On one hand Clemens felt trapped because it would take several hours at least to fix the unraveled track, if they could do it at all in the field. And yet he was in a perfect position with a wide down angle of fire across the paddies now stretching fifteen hundred to five thousand meters in front of him. He was waiting for the smoke to clear. One of the other two tanks he’d requested help from didn’t answer. Whether it was hit hard and out of action or whether its radio had packed it in, Clemens didn’t know. In any case, the other tank gave Clemens the happy information that Cahill had released a full batallion of M-1s, thirty-five tanks in all, which were now rolling up Unification Highway. Within twenty minutes they’d be in the area, engaging the remaining sixty lighter-armed and lighter PT-76 tanks now presumably scuttling across the paddies either side of the road under cover of the smoke, trying to find whatever defensive positions they could. In the interim, Clemens decided to save what was left of his original fifty-five rounds until the smoke curtain cleared.
“How many shots we got left, Luke?”
“Forty-two.”
“What we got on the menu?”
“Ribs, lobster.”
“Never mind the shit — what’ve we got?”
“Shoes, twenty, HE, ten, and twelve HESH.”
It told Clemens he had twenty rounds of solid-shot armor-piercing, ten high-explosive shells, and twelve high-explosives with squash heads.
“Well,” said Clemens, trying not to sound too satisfied up against the PT-76 tin cans. “That should hold us awhile.”
“I reckon,” said his gunner.
As General Kim in his headquarters six miles east outside Uijongbu was informed of the M-1 spearhead rapidly approaching, his face remained impassive, even as his infantry commanders worriedly reminded him of the cardinal rule: that while it was permissible for tanks to move without infantry, this was only wise when you were advancing and using the infantry as your eyes and ears, but in this situation, with a long line of American M-1 tanks, the NKA armored column would quickly be thrown on the defensive, the supporting regiments behind the NKA tanks slaughtered by the cannon and machine-gun fire of the formidable M-1s unless they were withdrawn. Radio intercepts, Kim’s officers pointed out, already confirmed that the M-1s, their laser range finders thwarted by neither rain nor smoke, were less than twenty minutes away. And, after the executions at Panmunjom, the migooks would surely show no mercy, and would fight eye to eye with the PT-76s. Kim merely nodded. He was already quite aware that he was about to engage in the first massed tank battle since the days of the Israeli-Arab wars.
One of the infantry commanders, a colonel, Russian-trained and in charge of one of the crack NKA Sapper units, had, as Kim ordered, already gone ahead of the beleaguered PT-76 column and blown a huge hundred-yard gap in the road, in effect creating an enormous tank ditch which no tank, including the M-1, could ford. But this, the colonel pointed out to Kim, could only be expected to delay the Americans for at most a quarter hour. And it would not be long, he told Kim, before the American fleet in the East Sea would be near enough to launch aerial antitank attacks. This was dangerous for any tank, the top of the turret being the least-armored part of the vehicle, but for the relatively light-armored PT-76s, it could mean annihilation.
Kim did not respond.
As Kim left the headquarters tent, walking across the squishy ground to his private quarters, two of his chief staff officers tried to fathom Kim’s intent. “Perhaps he thinks,” proffered a battalion commander, “that once the M-1s engage our tanks, they will be too close. Any aerial bombardment would also destroy any American tanks nearby. I think Kim has something up his sleeve.”
“Why?” asked the colonel.
“He did not seem overly concerned about the M-Is. Didn’t you notice?” asked the battalion commander.
“I noticed. That is what bothers me. He does not fully comprehend this situation.”
“You can’t tell with Kim,” said the colonel. “He is known for not divulging his tactics till the last minute. Fears a security leak. I’ve no doubt he’s studying the situation carefully. He’s up against the American, Cahill. Kim hates him.”
“So do I,” said the other officer. “But hating is not enough. Hate will not stop an M-1.”
“No,” agreed the colonel. “But it will help.”
“How?”
The colonel shrugged. “In-close armored fighting is not something the Americans—”
“You think Americans are no good at this? Don’t you remember Patton?”
“Yes, of course,” said the colonel. “But that was a long time ago.”
“And what happens when Washington sends reinforcements?” pressed the infantry commander.
The colonel laughed. “They won’t.”
“If they do?”
“We will have over half the South before they get here. The Americans love to argue. Their democracy,” said the colonel contemptuously, “is all talk. They talk big.”
‘“They have big tanks.”
“They have big egos,” countered the colonel. “Remember Vietnam, my friend. Once their ego is punctured, they become very depressed, the Americans.”
“First,” said the infantry commander, “I’d prefer to see the M-1s punctured.”
“Be patient,” said the colonel.
The infantry commander looked at his watch. “It won’t be long. They will be entering the area within five minutes.”
“Then,” said the colonel, “we don’t have long to wait, Comrade. I think we are about to make history.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
President Mayne didn’t favor the world-famous Oval Office in the west wing except for the most official occasions. Most of his work was done in the smaller, more ordinary study next door, and it was here that Peale’s portrait of George Washington was moved. In those lonely times that only a president knows, when only he could break the deadlock of advisers’ conflicting advice, Mayne would retreat here to mull over the options, the possible consequences, or what Trainor called the “bottom line situation.”
For Mayne, the Oval Office had always seemed too big for serious contemplation, no matter how cozy it looked in the narrow-focus television brought to it, hiding by omission the large area between the fireplace and the white leather lounges in front of the desk. The Secret Service thoroughly approved of the smaller room. For the men who protected him, the Oval Office, being on the southern corner of the west wing, was a much more vulnerable target for anyone who might penetrate the elaborate, yet mainly unseen, protective screen of heat and movement sensors that covered every sector of the grounds. The Secret Service had installed a rectangular titanium shell, sandwiched in the paneling of the study, making it even more secure. But above all, the president liked the room because he could darken it completely and keep the secret that only he, his wife, and Trainor shared. This morning he sat down with the Pentagon’s updated report of the North Korean invasion.
Early in his presidency Mayne had decreed that situation reports be as brief as possible, no more than two pages, double-spaced, a one-and-a-half-inch margin for his comments. Despite all the words put in his mouth by speech writers and advisers throughout the country, at heart he disliked any kind of verbosity. For Truman it had, as everyone knew, been “The Buck Stops Here” sign that greeted visitors; for Reagan, “It Can Be Done”; for Mayne it was “Get to the Point— Quickly!” He had long accepted the fact, so difficult for others to understand, that decisions from the White House, including those involving life and death, often had to be made without all the facts being in. All the facts in any given situation would take a lifetime to uncover, a luxury that only academics and “gunning for you” journalists could afford.