Lone Survivor_ The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 ( PDFDrive )

was still fierce on all sides, but we sensed there were more dead Afghans to the
left than there were to the right. Murph shouted, “We’re going for the higher
ground, this side.” And with all four barrels blazing, we tried to storm that left
flank, get a foothold on the steep slope, maybe even fight our way back to the
top if we could kill enough of them.
But they also wanted the higher ground, and they reinforced their right flank,
driving down from the top, anything to stop us getting that upper hand. We must
have killed fifty or more of them, and all four of us were still fighting. I guess
they probably noticed that, because they were prepared to fight to the last man to
hold our left, their right.
There were so many of them, and we found ourselves slipping inexorably
back down the hill as the turbaned warriors closed in on us, driving us back by
sheer weight of numbers, sheer volume of fire. When they loosed off another
battery of RPGs, we had no other option but to retreat and dive back behind the
crossed logs before they blew our heads off.
God only knew the size of whatever arms cache they were drawing ordnance
from. But we were just finding out what a force Sharmak and his guys really
were: trained, heavily armed, fearless, and strategically on the ball. Not quite
what we expected when we first landed at Bagram.
Back behind the logs, we kept going, mowing them down on the flanks
whenever we could get a clear shot. But again, the inflexible, unswerving
progress of Sharmak’s forces coming down the escarpment after us was simply
too overwhelming. Not so much due to the volume of fire but because of their
irresistible drive down the left and right of our position.
The logs gave us good cover from the front and not bad to ninety degrees.
But once they got past that, firing from slightly behind us, on both sides — well,
that was the reason we jumped from the heights in the first place, risking our
necks, not knowing when or even if we would land on reasonable ground.
There were not enough of us to protect our flanks. We were too occupied
defending our position against a head-on attack. I suppose the goatherds had told
them we were only four, and Sharmak swiftly guessed we would be vulnerable
on the wings.
I’m guessing a dozen SEALs could have held and then destroyed them, but
that would have been odds of around ten or eleven to one. We were only four,
and that was probably thirty-five to one. Which is known, in military vernacular,
as a balls-to-the-wall situation. Especially as we now seemed incapable of
calling up the cavalry from HQ.