“Save it for the gooks, asshole,” the tall Marine who had loaned the mattock said.
Richards paused within striking distance of Tony.
“Fuck off, Richards!” another Marine joined in.
Richards’ head swiveled as he glanced at the ten or more grunts circled around us.
Richards’ coal black eyes glared at me. “We ain’t done, Mackenzie.” He turned and pushed through the gathered Marines.
I blew out a held breath. And then as if someone had given me a simplistic answer to a stumping riddle, I understood. My life since enlisting, the training, the weeks of fear, all took a single focus. I wasn’t just another helmet in all this shit. We were a brotherhood, all scared, all lonely, and all dependent on each other. I nodded at each of the surrounding grunts, men I didn’t know; but would die to save.
Koto-ri, North Korea
Dear Dad,
There were so many things you didn’t tell me. And I’m learning more every day, most of which I wish I didn’t know.
The fighting is beyond any nightmare and the waiting in between the fighting is horrible because you know what’s coming.
But today I was enlightened. It all came together. I’m not fighting to just stay alive; I’m fighting to keep the guy next to me alive. Without him, my chances diminish.
Though I don’t know many people; I don’t feel so alone anymore.
I understand now.
I’m a Marine, Dad.
Chapter Twenty-Five
For two interminable days we sat hunkered down in our holes, fighting nothing but the death-threatening cold at Koto-ri. We waited and waited, but no enemy ever showed themselves. Two days crawled into three and finally Gunny pulled our company together on the third morning.
“Company G, we’re movin’ out. We’re being sent up to reinforce the division’s headquarters at Hagaru-ri. Take everything you own plus all the ammo and grenades you can carry. Be alert. We have to go through Funchilin Pass held by the enemy.”
Division headquarters sounded both safe and a place where maybe I could learn about my Bluffton buddies. But the pass we had to go through to get there sounded deadly.
Tony and I bounced along in a troop carrier. We were jammed side by side with a bunch of grunts trying to steal warmth from each other. Our truck was one of the lead troop carriers in a long line of trucks intermeshed with tanks.
We couldn’t have gone a mile or two when what sounded like bugles blared over the truck noise.
I had no idea what that meant. Then gunfire erupted. A Marine across from me crumpled to the floor. Shafts of light breached the canvas shell across from us and behind us.
“Get down,” someone yelled, but we were already diving, a mangled pile of Marines on the bed of the truck.
A boot struck my helmet. Then someone heavy landed on my backpack on top of me, winding me. I could feel bullets thudding into him. Just by the luck of the draw, the man was losing his life while saving mine. I lay still, unable to move or breathe, my eyes squeezed shut.
Luck, just like Dad said. Fucking luck.
“Outta the trucks,” someone yelled as rounds ricocheted off metal.
I struggled out from under the dead man. Shouldering my BAR, I crawled over limp blood-soaked bodies. Someone behind me screamed. I glanced up and saw Marines still sitting on the benches. Their eyes fixed in blank stares, their bodies jerking as more rounds slammed into them.
The half-track was a fucking death trap, and I wanted out.
I thought I was the only survivor until I reached the back of the truck and a hand grabbed mine. Tony, standing on the ground, pulled me out. He shoved me under the truck and followed. Several other Marines were there, firing their rifles to either side.
Lying on my back, I glanced from side to side as I fished in my underwear for my BAR’s firing mechanism. The hills on both sides of the MSR were dotted with men advancing from rock to rock, shooting at us. I rolled onto my belly to assemble the weapon when an explosion of dirt and snow erupted in front of me.
“Mortars,” I yelled. “Get the fuck away from the trucks.”
I scanned the area close to the road and saw a cluster of rocks. I rolled out from under the truck and sprinted off the road with bullets and shrapnel whizzing by.
A Marine, in front of me, had his feet run out from under his gyrating body as several rounds slammed into him, dropping him into the snow.
I dove to the ground, rolled, and crawled into the rocks.
“Make room,” Tony yelled sliding down next to me.
A shell exploded a truck near us. When the dust cleared, I saw a Marine impaled in the dirt by the severed driveshaft. I gagged on bile as bullets chipped chunks out of the rocks close to me.
Hands shaking, I loaded my BAR and began shooting as many of these killers as I could. They weren’t human beings; they were venomous vermin, instruments of death. And as one of them jolted over and over as my bullets ripped into him, I realized that none of us were humans anymore. But I didn’t care. I cheered.
Several magazines later, with the enemy still advancing, our mortars and tanks zeroed in on them.
“Fuck’em! Kill’em all,” I said to no one.
As quickly as they had come, they withdrew; gone. Sucked up into the surrounding hills.
“Back in the trucks,” Gunny yelled.
I was glad to hear Gunny’s voice but not his orders.
I looked at Tony and closed my eyes and shook my head. No one wanted to climb back into the overflowing coffin.
But we did.
Without a word being spoken, the six or seven of us left, positioned our dead comrades’ bodies sitting on the benches on both sides and braced them in place with their rifles. Sandbags.
We sat on the floor.
I wasn’t cold anymore.
Tony glanced around and shook his head. “It feels like all those poor bastards are staring at me.” He shuddered. “We should’ve closed their eyes.”
A mile later, we were back out of the trucks, defending against another road block and ambush.
It took us twelve hours and almost half of our company to go twelve blood-smeared miles to Hagaru-ri.
I was cold, exhausted, and scared numb. So many times today I was sure I wouldn’t make it, but I did, and so many didn’t.
Fuckin’ luck.
“Gunny, were those bugles I heard each time all hell broke loose?” I asked as we dug more holes in the rock-hard ground on a hill knob overlooking the Hagaru-ri runway.
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?”
“These aren’t North Korean soldiers, they’re Chinese. And like our old cavalry days, they sound a bugle to order a charge.”
“I know that part,” I said.
“Didn’t you notice how big they are? Unlike the Koreans, they’re every bit as big as the average American.”
“Fortunately, I didn’t get that close.”
“They almost overran this camp yesterday. That’s why we’re here. God knows how many of them came across the border.”
“Home by Christmas, huh?” I asked rhetorically.
“Worse than that.” He removed a plug of tobacco from a pocket, bit off a piece, and chewed as he gazed at the surrounding hills. He spat and then looked at me; his eyes colder than the air. “They tell me we’re surrounded; the whole Chosin Reservoir is surrounded.”
Hagaru-ri, North Korea
Dear Dad,
Our Company arrived at Hagaru-ri last night. The location of division headquarters originally manned by roughly 3000 engineers, clerks, and support personnel. We’re just south of a place called the Chosin Reservoir.
There’s an airfield here, maybe we’ll get some warm chow and more clothes. Life in a foxhole here has to be colder than being in an icebox.
Our enemies are now the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the weather.
These normally non-combatants staff personal have been here since Thanksgiving. A few days after their arriva
l, tens of thousands of Chinese surrounded them. They’ve been fighting daily ever since. The survivors all have the same strange expressions, probably one you’d recognize. They all look as if they’re already dead.
I’m afraid to look in a mirror.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was our first night at Hagaru-ri, and we were on a harsh wind-swept ridge between the village and the runway. I was wedged in another foxhole, my bones shook from cold and exhaustion. The runway, to our backs and below us, was our lifeline, possibly our means out of here. We had been ordered to protect it.
As the night wore on, gunfire erupted in small and erratic bursts as the enemy seemed to probe, determining our strength and mapping our positions. We were ordered to sit tight and not respond. Due to my shaking from both the sub-zero wind and my fear of what I knew would come, I didn’t think I’d be able to fight even if I wanted to.
Every now and then, a flare would ignite above us and float on a parachute until it either went out or landed.
I was on edge. This base had been assaulted nightly for days. We were spread too thin. Though the top of each runway-surrounding hill had at least one tank, several mortars squads and light artillery, the groups were small; two or three hundred men, half of which were clerks and support personnel from headquarters staff.
“Hey, BAR man, you part of that Task Force from Koto-ri?” a near voice said as another flare lit our area.
I glanced over at the next hole and saw a young man, about my age, wearing wireless spectacles. He would’ve looked more at home in a bank teller’s cage than in a foxhole.
“Yeah, we came up last night. Tough trip. Lost a lot of guys.”
“Well, we’re all glad you’re here. Without you guys, we probably wouldn’t survive another attack like last night.”
“Bad night, huh?”
“Unbelievable. This is the headquarters’ base. The place is manned with mostly non-combatants.”
“Does that include you?”
“Sure does. I haven’t touched a weapon since basic training, and I wasn’t very good with one then.”
“Basic training.” I shook my head. “I’ve only been here a few days and yet basic training seems so long ago. How about you?”
“I’ve been in the Corps for over a year; but always a desk jockey. We arrived in Korea a few days ago and came directly here. All we had to fight initially was the cold, which was unbelievable. Then the Chinese arrived.”
“Yeah they ambushed us several times just south of here. When did you first encounter the Chinese?”
“A couple of days ago. We all had to arm up and defend the perimeter. At first they just probed our perimeter, like they’re doing tonight.” The flare reflected off his glasses as he cupped his hands to light a cigarette. “But last night was different, a full out assault; the worse, a fucking nightmare. The Chinese took East Hill and then broke through our defensives down by the airfield, not far from here. They were everywhere.”
“Holy shit, I didn’t know you had gooks inside the wire.”
“Yeah, hundreds of them.”
“What’d you do?”
“They were so cold and hungry, their first priority, once they broke through, was to raid our food and clothing. They weren’t interested in fighting after they found our supplies.”
“Maybe we should trade them food and clothing for their guns.”
“I’ll put that in the suggestion box.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Some of our guys pulled together and counterattacked and either killed them or drove them back beyond our perimeter. But the Chinese still have control of East Hill.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. There aren’t nearly as many of us as there were before last night. I’d guess we’re at less than half of what we numbered when we got here. A lot of non-combatants either died or were wounded being brave soldiers last night. Several miracles and a whole bunch of unbelievable courage is the only reason the rest of us are still alive.”
“I think very few of us, me included, were ever meant to be soldiers,” I said.
The flare burned out and so did our conversation.
The enemy probing continued until halfway through the night when a large UN air raid disrupted any enemy assault plans.
Shortly thereafter we were relieved, and I stumbled to an assigned tent, passing several large piles of stacked Chinese bodies. Although most of these Headquarters grunts were administrative types, the paper-pushers had proven themselves.
I concluded that being with the brass was a step upward. The tent was a wonderful change, and despite their geeky jobs, they were Marines.
The next day I was rousted out of my pseudo-warm tent back into the frostbite-plagued cold by something I hadn’t heard since arriving in this God-awful country, ‘Mail-call’.
Thank God for the engineers; they had constructed an airfield on top of this mountain in eleven days in artic conditions. The badly wounded were being evacuated, supplies restored, and letters could be received and sent out. And maybe the airfield would be an out for us as well if we needed it.
“Mackenzie!” Sarge bellowed. Surprised, I waved my arms, and he tossed a string-tied bundle of envelopes my way. I snatched them up, returning to my tent with my stomach doing anticipation-induced flip-flops.
I sat on my sleeping-bag-covered cot. Several of my five tent-mates drifted in as my shaking hands untied the string.
Letters from home had become a means of escape, a respite from the continuous fear, the cold, and the shakes. The written words would take me back to Bluffton, back to seeing Mom or Dad saying the words on the parchment to me in person. I could smell the briny May River on the breeze coming through the opened windows. I was there, not here, just for a while.
I lifted the first letter off the small pile. It was addressed in Mom’s handwriting. I slid it slowly across my nose, smelling it, hoping to get a whiff of home. I’d thought that maybe I’d find a hint of Mom’s ‘Evening in Paris’ perfume that Dad got her for Christmas every year, or maybe her chocolate chipped cookies, or, or nothing. But just the knowledge her hand had touched it, had written my name, brought on a wave of homesickness that made my eyes sting. I set it aside to savor later.
I shuffled through the pile; another letter from Mom, two from Dad, and, my heart skipped a beat, one letter from Sara.
After all this time, my prayers were answered, Sara had written me. Letters in hand, I bounced to my feet and briskly walked around and around my cot driven by joy. I smelled Sara’s letter; jasmine, Sara’s jasmine. It was like part of her had been transported here.
Sara had written me. She missed me, my girl missed me; all was good.
But then my excitement morphed to fear. Sara was married. I left. She had her own life. She was going to be a doctor. This was probably to say it was fun, but that’s all it was.
But then my mind reversed. Maybe she’d forgiven me for enlisting, and was announcing her divorce.
I blew out a breath. I didn’t know and guessing was fool’s play. I plopped down on the cot.
Setting the other letters next to me on my bag, I retrieved Sara’s picture and studied it for a long moment. Then I carefully opened the letter from her, her first letter to me, not wanting to damage an atom of the contents.
I took a deep breath and slowly released it as I unfolded her letter.
Dear Mick,
I’m sorry I haven’t written you sooner. I know I behaved like a spoiled child. But I didn’t want you to leave.
I’ve thought about writing you every day for the past week. I know what I have to say; I’m just not sure how to write it. Excuse me if my thoughts bounce all over the page.
I stopped going to see Johnny after you left. That was never the life I wanted. It was arranged for me. And all of that was before you.
I’m trying to end whatever that was. I’m not sure I’ll be successful, but I’m trying. It’s very complicated. Someday, I swear, if
somehow we get back together, I’ll tell you all about it. I’m sorry, I just can’t do that now.
I checked with the hospital and Johnny should be released in a week. His parents’ plans were always to take him to their New York estate when he was released. They think the doctors are better up there, and that’s where they want him to finish healing.
I’m not going with them.
I’m still in Savannah at the---at our apartment. To my knowledge, Johnny and his parents never knew about you or us. So I thought I could hide here until they left. And even though they haven’t found me, things have changed as they always do. I may have to leave Savannah. I’m not sure. All I can say is until I met you my life was a mess. And, despite us, I haven’t been able to put that mess behind me. But I’m trying.
Now for the hard part, why I wrote you. I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandmother lately. She was a very righteous person; a good woman. She would’ve been so disappointed in me and my situation, though had she met you, she would’ve understood the cheating wife part. And again, I’m so sorry I lied to you about my arranged marriage. But Grammie would’ve insisted that I tell you.
I don’t know whether you are regretting leaving the way you did or if when you come back you’ll want to try and find me. Either way, I neither expect anything from you nor need you to be a part of this.
Mick, I’m pregnant.
Oh my God, I was going to be a father; a father. I picked up her picture with trembling fingers and looked at her pretty face, her slender body. I tried to imagine her pregnant. I couldn’t.
A father.
My first reaction was joy mixed with fear. Sara and I had created a life. Oh my God.
But Sara was alone. What would she do? Damn it, I should’ve never left.
Mickey's Wars Page 9
