"Everyone," Murdock said.
"How many men on ropes?" DeWitt asked.
They kicked it around, looked at the structure of the bridge, and decided that six could do it. They could scramble up the far bank to get their ropes over, then go up the ropes and plant the charges.
Murdock picked out the five men besides himself who were the best at the rope climb on the O course. Franklin, Adams, Lampedusa, Ching, and Sterling.
They decided they'd use smaller charges of TNAZ on the areas next to the main support, and larger charges back where the bridge met the land. That way the whole section should be blown off and drop into the river below.
Ed DeWitt found Stroh, who made the call to the Army people and contacted the commander in the sector where the bridge was. They had concentrations of 105's on the ridgeline behind the bridge. Yes, they would lay in ten rounds on call from the SATCOM to their TAC frequency.
The SEALs left promptly at 1700 in a reliable CH-46 Sea Knight, and set down at dusk near the MLR about ten miles west of Panmunjom. Here the bulge made by the North troops was about seven miles beyond the old DMZ. An ROK captain met them. He would coordinate the artillery. He gave Ron Holt the frequency to use. Holt dialed it up and made immediate contact with the artillery. The ROK soldier there even spoke English.
They were a quarter of a mile from the river. The SEALs wore their jungle cammies, combat vests, rebreathers, and fins. They figured they wouldn't be in the water long enough to need the wet suits.
They found the right spot, then sacked out for three hours. Just at midnight, a guide led them to the water. Murdock and the climbers went in the water first, then DeWitt and the rest of the men. Everyone knew precisely what to do. The timers would be set for ten minutes and coordinated precisely to be activated at the same time.
Each of the climbers carried a 125-foot coil of nylon rope. They figured eight charges would drop the end section of the bridge. They brought twelve bombs all packaged and ready to go.
Murdock eyed the roiling water. It was still in near-flood stage from recent rains. "Buddy lines," he said. "Lam and I will lead. Ed, bring up the rear. No stragglers. Let the current take you, but stay underwater. Don't overshoot. It's only a little more than a quarter mile."
They walked into the water and slipped under the muddy flow. Murdock had no way to count strokes or tell distance. He surfaced twice. The third time he saw the bridge coming up fast.
He stroked for the far shore. The river was about forty yards across here. He and Lam came out directly under the bridge. He left Lam at the water's edge to bird-dog in the rest of the men, and went to check on the bank under the bridge. There was a small piece of dry land about twenty feet wide, then the slant up of the bank to the bridge sixty feet overhead. He could climb it with no problem. He went up and tied off his rope to one of the support girders.
No problem for the hot new explosive TNAZ. By the time he got back to the river, all but two men were out of the water. Ed had them in defensive positions. The four other climbers moved to the dry area and looked up at the bridge.
"That section is longer than we figured," Jaybird said. "It's at least thirty feet. No sweat. We use the same eight charges and blow the fucker right out of there without hurting the rest of it."
"Let's get to it," Murdock said. "If it stays this quiet around here, we'll use the 105 rounds for our getaway. Up the hill. On that rope. We'll hit the girders and take our assigned spots. The faster we work, the quicker we get back to breakfast."
Murdock went up the rope he had just tied off, got to the top, and swung up on the first girder. Under the roadway was a pair of X-shaped box girders on their sides. The charges would go on the ends of the X's on top and bottom on both sides.
Murdock went to the far end of the first girder, and planted the TNAZ bomb where it would cut the steel in half and leave that part of the bridge without support. Above him Lam put a charge on the girder there. The other four men worked their positions. It took them less than three minutes to get the charges in place.
"Ten minutes on the timers," Murdock whispered to Lam. In the dark they couldn't use signs. Murdock contacted two of the other men, and Lam talked to the last two. They all returned to their charges.
"Now," Murdock said loud enough so all could hear. They pushed in the timers on the petards, activating the timers; then all six worked carefully back to the bank and went down the rope to the ground.
Murdock found Holt.
"Crank up that mother and get some artillery in there," he said.
Lam made the call, got confirmation.
"On the way in two minutes, Cap," Holt said.
"Gentlemen, let's get the hell out of Dodge. We've got about five minutes to bang time."
Before they could move, a machine gun chattered on the edge of the bank above them. Rounds slapped into the ground and the edge of the water.
Murdock and the others sent return fire at the MG's position. It stopped for a moment.
"Second Squad, into the water, go, go, go." Murdock barked. "The rest of us, find some cover and burn out that MG up there."
The enemy weapon fired again. By that time the SEALs had spread out and found what cover there was. They sent fifty rounds of return fire. Murdock saw that the Second Squad was out of sight. He sent a final three-round burst at the MG, then waved. "Let's get wet." First Squad sprinted the twenty feet to the water and slid in quietly. The MG opened up again, this time joined by half-a-dozen rifles as the North Koreans wasted lead shooting where the SEALs had been.
Murdock swam with the current and stayed on top. How far was a quarter of a mile? He saw figures on the far shore and swam across the current. Ed and his squad waved.
Just then Murdock heard the whispers of the 105 rounds going overhead. They landed seconds later somewhere to the rear. The machine gun and rifle fire behind them stopped.
A moment later the sky lit up behind them with brilliant lights, and a roaring wave of sound and wind whipped against their faces. The SEALs looked back, but couldn't see the bridge. Now they could hear a grinding and crashing as something came down hard and hit the ground, sending out a minor shock wave.
"Looks like we blew one bridge," Murdock said. He looked around. "How far downstream are we?"
"Hundred yards at the most," Ed DeWitt said. "Just wanted to get us back together again."
Murdock waved and called softly as his men came by. They all came out of the water. "Somebody count, we got fifteen?"
"Fourteen," Jaybird said. "Who the hell isn't here?"
Before they discovered the identity of the missing SEAL, they heard splashing and Doc Ellsworth came out of the water, one arm pushed into his combat vest.
"He's hit," Murdock said.
They got Doc on solid ground and he shivered. "Damn fucking horseshit fucker got me in the elbow. Fucking elbow. Bleeding like a whore in heat."
Jack Mahanani pushed Ron Holt away, stripped open the medic bag Doc carried, and looked at the elbow in the pale moonlight.
"Keep it tucked in there. I'll wrap it up and stop the bleeding. You need at least one ampoule. They in the usual spot?" Doc Ellsworth nodded. They could see his white upper teeth biting into his lower lip.
"No more wet for this boy," Mahanani said. "Why can't we walk down this side of the river and then turn inland. The South Ks must know we're out here."
"Yeah, but their MLR is gonna look for us a quarter of a mile on down," Ed DeWitt said. "We don't want to get sliced to pieces by some angry ROK battalion."
"Lam, out front a hundred," Murdock said. "We don't know how close to the river the fucking MLR is along here. We'll have to play it by ear and damn quiet. Quiet, but as quickly as we can. Doc isn't in the best of shape. Usual formation. Let's move."
Ed DeWitt made sure that he put Joe Douglas at the end of the marching order and kept Fernandez right behind himself and Al Adams. He hadn't forgotten their animosity.
Lam worked ahead for a hundred yards, then went to
the ground. Murdock slid into the grass and weeds beside him.
Lam pointed to where the moonlight glanced off the river.
"An NK patrol, I'd guess," he said. "I saw them shoot a line across the river. Not over thirty yards wide here. They're moving hand-over-hand across the line."
"How many of them?"
"I can see twelve."
"We sure that they are NKs?"
"No. But a South patrol coming back would already have a line across the river. Right?"
"Yeah. Let's pick off the first two and see what happens." Both men screwed on sound suppressors and leveled in. The silenced rounds made more noise than they wanted them to, but they worked. The first two men on the line collapsed, dropped into the swift water, and washed downstream.
A low wail came from the third man in line. He lifted an automatic rifle and pounded off six rounds into the brush on the south side, but thirty yards from Murdock.
"The rest of them," Murdock said. Murdock and Lam moved back along the rope with their rounds, and soon had company from Jaybird. A minute later, the line was empty and the men still alive on the far side of the river ran up the slope and over the ridgeline.
Lam headed out downstream. Murdock and Jaybird got the men behind them moving as well.
Lam settled in behind a good-sized tree and looked inland. He had led the platoon in a hundred yards from the river, and ahead he could sec mounds of fresh dirt he figured were either trenches or gun emplacements.
"Could be the MLR along here," Lam whispered to Murdock, who settled in beside him.
"Yeah. Wonder if any of them speak English?" Murdock sent Lam back to bring up Ching. The Chinese saw the situation.
"Try some Japanese on them," Murdock said. "A lot of the Koreans remember Japanese."
"First we all get some cover. I've heard these bastards are super-trigger-happy."
When the three had pushed behind trees or rocks, Ching gave it a try.
"Hey, you South Koreans. We're Americans out here. United States. Don't shoot." He called it in Japanese. There was no response. He started to repeat it, but a machine gun and about ten rifles opened fire, riddling the small trees and brush where they crouched.
Murdock slithered away from the fire, and went to the rest of the platoon.
"You guys with forty-mikes. We need you to each fire three at max range downstream. Be sure they hit land. Do it now and maybe the distraction will let us slip through the damn South Koreans' MLR here."
The men fired the rounds. Murdock led them back as close to his previous position as he could. Lam crawled back.
"Ching is moving ahead. He says he heard at least half the troops up there bug out downriver for the action down there. Those our forties?"
"True," Murdock said. He whispered to the rest of the men. "We're going to have to go through here like ghosts. Ching and Lam and I will try to quiet anyone left. You hear a morning dove call, you come quickly, quietly." Murdock crawled away toward the MLR.
Ching was ahead. He moved at a crouch toward the new earthworks. He was almost there when he heard two Koreans talking. He slanted to the left, found a spot without fresh dirt, and eased up the slight rise. He rolled over the dirt and came down in a trench three feet deep.
Ching looked both ways. Nobody. He moved toward where he had heard the two men. He spotted them when he was twenty feet away and the trench made a small turn. They looked over the lip of the berm. One of them sat behind a heavy machine gun.
Ching moved ahead without a sound. He was almost there. He picked up a rock off the new dirt and threw it beyond the two Koreans.
Both yelled.
One swung the machine gun that way. Ching rushed the last twenty feet, clubbed the machine gunner with his Colt carbine, and covered the other Korean, who looked around but didn't reach for his weapon.
"Americans," Ching said.
The Korean grinned. "Melican, OK, GI."
Ching used a pencil flash from his combat vest and blinked it three times toward the river. He got three blinks back.
Five minutes later, all the SEALs were over the berm and moving to the rear. An SK lieutenant had showed up after a few minutes and designated one of his men to lead the SEALs to the rear. Doc Ellsworth was really hurting by that time. Others carried his weapon, his medic bag, and his combat vest. Mahanani walked step for step with him, and caught him twice when he fell. Holt had the SATCOM up and working on Air TAC One. The Sea Knight had been on the ground waiting for them two miles away. It found them with the aid of a red flare.
Mahanani gave Doc another shot of morphine, and a half hour later they landed on the Monroe, where two medics and a doctor met them on the flight deck. Murdock went along with Doc. Ed got the SEALs back to their assembly room.
Murdock didn't like the way the Navy doctors were consulting about Ellsworth's elbow. They had put in half-a dozen shots to deaden the area. Ellsworth was conscious, but half out of it from the medications.
At last one of the doctors came out to Murdock,
"Commander, it's bad. The elbow is never going to work right again. It's all busted up to hell in there. Maybe a replacement joint down the road a ways."
"It won't be stiff, will it?"
"No, but he won't be doing any fancy gymnastics with it either. Is he a SEAL?"
"Yes."
"Tough. Not a chance of staying with you. You can tell him tomorrow. Now, we have some reconstruction to do and some pins to put in. Understand he was your medic."
"True. Three years."
"Sorry."
Murdock slammed his fist into the wall and stormed out of sick bay.
11
USS Monroe
Don Stroh waited for Murdock in the SEALs' assembly room. The men were still in their wet cammies. They spent the time cleaning and oiling weapons, checking out ammo supply, and making a list of what they needed. By this time Jaybird had four boxes of rounds he kept locked so he didn't have to run to ordnance every day.
Murdock came in wet and angry. He didn't see Stroh at first. The CIA man sat in a chair near the back of the big room.
"Listen up," Murdock growled. "We lost Doc Ellsworth. His elbow is shattered. Not a chance he can get back with us. We're down to fourteen men. I need every one of you, so don't go and get yourself shot up or killed.
"If some of you don't know, we nailed that fucking bridge. That thirty-foot span fell into the river. So we should have a breather. What time is it?"
"Just past 0300, Skipper," Ronson said.
"Okay, get out of these wet cammies, grab some shuteye. That damn Stroh can't have anything for us for at least two days."
Some of the men laughed nervously. Murdock looked up sharply. Don Stroh stood up from the far side of the room.
"Like hell he couldn't," Stroh said. "We've got a war on here, people, in case you hadn't noticed. I haven't been to sleep for thirty-six hours and things are getting a little fuzzy, but General Reynolds called again. He knows it's too late to do anything tonight, so he's calling it for tonight — morning, I guess — at 0500."
"Calling what, Stroh?" Murdock asked.
"This is as bad as the Yalu River retreat. He's had another unit overrun. Not that it's all that important in the scheme of the twenty-five-mile front, but the lost outfit includes a brigadier general and his staff of six officers. They have a SATCOM and they're holed up in a small patch of woods about two miles behind the current MLR."
"Two miles, Stroh? You've got to be kidding. Tell them to get off their fat asses and hike out. They can make two miles in half an hour for shit sakes."
"We're talking about one brigadier, two bird colonels, three lieutenant colonels, and one lowly major. They just ain't used to hiking anywhere."
"Tell them to get used to it. We've got a war on here."
"You can tell them when you see them. General Reynolds wants it to go down this way. We get your platoon to the MLR an hour before daylight. That gives you an hour to get across the MLR and jog in the two m
iles to the patch of woods. This part of the line is not held in any strength. The NKs are pushing in other sectors, not this one. So there should be almost no opposition for you to get to the general."
"Then what's the Eighth Army have planned for us?" Murdock asked.
"Up to you. They suggest that you might want to wait until dark to make your way out of there. During the daylight you would be a security force for the brass."
"Baby-sitters, you mean?"
"That too. With full dark, you could take your charges, put them in the middle of your platoon, and work your way back to the MLR, where the good guys will create a diversion on one side and you can walk across the main line with not a shot fired." "Don't count on it. We had to come across an MLR tonight. There were plenty of shots fired."
"That's the assignment. You have time to change into dry cammies, get restocked with ammo, and lift off from the flight deck in twenty-two minutes."
"This general, is he worth it?"
"From what I hear, he is. The two birds are also top-grade."
Murdock nodded. "Don't just sit there, SEALs. Get fresh cammies and some ammo and let's get out of here. This is the new version of Hell Week."
"Yeah," Bradford said. "But here we get to shoot at the bad guys."
Third Platoon made the chopper almost half a minute late, but the bird waited for them. Stroh went along. He sat beside Murdock and shouted so he could be understood.
"You want an ROK interpreter with you?"
"Yeah, one with a good automatic rifle and lots of ammo. I'm two men short now. You want to fill in, Stroh?"
The CIA field man jolted back against the helo and shook his head. It was the first laugh Murdock had had all week.
Nearly an hour later, Third Platoon crawled out of a truck and hurried up a hundred yards to a bunker. An American first lieutenant led them there and pointed.
"The MLR is along here. There's about a hundred yards of no-man's-land out there, then you'll come to the NKs' bunkers. All are freshly made. We'll send one-oh-fives into the sector directly ahead, to soften them up, then send out a raiding party five hundred yards to the left. That should drain a lot of the manpower from this sector so you can get through quickly, and we hope without firing a shot."
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