Devotion

by Adam Makos

  Blind fire can still kill you! Coderre thought.

  “Head down,” Reem said. “Keep moving.”

  “Yes, sir!” Coderre said with a New Englander’s clip.

  Reem slapped the young Marine’s shoulder and dashed uphill. The two had shared a bond of friendship ever since Reem had nominated Coderre for the Naval Academy.

  Higher in the gully, the platoon’s riflemen waited for Coderre and the machine gun squads to catch up. Together, they comprised the 2nd platoon of How Company (3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment). The sun was setting behind the crest, and the platoon still had three-fourths of the hill to climb.

  Coderre shuffled to the lip of the embankment and glanced down. In the shadows below, a dozen men from the machine gun squads were stumbling beneath the weight of their guns, tripods, and ammo cans. Five of them belonged to Coderre’s squad. That morning, Reem had promoted Coderre to corporal and squad leader.

  “Come on, fellas, pick it up!” Coderre shouted over the gunfire. A wiry Marine hustled to the embankment with the squad’s Browning M1919 .30-caliber machine gun over his shoulder. He was Wick, the squad’s mechanical specialist, who maintained the weapon when he wasn’t carrying its ammo. Beneath his helmet, Wick’s face was narrow and his eyebrows were light brown. The hole-filled barrel sleeve rose and fell as he huffed and puffed.

  “Toss me the gun!” Coderre said. With both hands Wick tossed up the weapon. Coderre caught it, his arms sinking beneath the thirty-one-pound weight. He set the gun aside and gave Wick a hand, then helped the other squad members over the ledge.

  “The LT says pick up the pace!” Coderre told them. Wick reached for the gun but Coderre stopped him—“I’ll take it for a bit.” Still breathless, Wick thanked him. For Coderre, helping others came naturally. Back home, his father was a fire academy instructor and his godfather, a policeman. Coderre himself had bagged groceries as a grocery-store clerk and was a Boy Scout before joining the Marines with his buddies.

  Above, Reem signaled for the forty Marines to move out. The men began grunting and clawing up the steep slope.

  Coderre shouldered the gun and climbed. His father had taught him how to carry a fire hose, but that was nothing compared to the block of steel on his shoulder. Coderre planted a hand in the soil and bent forward against the slope as his legs pushed his short frame upward. He wore two pistols in holsters on his hips and was glad to have traded away his carbine for a second pistol.

  Every now and then, Coderre glanced uphill. Green tracers still swept the darkening sky. He knew who was shooting at him and the thought sent a chill down his spine.

  Five days earlier, while the air force was rotating home its B-29 bombers and the navy boys were on R&R in Sasebo, the Chinese had launched a surprise attack in the western valleys of North Korea. Under darkness, on November 1, they struck the army’s 1st Cavalry Division. Like the hordes of Genghis Khan they descended and wiped out a six-hundred-man battalion in a night.*1

  No one knew exactly how many Chinese had slipped into the war or what their intentions were. The North Korean prime minister, Kim Il Sung, had bragged publicly that the Chinese had joined the fight, although the Chinese denied that the troops belonged to their military. Any Chinese soldiers in Korea, they said, were “volunteers.” Only one thing was certain: The North Koreans weren’t fighting alone anymore.

  —

  The gully ended and became level with the hill. Shell craters and blackened trees filled the last seventy-five yards to the top. Coderre snuck a glimpse of the crest, a rough gray line against the twilight. Nothing moved. The Chinese guns had gone silent. Are we being lured up? he wondered. The Marines crept into the volcanic-looking landscape.

  In the midst of the broken terrain, word filtered back: “Take a knee.” Coderre handed the gun to Wick and collapsed. He took a swig from his canteen. The sky was turning darker and the air colder, so Coderre zipped up his jacket. He questioned the wisdom of starting the attack so late.

  From the fringe, a Marine whispered a challenge. Another American voice replied with a password. From the left, How Company’s 1st platoon silently emerged from a parallel gully. Led by the company commander, the additional forty men slipped in beside Reem’s platoon. Coderre eyed the newcomers. Counting both platoons, the Marines had eighty men on the hill.

  Reem and How Company’s commander glanced upslope and planned their assault. From behind, Coderre watched and marveled at Reem’s endurance. After twenty-seven days on the line, the young lieutenant seemed tireless. In reality, he just hid any sign of fatigue from his men. In a recent letter to his wife, Reem had confided: “I am getting mighty tired chasing Reds up and down the hills of Korea. I’d like to come home and be with you, Donna.” In closing, he promised, “I’ll be careful.”

  A sergeant scampered down to Coderre and his squad. “We’re going to hit the left flank of the crest,” the sergeant said. “First platoon’s taking the right. We’ll sweep around, they’ll sweep around, and we’ll hit the Reds from behind. The lieutenant wants the machine guns close to him!” Coderre and the others nodded.

  Coderre checked his pistols—both hammers were cocked and ready. Even after the artillery barrage, he couldn’t fathom the logic of sending eighty men against an enemy of unknown strength. Everyone knew that the stakes of this battle were high.

  Several days earlier, the 7th Marines’ commander, Colonel Litzenberg, had called Reem and other officers to his command post to tell them: “Gentlemen, you may soon be fighting in the opening battle of World War III.”*2

  —

  How Company’s commander swept his hand rightward. Reem motioned for his men to move leftward. “Home by Christmas!” Coderre whispered to his squad. “Home by Christmas!” they retorted. Their new rallying cry was undoubtedly sarcastic.

  Both platoons surged into the volcanic landscape and peeled apart.

  Reem and his riflemen led the way toward the left end of the crest. Coderre sprinted, stumbled, and tried to follow the lieutenant’s silhouette against the dim sky.

  Seventy yards to go!

  Coderre dodged burned trees and jumped small craters. He and his squad ran down into the big craters and up the other side.

  Sixty yards.

  Coderre’s thighs felt numb and his boots heavy.

  Fifty yards.

  A whistle pierced the air, coming from the crest. Then another sounded and another. Coderre slowed, his eyes drawn uphill. Shadowy figures stood along the crest; there had to be a hundred of them, maybe more.

  Pop, pop, pop!

  Across the crest, enemy muzzle flashes crackled like flashbulbs. Bullets kicked up burnt earth and the Marines hit the dirt. Coderre crawled into a crater with his squad as green tracers sprayed overhead and crossed streams.

  “Should we set up the gun?” Wick shouted.

  Coderre shook his head. With riflemen between them and the crest, they had no field of fire.

  Mysteriously, the Chinese tracers slacked. Coderre peeked over the lip. Fifty yards uphill, figures ran through trenches, earflaps bouncing from their hats. Coderre drew his pistol but didn’t have a shot. Show yourselves! he wanted to shout. Black shapes began arcing through the twilight, each shaped like a soup can attached to a stick. Coderre turned to his buddies with wild eyes. “Grenades!” he shouted.

  Across the cratered terrain, stick grenades exploded, some in midair, some against the ground. Dirt showered and splinters sprayed from trees.

  “Corpsman!” wounded men screamed.

  “Corpsman!”

  A Marine medic darted from one shell hole to the next to aid the wounded. Other Marines broke cover to help their buddies.

  The rain of grenades ended abruptly and more shadowy figures stood from the crest.

  Bup, bup, bup!

  They sprayed submachine guns toward the Marines who had stirred from their holes.

  As some of the shadowy figures dropped to reload, others stood and fired. This was a Chinese tactic—to use grenad
es to scatter a foe so that their submachine gunners could pick off anyone in the open.

  Bup, bup, bup!

  Wick turned to Coderre. “You recognize that gunfire?” he shouted.

  Coderre tuned an ear. The gunfire’s bark was deep and familiar.

  “Those are our guns!” Wick shouted.

  How is this possible? Coderre thought. The Chinese were using American-made Tommy guns, the weapon of choice for Chicago gangsters and army paratroopers.

  Bup, bup, bup!

  As bullets slapped the dirt around Coderre, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration. He holstered his pistol and snapped a grenade from his belt. Hopping to a baseball catcher’s crouch, he pulled the pin. Click! Coderre threw the grenade at the crest. The grenade exploded amid the Chinese lines. Wick saw the throw and turned to his friend. “Here—use mine!” he said, handing Coderre his grenade. Coderre tossed Wick’s grenade. “Load him up!” Wick yelled to the squad. The men shuttled their grenades to Coderre. In machine-like fashion he pulled the pins and heaved. Explosions burst across the crest.

  Reem popped up from a crater. “Let ’em have it!” he shouted, momentarily exposed to the flashes of enemy fire. The Marine riflemen answered. Their M1 rifles barked and empty clips plinked. Browning automatic rifles blasted through twenty rounds and sent magazines clattering. In the face of resistance, the Chinese gunners sank from sight.

  Reem stood and pointed his carbine toward the crest. “Move up! Move up!” he yelled. “Before they regroup!”

  Reem knew that the Marines had to win this battle. No one was sure if the Chinese had entered the war to stay—or just to help their fellow communists escape. The reason didn’t matter. Colonel Litzenberg had said it: The results of this first battle “will reverberate around the world” and send a message to the Chinese and Stalin himself.

  En masse, the platoon sprinted for the crest. Coderre gave chase. His heart raced, filling his ears with the sound of thumping blood. The Marine riflemen climbed the crest and fired from cover. Chinese voices shouted. Whistles blew. Wounded Marines rolled down and others crawled into their places. Beneath the crest, Reem jumped into a large shell hole and yelled, “Squad leaders, on me!”

  Coderre and others slid into the crater. Reem crouched with his back to the crest. “OK, we’re going up and over!” he shouted above the gunfire. “Coderre, take your gun there”—he pointed to the crest—“and suppress from the center, rightward, but watch out for 1st platoon!”

  “Yes, sir!” Coderre said.

  As Reem turned to another squad leader, a dark shape flew from the crest. It arced through the twilight, down over Reem’s shoulder, and landed in the crater. Ting!

  Grenade! Coderre thought.

  “Grenade!” Reem shouted.

  Coderre backpedaled, tripped, and fell to the crater’s floor, his helmet rolling away. The crater was dark and cluttered with rocks. From his backside, Coderre saw Reem drop to his hands and knees and desperately search the ground for the grenade. The others flung themselves against the crater’s walls; Coderre braced for the spray of steel.

  At the last second, Reem spotted the grenade and dived for it. He swept his powerful arms, pulling the grenade under his chest.

  A blinding white flash cut the darkness and a shock wave rippled—Ka-thump!

  —

  A burnt, oily smell cut the air as Coderre raised himself from the dirt. He coughed and wiped his eyes but saw only shadows. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears.

  A figure dashed up, knelt, and shook him. Wick’s face materialized but remained blurry. “We gotta get you out of here!” Wick said. His mouth was shouting but his voice sounded miles away. He fumbled for a bandage.

  Blood dripped down between Coderre’s eyes. He gingerly touched his forehead: A deep gash lay beneath his widow’s peak. Coderre ran his shaking hands down and felt the cuts where shrapnel had raked his neck. A wave of nausea hit him.

  Wick slapped a bandage onto Coderre’s forehead and plunged a morphine syrette into his friend’s arm.

  “The lieutenant?” Coderre mumbled.

  “He’s gone!” Wick shouted.

  Coderre shook himself free of Wick’s grasp and peered across the crater. Blue smoke hovered above the floor, and on the fringes Marines slowly stood. In the center, Reem lay sideways, facing Coderre. The lieutenant’s eyes were open but he didn’t move. His chest was torn open and his hands were missing. Gone was the wedding ring that his wife, Donna, had slid onto his finger.

  “No! No!” Coderre muttered. “This can’t be!”

  Wick pulled Coderre to his feet and dragged him downhill, away from the chaos. Over his ringing ears, Coderre heard gunfire cracking and distant shouts. He glanced behind him and saw Marines charging over the crest.

  Wick and Coderre slid downhill for a ways, tried to stand, stumbled, and slid again. Green tracers zipped over them and flamed out in the sky. Coderre’s legs felt like putty. Every time they fell, Wick cradled him and helped him stand.

  The morphine clouded Coderre’s brain. “The lieutenant saved my life,” he mumbled. “Yes, he did,” Wick said. The duo slid and stumbled. “He jumped on a damn grenade!” Coderre added. “Ed, I know!” Wick said. Coderre felt light-headed. He wanted to fall and roll, but Wick held him back. The gunfire sounded softer with each step.

  “I don’t get it,” Coderre mumbled.

  “Get what?” Wick said.

  “Why did he do that?”

  Wick stepped onto the valley floor with Coderre hanging limply from his shoulder. A Marine medical team rushed over with a stretcher. Coderre asked for a cigarette, but no one listened. Hands lifted him onto the stretcher. He felt himself floating as he stared at the dark clouds with gaps of night sky. Before Coderre could thank Wick, his friend was gone, climbing back uphill.*3

  As the Marines carried Coderre toward an aid tent, his eyes blinked wide with alarm. “My throwing arm!” he said. His mind flashed to Fenway Park and the Red Sox. He struggled to see his right arm.

  “Don’t worry, it’s still there,” a Marine said.

  Another glanced at Coderre’s wounds.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “That grenade just missed your eyes.”

  Coderre’s face sank with despair. He wanted to tell them how his lieutenant had just saved his life but couldn’t find the words. They’d never understand. He couldn’t even understand it.

  As the Marines carried him into the tent, the question raced through Coderre’s mind:

  Why did he do that?

  * * *

  *1 MacArthur’s staff initially discounted the reports of Chinese troops. Throughout the war, MacArthur never actually spent a full day in Korea—he always flew back at night to his HQ in Japan. On October 30, he sent General Charles Willoughby, his military intelligence chief of staff, to Korea. Through a translator, Willoughby interrogated sixteen Chinese prisoners and reported back that they were simply “stragglers.”

  *2 One could argue that the Korean War was really a world war—World War III—in which the nations of the world converged to fight on one peninsula, instead of around the globe. Twenty-three nations committed troops or weaponry to Korea, among them the world’s largest industrialized nations—the United States, Britain, Canada, China, France, and the USSR; all took up arms, just without formal declarations of war.

  *3 How Company Sergeant Jack Coleman remembers how he and a handful of Marines held the top of 891 until their ammunition ran out. During the pitched fighting, Sgt. Charlie Foster said to him, “They’ll never believe we made it this far!” So he and Coleman removed their gloves and placed them on rocks to mark their advance. Foster was killed shortly thereafter. The following day, after the Chinese had vacated the hill, Coleman would recover his friend’s body—and his gloves.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE SKY WILL BE BLACK

  Twelve days later, November 18, 1950

  Aboard the USS Leyte

  THE READY ROOM WAS QUIET and the pilots of Fight
ing 32 were fidgety. All that remained was one last briefing. It was 8:00 A.M. and the pilots—just six of them—were about to make the world’s most dangerous commute.

  Tom had been chosen to fly. With his leather jacket stretched over his seatback, he leaned forward to study a crinkly green map on the wall. His eyes locked on a blue line that snaked up the side of Korea and divided North Korea from China.

  The Yalu River. Tom took a drag from his pipe to cool his nerves.

  —

  Tom and the others snapped to their feet when the skipper entered. The man wore the winter seasonal getup: a leather jacket and green pants. He motioned for his pilots to sit and stepped front and center. He had just come from a briefing with the ship’s intelligence officers.

  “Well, the Chinese are still MIA,” the skipper said, approaching the map. “And it’s quiet across the front. The army’s sitting tight in the west,” he said, tapping the map. “And in the east the Marines are marching north again without resistance.”

  Tom shook his head in disbelief. The brass had identified twelve Chinese divisions in Korea—at least a hundred thousand enemy soldiers. Yet after one week of combat they had mysteriously disappeared into the mountains.

  “Just because the Chinese aren’t engaging doesn’t mean they’re gone,” the skipper continued. “Our night fighters are reporting headlights coming into Korea—not out.” He explained the belief of the Intel boys—that the Chinese were bringing in fresh troops and supplies.

  Tom’s eyes glanced back to the map. Slung across the river was the key to the Chinese route into Korea: the Yalu bridges.

  The skipper nodded to a sailor in the rear who was manning a slide projector. The lights dimmed. Tom clenched his pipe in his teeth and opened his notepad. Nearby, Jesse and Koenig readied their notepads too. Cevoli rocked in his chair ambivalently; he’d take notes on his palm.