W.E.B. Griffin: Retreat, Hell!

McCoy ran toward the stalled jeep.

The officer was trying to work the action of a strange-looking subma­chine gun.

"I don't want to kill you, Colonel," McCoy called in Korean. "Just drop that and hold your hands over your head."

The North Korean officer complied.

McCoy saw that the look on his face was as much surprise, even astonish­ment, as fear.

"Yeah, Colonel, I speak Korean," McCoy said.

He walked closer to the-jeep and held the Thompson on both of them until Technical Sergeant Jennings ran up the road to them, followed by three South Korean National Policemen.

"See if Mr. Zimmerman needs any help," McCoy said in English, and then switched to Korean as he spoke to one of the National Policemen: "Take the submachine gun from the colonel's lap. Then lay him on the ground and search him."

Jennings walked to the edge of the road, where the first jeep was hung up, and looked down.

"Well, just don't stand there with your thumb up your ass, for Christ's sake, Jennings," Zimmerman's impatient voice came up. "Get down here and frisk these Slopes."

"I never saw one like this before," Sergeant Alvin Cole said, holding the sub­machine gun taken from the North Korean colonel, who was now lying on his stomach, his hands tied behind him.

The other prisoners—a captain, a lieutenant, a sergeant, and a corporal— were being marched, barefoot, their hands tied behind them, down the road to­ward the copse of trees by Sergeant Jennings and two South Korean National Policemen.

"That's a PPD 1940G," Master Gunner Zimmerman said. "You don't see many of those. Pretty good weapon."

Cole looked at him.

"Proceed, Mr. Zimmerman," McCoy said. "We're fascinated."

Zimmerman looked at McCoy to see if he was serious.

"Okay," he said. "PPD stands for 'Pistolet Pulyemet Degtyarev.' It means machine pistol Degtyarev. Degtyarev being the Russian who stole the idea from the Germans. It's based on the 1928 Bergmann. The Bergmann had a stick mag­azine. Degtyarev stole a drum magazine design from the Finnish Soumi, chrome-plated the inside parts, including the barrel, put it all together, and got it named after him. But the Russians dumped it because it couldn't be made fast enough for War Two, and went to the crude, easy-to-make PPsh you see all the time. That's why you don't see very many of these."

"I hope you were taking notes, Sergeant Cole," McCoy said. "There will be a written exam at the end of the lecture period."

Master Gunner Zimmerman looked at Major McCoy and said, "You asked, Killer," and gave the major the finger. Can I have it?" Sergeant Cole asked.

"You can if you give the pistols you took away from the other officers to the Koreans," McCoy said.

"And the other submachine gun, the PPsh, sir?" Cole asked.

"I think Jennings wants that," McCoy said. "Don't be greedy, Cole."

"Yes, sir."

The weapons carrier crawled back onto the road and headed for them.

McCoy pointed to the half-off-the-road Russian jeep.

"I was thinking about dragging this one down to the trees, but that would tear up the road, and I want to get out of here. Just push it over the side?"

"Yeah," Zimmerman agreed after a moment's thought. "That'd be better."

When the weapons carrier stopped beside him, McCoy, in Korean, ordered the National Police driver to push the Russian jeep into the ditch.

"And when you've done that," McCoy continued in Korean, "we're going to load the colonel in the back, tie him securely to the back of the seat, and put Sergeant Kim in there with him with a carbine. If the colonel even looks as if he's thinking about causing any trouble, Sergeant Kim will shoot him in both feet." He paused. "Did you hear that, Colonel?"

There was no reply from the colonel.

Zimmerman walked to him and nudged him with his boot.

"The major asked if you understood him, Colonel," he said in Korean.

There was no reply. Zimmerman kicked the colonel in the waist.

"I heard," the colonel said.

[FOUR]

Thirteen Miles South of Suwon, South Korea

17O5 28 September 195O

The sun was low in the sky, and the shadows were long. McCoy, Zimmerman, and Jennings were lying at the crest of a small hill from which they could see a road intersection about five hundred yards away.

Elements—what looked like an infantry platoon reinforced by three tanks— of the United States 7th Infantry Division were manning a hastily erected road­block on the dirt road paralleling Korean National Route 1.

It had to be elements of the 7th Division. There were only two American divisions in the Seoul area, the 7th and the 1st Marine, and the armed Ameri­cans at the roadblock were not Marines.

Gunner Zimmerman took binoculars from his eyes, handed them to Tech­nical Sergeant Jennings, and then turned to Major McCoy.

"Killer," he said conversationally, "if we start down that road, those doggies are going to start shooting at us."

McCoy grunted.

"Especially when they see that Russian jeep," Jennings added.

"Maybe not," McCoy said.

Then he pushed himself backward, sliding on his stomach away from the hilltop until he was far enough down the hill so there was no chance of his being seen. There, he rolled over onto his back and then sat up, holding his Thomp­son erect between his knees.

Zimmerman rolled over on his back, and—holding his Thompson against his chest—slid down after him, and then, when he'd seen all he wanted to, so did Jennings, carrying his Garand.

"I make it three tanks—M4s, Shermans," Jennings said, "plus maybe thirty-five doggies, with two air-cooled .50s, at least that many .30s, and a mortar."

"All of which are going to shoot at whatever they see coming up the road," Zimmerman said. "Like us, for example."

McCoy chuckled.

"What do you suggest we do, Mr. Zimmerman?"

Zimmerman pointed down the slope of the hill toward their small con­voy. The Russian light truck, which McCoy had impulsively decided to drive, was at the head. The weapons carrier came next, and the jeep brought up the rear.

The Russian truck looked vaguely like a jeep. It was, McCoy had finally con­cluded, actually a Chinese-built version of a Russian vehicle, which in turn had been copied from a German vehicle, built on a Volkswagen chassis, which in turn had been inspired by the Truck, General Purpose, 1/4 ton, 4x4 of the U.S. Army, popularly known as the jeep.

McCoy had found the vehicle very interesting, and not just as an example of the enemy's military trucks.

Very few North Korean lieutenant colonels had vehicles permanently as­signed to them. There were signs that this one was— had been —the, colonel's personal vehicle. It was extraordinarily well maintained. The seats, for exam­ple, were thickly padded. There had been personal possessions in both the glove compartment and under the seats, including three packages of Chesterfield cigarettes.

The dashboard instruments were lettered in the Cyrillic alphabet. Either the Russians had provided the instruments or the Chinese had copied the Russian vehicle slavishly. In any event, calligraphed Cantonese translations had been pre­pared and glued to the panel. There were no such Korean calligraphs.

This suggested the possibility that the colonel had acquired the vehicle new from a depot, and had not felt the need for Korean translations from the Russ­ian and Chinese because he spoke one or both of the languages.

Two kinds of North Korean lieutenant colonels would be likely to speak Russian and/or Cantonese: political commissars and intelligence officers.

A political commissar would most likely be at the front, exhorting the troops to give their all, not headed north in an obvious attempt to avoid capture by the now advancing Eighth United States Army. Political commissars are useful even in enemy captivity. Intelligence officers are not. Intelligence officers know a lot of things that should be kept from the enemy. Intelligence officers are taught not to place themselves in positions where they can be captured.