"Point that somewhere else before you hurt yourself," the approaching soldier shouted back with a distinctive twang. "Goddamn trigger-happy leathernecks."
The sentry finally lowered his rifle. Up close, he could see that this was a real, live American. Snow covered his uniform and dusted his eyelashes and eyebrows above the scarf that covered the man's face. The eyes glittered like ice.
"You're from the task force?" the Marine asked.
"No, I'm going door to door selling Bibles. You want one?"
The Marine grinned. "Got one already. Hell, I thought you might be the Chinese."
Cole shook his head. "There was some Chinese back there, but I don't reckon there's enough of them left now to fill a bucket. Grenade," he added by way of explanation.
"Huh."
"Then again, keep your eyes open. They are determined sons of bitches. Now, where the hell can I find the aid station?"
The sentry looked him up and down in surprise. The loping figure had not seemed to be injured. "You wounded?"
"No, but my buddies are. They came in off the ice maybe an hour ago."
The Marine pointed. "Thataway."
Cole walked in that direction, passing more and more Marines, plus a few machine-gun emplacements, which was reassuring. If the Chinese did appear, that would chew them up but good. He wouldn't mind returning the favor, after all. He didn't like to admit it, but the enemy had turned the Army column into chow mein.
There had simply been too many of the enemy and the soldiers had been short on everything: decent food, ammo, gasoline, any chance of getting warm or medical aid, and ultimately leadership due to the death of so many good officers. It was no fault of the higher-ranking officers, he thought. They simply hadn't survived, but had given their lives for their country.
Cole and the other soldiers, as well as the Marines, had basic needs on their minds. But there were much larger forces already at work as the survivors trickled in across the ice.
If General Almond's push to the Yalu River had succeeded without Chinese intervention, then the Korean War might have indeed been won by Christmas and the soldiers of Task Force Faith would have been heroes, just as much as everyone else. Instead, massive numbers of Chinese troops had shown that victory in war is never as much of a certainty as it seems.
General Almond would have been hailed as another Patton, instead of a Custer.
For the soldiers of what came to be known as Task Force Faith after the fearless lieutenant colonel who had led the effort, there would be no storybook ending and precious little recognition. Soon, the loss of the Army contingent would be trumpeted as a defeat. The Marines who had survived the Chosin Reservoir would receive medals, but not the Army soldiers. For them, there would be only ignominy. Somebody needed a scapegoat to blame for the Chosin Reservoir.
Mostly, it was politics and public relations at play. Newspapers across the United States had closely followed the Chosin Reservoir campaign on their front pages. The looming encirclement and defeat had been trumpeted in bold headlines.
The censorship that had filtered much of the news during WWII was not present in 1950 for various reasons, so that American audiences were getting something much closer to the unvarnished truth about the war in Korea. The news that came home was of a cold, ragged, ill-equipped, frostbitten, and utterly defeated military in the face of overwhelming numbers of mostly Chinese troops.
For whatever reason, it was the story of the Marines that captured the public attention when General O.P. Smith had famously declared that his men were not retreating from the Chosin Reservoir, but were, "Fighting in a different direction." That was the spirit that the American public preferred to embrace when it came to the Korean War.
It didn't help that the United States government was looking for heroes during a difficult war in Korea. It also didn't help that the military and the public still lived in the shadow of the legacy of the Second World War, when the U.S. forces had always fought an offensive battle, gobbling up territory as fast as the enemy could retreat.
Now, the tables had turned. Never mind the fact that the soldiers had endured beyond any reasonable limits or expectations. The U.S. military and government preferred to look the other way when it came to Task Force Faith.
The butcher's bill was heavy. More than a thousand Americans died in the fight or after being captured by the Chinese. Hundreds more South Koreans also gave their lives for their country. For hundreds more, their war was now over due to frostbite or battle wounds. The Chinese toll was staggering, with as many as ten thousand dead — possibly half of whom had simply frozen to death.
In suffering, all men are equal.
None of that mattered now to Cole. He and the survivors would have years to chew the gristle of the Chosin Reservoir campaign. He just wanted to see if Pomeroy was all right, and wherever Pomeroy was, he was sure that the kid would be nearby.
He walked on until he found the aid station. He pulled aside the canvas flaps and was greeted by a gust of warmth. That was welcome. Much less welcome were the field hospital smells that assaulted his nose — rubbing alcohol, disinfectant, blood, unwashed bodies, and a whiff of fecal smell. Smelled something like a slaughterhouse, if truth be told. His nose wrinkled.
Outside the tent walls, generators labored in the cold. Lights had been set up, just enough for the medical staff to navigate by. The medics were doing what they could to help the wounded troops.
In the confusion, there didn't seem to be much order or anyone to ask for help finding Pomeroy, so Cole had to wander the rows of men. Most of them lay on the frozen ground. Cole tried not to look too closely at some of the injuries. It was a wonder that some of these poor boys still lived. The question was, would they even make it to morning?
The relative warmth made Cole's cheeks and ears sting as they thawed, but he didn't think he had frostbite. Having spent his boyhood trapping and hunting in the mountains, he was no stranger to what it meant to be cold. Even his feet felt as if they were in good shape, which was more than he could say for the dozens of poor bastards whose heavily bandaged extremities spoke of fingers and toes lost to the cold.
Almost guiltily, what did register was how hungry he felt. When was the last time he had eaten anything?
Finally, he caught a glimpse of a kid with glasses and recognized Tommy Wilson, sitting on the ground beside a wounded man. Cole was momentarily taken aback at the sight of the kid because he hadn't seen him in weeks without his helmet off. His hair had grown during that time, and now Tommy’s blondish hair looked jarring and out of place. Peach fuzz covered his face.
"I'll be damned," he said, walking up to them. “Look at you, all growed up.”
Cole shook his head at the realization that the kid was barely old enough to shave, but had survived combat. Didn’t seem right, in some ways.
Tommy lurched to his feet and Cole had to steady him. "You made it! I never thought we'd see you again."
"I said that I would catch up, didn't I?" He looked down at Pomeroy, who opened his eyes long enough to mutter, "You damn hillbilly." He then drifted off back to sleep.
"They've got him dosed up," the kid explained.
"How's he doing?"
"A lot better than most," the kid said quietly. "I was here when they took his boots off. It was—" Tommy struggled for a word, blanched at the memory.
"Bad," Cole said.
"Yeah, it was bad. With any luck, he'll be on a plane to Japan soon, where there's an actual hospital."
Cole bent down and tugged Pomeroy's blanket up to his chin, then patted the sleeping man's shoulder. The blanket did not quite cover Pomeroy's heavily bandaged feet. Looking at those feet, Cole wondered how it was possible that the man had somehow stayed upright for so many miles. Sheer willpower. Looking around at the similarly bandaged men, he could see that Pomeroy hadn't been the only man so determined to keep going.