Retreat, Hell! Part 68

He didn't know exactly what he was going to say, but he would think of something.

He could always think of something to say. Being able to think on his feet, say the right thing, was what had made him "Salesman of the Month" at Mike O'Brien's DeSoto-Plymouth Agency in East Orange, New Jersey, month after month.

Major Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, climbed down somewhat awkwardly from the right side of the Beaver and surveyed his staff-Captain Dunwood and Master Gunner Zimmerman-who were on hand to greet him.

"You're back?" Zimmerman asked. "What's with the leg?"

"I'm all right," McCoy said. "We brought two pigs and three crates of chickens, which have made a real mess of the airplane. Get it cleaned up before that-'s.h.i.+t' is the word-has a chance to dry."

"Okay," Zimmerman said.

"Use Koreans; I need to talk to the Marines. Your Marines, Dunwood."

"Yes, sir," Dunwood said. "Sir, may I have a minute or two?"

"Just as soon as I finish talking to your Marines," McCoy said. "Get them under the camouflage."

"Aye, aye, sir," Dunwood said. "I just need a couple of minutes, sir."

"When I'm finished talking to your Marines," McCoy said, not very pleasantly.

"Yes, sir."

Jesus Christ, is he going to tell us, "Thank you. And give my regards to the 5th Marines when you get back there"?

"Can everybody hear me?" Major McCoy asked five minutes later, as he stood on the landing-gear strut of one of the H-19s under the camouflage netting.

There were murmurs that he could be heard.

"I don't really know where to begin," McCoy said. "Okay. Say what's on my mind. One of the first things I learned when I came in the Corps was never to volunteer for anything. So what I'm looking for here is volunteers."

There was laughter.

"Major, we heard you was shot?" a voice called.

"I took a piece of shrapnel," McCoy said. "I was almost a soprano, but aside from that, I'm okay."

He looked around the Marines gathered in a half-circle around him.

"From here on, what I say is Top Secret," he said. "If the wrong people hear what I'm about to say, people will die. I want that clearly understood."

There had been murmurs and whispered conversation. Now there was silence.

"X Corps has landed farther north," McCoy began. "Their orders are to strike northward, past the Chosin Reservoir, to the Manchurian border. There is a very good chance the Chinese are going to come into the war just as soon as we get close to the border.

"I think there are several hundred thousand of them. I don't think many people agree with me. I know they don't. But that's what I believe. So what I need to do is put people out ahead of our forces-both 1st MarDiv and the Army's 7th Infantry Division-to find out where the Chinese are, so that our people at least have some warning.

"The way to do that, I think, is to insert people, listening posts, in enemy territory. That's what you've been practicing to do. There are lots of problems with this, starting with the fact that if the Chinese detect you there, that'll be it. We can't risk losing one or both of the Big Black Birds trying to rescue people. The two we have is all there is.

"And I can't send you on missions like these as Marines, even as volunteers. Marines don't abandon people to the enemy. We're going to have to do just that. And since this whole thing is secret, we can't afford to have some well-meaning Marine wanting to live up to 'we're Marines, we don't leave people, dead or alive, behind,' and asking questions we can't answer."

"So what are you asking, Major?" a voice called.

"The rules don't apply to Marines serving in the CIA," McCoy said. "So I need people to volunteer for the CIA."

Now there were murmurs.

Captain Dunwood, who had been standing to one side of the half-circle, walked toward the center.

"Sir?"

McCoy silenced him with a hand raised, palm outward.

"There will be no pressure on anybody to volunteer. I'm not sure I would. But now that the cat's out of the bag-and this isn't a threat-what happens now is that we're all in the bag. Mail will come in, but none goes out, except for a final letter saying you'll be out of touch for a while. And when this is over, those who don't think going into the CIA makes sense will be sent to the States. If there's a leak, Naval Intelligence will find out, and there'll be court-martials. But if you keep your mouth shut, no one will even know you were asked to volunteer."

"Sir?" Dunwood said again.

McCoy glared at him.

"You have something to say, Captain?"

"Yes, sir. Sir, the thing is, some of us, the noncoms and me, and the noncoms and the Marines, having been trying to think of a way to ask you how we could transfer to the CIA."

"It's not all air-delivered live pigs and cold beer, Captain. You're aware of that?"

"Yes, sir, we know that."

"And when you finally get back to the Corps, if you get back to the Corps, some sonofab.i.t.c.h is going to ask where you were when he was fighting the war, and you won't be able to tell him. You understand that, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Those of you who would like to go into the CIA, give your names to Captain Dunwood," McCoy said.

There was a sudden ma.s.s movement to get close to Captain Dunwood.

McCoy jumped off the landing strut and went into the pa.s.senger compartment of the H-19.

Zimmerman quickly moved-almost ran-from where he had been standing to the helicopter and climbed inside.

He found McCoy leaning against the fuselage wall. There were tears on McCoy's cheeks.

"When this f.u.c.king leg hurts, it f.u.c.king hurts," McCoy said. "I didn't want to let them see me."

"Your leg, my a.s.s," Zimmerman said. "What did you expect, Killer? Those guys are Marines."

XVI.

[ONE].

ROOM 39A, NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC WARD U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 0830 30 OCTOBER 1950.

The room a.s.signed to Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, was furnished with a hospital bed, a white cabinet to the left of the bed, a white table to the right, a plastic-upholstered chrome armchair, and a folding metal chair.

When the door swung open, Major Pickering was sitting in the armchair with his slippered bare feet resting on the folding chair. He was reading Time Time magazine. magazine.

He glanced up from the magazine and started to get to his feet.

"As you were," Brigadier General Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, a tall, tanned, thin, sharp-featured forty-year-old, said, and reinforced the order by making a pus.h.i.+ng motion with his right hand.

Major Pickering ignored both the order and the signal and stood up.

"Good morning, sir," Pick said.

Dawkins smiled, turned, and waved another officer, a captain, festooned with the regalia of an aide-de-camp, into the room.

"Captain McGowan," General Dawkins inquired, "looking at that ugly, skinny officer, would you believe he had half the Marines in Korea looking for him?"

"Sir, I understand there's a shortage of pilots," Captain Arthur McGowan, a tall, slim twenty-nine-year-old, who wore the ring of the United States Naval Academy, said with a smile.

Dawkins saw Pick's face.

"Not funny?"

"No, sir."

Dawkins nodded.

"How are you, Pick?" he asked, putting out his hand. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you, sir," Pick said, shaking it.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Sir, as of today, I have been promoted to Loony Category Two, which means I no longer have to give the nurse a list of what I need from the s.h.i.+p's Store. And they are going to give me a partial pay."

"You look like h.e.l.l," Dawkins said. "But your legendary fast lip is obviously still functioning well."

"No disrespect was intended, sir."

"I wish you'd sit down," Dawkins said.

"Aye, aye, sir," Pick said, and sat down.

"Art," Dawkins said as he turned the folding chair around and sat backward in it. "Flash your smile at the nurse and see if you can't get us some coffee."

"Yes, sir," McGowan said. "How do you take yours, Major?"

"Black, please," Pick said.

McGowan left the room.

"Billy Dunn tell you I was here?" Pick asked.

"Actually, the news came from a little higher up in the chain of command. How is Billy?"

"He was fine, the last time I saw him. More than a little disgusted with me-and justifiably so-but fine."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Pick," Dawkins said.

"Just before the bosun's chair moved me from the Badoeng Strait Badoeng Strait to the destroyer to the destroyer Mansfield-" Mansfield-"

"You mean while you were under way?" Dawkins asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I've seen that, but I've never done it," Dawkins said. "I don't like the notion of being dangled over the ocean like that. How was it?"

"Not very pleasant, sir. Sir, may I go on?"

"Sorry, Pick. You were saying?"

"I was saying that Colonel Dunn told me what he thought of me," Pick said. "What he said was that I was a self-important s...o...b..ating sonofab.i.t.c.h whose current troubles were my own fault, that I had put the necks of a lot of good people at risk because of my s...o...b..ating, and that I have never really understood that I'm a Marine officer."

Dawkins looked at him for a moment in surprise.

"My first reaction is that Billy must have had a very bad day," Dawkins said.

"Just before I got in the bosun's chair, Billy handed me a letter to mail from j.a.pan he'd written to the wife-correction, the widow-of one of his guys who had just plowed in," Pick said. "d.i.c.k Mitch.e.l.l. Writing those letters is always tough for Billy. But that wasn't what was bothering him."

"What was?"

"Me. Everything he said about me was absolutely true."

"You want to explain that?"

"What I was doing when I went in was shooting up locomotives, " Pick said.

"So what?"

"I was doing this because it amused me," Pick said. "I thought it would be amusing to become the first Marine Corps locomotive ace in history."

Dawkins looked at him without saying anything.