Marine Sniper (15 page)

After dark, the men reached the safety of the fire base. Inside the now sandbag-reinforced tent that housed the large operations map and the crackling radios, Captain Land and the major stood before the map talking. Land's five snipers sat quietly outside in the darkness, waiting for their captain and straining to hear the conversation he was having with the major.

"Sir," Land said, "I understand how rich a hunting ground that flood plain looks, and we did make contact. But that's what worries me. I think the VC will be ready for us tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if they move in rockets or heavy mortars on us.

"I'd rather move on the hillside off to the right. We can still cover that area. We will just have to shoot at a thousand yards instead of six hundred. And all my snipers are excellent thousand-yard shooters. Hathcock, as a matter of fact, is the United States champion at a thousand yards."

"Captain, I appreciate the skill of your Marines, but I don't believe that you can compare fast-moving targets with the bull's-eyes that you shoot out at the rifle range. If you're more than half a mile away from your major area of responsibility, you'll miss more than you hit."

"If they kill us, Sir, we won't be any good to anybody."

"I don't think that they will kill you. You didn't do that much damage today. Take my word for it, Skipper, they won't be looking for you."

"Well, Sir, you may be right, but I feel uneasy about going back into the same position two days running. It goes against all sniper doctrine that I have read or encountered."

Land saw it was no use discussing it further and agreed to go out the next day, only asking that some covering fire be prepared for them. "We'll plot some targets on the hills above that flat," said the major. "If you take fire, it will come from there. A pair of red stars will turn on the fireworks. Good luck, Captain."

Land shook the major's hand and walked out of the tent, tripping over Burke, who had crawled next to the doorway where he could hear the conversation more clearly.

"Do I need to explain anything to you men, or did you get it all?" Land said sourly.

"We got it all, sir," Reinke said.

"What time we humpin' out there, Skipper?" Hathcock said quickly, hoping to smooth over the mood of his captain.

"Plan on a zero four wake up. We'll start down the hill at four thirty. We should be back in position well before daylight."

The I Corps' darkness that morning was blacker than any night Hathcock could remember. The dark shapes of the bushes and grass blended with the sky, offering his eyes no firm definition of form. He searched the horizon for a line of reference-straining his eyes, he finally saw the hilltops standing mute against the starless heavens.

As the troop of snipers descended into the black valley, Hathcock looked down at the river and its broad, flat bend. There he would spend his second day on this operation-and possibly, it occurred to him, his last day on earth.

Hathcock thought of the conversation he overheard the night before. He knew that Land had been right-it was foolish to move back into that flat two days in a row.

Hathcock sniffed the air, searching for the familiar scent of river mud and mildew. It was a sign that they were nearing their trek's end. But at this point, all he could smell was the sour odor of sweat from his fellow snipers as they made their way across the flats toward the small knoll that would be their rally point.

There, the three teams checked their bearings and departed in three directions.

For Hathcock, the sound of his breathing and heart beating seemed amplified in the predawn's stillness-as loud to him as the roar of the broad, muddy river fifty yards ahead. The two men had reached their firing point, and they crouched in the brush.

Soon Burke and Reinke, Roberts and Wilson also lay in position, awaiting the first gray light of day.

Hathcock focused on the input of his senses to keep his sharpness. He tasted the hint of salt in the air and smelled the faint fragrance of fish coming from a shallow cove where the river water eddied in a foamy swirl. In the distance he saw and heard a flock of white birds suddenly rise up screeching from the shallows. He also heard something else down river-it was the faint clank of metal.

Slowly, yet deliberately, he shifted his scope to his right, trying to find the source of the sound. He thought he saw a flicker through the dense brush. He listened and heard the clanking again, but he saw nothing more as the sound now moved across his front and slowly made its way to his left.

"Burke and the Top will get these guys, too," he whispered to Land.

"Shushhh," came the captain's response, as Land leaned on his elbows and continued scanning the opposite side of the river with his twenty-power spotting scope.

Hathcock glanced at his wrist watch. It was exactly eight o'clock.

Burke and Reinke had taken their positions on the sandy point of the river bend and had a broad view of a gap in the brush where a shallow ditch emerged from the low grass and brush and joined the river. There they saw the enemy patrol slowly emerge from the pale green undergrowth that had hidden their movement between here and the hill.

Carefully, Burke set his scope's reticle on the point man's head and began squeezing the trigger on his rifle.

Land flinched when he heard the sudden crack of the Winchester a short distance to his left. He looked at Hathcock and then lay behind his spotting scope, searching the far bank for the target at which Burke had shot. A second shot echoed through the wide valley-and then a third.

Suddenly the air was alive with heavy bullets cracking through the tops of the bushes and the tall grass in which the six snipers lay.

"What
  
in
  
the
  
hell?"
  
Land
  
said
 
aloud.
  
"God
 
damn

quad-.Sis. They're going to cut this riverbank into pieces with their heavy machine guns."

"Where they at?" Hathcock asked anxiously.

"Up on the hill. Right where I thought they would be. Only I thought they'd be shooting rockets or mortars, not .51s. They must have a hell of a lot of shit up there. We've got to get the hell out of Dodge, now!"

In the midst of the crackling shower of .51-caliber machine-gun fire, streaked with red tracers, Land sent two, red-star, cluster pyrotechnics skyward. The six snipers scrambled for their lives, running toward the low knoll that offered protection from the half-dozen four-barrel machine guns the Viet Cong had trained on them. The ground was checkered with rice fields, and knee deep in mud. Roberts and Wilson sprinted first through one of the paddies, followed by Burke -then Hathcock, Land, and Reinke.

Hathcock pumped his legs like pistons as he drove them through the mire of mud and water. He looked to his right and saw Land, his square face flushed, his eyes opened wide and his mouth agape, inhaling every drop of air that he could force into his burning lungs.

The first three Marines disappeared into the brush and found their safety behind the knoll, while Hathcock, Land, and Reinke crossed the midpoint of me boggy rice field. Hathcock pulled his legs up and down as hard as he could and saw that bullets were exploding into the water around him.

"Go for it, Hathcock!" Land yelled, "they've got us bore-sighted."

Hathcock suddenly looked back. "Top!" he hollered. "Are ya hit?"

The master sergeant's head and shoulders were just above the muddy water. He appeared to be struggling to get back on his feet.

"You hit bad, Top?" Land yelled.

Reinke motioned to the Marines to go on and leave him.

"God damn it, Hathcock. Top's hit. I can't leave him there |$to die. You go ahead."

"You can't get him alone," Hathcock yelled back to Land, the two Marines ran toward their downed comrade who splashing the water with his hands and trying to pull his body forward through the heavy mud.

"We ain't gonna leave you out here for that Apache woman, Top," Land called.

The two Marines reached Reinke. All around them bullets were pelting the water.

"Where you hit?" Land gasped.

"I'm not hit," the master sergeant said. "I stepped in a fuckin' hole. Grab hold and get me out of here.1'

Hathcock and Land grasped the master sergeant near his armpits and pulled as hard as they could. Slowly, the sucking mud gave way and the Marine slid free, splashing in the water on his belly. The captain and Hathcock each lost their balance and fell to their hands and knees, soaking themselves in the mire.

"Gooooooo!" Land cried. The three Marines charged through die knee-deep mud and water. Hundreds of bullets sent tall, liquid shafts splashing up from the paddy's surface.

Hathcock felt the blood surging through his veins at such pressure that his ears pounded and his vision blurred. He knew he was running for his life. He took a long, stride through the deep muck and plunged headfirst into the black water, gulping what seemed gallons of filth before he breathed air again.

Land and Reinke were doing no better. Now that they had gotten near the low dike that retained the water in the rice paddy, the three exhausted Marines frantically swam on their bellies through the mire the last few yards. They emerged on dry hind, caked from head to toe in stinking mud and, straining their last resources of strength, crossed the final few yards of open grassland. As Land, Reinke, and Hathcock fell behind the cover of the low knoll, they heard the first rounds of Marine mortar fire striking the enemy's positions in the hills. All six men lay on the ground shaking, amazed that they had survived.

"I must have sucked in a gallon of that shit," Land said, spitting kernels of mud and sod from his mouth.

"Better a bellyful of that than your ass full of lead," Reinke said between heavy breaths.

Hathcock pulled a package of Salem cigarettes encased in a yellow plastic box from his soaked shirt pocket. "Well, I managed to keep something dry," he said and put a white filter tip in his mouth.

"Anyone else for a dry cigarette?"

Land looked at the five Marines and then took the package from Hathcock's hands, "I don't smoke, but I think this time I deserve a cigarette. That was just too damn close."

Hathcock threw him the lighter and, holding it in his right hand, Land flipped the top back and struck the flame. As he drew the lighter toward the cigarette between his lips, his right hand, which was holding it, shook violently. Land's entire body began to tremble so badly he couldn't light the cigarette.

Hathcock took the captain's hands and guided the flame toward the cigarette, which also shook in the Marine's lips. The four men who lay watching them roared with laughter.

Land looked at them, drew the smoke in, and said, "Fuck every one of you! You're shaking just as much as I am."

Reinke and Hathcock lay on the ground laughing, and with a gasp Carlos said, "I don't think I'd ever believed you could get so shook."

Land finally laughed too, after he saw one of the other men trying to put some purification tablets in a canteen spill half die water. Each one of them was astonished to find himself still alive.

The six snipers lay behind the knoll more than an hour, waiting for the exchange of fire to cease and then they spent the remainder of the day cleaning their equipment, preparing to return to Hill 55 that night.

A Nightmare's Witness

NONE OF THE six Marines discussed that near-disaster at the riverbend for several days after they returned to Hill 55. They felt embarrassed about it. But even if the mission was a failure in every other sense, it had reinforced Land's and his men's confidence in the tactical principles of sniping, which they were adapting by trial and error from those of World War I Europe and tailoring to the jungle environment of Vietnam.