Unrelenting Love

Moving my right hand to his chin I began to push him away with all of my strength yet his grip only tightened. Now pushing his chin with both hands as hard as I could to try and break his grip, I knew I was in trouble. I reached down with my right hand, still pushing him with my left, and scrabbled for my knife but couldn’t get a decent grip because of the sweat now drenching both of us. We stayed locked like that for a few seconds that seemed an eternity of crushing violence. Each of us in the cramped and fetid cave growling like animals, we struggled on waiting for an opportunity to gain an advantage over the other.

Our faces were only inches apart, his body odor and bad breath mixed with the smell of cordite from the gunshots I had fired into his comrade filled my nostrils as he continued to try and strangle me. Continuing to struggle without making any progress, I realized that he had the advantage when my head began to swim as the blood flow to my brain was gradually being cut off. I could hear the blood pounding in my ears and head as things began to go black. In desperation I let go of his wrists and pushed against his forehead with both of my hands. As he began to resist, I suddenly let go and pulled his head toward me giving him a head butt to the face. He screamed as my forehead smashed his nose and blood spattered my face and eyes, but I felt his grip loosen and pushing against his chest I lunged backward one more time and broke free.

Lying across the body of the dead man behind me, and gasping for breath, brain still fuzzy from lack of oxygen, I once again reached for my knife. This time I felt my hand close around the leather covered handle and felt a surge of energy coursing through my exhausted body.

In the dim light I could see my enemy. Leaning back against the dirt wall across from me, covered in blood, he held one hand to his face trying to stem the flow from his shattered nose. I saw his other hand reaching back behind him searching for a weapon he could use on me, and then bring something up to his mouth.

Despite the fog still clouding my brain and the rasping breaths as I tried to get enough oxygen into my lungs. I lunged forward and using my left hand to push his chin and head back, brought my knife up from low down and stabbed him in the chest. I stabbed up under the rib cage toward the base of his heart, then pulled the knife back and stabbed him again. The warm, sticky, flow of blood running onto my hand let me know that I had hit one of the vital organs, probably his heart. He immediately stiffened and fell backward, but as he did so I saw the ring and pin from a grenade around the index finger of his right hand. His left hand relaxed and I heard the distinctive sound of the spoon releasing from a hand grenade and a soft thud as it hit the dirt floor. He was dead but still trying to take me with him.

I frantically looked for the grenade in the dim light but couldn’t see it. A sense of dread came over me as the seconds ticked down in my head. I began to feel the resignation that comes from knowing your time is up, immediately replaced by a stubborn refusal to give up. Still counting down the seconds before the inevitable explosion, I began scrambling around the floor with my hands. Feeling something cool and round, I gave it a sideways fling out into the tunnel and dived across the floor, curling up into a ball and covering my head with both arms. A heartbeat later the air was filled with a thundering boom and the air filled with dust and smoke as the tunnel caved in. My eyes, nose and mouth filled with smoke and dust making breathing almost impossible. I pulled my tee shirt up over my face using it to filter the air despite the shirt being soaked with sweat and blood. After a few minutes the worst of the dust cloud began to settle but my mouth and nose were still full of the irritating grit. Coughing and sneezing uncontrollably helped clear the passages to some degree while trying to rub the grit out of my eyes just made things worse.

Choking on the dust and still gasping to catch my breath, I gradually discovered that I was still in one piece. Using the flashlight I found a canteen on a stack of supplies and used the water to flush my eyes then rinsed out my mouth and drank all of the tepid water left in the canteen. Blowing my nose as hard as I could, I cleared most of the muck gathered in the passages. Able to breathe again I slumped back against one wall and just savored the moment of recognition that I was still alive. The root complex of the bamboo trees above the cave kept the roof from collapsing, but the tunnel back to the outside world was completely filled with dirt.

Taking stock of the situation, I remembered what my Granddad had always told me about taking the good with the bad in life. On the good side, I was still alive though exhausted, scratched and beat up from the fight. On the bad side, I was buried alive in a small cave occupied with two dead men. Shortly after the realization that I was buried alive sank in, I became aware that someone was screaming in terror. It took another moment to realize who was doing the screaming and that no one could hear me…