Valleys of Death (18 page)

I could hear the
burp, burp
of the Chinese submachine guns, but not the constant rattle of our machine gun closest to me.

I instantly got a sick feeling. I bolted out of the trench and crawled toward the machine gun position and fell into the hole headfirst. The gunner was wounded and the assistant gunner was trying to put the gun back in action. There was ammo, but the gun was jammed.

I racked it back.

Nothing.

The headspace was screwed up.

There were Chinese within twenty yards of us and I was screaming for the men to keep firing. I pulled the gun into the hole and started to take it apart. I adjusted the headspace—put the barrel and chamber in alignment—and reassembled it. The assistant gunner laid the ammo belt in and slapped the cover down. I racked the bolt back and pulled the trigger. The gun jumped back to life. The fire immediately had an impact and drove a wedge into the advancing soldiers. The first burst took out half a dozen.

Some of the wounded and dead Chinese fell into our trenches. Others crumpled in a heap near the edge, close enough that we could reach out and touch them. I looked down and saw that the gunner was dead. The assistant gunner was hit in the arms and I could see blood staining his fatigue jacket, but he kept firing his rifle and replacing the ammo belts when the machine gun went dry.

Just as fast as it started, the attack ended. There was some sporadic firing from the other side of the perimeter. A couple of guys close to the gun position came over to me and took over. As I headed back to my hole, I crawled over several dead Americans and Chinese. Every trench and hole seemed to be full of wounded men screaming and crying for their mothers.

Always their mothers.

We had an added problem now since some of the wounded were Chinese soldiers. The dead were not a problem. We just pushed them out in front of the trench. But the wounded we had to help if we could. The medics did their best, but we barely had enough for our own men. The Chinese were all scared to death, crying and moaning.

They were the enemy, but they were also just soldiers like us, and it was difficult to see them that way.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BREAKOUT

The next morning, Bromser and Giroux called me over to them. The two artillery lieutenants, Mayo and Peterson, were also there. Giroux said what we all knew.

“We can't stay any longer. There is no doubt in my mind that the Chinese will overrun us tonight,” he said. “We need to find a way out. Will you lead a patrol? Lieutenants Mayo and Peterson have already volunteered to go.”

I looked at the lieutenants and nodded my head yes. Rank didn't matter and Giroux pulled me aside, put his hands on my shoulders and looked directly into my eyes.

“Mayo and Peterson are forward observers,” Giroux said. “They are not infantry. You have the experience. Trust your instincts and find us a way out of here.”

“Let me get one more man,” I said and headed off toward Wollack's position. I wanted him to come with me, but he was focused on beating back the Chinese soldiers again building the trench. He was key to holding them off.

“I am organizing a patrol and need a good man. Got one?” I asked him.

He got one of his men and we met Mayo and Peterson. Squatting in a dugout, we decided to move along the ditch that ran beside the road and cross near a few Korean huts. The goal was to get to the riverbed where the Aussie bombers had strafed a few days before. We knew the Chinese had been using the riverbed to attack, but they were staying out during daylight since the bomber attack.

As we crawled down the trench toward the east side, word got out that we were going on patrol. Peterson crawled by a badly wounded radio operator.

“Lieutenant Peterson, where are you going?”

“Looking for a way out,” he said.

“Lieutenant Peterson,” the radio operator pleaded, “please don't leave me! Please don't leave me! You can't leave me here for them to get me!”

Peterson looked shaken and I urged us forward. I heard him say he was sorry as we crawled off.

Others reached out to us, patted us on the back and wished us good luck. McGreevy, a mortar man from the weapons platoon, called to me and handed me a pair of Soviet field glasses.

“Here, Richardson, you may need these.”

Making our way down the ditch, we got to the crossing point near the huts. I poked my head up and scanned the other side with the field glasses. Chinese bodies were all over. Some lay on top of one another three deep. I imagined it looked like a Civil War battlefield.

“Cover me while I cross,” I said. “Going to check out those huts.”

I ran across the road and up to one of the huts. A few days before, we'd used it to store supplies. Sliding into the doorway, I burst through the door with my rifle at the ready. No one was inside the hut and I quickly waved the others over. We went around to the back of the huts and rushed through the doors searching for Chinese soldiers. The first two huts were empty, but the last one had two wounded Chinese lying on the floor. They had been shot several times and their breaths came in shallow wheezes. They held out their hands and started whispering what sounded like “shwee, shwee” in an almost eerie chant.

“Leave 'em,” I said, not wanting to draw attention to us by lingering there. I'd learn later that the word was
shui
, Chinese for “water.”

Using the rolling hills and depressions as cover, we continued to move toward the north part of the riverbed. Luckily, there were no Chinese around who were not dead or wounded. We got to the riverbed without incident and slipped down the bank.

Not more than one hundred yards away there must have been five hundred dead and wounded Chinese soldiers lying in the riverbed where our planes had caught them on the first day. Some of the wounds looked fresh and may have come from the previous night's attack. I could not believe they would leave their wounded lying there.

I called to the others and told them not to threaten the wounded. I was hoping that if we didn't threaten them they would leave us alone.

“Don't even look like you're thinking of pointing a weapon at them, let alone shooting one. Don't think about it. Those are the truest orders you'll ever get.”

As we moved down the riverbed, the Chinese soldiers grabbed at us and held out cups begging for water. I took my canteen and turned it upside down to show them that we had no water. We had gotten about halfway down the riverbed when we all agree that we had seen enough. We needed to get the hell out of there, but it was hard to turn my back on so many Chinese soldiers. Even ones mortally wounded. All the way up the riverbed I was waiting to get shot in the back.

At the bank where we'd entered the riverbed, we stopped and squatted down. The plan was to move out of the perimeter just as it started getting dark so we could get through the riverbed before the Chinese moved in to launch their attack. Someone had to stay here and keep the riverbed under observation. This was the only way out of this hell and we had to make sure the Chinese didn't move in after we left.

Mayo and Peterson volunteered to stay while I went back to get the others. If the Chinese came, they would sneak back and warn us.

“Good luck,” I told them.

As I turned to leave, I handed the binoculars to Mayo.

We couldn't go back the same way. I wasn't sure if the Chinese wounded in and around the huts had told their comrades where we'd gone. If we didn't make it back, the whole plan would be shot.

We went wide of the huts and followed a four-foot-deep irrigation ditch that ran toward the road, until we got to the field. Popping out of the ditch, we cut across the field full of dead Chinese, moving as fast as we could between the mounds of dead bodies.

As we entered the perimeter, the men were overjoyed to see us. Wollack's sergeant, just like scores of men I cannot remember the names of, had the guts to go on the patrol. We shook hands and he went back to the west side of the perimeter. I never saw him again.

I headed straight for Giroux's hole and went over everything with him and Bromser.

“If the situation changes in the riverbed, the lieutenants are to get back and let us know,” I said. “If they don't come back, we have to assume the plan is a go.”

“We move at seventeen hundred, before the Chinese move in,” Giroux said.

Word was passed to all the able-bodied men. They were told to make sure that they took what ammunition they had left. I got a burp gun and some ammo. The wounded men knew what was happening. Some broke down, cried and begged us not to leave.

“Please dear God take us,” one soldier begged me, grabbing at my shirt. “Don't leave us to the Chinese.”

Others just watched us in silence. They knew they'd slow us down. They also knew that they'd be dead soon. They simply asked that we come back for them.

But I knew we were leaving them to die or, worse, get captured. I knew my orders and agreed with them. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was leaving so many good men. Men who'd fought well only to be left behind to die. I wasn't sure I could ever forget this. This was to be the hardest thing I had done in my short lifetime.

We only had a few hours before we tried to break out. I wondered how the two lieutenants were. I guessed no news was certainly good news in this case. My heart was aching thinking of the men who would be left behind, when white phosphorous rounds started landing around us. They burst like fireworks, and the flakes landed on the wounded and burned through their uniforms. The screams of the wounded caused everybody to panic.

I looked at Giroux.

“Let's go,” he said.

I stood up and gave the signal to go. I took the lead as the last sixty able-bodied soldiers moved quickly toward the old battalion command post. We then crossed over the road and headed for the river. It started to rain as we left. Smoke from the white phosphorous rounds and rain reduced visibility, giving us good concealment. We reached the river just as it got dark. Mayo and Peterson met us at the riverbed and we continued to move east. I was still leading the group when all of a sudden I saw movement to my right. I dropped to my knees, signaling the group to halt and get down.

I could just make out that it was another group of men. They also stopped and dropped to their knees. We weren't more than twenty-five feet apart, but I could barely see them in the smoke. They didn't look like Chinese soldiers. I thought I could make out the shape of an American steel helmet. My heart was racing.

“Who's there?” I finally asked.

The reply came back in English: “Who are you?”

Americans. We stood up and approached one another. It was the back end of the column. I didn't know we'd gotten separated in the riverbed. I quickly passed the word back, told the group to fall in on our group and I immediately started to move again.

A few hours into the march, the rain turned into a downpour. In minutes, we were soaked to the skin. The temperature was dropping and I started to shiver. Moving was the only way to stay warm, and I pushed on, trying to get as many miles as possible between us and the old perimeter. We were well behind Chinese lines, and because of the size of our group, it was likely we'd be spotted soon.

When we reached the main road, which a few days before we'd used to move supplies, it was clogged with Chinese soldiers. Some of the soldiers were on horseback moving south. Like us, they were using the road to move supplies and troops. Giroux and Bromser came up and joined me. We couldn't stay near the road for long. We had to cross quickly. We managed to string our guys out so that we could all cross at once. Hiding near the road, we watched for an opening. Finally, it came. We gave the signal and sixty men ran across the road as one.

After hours of marching, we finally stopped at a cluster of buildings. We moved the walking wounded who felt they could keep up with us into one of the houses and I spread the rest of the group out around the houses to watch for Chinese patrols. We were short on ammunition and I prayed we didn't run into any Chinese soldiers. We didn't have the firepower to hold out for long.

The officers got together in one of the houses. There were six or seven now, including Bromser and Giroux. Captain McClain, a company commander from E Company, was the highest ranking. With our security set, I went over to the house where the officers were meeting. I wanted to know the plan, but I got blocked at the door by an officer. . . . I asked for Giroux, who quickly came to the door.

“We're going to be here awhile,” Giroux said. He seemed a little exasperated. I had a feeling we suddenly had too many chiefs trying to make decisions.

“We need to get moving and take advantage of the dark,” I protested.

He shrugged. I left the house frustrated. Sergeant Mayer from the battalion's intelligence section called me over.

“Lets get out of here,” he said. “You and I have a better chance to get back. This group is too large. We don't have the firepower to fight and they are slowing us down.”

He was right. I knew together we'd probably make it back to friendly lines. Breaking down into smaller groups would be better. But I'd helped shepherd these men too far to turn my back on them, even if it cost me my life.

“Sorry. I can't do it.”

Mayer shrugged and disappeared into the darkness. I went around the perimeter one time to make sure the guys were staying alert. We were wasting a lot of darkness. When I got back, Giroux and the officers were finally ready to move. This time, I was in the rear. Giroux wanted me to keep everybody moving. Many of us were wounded and weak, and as we walked over the hills the distance between the men grew. I was determined not to let them stop. I cajoled them along with encouragement and sometimes threats.