The Frozen Hours Page 4

  Riley had passed through Inchon with the same thoughts as the men around him, that the Seventh Marines had come in too late to accomplish anything, bringing up the rear, acting as a reserve. Out in front, the Han River was already being crossed by the first waves, the men of the First and Fifth Regiments, pushing the North Koreans away from the enormous airfield at Kimpo, what the officers were calling the best airfield in Asia. Riley knew nothing about that, knew only that the road they were on now was supposed to take them to a crossing of the river, the last barrier to the city of Seoul.

  All these men knew was the talk from the sailors, that the invasion had been magnificent, perfect execution, the Marines surging up and over the seawall, seeming to frighten the North Koreans away completely. From all anyone seemed to know, the North Koreans around Inchon had been caught completely by surprise, the Marines and now others, men of the army’s Seventh Division pushing across the Han River well ahead of schedule. But the sounds from in front of them now told Riley and the other veterans that the North Koreans had not just vanished, that somewhere up ahead there was a fight. Now there were casualties, aid stations along the way that these men could not avoid. Riley had seen all of this before, marches on dusty roads past blasted homes and wrecked villages, civilians like these Koreans swept up in a war few of them understood.

  He watched the civilians, most of the people old or very young. The men are gone, he thought. And there’s not many young women. Those bastards will have use for them, too. Maybe that’s what we’re fighting for. Maybe not. They don’t tell us much about that.

  Riley glanced back toward the sergeant, the rest of the squad leading the platoon, who marched in the vanguard of the rest of Fox Company. He loved Sergeant Welch, that particular kind of affection that veterans knew well, when a man could be counted on to lead, as Welch had proven in a dozen fights across the Pacific. Riley and Welch had served side by side, Welch admitting that his stripes had come from chance, that any man in their company could have earned a promotion for what they accomplished against the Japanese. The most vivid memories now were from Okinawa, civilians caught up in the war that inspired pity as much as outrage. There seemed to be little difference between the Koreans and the Okinawans, all of them victims in one way or another. But Okinawa didn’t stink, he thought. Not like this, anyway. Fleas and vermin, maybe. But I bet the North Koreans are just like the Japs. Use their own civilians for cover, for whatever they need. Slave labor, sex. Jesus. They’re just savages. He watched a handful of old men in another rice paddy, shook his head, tried to blow the stink from his brain.

  Many of the men around him had been through the same experiences as Riley and Welch, places like Saipan and Iwo Jima, Bougainville and Guadalcanal, and nearly all carried those memories in dark places. The biggest talk came from the new recruits, men like Morelli, teenagers who regarded the veterans with envy, a ridiculous thirst for stories of the bloody slaughter of the Japanese. The veterans had learned to tolerate it, though few ever offered more than a casual grunt about anything they had been through. But still, the new men begged for it, and so some of the veterans had learned the art of shoveling manure, giving the new men tasty pieces of stupidity, great tales of war and heroism that most often never happened at all.

  The majority of the men of the Seventh Marines were veterans, three battalions drawn together quickly after the North Korean invasion. Many of these men had gone home in 1945, the Marine Corps downsized radically after the war’s end, a decision made by President Truman. But with the explosion in Korea, the veterans had been called up once more. In the peacetime years most of them had grown soft, family men who now left behind wives and young children, the old uniforms too snug around thick middles. But the training had come quickly, Pendleton and Camp Lejeune, routines they would never forget. Few of these men hesitated when the orders came, some of them welcoming the chance to leave the boredom of civilian life. Some had it better, good jobs, a pleasant life that erased many of the awful memories of the war. But they all responded.

  As the division assembled around the port of San Diego, the new men had joined them as well, but time was critical, MacArthur beating the drum. And so, in short weeks, most of the Marines had steamed across the Pacific to ports in Japan, then mobilized quickly for the last leg, leading the way at Inchon. Whatever training the new men received along the way was haphazard at best, often on board the transports, rifle and machine gun practice off the fantails of the rolling ships, even the mortars launching their rounds into the ocean. The skill of the careful aim would have to come later, a nagging fear within the sergeants and experienced lieutenants, who had to wonder how these new men would react if they actually came under fire.

  The highest-ranking Marine in Korea would be the First Division’s commanding officer, Major General Oliver P. Smith, a man many of these Marines had served with in the Pacific. Most couldn’t really describe Smith, knew him more by name, not like the bombastic reputation of Chesty Puller. Whether or not the Marines would take their orders from MacArthur, at least they had one of their own at the top. And so far, not even the officers, the men like Captain Zorn, had any real idea just what MacArthur wanted them to do. Once Seoul was captured and the North Koreans pushed back across their own border, most of these men assumed they might just board their transports and go back home.

  Riley stared out past the fields, could see the river’s edge up ahead, a vast fleet of trucks, big guns, engineers and their heavy equipment all in motion. He felt that familiar icy stab, the sudden feeling that he was very close now to something very big, and perhaps very unexpected. Korea was unknown to nearly all of them, some place in some corner of Asia that only the government cared about. It was the aid stations that changed that. For the first time, the sight of wounded men, wounded Marines drove home the reality that someone in this god-awful place was trying to kill you, and if you didn’t know who or why, it didn’t matter. Your job was to kill them first.

  They slowed, a two-and-a-half-ton truck moving through, the men breathing more dust. Beside him, the boy again.

  “You think we missed it, Pete? Do you?”

  The march was halted and Riley tried to hear past the growing sounds of activity along the river. He heard the artillery again, low, sharp rumbles, and he looked at Morelli, pointed, began to speak, to teach, but overhead a sharp, deafening roar, the men ducking instinctively, the dark blue plane ripping past no more than a hundred feet above.

  Riley smiled, straightened his back, then his helmet. “I was gonna teach you how to tell a fight from a thunderstorm. There’s artillery up ahead, out that way, to the north. Must be the Fifth. But that damn Corsair ain’t crop dusting. He’s heading up that way looking for somebody to light up. His wings were loaded with rockets.”

  The boy looked that way, the Corsair long gone. “Geez. Scared heck out of me.”

  Behind them, Sergeant Welch said, “Fix that nonsense right now. That’s the best sound there is in the world. You get caught in a bad place, those flyboys have a way of pulling your nuts out of the muck. They taught you nothing at all, did they?”

  The boy didn’t answer, and Riley saw more civilians. Rough-looking people, he thought. Like Okinawa. Civilians caught in a war, too dumb or too scared to get out of the way.

  Behind him, Welch said, “Riley, take the kid, with Norman and Killian. Check those people out. Make sure they’re just locals. They seem pretty interested in something over there.” He called out now, toward the front of the column. “Hey, Lieutenant!”

  Riley cringed at the word, knew it was a deadly mistake to single out an officer in the field, especially in a place where every pile of wreckage could hide the enemy. He leaned closer to Welch, said, “Jesus, Sarge. What the hell are you doing?”

  Welch laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Pete. That shavetail needs to learn some things, too.”

  Riley lowered his voice. “Getting him killed ain’t gonna teach him a damn thing.”

  “I’ll let him
tell me that.”

  The officer slid back through the widely spaced column, a short, thin man, his eyes wide.

  “What is it?”

  “Sir, the captain told us to keep an eye out for possible infiltrators. I told these men here to check out those civilians. Most of these huts have been blown to hell, but there’s plenty of places to hide. The enemy could be hiding anywhere. I don’t trust civilians.”

  The lieutenant, who wasn’t much older than the kid, Morelli, absorbed Welch’s advice with a sharp nod.

  “Yes. Good. You boys do what the sergeant says. Check those people out, look for weapons. Grenades and such. Lieutenant McCarthy’s up ahead, on the radio. He said to pass along the word that we’re to wait for orders. The captain’s trying to find out where they want us to sit for a while.”

  Bob McCarthy was the platoon commander, a hard-bitten first lieutenant, the kind of officer the riflemen followed without question. But his adjutant, a second lieutenant, was very new, very green, seemed to follow McCarthy around like a helpless puppy. No one was really sure why McCarthy required another officer hanging around, but the officers usually didn’t feel the need to offer explanations. Riley looked at the young lieutenant, said, “We’ll handle it, sir.”

  The others followed Riley toward the blasted ruins, what had once been a large hut, more structures beside it. To one side, Killian, a huge hulk of a man, helmet set back on his enormous head.

  “Ain’t no enemy around here. We done mowed ’em out of here. Hell, you can see the river out there. Half the Marine Corps’s done gone across. The kid’s right. We done missed it. Gotta be Old Homer’s fault. Damn them officers, anyway.”

  Riley ignored the comment, had too much respect for the colonel, the man in command of the Seventh. Homer Litzenberg was one of them, a Marine since 1922, rising through the ranks to command one of Oliver Smith’s four regiments. The nicknames abounded, always: Blitzen Litzen, Riley’s favorite. But to most of the men, the commanding officer was always the old man, so, in this case, Old Homer.

  Riley glanced toward the big Irishman, said, “It’s only been a few days, Sean. The colonel’s putting us where we need to be. There’s enemy enough to go around.”

  Killian grunted again. “Hah. So you say. I ain’t seen a single Nook since we came off the boats. The fight’s way the hell up front, across that river.” He moved close to the civilians, two old men, four older women, the Koreans backing away with the kind of exhausted fear Riley had seen on Okinawa. Killian shouted out, “All right! Where’s your sons at? Looking to crack the skull of some Yankee-san? They in here maybe?”

  Killian lunged forward, used the muzzle of his M-1 to toss aside a piece of wreckage, the heap of debris still leaking smoke. Riley moved away, toward the larger structures, thought, If there’s anybody in that junk, they’ve suffocated. Killian knows that. Likes being the big man.

  Killian shoved past the civilians, stepped heavily into a heap of straw and lumber, brought the rifle up to his shoulder, aimed. Riley drew up, waited for the shot, thought, No, dammit. No need for this kind of show.

  One of the Koreans spoke, an old man, dressed in filthy white.

  “Sank you. Sank you. Yankee. You Yankee. Sank you.”

  Killian seemed to back down, even the rough Irishman affected by the pathetic look of the old man.

  Riley said, “That’s all the English they know. Count on that. They’re scared to death. There’s no enemy here.”

  Killian seemed resigned, said, “Yeah, maybe. Look up there, those other huts. Nooks could be anywhere.”

  Riley laughed to himself. Nooks. North Koreans. There’s always a name.

  “Where’d you hear that one?”

  Killian’s mood seemed to lighten, and he shrugged, all four of the Marines slipping through more of the debris. “Hell, I don’t know. I first heard about this mess, I sure thought they wouldn’t stand up to fight us. We show up with a few tanks, blow a handful of Corsairs past their huts, they’d skedaddle out of here. I heard that’s what MacArthur’s saying even now. I just hope we ain’t missed out on the show. Damn it all.”

  Out on the road, Welch said, “Hey! Let’s go! We’re moving out!”

  They followed Riley back to the road, Welch waving them into line, the men keeping several feet between them, good training. Riley saw a strange sick look on the sergeant’s face, realized the lieutenant had tears on his cheeks.

  “What happened, Sarge?”

  Welch pointed to the other side of the road. “Nasty stuff. North Koreans left behind a message for us. For somebody, anyway.”

  Riley saw two navy corpsmen move into a small hut, the men backing out quickly, curses and shouts, an officer there, a man he didn’t know. Riley knew better than to be curious, but it had been so long since he had seen all the varieties of death.

  “What they do? Leave their dead behind?”

  Welch said to the lieutenant, “Sir, you ought to take your place up front of the platoon. I’ll handle things here. Lieutenant McCarthy probably needs you on the radio or something. The men are ready to move out.”

  The young lieutenant was white-faced, nodded without speaking, stepped away.

  Welch turned to Riley, said, “He found ’em himself. Had to be a hero, stick his face into someplace it didn’t need to be. I told him there could be trouble. But he’s a college boy. Won’t listen to some dumb son of a bitch like me.”

  “Hamp, what’s in the hut?”

  “Dead civilians. A pile of ’em. Hands wired behind their backs, slit open from crotch to neck. There’s a child, maybe six, a couple young girls. One man in a suit. Local bigwig maybe. The colonel will look into it, find out if it’s worth reporting.”

  “Jesus, Sarge.”

  “Like I said. Nasty. These people are primitives, pure and simple. Taking out this war on their own kind, on civilians. I told the lieutenant, this oughta teach him not to get captured. I think he got that.”

  Killian was there now, said, “He’ll not last long. Hell, what’s his name? I forget.”

  Welch said, “Goolsby. You pay attention to him. He’s young, but they sent him out here for a reason. He’s got the bar on his shoulder, so you do what he says. If he was a screwup, you can bet McCarthy would have tossed him out, sent him back to the colonel with a note pinned to his ass.”

  Killian shook his head, stared that way. “Those kind never make it, Sarge. He’s already shaking in his boots. Smart-ass college boys. Damn ninety-day-wonders.” Across the river, the echoing rumble of big guns was drawing everyone’s attention, and Killian said, “There’s a pile of artillery letting loose out that way. Sure wish we had Craven out front.”

  Welch sniffed. “Lieutenant Craven’s back home with his million-dollar wound, his feet up in his wife’s lap, drinking six beers. You got a wife, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you want to grab her soft rump again, you better pay attention right here. Be smart. You know how to keep your head down, and before we’re done with this, you’ll have reason. Count on it. Now, we’re moving up closer to the river. We can jabber about it later.” Killian obeyed, and Welch motioned to Riley. “Go on, you, too. Keep an eye on Kane and his BAR. He’s got two teenagers carrying his ammo, and I’m not sure any of them know what they’re doing. According to our young Lieutenant Goolsby, Captain Zorn got a call from the colonel. When the word comes, we’ll cross the river in front of us, help out the First.”

  Riley said, “You mean, in Seoul?”

  Welch tilted his head. “You been taking geography lessons? Trying to take my job?”

  “Sarge, a monkey with VD could take your job. I heard the captain talking back at the boats. We’re to head out around Seoul, help secure the city.”

  “I heard the captain, too. Seoul is supposed to be secure already. Big brass has said so.”

  Riley looked out ahead, focused on the artillery. “That sound secure to you?”

  Up ahead, the men were moving to the edge
of the road, dust rising from a line of trucks. Riley stood to one side, Welch beside him, the red crosses now in view. They moved quickly past, four ambulances, and from inside Riley could hear the soft moans, then a sharp cry as the trucks jolted over the rough road. The last truck was there now, and he saw a corpsman hanging off the rear, blood soaked through the man’s sleeves. The corpsman glanced at the Marines along the road, who stared back at him, all of them blinking through dust. The man’s eyes met Riley’s, a grim nod, the cold stare of a veteran.

  Welch said, “I don’t give a crap what kind of gift wrapping MacArthur or anyone else is trying to hand us. This fun’s just starting.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Smith

  SEPTEMBER 21, 1950

  “DID THE GENERAL make his departure as scheduled, sir?”

  Smith tossed his hat to one side, said, “He left. The schedule belongs to him. So, anytime he leaves, it’s on schedule.”

  He regretted the sarcasm, saw Sexton looking down at the desk. The others turned to their work, a small crowd of officers filling the space in the command post, the silence awkward. Smith couldn’t escape a foul mood, thought, I have no time for this. Just don’t ask me anything.

  From outside, Bowser came in, a bright smile, said, “Did you tell them, sir?”

  Smith glared at him but couldn’t be angry with Bowser at all.

  “Tell them what?”

  “If you’ll allow me, sir.”

  Smith wasn’t sure what Bowser meant, but he trusted the man with any kind of information, as much as he trusted Eddie Craig or any of the others. Unlike Craig, Bowser had been with Smith for years, serving him now as the division’s G-3, the planning and operations officer, and less formally as Smith’s assistant chief of staff. It was Bowser who had first briefed Smith on MacArthur’s plans for the Inchon invasion, both men surprised that Smith, who would command the actual invasion force, had never been fully included in the planning.