foremen, beer bellies, out of condition, and nothing but boiled rice and swill since their captivity.
“Seventeen,” Upshut repeated proudly if nervously to the divisional commander.
“Good, comrade. That only leaves
The horses and riders were getting tired, but Upshut kept them at it. Any man who failed to catch a prisoner would be executed.
Of the remaining twenty-five, most of them, including Mike Murphy, Trang, Shirley Fortescue, and Danny Mellin, were nearest the railway, shivering, chilled, and hungry. But at least the cavalry were not paying the area near the tracks much attention, leaving it instead to the guards, one posted by Wei every fifty yards along the length of the rail line.
Danny Mellin and Shirley Fortescue were ahead of Murphy and Trang, wading in the paddies adjacent to the Ningming-Xiash road, the rain still falling. It brought with it a mist that, with the turbulence in the paddies caused by the rain, would hide them from view unless they were to get too close to the flooded road.
Despite the chill and the slimy leeches they could feel sucking blood from every part of their bodies, they did not let up. Mellin and Shirley were now closer to the road than Murphy and Trang, Mellin whispering to Shirley that he was going out to get them.
“Why? Aren’t they safer the farther out they are?”
“This paddy is giving way to flooded fields where there’ll be more cover as—”
“You mean we have to wade for fourteen miles to the border?”
“No. Sooner we can get onto the unflooded part of the road between Ningming and Xiash, the better, but I might need Mike’s help.”
“Doing what?”
“I’ll explain later,” Mellin said, and nodded to one of the many tree islands, about a quarter mile from a long section of road that, unlike the elevated rail line above it, was well underwater, several trucks bogged down. “Wait over there for us. Rest up a bit. Won’t be long.”
Dragging herself to the base of the tree island, up through tall, slimy elephant grass, Shirley hoped none of the specks she could see, which were guards on the rail line, was using binoculars.
It was something she needn’t have worried about, for even given the vital role the railway was playing in the battle of Disney, the People’s Liberation Army — or any other army in the world, for that matter — wasn’t flush enough to provide each soldier with a pair of ten-power field glasses. Though the day wasn’t cold, she was shivering from having been so long in the water. As the sun climbed higher, the entire countryside steamed with moisture evaporating, so thick in parts that, as if in a mirage, some of the Chinese cavalry seemed disembodied from their mounts.
The elephant grass gave way to a patch of brown grass where a deadly black and yellow krait was curled up, basking in the early sun. It struck out. She dodged, letting out a yell. The snake vanished. A cavalryman heard her. So did Mellin and others. Almost immediately she heard the sloshing of water against her tiny island. She could hear Danny Mellin’s voice but couldn’t see him, though he’d barely left her before she’d seen the snake.
“Shirley, one of them’s seen you. Make out you’ve hurt your leg. Can’t move.”
“I’m sorry, Danny, I—”
“No matter — just stay where you are.”
Within a few minutes a mounted PLA trooper, his horse making a loud, sloshing noise, looked down at her imperiously, his right hand waving a revolver at her to get up. She made a pathetic-sounding plea. “My leg.” She pointed. “It’s hurt. I can’t—”
A stick of wood as thick as a man’s arm and about four feet long shot up from the mist and bashed the trooper’s head. He slumped on the frightened horse’s neck.
“Didn’t you hear her, you bastard? She’s fallen and she can’t get up!”
“Mike — what are you — I thought Danny—”
“I’m here too,” Danny told her, coming around from the blind side of the tree island.
Shirley nodded at Trang, who had the horse by the bridle, talking soothingly to the animal in Cantonese.
“Maybe he only understands Mandarin,” Mike joked.
“He understands love,” Trang said.
“Well, keep him on this side,” Mike said, “where they can’t see much from the railway. Trang, I hope you can ride.”
“Of course.”
“Swap clothes with him,” Mike said. “No, I don’t mean the bloody horse!” They all laughed, all on the edge of that hysteria that comes in the wake of near disaster, a sense of overwhelming relief that Danny Mellin knew he had to get on top of lest it make them foolhardy.
Trang changed into the mounted trooper’s uniform and, using the coiled rope on the saddle’s pommel, Danny, Shirley, and Murphy tied themselves into a line of three prisoners.
“Trang!” Danny called. “Take it slow. Parallel to the rail line, but don’t go in close till you see a culvert. And Trang…”
The Asian looked down at the American. “Yes?”
“Make sure you can get that Kalashnikov and sling off in a hurry.”
“I will. Who has the Malenkov?” He meant the Soviet-made handgun.
“I do,” Murphy said. “Hope it fires after it’s been wet.”
“I hope we don’t have to use it,” Danny said.
“So do I,” Shirley echoed. “But what happens if another rider sees us?”
“Then,” Murphy said nonchalantly, “I’ll hit
Trang spotted a culvert then, about a quarter mile west of them. It was difficult to tell exactly, but Mellin figured the culvert itself looked about a quarter mile long. For his plan to work, a culvert was better than open track. “Keep a watch out for the maintenance sheds along the track,” he told the others. “There should be one every couple of miles.”
“ ‘Bout the size of a dunny,” Murphy explained. “An outhouse!”
Despite her fatigue, Shirley found the Australian’s buoyant mood infectious, and she began giggling uncontrollably, as one sometimes does when physically and nervously exhausted.
“Trang,” Danny said, “give me his knife.”
Shirley suddenly stopped laughing as she realized what had happened to the luckless cavalryman — that Murphy’s blow had killed him, that they were at war with the Chinese.
Soon they were passing more islands on the flooded plain. At one point another PLA cavalryman waved and Trang waved back, his three prisoners strung out behind him. “My God,” Murphy,said. “
“C’mon,” Mellin said sternly. “I know we’re all dog-tired, but let’s stay with it. If we can—”
A horn beeped. Soldiers by a bogged truck were waving for Trang to come on and bring the prisoners in.
“Shit!” Murphy said. “If Trang doesn’t take us in, they’ll suspect something.”
“We’ve got no choice,” Danny said. “Now listen, here’s what we do. Go in close. Wave, Trang, but tell them you have to take your POWs to the culvert.”
There was more horn blowing. Shirley was more frightened than she’d been the day she was taken from her rig. She knew why the soldiers wanted them to come in — they had seen her soaking wet — and Danny Mellin knew too. Everybody did. But there was no option.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
The battle of Disney Hill was swinging back in favor of the Chinese, whose supply trains kept bringing up ammunition and more soldiers. But once they moved below the 22nd parallel and into USVUN territory, they came under devastating TACAIR support. It was provided by one of the oldest aircraft in the U.S. inventory, the Skyraider, capable of carrying more ordnance than its own weight, and with a loiter time that made it the sentimental favorite
