CHAPTER 15

There was a faint smell of decay, of cold moist flesh, in the air. I shoved up from the sand and rose wearily to my feet. I looked down and saw the wet stain spreading over me from the back. My legs felt damp. I was too tired to care. The odor of the virus culture, of the bleeding death, was in my nose and mouth and I was too tired to care. I staggered past a rocky outcrop and almost fell. Sergeant Kang reached for me from cover.

"Don't touch me," I protested weakly. "The stuff's all over me."

"Some of it got us too, Doc. Better let me help you get away before the next one goes up."

We advanced cautiously up the ravine away from the bridge. The second tank car had blown and there was no pursuit. Apparently our men on the rim of the gorge had pinned down the attackers or else the horror of the bleeding death had driven them away. Now that my aching chest had eased a bit I could think again. We went around a couple of bends and the sound of firing died away.

"We've got to get this virus off, it's our only hope," I said.

"OK Doc," Makstutis was agreeable. "Whatever you say. The damn stuff stinks like a frightened polecat."

I led the way along the stream and found a chest-deep pool with a fast water flow. I walked right in, gun, helmet, jack boots and all, and thrashed around for a moment under water.

"Now you do the same," I said when I came out.

I had some soap in my pocket and Hip Sing produced another bar. With one man standing guard, we undressed and scrubbed ourselves and then our clothes and weapons as thoroughly as possible while the light faded. Numbly I noticed a large hole in my jacket and a ragged tear in the plastic suit. I shook the suit and a piece of iron two inches square fell out. No wonder my ribs were sore and my chest ached! Makstutis saw it fall and grinned at me crookedly.

"Your lucky day, ain't it, Doc?"

"Yeah, out of the frying pan, now into the fire. Wait until tomorrow."

He shrugged. "That's the way the rocket roars."

We wrung out the water as best we could and wiped it off the guns. I felt better from the cold bath though I was weary to the crying stage. The wound in my thigh was small and not troubling me much so I let it alone.

"That should help a little," I surmised when we were dressed again. "At least it may protect the others from the disease."

We were starting to climb back up the side of the gorge when an ear-battering crash rolled up the river to meet us. Then there was silence.

I don't remember too much about that climb back up the gorge. I know I fell often and always there was a helping hand, a quiet word. We got back to the bridge in darkness and were stopped by Kim's guards. The fight was over. They had been waiting for us. Four men were dead, three in the fight for the train and Lim in the river bed. Two more were wounded in the arm and head but could walk. One man had a broken leg. I vaguely remembered telling Kim how to splint it with poles cut from brush and giving him some morphine. I didn't like the risk of exposing any of them to the bleeding death but there wasn't much I could do about it right then except try not to touch anyone. Makstutis, the two NCO's and I, kept apart from everyone else and waited for the fever to strike. We kept going in the darkness, a darkness that became a dream world to me except for the steady support of hands at my elbows and the slow dragging of my feet as I lifted them and put them forward. Just one more step; one step more; one more step; one step more. We stopped and the hands released me. I crumpled where I stood and slept.

* * * * *

I woke to a pattern of shifting light and shade beyond my closed eyelids and a cool wind that blew across my face. I opened my eyes and slowly they focused on the leaves that rustled above me. The aching misery of my legs and body forced itself into my brain and carefully, deliberately, I sat up. We were in a thickly wooded valley. A tiny clearing opened from where I sat, bisected by a narrow stream. On the other side, about ten yards away, Kim and his men moved about quietly, cooking the last of their rice on a dry wood fire that gave no smoke. I stood up for a moment while specks whirled before my eyes as my blood pressure dropped. The feeling passed. I was still damnably weak but better than yesterday. I looked around for my companions in isolation and saw them squatting close to their own fire. They seemed normal. So far so good! We might have another twelve to twenty-four hours before the hemorrhagic fever started to raise hell with us. By that time, with luck, we could be holed up in our refuge. Maybe Anders would be able to help us. At the worst, as he was immune, he could take care of us and feed us.

I was still not completely aroused when Makstutis came over with a mixed mess of hot rice and kimchi in a ration can.

"Here's your bacon and eggs, Colonel," he grinned irrepressibly. The man just wouldn't give in, I thought. "How do you feel this morning?"

"Pretty good, considering," I replied.

I finished eating and walked down to the stream to splash some water on my face. Kim was there, washing up. I kept down-stream from him.

"How are you feeling, sir?" he said, towelling his face with his undershirt.

"OK so far, Kim. I need a cigarette. Have you got any? No, not your packet! Just one. I'll ask again if I need it." I caught the black Russian weed he threw at me and dragged gratefully. "I didn't see much of the fighting at the bridge after Makstutis threw the switch," I said, sitting down on a boulder. "I was down in the bottom of the gorge most of the time. Clue me in on what happened."

He squatted comfortably on his heels, oriental style, and I was momentarily amused at how quickly he had reverted from his western training.

"When the bridge fell down," he began, "the boys along the canyon rim all fired on the coach stuck in the approaches across the way. A lot of the Reds were hit getting out of it but a lot more made it and started a firefight across the canyon with us. That lasted quite a while."

"I saw the beginning of it," I said.

"I heard from Makstutis that some of them got down in the bottom and shot at you and you were hit."

"That's true, but I was hit by mortar fragments. Did he tell you that I'd never have got out if it hadn't been for him and his two men?"

"No, he didn't. He did tell me you all got splashed with that virus stuff."

"We sure did, and nobody except Anders is to come near us until we find out if we're going to get the fever or not. But what happened to you?"

"While the fight was going on back and forth across the canyon," he began again, "the engineer tried to take off with what was left of his train ... it broke apart just ahead of the first tank car. He almost did it too! The two men I had posted up above, on either side of the cutting, couldn't do much as they were firing down at too steep an angle. They did manage to keep the Commies' heads inside the coach, however, and, when the train started up the grade, five of us were able to scramble up on the flat cars, leaving the other six guys to finish the fight at the bridge. Two of them were killed later on by an unlucky mortar shell burst.

"As soon as we got on the flat car I put a half a dozen burp gun pellets straight down the middle of the passenger coach and while they were wondering what to do about it, Tommy Lin sneaked up close and threw a grenade through the glass of the back door. But he didn't hold it long enough. Somebody fielded it and threw it right back before it could explode. Lucky for us he was too strong. It bounced out past the door and rolled over the side just as it went off. About that time I figured we had to stop the train or they'd take us to Vladivostok, so Tommy and little Rhee Sung boosted me up on the roof.... It took both of them to do it ... while the other guys gave the Reds a few rounds to keep their heads down. I hauled my two buddies up with me and we pussyfooted over the top, hoping the Commies wouldn't try to shoot up through the roof. It was steel anyway. That helped! We jumped down on the coal tender and the fireman saw us. Boy! Did he yell! He dropped that shovel and dived out the side like a frightened frog. The engineer took to the other door.

"By now the train was out of the grade and in open country, really travelling. I sent Rhee back over the top to warn the others, before the Reds got wise, and when I figured they were set I put on the emergency brake ... it's a good thing I learned about engines on the pineapple plantations back in Hawaii ..." he laughed. "Well, sir, that damned train just about stood on its nose and jack-knifed. I'll bet the gooks really got thrown about. Then I put her in reverse. The wheels were screeching like a drunk wahine at a hula, and slipping and sliding like crazy until they caught a hold. When she stopped and began to back up a lot of the Reds made a break for it. We got a few but most of them got away. When they saw we were going back towards the bridge a gang of those left tried to rush the cab. Tommy was waiting on the coal pile and mowed them down but a wild shot downed him when he tried to get back to me. I wanted to stop the train but he yelled at me to go on. I tied down the whistle as the signal and the other guys jumped. Then I gave her full throttle and I jumped too. Tommy stayed on. I guess he figured he was finished and he might as well take some of the Reds with him. Anyway they never got into the cab to stop the engine. It must have barrelled down that grade at a hundred miles an hour. It smashed those two tank cars to glory and pushed the whole damn lot into the canyon."

"That was the big explosion I heard?"

"That was it," Kim agreed and added, "That broke up the fight. Good boy, that Tommy. He went out the right way for a soldier."

* * * * *

We set out for the rendezvous about midmorning. It would have been safer to wait for night but I was afraid the virus would knock us out and Kim agreed. The scouts reported no signs of life ahead so we marched in our two groups, a prudent interval of twenty-five yards between. The day was warm later on. About sixteen hundred hours I started to sweat a bit and I noticed beads of perspiration on Makstutis' forehead and a large drop forming on the end of his nose. He smiled weakly when he caught my eye.

"Guess I'm starting to get that fever, Doc," he said. "The other two guys have it too. How're you doing?"

I wasn't too bad and said so. The protection Dr. Anders said I'd get from the Songho Fever must be working. We went up on top of a steep ridge and I noticed Hip Sing was unsteady on his feet. I went over to him.

"How are you making out, boy?"

"I ..." he swayed slightly and licked his lips.... "I don't feel so good, sir."

"Sit down, son. Let's have a look at you."

His head was scorching hot and his cheeks flushed like an inebriated Japanese. I felt his pulse. Even after a rest it was over one hundred and forty. At a rough guess he must have been running a fever of one hundred and three degrees. I let him rest for a bit and then, with Makstutis on one side and I on the other, we stumbled on down the trail into the valley. He collapsed a couple of times before we got to the bottom and finally we were dragging him along, his arms over our shoulders, toes catching in the dust. Sergeant Kang followed reeling in semi-delirium but still carrying our weapons. Somehow he reached almost to the bottom of the slope, right behind us, and then pitched forward on his face. The guns clattered and rolled down ahead of him. His arms, outstretched as he fell, caught my legs and tripped me. I went down on one knee, Hip Sing crazily over me, while Makstutis struggled to keep his balance and pull us up again. We got Sing over to the narrow brook that tumbled along the valley floor and there Makstutis' knees buckled under him and he sat down. I was feeling rough myself, but not that rough.

* * * * *

"Get Hip Sing's clothes off him if you can, Mak," I said, and went back for Kang. He was still comatose so I grabbed his arms and jerked him down the slope to level ground. I couldn't drag him any more, I hadn't the strength. I got down on my knees and rolled him over to the water's edge. I stripped him to his undershirt and poured water over him with his helmet. His pulse was almost impossible to count, it was beating so fast, but it was still surprisingly strong. That fever had to be brought down before it fried his brains! No man can live long at a body temperature over 105° and I knew his must be at least that. Even if he recovered his brain could be permanently damaged by the intense heat inside his skull. I got him into the water with his head and shoulders on the bank. It was cold but there was no time for gentler measures. The exertion made the swirling come back in my head and I lay down beside him until the world came to rest again.

About five minutes later I heard gasping sounds and looked up. I had forgotten Makstutis and Hip Sing. The Mak was still fumbling with Sing's clothes but in his delirium he would forget and sit there, muttering to himself, while his fingers fluttered uselessly at the buttons. He was doing that now. The sounds were coming from Hip Sing. As I watched, he started to retch, his face was a sweaty grey-green. A great gush of dark brown blood came up and flowed away from the side of his mouth. He sank back and was still. I crawled over to feel his pulse but he was dead. Makstutis sat there and whispered. Somewhere above I heard a shout. Under the weary haze that covered my mind I knew I had to act but it was so much trouble.

"Doc ... Doc ..." I heard it again and looked up. Kim, watching back on the trail, had seen that we were not following. Now, heedless of the danger, he was coming to help us.

"Don't come any nearer!" I forced the words through the dry lining of my throat. He was perilously close already if this virus was transmissible through the air, as Anders claimed.

"But I can't just leave you there," he pleaded from the other side of the water.

"We'll all die if you catch it too," I croaked, and rallied my wits. "Kim, Anders may be at the farmhouse waiting for us. Get there as fast as you can. Tell him the bleeding death has got us. Maybe he can still help. And don't let anybody touch us, no matter what happens, until he gives the order." I heard no more. Forcing the last bit of strength from my aching muscles I turned back to Makstutis and pulled off his outer clothes. He lay there mumbling and rambling like a Yogi in a trance, the foam drying on his cracked lips. He was too big to roll into the water so I poured it on him from his helmet. The cold seemed to restore his sanity for a moment ... his eyes opened. The whites were gone and, from the center of those bright red bleeding spheres, the blue irises flickered as he tried to focus on me. He smiled.

"Good old Doc," he said feebly.

It was too much. I crouched there and sobbed, the aching tightness blocking my throat as I shakily poured water over him.

* * * * *

The light kept bobbing about in the strangest way. It couldn't be a firefly, too big. It was up high on the slope at first but soon it dropped down, wavering back and forth. I knew then it was a shaded flashlight and I heard the sliding of boots on the rocky path.

"That's close enough." The voice was strange at first and then I remembered that was how Anders sounded.

Until the darkness and rising fever stopped me I had kept pouring the water over Makstutis where he lay, unconscious and unmoving on the ground. Kang floated low and lifeless in the water like a beached log. I checked him once. His pulse was still there but slow and almost imperceptible. As the fearful heat rose within me I lay down in the stream beside him and shivered there as long as I could endure. Then I would get out again and return to my work. Finally, too sick and dizzy to do any more, I crawled to the bank and lay down on my back with my legs in the water to cool off the blood steaming inside me. Then I passed out.

The light flickered closer and waved about over my companions. It came to me and I squinted up feebly, trying to avoid the glare.

"How are they, Dr. Anders?" The voice came from the slope.

"One of them is dead ... a corporal. The Russian and the Sergeant are very bad, unconscious. Dr. Macdonald is awake," Anders said and then, to me, "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, I do," I whispered.

"I am going to inject some serum." He was busy tying a tourniquet of rubber tubing above my elbow to bring out the veins. I felt the needle probing for the collapsed tissues and later the pressure as he pulled it out and stopped the bleeding. He jabbed me again in the biceps.

"You have had your anti-serum and a sedative," he said, leaning close to be sure I heard. "Now you must relax and concentrate on getting well."

With that thought in my mind I went to sleep.

* * * * *

Three days later I was over the worst of it. I had bled again from the kidneys but fortunately the disease had not been severe enough to cause a massive internal hemorrhage that would have choked their filtering mechanism and killed me.

"How do I look?" I said to Anders that morning as he examined me where I lay, in the dappled shade of the clearing.

"Your eyes are very red, of course," he smiled, "and you have purpuric spots ... what your laymen call bruising, isn't it ... in the creases of your elbows and thighs, but I think you have been fortunate."

"I agree with that statement, Doctor," I said as I looked over at his other patients, lying there so quietly beside me. A horse fly lit on Kang's nose. Feebly his face twitched, trying to dislodge it. He lifted his right hand, bending the arm from the elbow. It stayed there, too weak to go farther. Anders shooed the fly. Kang's hand, poised uncertainly for a time, slowly fell back to his side. To all appearances he was lifeless.

"They're in bad shape, aren't they?" I asked.

"Yes, but they should recover. You saved their lives, you know."

"I did? How?"

"By using that cold water. When I checked them, their temperatures were very low, especially Kang. You might say you had put them into artificial hibernation. They were both in shock but, with the low body temperatures reducing their metabolism during the crucial stage, I am sure they have a much better chance of returning to normal. I maintained their low temperatures with one of our new hypothermic drugs for the first two days. Now they have returned to a more normal state except that they are still asleep."

"They look more dead than asleep," I said and raised myself up to sit. Even that was an effort as my swimming head and pounding heart warned me. In a moment or two I felt better. I inched over to a tree and used it as a back rest. Soaking in the friendly warmth of the sun like a cat on a garden wall, I dozed off.

"Take this, Colonel." Anders' face was close to mine as he woke me gently and held out a bowl of warm rice. The sparse light-colored stubble on his unshaven chin stood out like the tattered wheat stalks on a dustbowl farm. Gaunt with fatigue, bleary-eyed and scruffy though he was, his red-rimmed eyes shone with a fierce determination to pull us through and cheat his former masters of at least three victims. I ate and watched as he gently spooned a thin paste of rice into the cracked and crusted mouths of his patients. As it touched their tongues, they swallowed automatically like patients under anaesthesia, which, in a way, I suppose they were.

"Have you had any sleep at all?" I said, watching him.

"Not much. An hour here and there. I was afraid to sleep."

"Then why don't you sleep now while I watch. I can wake you easily if you lie down here."

"Thank you. I will do that. I am very tired."

I let him sleep six hours. The sun was low over the ridges and Kim and his men were preparing the evening meal when he awoke. Renewed vigor showed in all his actions as he moved about lighting a fire and preparing our rice gruel. This time I crawled over to help him with the patients. As we dripped the thick rice soup into those impassive faces and later washed the dry drum-tight skin stretched over bare bones, I asked about our plans.

"Yesterday," he said, "Lieutenant Pak On took a small party down to the coast, to Wongpo. They are to find Lee Sung and tell him that there will be a delay until you are well enough to travel. They also must try to get more food. It will be at least three days before they are back. I have vaccinated all your men against the bleeding death and we must wait until you are no longer infectious and I am sure they are immune before we escape. We cannot risk spreading the disease in the western democracies."

"Do you think it got spread when the tank cars were blown up?" I asked.

"It is quite possible. The concentration of virus in that river must have been very high. Unfortunately there are still villages down its course and along the Imjin where people live, and they may get it. For that reason we must move as soon as it is safe. If disease breaks out near the coast we will never be able to get a boat to take us off."

The thought worried me. Suppose Lee Sung died? Only he could make the contacts to get us away, I supposed, by small fishing boat out to sea where a submarine, or perhaps a destroyer, could pick us up outside the territorial limits. We had to avoid the coastal patrols too and only Sung could help us there.

By the end of that week, May was two thirds gone and we were all recovering slowly. Pak came back and the news was bad. Lee Sung and Blackie had come with him. I met them as I strolled along the trail and went back with them to our camp for a conference. Before it began, Anders got out his syringe and inoculated Lee Sung.

"We can't afford to lose our only contact with freedom," he said.

"I appreciate your kindness, even if it is somewhat self-centered," Lee replied, with a disarming smile.

* * * * *

"Let's have it," I said to Pak when all the officers were gathered in the glade. Makstutis, too weak as yet to participate actively, was lying quietly taking in all that was said.

"We got into Wongpo without too much trouble," he began. "We kept away from any signs of people on the way. It wasn't too hard to locate Lee Sung either when I walked into the little town; several people knew him and I pretended the North Korean Army had business with him. I found him down at the wharf where his boat is moored and he took me aboard. I was alone of course," he said, as an afterthought. "The men stayed back in the hills."

"Is that the boat you mentioned when we first met?" I interrupted to ask Lee.

"Yes. Actually it belongs to the United States," Lee Sung said. "It is fitted as a deep sea fishing or trading junk. It has souped up engines that look ordinary and a false bottom where I hide guns or radio or anything we need to smuggle into or out of North Korea. The boat is registered in my name of course. I'm supposed to be a part-time fisherman and local cargo carrier, as well as a merchant. I have a small store in Wongpo. The Reds used to wink their eyes at my activities because I smuggled things they wanted from Hong Kong or South Korea."

"Sorry to interrupt," I said to Pak. "I wanted to get the background straight."

"That's all right, sir," he replied. "Now, where was I?"

"You'd got to Lee's boat," I said.

"Oh yes. We had to get some food so that's the first thing we talked about. Lee had bags of rice in his store so we went there and loaded up a mule cart he borrowed. We were going to drive it as far as we could to where our men could get the rice and pack the sacks on A-frames back over the trail to the farmhouse. We thought it would be less noticeable if we did it that night. In the meantime Lee went out to get some vegetables and see if he could scrounge any meat. That's when the trouble started." He turned to Lee Sung. "Maybe you'd better tell the rest of it."

"I went to the house of a farmer, an old friend of mine, who lives on the edge of the village, to bargain for some vegetables and perhaps a pig," Lee said. "I was still there, drinking tea to conclude the transaction, as is our custom, when a detachment of about fifty North Korean soldiers in three trucks rolled along the coast road into the village. I finished my business as rapidly as possible, and, with the help of the farmers' sons, brought the food down to my store. Then I walked out around the village seeking information. Lieutenant Pak stayed with the supplies. I was afraid someone would have told the detachment commander of the presence of another North Korean officer but fortunately he was so busy and the people so frightened that no one remembered Lieutenant Pak."

"That evening the commander called an open meeting in the village and announced there was to be curfew for everyone beginning that night. Anyone who disobeyed would be shot. He also announced that nobody could enter or leave the village by land or sea and he has seized the fishing vessels, including mine."

"Oh, my God!" I said. "Why did he do that?"

"Apparently a new epidemic of some sort has broken out at several villages along the Imjin River."

I looked across at Anders and shook my head. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug of resignation.

* * * * *

Lee Sung continued. "There is a great search being made for American bandits of oriental descent masquerading as soldiers of the Peoples Army who attacked the virus factory. You will be interested to know that it was a large and heavily armed force of capitalist reactionaries which was driven off with very heavy losses."

"Losses to whom?" Blackie asked with a grin.

"To the Americans of course. The virus factory was not damaged."

"At least that's the truth; we got the powerhouse," Pak laughed.

"The moment he made the announcement about American soldiers I left the meeting quietly and went back to my store. Somebody was going to wake up, perhaps soon. I told Pak and we decided to risk it as the soldiers were still moving into the police barracks and getting set up. We drove the mule cart quickly out the back end of the village and got away without being challenged. In fact we didn't see anyone at all until we met our own people."

"It looks like we've stirred up the whole country," I said. "They certainly seem frightened."

"I'm not surprised," Anders broke in. "When I left the factory, besides the virus cultures, my rucksack was full of bottles of vaccine against the bleeding death and as much of the anti-serum as I could carry. I expected we might need it. I destroyed all I could of what I had to leave behind and the papers too. The Communists have very little left."

"A fine piece of work, Doctor," I said. "You saved our lives and deprived the Reds of their protection, all at the same time." I turned back to Lee Sung. "I wonder how they figured we were Americans. All our papers were in order. There wasn't a thing to show we weren't native guerrillas, admittedly in the service of an unfriendly power. Why not think we were from South Korea?"

"Possibly some of the men we left in the factory lived long enough to talk," Blackie said, "put I doubt it very much. Of course seeing the white officers would give them grounds for suspicion."

"Suspicion, yes, but not fact," I said.

"The radio has been talking mysterious explosions and guerrilla warfare in Siberia and parts of China recently," Lee Sung reported.

"That's it, by Golly!" Blackie burst out. "The raids on the nerve gas centers must have started. It could be somebody has been captured and brainwashed."

"Could be," I said, "and if so, we'd better get home. If the Reds can suppress news of how successful the raids are, they may still bluff the democracies, with threats of nerve gas and CBR warfare, into giving them more food and a good settlement of the war, but if we get home with our story then they'll realize they are licked and maybe quit."

The following day we set out to do the last few miles to the farmhouse. The Reds didn't have enough men to search the hills and the wilder the area the safer we'd be. Our trouble would be to break through the barrier at the coast. With one wounded man and two sick ones on litters we were heavily loaded and could make only slow time. I had all I could do to carry my own weight and when we got to the house late that night I collapsed on a pile of straw and stayed there for the whole of the next day.