Retreat, Hell! Part 63

[SEVEN].

ABOARD NAVAL AIR TRANSPORT SERVICE FLIGHT 203 (MEDICAL EVACUATION) 32.42 DEGREES NORTH LAt.i.tUDE 120.296 DEGREES WEST LONGITUDE THE PACIFIC OCEAN 1630 25 OCTOBER 1950.

Lieutenant Commander Dwayne G. Fisher, USNR, a slightly plump, pleasant-appearing thirty-nine-year-old, came out of the door to the flight deck of the four-engined Douglas C-54 and made his way slowly down the aisle to the rear of the pa.s.senger compartment.

The aircraft was configured to carry litters. There were two lines of them, stacked three high. Almost all of the litters were occupied, and almost all of the injured were Marines. They were all strapped securely to the litters, which had thin inflatable mattresses, olive drab in color, but not unlike the air mattresses used in swimming pools. About one-third of the injured were connected to rubber tubing feeding them saline solutions, pain-deadening narcotics, or fresh human blood, or various combinations thereof.

Commander Fisher stopped at just about every row of litters. Sometimes he just smiled, and sometimes he said things like "How you doing, pal?" or "We're almost there. About another hour and we'll be in San Diego."

Sometimes the injured men replied, if only with a single word or two or a faint smile. Some stared at him without response. Four of the men in the litters were covered with sheets. They had not survived the flight.

At the rear of the fuselage, where they had been loaded last so they could be off-loaded first, were the NPs. The stress of war had been too much for them, and they were headed for the Neuro-Psychiatric Wards of the San Diego Naval Hospital. They had all been sedated, and strapped to their litters more securely.

Commander Fisher stopped at each row of NPs, but they were out of it, and he didn't speak to them, only gave them a little smile.

At the extreme rear of the pa.s.senger compartment was a patient whom Dwayne Fisher wanted to talk to. He was an NP, but the flight physician had told him that was probably just a technical cla.s.sification to get him to the States. The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d was a Marine fighter pilot who'd just been rescued after three months behind the enemy's lines.

"He's nothing but skin and bones, but he's not over the edge," the flight physician had told him.

"Hi!" Commander Fisher said.

What does this a.s.shole want?

"I understand you're also an airplane driver."

What are you doing, writing a book?

"Guilty."

"Fighters?"

And also Lockheed 1049s. You are conversing, sir, with the current holder of the Trans-Pacific scheduled pa.s.senger service speed record.

"Corsairs."

"I flew P-38s in War Two," Fisher said. "Which twin-engine time I parlayed into a job with Eastern. Where I flew these. Which kept me out of fighters when they called me up."

"Reservist?"

Dumb f.u.c.king question. If he was called up, he was in the reserve.

"Yeah. You?"

"Me, too. I was flying for Trans-Global."

"Ten-forty-nines?"

"That's all Trans-Global has."

"Nice airplane."

"Very nice."

"You were shot down?"

Back to your f.u.c.king book, are we?

"Uh-huh."

"I'm surprised they didn't grab you for NATS," Commander Fisher said. "Most of our guys are called-up airline pilots."

"They didn't."

"I just called our ETA-one hour-to San Diego," Fisher said. "It's been a long haul."

It's been a f.u.c.king nightmare.

"It's been a nightmare."

"Walking down that aisle is tough," Fisher said. "The amazing thing is, you don't get complaints."

Not from the drugged or the dead, I guess you don't.

"A couple of hours out of Honolulu, I went to the head. I saw . . . the sheets. How many didn't make it?"

"I counted four."

"I guess the rest of us are lucky, huh?"

"From what I hear, you're luckier than most. You were behind the enemy's lines for three months, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you're walking around. You look like you're in pretty good condition?"

"Yeah. I'm in good condition."

The way my commanding officer put it, with devastating honesty, Commander, is that I am a self-important sonofab.i.t.c.h whose delicate condition is my own G.o.dd.a.m.n fault. He went on to say that my childish behavior caused a lot of good people to put their necks out to save me from the consequences of my soph.o.m.oric s...o...b..ating.

That should be me under one of those white sheets.

Commander Fisher put out his hand.

"I better get back up and drive the bus," he said. "Nice to meet you, Major. Good luck."

"Thanks."

[EIGHT].

NAVAL AIR STATION, SAN DIEGO SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 1740 25 OCTOBER 1950.

As the C-54 taxied through the rain, Pick could see a line of ambulances and buses, and beside them a small army of medical personnel and a long line of poncho-covered gurneys.

The C-54 stopped on the tarmac before the pa.s.senger terminal, and when the cargo door opened, Pick saw that a forklift had been driven up to the aircraft. It held a platform, on which were four gurneys and eight Corpsmen in raincoats with Red Cross bra.s.sards.

The dead were off-loaded first. Four Corpsmen came onto the aircraft, went to one of the bodies, unfastened the litter, and carried it down the aisle to the door and the waiting gurneys. The body was gently moved from the litter to the gurney and covered with a poncho, but not before enough rain had fallen on the sheet to make it translucent.

Then the litter was carried back onto the aircraft, and a second body on its litter carried out to the gurneys waiting in the rain.

When all four gurneys had bodies, the forklift lowered the platform.

When it came back up, there were four Corpsmen, different ones, on it. The flight physician was now waiting for them. They exchanged a few words, then the flight physician turned to Pick.

"Okay, Major, you're next," he said. "Do you need help to go out there and get on a gurney?"

"I don't need a gurney."

"It's policy."

"f.u.c.k your policy."

"You made it all the way here without giving anybody any trouble. Please don't start now."

"I'm not going to get on a f.u.c.king gurney."

"You're going to get on it, Major. The only question is whether you do it now or after I sedate you."

"Major," one of the Corpsmen said, "with respect. It's raining out here. Please."

Pick stood up, walked through the door, and climbed onto one of the gurneys. One of the Corpsmen laid a poncho over him.

Three more NPs were brought off the aircraft. They were not transferred to the gurneys. Rather, their litters were laid on top of the gurneys and then they were strapped to it.

A Corpsman appeared with two lengths of canvas webbing.

"Let me get this around you, and we're on our way," he said.

"You're going to strap me to this f.u.c.king thing?"

"That's the SOP," the Corpsman said. "Take it easy. The sooner we get to the hospital, the sooner we can take it off."

f.u.c.k it.

What do I care?

What do I care about anything?

When the straps were in place, Pick could not move his arms and wipe the rain from his exposed face.

So what the f.u.c.k?

The forklift lowered the platform, and the gurneys were rolled off it-Pick's first-with a double b.u.mp, and then to one of the buses. The buses had enormous rear doors that permitted the gurneys to be wheeled aboard them.

The way he was strapped in, he could raise his head. But all he could see out the bus's winds.h.i.+eld was the open door of the bus ahead of his.

He laid his head back down.

Several minutes later, he heard the door being closed, and when he looked up, he saw a white hat come down the aisle, get behind the wheel, and start the engine.

The bus turned out of the line.

The next thing Pick saw was a sign: WELCOME TO THE U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL, SAN DIEGO!

XV.

[ONE].

ROOM 308, MATERNITY WARD U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL U.S. NAVY BASE, SASEBO SASEBO, j.a.pAN 0815 25 OCTOBER 1950.

Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, as Hospital Commander, was not required to make routine morning or afternoon rounds with members of his medical staff-after all, he had a lot else to occupy his time-but of course he had the unquestioned right to do so.

When he had the time, in other words, he often would join one of the teams making rounds to keep his fingers, so to speak, on the pulse of the hospital. And he would usually ask Commander J. V. Stenten, NC, USN, his Chief of Nursing Services, to accompany him. Between the two of them, very little that needed correction escaped notice.

Since McCoy, Mrs. Ernestine McCoy, Mrs. Ernestine and later and later McCoy, Major K. R. McCoy, Major K. R. had been admitted, Captain Schermer had found the time to make morning and afternoon rounds of the maternity ward every day, and Commander Stenten had been free to accompany him. had been admitted, Captain Schermer had found the time to make morning and afternoon rounds of the maternity ward every day, and Commander Stenten had been free to accompany him.

There were several reasons for this, and chief among them was that both Captain Schermer and Commander Stenten genuinely liked the young couple sharing the sumo wrestler's bed. But Schermer was also aware that he had a delicate situation in his care of Major and Mrs. McCoy.

It hadn't been, for example, the first time General of the Army and Mrs. MacArthur had come to Sasebo to visit the wounded and ill. Since the war had started, they had made ten, maybe twelve such visits. But never had Mrs. MacArthur brought a box of candy to a maternity ward patient.

And never, to his knowledge, had the hospital had in its care a CIA agent who had suffered wounds behind enemy lines. And whose commanding officer, a brigadier general, the a.s.sistant director of the CIA for Asia, obviously had an interest in both of them that went beyond official to in loco parentis. in loco parentis.

Captain Schermer, followed by Commander Stenten and then by the Rounds Staff, marched into room 308, where the patients were lying beside one another reading Stars and Stripes Stars and Stripes and and So, You're Going to Be a Mother! So, You're Going to Be a Mother!

"Good morning," Captain Schermer said. "And how are we this morning?"

"I don't know how we we are, Doctor," Mrs. McCoy replied. "But speaking for my husband and myself, I'm pregnant and uncomfortable, ready to go home, and he's pawing the ground to get out of here." are, Doctor," Mrs. McCoy replied. "But speaking for my husband and myself, I'm pregnant and uncomfortable, ready to go home, and he's pawing the ground to get out of here."

Commander Stenten chuckled.

Captain Schermer picked up their medical record clipboards from the foot of the bed and studied both.

"Well," he said. "Why don't we get Major McCoy into a wheelchair, and have Dr. Haverty have a look at you?"