North pressed himself into the ground as the plane soared overhead and the land rocked with tremors. Bullets strafed the ridge from above, and men screamed as they fell before they could reach the cover of the slopes. Not that there was any safety to be found there.
The days of artillery had scorched the hills and splintered the trees. The crest of Obong-ri Ridge was dead, a burnt corpse strewn with even more of them. Napalm burned fiercely in the trenches, and the smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming.
“It’s making another pass!” someone shouted.
The boy next to him trembled, eyes rolling back in his head as the bomber jet came soaring in. His thin chest heaved, and he jerked up as if he would run.
North shot out a hand, shoving his face back into the dirt. With one wide, panicked brown eye, the boy stared at him, and he gazed back, firm.
The boy’s breathing stilled somewhat and he squeezed his eyes shut as the scream of the jet passed overhead.
‘Not more napalm.’ North was almost relieved to see the bottom open and regular bombs came tumbling out.
He buried his own face into the soil, inhaling the scent of dirt and sweat and blood as the world shook around them, explosions deafening him as clots of earth rained down from the sky. Under his hand, the boy quivered, and he pressed down harder.
‘Don’t run,’ he ordered him silently. ‘Don’t you dare fucking run.’
He didn’t, and the jet droned off again.
The boy sat up, panting hard, his pupils dilated. “I-I’m sorry, Comrade Korea.”
“How old are you?” North demanded.
“Eighteen?” He flinched at his glower. “Fifteen. I… lied to the officer. Sorry.”
‘Idiot.’ An admirable idiot, but an idiot.
“Stay with me,” North barked, leaping up and charging for better cover.
“Comrade Korea!” an platoon leader intercepted him. He didn’t know him personally, which meant he had to be a replacement for one who had fallen. “The counterattack failed and we’re losing the ridge! Comrades Ri Kwon-mu and Pak Kyo-sam are ordering a retreat. Do you confirm?”
North clenched his jaw so hard it hurt as he looked out at the ridge they had been fighting so hard to keep. Flames rose from the craters as the napalm jelly ate its way through flesh and dirt. Bodies littered the slopes as American artillery pounded them, supplied by unlimited ammunition shipped in from foreign ports. Even now another one of those damn planes soared in, regurgitating a bomb from its belly that smashed into soldiers taking cover, obscuring them with smoke and earth. None rose once it was gone.
“Confirmed,” North bit out.
He sent his soldiers from the crest of the ridge, ordering the underage peasant boy to stay with the officer. He stood his ground, taking control of a light machine gun to cover his comrades as they fled.
“Take the artillery with you!” he snapped at a group of empty-handed women. They hesitated, then the one in the lead turned them around, dismantling the howitzer as rapidly as possible while North stood guard.
As they retreated, he switched to his rifle, aimed down the ridge at the approaching Americans. He sniped one, then another. A sick, desperate feeling was flooding through him, and he knew he should retreat with the others, but he couldn't.
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Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction
Fiksi PenggemarThe Koreas were victims of Japanese Imperialism for thirty-six years, deprived of freedom in their own country. With the defeat of the Japanese Empire after the second World War, you would think that their problems would be solved. But things rarel...
