Fallen Sniper

Chapter Five

As a political officer, Major Wu occupied a unique position in that despite his middling rank, in many ways he outranked even a Chinese general. It was true that a general could issue orders, but all that Wu had to do was whisper in the right ear, mention that the general was not patriotic, and the general would be spirited away. It might be Wu himself who would be doing the removing.

The general and every officer ranking below him were well aware of the situation.

Consequently, when Wu returned to camp and quickly gathered a dozen soldiers picked at random, there was no complaint from any of the officers or from the men. They knew that Wu was simply to be obeyed.

Wu’s process was simple. If they saw a man holding a rifle and he looked competent, Wu tapped him for his makeshift patrol. Deng suggested one or two of the men and Wu accepted them readily. If they shared Deng’s passion for petty cruelty while strictly following any order without question, then all the better.

Once Wu had assembled a handful of men, he left them in Deng’s hands. “Tell them to bring enough food for a day or two, and tell them to bring some rope.”

“Some of them want to know our purpose, sir.”

Wu nodded and smiled, his face a picture of good cheer. “Tell them we are going after the American pilot who was shot down and when we catch him, we are going to truss him up like the imperialist pig that he is.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Deng dealt with organizing the patrol, the major turned to a man who stood nearby, patiently waiting to report to him. The man was dressed in civilian clothes, but he was actually a Chinese soldier who spoke Korean. Several days ago, the man had slipped into the Allied lines to work among the local Koreans who were carrying supplies and doing manual labor for the Americans, like coolies of old. His orders were simply to keep his ears and eyes open, observing anything of interest.

Wu motioned for the man to follow him until they were out of earshot of the others.

Once they were alone, Wu asked, “What did you find out?”

“The Americans will be rotating commands in two days,” the spy said. “Several new units will be in the defenses. They will be unfamiliar with the terrain. Many of them are green troops as well, so there is some concern about that.”

“Very well done,” Wu said, smiling. “This is most useful. Go get yourself some real food, not that Gǒu liáng garbage they serve their Korean slaves. See me before you go back into the Allied lines because I may have something for you to watch for.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wu considered what to do with the information. He knew that the general was planning to attack one of the American outposts soon. In war, timing was everything. If the Chinese attacked when the Americans were confused and disorganized, they would have a higher chance of success. The waste of soldiers’ lives was not a factor in his consideration. The question was, did Wu wish for the general to be successful in his attack? Perhaps. And if the general owed Wu a favor, so much the better.

With that thought in mind, he sought out the general. Several other officers were waiting to confer with their commander. Wu ignored the staff officer who informed him that he was third in line and walked into the general’s tent. Wu’s information had all but guaranteed that the attack on Outpost Kelly would come during the Americans’ vulnerable transition period.

A few minutes later, he walked back out and smiled at the fuming staff officer.

“You did not follow protocol!” the officer said, clearly angry about the breach of his authority. The other officers who had been waiting occupied themselves by studying the clouds or distant hills. They knew better than to get on Wu’s bad side.

“Do not worry,” Wu said. “I made it clear to the general that you tried to stop me from bringing him this information. He was so impressed by your sense of duty that he said you will lead the first wave of the attack he is planning.”

That stopped the officer in his tracks and left him silent. As everyone knew, Chinese doctrine accepted a great loss of life in trying to overwhelm the enemy with the first wave of an attack. Leading such an attack was akin to a suicide mission.

“I am to lead the attack?” the staff officer managed to stammer in disbelief.

“It will be a great honor to die in such a way,” Wu said, smiling happily.

Leaving headquarters and the stunned staff officer in his wake, the major returned to where he had left Deng to organize things. The new squad looked squared away, if not entirely happy. Apparently, the prospect of chasing off into the hills did not appeal to them all.

Wu explained how it was going to be a great adventure, and then led the way into the hills with Deng at his side. No more than an hour had elapsed since they had seen the plane shot down.

“Sir, this is going to be like counting grains of rice,” Deng ventured to say.

“It will be challenging,” Wu agreed. “However, we will find him because that is what we must do. There is no alternative.”

They were moving in the general direction of where they had last seen the parachute, using the hills themselves as landmarks.

“Did you bring a compass, sir?”

Wu shook his head and laughed. Deng should have known better. Even simple equipment such as a compass was hard to come by in Mao’s ill-equipped army. “The hills have many eyes,” he responded. Wu was thinking of the many North Korean villages that dotted the landscape. “Someone will have seen something.”

“These mountain people do not like us. They may not want to tell us anything,” Deng said.

“Then we will make them tell us,” Wu said. “That is what you are here for.”

Now, it was Deng’s turn to smile. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Let us hurry. We spent too much time getting organized.”

Deng turned and barked at the soldiers to get moving.

One of the men made the mistake of lagging behind. When Deng shouted at him, the soldier said, “I have been marching for four days already. I didn't even get anything to eat.”

Deng stepped back from the path and halted as the others went by. When the last soldier was even with him, Deng raised his rifle and swatted the man in the face with the butt of the weapon, knocking him down. Once the man had fallen to the ground, Deng kicked him several times.

“Are you still hungry?” Deng demanded. “Are you still tired?”

The soldier shook his head emphatically, spitting blood from his mouth.

“I did not think so. Get up and get moving. If you say another word, I will shoot you.”

Up at the front of the patrol, Major Wu waved them on. “Hurry, hurry,” he said, smiling.

Cole led the way deeper into the thick brush and scrub trees, keeping well away from the Chinese patrol that they had encountered earlier. If they ran into more enemy troops, this mission was going to be ended before it even got started.

“Keep an eye open, kid,” Cole said. “We won’t be the only ones who saw that pilot’s parachute.”

“I guess that means we won’t be the only ones looking for him.”

“You catch on fast, kid.”

Cole smiled to himself. He thought about what a greenbean Tommy Wilson had been when they first arrived in Korea. Their basic training had been cut short due to the desperate need for troops. The United States military had been caught by surprise and been totally unprepared for the well-coordinated invasion of Seoul and other cities by the North Korean Communists.

But since their arrival, the kid had learned more than a few hard lessons about being a soldier. His education had begun at the awful Chosin Reservoir campaign. Somehow, Cole, the kid, and their buddy Pomeroy had survived that icy disaster.

Since then, they had fought together across Korea, most recently in taking and holding Sniper Ridge at the Battle of Triangle Hill. Pomeroy had been badly wounded while serving as Cole’s spotter — his extra eyes and ears as Cole took on a savage enemy sniper. Cole felt responsible for Pomeroy being hit. That wound had turned out to be Pomeroy’s golden ticket back home. If Cole could help it, he wanted to make sure that the kid made it home in one piece. He wondered if maybe he should have ordered him back to camp with the others. Right now, their chances of success weren’t looking all that good.

“How do you know which way to go?” the kid asked. “Look at all these hills and woods. Getting to that pilot is gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“Nothing easy about it, and that’s a fact,” Cole said. “But we’ve got to try. Imagine how you would feel if you were that pilot.”

“Yeah, he’s probably not feeling all that great right about now. He’s got to know that the Chinese will be after him, like you said. Hell, I’m nervous and there’s not even anyone after me.”

“We’ve got to hurry. I’m gonna move fast. Keep up now. Finding one lost soldier is bad enough.”

Cole had seen the parachute drifting lower, and had a picture in his mind’s eye of about where it would have gone down. Despite what the kid had said, it wasn’t quite as bad as finding a needle in a haystack. It was maybe more like finding a pitchfork in a haystack.

He was using two of the distant hills as landmarks. As long as they kept lined up on them, they would be heading in the right direction. Cole only got occasional glimpses of those hills, however, as they fought their way through the thick cover. While the brush and scrub trees made the going tough, the cover also served to hide them from any curious eyes. He couldn’t forget for an instant that they might stumble upon more Chinese troops at any moment.

Behind him, there was a sharp crack as the kid stepped on a fallen tree branch. Cole crouched, expecting at any moment for the woods to erupt in gunfire.

“Sorry,” the kid muttered.

“Next time, why don’t you send up a flare and make it even easier for the goons to find us. Watch where you put your feet.”

“Got it.”

They moved on. Above the trees, Cole spotted a trace of smoke. It was just enough for a cooking fire. The smoke meant one of two things. Either a Chinese patrol was out there, or a village. These hills were dotted with North Korean villages, some of them friendly and others not so much, especially if they had Communist sympathies.

One of the interesting things that Cole had found about the Koreans was that they rarely lived on individual plots, as Americans often did. Americans were very individualistic that way — Cole couldn’t help but think of the tiny shack where he had grown up in the mountains near Gashey’s Creek. Some might have found the family’s ramshackle cabin lonely or isolated. Cole couldn’t imagine living any other way and had built his own cabin in a remote location.

The Koreans preferred a village lifestyle, with dwellings grouped closely together. Many of the villagers were related somehow or had connections going back generations. The fields of rice and other crops that they cultivated surrounded the village and each day the farmers would head out to the fields, and then return at night. It was a more social way to live compared to the isolation of an American farmer.

If there was a village out there, maybe someone had seen something. He didn’t speak a word of Korean, but he was prepared to draw a picture in the dirt of a parachute. Hopefully, the villagers could point him in the right direction.

Cole picked up the pace. Soon, he heard the kid panting heavily behind him. The kid had been a football player back in high school and he moved like one, bulldozing through the brush. Cole moved almost silently, finding gaps between the scrub trees and avoiding stepping on any of the dry bracken that littered the ground.

He winced as the kid stepped on another branch. To Cole’s ears, the resulting crack sounded loud as a pistol shot.

“Keep up,” he muttered. “And for God’s sake, don’t make so damn much noise.”

They hadn’t gone another fifty feet when Cole heard shots up ahead, coming from the direction that they were headed in.

“What’s going on?” the kid asked.

“Sounds to me like maybe someone got there before us,” Cole said. “Let’s get a move on.”

“I thought we were hurrying.”

“That was just a slow hurry,” Cole said. “Now we’ve got to hurry.”

They heard two more quick shots, and then an eerie silence settled over the hills.