Our Next Great War

by Martin Archer

  The arrival of the soldiers obviously surprised the police. There was quite a bit of shouting back and forth and our questioner kept pointing at us. Then the colonel commanding the new arrivals pulled out his pistol and held it at arm’s length pointing at the head of our questioner.

  It suddenly got very quiet.

  Everyone, including me, was deafened by the noise when the colonel pulled the trigger and a plume of red mist sprayed out of the back of the policeman’s head and splattered the dirty concrete wall. Holy shit. Two minutes later we were untied, helped on to our feet, and offered a cup of tea.

  But then our rescuers had the same problem as our questioner; none of them could speak English. One of the trembling policemen said something and the colonel nodded.

  It was almost funny to watch the trembling policeman leave. He warily walked as far away from the colonel as possible as he went around him to get out the door. Then we all just stood there and looked at each other until an equally battered and disheveled Eugene walked in while trying to button his pants and tuck in his shirt.

  Things move along quickly after that. The colonel was quite solicitous. Within minutes we were ravenously wolfing down sandwiches. From the homemade look of them it’s likely some policemen were going to miss supper.

  The colonel who rescued us seemed quite pleased when Eugene translated my request for a phone line to call General Danovsky’s headquarters. He was even more pleased when Danovsky’s headquarters immediately accepted the call and he heard Eugene ask to be connected to Colonel Lindauer in General Danovsky’s personal office, and then handed the phone to me. From that moment on he was our best friend.

  ******

  “Change of plans, Vern. The big boss wants us to check out the North Koreans. He wants to know how long we think the Russians can hold.”

  Vern scooped up the remaining sandwiches as Eugene explained to our rescuer that we needed weapons and a ride down the road to where General Chernenko was waiting for the North Koreans.

  Our new best friend began barking orders and a few minutes later, after long overdue visit to an absolutely filthy latrine, we were carrying Russian assault rifles and barreling down the road in our rescuer’s jeep with two truckloads of hastily conscripted Russian troops following close behind. We could see the port's cranes unloading tanks and BMDs from the Kuznetsov as we drove out of town.

  Russia’s “highway” south from Vladivostok towards the North Korean border runs next to the railroad tracks and periodically is framed like a picture with a great view of the ocean off to the left and snow covered mountains to the right. It’s a two lane dirt road and its ruts and potholes obviously haven’t been graded for quite some time. Probably since World War Two. It was cold riding in the open jeep even with the hooded jackets and gloves we dug out of our magically reappearing duffle bags.

  We were on an empty dirt road. We didn’t see any traffic except a horse cart coming the other way piled high with a load of branches. Once I saw some people walking among the scraggly spruce and pine trees off to the side of the road; other than that, there was absolutely nothing. What a shitty place to live. No wonder the Russians send their convicts and political prisoners out here.

  Finally, we came around a corner and there was a truck parked across the road with a couple of soldiers waving us to a stop. I could see from the insignia on their uniforms that we’ve found General Chernenko and his blocking force. I even recognized one of the men. He’d been the Chernenko’s orderly and brought in the tea when we had meetings.

  “The Colonel is up ahead, Comrades” he reported as we exchanged warm salutes and handshakes as the lieutenant our rescuer sent with us beamed his approval.

  A few minutes later, and an embarrassing fall on my ass when I slipped on some ice, and it is bear hugs and hot tea all around. It is quickly obvious that the General has chosen a pretty good place to stop the North Koreans. He looked at me curiously when I addressed him as General as he was pointing out where his men are located.

  “You don’t know?” I asked. He shook his head.

  “Well then,” I said as I saluted very formally. “Let me congratulate you, General. I emphasized the word ‘General.’ I heard about it a couple of hours ago from both Colonel Lindauer in General Danovsky’s office and from General Evans. And you’re the frontal commander here as well.”

  Chernenko was dumbfounded. “Can it be true?” he finally asked as he stared at me in disbelief.

  “Yes, it’s true” I said. “And General Danovsky is sending three divisions for you to command. At least that’s what Colonel Lindauer told me. Two from the Chinese front on the Ussuri, where things have suddenly gotten very quiet, and one from the carrier which was just docking as we drove out of the city to come here.”

  ******

  Trucks loaded with cold and hungry troops showed up all afternoon and through the early evening. They seemed to be a motley crew of clerks and jerks scrapped up from around the port. Some of them didn’t even have weapons. Vern and I help Chernenko and his handful of officers position them.

  Everything changed for the better at about nine that evening. There was an earth shaking rumble behind us and a company of nine T-62 tanks from the Kuznetov showed up with a colonel who introduced himself as the deputy commander of the 42nd Guards Division. He knew Chernenko’s name and rank from a radio message received on the ship. I think when the colonel saluted and reported to him was the first time Chernenko really believed he’d been promoted.

  They met in a little plywood workers shack where a rusty pump cart had been stored. A single lantern lights the shack and the colonel is mightily impressed. The obviously exhausted Chernenko had a stubby little assault rifle slung over his back, desperately needed a shave, was absolutely filthy with a ripped coat heavily splattered with blood stains, and he had a bandage on his left hand and another on his neck. He looked every inch a fighting general.

  Chernenko’s men were strung out in a very thin line behind a little river and the snow dusted marshy areas that run along on either side of it. He didn’t have listening posts out in front of his line because the water was too cold to cross.

  There was ice on the pools of water in the swampy area and no place for the troops to get warm except for the little bonfires that were springing up everywhere even though they began to draw sniper fire and be hurriedly relocated as dawn approached. It was so cold and windy that anyone who got wet was almost certain to die. Wonder how the Koreans will get across—probably either try to throw pontoon bridges over the river and the swampy area or storm the road bridge.

  Apparently the Russian political officer had taken his assignment to heart. All night long army trucks, civilian buses, and armored vehicles from the Kuznetsov and the Chinese Front arrived in the dark and their freezing occupants were quickly assigned to places in the line along the river.

  The next morning it is found to everyone’s dismay that many of the nighttime arrivals were in the wrong places so that much shifting back and forth was needed.

  Significant amounts of reinforcements began arriving in the morning. They were met and received their assignments from the first colonel to report. He had been grabbed up by Chernenko to be his aide. Chernenko himself is sitting on an ammunition case and fast asleep with his head down on the rough wooden table that is his headquarters’ only furniture.

  The officers who reported their arrival to the newly appointed colonel were greatly impressed by his almost reverential attitude towards his new boss, and what little they’d heard about him when they received their orders. And they certainly harbored no illusions. The flatcars stacked five-deep with Chernenko’s dead were still standing on the railroad siding under the brutal glare of the port floodlights for all to see—they had driven past them on the way to the front.

  Chapter Thirty

  Desperate times.

  North Korean troops began to arrive just before noon. First it was skirmishers, and then a few snipers, not many, but enough to keep e
veryone down and cause a number of campfires to be quickly put out. Within minutes numerous columns of men could be seen in the distance trudging towards the still-adjusting and still-growing Russian lines.

  “Please wake up Comrade General,” the colonel intoned gently as he shook his General’s shoulder. “The Koreans are coming.”

  Three worried looking major generals were crowded into the shack and watching. The difference between them in their clean uniforms and the sleeping and filthy Chernenko with his bandages and the assault rife on his back was striking. They snapped to attention and saluted as he lifted his head and somehow managed to knock over the cup of hot tea they had watched the colonel reverently place in front of him a few moments before.

  “We must stop them,” were Chernenko's first words as he lurched to his feet. Nothing he might have said or done could have endeared him more to the waiting generals.

  ******

  Vern and I were standing outside the shack in the midst of a growing number of murmuring aides and officers when Chernenko and the generals come out. We’d seen the anxiety and uncertainty on the generals’ faces as they entered. But something had changed. They came out looking confident and grimly determined.

  “I don’t know what they’re drinking in there, but I’d like to find out and get a couple of bottles,” Vern says.

  “You got that right. Let’s try to call home and report.”

  A few minutes later Vern and I, with Eugene tagging along like a hungry and cold puppy, followed General Chernenko and his new generals to a shiny new radio and desk equipped BMD that had just been unloaded from a ship and driven straight to the front. One of the newly arrived division commanders had brought it for use as his headquarters. Now he was sharing it with Chernenko—and it was frantically busy.

  One look inside and I knew there was no way I was going to get a secure phone link to anywhere for a while. We could hear periodic small arms fire in the distance.

  “Just snipers,” Vern said with a shrug. “No one’s getting across that marsh and the river without a boat or bridge.”

  About thirty minutes later a flare went up and every Russian cannon fired ten aimed high explosive rounds as fast as it could. We could see the dark smudges of explosions in the distance on the other side of the river and, a few seconds later, hear the sound as they hit.

  The Russians were going for the distant columns where the North Koreans were concentrated. Unfortunately the sporadic small arms firing never ceased and the columns kept coming.

  Then the North Korean artillery opened up with counter-battery fire and we all dove for cover. We ended up shivering in the icy slush under a newly arrived T-62.

  ******

  “It was sort of weird, Colonel.”

  It’s a little after two o’clock in the morning. We finally got access to a radio phone in the headquarters BMD and I was trying to explain the last forty-eight hours to a sleepy Colonel Lindauer. What I was describing was how surprised we were that the Russian generals entered the little shack looking anxious and uncertain and came out a few minutes later looking confident and absolutely determined to fight.

  “Not really surprising,” the colonel replied. “The Russian officers lost two wars in a row and they’re anxious not to lose a third and be totally disgraced. They’re undoubtedly pleased as punch to find that Danovsky wants his men to stand and fight.”

  “Well, they’re sure as hell going to fight here,” I told him. “Chernenko is determined to hold the North Koreans and he’s going to have the better part of three divisions on the line by tomorrow night or the day after. And they’re already pounding the Korean infantry and artillery with the artillery which showed up a couple of hours ago. They’re using tracked 122s I think.

  “Colonel, it looks to me as though the North Koreans are either going to have to seriously commit their armor and air or they’ll have to hold up here until the Russians run out of food and ammunition.”

  “How soon do you think that will be?” the colonel asked. “Running out of food and ammunition, I mean.”

  “Not very long unless the Russians get an airlift or some ships show up with food and ammunition. They also need some tents and winter gear to keep the troops warm in their foxholes and trenches, to the extent they can dig them.

  "The ground's frozen. It’s already goddamn cold out here, you know.”

  ****** General Evans

  I had just gotten home that evening after picking Susan up from a homework session at a friend’s house when Colonel Lindauer called to tell me about Major Carpenter's report. Thank god they’re safe. Now if only Shapiro would turn up. I immediately called The Detachment and told the duty NCO to recall the planning staff. As soon as I hung up I called Tony Perelli, my deputy at Seventh Army, and asked for an airlift plan from him also.

  Then I called Tony Talbot’s office in the Pentagon. It was Sunday just after lunchtime and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is reputed to be a diehard golfer. So he surprised me by answering when the duty officer transfered my call to his home in Virginia. Then he really surprised me by saying that someone at the NSA had just finished reading him a transcript of the conversation between Carpenter and Lindauer. I wonder if he’s listening to my calls. Actually that sort of worries me.

  “See ya my dears. Duty calls.” And with that trite comment and a wave to Ann and the kids I set out for The Detachment.

  ******

  Three hours and a lot of phone calls to Moscow and the United States and we had the beginnings of an airlift plan and were already beginning to put it into effect.

  If the past was any guide, sometime tomorrow Seventh Army would have a similar plan with some additional good ideas; and the Pentagon will take three of four days and propose a course of action involving everyone including the Coast Guard, the Boy Scouts, a Presidential speech, and a couple of congressional and flag officer fact-finding junkets.

  Captain Farris, my new interpreter, was able to get me through to Danovsky, and then Colonel Lindauer, a little before midnight here in France, morning there in the east. What I heard was more than a little distressing, and it got worse when we saw the latest satellite pictures.

  There was no question about it, Major Carpenter was right—Chernenko does not have three or four days. The North Koreans were bringing up motorized pontoon bridges and more heavy artillery. How do we know? We can see them on the satellite photo feeds we were continually downloading in real time.

  A thought struck me as I was talking to Colonel Lindauer about Major Carpenter's report.

  “John, I’ve got an idea. Stand by for a moment. Don’t leave the line. I’ll call you right back if I lose you.”

  “Jack, how closely can you pinpoint the locations of the North Korean artillery positions?”

  That was the question I shouted over to Jack Brigham, our air force satellite expert and photo analyst, as I put the phone down on the desk instead of hanging it up.

  ******

  Things moved quickly after I explained to John what I had in mind. The military Russian phone system he was hooked into didn’t have a conferencing feature, so I held and hummed a little French marching song while I listened to John try to reach Major Carpenter at Chernenkos’ headquarters on another line. I hummed because I was afraid I'd get automatically cut off if the line was quiet for a period of time.

  There was periodic Russian voices I couldn’t understand in the background, so I put it on the speaker so Lonnie could listen. If Major Carpenter can call Colonel Lindauer from there at the front it figures that Lindauer should be able to call him back.

  “They’ve send someone to find him,” Lonnie finally said. There was no talking on the line, just voices in the background.

  “Hold on to both of your lines, John. Keep them both open. I’m going to have you relay target coordinates to Major Carpenter.”

  It seemed like ages. Then, finally “I’ve got Major Carpenter on the other line, General Evans.”

  “Okay. John, ask
Carpenter if he can get a line to Chernenko’s artillery from where he’s at? …. Yes, to their heavies, the 122s.”

  “Hold one, General. I’ll ask.”

  The answer came back almost immediately. “Yes sir, Major Carpenter says the General Chernenko’s headquarters is in a DT-30 that has both landline and radio contact with his artillery.”

  “Okay. Tell Carpenter to get the Russian artillery on another line for a fire mission.”… “Yes, damnit, a fire mission.”

  It seemed to take forever. But then Chernenko apparently came back into the communications vehicle and Colonel Lindauer was able to get him on the line. According to Lonnie, John was explaining that he had me on his other line and that we were in contact with an observer who could see the Korean pontoon boats and some of their artillery parks.

  Chernenko grasped the possibilities instantly. Lonnie said he could hear him in the background giving orders.

  A few minutes later we discovered a big problem. The Russian maps are different from ours. They have totally different coordinates. Hells bells.

  “Damn. Okay. John, tell General Chernenko we can work around that. Ask him if one of his 122mm tubes can put a phosphorous round as close as possible to the road eight thousand meters south of the river. If so, tell him to shoot and let me know when he does. After he does that, please ask him how many 122s he can shoot for effect.”

  “It’s on the way,” reports Lindauer about two minutes later. “And he says he’s got twelve 122 tubes up and five more are coming from Vladivostok and will be ready within the hour.”

  Moments later Jack Brigham shouted and pointed to his satellite screen. “There it is, by God. There it is.”