Victory Point - Ed Darack [115]
“Where’s Dorf’s 81s?” Konnie threw himself back into the dialogue.
“Almost there—almost got him . . .” the radio operator responded.
Along the eastern wall of the Chowkay, roughly one kilometer south of Fox-3’s position, the echoing booms and clatters of the massive ambush had instantly snagged the attention of Ben Middendorf and his Marines. The twenty-six-year-old lieutenant, who graduated from West Point, then “snuck” out of the Army to join the Marines—urged there by his father, who had served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War in the venerated First Recon Battalion—instinctively built a plan within seconds as his grunts dove to the ground and stared at the lieutenant with “what now?” expressions. “Go firm! Get into defensive positions!” Dorf commanded. “Get those tubes fire-capped” (fire-capable, meaning that the mortars are ready to fire). The Marines jumped into their heat-of-combat roles, with Middendorf looking to get the vital mortars ready to crush Shah and his force. But the Marines stood on steep ground, and each burly 81 mm mortar tube needed a patch of flat ground roughly two feet by four feet, at the very bare minimum, to get positioned.
Seconds melted into minutes, then Corporal Joshua Plunk, whom Middendorf considered one of the best Marines he’d ever worked with, reported, “We got one up, sir! But just one!” With the tube mounted to the base plate, and standing firm against the bipod, Dorf just needed to get in comms with Fox-3. But Grissom’s weren’t the only radios with problems that morning. When Middendorf’s radio operator dove to the ground, a vital cable from the PSG-5 high-power satellite communication radio tore from the unit, rendering it useless.
“I just happened to bring a spare, sir,” the RO revealed.
“Eighty-ones good to go, sir, got Lieutenant Middendorf on the hook.” Grissom’s radio operator called out moments later.
“Excellent!” Grissom called back.
But just then, boom! The Marines looked at one another, then at a smoking crater forty-five meters distant. Boom! Again . . . but the next one landed just thirty meters away.
“Get down! They’re walking mortars onto our position!” bellowed Grissom.
Boom! Fifteen meters.
“The next one’s on top of us. RUN!” yelled Konnie.
Boom! Right on top of the group of them—literally on fucking top. The mortar round detonated about twenty-five feet above Pigeon’s head, the tail fin actually hitting him in the shoulder after smashing into the ground aside the FAC.
“Thought one of you guys was punching me . . . but it was the ass end of the mortar!” Pigeon nervously laughed. Unlike the Marines, extremists like Shah can’t always be sure of the quality or the supply consistency of their munitions; when a cell gets a crate of mortar rounds, only some may detonate as engineered, and often they don’t function at all—or some, like number four in the barrage that was launched on the command post that morning, might air-burst safely above the intended target.
“I guess that makes this our really lucky day,” Konnie again chimed in with his dry sarcasm. “Somebody get me a lottery ticket.”
“Okay, motherfuckers. Now let’s get some,” seared Grissom, wiping the sweat from his brow—brought on not just from the heat, but from fear of incineration by an exploding mortar round. He contacted Middendorf directly, and passed him a grid reference point for the attackers to their east. Seconds after the gun team received the coordinate, they had the deflection and elevation for the gun from their mortar ballistic computer—and a round downrange. Whump!
“You got an FO yet for the fire package?” Konnie asked the captain. Middendorf’s forward observer had remained with him; with Grissom, Konnie, and Pigeon able to pass back fire-adjustment instructions to the mortar team, Dorf felt confident.
“No. Wanna be a forward observer, Konnie?” Grissom asked.
“Rog. Let’s pass some adjustments to Dorf,” the lieutenant responded. Seconds later, more 81 mm mortar rounds detonated along the ridgeline—slamming directly on the