Retreat, Hell! tc-10

by W. E. B Griffin

  COMMANDANT USMC COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF PACIFIC

  1. IT IS THE DESIRE OF THE PRESIDENT THAT MAJOR MALCOLM S. PICKERING, USMCR, BE AWARDED THE NAVY CROSS FOR HIS HEROISM AND VALOR ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY DURING THE PERIOD HE SPENT BEHIND ENEMY LINES BETWEEN HIS BEING SHOT DOWN AND HIS RESCUE.

  2 . IT IS DIRECTED THAT YOU

  A. ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE BY URGENT MESSAGE.

  B. IMMEDIATELY PREPARE A SUITABLE CITATION FOR THIS AWARD AND FORWARD IT BY THE MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS THROUGH APPROPRIATE CHANNELS TO CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, ATTN: CHIEF, AWARDS BRANCH.

  C. FURNISH CNO A COPY OF THE PROPOSED CITATION BY URGENT MESSAGE AT THE TIME YOU BEGIN TO FORWARD IT THROUGH APPROPRIATE CHANNELS. (SEE 2.A. ABOVE)

  FOR THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

  WALLACE T. GERARD

  VICE ADMIRAL

  DEPUTY CNO

  SECRET

  "No," Dunn blurted. "I won't do it."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I won't do it," Dunn repeated.

  "What are you talking about, Billy?" the captain asked.

  "Pickering did nothing that merits the award of the Navy Cross," Dunn said.

  "The President seems to think he does," the captain said.

  "Pickering did what he was expected to do," Dunn said. "He evaded cap­ture until he was able to get back. That's all."

  "Colonel," the captain said formally, then reached over and took the mes­sage from Dunn's hand and read from it: " 'It is the desire of the President that Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, be awarded the Navy Cross.' That seems to/settle the question, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Let the President write the citation. I won't."

  The captain dropped his eyes to the message and read from it again: " 'You will immediately prepare a suitable citation for this award. ..." That sounds pretty clear to me."

  “Not only was Pickering not doing anything more than any shot-down pilot is expected to do, but it was his fault—and mine—that he got shot down in the first place."

  "You want to explain that to me, Colonel?" the captain asked somewhat coldly.

  "What he was doing when he was shot down was trying to become the first locomotive ace in the Marine Corps," Dunn said. "I knew what he was doing, and I didn't stop him."

  "What do you mean, 'locomotive ace'?"

  "He wanted credit for shooting up five locomotives; in his mind that would make him a locomotive ace. He'd already checked with the Air Force to see if any Air Force pilot was credited with more locomotives in World War Two."

  The captain looked at him, shook his head, but said nothing.

  "It was a joke to him," Dunn said. "The whole war is a joke to him. And I knew what he was doing and didn't stop him."

  "I thought you were old pals."

  "He was my wingman at Guadalcanal," Dunn said. "I love the sonofabitch, but I am not going to go through with this nonsense of giving him the Navy Cross. What he did was cause a lot of good people to put their dicks on the chopping block to save his sorry ass, and I am not going to help him get a medal like that for being a three-star horse's ass and, for that matter, a lousy Marine officer."

  "Calm down, Colonel," the captain said.

  "I beg your pardon for my language, sir," Dunn said. "But I am not going to go along with this bullshit."

  The captain raised his hand in a gesture that meant take it easy. "Jesus!" Dunn said disgustedly. The captain said nothing.

  "There was a standing order at Fighter One on the 'Canal," Dunn said. "No buzzing the field, period. We couldn't risk the airplanes. Pick used to do full-emergency-power barrel rolls over the field every time he shot down an airplane," Dunn said. "And sometimes just whenever the hell he felt like it. That's when I should have pulled the wiseass bastard up short."

  "When you have your emotions under control, Colonel, let me know," the captain said coldly.

  Dunn looked at him for a long moment.

  "My apologies, sir," he said finally.

  "What are you going to do?" the captain asked. "You have been ordered by the Chief of Naval Operations to immediately prepare a suitable citation.' "

  "I'm unable to comply with that order, sir."

  The captain said nothing.

  "A lot of good men have earned the Navy Cross—" Dunn began.

  "Including you, Colonel," the captain interrupted. "Is that what this is about?"

  "—and giving Major Pickering the decoration for having done nothing be­yond what he was expected to do," Dunn went on, "would be an insult to every one of them."

  "Be that as it may, the Commander-in-Chief 'desires' that Pickering be awarded the Navy Cross. You can't fight that, Colonel. You have an order. You have no choice but to obey it."

  "I am unable to do that, sir," Dunn said.

  Thirty minutes later, a message went out from the Badoeng Strait.

  SECRET

  URGENT

  BADOENG STRAIT 1405 17 OCTOBER 1950

  FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER MAG 33

  TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS ATTN: CHIEF, AWARDS BRANCH

  REFERENCE PARA 2. MSG CNO SUBJ: CITATION FOR DECORATION FOR MAJOR M.S. PICKERING, USMCR

  DATED 16 OCTI1950

  2. THE UNDERSIGNED IS UNABLE TO COMPLY.

  WILLIAM C. DUNN

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL,

  USMC COMMANDING

  SECRET

  [TWO]

  U.S. Naval Hospital

  U.S. Navy Base, Sasebo

  Sasebo, Japan

  1625 18 October 19SO

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Rosemary Hills, Nurse Corps, USNR—a five-three, one-hundred-fifteen-pound twenty-three-year-old from Chicago—had the duty, which placed her at a desk in the nurses' station of Ward 4-G between 1600 and 2400 hours.

  There were six Corpsmen always on duty in Ward 4-G, and usually two or three of them could be found at the nurses' station. They dealt with the rou­tine operations of Ward 4-G, and turned to Lieutenant Hills only when some­thing required the attention of the ward nurse on duty, a registered nurse, or a commissioned officer, or any combination thereof.

  She was a little uncomfortable when she glanced up from her desk and saw a Marine standing on the other side of the counter, obviously wanting some­thing, and saw there was no Corpsman behind the counter—or anywhere in sight—to deal with him.

  Lieutenant Hills had not been in the Navy very long, and was not com­pletely familiar with all the subtleties of Navy rank and protocol, and was even less familiar with those of the Marine Corps.

  She knew from the rank insignia on his collar points and shoulders that the man standing before her was a master gunner, which was the equivalent of a Navy warrant officer, which meant that he ranked between the senior enlisted Marine and the junior Marine officer.

  She remembered, too, from orientation at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, that Marine master gunners were special, as lieutenants—Marine and Navy—were ordinary. There were very few master gunners, and they were all ex-senior enlisted Marines with all sorts of experience that qualified them to be master gunners.

  The ribbons and other decorations on this one's tunic—she recognized only a few of them—seemed to attest to that. Judging by just the number of them, this master gunner had been in every war since the American Revolution, and wounded in all of them.

  One of the medals on his chest she did recognize was the Purple Heart, awarded for having been wounded in action. She had seen enough of them pinned on hospital gowns here in the ward to know what that was. The master gunner's Purple Heart medal was just about covered with little things—Lieu­tenant Hills had forgotten what they called the little things—pinned to it. But she knew that each one of the little things meant a different award of the Pur­ple Heart for getting wounded in action.

  Lieutenant Hills saw that he was carrying a small canvas bag in his left hand, as a woman carries a bag. She wondered what was in it.

  Then she realized that she had no idea how master gunners were ad
dressed.

  Do you call them "Master Gunner," as you would call a major "Major"? If not, then what?

  "May I help you, sir?" Lieutenant Hills finally asked, even though she knew that as a lieutenant j.g. she outranked the master gunner and therefore he was no; entitled to be called "sir."

  "Major Pickering," the master gunner said.

  "What about Major Pickering?" she asked.

  "Where is he?"

  I think he was supposed to say, "Where is he, ma'am?"

  "He's in 404," Lieutenant Hill said. "But he's on Restricted Visitors. If you want to visit him, you'll have to go to ..."

  The master gunner nodded at her, then turned and marched down the cor­ridor toward room 404.

  "Just a minute, please," Lieutenant Hills called after him as firmly as she could manage. "Didn't you hear me? Major Pickering is on Restricted Visitors. You have to have permission of the medical officer of the day—"

  When she realized she was being totally ignored, she stopped in mid-sentence.

  She came from behind the nurses' station counter and looked down the cor­ridor in time to see the gunner enter room 404.

  Master Gunner Ernest Zimmerman, USMC, marched to the foot of the cranked-up hospital bed in which Major Malcolm S. Pickering was sitting and looked at him without speaking.

  "Look what the goddamn tide washed up!" Pick cried happily. "I'll be god­damned, Ernie, it's good to see you!"

  "You won't think so in a minute, Pick," Zimmerman said. "Can you han­dle some really shitty news?"

  There was a just-perceptible pause, long enough for his bright smile to van­ish before Pickering asked, "Jesus Christ, not the Killer?"

  "Not the Killer," Zimmerman said.

  "Dad? Has something happened to my father?"

  Zimmerman opened the straps on his canvas bag and extended it to Pick­ering.

  "What's this?" Pick asked, but looked, and then reached inside without waiting for an answer.

  He came out with a fire-blackened object that only after a moment he rec­ognized as a camera.

  "Jeanette's camera," Zimmerman said, and then when Pick looked at him curiously, went on: "I picked it up yesterday near where the plane went in."

  "Jeanette's?" Pick asked. "What plane?"

  "An Air Force Gooney Bird headed for Wonsan," Zimmerman said. "It clipped a mountain and blew up. Nobody got out."

  "Jeanette was on the Gooney Bird?"

  "Yeah."

  "You're sure?" Pick asked softly.

  "Yeah."

  "How can you be sure? How did you get involved?"

  "From the top?"

  "From the fucking top, Ernie," Pickering said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Every fucking tiny little fuck­ing detail."

  Lieutenant Hills went back behind the nurses' station aware that she had two choices. She could ignore what had happened, or she could report it. She had just decided to ignore the breach of orders—

  What harm was really being done? It wasn't, after all, as if Major Pickering was at death's door. What they were trying to do for him was fatten him up, and making sure the dysentery wouldn't recur. And having a visitor might make him feel better. He looked so unhappy, which was sort of funny because he was just back from escaping from the enemy, and you'd think that would make someone happy.

  —when she was forced to reverse it. The hospital commander, Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, was now standing at her nurses' station.

  With him was a very pretty, very pregnant young woman.

  "Good afternoon, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.

  "This is Mrs. McCoy, Lieutenant," Captain Schermer said. "She is to be the exception to the Restricted Visitors on Major Pickering. They're old friends, and she just came from Tokyo to see him."

  Schermer had received a telephone call that morning from Major Pickering's father, who was a Marine brigadier, saying that Mrs. McCoy, "the wife of one of my officers," was on the way to Sasebo to see his son.

  "They're very close, they grew up together. They're like brother and sister."

  "We'll be happy to take care of her, General."

  "You may have to. She's very pregnant and traveling against medical advice."

  "Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.

  "Four oh four, right?" Captain Schermer asked.

  "Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said. "Captain, Major Pickering already has a visitor."

  "Who would that be?" Captain Schermer asked, not very pleasantly. "You were aware, were you not, of the Restricted Visitors?"

  "Sir, I tried to tell him, but he just ignored me."

  "A journalist? Was the person who ignored you a journalist? Is that why he thought he could ignore you? Because he was a journalist?"

  "No, sir. Sir, it's a Marine, a master gunner Marine. . . ."

  "About this tall?" Mrs. McCoy said, holding up her hand. "Built like a tank?"

  Lieutenant Hills smiled and nodded.

  "That has to be Ernie Zimmerman," Mrs. McCoy said. She turned to Cap­tain Schermer and added, "He works for General Pickering."

  "I see," Captain Schermer said with a somewhat strained smile. "Well, why don't we ... ?" He waved Mrs. McCoy down the corridor toward 404.

  Master Gunner Zimmerman stopped in midsentence as the door swung open. Major Malcolm S. Pickering looked angrily at Captain F. Howard Scher­mer, USN, and was about to say something when Mrs. K. R. McCoy brushed past the captain.

  I've seen you looking better," she said, and went to the bed and bent over him and kissed him. "But I'm glad to see you anyway."

  "I guess you haven't heard, huh?" Pick said.

  "Heard what?" Ernie replied, and turned to Zimmerman. "What's going on, Ernie?"

  "Obviously, you haven't," Pick said. "Carry on, Mr. Zimmerman. Maybe you better start from the top again." Then he looked at Ernie McCoy and added: "I think maybe you better sit down, mother-to-be. I don't think you're going to like this." He gestured toward a folding chair, then made a go on ges­ture to Zimmerman.

  "Well," Zimmerman began, "we don't know how she got from Pusan to Seoul—"

  "She being Jeanette?" Ernie McCoy asked. "You mean Jeanette doesn't know we've got Pick back yet? Jesus Christ, why not?"

  "Let him finish, Ernie," Pick said. "And I meant it, sit down."

  "I think I will," Ernie said, and lowered herself into the folding chair.

  "—whether on the Air Corps medical Gooney Bird or some other way," Zimmerman went on. "She wasn't on any manifest that we could find."

  "Okay," Pick said. "But clever fucking OSS agent that you are, you have de­duced that she was on the fucking medical Gooney Bird when it took off from Seoul for Wonsan, right? Because she was on it when it crashed?"

  "Oh, my God!" Ernie said. "Is she all right?"

  Zimmerman looked at her.

  "Sorry, Ernie," Zimmerman said.

  "You were saying, Mr. Zimmerman?" Pick said.

  "What Dunston did was, when the general found out we hadn't told her about you and sent him to find her, was go out to K-16 and ask the Air Corps guy what possibilities there were," Zimmerman said. "The only thing he could think of was that maybe she'd hitched a ride aboard the Gooney Bird that had gone missing. Then he—the Air Force guy—found out they'd located the crash site."

  "What made him think Jeanette was on this plane?" Ernie McCoy asked.

  Zimmerman ignored the question.

  "They'd gone looking for it after it had gone missing," he went on. "There were no Maydays or anything. Anyway, they found the crash site near the top of a goddamn mountain, but (a) they hadn't been able to get anybody to it, be­cause it was in middle of nowhere, and (b) it had exploded and burned, and there were no signs of survivors, and it was . . . Getting to the site could wait until they'd been to other crash sites where there could be survivors."

  "So?" Pick asked.

  "So Dunston called me—"

  "Where's the Killer been all this time?" Pick inter
rupted.

  Zimmerman took a look at Captain Schermer, then shrugged.

  "He's in North Korea, listening to the Russians," Zimmerman said. "We're going to pick him up tomorrow morning at first light."

  "You had to tell her that, right?" Pick snapped. "Sometimes you have the sensitivity of an alligator."

  "I'm a big girl, Pick," Ernie said. "I know what Ken does."

  "Captain," Zimmerman said to Schermer. "With respect, do I have to tell you that whatever is said in here has to stay here?"

  "I understand," Schermer said.

  "So Dunston called me, gave me the coordinates, and at first light this morning, we went to the site."

  "We is who?" Ernie McCoy asked. "And I thought you said getting to the site was difficult?"

  "We is me, a doggie major—real good guy—named Alex Donald, who flew the Big Black Bird, and four Marines in case they were needed."

  "By which, Ernie, he means a great big Sikorsky helicopter painted black," Pick said. "Your husband has a couple of them."

  "And?" Ernie replied, impatience in her voice.

  "Well, we found the crash site. The Gooney Bird clipped the top of a moun­tain, went in, exploded, and then slid down the mountain. Nobody walked away from the crash. And it was quick. No question about that."

  "Well, that's comforting," Pick said sarcastically. "To know it was quick. And you found—what's the euphemism?—the remains of those on board?"

  "We found four bodies," Zimmerman said. "There was a three-man crew on the Gooney Bird. We figured, even before I found the camera, that the fourth had to be Jeanette."

  "You couldn't tell?" Ernie asked.

  "There was a lot of fuel on the Gooney Bird," Zimmerman said. "They topped off their tanks at K-16. They were planning to go on to Pusan, and maybe all the way to Japan, after Wonsan. There wasn't much left of the bodies."

  "So where are the remains?" Pick asked.

  "We took them to Seoul, to Eighth Army Graves Registration. It'll take them at least a couple of days to identify them."

  "Well, that's no problem, really, is it?" Pick said. "There's no rush, right? As a matter of fact, who the hell cares?"

  "Pick," Ernie McCoy said. "Oh, Pick, I'm so sorry."

  “Yeah, so am I," Pick said unpleasantly. "But I should have known better. Something that good was never really going to happen to me."