‘Oh, is that right?’ He was so angry he could barely speak. ‘Fine! O-okay! You wanna play war correspondent, you’ve come to the right place! Come here!’ He led them to a small folding table. A map of the mountainous terrain was laid out under a battery-powered lamp. ‘Here we are.’ He jabbed his finger at the center of the various blue letters and numbers denoting UNRUSFOR positions. ‘And everywhere else,’ his palm circled the blue-coated ridges, ‘is the Chinese. The better part of the Jinan Army Group, intell says. A quarter-million men.’
Kate shook her head in confusion. ‘I don’t understand. How are you supposed to stop a quarter of a million Chinese soldiers with — what? — a few thousand men?’
‘I believe the plan, as expressed to me, was to fight like hell. That — Ms War Correspondent — means living high up on rocky ridges. Moving fast and at night. Hitting ’em hard and gettin’ the hell outta Dodge. Goin’ days without a hot meal. Sleepin’ no more’n two or three hours at a stretch. And, if you get wounded… Well, that’s not good. Now, that’s what you’ve gotten your sorry asses into. And you’ve made yourselves a Goddamn pain in my ass to boot!’
Kate wasn’t rattled by the man’s shouts. But she was scared to death if what he was saying was true. ‘But surely they wouldn’t send you here if you didn’t at least have a chance of holding this valley.’
The general’s eyes sank thoughtfully to the map. ‘The interior and exterior walls of the hills are steep. The valley floor down which the road and rail line run is no more than a few hundred meters wide. It channels the attacking Chinese and narrows our front. If-we hold the high ground, we can win. We’ve gotta dig our toenails in and fight for every rock. They’ll keep throwing live bodies at our fighting holes till we make ’em dead. It’s a simple and brutal calculus. Nothin’ pretty about it.’
The lean-to angled away from the gale. It blocked the wind, but snow wrapped around inside. It licked at Andre’s body with chilling gusts. It was mid-morning, but the sky was gray and dark.
A machine-gun opened fire.
‘Come-on! Come-on!’ was shouted by almost all the men together. It was as if they were cheering for the embattled home team. Twice already they had done this. Both times with no casualties in their squad.
Andre and the others crawled out into the storm. When he stood upright, the wind rocked him backwards a step. He had to put his shoulder down to get moving forward toward his fighting hole. The line of ten men weaved their way through the thick trees of the valley floor. At first, it was just a grueling jog into the impossibly cold tide of air. Then, the Chinese began to yell. The howls from their lungs rose up. With the wind at their backs their massed voices carried and were amplified by the narrow mountain gorge.
From a distance of a few hundred meters, the two armies rushed toward each other at the dead run. The Americans raced for their fighting positions. Chinese infantry flooded the southern end of the valley like water from a bursting dam. All at once, the heavy crew-served American weapons opened up. Machine-guns growled out .50-caliber bullets from high ridges. Launchers thumped grenades out twelve a second. The crackling fire took a toll measured in voices. The Chinese quieted. They were either killed or too scared to shout.
Andre labored into the stiff breeze. He tried to check his weapon — to eject a round just to make sure the bolt hadn’t frozen. But the driving snow stung his eyes so much they watered. He couldn’t see, so he abandoned the plan. Above all the noise a heavy rumble, filled the valley. Another distant B-52 raid drowned out the sound of the puny infantry weapons. High wind and low visibility foiled most air support. But at fifty thousand feet, the huge bombers merely opened their bellies and gravity did the rest.
They reached their pre-planned defensive line, but Andre panicked when he couldn’t find his hole. He’d hurriedly dug it on the eve of the first battle. Up ahead was the cleared field of fire. They’d chopped or torched the low brush and limbs. He was definitely in the right place.
The others were bailing new-fallen powder out of their positions. Andre stumbled around until his boot sunk into his hole. He leaned his rifle against a tree and began to dig. He scraped the snow out using his gloved hands. When his fingers scraped bottom he crawled in. He grabbed his rifle by the stock and looked it over. The bolt looked clear, but still he blew into the mechanism. He brushed it with his glove, but that only put more ice and snow on the black metal.
The platoon sergeant made his way down the line checking the men. Andre saw splinters fly off a thin tree beside him. A bullet left a deep gash in the otherwise pristine bark. The Chinese were firing at extreme range. Andre laid as low in his hole as he could.
‘Hold your fire till the guys from the OP pull back!’ the platoon sergeant shouted as he knelt beside Andre’s hole. ‘There are three lines! Three lines! One battalion in each line! It’s a full regimental attack!’
He moved on.
That was it? Andre wondered. No plans for maneuver? No pre-arranged signal to fall back? Three lines. Three battalions. Three waves. A full regiment was a lot of men. Maybe fifteen hundred against two hundred — two companies from Andre’s battalion in line abreast.
Andre popped open the large pockets on his parka and checked. They were heavy with newly-filled magazines. He had six in his bulging pockets, plus four tucked away inside the jacket. Together with the full magazine in the rifle that made eleven — a hundred and sixty-five rounds.
He couldn’t imagine going through that many magazines, but he also had two grenades. He felt for and found one in each breast pocket. And then there’s the ammo from the dead, he thought guiltily as he looked around. To his left the man had a log for protection. To his right the guy — like Andre — was in the open. If he had to scoot over for more ammo — to loot the corpse of one of the fallen — he hoped it would be the PFC on his left. The log looked at least eight inches thick.
The wind died down a bit. The heavy bombers had finished working over the Chinese. He could again hear the machine-guns and grenade launchers from the high ridges. The breeze calmed even further. Suddenly it was still in the valley. The cracking and deep popping of the .50 calibers and 40-mm grenade launchers still echoed off the mountain walls. But like in the eye of a hurricane the storm seemed to pause. The last mist of snow drifted from tree branches overhead.
‘Say, Andre!’ the guy to his left called out. ‘You got any extra grenades?’
Andre replied with an exaggerated shake of his head. ‘Just two!’
‘I got movement!’ someone yelled.
‘Hold yer fire!’ came an NCO’s reply.
GIs raced toward the rear. The men from the observation posts were sprinting through the woods with wild abandon. They crashed through low limbs and sent showers of snow to the ground. They didn’t even slow down at the defensive line. One, two, three men passed on the dead run.
‘How many were there at your OP?’ one of Andre’s squadmates asked the fleeing men. They didn’t even glance in his direction. ‘I count five guys who’ve passed!’ someone shouted. Up ahead, Andre could see more men.
‘Hold your fire!’ the squad leader barked.
‘Hey!’ someone replied. ‘Those are Chinese!’
At twenty meters, the thinly scattered line of Chinese attackers opened fire.