The door finally closed on the unending stream of stretchers lined up just outside. The pilot lifted off almost immediately as Clark watched a young medic take charge. He wore a red cross on a white armband and a red bandage on his face covering one eye.
‘That guy’s got blood in his IV tube!’ he snapped at a man whose head was rocked back in pain. The wounded man roused himself and lifted the bag of clear fluids higher. Gravity sent the precious red liquid back into his legless patient. The medic tore open another pack of white bandages. ‘That guy’s bleedin’ bad!’ he shouted at another of his wounded assistants.
Clark rose and stepped gingerly across the bucking deck in small gaps between the bodies. ‘Here!’ he said, holding out his hand for the fresh dressing. The medic looked up in surprise. ‘Give me that!’ Clark demanded. The medic complied instinctively. ‘Where’s the bleeder?’ he asked. The medic pointed to a prone man with a thigh wound.
That began Clark’s modest effort at atonement. He followed the orders of a Specialist Third with a medic’s armband. By the time the long flight was over, three of the twenty were dead. And Clark was intimately familiar with the rest. On the tarmac back at Khabarovsk, he raced alongside the gurneys — shouting reports to startled nurses. ‘He’s lost most of his foot and a lot of blood! We tried cutting his boot off but it was too intermingled with some open fractures!’ He dashed over to another team with another gurney. ‘No, no! Don’t worry about the chest wound! It’s stable! He’s got what looks like a bullet or some shrapnel at the base of his spine! I could feel it hard up against a vertebra so I left it alone! Turn him over carefully!’
He was so intent on saving his patients that he chased the wounded men to the ambulance doors. ‘Stomach wound!’ he shouted to the nodding nurse. The doors to the green truck slammed closed. ‘He needs antibiotics!’ Clark shouted — fogging the two small windows. The ambulance pulled away. Clark’s BDUs were splattered in blood and stained in orange antiseptic cleanser.
The helicopter’s engine had been cut. The exhausted crew slogged toward the hangar. All was quiet. The only people left were three men who still lay on the tarmac. Nate sat on the hard concrete next to the three wool blankets and waited for Graves Registration.
‘No fuckin’ way!’ Patterson said to the man handing out ammo.
‘Yes fuckin’ way!’ the man replied as he handed Stempel two hundred-round belts.
They were all lying low on the side of the road. They were sheltered by a cut carved out of the hill. The company up ahead was engaged in a fearsome firefight. The Chinese they met now were all deeply entrenched. ‘General fuckin’ Clark himself?’ Patterson asked.
The ammo bearer duck-walked past Stempel, dragging the large canvas bag behind him. ‘The driver of the deuce-and-a-quarter where I got this ammo saw Clark’s chopper with his own eyes. It was sittin’ right on the shoulder of the road.’
‘Wait-wait-wait!’ McAndrews jumped in. ‘So Clark goes up to the head of the column and does what did you say?’ From the high pitch of his voice you could hear the extreme disbelief.
‘He orders this battalion commander to take a hill, and the son-of-a-bitch says “No” right to Clark’s face!’
‘No wa-a-ay!’ came from all corners.
‘It’s the God’s honest truth!’ the man insisted. The doubters wavered.
‘So you’re sayin’ Clark shot the guy?’ Patterson challenged. The ammo bearer nodded. ‘Bullshit!’ came from several men at once. Chavez kicked at the bastard for lying. But the guy stuck by his story. ‘You mean he just up and shot a colonel?’ an incredulous Patterson persisted.
‘The guy’s a fuckin’ general!’ the ammo bearer from headquarters company pointed out. ‘A colonel’s like… like whale shit to him, man!’
‘Where?’ McAndrews probed. ‘Where’d he shoot him?’
‘Right in the fuckin’ forehead.’ The ammo bearer pointed with his finger just below the brim of his helmet ‘No, dipshit! I mean, like, did he just haul off and whack the guy right there on the road?’
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘So you know all the rest of that shit, but you don’t know that?’
‘Look!’ the guy shot back as he strapped his sack over his shoulder. ‘You got any better explanation for why we been double-timin’ down this road for the last few hours? Why they decided to take the high ground with infantry instead of turnin’ those hills into holes with F-16s?’
With that parting remark he was gone, leaving Harold’s squad to contemplate the news.
‘You know,’ McAndrews said, ‘we have been haulin’ ass down this road. And how many times have we humped up those hills just to waste five or ten Chinks? Six? Seven times?’
Their squad leader returned from a platoon meeting. He skidded to a stop in the dirt as he stayed low. ‘All right, let’s go!’ he said — out of breath. ‘Bravo Comp’ny’s pinned down. We’re gonna clean up that hill right there,’ he said — pointing over the embankment behind which they lay. ‘The attack’ll step off from the crest next to that burned-out hut. As soon as we breast the ridge, we’ll start drawing fire.’
‘What the hell is Bravo Company’s problem?’ Patterson bitched. ‘Shit! Cain’t they take one miserable fuckin’ hill without our help?’
‘Cut the shit, Patterson!’ the squad leader snapped. ‘Drop your packs on the road. Take your weapons, ammo and sleeping bag. Everybody’ll get an 81-mm mortar round to hump up to the line of departure. We’ll file past the mortar, hand over the rounds one at a time, and keep on goin’.’
Behind him appeared their ill-tempered platoon sergeant. A thick bandage wrapped his hand, which had been holed clean through his palm. ‘Move it!’ he boomed in a no-nonsense voice.
The entire squad scrambled to their feet. No one really believed that anyone had been executed — especially a colonel by the commanding general. But one thing was clear in the voices of the sergeants and lieutenants. There’d be no breaks. No fucking off. No rest for weary legs or aching backs. No time to treat the small wounds from ricochets or shrapnel, falls or blisters. Harold couldn’t count the number of times someone had shouted ‘move’ or ‘go’ in some combination with other orders. And it was always in an irritated tone that expected no reply.
Kate and Woody first thought their decision was the right one. They’d climbed to the very top of the hills. All the fighting seemed far away. There was fire and roaring noise from below, but at their height they were detached observers. Kate had even shot a report of the battle’s final chapter with the smoky valley as a dramatic backdrop.
But then came an artillery barrage from massed Chinese guns. They’d opened fire and blanketed the hills all around and the valley floor beneath. Woody and Kate were forced to make yet another life-or-death decision. To lie low and hope to ride out the storm of high explosives. Or to take their chances and flee the tall hill on which they’d found refuge. And with the barrage still pounding the north slope there was only one way down their hill. It led toward the south and the onrushing Chinese.