One of them was a clerk named Hood, who still was trying to get used to the feel of a rifle in his hands. That was just about the only thing that he could feel, considering that his feet, ears, cheeks, and fingers were already numb. He was glad when they finally got moving so that he could keep the blood flowing.
Once again, the tank column headed north in hopes of pushing past Hill 1221 and the blockade. Roxbury was reminded of the myth of Sisyphus, the Greek gent who had been doomed for eternity to push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down so that he had to do it all over again. He snorted, thinking that Sisyphus would be a promising nickname for his tank — if they survived the next few hours.
Moving north, the tank column was shadowed by its air support. But they lacked any communication with the Corsairs, which meant that the pilots were just going to have to use their own best judgment. Roxbury had seen what a load of napalm could do, and he wasn't entirely reassured by the planes hovering above.
It didn't take them long to reach the section of road at the base of Hill 1221 where they had run into trouble the day before. The wreckage of the medical unit trucks and the burned hulks of the tanks lost yesterday looked stark against the snow, stinking of burned rubber — and worse.
Once again, the Chinese were waiting for them.
Rifles fired, pinging harmlessly off the steel skin of the tanks. But it was the Chinese bazookas and Bangalore torpedoes that Roxbury was worried about. All that the enemy needed to do was disable one tank to block the road again.
The infantry platoon fanned out along the road, buffering the tank column from attacks by Chinese troops rushing forward with one of those Bangalore torpedo charges. A Corsair swept in, fast and nimble as a sparrow, hammering the hillside with its machine guns.
The trouble was that the pilot had mistaken the figures far below for Chinese troops. Without communication from the ground, he fired at the movement he saw parallel to the road.
"Dear God, no," Roxbury muttered, watching as the heavy slugs mowed down a handful of their own men. Some of those guys didn't even know enough to get down. They died staring up at the sky, never expecting their own planes to shoot at them.
That's when the Chinese opened up on them like they meant it. Machine-gun fire rattled off the tank. An unsettling sound, despite the thick armor skin. Then came the telltale whoosh and smoky plume of a Chinese bazooka fired at the lead tank.
Roxbury thought at first that the tank had come through unscathed. It was still rolling, that was for sure. But the tank was slewing sideways down the road, sliding down the frozen mud. Roxbury cursed. He could see that the right-hand track flapped ineffectively, so that the tank was like a ship without a rudder. The steel beast came to a stop, square in the middle of the road, blocking the rest of the column.
Outside, the makeshift infantry platoon of clerks and cooks was busy counter-attacking the Chinese troops closing in on the tanks. At first, Hood had welcomed the chance to actually fight after typing up reports as a company clerk. Now, he felt terrified. He fired his carbine at the Chinese, astonished to be so close to the enemy. Hit by enemy fire, the men on either side of him went down. Hood got off a couple more shots.
The next thing he knew, one of the Chinese threw something at him that proved to be a grenade. Before he could react, Hood was knocked out cold by the blast.
He came to because someone was pounding on his back. He rolled over to find a Chinese soldier bent over him, hitting Hood with his rifle. Either the Chinese soldier had run out of ammunition or his weapon was inoperable in the cold. Lucky for Hood, the soldier didn't seem to have a bayonet for his rifle or hadn't thought of it. From the angry shouts of the soldier, however, it was clear that the man planned to beat Hood to death.
He reached around and grabbed for his own rifle, lying in the dirt and snow nearby. With an effort, he swung the muzzle toward the Chinese soldier and pulled the trigger, killing him.
Then Private Hood rolled to his feet and skedaddled back toward the line of tanks.
There wasn’t much safety to be found among the tanks. Roxbury and the other tankers were astonished when the Chinese attacked the rear tank, trying to knock it out and box them all in. A few bursts from that tank's gun solved the problem temporarily. But the Chinese were far from done. The tank column found itself surrounded.
Another tank was hit, and the crew climbed out to try to make repairs. The Chinese were waiting for them, though, and picked them off. The disabled tank created yet another obstacle on the road.
Roxbury could see that this whole operation was falling apart. He had to admit that the tanks were next to useless on this road, hemmed in by close hills on all sides and unable to use their firepower to any effect. In those hills, the Chinese were dug in too deep to dislodge. He was relieved when the order came to withdraw.
But this would be a fighting retreat.
He opened the hatch so he could guide the tank as it reversed up the icy road — getting the tank turned around wasn't an option. He was surprised to see one of the infantrymen hurrying after them, in danger of being left behind. The poor bastard was bleeding and dragging one leg.
"Climb on!" Roxbury shouted, after ordering his driver to halt.
The soldier got aboard the tank, and they got the hell out of there.
Looking back toward where they had been attacked, he could see that the Chinese had set the disabled tanks on fire. Bodies lay strewn everywhere — some of them wearing Chinese puffy uniforms, and others the olive drab of Americans.
Most of the infantrymen who had been pressed into service were now dead, brave but unfortunate bastards that they were. They had lost two more tanks. The Chinese hadn't budged. Nobody was going to the rescue of the stranded troops.
What a snafu, Roxbury thought, only too glad to get the hell out of there while they still could.
Chapter Twenty
Miles to the north, unaware of the efforts of the tank column to come to their aid, the soldiers prepared to withdraw. Nobody was calling it a retreat. When the kid called it that, he was quickly corrected.
"So we're retreating?" the kid asked.
"Don't you know anything, kid? It's bad luck to call it that. It ain't a retreat," Pomeroy informed him. "It's what you'd call a tactical withdrawal."
Cole grinned. "You know what, New Jersey? You ought to be an officer," Cole told him. "Nobody but an officer could find a pretty way of saying we're running off like a dog with his tail between his legs."
"Yeah, and if that dog has got any sense he'll keep on running. If the Chinese catch him, they might eat him. They're barbarians."
Cole snorted. "Hell, I've eaten worse than that. What would you call me?"
Pomeroy gave him a look, but seemed to know better than to ask what could be worse than eating a dog.
Anyhow, they were too busy to get into the finer culinary points. The whole camp was in a rush to get packed up and on the road out of this godforsaken place. There wasn't a soldier there who wasn't eager to get out of there before nightfall, when it was likely that the Chinese would return.
Slowly, it had dawned on many of the Americans that there was a very possibility of becoming prisoners of the Chinese. Surrounded, cut off, the GIs were facing that uncomfortable thought. It was a little less likely that they would fight to the last man. Each man struggled with the disbelief that this was actually happening. By tomorrow he might be dead. By tomorrow, he might be a POW.
Cole had seen mass surrenders take place in the last war, with the Germans. Often, the way it happened had a kind of snowball effect. Two or three men would give up, and then entire squads, and finally you had a whole unit waving a white flag — especially at the end of the war when it made a whole lot more sense to surrender to the Americans or British, rather than to the oncoming Russian hordes. Germans who surrendered to the Russians did not fare well. Many had been marched deep into Russia, never to return. Would the Americans meet the same fate if they surrendered?