128 l Ⅴ. The City in which to liberate the city, defended by Communist soldiers reported to be fighting under orders to die in their positions. Just when it seemed that he would have to order his company forward regardless of exposing its flanks to an entire unscouted sector, the sniper standing beside him spoke a single word . . . “Gooks! ”. Barrow swung his glasses over the head of the slouched man. Every eye along the ridge swept the cluster of three buildings directly opposite the railroad station. He was right. Entrances to the buildings were sand-bagged , and uniformed figures appeared back in the shadows of the doorways. All the Marines started swearing at the same time. A full platoon of North Koreans had burst from under the shielding shoulder of the railroad embankment and dashed into the center building. The place was their headquarters. Then Bob Barrow really worked his radio. He did it in a calm, matter-offact voice that reported everything he had seen . . . and stated that he was not sending his men forward into the freightyards area and residential district until after he had called an air strike upon the Red’s headquarters. While the air co-ordinator hurried to get his planes over the target, more observers along the ridge began discovering enemy troops hidden all through the seemingly abandoned district in front. The helmets of others lined the railroad tracks, turtlelike, as they waited for the Americans to come into their sights. Apparently none of the Reds had seen the few Marines hidden back of the walls and houses above them. Had Bob Barrow moved his company down across the tracks, with the rest of the battalion and regiment following in his trail, the Communists would have had nothing more to do than just stay hidden long enough for the bulk of the Marines to pass, then give the signal that would have brought them firing from their holes and barricades and rabbit warrens—and it might well have been a holocaust. For the area directly ahead of Bob Barrow was the Communists' garrison for the whole city . . . the troop reservoir from which they had planned to bolster the defenses around the river bridges to the south or This is War!
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