The Frozen Hours

by Jeff Shaara

  He fired the rifle, the muzzle blast blinding him, the tracers from the machine gun giving glimpses of masses of men, all along the hillside, all climbing closer. All across their position, the Marines answered, a storm of fire, the enemy responding with fire of their own, machine guns from distant perches. Riley emptied the rifle, the clip ejected, slammed a new one home without thinking, fired again. Now mortars erupted, coming down behind him, thunderous impacts out to one side, more impacting down the hill. But the Marines were answering with mortars of their own, the blasts spreading out all across the hillside below him. Each blast offered a flash of light, reflections off thick crowds of men, all still moving forward. The Marines kept up their fire, Riley emptying another clip, the shadows with more form, closer still.

  The first grenade landed in front of him, bouncing off his helmet. He shouted, backed away, his arm in a fast sweep, the grenade pushed to one side, the blast now, deafening, his head down, face in the dirt. Riley checked himself in his mind, no pain, no wounds. Thank God. More grenades impacted all along the line, coming down behind the crest of their hill, and beside him, Killian began to shout, “Eat this, you Shambo bastards!”

  Riley kept down, turned that way, saw Killian up, throwing grenades of his own, one after another. Riley felt a wave of panic, sickening, expected Killian to go down, machine gun fire whistling past, close above him. But Killian’s grenades continued downward, the blasts down the hill, cries of men, more mortar shells falling among the enemy as well. Riley pulled himself to his knees, lay the rifle down, his hand on the pile of steel beside him. He jerked the pin from a grenade, held it for a long second, searching the chaotic darkness, slung it low and hard down the hill, his face dropping down, the blast finding a target, the flash close. Killian was firing his rifle again, and Riley tossed another grenade, heard more shouts along the line, Kane’s BAR chattering close to one side.

  There were more shouts up the ridgeline, the enemy rolling up and over, a burst of firing, men falling. Riley felt a surge of panic, thought of tossing a grenade that way, but too close, foxholes, his own men. He threw the grenade down the hill, grabbed the rifle, aimed, thick, hulking shapes, please God, not one of us. He fired, the hulk falling, more coming up the hill behind. He fired again, heard Killian curse, turned, a man standing up above him, Killian screaming, his rifle swinging low over Riley’s head, hitting the man low, knocking his legs away. Riley jammed the rifle into the man’s chest, fired, a muffled explosion, searched for another, saw Killian jamming a new clip into his rifle, firing again, down the hill. The whistles came again, more of the discordant bugles farther away. He pulled the M-1 tight against his shoulder, searched frantically, but the shadows seemed to back away, and now the flashes from the mortar fire revealed the enemy moving back, pulling away down the hill. The machine gun fire continued, both directions, spraying the hill out in front of him, and he jerked his head down hard, his face in the dirt. Through the thunderous racket, Riley could still hear the bugle calls, somewhere below, drowned out by the thumps from mortars, their own, the tubes somewhere behind, back down the hill. The tracers continued, mostly red now, and he held the M-1, rose up on his knees, saw the shadows growing faint, farther down the hill, dark shapes, outlined by flashes of bright light. He fired again, no aim, just a broad sweep, emptying the clip, searched for clusters, heard only screams and bugles, the clip popping free. Shouts rolled across the hill around him, the last of the mortar rounds finding targets still, more shouts from behind him, men cursing the enemy, others, the officers, cursing the men who kept firing, wasting their ammo.

  He lowered the rifle, put one hand down on the hard dirt, his fingers curling, gripping a rock, a painful fist. He let out a hard cry, tossed the rock down the hill, sat back, collapsing against the side of the foxhole, heard a new sound beside him. It was Killian, the man crying.

  —

  The daylight broke to their front, the distant hill an uneven line against a gray morning sky. He had slept, if only a few minutes, heard low voices around him, some of them familiar. He raised his head slightly, a slow drift of thin fog moving over the hillside, felt the chill, looked toward Killian, who said, “You gonna sleep all day? It’s supposed to be your watch. Guess we don’t need it. It’s already light enough to see all hell from here.”

  Riley eyed his friend for a long moment, wanted to ask if he was all right, but Killian was staring out down the hill, and Riley knew there would be nothing to say. He felt a film of cotton in his mouth, reached for his canteen, a quick swig of cold water, then said, “What time?”

  “Four thirty. Maybe. Nothing happening. Damn it all, looks like the Shambos have pulled back. They got a good dose of the United States Marine Corps. It’s quiet across the road, too. Dog and Easy are either resting up. Or they’re gone.”

  “They’re not gone. We’d know about that.”

  Killian huffed, said nothing, and Riley pulled himself up, eased the stiffness in his back, his knees, sat in the shallow depression. He blinked, realized the stink was still there, shook his head.

  “What the hell is that smell?”

  “Shambos.”

  Riley looked across the ridgeline, scanned the hill down behind them, men crawling from their cover, ammo carriers slipping along, hauling the metal crates, more satchels of grenades. He saw Goolsby, the lieutenant ducking down as he moved across the line. Farther down, closer to the road, was the familiar tent, the battalion CP, and closer, the captain’s tent. Men were in motion farther away as well, some down in the roads, a jeep now rolling forward. Killian pointed to one side, said, “Look at that, will you? Those boys let the bastards come inside. Had to be Second Platoon. Jackasses.”

  Riley saw now, as he had seen during the fight, that the enemy had broken through. The near side of the hill was peppered with bodies, thick yellow uniforms spread halfway down the hill. Down below, Marines were dragging more bodies up the hill, piling them together. He saw Captain Zorn now, moving toward the corpses, Zorn calling out, “Drag ’em up and over the ridge. Put ’em with their pals out front. I want the enemy to see what he left behind.”

  Riley heard a high-pitched shakiness in Zorn’s voice, thought, We all sound like that. He rose up to his knees, climbed to the side of the foxhole, looked out to the far side of the hill, saw a carpet of the odd yellow uniforms. He couldn’t avoid the shock of that, said, “Good God, Sean. We killed a pile of ’em.”

  “Ten piles. Damnedest thing I ever seen. A whole row would go down, another would come up behind it. Didn’t slow ’em down. They were tripping over their own dead.”

  Riley nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. Saw that. Grenades did a hell of a job. Guess we oughta thank that ammo carrier.”

  “Screw him. He was hauling it back down the hill when the fun started. How many you think we wiped out?”

  Riley scanned the hillside, saw men down the line doing the same, some standing, weapons by their side, cigarettes and canteens. Riley felt a slap on his back, startled, saw it was Welch.

  “Good fight, you two. You didn’t forget what it’s like to have the enemy give you an old-fashioned banzai, huh?”

  Riley kept his eyes on the shapeless bodies, dark, bloody wounds, faces down in the dirt, some staring up, mouths wide. And the smell.

  “I guess so,” he said. “Didn’t feel like that. They weren’t like nuts or anything. Just a big damn bunch of ’em. They kept coming, but I heard screaming, too, not that crazy Jap stuff. Just…terrified, maybe.”

  Killian sniffed, pulled out a cigarette. “How the hell do you know that? One Jap same as one Shambo. They charge, we kill ’em.”

  Welch said, “I’m going down, help check ’em out. Come on.”

  Killian said, “Take Pete. I’d rather eat breakfast, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Welch ignored him, moved away, down the hill, and Riley followed, almost by instinct. They kept silent, stepped past a half-dozen bodies, black blood, dried pools in the rocky soil. Others
were doing the same, a handful of corpsmen checking bodies, some of the enemy still alive, badly wounded. Other men were checking pockets in the thick padding of the coats, and Riley saw McCarthy standing over a corpse, studying a pad of paper. He turned, moved up the hill past them, said, “Orders, looks like. An officer. Maybe big brass. Gotta find the damn interpreter.”

  McCarthy was gone, up the hill, and Welch stopped, hands on his hips, the two men surrounded by a sea of death.

  “They’re Chinese all right. All of them. Never seen any North Koreans looked like this. Jesus, look at the weapons. Burp guns. Russian, I bet. And there’s grenades all over the place, those damn potato mashers. These boys didn’t have time to toss ’em. I guess that’s a good thing.” Welch moved toward one body, moved a weapon with his foot. “Look here. A Thompson. Where’d he get that damn thing? G-2 will wanna know about that. Grab it.”

  Riley bent low, his hand on the machine gun, a quick glance at the soldier. The man’s hand pulled at the weapon, his face jerking, his eyes opening, then closing again. Riley snatched hard at the machine gun, said, “Jesus!”

  He spun the weapon around, pointed it downward, the Thompson responding, a short burst of fire into the man’s chest. The soldier seemed to bow up, then settled again, fresh blood in a thick stream flowing over the man’s stomach. Welch bent low, his hand on the man’s bloody neck, his .45 against the man’s skull. Others were moving closer, .45s leveled, questions, and Welch held up his hand.

  “No sweat. But check ’em all.” He said to Riley now, “Nice going. This son of a bitch might have taken us both.”

  Riley held the Thompson in his shaking hands. “Been a while, I guess.”

  “You killed a North Korean with your knife. Wasn’t that long ago.”

  “Didn’t have to look at him.”

  “Get used to it. Don’t need you losing your backbone.”

  Riley stepped away, the Thompson under his arm. “Nope. Just…didn’t think this would ever happen again.”

  “They don’t pay you to think. Let’s go. There’s C-rations calling my name.”

  The roar of the planes surprised them both, a pair of Corsairs rolling up over the hill from behind. Riley absorbed the sight, the raw power rolling past, the planes banking to the right, sliding down toward a deep draw in the next hill.

  “God, I love those things.”

  Welch said, “You can bet the Chinese don’t. Keep an eye on those two in case they find a target. I bet it’s napalm this time. Could be rockets.”

  Riley watched the planes disappear through the far gap in the hills, heard cheers on the hill behind him, more of the Marines still saluting the pilots. Riley scanned the Chinese again, saw the corpsmen moving through, men with bayonets probing, no one taking chances with any more wounded. He looked again toward the distant hills, said, “That’s why they attack at night. Our planes would rip ’em to shreds. Artillery, too. They won’t come back in the daylight. That’s how they get an edge.”

  Welch moved away, said, “That, and the fact that there’s five hundred billion of ’em. Let’s go. But keep your damn mouth shut. You keep figuring things out like that, and they’ll make you an officer. I’m never calling you sir.”

  —

  The next night, the Chinese returned, not as many, not as sharp a fight. Once more the Marines took an enormous toll in Chinese casualties. But the fight wasn’t completely one-sided. There were dead Marines as well, close to seventy men, with nearly three hundred wounded, a vivid message that this new enemy was far more dangerous and far more dedicated to the fight than a handful of ghostly infiltrators who had bayoneted four men in their sleeping bags.

  During the daylight hours, the Marines strengthened their positions, deepening their holes, placing their heavier weapons with the greatest fields of fire. The ammo carriers continued to bring their supplies up the hill, serving as stretcher bearers on the way down for those wounded men who could not walk to the aid station. There weren’t many, the Marines knowing they had given the better part of the fight. Still, every man in the regiment knew they had been slapped hard by an enemy none of them had seen before.

  The Seventh Regiment had been the first Marines to open the fight with the Chinese, and they had given the enemy a thorough bloodying. Litzenberg had stressed to his officers that a victory over this new foe would send a message that might be heard all the way to Moscow, whether or not it was the opening battle of World War III. Whether that message was heard in Peking, the Marines convinced themselves that the Chinese had surely learned a nasty lesson by tangling with the Corps. And so, as they prepared for a third night of fighting, many of the Marines south of Sudong were not at all surprised when the Chinese did not return. But Litzenberg and his officers did not accept the victory as a cause for celebration. Launching patrols and reconnaissance missions, aided by eyes in the air, the Marines pushed forward, hoping to locate the retreating enemy. The march continued northward toward Sudong, but the Chinese were nowhere to be found. As effectively as they had surprised the United Nations forces by their stealth in moving south, so too did they use that stealth to withdraw into the rugged ground out of sight of Marine probes. Though MacArthur’s head of intelligence, General Willoughby in Tokyo, continued to insist that no more than a handful of Chinese troops were engaged in the fighting, Litzenberg and Oliver Smith were beginning to understand that this enemy was far more than some primitive rabble, and far more numerous than a handful of volunteers sent down to help out their Korean friends. Based on the number of troops that had struck at Sudong, none of the Marine commanders were predicting anything but a lengthy fight.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sung

  SOUTH OF THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR, NEAR HAGARU-RI—NOVEMBER 4, 1950

  THE STAFF STOOD BACK, his officers knowing his mood. He stared at a cup of cold tea, his hands folded beneath his chin, a deep silence that would keep the others away until he summoned them.

  High above the canopy of dense treetops, the sun was glorious in a blue sky, welcome warmth from the deep chill of the last few nights. They were prepared for that, the oncoming winter completely predictable, the men around Sung peeling away the heavy layers of their quilted uniforms. It had been another strenuous night, a rapid march over the steep hills, Sung sweating along with his men. But he kept his uniform intact, an example for the staff that no amount of discomfort would equal what the soldiers would experience. Once more they had made full use of the dark, his staff relocating his camp farther south of the reservoir. It was his response to the continuing advance of the Americans, what his observation posts had reluctantly described as a slogging march, a pace that seemed amazingly sluggish for an army with so much mechanization.

  This section of his command area was now occupied by his Forty-second Army, three divisions of three regiments each. The 124th Division had been deployed around the town of Hagaru-ri, placed in a heavy defensive line along the reservoir itself. There was enormous importance to this part of North Korea, the reservoir and the river that fed it supplying energy for the power plants that even now were transmitting their electricity northward into China. He had no reason yet to believe the Americans would alter their northerly course, the Marines keeping close to their road, the single artery their vehicles could use. That road ran directly toward the lowest arm of the reservoir, then branched left, westward, up that side of the waterway. He doubted that the Americans intended to capture the reservoir itself as some kind of geographical prize. Their advance was most certainly intended to carry them to the Yalu River, and, if Peking’s worst fears were realized, they would continue northward, invading Chinese territory. Already he had positioned the 125th Division out to the east of the reservoir, guarding against any advance in that direction, closer to the sea, in the event the American command had decided to pursue the capture of another of the valuable electricity-generating plants near the Fusin Reservoir. In the opposite direction, the 126th Division had been spread out into the rugged hills we
st of Chosin, protecting the flank of his main position and guarding against the unlikely event the Americans left their main road and foolishly turned their march toward the rugged mountain range that split this part of Korea. But no one in Peking believed the Americans would march very far from the security of their main road, the most obvious artery for transporting their supplies from farther south. Sung agreed. But then, the slowness of their advance had inspired Sung to make a more aggressive move, perhaps catching the Marines completely off guard. He had still not been convinced the Americans would continue their drive north. The pace of their march seemed intended to invite a confrontation, his observation posts high above the main road wary that the Marines were purposefully taking their time by sending smaller units up into those hills, as though feeling out for the enemy’s presence. The South Korean troops that had first moved up into the heights had been of no concern to him at all, his field commanders reporting another predictable outcome with any show of force, that once the ROKs realized just who they were confronting, the fight, if there was one, would be brief and one-sided. But Sung knew enough about American Marines to know that they would most likely bull their way into any fight, whether or not it was the wise thing to do. Their sluggishness had offered Sung what seemed like opportunity. If they were so hesitant in their drive toward the reservoir, he would take advantage of the added time the Marines were giving him. Instead of anchoring the 124th at Hagaru-ri, keeping them close to the reservoir, he would push them farther south, all the way to Sudong. The Marines had experienced very little opposition since leaving Wonsan, and Sung suspected that such an easy march would lead to complacency. It was one more symptom of American arrogance, and Sung knew he had to capitalize. As they continued north, the Americans must certainly know that they were being watched at every turn, but he had kept his observers well out of the way. No casualties meant a comfortable march, and comfort was something the Americans seemed to value more than anything else.