Left unspoken was why Fong had picked Lieutenant Barker as bait for McCormick. Obviously, the young man was infatuated with my lieutenant.
“We’ll figure out a way to get Barker back, Sergeant McCormick. I just need you for one thing before that.”
McCormick was torn between Barker and the war. I delicately added, “If we lose the war, you’re both probably dead anyway.”
“OK, colonel,” McCormick said after a deep breath. “What do you need?”
“You remember how in the interview I kept telling Fong that I’d be waiting for him?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I can tell you exactly what he’s thinking now. He’s thinking I’m setting up some trap at the Coffee Line, the weakest part of our defenses. So, what’s he going to do? He’s going to hit the western side of the town. He’ll think that I would never expect him to go back to the site where I defeated him so badly the first time. He’ll marshal his reinforcements to the west and land a hammer blow there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he launches that attack in the next six hours, even though we thought it would take the PLA twelve hours to regroup. He’ll attack with fewer men if it means taking us by surprise.”
McCormick asked, “So why not set up an ambush on the western side of town?”
“Easier said than done. I already pulled off a hell of an ambush there. He’s going to be cautious this time.”
“OK, then where are you going to be waiting for him?” McCormick inquired.
I laughed. “Well, sergeant, I confess that I lied to our dear friend the colonel. I’m not going to wait for him at all. I’m striking first. We’re going to take Teatime Hill back,” I said, a shiver going down my spine. McCormick was the first person I had told this to.
McCormick sounded skeptical. “Didn’t Brown just try to do that and fail spectacularly?”
“Yes, he did. He failed because Fong’s smarter than he was. He thought the fog and rain gave him an advantage, and he thought about air support like a World War I general thought about artillery. Just give ’em a barrage and you can walk over the corpses.” I shook my head. “It never works like that. Surprise, misdirection, and overwhelming force at the critical point — that’s how battles are won.”
McCormick grunted. “So how are you going to surprise, misdirect, and overwhelm Colonel Fong?”
“Can’t tell you that just yet, Clay. But I can tell you what your part is going to be.”
When I had sat quietly in the armchair before the interview, before my conversation with Clay, I had thought through the situation. What we needed was a miracle, and I set my mind to figuring out how to conjure one.
My mind went instantly to Douglas MacArthur. When I was young, MacArthur had been my hero. I couldn’t get enough of the story of the Inchon landings. The United States had been caught flat-footed by North Korea in 1950 and our forces were cornered at the southern end of Korea. We were on the verge of an embarrassing defeat in East Asia, one that would reverberate around the world. MacArthur had defied the advice of experts and launched an attack on Inchon, far behind the North Korean lines. The attack shattered the North Korean attack and turned the tide of the war.
I wanted to be MacArthur at Inchon, when I was young. On the battlefield, MacArthur had come under fire from North Korean snipers and hadn’t run away. Instead, he noted that they had poor aim.
But no hero is invincible. Almost a decade earlier, during World War II, MacArthur had faced another embarrassing defeat in East Asia, this time on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines. The Japanese had superior forces and simply kept pushing and pushing until Americans were forced to surrender a fortress that had been called the Gibraltar of the East. The American static defense was steadily pushed back until the final defeat. MacArthur hadn’t found the master stroke to win that battle. Instead, he had snuck off the island, and his men had been forced to surrender and endure years of brutal captivity while MacArthur carried on the war elsewhere.
I couldn’t stand to read about Corregidor when I was young. I wanted to read about the glorious victory, not the battle where there had just not been any good option, no master stroke that could save a war. Now, I found myself wishing I had read more about Corregidor.
The Citadel of Pinglin faced a similar situation on a much more compressed timescale. The siege of Corregidor had lasted for months. The Battle of Citadel would be won or lost in the next 36 hours. In 36 hours, American heavy armored units would be off the boats and organized, ready to fight. If the Chinese broke through before then, they would sweep away the last major centers of resistance on the island.
Don’t let this be Corregidor, I told myself. Make it an Inchon.
The Chinese were expecting us to dig in and try to wait out the storm. But there was no surviving the storm of men that would descend upon Citadel, at least not as the defenses were currently configured. The Chinese had about a seven to one advantage in infantry strength at that moment. In twelve hours, it could be as high as twenty to one.
The Coffee Line was the weakest aspect of our defenses, Brown had been right about that. It was at the bottom of a hill, and there had never been an opportunity to heavily fortify it. The Line itself was a series of foxholes and a few outlying buildings.
Taking Teatime Hill would solve that problem. Covered in trees and deep defenses, Teatime Hill could turn the northern line from a ramshackle mess to a stout concrete wall. If only Gutierrez hadn’t lost the fucking thing. If only Fong hadn’t thought of his bayonet charge.
I shook my head. No use worrying about the past. So far, my logic mirrored Brown’s almost exactly. We needed an attack on Teatime Hill. Brown had simply chosen a stupid way of going about it because he was motivated by getting TV interviews and thought if I could win battles against Colonel Fong, so could he.
Teatime Hill will be your Inchon. In that cafe, I don’t know if God spoke to me, but I was gripped with the certainty that Teatime Hill would be the key to victory and that, if I could devise a way to capture it, I could give us a real chance to win the war.
Chapter 10: Ivanov
After Barker ran off with her squad, McCormick, Dietrich, and I gathered to discuss our next move. It was refreshing not to have to play politics, politely listening to Barker’s foolish ideas. Now, it was just the three of us, the three most experienced, the three most deadly. Naturally, we three surviving members of the Lafayette Initiative disagreed about the consequences of Barker’s rash action and what to do next.
“Forget the Airborne,” I said. “They were a drag on us. Now we are mobile, fast. We don’t have to make all of our plans orient around keeping them alive.”
McCormick was angered by that. It was a good thing he was never a spy; he couldn’t hide his emotions worth a damn. Obsessed as he was with that hot Airborne lieutenant, he refused to look at the situation dispassionately. “The Airborne soldiers aren’t useless. They provide firepower. Without them, we’re just three guys, barely enough to maintain a watch. We should push ahead carefully toward the northern road. If we wipe out a few patrols, we might take some of the attention and pressure away from the Airborne squad. Who knows, they might even make it to Teatime Hill to help Williams’s assault.”
I shared a look with Dietrich. The German helpfully said, without a hint of gentility, “Did you see how quickly they were moving? They’re probably already dead, Clay.” Dietrich shook his head. “Killing PLA patrols will only tell the Chinese where we are, making it harder for us to do useful work later. Lieutenant Barker made an emotional decision and her men will pay the price. If we do the same, we can expect the same fate.”