The following day we set out to do the last few miles to the farmhouse. The Reds didn't have enough men to search the hills and the wilder the area the safer we'd be. Our trouble would be to break through the barrier at the coast. With one wounded man and two sick ones on litters we were heavily loaded and could make only slow time. I had all I could do to carry my own weight and when we got to the house late that night I collapsed on a pile of straw and stayed there for the whole of the next day. CHAPTER 16 We stayed in the village for three weeks. Each day Makstutis and Kang were a little better. "We have to get out of here," I said to Anders one day in the last week, after we had examined our patients. "The A-bomb carrier is probably on its way right now." "They can't march all the way to the coast," Anders said dubiously. "If we must go, we shall have to carry them." Blackie and Kim had been watching us with interest. Now Kim spoke up. "We've got some real husky boys in the unit, Doc. How about fixing up seats on a couple of A-frames. Then we could _chogi_ them up the hills and they could maybe make it down the other side." "It's a good idea, sir," Blackie agreed. "Those back trails are too narrow for litters. We can change _chogi_ bearers frequently." "What about Yip Kee?" Kim said. "Can he travel the same way?" I looked at Anders. "What do you say, Doctor? It's a month since his leg was fractured. I think we could take a chance on it provided he is carried all the way." "I see no alternative," Anders agreed. We borrowed the A-frames from the farmhouse and Pak wove basket seats across the carrying prongs. With wider shoulder straps and some padding our men could carry the patients quite well, changing frequently. We assigned two bearers to each A-frame; it was all we could spare. The first time we tried it, Makstutis, irrepressible as ever, cracked, "This'll be the first time I ever went into action sitting on my ass. I feel like a damn tanker." The name stuck; from then on they were called the tank section. In the first part of June, Lieutenant Pak and Lee Sung made a reconnaissance and came back with an encouraging report. The furor over the raid on the virus factory had died down. Work on the power house had started but in a half-hearted fashion, either from a sense of defeat or perhaps a shortage of supplies and workmen. The bleeding death had hit hard along the Imjin and spread over the watershed to the coastal villages. It continued to spread as the panic-stricken natives, completely out of control after two terrible epidemics, fled from the disease and disseminated it wherever they went. Most of the enemy troops were being used to try to halt the crazy rush away from the death zone but some of them had also become infected, either by contact with refugees or perhaps in the age-old fashion by consorting with prostitutes in the towns. The result was disorganization and a very low morale.