Read Online Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson - Free Book Online

Hill 55, an assistant operations officer dropped a stack of yellow message slips on the intelligence chief's field desk. The gunnery sergeant took the stack and peeled through the first few until he saw Hathcock's sniper report.
     
    "What's going on with Hathcock and Burke?" he asked the young lieutenant.
     
    "They reported contact this morning and asked for illumination rounds on call through the night. They say they have a sizable NVA unit pinned behind a paddy dike in Elephant Valley. Division wants to wait and see what develops."
     
    "What's Division going to do if the NVA decide to overrun Hathcock?"
     
    "They have units ready to move by chopper. They can be in there in less than an hour. I think Division wants to see if the enemy goes in to pull their pork out of the fire, and then they'll hit 'em.
     
    "You think those two can hold for an hour if they're stormed?"
     
    "No. But I don't think they'll storm Hathcock. He probably has those gooners scared shitless."
     
    Rain partially obscured the valley, but it did not provide the cover for which the pinned NVA soldiers had hoped. The two snipers lay in their leafy blind and watched heads pop above the dike and quickly drop back down.
     
    "Those hamburgers are getting ready to move," Hathcock whispered to Burke. "Sun's going fast and I'd stake my stripes on them making a run for the trees or them hooches down the valley soon as it is dark. Just hope those cannon cockers give us the illumes when we need 'em."
     
    Burke nodded and put his binoculars back up to his eyes. Hathcock lay behind his rifle and slowly moved his scope along the paddy dike, watching and waiting.
     
    The afternoon showers faded and left the sky orange above the western mountains as the sun set behind them. Long shadows from the high peaks crossed Elephant Valley, and as darkness descended, the two snipers watched for movement emerging from behind the dike.
     
    "I can't see a thing," Burke said, dropping the binoculars from his eyes.
     
    "Call in an ilium," Hathcock said.
     
    Humid air hung through the dark valley, and only water dripping from the jungle's leaves offered any sound for the two snipers to hear.
     
    High overhead a muffled bang echoed, and like a miniature sun dangling beneath a small parachute the illumination round exposed the NVA soldiers nearly one hundred yards from the dike, moving eastward down the valley toward a group of huts that lay another one thousand yards away.
     
    Without a word, both snipers' rifles fired on the line of men who ran toward the huts.
     
    "Turn 'em back," Hathcock told Burke. "Concentrate the fire at the head of their column." As quickly as he could squeeze the trigger, Burke fired on the fleeing men. Hathcock followed as rapidly as he could work his rifle's bolt.
     
    One after another the soldiers at the front of the column fell. The rest of the company hurtled back to the dike, leaving their fallen comrades behind them.
     
    "Well, I guess they won't try that again for a while," Burke said.
     
    "Don't count on it. If I were them, I'd make a run for it right now."
     
    A second illumination round burst overhead, lighting the valley with its eerie glow, showing no movement.
     
    "Sergeant Hathcock, those guys are just plain scared to move. I don't think they're going anywhere."
     
    "Let's give 'em some dark for a while and see what they try. Tell them to hold the illumes for a few minutes. Maybe they'll make another run for it."
     
    The two snipers lay quiet, listening to the sounds of the dark jungle. Croaking gecko lizards and small tree frogs chirped. Echoing through the jungle came the shrill cry of a foul-sounding bird, "Fauk-U, fauk-U, faaauk-uuuu."
     
    "My sentiments exactly," Hathcock mumbled.
     
    Down below, in the rice paddies of the valley, they could hear only a deep silence, but, as soon as they called for another flare, it exposed a squad-sized group dashing for the huts that were just beyond the trees, east of the