At last light we sent out a small party to set up a diversionary attack
behind the factory. There was a little gully screened by low bushes
that seemed a suitable place from which to fire. It could not be
approached in the daytime without some danger of observation. The plan
here was to bury small charges on the railway line to be fired from the
gully just after the train had passed. This would twist the rails and
prevent the engineer from backing up to the factory again. A few well
placed rounds should help to speed him on his way down the track, and
if the shots punctured some of the tanks, so much the better. After
the charges were laid, two men were to be assigned to stay and do the
shooting. They would rejoin us later.
Late the following morning, we broke camp. We carried only weapons,
ammunition, demolition charges and one day's ration. Sammy Lee, the
aidman for Blackie's section, also carried his aid kit and extra
dressings. I brought mine along for our section. We moved out with
extreme caution, our scouts well ahead. We could not afford discovery
now, of all times. At fourteen hundred hours we stopped for rest and
food. For a while I let the men relax. Then I gathered them around me
except for the guards.
"We separate here," I said. "Captain Balakireff and Lieutenant Pak and
his section will go to the virus factory and carry out the plan for
which you have all been prepared. Captain Makstutis, Lieutenant Kim
and I will lead our party to the bridge. From now on you must start
thinking and acting like Koreans, at all times. You must not speak
English under any circumstances. The Reds will be hunting for us after
the raid as guerrillas. If they find out that we are Americans the
chase will be ten times as fierce. It might even make the men in the
Kremlin decide to launch an open attack on the United States. Certainly
if they capture us it will give them an excuse to do so. You must not
surrender. You will take no prisoners." I looked around the group and
paused for effect.
"How many of you have had the S-Flu?"
To a man they raised their hands.
"Then remember that," I said, "whenever you feel soft-hearted. These
are the people who did it to you."
I turned to Blackie and Pak. "_Itdah popsidah_ ... see you later," I
said in Korean and shook hands. The two officers sprang to attention
and with wide smiles on their faces gave me the communist salute.
I returned it. Pak faced his men, the smile gone. A stream of rapid
Korean orders poured from his thin lips. The change was amazing.
What had been a bunch of slouching G.I.'s having chow in comic opera
uniforms was transformed into heel clicking, jumpy NCO's barking at
slightly harassed, overly anxious oriental soldiers. They quick-stepped
down the trail and out of sight. A minute later we too were on our way.
* * * * *
Ahead of me, as I looked back towards the virus factory area, the
tracks went straight over the single arch of the steel bridge that
spanned the narrow ravine and, slowly dropping, twisted to my left
behind a small hill to be lost about a half a mile away. I was lying
in the brush on top of the hill that rose in a steep curve out of
the gorge. To my immediate right, a deep cutting with jagged rocky
walls slashed through the hill from where the bridge jumped the gap.
Fortunately for us, the side of the ravine farthest from the virus
factory, where I now lay, was much higher than the other, which enabled
us to control the approaches. The rise in gradient would also slow the
train. It was a marvellous trap.
We had crossed the fast-running foamy little river higher up, where it
dropped down from the steep mountain ridges. Now, in the cleft below,
I could hear the deeper growling as it fought for space among the
heavy boulders of its bed. I was tired after the march; tired enough
to quit right there. A few feet away, over the reverse slope in a
little hollow, Lim On was concentrating on his demolition charges, his
skeleton face immobile and thin fingers working surely as he fixed the
special fuses. He had finished three, with two to go. Anders had told
us there were five tank cars. We had to get them all.
I rolled over a little, the better to reach my pants pocket where I had
a pair of tiny Japanese field glasses. The sun was warm and, under the
special steel of the American-made Russian model helmet, my forehead
was wet where the headband touched. Like all the others, I was wearing
one of the new lightweight plastic body armor suits under the uniform.
It was good to know that even a burp gun bullet would bruise but not
penetrate. Only high velocity rifle fire could cut through the flexible
weave but I wondered momentarily if it was worth all the sticky
discomfort to wear it. The glasses were up to my eyes now and I waited,
propped on my elbows. The round magnified world was blurred by the heat
waves and the exhaustion which blunted my concentration and sent quick
tremors through my tired arms. A fly found me, his feet tickling my
face as he sucked the sweat drops. The crawling became intolerable and
I had to brush him off. When my eyes adjusted again to the glasses I
saw Makstutis and Kim, with seven men. They were filing down the edge
of the cutting in full view.
As they neared the abutment, a soldier came out of the bushes at the
side of the bridge. Seeing the officers, he saluted smartly and, a
moment later, called to a companion who joined the group. Then Kim and
four men moved off across the bridge to where another pair of guards
had come out of hiding. Thirty seconds later it was all over. At the
near end of the bridge, two of my men had moved casually behind the
enemy soldiers as they talked to Makstutis. Suddenly they wrapped their
left arms around the victims' faces to stop a shout. Their right arms
came up and the commando knives flashed down into that soft triangle
behind the collar-bone. It was done almost in rhythm, like some hellish
ballet. The dying men writhed a little and then went limp. By the time
I swung my glasses to the other end of the bridge, the scuffle there
was already over. I lowered the binoculars. My stomach churned a little
as it had done on my first visit to a slaughter-house. The rest of
our men were now out of hiding and working furiously on the bridge,
setting up the charges. Up from below, his face covered with sweat and
breathing quickly from the climb, came Makstutis. He sat down beside me.
"Dead easy, Doc," he said, as he got his breath.
"Dead, easy, is right," I said grimly. Killing of any kind always
depressed me.
He glanced sideways at me, "Feel OK?"
"I'll make it," I replied quietly, with much more optimism than I felt.
We zigzagged down to the bridge. Kim was dispersing his section along
the rim of the gorge and up on both sides of the cutting. We would have
to eliminate any Commies who were stranded on our side by the explosion
but we wanted to leave a line of retreat open for the rest. None of
our men would stay on the other side. Any who survived on the far side
of the ravine were welcome to go home ... and I hoped they would. We
settled down in the brush to the left of the bridge--Makstutis, who was
to set off the charges and then go where he felt he was needed, Lim,
who would be with me, and Sergeant Kang and Corporal Hip Sing who were
to cover us as we blew up the remaining tank cars.
The sun was lowering to the hills now and soon would drop behind them.
The waves of its heat shook the rails in the cutting, the mirage
twisting them in fancy as the explosives would soon do in fact. A weak
little breeze came fitfully up the tracks and cooled my face. The soft
sad whistle of a locomotive drifted with it and seconds later a dull
thudding noise. I thought I heard a faint crackling of rifles.
"And away we go," I said inanely.
* * * * *
As Blackie told me much later, the first part of the attack went off as
smoothly as a Tri-Di melodrama.
"I took the men down the trail at a good pace," he said. "I wanted
to get into position and take a long look at the layout in daylight.
There wasn't much movement, a guard or two patrolling the fence and in
the gatehouse, with my glasses, I could make out a couple of soldiers
playing rummy or poker or whatever these people play. We didn't dare
get out behind the plant for a look but I could hear some noises and
occasionally an engine huffed and puffed like they do when they are
shunting. About seventeen hundred hours a loud bell signal went off. I
was frightened it might be an alarm but it must have been chow call or
the end of a shift. Anyway, a few more men came out and walked about
here and there and the guards changed.
"Getting close to eighteen hundred I was wondering if anything had gone
wrong when I saw the guard get up and answer the phone. Maybe this was
it. I alerted the men. About three minutes later I saw a tall man I
thought was Anders coming down the front steps of the factory with a
haversack slung over his shoulder. He moved towards the gate and we
came down off the hill, going fast. By the time we got there the guards
were out, watching us come, and Anders was apparently clueing in their
leader.
"Why, hello, Captain Balakireff," he said as I came up. "I didn't know
you were out in this part of the world. Are you the group searching for
the guerrillas?" I admitted we were and said to the sergeant of the
guard, "Let us in. I have to report to the Commissar."
"He opened the gate and we began to enter as the train whistle blew.
I was stalling for time, exchanging small talk with Anders, when the
explosions came and then the shots.
"It must be the guerrillas! Behind the plant!" I yelled. "Follow
me." I took off on the double with the boys coming right behind. I
skidded around the corner and, by Golly, I ran smack into the Political
Commissar's fat belly. Anders told me later who he was. When I got to
my knees I saw he had four Russian guards with him so I guessed he must
be a honcho. There was no time for argument. If I tried to play along
and he found out, we were finished.
"Get them!" I shouted in Korean, and jumped on the Commissar again as
he got up. Our men were fast with the knives but one guard got off a
few rounds with his tommy-gun as he died. They hit poor Kwong Lin, our
demolitions man ... punched holes in him through his thighs and his
neck where the suit didn't cover. Sammy says he couldn't do a thing for
him. I didn't wait around to see.
"Hold this old fool and keep him quiet a minute. We may need him," I
said to one of the boys. "The rest of you cover while Pak and I clean
out the power house." I stooped down and pulled the bag of explosives
from Kwong's body. Pak was away ahead of me. He was already going up
the steps and hit one guy in the belly with a couple of slugs as they
met in the doorway. Knives were no use now. We whizzed around inside
that place like a couple of squirrels playing tag. Up and down the
ladders, and everywhere we went we slapped beehive blasters with quick
fuses, on generators, transformers, anything that looked important. The
first ones were going off as we set the last and one of them blasted
me out the door with the shock wave. I picked myself up for the second
time, feeling like the last pin in a bowling alley, and looked about
for my burp gun. I found it just in time to join in a nice firefight.
The Reds had caught on by now. The doggoned alarm bell was making the
dickens of a racket and a bunch of soldiers came charging around the
corner from the railway yards. The boy with the Commissar fired first
and knocked down three and the kids covering us at the powerhouse got
two more as they scrambled for cover back around the corner. We started
for the gate with Benny Quong and Joe Park covering the rear. Meantime
some bright so-and-so had got up on the second floor and he leaned out
and dropped a grenade down between them. We got him right after the
bang but it didn't do those two any good. The shrapnel went up under
their helmets and caught their legs as well. I hope they died fast.
Sammy wanted to go back for them but I dragged him along with me. I
figured we had to get Anders out of there with the big secret and we
were expendable until we did.
"By now Pak was prodding the Commissar around the corner in front of
the guardhouse with a knife in his backside. We came in sight and found
the four guards watching for us--Anders was standing by the door."
"Tell them to open that gate," I screamed at the fat boy. He opened
his mouth but it was no use. Either somebody had it in for him or else
those goons really obey orders. The alarm had gone off and the gate was
closed and that was that. We kept walking. Pak stuck him again and he
let out a yelp. That's when the guard commander figured the setup as
fishy. He lifted his gun and sprayed. Of course all of us hit the dirt,
firing, when he started to act mean, but the old Commissar wasn't a
combat man. He was still on the way down when he got it in the throat
and crumpled up on top of Pak. By Golly, it was a mess. Pak came up
looking like a Red Indian instead of a Korean and then he blew his
stack. He let out a shriek of rage like a runaway stallion and started
straight for the gate, shooting from the hip. He knocked out the
commander and one more and the other two beat it behind the guardhouse.
Where Anders had got to I don't know. I think he went inside, but he
wasn't in the guardroom when we reached it. It was getting pretty hot
with rounds coming in through the windows from the three floors of
the factory and some from around the corners; fortunately the gate was
partly protected by the guardhouse or we'd never have made it. Pak went
out and dragged the dead commander into the door to look for the gate
key but a sniper got him in the arm. That was when I knew we had to get
out fast or die. I sent Sammy to fix up Pak and detailed Sergeant Wong
to blow the lock to pieces while the rest of the men kept the snipers'
heads down with continuous fire. Then I remembered Anders. I poked my
gun around the back end of the guardhouse just in time to hear a couple
of shots and see the two guards go down. I hollered and he stepped out
of the door of the latrine holding an automatic. I guess he'd got tired
waiting and decided to finish it himself.
"'Good, Doctor, very good,' I said. 'Now let's get out of here.'
"He looked a bit shaken but he tucked his haversack under his free arm
and we ran for the gate.
"Well, that's about all there was to it," Blackie concluded. "We got to
the woods with no more casualties and left three men to cover the open
area for a while and discourage pursuit until it got dark and we could
get lost. Most of us had a scratch or two and Pak was woozy from loss
of blood but we got back to the old village all right and waited for
your party to come in."
* * * * *
As I said before, Blackie told me all this much later. At the time
they started fighting we were lying hidden in the scrub by the gorge.
Makstutis had a transistor switch to the demolitions in his hand. He
and I were right beside the track. We would move to safer places when
the train came in sight.
"Make sure the last tank car is on the bridge before you blow it," I
said anxiously. "If one is left on the far side we'll never get to it."
"OK Colonel," he said. "It's all set up. Should be a piece of cake, as
the Limeys say."
Ten minutes after the first explosion we heard the quick hard slapping
of the beehive charges and the rattling as the firefight got going.
"Sounds like they're having plenty of trouble," I muttered.
"Yeah, I guess so," Makstutis admitted, "but that Blackie's a hot shot
and so are Pak and his boys. I'll bet they make hash outa that joint."
"They'd better or they'll be in the stew themselves," I said, in a weak
attempt at levity.
He gave me an anguished frown and then, his face suddenly grim, shushed
for silence. Faintly I thought I heard an engine straining up the
grade. Makstutis crawled over and put his head to the rail.
"It's on the way," he said. "Better take cover." He stood up and
signalled the alert.
Lim and I were crouching behind a big rock outcropping halfway down
into the gorge. A faint trail led from there to the bottom--perhaps
a relic of the construction days when the bridge was being built. It
was far enough away to be safe when the bridge blew up but from there
we could reach the bottom in a hurry. My heart was hammering fast,
partly from excitement and partly from weakness. My knees were wobbly
and I could hear the blood rush past my ears. I tried to swallow but
I was too dry. Now the train was around the bend and I could hear the
slow chuff-chuff-chuff as it crawled up the track. The sound suddenly
sharpened as the engine, a big American style steam cylinder, shoved
its nose past the cutting and out on to the bridge, travelling at a
walking pace. A movement at the other end caught my attention and, for
a moment, a great tightness clamped down on my chest. Kim was standing
at the edge of the cutting, calmly waving to the engine driver.
"The damn fool," I raged inside. "What in Hell is he doing?" And then
I realized and almost wept in admiration and pride. Afraid that the
enemy, already on the alert, would notice the lack of guards and stop
in time, he was calmly risking his life, pretending to be one of them
and enticing the Reds on to destruction. By now the engine was almost
up to him. He waved again and moved casually up the embankment into the
bush.
Behind the coal tender came a passenger coach full of soldiers, two
flat cars and then the five tank cars. At the end, as the train clawed
over the bridge, came two more flat cars, another guard coach and a
sort of caboose. The bridge itself was exactly six car lengths from
bank to bank. To be sure that all the tank cars would be caught,
Makstutis had to let the first passenger coach get into the cutting on
our side and the other one remain on the far approach. He threw the
switch.
* * * * *
For a moment in time the bridge buckled upwards under the last tank
car. Then, like a slow motion close-up, it started to bend downwards in
a vee, moving faster and faster as the law of gravity took over. The
rear tank car dropped into the vee, pulling the flat cars down with it.
The crash of the explosion was rolling away down the canyon and now
the screech of tearing metal sounded. The rear flat cars fell off to
the side and the passenger coach behind them twisted over and wedged
itself crossways between the main concrete buttresses and the far bank.
By a miracle of bad luck it did not go down with the other cars and
even as I turned away the guards came tumbling out of windows and doors
unhurt. I looked towards our end. Three tanks had gone down with the
bridge and lay twisted among the steel girders in the foaming river. Of
the other two, one hung crazily over the angle between the steel and
the bank. I could not see the leading tank car but I learned later it
had remained upright but derailed. The couplings had broken just ahead
of it, leaving the engine, the first guard car and the two flat cars
free. That engineer was a smart man. Realizing that they hadn't much
chance pinned down in the depths of the cutting, he pulled the throttle
wide open and went for the open country as fast as the train would
accelerate. With the wheels screeching and sparking on the tortured
rails the engine bellowed up the grade like a charging bull trying to
escape from the stockyards.
I didn't know all this. I could hear the roaring engine and the storm
of firing that followed. It would be suicide to attack the tank cars in
full view, I thought. Better first dispose of the three that lay in
the bottom of the ravine. I nodded to Lim and we started down. It was
slow work at the bottom. In places the river ran right to the edge of
the cliff and we had to scramble around on the big boulders or climb
up and down the rough rock face, but we made progress and eventually
we stood under the shattered bridge. Down here the light was dimmer
and the sound of water washing around the wreckage deadened the noise
of the sporadic firing above. In mid-stream the rearmost tank car lay
on its side, split open by the fall. The other two, though buckled,
were intact. They had toppled off to the side of the bridge and now lay
across the big rocks on our side of the river in the shape of a twisted
Z. Lim laid down his gun and started to work. His lungs heaving in his
poor sick chest, he scrambled over the rocks and then disappeared under
the middle tank car. He came back up dripping wet and motioned for a
demolition charge. I crawled to him and gave him one. Between gasps
for breath and above the noise of the water and the echoing battle he
shouted in my ear.
"I'm going to blow this one from underneath, at the lowest point above
the water, so all the stuff will drain out."
I nodded in approval and he disappeared again. In a couple of minutes
he was back. "We have about five minutes," he cried, his voice shaky
with fatigue. "Let's get the other one."
* * * * *
I pulled him to his feet, where he stood shivering with cold and
exhaustion, and picked up the guns and charges. We moved to the second
car. This one was propped up at an angle with the low end dug into a
patch of sand, easy to get at. I handed him another explosive and he
jammed it against the steel, in the sand. He was about to activate the
fuse when suddenly he straightened, twisted half around to face me
and fell forward. The echoes of the shot ricochetted off the walls of
the gorge. I estimated it came from across the water and in the same
instant made a diving run for cover. I hit hard and rolled behind a
small boulder as another shot hit it and whined away into the air.
I was thinking fast. Some of the Reds must have been trying a sneak
attack across the bottom of the gorge and had seen us at work. In spite
of our uniforms it was obvious from what we were doing that we weren't
friendly. I'd be marked down and shot if I tried to get back and ignite
the last fuse. And there wasn't time now. I had to get out of there!
The first charge might explode that full car like a can of tomato
juice, spraying death in all directions. I was trying to get up the
nerve to dash for safety when the shouts came from behind me. It was
Makstutis, with Kang and Hip Sing. They had crawled up close to me when
the fighting started.
"Doc! Doc!" Makstutis was yelling, "Get that last fuse started. We'll
keep their heads down."
"Get back!" I screamed frantically. "The other tank is gonna explode.
It'll cover you with virus."
"That's rough, Doc," Makstutis called back calmly, "but what's four men
compared to millions. Better get cracking."
I felt ashamed, physically sick and disgusted. I had a chance and they
had none and yet, facing that death, they could still think of others
while all I wanted to do was to lie there, afraid even to run. Oh, I
could blame my sick mind or my weakened physical state. They would
excuse it on those grounds and never say a word to me no matter what I
did. But I knew better. Today I was beaten down while better men than I
were still fighting.
I was up and running with the nausea of moral defeat rising in my
guts. Quitter! The one word I feared above all ... and it applied to
me. Better to die now than have to live the rest of my miserable life
with it. I felt a heavy blow on my back that threw me off stride. At
the same time I heard the crack of a small mortar shell behind me and
something sharp and stinging penetrated my right hip. They must be
lobbing them across at extremely short range, trying to drop in behind
the rocks and get my riflemen. A burp gun gnattered and chewed up
the sand beside me as I reached the tank car but stopped abruptly as
somebody blasted back. I stooped down and activated the fuse. I was
halfway back across the open sandy patch when the first tanker blew up.