Frozen Sniper

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?

Nearby, some of the men were yammering about it. Cole didn't like to hear the word "surrender" openly discussed because he thought it opened the door to the wrong way of thinking.

Leaning in to hear more, the kid was all ears. He turned to Cole and said, "Those guys are talking about surrendering."

"I'm not gonna lie. The Chinese have our nuts in a vise."

"You think the Chinese would feed us?" the kid asked. "Maybe give us someplace to warm up?"

"Them Chinese are worse off than us," Cole said. "It ain't like they got a luxury hotel over the next hill. These fools who think surrendering is a good idea are making one hell of a mistake."

"I guess you're right." The kid nodded, looking dejected. He had a blanket over his shoulders, but he was still shivering. Cole thought that maybe it wasn't that the kid was intent on surrendering, but that like the others, he needed some nugget of hope that this wasn't the end of the line.

Cole relented. He took the younger man by the shoulders and gave him a hard stare with his flinty eyes. "Look kid, if it comes down to it and you've got no choice but to surrender, you do it. And then you survive. You do whatever it takes to get home again. Understand?"

The kid nodded.

Cole turned to Pomeroy. "How are those feet, New Jersey? We can try to find you some room on one of the trucks."

"Hell no. Save the trucks for the wounded."

"Wounded? You already got shot once and your feet are frozen."

"I'll make it out of here on my own two feet, one way or another. Don't you worry about me."

Cole nodded. He wasn't going to argue with Pomeroy. Hell, he wouldn't have wanted to ride in the trucks, either.

If the thought of becoming POWs made the GIs uneasy, it downright terrified the ROK soldiers fighting alongside them. In their case, capture likely meant certain death. The Americans had at least some chance of being made POWs and not shot outright if they were captured. You didn't have to be Dean Acheson to see that there was some political advantage to having captured U.S. forces as pawns. But nobody needed the ROKs as pawns, which meant that they would likely be shot out of hand as traitors.

"Better get something to eat," Cole said to Pomeroy and Tommy. "There's no telling when we'll have another chance once we're on the move."

"I could use a T-bone steak and maybe a baked potato with butter," Pomeroy said. "How about you, Kid?"

"S — s-ure, sounds good," he stammered through blue lips.

"I reckon you'll have to settle for a can of half froze rations," Cole said. "But it's better than nothing."

On that much, they could agree. The three of them settled back into the hole, out of the wind, and shoveled down the cold, congealed food. Still, it wasn't enough. In these temperatures, their bodies burned calories like a hot rod guzzles gas. When they were done, they tossed away the empty cans and got to work.

Quickly, they rolled up and stowed their sleeping bags on one of the trucks designated for that purpose. There wasn't much else to carry, aside from their weapons, a few spare rounds of ammo, a couple of grenades, and a trenching tool. They carried their canteens inside their coats to keep them from freezing.

Over the last two days, Colonel McLean had the good sense to order that the trucks be run every few hours, in order to keep the batteries from draining in the cold. The tanks were topped off with the last of the gasoline, and the convoy would be ready to move out once the trucks were loaded.

Cole set aside his rifle and helped to load the wounded into the trucks. There was hardly enough space for them all, so that the stretchers had to be stacked one on top of the other, like lumber. There weren't even enough stretchers, so some of the wounded were just bundled up into blankets. Most of these men were grievously wounded, some even shot several times. A few had managed to survive being bayoneted by the Chinese. Others had lost limbs to grenades or mortars. These last men had tourniquets made of parachute strapping or even belts holding in their life's blood.

It was a miracle that some of them had survived, given their grievous wounds, but they had the cold to thank for that. The frigid temperatures had served to cauterize their wounds. Most suffered in silence, or at the most, uttered a few curses. A few of the lucky ones actually slept or remained unconscious. Cole felt sorry for the poor bastards, every last one of them.

They faced a truly uncomfortable trip. The back of the trucks, though covered with canvas, had no heaters. Each jolt of the rugged road sent fresh agony through this shattered cargo.

The medics trying to tend them looked exhausted. Most of the medics hadn't slept in two days — not since the first attack. Some were injured themselves, either from the fighting or from frostbite. They had to treat an overwhelming number of wounded with very limited supplies. Every last one of the medics was a goddamn hero in Cole's book.

While the wounded had it rough, these men were far more fortunate than those in the last couple of trucks being loaded. These were the dead. Their frozen bodies were stuffed into the backs of trucks. With the ground too frozen to bury them, the decision had been made to bring the dead along. There was no way to load the bodies neatly, so that in the end the stray arms and legs stuck out the back, creating a macabre cargo of tangled, frozen limbs.

All available supplies also were loaded onto the trucks. What couldn't fit into the trucks was being stacked nearby. This included the wall tents and some of the gear left behind by the wounded. Also being discarded were the useless rounds in the wrong caliber, left from the disastrous air drop that seemed to be all the help that they were going to get.

"Burn it," Sergeant Weber barked. "Burn it all!"

Somebody doused the piles with diesel fuel and tossed in a match. Flames began to reach upward, sending black smoke high into the mountain air. Cole figured that it wouldn't take long for the Chinese to figure out what was happening, once they saw that smoke. Only a retreating force would burn their gear.

The question was, would the enemy simply let them march out of there? Cole thought it seemed unlikely. He made sure that the action of his rifle was working in the cold before slipping it over his shoulder.

In the distance, he saw the two officers, Colonel McLean and Lieutenant Colonel Don Faith. Both carried weapons, which was unusual in the colonel’s case because he was known for carrying a cane most of the time. The weapons that the officers now held signaled that this might very well be a fighting retreat. Cole took some reassurance from the sight, however, knowing that both men were capable officers. If anyone could get them out of this mess, it was these two men.

No orders came down to move out. The first truck at the head of the convoy simply began driving forward, and the rest slowly followed.

"Let's move out!" the lieutenant shouted, unnecessarily. “No stragglers!”

"Listen to him," Pomeroy muttered. "He ought to save his breath. Nobody plans on being the last man out, that's for damn sure."

Pomeroy limped along with the others, a blanket draped over his shoulders. The kid followed along behind. There was no real marching order, with squads and groups moving between or alongside the creeping trucks. The pace was excruciatingly slow, with the trucks never getting out of first gear. It didn't help that the GIs knew the whole goddamn Chinese army was right behind them. This wasn't exactly a time for slow going, but what choice was there other than abandoning the wounded? Nobody was doing that.

Cole walked off to one side, watching for movement beyond the roadside. The American column was strung out for nearly a mile along the narrow road. If the Chinese wanted to him them now, they were sitting ducks. Calling this a road was something of a misnomer because this was just a narrow lane, covered in snow, icy in patches, and pockmarked with ruts. The road took its time, meandering as it went.

Sergeant Weber wandered over beside him. "Keep an eye out, Cole. I know that you must be good with that rifle, whether you admit it or not, and you might get a chance to use it before the day is out."

Cole's sharp eyes caught movement on the hills bordering the road. He stared, trying to make sense of what he had seen. Chinese troops were moving into position to pour harassing fire down on them from the hills, or maybe even attempt to cut them off from Hagaru-ri. "You know what? I reckon I will get that chance," Cole said.

They made it maybe an hour before the first Chinese attack.