Action for Men, May 1960 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

mounted; it was plain that they were now in an area occupied—and guarded—by Chi- nese troops. At midnight, the two men stopped by a rock to rest and eat their last can of rations. After they had finished, Summersill decided that we would have dessert. He took a small square from the emergency vest, pulled the wrapping off and took a big bite. He swal- lowed the bite before he realized that the square was not a “Charm” candy but a bouillon cube. The cube was very bitter and extremely salty. Summersill immediately became nauseous. When he threw it up, he caught it in his hand and then swallowed it again. In a few minutes it came up again. Once more, he caught it and pushed it down. He did not want to lose the food. He knew he needed every scrap of energy he could get. When they set off again, Sawyer led. Sum- mersill trailed, alternately throwing up his food and swallowing it every few minutes. His stomach ached, his throat was raw. The sickness soon absorbed his remaining strength. From time to time, he blacked out entirely. Once he went to sleep on his feet, standing erect in the middle of the snow. Sawyer walked a long way before he realized Summersill was not behind him. When he tried to wake him, the two men fell into the snow. Summersill sighed. “Wayne, is it really worth getting up and going on?” Sawyer replied, “I don’t give a damn if I ever move again. I just want to sleep.” They lay in the snow for several minutes. Then, as he had done on many occasions before, Sawyer jumped up, stomping his feet, shaking his head, and slapping his arms around his body. He shook Summersill vio- lently. “Get up, Clem. Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.” Summersill got to his feet. He was amazed to discover that his head had cleared and his stomach had stopped aching. He got out a piece of candy and put it in his mouth. Then he picked up a handful of snow and took a bite. He held the snow, along with the candy, in his mouth. The snow seemed to melt faster when mixed with the candy. He swallowed the mixture. “How good that feels on my raw throat,” he said aloud. They pushed on down the creekside, Sum- mersill leading. About three hours past mid- night, the men rounded a turn in the trail and came upon a deep gorge. Two eight-inch logs covered with snow and ice formed a bridge spanning the dark chasm. Summersill put his knees in the “V” between the two logs and inched along. Halfway across, he looked down. He could not see the bottom of the gorge. He shuddered. If one of them fell, he thought, what would happen? Sup- pose one broke a leg? Would both men stay together, or would one man go on? Sum- mersill was greatly relieved when he reached the opposite bank. “Come on across, Wayne. But be careful. It’s very slippery and the gorge is very deep. Come on now. That’s right. One knee in front of the other. Easy does it.” With only a foot to go, Sawyer stoed up- to walk off the end of the log. He slipped and fell. At the last instant, he blindly groped with numb hands for the side of the bank. Somehow, he found a handhold and stopped his fall. Quickly Summersill reached down and grabbed his clothing. As he did so, the 45 slipped from his jacket, struck Sawyer 42 a glancing blow on the head, then clattered down—seemingly forever—into the icy gorge below. Summersill braced a frozen leg against one of the logs, and pulled Sawyer up on the bank. The two men lay on the ground for some minutes, breathing heavily. Finally, they got up and pushed on. (THEY trudged, stumbled, and crawled for several hours. Then, through watery, half-closed eyes, they noticed a faint light beginning to glow in the east. There was not a cloud in the sky. The day would be bright and sunny. They were sure the Com- munist soldiers would spot them if they remained on the open floor of the canyon. Once again, they began the search for a safe place to spend the day. About ten minutes later, they came to a Korean house jammed in between the creek and canyon wall. A light shone in the front window. Should they approach it? They stopped and held a whispered conference. They decided to try to make contact with the Koreans who presumably occupied the house. If, by chance, the Koreans were not sympathetic, perhaps they could buy pro- tection. Since he had lost his pistol, Sum- mersill was selected to walk ahead and make the contact. Sawyer would cover him from the brush. Summersill walked straight up to the door of the house. He raised his hand to knock. Something—he did not know what—caused him to stop his fist in mid-air and back away from the door. He was suspicious. He crept to the window, stood back slightly, and looked in through the unfrosted pane. In one look, he counted six Chinese soldiers. Though he ducked away into the darkness immediately, the scene inside the room re- mained vividly implanted in his mind. One Chinese soldier was sitting on a chair drink- ing a cup of tea. His head was bowed, his hands were wrapped around the cup. An- other stood talking to two other soldiers who were sitting on the floor. A fifth Chinese was sitting alone at a crude table playing cards; a sixth was asleep on the floor. Summersill backed hurriedly toward the spot where he knew Sawyer was hiding. But Sawyer was gone. Summersill thought: They’ve captured him. He pulled out his knife and switched the blade into position. Then he walked around slowly in the darkness, calling very softly, “Wayne? Wayne?” “Yes?” It was Sawyer’s voice. He had moved to another bush. Summersill heard the click of the .45 hammer as Sawyer let it go forward slowly. The two men came face to face. “It’s a good thing you spoke up when you did,” Sawyer said. “I thought you were a Chinese, and if you had taken one more step, I would have blasted your guts out.” “That’s all right,’ Summersill said. “I was just getting ready to cut your throat.” The house blocked the way ahead. The only way around it appeared to be through rushing waters of the creek. Sawyer and -Summersill scrambled down the steep bank and plunged into the cold thigh-deep water, stumbling across rocks and boulders. Sum- mersill could feel water trickling into his boots. He knew it would be frozen solid in a matter of minutes. When they reached the opposite bank, they scampered up through the rocks, found a trail that followed the lip of the bank, and hurried down it. They had not gone far when they saw a Chinese soldier walking up the opposite bank of the creek. They stopped and crouched in the shadow of a rock, watching the soldier make his way toward the house. When he had disappeared from view, Sawyer and Summersill got up and hurried on. They were rounding a bend when they spotted a second Communist soldier, this time on their side of the creek and coming straight up the trail toward them. Both men eased back into the shadow of a large tree. Summersill pulled out his knife. He made a signal to indicate he would tackle the soldier low. Sawyer took out his pistol, gripped it by the barrel, and motioned that he would knock the soldier on the head. They didn’t want to alert the other soldiers. As the Chinese came steadily on, they could see that he wore the standard green- quilted Chinese Communist Army uniform and carried. a Russian submachine gun. When he was about 30 feet from the tree, he turned abruptly from the trail, climbed down the creek side, and skipped through the water to the opposite side. To avoid Communist soldiers who might be using the creekside trail, the two airmen cut off to the right and climbed halfway up the sloping canyon wall. It was rugged terrain and, therefore, less likely to be patrolled. They hurried on, searching every- where for a cave. After a while, they realized that the ridges were not as steep. Ahead, the flat canyon floor seemed to blend in gradu- ally with the ridge slopes. At last, they were coming out of the mountains into the flat- lands. The snow was thinning out. In some places, the earth was entirely bare. Summer- sill became aware of the transition in a painful way: while tramping through the relatively soft snow, he had felt little pain from his frozen feet. But, as the snow thinned, and they moved on frozen ground for long periods, the sensation of walking on slits returned. “We've got to find a place and thaw out my feet,” Summersill said. “I just can’t go on much farther like this.” “Well, maybe we ought to go back to the creek where the going is easier.” HE two men circled back down toward the creek—now a river more than 100 yards wide—to pick up the trail. As they came down out of the ridges, they saw a Korean farm just ahead. They threaded their way through the frozen ponds of a rice paddy. They Sawyer stopped. “Clem,” he whispered. “Across the creek. Communist soldiers !” “Where?” Clem asked. He seemed unable to focus his eyes. “Right over there. About half a dozen of them. They have burp guns. They must be guerrillas, They seem to be headed back toward the mud house.” “Well, let’s get the hell out of here.” “Wait! There’s a potato bed. Let’s try to get into it.” Sawyer led the way to a Korean potato bed, a large hole in the ground covered over by a thatched straw roof that protruded two or three inches above the surface. They pulled on the straw cover. It would not budge. It was frozen in place. “We better keep moving,’ Sawyer said, “or we'll attract attent‘on.” (CONN (C|5)\@)6) <SniG@ 5}