Hunting Grounds

This is my disclaimer: I made up this story. The characters really existed, but the tale itself never happened...at least not to my knowledge.

The morning was grey as the sun slowly crept over the mountain tops. Sergeant Hathcock and Lance Corporal Burke had been in their hide since about 4 a.m. the previous morning. The Gunnery Sergeant with the shaved head and handlebar mustache from the intelligence division had given them a tip that Colonel Ba was reportedly coming to an area near Hill 55. Colonel Ba was commander of the sniper platoon that had been hunting Hathcock and his Captain over the past few months. After seeing nothing yesterday, the two snipers had felt discouraged, but Carlos was working a hunch. He had found an area above a creek where there was evidence that someone had slid down from a low place above where the grass had been flattened indicating that someone had been laying there. It was possible that the guerilla sniper had only been there once, but after scoping Hill 55 from the hide, Carlos found that it gave the right angles for many of the shots that had been fired at the hill in the last few months. Carlos felt that the sniper would come back to his favorite hide eventually and would then lead him to the commander of his platoon.

Colonel Ba had sent a messenger to alert the snipers that he would be coming to rendevous with them and to be ready to report any new information about "White Feather". Now as he stepped off of the NV truck ten kilometers north of his rendevous point, he found himself daydreaming about one of his snipers confirming the kill of the ruthless killer that had caused so much commotion for the North Vietnamese in the last seven months. He was not looking forward to his long walk, but these thoughts made the time pass faster. Finally, three kilometers out, the Colonel put all of his daydreams aside. Knowing that he was well within the hunting ground of the American, he would begin the slow deliberate trek to his snipers' cave. The final three kilometers would take the Officer almost twelve hours, in which time he would not stop moving for a moment.

Carlos nudged his partner's heal with his own. Burke looked at Carlos and then trained his M14 to the same point that he saw the sergeant's Winchester model 70. "That hamburger has no idea we are here. We been watchin' him for at least three hours now; lookin' round, moving in cover from the hill. He still hasn't spotted us. Now he is getting in his favorite hide to spend the day picking off Marines." The thought angered Carlos, but not as much as the other reality of the situation. "John, we don't touch him unless he spots us. I hate to leave those Marines to his marksmanship, but if we are to have any chance at Colonel Ba, we have to follow old Victor Charlie here to the rendevous." Carlos' voice was so low that Burke more read his lips than heard what he said. With a slow almost imperceptible nod, Burke agreed.

At the end of another day, Carlos was relieved that no shots had been fired. Normally a day this quiet would make the Sergeant uneasy, but since he had watched the sniper scope on his fellow Marines, Carlos was happy that he had not found a target suitable for shooting today. Once the sniper left his blind, Hathcock watched as long as he could see Charlie to get an idea of the direction he was going. Carlos knew better than to try to follow behind the sniper, but he hoped that the slightest trail would be left and the two Marines could pick it up the next day.

"There!" Burke said in a low confident voice. "See that broken stick? He came this way."

"How did you spot that?" The stick was at least three hundred yards away, and the Marines were on the move. Burke hadn't even used his scope. He just "saw" it.

The two Marines found the trail to be easier to follow the further it got from Hill 55. "This hotdog is good, but I told you we were smarter than these gooners. We would never use the
same blind twice, nor would we ever leave a trail like this. If anything, I try to hide my trail more the closer I get to home." The two snipers stopped to take a break among the downed tree trunks that littered the jungle. They had been low crawling for almost 4 hours now. While stopped, Hathcock took out his 20 power spotting scope and checked all around them. Slowly he let his foot slip to the left where it met Burke's. Surprised, Burke slowly brought his canteen down and looked at his Sergeant.

"They are this close to 55?" Both men were sure that they had two to four more hours of crawling through the brush ahead of them. From this distance, a patrol from Hill 55 could accidentally run across them coming or going.

"Smart Charlie. Set up camp right in the last place we would expect." Carlos always respected a good hunter, and Charlie was known for that. From this point, the snipers could remain hidden while keeping an eye on the traffic on and off of Hill 55. The cave was 3,000 yards from where the Marine snipers slept, and had a great view of the compound. They were too far away for even a wild shot at the encampment, but still close enough to have a good idea of what movement occurred day to day. "We don't have much of a shot from here. Lets skirt that ridge to the west and see if we can't find high ground on them."

At 3 o'clock that same afternoon, as the snipers settled into their new blind atop the ridge, Colonel Ba poked his head from behind a bush and looked over the cave. One of his snipers stepped out of the cave and stretched. At this sight, Ba came out and announced himself.

As the Colonel walked toward the cave, Carlos readied his rifle. He slid his hand up tight against the end of the shoulder strap, pulled the stock tight into his shoulder and rested the crosshairs of the scope on the Colonel's chest. He breathed slow and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he reopened his eyes to find the crosshairs in the exact same position. He began applying pressure to the trigger. This was Carlos' favorite shooting position. He could shoot very well from all positions, but this one was his best. It fit him. It was comfortable...like an old leather glove.