The Hill - Hell on Earth

(Source)

Sauer was halfway to the squad's machine gun position when the first Chinese artillery round impacted about 20 meters behind the trench line. As he hugged the earth, knowing that more would follow, Sauer had the odd thought that he still thought in terms of meters, not yards.

The next round was much closer and the explosion seemed to push him away from the shelter of the bottom of the trench. It was almost as if Mother Earth was trying to throw him up into the fragment-filled air outside of the trench.

Sauer was crawling as fast as he could in the direction of his 1st Squad's MG team, but it was slow going. The ground was shaking and heaving as the artillery continued to fall all around his position. For a moment he stopped crawling and buried his face in the dirt, his arms covering his helmet.

Another explosion, this one too close. His ears were ringing and it felt as if a weight was across his legs. He panicked at the thought of being buried alive.

"Come on Freddy, move your ass!"

He heard the voice, dull and as if from a great distance. Two sets of hands were pulling him forward, his legs had been buried when the section of trench just behind him had collapsed.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," he managed to say, shaking himself free of his rescuers. He was amazed that he still held his rifle in his hands.

Corporal Brett Worthington was pulling him forward, "Come on Freddy, we need you on the gun!"

Pvt. Dana Parsons was screaming in pain and in fear. A nearby hit had thrown him back from the machine gun and blasted dirt and stones into his face. He was blinded and the panic was starting to overwhelm him. The he heard the .30 cal stop firing.

"Shit, shit, shit ..." he stuttered then he began yelling, "Hey, I need someone on the gun, I can't see! I can't see!"

Someone pulled him backwards and told him to shut up. He heard someone yelling, he realized it was the German guy, Sauer. Damn, where'd he come from?

"Schnell, wasche ihm das Gesicht ab! Scheiße! Water, wash his face off! It's just dirt in his eyes!" Sauer realized that he had broken into German, it happened in moments of extreme stress.

"Help me get this body out of the way!" he yelled at the nearest man.

"Shit, it's f**king Smitty!" the man yelled when they rolled the body away from the gun.

"He's dead, if you don't to wish to join him, grab that ammo belt and feed me!" Sauer was frantically checking the gun, other than some dirt in the feed, which he cleared, it seemed to be okay.

When the gun was loaded he looked down the slope, it was crawling with Chinese infantry. They had followed the barrage in.

"That's it Nate, rounds complete. The arty is going for the Chicom guns, we're on our own now." Hernandez dropped the radio handset and turned to head out of the bunker.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"We've still got our mortars, the batteries in the radio are dead. I'll get them going. We're in the shit now, Cap!"

Paddock looked through the observation slit, lots of smoke, very little visibility to the front, so he grabbed his carbine and stepped out of the bunker.

"Jesus, it's f**king freezing," he hissed as the cold air hit his lungs. Then he was in action, the Chinese were almost in the trench.

The company mortars started banging away, dropping their rounds within 50 yards of the trench line. As Hernandez made his way back to the CP, he heard the sound of a carbine firing, nearly as fast as the man holding it could pull the trigger.

Coming around a corner, he saw the CP, Captain Paddock was reloading his weapon and didn't see a Chinese soldier rushing towards him, bayonet at the charge.

Hernandez snapped off a round, it missed but it startled the enemy soldier. The man turned towards Hernandez, sheer hatred painting his face. Before he could act on that hatred, Paddock shot the man in the torso from point blank range.

As the soldier went down, Hernandez put a round into him as well. That snapped the man's head back throwing his soft winter cap, and most of his brains, back against the trench wall.

"Jesus, Sir, I can't leave you alone for a minute!" Hernandez had grabbed a spare battery for the CP radio down at the mortar pits. He handed it to Paddock.

"Fix the radio, I'll watch your back."

The Chinese tried one more push, but as they did so, the sun began to rise. The enemy knew that with the dawn, the American Air Force would make its presence felt.

The bugles sounded, and the enemy tide slowly ebbed back down the slopes of the bloodied hill. The snow leading up to the crest had been churned into a dirty brown, that near the top had been stained red with blood.

The platoons began to report in, Hernandez had his notebook out as Paddock relayed the casualty figures to him -

"First platoon, three wounded in need of immediate evac, six men wounded but ambulatory, seven dead, including the platoon sergeant and one of the squad leaders."

"Second platoon, seventeen wounded, twelve dead, the damned Chinese nearly overran them, it was hand to hand for a while before Third Platoon counterattacked with a squad and drove the bastards back down the hill."

"Third Platoon ..." Paddock paused, Mike Masterson had been a good friend.

"Seven dead, including the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader ..."

"Masterson?" Hernandez stopped writing, looking at Paddock in shock.

"Yeah, seven dead, twelve wounded, one of 'em isn't going to make it unless we can get his ass down the hill ..."

"SHIT!" Paddock slammed the handset down and buried his face in his hands, "The guy just died, make that eight dead."

Hernandez got up and placed a hand on his Captain's shoulder, he picked up the handset. Paddock shrugged it off and went outside, "I need a smoke, Top."

"This is Top, who's this?"

"Hey Top, it's Winthrop. L.T.'s f**king dead, man, S/Sgt Henderson just f**king died, Jesus it's a mess over here, Top. F**king Second Squad's CP looks like a slaughterhouse."

"Calm down, take a deep breath, Bobby. You've gotta pull yourself together. Who's left of your squad leaders?"

"Uh, lemme think. I don't know where Thornton is, hell I've got fifteen guys with me, Parsons is half-blind, Sauer and Johnson are on our last MG, covering the front of the line. We need reinforcements, man!"

Paddock came back in, he looked better, "Top, get over there and sort things out. Runner from battalion just told me that Baker Company is moving up out of reserve, we're going back down the hill. To regroup battalion says, with what I asked them. Jesus why did I stay in the f**king Army?"

Corporal Brett Worthington met Hernandez as he came into the area belonging to Second Squad, "Ain't much left Top, the survivors are all shell shocked, worse thing I've ever seen, and I was on the f**king 'Canal.¹"

Hernandez followed Worthington, it looked like he and Winthrop were the only unhurt noncoms. "We're going back down the hill, into reserve, as soon as Baker relieves us. For now you're the man in Third Platoon, Bobby." He said, looking at Winthrop.

"Brett, you've got first squad ..." he was looking around to see who else he knew who might hold the platoon together for the next day or so.

Making a decision he said, "Sauer, you're a corporal as of right now. Parsons, you gonna live?"

Dana Parsons looked sheepishly at the ground, "Yeah, I think so Top."

"Good. Winthrop, who else ..."

"Parsons is good on the gun, he panicked a bit, but so would I if I thought I was blind and every Chicom in the world was attacking my position. Hell, give him what's left of his own squad, at least until we can get another Sergeant."

Hernandez nodded, "Parsons, you're a Corporal, for now. All right Third, get your shit together, we're packing up soon. Ah, here's our relief now."

A platoon from Baker was entering the trenches, a number of the men looked aghast at the devastation the Chinese attack had left behind.

Hernandez had seen it all before, but it made him sick to his stomach. He wondered if the Goddamned politicians of the world would ever get sick of trying to take what wasn't theirs. Damn them all he thought to himself, damn them all to Hell.

¹ Guadalcanal.