Jeff Shaara - The Frozen Hours

“Certainly, sir.”

Smith sat again, stared at the covered window, could hear the wind rattling the glass. “They haven’t come yet, have they?”

“The enemy? No, sir. I can’t help but wonder if this cold isn’t killing them as efficiently as we are.”

Smith shook his head. “No. They’re coming. And now I can do what needs to be done. Send in one of the secretaries. I’m preparing orders for Murray and Litzenberg to make immediate preparations to extricate themselves from contact with the enemy at Yudam-ni, to clear the road between Yudam-ni and here. They have worked well together and they can continue to do so.”

The sergeant was there now, said, “Sir, I will fetch Corporal Hanley, if you wish. He’s good with a pencil.”

Bowser motioned toward the door. “Then go fetch him.”

The man moved out quickly, and Smith saw more enthusiasm from Bowser, the man’s pulsating energy, Bowser starting to pace the room. Smith retrieved the pipe again, could hear the percolating of the coffeepot.

“It could all come down on us, Alpha.” Bowser still paced, seemed not to absorb what he was saying. He stopped now, looked at Smith.

“You mean a scapegoat?”

“Of course a scapegoat. Or any other form of goat. Almond thinks he’s handing me enough rope to hang with. It’s our job to show the men out here, all of the men in this command, that this campaign is a success.”

“I don’t follow you, sir.”

“I could care two hoots how Tokyo or Tenth Corps judges us. But right now, there are near fifteen thousand men out there in this cold who believe somebody’s paying attention.”

“You’ve always been paying attention, sir.”

Smith picked up the paper, held it up. “Now I can do more than that. Now I can fix this thing.”

“THIS ISN’T A GOOD SITUATION. But I don’t want to leave this ridge. If they can’t knock us off here, I’m not handing it to ’em for free.”

The others seemed to agree with the captain, Riley hanging close behind Welch, his eyes on Barber’s crude crutches. They had gathered back behind the rocky ridge, mostly out of sight of the snipers across the saddle. The Chinese hadn’t improved their marksmanship, but any gathering outside of the cover of the foxholes would invite more than just the single rifleman. The air cover had been effective, certainly, and Riley guessed, along with Welch, that in the daylight the Chinese would have one eye focused on the skies above them. But the air strikes had not erased the threat. It was plainly obvious that when the Chinese lost any of their machine guns, it was very soon replaced with another.

Late that afternoon, columns of fresh enemy troops had been spotted out to the west of Second Platoon, on the hill across the road. It was an unusual tactic, not much surprise to their assault, the Chinese coming out of the woods, attempting to cross the main road, driving up the hill nearer the aid stations. But Lieutenant Peterson, Second Platoon’s commander, had observed the move along with his men, the columns of troops marching in full view down the draws on the west hill. When they made their strike, it began as it always had, bugles blaring, whistles blowing, but now the Marines were fully prepared. Line after line of Chinese soldiers emerged through the tree line, only to be cut down by the light and heavy machine guns, the BARs and rifles of the men who saw it all coming. The fight lasted no more than a half hour, and to every observer on the hill, it seemed only to have been a one-sided slaughter. Second Platoon lost only a single man killed.

The cold skies had grown cloudy late in the day, the ominous gathering of dense gray that most often resulted in a snowstorm. With darkness falling rapidly, Captain Barber had climbed up along the ridge, finding out for himself what his men already knew. With so many of the Marines hauled down to the aid stations, either wounded or frostbitten, the perimeter was beginning to stretch dangerously thin.

Riley could see the weakness in Barber’s face, the man in just as much pain now as he had been at the aid station down the hill. Beside Barber was Lieutenant Wright, his executive officer. Riley didn’t know the man at all but, like the others around him, wondered just how long Barber could keep up the effort he was making to maintain control, whether or not Wright would end up taking command of the company. Riley could see Wright’s concern, shared it himself, Barber’s limp more severe each time he moved along the hillside. But for now, Barber was still in charge.

“I’m not sure what they’re up to, but you can bet they’ll come back tonight. I don’t have the first idea what they thought they were trying to prove in front of Second Platoon. But they stayed off that damn saddle all day. Thank the Corsairs for that.” He looked at Goolsby. “Spread ’em out. Put a man in every hole. Full alert. It’s the best we can do.” Barber paused, seemed to gather himself, finding the energy. He scanned the faces, said, “I had relatives fought with Robert E. Lee at Petersburg. Grant starved him out, and broke his army. That’s what we got here, a full-out siege. The enemy believes he’s going to accomplish the same thing. But Lee didn’t have flying boxcars dropping ammo to his troops. Right now ammo is more important than rations. As long as the air boys can keep delivering, we’ll keep killing Chinese. Maybe Chairman Mao will figure out that penning us up in a slaughter pen wasn’t such a good idea.”

Goolsby glanced at the few sergeants close by, most of them keeping a discreet distance. “Sir, how long do you think we’ve gotta stay up here?”

Riley saw the frown on Barber’s face.

“Son, if I knew that, I’d be a general. Maybe a Chinese general. We’ll stay here until we don’t have to anymore. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Barber glanced at Welch, seemed relieved there was a veteran on the ridge. “Go to work. Gather up what you can from the corpses. Both sides. If you see a weapon that works, the Chinese are just as liable to pick it up as you are. Grenades, anything else. I’m heading over to First Platoon. Lieutenant Dunne is about the only officer on this hill who hasn’t been hit. All right, go to work.”

Barber hobbled off, Wright and a pair of aides following.

Goolsby looked around, his focus now on Welch. “You heard him, Sergeant. I think you should man that machine gun again.”

“I’ll take Riley, sir. I need a loader.”

Goolsby nodded. “Fine. But make a quick check down the hills, search the bodies again. You heard the captain. Pick up as many grenades as you can find. I’d just as soon avoid what happened to me yesterday. The more you can toss down the hill, the fewer will get tossed back at you. Or me.”

Welch motioned to Riley, moved off toward the gun. The others scattered as well, and Riley heard the ping off a nearby rock, a sniper taking aim, the men quickening their steps. Welch knelt by the machine gun, worked the action, said, “Not too bad. The cold doesn’t seem to bother this thing as much as the carbines. We heat it up a bit, it’ll work even better. Check those boxes. Full ones first.”

Riley knelt, opened the heavy steel boxes, part of the load dropped by the first cargo plane. “We’re good. Three full, plus some. You wanna do a test fire?”

“Hell, no. I’m not sure they’ve spotted this gun yet, and there’s no need to help ’em out while it’s daylight. They show up tonight, we’ll have plenty of time to test everything we got. How many grenades you got?”