Marine Sniper (9 page)

Twenty men lay on the line, ten behind bolt-action rifles and ten behind semiautomatic weapons, classified as "service rifles." Beside going for the Wimbledon Cup, those shooting die service rifle also contended for a special award for their class alone, the Fair Trophy.

Land looked at the backs of the men lying prone on the line, many wearing heavy, leather, shooting jackets, which were belted and strapped on them so tightly that each man had to force his breathing. He searched the line until he saw the round, yellow patch, with a red Marine Corps emblem in its center, sewn on the back of Hathcock's green canvas shooting jacket.

"There's Hathcock," Land told two of the team members who sat with him, high in grandstands filled with hundreds of people, including NRA officials, other marksmen who had been eliminated earlier, and family and friends of shooters who were on the line. And among those seated on the front row, center, with the NRA's top brass, was Gen. Wallace M. Greene, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Before the marksmen had taken their positions on the line, Greene had met with die Marine Corps team and shook Hathcock's and Sanchez's hands. "Go out there and win," he told the young corporal and sergeant. "You have 196,000 Marines counting on you."
       
,

Land sat on the high wooden bleachers and watched Hathcock making notes in his data book, sighting down his rifle, and then writing again. Brass bands filled the air with patriotic march music. Booths and exhibits capped off the atmosphere, which resembled a county fair. Press photographers, reporters, and television crews swarmed along the front line as each shooter prepared to crawl down into his shooting position. Land spoke aloud to the Marines seated around him, "1 wonder if he's feeling the lump?"

The lump, as competitive marksmen call it, is the tightness that builds in a shooter's throat when the pressure of the competition becomes too much for him.

As Hathcock began putting his shooting gear together on the firing line, he felt the lump building. His tension caused that cramped feeling in the pit of his stomach-a feeling that he dealt with the day prior when he lost the National Match by three points. He had won a silver medal in that competition, facing thousands of other marksmen, shooting his service rifle-an M-l Garand-in slow and rapid fire matches at 200 and 300 yards, firing at 12-inch bulls'-eyes, and in slow fire matches at 600 yards, firing at 12-inch bulls'-eyes. And in it, one point could separate 20 shooters in the final standings. He looked at his data book and began concentrating on today's marksmanship tasks, busying himself to the point that thoughts of General Greene and 196,000 other Marines left him.

Hathcock looked down the firing lane. Twenty red, pennant-shaped flags, each one twenty feet long, lined the range's sides at one hundred-yard increments. They ruffled in the wind that blew directly across Hathcock's tine of fire. He let out a deep breath and looked again at his data book containing his notations from the days of practice and the semifinal round. Leaning over his left elbow, he put his shooting eye up to the rear of a spotting scope, mounted low on a stand next to him, and watched the mirage, its layers of heat waves concentrated by his telescope, dancing and rolling from the left side of his view to the right, affected by the wind in the same way that die wind would effect his bullet. "I'm gonna go fourteen minutes left," he told himself, calculating the effect the wind would have during a lull. "I'll watch the flag and when it drops, I'll shoot."

He laid his rifle on its side and began counting clicks as he turned the windage knob on the side of his rifle's telescopic sight. After noting the change in his data book, he checked his leather sling, making sure that it was adjusted to the proper length and wrapped around his upper arm at the exact spot where he had looped it each time he fired. With the sling making a half-twist around his forearm, he slid his left hand, shielded by a thick leather shooting glove, up the hand guard of his rifle's stock and jammed it tightly against the D-ring and swivel that held the sling to the rifle.

Slowly, Hathcock leaned his weight on his left elbow and began working the rifle's butt tightly into his right shoulder. "Got to be tight. No room for it to slip-not here." As the sling tightened and stretched to accommodate the tight fit of the rifle into his shoulder, he felt the strap bite painfully into his upper arm and trap the blood in his left hand and fingers. He looked at their tips protruding from the shooting glove and watched them turn red and deepen to purple.

"Gentlemen, your prep time has begun," a voice from the tower at the center of the line echoed over the public address system. Hathcock laid his cheek on his rifle and rested his right elbow on his shooting pad. Reaching his right hand around the grip of his stock, he laid his finger on the rifle's trigger and sighted in on the small black dot of a target that appeared above the center of his scope's reticle.

Pulling his body backward with his toes, the rifle's cross hairs rose slowly into the small target. Hathcock closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them to see where his sights might have drifted. They remained exactly where he had held them before, center of the target.

Looking out the corner of his eye, Hathcock shifted his legs left, moving the cross hairs until the small round target sat on the right corner of the sight. "If the flag drops, I'll turn the first one loose at center-mast bull's-eye. If I miss, that's it, but I'm gonna gamble that I'm in there. If the flag don't fall, all I have to do is pull to this spot-a hair left."

With the rifle still in his shoulder and being careful not to move his elbow, which supported his weapon, Hathcock leaned to his left and glanced through the spotting scope to see the mirage once more.

"Gentlemen, your prep time has ended," the voice from the center of the line announced. And widi that announcement, the bands stopped, the crowd silenced, and the targets dropped from sight into the pits. All Hathcock could now hear was the wind. All he could now see was the white top-edge of his target resting at half mast in the pits and, in the comer of his eye, a red range flag, billowing in the wind.

Hathcock let out a short breath and looked at the single .300 Winchester Magnum shell that lay shaded beneath a towel on his mat, next to his right arm. The voice from the center of the line came on the public address system, "Gentlemen, you may load one round."

Hathcock took the long brass shell, dropped it into the breach of his rifle, and shoved the bolt forward, locking it into the chamber. He snuggled his cheek back against the rifle stock and waited, sighting across Lake Erie, which was behind the targets, and watched his scope's center rise and fall as his heart coursed blood through his tightly strapped body.

Hathcock thought of nothing except that one round sealed in his rifle's chamber, the firing pin drawn back by the spring in his bolt, awaiting the digger's release that would send the 176-grain Sierra bullet one thousand yards downrange, into the V-ring.

"Gentlemen, when the targets come out of the pits, you will have three minutes to fire one round," the voice announced. And as the last word echoed downrange, twenty targets rose from the Camp Perry pits, shuddering in the crosswind.

Hathcock waited for the red range flag in the right-hand comer of his eye to drop.

In the stands, the Marine Corps' rifle team and the Marine Corps commandant felt the lump as they watched marksman after marksman fire off their rounds. Hathcock lay silent behind his rifle, sighted in and waiting.

He watched the red range flag and waited for a lull in the wind when his bullet would travel the one thousand yards to the mark with as little distortion in its trajectory as possible. Hathcock watched the second hand on his wristwatch, which he laid next to his data book, tick away the time. He hoped that within the three minutes allowed, the wind would drop.

After nearly two minutes, the flags fell and Hathcock squeezed his trigger, sending his first shot into the target. He looked at his target for the remaining minute, wondering where his shot had gone.

"Cease fire, cease fire," the voice called through the PA system. At the sound of the line boss's voice, the twenty targets dropped into the pits.

In the target pits, match officials checked and verified the bullet strikes in each target. With this task completed in a matter of minutes, the pit crews stood ready to score the shots by means of a twenty-inch metal disk, painted red on one side and white on the other, and mounted on a five-foot-long pole.

They signaled a miss-a shot outside the fifty-inch-diameter three-ring-by passing the red disk across the face of the target from left to right. A shot in the three-ring was scored with the red disk held at center-mast on the left side of the target. A shot within the forty-inch-diameter four-ring was scored with the red disk held at center-mast on the right side of the target. A shot within the thirty-six-inch, black bull's-eye, but outside the twenty-inch V-ring was scored with the red disk being held directly over the bull's-eye. And a shot within the V-ring was scored with the white disk being held over the bull's-eye.

As Hathcock waited for the disking procedure to begin, he confidently drew out his second round and laid it on the shooting mat next to his data book, where he prepared to record the strike of his bullet. He leaned to his left and peered through the spotting scope, watching the mirage dance across his firing lane, and waited for his target to appear.

Like a coordinated drill movement, the targets rose to half-mast, hiding their black centers below the berm, and a voice came on the public address system. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disk all misses." There was a momentary pause. "There are no misses."

Behind Hathcock several thousand hands came together in applause at the announcement. The anticipation gathered again in the pit of Hathcock's stomach as he began to wonder if his call had been on-target.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disk all threes." A target frightenly close to Hathcock's rose from the pit, sending a chill through him. He saw the black spotter two inches right of the four-ring's line at the three o'clock position on the target. "Wind got him," Hathcock silently concluded. And as the disk rose to the left side of the target, the shooter to the right of Hathcock rolled up his mat, lay his rifle across his folding stool, stuffed his gear into his shooting bag, and carried his equipment off the firing line.

A murmer rose from the stands, followed by consolatory applause as the eliminated marksman walked to a group of people, who huddled around him. A dark-haired woman hugged the man, and in a matter of seconds the group turned to watch the next targets to rise from the pits.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disk all fours." Two targets rose from the pits and the two shooters walked away from the line, as the audience applauded their efforts. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disk all fives." Four targets rose from the pits, one to the left of Hathcock. Those shooters joined the other eliminated marksmen and became spectators.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disk all Vees." Hathcock's target rose from the pit with a white spotter in the center of the target. He leaned away from the spotting scope and again worked himself into the position that gave him the first center shot.

Again sighting in on the target, he found his natural point of aim and awaited the call from the center of the line to load his second round.

The remaining thirteen targets dropped into the pits and, in a moment, rose to half-mast.

"Gentlemen," the voice from center line announced, "you may load one round."

Thirteen bolts shoved thirteen shells into thirteen chambers with a ripple and clatter.

Hathcock settled behind his rifle for the second shot. He found the bull's-eye and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to find his sights still in position. "Good," he reassured himself as the announcement from the center line again broke the morguelike hush.

As the preparatory time ended, the targets dropped together into the pits and the voice announced, "Gentlemen, when your targets come out of the pits, you will have three minutes to fire one round."

Next to his data book, Hathcock's watch ticked the seconds away. He glanced at the row of red flags, peered at the mirage through the spotting scope, and then glanced at his watch,

"You got all the time in the world, Carles," he reassured himself. "Don't rush the shot. Wait for the lull."

With one and a half minutes gone, the flag dropped and Hathcock fired. It felt good. His trigger squeeze was steady. He knew that it would have to be a major problem with the round, or his rifle, in order for that shot to not find the center of the target. Hathcock picked up the pencil that lay on his data book and drew a small black dot in the center of the small target on the page that represented the call of his second shot. He again jotted 14-L in the square above the small target, reminding himself of the 14 minutes of left windage he had turned on his scope.