Molotov Heights V: Someone Had Blundered

1:30 PM

While Groggy and Atlas made their triumphant charge on the main Russian line, Lieutenant-Colonel Starbuck attacked the hill’s left flank. His troops streamed into the valley between the two main Russian hills. As they went, they could see the rest of Alstott’s troops, the 71st New York and the 7th Florida, belatedly joining the assault, surging up the opposite hill towards Fort Kurugen. Groggy’s scheme was going exactly as planned, the battle taking on a chaotic momentum of its own.

Captain Patrick O’Brien certainly had the heroism and cavalier attitude that had distinguished his cousin in Mexico and elsewhere. He led C Company in a series of bayonet charges against the Russian lines, driving back machine gun nests and overrunning rifle pits. Of course his men suffered casualties – among them Lieutenant Ackt, whose career of making fatally noxious stews came to an end by a Russian bullet that struck him, fittingly enough, in the stomach. However, compared to the gains they were making, O’Brien’s losses were more than acceptable; it seemed only a matter of time until the final victory was at hand.

Finally, O’Brien’s men made me one last desperate charge. He could hear the fighting on the crest of the ridge, from Groggy’s main ridge. Without waiting for orders from his battalion command, O’Brien ordered his company to attack a large Russian machine gun position, which would effectively turn the Russian flank.

O’Brien’s men accomplished the task quickly. They suffered a handful of casualties, mostly wounded, but by now the Russians were demoralized by the wave of Americans which had so quickly swept aside their well-laid positions and overran their guns. Most of them fell back without fighting, disappearing over the crest of the hill, and O’Brien counted himself lucky that he had lost so few men in the charge. He ordered his company to reform and hold the line while the rest of Starbuck’s battalion came up.

One of the men, however, was not so lucky. Private Salem was shot in the chest, and unceremoniously fell backwards. His uniform tangled in the wire. But out of his pocket fell the large, rusty knife of Dave Jenkins, which slid down the hillside, as if under its own power.

1:40 PM

General Jenkins drove as quickly as he could to the front. But that wasn’t very fast at all. There were only a few dirt roads, and they went through thick jungle. Worse, when he finally got to the clearing, he found the road completely congested with a nightmarish mixture of dying and wounded men, scared and routed soldiers running every which way, broken trucks and equipment, and dozens of shell-ridden corpses. A small group of buzzards flew overhead. Jenkins stopped his jeep, and banged on the horn out of frustration.

He then saw a man squatting on a rise above him, as if presiding over the scene. It was, of course, Eric Glenn, stoic and passive as ever, struggling to take pictures of the chaos around him with his Nokia camera. With him was the ubiquitous seniorita, for once fully clothed, with a rifle slung over her shoulder.

“Hey, camera man!” Jenkins shouted to him. “Which way to the front?”

Glenn didn’t look up from his camera. “How should I know?” he bellowed testily. “I’m a non-combatant, goddammit!”

Jenkins spit and flipped Glenn off, then hopped back in the jeep. He slowly began making his way through the tangled mass of shattered men and machinery, driving at 10 miles an hour. He couldn’t go much faster than that for fear of crashing or hitting something.

Then, Jenkins served, as, of all things, a large cow wandered out in front of him.
Jenkins panicked and spun out, crashing his car into a tree. Jenkins sat there, stunned, blood running from a wound in his head, his left arm throbbing with pain.

Just like God to play a trick like this on me, Jenkins thought bitterly as he tried to regain his composure. The Russians will get to Groggy before I do.

1:45 PM

The fighting on Molotov Hill was over. Starbuck’s battalion quickly linked up with Groggy’s main force. The Russian artillerymen were being disarmed by Atlas’s battalion, and for the most part giving up without a fight. Groggy’s men, were still exchanging machine gun and artillery fire with Russian troops on the left face of Kurugen, however. Groggy realized that his men would have to deal with the situation head-on. He watched the rest of Alstott’s brigade struggle up the Russian slope, but their advance was slow, methodical, and seemingly getting nowhere.

Groggy looked around at his men with pride. He saw Matt manning a machine gun, with Elizabeth holding his hand and helpfully feeding the belt into his gun. He saw Corporal Dan taking careful aim at the Russians across the way with his carbine. He saw Sergeant Beck belatedly arrive with his squadron and join the firing line. He saw the rest of them, all the men he had led as a father – not necessarily a good father, perhaps an abusive and neglectful one, but ultimately a loving one nonetheless. So caught up was he in the moment that he forgot his wound, which barely hurt, which had ceased bleeding; it must not have been nearly as bad as it had looked at first glance.

Corporal Truelove, standing back of the firing line, returned to his recitation from earlier.

“Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right,” he said. And quickly Matt, Elizabeth, Dan and others had joined in, reading the poem to the end.

“Flash’d all their sabers bare, Flash’d as they turn’d in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered!” Even Groggy joined in as the poem. The battle wasn’t over yet, but a delirious happiness, a sense of pride and accomplishment and euphoria, swept through the ranks, happy at their seemingly impossible achievement.

On the slope of the hill, a small machine gun platoon had pushed up the mountain and lent their fire to Groggy’s assault, and were now shooting at the Russian defenders of Kurugen. They hardly noticed as General Jenkins staggered up beside them, his pistol drawn. He was nearing the end of a long journey and he wasn’t about to let it be interrupted any further.

Without ceremony, and ignoring the startled salutes of the gunners, Jenkins forced his way up to one of the machine guns, an M-60. He sighted it, ignoring the men who protested it was perfectly cited… and trained it back on Molotov Hill. He could barely make out Groggy through the smoke of battle, but there he was, the bastard. He aimed the weapon and prepared to fire.

“Sir!” A young, boyish Corporal reached over and tugged on Jenkins’ shirt-sleeve. “You’re aiming the wrong way, sir! The Russians-“

The boy didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Jenkins shot him through the mouth, and then turned his pistol on the rest of the machine gun crew, murdering them in cold blood. He turned back to Molotov, and saw, to his chagrin, that Groggy was no longer in plain sight.

Roaring angrily, Jenkins nonetheless aimed his weapon and opened fire.

“Machine gun fire!” someone called on the hill as Jenkins blazed away. A private fell, shot through the neck.

“What the hell-“ Groggy started, but Lieutenant Aclea pulled him to the ground.

“Who’s doing that shooting?” Joe Starbuck shouted.

A bullet tore into Matt’s chest, sending him sprawling backwards. Elizabeth screamed and dove to the ground, and immediately began crying at the sight of her dead boyfriend.

Several other soldiers were killed in the barrage, too. Captain O’Brien was the only one to realize what was going on, and as soon as his mind computed this fact he sprung into reckless action.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Then he drew his pistol and rushed down the mountain, before anyone could stop him. A soldier stood up and tried, but he received a Russian rifle shot through his skull. This was something the Captain would have take to care of himself.

As Jenkins fired his weapon, he felt something fall against his leg, and bent down to examine it. Amazingly it was cousin Dave’s knife, a bit rusty, a bit dirty, but now it was back. Incredulously, Jenkins examined the knife. He didn’t know how it got there, but to him, it was a sign. It was now suddenly clear – he was doing this all wrong. There was only way to proper achieve his task.

As he began ascending the hill, Jenkins didn’t notice his former aide rushing down towards him, struggling to maintain his balance amidst the thud and rocking of exploding shells. Finally, after getting within about ten yards of the General, he drew his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins, who incredulously stared at him.

“Sorry, General,” O’Brien said coolly. “This is as far as you’re getting.”

“GET OUT OF MY WAY, BOY!” Jenkins bellowed, waving his knife angrily.

O’Brien cocked his pistol and aimed it at Jenkins’ head. “I do not condone murder, General,” he said, “and you’re a murderer.”

Before anything else could happen, however, a shell burst a few yards up the hill. O’Brien lost his footing as a result, and fell down the hill, landing just a few feet away from the general.

This gave the General his chance. He leapt upon his treacherous aide, wielding his knife and struggling to keep himself on top of him long enough to run the knife through his midsection. However, the Captain gained the advantage easily; he was younger, stronger, and cheated. He grabbed Jenkins’ broken left arm and twisted it with both hands. Jenkins bellowed an angry roar, and the pain that distracted him was enough for O’Brien to gain the initiative.

O’Brien pushed all his weight against Jenkins and toppled him to the ground. With a decisive movement, he grabbed Jenkins’ good hand, wielding the rusty knife, and jammed it into Jenkins’ chest, piercing his black heart. Jenkins coughed, a flower of dark scarlet blood spurted out of his mouth, and he fell to the ground, finally dead.

Captain O’Brien probably didn’t hear the crack of the .38 – in the midst of such a high-intensity fight it would have been almost impossible – or sense the bullet that was coming to end his life. It came too fast for O’Brien to react, or even realize what was happening; blood and brains spurted out the sides of his head, and he slumped over, killed instantly.

In the most supreme irony of all, it was fired by Groggy – not deliberately, of course, as he had simply been unable to tell the two men apart in their squabble. But as his cousin had before, O’Brien ended up giving his life for the man who destroyed him.