He heard the planes again, the roar growing closer, and he saw them coming up the draw, straight overhead. He had a burst of panic, thought, No, oh Christ, not now! He slid quickly down through the snow, kicked through brush, running now, closer to the others. The rest of the squad had stopped, squatted low, watching the planes, and Riley glanced back, the planes gone now, the far side of the ridge. He was breathing in hard gasps and Welch said, “Easy, Pete. The son of a bitch waved at me. They know we’re here. They’re keeping the Chinks off our tails. God bless ’em.”
The planes returned, the roar of the engines and the hard rattle of their machine guns. One plane peeled off, rolled out to one side, swung around, and Riley watched the nose of the plane pointing straight toward them. He called out, pointed, the others watching the plane, all of them dropping flat. The Corsair was barely twenty feet above the rocky hill, the machine guns opening now, the flickers of fire along the wings. Riley felt frozen, terror enveloping him, but the plane dipped lower still, firing down into the draw beneath them. The plane roared straight over them now, close enough to touch, and Riley felt a hard impact on his head, more falling around him, the men yelling in panic, and Welch shouted, “Shells! Empties, you idiots!”
Riley saw now, pockets of steam in the snow, the spent shells from the Corsair’s guns splattering the hillside around them. His legs gave out, and he sat in the snow, reached down, retrieved an empty .50-caliber shell. It was still warm to the touch, and he cupped it in his hands, then slipped it into his pocket. Welch was still standing, said in a low voice, “You got your damn souvenir? Let’s get back up the ridge before it’s too dark for those numbskulls up there to see who we are. And keep an eye on this draw. That flyboy saw something worth shooting at.”
Goolsby was up beside Welch, said, “Let’s go. Head back. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Riley saw something fragile in the man’s face, his voice a weak quiver. He looked at Welch, who returned the glance, said nothing. There was a pop from the draw down below, a single shot, and Goolsby sat suddenly, looked at his hands, one reaching for his shoulder. “Oh! I got stung!”
Welch was down beside him, said, “You hit? Where?”
Goolsby looked at him, then at the others, seemed confused. Riley moved closer, saw Welch push the lieutenant’s hands aside, staring into his chest, pulling the coat back off his shoulder. And now, a sharp whistle, the dull smack, Goolsby knocked flat on his back. Riley saw the hole, blood in a light stream from Goolsby’s forehead, and Welch shouted, “Down!”
They flattened out in the snow and brush, more firing from down below cutting the snow around them. Welch crawled up through the brush, said, “Give ’em hell! Then get your asses up that way. Get to the cover in those rocks!”
Welch rose to one knee, emptied the Thompson into the brush below, Kane firing the BAR, the others joining in. Riley stared, searching for any kind of targets, and he fired the Thompson, aiming low, shredding the brush.
Welch said to Kane, “Give it to ’em again. Then haul your ass up this hill.”
Kane reloaded the BAR, fired again, and the others moved quickly up through the snow and brush, slipping into the rocks. Riley watched Welch, who emptied the Thompson one more time, and Riley looked again at Goolsby. He slid down toward the man, one hand on Goolsby’s coat, tugged, and Welch was now beside him.
“We can’t leave him, Sarge.”
“Didn’t intend to. Grab his hand.”
The fire from below had stopped, Kane above them, firing the BAR one more time. Riley worked with Welch, pulling Goolsby’s body up toward the others, toward the safety of the rocks. Two more men now took the job, Kane and Norman grabbing Goolsby’s hands, Riley struggling to breathe. Welch had one hand on his shoulder, said between breaths, “Let’s go. We chased that bunch off, I think. But they’ll be back. Let’s get the hell out of here. You okay?”
Riley watched the men dragging Goolsby, making their way up past the rocks, the heavier snow, moving past the frozen bodies of the enemy. Riley saw others, up on the ridge, Marines watching the scene, rifles ready, offering help if the enemy was following. Riley stopped at a fat rock, sat, and Welch looked back at him.
“What’s up?”
“Just a minute, Hamp. Gotta get my breath.”
“It’ll be dark in five minutes. Let’s get back home.” Welch was catching his own breath, said in a low voice, “He never shoulda been out here. Too green. Irish called it, said he’d never make it.”
Riley looked at Welch, said, “We were all green. The lieutenant was no worse than you.”
Welch looked at him, said, “He’s dead. That makes him worse. Let’s go.”
Riley looked again at the ridgeline, two more men coming downhill, taking their turn with the lieutenant, the others staring down the hill, searching for any sign of the enemy. Riley struggled to get to his feet, the Thompson heavier still, aching weakness in his knees, his shoulders, his back. He tasted the cold again, the temperature dropping with the setting of the sun, the icy sting returning to his face, the miserable wetness in his shoe pacs. He looked up at Welch, who held out a hand, helping Riley up past the rocks. Riley took a long icy breath, said, “Damn, I’m hungry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Riley
THE BREAKOUT FROM YUDAM-NI had begun just after dawn on December 1, Litzenberg and Murray uniting their efforts in a well-organized push that drove them straight into the Chinese troops who had cut off the road to the south. Murray’s Fifth led the way, while several units of the Seventh held their position in Yudam-ni, keeping the Chinese troops behind them at bay. The eight thousand Marines moved slowly, methodically, accompanied by a single tank, the only armor they had. To each side of the road, the tall hills hid more of the enemy, and Murray sent his lead troops forward in three prongs, two of them high up, pushing the Chinese back along both sides of the road. The third kept to the road itself, marching with the long train of vehicles that carried the hundreds of wounded. Several miles to their front, both commanders knew they could not just march to Hagaru-ri without passing first through the narrow defiles of Toktong Pass, the most vulnerable part of the march.
Some four miles south of Yudam-ni, short of the pass, one battalion of the Seventh, roughly four hundred men, branched off, leaving the main convoy behind. They were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ray Davis, a rugged thirty-five-year-old, a veteran of some of the worst fights the Marines had endured during World War II. With darkness falling late on December 1, Davis led his men up the tall hills to the east of the main road, knowing they would confront heavy concentrations of Chinese, with their only advantage coming from the darkness and all the stealth the Marines could muster. Their mission was not to engage the enemy, but if possible, to slip past him, avoiding a major confrontation that might halt Davis’s men altogether. Through the frozen darkness, they were to cross the rugged hills, trudge through the deep passes, and, following maps that were obsolete at best, attempt to locate and rescue the men of Fox Company. Whether there was anyone left to rescue or whether the Chinese had completely obliterated Barber’s command was a question no one could answer.
Throughout the night, Davis’s men made their way over some of the roughest ground they had experienced. The Chinese they confronted were mostly caught off guard, but there were fights, clumsy and chaotic, the battalion taking casualties Davis had hoped to avoid. Wounded men only added to the challenge, the blinding darkness obliterating any kind of landmark, the men guided by compasses that now failed to work, frozen.
The men struggled to keep to any kind of direction, the hillsides swallowing their bearings, no guidance coming from anyone behind them, no artillery, no aircraft. For a while Davis attempted to guide his men by the stars, but the weariness of the exhausted men made mental exercises required for navigation all but impossible. Trudging onward, stumbling into a surprised, often sleeping enemy, Davis discovered pockets of Chinese soldiers who had frozen to death, unable to protect themselves
from the thirty-below-zero temperatures.
As the night wore on, Davis recognized that his men were barely functioning and he ordered a halt, allowing most to rest in the relative comfort of their sleeping bags. But with so many pockets of the enemy around them, sleep was out of the question, and so Davis and his officers moved along the ragged line of march, prodding the men into as much alertness as they could muster. With dawn approaching, the firefights seemed to grow more numerous, and more intense, the confrontations alerting more of the Chinese that their enemy was surprisingly close. Studying his map by flashlight, the bleary-eyed and foggy-brained Davis continued to guide the men toward what he had to believe was his intended goal. Close to dawn, his radioman was suddenly wide awake, offering Davis exactly what Davis was hoping to hear.
FOX HILL—DECEMBER 2, 1950, 7:00 A.M.
Welch had met with the remaining sergeants who still manned Third Platoon’s position, the consensus that at least one of them should check in on the battered Second Platoon, Lieutenant Peterson’s command, which had continued to receive the same pressure from the Chinese assaults. As the casualty count mounted, the gaps in the line were increasing, some of the positions occupied by wounded men brought back up the hill from the aid stations, anyone who could still squeeze a trigger. But across from them on the rocky hill, and the wider hill beyond the road to the west, it was clear that the Chinese had continued to regroup, still pushing forward more troops, preparing yet again for their next assault. Fox Hill was defended now by half the force that had first established the line, men whose rations had run dry, whose lack of sleep had dulled the minds, the relentless assaults draining away any strength at all. But still they held to their foxholes, shifting positions, hanging on to the hilltop that Captain Barber had insisted was their only remaining mission. There was no alternative.
Riley had insisted Welch not make the short journey down toward Second Platoon by himself, and surprisingly, Welch did not object. It was one more sign that even the strongest men were losing command of themselves, that the fight they made now was as much by instinct as by following orders. Even if there was no real purpose to the journey, Riley accepted that a walk, even a frozen one, might help wake them both up from the sluggishness of their hunger, might loosen up the stiffness in every limb from the relentless cold.
They stumbled over the snow-covered rocks, and Riley tried to watch the saddle, a useless exercise. The snipers were still active, Riley’s brain teasing him into believing he might see them before they took their shot, before the worst could happen. The worst so far had come the day before, the image of Goolsby’s death ground into his brain. He had mourned the man’s death with paralyzing grief, some of that the product of sleeplessness and hunger. He tried to think of the man’s first name, couldn’t recall it, felt foolish asking anyone else. He wanted to offer the lieutenant an apology, did so in his thoughts throughout the long night, wondering if Goolsby had known of the rude comments, Killian and the others, “the ninety-day wonder,” “shavetail,” all those monikers the veterans gave fresh-faced officers. He scolded himself even now, stumbling behind the cover of taller rocks, halting with Welch for a gasp of frozen air. Stop this! He’s dead, and you might be, too, if you don’t get a handle on this.
Welch moved again, the Thompson dangling from his shoulder, and Riley followed, another glance toward the rocky hill. There had been casualties all throughout the night, some of those from carelessness, or simply bad luck, sprays of machine gun fire that blew into men who might have been away from their foxholes, if only for a moment, trying to stretch, to bring life to dead limbs. He felt guilty for not visiting Killian, but for now there wasn’t much point. The wounded were still down there in the tents, more vulnerable now than any day so far, the men on the hill who protected them weakening by the hour. He hadn’t even asked Welch about going down, knew instinctively that the energy required for the climb might be too costly, that if the enemy came again that night, he would need everything left inside him to stand tall, to make another tough fight. Killian would understand, he thought. He’d kick me in the ass if I wasn’t up here doing the job just so I could hold his hand.
They moved past scrambling supply men, a pair of stretcher bearers, and Riley saw the lines of foxholes facing west, the men barely visible, protected by the mounds of Chinese corpses. He couldn’t avoid shivering, his breathing punching his lungs with frigid air. The hood of his parka was clamped tight around his head, the three pairs of socks on his feet less effective with each new gust of brutal wind. He saw a light wisp of smoke, rising from belowground, and Welch halted, searched, a low voice to one side, from one of the holes.
“What’s up?”
Welch moved that way, Riley following, the familiar face of Lieutenant Peterson sitting low in a hole.
Welch crawled low, Riley doing the same, both men down in the snow.
Welch said, “Thought I should report to you, sir. No officers on our side of the hill. Not sure if anything’s going on we oughta know about.”
There was firing out past the rocky hill, distant sounds that echoed faintly. Riley turned that way and Peterson shifted in the hole, said, “Heard that for a while now. It’s not aimed this way, so I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m not too mobile right now.”
Riley peered down over the edge of the foxhole, the repairs to Peterson’s wounds hidden by the heavy coat, the sleeping bag over his legs. Welch said, “You okay, sir? We can still get a corpsman up here if we need one.”
“Leave them be, for now. I got half a dozen holes in me, but I’m still here. Unless they blow my hands off, I can fire a rifle. The only officer on the hill not wounded yet is Lieutenant Dunne. First Platoon has had it easy so far. The enemy keeps pushing us from this direction, like he knows we’re shot full of holes. If Dunne tries to help us out, shifting any of his people around to this side, the Chinese will see that, and sure as hell, they’ll bust up the hill in his sector. They’re out there in every direction.” He paused, seemed to gather strength. “I heard about Lieutenant Goolsby. Tough.”
Welch said, “Yeah. We were there.”
“I’ll put him in for a citation, if you want to. That’s the way it works, sometimes. Dead men aren’t too humble to accept medals. Last I heard, Lieutenant McCarthy’s doing okay. Nasty wound, but in the right place. Not sure how much longer we’re gonna be up here, but at least nobody’s bleeding to death. Too damn cold.”
Riley said, “How’s the captain?”
Welch looked at him, too tired to scold him. Peterson didn’t seem to mind the question, said, “His wound’s gotten bad. The doc says it’s infected, and getting worse. I told him to keep down near his CP. No need for him to risk his stretcher bearers just so he can make an inspection. He’s already lost two of his runners.”
Welch looked out past the distant rocks. “It’s gotten heavier. Who’s doing all that shooting? We heard the artillery at Yudam-ni, a couple days ago. But that’s not artillery. Too light.”
“And too close. No idea, Sergeant. Maybe it’s John Wayne and the South Korean cavalry coming to our rescue. Hagaru-ri’s the other way, so it ain’t help from down there. Right now it’s somebody else’s problem. We got our hands full holding the enemy off this hill. Get back to your men, tell them to keep doing what they’ve been doing. Air cover will be here soon, I hope. The captain’s radio’s maybe got enough juice to last an hour, and he’s hoping to hear something from those boys before it conks out again.”
Riley heard the sharp zip, the ping of lead off a rock to one side. He put his head down flat in the snow, pressed up closer to one of the corpses, and Peterson said, “Careful. That son of a bitch out there knows I’m here, and he must have some idea I’m in charge. He keeps me honest about every twenty minutes. Keep back to those rocks over that way. That seems to be safe.”
“Sir!”
Peterson responded, “Who the hell is calling me sir?”
The man fell flat close to Riley, crawled forward,
out of breath. “Sorry. Captain wanted me to get up here, tell you what’s up.”
The man ran out of words, gasping for air, and Peterson said, “So? What’s up? MacArthur still saying we’ll be home for Christmas?”
“Sir, the radio. We got a call. There’s Marines coming this way! You’re to order your men to hold their fire if they see personnel out toward the rocky hill.”
Peterson didn’t respond, a long silence, and Riley could hear the sounds from the distant fight, sporadic now, small pops. Welch said, “I guess that would be them?”
Peterson struggled to stand, another man close by.
“Sir! The sniper!”
Peterson stared out that way, propped against the corpses in front of him.
“I have a feeling that guy has his hands full. He can hear what we’re hearing.” Peterson looked at Barber’s man, said, “Whose Marines? Did they say?”
“First Battalion, Seventh, sir.”
“Davis. Figures. He’s buddies with Chesty Puller. They’re always trying to outdo each other for balls.” He paused, stared toward the sounds of the fight, almost nothing now. “He brought a whole damn battalion over that miserable ground just to help us get off this damn hill? I think Chesty will like that.”
FOX HILL—DECEMBER 2, 11:00 A.M.
The Corsairs came again, the saddle and much of the rocky knoll bathed in a bright shower of napalm. The men along the ridgeline watched as they had before, grateful for the attention from the air wing, Riley as curious as any of them just what it was like to fly the big blue birds. With the raid past, the enemy’s guns had fallen silent, the last firefight erupting close to the rocky knoll on the big hill, the men on Fox Hill surprised to see an eruption of Chinese soldiers boiling up from hidden places, most of them scattering off into the deep draws. Soon after, the men with binoculars passed the word there were troops moving out along the distant ridges, and they were not Chinese. Within minutes, Marines were advancing across the saddle toward them, more men coming up from the low places alongside.