Jeff Shaara - The Frozen Hours

To one side of the tent, a radio crackled, Ridge’s man cupping his hands over the earphones. News, Smith thought. Anything is better than what we have now. He waited, moved that way, Ridge beside him. The man spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Yes, sir. The general is here now. The command tent. Roger, sir. Out.” He looked toward Smith, said, “Sir, that was General Hodes. He’s coming in. I couldn’t make out much more than that. I believe he was in a tank, sir.”

Smith turned, moved toward the covered opening in the tent, felt a wisp of icy wind. He turned again, paced in the small area, the others standing aside, watching him. Ridge said, “I can send an aide to bring him in more quickly, sir. There’s a jeep right outside, if we can get the engine started.”

Smith kept moving, eyes on the hard ground, Ridge’s words reaching him now. He stopped, looked at Ridge, said, “The cold?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve never been in these conditions before. It freezes up anything that moves, including engines. The artillery is having a dickens of a time reloading. The recoil mechanisms on the one-fifty-fives barely work. I watched the artillerymen pulling the guns back into place by hand. Hopefully we won’t have to engage in a rapid-fire duel with the enemy. Right now there’s no such thing.”

“The enemy is enduring this same cold, Colonel. I haven’t heard any reports of heavy artillery fire from the Chinese. At least that’s one advantage we seem to have.”

“And the air. No sign of enemy planes at all. Sir, I spoke to some of the Corsair pilots down south. They were itching to engage Chinese or Russian pilots. I never really understood flyboys, sir. I’ll keep my feet on the ground. Even this ground.”

The tent flap drew back, the officer rushing inside, clapping bare hands together.

“My God, this is something! The worst I’ve ever seen!” The man spotted Smith now, offered a hard scowl. “General. Good you’re here.”

Hodes offered a cold hand, which Smith took, a brief shake. Smith said, “What’s the story out there?”

Hodes shook his head. “We couldn’t get through. Engaged the enemy a couple miles shy of our goal, far as I could tell. They’ve blocked the road, blown the bridges, and they’re in force all over those hills. The tanks had problems, too. One ran out of gas, others had failing engines. Only option was to fall back.”

“You contact your troop positions?”

Hodes sipped the coffee, made a low grunt. “Yes. They’ve taken at least four hundred casualties. I spoke to Colonel McLean, CO of the Thirty-second. He’s in overall command up there. To say he’s concerned is putting it mildly.” Hodes looked hard at Smith. “General, to be frank, we’re in some serious trouble up there. From what we can tell, the enemy has surrounded that entire position. Both the Thirty-first and Thirty-second are out on a pretty dangerous limb. I know that General Barr would approve of me doing this. I am asking that you send assistance, do whatever is possible to pull those boys back here. We have additional forces coming up from the south, but there is no way of knowing when they might arrive.”

“The road to the south is blocked. It is unlikely any additional troops can get through with any speed.”

“Then I double my request. If we were united here, we’d be a tough nut for the Chinese.”

“How many men are up there?”

Hodes seemed uncertain, thought a moment. “Near three thousand, I suppose.”

Smith looked at Ridge, saw a glare of concern.

“General, we cannot weaken the perimeter here. There are barely that many Marines here to defend the most important junction in this part of Korea.”

Hodes seemed even more surprised now, said, “But we were told that you had two full regiments here, and a third moving up.”

“I assume you received your information from Tenth Corps. Were you also told that my orders were to spread out my forces in a flimsy line that is still thirty miles long? The greater part of our strength is, right now, enduring a heavy enemy assault up at Yudam-ni, some fourteen miles north of here. Colonel Puller is still at Koto-ri, and he is taking heavy fire as well.” He stopped, tried to control his temper. “General, I appreciate the gravity of the army’s situation. But the only way we can mount a force strong enough to eliminate the enemy on the east side of the reservoir is to abandon completely what we have here. That’s not possible.”

Hodes didn’t respond, his gaze dropping. Ridge said, “General Hodes, we could definitely use your men here. Can they fight their way back?”

Hodes didn’t look at Ridge, and Smith could feel the man’s despair. After a long moment, Hodes said, “I suppose we’ll have to.”

HAGARU-RI, NORTH KOREA—NOVEMBER 28, 2:30 P.M.

Hodes had returned to his mode of transportation, the tank offering him the only chance to communicate to the army troops east of the reservoir. Smith had eaten a flavorless lunch in his new quarters but would not stay away from the command tent for any longer than he had to. The activity there had continued, Ridge’s officers coming and going, maneuvering whatever strength they could assemble into some kind of coherent defensive line. Smith had backed away from those details, would allow Ridge to do his job, a job that had already impressed Smith.

Smith ran the numbers through his head, thought, It’s all guesses. The army’s taken four hundred casualties, and Yudam-ni has to be as bad, or worse. We’ve got to have that airstrip, and if there is nothing else in Hagaru-ri worth protecting, we have to protect that. He thought of Puller, his hands full at Koto-ri. I sure could use you up here, Lewie. If there was some way to get your people to jam their way through those hills, you’d figure it out. But then, we might not be able to hold Koto-ri. This isn’t a one-way trip here.

He kept Puller in his mind, thought, What would he be doing if he was at Yudam-ni? I can’t fault Litzenberg or Murray. They’re following orders, my orders. We knew the enemy was out there, and we had to know there was a plan. They weren’t just watching us go by. They let us go by. They know we’re driving for the Yalu. Nothing secret about that. It’s all Tokyo talks about. They chose the place, the time. And nobody in Tokyo or at Tenth Corps seems to understand what we’re up against. Not sure that I know. I should get up to Yudam-ni, take a good look. It’s not time to spare anybody’s feelings.

“Captain, is that chopper still on the pad?”

Sexton came out of the back room, said, “No, sir. He’s on his way back to Hungnam. Colonel Bowser is scheduled to fly up here.”

“Yes, I know. I thought it might be a good idea to fly up to see Litzenberg, check out the situation at Yudam-ni.”

Sexton stood in front of him, hands on his hips. “Sir, that’s not an acceptable idea.”

There was no humor in Sexton’s words. Smith knew the look in the man’s eyes, Sexton with no tolerance at all for idiocy.

“I was not aware, Captain, that it was such a stupid plan.”

“I didn’t say anything like that, sir. But you know the book. The commanding general has to maintain contact with all his forces, and right now you are in position to do just that. Taking the risk of flying some bolt bucket up through those frozen hills, with an enemy who’s just itching to shoot one of those little birds out of the sky…it’s unacceptable. And if I wanted to do that, you’d tell me the same thing.”

Smith couldn’t hide the smile. “I never thought you’d quote ‘the book,’ Captain.”

“ You would, sir. And I’m betting that Colonel Bowser will agree with me. Forgive me for saying so, sir, but you’ve got two good commanders up there. There’s not a thing you could do for them they can’t do themselves.”