If everybody bugged out on Korea, it didn’t take a general or a genius to predict the final result. The United States had most of its infantry, and all its Marines, fighting these gooks in Korea, and if that Army fled and evacuated, and came back home with its tail between its legs, then the whole world would know that the United States couldn’t hold Berlin or Vienna, or the line of the Elbe, or the Dardanelles, or the oil fields of the Middle East. It couldn’t hold Japan, or maybe even England. They’d all be back inside their own borders, like squawking turkeys in a pen, waiting while the butcher sharpened his knife. “Like Thanksgiving Day turkeys,” Ekland said aloud.
“Too bad about the turkeys,” said Mackenzie.
“Yes, sir. Too bad about the turkeys.”
And when the butcher was ready, when he was completely ready, he’d drop it on them. He’d certainly drop one—perhaps three or five—on Chicago. Maybe he’d aim for the Merchandise Mart, which was an excellent central location, or maybe he’d aim for the University, and its atomic research labs, where Molly worked. Ekland spit through the spokes of the wheel, as if to get a bad taste out of his mouth.
“What’s the matter, sergeant?” asked Mackenzie. “Feel bad?”
“Sort of.”
“It’s tough when you have to kill somebody close up. Even a gook.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Makes you feel like a murderer. I know. You have to rationalize it. You have to get over it. It was either you, or them.”
“I know, sir. It’s either us, or them.” If they had to pull out of Korea it was going to be us. Ekland was sure of that. He evaluated the future in the terms of his own experience. That’s the way everybody thought of World War No. 3. It was natural. It was the only way it could be.
When a banker thought of atomic bombs on Manhattan, or in the river between the bridges and over the tunnels, he considered the dead and the maimed and the fire storms and millions of people clawing their way into the countryside, sure. But because of his indoctrination, and his profession, naturally he thought most of the financial chaos. He considered the billions in paper securities that would be irretrievably lost. Today a safety deposit box. Tomorrow an oven. He was shaken by the thoughts of accounts destroyed, and loans and mortgages never to be traced or repaid, and important clients missing in a cloud of atomic dust, and the gutting of Wall Street and the elimination of the Stock Exchange.
A doctor considered it differently. He thought of the helpless in the hospitals, burning, and no way to get them out. He thought of the splendid equipment, purchased by public contribution or painstakingly squeezed from state funds, wrecked and lost. He thought of oceans of plasma, and rivers of whole blood, and carloads of antibiotics and miles of bandages. He thought of the skin grafts they’d need, and couldn’t get. You can’t buy skin like rolls of wallpaper, but that’s the way it would be needed.
A real estate man had to be real hep, come an atomic bomb. And he ought to prepare for it, in advance. He ought to sell in the cities, and buy the countryside, but with care. For instance, Seattle was finished. They could hit Seattle like snapping your fingers. Places like Miami and New Orleans were safe, unless, of course, they delivered their bombs via snorkel subs and guided missiles. Then Miami and New Orleans were finished too. One sure rule was Back to the Land. The ideal investment was a modern producing farm within commuting distance of a metropolitan area, and with its own water supply and generator. If the generator could be run by water power, and the house used solar heat, then the setup was perfect. For an ideal place like that, you could get three thousand an acre, and probably twenty-seven five for the house, if it had two baths and was liveable.
John Ekland considered it in terms of radio, and communications. When the butcher came, everybody who had relatives in New York, and Chicago, and L.A., and Washington would instantly pick up the telephone and call long distance to find out if they were safe. The telephone system would be screwed up beyond belief. He also suspected that the military lines, and Army and Navy radio, would be so overloaded by local commanders, and self-centered National Guard generals, that they would be useless for days.
And radio! Ekland would not like to be at the NBC control switches on A-Day, even if Chicago wasn’t hit, which it certainly would be. If Orson Welles could scare the wits out of the country by talking about Men from Mars, what would happen when atomic bombs from Russia actually landed? First thing, of course, was that all the network stations would immediately be off the air. The listeners wouldn’t hear any explosion. All they’d hear would be a click, and then nothing. Nothing at all. They’d think the power was off, and in the metropolitan centers it probably would be. But in other, smaller places they’d start turning the dial, and they’d pick up some local station, and listen to the usual hillbilly music and three commercials each quarter hour, and while they might wonder what had happened to the networks, it would all be normal—for a small space of time. Then a disk jockey would say:
“We interrupt this program—”
Ekland looked ahead, and saw a crossroads. Tanks were moving on the main road. They looked solid, good.
“We interrupt this program to bring you an AP news flash from Tarrytown, New York, by way of Poughkeepsie. There has been a tremendous explosion in the New York area. The Tarrytown chief-of-police believes it may have been an atomic bomb. We will have more details later.”
Then the local station would go on, playing Flatfoot Boogie, or whatever, and the disk jockey would bespeak the qualities of Surf, The Boston Store, and Hadacol. Then, in his smooth, emasculated voice, “It seems that the news is true. There has been attack on a number of cities on both coasts. I have just called the mayor. He assures me there is no cause for alarm.”
And then? Then the next amphibious landing of the Marines would be in Alaska, if Americans had the guts to shake off the shock of a hundred Pearl Harbors, and rise from the ashes of their cities. John Ekland could not see his own life clearly in this foreboding, for when he put on uniform again, he had renounced the privilege of making his own decisions. He’d be a sergeant, somewhere. That was all he knew for sure.
When they came to the main road, an MP raised his hand and stopped Dog Company. “I’ll let you in here as soon as this mob of tanks passes through,” he told the captain.
“Okay,” the captain said. The MP would not break into a battalion of tanks to let an infantry company into line, even if Mackenzie told him they had an important combat mission. There wasn’t any use arguing with an MP. An MP was the law.
There was something eerie, something wrong, about the way this tank battalion moved, and for a time Mackenzie could not put his finger on it. Then he knew. You might call this movement a breakout, or an attack in another direction, but fundamentally it was a retreat. Whenever you abandon ground to the enemy, it is retreat, however words coat and oil it, and there is a special sound to American troops in retreat. It is their wordlessness, their silence. All the sounds Mackenzie could hear were mechanical. All he could hear was the grinding of the tank treads on the ice and frozen ground, and the rumble of engines. It was as if the men were hypnotized, and the tanks retreated of themselves.
There was no shouting. There were no commands. There were no wisecracks, or jokes, passed from tank to tank. The tank commanders stood in the ports of their turrets, their faces as impassive and gray as their armor. In their football-type helmets, each looked like a halfback who has just been taken out of the game, with his team three touchdowns behind. As the tanks passed Mackenzie, none of the commanders waved, and few of them even looked.