The Captains (24 page)

“They run like hell at the first shot,” Lowell said. “That makes them a lousy target, and at the same time their evasive action keeps the bad guys from thinking about the tanks, which can then, almost at their leisure, blow them away.”

“Does the colonel know about the Wasps?” Wallace asked.

“Not yet,” Lowell said.

“What do you think he will say when you tell him?”

“He will probably be just as enthusiastic about the Wasps as I am about the overly melodramatic name he's chosen for this little excursion of ours.”

“I don't know, Captain,” Wallace said, doubtfully.

“Do you understand what's really going on here?” Lowell asked.

“Maybe it would be better if you told me,” Wallace replied.

“Well, take a look at the map. There is no railhead at Koch'ang. It is not a major road hub. The river is fordable at this time of year, so there's no bona fide necessity to grab the bridge. Which poses the question, why the fuck are we going to Koch'ang in the first place?”

“Forgive me, Captain. Because we're ordered to?”

“That, too, of course. But why the order?”

Wallace shrugged his admission of ignorance.

“To see what Eighth Army is facing behind the lines,” Lowell said. “We're being sent out to see how far we can get before we get blown away.”

“You're not suggesting that they're sacrificing us, are you?”

“They don't use that word, but don't you believe they give a shit what happens to us, just so they get the information they think they need.”

“That's a brutal assessment.”

“They call this war, you know,” Lowell said dryly. “It's a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do. The question then becomes what do we do after we do what we are ordered to do.”

“You've lost me,” Wallace admitted.

“OK. We're ordered to Koch'ang. So we get to Koch'ang. Then what?” Wallace looked at him in confusion. “Look at it this way,” Lowell went on. “Eighth Army is willing to spend us to find out how strong the North Koreans are between here and Koch'ang. OK, so we do that. Quicker than they think. So that leaves us in Koch'ang. So then we come back? That doesn't make any sense. To come back directly, I mean. Let's stay behind the lines and raise hell until we have to come back.”

“We'd have to be supplied by air.”

“Only with ammo. We can take enough fuel and rations with us. Make up a two-day ammo requirement. Triple ration for all the guns. Regular ration for small arms, except for .50 caliber. I want a lot of that.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Wallace said. “But the colonel's not going to like this.”

“Let's present him with a fait accompli and let him shoot that down.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Wallace said. He was glad again that he hadn't taken a commission. Coming up with something like Captain Lowell had would have been impossible for him. He would never have dared to suggest, much less try to accomplish, something like Captain Lowell was doing. He wondered why he wasn't sure that Colonel Jiggs would shoot Captain Lowell down.

While Wallace prepared the lists of ammo requirements, Lowell studied the maps. He triumphantly laid a proposed route before Wallace.

“This is what we'll do,” he said. “It'll take us only the twenty-four hours, maybe less, that backtracking down our original line of advance would. We can take the airdrop either at Koch'ang, or better yet, here in this area.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Wallace said, not wanting to argue with him, and not wanting to agree either.

“This'll turn Task Force Bengal—Jesus, what a lousy name—into a real tiger,” Lowell said.

He laughed hard at his own pun, and it was contagious. Wallace joined in.

“I thought,” Colonel Jiggs said, “that Task Force Bengal had a certain flair to it.” They had not seen him come in.

Captain Lowell was embarrassed, Wallace saw, but he was not silenced.

“I've just been having a fascinating chat with Sergeant Wallace, sir,” Lowell said. “He has come up with some very interesting ideas.”

“Is that so?” the colonel asked. Wallace had no idea what Captain Lowell was talking about.

“The sergeant,” Lowell said, “was pointing out on the map to me how we could turn this probing mission into a real, old-time, behind the lines cavalry raid.” At that point, Colonel Jiggs realized whose ideas Lowell was advancing, but he winked at Wallace and didn't interupt Lowell.

“I've underestimated you, Sergeant Wallace,” Lt. Colonel Jiggs said. “If I didn't know better, I would think that these ideas came from the fevered brain of someone who had gone to the Wharton School of Business.”

“I have an idea or two of my own, Colonel,” Lowell said.

“I'm sure you do,” Lt. Colonel Jiggs said. “Just so that Wallace doesn't get all the glory.”

“Wasps,” Lowell said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What you do is mount .50s in three-quarter-ton trucks,” Lowell began.

“And you have a vision, do you, of riding in the lead, what did you say, ‘Wasp'? Leading, so to speak, this grand and glorious cavalry sweep?” Colonel Jiggs's remarks got to Lowell. He realized the colonel was mocking him, and he shut up.

Then the colonel said, “It might work. But have you got time to set something like that up?”

“Baker Company's got five ready to go, Colonel.”

“You will ride in a tank,” Colonel Jiggs said. “In an M46, not an M24, and you will be no closer to the point of the column than the fourth vehicle.”

“May I infer from that that the colonel has decided I am to be allowed to command the column?” Lowell asked.

“Captain Lowell, where else am I to find someone who devoutly believes he is the combined reincarnation of George Armstrong Custer and George Smith Patton? Or dumb enough to try what you obviously intend to try?”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Lowell said, and Sergeant Wallace saw that he said it humbly.

“Why ‘Wasps'?” Colonel Jiggs asked.

“They sting,” Lowell said. “You know, like a wasp.”

“What an overly melodramatic nomenclature,” Lt. Colonel Jiggs said dryly. “Why, that's nearly as bad as Task Force Bengal.”

“My head, sir,” Lowell said, “is both bloody and bowed.”

“I came in here with one thing on my mind,” Lt. Colonel Jiggs said. “Now I have three things. First, if you really think that you can go further and faster than anyone else does, you'd better think about what kind of supplies you'll need to have air-dropped.”

“Sergeant Wallace has just about finished drawing up our requirements, sir,” Lowell said.

“I can have them for you in an hour, sir,” Wallace said.

“OK. That brings us to Item Two. Don't you plan on going along to the Little Big Horn, Wallace. After the Indians do in Custer here, I'm going to need you.”

“I'd really prefer to go along, sir. I'm a tank comm—”

“Goddamnit,
I'd
really prefer to go along, too,” Colonel Jiggs snapped. “You stay, Wallace, and that's it.”

“Yes, sir,” Wallace said.

“Item Three,” Colonel Jiggs said, and took a message form from his pocket and handed it to Lowell. Lowell read it, and handed it to Wallace.

FROM: CG, ARMY EIGHT

TO: CO, 73RD HV TNK BN

AT 0425 HOURS 15SEP50 FOLLOWING LIFTING OF A THIRTY MINUTE ARTILLERY BARRAGE TASK FORCE BENGAL, AUGMENTED AS YOU SEE FIT FROM FORCES AVAILABLE TO YOU, WILL PASS THROUGH THE LINES AND ATTACK ON THE LINE PUSAN KOCHANG SUWON ENGAGING TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY BUT WITH PRIMARY MISSION OF REACHING KOCHANG AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
.

WALKER
LT GEN

(Four)
Pusan, South Korea
0415 Hours
15 September 1950

Task Force Bengal began to actually form only when the artillery barrage began at 0355 hours. The various components of it—a dozen tanks here; the self-propelled howitzers there; the dogfaces on their six-by-sixes; the Signal Corps radio trucks; the ammo trucks; the fuel trucks—had formed separately; and when the barrage began, they started to converge on the departure point.

Captain Lowell was already there, of course, and the first sergeant of Baker Company (who was going) and Technical Sergeant Wallace (who wasn't) stood on the road like traffic cops, making sure the vehicles were in line where they were supposed to be.

When the barrage started, the sky had been dark, and the flare of the cannon muzzles had been almost exactly like a lightning storm. But as the barrage continued, the sky grew lighter; and the artillery was less visible. It was still audible, however, a ceaseless roaring as the shells passed overhead.

Colonel Paul T. Jiggs, to his fury, had been summoned by a messenger from Eighth Army Forward. He had been afraid that Task Force Bengal was about to be scratched. But that wasn't what Victor Forward wanted him for.

He raced up to the head of column, where he found Captain Craig W. Lowell leaning on an M46. There had been changes to the M46 since Lt. Colonel Jiggs had last seen it the previous afternoon.

It was now named.
ILSE
had been painted on the turret. What the hell, that was his wife; he was entitled. But what pissed the colonel was the guidon flying from one of the antennae. It was the guidon of Baker Company, a small yellow flag with a V-shaped indentation on the flying end. As originally issued, it had read “B” and below that “73.” Baker Company of the 73. The yellow identified it as cavalry, or armor.

Someone had carefully lettered “Task Force Lowell” on the guidon.

Jiggs controlled his temper after a moment. He knew where the change had come from. Lowell hadn't done it. His troopers had done it. They had been shoving everyone's nose in the dog shit ever since they had been picked as the nucleus of Task Force Bengal, and especially since the word had gotten out that their CO, the Duke, was to command.

Lowell stood erect and saluted as Colonel Jiggs walked up. He was as worried as Jiggs that the last-minute call had meant the operation had been either delayed or scratched.

“I like your guidon, Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said.

“That wasn't my idea, Colonel,” Lowell said, embarrassed.

“Of course not,” Jiggs said, sweetly, letting him sweat. He handed him a sealed manila envelope. “Signal Operating Instructions,” he said.

“It goes?”

“It goes.”

“Thank God! I was scared shitless when they called you to Victor Forward.”

“And something else, Lowell, which explains a whole hell of a lot.”

He handed him a message form.

FROM: SUPREME COMMANDER

TO: ALL US FORCES IN KOREA

AT 0200 HOURS 15SEP50 ELEMENTS OF THE FIRST U.S. MARINE DIVISION, AS PART OF THE X UNITED STATES CORPS, LT GEN EDWARD M ALMOND, USA, COMMENCED AN AMPHIBIOUS INVASION OF THE KOREA PENINSULA AT INCHON NEAR SEOUL
.

MACARTHUR
GENERAL OF THE ARMY

“It's about time we got off our ass,” Lowell said.

“So what you are is a diversion,” Jiggs said. “The more hell you can raise, the better.”

“Diversion, hell. I'll head for Seoul!”

“First try to get to Koch'ang, Captain Lowell,” Colonel Jiggs said.

Lowell looked at his watch.

“I better get cranked up, Colonel,” he said.

“First get to Koch'ang, Captain,” Jiggs said.

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Jiggs put out his hand.

“Try to stay alive,” he said. “And remember, you are not George Patton.”

Lowell looked at him for a moment, and then he smiled. He put his fingers in his mouth, whistled shrilly, and caught the attention of the driver of the M46 behind his. Then he extended his index finger, held it over his head, and made a “wind it up” signal. A starter ground, and an 810 horsepower engine burst into life.

“Watch it, Craig,” Colonel Jiggs said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I want you and everybody else back alive.”

Lowell was embarrassed by the emotion. He nodded his head, and then started to climb up the bogies and onto the M46 he had just named
ILSE
.

The barrage stopped precisely on schedule. And precisely on schedule, Task Force Bengal began to roll across the line of departure.

Lowell went first. He would put his Wasps out front only after he had gotten behind the enemy lines.

Lt. Colonel Jiggs stood where Lowell's tank had been parked, waving his hand and even sometimes returning salutes, as the task force rolled past him, vehicle after vehicle, seemingly forever.