The Captains (26 page)

He had, Colonel Paul Jiggs thought, a bird's-eye view of the battlefield. He corrected himself: a Godlike view. Not here, because what had happened here was finished and done; but on other battlefields he would use an aircraft to see what was going on, while it was going on. To command troops he could see, not troops he had to pray would be where he thought they were. To literally look over that next hill and see what the enemy was up to.

He had the airplane because of Lowell, and he had frankly thought when Lowell requisitioned it that Eighth Army would tell him to piss up a rope. Tank battalions were not authorized aircraft, either for artillery spotting (tank cannon are normally used to engage targets that can be seen by the tank crew and therefore aerial fire direction is not considered necessary) or for purposes of liaison or personnel transport. More than likely he could have written a staff study, justifying the assignment of a light aircraft to the 73rd Heavy Tank (Reinforced) on the basis of its size and intended mission. But that would have taken two weeks to write and six months to be reviewed and acted upon.

Lowell had found a better way. He had found that observation aircraft were authorized to the artillery on the basis of one-half aircraft and one pilot per firing battery. He had presented a requisition on that basis to Eighth Army, and they had approved it, as they would have approved a requisition for two tons of chocolate ice cream: If you can find it, then you're welcome to it. And then Lowell had found it. The 119th Artillery (Self-Propelled) had lost two of its batteries to the 73rd Heavy Tank (Reinforced). They were in support of IX Corps, and their airplanes had gone into the IX Corps aircraft pool. An official request to IX Corps to relinquish one L-5 and two pilots for it would have been honored, of course. Say, in six months.

Lowell had driven a jeep to the IX Corps airstrip and commandeered an L-5 and two pilots on the spot. Lieutenant Taddeus Osadachy, a 235-pound Polish-American from Hazelton, Pennsylvania, known as “the Gorilla” because of certain facial features some found unattractive, was dispatched in the L-5 with one of the pilots, and Lowell brought the other one back in the jeep. The pilots didn't mind at all, but the IX Corps aviation officer and the IX Corps chief of staff were apoplectic, and had submitted an official complaint through channels.

In the meantime, 73rd Heavy Tank had the L-5, and had used it from the moment Task Force Bengal had crossed the line in order to maintain contact and to fly out the wounded. Lowell had been rampaging through the enemy rear for nine days. He was now nearly halfway up the peninsula. The radio truck had long since been blown away, and about the only reliable communication they had was with the L-5.

Colonel Jiggs picked the microphone from the side of the window, checked to see that the radio was tuned to armor frequency, and then squeezed the mike button.

“Bengal Forward, this is Bengal Six.”

To his surprise, there was an almost immediate response. He hadn't expected contact on the first try.

“This is Bengal Forward. Go ahead.”

“What are your coordinates, Bengal Forward?” the colonel asked.

“I don't think I'm supposed to say over the radio,” the voice replied, “but the Duke said when we stopped that we were about three miles from Habung-ni.”

“Let me speak to Bengal Forward Six,” the Colonel said. Goddamned kids got half the message. This kid had the message that you weren't supposed to give your coordinates over the radio in case the enemy had captured a map and would be able to locate you with it. So what he did was announce their location in the clear.

“The Duke's helping them refuel,” the radio operator said.

“Can you get a message to him?”

“Roger.”

“Tell him to hold where he is. This is Bengal Six. You got that?”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, I got it,” the radio operator said.

“Is there someplace up there we can land?” Colonel Jiggs asked.

“You could land on the road, I suppose, if the tanks weren't all over it,” the radio operator said.

“Then get the tanks off the road,” Colonel Jiggs replied, patiently.

“You mean right now?”

“I mean right goddamned now. We'll be there in about five minutes.”

“I'll tell the Duke, Colonel,” the radio operator said.

“You do that, Son,” the colonel said. He hung the microphone back in its hook and bent his head to the side, leaning it against the plexiglass, so he could see further forward that way. It didn't help. The road was empty and still.

And then, a moment later, there they were.

Twenty-five, thirty (he'd started out with thirty-eight M46 tanks were pulled off on both sides of the narrow dirt road. In between the tanks were self-propelled howitzers. The tracked vehicles, tanks, and howitzers had left just enough room on the road for the ammunition and fuel trucks to pass. At the tail end of the column were the M24s, which had been put into use as guards for the fuel and ammo convoys.

Standard tactics prescribed the use of light tanks to reconnoiter ahead of the main force. Lowell was using them in exactly the opposite way, having them bring up the rear. It was a good thing Eighth Army hadn't had time to look closely at Task Force Bengal before it set out. Eighth Army would have shit a brick if they had seen Lowell's Wasps, all their gunners volunteers, the three-quarters loaded at least a half-ton over the truck's rated weight capacity with .50 caliber ammo.

Now Lowell was kind of a hero with Eighth Army. He was really fucking up the enemy's rear. They didn't know which way to run, for at any time they could encounter Lowell's tank column. Even Eighth Army had started calling it Task Force Lowell, first as a joke, and now routinely.

From the air, Jiggs thought, Task Force Lowell—he corrected himself, Task Force
Bengal—
while impressive, was not nearly as impressive as it had been when it had passed through the lines of the 24th Division. That had really been something to witness. They had come down the MSR at full bore, buttoned up, engines roaring, tracks chewing up the road, antennae whipping in the air.

Colonel Jiggs, watching it from the air now, indulged in a little self-pity, thinking that's where he should be, in the first M46, leading his troops. The temptation to assume command himself had been very strong, especially when Eighth Army had changed its mind again and again, each time adding to the Task Force's mission. They were his troops, and it was only fair that he should command them, not some kid who thought he was Patton.

But there were two inarguable facts. Lowell was a splendid commander who could think on his feet, and he continued to prove it. Besides, what was left of Task Force Bengal wasn't really much more than a company. It was amazing he had that much left, but the point was that what was left wasn't much.

And somebody, somebody with rank, had to stay behind and run the store. Somebody with a little rank had to be there to demand trucks and fuel and, as it turned out, four additional airdrops of fuel and ammo when Lowell had run faster and farther than even he thought he could. Jiggs's job was in the rear on the radio and the telephone, shaking his brand-new silver chicken in people's faces.

The colonel thought that nobody—except the troops themselves—had ever thought they'd get this far forward, this fast. Where the lead tank was stopped was the point of the advance of the Eighth Army in its breakout from the Pusan perimeter.

There was activity now on the ground. Trucks began to pull out from where they had been parked, and to head back to the M24s which would guard them on the road back to P'yongt'aek. The tanks started their engines, generating clouds of blue smoke, and pulled up close to the three-quarter-ton Wasps and the lead tank, leaving room on the road for the L-5 to land.

“Can you get in there?” Colonel Jiggs asked the L-5 pilot, the man Lowell had kidnapped, a young lieutenant fresh from civilian life in the States, a man he hardly knew.

“Yeah,” he said, thoughtfully. It wasn't disrespectful. At the moment he was just making a professional pilot's judgment, unaware that he was back in the army. “I'll come in from the north. I hope to Christ the bad guys aren't dug in up there. With machine guns, I mean.”

He dropped the little plane to no more than a few feet off the ground. They flashed by the trucks, the empty stretch of road, and then the tanks. Then the pilot stood the L-5 on its wing and made a 180 degree turn. They passed over the tanks so low that Colonel Jiggs was genuinely concerned that they would hit the radio antennae. Then they touched down on the dirt road and bounced for perhaps two hundred yards. The pilot stopped the plane and then raced the engine, turning the aircraft around at the same time. Then he taxied back up the road to the rear of the tank column.

The commanding officer of Task Force Bengal, of the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion, walked, not ran, to where the L-5 had stopped and Colonel Jiggs was climbing out.

Without disturbing the M1 on his shoulder, Captain Lowell saluted. The salute was one half of one degree short of insubordination.

I know what you're thinking, you poor bastard, Jiggs thought. You think I'm here to grab your glory, to lead the column myself.

“How goes it, Lowell?” the colonel said.

“We're ready to roll again, Colonel,” Lowell said. “Has something come up?”

“You've really done a bang-up job, Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said. “I know that. More important, Eighth Army knows it.”

Lowell didn't even reply.

“I've got a couple of things for you, Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said.

Lowell's eyebrows rose in curiosity, but he didn't say anything. Colonel Jiggs reached in his pocket and came out with a major's gold oak leaf.

“This belongs to Charley Ellis,” the colonel said. “He said to tell you you owe him a drink.”

“That's nice of him,” Lowell said. “I think I would have stayed pissed at me, under the circumstances.”

“He's grateful to you,” Jiggs said wryly. “Having him named battalion inspector general was a stroke of guardhouse lawyer genius, Lowell.”

Lowell smiled, but said nothing.

“You've earned that leaf, Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said, but he did not shake hands or make a formal speech of congratulations.

“Is that all, sir?” Major Lowell said.

“I'm afraid not, Major Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said. The suspicion was instantly back in Lowell's eyes. “I had to make a decision whether to give you this before you made the join-up, or after. I decided that you should have it as soon as I could get it to you.” He handed Lowell a folded sheet of teletype paper.

PRIORITY

HQ EUROPEAN COMMAND

FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM GENERAL CLAY FOR GENERAL WALKER EIGHTH UNITED STATES ARMY KOREA
.

BULLDOG, DEEPLY APPRECIATE YOUR RELAYING FOLLOWING SOONEST TO CAPTAIN CRAIG W. LOWELL, 73RD HEAVY TANK YOUR COMMAND. QUOTE I DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT ILSE WAS KILLED INSTANTLY IN AUTOMOBILE CRASH NEAR GIESSEN SIXTEEN THIRTY EUROPEAN TIME 22 SEPTEMBER. PETER-PAUL UNHARMED AND WITH HIS GRANDFATHER. LETTER WITH DETAILS EN ROUTE AIRMAIL. SHARON AND I SHARE YOUR GRIEF. SANFORD T. FELTER CAPT UNQUOTE. BULLDOG, FURTHER PLEASE ADVISE THIS OFFICER THAT ALL FACILITIES OF EUROPEAN COMMAND ARE AT HIS DISPOSAL IN THIS PERSONAL TRAGEDY. FINALLY, BULLDOG, ALL OFFICERS AND MEN EUROPEAN COMMAND THRILLED AT YOUR BREAKOUT. BEST PERSONAL REGARDS SIGNED LUCIUS END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENERAL CLAY TO GENERAL WALKER
.

SUPPLEMENTAL

FROM SUPREME COMMANDER UNITED NATIONS COMMAND

TO GENERAL WALKER EIGHTH ARMY PERSONAL

PLEASE CONVEY TO CAPTAIN LOWELL THE PERSONAL CONDOLENCES OF MYSELF AND MRS. MACARTHUR
.

MACARTHUR GENERAL OF THE ARMY

“Oh,
shit!
” Major Lowell said.

The colonel handed him the cap of his flask. It held an ounce and a half of scotch.

“I'm sorry, Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said.

“Shit, even General MacArthur's sorry,” Lowell said. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He drank down the scotch, gasped, coughed. The colonel filled the flask top again, and offered it to Lowell, who shook his head in refusal. The colonel drank it himself.

“Are you all right, Major?” the colonel asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lowell said. “Everything's just fucking hunky-dory.”

“You want to take a few minutes?” the colonel said. “The war will wait.”

Lowell didn't even reply. He saluted and started walking up the line of tanks. He had his head bent, and the colonel presumed he was crying. But as he passed each tank, he raised his hand, finger extended, over his head and moved it in a circle. One by one, the tank engines burst into life.

The colonel got back in the L-5, put the earphones on.

“All right,” Lowell's voice, tear-choked, came over the radio. “Let's get this fucking show on the road.”