The North Korean lieutenant stared at the carnage for a moment and then went to help the wounded. The attacking force his howitzers had been supporting would have to fend for itself. Battery 3 was out of action.
At first the silence was overpowering. But then, as Kevin’s hearing returned, other sounds of the battle came flooding back — the rattle of machine gun fire from 2nd Platoon’s rice-paddy dikes, sharp explosions as American proximity-fused shells continued to burst in midair over open fields now carpeted with North Korean dead, and the grinding squeal of North Korean BMPs lumbering up the slope toward the woods he and his men held.
Kevin wriggled out from under the logs of his foxhole and sat up. Montoya followed him.
Trees had been blown down all around their position, sheared off by the North Korean barrage. The next foxhole over wasn’t there anymore; an evergreen had landed right on top of it. Kevin swallowed hard and looked away from the thin red smear oozing out from under the fallen tree.
Burning vehicles dotted the ground below his hill. A handful of BMPs, a scattering of wheeled BTR-60s, and five T-72 tanks sat motionless, spewing smoke. But three BMPs were still advancing, spraying the woods with machine gun fire and rounds from their 73mm cannons. Kevin couldn’t see any return fire from his own positions.
He craned his head, looking for the M-48 tanks attached to his command. One sat afire in the woods nearby. A thick, black column of smoke marked the funeral pyre of a second farther down the line. But where was the third? They needed armor support to stop the BMPs from overrunning the hill.
A soldier bellycrawled over from behind a splintered tree stump. It was Rhee.
Kevin reached out and pulled him into cover. “Where’s the fucking tank?”
Rhee’s face was grim. “Gone.” He pointed over his shoulder. “It fled and abandoned us.”
“Shit!” The BMPs were closer now, shooting up the forward edges of the wood. Kevin could see his men now. They were starting to give ground, slipping back through the trees. Echo Company’s defense was collapsing all around him. He felt the nerve under his left cheek twitch again. Another failure.
Three men ran past, one without a rifle.
Bastards. Kevin stood up and yelled, “Get back on the line! Goddamnit, we can hold ’em! Get back in your holes!”
They swept by without answering. Others were following them.
Kevin jumped up out of the foxhole. He felt Rhee’s hand on his leg, pulling him down, but he shook it off. He moved to intercept the troops heading away from the oncoming BMPs.
One carrying a LAW slung over his back came right at him. Kevin stepped into his path and held out a hand to stop him. “Hold it right there, soldier. We need that weapon.”
The man shoved him aside without even looking and snarled, “Fuck off!”
Kevin felt something explode in his brain for just an instant. Something infinitely cold and infinitely hot. An anger greater than he had ever known before surged through him. He gave in to it and threw himself at the soldier’s back — knocking the GI flat into the snow.
Kevin got to his knees first and wrenched the fiberglass-tubed antitank rocket off over the man’s neck, tearing away skin and the soldier’s helmet. The lead BMP was pushing its way into the mangled woods just twenty meters to the right, roaring up and over fallen trees.
Ignoring the white-faced GI on the ground, Kevin scrambled to his feet and ran toward the North Korean infantry combat vehicle, swinging the LAW up and onto his shoulder as he ran. He could hear himself shouting something at the top of his lungs, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Snow spurted all around him, and wood splinters sprayed off a tree to the side. A second BMP had spotted him and was firing its coaxial machine gun. Kevin ignored it, really conscious only of his target and the white-hot rage he felt.
He got to within ten meters of the lead BMP and slid to a stop, feet plowing through the snow and churned- up mud. He braced and aimed, focusing along the length of the LAW toward the BMP’s massive, armored flank.
“Bastards!” Kevin screamed, and pulled the trigger. The 66mm antitank rocket roared out of its launch tube and slammed into the BMP It ripped through sixteen millimeters of steel armor and exploded inside. The BMP shuddered to a halt with smoke pouring out of its firing slits.
Kevin stood staring at it for a second and then felt himself knocked to the ground. Machine gun bullets cracked overhead, ripping branches off the evergreens around him and tearing away deeper into the woods. Kevin rolled over and came face-to-face with a grinning Lieutenant Rhee. He opened his mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say.
Rhee shook his head and waved a hand at the woods around them. American soldiers were settling back into foxholes, their weapons out and ready. Kevin saw one man raise another LAW, point it downslope toward the second BMP and fire. It hit, but the BMP kept coming. A second soldier off to the flank saw it and fired a third antitank rocket. This one burst near the driver’s slit and sent fragments ricocheting around the interior of the North Korean vehicle. It rolled on for a few meters more and then juddered slowly to a stop.
The last BMP abruptly popped its smoke dispensers and reversed rapidly away from the hill, jinking from side to side to throw off the aim of any American missile teams zeroing in on it.
Kevin sat up slowly and then levered himself to his feet, looking at the wrecked vehicles and corpses scattered across the hillside and through the woods. He could hear faint cheering coming from the rice paddies occupied by his 2nd Platoon, but the men of his 1st Platoon sat silent, relieved just to be alive. He reached down and helped Rhee to his feet, gradually realizing that a smile was spreading across his face — an expression he hadn’t worn for what seemed like an eternity.
He looked down at his hands and saw that they were steady. No more trembling. They had won — at least this round. They’d stopped the North Koreans cold.
Kevin turned on his heel and started back through the tangle of shredded trees, looking for Montoya. His orders still stood. They’d bought some time. Now it was time to fall back to the next battle position and do it again.
“Drop one hundred, right fifty.”
The spotting round sent chunks of asphalt flying as it gouged a crater in the highway. Kevin clicked the transmit button. “Got it! On target! Let ’em have it!”
More artillery rounds screamed in, blasting the road and the open ground around it. North Korean infantrymen scattered in all directions, seeking cover where there was none. Earth and fragments of torn bodies fountained high into the air.
Kevin stopped watching the barrage and wriggled back into his foxhole to consider his next move. Echo Company and the units covering its flanks had fought steadily all day, gradually giving ground in the face of repeated North Korean attacks. Each time the pattern had been the same. Bloody the NK columns from concealed positions. Force them to waste time deploying for a more deliberate attack and then beat a quick retreat down the road to the next set of defensive positions.
It had worked. They’d bought time for the other units fleeing across the Haengju Bridge. But the price had been high. Sergeant Caldwell, his Weapons Platoon leader, was dead. Bryce, the 1st Platoon leader, had been medevacked two hours ago, bleeding from a dozen shrapnel wounds. All told, nearly thirty of his men were out of action — dead or seriously wounded.
Kevin rubbed a weary hand across his face, feeling the bristles of his beard mixed in with caked-on mud. How much longer could he ask his troops to go on taking losses like that? They were being ground up by this constant fighting. How much longer would they have to hold? This hill was the last barrier between the North Koreans and the Han.
He squinted west into the setting sun. Not more than an hour of daylight left. He turned to look down the slope behind him. There were still trucks crowding the bridge, but the traffic seemed somewhat lighter.
“Sir. It’s Major Donaldson.” Montoya nudged him gently.
Kevin took the handset and clicked the transmit button. “India One Two, this is Echo Five Six, over.”
Donaldson sounded tired, too. “Stand by for withdrawal. Say again, stand by for withdrawal.”
Kevin shook his head, not quite understanding. He felt as if his head had been wrapped in cotton. What was that? Withdraw? How? When? He clicked the transmit button again. “One Two, this is Five Six. Request instructions.”
