by Mark Arundel
The communist army captain marshalled his unit of forty-five soldiers while examining his detailed map. He marked the position of Hosong village and then assessed the route the Americans were most likely to take. The only hope he had of finding them was if they were taking the main roadway. He could intercept it further south, then travel north and hopefully run into them. He shouted his orders in a high-pitched bark. The army unit headed off in two trucks and one staff car.
Rafferty and the four soldiers found the roadway and headed south with about twenty-three miles left to travel. They maintained silence and moved in an arrow formation to protect against an attack from the flank. They covered a further six miles without seeing or hearing anything.
Two hundred yards ahead, the roadway lifted steeply before falling away into a deep valley, which curved into the distance at thirty-five degrees. The fine weather of earlier in the day had gone and squally showers had replaced it, one of which had just blown in and was whistling around the soldiers’ heads and blowing rain into their faces.
The trucks and staff car of the Korean army unit reached the roadway and stopped. The captain’s screechy voice called out over the wind and rain.
‘Lights off, twenty miles an hour; maintain silence,’ he ordered.
The two trucks and one car vanished in the blackness as they turned onto the earth track with their lights off and drove northwards.
As they reached the steep incline, they slowed and headed directly into the windstorm.
Rafferty was approaching the brow of the hill and his men were trudging behind, as the earth turned to mud in the rain. For a moment, he thought he heard an engine and turned his head to listen. Then without any other warning, a truck appeared suddenly over the brow and loomed threateningly only fifteen yards ahead. Rafferty had to take immediate evasive action to avoid being run over. He shouted his warning as he jumped clear.
‘Truck, break, break!’
The other commandos had to move just as fast. Two of them vaulted one way, and the other two leapt the same way Rafferty had.
The truck driver saw them, hit the brakes hard and his vehicle slewed causing the troops on board to brace. Some of them swore loudly. He flicked the switch and a blinding spotlight, mounted on the cab roof, illuminated the ground. The second truck and the staff car both had to brake hard. They followed with their own lights. The Korean army captain screamed his orders.
‘Fire, fire, fire!’
The Korean soldiers were standing and searching both sides for clear shots. Ten of the soldiers in the middle truck carried Soviet PPS-43 7.62mm submachine guns. The trigger mechanism, of the black, ugly weapon, enabled full automatic fire of 550 rounds per minute with a feed system from a 35-round, detachable box magazine. They raised the guns and aimed.
The two American commandos had dived off the roadway onto a bank, which fell away, causing them to tumble. As they got to their feet, they were in the spotlight from the second truck. One raised his Browning rifle in defence while the other one scouted the immediate terrain for cover. Only one short automatic blast came from the Browning before the ten submachine guns fired back in an evil, metallic roar of death. The two commandos dropped, hit with a succession of bullets killing them with pitiless efficiency. Their bodies went down, slapping the muddy earth, and their blood ran across the slope.
Rafferty and the other two commandos heard the unmistakable sound of a submachine barrage, and they ran. It was a shorter drop on their side of the roadway. They were not in the spotlight and the ground was level, enabling them to get a forty-yard start.
As the Korean soldiers began dismounting, the trucks found the running men with their searchlights. They were too far for the submachine guns but those soldiers with rifles started shooting.
One American was slightly behind. The bullet hit him in the back of the thigh. He felt it like the full swing of a baseball bat. The force took his stride away and he lost his balance and fell heavily. Rafferty heard him go down, turned to see and then bellowed his order:
‘Man down, give covering fire.’
The other commando, whose name was Chard, dropped onto his front in the cold mud and fired at the trucks, just visible behind the blinding white light. He couldn’t see any individuals to target so he just fired.
Rafferty skidded down beside the fallen man, grabbed his arm and pulled him up. Bullets fizzed close to their heads.
‘We’ve got to move.’
Rafferty glanced up at the trucks. ‘Now,’ he shouted. The injured man was Patrick Smith, known as Smithy. He tried to stand. His leg felt as though it were twice its usual size. The pain felt like hammer blows. He leant on Rafferty and hobbled as fast as he could.
The Koreans were now pursuing on foot and two of them had travelled far enough. Suddenly Chard could see them. His automatic Browning rifle had two targets. He got the shots away rapidly. The bullets slapped into the Korean’s chests and they went down. Those following now hesitated, holding back with fear.
Rafferty and Smithy passed the prone figure of Chard and continued without slowing. Chard held on and continued to fire, then stood quickly, turned and ran.
The Korean unit began advancing bravely, spurred on by the screaming orders from their captain.
The hobbling retreat covered a hundred yards and was beyond the reach of the spotlights.
Their pursuers were gaining fast, although the darkness made worthwhile shooting pointless. Even so, some of the Koreans did try it. The sound of enemy gunfire spurred Smithy on.
Chard spotted their salvation. He saw a dark, shadowy rectangle from twenty-five yards away.
‘Building, two o’clock,’ he shouted.
Rafferty instantly searched off his right shoulder and saw it. He pulled Smithy, who changed direction painfully.
The building was an agricultural store with just a door and a window. It had no other way in or out. The farmer had built it at the bottom of a sloping field and it was set at the foot of a crag, which loomed high above. The crag face ran along one side and a hillock, higher than the building, butted against the other.
Chard reached it first and kicked open the ill-fitting door. Rafferty, dragging Smithy with him, followed quickly behind.
‘Close the door and cover the window,’ Rafferty ordered while helping Smithy to sit.
Chard replaced his rifle with his light machine gun, stood to the side of the opening and carefully glanced out. He wasn’t thinking about how the Korean unit had found them or about his two friends, lying back on the road, dead in the mud. His only thought, at that moment, was the odds of escaping with a wounded man. Rafferty was thinking the exact same thing.
Two Korean soldiers approached the door and Chard shot them dead with a rat-tat, rat-tat-tat of rapid machine gun fire. The following Koreans held back while they regrouped and considered their next move.
Rafferty was doing the same. He was considering his next move. He pulled a tourniquet from the medical kit he had fastened to his belt and tied it around Smithy’s upper thigh, and then gave him a morphine injection. As he looked up into Smithy’s white face and the black sunken eyes Rafferty knew, they were in trouble.
‘How far out are we?’ Smithy asked.
Rafferty made a quick mental calculation.
‘Eighteen, maybe nineteen miles,’ he said.
‘That’s too far,’ Smithy said as if Rafferty didn’t already know.
Rafferty had to think quickly. He needed a plan, a plan to save them. The only possibility of getting out of the storehouse alive was to act fast. If they moved now, in the dark, splitting up as they left then they had a good chance. The problem, of course, was Smithy. He couldn’t outrun a tortoise. If they left him, it was certain death. By now, all three men were thinking exactly the same thing. None of them spoke.
There was another short burst of rat-tat, rat-tat as a Korean who had ventured too close died from Chard’s shooting.
Rafferty made his decision. He turned to Chard and gave hi
s orders.
‘You’ll have to make a break for it. Move as fast as you can, get clear of the area and then keep off the roadway. When you get back, report these map coordinates to the lieutenant general. Smithy and I will stay here…’
‘No!’ Smithy shouted.
Rafferty barely paused. ‘Shut-up,’ he said. ‘Smithy and I will stay here. We’ll hold them off until dawn, which is about five hours away. It’s just enough time for you to get back. Tell the lieutenant general if he doesn’t come and get us, then when I get back I’ll cut his balls off and make him wear them as earrings.’
Chard and Smithy both laughed.
‘Right; weapons and ammunition. Chard, you take your machine gun, rifle, pistol and knife and four magazines. Leave us all your grenades and the remainder of the ammunition.’
Rafferty covered him through the window with two short bursts from his rifle. Then Chard slipped away, quickly and silently, vanishing into the dark night. Rafferty wondered if he would make it. He closed the door and looked at Smithy.
‘Can you shoot?’ he asked him. Smithy stood up carefully on his good leg and held up his machine gun.
‘Help me get to the window and find something for me to rest against,’ he said. Both men took up defensive positions either side of the window.
‘What do you think they’ll do?’ Smithy asked. Rafferty thought before answering.
‘Depends on what they’ve got back in the trucks,’ he said.
For the next forty minutes, nothing happened. Rafferty and Smithy held their positions and watched for any attacks. All was quiet. They hoped the Koreans were waiting for first light, but then they heard the truck engine and the spotlight came on. A high-pitched wailing, a screaming almost, in Korean, preceded a firing onslaught. Every gun they had they fired at them. Other than giving the building a gunshot peppering it achieved nothing.
‘Let’s hope they run out of ammo,’ Smithy said.
Another screech of orders stopped the firing and both men glanced out.
A Korean soldier was running towards them with a grenade in his hand. His plan was to lob it through the window. Rafferty reacted with speed, poked his rifle out, targeted the man in a second and held the trigger. Three bullets slammed into his chest and abdomen, stopping him dead.
Again, there was another barrage of constant fire, which lasted a couple of minutes and again achieved nothing. When it stopped, Rafferty watched and waited. As he thought, it happened again, only this time the Korean soldier was creeping down the other side trying to reach the door. The man was in Smithy’s line. He raised his light machine gun and shot him dead with a controlled burst.
Every failure made the Korean captain even more crazed. He counted his remaining men. From a starting number of forty-five, he was down to thirty-four.
‘How do you feel?’ Rafferty asked.
Smithy attempted a smile.
‘I think there’s something wrong with my leg,’ he said. The humour was unconvincing. ‘How much ammo do we have left?’
‘Enough,’ Rafferty assured him.
Smithy tried to smile again. He wanted to say more but he didn’t have the energy, and anyway, he didn’t know the words.
There was more Korean shouting as the captain’s shrill voice carried clearly. His frustration was really beginning to tell. He was ordering a full frontal assault. Not all his men thought it was a good idea. The captain shouted down the dissent and they prepared for the attack. Before they could begin, something happened. The spotlights all went out. The battery power from the trucks was exhausted.
Rafferty and Smithy peeked out into the sudden darkness and wondered. Was it deliberate?
‘They may be creeping down again, in the dark,’ Rafferty said.
They watched and listened carefully, but they weren’t. The captain had decided to wait until first light and attempt his full frontal assault then.
The hours went slowly. Smithy fell asleep while Rafferty maintained a watch for any movement outside. All was still and quiet. He guessed they were waiting for the sun. Then they would attack in numbers.
Eventually, the sky in the west lightened, slowly at first. After ten minutes, Rafferty could see the outline of the trucks, above them on the rise.
He nudged Smithy awake, whose face was ashen and etched with pain.
‘It’s first light,’ Rafferty told him. ‘They could attack at any time.’
Smithy roused himself.
‘Where’s my coffee and eggs?’ he asked. Rafferty ignored him.
The Korean captain roused his men with kicks and yells.
It was just light enough for Rafferty to watch them prepare.
‘They’re going to attack,’ he told Smithy. ‘Let’s get ready. When we’ve killed them all I’ll drive you back in their staff car,’ he promised with a confident grin.
Smithy grimaced with pain as he got himself into position and slammed home a fresh magazine. The sixteen hand grenades rested on a sack between them, easy to pick and used.
Rafferty held his rifle over his right shoulder and his machine gun over his left. He switched off the safety on his pistol and put it in his belt, and his fighting knife was close by, in his waistband.
The Korean soldiers split into two groups and readied themselves. On the order, they attacked at full speed down either side of the clearing. They were shooting at the window. As Rafferty aimed at them he could see they were carrying the black Russian-made submachine guns.
Smithy aimed too and both men opened fire taking out the front soldiers. Rafferty lobbed two grenades which exploded bringing down three more, but there too many of them.
‘Stay at the window. I’ll take the door,’ Rafferty shouted as he moved. The North Koreans had reached them. Smithy fired his machine gun through the window, but they were already kicking open the door and getting in.
Rafferty was waiting for them. He killed the first two with his machine gun, which emptied his last magazine. The next Korean was in and aiming the ugly black submachine gun. Rafferty charged forward, blocked the gun with his arm and pushed the lighter man back. He pulled his pistol and shot him in the chest. He wanted the submachine gun, but there wasn’t enough time. One, two and then three more Koreans rushed him. He pushed the first man back in the second, which gave him just enough time to shoot the third. The other two recovered quickly and were both preparing to fire their guns. He wouldn’t have time to shoot them both, especially as others were already at the door. The machine gun bullets flew through the space between his body and arm and hit the furthest soldier in the stomach. Smithy knew he had had to take the shot even though Rafferty was in the way.
‘Get down,’ Smithy shouted.
Rafferty threw himself against the door and it slammed against the next soldier who was coming in. Smithy opened fire again, just in time, shooting the soldier before he could shoot Rafferty.
Rafferty jumped up and grabbed one of the black submachine guns just as the door flew open. Four Koreans were forcing their way in and the front man fired his rifle. His aim was bad and incredibly, he missed the big American from only five yards. Rafferty didn’t think. His instinct took full advantage. He targeted the four soldiers holding the black gun against his hip. The weapon roared and thundered inside the hut, as he held it firm, and its bullets cut and tore; the men twisted, twitched and dropped.
Rafferty looked beyond the bodies and couldn’t see any more Korean soldiers. He dipped his head through the door and scouted the area; it was clear. He focused on the trucks, still nobody.
‘Smithy can you move?’ he called back.
‘Yeah, sure, if you don’t mind a cripple.’
‘We’re going to try for the car,’ Rafferty said.
Rafferty picked up a second submachine gun from the ground and collected the ammunition from the others. Smithy got up and hobbled over to him. Rafferty checked outside again. It was still clear.
The door was closest to the crag and it gave them the best cover. The car w
as fifty or sixty yards away, uphill, waiting on the brow.
With Smithy leaning on Rafferty for support and both holding two guns each they moved outside and across to the rock wall. As they started up the slope, Smithy noticed movement on the opposite side. Three soldiers had appeared on the hill having moved from their cover behind the corner of the roof. They each raised their rifles and targeted the two Americans.
Smithy shouted his warning as he raised his submachine gun.
‘Enemy on the hill, three o’clock.’
Rafferty was quick. He turned and saw them, and then dropped low, taking Smithy down with him. Lifting his Browning automatic rifle, he knew he had to make the shots. Smithy’s submachine gun would not be accurate enough over the 100ft distance. Rafferty pulled the Browning into his shoulder and aimed at the closest Korean soldier. In a second, he targeted and was prepared to fire. The three Korean soldiers all had the element of surprise and a two-second head start but not one of them got a shot away. Rafferty squeezed the trigger and held it down as he killed the first man, before moving the rifle across in a steady, fluid movement to kill the second and then the third. He watched them fall from the hill and thump on the ground. All three of them were dead. He was sure.
Rafferty and Smithy got back up and resumed their advance. They progressed slowly with Smithy dragging his leg and struggling with the pain. They were only twenty yards from the first truck when they heard a shrill Korean voice scream orders to the remaining six soldiers.
The men appeared from either side of the vehicle with their rifles already raised and aimed. The Korean captain walked out behind them with a look of insanity creasing his narrow eyes.