straight for a small stand of trees occupied by some of his precious bridging units.
The lead American plane climbed sharply and then banked away, flinging a pair of bombs off its racks. Both flew straight into the woods and exploded. The second aircraft began its turn away and then shuddered as shells from a nearby ZSU-23-4 battery found the mark at last, though too late to save their engineer comrades in the woods.
The wounded American jet flew on for several seconds with heavy, black smoke pouring out of its belly, then rolled over onto its back and nose-dived into a hill. Its companion accelerated away, chased futilely by several shoulder-launched SAMs.
Chyong rose from his crouch, staring at the bomb-splintered woods. Four more of his invaluable PMP bridge sections had been destroyed. How many more had fallen prey to the gray-painted American jets crisscrossing his operations area?
He started to climb out of the trench to find out, but an aide knocked him down as another American plane suddenly appeared out of a small valley to the left and turned toward them. Chyong and the young captain clung to the bottom of the trench while the jet’s cannon roared, smashing a camouflaged radio van parked less than fifty meters away.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the plane disappeared. And as Chyong’s hearing came back to normal, he was conscious first of the fading sound of jet engines from the west and then of the crackling flames consuming his bridges. The American air raid was over.
Piper keyed his mike. “Duster is feet wet.”
Then he scanned the air around his Intruder, counting noses as the strike planes, Iron Hands, and flak suppressors reformed for the flight back to the carriers. Five were gone, counting Orca Jones, and another seven trailed smoke, showing that they’d been hit by North Korean guns or SAMs.
Piper was shocked by their losses. Seven of Corky Bouchard’s defending fighters had also been splashed, and several others had been recovered on board either
He glanced across the cockpit and saw that Parrish had at last pulled his face away from the radar screen. The bombardier’s eyes were closed, and he had his left hand tightly wrapped around the small, gold crucifix he always wore round his neck. Piper quickly returned his eyes to his instruments. He could pray later. Right now, he had to get this bird back on the deck.
Chyong moved out of earshot of the field hospital where medics were working on the badly wounded.
“Well? What do you have to report, Colonel?”
The engineer’s face was grim. Many of those screaming under the doctors’ knives were his own men. “The Americans have wrecked more than half of my pontoons and nearly half of my amphibious ferries. With what I’ve got left, I can’t support both crossing operations you have planned.”
“What about the spares back with our second echelon?”
The engineer shook his shaved head. “I’m sorry, Comrade General. If you could postpone the attack for another day, we could have them in place, but not otherwise.”
Chyong considered that, but only for a moment. Cho’s words had made it clear that further delays wouldn’t be tolerated by Pyongyang. So he would have to gamble. He’d wanted to launch both a primary and an alternate attack across the Han in order to divide the enemy’s attention and defenses. It had been a good plan, but happenstance, as always in war, dictated a change in plans. So be it.
He stared at the engineer. “Do you have enough equipment to support a single-crossing operation?”
The man nodded cautiously.
“Very well, then. We’ll attack tonight. As scheduled. Make sure your bridges and your men are ready. I’ll want heavy tanks crossing the river by first light.”
“And the storm, Comrade General?”
Chyong studied the sky. Heavy, dark clouds were rolling in from the north and the wind was rising again. Small flecks of snow were starting to fall, with more said to be on the way. He turned back to face the engineer. “The weather will be the same on both sides of the Han, Colonel. We attack as planned.”
Major General Frank Connor turned angrily on his ops officer, “Goddamnit, Art! It doesn’t make sense!”
The shorter man spread his hands. “I agree, sir. But General McLaren confirmed our orders personally.”
“Shit!” Something was way off base here, Connor thought. He’d seen the daily situation maps. The allied forces needed every man they could spare up along the Han River defense line and pronto. And what were he and more than two-thirds of his troops doing? Sitting on their backsides in the same, camouflaged camps they’d been sent to just after arriving by air from the States. And that, according to his ops officer, was just what McLaren wanted.
Conner paced past the headquarters tent entrance and stopped, watching the last, red rays of sunlight streaming over the mountains surrounding Ch’ungju. He frowned. What was Mad Jack McLaren waiting for?
“Sir?”
Kevin Little came instantly awake and reached for the M16 at his side. “What is it?”
Montoya stuck his head through the tent flap. “It’s Major Donaldson, L-T. On the radio.”
Kevin wormed out of his sleeping bag, teeth already starting to chatter as the cold hit him again. His eyes and mouth felt gritty, as though they were filled with sand. Six hours of uninterrupted sleep had helped, but it couldn’t make up for everything that he had lost since the war started.
He rose to a crouch, threw on his parka, and followed Montoya out of the pup tent.
Echo Company lay at rest in a small hollow between two hills several kilometers south of the river line. The hills weren’t much to speak of, but they were high enough to block the wind, and Kevin was thankful for small favors. His men had been on the edge when they’d been pulled out of the line. Another few hours of straight duty and they would have been too slaphappy to do much more than wave hello to the North Koreans.
It was snowing again. Kevin felt the soft, wet flakes striking his face, but he couldn’t see them. The moon was down and it was pitch-dark under clouds that covered the whole sky.
The only light came from the north, a flickering, eerie half-light reflected in the clouds that Kevin would once have thought was lightning. Now he knew it was only North Korean heavy artillery pounding the poor bastards deployed right up along the Han.
But the battle noises seemed louder than they had when he’d gone to sleep. And now the faraway rattle of small arms fire mingled with the crashing sounds made by impacting artillery.
“Here, L-T.” Montoya led him over to a truck with its engine idling. The RTO had obviously decided to set his radio watch up in something that had a heater. Smart thinking.
Kevin clambered into the cab and picked up the handset. “India One Two, this is Echo Five Six. Over.”
“Echo Five Six, wait one.” An unfamiliar voice.
Then Donaldson came on the circuit. “Kev? Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got a situation here. A Bravo Oscar situation, understand?”
For a second, Kevin didn’t. His brain seemed to be working at about half-speed, or maybe less. Then it clicked. Bravo Oscar. The military phonetics for the letters
He pressed the transmit button. “Two, this is Six. Message understood. Over.” He wanted to ask why, but this didn’t seem like a good time to play “20 Questions.”
Donaldson answered him anyway. “The NKs are across the river, Kev. J-2 said they couldn’t do it without bringing up replacement bridges, but they did it anyway. Only came across at one point, but they’ve thrown everything into it and our guys can’t stop them. Both the Second of the Thirty-Sixth and an ROK battalion have wrecked themselves trying. Anyway, the NKs will have their armor across by morning.”
Damn. “Understood.”
