Red Phoenix

by Bond , Larry

  As soon as he complied, he heard Chips’s voice. “The left engine is out!”

  Hooter broke in, “We’re clear. No more firing.”

  Chips was a busy man. The helicopter was lightly loaded, so the remaining engine could provide enough power to keep them airborne. Barely. The question was, what else had been shot off?

  Tony was in the unusual position of being in a broken aircraft but not at the controls. All he could do was trust Chips and hang on. The Army pilot quickly scanned the controls and tried to listen to the remaining engine. “We’re airworthy, but I’ve got to set it down soon. Temperature on number two is a little high.”

  Tony was more worried about what they had seen. “Those have to be North Koreans back at the bridge. Call on the guard frequency and put out a warning.”

  They continued north while Hooter used the radio.

  TAECH’ANG

  It was just a small village on a two-lane road. Since the principal industry was farming, it looked asleep in winter, even during the day. Surrounded by now-frozen rice paddies, they were through it in a few minutes.

  Anne welcomed it, seeing it as another milestone. Each landmark passed meant that they were that much closer to Kunsan. It was ten-thirty. If there were no more interruptions, they would be in Kunsan by lunchtime.

  AT THE CHOSAN RIVER BRIDGE

  Yi tried to be fatalistic, but he couldn’t. Curse whatever luck had let the helicopter see the bodies. They had emptied their rifles at it, but M16 rifles just didn’t have the range or hitting power to bring down an aircraft. Still, they had crippled it, which wouldn’t prevent it from sending out a warning.

  The helicopter would radio a warning, and enemy troops would show up. They would attack his position, and he would kill as many fascists as he could, and then he and all his men would be killed. There had never been any question of how the mission would end, just how long it would take. And they weren’t the only special forces unit in the North Korean Army.

  Their mission had already succeeded. Because they had interdicted this bridge for a while, the guards on all the bridges would have to be increased, and also on tunnels, junctions, any choke point. Any South Korean soldier would be suspected of being a North Korean saboteur, and no truck driver would be certain of reaching his destination.

  “Sergeant!” Yong came running up. “Are the charges to the bridge wired?”

  “Yes, sir. And the vehicles and bodies are both booby-trapped.”

  “How about the rest of the explosives?”

  “Being wired now, sir. Another five minutes at the most.”

  Yi looked grim. “We are ready. Tell Corporal Soo to watch the bridge and to blow it if he sees anything approach from the south. Who were you going to put in the outpost?”

  “Private Suh, sir. He’s very reliable.”

  “I know. Get him up there. Everybody not on ‘sentry duty’ should be watching for the enemy. Otherwise, let’s continue as before. We’ll kill as many of the enemy as we can.”

  TWO KILOMETERS SOUTH OF TAECH’ANG

  Chips stomped around on the frozen ground. “How long before those troops get here?”

  Hooter answered. “Half an hour, tops. They have to come from Taech’on. Counting time to saddle up, that’s pretty quick.

  “Yeah, well, it’s damn cold, there’s enemy commandos in the area, and I’ve got a busted helo to explain.”

  Hooter was unconcerned. “When they hear how you detected that North Korean outpost while flying an emergency medical mission, you’ll probably get a medal.”

  Tony had to ask, “ ‘Medical mission?’ ”

  “Sure, Saint. If you had missed your girl, you would have had a broken heart.” He turned to Chips. “They’ll believe anything. Don’t worry.”

  All they could do was wait. They passed the time checking the damage to the helicopter, trying to stay warm, and waiting to see who came down the road first.

  Tony heard them first. “Listen, engines.” They were coming from the north.

  Anne was trying to tear the envelope of an MRE open. She had planned on skipping breakfast, but hunger and Hutchins’s lecture about “eating when you can” had won her over. Her teeth proved inadequate to the task, and finally she borrowed Bell’s bayonet again.

  The convoy, with her truck still in the lead, came around a bend in the road. There was a clearing on the right with a helicopter in it. Hutchins told Bell to slow down, and she spotted three men by the nose of the craft, waving at them.

  The captain ordered Bell to pull over and stop, and they all climbed out. Anne stepped out and saw—TONY?—and two other men coming over.

  Hutchins couldn’t understand. Miss Larson had seemed like a reserved woman, certainly not the type to display affection for complete strangers.

  Hooter and Chips explained the situation to Captain Hutchins and his men while Tony and Anne strolled off to talk. After an initial explanation, Anne’s head was whirling. She didn’t know what to talk about first. His trip to see her, the attack by the commandos, or her trip from Seoul. So she didn’t talk about any of these things. She just listened and looked at Tony.

  Their wanderings had taken them back behind the Huey, out of plain sight of the convoy. He was pointing out the damage to the aircraft when he stopped and changed the subject.

  “Anne, I was really worried when I heard about the attack on Seoul airport. I… it’s hard to explain.”

  She smiled. “Don’t try. I think I understand.”

  “No, Anne, I have to tell you how scared I was when I learned about the attack on Kimpo.”

  He paused and looked into her eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.” She looked down at the ground, avoiding his gaze, but he continued, “I don’t want to ever lose you, Anne. I love you.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “You sure proved that. A helicopter?”

  “Anne, I had to see you.” He explained about the timing.

  “Tony, I’m glad you came, but I don’t know how I feel yet. I haven’t got my feelings sorted out.”

  “Mine are definitely sorted, but I understand. I just had to tell you where I stood.”

  “Well, I kind of like where you’re standing. But a helicopter?” She peered at the machine. “It looks damaged.”

  “I’m hoping I can hitch a ride with your convoy after the bridge is cleared. I don’t have any way to get back to Kunsan.”

  “I’m glad. We’ll have time to talk.”

  “Hey, guys!” Hooter’s call invaded their world. “The Army’s here.”

  They walked back to the road. Pulled up next to Anne’s convoy was a new group, four vehicles crammed with Korean soldiers and weapons. Hooter and Chips were talking with a burly-looking captain, who stood lopsidedly. Hutchins and Evans were still deploying their men around the area, in case there were any commandos nearby.

  “Tony, this is Captain Cha.” Cha saluted briskly. “Chips and I have been filling him in on what we saw.”

  Cha picked up the conversation. “Yes, sir. It’s almost certainly a group of enemy infiltrators. My men and I will clear them out. It cannot be more than a few men, and I have a reinforced platoon.” He looked at the three pilots. “Would you like to accompany us?”

  The Americans exchanged quick glances and simultaneously said, “No thanks.” Tony added, “I’ll leave ground combat to the professionals.”

  Cha actually looked disappointed, seemed about to try to persuade them, but changed his mind and boarded his jeep. “We will drive up closer to the bridge and then deploy. This shouldn’t take too long. We will send a messenger back when the road is clear.” Saluting, the captain and his troops roared off.

  AT THE CHOSAN RIVER BRIDGE

  Captain Yi knew that there would be some sort of attempt to clear the bridge, and he was going to make them pay dearly for this piece of territory. They would never get the bridge back, and even the ruins would be expensive.

  Private Suh waited in a camouflaged spider hole three hund
red meters up the road. He was isolated from the bridge by a small rise, and his hole was dug into the edge of a copse of trees. He had found the time to line his hideout with pine boughs, and outside of the cramped quarters, it was moderately comfortable.

  He had been waiting for over an hour, ever since the American helicopter had escaped. He heard the engines, and his rush of excitement and fear at the approach of the enemy was mixed with relief.

  A jeep appeared first, then three trucks. The lead jeep held an officer and had a machine gun over the back. As he watched, it pulled off the road, with the officer motioning to the vehicles behind. It slowed and stopped, exactly where his captain had said it would.

  The waiting was hardest. If they had dashed off quickly, he might have been helpless, but they were in no hurry to unload. As soon as the last truck had come to a stop, he pushed the plunger.

  Claymore mines weighed about ten pounds. They were the size and shape of a telephone book and were not supposed to be buried in the ground. They had two prongs that a soldier could push into the ground. The prongs allowed them to sit on one edge, while wires ran back to electric firing switches. One side of each mine said “Place Toward Enemy.”

  They were directional mines. On detonation, plastic explosive fired hundreds of steel balls several hundred feet in a fan-shaped pattern. And the North Korean commandos had planted five of them in an arc, facing the road.

  A mixture of snow, smoke, and fragments filled the air, followed by screams and splanging sounds of metal balls hitting metal.

  Suh waited. As the mist thinned, the horror it hid was revealed slowly. Men lay sprawled in the snow, red patches outlining their forms. He could see at least a dozen bodies, and he knew that as yet, he could not have been detected.

  The sudden silence was filled with moans and cries, and Suh waited a few minutes for the leaders to appear, to start giving orders and get the men organized. Then he started shooting.

  They all heard the explosion, and the firing. Tony and Anne and everyone else listened for the smallest sound, trying to follow distant events. After the first explosion and gunfire, there was nothing.

  Hooter bounced up and down a little bit. “Short fight. I guess there weren’t too many bad guys.” He smiled.

  The others ignored him. Tony looked at Hutchins. “That didn’t sound like what I would have expected.”

  The captain agreed. “It didn’t sound good.”

  “Should we check it out?”

  Hutchins, more from courtesy than need, considered the question. “No, Major. We don’t know the situation and might stumble into something. Even if everything’s okay, Cha wouldn’t like having his elbow joggled.”

  He looked at Hooter. “If that was all of the fight, they’ll send word back. EVANS!”

  The sergeant came running over. “Sir!”

  “Double-check the perimeter. Make sure there’s no way for a man to be taken alone, and no way for anyone to slip in between our men.”

  To no one in particular he announced, “We will sit tight.”

  The South Korean soldier appeared twenty minutes later. They all heard the call from one of the lookouts, but there was no real need for a warning. He staggered up the road, doing his best to hurry, but slowed down by wounds and shock and half-frozen to boot.

  The sergeant started snapping orders. “Get him in the truck! Hughes, get your aid kit! Murphy and Rodriguez, scout down the road and find out what happened. Shoot at anything that moves.”

  Hutchins, Evans, and the aid man disappeared into the truck while the others waited outside. Anne kept on looking up the road, feeling the cold grow with her uncertainty.

  After five minutes Hutchins and Evans jumped out of the truck. Anne ran up with a questioning look, and Hutchins answered, “He’ll probably live.”

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  “They walked into some sort of ambush. Most of them are killed, the rest are wounded. The Korean says they only got one man.”

  Sergeant Evans came up to the officer with a walkie-talkie. “Sir, Murphy’s reached the spot.”

  Hutchins took the radio. “This is Six, over. … How many?… Okay. Sit tight and watch the road to the south. We’re on our way.” He turned to the sergeant and nodded.

  Evans started giving orders. “Saddle up! Everybody into the trucks.”

  Anne got the story from Hutchins as they rode forward. “It was a massacre. Murphy says the area is secure, but they need help. My men and I will have to tackle the commandos.

  “Miss Larson, you and your people can’t fight, but we will need anyone who knows first aid. You can stay back and help the wounded while we move up.”

  Anne protested. “Why don’t we just wait for more troops?”

  “Our radios are too weak to call for help. Since the nearest detachment reacted, it would be even longer before anybody else could respond. Hours probably. That gives those bastards too much time. Besides, I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let someone else do my fighting while I’ve got effectives.”

  They saw the carnage spread out along the road, and Anne felt something twisting her insides. She felt flushed and stared at the soldiers’ wounds, imagining them on her body.

  Hutchins shook her shoulder. “Don’t think about it, Miss Larson. Just keep busy. You can’t get sick if you’re helping them.”

  The scene changed to one of organized confusion. The wounded were found and moved into the comparative warmth of the trucks. The dead, frozen into grotesque shapes, were stacked off to one side. Evans had his men throw up a defensive perimeter, while the pilots scavenged weapons and equipment.

  It was an impressive pile, including antitank rockets, a heavy machine gun and two lighter ones, and ammunition. Evans’s eyes gleamed and he started distributing it to his men. Tony and Hooter refused to take rifles. They each had a pistol and fervently hoped they wouldn’t have to use them.

  One volunteer from Anne’s staff and a lightly wounded soldier were sent back up the road to report to Taech’on.

  Evans made his report. “Sir, there were thirty-eight Koreans here. Twenty-one are dead. Ten are seriously wounded, the rest are walking wounded. Cha is dead and his sergeant is incapacitated.”

  Hutchins was shaken by the losses but looked determined. “Will they fight?”

  “No question, sir. I recommend giving them another few minutes to thaw out and eat, but they’re mad, sir. They’d go alone if we weren’t here.”

  There was a popping sound from the south that quickly exploded into rifle and machine gun fire. Evans yelled, “Hold your positions!” and sprinted over in that direction.

  Hutchins looked at the pilots. “I think we’ve spent all the time we’re going to get. Let’s go.”

  The captain kept it simple. Forming a skirmish line, he had his men advance in a line on both sides of the road. Moving from tree to tree, they knew they were up against the best the enemy had. They had to depend on numbers. Hutchins had briefed them all to watch for more claymore mines, and their progress was slowed as every man searched for trip wires.

  It wasn’t enough. A man’s scream of fear was cut off as he tripped a mine. The sound of an explosion was replaced by rifle fire. Everyone fell flat as bullets whined around them. The commandos’ numbers were impossible to determine, but they were making their presence felt.

  Tony blew snow out of his face and looked for Hooter. Like any good wingman, he was back a little and to one side.

  Crawling backward, Tony moved next to John and punched him in the shoulder. Hooter looked at him questioningly, and Tony pointed over to where the mine had detonated.

  Tony turned without waiting for answer and started crawling. Off to his left, men lay or crouched in the snow, firing at targets he couldn’t see. The effort of moving while staying flat to the ground tired him but kept him warm as well.

  In front of him the snow was streaked with brown and gray. His eyes followed the lines back to the source, where a small depression was
the only sign of the mine’s presence. He crawled a little farther, and another sign of its presence revealed itself.

  The man lay on his back, half-covered by snow and debris. Tony could see a dark patch on his chest, and his face was bloody, dripping onto the snow.

  As the pilots crawled up to him, he moaned. At least they hadn’t crawled all this way for nothing. Bullets whizzed over them, and it was obvious that the first thing to do was get him out of here.

  Grabbing his arms, they started crawling away from the fighting. Occasionally a rifle bullet would remind them of which direction to go.

  They reached a small fold in the ground, and Tony yelled for Hughes. The aid man came running and professionally eased in to attend the wounds.

  After a few minutes the soldier moaned and his eyelids flickered. Hughes sounded positive. “He’s got two light wounds. The one in the chest needs surgery, but he should make it fine. Thank you, sirs.”

  They had heard other men fall. Tony started to head back. “Come on, Hooter. No rest for the weary.”

  Yi looked at his command. With seven men at the start of the fight, the odds were against him. He was down to two now, just himself and a private on the detonator for the bridge. There was no point in waiting any longer.

  Tony and Hooter were resting between trips, congratulating themselves on not getting hit themselves, when there was an earth-shattering KABOOM! They could see a large cloud of smoke and dust to the south.

  Hutchins jumped up and shouted, “That’s it! They’ve blown the bridge! They know they’ve lost.”

  As Hutchins’s men had advanced, each trip to their impromptu aid station had gotten longer. Tony was creeping forward, with Hooter behind him, when he realized that they could see a small building, and that someone in it was shooting.

  They flattened, Tony wiping snow off his face again. Looking left and right, he could see the troops pouring fire into the doors and windows. This went on for some time, when suddenly there was a whooshing sound and a smoke trail drew a line from the trees to the building. A second joined it, and the twin explosions tore chunks out of the walls, blew out the windows, and finally collapsed the roof.