Action for Men, May 1960 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

“Come on, Clem,” he said, “we've to get out of here.” Summersill awoke with a start. He jumped up. Then, like a crazed animal, he walked round and round in circles. He tried to clear his head of sleep. Sawyer sat on the ice, watching absently as Summersill walked off in the direction in which they had been crawling earlier. Summersill had gone but ten steps when he stopped and stared dumbly ahead. “Wayne!” he shouted, his voice hoarse and raspy. Sawyer floundered through the snow until he reached Summersill’s side. “Look at that,” Summersill said. Directly ahead, not more than five feet, the moun- tainside dropped away for several hundred feet, a sheer cliff. Sawyer stared down into the icy chasm. “Tf we crawled another 15 feet—’ Sawyer said. Dawn was not far off. They took stock: Summersill’s feet were completely frozen. Sawyer’s left foot was beginning to freeze, even though he had changed his socks. They were almost out of food. “We better try to find a house someplace, because my feet are really in bad shape,” Summersill said. “Maybe we can find some farmer who has a fire and will let us thaw our feet. We can hit him up for some chow, too.” Sawyer was looking at the map again, try- ing to find their position. “I think we’re right here,” he said, pointing. “You mean we've only come 20 miles?” Summersill asked, discouraged. They were not even halfway to their objective. “We’re averaging just a little better than a mile an hour.” “We'd better turn east,” Sawyer said. “I believe we're around the Commie flank now.” “O.K., Wayne, but let’s look for a house.” (THEY set off in an easterly direction along the mountaintop. Sawyer looked again at the map, trying to fix their exact position. Finally, he said to Summersill, “I don’t think there is a house around here anywhere. This is desolate country.” As they walked farther along the moun- taintop, it became light, even though the heavy fog still clung to the ground. After a while, Summersill said, ‘““Wayne, what do you say we push on and not hide during the day today ?” Sawyer looked at the map again. “Look,” he said, “we'll keep going east, and move down into this area. The map shows that a number of creeks originate here in this watershed. The creeks run east through the mountains and into the flatlands, and right into friendly lines. If we can pick up a creek and follow it out, we won’t have to crawl up and down these mountains.” “O.K., Wayne. But if we run into any Commies, we will fight it out. Nobody cap- tured, right ?” “Right,” Sawyer replied. A few miles later, they started down the steep face on the mountain. Walking was impossible. Sawyer sat Gown in the snow and slid for 100 yards. Summersill watched, and then slid down behind him. They got up, and slid another 100 yards. “Great stuff, eh?” Sawyer said. “The mountain climbers call this glissading.” “Beats the hell out of walking,’ Summer- sill replied. GA “Poets! Poets! These damn poets!’ The whole day was consumed descending the mountain. Once they almost slid into a deep crevasse. Their lives were in peril for an hour, as they clawed their way back up through the snow to safety. But most of the slow descent was made on foot, traversing slopes, cutting across ridges, walking along ice or snow through the incredibly desolate country. By early afternoon, both men had reached a physical breaking point. They blacked out for brief periods, or else their minds went off on sudden flights of fancy. Late in the afternoon they could see the small snow-blanketed basin they had been seeking. It was very small, hardly more than 300 yards wide. A double row of bushes twisted out of the basin in an easterly direc- tion. They guessed that the creek, frozen over and covered with several feet of snow, lay between the rows of shrubs. They started down the steep side of the basin toward the bottom. Even though the creek was covered by a deep blanket of snow, it was easy to follow in the growing darkness. The twin rows of shrubs delineated its course like two hedges alongside a sidewalk. About half an hour after dark, the clouds suddenly lifted. The sky became clear, the visibility extraordi- nary. The two men looked up at the pro- fusion of stars shining brightly overhead. On signal from Sawyer, they stopped. “Look at that,” he said. “We certainly have been having the breaks on the weather. It’s overcast in the daytime when we need to hide, and clear at night when we need to see.” “Almost miraculous,” Summersill said. For the first time, the two men were able to get a good look at the surrounding coun- tryside. As far as they could see, it was a mass of snow-covered mountains, peaks, ridges, and canyons. The creek alongside which they had stopped lay in the bottom of a canyon about 300 yards wide and 500 feet deep. The walls were steep, almost ver- tical in places, and covered by deep snow- drifts. The stream itself, no more than ten feet wide, carved a course down through the middle of the canyon floor. It twisted and turned, snaking its way eastward down through the mountains. Not long afterward, Summersill suddenly began to cry. He did not know why, but he sobbed uncontrollably. Then he began to shout, “Wayne. Get me out of this snow. Get me out of this snow.” He heard himself shouting insanely. He knew that snow covered everything for miles and that Saw- yer was powerless to help. Yet he could not stop. Sawyer tried to quiet him. “Clem, there might be Communists all around here. They'll kill us on sight if they get us. Do you hear? Shut up. You have to shut up.” He wrapped an arm around Summersill. The two sat down in the snow. Then, as suddenly as he had lost his senses, Summer- sill regained them. To help restore his con- fidence, Sawyer said, “Why don’t you lead off for a while?” Summersill took off down the stream, clomping through the deep snow. All at once, he stopped still. He blinked his eyes, then shook his head. He could not believe what he saw—two small mud huts. Smoke, and an occasional spark, puffed from a small chimney sticking out of the top of the hut. Summersill pulled out his .45 and walked slowly between the two mud huts. Sawyer also had his pistol drawn. He crept along behind. When they had moved about 50 yards past the huts, they stopped to whisper. “What the hell was all that?” Summersill asked. “Chinese one-man huts. They’re like pup tents. Must be a guard post. Probably a bivouac of some kind back there.” They pushed on through the snow. With the sighting of the mud huts, tension (CONN) [CC 6)(0)(0) 'S {@(0)