Front matter (continued 5)

"I do not trust traitors," yelled the Korean. "We will not surrender. You will be caught soon by our patrols."

"That will do you no good," countered Anders. "Listen to me! I have vials of the bleeding death with me. All of us, including your prisoner, are protected against it. If you do not surrender now I will break the vials and spread the disease through the ship. Even if you are rescued you will still die."

We could hear the angry arguments below deck. All of them had seen death from hemorrhagic disease in its new virulent form. It was a horrible sight even to a physician, and, to the uneducated soldiers, the thought of those purple mottled bodies with blood red eyes, retching and vomiting their lives away, must have been terrifying. The wrangling stopped and the senior officer called out.

"How do you plan to do this if we consent?"

"How many men have you?" Anders asked.

"We are twelve altogether."

"Then send up four men, including the other officer, unarmed. We will put them ashore where you can see them. The second time four more will go. The last time, you will come up and bring Lee Sung. If he is in reasonable condition you too will go. Otherwise you die."

"It is agreed. We come now."

There was no further trouble. Lee Sung had been beaten in the usual Korean fashion but he was so glad to be free he claimed he felt fine. The North Koreans disappeared quickly along the beach as if afraid we might shoot.

"We'd better get out of here right now," said Lee Sung. "They can reach a good sized village north of here in an hour and give the alarm."

"All right," I agreed. "You take over."

He led us below and, after shifting some cargo, opened up a small space under the false deck, forward of the engine room. In it he had a powerful radio transmitter, a case containing two heavy machine guns with ammunition, and a few boxes of burp guns and grenades.

"I used to run guns to the guerrillas," he explained. "These may be very useful."

We set up the machine guns on deck and I felt better. By now we were running south at the full speed of the powerful engines, the two small junks towing behind, still manned and helping with their own engines. Sung had said we might need them when I suggested sinking them before we hauled up our anchor. I steered the course while he worked his radio, trying to raise his contacts and get help to us. It took some time but finally he came on deck smiling.

"I got them," he said. "We rendezvous with a destroyer off the coast tonight. It will escort us to Japan."

"What do we do in the meantime?"

"There is danger that the Communists picked up my signals and got a bearing. If the coast patrol or the jets don't see us we will be OK."

"What about our own jets? Can't we get fighter cover?"

"Only as a last resort ... and it would probably be too late. The Air Force has been warned to avoid all incidents and they do not wish to fly close to the coast."

The sun was almost gone behind the hills of the steep Korean coast when the Red jets found us. They came out of the sun, as experienced fighters do, and the high whistle was already over us before we saw them.

"Migs!" I yelled and ran to the stern. "Cut loose! Spread out and head in to shore."

The little boats swung to starboard almost at once and wavered off like water beetles trying to dodge a dragon fly. Lee Sung was at the wheel again. He spun it sharply and the bow swung towards the shore. There was shelter in a narrow cleft between a rocky pinnacle and the cliffs of the mainland if we could reach it. We would have to chance the depth of the water. By now the jets were around again and peeling off for the attack. They were coming in low from the northwest this time as we were getting some protection from the shoreline. I watched them come, feeling helpless without a weapon, ready to drop behind the mainmast when I saw the angle of flight. At the stern, Makstutis was lying flat, his helmet back on his head and his teeth bared as he squinted over the barrel of the heavy machine gun into the bright light. Beside him Kang was feeding the belts. Propped up against the side, Yip Kee braced his automatic rifle on the wooden rail and waited calmly. I swivelled around. Blackie and two others had the forward gun aimed and waiting. In the little junks, dropping rapidly astern, I saw that Kim and his men were already fighting. Their puny burp guns popped bravely at the two jets which, ignoring them as too small, were concentrating all their attention on us.

The leading jet grew larger, filling the sky with its round open face and stubby wings. The tracers from Makstutis' gun floated lazily upwards and then seemed to snap past, below the airplane, and wink out. Too low, I thought, and dropped flat as the Mig hit out at us. The ship heeled over, sliding like a runner for base as Sung clawed at the wheel. The screaming roar of the jet and the impact of cannon shells and bullets on wood went by me once, and then again as the second Mig swept overhead. I looked back. Makstutis was unhurt but Kang was rolling around clutching at his legs. I got up and ran to him. That last minute swerve and the sight of the tracers coming up had been enough to divert the pilot's aim. Perhaps the bumpy air currents of the cliffs helped. I thanked God as I ran that there were none of the new guided missile planes around. The shells had ploughed through the stern rail and ripped up the port side of the deck, missing the machine gun but catching Kang's legs.

I was down on my knees beside him for ten seconds. Probably fractures of both tibiae I estimated. No time for splints! I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, moaning with pain, into the companionway where Anders had stuck up his head.

"Compound fractures, both legs," I screamed hoarsely. "Get him below and fix him up. They're coming back."

He scrambled up to the deck, picked up Kang with the broken legs dangling and staggered down the steps. I turned to go out but the roaring chattering horror was back. I dropped and slid down the stairs, careless of the bruises, the violent swerving of the boat throwing me off the companionway to the deck below.

I got back on deck. Makstutis was still at his gun with Yip Kee feeding the belts to him. The forward crew had been hit. Two lay quietly, limbs sprawled out in a grotesque swastika. The third man, dripping blood from one arm, was trying desperately to lift the overturned gun. In the wheelhouse the windows had been shot out but, as I ran forward, I could see Lee Sung, his face bloodied by flying splinters, hunched gamely as he spun the wheel and sideslipped and twisted desperately for shelter. I reached the fallen machine gun and propped it up, the muzzle pointing high. The wounded man was Don Lim, younger brother of the man who had died in the gorge. My throat filled up tight. Blackie was dead!

"Can you feed the belts Don?" I gasped. He nodded and his bloody hands groped painfully for them, laying them flat. There was still a little time. I dragged the bodies of the dead men in front of the gun and piled the heavy fishing net I'd brought on top of them. Blackie wouldn't have minded, I thought ... and it might help some. I dropped down beside him.

We were close in to shore now and the Migs had to come in straight over us from the north. They were very low, trying to get a longer time on the target. I pointed the barrel of the gun straight back towards them and canted it up as high as it would go. There was little hope of aiming at that speed. I ducked low behind the barrier. The roar of the first Mig deafened me as I held the bucking gun, my head almost flat on the deck. Something hit my helmet hard, the jerk knocking it back off my forehead and wrenching my neck. Vaguely I felt a ripping at my left heel and a burning of the flesh. The first roar was gone and then the second. I rolled over. There, shrinking to a toy behind us, the leading Mig was climbing steeply, smoke pouring from it as it tried to gain height. It slowed, stalled, and began to nose over. I saw the pilot bail out, the ejection seat shooting him away from the plane. He dropped and the parachute opened as the Mig, twisting and gliding out of control, smashed into the hillside.

I started to get up, howling with excitement, until I saw Lim slowly fall over beside me on to the smoking fish net. He had fainted from loss of blood, his arm almost amputated by that first wound. Only as I dragged him away from the net did I realize that it had stopped an incendiary shell and saved us both. I took off his belt and tightened it around the arm as a tourniquet. Before I left him I checked, but aside from wood splinters off the deck he seemed to have no other injuries. Back at the stern I could see Anders working over Makstutis. He had fragments through his right arm but was still ready to fight. Yip Kee was exhausted and lame from his efforts but unhurt. I stood up to look for the other Mig. We were very close to shore now. Suddenly the junk lurched, scraped forward and stopped, throwing me against the rail. I pulled myself up again and looked around. We were grounded solidly between the rocky spur and the cliff. At least the Mig couldn't get at us now.

It didn't try. We heard it circle over the fallen parachute and then fly north. Lee Sung came back from the wheelhouse.

"We'll have to get out of here before a patrol boat finds us," he said. "It will be dark in half an hour. We can go in the small boats to find the destroyer."

The light was dim as we lowered the last wounded man into the small junks. We had smashed the radio after sending a final signal and then Lee Sung, his face impassive in the torchlight, placed a demolition charge on the engines and several more along the hull. I took a last look at Blackie and his buddy where we had laid them below decks. We pulled away, the engines chugging steadily. I looked at Makstutis and his face was wet. I was having a hard time myself.

In the afterglow the junk faded into the background as we drove straight away from the coast into a choppy sea, raised by the freshening wind. A momentary flash and a series of dull heavy thuds marked her end. I bent over Makstutis to adjust the bandage on his arm. He peered up at me.

"Doc, you've got holes in the head," he said and grinned.

I pulled off my helmet and looked at the neat bullet marks through the top. "Didn't let any sense in." I rubbed my sore scalp. It was only then I remembered my torn heel. I pulled off my boot and looked at it. It was only a small flesh wound.

"You and Achilles," Anders said and smiled.

"Yes, but he lost the fight. We've won."

CHAPTER 17

"Fasten your seat belts." The light flashed on in the passenger cabin of the Canadian Pacific Airlines jet. We were going down through the overcast. Vancouver was ten minutes away.

"Did you enjoy your flight, Colonel?" the stewardess asked me as she came by for a last minute check.

I smiled up at her. "The best part comes in ten minutes," I said, "but it certainly has been fast."

Ten days previously we had been lifted out of the fishing boats by the crew of a U.S. Navy destroyer and taken to Okinawa. The casualties were admitted to the Army hospital for treatment and the rest of us, also at the hospital for observation, were given baths, clean uniforms and a meal. Everywhere we went we were kept under isolation precautions and we were guarded as carefully as a basket of over-ripe eggs that might break momentarily.

A week in isolation convinced the officials that we were free of the bleeding death. By that time too, we had been drained of our information.

"When can I go home?" I asked, the day we were informed of our release. "I've got a wife due to have a baby anytime. I'd like some emergency leave."

That night they put me on a Military Air Transportation Service flight out of Kadena Air Force Base to Japan where I picked up a seat on the CPA flight recently resumed for military purposes only.

As usual in Vancouver, it was dull, cool and sprinkling light rain, but I didn't care. I was home. I stepped down the ramp, limping slightly, and pushed through the barrier. It didn't take long for Customs to release me and then I was out in the waiting room, looking around for my wife. There was the Chief, coming for me with a big smile. I grabbed his hand, glad to see him.

"Where's Pat?"

"In the hospital, having that baby of yours." He laughed at my startled expression. "There's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about! My God! Let's get going!"

In the car we didn't talk much. At last he pulled into his own parking space at the Lab and turned to me.

"Get on over to the Labor Room and see Pat. I'll meet you up in my office later."

I almost ran to the big Maternity Building, close by, and stepped into the elevator. At the desk of Delivery, the nurse stood up in protest.

"I'm sorry. You can't come in here."

I explained hurriedly who I was.

"Why of course, Doctor," she said. "Here's a gown and mask ... but hurry ... she's well into the second stage now."

I pushed open the door of Delivery Room number three. The doctor looked around and his eyes widened in surprise above the mask as he recognized me. It was Ray Thorne.

"Pat, look who's here!" he said.

Her hair was wet and her upper lip moist from the strain and the warmth of the room. I bent over her and her eyes were big as she recognized me.

"Darling, you got here! You got here just in time!"

In that highly emotional moment she was not her usual stoical self. She began to cry. I dropped my mask. The hell with so-called sterile technique! These bugs were all in the family. I kissed her. She smiled even though a hard pain was beginning.

"Now it will be all right," she whispered.

I hung on to her hand and looked up at the mirror that pictured the other end of the delivery table.

"Push hard now," Ray said, as the baby's head came down. She strained and gasped, her face reddened with effort.

"OK, I've got it ... easy now ... easy now," Ray was saying.

Her mouth opened as if to scream but no sound came.

"Gently does it. Don't push any more."

She squeezed down on my hand and the nails bit into me. I stroked her head. Her body tensed with one last spasm and then I heard the suction going as the baby gasped. She loosened her grip and went limp.

"It's a boy ... a boy!" Ray shouted, his eyes twinkling with pleasure over the mask as he held the child up by the feet. The sharp wail of my first-born son was loud in the room. I put my face down to Pat as she cried for joy.

Back in the Laboratory I passed by the offices until I came to the electron microscope room. Polly was busy setting up for a picture but turned at the noise.

"John, darling! Oh, I'm so happy to see you." She came over to me, put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me.

"Have you seen Pat yet? But of course you have. How is she? Has she had that baby yet?"

"Yes I have. She's doing fine. It's a boy."

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed, and kissed me again. "That's for good luck," she explained. "You three will make such a nice family." Her smile faded as the sun goes behind a cloud and for an instant her eyes, though still on my face, seemed to look far away beyond me into infinity.

"And what about you Polly?" I said quietly.

"Harry's dead!" she said abruptly, her mouth held firm to still the trembling of her chin.

"God! No!" I reached out and took her hands. "Polly!" I shook my head. I couldn't think of a thing to say. She took a deep breath and tried to relax, to shake off whatever terrible picture she had imagined of his ending.

"Pat tells me she wrote to you about Harry getting to the Chinese mainland," she said at last.

"Yes, I knew he was there but the last word I had before we dropped into Korea was that they were making good progress in their research."

"They were for a while," she said sadly, "but one day the Communists found out about it and threw a surprise attack at them. They were driven back to the beach and Harry was hit in the head with a piece of shrapnel. The Nationalists managed to get them away to Taiwan and they turned him over to the Americans. He died in Taipei."

"Do you know what killed him?" I asked.

"Some sort of fungus disease of the brain that entered through the wound. He was never fully conscious after he got hit. He didn't rally from the operation but just gradually weakened and died."

"How did you find out?"

"One of the officers who was with him on the mainland wrote to me."

She stopped talking and, in the silence, a dripping tap counted away the seconds. Her eyes were full of tears now.

"The thing that bothers me a whole lot," she said, "he died among strangers, all alone."

"He fought for freedom, Polly," I said. "He had company."

"I'm sorry John," she took my hand again. "I forget other people in my own selfish worries." She wiped away the tears. "Did you lose many men in your unit?"

"Eight killed out of thirty ... and a few more wounded; one died of the bleeding death. We were lucky compared to some of the other Ranger teams I hear."

"We don't know much about these things," she said. "The papers talk of the hidden war in a vague sort of way but nobody has come right out with it yet."

"It won't be long now," I said grimly. "I think we've got them by the short hairs." I picked up an unopened morning paper lying on the table and looked at the headline. "There you are!" I showed it to her. "Revolt Rumored in Russia!"

She looked in silence and then got up. "Let's forget war for today. Let's celebrate your homecoming and the new baby. I'm going to get George right now and we'll all go over to see that baby and Pat and then take off for the rest of the day."

"Suits me fine," I said and followed her out the door.

Six months later it was over. It wasn't much of a revolution. The Russian people had had enough of disease and famine and when the army turned over, almost to a man, to the rebels, the Reds folded up faster than the White Russians had in 1918. The United States was the only major power left in the world, in fact the only large population, since the measlepox and now the bleeding death had decimated much of Asia, Europe and South America, to say nothing of the sterilizing effects of the S-Flu. It would take months or years to eradicate all breeding places of these pests from the earth and when it was over there would be plenty of room for everybody; no more squabbles about territory; no more delusions of world empire; those who were left would be too busy trying to keep running what businesses and factories, ships and planes they already had, without wanting more.

This was a new world, a strange world full of problems. Better that the sorrows of the past be put away and a fresh beginning made.

THE END