Republic Reborn: Against the Stars and Stripes-Chapter 113: Rifleman’s Rule

We took our second casualty not long after we cleared the church.

Mario had done exactly as I asked. The church had about ten windows along the nave walls—five on each side—and two more by the choir loft. Most of them were now manned by a recruit, each one watching and aiming his rifle outward into the unknown. Their faces were pale and drawn, but they were alert.

Outside, our perimeter was beginning to take shape. Men hugged the stone walls and low fences of the surrounding houses. They were crouched in twos and threes, their eyes locked on the narrow lanes leading in from the presidencia and the southern road.

Two of our men were crossing the churchyard—perhaps sent to retrieve more ammunition or check on a comrade—when a sharp, echoing crack split the air.

One was cut down where he stood, right at the center of the yard.

The other broke into a sprint. He bolted toward the church steps, stumbling in panic. Another shot rang out, and we all flinched. I saw the bullet rip through the air above him, cutting his straw hat clean off his head. He let out a cry, lost his balance, and fell hard against the stone steps.

He crawled the last few feet, collapsed against the wall, and pulled himself into a crouch. His hands were trembling. He wiped his forehead, checked his scalp, and stared at the red-tinged tips of his fingers—just a scratch.

"Where is that coming from?" I shouted, my eyes wide, as I stared out into the yard at our second dead recruit.

"From the southwest, Heneral... I think from one of the houses," Mario said, as he leaned down to peer out through one of the slightly opened Capiz windows. Beneath him, a recruit was kneeling, taking aim in the same direction.

"Do you have a clear shot?" I asked the recruit.

The young man looked at me and shook his head. "No... Heneral... he fired from behind the house. I only saw the barrel of the rifle, and only for a few moments."

I was still by the door of the sacristy when all of it transpired, watching the escolta tie up the still unconscious priest. I crossed towards the opposite side, and Roque and Guzman followed me.

I peered through the same window. Mario pointed me to the said house. Just as he did so, the barrel of the rifle emerged again, jutting out of the wall like the beak of a predatory bird. The enemy was scanning the churchyard again.

The recruit was not lying. All we could see through the window was the front view of the house. The enemy, firing from the backyard, was out of sight. The recruits outside, taking cover behind the wooden fence of the house directly beside the church, was stuck with the same terrible angle.

We could fire through the main doors of the church. But because of the closeness of the houses, we would still have a tight view of him, while he had a good view of the yard—effectively making it his killing field.

The only way was to flank around and have a shot at him from a different direction. With the town teeming with hostiles, I would need to lead such a maneuver.

I was about to bark the order when I got a feeling I was forgetting something—like a much better way to deal with the enemy.

"The belltower! Have we cleared it?" I suddenly blurted out loud when I remembered.

I had completely forgotten about that part of the church—even back when we were assaulting through the yard. Up there, the enemy could have fired down at us. In the dimness, it blended with the church’s grey façade, and in the chaos, I had overlooked it.

"I don’t know, Heneral," Roque answered. "But one of my men shot down a Pulajanes manning it while we were charging to the church."

"We have cleared it, Heneral," Nepomuceno confirmed a moment later. "There’s no one there but the very same dead Pulajanes."

I chuckled in relief. I wasn’t fighting this battle alone. So far, the cadets and the recruits—at least Roque’s and Nepomuceno’s—had performed satisfactorily.

"So, how do we get to it?"

Mario pointed towards the choir loft. Tucked unassumingly to the side was a wooden ladder.

I remembered to reload before ascending. I pulled the handle back, and the spent cartridge was spat out. So far, no bullet had been wasted. Five rounds for five dead Pulajanes. I intended to keep it that way. I reached for my ammunition belt and grabbed a stripper clip.

"Should I send one of our best marksmen up there, Heneral?" asked Roque.

"Yes... I’ll be going. I am, after all, our best marksman," I answered, and thought how awesome I sounded.

I wouldn’t feel that way for too long. All the fighting had made me feel young again. But my body was still old. My joints were aching and glute muscles burning as I took the creaky steps. As soon as I reached the platform, I collapsed to the floor to catch my breath and rest my legs.

A recruit was already stationed there. A familiar face. Historillo... one of Nepomuceno’s NCO candidates. He had just fired at the direction of the shooter when I arrived, the spark that came out of the barrel mirrored by the large brass bell that hung suspended in the middle.

There were already three spent cartridges lying at his feet. And by the frustrated look on his face, he had just missed again.

At the sight of me, he stood up from his kneeling position to salute.

"Hey, hey, hey! Keep your head down," I said to him.

The tense soldier mumbled a sorry as he promptly crouched back down. The belltower had four large windows facing the cardinal directions—excellent openings to shoot and get shot at.

"How’s the hunting, soldier?" I asked, settling in behind him with my back to the wall.

I peered out the window. From up here, we had a clean view of the shooter’s position—elevated, slightly offset to the left of the house. The pulajan was leaning against the far wall. Only his hands and feet were visible. But once he tried to aim at the yard again, he’d have to step out—and expose himself entirely.

Historillo shook his head. "I don’t know... Heneral. I’ve got a few clear shots... but I keep missing."

For a second, I saw the head of the Pulajan fighter, taking a brief peek at the yard. Too brief for a good look. But it showed that the fighter wasn’t mindful of the belltower. Probably because the recruit hadn’t shot anywhere close enough to grab his attention.

Historillo was far from a bad shot. In fact, very few among the recruits were bad shots. They were almost all between decent and above average. I would know, because I would watch from the window of the Casa Real when they underwent their marksmanship training in the plaza.

I thought of proceeding with my plan of shooting the shooter myself. But this was a good chance to teach what their basic marksmanship training did not cover. If I weren’t mindful of our limited time, Landi would have featured advanced marksmanship training as well.

"Aim a little lower next time," I muttered.

"Sorry, Heneral?" Historillo furrowed his brow.

"You’re overshooting," I continued. "When firing from an elevation against a mid-range target... you have to aim lower than you would on the ground. Aim for the waist instead of the chest."

This was called the rifleman’s rule. Over short to mid-range distances, gravity has minimal effect on a bullet traveling a vertical path—meaning that the bullet flies higher than expected and the shooter would need to compensate by firing lower than usual.

The target was less than a hundred meters away from the church—well into the mid-range category.

He stared at me blankly for a moment, processing what he had heard. Then he reached for his ammunition belt and loaded another cartridge into his rolling block. He crawled nearer to the window and, after glancing at me, aimed in the same direction.

He was aiming for a long time. After about twenty seconds, I peeked out again. For a moment, I thought we had lost the target. If the shooter had any sense, he would have repositioned himself. But I doubted he had the intellect—the very lack of it was the reason one would join a cult.

True enough, I still found him leaning against the wall. The recruits behind the fence were firing vainly at his position, only hitting the ground and the wall. The shots had no chance of hitting him, but they scared him enough not to take too many peeks.

I spotted movement to the side. Another foolish recruit was crossing the churchyard. Perhaps desperate for bullets, which they had wasted firing at stone walls.

I held my breath when the shooter moved away from the wall to aim at the sprinting recruit. Instinct told me to say something to Historillo, but he likely already had the man in his sights. Now the question was: who fires first, and who hits.

The gunshot echoed against the brass of the bell. The black smoke drifted from the barrel toward me, introducing the pungent smell of gunpowder.

The shriek of the recruit filled the air. He dropped the rifle to the ground. He carried his limping and bleeding hand into the church’s door.

A hundred meters away, the Pulajanes fighter was sent kneeling to the ground, clutching his bloodstained chest.