Pat Frank - Hold Back the Night

Ekland stared up at the hill flanking the road on their right, steep and forbidding. “We’d never get him up there, would we? I don’t know that we can get ourselves up there.”

“We can make it,” the captain said, “but not with Tinker.”

“So what do we do—make a fight of it?”

“We make a fight of it—but not the way they expect. We don’t stick to the road, not those who are going to do the fighting. And some of us are going to get through and one of those who is going to get through is that kid, Tinker. And I want to put him in for a gong, sergeant. If I’m not around to do it, you do it.”

“Yes, sir, but—”

The captain called for Ostergaard. “How many rounds you got for that bazook you’re carrying there?” he asked Ostergaard.

“I’ve got one, sir, and Kato is carrying one, and Beany Smith has got one and Vermillion one, and I think somewhere there are two others.” With everything else he had to carry, a man couldn’t lug along more than one, or at the most two, bazooka rockets.

“You know much about a bazooka, Ostergaard?”

“Not much, sir. I fired one once in training, Stateside, and I fired three or four when we took that house apart back at that last town. That’s all I know, sir.”

“Okay, you be my loader, then. You take two rounds with you, and Beany Smith, he should have two rounds, and I’ll take the bazook. Four rounds should be plenty. If there’s one tank, one should do it. One should be enough, because if you miss, the tank always gets in the second shot. If there are two tanks, I doubt if fifty rounds would be enough. Still, we’ll take a couple of extra rounds.”

The captain looked about him, and summoned them all with his eyes. “Okay, you men,” he said. “Now we’re going to split up this force into two parties. One party will be under Sergeant Ekland, and this party will include Tinker and four litter-bearers, and four good riflemen. The sergeant’s party is to march straight on down the road, Ekland leading, then the other four, strung out.

“Five men are to come up the hill with me and the bazook. Ostergaard, Smith, Heinzerling, Kato, and Vermillion.

“Sergeant, you give us time to get to the top before you start, because when you pass the crossroads I want to be sitting up there on the nose of the hill with the bazook.”

The captain noticed that Ekland’s red, stiff beard pointed straight out, as if in protest, and he knew his sergeant was shaken. “You mean, sir—you mean you want us to move right across that tank’s line of fire, like ducks in a shooting gallery?”

“That’s it, sergeant. That’s it exactly. And I don’t want you even to look around. I don’t want you to raise your eyes from the ground. I want you to pretend you’re unconscious.”

“I will be.”

“No, you won’t. That tank will be backed up a hundred yards or so on the other road, at the crossing. That tank doesn’t want you. That tank doesn’t want the litter and Tinker, and the bearers. That tank wants the jeeps, and the weapons carriers, and the six-by-sixes, and all the other fat targets that ought to be behind us, but aren’t.”

“I get it,” Ekland said. But the sergeant’s quick mind sought and found a weakness in the captain’s reasoning. Had the Chinese, ahead at the crossroads, guessed the Marines’ strength only by direct observation, or did they know it surely by radio from the Mongol cavalry and the mortar battery, back aways? The sergeant decided not to raise the question. It would only complicate things, and might stir doubt in his men. And at least the captain had a plan, and he didn’t.

“Don’t even turn your head,” the captain said. “Not until you hear shooting. Until you hear my bazook. Then crack down with everything you’ve got, because we may need help to get off that hill.”

Aboard a battleship at sea, within sight of the port of Hungnam so that its sixteen-inch guns could fire supporting missions, when called on, there was that morning a meeting of men, if not of minds, for an American army had never before been confronted with a situation like this, and it required study. The British had faced up to it, at Gallipoli, and Dunkirk, and Greece. They knew the word, evacuation, so it was fitting that a British Navy captain was included in the conference. And the Britisher was speaking:

“Gentlemen, I feel that the thing to do is pull back the perimeter gradually, in the darkness hours under cover of the guns. You have the guns. At Dunkirk, we didn’t. You can lay down a curtain of fire that a mouse couldn’t get through. Under this curtain you bring out the units that have been hurt, and you allow your fresh divisions—the Third Division and the ROK Capitol—to undertake the ground defense.”

“Bring out the Marines!” said a general of Marines.

The Englishman inclined his head, and said, “Yes. First.”

“We don’t have to bring out the Marines,” the general said. “Not yet.”

“What are your casualties?”

“Three, maybe four thousand in the Division.”

“Including frostbite?”

“No.”

“General,” said the Englishman, “with casualties like that, I don’t see how your force can any longer be effective.”

The general sat up straight, and beat his fist on the wardroom table, and started to explain about the Marines, and in particular about the First Marine Division, but the British four-striper smiled at him, and the general knew that the Britisher knew about the Marines, already, and was only trying to be helpful.

“We need the Marine Division,” the Britisher said quietly. “We need them.”

“Okay,” the general said, “we bring them out. Now.” He turned to his G-3. “Where are we?”

“Two regiments are in the perimeter,” the G-3 said, “and the other is coming in. It’s coming in with its guns, and its equipment, and its wounded.”

“That doesn’t sound like we have to be taken out of here, now does it?” said the general.

The Corps commander, who until then had held himself apart from the discussion, said, “We evacuate your Division. Now.”

The general said, “Yes, sir,” and turned to his staff sitting behind him and asked, “Everybody accounted for?”

For a moment, none of his staff spoke, and then a Major Toomey, recently arrived from Washington, said, “Sir, I think the last regiment has a company missing. It is called Dog Company. It was sent out on that secondary road there—” he looked up at the map on the wardroom bulkhead—“to protect the regiment’s flank. It left Koto-Ri okay, but reduced in size, and it wasn’t heard from again until last night. Last night, according to the action reports, someone operating a walkie-talkie at Regiment heard this company calling. This company’s code name is Lightning Four, and that’s what this man at Regiment heard.”

“Did he contact this company?” the Corps commander asked.

“He tried, sir, but he couldn’t raise them. These short-range talkies are tricky.”

The admiral, who had not said a word, said, “What are we going to do about this company? Are we going to abandon them?”

Nobody spoke, but all of them knew the answer.

“We have to have air,” said the general of Marines. “That’s up to you, admiral.”

“There isn’t any air today,” said the admiral, who once had been an air admiral. About the time most of the men fighting in Korea were born, this admiral was flying a box-kite onto the deck of the Langley.

“It’ll take air to find that company, and support it, if it’s still there,” said the general.

“This whole coast is socked in,” said the admiral. “I wouldn’t send out a buzzard to fly in this weather. Specially over those goddam mis-mapped hills.” He scratched his chin. “However, we might send out a pinwheel, just to look for them, to see if they’re still there. Where’s my air controller?”