Mackenzie said, “Cut it out, sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“Let it rest. You’re not doing a damn thing but alerting the enemy.”
“Yes, sir.” Ekland dropped the walkie-talkie back into the lead jeep. Ekland hadn’t been thinking about the enemy. The captain thought of a lot of things he didn’t think of. He looked up at the sky, and listened, and the captain looked up and listened, too. There was no sound from the sky. On this day the sky was not their friend.
When the men had rested, and stretched, Mackenzie ordered them on, and he dropped back to where Raleigh Couzens trudged behind the last jeep, one hand resting on a jerican of gas so that the jeep helped him along. “How you doin’, Raleigh?” Mackenzie said.
“Pretty good, Sam, but—”
“But what?”
“But I’m not going to make it, Sam.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“It isn’t going to work, Sam. We haven’t got dick.” This was a strange and fatherless expression birthed by the Korean war. It could mean many things but one of the things it meant was that they didn’t have the stuff, the punch, the power. It was the opposite of another expression of this war, “Ammo’s running out my ass.”
Mackenzie thought that Couzens hadn’t been quite the same since Ko-Bong, and he remembered that he had been wanting to talk to Couzens about his experience, and he said, “Raleigh, you never told me about being captured. What happened? Why’d they let you loose?”
“Oh, to hell with it,” said Couzens. “It isn’t important now.”
“I think it’s important,” said Mackenzie.
“Sam, you’re nuts. You don’t think we’re really going to get out of here, do you, Sam?”
“We’re going to give it the old college try.” He tried to look into Couzens’ eyes, but Couzens’ head was bent. “What happened, Raleigh?”
“Sam, it was terrible. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not going to talk about it.”
Mackenzie had always realized that under Couzens’ insouciance, his quick wit, and his skill in debate there was a dark area you did not dare touch, lest you destroy him. Now this sensitive area was exposed, and needed protection, for Dog Company needed Couzens and his genius in battle. So Mackenzie slammed Couzens on the back and said, “Forget it, Raleigh. There’s plenty of time to talk, if you want.” And Mackenzie lengthened his stride and moved up to the point of the column. Something bad had happened to Couzens. He was sure of it.
Raleigh Couzens’ mind was cleft. Half his mind re-acted normally to the surging drive for self-preservation. The other half wallowed in his failures, and exaggerated his guilt. He had failed his girl. He had failed his family. And worst, he had failed his country. Why else would the Communists release him? Why else, except that he had given aid and comfort to the enemy? His flip cracks about the President, and the war, perhaps even now were being used as propaganda by Radio Peking, and Radio Prague, and Radio Budapest, and Radio Moscow, and was being monitored in Tokyo, and London, and Istanbul, and Washington. He could hear it:
“An American lieutenant of Marines, Raleigh Couzens, was captured during the recent rout of the American forces. He admitted that, in his own words, ‘the Korean war stinks.’ He also expressed dissatisfaction, with profanity, at the aid given the United States in the Korean imperialist aggression by other countries of the so-called United Nations. He also cursed the President of the United States. In keeping with the humanitarian principles of the Chinese volunteers, Lieutenant Couzens was released and returned to his own lines.”
Back in Mandarin, when she heard of it, his mother would be elated. He was alive. He was safe. His mother wouldn’t consider it disgraceful, but his mother was a very selfish woman.
Others would regard it differently. He would have to face a suspicious, grim-faced intelligence officer, in Wonsan, or Pusan, or Tokyo, or even in Washington. He could hear the questions:
“Exactly what did you say, Lieutenant Couzens?”
“What did you say about the morale of the Marines?”
“What did you say about our Allies?”
“What did you say about the President of the United States?”
Couzens shivered, and not from the cold. And it would be necessary to have it out, if he got back, with Sam Mackenzie. That was the worst. He would rather lose anything than lose Mackenzie’s respect and friendship. He would rather lose his life.
The gradient of the road sloped downward now, and Couzens realized they were entering a valley. The jeeps moved faster, and the men moved faster to keep up, and the drivers shifted into low gear, so all could keep pace, and distance. Ahead, Mackenzie held up his hand, and the column halted. “Come up here, Lieutenant,” Mackenzie called, taking his map from his pocket, and Couzens went up to the van with his captain.
Mackenzie spread out the map on the hood of the lead jeep, and traced their route with his finger. The finger stopped a mile short of a town named Chungyang-ni. On the map a single-track railroad passed through this town. On the map the railroad was called the Shinko-Shoko Line. “Ever hear of it?” said Mackenzie.
“No,” said Couzens. “Never heard of it.”
Mackenzie called for Ekland. Ekland might know more. As the communicator for Dog Company, Ekland was privy to all the radio chatter and gossip. He reported to his captain what would be of direct interest, which was probably only one tenth of what he heard. But Mackenzie knew that Ekland had a good memory, a better-than-good memory. “Ever hear of the Shinko-Shoko Line?” Mackenzie asked, pointing it out on the map.
“Yes, sir. It doesn’t work. The Commies have always held one end of it, and ever since we took Hamhung we’ve held the other. They’ve got the cars, and we’ve got the locomotives, so it doesn’t work.”
“Thank you, sergeant,” said Mackenzie. “We’ve got to cross that line. Even if the trains aren’t running, I think they must have some sort of guard on the crossing.”
“I’d say yes, sir,” said Ekland. “If there’s going to be an evacuation I figure the Commies will be all set to grab the line, and start operating it again, and so they’ll have a guard at that town there.”
Mackenzie thought it through. He couldn’t send Dog Company into Chungyang-ni, and across the tracks, without reconnaissance. The Chinese might have a couple of hundred men in the village. If they held the crossing in strength, then Dog Company would have to take to the hills, and by-pass the village. He didn’t want to take to the hills unless it was necessary. His men were tired enough already.
“Lieutenant,” Mackenzie said, “this is your baby. You take a patrol up there. Take a jeep and a bazooka and four men.”
Couzens looked behind him and called up four men from his own platoon, and told them to bring up the rearmost jeep. This jeep was loaded with rations, but it was better to use this one than the others, crammed with ammo and gasoline. “How close are you going to support me?” he asked Mackenzie.
“Five hundred yards,” Mackenzie said. That was all it was necessary to say, between men who knew their business.
Couzens and his four men moved ahead of the column, downhill. The lieutenant, his rifle alive in his hands, walked in front of the jeep. In the jeep was the driver, grenades strapped to his chest and a carbine at his knee, with the bazooka man riding the seat alongside. Flanking the jeep were two riflemen. That was the disposition of Couzens’ patrol.