Retreat, Hell! tc-10

by W. E. B Griffin

  The Korean was a South Korean National Police Sergeant named Kim. He had no place to sit, and had jury-rigged, from web pistol belts, a sort of a har­ness, and rode standing—or half sitting—in a position to train and fire the ma­chine gun. The rig looked both uncomfortable and precarious, but Sergeant Kim had neither complained nor lost his footing.

  Following the jeep was a Dodge three-quarter-ton truck, called a "weapons carrier," that also bore bumper markings identifying it as belonging to the 7th Infantry Division, specifically to the 7th Military Police Company.

  It was being driven by another National Police Sergeant, also named Kim. Technical Sergeant Richard C. Jennings, USMC—a long and lanky twenty-six-year-old—rode beside him with an M-l Garand rifle in his lap. Three sergeants— one Marine and two National Police—rode on the wood-slat seats in the truck bed. Sergeant Alvin C. Cole, USMC, was armed with a Browning automatic rifle (BAR), and there was a .30-caliber air-cooled Browning on a bipod mount on the floor of the truck. The Koreans were armed with M-2 (fully auto­matic) carbines. Everybody was wearing U.S. Army fatigues without insignia of any kind.

  Major McCoy didn't say a word for the next ten minutes, until the ox path came onto a dirt road. He stopped the jeep and took a map from under the cushion.

  "Well, at least we know the bastard's still alive," he said. "Your guess is he stamped that out twenty-four hours ago?"

  "No more than that. Just before they took the picture," Zimmerman said.

  "Well, if he hung around, he would have seen us," McCoy said. "I have no idea where to look for him."

  "What do you want to do, Killer?" Zimmerman asked.

  Marine master gunners do not ordinarily address Marine majors by anything but their rank—or, of course, as "sir"—but Major McCoy did not seem to ei­ther notice or take offense.

  "Well, we can't hang around here, can we, Ernie?" McCoy said. And then he added, bitterly, "If at first you don't succeed, fuck it."

  He put the jeep in gear and turned onto the dirt road, heading north.

  [THREE]

  Thirty-eight Miles South of Suwon, South Korea

  1205 28 September 195O

  The map showed the unnamed road—which ran north from Pyongtaek toward Suwon along the rail line, paralleling Korean National Route 1—as paved, and surprising both Major McCoy and Gunner Zimmerman, it had been. They had been on it for just over an hour.

  There was always the potential threat of mines, but neither the macadam nor the cobblestones with which the road was paved showed signs of having been disturbed. The shoulders, too, had appeared undisturbed, although of course it would have been far easier to conceal the traces of mine-burying in dirt and clay than in macadam or cobblestones.

  The thing to do, obviously, was stay off the shoulders, and they had done so. And neither had they driven very fast. They wanted to have plenty of time to stop in case they saw dislodged cobblestones or suspicious-looking disrup­tions in the macadam.

  Major McCoy raised his left arm above his head to catch the attention of Sergeant Kim in the weapons carrier following, then braked.

  He pointed to a copse of gnarled pine trees a hundred yards or so down the road.

  "I don't think anyone'll see us in there," he said, adding, "I'm hungry." He slowed to a crawl as he approached the trees. Zimmerman first leaned out the side of the jeep, studying the shoulder, and then held his hand up in a signal to stop.

  Then he got out of the jeep and intently studied the shoulder before mo­tioning to McCoy to come ahead. Then he walked carefully across the shoul­der and down a slope into a wide ditch. McCoy carefully eased the jeep after him, then Sergeant Kim followed with the weapons carrier.

  McCoy took a Thompson from a rack below the windshield, got out of the jeep, and walked carefully southward along the ditch, looking for signs of dis­turbance in the mud—and for trip wires, booby traps, anything.

  Finally, when he was about one hundred yards from the vehicles, he stopped and turned his attention to the grassy slope up to the road. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he scurried up the slope. From the road, he looked back to the copse of trees. He could not see anything but the top of the jeep's antenna and maybe eight inches of the flag.

  He went back into the ditch and returned to the vehicles. When he got there, Sergeant Cole and two of the Koreans were waiting for him.

  "See that they're fed," McCoy ordered, "and then post one up there. You can see where I climbed the slope."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Cole said.

  "And then post another one a hundred yards north. Watch out for mines and wires."

  "Mr. Zimmerman's already been down there, sir."

  "Then you really better be careful," McCoy said with a smile.

  "Aye, aye, sir," Cole said, smiling back.

  McCoy walked to the jeep. The hood was up, and Zimmerman was warm­ing cans on the radiator. McCoy grabbed the antenna, bent it nearly horizon­tal, and tied it down.

  Without really thinking about it, he made sure that no part of the flag was touching the ground.

  "I couldn't see anything from the north," Zimmerman said.

  "I could see maybe eight inches of the flag," McCoy replied. "What are we eating?"

  "Salisbury Steak and Beans and Franks," Zimmerman said. "Your choice."

  McCoy laid the Thompson on the driver's seat, then reached for a ra­tion can.

  "I wonder who they think they're fooling when they call hamburger 'Salis­bury Steak'?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

  He leaned against the side of the jeep, took a fork from the baggy side pocket of the Army fatigues, and began to saw at the Salisbury Steak in the ra­tion can.

  He had just about finished raising the final forkful to his mouth when there was a short, shrill whistle, and then a second. He laid the ration can between the rear of the jeep and the back of the radio as he looked toward the sound of the whistle.

  Sergeant Cole, who had posted himself with the Korean to the south, made several hand signals, not all of them official, indicating that something of in­terest was happening and he thought Major McCoy should pay whatever it was his immediate attention.

  "Heads up," McCoy ordered as he passed the jeep—picking up the Thomp­son and a pair of U.S. Navy binoculars as he did—and headed for Cole.

  Zimmerman, similarly, made several hand signals to Technical Sergeant Jennings—these indicating that appropriate defense measures immediately be taken. Jennings indicated his understanding of his orders with a thumbs-up ges­ture. Zimmerman then trotted after McCoy, toward Sergeant Cole.

  There was little -doubt in either McCoy's or Zimmerman's mind that what had caught Sergeant Cole's attention were elements of the army of the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea.

  The questions were: How large an element and what were they up to? Had McCoy's two-vehicle convoy been spotted, and were the North Koreans in pur­suit of them? Or was it a unit trying to get away from the Eighth Army, which had broken out of the Pusan Perimeter and was in hot pursuit of the North Ko­reans up the peninsula?

  Shattered, demoralized, whatever, if it was a company-strength unit—or a single tank, for that matter—McCoy & Company were going to be seriously outnumbered, or outgunned, or both.

  "What have you got, Cole?" McCoy asked, handing him the Thompson.

  "Looks like a couple of jeeps, sir," Cole said. "Russian jeeps."

  McCoy crawled up the slope to the shoulder of the road and looked down it through the binoculars. He then handed them to Zimmerman, who had crawled beside him, and then slid down the slope. A moment later, Zimmer­man slid down and returned the binoculars to McCoy.

  "Two jeeps, and I make it five Slopes," Zimmerman said. "Moving slow; probably looking for mines."

  "The passenger in the second jeep has leather boots—shiny leather boots," McCoy said. "I'd really like to talk to him."

  "What do we do, Killer?" Zimmerman asked.

  "I don't think we could get across the road withou
t being seen," McCoy said. So, Cole, run down there and tell Jennings what's going on, and to make sure if they get past Mr. Zimmerman and me, they don't get past him."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Cole said. "You want me to come back here, sir?"

  "No. Your BAR will be more useful there, if they get past us."

  Cole nodded and took off at a run.

  "How do you want to do this?" Zimmerman asked.

  "You shoot out the tires of the first vehicle and watch what happens there. I'll deal with the second jeep." He paused. "I really want to talk to that officer, Ernie."

  "Okay," Zimmerman said. "You going to call it?"

  "I'm going to go another twenty-five yards that way, in case they turn around. When I hear your shots ..."

  Zimmerman nodded.

  McCoy moved quickly, but carefully, farther down the ditch, then stopped, examined the slope again, and climbed up it.

  Four minutes or so later, McCoy could hear the exhaust of the engines of the Russian jeeps, and the whining crunch of their tires on the road. It grew slowly louder.

  When the first vehicle passed McCoy, he began to count. When he reached ten, there were two bursts of fire—one of three shots, followed by a second of two. Then there was the squeal of worn-out brakes, and then a loud thump.

  McCoy scrambled onto the road, going over the top of slope on his knees and left hand—he had the Thompson in the right—feeling for a moment a chill of helplessness until he gained his feet and could put his hand on the forestock of the Thompson.

  He was very much aware that two hands were necessary to fire a Thompson.

  It took him a moment to see and understand what had happened.

  The Russian jeep with the North Korean officer in it was stopped, stalled sideward across the road, the driver grinding the starter. The front end of the other jeep was off the road, halfway into the ditch on the near side of the road. The frame had caught on the edge of the road, keeping it from going all the way down into the ditch.

  McCoy had just time to wonder—in alarm—if by intention or accident the jeep had run over Zimmerman when he heard Zimmerman order, in Korean, "On your belly, you son of a whore."

  McCoy ran toward the stalled jeep.

  The officer was trying to work the action of a strange-looking subma­chine gun.

  "I don't want to kill you, Colonel," McCoy called in Korean. "Just drop that and hold your hands over your head."

  The North Korean officer complied.

  McCoy saw that the look on his face was as much surprise, even astonish­ment, as fear.

  "Yeah, Colonel, I speak Korean," McCoy said.

  He walked closer to the-jeep and held the Thompson on both of them until Technical Sergeant Jennings ran up the road to them, followed by three South Korean National Policemen.

  "See if Mr. Zimmerman needs any help," McCoy said in English, and then switched to Korean as he spoke to one of the National Policemen: "Take the submachine gun from the colonel's lap. Then lay him on the ground and search him."

  Jennings walked to the edge of the road, where the first jeep was hung up, and looked down.

  "Well, just don't stand there with your thumb up your ass, for Christ's sake, Jennings," Zimmerman's impatient voice came up. "Get down here and frisk these Slopes."

  "I never saw one like this before," Sergeant Alvin Cole said, holding the sub­machine gun taken from the North Korean colonel, who was now lying on his stomach, his hands tied behind him.

  The other prisoners—a captain, a lieutenant, a sergeant, and a corporal— were being marched, barefoot, their hands tied behind them, down the road to­ward the copse of trees by Sergeant Jennings and two South Korean National Policemen.

  "That's a PPD 1940G," Master Gunner Zimmerman said. "You don't see many of those. Pretty good weapon."

  Cole looked at him.

  "Proceed, Mr. Zimmerman," McCoy said. "We're fascinated."

  Zimmerman looked at McCoy to see if he was serious.

  "Okay," he said. "PPD stands for 'Pistolet Pulyemet Degtyarev.' It means machine pistol Degtyarev. Degtyarev being the Russian who stole the idea from the Germans. It's based on the 1928 Bergmann. The Bergmann had a stick mag­azine. Degtyarev stole a drum magazine design from the Finnish Soumi, chrome-plated the inside parts, including the barrel, put it all together, and got it named after him. But the Russians dumped it because it couldn't be made fast enough for War Two, and went to the crude, easy-to-make PPsh you see all the time. That's why you don't see very many of these."

  "I hope you were taking notes, Sergeant Cole," McCoy said. "There will be a written exam at the end of the lecture period."

  Master Gunner Zimmerman looked at Major McCoy and said, "You asked, Killer," and gave the major the finger. Can I have it?" Sergeant Cole asked.

  "You can if you give the pistols you took away from the other officers to the Koreans," McCoy said.

  "And the other submachine gun, the PPsh, sir?" Cole asked.

  "I think Jennings wants that," McCoy said. "Don't be greedy, Cole."

  "Yes, sir."

  The weapons carrier crawled back onto the road and headed for them.

  McCoy pointed to the half-off-the-road Russian jeep.

  "I was thinking about dragging this one down to the trees, but that would tear up the road, and I want to get out of here. Just push it over the side?"

  "Yeah," Zimmerman agreed after a moment's thought. "That'd be better."

  When the weapons carrier stopped beside him, McCoy, in Korean, ordered the National Police driver to push the Russian jeep into the ditch.

  "And when you've done that," McCoy continued in Korean, "we're going to load the colonel in the back, tie him securely to the back of the seat, and put Sergeant Kim in there with him with a carbine. If the colonel even looks as if he's thinking about causing any trouble, Sergeant Kim will shoot him in both feet." He paused. "Did you hear that, Colonel?"

  There was no reply from the colonel.

  Zimmerman walked to him and nudged him with his boot.

  "The major asked if you understood him, Colonel," he said in Korean.

  There was no reply. Zimmerman kicked the colonel in the waist.

  "I heard," the colonel said.

  [FOUR]

  Thirteen Miles South of Suwon, South Korea

  17O5 28 September 195O

  The sun was low in the sky, and the shadows were long. McCoy, Zimmerman, and Jennings were lying at the crest of a small hill from which they could see a road intersection about five hundred yards away.

  Elements—what looked like an infantry platoon reinforced by three tanks— of the United States 7th Infantry Division were manning a hastily erected road­block on the dirt road paralleling Korean National Route 1.

  It had to be elements of the 7th Division. There were only two American divisions in the Seoul area, the 7th and the 1st Marine, and the armed Ameri­cans at the roadblock were not Marines.

  Gunner Zimmerman took binoculars from his eyes, handed them to Tech­nical Sergeant Jennings, and then turned to Major McCoy.

  "Killer," he said conversationally, "if we start down that road, those doggies are going to start shooting at us."

  McCoy grunted.

  "Especially when they see that Russian jeep," Jennings added.

  "Maybe not," McCoy said.

  Then he pushed himself backward, sliding on his stomach away from the hilltop until he was far enough down the hill so there was no chance of his being seen. There, he rolled over onto his back and then sat up, holding his Thomp­son erect between his knees.

  Zimmerman rolled over on his back, and—holding his Thompson against his chest—slid down after him, and then, when he'd seen all he wanted to, so did Jennings, carrying his Garand.

  "I make it three tanks—M4s, Shermans," Jennings said, "plus maybe thirty-five doggies, with two air-cooled .50s, at least that many .30s, and a mortar."

  "All of which are going to shoot at whatever they see coming up the road," Zimmerman said.
"Like us, for example."

  McCoy chuckled.

  "What do you suggest we do, Mr. Zimmerman?"

  Zimmerman pointed down the slope of the hill toward their small con­voy. The Russian light truck, which McCoy had impulsively decided to drive, was at the head. The weapons carrier came next, and the jeep brought up the rear.

  The Russian truck looked vaguely like a jeep. It was, McCoy had finally con­cluded, actually a Chinese-built version of a Russian vehicle, which in turn had been copied from a German vehicle, built on a Volkswagen chassis, which in turn had been inspired by the Truck, General Purpose, 1/4 ton, 4x4 of the U.S. Army, popularly known as the jeep.

  McCoy had found the vehicle very interesting, and not just as an example of the enemy's military trucks.

  Very few North Korean lieutenant colonels had vehicles permanently as­signed to them. There were signs that this one was—had been—the, colonel's personal vehicle. It was extraordinarily well maintained. The seats, for exam­ple, were thickly padded. There had been personal possessions in both the glove compartment and under the seats, including three packages of Chesterfield cigarettes.

  The dashboard instruments were lettered in the Cyrillic alphabet. Either the Russians had provided the instruments or the Chinese had copied the Russian vehicle slavishly. In any event, calligraphed Cantonese translations had been pre­pared and glued to the panel. There were no such Korean calligraphs.

  This suggested the possibility that the colonel had acquired the vehicle new from a depot, and had not felt the need for Korean translations from the Russ­ian and Chinese because he spoke one or both of the languages.

  Two kinds of North Korean lieutenant colonels would be likely to speak Russian and/or Cantonese: political commissars and intelligence officers.

  A political commissar would most likely be at the front, exhorting the troops to give their all, not headed north in an obvious attempt to avoid capture by the now advancing Eighth United States Army. Political commissars are useful even in enemy captivity. Intelligence officers are not. Intelligence officers know a lot of things that should be kept from the enemy. Intelligence officers are taught not to place themselves in positions where they can be captured.