He was scared. Scared worse than he’d ever been before in his life. Something in his brain kept telling him to turn around, to run for cover while there was still time. But another part of him resisted, remembering the look in Pierce’s eyes. He kept stumbling forward.
The main trench was crowded with the other men from his platoon. Pierce moved among them, cajoling them into their gear and pushing them into their assigned positions. But he held them back below the trench’s firing steps.
He saw Kevin and nodded. “Take a look through the scope. You’ll see we’ve got company.” He had to yell to make himself heard through the howling din of the barrage.
Kevin turned the trench periscope into position. My God. The whole northern horizon was a flickering sea of light, an artificial sunrise made by the massed artillery firing from behind ridges and hills.
He swiveled the scope down to look at the ground around the outpost. It took him a moment to comprehend what he saw. Then he understood. He was looking at his worst nightmare come to life.
The rough, broken ground below Malibu’s small hill was crawling with North Korean infantry, tanks, and APCs. A part of him automatically started trying to count them. Fifty, no, sixty tanks at least. He couldn’t make out the exact types through all the dust and smoke, but they all had guns. One lay immobile, spewing a cloud of oily, black smoke. Must’ve hit a mine, thought Kevin. He stared transfixed at the spectacle laid out to either side of the small hill topped by Malibu West. Row after row of infantry, looking like black ants in the distance, marching south in open order, followed by waves of wheeled and tracked personnel carriers. At the very edge of his vision the enemy’s ordered lines were breaking up under what looked like an American artillery fire mission — bright, orange-red flashes opening like short-lived flowers as time-fused shells burst in the air. It gradually dawned on Kevin that he was seeing the forward elements of what could only be an entire North Korean motorized rifle division.
Pierce followed the direction of his scope and tapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got some troubles a little closer to home, Lieutenant. Down by the wire.”
Kevin adjusted the scope and almost dropped it. North Koreans in snowsuits were worming their way through the barbed wire at the base of the hill. They were less than a hundred and fifty meters away. There were other troops crouched behind them. A company of infantry at least — around a hundred riflemen and machinegunners.
Good Christ. Where was the American artillery? Why weren’t they chopping these bastards down with high explosive and white phosphorus? Then he remembered that calling in the artillery for this sector was his job. The platoon’s attached forward observer had been rotated home weeks ago, and he hadn’t been replaced because of the Army’s scheduled withdrawal from Korea.
Kevin pulled his eyes away from the periscope, looking for his signalman. The ops plan for meeting a North Korean surprise attack gave him at least one artillery battery in direct support, with up to a full battalion on call. Plus whatever close air support could be arranged. That was a lot of firepower, the kind of firepower he was going to need to keep the NKs as far away from him as possible.
“Jones!” The signalman’s head snapped up from his phones. He had a pale, set look on his freckled face. “Get me the arty. We’ve got a fire mission.”
Jones nodded and lifted one of the phones. “Charlie Victor Two Seven, Charlie Victor Two Seven, This is Alpha Echo Five Two.”
Kevin waited, watching Pierce as the big, gray-haired sergeant moved down the trench encouraging the men. “Got arty coming anytime, boys. Stay cool. Wait for the word. Hold your fire.”
“Sir!” It was Jones. “I can’t get through. All the lines are dead. That stuff” — he gestured over his shoulder to the explosions still racking the main American line — ”must’ve cut the wires.”
Shit. “Switch to the goddamned radio then.” Kevin could feel the panic bubbling up inside him. Oh, God. He wanted to be sick.
Jones bent over his radio, but Kevin could hear the confused squeals and hissing static pouring out of it. They were being jammed. Jones worked frantically, changing frequencies to find one still in the clear.
“Lieutenant. Those people down there are getting awfully close. Where’s the arty we’re supposed to have?”
“We’re blocked. The phones are out and the radio’s jammed.” Kevin kept his words clipped, trying to conceal the fear he felt.
Pierce just nodded. “Right, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way then. On our own.” He turned and headed back down the firing line. “Okay, boys. This is it. When I give the word it’s rock-and-roll time. Pick your targets. Get their heavy weapons men first unless you want an RPG up the ass.” One or two men laughed nervously. The others nodded grimly.
Kevin turned back to the scope. The closest North Koreans were only forty meters away and coming on fast, though bent low under the weight of full packs. It struck Kevin that they weren’t planning on going back to their own lines for food or ammo resupply. They must be pretty sure they’d push on right through his platoon on their way south. And for some reason that made him mad enough to momentarily push down the panic welling up inside.
He looked down the trench line toward Pierce. The sergeant gave him a thumbs-up, and Kevin pumped a clenched first back and yelled, “Let’s do it.”
Pierce’s bullroar cut through the unearthly din from the North Korean artillery barrage landing behind them. “Up and at ’em! Fire! Fire!”
All along the forward perimeter, troopers from the platoon’s 1st and 3rd Squads jumped up onto firing steps and cut loose with their M16s. Many fired their rifles on full automatic, wasting rounds as the recoil kicked the barrels higher and higher above their targets. Two of the platoon’s M60 machine guns joined in, hosing down the front slope of the hill in steady, regulation bursts. The concentrated fire cut the first rank of the North Korean assault company to pieces. Men trying to charge up the steep hillside were bowled over or thrown back to fall in crumpled heaps as bullets found them. Others dropped to the ground, looking for any kind of cover they could find. Only a few tried to shoot back with their AK47s and AKMs, but they were soon killed, wounded, or pinned down by the sheer volume of fire pouring out of the American-held trench.
Satisfied that his men had held off the first rush, Pierce shifted the platoon’s fire back down the slope into the North Koreans still struggling through the barbed wire and minefields. Caught bunched up like that, they were slaughtered. Through his scope Kevin could see them falling. Those left alive started to edge backward, away from the hill. A North Korean officer came running forward to rally them, but he went down with a bullet in the face.
Whistles shrilled from down by the wire, and the surviving North Koreans began moving back, leaving a trail of bloody, writhing bodies on the ground behind them. Pierce let the platoon shoot until they were outside effective range — about two hundred and fifty meters — and then roared, “Cease fire! Cease fire! Save your ammo. You’ll need it later.”
Kevin was elated. His earlier fears had faded as quickly as they’d broken the North Korean attack. He looked up and down his line. Not a man had been hit. They’d smashed an enemy infantry company without suffering a single casualty.
He grinned at Pierce as the sergeant came up to him. “Well done, Sergeant.”
Pierce nodded, his own face carefully expressionless.
Kevin could hear moans from the North Korean wounded left behind on the hillside. Time to be humanitarian about this. “Tell the medic I’d like him to see what he can do for those poor bastards out there.”
Pierce was astonished. “You gone nuts, Lieutenant? This ain’t the end of it.” He gestured in the direction the attack had come from. “That was just a probe. Now that they know for sure we’re here, they’re going to make us wish we weren’t.”