Clark sensed Major Reed standing patiently beside his desk. He had no idea how long he’d been there. Clark looked up and drew a deep breath with difficulty. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘J-STARS has positive contact with a five-hundred-plus vehicle convoy. It’s crossing the Amur near Madagachi. The Joint Controllers have asked to divert the morning’s B-52 raids to hit the convoy. Their targets are a hydroelectric plant and some munitions factories at Harbin that we can hit any time. The convoy is hemmed into a pass between steep hills, waiting to cross. Estimates are that it could be an entire infantry division. The Joint Controllers need your authority to divert and hit those passes.’
Reed stood there, waiting. After a moment, Reed said, ‘We could knock out a whole division with one air raid, sir.’ Clark forced his eyes to focus on the man. ‘We’ve got three cells — nine B-52s — chock full of five-hundred-pound bombs. They could overlay that box one after the other.’ He fell silent. He waited.
He seemed not to understand what he was asking Clark to do. That he was asking Clark to commit his mortal soul to a course that was irreversible. To sign the death warrant of thousands of human beings with no more reflection than one would give the most casual of the day’s issues.
Clark nodded, and Reed ran off. Lt General Nate Clark looked down at the letter, which awaited his signature. He crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the trash.
There they are, Chin thought to himself as he peered over the shredded trunk of a tree. He scanned the small dale that separated his ridge from the southern edge of the small Russian town. In the early morning light he could clearly see the American soldiers scurrying around and digging in. He wished that he had binoculars to survey the approaches to their objective. The amazing view given by the pair his training class had passed around had astonished the officer candidates. But in the five months Chin had been in the Army he’d only seen two other pairs. Both were dangling from the necks of colonels like all their other badges of rank.
Chin spotted his platoon’s objective — the lower of two stone walls that traversed the gently rising hill opposite him. ‘You see the wall, senior sergeant?’ Chin asked the man lying next to him. The sergeant was a veteran of several years. He was the only man over the age of twenty in the platoon. ‘Yes, sir.’
Chin eyed him for signs of disrespect, but could detect none. ‘Do you have any questions?’ Chin asked.
The senior sergeant stared out across the dale at the busy Americans. ‘Did they tell you how many of them are over there?’
‘No.’
The sergeant didn’t respond for a few moments. ‘Did they say anything about getting a third magazine of ammunition for the men?’
‘They said regimental stretcher bearers will bring ammunition up and take wounded back,’ Chin replied. He was growing more and more wary of the man’s tone.
‘Did the company commander give us a second objective?’ the senior sergeant asked.
‘No,’ Chin said testily. He looked over at the man. The senior sergeant stared out at the three hundred-odd meters of open space that ran down their hill and back up to the edge of the city. He nodded his head slowly — almost imperceptibly — and fell silent.
Chin rubbed his eyes, which were bleary from lack of sleep. They had been spared the last few days of furious assaults on the American base while their platoon awaited replacements. Then, their commanders changed their plans. They had marched right past the surrounded Americans. It was a great victory, he’d told his men. The airbase’s defenders would wither on the vine. Even as he’d repeated the words passed down to him by the company commander, the air overhead was filled with the sound of huge transport planes. They landed at the base every couple of minutes.
Chin forced his mind back to the present. The enemy lines across the valley didn’t look so formidable. The open fields below had only traces of snow and ice. They wouldn’t have to slog through knee-deep drifts while exposed to fire.
But the sun was well up now. We’re over three hours late, Chin saw, looking at his wristwatch. They had intended to take advantage of the darkness for the dash across the open dale. But now?
He looked up and down the line of helmets. The men of his battalion lay in the brush — their packs on the ground around them to be left behind per the battalion commander’s orders. Twisting around, he caught glimpses of 1st Battalion’s line thirty meters behind. They were poised to rush forward and fire at the Americans as Chin’s 2nd Battalion advanced. He looked down at the floor of the valley. The distance suddenly seemed far greater than before. He felt ice water course through his veins.
The lower of the two stone walls — his company’s objective — sat about a third of the way up the opposite hill. The route he would take to it seemed smooth and unbroken. There was good footing except for the small clumps of manure whose tiny shadows dotted the valley. The animals which had been penned between the two walls were nowhere in sight Sheep and goats, he reasoned. Oxen would have wandered right through the hose stones.
He smiled and felt calmed by the thought. He’d been an ox boy as a youth on his family’s farm. He’d seen the animals use their tremendous strength to simply walk through most man-made obstacles. Sheer, brute force — almost nothing could stop the massive beasts.
Chin closed his eyes — feeling bathed by the crisp morning air. He took a deep, refreshing breath. When he opened his eyes, he saw the platoon leader to his left — Lieutenant Hung — staring blankly into the dirt beneath him. College boy, Chin thought with disgust. City puke.
The sound of shells overhead ripped the fabric of Chin’s fragile calm. He cringed and hunched his shoulders in anticipation. But the first explosion burst not over their heads but on the opposite ridge just short of the American positions. The men of his platoon began to cheer. He turned and snapped ‘Quiet!’ at their stupidity. His hand fell to his rifle — as taught — to reinforce his particularly important order.
Chin heard a whistle from his far left and his heart skipped a beat. A flare shot into the air and burst as whistles sounded on both sides. His skin crawled. A slight shiver shook his body. The last of the Americans leapt into their holes at the town’s edge, and then their positions were still. The time for their attack had seemed so far away just minutes ago. A full company of men to his left rose from the low brush and moved forward. The shells now fell randomly amid the Americans.
Another whistle sounded. Two shorts — one long. His company commander’s order. Chin reached into his parka and placed the warm whistle to his lips. He blew it with all his might. Chin turned to see his men rise to their feet. The entire platoon moved past him through the light brush. He and the senior sergeant then rose to follow them at the prescribed distance.