Excerpt from Crime and place by patrick leclerc

We moved through a road filled with rubble. We had to watch our footing as well as scanning the environment for traps, ambushes or rockslides. If there was a better time to hit us, I didn’t know of it. Nolan had point, followed by Sabatini, O’Rourke, me, Johnson, then Sgt McCray, Doc Roy, the Gunny, and Chan’s team. We tried to maintain some distance between us. O’Rourke slipped on some loose stones ahead of me. I ran to him and caught his arm before he could slide into an open street drain.

He turned to thank me, then suddenly shoved me aside as the report of a machine gun split the air. I went down on my hands and knees. I looked up and droplets of blood spattered my visor. O’Rourke went down hard.

“Ambush! Ten o’clock high!” I shouted into my helmet mic as I sprang to O’Rourke’s side. Rounds were smacking the stone all around us, spraying me with fragments. I grabbed the back straps of his web gear and hauled him to cover behind a mound of broken stone. I saw the gunner about fifty meters away, when I heard the snap of Sabatini’s rifle from up the trail. The machine gunner’s head lurched back, spouting gore.

I got O’Rourke behind the pile and fumbled the pressure dressing out of my cargo pocket. His right arm was torn badly, tattered streamers of flesh and bloody utility shirt hanging.

“Hang on, Marine!” I shouted at him. “I got ya! Corpsman!”

I yanked out my combat knife and cut the uniform shirt away at the shoulder. I tried to press the tattered muscle of the arm back where it belonged.

“Oh, Jesus,” he moaned.

“Quit your bitchin’, it’s just a scratch,” I lied. I pressed the bandage against the ragged wound. “Corpsman! Today, for Christ’s sake!”

I wrapped the tails of the bandage around and tied them securely over the wound.

“Need a hand, corp?” Johnson was at my side.

“I got him. Use that TAR. Kill some of those fuckers!”

Doc Roy crawled up to us.

“I got him, Mick,” the Navy medic said calmly. She looked at his face, then the wound, checking his pulse.

Despite the rounds whipping by and striking chips from the rubble around us, she was all business. “He looks stable, he’s got a good strong pulse. I’ll get him some blood going. Squeeze my hand, Marine.”

“How bad am I, Doc?” O’Rourke grunted as he gripped her hand.

“As bad as they come, but the arm’s alright,” she said. “Bone’s not broken, and the nerves and blood supply are intact. You’ll be opening beer bottles and playing with yourself in a week.”

Wow. Guess she knew Terry better than I thought.

She looked back to me, taking care to look me in the eye and speak firmly. “You’re all set, Mick. I got it from here.”

I must’ve been hovering. Guess she knew me pretty well, too.

“OK. Thanks, Doc.” I scuttled away, leaving my best friend in her care. I had the rest of the squad to worry about.

I peered around the rubble pile. Johnson, Nolan and Sabatini were firing at the enemy, keeping them suppressed. I saw one enemy pop up, fire a burst at Johnson, then drop back behind cover. I sighted in on the spot he had occupied, trying to steady my rapid breathing and keep as low as possible, resting my finger on the trigger. Just come up again, you bastard. The stones bit into my legs and elbow. My body armor protected my chest.

A second later, the enemy soldier’s head and shoulders came into view. I snapped off three rounds. He jerked back and fell out of sight. Through my scope, I could make out the splash of blood he left on the rocks in front of him.

“Collins!” McCray’s voice boomed in my helmet. “What’s the situation?”

If we had the same equipment as the Army, I could have sent a digital image from the scope of my weapon directly to the sergeant through his communication link. Marines, however, get the cool toys last, so I had to describe the situation verbally.

“O’Rourke’s wounded. We got an estimated half-dozen hostiles in a second story apartment. They’re about fifty meters away and three meters above us. We can assault up the rubble to their position.”

“What do you need?”

“I’ll put a smoke round on their position. Give me suppressing fire. Sabatini and I will assault.”

“It’s your call. Just say when.”

I was the only NCO to see what was going on, so it was my decision, comforting as that was. As a team leader, I had a smoke round on top of the mag for my 20mm, to mark enemy positions and direct fire. 

The enemy occupied the second floor of a ruined building. A heap of rubble sloped down from their position. The front wall ended about a meter above their deck, giving them a nice firing parapet. The wall behind them was intact, so I bounced the smoke grenade off it.

As the smoke rose, Chan’s team opened up on the enemy. They ducked as dust rose from the mortar and stone around them amid the hail of 5mm ball ammo and 20mm grenades.

“OK, listen up!” I said into the mic. “Johnson! Get a full ammo box on the TAR. When I say, rock and roll!”

“Got it.”

“Sabatini!”

“Yo!”

“When Johnson opens up, we beat feet to the rubble below the target. Get out a frag, cook ?em off and toss ?em over.”

“Sounds like a fuckin’ blast.”

“What about me?” asked Nolan.

“You stay put. We need you alive to get us out of this shithole. Help Johnson cover us. Is everybody good to go?”

I heard a chorus of yeses.

“OK. Hit it!”

Johnson sprayed the lip of the front wall of the enemy position, while the rest of the squad blazed away.

“Let’s do it!”

Sabatini and I leapt up and made a crouching run to the wall below the enemy position, flattening ourselves against the rubble. I looked at her, got a tense smile in return.

I pulled a hand grenade, activated the fuse.

“On three,” I said.

She nodded in reply.

I counted down. We rose and heaved our bombs over the parapet, then flopped down against the stone as the squad kept firing, in case the enemy tried to return our grenades.

After two very long seconds, a double explosion sent gravel raining down on us as the stone rumbled against my chest. I swear it made my molars vibrate.

“Cease fire!” I ordered.

We scrambled up the sliding rocky slope. I was almost at the crest when a shape reared up in front of me. I fired and it flopped back. We reached the top and aimed our rifles over the rubble. I saw one man in a corporate uniform on his knees groping for a dropped rifle, but Sabatini pumped three rounds into him and he sank down on the deck. Nobody else was moving.

“All clear above!” I gasped.

I was sweating like a pig. I looked at Sabatini. She was smiling her shaky little nervous grin.

“Well done, Marine.” I thumped her on the shoulder.

We climbed over the wall and examined the enemy. To my surprise, they weren’t rebels. They were corporate guards. Seven of them, sprawled in their own gore. A German manufactured 5mm machine gun with several belts of ammo lay idle, the gunner staring blindly at the overhead, the top of his skull blown off. “What the fuck?” I wondered.