Retreat, Hell! tc-10

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Good morning," Lowman said. "What's going on?"

  "Quiet as a tomb, sir," the staff sergeant said. "It won't be light for another thirty minutes or so."

  "We heard some engines starting, sir," the buck sergeant said. "Over there."

  He pointed across the field.

  "You're sure?" Colonel Lowman said doubtfully.

  "Well, sir, it sounded as if it was coming from over there." "As far as I know, there's nothing over there but a shot-up hangar," Colonel Lowman said.

  The ground-to-air radio came to life. "K-16, Air Force two oh seven, radio check."

  "We don't have anything coming in or going out right now, do we?" Colonel Lowman asked.

  "No, sir," the staff sergeant said.

  Colonel Lowman took the microphone the buck sergeant held in his hand. Into it he said, "Air Force two oh seven, read you five by five. Niner, eight, seven, six, fiver, four, three, two, one."

  "K-16, thank you," the radio said.

  Colonel Lowman handed the microphone back to the staff sergeant. Across the field, there were suddenly two spots of orange light, as if com­ing from the exhaust of an engine. And a moment later, there was the rumble of an engine and a fluckatafluckata-fluckata.

  "There it is again," the buck sergeant said. "I knew damned well I heard something."

  "I don't hear anything," Colonel Lowman said. "From over there, Colonel!" the buck sergeant insisted. "Sounds like a helicopter to me, sir. Helicopters," the staff sergeant said. The fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckatafluckata-fluckata sound grew louder.

  Lowman thought he could just faintly see one of the H-19s moving rapidly across the field, then taking off into the darkness.

  "Goddammit," the staff sergeant said. "That was two helicopters, and not a goddamn navigation light on either of them. What the fuck?"

  "I want you two to listen to me carefully," Colonel Lowman said. "I have been here all the time with you. I neither heard or saw anything that sounded remotely like a helicopter."

  "But, sir—" the staff sergeant said.

  "And neither did you," Colonel Lowman said. "Do we understand each other?"

  "Yes, sir," they said, almost in unison.

  "And I don't want it to get back to me that whatever you thought you saw or heard, but didn't, is the subject of any conversation anywhere. Clear?" "Yes, sir," they said.

  "Keep up the good work, men," Colonel Lowman said, smiled at them, and left the control tower.

  Outside, he could hear the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata of rotor blades di­minishing to the southeast.

  Colonel Lowman wondered where the hell they were going with the H-19s and what they were going to do with them.

  But there had been something in the eyes of the Marine major that had told him that his curiosity would have been not only highly unwelcome but maybe even a little dangerous, and he hadn't asked.

  [FIVE]

  Socho-Ri, South Korea

  O54S 4 October 195O

  Major Donald had told McCoy there were three ways to get to Socho-Ri, one flying at an altitude that would permit them to look for an arrow stamped out in a rice paddy. The trouble with that option was, Donald said, that if they could see a sign like that, people on the ground could see them.

  The second option was to fly what he called "nap of the earth," which meant flying just a few feet off the ground. That would expose them to eyes on the ground for only a fleeting moment, but flying at ninety knots, that wouldn't be much different from driving over the ground at that speed; the chances of spotting a stamped-out arrow would be slim, unless they just happened to fly right over it and were paying close enough attention not to miss it.

  The third option—which Donald recommended—would be to ascend quickly to, say, 9,000 feet, which would for all practical purposes make them invisible to eyes on the ground, and incidentally keep them safely above any rock-filled clouds they might encounter en route. There was a line of moun­tains running down the peninsula, Donald said, and he did not have a deep and abiding faith in the navigation charts he had been given.

  McCoy opted for the high altitude. The priority was to get the helos to Socho-Ri intact and undetected. Even if they were spotted by only friendly forces—I ROK Corps—the sudden appearance of two black helicopters would very likely cause some South Korean commander to make a report of "unidentified, black, type previously not seen, rotary-wing aircraft" flying over his position.

  There was also a chance that the two helos would be spotted by Air Force, Navy, or Marine fighters making an early-morning reconnaissance. Their pilots would more than likely—out of curiosity, if nothing else—make a pass at them before shooting them down. In that case, Donald said, he would get on the emergency radio frequency and try to contact them.

  "You could enthusiastically sing 'The Marines' Hymn,'" Donald said.

  Pick would just have to wait. There had been no word from the Badoeng Strait that any signs of Pick had been found, anyway.

  But as it had grown light, turned into day, as they had flown eastward across the peninsula, McCoy rarely took his eyes from the ground far below them.

  When the coastline appeared and Donald flew over it and above the Sea of Japan, McCoy wondered what was happening and looked at Donald, who read his mind.

  "I'm going to fly a couple of miles out to sea before I make the descent," Donald explained. "And then approach Socho-Ri with our wheels just far enough above the water to keep them from getting wet."

  McCoy gave him a thumbs-up.

  "You're pretty good at this, Alex. A quick learner."

  "I had another thought," Alex said. "Just now. How are you and Dunston going to get back to Seoul?"

  "I thought we'd get in a jeep. Maybe we could talk somebody in I ROK Corps into giving us a ride. Dunston and I talked about it. He said they have a few L-4s and L-19s."

  "And if they won't, it's a long ride back to Seoul," Donald said. "We need our own fixed-wing airplane," Donald said. "What we really need is an L-20, a Beaver, but I think we'd have a better chance of getting an L-19."

  "What's a Beaver?"

  "Single-engine, six-place DeHavilland. Canadian. Designed for use in the Alaskan bush. The Army bought a dozen—and ordered a hell of a lot more— off the shelf when this started. There were six of them on the baby aircraft car­rier with the H-19s. The brass will be fighting over them like a nymphomaniac at a high school dance."

  "I think you had better get in the jeep with me, and see about getting us one or the other," McCoy said.

  His stomach then rose in his chest as Donald put the H-19 into a steep de­scending turn.

  As they approached the coastline, not fifty feet off the water, they came across a junk plodding slowly southward, maybe a mile and a half offshore and half a mile away from them.

  "That has to be the Wind of Good Fortune," McCoy said.

  "You want me to take a closer look?"

  "God, no! There's an air-cooled .50 on the prow, and another on the stern.

  By now—they've seen us—they've taken the covers off and fed ammo belts into both."

  "Why is it leaving Socho-Ri?"

  "She dropped off a generator, a good base station radio, and some other sup­plies," McCoy replied. "Chow, a couple of rubber boats, sandbags, stuff—I guess you call it 'thatch'—to put the roofs back on the hootches. And some of Dunston's Koreans. And then she got out of there before anyone could draw the right conclusion."

  Donald took his hand off the cyclic control long enough to point. They were approaching Socho-Ri. As McCoy followed Donald's pointing, Donald put the H-19 into a steep turn to the left, then to the right, and then as suddenly straightened up. They were now lined up with the dirt strip.

  McCoy could see enough of the activity on the ground to know that Zimmerman—and Dunwood's Marines—had done a lot of work even before the Wind of Good Fortune had brought them the supplies they needed.

  He saw what had to be Marines in two emplacement
s overlooking the path from Route 5, and another emplacement facing out to the Sea of Japan.

  And a patch of recently turned earth twenty-five feet by eight. Burying the bodies had obviously been a priority.

  Jesus, that's a hell of a big hole to have to dig by hand!

  The H-19 stopped forward movement, and a moment later its wheels touched the ground.

  McCoy saw the second helo flutter to the ground to their right, and then Dunwood and Zimmerman walking out to them.

  Donald began to shut the machine down. McCoy unfastened his seat and shoulder belts but made no move to get out until the rotor blades stopped turning.

  He had just jumped to the ground from the wheel when the smell of pu­trefying flesh hit him.

  Dunston and the pilot of the other helicopter started to walk over to them. The pilot didn't make it. He suddenly bent over and threw up.

  Dunston ignored him and joined the others in time to hear McCoy snap at Zimmerman: "Jesus! When did you finally get around to burying the bodies?"

  "We waited until this morning, of course, Killer, knowing you were com­ing," Zimmerman answered, not daunted by McCoy's anger.

  "Jesus! It was the first thing we did. We could smell this place a mile off."

  "How do we get rid of the smell?" McCoy asked.

  "Sir," Dunwood said, "we don't think it's coming from the bodies, from the grave, but from the ground where they were lying. I was thinking maybe if we soaked the ground with gas, and then—"

  "Do it," McCoy said.

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Some of the bodies were in the hootches, Killer. And they stink too."

  "Well, use gas on them before we put the roofs back on," McCoy said. "That smell's got to go."

  Zimmerman nodded.

  He looked at Major Donald.

  "I don't suppose we could just drape fishnet over those propellers, could we, Major?"

  He made a swirling motion with his index finger, pointing at the helicopter.

  "Rotors," Donald corrected him. "No. I don't think that would be smart."

  "I was afraid of that," Zimmerman said, and pointed toward the side of the landward hill, one hundred yards from where they stood. "That's what I came up with."

  Against two very steep parts of the slope, two enormous flies of fishnet had been erected. Their outer edges were supported by flimsy "poles" made of short, nailed, and tied-together pieces of wood. Vegetation of all sorts had been laced into the net.

  McCoy thought: Boy, that's really a jury-rig!

  "And they won't stay up long," Zimmerman said, reading McCoy's mind, "if you get close to them with the rotors turning."

  "Collect some men and push them over and get them out of sight," McCoy ordered.

  Zimmerman nodded.

  Dunston walked away from them, toward the mass grave.

  "You want some breakfast, Killer?" Zimmerman asked innocently. "Couple of fresh eggs, maybe? The Wind of Good Fortune brought some. And a couple of fresh suckling pigs, too, come to thing of it."

  McCoy glowered at him.

  "You want me to throw up, too, right?" he said, pointing toward the heli­copter pilot, who was now sitting, pale-faced, on the ground, trying to regain control of himself.

  Zimmerman smiled at him.

  McCoy, Dunston, Zimmerman, Dunwood, and Donald were sitting on the stone wharf, where the smell didn't seem as bad. There was a breeze from the sea, and the smoke of the fires built over where the dead had been left to rot had sort of diluted the smell of the bodies. "Then we're agreed?" Dunston asked.

  McCoy looked at him and made a little come on gesture with his hand. Dunston began to lay out the plan of action. "The priority is to get some agents up north as quickly as possible, the more the better, but for right now, three teams is all that seems feasible.

  "We call the Wind of Good Fortune back, to dock here an hour after dark. She picks up the agents and goes north. Using just one of the rubber boats— keeping the other in reserve; the Wind of Good Fortune can bring more boats on her next trip—she puts them ashore and then heads for Pusan. She has enough fuel aboard to run the diesel, balls to the wall, all night.

  "Unless they come across something really interesting, the agents will not get on the radio for twenty-four hours, or forty-eight. If they get in trouble, they will yell for help. If they do—Donald makes the decision whether or not the risk is manageable—we'll send one of the helicopters after them and see what happens.

  "Presuming they don't get in trouble: Donald, Dunwood, and Zimmerman will start preparing to use the choppers as flying trucks to take a squad of men wherever they have to go. As I understand you, Alex, most of that training will be pretty basic.

  "First, Zimmerman decides how they'll be armed and equipped. Then we'll find out how many men we can load on a chopper. Then we practice their get­ting out of the chopper in a hurry. None of this will require flying the chop­pers. When they get pretty good at that, we'll start making dry runs, first just taking off and landing here, and finally, flying inland a little to practice inser­tion and withdrawal on the kind of terrain they'll find up north.

  "By the time we do all this, maybe the war will be over. If not, the Wind of Good Fortune will be back here, and we'll decide what to do next." He paused. "That's about it."

  "Ernie?" McCoy asked.

  "Sounds fine to me," Zimmerman said.

  "Donald?"

  "What about me going back with you, McCoy? We talked about that. To see about getting a fixed-wing airplane? I'd rather stay here, but. . ."

  "Let's see what Dunston and I can do, begging on our knees," McCoy said.

  Donald nodded.

  "Dunwood?" McCoy asked.

  "I don't have any problems with any of this," Dunwood said.

  "Okay. That's it," McCoy said, and then added: "I don't think Bill Dunston and I should go back to Seoul together. I think we should go separately—say, an hour apart, in two jeeps. Dunwood, can you let each of us have, say, six Marines? With a couple of BARs?"

  "No problem," Dunwood said.

  "You go first, McCoy," Dunston said. "I'll want to explain all this to the Ko­reans, and I'd like to see what I can do about identifying my people the NKs found here."

  "The sooner I get out of here, the better," McCoy said, scrambling to his feet. "Ernie, I don't care if you have to keep those fires burning all week."

  "That thought ran through my mind, Major, sir," Zimmerman said.

  [SIX]

  Headquarters,

  Capital ROK Division Near

  Samchoh, South Korea

  O83O 4 October 195O

  McCoy's two-jeep convoy was stopped by two diminutive South Korean sol­diers who stepped out of the ditches alongside National Route 5, about twenty miles south of Socho-Ri, with their rifles at their shoulders and aimed at McCoy, who was driving the lead jeep.

  They wore the shoulder patches of the Capital ROK Division safety-pinned to the shoulders of their too-large U.S. Army fatigues, and looked, on one hand, slightly ludicrous in their outsized uniforms, not looking as if they were large enough to effectively wield the M-l Garands with which they were armed. But on the other hand, they looked tough and mean.

  They were visibly surprised to see two jeeps carrying Americans coming to­ward them from what, so far as they knew, was territory still controlled by the North Koreans.

  And even more surprised when McCoy snapped at them, in Korean, "Don't soldiers of the Capital ROK Division salute American officers?"

  The rifles were lowered, and almost ludicrous salutes rendered, which McCoy returned with a salute worthy of the parade ground at Camp Lejeune.

  The ROK soldiers told him that Capital ROK Division headquarters strad­dled the highway a mile farther south.

  "Get back in your positions," McCoy ordered, and put the jeep in gear.

  There were two L-4s parked, one on each side of National Route 5. The ROKs were apparently using the narrow road for an airstrip.

  T
he L-4, essentially a Piper Cub, was the two-passenger, high-wing, low-and-slow observation and liaison aircraft that preceded the Cessna L-19.

  McCoy thought the ROKs were like the Marines, being issued only equip­ment the Army thought it no longer needed.

  There was a small tent city on both sides of the road, too, U.S. Army squad tents that had apparently been erected in the belief they would soon have to be struck and moved someplace else.

  In front of two tents assembled end-to-end he spotted three flags: the Ko­rean national colors; the blue flag of the United Nations; and a red flag with two stars on it. Two soldiers were standing with the butts of their Garands rest­ing between their feet were guarding the tents, several jeeps parked in front of them, one highly polished with half-doors and a rack of radios in the back.

  He drove up to it, the second jeep following.

  The guards raised their rifles.

  "Stand at ease," McCoy barked in Korean. The guards assumed a position not unlike Parade Rest, and saluted by crossing their right hands to the muz­zles of the Garands.

  McCoy got out of the jeep and walked into the tent.

  It was full of officers and soldiers, radios, telephone switchboards, and desks.

  A Korean colonel wearing impeccably fitting and perfectly starched and pressed fatigues, polished boots, with a .45 in a tanker's shoulder holster turned from the map board when McCoy pushed the flap aside and light en­tered the tent.

  McCoy saluted.

  "Good morning, Colonel," he said in Korean. "May I have a moment of your time?"

  Everybody in the tent was now looking at him.

  The colonel returned McCoy's salute crisply.

  "Good morning," he said in faultless English. "I'm Colonel Pak. I'm sur­prised, Major, to see a Marine officer this far east."

  "May I have a moment of the colonel's time?" McCoy said, continuing in Korean.

  "And, if you don't mind my saying so, one who speaks Korean so well," the colonel replied in English. "How may I be of service to the Marines?"

  McCoy decided the colonel was an officer who had most likely learned his English while an officer in the Japanese Army, and had then been one of the rare ex-Japanese officers selected to start up the South Korean Army, and as a result of that had been sent to one or more U.S. Army schools in the States. His English was American accented.