The Chinese were rapidly making their way up the slope of the hill, lobbing grenades and spraying the crest with deadly fire. Thankfully, the platoon’s machinegunners were firing back, so that kept the enemy temporarily at bay. But it would not be long before the guns either jammed or ran out of ammo. He had to move fast.

His heart sank as he ran along the platoon defense lines and saw the men starting to bug out without having fired a single shot. He started screaming at them like they were children.

“Get back in your positions! If you run, you die! You can kill these bastards! They’re just men like you!”

It seemed to work. Evidently, they recognized Parker’s voice and thought with him still here they might have a chance. The soldiers stopped and ran back into their fighting positions. Parker noticed that they had left their weapons in their foxholes. That indicated a fear beyond rational thought. Even in retreat, you would think a man would want to be able to defend himself. But there was nothing rational about this madness.

Parker could hear Sergeant Lee barking the same commands at the other end of the platoon perimeter. Lee was the only other person on that hill with any combat experience, and it left Parker with a feeling of impending doom. It was the first time in his Army career that he thought his time on this Earth might be coming to an end.

The machinegunners were still preventing the horde from overrunning the platoon along with rifle fire and grenades from the newly-inspired soldiers.

Parker emptied his carbine, tossed it to the ground, and drew his issue .45. The pistol was only effective at close range, but packed a helluva wallop. He managed to take out a Chink with each shot. When it emptied, he threw it at one of the enemy soldiers and picked up a dropped Chinese rifle. As he stood behind a foxhole in the platoon’s center, he barked commands to the men to hold the line. They complied, and he actually started to think they just might live through this.

A Chink stick grenade landed beside a tree behind him unnoticed. When it exploded, it propelled him down the hill and into the fray. Other than painful shrapnel wounds he was okay, so he quickly recovered and sprang to his feet. His adrenalin was pumping, so he didn’t know how much time he had before passing out from loss of blood.

He snatched the rifle out of the hands of a Chinese running by and then bayoneted the man with his own weapon. Two more jumped him, but swinging the rifle like a baseball bat made short work of the threat. He could hear the bones crunch when he hit homeruns with their heads.

Fighting his way back to the top of the hill, he saw Sergeant Lee go down in a burst of rifle fire. He ran along the crest, directing the soldiers to fire into the horde without taking the time to pick out specific targets. The Chinese were charging en masse and it was like shooting ducks in a barrel. The Japs did the same thing on New Guinea. It was just a matter of outgunning them.

He noticed an unmanned .30 Cal machinegun and jumped into the fighting position. The platoon medic worked on the gunner in one corner. The assistant gunner was in the other. There was no need to check him for life because he didn’t have a head. Parker aimed the gun down the hill and pulled the trigger. It bucked like a bronco, but cut the bastards in half when they got hit. A beautiful sight. Even in the midst of this mayhem, he wondered what compelled a man to charge a machinegun knowing he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of living through the fury. It always amazed him.

The medic noticed the blood seeping through Parker’s field jacket and crawled over to help him.

“Not now! Take care of the others!” he screamed. As long as he could still draw a breath, he could fight. There would be time to plug holes later.

Parker could hear the explosions and bugles in the valley below and knew the company was just as much in the thick of it as they were. He wondered how Pak and his men were fairing. If he could mop this mess up quickly, he would take what was left of the platoon down the hill to help.