Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  “And maybe you remember that last thing you said to me? Something about you owing me?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Lieutenant Moon nodded again.

  “And maybe you owe me double now, seeing how we just took care of a bunch of chinks who were set to confiscate your pile of swag here.”

  The lieutenant pointed to some boxes scattered on the floor near the captive GIs. “Your men were trying to steal, too, Sergeant.”

  “Now how could that be, brother, considering you ROKs swiped it from Uncle Sam in the first place? They were just taking back what’s rightfully theirs.” Sean paused before adding, “So what’s it gonna be with the weapons? I mean, if it comes right down to it, between my Thompson and Swenson’s grease gun, we could probably knock you all down with a burst apiece. Maybe you’d get off a shot with one of them M1s…but I guaran-damn-tee it’d be your last shot.”

  The Korean officer still couldn’t seem to make a move, one way or another.

  “What is it with you lieutenants today?” Sean said. “You and that butter-bar outside…neither one of you can make a fucking decision. Let’s try this again…on my count of three, we all lower the weapons. Agreed? I’ll even give you a little extra time to explain it to your boys so we don’t get no misunderstandings.”

  Lieutenant Moon held out his open palm to Sean, a signal to wait. Then he said something to his men. Whatever it was, it started a new flurry of harsh words.

  One of the ROK soldiers, his face red with anger, was being particularly vocal. The lieutenant pointed his pistol at him, speaking something the Americans figured must’ve been a death threat even though they had no idea what was actually said.

  Sean thought, Ain’t this interesting? Go ahead…start shooting each other. That’ll make it real easy for me.

  But no one fired. Lieutenant Moon turned to Sean and said, “Begin your count, Sergeant.”

  When he reached three, the lieutenant barked an order, and the ROKs’ weapons were lowered. Sean and Swenson did the same.

  “So we’re even now, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Almost,” Sean replied. “Now that we ain’t gonna shoot each other, I got one more condition to lay on you.”

  “And that would be?”

  “My men are gonna leave here now. But on their way out, each man’s taking a coupla cases of C rations with him.”

  When the lieutenant began to protest, Sean added, “If I had my way…and we had the time…I’d back some trucks up to this place and take the whole damn stash. But in a coupla hours, it’s all gonna belong to the chinks, so there ain’t no time.”

  “You say the Chinese will be here in a few hours, Sergeant?”

  “No, I said they’re gonna lay their grubby little paws on this food in a few hours. As far as being here”—he pointed toward the leveled building at the other end of the row—“they already are.”

  Lieutenant Moon said something to his men. Then, without so much as a goodbye and good luck, the ROKs fled the warehouse.

  *****

  General Ridgway’s location for the new MLR had been well chosen. Thirty miles south of Seoul and the Han River, it was anchored in the west by the city of Ansong and stretched east all the way across the peninsula. Along that line, terrain favored the defender like few other locales in Korea; even if the CCF chose to continue avoiding the highways and advance clandestinely across the mountains, staging an attack would mean having to traverse the several miles of open, flat marshland in front of 8th Army’s positions. The Chinese would be terribly exposed when they did attack—even at night—and pay a heavy price at the hands of the American artillery and air power.

  The new MLR had a new name too: Line D.

  Even before he’d left Tokyo, Ridgway had directed his 8th Army engineers to dig defensive positions at critical points along Line D. As the men of 26th Regiment spilled south to occupy the line in front of Ansong, they were delighted with how little digging they had to do; the bulldozers and earthmovers of the engineers had done most of the work for them. Once Jock’s men constructed overhead cover for the deep and roomy fighting holes, the fortifications would be complete. It wouldn’t take long; the engineers had provided plenty of lumber to frame the roofs and mountains of loose dirt to fill the sandbags that would serve as the shingles.

  Even the critical eye of an old hand like Patchett—an eye that could find genuine fault in almost anything a GI tried to do—couldn’t help but be impressed with the engineers’ work. “Most of these holes they dug are even in the right place, sir,” he said to Jock. “Given how hard it is to get our boys to dig any damn thing, this just might start off the New Year right for us.”

  *****

  General Ridgway was happy with the defensive positions along Line D, too. He only found a few places where the fields of fire didn’t make as good a use of terrain as they might have. When he told his engineering officer those mistakes were to be corrected by sunset, the colonel replied, “That’s impossible, sir. There’s not enough time.”

  “It’s your job to make it possible, Colonel,” Ridgway replied. “Are you telling me you can’t do your job?”

  “But sir…that gives us only four hours, and my men have already worked their tails off doing what you asked. It’s not fair to—”

  “Fair doesn’t apply in matters of life and death, Colonel. Now I’ve already given you a big pile of attaboys for the great work you’ve done so far. Don’t let one aw, shit wipe them all out.”

  The engineer noticed Ridgway seemed to be speaking not to his face, but to the insignia of rank—the eagle—on his fur-lined cap. Withered by the general’s unwavering gaze at that eagle, he became quite certain that the silver bird could quickly regress to the silver oak leaf of a lieutenant colonel, or even the gold leaf of a major if that one aw, shit came to pass.

  “Sunset, Colonel,” the general reminded him.

  *****

  In those days before he stepped off the plane at Kimpo Airfield, days he spent in Tokyo wrestling with the delusions of MacArthur and his staff, Ridgway had been sending dispatches to the division commanders of 8th Army. While the orders in those dispatches were many and varied, one theme was constant throughout: there was to be no more talk of retreat.

  He’d made it clear that the repositioning to Line D was a strategic move dictated by him, not the Chinese, to put his forces into a more advantageous stance for the resumption of offensive action by 8th Army. Once on the new line, further moves to the south were not to be contemplated. When they moved again, the only direction they’d be going was north.

  But as in all large organizations, somebody never gets the message.

  As Ridgway toured General Bishop’s headquarters at 24th Division, he stopped to watch the G3—Bishop’s operations chief—drawing a series of long red lines on a large-scale wall map. The lines traced a southward progression from Ansong, to Taejon, to Taegu, ending at Pusan.

  “What are you working on, Colonel?” Ridgway asked the G3.

  “A withdrawal plan for the division, sir.”

  “May I ask why?”

  The G3 seemed stunned by the question, as if the reason was painfully obvious. He replied, “Well, in case we have to bug-out again, sir, of course. I thought it—”

  “You thought wrong, Colonel. You’re relieved. No, make that you’re fired.”

  Then Ridgway led Bishop, the ashen-faced division commander, from the room. Once they were alone, he asked, “Are there any other men on your staff who don’t understand what no retreat means, General?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about you, Bishop? Do you understand what it means?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand completely.”

  “Outstanding. I’ll be sending you a new G3 within twenty-four hours. I can guarantee you that the term bug-out is not in his vocabulary.”

  “But sir, I already have someone who can take over as my G3,” Bishop said.

  “No, you don’t, General. I’ll be
providing the suitable replacement.”

  *****

  Ridgway’s next stop was Jock’s CP at 26th Regiment. “I thought we’d talk for a little bit,” the general said. “Have you got the time?”

  Jock fought the urge to smile. You always had time for a general. He offered Ridgway a seat on a camp stool and began to pull over a field case to use as a chair. The motion was awkward; without warning, Jock’s bad leg gave way.

  It could have been worse; he hadn’t fallen on his face, just gone down on one knee. Still, the impact of that damaged leg with the floor hurt badly. His grimace of pain left no doubt of that.

  Patchett raced across the room, saying, “My apologies, sir, I told those jackasses not to load them cases so darn heavy. You’re lucky you didn’t throw your shoulder out trying to drag that sumbitch.”

  Then he made a great show of struggling to push the field case into position across from General Ridgway, keeping a straight face the whole time.

  If this son of a bitch weighs more than five pounds, I’ll eat my steel pot, Patchett told himself. The colonel’s leg couldn’t’ve picked a worse time to flare up.

  But maybe we’ll get away with it.

  “Are you okay, Miles?” the general asked. As Jock rose gingerly and took a seat on the field case, he added, “I know about your injury. I’m not concerned about it if you’re not. I’ve had airborne officers working for me who broke a leg or an ankle on a combat jump but kept right on leading their men brilliantly.”

  Patchett excused himself, leaving the two officers to talk. Once he was gone, the general said, “NCOs like him are the backbone of this man’s army, Miles.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, sir.”

  “And he’s loyal to a fault, I see…but that’s a wonderful thing in my book. Have you two served together long?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jock replied. “We go back to 1942. He was first sergeant for the company I took to Australia and then Papua. Later, he was my sergeant major when I got a battalion.”

  Ridgway smiled. He understood just how essential and priceless the bond between fighting men was.

  “I’m finding it amazing, Jock, how jungle rats like you and Sergeant Patchett have excelled in this frozen hell. It certainly isn’t the type of war you were used to fighting. But the thing that really galls me is that so many officers who served with distinction in the European theater, where it got pretty damn cold, too, can’t seem to function in Korea at all.”

  Jock just nodded, wondering where this talk was going.

  “But those same officers think that just because they stepped off the boat at Pusan, they’ll get their tickets punched for promotion. That might’ve been the way it used to be in Eighth Army, but those days are over, Jock.”

  He should’ve been uneasy with the general calling him by his first name. It had always been his experience that when a superior who didn’t know you well lapsed into first name usage, he was buttering you up for a real screwing.

  Somehow, though, he had the feeling that wasn’t the case this time.

  “I’ve looked at the promotion list for brigadier, Jock, and to be honest, you’re in the upper half, but just barely.”

  I’m not sure if I should be disappointed or relieved, Jock thought.

  “But based on your performance in this theater, I’m confident I can get you bumped well up the list. I can see you commanding a division—with a second star on your shoulder—in a year’s time.”

  So we’re still planning on being in this mess a year from now?

  Promotion to general officer had been the furthest thing from Jock’s mind. It had never seemed in the cards, considering the enmity MacArthur held for both him and his wife, an enduring product of the last war and all that ugly business in Australia.

  “I’m sure you know, sir, that I’m far from being MacArthur’s favorite officer.”

  Ridgway dismissed that thought with a shake of his head. “I wouldn’t worry too much about what MacArthur thinks. He’s not a soldier anymore, just a politician. He’s got his sights set on running for president in Fifty-Two. I don’t know how much of the politics back home you’ve been able to follow, but he’s the darling of the right wing now. If he’s going to run, he needs to get as far away from this mess he’s made in Korea as he can.”

  “Are you saying he’s going to be relieved, sir? Or resign?”

  “Who knows, Jock? That’s for him and the president to decide…and ol’ Douglas certainly hasn’t gone out of his way to endear himself to Mr. Truman lately. You’d think those public statements about attacking Red China would’ve ended his career right then and there, but he’s still got a lot of powerful supporters in Washington, people who still think the sun rises out of his rear end.”

  Ridgway leaned forward, his expression serious and probing. “But you are aware, I’m sure, of the rotation policy Washington’s stuck us with, right?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  And Jock knew he would be up for rotation home by the end of April, just four months away. If he took a promotion before then, he’d go to the bottom of the rotation list for generals, where the clock would be reset for another full tour in Korea of approximately one year.

  Would that be fair to Jill? It’s bad enough already I haven’t been able to do a damn thing to help her with this deportation nonsense that’s turning her life—our life—upside down.

  But add another year to that helplessness?

  What kind of husband would do that to his wife and children?

  He was terrified of one possible answer to that question: the kind who’s lost his family forever.

  *****

  There was nothing to celebrate as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. The last of 8th Army’s units to withdraw to Line D were now crossing the Han River, leaving Seoul an open city.

  “Gotta feel sorry for them poor civilian bastards still trying to live there,” Patchett said. “This makes the third time that place has changed hands in six months, right?”

  Sean Moon nodded in agreement.

  “That’s some sorry state of affairs,” Patchett continued. “All them Marines that died so MacArthur could have his little parade through that city back in September…it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?”

  Sean asked, “You ain’t blaming General Ridgway for giving up the city, are you?”

  “Hell, no, Bubba. That’s about the smartest thing I seen a man with stars on him do since I got to this godforsaken country. Glad to hear he ain’t no fan of house-to-house fighting, because I sure as hell ain’t, neither.”

  He paused, looking at the bottle of whiskey from which they’d planned to drink a New Year’s toast. But no drinks would be poured that night, for they knew the Chinese wouldn’t be celebrating. Their New Year—which would begin the Year of the Rabbit—was still a few weeks away.

  Both sergeants had no doubt what tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers would be doing instead: they’d be marching through the night, drawing ever closer to Line D.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Theo Papadakis let the binoculars fall on their strap against his chest. “All I gotta say is Happy Fucking New Year, Top. Where the hell are all these damn chinks, anyway? We been on this Line D for a coupla days now…and nothing’s happening. Don’t get me wrong…I ain’t complaining or nothing. But still, how long can this last?”

  “Not too long, I reckon,” Patchett replied. “But don’t you worry none…they’re out there. I’d bet you money on it, but you already took me for all I got right now. Like Colonel Miles said, though, their supply lines are getting a little on the long side. They may be able to march their asses over mountains, but their artillery and ammo trains still gotta stick to the roads and railways…and pretty long stretches of ’em, at that.”

  “Let’s hope the Air Force is cutting those stretches to ribbons,” Papadakis said.

  “Yeah, let’s hope. But the thing I want most outta the Air Force right now is that ammo resupply that’s o
verdue,” Patchett replied. “When the chinks do come, we only got us enough illum rounds for a night or two at the moment.”

  “Why the hell is it so damn hard to keep us supplied, Top? It’s not like Uncle Sam’s fighting in more than one part of the world…not like in the last war. The G4s don’t have to choose anymore between supplying the guys in Europe or the guys on those stinking Pacific islands. All the fighting’s going on right here in this frozen crap hole.”

  “I hear you, Captain…but them airplanes and supply trucks don’t like this cold any better than we do,” Patchett replied. “I hear-tell they got breakdowns all over the damn place.”

  *****

  He wasn’t sure he could keep her in the air much longer.

  The right engine on Moon’s Menace VI was already shut down. It’d started backfiring right after takeoff. Major Tommy Moon had elected to shut that engine down and return to K-2 at Taegu, South Korea, the airfield from which the heavily armed B-26 had departed just moments before.

  But now—at an altitude of only 600 feet—the left engine was acting up, too. Steadily losing power, its usual steady drone had decayed to a spasmodic growl, like the warning an injured dog issued if you tried to approach it.

  This is a hell of a way to start the first flight from our new Korean base, Tommy thought. Too low to bail out, no place to jettison the load.

  If it was just one engine acting up, I could come around and land, no problem. These babies don’t even drift down with an engine out.

  But that’s assuming the other one’s running good.

  Now the left engine’s dying on me, too…and I’ve got three choices:

  Do I crash into the mountain dead ahead?

  Or do I try to turn right—into the dead engine—and smack into that mountain?

  Maybe I turn left…and risk going down in the city of Taegu?

  He took a quick look at the photo of Sylvie Bergerac tucked into the corner of the instrument panel. Silently, he asked her smiling face, What do I do, baby girl?