Blood and Moss

Narrative Essay

I remember thinking it strange that the moss on the rock was not wet when I touched it. It felt like my beard when I don’t shave for close to a month. The morning seemed to exhale its golden breath through the branches and needles of the pines around us. I could hear the crunch of the dry grass under my boot; it was barely louder than my heartbeat. The area was covered with rock formations, like small mountains dotting the map. The plan was to use them both as cover, and as landmarks to work our way to the target.

Just over three kilometers from the drop point, Cortez spotted the perimeter guard. I heard his gloved hand cut the air as he brought it upward quickly and closed it to a tight fist, slowly raising his M16 with his other hand. I dropped to one knee, raised my M24, the scope to my right eye, and flipped up the front lens guard. I panned from left to right, covering a twenty-meter spread. Less than ten meters into my pattern, a round struck the trunk of the tree behind me with a hissing crack, and bark flew past my head. I dropped to my stomach. From either side of me, I heard Glass and Carver return three-shot bursts in the direction from which the shot had come.
Olson fired six shots from his M249, and Cortez sent a burst of his own from his M16. I could see the crimson spray as the rounds penetrated the gray canvas vest and entered the torso of a Georgian Rebel.

“Enemy soldier down,” I heard Glass say in my earpiece.

“Confirm kill one,” I said into my lip mic.

“Confirm kills two and three,” Basista said.

I hadn’t even seen the third one. All these trees made it easy for us to keep cover, but any advantage we gained from the landscape, the enemy could use just as well. Worse, they know the area. All we had were field maps and satellite images.

“All clear. Move out,” Cortez said.

I took point. We followed the rock face close enough that my right shoulder grazed it every few paces. I crouched and slowed as we neared the point where the ridge ended in a sharp corner. The sat images had shown a slope on the other side of the rock face that led up to yet another ridge. Beneath that ridge would be the reason we were here: a rebel camp.

The intel put no less than six, and no more than fifteen on site. Three days ago, the sat images showed at least thirty distinct human shapes. Papashvili, a rebel leader, had arrived to prepare a new insurgence. My paycheck, and the paycheck of the five other men with me, said he wasn’t going to get that chance.

I rounded the corner and pulled my scope up to my right eye again. I scanned the ridgeline above. Nothing. It was only about twenty meters up, so I dropped to my belly and crawled toward the top with my M24 in front. I could hear Glass and Carver drop and follow behind me. Basista, Cortez and Olson stayed back to cover.

I stopped three meters up and scanned the ridgeline again: nothing new. I crawled another three meters and checked again. This time I saw it: sandbags. Just over the eastern edge of the ridgeline, I could see the bottom fold of seven sandbags, which are not a naturally occurring rock formation in the Georgian Forest. If there were rebels on the other side of those bags, they would spot us soon. We were completely exposed. From that vantage point, all three of us were presenting the biggest possible target: our backs. I had two choices: toss a grenade up there and blow the element of surprise along with the rebels, or wait until one of them showed his head and give it another hole. I went with choice three.

I grabbed a rock, slightly smaller than a baseball, from the ground near me and rose to one knee. With my scope fixed on what I could now make out as a seven by four sandbag wall, I tossed the rock with my left hand. I suck at throwing with my left hand. It fell short, but the thud was enough to bring a rebel head just above the bags. I rested the crosshairs slightly above the top of his hair to allow for the upward slope, and squeezed the trigger. My M24 kicked, the scope left my eye, and the red mist told me I’d hit him.

We waited for a couple of minutes and no one else moved. Either there had been only one guard behind the bags, or anyone still back there was too smart to move. We didn’t have time to wait. Papashvili would eventually realize that his force was being slowly reduced. I turned to Glass and Carver and pointed to my lip mic.

“Alpha, this is Bravo One. Recommend we move in,” I said.

“Bravo One, this is Alpha One. Move in. I repeat: Alpha and Bravo move in. All costs.”

I turned back to the ridgeline and checked my clip.

“Do you have to have that on?” my wife asked from the bed, where she was doing math homework. I looked over my shoulder at her. I couldn’t tell if she was more annoyed with me, or the math.

“It’s for my Comp class,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and moving my thumb towards the pause button on the XBOX controller.

“Well, can you turn it down?”

I turned back to the screen just in time to see the fallen rebel’s buddy standing behind the sandbags. His head and torso were exposed. I moved my thumb back toward the stick.

“Ungh!” my digital double cried out. He fell to the ground and I could see the blood pour over the crisp grass as I lay there, motionless and out of the game.

“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll just turn it off.”