Cole thought about that. Maybe he could talk her into staying? But for all he knew, she had already returned to her village in the hills.
The attack had come near dusk, and as full darkness arrived, the night came alive with explosions and tracer fire.
“Hey, that’s the best Fourth of July fireworks I’ve ever seen!” somebody shouted.
“Shut up, you damn greenbean. See how you like it when you’re in the middle of it.”
That comment silenced the soldier, who surely had been one of the replacement troops who had just rotated in. Even the damn officers were all new for the most part in this section of the MLR. If the Chinese and North Koreans attacked now, they would have every advantage against the green troops and officers.
Cole watched the attack with the others, his sense of apprehension growing. “Those boys are catching hell,” he said. “How much longer can they hold out?”
“The Chinese are throwing everything at ‘em but the kitchen sink, that’s for sure,” the kid responded.
Cole had to agree, and before long, they had their answer. The fire on Outpost Kelly began to slacken, but not because the U.S. troops were winning the fight.
A pair of figures loomed out of the darkness.
Nervous fingers soon found triggers, a shot or two was fired, and the figures threw themselves to the ground.
“Hold your fire!” Lieutenant Ballard shouted. “Those are our guys!”
Ballard ordered the squad out to help them, and they half-dragged, half-carried the men back to the lines. These were the survivors of the fight for Outpost Kelly, which had been completely overrun.
A dozen more stragglers came in, battered and bloodied by the fight.
“Where’s the rest of them?” somebody asked. The outpost had been in company strength. But as hard as the men in the trenches peered into the darkness, they couldn’t see any additional survivors.
“The Chinese wiped them out,” the kid said.
“So they did,” Cole agreed.
“The whole company,” the kid said in disbelief, a catch in his throat. “Just gone.”
The kid was expressing how everybody felt, thinking about so many men being lost on that hillside. The Chinese would have used their bayonets to finish off any wounded left behind. Those poor, unlucky bastards. More than a few of the men around Cole had friends or acquaintances in the decimated company.
Soldiers shouted out names to the survivors. “Did Jameson make it?”
“What about Bowlegs Johnson?” another asked. “He still owes me ten bucks from a poker game.”
The survivors just shook their heads before moving off toward the rear. In the darkness, a gloomy silence fell over the muddy ditches and trenches.
“Better get some sleep if you can, kid. Sure as a cow chews a cud, they’re gonna send us to take back that hill in the morning.”
“All right, men, here’s the plan,” explained the battalion commander at the bunker. “We cannot allow those Chinese to occupy Outpost Kelly permanently. If they establish artillery on that hill, they will be within easy range of our lines. Hell, they can just throw rocks at us if they want. It will also give them a base from which to constantly attack and harass our MLR.”
In the crowded bunker, there were only grunts of assent. “Damn straight,” someone muttered. “Shouldn’t have lost Outpost Kelly in the first place.”
“All right, that’s enough of that,” Lieutenant Colonel Switalski said impatiently. “We’re just going to have to get that hill back.”
The lieutenant colonel waited until everyone settled down. During the monsoon rains, the CP had been spared the same fate at the tankers’ bunker and remained standing. Several officers and NCOs were packed into the cramped bunker, along with a few company clerks to serve as errand boys. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of bitter coffee, along with the dank odor of unwashed men and damp uniforms. It was clear that this was not a party at the 500 Club.
Don Hardy glanced at his Timex, blinking at the fact that it was two o’clock in the morning. For the men and officers in this section of the MLR, there was going to be precious little sleep tonight. Maybe not the next night, either.
Hardy stood in the back of the jammed bunker, trying to blend in. At over six feet tall, he stood out from the crowd, so he slouched down a bit.
“You may as well come along,” Dunbar had said. “That way, you’ll get the lay of the land for the attack.”
“Are you sure it’s all right, Lieutenant?”
Although Hardy was an enlisted man, he and the lieutenant had hit it off because they were nearly the same age and both college graduates. They had also turned out to have a similar enjoyment of reading western novels. They had even ended up swapping the paperbacks they had just finished. In the pages of a good western, the good guys always won and the bad guys always lost, which was not the case in Korea.
In one on one conversation, they were on a first-name basis. In front of anyone else, Hardy was careful to address the lieutenant as “sir.” He was an officer, after all.
Unlike some officers, the lieutenant seemed to respect the fact that Hardy was doing his best to cover a war that was largely being forgotten. Americans back home had lost their taste for the war. Fighting Hitler and Emperor Hirohito in the last war had been a necessity that anyone could grasp, but defending a place most Americans couldn’t pick out on a map felt pointless.
Although the Stars and Stripes was mainly a military publication, a lot of people back home read it — mainly the families of those in the military or retired military. Nonetheless, it remained an influential publication.
“If anyone asks, I’ll just say that you’re my aide de camp,” the lieutenant had said. “But believe me, nobody is going to ask.”
“All right, then. I’ll come along and bring my notebook.”
Hardy was just as happy to remain with the tankers during any counter-attack against Outpost Kelly. At the battle of Triangle Hill, he had found himself as part of the squad assaulting Chinese positions. While it had given him a great story, it was not an experience he was eager to repeat anytime soon.
Hardy didn’t feel any need to prove himself again, nor did he feel any sense of cowardice at not being part of the attack. Instead, he felt a strong desire to survive the war and get on with his career as a journalist, preferably somewhere like the Indianapolis Star—where nobody would be shooting at him.
Lieutenant Colonel Switalski went on with the battle plan. “After the artillery and tanks firing in support soften them up, our assault will begin. The boys from the 65th will lead the advance, here and here.” The officer tapped at a map that had been hung on the wall. “Charlie Company will attack here. Your orders, gentlemen, are to occupy and hold all positions. We need to take back that outpost.”
“Yes, sir.”
Looking closely at the map, Hardy could see that it was rudimentary — almost like something the coach would have drawn to illustrate plays back in his high school football days. And yet, the map effectively showed the hilltop, on which was a single command bunker and several mortar and machine-gun emplacements fortified with sandbags. About two thirds of the way up, a deep trench encircled the crown of the hill itself, reminding Hardy of a monk’s tonsure. Basically, for the defense of Outpost Kelly, the United States Army had reconstructed an ancient hill fort.
Even from the back of the room, the plan seemed clear to Hardy. But he had been in the Army long enough to know that plans were one thing, and what actually came about once the shooting started could be something totally different.