by Peter Watt
That had been months ago, and now he waited with his section of a platoon to advance to a place on the map known as Sukchon, where a unit of American paratroopers were trapped on the high ground by the retreating North Korean army.
Corporal David Macintosh was a curiosity to his section of eight men. They knew he had once been a company commander and had seen action from North Africa to New Guinea, and had won a Military Cross. But what counted to them most was their section commander’s ability to lead them and keep them alive.
The Australian battalion moved forward; some travelled on the hulls of American Sherman tanks, whilst the rest convoyed in American trucks along rutted roads, dust marking their progress.
The Australians put on their heavy greatcoats in the early hours of the morning as the bitter chill of the approaching winter bit into their flesh. The autumn leaves had fallen as a russet carpet, and apples lay rotting in deserted orchards.
David sat in the back of the open truck with his rifle between his knees. This was a new war to be fought with old infantry weapons, and the familiar feel of his Lee Enfield .303 rifle brought back flashes of memory of other battlefields. His section was mostly composed of men who had fought in World War II. They were seasoned fighters, with the exception of one young man who had just turned twenty and kept close to David when they were in action.
‘It’s just about all over, isn’t it, corp,’ he said to David in the dark. ‘Old Doug MacArthur has the Koreans on the run to the Chinese border. Once we trap them there it will be all over.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ David said. ‘But in my experience cornered troops fight to the death.’
A rattle of small-arms fire interrupted their conversation, and David gripped his rifle. The firing seemed to be coming from an apple orchard to their right, and the soldiers tumbled from the truck to take up a formation for a counterattack. David could see the valley below, scattered rice paddies, small haystacks and rice stooks.
While David waited for orders, their commanding officer had informed brigade HQ they were going to attack but was warned they could not expect any artillery support because the actual location of the trapped American paratroopers was unclear.
Suddenly the ground exploded in great clouds as enemy mortar bombs fell from the sky. The company commander passed down the order to his platoons to move forward in an attack on the hidden enemy.
‘Fix bayonets!’ David called to his section. It had always been an order that chilled troops because it meant being within an arm’s length of the man and seeing his face before you plunged the bayonet into his belly or chest and killed him.
The company commander led the attack, and the men followed.
They ran through the orchard, unaware that a regiment of North Koreans was in position between them and the American paratroopers. However, to their good fortune, the Koreans were engaged with the Americans and had not posted sentries to their rear, so the Australians fell on the Koreans with the element of surprise. But the Koreans rallied and the Australians were under heavy small-arms fire. David continuously kept an eye on his section to ensure that they were following their battle drills. They advanced up a ridge, calculating that the Americans were somewhere ahead, not knowing that the Koreans outnumbered them almost three to one.
David and his section reached the top of the ridge and could see a beautiful valley below dotted with copses and orchards. There were big vats in the ground for storing apples, and David instinctively knew they were perfect positions for enemy snipers.
He yelled the warning to his men as they moved into a skirmish line and almost immediately drew fire from the Koreans snipers hidden by the vats. David saw the head of one Korean raise above the lip of a vat, brought his rifle to his shoulder and snapped off a shot. He saw the Korean’s head jerk back. It was the first Korean he had killed, and for a split second he tried to figure how many nationalities he had killed: Spanish, Italian, German, French, Japanese and Arabs. Now he could add Koreans. Who next? The Chinese?
‘Look, corp, farmers,’ the young soldier called when a small party of men dressed in the traditional white smock of rural workers appeared. David did not hesitate and called to his Bren gunner. ‘Get them!’
The Bren opened up and the machine-gun bullets tore into the party of white-smocked farmers, who replied with a couple of bursts from their own submachine guns, known to the UN troops as ‘burp guns’. They were, as David had correctly guessed, North Korean soldiers in disguise.
As they advanced, some of the North Koreans surrendered, whilst others continued to fight. The Australians’ battle discipline made short work of those who continued to resist. The Koreans were beginning to learn that the men who wore the slouch hat were battle-hardened soldiers. By midday the Australians had made contact with the badly savaged Americans who were very grateful to be relieved.
The order was given to dig in, and a platoon was sent back to cut off the retreat of Koreans missed in the initial assault.
David supervised the fieldworks for his section and was approached by the platoon sergeant, a veteran of New Guinea who knew of David’s excellent reputation as an officer.
‘I shouldn’t even have to tell you, but well done, Dave,’ he said, crouching beside a shell scrape David was digging for himself, stripped to the waist. ‘I know the boys back in New Guinea swore by you keeping them alive. You should be a bloody officer and not a junior NCO.’
‘Thanks, Harvey,’ David replied. ‘But now I don’t have to worry about keeping a hundred men alive – only eight. We have a bloody good CO, and I know we are in good hands.’
‘Were you with the CO back at Wewak when he won his DSO?’ Harvey asked.
‘No, but I heard from his men how much he deserved his gong.’ David said.
Harvey rose from his crouch. ‘Keep up the good work,’ he said. ‘I figure the way things are going with the Koreans on the run we will be back home before we know it.’
David watched him walk away, hardly aware someone had taken a photograph of him standing in his shell scrape. He looked to his left and saw a couple of young soldiers leaning on their rifles.
‘C’mon, boys,’ he growled. ‘Keep digging.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
The pain was intense but the morphine took it all away. Through his euphoric haze Captain James Duffy vaguely remembered a navy doctor leaning over him and saying, ‘The leg might have to come off . . .’
James attempted to protest, and the next thing he heard from the doctor gave him heart. ‘We’ll fly you out to Tokyo, where they might be able to save your leg.’
In a Tokyo hospital skilled surgeons worked for hours to repair the badly injured leg. James found himself lying on his back with doctors and nurses fussing over him. His ward was filled with other servicemen being brought in from the battlefields of Korea. Within weeks, James insisted on walking with crutches. He had been informed that the heavy-calibre bullet had damaged muscle and broken the bone of his lower leg. Chips of bone had to be removed, along with damaged muscle but, with good care and the use of antibiotics, his leg would heal.
After a couple of months James was able to walk with the aid of a cane, and the first thing he did was apply for medical leave to make his way to the bright lights of downtown Tokyo. During the Allied occupation the former enemy had learned to cater to the needs of armed forces members on leave, and the bars and nightclubs had risen from the ashes of a city once bombed to the ground to cater to them. James had marvelled at how industrious the Japanese people were as they rebuilt their country, emerging like a phoenix from the fire.
He asked a couple of American sailors on the brightly lit but bitterly cold street where he could find a bar and went directly to the place they had recommended. It was a Friday night and the small place was packed with officers. In the corner of the smoke-filled room a young and pretty Japanese girl belted out a heavily accented version of
‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. James was reminded that it was only days away from Christmas, and despite the war on the other side of the Sea of Japan, the bar was warm with merriment. He ordered a Scotch from the barman.
James thanked him and turned to see if he knew anyone in the bar. Through the cigar and cigarette smog of the dimly lit room he spotted a group of navy officers in a corner, surrounding a female navy officer. It was obvious that she was the centre of attention, and James could see why. She was very attractive, with red hair and a smatter of freckles over her alabaster skin.
‘Son of a bitch!’ James said in shock. There was no mistaking who he was looking at – Isabel! She was laughing at a joke one of the adoring medical officers had made, and all James could do was gape. He was aware that the Japanese singer had broken into the wartime song ‘Sentimental Journey’ and the words echoed in his head.
Isabel was still laughing when she turned in his direction. She was only about five yards from him and their eyes met. He could see her laughter cease. James knew that she had recognised him. It was a moment James would remember for the rest of his life. Isabel slipped from her stool and made her way to James.
‘Well, if it isn’t the legendary marine flyer from my old home county, Captain James Duffy,’ she said, only inches from him.
‘Hello, Isabel,’ James replied. ‘I’m pleased to see that you’ve graduated from college.’
It was an awkward and beautiful moment for him.
‘Thanks to you, I’m now a surgeon,’ Isabel said. ‘I was inspired by your wartime record to join up in the navy, and I can see that we’re now equals in rank.’
‘Ah, but I’m a marine captain and that is superior to a navy captain,’ James smiled. ‘Where are you stationed?’
‘I’ve just arrived,’ Isabel said. ‘I’ll be at our hospital in our Tokyo before they send me to Korea next week.’
‘I’m amazed I’ve come halfway around the world to meet up with you in a goddamned Tokyo bar,’ James said. ‘Can I buy you a drink, Captain Sweeney? From one captain to another?’
Isabel glanced at the walking stick resting beside James’s leg. ‘Have you been wounded?’ she asked.
James could hear a note of concern in her voice.
‘Not badly,’ he shrugged. ‘I caught a bit of metal in my leg on a mission in Korea, but the surgeons stitched me up fine. All going well, I should be back in the cockpit of a Corsair after Christmas.’
Isabel frowned. ‘I hope not, James,’ she said. ‘You’ve done more than all the other men I know put together. The last that I heard about you, you were a banker back home. Why didn’t you visit me at college or at least attended my graduation? I wondered why you didn’t take more interest in my progress. I was angry at you, James Duffy.’
James was stunned by her revelations. He had always considered her a young girl, but standing before him was definitely a beautiful woman. ‘I thought you’d graduate and find yourself a young man.’
‘Maybe I never stopped thinking about my knight in shining armour,’ Isabel said.
‘Hey, Isabel, come back here,’ a voice called from the party of naval officers. ‘Peene has a real good story to tell.’
‘In a moment,’ Isabel replied. ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked.
‘At your hospital, ward B,’ James grinned. ‘At least until they post me back to Korea.’
‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Captain Duffy, when I’m on my rounds,’ she said. ‘With any luck I might be assigned to supervise your recovery.’
James watched her return to her friends, swallowed the last of his drink, and left the bar to return to the hospital, smiling all the way.
*
Now Corporal David Macintosh had added a Chinese soldier to the list of nationalities he had killed. The retreating North Koreans had been replaced with the might of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The fighting was desperate in the freezing weather as the massive Chinese army pushed the United Nations troops south. General MacArthur had ignored intelligence that the Chinese were massing on the banks of the Yalu River to resist what they saw as Western imperialism threatening their sovereignty. The UN troops on the ground were paying the price for the blindness of the arrogant American general. All the gains of the previous months disappeared as the Chinese army counterattacked the UN forces, sending them reeling back down the Korean peninsula.
David pulled back the bolt of his rifle to recharge the chamber, swinging the foresight onto another Chinese soldier struggling up the snow-covered ridge towards the Australian positions. The strategic aims of MacArthur and his senior officers meant very little to the soldiers on the ground whose war was limited to the three hundred yards or so to their front, rear and either side. War was just a tiny part of the big picture to the individual soldier, as it had always been since man had thrown the first rock in the pursuit of killing his fellow man.
David could hear the distant shouts of Chinese officers urging their men on, mixed with the sound of bugles and whistles whose noise was a means of communicating to their troops. The Chinese army were short of modern radio communications and fell back on an age-old system of sound. The crackle of small-arms was deafening, but the heavy fire was hardly stopping the huge mass of Chinese soldiers surging forward across a field covered with snow.
The first wave of enemy fell back but was quickly followed by a second wave, larger in numbers. That also fell back, and the third wave was much bigger in size than the previous assaulting waves. It was a psychological ploy to weaken their enemy’s morale – no matter how many were killed in the first fierce attacks, the numbers attacking would only increase.
Between the human waves David checked the situation of his section dug in along the ridge. The bitter cold was nothing like any of his troops had ever experienced before. So cold that hot food froze hard in seconds. Frostbite was a real enemy as the winter winds blew down from the Arctic Circle.
The rumours that they would be home for Christmas were long gone. David knew this was a bit more than what could be described as a police action. It was a war as bad as any campaign he had fought in World War II. A new American term had come into the language describing the continual retreat from the Chinese army – ‘buggin’ out’.
When David glanced at the young soldier beside him in his shallow shell scrape he could see that he was shaking, his almost frozen fingers trying to reload a magazine.
‘You okay, soldier?’ David asked.
‘Yes, corp,’ the young soldier answered through chattering teeth. ‘It’s just the bloody cold.’
David knew it was not only the intense cold causing the soldier to shake so badly, because he could feel the same fear, and fought to get his own trembling hands under control. He did not have to issue the order to stand to for the next assault on the ridge they held. The enemy’s whistles and bugles did that for him.
*
In the southern hemisphere Christmas Day promised to be a scorcher. Sarah Macintosh sat at the breakfast table, opposite Charles, who was waiting for his breakfast to be served by their maid. At the middle of the big table was seated their son, Michael, poking at his boiled egg with a spoon.
‘Eat your breakfast, Michael,’ Sarah snapped irritably.
‘Yes, Mother,’ Michael replied, and pushed the spoon into the soft yolk.
‘Look at this,’ Charles said, turning the paper to his wife.
‘My God!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘That’s David.’ The grainy photograph was of a soldier standing knee-deep in a shell scrape with a small entrenching shovel. His rifle lay beside him and it appeared he was unaware that he was being filmed. The caption read: Australian soldier digs in on the advance north to the Yalu River with the Commonwealth Brigade.
Sarah took the paper from her estranged husband and stared at the face of the man she most desired in the world.
‘I th
ought he was still in Australia,’ she said.
‘Apparently not,’ Charles said.
‘Who’s David?’ Michael asked across the table.
‘He’s your mother’s cousin,’ Charles said. ‘And a really nice chap.’
‘What’s a cousin?’ Michael asked.
‘Someone who is related to you,’ Sarah said. ‘A kind of uncle.’
‘Have I met Uncle David?’ Michael asked.
Sarah glanced at her husband, who had taken the paper back to read the rest of the news. He showed no reaction to Michael’s question, and Sarah felt uneasy when she looked at the innocent face of her son. Would there ever be a time she would tell Michael who his real father was?
Michael was now attending one of the top Anglican GPS schools in Sydney. His academic record was good, but he showed little interest in team sports, although he had proved a talent at tennis and athletics. Michael spent most of his spare time in the school library, poring over books of Greek and Roman mythology.
Most of the boy’s time away from his boarding school was spent in the company of his nanny, Val Keevers, who filled the vacuum of maternal love left by Sarah. Val doted on the boy but Sarah had explained to Michael that Val was simply a paid servant. Michael felt confused because Val gave him love and understanding. For Michael that translated to the love of a mother. His own mother was always a cold and distant woman in his life, as opposed to the warm and close nature of the ‘paid servant’.
Sarah stared at her son and could see some of David’s features. His shoulders were broadening, and his hair was the same colour as his father’s, and he had the same eyes. How long would it be before Charles started to notice that the boy looked nothing like him? It was strange, Sarah thought. Michael would be the only real heir to the Macintosh financial empire when the time came for her to step down. Charles Huntley had never been worthy of passing on his bloodline for the future of the family. At least now her legacy was assured in Michael. Still, she felt a shudder of fear when a strange voice seemed to whisper in her ear, Remember the curse. It has not gone away.