Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  McCoy thought: At least he’s in a pressed uniform with his tie pulled up.

  Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, also in a freshly pressed uniform with his tie in place, appeared at Hart’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t expect to see Captain McCoy until much later today,” Pickering said. “And I didn’t expect to see you at all, General.”

  “Catch you on the way out, Pickering?”

  “Surprising the hell out of me, General MacArthur sent word that he would be pleased if I attended the meeting he’s having with General Collins and Admiral Sherman,” Pickering said.

  “Can I have a few minutes?” Cushman asked, as he and Pickering shook hands. “Maybe ride over to the Dai Ichi Building with you? I have a car.”

  “Come on in,” Pickering said. “Truth to tell, when the chime went off, I was thinking it might be a good idea if I was a little late for the meeting.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Something I learned from General Howe when Averell Harriman and General Ridgway were here,” Pickering said. “If I’m on hand, all shined up like some corporal waiting for the first sergeant’s morning inspection, when the distinguished visiting officers show up, they’re going to take a quick look at my shined shoes—and my one lonely star—and logically conclude that I’m a minor glow in the galaxy surrounding the Supreme Commander, and therefore to be ignored.”

  Cushman, warmly shaking Pickering’s hand, chuckled. “You like the prestige that goes with being the CIA’s man for Asia? That’s a little out of character for a spymaster, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not all I’m doing over here, Tom,” Pickering said, then turned to Hart. “Get us some coffee, George, please.”

  “McCoy mentioned something about that,” Cushman said.

  “Well, if he did, that’s really out of character for him.”

  “He didn’t want to, Fleming. The circumstances demanded it.”

  “Did he also tell you what he was up to in Korea?”

  Cushman nodded. “And that the operation is classified as Top Secret/White House.”

  “Okay,” Pickering said. “Since the cow is out of the barn: Ken, an hour ago, we heard from Zimmerman.”

  “I guess those transformers got there, McCoy,” Cushman said.

  Pickering looked at him, but didn’t say anything.

  “What did he say, sir?” McCoy asked.

  “The entire message was ‘standing by,’ ” Pickering said. “How did he get his radio fixed so quickly? When I talked to you last night, you said you were going to have to figure out some way to get the parts to him.”

  “Sir, Colonel Dunn dropped the replacement transformers to them first thing this morning.”

  “How did Billy Dunn get involved?”

  Cushman chuckled.

  “At 0400, as Badoeng Strait was getting ready to launch aircraft for the first sorties of the day,” he said, smiling, “an Avenger declared an emergency. All emergency procedures were put into operation. The Avenger came in, made a perfect landing, and McCoy, wearing black pajamas, and needing a bath and a shave, got out, carrying what looked like a half-dozen square tin cans.”

  “I thought you said the Avenger had declared an emergency, ” Pickering said.

  “McCoy had commandeered the Avenger in Pusan. It belongs to the Sicily,” Cushman said, “and to avoid the possibility that Badoeng Strait would refuse permission for it to land, had the pilot declare an emergency. Badoeng Strait’s captain, as you can probably understand, was apoplectic.”

  “That was necessary, Ken?” Pickering asked, shaking his head.

  “I wanted to get the transformers to Colonel Dunn before he took off for the first sorties.”

  “And those were the circumstances under which Captain McCoy felt obliged to let me know what he was up to,” Cushman said.

  “What is it the Jesuits say? ‘The end justifies the means’?” Pickering asked.

  “I hope this end does,” Cushman said.

  “In this case, I believe it does,” Pickering said.

  “McCoy said General MacArthur is not privy to his—I suppose your—clandestine operation, but he believes the President is?”

  “He is. General Howe told him.”

  “That was the first I’d heard of General Howe,” Cushman said.

  “A very good officer,” Pickering said.

  “Do I get to meet him?”

  Hart handed Pickering and Cushman cups of coffee, then handed one to McCoy and took one himself.

  “Certainly. When he comes back from Korea,” Pickering said.

  “General Howe is in Korea?” McCoy asked, surprised.

  “He’ll be back, he said, either tonight or tomorrow,” Pickering said. He turned to Cushman and went on. “He went there to see General Walker. General Collins, and some others, think Walker should be removed. The President wants Howe’s opinion.”

  “Not yours?”

  “I’m not qualified—or about—to voice an opinion of an Army commander’s performance.”

  “And this General Howe is?”

  “He commanded a division in Europe. He’s far better qualified than I am, but he’s damned uncomfortable with Truman’s order. And since one of us had to stay here in Tokyo to keep an eye on Sherman and Collins, here I am.”

  “You think the Inchon invasion is a sure thing?”

  “That’s why I ordered this operation,” Pickering said.

  “And MacArthur doesn’t know you’re doing this?”

  “As the Deputy Director of the CIA for Asia, I don’t have to tell MacArthur of every small clandestine operation I’m running.”

  “And what’s going to happen when he finds out?”

  “That’s one of those bridges somewhere down the road,” Pickering said.

  “You’re walking pretty close to the edge of a cliff, I guess you know.”

  “If I told him I thought these islands should be in our hands as soon as possible, I would be challenging the collective wisdom of his staff. Most of them were with him in the Philippines.”

  “And he would back them, of course.”

  Pickering nodded.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Cushman asked.

  “You already have. And since you are now in on this, I won’t be reluctant now to ask for any help I think we need.”

  Pickering looked at his watch.

  “Now we have to leave, George,” he said. He turned to McCoy. “Go home, Ken. Get a little rest. Whatever you think you have to do will wait until I get back from the Dai-Ichi Building. Come back about 1300. Bring Ernie, if you like. We can have a room-service lunch and talk here.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “What’s Taylor up to?” Pickering asked.

  “He’s sitting on Jeanette Priestly for me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Until I talked to her, she was going to write a story about Pick getting shot down,” McCoy said.

  “And you were able to talk her out of it?” Pickering asked, surprised.

  “I took her with us to Tokchok-kundo,” McCoy said. “It was the only thing I could think of to do with her.”

  “So now she’s in on everything?” Pickering said coldly.

  McCoy met Pickering’s eyes.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about her. I put her on the junk before I knew that she thinks she’s in love with Pick,” he said. And then he blurted, “Fuck it.”

  “Excuse me?” Pickering said, partly a question, mostly a reprove.

  McCoy took a manila envelope from inside his shirt and handed it to Pickering.

  “Billy gave me these just before he took off from the Badoeng Strait,” McCoy said. “Nobody knows about these pictures but two guys in the photo lab on the Badoeng Strait, Dunn, me, and now you.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “These pictures were taken the day after Pick went down, near the spot. Somebody stamped ‘PP’ and an arrow in a ruptured rice paddy.”
>
  “My God,” Pickering said. “He’s alive.”

  He handed the photographs to Cushman.

  “Why weren’t these photographs . . . ,” Cushman began. “Pickering, you have my word that every effort will be made—”

  “Sir, with respect,” McCoy said. “Colonel Dunn knew that if these pictures got out, a lot of people and, as important, the helicopters would be put at risk to try to get him.”

  “You’re a Marine, Captain. You know our tradition. . . .”

  “Colonel Dunn knows the only way to look for Major Pickering, to get him out, would be with helicopters, and the only helicopters we have are carrying the wounded. Colonel Dunn knows, and I know, that Major Pickering wouldn’t want that.”

  “And neither do I,” General Pickering said. “I don’t want helicopters put at risk looking for my son, General Cushman. We’ll think of something else.”

  “That’s really not your decision to make, is it, Fleming? ” Cushman argued.

  “I think it is,” Pickering said. “I would deeply appreciate your respecting my wishes in this matter.”

  Cushman met Pickering’s eyes.

  After a long moment, he said, “Of course.”

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas,” McCoy said.

  “And so far as you’re concerned, Ken, the priority is the taking of Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do,” Pickering said.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said.

  [THREE]

  THE DEWEY SUITE THE IMPERIAL HOTEL TOKYO, JAPAN 1425 10 AUGUST 1950

  Mrs. Ernestine McCoy was helping herself to another piece of pastry when the door chime went off, so she answered it.

  It was Brigadier General Pickering, trailed by Captain Hart. Pickering kissed her on the cheek, looked around the room, and said, “You’ve eaten, good. The Grand Encounter lasted longer than it was supposed to.”

  “Ken wanted to wait,” Ernie said.

  “And you didn’t,” Pickering said. “Proving what I’ve suspected all along, that you’re the smarter of the two.”

  He went to the room-service cart, opened silver covers until he found a bowl of salad, and popped a radish into his mouth. Then he turned to Hart.

  “In this order, George, order us some lunch. A small steak, a tomato, more salad for me, hold the dressing. And coffee, of course. Then show McCoy where we’ve moved the typewriter. And then run down Sergeant Keller, and have him standing by here, and have a car standing by downstairs to carry him to the Dai-Ichi Building.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Ken, you feel up to a little fast typing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, let’s get started. I want what happened at that meeting to be in the President’s hands as soon as possible.”

  General Pickering had just finished his small steak when McCoy came back in the room with several sheets of typewriter paper in his hands. Pickering took them and read them.

  “You’re a great typist, McCoy,” Pickering said, cheerfully. “If you ever need work, we can always use a good typist at P&FE.”

  “I think I’d rather sell deodorant for American Personal Pharmaceuticals, but thanks just the same,” McCoy replied.

  “Uncle Flem,” Ernie McCoy flared. “My God!”

  “Sometimes my mouth runs away with itself,” Pickering said. “Ken, I’m sorry. You know that was a bad shot at trying to be funny.”

  “It’s Okay?” McCoy asked, indicating the material he’d typed.

  “It’s perfect,” Pickering said, handing it back. “If you’d have made a couple of typos, I wouldn’t have . . .”

  McCoy took the sheets of paper from Pickering and handed them to Master Sergeant Keller.

  “Take a look, Keller,” McCoy ordered, “then stick them in an envelope and get them going.”

  Keller read them.

  TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN ONE (1) COPY ONLY DESTROY AFTER TRANSMISSION

  TOKYO, JAPAN 0625 GREENWICH 10 AUGUST 1950 VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

  IT IS NOW ABOUT 3 PM TOKYO TIME. I HAVE JUST COME FROM THE DAI-ICHI BUILDING WHERE I ATTENDED THE MEETING BETWEEN GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, GENERAL JOSEPH C. COLLINS, USA, AND ADMIRAL FORREST SHERMAN, USN, AND OTHER SENIOR MEMBERS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE STAFFS. GENERAL HOWE IS IN KOREA, BUT I FEEL SURE, HAD HE BEEN PRESENT, HE WOULD CONCUR WITH THE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN HEREIN.

  THE BASIC PURPOSE OF THE MEETING WAS TO GIVE GENERAL MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN HIS PLAN TO MAKE THE AMPHIBIOUS LANDING AT INCHON, SCHEDULED AT THE MOMENT FOR 15 SEPTEMBER 1950.

  I HAD THE FEELING THAT BOTH COLLINS AND SHERMAN ENTERED THE MEETING STRONGLY OPPOSED ESPECIALLY TO THE INCHON LANDING (THE TIDES ARGUMENT, WITH WHICH YOU ARE FAMILIAR), AND GENERALLY OPPOSED TO ANY AMPHIBIOUS OPERATION UNTIL THE SITUATION IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER IS STABILIZED, PRIMARILY BECAUSE THE INCHON INVASION WILL REQUIRE THE USE OF THE MARINES NOW FIGHTING IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER.

  I ALSO FELT THAT WHILE COLLINS LEFT THE MEETING UNSWAYED BY MACARTHUR’S—IN MY OPINION—COGENT AND BRILLIANT EXPLANATION OF WHY INCHON WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, SHERMAN HAD COME AROUND TO AT LEAST PARTIAL APPROVAL OF THE INCHON OPERATION. HE SAID NOTHING TO THIS EFFECT, BUT THE QUESTIONS HE ASKED OF MACARTHUR INDICATED HE DID NOT THINK INCHON IS AS HAREBRAINED AS COLLINS MADE CLEAR HE THINKS IT IS.

  COLLINS VERY SKILLFULLY GAVE MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO LAY THE BLAME FOR OUR INITIAL REVERSES ON GENERAL WALKER. MACARTHUR STATED VERY CLEARLY THAT HE BELIEVED WALKER “HAD DONE AND IS DOING A REMARKABLE JOB, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS BEEN FACING AND WHAT HE HAS TO FACE IT WITH.”

  IF IT WAS COLLINS’S INTENTION TO HAVE MACARTHUR ACQUIESCE IN THE RELIEF OF WALKER, EITHER BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT WALKER HASN’T MEASURED UP, OR BECAUSE HIS RELIEF WOULD ALLOW HIM TO GIVE RIDGWAY, OR SOMEONE ELSE OF HIS LIKING, THE JOB, HE FAILED.

  VERY EARLY THIS MORNING, GENERAL HOWE CALLED ME FROM KOREA ON A LINE THAT WE SUSPECTED WAS NOT AS SECURE AS WE WOULD HAVE LIKED. HE SAID THAT HE WOULD COMMUNICATE HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS MISSION THERE TO YOU AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, BUT THAT, IF I SHOULD COMMUNICATE WITH YOU BEFORE HE WAS ABLE TO, I SHOULD GIVE YOU THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE:

  “FROM WHAT I SEE, A CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP AT THIS TIME WOULD BE UNJUSTIFIED AND ILL-ADVISED.”

  IT IS MY OPINION, MR. PRESIDENT, THAT, ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS NOT TO DO SO FROM YOURSELF AND/OR THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, MACARTHUR WILL PROCEED WITH HIS INTENTION TO LAND WITH TWO DIVISIONS AT INCHON ON 15 SEPTEMBER. IT IS ALSO MY OPINION THAT COLLINS WILL MAKE A STRONG CASE BEFORE THE JCS, AND PERHAPS TO YOU PERSONALLY, TO FORBID INCHON, BUT THAT HE WILL NOT HAVE AS STRONG AN ALLY IN THIS IN SHERMAN AS HE PROBABLY HOPED HE WOULD.

  CAPTAIN MCCOY AND LIEUTENANT TAYLOR RETURNED FROM THE ISLAND WE HOLD IN THE FLYING FISH CHANNEL THIS MORNING. HE WILL RETURN THERE SHORTLY, AND IS PREPARED TO LAUNCH HIS OPERATION WITHIN A WEEK. CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED THAT BRIG GEN THOMAS CUSHMAN, USMC, ASSISTANT COMMANDER, 1ST MARINE AIR WING, BE INFORMED OF THAT MISSION, AND OF THE MISSIONS OF GENERAL HOWE AND MYSELF.

  RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

  F. PICKERING, BRIG GEN USMCR

  TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE

  “This looks fine to me, Captain,” Keller said.

  “Go with him, George, will you?” McCoy ordered. “Now I’m going to have my coffee.” He handed him more typewriter paper, torn in half. “This gets burned and shredded with the clean copy.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the version with the typos, before I retyped it,” McCoy said. He sat down at the table and reached for the coffeepot.

  “Ernie,” a female voice cried, “did that husband of yours tell you what he did to me?”

  His head snapped to the door.

  Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune was coming through the door, trailed by Lieutenant (j.g.) David Taylor, USNR.

  “Well, Jeanette,” Ernie said, rising to the occasion. “How nice to see you again.”

  “I didn’t expect you’d beat us here
,” Taylor said to McCoy.

  “Long story. I’ll tell you later.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “This would have been here sooner,” Jeanette said, flashing McCoy a dazzling smile. “But this had to freshen up a little. And this must say that you look a lot better than the last time this saw you.”

  McCoy realized he was smiling.

  The last time he had seen her, just before midnight at the Evening Star Hotel in Tongnae, she had been wearing U.S. Army fatigues and combat boots. She hadn’t been near soap or running water for a week, and had spent all but an hour of the previous two and a half days on a junk running through some often rough water in the Yellow Sea. There had been a visible layer of dried saltwater spray all over her face, hands, and hair.

  She was now clean, wearing makeup, an elegantly simple black dress, high heels, and enough perfume so that McCoy could smell it across the room.

  The only thing that was the same about her was the Leica camera in its battered case hanging around her neck.

  “She insisted on coming here,” Taylor said. “I didn’t know what to do. . . .”

  Taylor was wearing one of his well-worn, but clean, khaki uniforms.

  “It’s all right,” General Pickering said. McCoy looked at him and saw he was smiling. “Hello, Miss Priestly.”

  He got a dazzling smile.

  “How nice to see you again, General,” she said.

  “Zimmerman’s on the air,” McCoy said.

  “That was quick,” Taylor said, surprised. “That’s damned good news.”

  “I’ll want to know, in detail, exactly how you managed that,” Jeanette said.

  “Later,” McCoy said.

  "What can we do for you, Miss Priestly?” Pickering asked.

  “Didn’t Captain McCoy tell you?” she asked. “In exchange for me not writing one story, he promised he would give me an exclusive story about something else I’m afraid to mention, not knowing how many secrets McCoy shares with his wife. No offense, Ernie.”

  General Pickering chuckled.

  “I don’t think Captain McCoy has any secrets from his wife,” he said. “How was the cruise, Miss Priestly?”

  “It was absolutely awful, frankly,” she said. “Anyway, until what happens happens, I’m going to stick to these two”—she indicated McCoy and Taylor—“like glue.”