‘General Merrill had three battalions at Birobidzhan,’ Nate continued. ‘On my orders he was packed up to leave. All their supplies were sitting in crates and pallets on the side of the runway. One mortar round would’ve set ’em off. They would’ve been reduced to what they were humping in their field packs. Merrill had a fourth battalion — the 2/263 — that was inbound. It was diverted to a road about twelve clicks to the south. I don’t know what expectations he had about that battalion, Ed. But Birobidzhan has already fended off three major attacks. They lost a C-130 with crew on the ground to a Goddamn RPG. That battalion bought them a few hours. If they make it, those few hours could be the difference. There’s no way they’d have gotten their defenses organized if the Chinese hadn’t been slowed. But I’ll know more when I get over there tonight.’
‘When you do what? Oh, no you’re not, Nate. You can’t get yourself tied up in a brigade-level action like that. The damn airbase is surrounded! Do you know what the propaganda value of your capture or death would be to the Chinese? That’s one of the most selfish acts I’ve ever heard proposed. What’s gotten into you, Nate?’
Clark’s head was spinning from lack of sleep. ‘Goddamnit, Ed. What the hell use am I here? I don’t have the horses to fight this war. I might as well grab a fuckin’ M-16 and lend a hand.’
‘Nate, you get your shit together, that’s an order. I’ll bust your ass right outta the Army if you crap out on me like this. As it stands now, there are gonna be some long Goddamned knives out when word of this massacre gets around.’ Clark rubbed his sore eyes. Through blurred vision he saw Major Reed holding a message slip. Clark wiggled his fingers and held out his hand. It was a short message. ‘I might be able to limit the damage to Merrill. But any more debacles like this and they may stick my head on the White House gate.’
’Merrill’s dead.’
Dekker’s reply was abnormally delayed. ‘Say again.’
Clark read, ‘ “General Merrill killed in action by sniper fire.” ’ His voice trailed off. ‘So…’ He had nothing more to say.
After they signed off, Clark tossed the crumpled message in the trash. He looked at the papers on his desk. He’d read them all hours before. The maps were unchanged. He rocked his chair forward and back and forward. He fished all of the pens and pencils from his desk and lined them up for quick access.
Reed appeared. ‘Did you tell General Dekker?’ he asked.
Clark nodded. ‘Get me a helicopter,’ he said.
‘Birobidzhan?’ Reed asked. Another nod. ‘May I go?’
Stempel was lying in a shallow, snowy grave. He’d carefully rummaged through his pockets, still holding his grenade. He’d been looking for the candy bar they’d handed out. He’d found instead the plastic lei hung around his neck in Hawaii. He dug deeper. The credit card his father had given him before boot camp. If you ever get into any trouble, he’d said, any trouble at all — this card will get you out.
He lay under two dead bodies. He was covered in their blood and gore. He didn’t know where he was. He was all alone. He was waiting to die. How long it would take he had no idea. Water, you need water. You’d die in four days, he’d once read, without water. He then spent a while trying to decide whether the cold would kill him first.
He’d heard nothing for a long time. Before that… He jammed his eyes shut. He held in the scream of mental pain. He ground his teeth. He forced the images from his mind by mere negation. No, no, no, no, no! was his mantra. It had a remarkably soothing effect. It calmed him. He could again coolly contemplate his demise.
The shallow hiss of his breathing was the only sound. The trees overhead were growing dark. With surprising urgency the need to act — to move — came over him. He had to force himself to remain still. Will himself not to sit bolt upright and реет at the landscape around him.
Slowly, he raised his arm and looked at the black sports watch he wore outside his sleeve. ‘This is Siberia!’ the platoon sergeant had shouted on exiting the transport plane. ‘Local time is fourteen fifty hours — one four five zero!’ That was all Stempel knew of the world into which he’d been deposited. His rough position on a continent, and the correct local time.
Which was now eighteen hundred hours. He shook his head and lay back. Three hours since… A lifetime. A huge cloud billowed out of his mouth. He exhaled again to test the phenomenon. It seemed as if the entire contents of his lungs turned white. He didn’t remember that from before. There had been the typical fogging of his breath, but not a thick cloud. He tried one more time, with a similar result.
It was growing dark, and the temperature was dropping. He swallowed, but his mouth was bone dry. ‘The canteens’ll freeze if you don’t keep ’em close to yer bodies!’ the platoon sergeant had shouted. Harold was thirsty. Their platoon’s only drinking water was kept warm by body heat. All their canteens would be freezing soon. The cold, calculating part of his brain returned to work. He had a canteen. But it wouldn’t last long. He could rummage through the gear of the others…
The conscious, feeling part of his brain came alive unexpectedly. Stempel had grown accustomed to the weight pressing down on his body. But they were corpses — the sergeant and the PFC. He began to wriggle out from under them reflexively. With his first movement — the first shifting of their weight — the sense of revulsion rose to unmanageable proportions. The workmanlike rise became panicked flight.
Grunts and gasps escaped Stempel’s mouth with whining cries. He climbed out of the hole and lay on his back… fully exposed.
All around him lay the detritus of war. Still. Lifeless. Chinese dead were strewn about the forest floor in great numbers. But it was the American dead that sent Stempel into shock. He had known, of course, that they were all dead. He had heard them die. The pleas of surrendering men. The merciless executions. Rifle shots in hole after hole… coming closer. The flaming muzzle. The gore that oozed from the corpses’ new wounds. But seeing them there — half naked in the snow — just about sent him back into his hole. The Chinese had stripped most of them right down to their underwear. The sight of men lying bare-skinned in the snow was appalling. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. He looked up at the sky. An arm — severed at the shoulder — hung from a branch.
If I leave here, he realized, they’ll never find my body. The Army would send people after the war. If he walked even a short distance away from the battlefield he’d forever be ‘Missing In Action.’ He’d never have a funeral. Or a grave where his mother could come and be with him.
‘Hey!’ he heard. He jerked his head around. A man in snowy white Arctic gear crouched beside a tree. There were others — also in uniform — vaguely visible in the snow. All had rifles raised.
I’m alive, Harold thought as he climbed to his feet. He began a slow run toward the men through deep drifts. When he noticed the man’s strenuous gestures he stopped in confusion. The man was motioning for him to get down. Harold plopped onto the snow. He didn’t take his eyes off the others. He’d never let them out of his sight.
Slowly, cautiously, the man made his way toward Stempel. He advanced a few steps at a time, then dropped. His head was on a swivel. He looked in every direction before continuing on. With a great crunching through the crust that had formed, he dropped next to Stempel — out of breath.