On the muddy hellscape of Okinawa, Corporal Vance knew his standardisssue rifle was designed to get him killed. It was 5:43 a.m. on May 14th, 1945. Vance was enduring a slow demise, submerged in a foxhole that had turned into a foul mixture of clay and rainwater. Japanese artillery had pounded their position for six ceaseless hours.
The sound wasn’t noise anymore. It was a physical force vibrating his teeth and compressing his chest. Each shell landing made the earth shudder, and the soft walls of his position squeezed inward. Vance was only 22, yet the grinding fatigue and caked grime made him look 50 in the weak morning light. His gaze was fixed on a dense patch of tall kite grass 30 yard away.
The blades were still, but Vance knew the enemy was lying there. They were waiting for the sessation of fire. Once the barrage lifted, the Japanese infantry would launch their assault. The true danger wasn’t the distant guns. It was the weapon in Vance’s hands. It was the M1 Garand rifle, renowned globally as a flawless example of US industrial genius.
a semi-automatic precision instrument capable of lethal accuracy at 400 yards. Generals loved it. Rear echelon officers praised it. But here, in a hole the size of a makeshift grave, the Garand was a dangerous weakness. It stretched 43 in and weighed almost 10 lb. While it had been the decisive factor in the sweeping open fields of Europe, the war on Okinawa was confined to cramped caves, complex tunnel networks, and trenches that snake erratically.
When a Japanese soldier leaped into your position with a blade, he was usually less than 3 ft away. Attempting to maneuver a 4-foot rifle in a narrow fighting ditch was like trying to handle a pole arm in a small closet. By the time you brought the barrel to bear, you were already defeated. Vance looked at the rifle.
The wooden stock was slick with oil and rain. The internal mechanism was clogged with fine dirt. He deeply resented the weapon. For the past week, he had watched dedicated men die because their weapons were too long, too careful, or too specialized for the spontaneous, brutal nature of a close quarters knife fight.
He had seen a marine attempt to eliminate an enemy in a concealed position with a carbine, only to be pulled under the earth because he couldn’t align his weapon quickly enough. The conflict had fundamentally changed. Survival hinged not on distance, but on the length of an arm. Yet, the Marine Corps persisted in demanding that every man function as a traditional rifleman.
They insisted on the principle of precision aiming. They provided the tools for a methodical, distant conflict. Vance’s knuckles were white around the Garand. He knew what was about to charge out of that grass, and he knew the rifle could not save him. He needed the specific tool they had ordered him to discard. 6 months prior, the atmosphere at the logistics base in the Russell Islands had been vastly different.
Sunlight glittered on the blue ocean, and the atmosphere was almost carefree. The battalion was preparing for the coming invasion, unpacking crates of new gear shipped straight from factories in the US. Men were cleaning grease from new machine guns and bickering over who got the newest flamethrowers. In the middle of this flurry of preparation, Vance approached the supply sergeant with a specific form, requesting a Winchester Model 12 pumpaction shotgun.
The reaction was immediate. The sergeant roared with laughter, dropping his clipboard, and asked if Vance planned to shoot Waterfoul on his time off. The noise attracted a crowd. A lieutenant from Fox Company sauntered over, saw the weapon, and shook his head disapprovingly. He lifted the shotgun by the barrel, holding it dismissively.
He dramatically looked down the wide, smooth boore, then back at Vance with a condescending smile. He [snorts] demanded to know if Vance anticipated the Japanese attacking in flying V formations. He labeled the shotgun a civilian toy. He called it a bird chaser. He announced to the surrounding Marines that Vance had confused the United States Marine Corps with a pheasant hunting trip in Nebraska.
The man erupted in scornful laughter, the kind of deep, cruel amusement that marks an outsider. They viewed the shotgun with its exposed wooden slide and old-fashioned hammerless design as an artifact. It looked more appropriate for a rustic mantelpiece than the brutal leading edge of the largest global conflict in history.
Vance stood his ground, maintaining a neutral expression. He retrieved the shotgun and started disassembling it with an efficiency that momentarily silenced the mockery. He wiped the internal action, inspected the loading mechanism, and carefully oiled the slide. He deeply resented the weapon. For the past week, he had watched dedicated men die because their weapons were too long, too careful, or too specialized for the spontaneous, brutal nature of a close quarters knife fight.
He had seen a marine attempt to eliminate an enemy in a concealed position with a carbine, only to be pulled under the earth because he couldn’t align his weapon quickly enough. The conflict had fundamentally changed. Survival hinged not on distance, but on the length of an arm. Yet, the Marine Corps persisted in demanding that every man function as a traditional rifleman.
They insisted on the principle of precision aiming. They provided the tools for a methodical, distant conflict. Vance’s knuckles were white around the Garand. He knew what was about to charge out of that grass, and he knew the rifle could not save him. He needed the specific tool they had ordered him to discard. 6 months prior, the atmosphere at the logistics base in the Russell Islands had been vastly different.
Sunlight glittered on the blue ocean, and the atmosphere was almost carefree. The battalion was preparing for the coming invasion, unpacking crates of new gear shipped straight from factories in the US. Men were cleaning grease from new machine guns and bickering over who got the newest flamethrowers. In the middle of this flurry of preparation, Vance approached the supply sergeant with a specific form, requesting a Winchester Model 12 pumpaction shotgun.
The reaction was immediate. The sergeant roared with laughter, dropping his clipboard. The cloth fell away. The blue steel looked dark and purposeful in the rain. He racked the slide. The sound was heavy, deliberate, signifying imminent action. The marine beside him, Miller, who had spent weeks making duck calls advance, was desperately trying to slam a clip into his garage.
Miller’s hands were shaking violently. He fumbled the clip. It struck the receiver with a small ping and disappeared into the muck. Miller looked up, panicstricken, watching the enemy wave, now only 20 yards away. He looked at his failed rifle. Then he looked at Vance. Vance remained focused on the front. He stepped up to the edge of the trench.
He didn’t shoulder the shotgun like a conventional rifle. He braced the stock firmly under his armpit, clamping it against his ribs. He leveled the barrel directly at the center of the rushing mass. The Japanese soldiers were now screaming, a deep guttural bonsai roar that overpowered the rain. The lead runner was only 15 yd away.
Vance could clearly see the gold fill in the man’s mouth, the rough stitching on his uniform, the absolute lethal intent in his eyes. The lieutenant had called it a worthless toy. The platoon had called it a joke, but as Vance’s finger tightened on the trigger, he knew the time for laughter was over.
The theoreticians had their opinions, but the enemy was here, and the theories were about to be obliterated. Vance inhaled sharply, held his breath, and prepared to demonstrate exactly what a bird gun could do to a man. The first shot was not the sharp crack of a rifle. It sounded like a piece of naval ordinance firing inside a confined space.
Vance pulled the trigger and the Winchester Model 12 slammed into his shoulder with the punishing force of a charging animal. A cone of bright orange flame 3 ft long, burst from the muzzle into the gray rain. Inside that cone were nine lead pellets, each traveling at,200 ft per second. The leading Japanese soldier, the one with the gold filled teeth, simply ceased to function.
The buckshot struck his chest and lifted him off the ground. He was propelled backward as if he had run full speed into an invisible concrete barrier. His rush ended in a damp red mist. But Vance did not watch the result. He couldn’t afford to. 20 more men were right behind the first, closing the distance at a full sprint. This was the exact moment the despised toy became a weapon of terror.
This was the moment where the antique design flaw became its central feature. Modern pump shotguns include a trigger disconnector, a safety mechanism that requires the shooter to release the trigger after firing, pump the slide, and then pull the trigger again for the next shot. This enforces deliberate firing.
But the Winchester Model 12 was engineered in 1912, long before lawyers and safety regulations governed firearm production. It had no disconnector. If the user held the trigger down and rapidly pumped the slide, the weapon would fire the instant the bolt securely locked into place. You did not have to pull. You only had to pump.
As long as the trigger was squeezed and the shooter’s arm was cycling, the weapon transformed into an engine. It became a handc cranked machine gun. Vance held the trigger down firmly. He slammed the fore end backward, ejecting the spent casing, and slammed it forward again. Boom. The second runner, a sergeant waving a folded sword, collapsed immediately.
Vance pumped again. Boom! The third man spun completely around as his legs were destroyed beneath him. Vance was working the slide with such speed that his arm was a blur of motion. The sound was no longer distinguishable individual gunshots. It was a rhythmic, mechanical, unrelenting pounding.
Clack clack, boom, clack, clack, boom, clack, clack, boom. In under four seconds, Vance had emptied the tube magazine, six shells, 54 pellets. He had projected a sheet of lead into the atmosphere, 12 feet wide, and 4 ft high. The forward column of the bonsai charge didn’t merely retreat. It was physically destroyed. The men trailing behind staggered.
They had anticipated slow single shots. They had anticipated the metallic ping of a garand and the mandatory pause for clip reloading. They had not anticipated a literal wood chipper. The empty gun produced a loud click. Vance’s actions were instantaneous. He ducked back below the trench lip, his hands moving entirely on muscle memory and grain during those lonely nights on the ship.
He didn’t attempt the slower process of refilling the magazine tube. He snatched a single shell from his pouch and dropped it directly into the open ejection port. He slammed the slide forward. He popped up immediately. A Japanese soldier was standing on the rim of the trench. Bayonet raised, looking down at Miller.
Vance fired from the hip. The soldier vanished. Vance dropped down again. He fed another shell, racked the slide, popped up, fired. It was a harsh, ugly, continuous rhythm. Load one, shoot one, load one, shoot one. He was a piston engine of localized destruction. Miller, the marine who had ridiculed him, was still trying to load his rifle, his face ghostly pale, staring advance as if witnessing a destructive entity.
The Japanese charge was utterly shattered. All momentum was lost. The remaining attackers, having witnessed the massacre at the front, dove for cover or scrambled back towards the kite grass. The profound silence returned, but it was now fundamentally altered. It was vibrating with the acrid smell of burnt powder and the intense metallic heat radiating from the shotgun’s barrel.
Vance stood upright, his chest heaving under the strain. The Winchester’s barrel was visibly smoking, heat waves distorting the rain above it. His shoulder felt severely bruised, but he was alive. Miller was alive. The defensive line held intact. The lieutenant came rushing down the trench line, screaming commands to cease fire.
His pistol gripped tightly. He skidded to a stop next to Vance’s position. He looked at the mangled bodies piled in the mud 10 yards away. He looked at the surrounding vegetation, which had been physically shredded. Then he looked at Vance. He looked at the battered bird gun in Vance’s hands.
The lieutenant opened his mouth to issue an order, or perhaps a comment, but no words emerged. He simply stared. The mocking attitude was entirely absent. There was only the cold, stark realization that a civil-grade firearm had just performed the work of an entire heavy machine gun section.
Vance inhaled sharply, held his breath, and prepared to demonstrate exactly what a bird gun could do to a man. The battle, however, was far from concluded. The dawn attack was merely a probe. The Japanese command on Okinawa now knew the precise location of the American line and its defensive strength. As the sun began to set, painting the sky a dark, bruised purple, the strategic dynamic shifted, the Japanese army here did not utilize the conventional tactics seen in Europe.
They specialized in infiltration. They were masters of operating at night, crawling on their stomachs through the mud, inches at a time until they were literally on top of the American positions. They employed knives and explosive charges. Their objective was to neutralize the overwhelming American firepower advantage by getting so close that the Americans couldn’t fire without risking friendly casualties.
Total darkness descended like a heavy, suffocating shroud. The rain intensified. Visibility became non-existent. This was the moment of maximum fear. Every shifting shadow seemed like a lurking enemy. Every minute sound, a broken branch or a sliding rock, sounded like death approaching. The Marines with garons were deeply nervous.
A long rifle is awkward and slow in the darkness. If the first shot missed, the muzzle flash would temporarily blind the shooter, and by the time his vision recovered, the enemy would be inside the hole. The Garand was designed for 300 yd. At 3 ft in the pitch black, it was merely a cumbersome wooden club. Vance sat quietly in the corner of the post, listening to the rain hiss against his helmet.
He had meticulously cleaned the mud off the Winchester. He had reloaded the magazine tube with six fresh shells, red plastic holes seated in brass bases. He rested the gun across his knees. A tap on his shoulder. It was the sergeant, the same veteran, who had insisted Vance discard the weapon. The sergeant whispered horsoarsely that he detected movement near the perimeter wire, maybe 20 yards out.
He ordered Vance to take the forward position. It was not phrased as a choice. It was a complete admission of tactical failure for the rifle. The sergeant knew that random rifle fire would only give away their location and hit nothing. He needed the trench broom. Vance moved toward the sandbags. He listened intently.
He could hear the sound, a wet pulling sound in the clay. Someone was crawling forward. Someone was cutting the barbed wire. Snip. Snip. The sound was faint, barely audible over the continuous rainfall. Vance didn’t require sight. This was the strength of the shotgun. He knew the approximate location. He knew the spread pattern of his weapon.
At 20 yards, the buckshot would spread to the size of a large industrial drum. Precision was irrelevant. Only proximity mattered. He waited. He allowed them to draw closer. He wanted them fully committed to the attack. The sound of movement intensified. He could hear heavy breathing. He could detect the subtle fishy scent of the fermented rice carried by the Japanese soldiers.
They were right there, maybe 10 yards out, preparing to breach the position. Vance rose to his feet. He did not shout a warning. He did not activate a flashlight. He simply racked the slide. Clack clack. In the strained silence of the night, the sound of a pump-action shotgun loading around is perhaps the most paralyzing sound in combat.
It is a harsh mechanical announcement. I am ready. The crawling instantly ceased. The enemy froze. They recognized that sound. Every soldier in the Pacific knew what that mechanism implied. It meant that the thing waiting for them in the dark was not going to fire a single potentially inaccurate bullet. It meant a destructive cloud was approaching.
Vance aimed at the point of the last sound and squeezed the trigger. Boom. The muzzle flash illuminated the night like a lightning strike. For a fraction of a second, the scene was visible. Three Japanese infiltrators entangled in the wire, mud on their faces, grenades clutched in their hands.
The shot struck the man in the center. He dropped instantly. The darkness rushed back, blinding everyone. But Vance did not need to see. He knew their remaining locations. He held the trigger. Pump. Boom. He shifted the barrel 2 feet to the right. Pump. Boom. He swept left. Pump. Boom. He fired four shots in two seconds.
He swept the area near the wire like a man aggressively spraying water from a fire hose. The resulting screams were short, sharp, and cut off. Vance ducked below the sandbags as a Japanese heavy machine gun opened fire from the rgeline, red tracer snapping inches over his helmet, but the infiltrators were completely gone.
The immediate threat had been obliterated. Miller, huddled at the bottom of the hole, looked up at Vance. He whispered, asking if he was successful. Vance offered no verbal reply. He just ejected the smoking casings and began thumbming fresh rounds into the magazine tube. Click, click, click. The process was calm, perfectly steady. Vance was not shaking.
He had finally discovered his utility in this conflict. He was not a distant marksman. He was not a traditional rifleman. He was a janitor of close quarters combat. His duty was to efficiently neutralize the problems that arose when the fighting became too intimate, and business was currently excellent. The next morning, the unit received orders to advance. The holding action was over.
Headquarters demanded they seize Sugarloaf, an insignificant looking hill that served as the primary anchor for the entire Japanese defensive perimeter. Intelligence reports underestimated it. It was not empty. It was a purpose-built fortress. Taking it would require fighting not in foxholes, but within a literal maze.
The Japanese had constructed four overlapping rings of trenches surrounding the hill connected by deep tunnels, concealed spider holes, and hardened concrete bunkers. It was designed as a mechanism to consume infantry battalions. The captain called his platoon leaders together. He outlined the mission, a frontal assault on the first trench line at 0800 hours.
This would be a bayonet level close quartarters engagement. The captain scanned the circle of tired, mudcaked faces. His gaze settled on Vance. He pointed at the shotgun. He offered no humor this time. He told Vance to position himself at the very front. He informed the squad leaders that when they reached the trench, no one would enter before the shotgun.
Vance nodded at once. He checked his ammunition pouches. He had 40 rounds of buckshot remaining. It sounded sufficient, but he harbored a profound suspicion it would be insufficient. He topped off the internal magazine, racked the slide one final time, and moved to the head of the attack column.
The despised toy was now leading the entire assault. The attack on Sugarloaf began precisely at 0800 hours with a signal whistle that marked the transition from normal life into inevitable death. The terrain between the American line and the first Japanese trench was 70 yardds of open pulverized mud, a dedicated kill zone.
The Japanese Namboo machine gun nests were placed to provide interlocking fire from both flanks of the hill, creating a deadly crossfire that resembled an invisible X drawn in the air. Anything that moved into that X was rapidly torn apart. The first wave of Marines stood and sprinted forward.
Within 10 seconds, half of them were casualties. The sound of the battle was a continuous tearing roar from the heavy machine guns and the constant snap of bullets impacting the mud. The assault failed instantly. Men dove into massive shell craters, burying their faces in the dirt, screaming for medical help.
The entire advance was halted, completely immobilized by the staggering volume of lead flying overhead. Vance found cover in a crater approximately 30 yard from the first Japanese trench. The air above him was audibly sizzling. He watched a radio operator attempt to crawl forward, only to be struck in the helmet and cease moving.
The advance was completely stalled. Officers yelled, attempting to motivate movement, but no one could obey. to stand was instantaneous self-destruction. The Japanese troops in the first trench became bolder. They began popping up over the parapet, casually throwing grenades down onto the immobilized marines below.
They were audibly laughing. They knew they had achieved victory. They held the high ground. They had the machine guns. They had the Americans trapped in the mud. Vance stared at the trench line, a zigzagging scar reinforced with sandbags and timber. If they remained here, the mortars would begin falling, ensuring total annihilation.
The only possible survival lay inside the enemy position. Vance felt the heat shield on his Winchester. It was still noticeably warm from the previous night’s action. He looked at Miller, who was curled in the crater bottom, praying silently. Vance spoke no words. He stood up abruptly. He didn’t sprint like a trackrunner.
He charged like a football linebacker, head down. the shotgun tucked tightly against his side. A line of bullets churned the dirt near his feet, but the Japanese gunners were primarily focused on the large mass of pinned men. They failed to pay sufficient attention to the single reckless man running straight towards them with a pump gun.
Vance reached the lip of the first trench and jumped without hesitation. He landed feet first in 6 in of standing water directly in the midst of a five-man Japanese rifle squad. They were so utterly stunned to see an American fall out of the sky that they froze for a crucial fraction of a second.
That brief moment was all the time Vance required. He didn’t even attempt to shoulder the weapon. He fired from the hip. Boom. The first blast hit the soldier immediately to his left, violently driving him against the timber wall. He pumped the slide. Boom. The second soldier, just beginning to raise his rifle, took a massive load of buckshot to the abdomen.
He spun swiftly. Boom. The third man tried a lunge with his bayonet, but the shot intercepted him midmovement. The noise generated in the narrow confines of the trench was physically deafening. It was not merely loud. It was a physical shock wave that battered the eard drums. Clack clack boom. The fourth man fell.
Clack clack boom. The fifth soldier dropped his rifle in terror and tried to scramble away, but the trench offered no escape. The first trench line was fully secured for 20 yards in either direction. Vance did not pause. The fortifications on Sugarloaf were linked by communication tunnels, narrow, suffocating earn passages that connected the outer perimeter to the hill’s core defenses.
Vance reloaded while running, forcefully jamming fresh shells into the magazine tube with bloody scraped thumbs. He could clearly hear urgent shouting echoing from the connecting tunnel. reinforcements. A Japanese squad was rushing down the narrow passage to seal the breach. They were shoulderto-shoulder, bayonets leading the way in a tunnel, grouping together as an absolute death sentence if the opposing force possesses a shotgun.
Van stopped at the corner of the tunnel entrance and opened fire. He held the trigger down and worked the slide back and forth with maniacal speed. The slamfire function converted the Winchester into a concentrated flamethrower of lead. The tunnel walls intensely amplified the blast. The buckshot ricocheted off the hard packed clay, generating a shredding, unavoidable effect that obliterated everything in the passageway.
The leading Japanese soldiers didn’t simply drop. They were violently pushed backward into the troops behind them, creating a grotesque obstacle of bodies. The screams resonated down the tunnel, compounding the horror. Vance emptied the weapon, pumped the slide on an empty chamber, and immediately began reloading.
His hands were vibrating now, not from fear, but from the massive rush of adrenaline flooding his system. He had just annihilated an entire squad in less than 10 seconds. He moved rapidly into the second trench line. This position was deeper and much more heavily fortified. It housed a heavy machine gun imp placement, a bunker constructed from coconut logs and packed earth that was firing continuously, devastating the American lines still pinned below.
The gun crew inside was preoccupied with the distant targets. They failed to detect Vance approaching from the rear because the noise of their own weapon masked his movement. Vance walked directly up to the rear firing port of the bunker. He didn’t throw a grenade. He shoved the barrel of the Model 12 directly through the narrow opening and fired three rapid punishing shots.
The machine gun stopped firing instantly. The ensuing silence was heavy and immediate. Vance kicked the heavy door inward to inspect the chamber. The destruction inside was absolute. The buckshot had violently bounced around the concrete walls like a swarm of angry, hyperactive hornets. The crew was entirely gone.
The primary threat to the company below had been neutralized, but now the Japanese command knew exactly where he was. The tactical advantage of surprise was gone forever. As Vance exited the bunker, he saw rapid movement in both directions along the trench. They were converging on him. A Japanese officer screaming unintelligible orders led a charging group from the left flank.
Simultaneously, soldiers sprang up from hidden spider holes on the right. Vance was surrounded. This was the moment the Garand rifle would have resulted in his death. A rifleman can only focus in one direction. A rifleman must aim deliberately. Vance did not aim. He swept. He pivoted to the left and fired two quick rounds, dropping the officer and the man running beside him.
He spawn 180°, a maneuver impossible with a crewerved weapon, and fired two shots toward the spider holes. The dirt around the concealed holes erupted violently, forcing the heads back down. He was completely out of ammunition once more. The Winchester produced a dry click.
This was the precise nightmare he had trained for. A Japanese soldier with a sword charged from 10 ft away, seeing the Americans empty weapon. Vance had zero time to load a shell. He had no time to reach for his sidearm or knife. He used the shotgun as a massive club. He stepped into the charge, swung the heavy walnut stock, and smashed it forcefully into the side of the soldier’s jaw.
The wooden stock cracked audibly, but the soldier fell hard. Vance stomped his boot onto the man’s chest to keep him pinned and frantically jammed one shell into the chamber. Clack! He fired into the prone soldier. Then he loaded the magazine tube. His hands were slick with rain and sweat. He dropped one shell into the mud. He cursed under his breath, grabbed another, and jammed it in.
He cleared the remaining portion of the second trench line using pure, terrifying aggression. He moved forward so fast and so violently that the enemy could not organize a cohesive defense. He fired around corners. He fired at sudden movements. He fired until the barrel of the shotgun was so intensely hot, it began to visibly smoke and gave off the smell of burning wood.
The perforated heat shield, the metal grading covering the top of the barrel was sizzling, searing the skin of his left hand, but Vance was beyond feeling it. He was operating in a combat trance state. He had fully transformed into the trench broom. He reached the third trench line. This was the critical support position.
It was full of reserve troops preparing a coordinated counterattack. There were at least 20 men. They were gathering grenades, checking weapons. They looked up and saw a solitary American Marine coated in mud and blood holding a visibly smoking shotgun. They hesitated. It was a fatal delay. Vance did not hesitate.
He immediately opened fire on the assembled group. At this point, the psychological effect of the shotgun was doing more damage than the buckshot itself. The Japanese soldiers had witnessed the fate of their comrades in the first two trenches. They had heard the devastating rhythmic boom, clack, boom, drawing relentlessly closer. They understood that in this narrow ditch, that sound signaled an unavoidable, indiscriminate death.
Panic seized the third trench. Instead of rushing the isolated marine, some of the soldiers attempted to scramble up and out of the back of the trench to get away from the continuous muzzle blast. Vance shot them in the back as they desperately climbed. He shot the ones who paused and fought back.
He moved through the trench system like an elemental force, stepping over bodies, violently pumping the slide, and feeding shells. He was an unstoppable machine, the mechanical perfection of the Winchester. Steel, wood, and spring was perfectly synchronized with the man wielding it. He was firing faster than a rifleman could acquire and engage individual targets.
He was clearing the entrenched position simply by saturating the air with lead. By the time he reached the fourth trench, the location of the enemy command post at the summit of the hill, he was down to his final five shells. He was utterly exhausted. His lungs burned painfully. His left hand was covered in blisters from the searing heat of the barrel.
He kicked open the rough wooden door of the command dugout. Inside, three high-ranking Japanese officers were frantically incinerating documents and maps. They looked up, their pistols already drawn. Vance fired his last remaining rounds. Boom! Boom! Boom! The room fell completely silent. Vance stood in the entrance of the fourth trench.
The rain was still falling steadily. Smoke from his shotgun drifted slowly out into the wet air. He clicked the trigger, empty. He pumped the slide, empty. He checked his utility belt. No more shells. He was entirely dry. He slumped against the trench wall, sliding slowly into the mud. His chest was heaving violently.
He looked back down the slope. Below him, the American Marines were slowly rising to their feet. They were staring up at the hill. The machine guns were silent. The grenades had stopped falling. The hill was quiet. They spotted a lone mudcovered figure standing at the crest, silhouetted against the overcast sky. They began to cheer loudly.
They started running up the slope, no longer pinned down, no longer dying in the mire. Vance watched them ascend. He looked at the shotgun resting in his lap. The walnut stock was cracked. The metal finish was scarred and deeply scratched. The barrel was coated in soot. It was the most physically damaged, ugly object he had ever seen, and simultaneously it was the most vital.
The highranking officers had mocked him. They had ridiculed it as a bird gun. Vance closed his eyes tightly and listened only to the sound of the rain. He wondered if any of them were still finding it
