Red Phoenix (42 page)

Satisfied that they were working as fast as was humanly possible—and perhaps a bit faster—Lee had come back to the M-113 armored personnel carrier that served as his command vehicle. Infantry squads were desperately digging in on either side of his APC. Dig fast, he thought, you haven’t much time left.

A voice on the main tactical net confirmed his unspoken thought. It was the battalion commander inside the town calling his brigade commander farther back along the highway. In the background Lee could hear shells crashing on Pyokche, an uncanny echo of the same explosions he could hear with his own ears. “Alpha Foxtrot Four Four, this is Alpha Charlie Two Three. Enemy columns forming up for attack. My strength at thirty percent. Repeat, three zero percent. Request permission to withdraw. Over.”

Lee waited while the brigade commander acknowledged the message and gave his permission. It wasn’t long in coming. No battalion that had lost more than half its strength in such a short time could possibly fend off another determined attack.

He switched to the frequency assigned to his own engineering company. “Bravo Four One to all Bravo Four units. Withdraw to main position. Repeat. Withdraw to main position. Acknowledge.” He wasn’t going to leave his men out in the open.

The South Korean combat engineer listened to his platoon leaders confirm his order and then switched back to the main net.

“Alpha Foxtrot Four Four, this is Charlie Two Three. Request smoke to cover our withdrawal. Over.” Lee nodded to himself. A sage request. Even a thin artillery-laid smoke screen would make it safer for Pyokche’s surviving defenders to evacuate their positions.

“Charlie Two Three, this is Alpha Foxtrot Four Four. Negative your smoke request. Say again, smoke is unavailable. Over.” Listening, Lee swore to himself. Nothing was working right. Ammunition expenditures for all weapons had been far above prewar estimates, and he knew that supplies weren’t getting forward the way they were supposed to. Now the remnants of the mechanized infantry battalion in Pyokche faced a kilometer-long retreat across open ground without cover.

Minutes later, Lee stood high in the M-113’s commander’s cupola watching his engineers filter back through the thinly held foxholes and firing positions that marked the new front line. He shook his head wearily. There weren’t enough infantry, tanks, or heavy weapons here to hold a determined North Korean attack for more than half an hour. It hardly seemed worth the sacrifices Pyokche’s defenders had made and were still making.

Lee lifted his binoculars and focused on the town, watching through the smoke and dust as rubble fountained skyward under the enemy’s barrage. Suddenly the barrage stopped. An eerie silence descended across the landscape as the smoke and dust drifted away from the ruined town.

The radio crackled. “Charlie Two Three to all Charlie units. Execute withdrawal now!”

Lee’s grip on his binoculars tightened as he saw scattered figures emerging from the rubble, running for the safe lanes through the minefield his engineers had laid. Others clung to a handful of battle-scarred M-113s racing at high speed to cross the open ground.

One of the APCs suddenly lurched to a halt and burst into flames. Lee spun round and saw the snout of a T-62 poking through the smoking rubble of a wrecked house on the outskirts of Pyokche. The North Koreans had arrived.

An American M-60 tank in defilade to his left also saw the enemy tank. Its 105mm main gun whined, swung right, and recoiled as it sent an armor-piercing sabot round smashing into the North Korean tank. The T-62 exploded.

The revenge was short-lived. Muzzle flashes winked among the ruins of Pyokche as North Korean machinegunners opened fire. Dozens of the men sprinting toward safety were spun around and dropped into the snow. Some escaped the slaughter. Enraged by the sight, men all along the line opened up, flaying the ruins, trying to cover the survivors.

At last the firing died away. The broken fragments of the mechanized infantry battalion crossed into friendly lines and shelter while the North Koreans stopped shooting to avoid giving away their positions.

Lee waited, studying the corpse-strewn ground in front of Pyokche. Wounded men writhed in agony or crawled bleeding toward safety. Their moans could be clearly heard in the eerie silence.

Any minute now, Lee thought. Soon the North Koreans will lunge out of the town and we’ll have a brief chance to repay them for this butchery. He knew it would be in vain, though. Reinforcements from other parts of the front were arriving too slowly. The first determined communist attack would find it easy to punch a hole through the defenses he and his men had built.

Worse yet, his engineers would have to ride the attack out. The brigade commander had made it clear that they couldn’t even pull out of the line to start working on new field fortifications to the south. There were so few infantry left in fighting shape that he needed the engineers to man key battle positions. Lee and his men would have to fight and die as common footsloggers—no matter what specialized skills they possessed.

Time passed. Ten minutes. Half an hour. An hour. Lee grew impatient. What were the communists waiting for? Why hadn’t they attacked? They must know how weak we are, he thought, why haven’t they come to finish us? Every minute they delay gives us more time to recover. He cocked his head, listening.

Firing had erupted somewhere off to the northeast some time ago, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it. Now, though, he could hear that it had intensified—escalating from a few isolated rifle shots to a deafening mix of heavy artillery, tank cannon, and continuous automatic rifle fire. It sounded like a major assault was going on, but in the wrong direction. Away from Seoul.

He grabbed his binoculars and swept them across the fields, the rice paddies, and the still-smoldering ruins of Pyokche. Sunlight flashed momentarily on shovels rising and falling. He focused the binoculars, seeing dirt and snow being thrown out of waist-deep holes by North Korean infantrymen. There couldn’t be any doubt of it. The communists were digging in. They weren’t going to attack.

Relief washed over the South Korean combat engineer. He and his men weren’t going to die—at least not yet. The relief was followed, however, by a feeling of unease. What was the enemy up to? He chewed on the thought for a long while without coming up with a satisfactory answer.

EIGHTH ARMY FIELD HQ, NEAR KURI, SOUTH KOREA

Night had fallen.

Artillery rumbled off in the distance, muffled by the high hills between the HQ and the battle zone.

McLaren looked up from the map at his senior staff officers, clustered around him in a semicircle and blinking in the dim light. They all looked
haggard, worn down by five days and nights without enough sleep and filled with constant tension. It hadn’t helped that they’d already been forced by the North Korean advance to shift the HQ lock, stock, and barrel from its initial wartime location.

He shifted his gaze to the Army’s operations officer, the J-3, a tall, stick-thin major general who’d kept a flat, nasal New England accent through a thirty-year career in different postings around the world. “Well? What do you think, Barney?”

Major General Barret Smith unfolded his arms and took the unlit pipe out of his mouth. “I think your assessment earlier was right on the money, Jack.”

The J-3 stepped to the map, tracing the enemy’s movements with a finger. “Okay, the NKs have been driving hard for five days straight down Routes One and Three—right toward Seoul. Suddenly the pressure’s eased up, and now we’re getting reports of fierce attacks from here”—his finger tapped the map near Pyokche—“almost due southeast, toward the Han River—and away from Seoul.”

He continued, “Plus, we’re seeing something similar up along the Uijongbu Corridor. Only there, the NK attacks are driving southwest.” The J-3 stopped and shook his head. “I’d say it’s pretty clear that they’re trying to pocket us inside Seoul.”

Other heads nodded around the staff circle.

“Right, gentlemen.” McLaren stepped forward again. “Now I do not believe in playing the game by the enemy’s rules or doing what he wants us to do. So what we are going to do is this…”

The staff listened as he outlined his plan. Except for a thin screen, all the South Korean and American combat troops north of the Han River were to withdraw. The South Korean Capital Corps and an assortment of reserve and home defense units would stay behind to garrison Seoul, but McLaren wanted everyone else out of the intended North Korean pocket. He would let the North Koreans close their trap on thin air.

He jabbed the table with a rigid forefinger to emphasize the point. “Everyone goes, gentlemen. Tanks, artillery, infantry, supply units, field hospitals. Everyone. Is that understood?”

Heads nodded. All but one.

“Yes, General Park? You have an objection?”

The South Korean chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked much older than his years. “Yes, General McLaren, I do. What you propose is unacceptable to the government of the Republic of Korea. Seoul is the nerve center of our nation. It contains a quarter of our population. We cannot risk its capture by the communists.”

McLaren lit a cigar to buy time while studying the faces of the other South Korean officers in the room. One or two looked as though they agreed with Park. The others were less sure.

He drew on the cigar and then took it out of his mouth. “General, with all due respect, my decision is final. We will not dance to North Korea’s tune. They want us to risk and lose everything we’ve got to hold on to a single city. We aren’t going to do that.”

“But my country—”

McLaren cut him off. “General, your country exists so long as an army remains intact to defend its freedom. Lose that army and you will lose this war.”

Park looked unconvinced.

The J-3 joined in the debate. “Frankly, General Park, I doubt very much that the North Koreans will dare attack Seoul so long as our main army remains in the field. If they do, the forces we’re leaving behind should be able to hold them off for quite a while. You’ve prepared the city for a siege by stockpiling food, water, and ammunition. I suggest we make use of those preparations.”

The Korean waited for him to finish and then said stiffly, “That is not a decision we should make here. I must consult my president before agreeing to your plan.”

McLaren puffed on his cigar and eyed Park for a moment without speaking. Then he said, “Very well, General. That’s certainly your privilege. In the meantime, however, my orders stand. And they will stand until I get word to the contrary from my president. Is that clear?”

Park nodded abruptly.

“Good. Captain Hansen will make arrangements to get you into Seoul to confer with the President.” McLaren turned to face the rest of his officers. “All right, gentlemen. We’ve got a lot to do. I want to see the plans for the withdrawal from Seoul immediately. Let’s move!”

The officers scattered. McLaren put a hand out to stop his J-3. “Hold on a sec, Barney.”

“Yeah, Jack?”

“We both know it’s gonna take a helluva long time to move our troops through Seoul. The roads are still clogged with rear-echelon crapouts and refugees. We’ve got to hold the NKs on the Han until they can get clear. Right?”

Smith nodded.

“Okay, so what I want is this. Get together with the J-1 and comb through every noncombat unit you can lay your hands on. I want every spare man who can carry a rifle on the line ASAP. Form ’em into provisional units and send ’em up to the river. Scrape up some officers to command them.”

Smith looked at him closely. “Jack, you know those boys are going to get chewed up pretty bad, don’t you? I mean, you’re sending supply clerks up against T-62s. That’s kind of an uneven proposition.”

“Yeah”—McLaren stubbed his cigar out on the table—“I know.”

He looked at the red arrows pushing down from the north toward Seoul.
“But they’re all I’ve got left right now.” He turned to face his J-3. “Time, Barney! We’ve gotta buy time.”

NAHA HARBOR, OKINAWA

The frigates sortied first, upping anchor on a cold, clear morning, just before dawn. Their job was to “sanitize” the Naha harbor channel, sweeping the water and the seabed for hostile submarines. North Korea’s Romeo-class diesel boats had never operated this far from their own coastal waters, but that wasn’t any reason to take chances. Every American naval officer had the lessons of Pearl Harbor drummed into his skull from the first day of his service to the last.

Admiral Thomas Aldrige Brown, USN, watched the four
Perry
-class and two aging
Knox
-class frigates under his command slip out of port. His breath hung in an icy haze around him. Christ, it was cold out here. It would grow colder as his task force moved north, and colder still once the ships reached the open ocean. There wasn’t much wind blowing across the motionless aircraft carrier’s bridge wing at the moment, but Brown knew how raw it would be once they were underway, moving into the teeth of a twenty-plus-knot wind.

He shivered and pulled the parka his wife had packed tighter around him. She’d had a devil of a time finding one that fit his tall, gaunt frame. His eyes followed the tiny frigates as they steamed out toward the gray ocean beyond the harbor. Good God, he thought, this was a far cry from the hot, hazy confines of the Persian Gulf, his last duty assignment. Cold air, cold water, cold steel.

Brown turned on his heel and left the bridge, headed for the warm, darkened confines of USS
Constellation’s
Flag Plot. The Flag Plot contained the computers, display screens, and staff he would need to fight a modern battle at sea. A battle Brown hoped he wouldn’t have to fight. But if he did have to fight one, he was certainly glad he’d have the
Constellation
along to fight it with. He smiled to himself, knowing that was an admission he’d never willingly make in public.

Brown had cut his teeth commanding the frigates and destroyers that he still thought of as the “real” Navy. As a junior officer and then a ship’s captain, the massive aircraft carriers he’d escorted around the world were just targets, troublesome beasts to be protected from all manner of threats—planes, missiles, submarines, and other warships. Now he had his flag, and his thinking had expanded with it. Now it was comforting to know that he could call on a powerful air group to reach out and strike down enemies while they were still hundreds of miles away. The admiral reached the Flag Plot and stepped over the hatch coaming past a pair of armed Marine sentries standing at rigid attention. The plot’s dark, stuffy warmth was welcome.