“I didn’t know,” McCoy said. “I’m sorry.”
“But I didn’t know until just now,” she said. “When you told me.”
McCoy said nothing.
“Oh, Jesus, McCoy!” she said.
He reached out to touch her shoulder. He felt her shudder, and the next thing either of them knew, she was sobbing shamelessly in his arms, and he was patting her comfortingly.
XV
[ONE]
ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE 34 DEGREES 18 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE, 126 DEGREES 30 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE THE YELLOW SEA 0445 6 AUGUST 1950
They had not wanted to attract attention to themselves by leaving Pusan Harbor under power—McCoy guessed there were probably a hundred North Korean agents in Pusan—so they had sailed out into deep water. Once out of sight of Pusan, they’d lowered the sails, started the diesel, and “steamed”—Lieutenant Taylor’s term—as fast as Taylor thought prudent, through the night.
McCoy volunteered to relieve Taylor at the tiller for however long he wanted, but Taylor said he’d catch up on his sleep when they reached Tokchok-kundo, and suggested that McCoy get as much sleep as he could.
When wakened by the first light that came through the small window—he couldn’t think of it as a port, since it was wooden, thin-glassed, and even had a small curtain— McCoy went to the bridge and found both Zimmerman and Jeanette Priestly were already there.
A shoreline was just visible to starboard. He guessed the distance to be four miles. He thought he could smell bacon frying.
“Well, Captain Kidd has finally woken,” Jeanette greeted him.
“I prefer to think of myself as Jean Lafitte,” McCoy replied. “He was one of the good pirates, we won that war, and he was pardoned for his crimes, and lived happily ever after. They hung Captain Kidd.”
Taylor chuckled.
“Is that bacon I smell?” McCoy asked. “And who do you have to know to get coffee?”
“Me,” Zimmerman said, and pointed to the deck where an olive-drab Thermos chest on which was stenciled D CO. 24TH INF was lashed to the railing.
McCoy went to it and opened it. It held two canteens, presumably full of coffee, and a stack of aluminum canteen cups. He helped himself, then offered the canteen cup to Taylor, who nodded and smiled.
“Breakfast will be served shortly,” Zimmerman said. “Bacon-and-egg sandwiches.”
“All the comforts of home,” McCoy said. “What else could anyone ask for?”
“A flush toilet would be nice,” Jeanette said.
“Where are we?” McCoy asked, handing Taylor the coffee.
“Well, if we are where I hope we are, we made it through the Cheju Strait, and are now in the Yellow Sea, heading north, and it’s decision time.”
“Let me get myself a cup of coffee before I start making decisions,” McCoy said, and went back to the Thermos chest. Then he went and stood by Taylor.
“I meant it, you know, when I said you were the captain, ” McCoy said.
Taylor didn’t reply directly.
“It’s getting light,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re going to meet anybody out here—and there would be less chance we would if we went another couple of miles offshore— but if we did meet somebody, using the diesel, questions would be asked. Our speed will be cut in half if we raise the sails. Decision time.”
“We have to get to Tokchok-kundo as soon as we can,” McCoy thought aloud. “Operative words: ‘have to get to’ and ‘as soon as we can.’ The options conflict.”
“Your decision, McCoy.”
“I think ‘as soon as we can’ justifies a certain risk.”
“In other words, keep the diesel running?”
“If we run into a navy vessel, ours, British, or South Korean, ” McCoy said, “they’d probably fire a shot across our bow and stop us. We could talk our way out of that.”
“All these waters are closed to all but local fishermen,” Taylor said. “If we get spotted by a reconnaissance airplane, all they’re going to see is a junk under power. Local fishermen don’t have powered junks. If I were a pilot, I’d think North Koreans.”
“Why?”
“Because I would have been told if a friendly vessel was going to be in the area.”
“Well, let’s hope if we get spotted by one of our guys, he’ll make a low and slow pass before blowing us out of the water. I don’t see how we can justify moving at six knots when we can make twelve.”
“What about her?” Taylor asked.
“She’s a war correspondent, right? They get in the line of fire.”
“I like her,” Taylor said. “As a person, I mean.”
“Yeah, me too,” McCoy said, without thinking.
I’ll be damned. I mean that.
McCoy saw that Taylor, with an effort, was making a major course change with the tiller, heading away from the coastline.
Ten minutes later, the Wind of Good Fortune made another course correction, and McCoy saw they were now headed north. He looked at the landmass.
“Mr. McCoy!” Taylor called, trying to sound like Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty.
McCoy turned and then walked to him.
“You called, Captain?”
“You have the conn, sir,” Taylor said.
“You better tell me what to do with it, Captain.”
“Steer the course we’re on,” Taylor said, pointing to the compass.
“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy replied, and put his hand on the smooth wood of the tiller.
Taylor went below and immediately returned with an air mattress and two sleeping bags, with which he quickly made himself a bed on the deck and lay down on it.
And then he went to sleep, without even waiting for their egg-sandwich breakfast.
When, a few minutes later, breakfast arrived, Jeanette took an egg sandwich from another Army Thermos chest and handed it to McCoy.
“Thank you.”
“When are we going to get wherever we’re going?” she asked.
He did the arithmetic in his head—so many miles to go at so many knots—and concluded that the voyage would take just about twenty-four hours.
“We’re going—I thought I told you—to an island called Tokchok-kundo, and the way I figure it, we should get there between four and five tomorrow morning.”
She nodded.
McCoy had another thought, and repeated it aloud.
“It’ll still be dark at 0400, and I don’t think Taylor will want to dock this thing in the dark, so it will probably be later, maybe a couple of hours later.”
“And when we get off the Queen Mary, then what?”
“The first thing we do is get the SCR-300 up and running, ” McCoy said. “Kim says there is a diesel generator on the island, but probably little—or no—fuel. We brought fuel, and also a small, gas-powered generator that’ll work—if we’re lucky—for a couple of hours, if we have to use it.”
“What does SCR stand for?”
“Signal Corps Radio,” McCoy said.
Jeanette took a notebook from her pocket and wrote that down.
“And once it’s up and running, then what?”
“We radio Tokyo and let them know we’re here, and see if they have anything for us.”
“Like maybe word about Pick?” she asked.
“If there’s word about Pick, General Pickering will pass it on,” McCoy said.
“And then?”
“We’re going to unload the stuff we brought with us, take an inventory of what’s on Tokchok-kundo that we can use, and start planning to take Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do. ”
“Those are the islands in the Flying Fish Channel,” Jeanette asked.
McCoy nodded.
“You know how to spell them?” she asked, taking out her notebook again.
“The more information you have, the more I’m tempted to leave you on Tokchok-kundo until this operation is over.”
She met his eyes.
“And you’d do just that
, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “How did a nice girl like Ernestine Sage get involved with a ruthless bastard like you?”
“She was lucky, I guess,” McCoy said.
“I thought I had made it plain that I now have a personal interest in this war,” Jeanette said.
“I don’t know how far I can trust you,” McCoy said. “If at all.”
“Okay. Leave me on the fucking island if you think you have to. But spell the fucking islands for me now.”
“When it gets light, Taylor has charts with the islands identified. I’m not sure of the spelling.”
“You’re going to invade islands you can’t even spell?” she asked.
“We’re Marines—we can do anything,” McCoy said.
“The sad thing is you really believe that,” she said. “And after you get the Queen Mary unloaded, and make your plans to invade the unspellable islands, then what?”
“Taylor and I go back to Pusan with a couple of Koreans for crew. Everybody else—probably including you—stays on the island, and starts training the Koreans for the operation. Taylor and I’ve got a lot to do in Pusan, and maybe in Tokyo, too.”
“For instance?”
“Well . . . Jeanette, you understand I’m serious about leaving you on Tokchok-kundo? And the more you know. . . .”
“I’d stay on that fucking island forever if I thought it would help Pick,” she said. “Okay?”
“Okay. That’s settled. We’re going to need boats to make the assault,” McCoy said, “which means (a) we have to find boats, and (b) find some way to get them to Tokchok-kundo. ”
“What kind of boats? How many?” she asked.
What the hell, as long as I’m physically sitting on her, and she has no access to communications, it doesn’t matter how much she knows. And talking an operation like this through is always a good idea. You almost always come up with something you didn’t think of.
So he told her what kind of boats, and how many of them, they were going to need. And everything else she asked him.
[TWO]
THE DEWEY SUITE THE IMPERIAL HOTEL TOKYO, JAPAN 1730 6 AUGUST 1950
When the knock at the door came, Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, was sprawled on a couch in the sitting room, reading a paperback copy of Mickey Spillane’s My Gun Is Quick.
He went quickly to the door and pulled it open.
Major General Ralph Howe was in the corridor, dressed as Hart was, in a tieless uniform shirt and trousers.
“Professional reading, George?” Howe asked.
“I can’t believe this thing,” Hart said.
“Maybe that’s why they call it fiction,” Howe said. “Where’s your boss?”
Hart pointed to the bedroom.
“I hope he’s asleep,” Hart said, and added: “The drinks I fed him at the cocktail hour were stiff ones.”
Howe’s eyebrows rose.
“Not drunk,” Hart said. “I’ve never seen him drunk.”
“I have to talk to him, George,” Howe said.
“Yes, sir,” Hart said, tossed My Gun Is Quick onto the couch, and went to Pickering’s door. He knocked twice and then went in without waiting.
Pickering—also dressed in only a uniform shirt and trousers—was lying on his bed.
“Sorry to disturb you, boss,” Hart said.
“No problem,” Pickering said. “I’ve already counted the kimono-ed ladies on the wallpaper twice. What’s up?”
“General Howe, sir.”
Pickering swung his feet out of bed and walked into the sitting room in his stocking feet.
“Sorry to wake you, Flem,” Howe said.
“I was awake,” Pickering said. “Would you like a drink?”
“I’d love one, but this may not be the time,” Howe said. “I had a telephone call from Harriman. They just landed at Haneda, and they’re coming here to see us. They want to see us both, and separately.”
“They meaning Harriman and Ridgway?” Pickering asked.
Howe nodded.
“Get us some coffee, George, while I put my shoes on,” Pickering ordered.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“You all right, Flem?” Howe asked.
“Meaning am I plastered? No. I gave getting plastered some serious thought and decided it wasn’t the smart thing to do.”
Howe followed Pickering and leaned on the bedroom door as Pickering put his shoes on.
“The other day, McCoy’s wife said she knew Harriman. Do you?”
Pickering nodded.
“That’s probably why he said he wants to see you, first,” Howe said.
“We’re not pals,” Pickering said. “I’ve met him, oh, a bunch of times over the years. My wife knows him better than I do. And can’t stand him.”
“What’s he like?”
“You never met him?”
“Only briefly. Truman is impressed with him.”
“Interesting man. His father died when he was eighteen, leaving him the Union Pacific Railroad. And the Southern Pacific. He was our ambassador to Russia during the Second War. I always thought that was Roosevelt playing Machiavelli again, sending one of the richest men in America to be ambassador to the Communists.”
“I got the feeling that he was one of the first—and very few—of that bunch around Roosevelt to warn Truman that Uncle Joe ‘The Friendly Bear’ Stalin was a real sonofabitch, ” Howe said.
“Could be,” Pickering said, grunting as he tied his shoelaces. “He’s working for Truman. Most of the rest of that bunch, thank God, is gone.”
He stood up and walked into the bathroom.
“Five o’clock shadow,” he said. “I don’t know if Ernie Sage thought that line up, but it’s made him a hell of a lot of money.”
“Ernie Sage?” Howe asked, walking across the bedroom to stand in the bathroom door.
“McCoy’s father-in-law,” Pickering said. “First, American Personal Pharmaceuticals—that was actually Ernie’s father—made men ashamed of having beards, and then started selling them safety razors and shaving cream. You ever think about how stupid shaving is?”
Howe chuckled.
“You ever have a beard?” he asked.
“I had a beard from the time I got out of the Corps after the First War until the day I got married. Literally, the day I got married. Patricia said she wouldn’t marry me with ‘that fur on your face,’ and I believed her. I should have held my ground.”
“From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a formidable lady,” Howe said. “You said before she doesn’t like Harriman?”
“Can’t stand him.”
“Why?”
“Patricia has always had the odd notion that men should not have carnal knowledge of ladies to whom they are not joined in holy matrimony,” Pickering said, as he lathered his face.
“I wonder where they get that silly idea,” Howe said.
“And the sin is compounded when the chap boffing the lady to whom he is not married is himself married.”
“Of course,” Howe said. “You’re talking around Harriman? He looks—and acts—like the Chairman of the Vestry.”
“And he probably is,” Pickering said.
“But?”
“During the war, Patricia was in London a good deal— she was on the War Shipping Board. She kept an apartment in Claridge’s Hotel. Claridge’s was where Ambassador Harriman stayed when he flew in from Moscow to confer with Eisenhower and, incidentally, to boff Pamela Churchill.”
“Pamela Churchill?”
“Winston’s daughter-in-law,” Pickering said. “His son Randolph’s wife.”
“I never heard this before,” Howe said.
“Well, it was hardly a secret,” Pickering said. “I heard about it over here, in one of Wild Bill Donovan’s Top Secret monthly reports on Important World Events, before Patricia told me. And if Wild Bill knew about Harriman and his girlfriend, then Roosevelt did. You were in Europe during the war, Ralph. You ever hear about Eisenhower’s ‘driver,’ the Eng
lish girl he had commissioned into the U.S. Army as a captain?”
Howe nodded.
“My God, I am running off at the mouth, aren’t I?” Pickering said. “Maybe George’s drinks were stronger than I thought.”
“Indelicate question,” Howe said. “You ever hear anything about the Viceroy?”
“Not a word. And I would have. Of course, it’s a lot easier to be faithful to your wife if she’s with you. What did Oscar Wilde say, ‘Celibacy is the most unusual of all the perversions’?”
“If you don’t ask me about my fidelity while overseas defending God, Mother, and Apple Pie,” Howe said, “I won’t ask you about yours.”
Pickering chuckled.
“I think what really annoyed Patricia was that Harriman apparently didn’t give a damn who knew about the Churchill woman, which had to be very embarrassing for Mrs. Harriman.”
“What does it say in the Good Book, Flem? ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’?”
“I’ve never met a woman who got that far in reading the Bible,” Pickering said.
He splashed water on his face, wiped it with a towel, and then splashed on aftershave.
“Well, there we go. My shameful five o’clock shadow having been shorn, and smelling like a French whore, I am now prepared to meet with the ambassador. And Ken Mc-Coy’s father-in-law is just a little bit richer.”
“When do you expect to hear from McCoy?” Howe asked.
“When he has something to tell me,” Pickering said. “He’s very good at what he does, Ralph. My father taught me to get out of the way of people who know what they’re doing, and let them do it.”
Howe nodded.
“I’d better put a tie and my tunic on,” Pickering said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Howe said. “I didn’t particularly like Harriman’s tone of voice.”
“What?”
“He was giving orders,” Howe said. “As if he had that right.”
“Doesn’t he?”
“And if he walks in here and finds us all dressed up in our general’s suits,” Howe said, “shoes shined, et cetera— and one of us freshly shaved and smelling like a French whore—he will have established the pecking order as he wants it. Harriman will be the exalted ambassador dealing with a couple of unimportant lower-ranking generals who may have some information he may find useful.”
Under Fire Page 50
