Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [35]
Sergeant Beauchamp ran up from the shadows.
Previously, in their command bunker, Captain Hobson and Sergeant Beauchamp had been able to see the flames flickering from the ammo pit, but when the explosion finally came–a sudden shock, nonetheless– everything was dark and dusty. The dirt-filled ammo boxes stacked atop the bunker caved in, and Beauchamp and his radiomen shoved them off Hobson. Hobson was banged up, but okay. Beauchamp's eardrum was ruptured and his head was ringing terribly, but he too was okay. They were digging their radios out of the dirt when several artillerymen tumbled into their little bunker: Suddenly out of a job, these kids had lunged for the nearest cover. Beauchamp shoved them back out and led the wide-eyed group toward the berm line.
He'd just positioned the redlegs on the firing line when someone began shouting, 'There's somebody out there!”
Someone else hollered, “It's an American!”
Conjecturing that the explosion had hurled a wounded GI over the berm, Beauchamp shouted at several men to clamber over and drag him back. He jumped atop the berm himself in the excitement. The man in question was practically at his feet. He suddenly realized that this was no GI but an NVA in khaki fatigues who was trying to crawl cautiously away when he realized that he was the only one to make it this far. Having given his rifle to one of the artillerymen, Sergeant First Class Beauchamp quickly scooped up someone else's M16, turned on his heel, and at point-blank range pumped a burst into the North Vietnamese soldier's back.
Beauchamp hopped off the berm and jogged through the dust haze to where Meiser was reorganizing men to plug the hole in their lines. The popping reports of M16 rifles began to sound again as confused GIs lined their sights on equally confused NVA who were picking themselves back up too. Ammunition was cooking off from the small bunker that Charlie Company had dug for their stock of small arms ammo, and Beauchamp collared several GIs and set them to shoveling dirt over the fire. He meant to return to the command bunker then, but he'd gotten disoriented in all the dust and, with no idea exactly where he was or what was going on, he ended up moving from man to man telling them to keep calm. As the NVA fire started to sputter out, low-crouching clusters of GIs carried their dead and wounded to the conex bunker where the battalion surgeon and his medics were working.
Beauchamp noticed that most of Charlie Company's casualties were from the Chinook full of replacements that had arrived three days before.
At least two of the wounded men stayed in position in a culvert-and-sandbag shelter, and although Beauchamp told them to get their asses back to where the medics were, he never forgot the two young GIs. One had taken shrapnel in the eyes; the other's hands were wounded. The blind man fired his M16 on directions from his buddy with the bloody hands. Beauchamp found a radio and finished the night crouched along the berm, helping direct the support fire. Green tracers arched skyward at the Cobras from a tree line several hundred meters away. He directed artillery fire around the muzzle flash of the 12.7mm, and its gunner either died in place or shouldered his weapon and got the hell out, because the antiaircraft fire did cease.
Finally, the NVA attack was coming apart. The flashes of explosions illuminated a few NVA dragging casualties back across the clearing.
Even on Echo Recon's side of the line, things were starting to peter out as the NVA continued firing from the dusty shadows but no longer charged. Out of his mind on adrenaline, the bruised and bleeding Pete Lemon found an M16 and jumped up on the berm. He fired at those figures still visible until, having been wounded three