It’s more likely that she would be raped on the spot by the squad that comes in here, and if she lives through that, taken to maybe a battalion, where she would be raped all over again.
Maybe, she might get lucky and get killed before the troops actually arrive.
And if that doesn’t happen, do I do the kind thing?
When the Apaches attacked the wagon trains and settlers, they always saved the last couple of rounds to do the kind thing for the women.
And that’s about what we have here, the Apaches attacking the outnumbered good guys. And the 7th Cavalry isn’t going to suddenly appear at the gallop with the flags flying and the bugles sounding “charge” to save our ass.
Oh, shit!
What you should have done, McCoy, is dump her at the side of the road, as Zimmerman suggested. Why the hell didn’t you?
Unkind thought: If I didn’t have to play Sir Galahad with you, Ernie and I could make it out of here on foot.
He searched in his pack and came out with one of his last four cigars.
Zimmerman looked at him but didn’t say anything.
McCoy reached up his left sleeve and came out with a dagger.
Jeanette Priestly saw that, and her attention drew that of Major Allman to McCoy and his dagger.
McCoy carefully laid the cigar against the plywood top of a folding desk, and chopped at it with the dagger. One half fell to the floor.
He tossed it to Zimmerman.
“Next time, bring your own,” he said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
McCoy returned the dagger to its sheath, pulled his utility jacket sleeve down over it, produced a wooden match, and carefully started to light his cigar.
“What’s with the knife?” Jeanette Priestly asked.
McCoy ignored her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before,” Jeanette Priestly said.
“It’s not a knife, it’s a dagger,” Zimmerman furnished helpfully. “That’s a Fairbairn.”
“I don’t know what that means, either,” she said, flashing Zimmerman a dazzling smile.
“It was invented by an Englishman named Fairbairn,” Zimmerman went on. “When he ran the police in Shanghai. Hell of a knife fighter.”
What the hell turned his mouth on?
Oh. He likes her.
Likes her, as opposed to having the hots for her. She’s tough.
“But it’s so small,” Jeanette pursued. “Is it really . . . what . . . a lethal weapon?”
“Huh!” Zimmerman snorted. “Yeah, it’s lethal. Three Eye-talian Marines jumped him one time in Shanghai. He took two of them out with that dagger. That’s how come they call him ‘Killer.’ ”
“Shut your goddamn mouth, Zimmerman,” McCoy said, his voice icily furious.
Zimmerman, as if he suddenly realized what he had done, looked stricken.
“They call him ‘Killer’?” Jeanette relentlessly pursued.
“And you, too, goddamn you!” McCoy said. “Just shut the hell up!”
Her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t say anything else.
The artillery and mortar barrage lasted about an hour, but even before it did, there were reports from the outposts of large numbers of North Koreans coming across the Kum River.
When the artillery barrage lifted, and Major Allman and others tried to call the battalion and company CPs, in many cases there was no response.
Major Allman, sensing McCoy’s eyes on him when he failed to make three connections in a row, said, “I guess the artillery cut a lot of wire.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
Or the outposts, the platoons, and maybe even the companies have been overrun.
McCoy went outside the command post. It was black dark. There was the sound of small-arms fire.
He went back into the command post.
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
“I thought you said we couldn’t leave until light,” Jeanette said.
“If you want to stay, stay,” McCoy said, and turned to the North Korean major.
“Let’s go, Major,” he said, in Russian.
The major got to his feet.
“If you try to run, you will die,” McCoy added. “They’re not here yet.”
It took them forty-five minutes, running with the Jeep’s blackout lights, to reach 24th Division Headquarters, and when McCoy asked where the provost marshal was, so that he could not only turn the prisoner over to military police but make sure that he was treated as an officer, he was told that the provost marshal had been pressed into service with the 21st Infantry, and the MPs had been fed into the 21st as replacement riflemen.
Taking the major with them, McCoy drove back to Eighth Army Headquarters in Taegu. There was a POW compound there, and McCoy was able to get rid of the prisoner.
They exchanged salutes. The major then offered his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, McCoy took it and wished him good luck.
But despite the “Dai-Ichi” orders, he got no further with the Eighth Army signal officer than he had with the Eighth Army headquarters motor officer when he’d arrived in Korea.
“Captain, I don’t care if you have orders from General MacArthur himself, I’ve got Operational Immediate messages in there that should have been sent hours ago, and I will not delay them further so that you can send your report. ”
And once again he got back into the Jeep.
“Pusan,” he said to Zimmerman. "K-1. Their commo is tied up.”
“I have dispatches to send,” Jeanette protested indignantly.
“I should probably encourage you to wait until the commo has cleared,” McCoy said. “But, from the way the signal officer talked, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. If you’re in a rush to get something out . . .”
“ ‘Rush’ is a massive understatement,” Jeanette said,
“. . . then I suggest you come back to Tokyo with us.”
Jeanette thought that over for a full two seconds.
“Okay,” she said. “Tokyo it is. I really need a good hot bath anyway.”
They departed K-1, outside Pusan, at one o’clock the next morning, aboard an Air Force Douglas C-54.
After they broke ground, McCoy took out his notebook and wrote down the time.
Then he did the arithmetic in his head.
He and Zimmerman had landed in Korea just after midnight on the fifteenth, and they were leaving forty-eight hours later.
But two days was enough. I saw enough to know that the Eighth United States Army really has its ass in a crack, and unless something happens soon, they’ll get pushed into the sea at Pusan.
IX
[ONE]
U.S. NAVY/MARINE CORPS RESERVE TRAINING CENTER ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 1025 21 JULY 1950
Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, commanding Company B, 55th Marines, USMC Reserve, was more or less hiding in his office when First Lieutenant Paul T. Peterson, USMC, Baker Company’s inspector/instructor, came in with a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in his hand.
“There’s a story in here I thought you would like to see, sir,” he said. “Apparently things are pretty bad over there.”
“Thank you,” Hart said.
By “over there,” Peterson obviously meant Korea.
It seemed self-evident that “apparently things are pretty bad over there”; otherwise Company B 55th Marines would not have been called to active duty for “an indefinite period.”
The official call had come forty-eight hours, more or less, before.
The Marine Corps had found Captain Hart, USMCR, in the office of the second deputy commissioner of the St. Louis Police Department, discussing a particularly unpleasant murder, that of a teenaged prostitute whose obscenely mutilated body had been found floating in the river.
The deputy commissioner had taken the call, then handed Hart the telephone: “For you, George.”
Hart had taken the phone and answered it with the announcement, “This had better be pretty goddamned
important! ”
His caller had chuckled.
“Well, the Marine Corps thinks it is, Captain,” he said. “This is Colonel Bartlett, G-1 Section, Headquarters, Marine Corps.”
“Yes, sir?”
The second deputy commissioner looked at Hart with unabashed curiosity.
“This is your official notification, Captain,” Colonel Bartlett said, “Baker Company, 55th Marines, USMC Reserve, is called to active duty, for an indefinite period of service, as of 0001 hours today. You and your men are ordered to report to your reserve training station within twenty-four hours prepared for active service. Any questions? ”
“No, sir.”
“I have a few for you. Unofficially. What would be your estimate of the percentage of your officers and men who will actually report within twenty-four hours?”
“All my officers, sir, and probably ninety-five percent or better of the men.”
“And the percentage, officers first, prepared to perform in the jobs?”
“All of them, sir.”
“And the men?”
“I have fourteen kids who have yet to go through boot camp, sir. With that exception . . .”
“And your equipment?”
“Well, sir, we have some things that need replacement, but generally, we’re in pretty good shape.”
“Including weapons?”
“Individual and crew-served weapons are up to snuff, sir. We ran everybody—including the kids who haven’t been to boot camp—through the annual qualifying course. Finished last week.”
“Really?” Colonel Bartlett asked, obviously surprised. “I didn’t know you had a range.”
“The police loaned us theirs, sir.”
“Then you’re really ready to go, aren’t you?” Colonel Bartlett asked, rhetorically, as if surprised, or pleased, or both.
“Yes, sir.”
“If it were necessary, how soon could you depart your reserve training station?”
“I’d like to have seventy-two hours, sir, but we could leave in forty-eight.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir. Sir, may I ask where we’re going?”
“That hasn’t been decided yet, Captain, but I feel sure you’ll be ordered to either Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton. There will be official confirmation of your mobilization, by Western Union. And as soon as it is decided where you will go, you will be notified by telephone, with Western Union confirmation to follow. Any other questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Good morning, Captain Hart.”
“Good morning, sir.”
Hart put the telephone down and looked at the second deputy commissioner.
“You’ve been mobilized?” the commissioner asked.
“As of midnight last night,” Hart replied. “It looks as if I’m back in the Marine Corps.”
“You have to leave right away? What do you suggest we do about this?” He pointed at the case file.
Hart shrugged.
“I’m in the Marine Corps now, Commissioner,” he said. “Right away means I go from here to the Reserve Center.”
“I thought they’d give you a couple of weeks to settle your affairs,” the commissioner said.
“I didn’t,” Hart said. “I thought if they called us at all, they would want us as of the day before.”
He looked down at the case file, at the gruesome photograph of the victim’s body. He tapped the photo.
“Gut feeling: A sicko did this, not a pimp. If he’s getting his rocks off this way, he’s going to do it again. I was going to suggest setting up a team, under me, of vice guys. Look for the sicko. If I’m not here, that means setting it up under Fred Mayer, because he’s a captain, and Teddy, who I presume will take my job, is only a lieutenant. But Fred’s a vice cop. . . .”
“I’ll set it up under Teddy,” the commissioner said. “Mayer will understand.”
The hell he will. He’ll be pissed and fight Teddy every step of the way, and then when Teddy bags this scumbag, he’ll try to take the credit.
But it’s really none of my business anymore, not “for an indefinite period.”
“That’s what I would recommend, Commissioner,” Hart said.
The commissioner stood up, holding out his hand.
“Jesus, we can’t even throw you a ‘goodbye and good luck’ party, can we, George?”
“It doesn’t look that way, Commissioner.”
“Well, Jesus, George! Take care of yourself. Don’t do anything heroic!”
“I won’t,” Hart said.
Company B had a telephone tree call system. When a message had to be delivered as quickly as possible, it began at the top. Hart would call three of his officers. They in turn would call three other people, who would call three other people, until the system had worked its way down through the ranks to the privates.
The system was copied from that used by the St. Louis Police Department, to notify off-duty officers in case of emergency.
When Hart parked his unmarked car behind the Reserve Training Center and went inside wondering when he would return the car to the police garage, Lieutenant Peterson had already “lit the tree” and was making a list of those who hadn’t answered their telephone.
Hart changed into utilities, then called Mrs. Louise Schwartz Hart and told her the company had been mobilized, and he didn’t know when he could get home, certainly not in the next couple of hours.
“Oh, my God, honey!” Louise said.
“We knew it was coming, baby.”
“I was praying it wouldn’t,” Louise said.
Hart knew she meant just that. She had been on her knees, asking God not to send her husband to war. She did the same thing every time he left the house to go on duty. Dear God, please send George home alive.
He called her four hours later and asked her to meet him downtown; he had to turn the car in, and he might as well do it now as later.
By that time, a lot of people had already shown up at the training center.
Peterson told him he had made arrangements with Kramer’s Kafeteria, across from the training center, to feed the men, and asked if he should order the breaking out of cots for the men. Hart told him no.
“I don’t think we’ll get orders to move out tonight, and even if we do, there will be time to light the tree and get people back. Have the first sergeant run a check of their 782 gear, then send them home with orders to be here at six in the morning.”
“Oh six hundred, aye, aye, sir.”
And then Peterson told him that he had called the Post-Dispatch and told them Baker Company had been mobilized, and the Post-Dispatch wanted to know when would be a convenient time for them to send a reporter and a photographer to take some pictures.
“Tomorrow morning at nine.”
“Oh nine hundred, aye, aye, sir.”
When Louise met him in the Dodge at the police garage downtown, she was all dressed up and making a real effort to be cheerful, which made it worse.
“Can you have supper with us?”
“Sure,” he said. “But I’ll have to spend the night at the training center.”
Over supper with Louise and the kids—she made roast pork with oven-roasted potatoes, which she knew he liked—he decided to hell with spending the night at the training center. He would spend his last night in his own bed with his wife; if something came up, they could call him.
Peterson called him at two in the morning to report they’d just had a call.
Five cars had been added to “the Texan,” which ran between Chicago and Dallas, and would arrive in St. Louis at 1725. One of the cars was a baggage car. Two were sleepers, and the other two coaches. It might, or might not, be possible that an additional two sleeping cars would be found in Dallas, where all the cars would be attached to a train to Camp Joseph Pendleton. Freight cars not being available at this time, Company B’s Jeeps and trucks would have to be left behind.
Furthermore, since it wasn’t sure if the dini
ng car on the train could accommodate an unexpected 233 additional passengers, Company B was to be prepared to feed the men C- and/or 10-in-1 rations.
“Orders, sir?”
“First thing in the morning, we’ll truck the gear to the station,” Hart ordered. “Check with the motor sergeant and see if he can get at least one Jeep—the more the better—in the baggage car.”
“I don’t believe that’s authorized, sir.”
“And then ask Karl Kramer what he can do about putting dinner and breakfast together so that we can take that with us, too.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Peterson said, “they said confirmation of our orders would follow by Western Union. They’re quite specific about feeding C-rations, and leaving the vehicles behind.”
“Somehow, I think that telegram is going to get lost in the shuffle,” Hart said. “You’ve been to Pendleton. You want to take long hikes around it?”
“No, sir.”
“Light the tree at 0430. I want everybody at the center by 0600.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I’ll be there about five,” Hart said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You can relax, Paul,” Hart said. “I’ll take the heat for the Jeeps and the picnic lunches.”
He hung the phone up and looked at Louise.
“Honey,” he said. “I’d rather say so long here, than have you at the center. I’ll be pretty busy. There’s really, come to think of it, no point in you driving me there, either. I’ll call dispatch and have a black-and-white pick me up and take me.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
When he arrived at the Navy/Marine Corps Reserve Training Center at 0505, he was surprised to see a Navy staff car parked outside and a Marine major he’d never seen before, wearing a dress blue uniform, waiting for him inside. The major was accompanied by two photographers, one a Marine, the other a sailor.
The major said they had driven down overnight from Chicago, where the major was in charge of Marine Corps recruiting for “the five-state area.”
Hart had no idea what that meant.
The major said they were going both to assist the press in their coverage of the departure of Company B for active service, and to cover it for recruiting purposes as well. He had, the major said, already arranged with the mayor and other local dignitaries to be at Union Station when Company B marched up there to board the train.
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