이것이 전쟁이다! was too far away for pictures, and had not seen any evidence of the 282 Red dead which had been reported, I cut down from our flanking ridge, hoping to cross the ravine below and climb the far side so as to emerge just behind the dug-in ROKs. The sun was beginning to sink lower into the mountains as I went up the flank of 626. Several times I passed pairs of peasant carriers bending under backloads of rifles dropped by ROKs so badly wounded during the earlier action that they could not carry them back down themselves. I had begun wondering where all of the reported enemy dead were, when machine-guns opened up just ahead. Grenades whammed nearby and for the next half hour I lay between two shielding boulders each time another mortar bomb whistled down and burst against the branches overhead. Choked cries from up the ridge told that the bombs had ferreted out someone less fortunate than I, so as soon as the barrage lifted I again plowed through the brush and up alongside the final heights of the Mountain. The first ROK I found lay flat upon his back, head down the trail, his left leg and thigh shattered. Two of his buddies pulled themselves slowly out of the undergrowth and set about trying to improvise a crude litter of saplings and woven vines for hauling him down that mountain. While working they covered his eyes with clusters of leaves to shield him from the glare of the sun slanting through the trees. Food carriers on their way to the troops ahead stepped carefully around the little group without a word of any kind. I followed them and almost immediately came upon another soldier with a crushed ankle who was leaning against the trail wall in voiceless agony, while his buddy ate a rice ration and waited for someone to help him carry the wounded man back to the aid station far below. The few remaining yards to the “front lines” told the same pathetic story of men being unable to disperse quickly enough to find cover before the Communist fire fell upon them. Yet, considering the number of mortar bombs that dropped into the area, there had been relatively few casualties. Of the 252 enemy dead reported along these slopes I saw not one. Ⅲ. Korea 1950 l 41
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