Retreat, Hell!

by W. E. B Griffin

  He wasn’t even sure if he had eaten his last rice ball yesterday or the day before yesterday.

  All he was sure about was that deciding to move north-eastward was probably the worst fucking mistake he had made in his life. And might well be the last major mistake of his life.

  There was nothing in this part of Korea but steep hills and more steep hills. No rice paddies. Damned few roads, and from what he’d seen of the traffic on them, it was mostly long lines of retreating North Korean soldiers, most of them on foot.

  North American F-51 fighters, carrying the insignia of the South Korean Air Force, regularly flew over the roads, strafing anything they saw moving. They flew so low that there was no question in Pickering’s mind that if he just stood in the middle of one of the roads he would be seen by one of the F-51 pilots, who would then stand the airplane on its wing, do a quick one-eighty, and then come back and let him have a burst from the eight .50-caliber Brownings in its wings.

  The F-51 pilot would logically presume that anyone on these roads was a North Korean. The South Koreans were holed up someplace out of sight. He’d also come across, making his way over the mountains, a dozen or more rock formations that by stretching the term could be called caves. They didn’t go deep into the mountains, but far enough so that a family of five or six could go into one of them and not be visible from either the ground or the air.

  When one of the South Korean F-51s, or a section of them, caught a platoon, or a company, of North Koreans in the open and strafed them, the dead and wounded were left where they had been hit. There were very few North Korean vehicles of any kind, and the few trucks he had seen— some of them captured 6 × 6s and weapons carriers—were jammed with the walking wounded. They had kept their arms and used them to guarantee their positions on the trucks.

  There was therefore the smell of rotting bodies that seemed to be getting worse, not better, even though it was getting chilly all the time, and freezing cold at night.

  There was no question that the tide of war had changed. The North Koreans were not only retreating but bore little resemblance to an organized military force.

  So obviously all he had to do was . . .

  Make himself invisible to the F-51 pilots, so they wouldn’t blow him away. To that end, he had plastered his face and hands with mud, so they would not be a bright spot on the ground to be investigated and strafed. Or maybe just strafed, skipping the investigation, and . . .

  Make himself invisible to the retreating North Koreans, who would almost certainly shoot him if they could, not for a military reason but to see if he had anything to eat, and . . .

  Wait for friendly troops to come up one of the roads. There were several problems with that. Friendly troops would, like the F-51 pilots, conclude that anybody here in the middle of nowhere was a North Korean. American troops might take such people prisoner. From what he had seen, the South Koreans would not.

  The major problem was that he had been on short rations since he’d been shot down, and over the last four or five days the short rations had diminished to zero. And since he had stopped eating, he could feel his strength diminishing with each step—each labored breath—he took.

  He didn’t think, in other words, that he was going to make it.

  He was not going to give up, but on the other hand there wasn’t much difference between what he was able to do and giving up. Unless, of course, he gave up by taking a dive off the nearby cliff or putting the .45 to his temple, and even being hungry, dirty, tired, and sick seemed better than those options. With his luck, he thought, he wouldn’t get killed taking a dive off the cliff, he would break both legs and arms and lie in agony for Christ only knew how long.

  There was another option to checking out, if that’s what was going to happen, and that was to lie on one of the boulders and let the sun warm him while he thought of Jeanette.

  At first, when he thought of Jeanette, the thoughts were erotic. Now when he thought of her, there was little lust in the fantasy. He remembered how she smelled and the soft touch of her fingers on his face.

  It would be very nice, he thought, if he wasn’t going to make it, if he went to sleep in the sun thinking of Jeanette and then just never woke up.

  He thought about asking God to give him at least that, but decided against it. He asked God to make it as easy on Jeanette and his mother and father, and Ernie, and even Killer McCoy. It wasn’t right, he thought, to ask God for special treatment, but his parents and Jeanette and the others shouldn’t have pain on his account. Maybe God would see it that way, too.

  He had just turned onto his stomach when he heard the sound of tearing metal. That caught his attention, and then he heard the sound of clashing gears and an engine racing.

  He got up, and walked as quickly as he could manage around an outcropping of rock to the cliff he decided he would not take a dive from, and looked down at the road.

  It was a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles. A very strange one. In the lead was a jeep. Behind it were two M-26 tanks, a tank recovery vehicle, a heavy-duty wrecker, another tank recovery vehicle, and then another heavy-duty wrecker.

  Pickering closed his eyes and shook his head to make sure he wasn’t delusionary. When he opened his eyes again, the convoy was still there. It wasn’t moving, and he saw why. The first heavy-duty wrecker had collided with the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle and knocked its rear wheels off the road.

  Pickering went down the hill as fast as he could.

  He made it to the road.

  He put his hands over his head and started walking down it.

  “American!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

  And then he began to sing and shout, as loud as he could manage:

  “From the Halls of Montezuma,

  “American! Don’t shoot!

  “To the Shores of Tripoli

  “American! Don’t shoot!

  “We will fight our nation’s battles!

  “American! Don’t shoot!

  “On the Land and on the Sea!

  “American! Don’t shoot!”

  Captain Francis P. MacNamara, commanding officer of the 8023d Transportation Company (Depot, Forward), who had elected to lead the test over-the-road run to the east coast, who was examining the considerable damage the wrecker had done to the retrieval trailer, heard the noise.

  He drew his .45, worked the action, shouted “Heads up!” and stepped into the center of the road.

  A tall, thin human being, too large for a Korean, was walking down the center of the road with his hands in the air. He was wearing what looked like the remnants of some kind of coveralls. His face was streaked with mud.

  And he was making strange sounds.

  I’ll be a sonofabitch if he isn’t singing! And it’s “The Marines’ Hymn ”! I’ll be a sonofabitch!

  “Who the hell are you?” Captain MacNamara demanded.

  “Major Malcolm S. Pickering, United States Marine Corps,” Pick croaked . . . and then fell first to his knees, and then flat on his face.

  MacNamara hurriedly holstered his .45 and ran to him.

  He first felt for signs of life, then turned him over and wrapped his arms around him and held him like a baby.

  “Get some water up here!” he shouted. “And there’s a bottle of bourbon in the glove compartment in my jeep. Bring that. And some blankets.”

  “And if you happen to have some food,” the walking skeleton in his arms said, very faintly.

  “You got it, Major,” Captain MacNamara said.

  Five minutes later, Major Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was laid out on several blankets on the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle. He had been given a stiff drink of Captain Mac-Namara’s Old Forester—which he had promptly thrown up—and half a dozen spoonfuls of ham chunks in pineapple sauce, three of which he had managed to keep down.

  The blankets had been provided by Technical Sergeant Alvin H. Donn, U.S. Army, who was the NCO in charge of the M-26 tanks. He had also held Major Picker
ing up in a sitting position while Captain MacNamara had, with all the tenderness of a mother, spoon-fed him the ham chunks in pineapple sauce, and while he had thrown up.

  There were now a dozen men standing at the side of the tank recovery trailer looking down with mingled amazement, curiosity, and pity at the human skeleton on the blankets.

  Sergeant Donn pointed to Staff Sergeant James D. Buckley, the commander of the second tank.

  “Stay with the major,” he ordered. “Try to get some food in him. No more booze.”

  When Buckley had taken his place, Donn slid off the trailer and nodded his head at Captain MacNamara, a signal he wanted a word with him. MacNamara followed him to the recovery vehicle tractor.

  He had made a snap judgment when he had first met Sergeant Donn. A goddamn good NCO, as he himself had been. He had then thereafter treated him accordingly.

  “That guy’s in really bad shape,” Sergeant Donn said. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

  “We’ll have to get this out of the way,” MacNamara agreed, slamming the tank retriever trailer with his fist. “Fuck it, we’ll just push it the rest of the way off the road. Maybe we could lay him on the hood of the jeep. But where the hell do we take him?”

  “I’ve got a radio in the tank that sometimes lets me talk to light aircraft,” Donn said. “We could give that a shot.”

  MacNamara nodded his head.

  They walked past the second tank to the first, and crawled onto it. Donn lowered himself into the turret and came up a minute later with a microphone and a headset.

  “What do they call this circus?”

  “Task Force Road Service,” MacNamara said. That had been Colonel Kennedy’s whimsical suggestion/order.

  Donn pushed the round black TRANSMIT button on the microphone.

  “Road Service to any U.S. aircraft hearing my call,” he said. “Road Service to any U.S. aircraft hearing my call.”

  There was no reply.

  He made the call twice again. This time there was a reply.

  “Go ahead, Road Service.”

  “Who are you?” Donn asked.

  “I’m an Air Force F-51, call sign Air Force three oh seven.”

  “Air Force three oh seven, we just picked up a shot-down pilot. We have to get him to a hospital, and right now.”

  “Who and where are you, Road Service?”

  “We’re a small convoy, two M-26s and wreckers and tank recovery vehicles. We are approximately six miles northeast of Jaeun-Ri.”

  “Say again location?”

  “We are approximately six miles northeast of Jaeun-Ri.”

  “Hold one, I’ll see if I can find it on the chart.”

  There was a long silence before Air Force three oh seven came back on the air.

  “Road Service, I think I have you. I think I’m about twenty miles south. Let me get a positive location, and then I’ll try to get a helicopter from the Navy. I should be there in a couple of minutes.”

  Another voice came over the air.

  “Road Service, say again your location.”

  “Approximately six miles northeast of Jaeun-Ri. Who are you?”

  There was a long silence.

  “I’m about five miles from your position. Have you got any flares?”

  “Affirmative. Who are you?”

  “Wait sixty seconds, and then start shooting flares at sixty-second intervals.”

  “Okay. Who are you?”

  There was no reply.

  It took Sergeant Donn about sixty seconds to get flares from inside the tank. As soon as he had one loaded, he shot it off.

  He had just fired the third flare when there was a strange noise.

  Fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata.

  “What the hell is that?” Sergeant Donn asked.

  “It’s a helicopter,” Captain MacNamara said. He had heard the sound before.

  “Jesus, the Navy sent one that quick?”

  “I don’t think that’s a Navy helicopter,” MacNamara said.

  “Okay,” the radio said. “Enough flares. I have you in sight. Are there any telephone wires, cables, anything like that down there?”

  Donn and MacNamara looked.

  “Negative. No wires or cables.”

  “Okay. Here we come.”

  A Sikorsky H-19A helicopter, painted black, came down the valley, flew over the convoy, slowed, stopped forward movement, turned around, and fluttered to the ground.

  A half-dozen heavily armed men, dressed in what looked like black pajamas, erupted from the passenger compartment. Another one started climbing down from the cockpit.

  “What the hell is this?” Sergeant Donn asked.

  The man who had climbed down from the cockpit trotted up to them. When he saw Captain MacNamara, he said, “Oh, Jesus, look who it is!” And then, “Where’s the pilot?”

  MacNamara pointed to the tank recovery vehicle trailer.

  The man made a follow me signal with his hand to the other men in black pajamas as he started to trot to the trailer. They began to trot after him.

  So did Sergeant Donn, who was more than a little curious about the guys in the black pajamas, and the black helicopter with no markings in which they had arrived.

  He got there about the time the first guy in the black pajamas did.

  The first guy looked down at the human skeleton.

  “Hello, you ugly bastard,” he said. “Where the hell have you been hiding?”

  The human skeleton raised one hand and grasped the hand of the guy in the black pajamas. Sergeant Donn saw tears form and roll down the human skeleton’s cheeks, and when he glanced at the guy from the chopper, he saw tears on his cheeks, too.

  After a moment, the guy from the chopper turned his head.

  “Okay, let’s get him on the bird,” he ordered. He turned again to the human skeleton. “You hurt, Pick?”

  “I’m fine,” the human skeleton said.

  “Three guys on each side of the blankets,” the guy in the pajamas ordered. “And be careful with him.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” one of the men in pajamas said.

  An Army major wearing pilot’s wings walked quickly—almost trotted—up to them.

  “Can you raise the Badoeng Strait?” the man in pajamas, Major Ken McCoy, said.

  “Jesus, I don’t think so, Ken,” the pilot, Major Alex Donald, said.

  “Hell!”

  “Maybe the F-51 can,” Donald said.

  “And you can talk to him?” McCoy asked.

  “No problem.”

  “How are we fixed for fuel?”

  “Not well. No matter where we go, we’ll have to refuel first.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Donald started for the helicopter.

  McCoy turned to MacNamara. "MacNamara, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Trying to get to Wonsan.”

  “You’re not going to get there on this road,” McCoy said. “It ends at a lake—no ferry—about three miles from here. I’ll leave one of my men with you, and he’ll get you onto a road around the lake.”

  “Thank you,” MacNamara said. “I appreciate that.”

  “I owe you,” McCoy said. He put out his hand and then trotted to the helicopter.

  Before he got there, an Air Force F-51 flew over them, very slowly.

  When McCoy climbed into the cockpit, the voice of the F-51 pilot was already coming over the headset.

  “Road Service, Air Force three oh seven. I have you in sight. How do you read?”

  McCoy grabbed the microphone.

  “Air Force three oh seven, this is Army four zero zero three.”

  “Zero zero three, are you the black helicopter on the ground?”

  “Air Force three oh seven, can you contact the aircraft carrier Badoeng Strait? They’re operating in the Sea of Japan.”

  “I don’t know. W
ho is this?”

  "Please call the Badoeng Strait. Let me know if you get through.”

  “Who is this?”

  “A friendly word of advice, Air Force three oh seven— do what I ask, and do it now.”

  “Stand by.”

  There was a sixty-second wait, and then: “Negative on contact with the Badoeng Strait.”

  Major Donald was now sitting beside McCoy. He put his hand out for the microphone, and McCoy gave it up.

  “Three oh seven,” Donald ordered, “climb to ten thousand and try it again on the emergency frequency.”

  “Stand by.”

  This time the delay was on the order of four minutes, which gave Donald time to fire up the H-19A.

  “Army four zero zero three, Air Force three oh seven is in contact with the Badoeng Strait.”

  Donald handed McCoy the microphone.

  “Air Force three oh seven, stand by to relay message to Badoeng Strait. Message follows: ‘For Colonel William Dunn. Bingo. Killer. Heads up. En route.’ Got that?”

  “Got it. Stand by.”

  This time the wait was less than sixty seconds.

  “Army four zero zero three, Badoeng Strait acknowledges. ”

  “How are you fixed for fuel?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Could you fly cover for us for a while?”

  “Affirmative. I have one hour fuel aboard. Who are you?”

  “Thank you, Air Force three oh seven. We’re taking off now.”

  McCoy turned to Donald and made a lifting motion— take it up—with his hands.

  Then he said, “Oh, shit!”

  Donald took his hands off the controls and looked at McCoy.

  “I told MacNamara I’d leave him somebody to get him on the right road,” McCoy said.

  He leaned between the seats of the cockpit so that he could shout into the passenger compartment.

  “The Army’s lost,” he called. “Leave two men and a map behind to get them on the road around the lake.”

  Sixty seconds after that, two men in black pajamas got out of the H-19A and ran just far enough away so that Donald could see them. When he did, the H-19A lifted off.

  [THREE]