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Dispatcher. Hightower is a slim, superbly unruffled boy from Georgia; as soon as he was ordered out he was on the phone collecting his lists, planning his truck and plane requirements for all air personnel. "Hello," he would say into the phone, "Joe? This is George—what will you need to get out?—Six by plane, twelve by truck, the rest you're handling yourself?—Is that all? Are you sure?" He would scrawl the figures down, then say again, "Are you sure now?"
In the suburbs the last of the refugees were still crawling out in a pitiful trek—by ricksha, by horsecart, by foot. A man lay dead by the side of the road; people heaped straw on his body and went on. A woman bound a wet, bleeding, shapeless foot. A farmer carried his baby in a basket hung from his shoulder stave—and the baby laughed happily.
In barren streets, soldiers worked furiously on machine-gun posts, slit trenches and barricades that they would use soon.
Vinegar Joe's O.K. Midmorning of the last day brought in Generals Stilwell and Chennault to confer with local U.S. officers and with General Chang Fa-kwei, the Chinese commander. The officers gave the ground data, the air picture. Stilwell okayed the final decision—blow it and get out. They stayed for several hours, then rolled down to the line and were off.
At dusk the last planes were on the field loading cargo, the last trucks were pulling out down the road south. Majors, colonels and lieutenant colonels moved down the line, hoisting signal boards, generators, tires, duffle bags into planes. Everyone left on the field was swept into the last loading, kidding, joking, unreserved, uncomplaining. There was darkness before the last load was aboard.
Then on all the field only two planes were left: General Vincent's B-25 and an auxiliary transport to carry off the remaining personnel. The loading was finished. Orders called for midnight demolition and the men were straining at the leash.
The Blazing Valley. From the east came a glow of red silhouetting the fantastic Walt Disney shapes of the Kwangsi mountains—our subsidiary airfields were already burning. There came the rolling rumble over the hills as the bombs let go in distant runways. At our own field alone we had 550 buildings to blow. Our investment at this field came to 700,000,000 Chinese dollars ($70,000,000 U.S.).
Our shacks and barracks were all tucked away into the clefts and flanks of the improbable hills. In each, demolition crews had set up a barrel of gasoline. A sergeant stood at the doorway with a carbine; someone else fixed his flashlight on the gasoline drum in the dark and the carbine fired—once, twice, three times. Gasoline trickled from the holed drums and its fumes filled the rooms. Then the sergeant would fire again, and the fumes would catch with a whooshing, explosive flash.
Sometimes thatched roofs would almost lift away in the flash, and fire would ripple through the buildings like racing water. Yellow and red and gold and white, white at the base and black at the smoke pinnacles, the fire would tear through the room. One by one the buildings went till the whole valley blazed.