Sergeant Evans came up to the officer with a walkie-talkie. “Sir, Murphy’s reached the spot.”
Hutchins took the radio. “This is Six, over. … How many?… Okay. Sit tight and watch the road to the south. We’re on our way.” He turned to the sergeant and nodded.
Evans started giving orders. “Saddle up! Everybody into the trucks.”
Anne got the story from Hutchins as they rode forward. “It was a massacre. Murphy says the area is secure, but they need help. My men and I will have to tackle the commandos.
“Miss Larson, you and your people can’t fight, but we will need anyone who knows first aid. You can stay back and help the wounded while we move up.”
Anne protested. “Why don’t we just wait for more troops?”
“Our radios are too weak to call for help. Since the nearest detachment reacted, it would be even longer before anybody else could respond. Hours probably. That gives those bastards too much time. Besides, I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let someone else do my fighting while I’ve got effectives.”
They saw the carnage spread out along the road, and Anne felt something twisting her insides. She felt flushed and stared at the soldiers’ wounds, imagining them on her body.
Hutchins shook her shoulder. “Don’t think about it, Miss Larson. Just keep busy. You can’t get sick if you’re helping them.”
The scene changed to one of organized confusion. The wounded were found and moved into the comparative warmth of the trucks. The dead, frozen into grotesque shapes, were stacked off to one side. Evans had his men throw up a defensive perimeter, while the pilots scavenged weapons and equipment.
It was an impressive pile, including antitank rockets, a heavy machine gun and two lighter ones, and ammunition. Evans’s eyes gleamed and he started distributing it to his men. Tony and Hooter refused to take rifles. They each had a pistol and fervently hoped they wouldn’t have to use them.
One volunteer from Anne’s staff and a lightly wounded soldier were sent back up the road to report to Taech’on.
Evans made his report. “Sir, there were thirty-eight Koreans here. Twenty-one are dead. Ten are seriously wounded, the rest are walking wounded. Cha is dead and his sergeant is incapacitated.”
Hutchins was shaken by the losses but looked determined. “Will they fight?”
“No question, sir. I recommend giving them another few minutes to thaw out and eat, but they’re mad, sir. They’d go alone if we weren’t here.”
There was a popping sound from the south that quickly exploded into rifle and machine gun fire. Evans yelled, “Hold your positions!” and sprinted over in that direction.
Hutchins looked at the pilots. “I think we’ve spent all the time we’re going to get. Let’s go.”
The captain kept it simple. Forming a skirmish line, he had his men advance in a line on both sides of the road. Moving from tree to tree, they knew they were up against the best the enemy had. They had to depend on numbers. Hutchins had briefed them all to watch for more claymore mines, and their progress was slowed as every man searched for trip wires.
It wasn’t enough. A man’s scream of fear was cut off as he tripped a mine. The sound of an explosion was replaced by rifle fire. Everyone fell flat as bullets whined around them. The commandos’ numbers were impossible to determine, but they were making their presence felt.
Tony blew snow out of his face and looked for Hooter. Like any good wingman, he was back a little and to one side.
Crawling backward, Tony moved next to John and punched him in the shoulder. Hooter looked at him questioningly, and Tony pointed over to where the mine had detonated.
Tony turned without waiting for answer and started crawling. Off to his left, men lay or crouched in the snow, firing at targets he couldn’t see. The effort of moving while staying flat to the ground tired him but kept him warm as well.
In front of him the snow was streaked with brown and gray. His eyes followed the lines back to the source, where a small depression was the only sign of the mine’s presence. He crawled a little farther, and another sign of its presence revealed itself.
The man lay on his back, half-covered by snow and debris. Tony could see a dark patch on his chest, and his face was bloody, dripping onto the snow.
As the pilots crawled up to him, he moaned. At least they hadn’t crawled all this way for nothing. Bullets whizzed over them, and it was obvious that the first thing to do was get him out of here.
Grabbing his arms, they started crawling away from the fighting. Occasionally a rifle bullet would remind them of which direction to go.
They reached a small fold in the ground, and Tony yelled for Hughes. The aid man came running and professionally eased in to attend the wounds.
After a few minutes the soldier moaned and his eyelids flickered. Hughes sounded positive. “He’s got two light wounds. The one in the chest needs surgery, but he should make it fine. Thank you, sirs.”
They had heard other men fall. Tony started to head back. “Come on, Hooter. No rest for the weary.”
Yi looked at his command. With seven men at the start of the fight, the odds were against him. He was down to two now, just himself and a private on the detonator for the bridge. There was no point in waiting any longer.
Tony and Hooter were resting between trips, congratulating themselves on not getting hit themselves, when there was an earth-shattering
Hutchins jumped up and shouted, “That’s it! They’ve blown the bridge! They know they’ve lost.”
As Hutchins’s men had advanced, each trip to their impromptu aid station had gotten longer. Tony was creeping forward, with Hooter behind him, when he realized that they could see a small building, and that someone in it was shooting.
They flattened, Tony wiping snow off his face again. Looking left and right, he could see the troops pouring fire into the doors and windows. This went on for some time, when suddenly there was a whooshing sound and a smoke trail drew a line from the trees to the building. A second joined it, and the twin explosions tore chunks out of the walls, blew out the windows, and finally collapsed the roof.
There was no more firing.
CHAPTER 34
Crossings
McLaren focused his binoculars on the far side and listened to the tempo of the shelling. It was shifting, moving back from the rear areas toward the river, and increasing in volume as heavy mortars and other guns joined in. He nodded to himself. His instincts had been right. The North Koreans were trying to bull their way across the Han quickly — without a prolonged preparatory barrage.
He glanced at Hansen, who lay flat on the snowbank beside him. “Doug, make sure all commands are on their toes. It’s going to hit the fan any minute now.”
Hansen nodded and wriggled away toward the M577 command vehicle sheltered in a clump of trees. He dropped back into the snow a moment later.
“They’re as ready as they can be, General.” Hansen stopped talking and lowered his face as a shell whirred overhead and exploded two hundred meters behind them. When he looked up again, McLaren saw a deep frown. “Look, General. Staying around is crazy. There isn’t anything more you can do here — ’cept get killed, that is.”
McLaren knew his aide was right. He had an army to run, and he couldn’t do it with North Korean shells dropping all around his ears. But something in him resisted the idea of leaving. He’d grown tired of watching pins move back and forth across a bloodless map. It had grown too clinical, made him feel too detached from reality.
He’d come up to see the battle, to get a feel for what his troops were really going through. And McLaren was convinced that he needed that understanding. How else could he realistically appraise his units’ ability to carry out
