the problem. It was understandable, really. New troops — or at least men unaccustomed to combat — tended to bunch up for moral support. It was just what artillerymen and machine gunners counted on.
With low clouds hanging in almost a ground cover, the sun was obscured in its effort to break through from the east. Leopole conceded that even if he got approval for helicopter gunships, they would not be available until later in the morning. By then the issue was likely to be decided.
He sprinted back to the command center and picked up the satellite phone. After an interminable wait — it must have been twenty seconds — he heard the voice he wanted. “Nissen.”
“Chris, it’s started here.”
“Yeah, here too, Frank. Harassing fire so far but our recce team reports large movement on the reverse slope.”
“All right. I’m coordinating with Captain Hamadeh. He’ll see about getting some choppers but with the clouds on the ground it’ll be a while.”
“Affirm. Good luck, Frank.”
“You, too, guy.”
Leopole scooped up his AK and walked briskly from the HQ building, then stopped. He realized that he had left his helmet inside.
An 82mm round exploded twelve meters in front of him.
Buckets of cold water in the face and all down his front. That’s what it felt like. He could see nothing, and hoped that it merely meant he had blood in his eyes. He needed to swallow but had difficulty. Something was tightening in his chest and he opened his mouth wide, sucking in as much air as possible.
It was the damndest thing: he smelled brownies in the oven after school.
Someone was calling his name, as if from far off.
It sounded just like his mother.
“Frank!” Breezy shook his CO by the collar, trying to get a response. “Frank!
Mark Brezyinski pulled his medic’s kit closer and grasped for… what?
Another round landed thirty meters away, dropping dirt and stones all around. Breezy hardly was aware.
Brezyinski realized that he was crying. Bawling like a damned kid. Almost, anyway. The hot tears left tracks down his cheeks, creasing the grime. He wiped his sleeve across his face, smudging the tears and the dirt. He forced himself to look around, regaining control.
Steve Lee was alongside. He took one look and nudged Breezy. “He’s gone, Breeze. Come on, there’s others who need help.”
“Hos-tiles to the front!”
Bosco was on the wall, shoving militiamen to better firing points as the Hezbollah infantry advanced. The fighters came on in two waves, dodging and weaving, a few firing ineffectively from almost three hundred meters. For a moment he thought,
In the next moment he was shouting. “Pick your targets, hold and squeeze!” Bosco knew that only a few Druze could understand him, but he made the effort anyway. Finding a good rest, he set both elbows atop the rocky wall, stared a hole in his rifle’s front sight, and began squeezing off aimed rounds in the subdued light.
Mortar rounds continued falling, adding noise and confusion— and cover — for the attackers. Some militiamen ducked behind the wall, avoiding the worst of the fragments. Hamadeh sent their leader, Azzam Hamdam, to kick them back into position. Meanwhile, the Israeli officer went in the other direction, ensuring that the active shooters — which were most of them — spread their fire across the frontal assault.
On the way back, Hamadeh saw a militiaman blown off the wall by a mortar round. The Druze landed with a thud, rolled over two or three times, and tried to get up. The IDF officer knelt beside him, ran a quick assessment, and saw that he could be saved. Hamadeh waved to Breezy. “Over here!”
Though previously trained as a medic, Breezy was a shooter by choice. But in a curious way he welcomed the chance to work on somebody. He forced the image of Frank Leopole from his mind, examined the Druze, and exclaimed, “Dude! Don’t you know a sucking chest wound is nature’s way of telling you to slow down?”
With the help of another Druze, Breezy dragged the casualty around a corner, temporarily out of harm’s way. He leaned down, ear to the man’s chest.
“Can you help him?” the militiaman asked.
Breezy nodded. “It’s a pneumothorax — air in the pleural cavity. His right lung collapsed. I can hear the air whistling through the hole.” He found the medical terminology oddly comforting; never mind that his impromptu aide could not understand the argot. He grabbed the casualty’s right hand and laid it on the wound. Then he had the other Druze press down with his own hands. “Keep pressure on the bleeding, okay?”
While the second Druze did as ordered, Breezy pulled a dressing from his kit. He tore it open with his teeth and pulled off the plastic wrapper. He talked himself through the process. “The wrapper of a field dressing is great, but you can use cellophane like from a cigarette pack or aluminum foil, or even duct tape. You want a big enough patch to keep the material from getting sucked inside, so make it, like, two or three inches around the hole.”
The militiaman looked down at his fellow citizen, who seemed surprisingly calm. “Yes, yes. Is good!”
Breezy taped three sides of the patch, explaining, “That lets him breathe better. Now roll him onto his wounded side if you can. The extra pressure can help prevent more bleeding. Okay?”
Again the nod, accompanied by almost a smile. “Yes, good. Thank you, American. Thank you!”
Breezy patted the man on the shoulder, wiped more tears from his eyes, and returned to the wall.
The volume of fire increased. With the attackers inside one hundred meters, and the mortar shells beginning to abate, it became more a rifle fight. Breezy heard the clatter of full-auto fire and looked to his right.
He almost tripped over a body.
Looking down, he became immobilized. “No, man, nooooo…”
The body belonged to Jason Boscombe, formerly of the United States Army Rangers. He had taken a round through the neck: more likely from blind luck than skill. But it had severed the spine and Bosco was just as dead.
Brezyinski sank to his knees. He felt numb, empty, and drained of emotion. He was still kneeling like that when the Hezbollah fighters reached the wall.
“Hold it!” Barrkman held up a hand. The Druze driver did not understand American English but recognized the stop signal.
The Land Rover braked to a halt on the two-lane road, engine idling. Barrkman cocked an ear to the southeast. “I saw something. A light, kind of like an explosion.”
Furr leaned forward from the rear seat. “Maybe it’s just…”
