The sudden silence was filled with moans and cries, and Suh waited a few minutes for the leaders to appear, to start giving orders and get the men organized. Then he started shooting.
They all heard the explosion, and the firing. Tony and Anne and everyone else listened for the smallest sound, trying to follow distant events. After the first explosion and gunfire, there was nothing.
Hooter bounced up and down a little bit. “Short fight. I guess there weren’t too many bad guys.” He smiled.
The others ignored him. Tony looked at Hutchins. “That didn’t sound like what I would have expected.”
The captain agreed. “It didn’t sound good.”
“Should we check it out?”
Hutchins, more from courtesy than need, considered the question. “No, Major. We don’t know the situation and might stumble into something. Even if everything’s okay, Cha wouldn’t like having his elbow joggled.”
He looked at Hooter. “If that was all of the fight, they’ll send word back. EVANS!”
The sergeant came running over. “Sir!”
“Double-check the perimeter. Make sure there’s no way for a man to be taken alone, and no way for anyone to slip in between our men.”
To no one in particular he announced, “We will sit tight.”
The South Korean soldier appeared twenty minutes later. They all heard the call from one of the lookouts, but there was no real need for a warning. He staggered up the road, doing his best to hurry, but slowed down by wounds and shock and half-frozen to boot.
The sergeant started snapping orders. “Get him in the truck! Hughes, get your aid kit! Murphy and Rodriguez, scout down the road and find out what happened. Shoot at anything that moves.”
Hutchins, Evans, and the aid man disappeared into the truck while the others waited outside. Anne kept on looking up the road, feeling the cold grow with her uncertainty.
After five minutes Hutchins and Evans jumped out of the truck. Anne ran up with a questioning look, and Hutchins answered, “He’ll probably live.”
“What happened?” she demanded.
“They walked into some sort of ambush. Most of them are killed, the rest are wounded. The Korean says they only got one man.”
Sergeant Evans came up to the officer with a walkie-talkie. “Sir, Murphy’s reached the spot.”
Hutchins took the radio. “This is Six, over. … How many?… Okay. Sit tight and watch the road to the south. We’re on our way.” He turned to the sergeant and nodded.
Evans started giving orders. “Saddle up! Everybody into the trucks.”
Anne got the story from Hutchins as they rode forward. “It was a massacre. Murphy says the area is secure, but they need help. My men and I will have to tackle the commandos.
“Miss Larson, you and your people can’t fight, but we will need anyone who knows first aid. You can stay back and help the wounded while we move up.”
Anne protested. “Why don’t we just wait for more troops?”
“Our radios are too weak to call for help. Since the nearest detachment reacted, it would be even longer before anybody else could respond. Hours probably. That gives those bastards too much time. Besides, I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let someone else do my fighting while I’ve got effectives.”
They saw the carnage spread out along the road, and Anne felt something twisting her insides. She felt flushed and stared at the soldiers’ wounds, imagining them on her body.
Hutchins shook her shoulder. “Don’t think about it, Miss Larson. Just keep busy. You can’t get sick if you’re helping them.”
The scene changed to one of organized confusion. The wounded were found and moved into the comparative warmth of the trucks. The dead, frozen into grotesque shapes, were stacked off to one side. Evans had his men throw up a defensive perimeter, while the pilots scavenged weapons and equipment.
It was an impressive pile, including antitank rockets, a heavy machine gun and two lighter ones, and ammunition. Evans’s eyes gleamed and he started distributing it to his men. Tony and Hooter refused to take rifles. They each had a pistol and fervently hoped they wouldn’t have to use them.
One volunteer from Anne’s staff and a lightly wounded soldier were sent back up the road to report to Taech’on.
Evans made his report. “Sir, there were thirty-eight Koreans here. Twenty-one are dead. Ten are seriously wounded, the rest are walking wounded. Cha is dead and his sergeant is incapacitated.”
Hutchins was shaken by the losses but looked determined. “Will they fight?”
“No question, sir. I recommend giving them another few minutes to thaw out and eat, but they’re mad, sir. They’d go alone if we weren’t here.”
There was a popping sound from the south that quickly exploded into rifle and machine gun fire. Evans yelled, “Hold your positions!” and sprinted over in that direction.
Hutchins looked at the pilots. “I think we’ve spent all the time we’re going to get. Let’s go.”
The captain kept it simple. Forming a skirmish line, he had his men advance in a line on both sides of the road. Moving from tree to tree, they knew they were up against the best the enemy had. They had to depend on numbers. Hutchins had briefed them all to watch for more claymore mines, and their progress was slowed as every man searched for trip wires.
It wasn’t enough. A man’s scream of fear was cut off as he tripped a mine. The sound of an explosion was replaced by rifle fire. Everyone fell flat as bullets whined around them. The commandos’ numbers were impossible to determine, but they were making their presence felt.
Tony blew snow out of his face and looked for Hooter. Like any good wingman, he was back a little and to one side.
Crawling backward, Tony moved next to John and punched him in the shoulder. Hooter looked at him questioningly, and Tony pointed over to where the mine had detonated.
Tony turned without waiting for answer and started crawling. Off to his left, men lay or crouched in the snow, firing at targets he couldn’t see. The effort of moving while staying flat to the ground tired him but kept him warm as well.
In front of him the snow was streaked with brown and gray. His eyes followed the lines back to the source, where a small depression was the only sign of the mine’s presence. He crawled a little farther, and another sign of its presence revealed itself.
The man lay on his back, half-covered by snow and debris. Tony could see a dark patch on his chest, and his face was bloody, dripping onto the snow.
As the pilots crawled up to him, he moaned. At least they hadn’t crawled all this way for nothing. Bullets whizzed over them, and it was obvious that the first thing to do was get him out of here.
Grabbing his arms, they started crawling away from the fighting. Occasionally a rifle bullet would remind them of which direction to go.
They reached a small fold in the ground, and Tony yelled for Hughes. The aid man came running and professionally eased in to attend the wounds.
After a few minutes the soldier moaned and his eyelids flickered. Hughes sounded positive. “He’s got two light wounds. The one in the chest needs surgery, but he should make it fine. Thank you, sirs.”
They had heard other men fall. Tony started to head back. “Come on, Hooter. No rest for the weary.”
Yi looked at his command. With seven men at the start of the fight, the odds were against him. He was down to two now, just himself and a private on the detonator for the bridge. There was no point in waiting any longer.
Tony and Hooter were resting between trips, congratulating themselves on not getting hit themselves, when there was an earth-shattering KABOOM! They could see a large cloud of smoke and dust to the south.
Hutchins jumped up and shouted, “That’s it! They’ve blown the bridge! They know they’ve lost.”