Sunday, June 23, 2024

Cold desert rain! (short story) (Part 2 of 4)

 

The team had entered the tiny valley, of sorts, and gained only about two hundred meters when a 50-cal opened up on them followed immediately by small arms fire from among the deep shadows. Two soldiers directly in front of her, spaced at about three meters distance, each, went down in a hail of buzzing bullets. She recognized the 50-cal immediately; it sang a song-of-death like no other fear. If a mortar called your name, the wisdom predicted that, at least, you would hear it coming. Might not do you any good, but there would be a slight interval to duck; a 50-cal stalked deadly silent towards its victim. Oh! Sure enough! One would hear the staccato burp five round spread, but the bullet with your name on it was immediate. Either way---you’re…Dead!

The Sergeant dared a quick look around; she could see seven unmoving bodies and one trying to pull itself to a rock for cover. She heard a short bevy of AK fire, saw the body go rigid and then relax, not to flinch, again. Damn!

The desert monsoon thunderstorm intensified; in a lightning flash she saw Pvt. Revoir, the only other female in the squad, across the now flooded ravine just a bit forward of her own position behind a small protrusion much to tiny to afford her much protection. For the moment, the torrent precluded any enemy fire, they were probably holding up, also. McGonahue dared a slight wave toward Revoir, the private failed to notice as she had her head down. Good!

Trying to improve her tiny fortress without making too much of an announcement with movement, the sergeant scraped hands full of sand from behind her to deepen the depression.

A stream of rain had gathered above her position on the rocks and fell in several rivulets across the roof of her tiny fort. She imagined that the display might be enjoyable to watch from the other side. Sort of like a cascading waterfall. She shook her head, trying to concentrate.

The onslaught suddenly seemed to subside, even if only very slightly. These infrequent desert thunderstorms could be fierce but usually were of short duration, ten to twenty minutes, or so.

Their real danger, aside from the crackling lightning jolts, was the flash flooding downstream of the torrent, drowning was a much greater hazard than lightning. The valley was already a raging river with ten feet of rolling, muddy flood water cascading through the narrow passage.

She peered toward Revoir’s position but couldn’t see her so she squinted into the rainstorm.

A slight “tink” on the edge of the rock serving as her “roof” and a dull grey metallic glint as a lightning jag illuminated the darkness screamed panic and fear into her confused brain. Without thinking, even for a micro-second, she reacted to the danger and flung her body backward and down as deep as she could get as the explosion immediately shook her sandy retreat. Grenade!

One of the enemy was on the rock above her! How far away, she couldn’t know, but close.

The flash of the grenade exploding below her position provided an instant light frame of Revoir across the valley some thirty meters away. She, too, had been served a grenade. The explosion propelled the private two feet into the air. In a flash-of-lightning,McGonahue saw the soldier’s rifle sail into the darkness spinning like the silver baton of a marching drum majorette..

The sergeant exhaled an audible grunt from her chest and her eyes widened. OMG!

The sergeant’s military mind processed the information, immediately. The events revealed that there were at least two enemy out there. When that reality settled into her consciousness she found herself surprised at the revelation; she had fully expected there might be “ten” or more.

Taking a few seconds to recover from the unnerving experience, the sergeant quickly began to assess her situation. Now, she knew the enemy had a pretty good idea where she was. And, there might be only one of her squad still alive. It was a long twelve hours until daylight. When the Lieutenant did not check in with HQ they would initiate an extraction order but because of the darkness that evacuation attempt would be delayed until dawn, at best. She was alone!

After a half minute, or so, just as her trembling began to subside and she contemplated rescue the sergeant was abruptly brought back to very harsh reality with another deadly “tink” broke the silence. She had barely steeled herself for that concussion blast when the grenade exploded, this time farther down the rock formation and more to her right.

The second attempt did not shake her resolve as badly as the previous assault; her training had kicked in and she was more properly reactionary as this second attack, not completely surprised. While the continued effort was certainly unsettling, her military training led her to expect it.

Also, the second grenade told her that the adversary did not know her position, they were guessing. That small success gave her some confidence that she might actually “win” the contest.

She relaxed, even allowing herself a small “congratulatory” smile. Yes! She could “Win”!

The torrent lasted another fifteen minutes, gradually diminishing until it finally flickered out taking the lightning and thunder and rain to the southeast; it got dead silent and very cold.

Whoever was above her had gone silent. They might have retreated to a tidy camp of food and warm fire, or, just be waiting for her to make a mistake with noise or other give-a way. She tried to breathe quietly, remain calm. At least, no more grenades came her way. Twelve hours to go.

(Part 3 of 4 Tomorrow)

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