Action for Men, May 1960 — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Who knows?” Sawyer replied. “They might be Communist tracks. They might be the tracks of a Korean farmer coming to help us.” “How old are they?” Summersill whis- . pered. “T don’t know. But we better move on away from here.” They moved off through the snow as fast as they could travel, keeping one eye on the ground and one on the ridge tops and can- yon walls for signs of Communist soldiers. Over an hour had:passed since the crash. Though it was still mid-afternoon, darkness was being hastened along by a huge black cloud shaping up in the northeast. Soon the two men came to a thicket. “Let’s go in here,” Sawyer said. “They’ll never find us.” They pushed their way through the thorny scrubs and bushes and, then, after a moment, sat down. They heard faint voices, coming from the area where they had left the burning plane; then, suddenly, an ex- plosion. “The plane,” Summersill whispered. Minutes later, they heard Communist sol- diers moving up the canyon side toward the cave. They watched as the soldiers spotted the diversionary tracks and, falling for the ruse, set off in the wrong directions. Soon there was more shouting. Another soldier found the real tracks. The Chinese came toward the thicket, spreading out through rocks and snow, shouting and yelling. Summersill pressed his lips close to Saw- yer’s ear. “They’re coming this way. What are we going to do?” Sawyer said, “Stay right here. It’ll be dark in another half hour. “He looked at the black cloud in the northeast. “Just hand on.” They waited 20 minutes. By then the sol- diers were very near. But it was getting dark very fast. The soldiers turned on flashlights. Summersill counted 20 lights. EFORE darkness closed in, the two men took a final look at the escape route on the map. It was plain that there would be many obstacles on the journey. The biggest was a sizable mountain, about 5,000 feet to the summit. They could see it plainly, towering over them in the northeast. It was covered with deep snow. Climbing would be rough. “Shall we go around it?” Summersill asked. “If we try to go around it, we will run into Communists,” Sawyer said. “There’re fewer Communists on top of the mountain than any other place. It'll be tougher hiking, but safer.” As soon as they could no longer see the outlines of the Chinese soldiers, the two men pushed out of the thicket and headed north- east toward the mountain. They moved quickly and quietly through the drifted snow, gradually drawing away from the dancing flashlights. They climbed one small snow- covered hill, passed over a low ridge, and then, about an hour later, came to the foot of the mountain. : “That’s the tallest mountain I have ever seen,” Summersill said. “What does it say on the map again?” Sawyer said, “4,759 feet.” “Are you sure?” Summersill asked. “Follow me and you can count them your- self.” Sawyer picked up a hefty stick, invited Summersill to do the same, then started up the long, white slope of the mountain. 40 The dark cloud had been warning enough, but they were really not prepared when the blizzard struck. They had moved about a _ quarter of the way up the slope. At first, the snowflakes were harmless, fluttering across the mountainside, a godsend, covering their trail. But then the white flakes came in tor- rents, followed by heavy wind and sleet. Gloveless, bent against the driving cold, the two men moved slowly up the mountainside. An hour later, they stopped to rest. Sum- mersill looked at Sawyer, who had been leading. His face and flying helmet were a mass of frozen ice and snow. Icicles hung from his nose. His eyes were glassy. Wayne, can we go on like this?” Sum- mersill mumbled through half-frozen lips. “We can’t stop. If we turn back, the Com- munists will get us for sure. If we stop here, we will freeze to death in two hours. It must be 30 degrees below zero right now. We have to keep going.” f p8 maintain the discipline of the march, the two men drew up a “track” plan. Under the plan, each man would lead for half an hour. The shifting of position would break the monotony. It would give each man some- thing to look forward to. They marched off. About then o’clock that night, eight hours after the crash, Summer- sill began to feel very gloomy. The trouble started in his feet. For hours, he had been plugging along in his paratrooper boots, plunging down in the white mass, which often came up to his waist. Snow had caught in his trousers legs, melted, and run down into the inside of his boots, where it froze. His feet had no feeling at all. He was unable to move his toes and could just barely bend his ankles. Not long afterward, Sawyer sensed that they had been going in circles. He took out his small flat compass and checked the direc- tion. Sure enough, they were headed south— toward the Communists! “Hey, Clem,” Sawyer shouted through the wind. Clem stopped. Sawyer walked up. “You're going in the wrong direction,” he said. For no good reason, the remark made Summersill angry. It happened that he was holding his compass in his hand the moment Sawyer came up. He had just checked his bearings. “No, we’re not,” he said, “take a look at this.” Then he noticed that as he turned, the compass needle did not swing. It remained steadily on NE. “The damned thing is frozen,” Sawyer said. “But this is kerosene in here. It isn’t sup- posed to freeze unless the temperature is 40 degrees below zero.” “Well, it must be 40 below,” Sawyer re- plied. “We'd better keep one compass thaw- ing inside our jacket at all times.” The men continued. The slope became steeper. Two hours later, they came to a stand of small trees. Summersill was in very low spirits. He was exhausted, and his feet were heavy and stiff. He told Sawyer he did not think he could go any farther. Sawyer felt unaccountably good at the moment. “Why don’t we eat?” he said. Sum- mersill perked up. A quick search of their emergency vests disclosed that they had between them two cans of compressed beef—each can designed to provide one man with one meal—a few pieces of candy, cheese, and a few bouillon cubes. They had powdered tea, coffee, milk, and cream, but no means of making hot water because the flints used to ignite the two emergency sterno cans were soaked in oil and useless. After eating the compressed beef, Sum- mersill scooped up a handful of snow. He was about to put it in his mouth when Sawyer slapped his hand. “Don’t eat that,” Sawyer shouted against the wind. “It'll dry the mucous membrane in your throat. You might get pneumonia. If you want water, fill the plastic water bottle with snow and let it melt inside your jacket.” Summersill packed the plastic canteen with snow and shoved it inside his. jacket. It was not very warm inside. Five hours passed before the snow melted. The men pushed off once more into the blizzard. Sawyer led, and then Summersill. Most of the time, the men literally swam along in snow, often armpit deep. About four o’clock in the morning, Saw- yer, who was leading, noticed that the ground seemed to be leveling. The snow was not as deep, and there appeared to be a hard crust of ice underfoot. He turned and waited for Summersill to come alongside. “Clem, I think we’ve come to the top.” “How do you know ?” “The ground has leveled. Look, the snow is shallow, and there is a hard crust of ice underneath. The crust was formed when the sun melted the snow, then it froze again.” Summersill stared blankly into the black void around them. He could not see more than a few inches through the slanting sleet and snow. “O.K.,” he said, “O.K.” “The going will be much easier,” Sawyer said. He was mistaken. The wind came steadily out of the northeast. In the open, on top of the mountain, it blew with twice its former force. The noise alone was maddening; the sting of snow and sleet was almost unbear- able. At length, Summersill, who was lead- ing, fell into the snow. Sawyer came along- side and sat down. “I can’t go any farther,” Summersill said. The men sat in the snow, heads bowed. Suddenly, Sawyer jumped up and violently beat his arms around his body. He shook Summersill. “Get up, Clem. Get up. We'll freeze to death if we sit here.” “How about crawling ?” Summersill asked. “That'll keep us going in the wind and prob- ably keep us from freezing to death.” He wanted tc avoid walking on the hard crust. They crawled off into the wind, heads down, Summersill in the lead. He managed to pull himself along for more than an hour. Then he lost all consciousness and fell face down in the snow. Sawyer was struggling along only a few feet behind. He saw Summersill collapse, and he stopped crawling. He got up on all fours, fighting to keep awake. But then, his strength drifted away, and, like Summer- sill, he fell into the snow... . AWYER awoke first. He lifted his face off the ice and shook snow from his body. The | snow and wind had stopped and it was get- ting light. Even though a heavy fog hung over the mountaintop, the visibility had im- proved considerably. He wiped a mat of snow from his face and glanced at Summer- sill. He was litthe more than a white hump. Sawyer crawled over and fell against him f ith b ds. pawing at 18 SHC OO es CO