Picking out who was who or what was what from the cluster of men who hit the end of the bridge was impossible.. I worked the focus knob on the side of the Starlight scope to no avail. I couldn’t get a decent enough resolution to allow the green wispy moving creatures to have any identity. I prayed that Jurgens, being as close and highly positioned as he was atop the Ontos, would have a better ability to determine friend from foe. The flashlights screwed everything up because the diffused light blanked out key portions of the scope’s ability to reproduce an image. The image I was looking at was not reality. It was an interpretation and then enhancement by the addition of interiorly generated photons to make a picture on a very small television screen. The flashlights waving about created a bunch of what seemed like giant fireflies batting around all over the place. The Starlight Scope, probably without enemy intent, had been rendered all but useless.

Jurgens opened up with the Browning, firing one long continuous stream that had to consist of a complete belt. How long could Jurgens maintain that kind of fire, if it was Jurgens, I didn’t know? I wasn’t fully convinced that the totally self-serving man I’d had to deal with, to the point of sociopathic action, was capable of standing to face down the enemy and then stick it out. Could the unrecognizable Marine on the Ontos be someone Jurgens had paid off with the Thompson to stand in for him? It would be just like him.

At first, the volume of fire was spattering until the enemy .50 Caliber opened up, and then the Marines began hammering the entire area, from the end of the bridge to both mudflats on each side. A minor berm would allow for just a bit of cover on the other side if someone laid totally flat and pressed himself into the soft mud. I’d done it several times myself.