"Keep your eyes open," Cole warned them. "We don't know what's in front of us, and we sure as hell know that the Chinese are right behind us. Kelwick, you know where you're headed?"
"Easy, peasy," he said, popping his gum. "All I have to do is head south and keep it between the mountains. Just like Route 1. I ought to be able to do that."
Kelwick wasn't exaggerating. The surface of the frozen lake stretched before them, about a mile wide. Hills and mountains ringed the rest of the lake. All that Kelwick had to do was stay on the ice.
Visibility was less than perfect due to the blowing snow, however, and crossing the ice posed its own obstacles. The biggest challenge was avoiding the drifts. Although it hadn't snowed today, the cold, dry snow still continued to blow around. The snow was more than a foot deep in places, drifting even deeper in others. Here and there, the ice had been impacted by stray bombs or artillery rounds, leaving craters. If Kelwick didn't want to get stuck, he would have to avoid these.
Although it was full dark by now, a kind of glow reflected off the snow-covered ice and lighted their way. The driver didn't dare turn on his headlights, thus making the truck a target, so the glow was welcome. No moon or stars showed, so the sky overhead must have had cloud cover. Cole hoped it wasn't going to snow any damn more — he'd had enough of that. He sniffed the air and didn't think that it smelled like snow, though.
Here and there in the distance, he saw other vague shapes on the ice as small groups like their own made a run for it. At least, Cole hoped that these were more of their own troops. For all he knew, these might be Chinese coming after them.
Seeing the American and UN forces retreat wasn't enough for them, apparently. They wanted to see their enemy destroyed.
"Let's go," Cole said. "Get moving. And keep an eye open for what's ahead. The last thing we want to do is surprise our own boys and get machine-gunned."
Kelwick nodded and kept the window rolled down despite the cold, in order to communicate with the soldiers around him.
The wind blew even harder out here, flowing down from the mountains with added velocity. Loose snow swirled, occasionally reducing the visibility ahead to a few feet.
Cole did not particularly like being in the open. He preferred having trees and mountains around. Out here, they were sitting ducks if the enemy appeared.
But at the moment, there were more immediate concerns.
"Can't see a damn thing!" Kelwick shouted.
"Just go," Cole said. "Keep driving."
The truck crept along in low gear. Cole gritted his teeth against the icy crystals rubbing his face. They had come this far, and they had to keep going. Rescue might be just a few miles away, but it was going to be one hell of a trek.
Behind them, from the section of lake shore that they had left from, he heard the sound of a horn. He took a few steps away from the truck so that he could better hear the sound. He thought that maybe his ears were playing tricks on him. Not a truck horn, he decided, but a bugle. Then he heard it again.
"You hear that?" Tommy asked. "It's that bugle sound we heard the nights we were attacked."
"It's the Chinese," Cole said. "They're letting us know that they're coming after us."
"What should we do, Cole?" the kid sounded near panic, fear and exhaustion plain in his voice.
"Keep moving." Cole raised his voice. "Everybody, get a move on."
At the wheel, Kelwick eased into a slightly higher gear. However, he couldn't go much faster if the men on foot had any hope of keeping up. This wasn't going to be fast enough. Behind them, they heard another bugle, closer this time.
Kelwick stopped the truck. "Everybody get on," he shouted. With the wounded taking up the back, it wasn't clear where the men on foot were supposed to ride. A rifle fired behind them, then another. Rounds cracked overhead. The Chinese were getting closer. "Get on the hood, if you have to. We've got to move."
The men were so stiff with cold that climbing onto the truck was easier said than done. Three men wedged themselves into the back, hanging on for dear life. Cole and Tommy got in front, barely squeezing in. In fact, the kid was basically sitting in Cole's lap. With an effort, Cole was able to pull the door shut.
"Everyone on?" Kelwick shouted out the open window, his foot bouncing on the clutch so that the truck rocked back and forth.
In answer, somebody slapped the side of the truck twice. Good to go.
A bullet passed overhead. "Move it," Cole said.
Kelwick let out the clutch, shifting from first to second to third. It was the first time in weeks that he'd been able to drive at any kind of speed. The roads had been too rough for that. The frozen surface of the reservoir was snowy, but at least it was smooth.
The problem was visibility. Without headlights, it was hard to see more than a few feet ahead. Snow swirled in the gusts off the mountains, creating white-out conditions that Kelwick had no choice but to plunge through blindly. He couldn't slow down every time that the wind blew. He leaned forward over the bucking steering wheel, his nose practically touching the windshield, straining to see.
They didn't get far. With a tremendous jolt, the front passenger tire suddenly dropped into a hole.
"Hang on!" Kelwick shouted as he wrestled with the wheel.
The rest of the truck slewed around, tires skidding on the ice. The momentum tipped the truck over as if in slow motion. Even over the noise of the brakes and tires protesting, they could hear the muffled cries of the men in back. Finally, the truck came to rest tilted mostly onto its passenger side. The truck creaked and groaned ominously, as if it might not be finished with his plan to roll onto its side.
"What the hell did we hit?"
Cole couldn't get the door open easily to inspect the damage because it was pinned by the weight of the truck. He shoved it hard, and finally wriggled out, which wasn't easy in the over-sized greatcoat.
Immediately, he saw the problem. A massive hole yawned in the ice at his feet, and Cole instinctively took a step back before it swallowed him. He guessed that the hole had likely been caused by a stray bomb or artillery shell. In the dark and blowing snow, it would have been impossible for the driver to detect. The front tire had gone into the hole with such force that it now appeared bent. Tiny snorts of steam escaped from the front grill and were whisked away in the cold breeze.
A round passed over his head from the darkness leading to the lake shore, causing him to duck.
Two things became clear to him at once. First, the Chinese were catching up. Second, the truck wasn't going anywhere. Their only choice now would be crossing the ice on foot. How they were going to stay ahead of their pursuers when there were so many wounded to carry had yet to be seen — but Cole had an idea.
Kelwick had climbed out of the precariously leaning truck to inspect the damage, and quickly came to the same conclusion that Cole had.
"She's done in," he said. He snapped his bubble gum for emphasis.
"We need to get everybody out," Cole said. "Pomeroy! Kid! Let's go! Get out of the truck now! We've got to hoof it."
Kelwick leaned in close and spoke in a low voice. "The Chinese are right behind us. We could leave the wounded. We might have a shot of staying ahead of them, then."
"Hell no, we ain't leaving the wounded."
Cole said it with such vitriol that Kelwick stepped back. "Hey, it was just an idea. Forget I mentioned it."
Cole turned away and began helping Pomeroy and Tommy get the wounded from the back of the truck. There proved to be a dozen men riding in back. Half of them could walk, if just barely — but they would have to if they hoped to escape the Chinese. There turned out to be just five men to carry on stretchers. The sixth man was dead, his body already stiff with cold. Nobody knew what else to do with him, so they left his body beside the truck, laying it down gently.