The Marines on the waterfront filed down the pier and up Chimera's gangway. They left behind their Korean captives and a coterie of Soviet Marines and sailors. The atmosphere was friendly, even relaxed, though the Marines remained on guard. Gunshots continued to bang away in the distance, beyond the city and across the bay. The waterfront area, though, seemed deserted; at the least the inhabitants were staying well under cover. A-6 and Hornet interdictions at dozens of points around the city's road net had paralyzed traffic and prevented troop movements into the waterfront. Also, the landings across the harbor and the fighting at Nyongch'on had served admirably as a diversion.
Chimera's engines boomed into life, causing the dirty water under her stern to boil and froth. Sailors cast off lines fore and aft, and the combat-battered vessel began to slide away from the pier, moving dead slow astern. Sergeant Peters leaned on the railing forward of the helipad, watching the group of Russians and Koreans as the ship backed into the harbor.
One Russian Marine waved a packet of MREs above his head. "Peh-ters!" he yelled. "Vsyegoh harashigah, tovarisch!"
Peters waved back. He didn't know what Vladimir Ilych was saying, but he seemed to be wishing the Americans luck.
Machine gun fire rattled from a building somewhere to the south, but there was no telling what the target was. In reply, a single, piercing blast shrilled from Chimera's horn, echoing back from city buildings. An answering blast sounded from the harbor. There, the sleek gray shape of the destroyer John A. Winslow made her way among the fishing boats and merchantmen. The Winslow had been brought into the harbor against the possibility that Chimera would need a tow, or support from her five-inch guns. With her engines and steering operational, with Korean military forces along the waterfront fled or in hiding, the destroyer would serve as an escort of honor instead. Tomcats from VF-97 boomed low overhead, flying cover, as SeaCobras and SuperCobras continued their hungry circling. Winslow came about in a broad half-circle and began churning through the gray waters toward the north point of the Kolmo Peninsula.
Her flag flying, Chimera followed.
There would be no more Pueblos.
Private Ross followed his training, leaning around the pile of rubble to look for the enemy instead of over. The resort complex, which had been in what passed for a rear area well within the Marine perimeter, had within the past hour become the front line once more. Mortar fire rained down on the Marines from hidden sites among the villages to the south, and the steady rattle of machine guns, the bang of sniper rifles echoed from buildings and cliff sides. Smoke, from gunfire, fires, and smoke markers, hung like a gray pall of fog across the ground, reducing visibility to a few yards and men to hunch-backed shadows slipping among trees and walls.
A shrill, eerie wail sounded through the murk. Some clown over there had found a bugle and was using it to summon another charge. He'd heard stories about those bugles passed on from earlier generations of Marines in an earlier Korean war. "Get ready, guys!" he yelled. "They're coming!"
They came in a rush, not the human wave hordes he and his squad mates had expected, but small groups of eight or ten men each. Autofire stuttered and snapped, the muzzle flashes bright, flickering tongues of flame in the fog. Ross chose his target, then elevated his weapon, his right hand caressing the trigger of the M-203, mounted just forward of his magazine. The weapon jolted against his arm. Seconds later, the 40-mm frag burst just behind the advancing Koreans, mowing them down like wheat. More kept coming, firing and shrieking as they ran. Ross took aim, sighting down his M-16's carrying handle, and began firing single shots with careful deliberation. One Korean fell… and another… and another…
"Fox Company!" Corporal Chamesky yelled. Sergeant Nelson was dead, cut down by AK fire thirty minutes earlier. "Stand by to withdraw!"
"How the hell are we supposed to withdraw with gooks climbing all over us?" Private Grenoble muttered from his firing hole a few feet away. He levered himself up and loosed three quick shots at the advancing soldiers. "We must have half the damned gook army here!"
"We'll invite them out to the ship," Ross replied. He aimed again… fired. A North Korean clutched at his face and dropped back into the murk. "Have them join us in the mess hall. Ptomaine'll get them."
"You wish. With our luck-" He stopped himself, looking up at the low overcast. The air was quivering with a new sound, a thundering roar approaching from the sea. "INCOMING!"
"Down!" Ross screamed, and he did his best to burrow into the soil, his hands over ears and head.
The ground seemed to rise up and kick him in the chest and stomach. The noise… the noise was too vast to be described as sound, a shattering detonation which tore sky and ground apart with a concussion wave which rang like a bell.
Another express train roar followed the first… and the blast shook the ground and rained gravel across the backs of the huddled Marines. Explosions tore the face of the ridge, uprooting trees, collapsing buildings, splintering walls.
The silence which followed was so deep Ross thought he'd gone deaf, but he heard cheering rising from the beach moments later. Raising his head, he looked out toward the sea, where a low, gray silhouette rode the waves five miles out. Even at this distance, Ross recognized the John A. Winslow, the old Spruance-class destroyer which had accompanied the Marine amphib ships close into shore. Both of her five-inch turrets were swung around to cover the shore; those seventy-pound projectiles could be laid down with pinpoint accuracy with help from spotters ashore or in the air. The barrage had slammed into the Korean attack, shattering it utterly.
"On your feet, Marines!" Chamesky ordered. Already he sounded like prime sergeant material, loud and obnoxious. "You bums miss the boat this time and it'll be a long walk home!"
Fox Company stumbled back down the hill toward Blue Beach, sliding down a shallow ridge and jogging across sand and gravel toward the water. A trio of Sea Knights roared low overhead and out to sea, the last flight out of Kolmo Airport today… and probably for weeks to come, so badly had the runway been cratered.
The beach area was littered with the burned-out hulks of vehicles ― AAVs, mostly, but numerous humvees and several helicopters as well ― which had suffered damage and were being left behind. One working vehicle remained, one of Chosin's LCACs, resting on its skirts just above the surf line with its forward ramp deployed. The beachmaster stood on the ramp, signaling Fox to hurry. "Move it, Marines!" he yelled. "You wanna be left behind?"
Ross followed the others aboard, combat boots rattling on the ramp grating. The coxswain gunned the craft's engines and the skirts inflated, lifting the air cushion vehicle clear of the beach in a storm of wind-blown sand and spray. The ramp came up, and LCAC 2 nosed around, sliding off the beach and out over the water. Mortar shells thudded and howled overhead; geysers of water erupted to either side… and then the LCAC was hurtling to sea at fifty knots, the wind and sea spray clawing at Ross's face.
Only then did he realize that the shore line behind him was empty now, that he had been the last Marine off the Wonsan beach.
"Hey, what happened?" he asked a Marine standing next to him. "Did we get the Navy guys out?"
"How the shit should I know," the man growled. "The colonel didn't see fit to confide in me this time!"
"Yeah," another grumbled. "SOP. Never tell us anything!"
"An oversight, gentlemen," a tall Marine said. "My apologies. The last of the hostages came off the beach at approximately zero-nine-fifteen. Only one of the prisoners died in the rescue. Chimera has been secured and is underway, heading out to rejoin the fleet."