N.E.W.-Korea [2/2]

Your rifle springs up beside you, and wraps a piece of cloth around your neck. "Don't worry, you're okay. We made it through." She's fussing over you, but you can't help but feel she's excited. After all, a rifle's only purpose is for combat. To serve its owner. She has pleased you. She has performed her duty.

Henning speaks up from his spot against the wall. "Its not over." Your small smile immediately falls. "They'll be back. That was jus' the beginnin'. They probe where we're strong. Where we're weak. They'll be back..."

He stops talking, and loads three more rounds into his rifle. You cautiously take a peak outside. The slope is littered with dead, many covered with fresh dirt churned up by bullets and grenades. You can't tell how many are out there.

The light of the flares is dying, and again you start straining your eyes to search for attackers in the darkness. You glance at Henning, but he's still on the floor. Sally is talking to him quietly, and he's nodding and murmuring back. His shoulder is bleeding pretty bad.

"H-Hey! C'mon, Uncle Sam." You spit blood on the floor and pull him to his feet. "You're not gonna die today. C'mon. We need to..." You realize you actually don't know what to do. "We need a corpsman."

He slowly shakes his head. He looks and sounds half dead. "Trust me, kid. The medic has better things to do."

You soon realize how right he is. As you creep outside, staying low to avoid catching a bullet, the smell hits you. It's shit and blood, gunpowder and the smell of fire. You hold back vomit. A short, sharp scream comes from the trench facing towards the enemy.

Edging towards the trench, the smell gets stronger. You peer in and see a medic working furiously over a body. A Marine whose body has been torn to shreds. His shirt is off, and you can see where intestines poke out through gaping wounds. A few Marines look on, numb to it. The wounded man screams again, in agony.
You go back to the pillbox to check on Henning, but he's already beside you, Sally over his shoulder. "Fuckin' Chinks 'll be back any second."

Down the line, it looks as if your boys have taken some casualties. Bodies are being moved aside, out of the way. Wounded are being treated as best as possible by the corpsmen, who are few and far between.

Even though you're sure that the Chinese dead number many more than your own, you can't help but feel that they have the bodies to spare and you don't. Its not a settling thought.

Henning shouts over the sound of healthy men living and dying men dying. "Where's Jacob? I need him on the radio."

A thin, filthy Marine pipes up, in a tinny Brooklyn accent. "He was on it, Sam. They got him. Got the radio too. Real good."

He points towards the tent, which is now in tattered pieces. Part of it has been repurposed as a shroud for a corpse, whose left arm is just barely visible in the dark.

Henning curses and stomps over to the covered corpse. He stares at it angrily. "Fer fucks sake." He stomps away, shouting orders. "Chinks 'll be back soon. Lets get the wounded moved. Radio's gone, and we need ammo and reinforcements. I need a couple men to relay messages."

More quietly, almost to himself, he mutters. "And I don't even have a single man to spare."

He turns to you. "I need you to get a message back to headquarters. We need to move out the wounded. I want you to take a few men and hoof it back there. Bring the walkin with you." He gestures towards a group of men, those who are wounded to some degree yet still on their feet. Many of them hold their wounds and groan in pain. Some lay there silently.

You shake your head. "What about the next attack? You'll be overrun."

He tosses his cigarrette to the ground and grinds it with his foot. "Just do it. We'll hold out as long as we can."
"That won't be long enough, sir. This hill is important. If it falls, then the Bowl will be flanked. And if our guys to the West fall back or are overrun, then we've got a hell of a lot of men who are gonna be surrounded up there."

You felt pretty confident telling him this. You'd overheard talk earlier in the day between some officers. The Bowl, which was the hill just to the west of Hill 199, was a major position that Communist forces had failed to take twice. The Chinese, the one officer explained, were intent on putting their artillery on top of that hill. That was way back when you were the assistant at the supply depot. Before you had delivered batteries to Hill 199. It was only earlier today, but it felt like forever.

You shake your head again. "I'm not going. None of us can go. We can barely see the enemy. We'll never make it back there."

Henning mulls it over, then waves his hand. "Fine, fuck it. We'll hold position till mornin' As soon as dawn breaks, we'll move out. Relief force should be here by then, though."

Now that the flares had died, the darkness was more oppressive. It was hard to even see where you were going, let alone see out into the battlefield. You took up a position in the trench- where it stank like shit and gunpowder. Where, you note, a man had just recently occupied, until he had been killed or wounded.

Time passes and the men settle in. Silence falls. The second attack doesn't come as soon as expected. Miraculously, another trio of flares go up. They hang in the sky, like tiny suns, their white glow shining against snow and hard ground, and the bodies and weapons of the dead enemy.

The flares start to die, and the fear of another attack rises in you. You start to get fidgety. You check your neck- the bleeding doesn't seem too bad. It must have been shrapnel from a particularly close enemy grenade. You check your rifle- she's fully loaded and ready to go.