Joseph Hampton breathed in the thick, putrid air, taking care to breathe through his mouth and not his nose; he hated the smell of this God-forsaken swamp. Overhead, he heard the whistling of shells… coming from behind him, meaning they were Floridian, which was somewhat of a relief to him, but not completely. Shells have been known to miss their mark, and hit the wrong target. But that was the least of his concerns.
He peered over the rock to the decrepit collection of houses up ahead, doing his best to keep his head under foliage, and peered through his binoculars. He saw a machine gun pointed in his direction, and a dark face behind it. Looking to the other windows, he saw nothing. He looked to see if there was anything in the other houses. The furthest one from his position had a similar story: a machine gun in one window, nothing in the other. The third house had nothing, but that did not mean it was unoccupied. There was a large pond between the houses, and they were connected by rotting, bombed-out and otherwise precarious bridges. Chances were, there were crocodiles in the water, which may be even more dangerous than the proles; he had heard stories of men who had stepped wrong, and had their legs torn off by a crocodile, and had even seen bodies that had injuries that did not look like they were done by bullets or explosives.
“What do you see, Joe?” his brother Aaron whispered. He was crouched low beside him, not exposed at all. “Any proles over there?”
“Two so far,” Joseph whispered back. “One in the near, the other in the far. Both manning a machine gun. None in the closest one. But if you ask me, there’s much more than two.”
“I’ll trust your gut on that, Joe. Proles come in packs and swarms, not two’s. Now let’s get out of here and back with our platoon.” Joseph, trying to make as little movement as he could, shimmied backwards out from beneath the foliage, then got to Aaron’s level.
“Let’s scram.” They kept crouched low, trying to step softly and slowly through the moist ground of the swamp. Around the bend of the road they went, and met up with the rest of their platoon, who were hiding on the sides of the road. Lieutenant Stephen Kilgore, a man of blonde hair, blue eyes, and chiseled features, was whispering with Sergeant Franklin Kerry, a darker shaded, gruff looking man who was fourteen years Lt. Kilgore’s senior. “Lt. Kilgore, sir!” Joseph whispered.
“What you find, Private?” Kilgore said.
“Sir, it’s best we keep our voices down,” Joe whispered harshly. “I saw at least two proles manning machine guns in those houses over there.”
“Just two?” Lt. Kilgore replied, raising his eyebrow wryly.
“There’s likely more than that, sir,” Sgt. Kerry said, also in hushed tones. “Proles come in far greater numbers than that.”
Joseph would have agreed, but that would likely have earned the animosity of the Lieutenant, acting as if he knew more. Sgt. Kerry could get away with it, for he had fought three wars to Lt. Kilgore’s one. But a volunteer private could not get away with it. “There is one in the house furthest from our position, and one that’s next to furthest. I saw none in the one nearest to us, but they all could have fifteen proles in each of them, in my opinion.”
“As shrewd as your opinion is, Private, I did not ask for it,” Lt. Kilgore retorted. Joseph pressed his lips together. He had stepped over the line, but too late now. Nonetheless, he didn’t expect any retribution for it. “Now you and your brother get over there in the bushes, and wait for my orders.”
“Yes, sir,” both he and his brother said, but in the hushed rather than the barked fashion they were used to. They scurried across the road and dived into the bushes. “He didn’t need to snap at you like that,” Aaron said. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Probably could do his job just as well, with the training.”
Joseph shrugged. He hated to be smug, but he knew his brother was right. He’d paid close attention to the war, to the conflicts they’d been through, and had learned a lot about tactics. He had to admit; making the army life his career had crossed his mind a couple times. But that was not important at this moment. “I don’t care what he says or thinks of me, so long as he makes the right decision.”
“You should,” Aaron replied, and that was the end of it. They didn’t want to chatter too much; they had to stay focused, for it was highly likely they were about to enter combat.
He heard a rustling, and suddenly, instinctively, grabbed his rifle. When he looked to see where it was coming from, it was just from Sgt. Kerry and Lt. Kilgore’s position; they were getting out, probably to issue an order. But the noise, and the amount of movement they made… suddenly machine gun shots rang out and zipped through the bush, and he heard the men scream, and fall out onto the muddy road, bleeding from several holes in their body. They lay on the ground, silent, and now motionless, Lt. Kilgore looking up dully into the sky, Sgt. Kerry’s face in the ground. The mud was turning red.
It was a grotesque sight, but one that Joseph had seen before. He looked to his brother; his face was pale, and he looked on dumbstruck. “They’re… they’re gone. And… just like pa…”
Joseph closed his eyes tight. He didn’t like to think of that, his father floating in the water looking up into the sky, plastered with bullet holes. He was fortunate enough to not have been with his father when he died. Aaron, though… that must have been so hard for him. When he opened his eyes, he saw men from the platoon swarming around him, but cautiously. He and Aaron joined them. There was no doubt that they were dead. There was not a movement in the Sergeant, and no recognition on the Lieutenant’s face.
“F******* proles,” a private by the name of MacCulloch said. “The Lieutenant was a good man. And the Sarge owed me five bucks.”
Joseph let a small chuckle at that. Sgt. Kerry owed him money from a poker game, and hated to be reminded. Well, no one would remind him any longer. “What do we do now?” another private named Smith asked. “Do we just… take the bodies and leave? Or do we just sit here?”
More shells whistled far overhead, but this time from the opposite direction; some of the proles had captured Floridian artillery pieces, but luckily didn’t know how to use them very well. MacCulloch looked to Joseph. “What do you think we should do, Joe? Of those of us left, you’re the one with the best head on his shoulder.”
“Well, I honestly wish we could take those proles out in the houses over there. But with the Lieutenant and the Sergeant dead… we might want to head back to the rest of the company.”
The men looked around to each other. “We don’t need to do that… we could try anyway.”
The way they looked at him told him they were expecting him to take command. He looked to Aaron; he also had that look on his face. “I don’t have the training,” he protested.
“Oh, come on, Joe!” his brother said, but still hushed. “You’re almost as good as the Lieutenant. You have skill.”
“We trust you, Joe,” Smith said.
Joseph did not like the idea of taking their lives in his hands… but they did trust him. And he had been thinking of what to do to take care of the proles. “Well, here’s what we could do…”
***
Twelve of the men in the platoon were behind the bank Joseph had used to spy on the houses earlier. With Joe was his squad, which included his brother, MacCulloch, and Smith, far behind him. There were two other squads of four with him, each with their orders.
Joseph gave a nod. The twelve men started shooting.
As expected, the proles in the second to closest house began to fire the machine guns, at the twelve men. The kept their heads low, firing pot shots now and then just to keep the prole firing. And as expected, that one prole was not the only one in the house; a second machine gun appeared in the other window, and started firing.
Joseph looked to the men in his groups, and said, “Let’s go!” He and his squad ran behind them into the trees, and the other two squads broke off to the right into the trees. His squad kept low, as they took a round-a-bout route around the fighting. Joseph kept his eyes on the combat; one of the men had taken a bullet to the head… his first casualty. The others kept firing, though. He saw a Negro break out from the house, out the deck, down the stairs and try to cross the bridge, firing a rifle in the direction of the platoon. A plank broke underneath him and he fell into the swamp; he surfaced for about two seconds before he began to scream, then suddenly was pulled under the water.
If he doubted before, he knew now; there were crocodiles in the water, alright. This swamp was a part of a town named in the days of Spanish colonialism, Ciudad del Caimán, which translated into the City of Alligators. It was very appropriately named.
They had managed to move through the forest, and weren’t detected. MacCulloch was beside him. “We’ve only got four grenades; we should sneak under those windows, and throw in the grenades.”
“First,” Joseph replied, “We’ve got to wait for Gram’s squad to get that house over there in combat.” He pointed to the house that he earlier identified as unknown, but now he could see the glint of a machine gun pointing out. “They’ve got a triangular arrangement, where each house covers the other’s blind spots of the other. So if we go under the windows, we’re likely to get shot. We’ll wait until they can’t cover them anymore.”
Joseph was low, and had his binoculars trained on that house; there was a Negro at the machine gun, all right. Once that man was gone, though, it was time to move in. Then he heard an explosion, and saw the man flinch; probably had taken splinters in the back, Joseph figured. He looked back, was yelling something Joseph could not hear over the clatter of rifle, machine gun, and upset chirps of birds in the trees. And, just as he had hoped, the man turned around, only to get shot up. Red blood contrasted sharply with dark flesh, and the man even fell out the window onto the deck below.
“Aaron, you’re coming with me, and bring a grenade; MacCulloch and Smith, get ready to break in once the grenades go off. Go to the back door. But before you go in, fire shots through the door; more than likely, there are proles at the back door.” The men did as they were told, and Joseph and Aaron headed for the windows where the machine guns were pointed out.
They were practically crawling now. Joseph held up a hand so that the twelve men would know where he and Aaron was, and direct their fire accordingly. Aaron was by his side. “You ready for this, Aaron?” Joseph asked.
“Those bloody b******* killed my father. Of course I’m ready.” But Joseph could still hear the unease in Aaron’s voice; courageous he was, but death was not something he looked forward to.
Frankly, Joseph wasn’t too excited about the prospect either.
The firing of the machine guns were deafening now. Joseph and Aaron kept their bellies to the ground, and slowly crawled alongside the house until they were below the windows, each of them. They pulled out their grenades. Aaron looked to Joseph, and Joseph gave the fatal nod. They pulled out the pins out, held them for three seconds (they had a time till detonation of seven seconds), then gently reached up and dropped them into the windows at the same time.
Joseph felt a severe pain in his hand, and when he pulled it back out, it was bleeding, and his right hand pinkie and ring fingers were bloody stumps. Aaron saw, and his mouth dropped. “Joseph!” he shouted!
“Get back!” Joseph screamed out. Aaron got up and scrambled down the hillside the house was perched on, while Joseph hustled in the direction he came from. He barely managed to escape when the wall exploded behind him.
Shooting began to take place behind him, and Aaron snuck around the side of the hill as bullets wizzed above him, this time mostly from the direction of the platoon. Joseph was now a distance from the house. Aaron caught up with him. “Holy s***, Joe! Your hand!”
Joseph had been cradling his hand with the other. When he opened it, he wished he hadn’t. He could have squished a tomato, and it was only going to get worse. Aaron ripped off a part of his brown uniform and began wrapping the stumps as tightly as he could. Joseph was suppressing screams.
“We’ve got to get you to a medic, now!”
“Probably,” Joseph said. “Hate to leave, though.”
“This is serious, Joe. They’ll understand.” Aaron chuckled. “You sure got balls, though.”
Over the din, the firing, the shouting, another shell whistled overhead. “I have to,” he said. “Don’t all Hamptons?”
okay calm down Iggy
