The battered Army three-quarter-ton truck ground its way across the Haengju Bridge along a single lane reserved for northbound traffic. Tanks, trucks, jeeps, and artillery pieces moving south packed the other three lanes, crunching over sand laid on the highway to improve traction. Temperatures all over Korea were falling, and chunks of ice now bobbed and spun in the Han River, rolling westward toward the Yellow Sea. It was quickly growing into the worst winter in recent memory.
Once across the bridge, the truck turned out of traffic onto a small access road winding southeast with the river on one side and towering, snow-dusted evergreens on the other. Dozens of other vehicles moving along the same road had already melted the snow on its surface into a slippery, slushy gunk, and it took the driver several minutes of frantic gear-shifting to force the truck up the road to its destination.
“This is the end of the line, sir. HQ of the First of Thirty-Ninth.”
Second Lieutenant Kevin Little stared at the ramshackle collection of tents nestled among the tall green trees. For a moment the scene summoned up half-forgotten memories of family ski trips in the Washington Cascades. He held on to the memories like a lifeline as he climbed out of the heated cab and stood shivering in the raw air. Rhee slid out beside him. Then he pulled his gloves off, zipped his white camouflage jacket all the way up, and struggled to pull the gloves back on over fingers that were already growing numb. It didn’t do much good. The weather was getting worse and the wind cut deep through every layer of clothing he had on.
Kevin had seen the frostbite cases piling up at the field hospital they’d been sent to after the search-and- rescue chopper picked them up behind enemy lines. The medics had said that most weren’t serious, but he’d seen some men who were going to lose fingers and toes — no matter what the doctors did for them.
He and Rhee had been lucky. Each had escaped with a minor case of exposure, a few cuts, and some bruises. Nothing that two days of enforced bed rest and hot food hadn’t been able to put right. But now they were going back into the thick of it. He shivered again, though not from the cold this time. The thought of seeing more slaughter sent a chill up his spine. He’d seen enough in his first battle to last a lifetime.
“We’d better report in.” Rhee’s breath steamed.
“Yeah.” Depression settled in over Kevin, a mantle of gray despair and self-doubt so tangible that he felt his shoulders slump beneath its weight. He’d failed up on Malibu West. What use could they possibly have for him now?
He heard the Korean lieutenant ask a passing GI the way to the battalion CO’s quarters. Kevin felt lower than he’d ever felt before in his life, and he was content to let Rhee lead him deeper into the cluster of camouflage- netted tents.
Major Donaldson was waiting for them in a small, tarp-floored tent crowded with maps, radio gear, and a charcoal-burning camp stove. The short, square-jawed major had been running the battalion since the first day of the war. The old CO, Colonel Harriman, was on his way home minus a leg, thanks to a North Korean 152mm shell.
Donaldson greeted them with a quick, tired smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and waved them over to chairs clustered around the stove. He didn’t waste time on small talk but started right in asking questions about what had happened at Malibu West. Kevin had already written up an after-action report back at the field hospital, but the major wanted to hear it firsthand.
When Kevin told him about the jamming that had made it impossible to call in artillery support, Donaldson grimaced. “Goddamn if I don’t know just what you mean, Lieutenant. The NKs were able to do the same thing all up and down the Z.” The major rocked back slightly on his camp stool. “Well, I can tell you that we’ve been paying some pretty serious attention to those jamming units since then.”
He smiled thinly. “A little radio triangulation and a few quick salvos of eight-inch arty fire usually works wonders for the commo situation.” He waved Kevin on with his report.
Kevin told him everything — all the way up to their pickup by the SAR helicopter. He could hear the strain in his own voice but felt oddly removed from it all. Almost as though it had happened to someone else in some other place at some other time.
When he finished, Donaldson sat silently for several seconds, his eyes fixed on Kevin’s face as though searching intently for something hidden there. Then he leaned forward and laid a gentle hand on Kevin’s knee. “Now look, Kev. What happened to your platoon happened in other places, too. And I want you to know that I believe you did everything you could under the circumstances. You personally led your troops up until the last possible moment in the middle of the worst kind of nightmare any commander could face. No one could ask for more than that. If you hadn’t played dead when you did, the results would still have been the same — except that I’d be short another platoon leader. As it is, you’re here and alive and I can use you.”
“But — ”
Donaldson interrupted him. “No buts about it, Kev. It wasn’t your fault. You understand me?”
Kevin nodded as if he did.
“Good. Okay, then. Let’s get down to brass tacks.” The major pulled his hand back and stood up. He stepped across the tent to a map covered with cryptic grease-pencil markings. The two lieutenants followed him.
In short, clipped sentences Donaldson brought them up to date on the overall situation facing the Combined Forces. Put simply, it was grim. North Korea’s armored spearheads were driving hard, gaining ground and inflicting serious casualties on the units trying vainly to stop them. More troops were desperately needed.
South Korea’s vast reserves were mobilizing, but the process of getting them to the fighting front had been badly disrupted by NK commando attacks and by the need to secure logistics centers, headquarters sites, and communications facilities against new raids. American reinforcements were on the way, but they would be slow in arriving. Even with every available cargo and troop carrier plane pressed into service, it could take up to ten days to ship a full division by air. The units coming by sea would take even longer to get there. It took time to bring mothballed cargo ships back into service, time to load them, and even steaming at full speed the ships would take at least ten days to cross the Pacific. All of which meant that the Combined Forces’ retreat wasn’t likely to stop anytime soon, Donaldson told them.
When he came to the high command’s decision to pull back south of Seoul, Rhee’s face tightened and the South Korean stood rigid as a statue. Kevin suddenly remembered that Rhee’s family lived in one of the capital’s northern suburbs.
Donaldson traced the route of the North Korean column pushing west of the city. It was headed straight for them. Notations on the map showed its steady progress. “Now that is what we’re up against. We’ve got to slow this column down. The roads through Seoul are completely choked with refugees and other units, and there’s still a lot of our guys on this side of the Han. And that bridge” — Donaldson jerked a thumb over his shoulder back toward the span they’d crossed earlier — “that bridge is the only one left standing west of the city. It’s the only way a lot of our people are going to make it out.”
The major tapped the map again. “Okay, that’s one reason we have to buy time. The other’s just as important.” He ran a finger along the riverline. “This is our next main line of resistance. But it’s just a hollow shell right now. The engineers are working fast and we’re getting more troops there as quickly as possible, but it ain’t gonna be quick enough unless we can put a crimp in dear old Uncle Kim’s advance up here.” He pointed to the red arrowhead in Wondang — just six kilometers up the main highway.
Both Kevin and Rhee nodded their understanding. Things were pretty bad all over.
“Now that’s where you come in. I need two officers to command a provisional company I’ve formed from the battalion’s service units.”
Kevin’s heart sank as Donaldson ran through the forces he was expected to lead into battle. Seventy-four supply clerks, maintenance techs, and MPs serving as riflemen, organized in two below-strength platoons, and a scratch weapons platoon made up of six M60 machine gun teams and four Dragon antitank missile teams. Even with the platoon of South Korean M-48 tanks Donaldson promised to attach, the provisional company sounded like a half-baked abortion that wouldn’t last ten minutes up against the North Koreans. A picture flashed in front of his eyes, the dead heaped at the bottom of Malibu’s main trench. It was going to happen again.
He glanced quickly at Rhee. The South Korean had an eyebrow arched slightly but showed no other sign of perturbation. How could he stay so cool?
“We’ll give you as much support as we can, Kev. You won’t be out on your own, that I promise you.”
Kevin shifted his gaze back to find Donaldson looking closely at him. He nodded and tried to smile. He’d heard that promise before and knew just how far it went. Not far at all.
Donaldson looked at him, his face serious. “I wouldn’t ask you to go back on the line so soon, Kev, but I
