Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 1
Novels in the Soldiers and Marines Saga
By Martin Archer
Soldiers and Marines–
Peace and Conflict –
War Breaks Out –
War in the East –
Israel’s Next War –
SOLDIERS AND MARINES
Chapter One
Dust and gravel periodically sprayed out from under the Jeep's wheels as it slowly backed up towards the top of the low ridge. The early morning sun was bright and already hot, and the periodic sound of thunder in the background had been coming closer and closer all day.
Three men were in the slowly backing Jeep as it moved over the abandoned farm land and up towards the ridgeline. The passenger sat impassively, almost as if he was in a trance. The gunner on the mounted machine gun crouched and squinted down the barrel into the sun as he constantly moved it to the left and right in a search for something he didn't want to see. He was chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum.
Everyone in the Jeep was trying to be as quiet as possible. But it wasn't working because of the engine noise and the periodic burst of sound each time the Jeep ran over a patch of rocks or broke a stick. Each of the men was terribly anxious without saying it out loud.
The occupants of the Jeep were nervous, very nervous. And rightly so. It was the morning of July 29th and thirty-four days earlier the North Korean army had poured over the border into South Korea. It caught the poorly-equipped and under trained garrison troops of the South Koreans and their allies by surprise—they were everywhere overrun and either killed or pushed back.
The sky above them was partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland empty of life and crops. There were great towering white clouds to the north; but at that moment the men were traveling in bright summer morning sunshine. It was dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm. Each was frightened and sweating, and trying not to let the others see that he was also.
The mud ruts from a previous rain were baked hard and the men in the Jeep didn’t know what they would find when they got to the top of the rise they were slowly approaching. They knew they were highly visible as they slowly bounced over the uneven ground and they were seriously worried about it.
“Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hissed in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approached the summit. He was twisted around and tried to look over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount. The driver was slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.
Damn the passenger thought to himself as he tried to stand so he could see better, and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment. He was about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, forty-two years of age, and, although he never did really think hard about it, glad he only had daughters who wouldn’t be called to serve.
The passenger had picked up the driver’s weapon ten minutes ago, checked its clip to make sure it was full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic. The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back.
Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he was standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge.
The passenger was wearing the dress shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress. His pants were filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet. The other men in the jeep looked like teenagers who hadn’t shaved for a week or so.
There was a colonel’s badge pinned to the summer soft cap the Jeep's passenger had grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the call in the middle of the night about the invasion and rushed to his headquarters.
Brown hair streaked with white poked out from under the Colonel’s cap. It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks. He was totally exhausted after almost three days without sleep, and he desperately needed a shave, a bath, and something to eat. He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knew trouble when he saw it.
What happened? Why weren’t we ready? Even bouncing along in the Jeep he couldn’t get the disbelief out of his mind. Once again the United States and the United Kingdom had been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.
The Jeep lurched to a stop at his whispered order. He leaned on the barrel of the driver's carbine to hoist himself into a standing position and slowly raised his head up as high as possible. Damn, we're still not far enough to see what’s on the other side.
The colonel wasn’t taking any chances. He’d quickly learned how really stupid it was to show yourself on a ridge line until you were damn sure you know what was on the other side.
Being worried and tired and backing slowly up a hill in a Jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war. He almost smiled at the memory. He was a professional soldier as his father had been before him.
The gunner was mumbling something under his breathe through clenched teeth. He was a short little corporal and smoked incessantly. A cigarette was hanging out the side of his mouth and every so often he mouthed it into position and puffed furiously. His name was Antonio Berra; and he desperately needed to take a piss. The guys all called him “Yogi.”
“Need another five yards.” They all wanted to look over the rise and see what’s on the other side—and they were all deathly afraid of what they would see.
The driver shifted his feet on the pedals and carefully backed up a few more feet. “Careful goddamn it. Another ten feet.”
The unnecessary order was spoken in a whisper as the Jeep lurched and began to creep upward again. The colonel almost lost his balance as one of the rear wheels came over a big rock and the rear of the Jeep jerked as its rear end slid over to the right.
Once again he slowly raised himself up as high as he could go. And, after a long pause while he carefully searched the valley which had opened up in front of him, he let out a deep breath and handed the carbine to the driver as he stepped out of the Jeep. He had been holding his breath without realizing it. So had everyone else.
What they were looking down at was hardly a valley at all, just a gradual down slope of gray and rocky farmland until it reached a dirt road that ran east and west through the middle of the valley below them. A little beyond the dirt road the uneven farmland began to rise again towards the top of a ridge line about a half mile or so beyond the road.
There seemed to be some kind of rocky pile in the middle of the distant ridge, maybe an old ruin, and a short and broken stone fence ran all along the ridge about a hundred feet or so below the top. The stone fence was only a couple of feet high.
Men were scrambling over the top of the distant ridge. The three watchers in the Jeep instantly recognized it for what it was—a panic stricken effort to flee. They could see the helmets of the men still wearing them. Soldiers.
There were Korean refugees on the dirt road running through the valley and some of them stopped for a moment to watch the running soldiers as they poured towards them and then rushed across the road. Almost as if a signal was given the refugees began walking faster and faster, all the while looking to their left at the distant stone fence and the men who were continuing to pour off the ridge line behind it.
There were hundreds of refugees, maybe thousands, carrying bedding and pushing overloaded carts and bicycles.
******
Within minutes the first of the fleeing soldiers dashed through the line of refugees on the road and started up the slope towards the three men and their Jeep. He didn’t have a weapon or helmet and he didn't stop or slow down when he reached them; he just rushed on past without saying a word. Dusty tear marks ran down his face. He’d been crying.
A few minutes later more and more men began to reach the waiting Jeep. Enlisted men. They came up on both sides of the Jeep. Not all of them had helmets and weapons.
Those of the fleeing men who were close enough could see that one of the men waiting for them at the top of the ridge was a colonel by the insignia on his soft cap. The colonel waved them to a stop as they came up the slope to the top of the ridge. No one saluted or even acknowledged the colonel was there. But they stopped. Then, one after another, the fleeing men began to collapse to the ground in exhaustion.
Some of the men stood for a while and leaned over with their hands on their knees while they tried to catch their breaths; but most of them just sat down or flopped on their backs breathing hard. One, who had obviously wet his pants, took off his helmet and laid it across his lap so no one could see.
The men appeared to be totally exhausted and beaten, and every one of them was staring intently at the distant ridge line. One of them was sitting and rocking back and forth, lost in thought as if he’d been hypnotized.
There was little talking, and the talking which did occur was subdued. The men were obviously scared shitless and faintly embarrassed by the presence of the colonel, unwilling to even look at him for fear they would catch his eye. They knew they did wrong by bugging out.
In the end only the first man didn’t stop. Some of those who’d come over the rise further away from the colonel's Jeep followed the first man like sheep for a few steps until they saw the Jeep and the rest of the men flopping down. Then they too stopped and flopped. They were all more than a little frightened and they looked it.
After a bit, the fleeing men began to stand up and then, one after another, they unbuttoned their pants and pissed.
They’re exhausted and frightened. Wonder what happened?
One of the men was clearly wounded. He was holding his arm with a grimace as an ugly little soldier with a battered and bloody uniform ripped open his sleeve and began putting on a field dressing.
How did the medic pass the peacetime physical? Probably a holdover from the war when ability counted more than appearance.
At the tail end of the gaggle of men came a Jeep carrying wounded. It bumped across the road full of refugees and had trouble with the last few feet of farmland as it approached the top of the ridge and the Colonel’s Jeep. But then with a bit of bucking and spewing gravel and dust behind its wheels the Jeep and its wounded passengers made it to the top of the ridge.
The Jeep and its bloody cargo came almost straight at the Colonel and might well have hurtled on past him if he had not roared out a huge “whoa” and raised his right arm with his hand flat out in the ageless signal to stop. The Jeep stopped.
Then, as the colonel watched intently, four more men, and finally a fifth, came over the distant rise, jumped the low rock fence of the terrace, and ran through the refugees towards the fleeing men. Okay here comes the rear guard.
The last man fell and rolled over in a complete somersault after he jumped the fence. But he didn’t stay down. He got up instantly and continued running. Even at this distance we could see he was carrying a weapon in each hand.
“Gas,” the driver of the Jeep carrying the wounded men screamed as he jumped out of his Jeep and ran towards them without turning off the Jeep's engine.
“We need gas” he shouted as he rushed to the can strapped on the back of the Colonel’s Jeep and began trying to unfasten it.
“It’s empty,” the Colonel’s driver said, looking towards the colonel and shrugging. The Jeep driver stood there dumbly for a moment, as if he’d been pole axed.
Finally, after tapping on the side of the can and putting his hand on the cap as if to unscrew it, he turned away. A few seconds later he was back at the wheel of his Jeep. He didn’t say another word but he didn’t need to—he clearly wanted to drive as far south as he could and then start running.
The Colonel moved quickly to the arriving Jeep. There were seven wounded men in it, two on the seat next to the driver and five jammed together in the back. He saw an officer he knew, a captain, among the wounded in the back. His shirt and pants were soaked in blood.
“You’ll be okay Dick,” he said. No you won’t, not with that wound. But I sure as hell won’t tell you that.
The captain’s reply was dreamy and relaxed and not quite right.
“No I won’t be alright, will I? They got Tom you know.” Who the hell is Tom? Then the captain took a deep breath and made a visible effort to pull himself upright and focus his eyes.
“We only got away because of Roberts. He held us together. Got to get him recognized, you know. Only one. Good man, Roberts. Really good … smart… Got to…” and then his eyes rolled back and his legs began trembling. After a bit his legs stopped shaking as he bent to one side and began sucking in great gasping breaths of air.
One of the other wounded men nodded toward the wounded captain.
“Roberts had Doc, our other medic, before he got hit, fill the captain up with morphine.”
“Where’s Roberts?” Who’s Roberts?
“I dunno. Last I saw him, he told everyone who hadn’t already bugged out to head up here. Last time I saw him he was still shooting gooks.”
“There were fucking thousands of them. Lieutenant Gerard’s dead you know.” Said a corporal crouched in the back of the Jeep with a bloody arm that looked like it had gone through a concrete mixer.
“Thank God,” said one of the wounded men under his breath, as the last man coming off the distant ridge began to scramble up the slope towards them. He was carrying two carbines and moving fast. “Here comes Roberts.”
Who the hell is Roberts? The colonel wondered. I don’t know any Roberts?
******
I was running for my life. I knew it. Every second I expected to feel a bullet punch into my back. Once I stumbled on a rock just as I jumped over a little stone fence a couple of hundred feet below the top of the ridge—and tumbled right on over in a somersault until my feet got under me again and I could keep going almost without missing a stride.
This is no way to spend a hot summer morning. I could see the men running ahead of me. Yes, they’re stopping at the top of the rise. Yes.
It was almost as if I were standing to one side and watching in slow motion as a dusty and sweaty soldier with a ragged uniform and a carbine in each hand slip and slide in the loose rocks and gravel as he ran up the slope toward the small group of men waiting at the top. But that’s me.
Made it. Finally. I leaned over with both hands on my knees, gasping in deep rasping breaths. This can wear a guy out and no half way about it. And the tumble I took after I jumped the little stone wall sure as hell didn’t help.
Okay I could breathe.
“Sergeant Murphy, get the men dug in on the other side of this rise. Get control of yourself. Another deep breath and I announced loudly. “Good spot to dig in. This’ll work.”
Probably won’t. But what the hell, they need to believe something.
“We’ll cut the bastards down as they come up the slope,” I said loudly. “Piece of cake.”
Some of the guys looked at me a little funny as I said it. I didn’t know it but a fragment must have sliced the back of my scalp and I was bleeding. The fall hadn’t helped and it must have looked a lot worse than the scrape it felt like.
Later I find out that head wounds are often like that—you bleed like a stuck pig but it doesn’t mean much. Probably happened when I stood up and shot the gook officer or whatever he was. Didn’t even really know it until I got over here and saw the men staring. That’s when I felt the wetness on the back of my head and realized I must be bleeding.
I was just looking at my bloody hand after feeling my head when a colonel came into focus a few feet away. Jeez, where did he come from?
“Sorry sir,” I said as I took another deep breath. “Didn’t see you; thought it was just us up here.”
“Glad to see you too lieutenant. Looks like you’re getting your guys organized pretty good. Nice to know someone has some sense.”
Christ, he’s been hit. Probably not too badly the way he’s functioning. Good leader though. The men are getting up to do what he tells them.
“Sorry sir,” I said between more deep breaths as I continued leaning over with my hands on my knees, “not an officer. We only had one left after the captain got hit. He started crying and told the men to run while I was down checking out the gook casualties.” Yellow sonofabitch.
“Well, you’re an officer now. You’ve got the company. I’ll try to get reinforcements and ammo up to you.”
What luck he got them here. He’s right; this could be a pretty good position. Maybe these poor bastards can hold them for a couple of hours while I get the brigade reorganized. Schultz will have to take over the 2nd battalion. Wonder what happened to the other companies.
Jeez, I must be dreaming. I’m an officer? That would surprise a lot of people back in Alaska. Not that anyone would much care. I was always too busy working and trying to keep the family together to ever get to know anyone real well.
Slowly at first, and then faster and faster as Sergeant Murphy started running around pointing and shouting, the eighty odd men began digging in. Murphy is a big string bean of a guy with graying hair and a craggy, almost deformed, face. He's been in the army for a long time and his ears clearly don’t match.
The men responded quickly, relieved that someone was telling them what to do and that it made sense. A few of them were using WWII entrenching tools to dig but most of them are scraping the ground with their helmets. Some are working with an absolute frenzy. The rest are standing around sheepishly because they have nothing with which to dig. They know they’ve done wrong by abandoning their equipment and running.
