Combat- Parallel Lines

by William Peter Grasso

  The only rough indication they had of the impact’s location came from Patchett: “The tankers sitting on Route Seventeen-Able say they just nearly got beaned by a round. Probably yours. They saw the flash through the fog, so it musta been pretty close.”

  Close to the tankers, perhaps, but nowhere near where Jock had wanted it.

  “I’ll bet the vertical interval is screwing up the artillery firing data, too,” Grossman offered.

  Jock asked Patchett, “Do the tankers know their exact location?”

  “Negative. They can’t see much of anything in that soup, neither. But we can probably work up a rough location where that round hit. Let us do a little arithmetic. Stand by…”

  A rough location’s better than nothing. Just so we have something we can adjust up the slope…and maybe see the flash of that next round.

  Jock started to say, “There may be some hope yet…”

  But then the chattering sound of gunfire on the east slope shattered the silence. Grossman’s radio came alive with frantic voices: his Charlie Company was being attacked. CCF troopers were rising toward them from the fog like ghosts materializing out of thin air. The Chinese weren’t visible until they were less than fifty feet away. Despite being cut down in droves, more kept coming.

  “I’m telling Charlie to pull back up the hill about fifty yards,” Grossman told Jock. “They need some cushion so they can at least see the chinks.”

  “Agreed,” Jock replied.

  Then Able Company on the west slope reported they were under attack, too. The company commander’s assessment of the enemy’s strength: “They’re everywhere!”

  “I’m pulling them back, too,” Grossman said.

  Jock didn’t hear him. The noise of gunfire from both flanks was deafening. When Patchett called with the estimate of where the adjustment round had landed, he could barely hear him, either.

  But the data Patchett provided made sense, at least. And with the Chinese surging in from both sides, Jock knew there was no time for further adjustments.

  I’ve got to take the risk. If I’m right, we win.

  If I’m wrong…well, we’re screwed, anyway.

  He called the correction: “Right four hundred, drop one hundred, fire for effect.”

  Patchett cringed as he wrote down the data. Cannon-cockers are gonna hate that shit. Everybody knows that corrections that big are a stab in the dark…and probably a waste of precious rounds.

  But they gotta give us what we ask for.

  When the rounds finally came—six this time—they seemed to whoosh so close overhead that they couldn’t help but land on the heads of GIs.

  But they didn’t. This time, Jock could see the dim flashes of impact through the fog. With any luck at all, they’d landed on the Chinese attacking Able Company.

  The Able Company commander confirmed that luck had been with them, his excited voice on the radio saying, “Hey, that was good! Can we have it again?”

  Grossman was crouched beside his RTO, a radio handset pressed to one ear, a field telephone to the other. Jock asked him, “What’s the story with Charlie Company, Lee?”

  Before Grossman could answer, the men of Charlie came into view as they raced toward the peak, firing wild, unaimed shots down the eastern slope.

  I can’t shift the artillery to help them, Jock told himself. The chinks are too close. Even if the shift of fire was accurate, it’d probably kill us all…because calling in fire on your own position only has a chance of succeeding if your men are well dug in, and there’s no time and no place for our guys to do that.

  He told Patchett to repeat the fire for effect on the west slope, thinking, If I can cripple the chinks facing them, maybe Able Company can come over the peak and save us all.

  Some of Charlie Company was on the peak now, only feet away from Grossman’s CP, with the Chinese close behind. Some GIs were firing; others were dragging wounded buddies, screaming Medic!

  This was no longer a tactical military operation; it had become a disorganized street brawl. Bodies swirled in a macabre dance as desperate men clinched their enemies like exhausted boxers, so close to each other that bayonets were more useful now than firearms.

  Only one man at the CP—Grossman’s RTO—saw the sizzling device some Chinaman had hurled into their midst. He screamed a one-word warning—GRENADE!—as he dove behind a boulder.

  For the others at the CP, it was already too late. Those fractions of a second it took to process the RTO’s warning had doomed any chance of their reaching safety.

  Jock’s only thought was to hurl the grenade away before it exploded: Surely, we’ve got a second or two…

  The grenade was just a few yards from him. He whirled in its direction, tried to lunge for it…

  But his leg, still strained by that leap from the helicopter, crumpled before he could take a step. Flat on his stomach, all he could do now was turn his face away from the imminent blast.

  Lee Grossman wanted to hurl the grenade away, too, but he was much farther from it, with Jock’s prone body halfway between. He knew he’d never cover the distance in time.

  But there was still something left of the kamikaze commando in Lee Grossman, no longer suicidal, perhaps, but selfless and unafraid.

  He flung his body across Jock’s.

  There wasn’t even time to draw a last breath.

  *****

  Concussed by the blast and still flat on the ground, Jock was only vaguely aware of the next few minutes. He felt as if he was under sedation, the drug altering the sights and sounds of the world around him. The fighting was still going on; it seemed to be happening right above him, a cone of chaos around which spun the shapes of men in mortal combat, whirling to the staccato beat of automatic weapons, with their shouts and curses—distorted to unintelligible yet frightening wails—providing a dissonant counterpoint. He couldn’t move, as if fate was a wrestler who’d pinned him to the ground and wouldn’t let him up.

  Then it fell strangely quiet, the only sound the soft rustling of men moving about. He tried to turn his head, but a white-hot pain that blinded him and screamed like sirens in his ears put a stop to that effort.

  He heard a voice—he swore it was Jillian’s, But how could that be?—telling him, “Can you hear me, sir? Don’t move. You’re gonna be okay…I’ve almost got it out.”

  It was slowly coming back to him now—the fight, the artillery, the grenade. But the details were a muddle. There was a man beside him. Jock’s first thought was that the man was giving him a haircut…

  But then he felt the wrapping of the bandage completely around his head from chin to crown. The pain had miraculously eased; his eyes were coming back into focus. The first thing he saw was a GI helmet—my helmet?—on the ground before him, a thin, jagged piece of steel protruding from it. He reached out to touch it; it seemed just a sliver.

  “You’re lucky, sir,” the man wrapping the bandage said. “That grenade fragment cut right through your steel pot, the liner, and your bunny hat, but only a little ways into your scalp. Burned you some, but didn’t bleed much.”

  That didn’t explain why the helmet and his parka were smeared with blood.

  Then Jock saw two other medics working diligently on a man not three feet away. He asked, “Who’s that?”

  “Major Grossman, sir. He got it pretty bad.”

  “Is he going to make it?”

  The medic didn’t answer, just kept working on the bandage.

  Full awareness returned to Jock like a bolt of lightning. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you, sir?”

  “No. I mean who was running the show while I was out?”

  “I guess that’d be Captain Williams, sir.”

  Williams: Bob Williams, the C.O. of Able Company.

  *****

  Nobody had a pair of pliers handy to pull the grenade fragment from Jock’s helmet, so he used a rock to pound over the sharp point that had penetrated inside. Captain Williams sugge
sted he not tamper with the piece of the fragment protruding outside the steel pot: “It can be like a good luck charm, sir,” he offered. “You know, like a gladiator’s plume or something.”

  Jock took the suggestion and left it alone. But he knew what—or who—had really been his good luck charm: Lee Grossman. That crazy son of a bitch better not die. I don’t want to be pinning a medal on him posthumously.

  Williams filled him in on how the fight ended. “Whoever put that artillery on the chinks in my sector did a hell of a job. By the time the dust settled, there was only a handful of them left, and they beat it down the hill. I hear our tanks cut them to shreds when they reached the road.”

  “Let’s just say that artillery was a team effort,” Jock replied. “A couple of people had to make some outstanding guesses to pull it off. So, what happened after that, Bob?”

  “Well, sir, we could tell Charlie Company was in a whole lot of trouble, them not getting the benefit of artillery like we did. I left a squad of mine on the west slope as a rear guard, and then the rest of us turned around and moved up to the peak. It was touch and go for a little bit, but for once, at least, we had numbers on the chinks, and there’s no place to hide up here, so…”

  “How many casualties, Bob?”

  “I don’t have an exact number yet, sir, but I’ve got one killed and five wounded in my company, above and beyond the couple we lost before the big fight. Charlie Company’s in rough shape, though. Looks like they took about thirty casualties, including Rick Suarez.”

  “Suarez…the company commander?”

  “That’s right, sir,” Williams replied.

  “Well, add in me, my RTO, and Major Grossman to the wounded list, too. All in all, that makes it a pretty costly little operation.” Jock wanted to add, And one that should’ve never happened, but he held his tongue.

  “Gather the seriously wounded here on the peak,” Jock said. “We’ve got a little time before the sun sets, so I’m bringing the choppers in to get them out. It’ll be tricky, but the winds have died down quite a bit, so we should be able to land and get those boys on board. You’ve already got the walking wounded moving down the hill, Bob?”

  “Affirmative, sir. Litter bearers are carrying the dead down, too.”

  “Good. I want every man off this damn pile of rocks before dark.”

  Together, they roamed the battle area one last time, making sure they were leaving no man behind. On the west slope, they came across the bodies of the two Chinese officers Grossman had captured. Williams dispassionately rolled the bodies over to reveal a bullet wound in each forehead, execution style.

  “A pistol had to do this, sir,” Williams said. “Hard to tell who pulled the trigger without digging out the slugs. But I’m here to tell you that none of my guys would’ve had the time or the interest for gangster shit like this. Not in the middle of the fight we were in, that’s for damn sure.”

  *****

  General Bryan, the division commander, was waiting at Jock’s CP when he returned well after dark, after the Chinese trying to force their way into Kap’yong had finally been driven back. Not a happy man, the general asked, “Just what in the hell happened up on Hill Four-Two-Five, Miles? I thought your plan favored isolation of mountain enclaves rather than costly fights like the one you got yourself into.”

  Jock replied, “One of my battalion commanders saw a fleeting opportunity to capture a major command post and took the initiative, sir. It wouldn’t have been my choice to do it like that, but once it was underway, I took command of the operation.”

  Bryan eyed the bandage wrapped around Jock’s head and said, “It looks more like you took a licking, Miles. What about that battalion commander? It sounds to me like he needs to be relieved immediately for inability to follow orders.”

  Patchett stepped in and said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but the commander in question, Major Grossman, is being prepped for immediate medical evacuation to Japan. He’s hurt bad, sir, real bad. The doc thinks he’s got a chance to make it…but it’s gonna be a real close-run thing. From what I’m hearing, he did some mighty heroic stuff up on that mountain.”

  Jock was relieved that Patchett had deflected the issue, at least temporarily. His after-action report, however, would have to be far more candid about what actually transpired on Hill 425.

  But for now, he decided that perhaps this wasn’t the best time to discuss with General Bryan the Medal of Honor paperwork he planned to submit for Lee Grossman.

  Let the dust settle on this fiasco first.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  They were up to the dessert course, but Judge Hobart Riggs still wasn’t sure why the senator from California had invited him to dinner at San Francisco’s posh Bohemian Club. The judge was no stranger to pressure from politicians; just last year, some senators from the Midwest had pressured him to vacate the deportation case of a Swedish businessman that was before his immigration court. They hadn’t been very subtle about it, either, letting Riggs know that he served at the pleasure of the Secretary of State, who, in turn, served at the pleasure of the President of the United States. Neither of these august gentlemen would look on the judge with any pleasure at all if he didn’t let that Swedish businessman remain in the US as an honored guest. Some big political donors had too much to lose if the Swede was forced to take his steel-making technology—and his money—to a more hospitable nation.

  The dinner invitation from Senator Garrett Wilford had come as something of a mystery, which had yet to be unraveled through the course of the meal. The conversation had been pleasant and general, without a hint of the senator trying to influence any issue before Riggs’ immigration court.

  And what case of mine could it possibly be, anyway? the judge asked himself. The convicted Mafioso who’ll be on his way back to Italy very soon? Not likely. The assortment of people who’ve overstayed their visas? None of them would be worth the trouble. And that rich Australian woman—the Army colonel’s wife—who tried to buy up some California real estate? The government’s case against her is ironclad. She’ll be sent back to her native land in just two weeks’ time, her spousal visa annulled. And good riddance, I say.

  Wait a minute…maybe it’s not that I’m being pressured at all. Perhaps the senator is a messenger from above bearing good news: somebody in Washington has finally noticed my no-nonsense, by-the-book approach to the law and I’m being considered for elevation to a higher federal court.

  Yes, that must be it!

  But that wasn’t it, not by a long shot. As the waiter rolled the lavish dessert cart away, Senator Wilford looked up from admiring the chocolate cake on his plate and said, “By the way, Hobart…I can call you Hobart, right?…it would be a wonderful thing for all concerned if you’d dismiss the case against this Jillian Forbes-Miles woman. No judgment is necessary, just administratively dismiss it as without merit. You’ll receive the thanks of a grateful military and a grateful nation, too. I guarantee it. Okay?”

  Judge Riggs felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. The senator kept casting that cold, insincere grin his way as he struggled to form an objection to the fait accompli just handed him. The best he could come up with was, “But the prosecutors, Senator…what do I tell them?”

  “You don’t have to tell them dog squat, Hobart. They have bosses who want to keep their jobs, too, you know. Now, would you like more coffee?”

  Later that night, as the senator was being driven across the Golden Gate to his home in Marin County, he watched a tanker steaming below the bridge on its way west across the Pacific. He smiled as he told himself, Can you believe it? That lady with all those tankers…we should’ve been kissing her ass instead of trying to pitch her out on her ass. That’s the trouble with this government—sometimes it can’t even figure out which side its bread is buttered on.

  *****

  Several nights later, General and Mrs. Molloy were Jillian’s guests for dinner at her Monterey home. The evening’s get-together was bot
h a celebration and a gesture of thanks. The general had suggested the dinner be at Fort Ord’s Officers Club—where he would’ve been happy to pick up the tab—but Jillian had firmly but politely refused, suggesting it be at her home instead. She reaffirmed her reasons as she served the appetizer: “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, sir, but I just can’t see myself setting foot on that post right now. I’d prefer not to be present when some gossipy Army wives are whispering behind my back, regardless of whether they’re on my side or the Whitelaws’. It would be difficult not to say something very rude to them.”

  “Understandable,” Molloy replied. “Did you get a reply from Jock confirming he received my radiogram about your case being dismissed?”

  “I certainly did. It came just a little while ago, so thank you again for expediting that message.”

  Nancy Molloy—the general’s wife—raised her wine glass in a toast: “To Jillian: you’ve won! All this deportation nonsense is over, once and for all. And that miserable witch Priscilla Whitelaw is going to get what’s coming to her. She’ll be in jail for the rest of her life, I’ll bet. Imagine…a general’s wife a criminal!”

  “Oh, I doubt she’ll do very much time, ma’am,” Jillian said. She turned to Dick Molloy and asked, “What did they say the maximum penalty for passport fraud was?”

  “Ten years,” he replied. “But I’m inclined to agree with Jillian, Nance. I doubt our Mrs. Whitelaw will get the full boat. She’s an aristocrat, remember?”

  “But the fraudulent passport…that’s just one charge,” Mrs. Molloy protested. “What about her indictment for being the mastermind behind the assault on this lovely home? Surely, she’ll do time in California for that, too, once she’s out of Federal prison.”