And now, another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
The Time, Christmas, 1958.
The Place, Korea.
The Story, A Korean Christmas Carol, written for suspense by George Bamber.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
I hear kids singing, I mean.
I can't understand the language, but I know what they mean.
They sound so fresh and full of promise, almost as if they knew.
But then I'm getting ahead of myself.
The name's Connolly, PFC Larry Connolly.
I'm a soldier in Korea.
I was sent here just about a year ago, this time.
That's where this strange story begins.
Christmas, 1958.
Christmas was for me that year miserable.
I'd been stuck on guard the night before, and so I planned to stay in bed the next day and forget about Christmas.
I hadn't counted on my first sergeant.
Since I was the first man he came to in the barracks, it's only logical that I should be the man he picks to drive a truck all the way to Seoul and back.
It was night by the time I got on the road, headed back from Seoul, it started to snow.
Big flakes coming down soft at first, then so thick and fast I could hardly see.
I was just over that first range of mountains.
I was starting on the twisting slippery way down when I saw him.
The sight of him scared me wide awake.
He was standing bareheaded, the wind whipping the snow and his hair around his face.
When he raised his thumb, I had the strangest feeling he'd been expecting me.
Almost as if it were unnecessary.
As if he knew I'd stop.
You want a lift? I'm going as far as Camp Santa Barbara.
Where's that?
You mean where's that? Everybody knows where Camp Santa Barbara is.
Don't stand there with the door open. Hop in.
All right.
You picked a lousy place to hitchhike.
This didn't stop.
Oh, thanks.
What happened to your gloves? Your hands look half frozen.
Gloves?
Well, I must have lost them.
Must have, don't you know?
Oh, yes. Sure, I must have left them laying on the counter of the PX back there.
With your hat back there too?
No, no, I lost my hat in the dark.
I fell.
I suppose that's why your uniform's muddy and your jacket's torn.
Oh, yes, yes, that's right. Of course.
I was walking along the edge of the road and I slipped in the dark.
And I slid halfway down the embankment before I could stop.
I see you managed to hang on to your bag.
Oh, yeah, I can't afford to lose that. It's important.
I'm late as it is.
What outfit you from?
3rd recon, 7th division, infantry.
Infantry?
Throw artillery up this way. The infantry's stationed about seven miles back.
You're headed in the wrong direction.
Yeah, well, 3rd recon is a special detachment. We're off in the hills, all by ourselves.
It's just off this road.
I've heard of it before.
My name's Connolly. Larry Connolly. What's yours?
Oh, thanks. Mine's Richard Dombrowski.
Good to know you, Dombrowski.
Say, look, if you can let go of that bag long enough, I'll let you wear my gloves till your hands warm up.
Oh, no, thanks. That's all right. I'll put them in my pockets.
Say, is it okay if I set my bag on the floor?
Oh, sure, no sweat.
Say, you don't have a cigarette, do you? I'm fresh out.
Well, I don't know. I...
Wait a minute.
Yeah, here's some.
Let me light it for you, though. You watch the road.
I saw a whole truckload of troops disappear over that curve up ahead.
Killed all but two.
Yeah? When did that happen?
1951.
1951?
Yep.
You were here when the war was on.
I guess you could say that.
Tell me, Dombrowski, what were you doing Christmas Day?
Bet they didn't send you all the way to Seoul with an empty truck on a wild goose chase.
That's what I did today.
What did you do seven years ago?
Well, you see those lights up ahead?
That's the village of Chungju-ri.
We marched through there the day before Christmas.
Were you scared?
Oh, I think everybody's scared.
Hey, hey, look out. You'll burn yourself.
What's the matter?
Cigarette burned all the way down to your fingers.
Oh.
Isn't it burning you?
Well, that? No, no.
I guess it burned itself out before it got to my skin.
Anyway, you see that hill over there?
Well, Christmas Day, 1951, my platoon was all dug in around that hill.
No kidding.
Mm-hmm.
We went out on a patrol from that hill.
And that was one time I was plenty scared.
As a matter of fact, it happened just seven years ago tonight.
It hadn't snowed that day, but there was snow on the ground.
I can remember because the guys were joking that at least we had a white Christmas.
And what a Christmas it was.
Christmas Day, 1951
As I said, it was quiet Christmas Day, 1951.
We were sitting around in our holes waiting for the fun, which we knew would begin the next day.
They'd managed to get hot turkey up to us, so we were relatively comfortable and happy,
until Brownie, our squad leader, came back from a talk with the old man.
All right, I'll take the first five.
The old man wants us to go out and have a look around.
Come on, come on, knock it off.
Get rid of your dog tags and canteens, anything that might rattle or make a noise.
We won't be gone long, but we're moving life.
Hey, Whitey, might as well leave your helmet here. We want to move quiet.
But, Sarge, it's too cold to go out without a hat.
Ah, cut the comedy, Walker.
We moved out on schedule just as night was falling, and with the night came the cold.
We moved rapidly along the valley for about an hour or so when Brownie stopped and raised his hand.
All right, you men, hold it up.
Once we get on the other side of that ridge up ahead, we'll observe maximum security.
No talking, no lights. Keep down.
And watch where you put your big clumsy feet.
These people just love tripwires with flares attached.
Walker, you still got the walkie-talkie?
If I didn't, I wouldn't be here to tell you about it.
Still working?
It's warm, if that's what you mean. That's more than I can say for myself.
All right, keep it that way. We may need it if we run into trouble.
Hey, while we're here, let's take one last check on your gear.
Make sure your rifle bolts aren't frozen, weapons on safety, and all grenades are secure in their pins.
Okay, everybody set? Let's move out.
And so we did move out.
The M1 felt light in my hands like I'd never realized how light and easy it was to carry a rifle before.
The going was easy.
The rice paddies were frozen over and covered with snow, and we stepped carefully between the clumps of rice stubble
left over from the last harvest so the dry straw made no noise.
We walked steadily, quietly, maybe 200 yards without a sound,
regularly stepping up and over each low rice paddy wall as we came to it,
each one bringing us just that much closer to the top.
And then it happened.
Hit! Down! Hit the door! Get down!
Somebody must have tripped the wire because suddenly the inky black was transformed into the merciless white at the operating table.
Everything seemed stopped and slowed down just like an old movie before the projector blows up.
I could see the other guys, the hills, and the deadly, winking fires of the guns.
And then we fell down to the protection of the earth, and some of us fell with metal in our bodies.
Crawl! Crawl, you apes! Crawl to the mud tightness! They can't hit us there!
And we crawled, digging our knees and fingers into the frozen mud until they were bruised and torn.
We crawled, closer to the ground and faster than we ever had before.
We crawled to the sanctuary of a foot-high mud hill.
Keep your heads down. Take out a sprint. It was about 150 yards to our front.
Where's the other?
Got at least 200 yards to the left.
They got us pinned in a crossfire.
We'll never get out of here.
All right, all right. Now don't panic. We'll band down. We'll make it out.
Walker, see if you can raise Lady Wolf on a walkie-talkie.
Walker?
Walker's laying out there in the middle of the paddy, Brownie.
He's never going to have to worry about being warm again.
Smith's out there too. I saw him get it. I saw it when the flare went up. I saw him catch it in the face.
Okay, okay, Harry, easy. They still got the walkie-talkie. Can you see if it's all right?
He's laying on it. It's hard to tell.
Whitey, that flare is going to go out mighty quick.
If a man was fast, he could probably streak out there and back before they put up another one.
We can use that walkie-talkie to call up some artillery to get these monkeys off our back.
I can't, Brownie. I must have been hit. I can't move my legs anymore. I can't even feel them.
Easy. Are you bleeding bad?
No.
Harry, you all right?
As far as I know.
Stevens?
Sure. I'd like to take a whir like that walkie-talkie.
Wait till that flare burns out.
It's dying now.
Just a few more seconds.
Go.
By the time the flare lit the sky, Stevens was halfway back, the walkie-talkie dangling from his right hand.
He told the forest in the mid-air some huge invisible hand slapped him to the ground.
I'm hit. Oh, God, I'm hit.
Easy. Quiet. Where'd they get you?
I'm hit. I'm hit.
Look him over, Harry.
They busted his arm.
See any other places?
No. No, just his arm.
Wrap a dress in a rattle and button it inside his jacket. Hand me that walkie-talkie.
It's no good, Brownie. The walkie-talkie's smashed.
What?
It's useless.
We're gonna have to move out of here fast.
Well, how are we gonna pull out? If we can't crawl back down the patty, they'll slaughter us.
All right, all right. Look, we'll move along the dike to the edge of the rice patty.
From there, we can duck into the underbrush and move back down the mountain.
We'll never make it. They'll spot us when we try to make it across the clearing to the underbrush.
They'll swing their guns around.
We gotta try it. We can't stay here.
Stevens, can you crawl?
Yeah, I can make it.
Okay, now you lead off and I'll follow you.
I'll crawl backwards and pull Whitey along behind me.
Whitey? You heard me.
Well, we'll never make it with you.
Quiet.
All you have to do, Harry, is follow along behind and pick up the pieces.
Take his weapon. It'll make him lighter.
Keep your hands off me, Harry.
Come on, Whitey. We have any time to fool around.
I'm not fooling.
I'm not going with you guys.
Come on. You lost too much blood already.
That's just it.
Like you said, Brownie, it's only a matter of time.
You can't get anywhere with me.
You'll never even get past the clearing trying to drag me across.
You're smart enough to know that, Brownie.
It'll be tough enough even with two good legs.
We're not leaving you here.
That's what I figured you'd say, Brownie.
I'm still in charge here.
I figured you'd say that too.
Brownie, you see this grenade?
It doesn't have any pin in it.
The only thing that keeps the spring from kicking the clip off is my hand.
Now get out of here, Brownie, before I let it go.
Whitey, Whitey.
Do you want me to let loose with this grenade?
Now prop that B.A.R. up to the dike in front of me.
And scatter the clips where I can get at them.
I'll wait until you guys get to the edge of the paddy before I open up.
Look, look, baby.
I'm still holding the grenade, Brownie.
Time is running out.
You're going to have to hurry.
I feel like I want to fall asleep and I don't know how much longer I can stay awake.
Just wish me a very Merry Christmas and beat it.
Merry Christmas, Whitey.
All right, you guys, what are you waiting for?
Let's move out.
See, that's right.
This is Christmas.
Oh, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see...
What's the matter? Don't you people like Christmas carols?
Oh, machine gun fire always was better getaway music than Christmas carols.
Above thy dark and dreaming...
Whitey lay there until the others had crawled to the end of a low, rice paddy wall.
And then he threw his grenade.
When it exploded, he opened up with a B.A.R.
making enough noise to make the enemy think the patrol was launching an attack.
Both machine gun nests zeroed in on him.
But Whitey stayed well below the little mud wall of the rice paddy, humming his Christmas carol,
loading the B.A.R. with a fresh clip every time it went empty,
and perhaps wondering briefly why he was going to die so far away from home,
a little pond of frozen mud he didn't care about, or even own, still firing and singing,
even after the rest of the squad had escaped into the underbrush,
and until either the machine gunners found their mark, or else he finally fell asleep.
Oh, gosh. He was quite a guy.
No, I guess it was just a detail that had to be done, and he had to do it.
Well, there's my stop right there where that little road turns off up ahead.
Your detachment's up that road?
That's right, right at the end of it.
Sure, I've seen that road before, but I didn't think there was anything up there.
I'll just let my guard down.
Sure thing. Thanks a lot. No sweat.
Say, if you ever want to look me up, remember my outfit's all the way up at the end of this road.
I'll be right up there.
Okay, I'll drop in sometime.
Right. So long, and thanks again.
I drove off figuring it would be a very cold day in Korea before I could get out of the car.
I drove off figuring it would be a very cold day in Korea before I could look him up.
Such a weird guy gave me the creeps.
I got about five miles down the road when I discovered he left his bag sitting on the floor of the deuce and a half.
Took a lot of arguing with myself, but I decided that the only decent thing I could do was to swing around and take it back to him.
Besides, maybe I could stop in the orderly room and check him out.
Find out what his story really was.
On the way back, I almost missed the road because it was so small and seldom used.
I drove up it for about ten minutes.
I was beginning to wonder if I hadn't gotten the wrong road after all.
As I passed no other vehicles or GIs or anything to indicate there was an infantry company around.
Just when I was ready to turn back to the main road, I saw lights twinkling up ahead from what looked like a couple of quantsets.
Seemed impossible that an infantry outfit could be housed in two quantsets, but I pulled the deuce and a half to a halt outside the gate and cut off the motor.
I picked up the AWOL bag, got out of the truck, trying to figure out which one was the orderly room.
I walked across the hard-packed snow of the yard to the first quantset.
Still couldn't figure it out.
Light and warmth seemed to pour from the windows along with the music I remembered from somewhere, but couldn't quite understand.
I stepped up to the first window I came to and looked inside.
There were kids all over the place, kids of all sizes and descriptions, kids just old enough to sit by themselves.
Kids just losing their first teeth. Some just starting their teens.
I stood in the snow spellbound just watching them sink.
Finally I tore myself away and headed for the front door, eager to be inside.
A plaque made out of the howitzer shell stopped me.
In the faint light I could just barely make out the words engraved on the polished brass.
But finally I read it all.
It said, This orphanage has been erected and maintained in the memory of Corporal Richard Whitey Dombrowski,
who somewhere north of the village of Chung Ju-ri, Christmas night 1951, willingly gave his life that others might live.
Suddenly I didn't know where I belonged anymore.
The AWOL bag dragged at the end of my arm like a thousand pound weight. I could figure what was in it, but I tore it open anyway.
The bag full of candy, soap and toothpaste and gum shined up at me, looking as rich and rare as frankincense and myrrh.
I closed the bag, laid it up against the door, close so they wouldn't miss it.
And then I banged on the door as loud and long as I could, until I was sure that they heard me.
And then I ran. I ran back down the road to my truck as fast and as hard as I could.
Suspense.
You've been listening to a Korean Christmas carol written for suspense by George Bamber.
In a moment, the names of our players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
Heard in tonight's story were Bill Lipton as Larry Connolly and Lyle Sudrow as Richard. Also heard were Larry Robinson, Watson Zervy, Bill Meader, Alan Manson and Guy Rett.
Listen again next week when we return with Moonlight Sail, written especially for suspense by William N. Robeson.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.