Frozen Sniper

Chapter Twenty-Five

The four men hurried through the snow, Cole leading the way. Within minutes, they had reached the shallow ravine where the Chinese had captured them. So far, the Chinese were hanging back, content to take potshots at the Americans, wary of the fact that they were now armed.

But not armed with much. They only had the clips that had been in the rifles when they picked them up.

"Now what?" Pomeroy asked, breathing hard from slogging through the snow on his bad feet.

"We keep going," Cole said. "We'll follow our tracks all the way back to the road and catch up to the column."

"If they haven't left us behind," Pomeroy said.

"Let's hope to hell they haven't," Cole said. "How's your Chinese?"

"Very funny."

Looking on, Tommy and the South Korean looked too scared to talk. Cole had to wonder if the Korean even spoke English. "You're doing good," Cole said to them. He nodded reassuringly at the Korean soldier. "Stick with me and do what I say, and we'll get out of this mess."

"Whatever you say," Tommy said.

"All right then. Let's go."

There was no longer a path carved through the snow because their tracks were more spread out coming to this point. The good news was that the snow wasn't as deep, either, which made the going easier. The bad news was that following their original tracks was going to take longer to get back to the road. In the distance, Cole could see a couple more Corsairs flying back and forth, marking the location of the road. Heading out cross country toward the road rather than following their tracks would save them a lot of time.

It was a gamble, though. For all Cole knew, there might be a massive ravine in the way. Or more Chinese.

Beside him, Pomeroy saw Cole stop and came to a halt. He handed the rifle that he'd been carrying off to the kid and doubled over, hands on his knees.

"What are you thinking?" Pomeroy asked, panting.

"This way," he said.

They struck off to the southwest, the most direct route to catching up with the column. They ran up a hill and down the other side into a thicket of brush. Cole led the way, pushing through as branches and brambles snagged at his coat and pants. The branches that snapped off had a fresh, green smell that Cole found reassuring. Behind him, Pomeroy cursed. But Cole didn't mind the fact that the brush gave them some cover. He hadn't forgotten that the Chinese were still after them.

At that moment, a couple of rounds ripped through the brush. One of the bullets hit a trunk or maybe a rock and ricocheted with a spine-curdling twang. Cole ducked his head and kept going. He sensed that Pomeroy was slowing down as they continued to struggle through the brush.

Finally, they emerged on another slope with nothing more on it than the high-country grass pushing through a few inches of snow. The going was easier, but Cole didn't like the fact that they were exposed. The fact that the Chinese also had to push through the brush behind them was a slight reprieve, but that obstacle wouldn't last nearly long enough.

He raised the rifle and fired a couple of shots into the brush. He didn't have a prayer of hitting anything, but the Chinese wouldn’t know that. The shots might make their pursuers slow down and use more caution.

Turning to the others he grunted, "Move your asses." However, he feared that the others were already going as fast as they could. Which wasn't going to be fast enough if they were going to have any hope of actually outrunning the enemy.

Up ahead, he saw yet more broken country that was going to slow them down. Damn, he thought to himself. Maybe that shortcut hadn’t been the smartest thing to do.

But that's when he had an idea.

When they came to the ravine, he started down into it, leaving a good trail through the snow.

"OK, everybody stop," he said. "I want you to backtrack. Try to step in your old footprints, if you can."

"What the hell?" Pomeroy complained. "The last thing I need to do is run any more than I need to. We ought to just set an ambush and fight these bastards."

"With what, New Jersey? Snowballs? I've got maybe two shots left. What about the rifle the kid's got?"

"About the same," Tommy said.

"Four bullets ain't gonna take out five Chinese," Cole said. "We've got to outsmart them instead."

"Just how are we gonna do that?"

"Like this," Cole said. They had reached a kind of fork in the landscape where the land had been wrenched apart by some long-ago glacier or earthquake. Part of the hill ran upward, while the rest ran down into the ravine from which they had just backtracked. The hill directly above them had a sloping, rocky surface that the wind had swept clean of snow. Nimbly, Cole jumped onto the bare rock, then turned to help the others climb up. From this point, they could run nearly a couple hundred feet across bare rock before reaching the crest of the hill.

"I get it now," Pomeroy said. He grinned at the thought that their tracks would run down into the ravine — and disappear. Meanwhile, they would be over the hill and ought of sight — in nearly the opposite direction.

"We got to hoof it," Cole warned. "Can't let them see us."

"Go!" Pomeroy shouted, and surged ahead up the rocky slope, leading the way.

Minutes later, Chen and the other Chinese emerged from the thicket, scratched and bleeding where the thorns had torn their bare skin. They had practically run through the thicket in their eagerness to recapture the escaped prisoners. While killing Americans was satisfying enough, bringing back actual prisoners to headquarters would have earned them accolades. Their officers had impressed upon them the fact that live prisoners would be worth a great deal as a bargaining chip, as long as they were not wounded. The Chinese had no interest in caring for enemy wounded because they were perceived as having less value.

With a note of bitterness, Chen noted how interesting it was that the Americans seemed to value the lives of their soldiers, while the Chinese military so eagerly tossed away the lives of its own troops. The Chinese would write off any captured troops rather than bargaining to get them back.

Chen was not really expecting an ambush, but they left the shelter of the thicket cautiously. To his relief, he saw the fleeing enemy's tracks heading away across the open ground. Still four men, running as a group.

"This way!" he shouted to the others. “Follow their tracks!”

He had quickly become the leader of this small squad. No one argued or offered to give up the chase. Like Chen, they knew the value of bringing back a prisoner. Who knew? Their reward might even be a bottle of rice wine. Such things did not much interest Chen, but he would welcome humiliating the enemy.

He thought about the American soldier with the strange eyes. Like a wolf's eyes, they had been. If nothing else, he at least had the man's knife now. Given half a chance, he was sure that the American would have killed him. Chen thought it was fortunate that most of the Americans he had seen were not hard men like that one.

Concentrate, he warned himself. Letting his thoughts wander was the surest way to get killed.

"Hurry!" he called to the others. "Keep your eyes open."

Here on the more open ground the snow was not as deep, most of it having blown into drifts that could be avoided. They trotted after the tracks, quickly covering the ground. Chen had to admit that he was enjoying the thrill of the chase, knowing that he had the upper hand. He was the hunter and the escaped prisoners were the quarry. It would not be long now.

They reached another ravine, and the tracks disappeared down into it. With any luck, they might find the escaped prisoners trying to climb out on the other side — some of these ravines were quite steep. They would be caught like rats.

He approached the ravine cautiously, just in case the enemy escapees were hiding there in an attempt at an ambush. They did have a couple of rifles, but Chen doubted that they had much ammunition.

Creeping up on the ravine, he saw with relief that the tracks led down. He waved the others on.

They clambered down to the rocky bottom of the ravine. Chen looked around for more tracks, but couldn't see any. The enemy soldiers had not simply disappeared. Aside from a couple of scraggly shrubs, there was not so much as a stick of cover for them to hide. Quickly, he searched the far side of the ravine and along its length for any sign of where the Americans had scrambled out, but there was nothing. The tracks had gone down into the ravine, but did not come back out.

“Where have they gone?” someone asked, peering around at the rocks as if the enemy had somehow crawled under them.

Slowly, it dawned on Chen that this was a trick. Cursing under his breath, he brought the others back up the slope to the top of the ravine. Panting from the effort, Chen and the others searched the ground, trying to figure out what had happened. It did not help that their own footsteps had already trampled the area. Whatever story the tracks in the snow had to tell was now badly muddled.

He looked around for some clue. There were no other tracks other than the ones leading to this spot. Nearby were large bare areas of rock that had been blown clean of snow by the incessant winter wind. Slowly, he realized that someone might just be able to jump onto those rocks and make his way toward the crest of the nearest hill without leaving any trace. The bare rocks stretched on for quite a distance, creating a blank slate. It would be impossible to tell which way their quarry had gone.

Chen began to realize that he had been thoroughly tricked.

The other men had come to the same conclusion. Sadly, they must have realized that their hopes for a bottle of rice wine had vanished. They now watched Chen expectantly, waiting for him to come up with a solution.

"Come on," he said, and led them up the hill. In this direction lay the entire American and U.N. column, creeping along the road. That was where the Americans had gone, and now that was where Chen and his squad were going, too.

Cole and the others covered as much ground as quickly as they could. They ran when they could and scurried across the broken and rocky places. Their legs and lungs protested in the high, cold mountain air, hearts hammering with exertion, but they pressed on.

"We've got to catch up to the column," Cole said. "If we get left behind, we're dead men."

Nobody argued. They knew as well as Cole did that this was their one and only chance of escaping the Chinese. If they missed the column and it had already moved on, they would be running right back into the arms of the enemy that was swarming in the column's wake. Even Pomeroy didn't bother to protest, but grimaced and ran on, despite the obvious pain in his frostbitten feet.

After half an hour, the road came into sight. They could see trucks moving on it and soldiers plodding beside the slow-moving vehicles. Cole had to admit that it wasn't an impressive sight. He was seeing a downtrodden, battered regiment, so different from the troops that had marched so rapidly toward the Yalu River just days before.

"Wave your hands so the dumb bastards don't think that we're Chinese and shoot us," Cole said.

Pomeroy and the others followed Cole's advice — several rifles had turned in their direction as they suddenly emerged from the landscape. Once the other soldiers had determined that they were not Chinese, thus posing no threat, their return to the column was largely ignored except for some idle curiosity.

“Where you boys been?” someone called.

“There’s a burger joint just over that hill,” Pomeroy replied. “Onion rings, too.”

“Over that hill?” The soldier scoffed. “Nothin’ over there but Chinese food.”

The troops on the road had other things to worry about. To the rear of the column, a truck was blazing after being hit by grenades during a Chinese sneak attack. Flames shot from the tires and out of the windows, revealing the truck's metal skeleton. Cole hated to think about the poor wounded bastards who had been trapped inside.

Shots rang out. From above the column, enemy troops in the hills fired down sporadically at the American column. Occasionally, someone cried out and slumped over, hit by the random fire. There was no real cover from the shooting, so no one remarked on it or reacted much. The bullets were just an annoyance, like rain.

"This don't look good," Cole said. "We've still got a lot of miles to cover until Hagaru-ri. Hell, I'm beginning to wonder if there's even anybody left at Hagaru-ri. You'd think they'd send out some reinforcements."

"This is a whole lot better than being captured," Pomeroy said. "But I got to say, it looks like we are out of the wok pan and into the wonton soup."