CHAPTER 12
The ache of parting was still gnawing at my belly like a peptic ulcer when Blackie picked me up at the airfield in a jeep.
"My goodness, Colonel, I'm relieved to see you."
"Why? What gives? I'm on time."
"Yes sir, but the operation has been advanced, you see. We leave for Japan in the morning."
"In the morning? Oh, no!" I snorted in disgust. "Isn't that typical."
The week after our landing in Japan, we moved out again with full GI equipment. Our enemy clothing and arms went along in sealed wooden boxes as cargo, not to be opened again until D-day. Ostensibly, we were replacements for the Korean Military Advisory Group on our way to South Korea. We landed at Kimpo Air Base, near Seoul and then moved out by truck up the road past Uijongbu into the wooded hills south of the defense line near Kumwha. In the twelve years since I had come down that road for the last time, the mud and thatched villages had been rebuilt. Now the measlepox had ravaged, once again, the stoical population. Only a few were left, the few who perhaps had fled to the mountains and stayed there starving but afraid until the pestilence had killed and passed on. So it was back to a familiar land I came—a land of silent hills; of hardwood trees standing bare and cold above the brown earth and the dead brown leaves of the Kudzu vine; a land of little streams that thawed in the sheltered spots as the February sun rose higher in the cold dry air.
We trained over the steep hills, marching up faint trails where the woodcutters once had gone. In all that wild land there was silence—the silence of the four-footed animals who, unknown to us except by some chance meeting, watched our slow approach. The long nights shortened into March and then through April. Still we waited. Rains had come now, the spring rains, forecasting the steamy monsoon of July. In the steep valleys grass showed green and the maroon-petalled anemones had already conceived. At last the cherries were in bloom. It was time to go.
The troop-carrying convertiplane dropped vertically down on the freshly prepared landing strip shortly after dark. As soon as we were loaded it took off, wavering slightly under the hammering blast of the jet engines, and then went up, sidling over the dark trees that encircled the strip, and drifting down the valley like one of their lately fallen leaves. It swung west to go out over the Yellow Sea and then circle back into North Korea. Our rendezvous was farther to the east in the wild country close to the railway that ran up the east coast from Wonsan to Hungnam. Perhaps we could lose the radar in those steep valleys. It would have been suicide to attempt it from the east, across the Sea of Japan, right into the Siberian tiger's mouth.
An hour later we were approaching the drop zone. There would be a moon before midnight to help us make contact, but now it was dark, better for concealment but difficult for recognition of our landing area. The plane slowed, the red light came on. The pilot must have picked up the signal from our agent.
"Get ready!" I shouted. The men shifted their packs and moved their feet to get the weight distributed.
"Stand up! Hook up! Check your equipment!" One by one I called the time-honored signals, the ritual so necessary before the jump. By now the air crew had the door open and I looked out. Even with my eyes accustomed to the darkness I could see little but the dark mass of hills below us and the rough black line where they met the horizon. Above, the stars were bright. To the east a faint paleness marked where the moon was hiding. I looked down again and now a tiny green light winked up at me. It was the dropzone and the all-clear signal. The aeroplane passed on and then came back to make its run.
"Stand in the door!" I yelled. My hand holding the static line shook slightly and my thigh muscles were tight with cold and adrenalin.
"GO." The red light had changed to green and the first men were out. Shuffling from the rear the rest followed swiftly and seemed to drop on to each other's shoulders as they went through the door. The last man went by. I stepped behind him and in the same smooth motion went on out. The rush of air twisted me and a momentary black cloud blotted the stars as the tail assembly passed over. The roar faded and I floated, weightless and almost mindless, like a baby in the womb, while my mental clock ticked the slow seconds. "Three thousand, four...." The snapping of elastic and the rush of risers behind my head stopped in a sliding jerk. I looked up. Above me a black circle swayed. It was complete; no torn canopy to worry about. Alive now, I looked around full circle. Faintly I saw two parachutes below and in front of me as I glanced back the way we had come. We were dropping quickly into a steep valley, the others at a lower level where it widened somewhat. I could see outlines of the terraced rice fields coming up to meet me. In that warm, wet air I could have made it standing. The chute collapsed without a protest. I struck the quick release and stepped out of the harness. "Pretty soft," I was thinking. "I hope the rest is like this." Where the hillside joined the terraces I found a trail that paralleled the line of our jump. I followed it down hill.
An hour later, we were all together. The slow speed of the plane, the low jump altitude and the lightness of the wind had kept the sticks from scattering. Nobody was seriously hurt. We buried the parachutes in an overhanging bank under the Kudzu and began our march down the path. As the protected one I was now about the middle of the file. The moon was rising and the light was strong in treeless areas. We kept to the blackness of the shadows as much as possible and made a reconnaissance before crossing any open space. Our progress was slow. It must have been another hour when the line stopped advancing. A short time later a whispered message came back, "Send the Colonel up front."
When I got there, Blackie and Pak were talking Korean to a small man dressed in the ragged coat and baggy pants of a peasant. Pak introduced him.
"This is Lee Sung. He has the password and knows all about us."
I took the small limp hand Lee Sung extended. "I am Colonel Macdonald, the Doctor. What do you want us to do now?"
"I have a place where you can stay," he replied in excellent English, with an accent that seemed familiar, though blurred with lack of use. "We should go there immediately."
We followed him a short distance on the same trail and then turned up a side valley where the cultivated land rapidly rose in steps and narrowed to a point at the little stream which had watered the crops. There we found the remains of a small village. Hidden behind a row of thatched mud huts that faced the fields with eyeless walls, a narrow courtyard opened abruptly to the main house. Overhanging wooden beams and tiled roof had protected the white paper walls of the recessed front porch from the weather. It was the house of a rich farmer, rich for Korea that is, and still intact.
"This is where you stay," said Lee.
Makstutis took command. "Kim, set out your perimeter guard and get the men settled down. No lights; no smoking; no talking. I'll take a look around."
"Yes, sir," Kim moved them away. I followed Lee, Blackie and Pak onto the verandah of the house, stepping quietly on the wooden planks. Sliding aside one of the paper and wood panels, we bent our heads and entered. Crouched over a shaded flashlight, Lee traced a map laid on the grass mat floor of a small side room.
"Here's where we are now. Here's the Imjin River and the village of Song-dong-ni. The virus factory is less than a mile this side of the village." He indicated the spot. "It's about twenty miles from here over the hills."
"What are the trails like?" Blackie asked.
"There's a small trail, a bit slippery in wet weather, that climbs the ridge behind this house. It joins a wagon road that runs down the next valley and then you cut over the watershed to the Imjin by another trail. That one is good in all weather."
"Is it travelled much?"
"Not now. The villages over there were wiped out by the plague. I doubt if there is anybody left."
"How do we go about contacting the Russian who's going to give us the virus?"
"He's not a Russian, Colonel, he's a Pole. His name is Anders and he is the senior virologist at the factory. He is a keen botanist and it's his custom to wander alone over the hills almost every day collecting specimens. He carries a burp gun in case he should meet bandits although there's little chance of that nowadays. However, it is a good thing to remember in approaching him that all strangers are suspect. I try to catch him on these walks of his, so it's a matter of chance and may take a day or two to arrange a meeting. In the meantime, may I suggest you and your white officers keep out of sight as much as possible. Your oriental soldiers can pretend to be living here temporarily while searching for bandit gangs."
"What about food?"
"The farmer who owned this village had a well stocked store room. You will find it at the back of the house. There is plenty of rice, root vegetables, pots of kimchi ... you have eaten kimchi I presume ... and other preserved foods."
"What about the measlepox, doctor?" Blackie asked.
"I doubt if the food was contaminated. Besides we had one shot of that Russian vaccine before we left. It's a small risk."
"I envy you Colonel. My only protection is to run away," Lee said wryly.
"How did people survive?" I asked.
"After they became aware of the danger some took to the hills and some small villages escaped. They kept strictly to themselves and killed anyone who attempted to force his way into their area. I have a small fishing vessel at Wongpo. I took it out to sea and stayed there by myself for several weeks."
"Then you have no family?"
"No, my father was an exile in England during the Japanese occupation. I grew up and went to college there. We came back to our ancestral home after the World War. He and my mother died very soon afterwards. The Communists let me stay, mostly because they think I am sympathetic to their viewpoint and I have made myself useful to them. An agent has no business with a family anyway," he concluded grimly.
We talked on for some time, clearing up the details of our plans. It was uncomfortably close to dawn when he left.
CHAPTER 13
I had a headache—a sonofabitch of a headache to put it bluntly, and my eyes felt as if some gremlin had got in behind them and was squeezing hard on the eyeballs. It had started as a mild frontal pain when I was talking to Lee and I put it down to the tension of the jump and the subsequent march to our present camp. I'd felt a little chilly too when we got here but the nights were still cold in the hills and we cooled off quickly after exercise. I was sure the aching in my back was due to the pack I had carried, about seventy-five pounds of machine gun ammunition, grenades and some medical supplies for emergencies. But it wasn't going away and I felt lousy. I was feeling damned sorry for myself as I went to sleep. Seconds later it seemed, my eyes were wide open again and throbbing.
"Damn it, this won't do!" I muttered, and unzipped the light sleeping bag we carried. "Lord, I'm hot!" I searched the aid kit shakily. Finally I located the APC's, communist version, and then decided to check my temperature. It was 40° Centigrade, right on the line. I translated that into the more familiar Fahrenheit ... 104°. The bar of mercury, slaty grey in the early light, shimmered and wavered as I tried to hold the thermometer still.
"Hell's teeth! What a time to get sick."
I went over the various possibilities, forcing myself to concentrate, to think as clearly as I could. It was too soon to tell. It could be malaria, or meningitis, typhoid or typhus.... I'd had shots for those two. What about dengue? Or old friend influenza? My mind was wandering now. "Too soon to tell," I said, and I swallowed the APC's. "Too soon to tell ... too soon to tell ... to tell. tell. knell. hell. The silly rhymes echoed down long empty corridors to my ears. I knew I was burning up and getting delirious ... it felt like being drunk. Drunk? I'm not drunk ... I never get drunk now ... nothin' to drink, drink, drink, nothin' to drink and I'm hot. Oh God, my head! Must tell Blackie I'm sick. I have to tell Blackie. I HAVE to tell Blackie!" It was important I knew and then I couldn't remember what was important. I had to have water. I tried to stand up.
There was a murmuring somewhere nearby but I couldn't locate it. It persisted like a buzzing fly and I was annoyed. My head still hurt and my eyes ached and I ached all over and I was hot and sticky and thirsty and weak and that damned noise wouldn't go away. Wearily I decided I'd have to do something about it. I tried to lift my head but couldn't make it. I tried again and felt myself lifted. Ahead of me a face wavered and then stabilized.
"Colonel Mac, Colonel Mac, can you understand me? Colonel Mac...."
I blinked blearily at him. I squeezed gritty eyelids together and tried again. It was Sergeant Jimmy Lee, my aidman. "Lee what is it?" My mouth was dry and it was hard to talk.
"Sir, we don't know what's the matter with you. Can you tell us?"
I shook my head and it tried to fall off. Lee propped me up again.
"You've been out of your mind for three days now and running a hell of a fever. I sponged you and gave you APC's. I even gave you a shot of penicillin when we thought you were going to die." His young face screwed up with worry.
"I've still got the fever, haven't I?" I muttered weakly. "It feels like it."
Makstutis came into focus beside Lee. "It's down some, Doc, but your face was red as a tomato and your eyes are still all bloodshot. Your urine was bloody too. Now you've got little red marks, kinda like bruises, on your skin."
"Eyes all bloodshot ... little red marks." Somewhere a circuit snapped shut in my head. "God Almighty! I've got Songho Fever."
"Songho Fever? What's that, Doc?"
"It's called Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever in the States, and it hit a lot of G.I.'s around the Iron Triangle in the Korean War."
Jimmy wasn't too young to remember. He had been in on the tail end of that fight.
"You must have picked it up around Kumwha," he said. "There's nothing you can do for it is there?"
"No more than you are doing now, unless the Reds have something we don't know about." I sipped the water someone brought and lay back.
Blackie had come in when he heard I was conscious. "Lee Sung is back," he said. "Maybe he could get something from Anders, or better still, get Anders to see you."
"I couldn't walk two minutes, let alone twenty miles."
"By Golly, we'll carry you," said Blackie. "Don't you worry Colonel." I fell asleep again with his comforting hand on my shoulder.
The trek across the ridges was rough. I can't remember much of it except the feeling of falling when the improvised stretcher tipped on the steep slopes or someone lost his footing. By now, one of our sergeants, another Korean War veteran named Lim On, was ill with what appeared to be the same disease and the morale of the unit was slipping. We had jumped a week ago and as yet had accomplished nothing. In a deserted, half-collapsed farmhouse about a mile from Song-dong-ni, they laid Lim and me down on piles of straw while most of the men bivouacked in small dugouts camouflaged in the woods beside the house. We waited for Lee Sung to get Anders.
He arrived the following afternoon. A tall man, he looked like a benevolent hawk, pale smooth hair, sharp nose, keen grey eyes. He stooped under the low lintel of the hovel and stood for a while in the semi-darkness of the tiny, paper-walled room until his eyes were adjusted. Then he came and dropped on one knee by my side.
"You are a very sick man, Colonel," he said slowly, in precise English.
"I think I have hemorrhagic fever," I said.
"There is little doubt," he agreed as his hands searched my neck and armpits for swollen glands. "See, the small blood spots on your abdomen, and your eyes. And what else have you noticed?"
I gave him the story, including what Makstutis had told me about the bloody urine.
He nodded his head. "Yes, it must be so. I cannot now prevent it, but I can help you to get well." He took a syringe and a bottle of solution from the small pack he carried. "Lee Sung told me. I brought serum. Every day you must take a dose, and the other man, too. I have no doubt he will have the same disease."
It was probably some sort of concentrated convalescent serum. I never did find out; but it seemed to help. There was no more bleeding and the fever dropped. Lim improved too and, fortunately, none of the others seemed to have caught it. I was still terribly weak and somewhat depressed but I was able to get around a bit by the end of our second week in North Korea.
The days dragged along and my strength was slow to return. I read and re-read the letter I had received just before the take-off from South Korea.
"I am getting along fine," Pat had written, "in spite of feeling somewhat bloated and clumsy, which, after all, I must expect. We had some more news about Harry. Apparently the raiding party he was with got ashore all right and set up their headquarters in one of the small villages near the coast. They seem to be getting along real well so far.
"I am so glad Polly is staying with me, we are good company for each other. When I got the letter from General Rawlins that told me you had left, I was relieved in a way, as I had wondered why you didn't write. Now at least I know and I am sure you are glad that, one way or another, it will soon be over. I don't expect to hear from you again until your mission is completed. Darling, please be careful. The General told me you had had shots for the measlepox, (they sent some out for Harry's team too), so I am not quite so worried. At least the dangers you face will be those of a soldier and you will have a fighting chance."
"She obviously had never heard or had forgotten about hemorrhagic fever," I thought ruefully, the pages trembling in my fever-weakened hands.
"Dr. Hallam is often over to see us in the evenings," she continued. "I believe he is really fond of Polly ... and she of him ... but naturally he doesn't express such feelings. If anything happens to Harry I'm sure he will take care of her."
"And who will take care of you and the baby if I don't come back," I thought as I crumpled the letter and burned it. We shouldn't have carried that last batch of mail into the airplane. It was the one sentimental chink in our disguise. As soon as I was well enough I checked to be sure that everyone else had destroyed all mementoes. I was not naive enough to think that we could keep our secret if captured, but pages of letters could be misplaced or fragments blown away and picked up by anyone coming into the area.
The Rangers kept busy. Only one or two remained in the house to cook and look after Kim and me. The rest lay low during the day and reconnoitred by night so that they were soon familiar with the layout of the virus factory and the surrounding country. They briefed me on every trip they made until I felt I knew it almost as well as if I'd seen it myself.
That week, Anders came three times. We always had guards posted and, once he knew he was safe, he relaxed and talked quite volubly in Russian or English.
"It may be fortunate for you that you have had Songho Fever," Anders said, during one of these early talks.
"Why so?"
"The western world has not yet discovered the cause of it, but we have."
He was obviously proud of the achievements of his laboratory, in spite of the horrible use to which they had been put.
"It's a very simple virus, carried, as you suspected, by mites which live on small rodents. We have now taken that virus and changed it so that it does not require to pass through other animals as part of its life cycle. It can now pass in droplets of sputum from one man to another. In the process of change it has become much more virulent, almost one hundred percent fatal, I would say, with an incubation period of only one or two days. Also it is now extremely infectious and, I believe, far worse than the measlepox. That is the virus we have begun producing, in large quantities, in our factory."
"What are the symptoms of this new disease?" I asked.
"It acts much like the natural disease except for its extreme rapidity. There is a tremendous increase in the hemorrhagic tendency, with fatal bleeding into the gastrointestinal tract, the urinary system, or sometimes the lungs. The victims die in shock within forty-eight hours, as a rule."
"How do you know how it will act on human beings?" I said curiously although I thought I already knew the answer.
"Our people are more realistic than yours," he said, quite sincerely. "We offered men condemned to die a pardon if they lived after being exposed to the virus. Most of them agreed."
"I'm surprised they got a choice," I said acidly.
"Our rulers have softened since the days of Stalin," he replied with a wry smile.
"Why didn't you use it instead of the measlepox?" I asked him.
"We did not have enough, and also we did not have a vaccine against it until recently. In fact only a few people have been protected. I am one, and so are my helpers in the Laboratory ... and, to some extent, so will you be for a while."
"Do you really think so?"
"We have found there is limited cross-immunity from having had the natural fever, especially early in convalescence, but that protection wears off rapidly."
"What do you mean by limited?"
"Let us suppose you had an accident with the vials I shall give you for your return journey and spilled the contents on you. You would be very ill with the fever but you would have a fair chance of living."
"Have you given the new syndrome a name?"
"Yes, a melodramatic one. We call it the bleeding death."
In the third week of our stay he came unexpectedly, late on a Wednesday afternoon. I talked to him alone as the other officers had gone on an early patrol. He was extremely agitated.
"I believe the counter-offensive will soon be starting," he said. "The Americans have refused to sell any more food to us and our radio is full of reports that the return of another wet spring in Europe and drought in Siberia is their doing. Today we were ordered to load all our available virus for shipment to Russia. We expect to send it Saturday."
"How will it go?"
"In refrigerated tank cars," he replied, and seeing my amazement, he added, "We do not have a bottling plant here. There are barely enough immune technicians to load it and seal the containers properly. I have been told there is an automatic bottling plant in Siberia which can put the virus in missile warheads without human aid, but of course I am not completely informed about these things."
"God! They must be desperate if they intend to let this thing loose on America without being immunized themselves."
"A calculated risk, Colonel. We can produce vaccine rapidly and protect those who matter before the disease rebounds to our lands."
"Those who matter! That's good! I'll give you three guesses who makes the decisions."
On their return that night I called in my officers and explained the situation.
"We must stop that stuff from getting out of here," I said at the end. "In fact, if possible we should blow up the tank cars and let it all run out and at the same time try to put the laboratory out of action. It won't do much good now for us to take the virus home ... there would be too little time to produce a vaccine against it even if we have the formula."
"There's a railway bridge about two miles from the plant, about four from the way we'd have to go, that crosses a deep ravine," Makstutis said. "It's on the spur line from the main Wonsan-Vladivostok railway. That's the only way out of this fever factory of theirs. We can put demolition charges on that to blow when the train goes over. There's only three or four bridge guards. I'm sure we could cut the telephone wire and handle them before the train gets there."
"Suppose not all the tank cars are destroyed," Kim said. "Could they use that crap again, or would they go near it?"
"Yes, they would," I said. "Some of the technicians are protected by immunizations."
"Then somebody has to be designated to explode the tanks in case they survive the drop," Blackie said. "And what about the train guards?"
"You're so right!" I said. "That makes me the mouse that ties the bell on the cat. You boys hold off the guards, I'll get the tank cars."
"Hell, Doc, you've lost your marbles!" Makstutis burst out in amazement. "That's our job. We've got to keep you all wrapped up like a dame in mink so you can tell them back home what's in that lousy stuff."
I laughed at his pop-eyed indignation. "That's true ordinarily, Mak," I said, "but this new virus is one hundred percent fatal if you get it. Anybody who blows those tanks is likely to get some on him, especially since they'll be damaged by the fall into the gorge. But people who've had this hemorrhagic fever are partly protected, especially while they are in the convalescent stage, as I am, so I'll have to explode the tanks."
"I still don't like it, Colonel," Blackie said.
"Look, Blackie, if you get this new fever you die for sure ... and probably all the rest of the unit will die too. Then how do I get back to the States?"
"But if you blow it, sir, we can't bring the formula home," Kim said.
"That's true, but that's the lesser of two evils. We must destroy the virus, and if possible the factory too, before they shoot the stuff over to North America. If we don't, knowing the formula will be like a condemned man knowing how he'sgoing to be executed... what difference will it make?"
"Geez, Colonel, I don't know," Makstutis began.
"I do," I cut him short. "And I'm going to get those tanks. That's an order. It's certain death for anyone else."
"Except me, Colonel." Lim On stood up as tall as five feet three would stretch. We had forgotten him sleeping in the corner on a pile of straw and he had heard the last part of our argument as our rising voices awakened him. He looked about as pale as a yellow-skinned man can, which to me seems more a ghastly green, but he was steady enough, and determined enough to argue with me when I tried to set him down.
"Colonel, I'm the demolitions man of the section," he persisted. "I'm as fit as you are, and, if the Colonel will pardon me for saying so, I know a lot more about it than you do."
"OK, Sergeant," I gave in, "I'll carry the charges and you set them."
The next day Anders was back again, his bird face no longer amiable but haggard and harried. "The tank cars begin loading tomorrow morning. I believe they will go out as soon as finished, which should be shortly before sunset. The Commissar is worried about possible sabotage and, I believe, has falsified the departure time." He pondered for a moment and then looked at me. "Colonel, I am afraid to stay here. May I go with you when you leave?"
"You may," I said slowly, "if you will do something else for us. Otherwise I think it would be better if you pretend to know nothing and stay behind." I explained our plan to wreck the train and then added, "We will be concentrating on this attack and won't be able to come back and pick you up. Obviously you will not be able to go with the train after it is loaded so you could not find us. On the other hand," I paused to estimate my man, "if we were able to have help to get inside the camp and sabotage it, you could escape in the confusion and come with us."
"But what about the formulae?" he asked anxiously. "Are you not coming to get them from me?"
"We would like to have them, of course," I replied. "But it is not worth the risk for them alone since there will not be time now for our people to set up production facilities."
"You ask a lot of me," he said heatedly. "I could easily betray you and stay in the factory. You could not remain here indefinitely."
I threw a trump card. "What makes you think the factory is going to stay here indefinitely?"
His face seemed to sicken as I watched. "This means atomic warfare," he said, "and the end of the world."
"If we have to die, you are going to die too. You have about two weeks." I was exaggerating, actually it was two months. "If we don't report success to our headquarters by that time, an atomic submarine, armed with a Polaris missile with atom bomb warhead, has orders to obliterate this whole area."
"No," he shook his head. "No—this is too much. I have had enough of this killing. I will not betray you."
"I didn't think you would," I said drily.
"But I must come with you," he said. "I am afraid the Commissar is becoming suspicious. Yesterday we were warned by intelligence to expect parachuting American raiders and the political commissar was asking me about my botanical excursions. He doesn't like me anyway because I am a Pole, and he may have put someone to watch me and report on my movements." I looked at Blackie and he raised his eyebrows. Was this a shrewd guess on the part of the Russian G-2 people or had some of our rangers been picked up?
"Poor devils," I thought. "They're probably being brainwashed right now. Time is running out on us, for sure. We must get moving right away."
Anders was saying, "What do I have to do for you?"
I told him my plan, slowly and carefully.
"One thing more," I said, as he started to go out the door. "Don't forget to bring samples of the viruses and vaccines with you ... and anything else you may think important."
"I will do that," he promised. "Goodbye and good luck, Colonel."
When the sound of his steps had faded, Blackie spoke again.
"You're taking quite a chance, Colonel. He knows enough now to ruin us all."
"Yes, I am. He is a proud man and I played on his pride as a scientist. Deep down, he probably is ashamed of having prostituted his discoveries for the purpose of murder, even though there wasn't much he could have done about it. He wants to make amends and I think he will go with us. Anyway, I could see no other way of doing it, could you?"
I looked around the circle of officers squatting on the rice mat floor. "We're with you, Doc," Makstutis said. "All the way, by heaven."
Three heads nodded in agreement.
CHAPTER 14
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.