Jeff Shaara - The Frozen Hours

Riley felt through his coat. “Four.”

“Not enough. Let’s head down the hill, before it’s full dark. Plenty of Chinks we ain’t really gotten to yet.”

“You going with me?”

Welch laughed. “Yeah, sissy boy. I’m not about to turn you loose again. You might end up in Peking. There ain’t nothing about a Chink POW camp that sounds like a place I wanna spend my vacation.” Welch looked out to the side. “Hang on. I’m gonna make sure Kane and the others know we’re out there. It ain’t dark, but it’s getting there. And that kid loves to shoot up all his ammo. And don’t forget, dammit. You see any steam coming out of any of these Chink bastards, it means they’re alive. Blow ’em to hell.”

Welch motioned him out, and Riley followed, slipped along the gentle slope, past the first of the white-clad bodies. He had learned what to look for, the grenade carriers usually unarmed, carrying a cloth sack. Most of the men closer to the machine gun had been picked over, their odd assortment of rifles now adding to the store of arms along the ridge. Welch pointed toward the thicket, farther down, where Riley had confronted the enemy soldiers. He felt uneasy, didn’t really want to see that place again, but Welch was waiting for him, the look that said, Move it . Welch bent low, shoved at one of the bodies, picked up a Thompson, a nodding smile toward him. Yeah, fine, Riley thought. It’s a treasure hunt. Welch was stuffing something else in his coat pocket, and Riley began to search the ground himself, closer to the deep thicket, stopped at the man he had briefly captured. The man’s chest was ripped open, and Riley stared at the pool of frozen blood, an odd pink color, saw now the neat hole in the man’s head, where Morelli had finished the job. Didn’t need a prisoner anyway, he thought. What the hell would I have done with him?

He heard Welch whispering to him, looked up, Welch holding a cloth bag.

“Magazines for the Thompson. Look here. Still says U.S. Army on the bag.”

“Lucky you. Now I ain’t gotta buy you a Christmas present.”

Riley scanned more of the bodies, saw the corner of a cloth bag just visible beneath a man’s shoulder. Oh, God, he thought. Here we go. He reached down, a hard grip on the quilted coat, pulled, then harder, the body unmoving, frozen to the hard ground. Guess you can keep it, buddy. He looked toward the next body, heard an odd grunt, saw Welch drop down. He heard the impact now, a string of machine gun slugs skittering on the hard ground. He fell flat, another burst spraying closer by, some impacting the body beside him. He kept his face to the ground, waited for a pause in the fire, and Welch shouted, “Up! Now! He’s reloading. Up the hill!”

Welch scampered past him, Riley rising, a hard scramble to keep up. He was above the brush, in the open, the rocks in front of him, and now the machine gun opened again, stitching the ground to one side. He kept moving, a fast run, Welch faster still, a leap into the tall rocks. Riley jumped into cover, a hard landing, sore bones on frozen earth. He heard laughter, somewhere close, lay flat, gasping through the frigid air, the laughter continuing. Welch was flat beside him, still had the Thompson, his breathing in sharp gasps as well. Riley said, “Who’s laughing?”

“Who do you think?”

Riley sat up, looked to one side, up on the ridgeline, saw Kane, the crew of the BAR, faces above the rim of their foxholes.

“You know, they got the Olympics in a couple years. You two oughta run a relay.”

More laughter came now, all along the hill, Riley leaning his back against the tall rock.

“They can go down there next time.”

Welch pulled himself up, one arm lying across the breech of the machine gun. “Bastard thinks he’s Milton Berle.”

Riley couldn’t help a smile, said, “At least you got another Thompson. How many’s that?”

Welch moved a white blanket aside, another prize from the fallen Chinese. “This makes four.”

“You think I might get to use one?”

Welch seemed to ponder the question. “Well, hell, I found a bag of ammo for ’em. Guess it can’t hurt.”

Riley took the Thompson from Welch, felt the heft. “Always heard these things were pretty useless. No range.”

“How much range you think you need? We’re not sharpshooters, you know. You don’t want it, give it back.”

Riley thought of the night before, then before that, the hordes of Chinese, the fight on all sides.

“Hand me some of those clips.”

FOX HILL—NOVEMBER 30, 1:00 A.M.

The supply plane had come again, the big C-119 Boxcar, unloading massive pallets of matériel under white parachutes. It had been nearly dark, the men on one part of the hill following Barber’s orders to gather in a circle, each one aiming a flashlight skyward. But the pilot hadn’t the aim of the first one, ground fire from the Chinese on the rocky hill keeping the plane much higher than it needed to be. The result was a missed target, many of the pallets falling well down the hill, nearly three hundred yards beyond the perimeter. It was as much a gift to the Chinese as it was to the disgusted men on Fox Hill. The rescue had begun immediately, before the Chinese could fully grasp what a bounty they might have received. The journey down into the wooded draw was dangerous, to be sure, but Barber pushed the men to move quickly, and well after dark most of the supplies were hauled back where they belonged. As if the pilot’s inaccuracy weren’t cause enough for annoyance, one of the pallets was loaded with what someone to the south must have thought was a precious necessity for the suffering Marines: cans of fresh water. By the time the water was discovered, it had passed beyond usefulness. It was solid ice.

By midnight the Chinese began to open up their machine guns across the saddle, sprays of green tracers peppering the crest of the hill, where the Chinese gunners had ranged their guns throughout the daylight hours. The mortars came as well, not as accurate, impacting in scattered patterns that weren’t patterns at all. The Marines kept mostly to their foxholes, accepting that this latest assault was surely the preliminary of yet another massed attack by the Chinese infantry.

Riley sat low in the foxhole just behind the machine gun, his sleeping bag again wrapping his legs. It was the first time he had shared cover with Welch in a very long time, another war, another part of the world. There was no talk, the noise from the mortar and machine gun barrage driving each man’s thoughts inside. Riley knew there could be no sleep, the captain’s orders clear. But the barrage was hypnotic, and Riley felt himself drifting off, soothed by the steady chatter and rumbles of the Chinese fire. He thought of Ruthie and the boy, meeting him at a plane, Philadelphia, maybe. She’ll dress like a goddess, he thought. She loves that, standing out in a crowd. And boy, does she. She’ll try to be the first thing I see when I come off the plane. Or the train. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they’ll let me drive home in a jeep. Just pull up to the front yard and beep the damn horn. Hi, honey, I’m home. Let me tell you about my day at the office. And Peter. So happy to see his old man. He had a jolting thought. What if he doesn’t remember who the hell I am? God, no. Can’t have that. Need to write her, tell her to show him pictures, every day. Please don’t let him forget. And if I don’t come home…well, do that anyway.

He sat up, wiped at the crusty goo around his eyes. Enough of that, for crying out loud. He looked at Welch, the sergeant’s voice rising above the din of the firing.

“You fall asleep?”

“No. Thinking of home. Bad idea.”

“Writing a few letters myself. Wonder when we’ll get to mail ’em?”