They attacked during the watch when the Professor was getting his four hours’ sleep. Willy and I were on top of a bunker on the perimeter. It was about two o’clock and totally black.
We had orders not to shoot until we absolutely had to; the muzzle flash and tracer rounds would give our position away. We had plenty of hand grenades, though; and even though you can’t see where you’re throwing them, at least they can’t be traced back to you.
There was a little radio in each foxhole, a PRC-25 (which everybody called a prick-25). Every perimeter bunker had a code name, starting with Tiger-1, then Tiger-2, Tiger-3, and so on up to Tiger-15. Tiger-1 was the command bunker, where the captain was. We were in Tiger-7. There were three observation posts, Oscar Poppa One, Two, and Three; groups of four men each, sitting about fifty feet outside of the perimeter to give us early warning. Oscar Poppa Two was right out in front of us, and that was where the battle started. It started out real quietly.
The prick-25 whispered. “Tiger-1, this is Oscar Poppa Two. Over.”
“Oscar Poppa Two, this is Tiger-1. Boss speaking.” That was the captain’s code name. “What’s up? Over.”
“We’ve got movement out front. Maybe fifteen meters. Over.”
“How many? Over.”
“Hard to say, Boss. More than ten. Over.”
“Well, come back in. If they hear you, chuck some grenades at them. Out.”
“Roger, Tiger-1. Oscar Poppa Two out.”
“All stations, this is Tiger-1. Oscar Poppa One, Oscar Poppa Three, you come in, too. Tigers, hold your fire until all the Oscar Poppas are in. Over.”
“Think we better go wake up Prof?”
“No,” I said, “if anything happens, he’ll be up soon enough—you scared as I am?”
“Shitless.”
“Me too.”
“Tiger-7, this is Tiger-1. Over.”
Willy beat me to the radio. “Tiger-1, this is Tiger-7. Over,” he whispered.
“Tiger-7, I want you to trade stations with Tiger-9; that’s Pig’s M-60 team. Over. Tiger-9, this is Tiger-l. Did you monitor that? Over.”
The radio crackled. “Roger, Tiger-1, this is Tiger-9; we did monitor and we’re on our way. Over.”
“Well, at least we won’t be so close if Charlie follows them in.” I started gathering up grenades and ammo.
“Yeah, they’ll walk right into that 60—think we oughta wait for Pig?”
“I guess so. Got everything of yours?”
“Six grenades, two bandoliers.” Footsteps to our right. “That you, Pig?”
“Yeah. Y’all go on now, two bunkers over, leave your radio.”
Took us about two minutes to find the place, even though we could see it before the sun went down. Pig’s radio was squawking when we got there.
“… repeat, all stations, everybody, in your bunkers. We have friendly artillery coming in on the old Oscar Poppa Two position. Over and out.”
I jumped into the bunker and landed on top of Willy. He was pretty fast when he wanted to be.
“Jesus Christ—that’s only fifty feet away!”
“We’ll be all right in the—” the world bucked and heaved and shrapnel sang through the air. I could feel the artillery explosions in my teeth and my eyes. Willy’s face was chalk-white in the light from the explosions. It only lasted a few seconds.
“Goddamn—you could see the flashes,” Willy said. I could hardly hear him for the ringing in my ears. “They’ve never been that close before.”
“Yeah… but think of what it’s doing to Charlie.”
“Let’s hope.”
After a minute a bunch of grenades went off, over by Tiger-7. Then automatic rifle fire, with green tracers, coming into camp. The artillery barrage hadn’t gotten all of them.
Pig answered the rifle fire with his M-60, pouring lead into the jungle at ten rounds a second. Every third round was an orange tracer; it looked like he was spraying a solid line of flame.
A hand grenade went off pretty near, and in the flash Willy and I saw a man walking toward us, not more than ten feet away. I picked up my rifle.
“Wait!” Willy whispered. He pulled the pin out of a grenade and threw it side-arm out of the bunker. “Down!” I was already down.
It went off with a flat CHUNK and Willy got up and threw another. It went off and Willy said, “I think we better get out of the bunker.”
“Are you crazy, Willy? With all that shit flying around?”
“Look, Farmer, all they gotta do is roll one grenade in here, and they’ll be scrapin’ both of us off the walls. Let’s get out and lie down behind the bunker.” I could see the sense in that, so we laid our weapons outside and hoisted ourselves up.
Looked like the battle was just about over. Pig’s 60 was shooting in short bursts, but there wasn’t any return fire. Tiger-6 and Tiger-8 fired M-16’s into the jungle.
Then there was a whooshing sound and an orange ball of fire blossomed in front of Tiger-7. Somebody screamed. Another whoosh, this time the machine-gun bunker exploded and whoever was screaming, stopped.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Sounds like a bazooka,” I said. “Does Charlie have bazookas?”
“Look, anything we’ve got, Charlie can steal. Just hope he doesn’t have too many rounds.”
“Think we oughta get back in the bunker?” Another whoosh. Hit just behind Tiger-6.
“Hell, no—you get in if you want. I’d rather take my chances up here.”
The bazooka, or whatever it was, blasted a round right on top of Tiger-8. I was glad that we hadn’t been shooting. He seemed to have zeroed in on everybody who’d given away their position with tracers.
Then we had a stroke of luck. The infantry had rigged the woods outside of the perimeter with trip flares, bright super sparklers that would go off if somebody tripped over a wire. There was a loud pop! and the jungle was flooded with light.
We saw them right away—two enemy soldiers in front of where Tiger-7 used to be, one of them with a long tube balanced on his shoulder. The other one had a bazooka round in his hand and another tucked under his arm. Willy and I opened up on them with our M-16’s.
The ammunition bearer ran for the woods, and I think he got away. The other man was braver; he swung the tube around to where it was pointing at us, then one of us hit him and he flopped over backwards, shooting his last round into the trees where it exploded right over him.
That was the end of the battle. No telling how many enemy were involved, how many got away. We only found three bodies in the morning.
But the choppers took away three badly wounded GI’s and six bodies, including Pig. That round, we had to admit, went to Charlie.