“Baroom,” the first device erupted. Screams from the ravine mingled with screams
of warning emitting from the throats of those near the artillery pieces, who
witnessed the second grenade land among them.
The explosion in the ravine grew larger as artie
shells chained off. Then the second
masher erupted as a brave Chinese soldier tried to pick it up and hurl it
clear. There too secondary detonations
accumulated death and destruction.
Bodies were racing and flying everywhere as Cat took the opportunity to
break cover. He sprinted past an outcrop
of rock and clambered up the opposing slope.
To his right sixty yards away rescuers raced down hill toward the chaos,
then thought better of that course and simply ducked for cover. Cat stalled at the top of the elevation he
was about to cross in order to steal a peek across the parallel. The down slope was crisscrossed with trench
emplacements and the enemy ran in all directions, some came over the rise to
his right firing their weapons blindly. “Fubar on you
guys,” Cat whispered to himself. Across the line in Ranger country, Red Hand Callihan sat up in his chair in Bucky
Kane’s bunker. He ran outside and
trained a pair of field glasses on the glow of explosions sprouting from beyond
his view. Bucky arrived at his elbow, his brows
arching down full of question. “I think Attila might be coming home,” Red Callihan muttered off-handedly hiding his anticipation.
“Christ that boy’s usually more quiet than that,” Bucky observed. “Guess he’s throwin’
one last party Cap’n.” From where Cat watched, tucked
under a hanging rock, the way down appeared to have cleared. He was about to
bolt down to the little valley separating the Chinese from the Rangers when he
eyed a leg, then another, emerge cautiously from a trench line, out of his
vision. The man stood in his way a few
paces away searching, Cat supposed, as he could only see the bottom half of his
torso. “Move out, damn you,” Cat thought to himself, “I gotta
git.” But the
man remained still apparently scanning for something. “Fuck this,” Cat decided
and he unreeled himself from his hiding crevice just as the enemy turned toward
Cat’s location. He had his K-bar
reversed in his right hand, edge running back along his wrist. The two men came
face to face. The man in Cat’s way was
none other than the Colonel who had tried to shoot him and missed the night he
brought back “Yorick”. Cat looked into the man’s eyes
with his death mask grin contorting his features horrifically. “You,” the
Chinese Colonel gasped in recognition. Cat’s right hand flashed out like a
striking cobra and left a gapping jugular vein pumping blood out the Chinese
neck. The Colonel stood there for a
second feebly trying to staunch the flow, his eyes wide in fear of his
impending death. He went to his knees
where Cat took a foot to his chest and shoved him backward into the trench
where he sprawled still staring at Cat.