He motioned his second-in-command over for a hasty conference in the shadow of a pine tree whose branches had been stripped off by a near-miss. Senior Lieutenant Koh didn’t like the situation any better than he did. He thought they were walking face forward into a trap.
“Agreed. So I want you to take a squad and scout ahead. Don’t try to engage the fascists closely. Just find out where they are and we’ll let the mortars and artillery deal with them.”
Koh nodded sharply and jogged on ahead through the trees to catch up with the lead platoon. Chae followed at a more moderate pace with his staff sergeant and runners tagging along beside him. He didn’t see any point in rushing in to get his head blown off — major or no major.
Kevin went from man to man along the crest with the same warning. “Three-round bursts tops. Make every shot count. No rock-and-roll. What you’ve got in your ammo pouches is all you’ll get. Shoot it all off and you’ll have to throw snowballs at the bastards. Understood?” He’d wait for the nod and then move on to say it all over again.
He came to the end of the line, gave his speech to the wide-eyed private there, and started to scuttle away. Suddenly the PFC grabbed the lieutenant’s boot and pointed downslope toward a clump of bushes that had started waggling. Kevin dropped flat and twisted around to get his M16 lined up on the spot.
A Russian-style pot helmet emerged from the bushes, followed by the rest of an AK-armed soldier. Kevin squinted right and left and saw more North Koreans strung out in a skirmish line at the base of the hill. He counted at least ten — a squad then, with more somewhere behind.
He tried to stop breathing, willing the North Koreans farther up the slope. Please God, don’t let anybody open up until they’re a little closer, a little more out in the open, he prayed silently. He heard the PFC beside him swallow convulsively and resisted an impulse to hit him. Sounds carried too far here under the trees. Come on closer, you bastards.
Now. Kevin yelled, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
The eight other men along the crest started shooting, and he squeezed off a three-round burst at the same moment. His target, the first North Korean he’d spotted, tumbled backward down the hill. The man’s helmet fell off and rolled away to rest beneath a bare-branched willow tree.
Others were down as well, thrown off their feet by the first salvo of American rifle fire. A few survivors had burrowed into the snow, firing blindly back up at the top of the hill.
Kevin felt snow spray across his face from a near-miss and took careful aim at one of the prone NKs. He pulled the trigger once and felt the M16 jump in his hands. A hit! Blood spurted from the North Korean’s shoulder, and the man rose involuntarily to his knees clutching at the wound. Another bullet from someone else along the crestline threw the wounded man back dead.
He looked to either side, hunting for new targets. Nothing. Just six or seven crumpled bodies bleeding into the snow. The surviving North Koreans had pulled back into cover. He took his finger off the trigger and laid waiting.
An M16 cracked off to his left. Then another. Firing at nothing. Kevin put his energy into a single, harsh, penetrating whisper. “Cease fire! Stop wasting your ammo, goddamnit!”
The shooting stopped, replaced by an eerie silence broken only by low moans from somewhere out in the forest to their front. Kevin waited for his hearing to come back to normal and for his heart to stop pounding so loudly.
He cocked his head, listening. There. Muttered voices. Feet crunching in the snow. Equipment rattling. There were more North Koreans among the trees, moving up to the attack. A lot more. They’d make a rush soon.
Kevin made an instant decision. He didn’t have enough men to hold the crest against a concerted attack. “Back! Get back to your holes. Move it.”
The two American fire teams slid downhill into their foxholes, joining up with the rest of Echo Company. They’d meet the next North Korean assault when it came over the top of the hill.
Senior Lieutenant Koh lay ashen-faced while the medic worked on him, trying to stem the loss of blood from his wounds. “As you suspected, they were waiting for us. At least a platoon, perhaps more.” He gasped as the medic pulled a bandage tighter.
“Lie still, comrade.” Chae put a hand on his second-in-command’s shoulder. “You did well. Now we’ll smoke the bastards out with a few rounds of artillery fire, eh?”
Koh nodded weakly and closed his eyes. Chae looked sharply at the medic, who simply shrugged. The lieutenant’s wounds were beyond his ability to treat, and the nearest aid station was more than an hour’s march away. It was all in the hands of chance — Koh would live or die as fate dictated.
Chae stood up and stared around the small hollow that held his command group and the battered remnants of his scouting force. His first two platoons were already deployed in a skirmish line about two hundred meters below the top of the American-held hill. The men of the 3rd Platoon, his reserves, squatted on their haunches just outside the hollow.
He snapped an order to his sergeant and headed back the way they’d come. He needed artillery support to press the attack and only the battalion commander could make the necessary arrangements.
“Absolutely not! There’s no time for such foolishness. It would be a waste of valuable ammunition and time. Drive them off that hill with a lightning attack.”
Chae was astonished. He’d known his commander was overconfident, but until that very moment he hadn’t been sure that the man was a simpleton as well. “Comrade Major, the enemy position is a strong one. An unsupported infantry attack will only fail. We must have artillery support.”
The major’s eyes narrowed. “Comrade Captain. My orders to you were explicit, were they not? Are you disobeying a direct command?”
Chae knew he was within moments of being placed under arrest — an arrest that could only have one result: his execution. And that left him with a choice of two equally unpleasant alternatives. He shook his head slowly. “No, Comrade Major. Your orders will be carried out.”
The major smiled. “Excellent, Captain. Excellent.” He patted Chae’s shoulder. “I’m sure there’s nothing there but a small delaying force. One sharp attack by your company will overwhelm them and clear the way for our continued advance.”
Chae could only nod.
“Very well, Chae.” The major glanced at his watch. “I’ll expect your assault to get under way in twenty minutes. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover today. Division expects us to reach the fascist government’s Agricultural Experiment Station by nightfall. And I don’t intend to disappoint them. Is that clear?”
“Extremely so, Comrade Major.” Chae saluted and wheeled away sharply, seething internally. He and his troops would just have to do their best and hope for the best. He’d send his 1st and 2nd platoons in on a wild rush. Perhaps they’d be able to get in among the Americans holding the hill without suffering crippling casualties. And if that failed, at least he’d still have the 3rd Platoon on hand with which to try something else.
The bugle’s high-pitched, discordant shriek echoed eerily off the surrounding tree trunks and branches.
“Here they come, you bastards! Get set for it!” Kevin flicked the M16’s safety off and made sure it was set for semiautomatic fire. He crouched lower in the foxhole.
There they were. Kevin saw the first figures silhouetted against the skyline, bayonet-tipped assault rifles in their hands. M16s and M60 light machine guns crashed repeatedly along the row of American foxholes, and North Koreans fell or were tossed backward. Others dropped flat and tried to return fire.
Heavier-sounding AK shots mingled with the lighter-pitched cracks made by M16s.
An American private gurgled and suddenly clutched with bloody hands at a throat that wasn’t there anymore. Another screamed in anguish and fell back holding a shattered forearm. But the North Koreans were caught in the open without good cover and they were dying faster.
Kevin shot a man trying to crawl behind a tree and yanked the now-empty magazine out of his rifle, fumbling
