W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

McCoy went outside the command post. It was black dark. There was the sound of small-aims 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 Ko-rea.

  "Captain, I don't care if you have orders from General MacArthur himself, I've got Operational Immediate mes-sages in there that should have been sent hours ago, and I will not delay them further so that you can send your re-port."

  And once again he got back into the Jeep.

  "Pusan," he said to Zimmerman. "K-l. Their commo is tied up."

  "I have dispatches to send," Jeanette protested indig-nantly.

  "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 mid-night 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.

  Chapter Nine

  [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 unpleas-ant 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 an-nouncement, "This had better be pretty goddamned impor-tant!"

  His caller had chuckled.

  "Well, the Marine Corps thinks it is, Captain," he said. "This is Colonel Bartlett, G-l Section, Headquarters, Ma-rine 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 Re-serve, is called to active duty, for an indefinite period of service, as of 0001 hours today. You and your men are or-dered to report to your reserve training station within twenty-four hours prepared for active service. Any ques-tions?"

  "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 mobiliza-tion, by Western Union. And as soon as it is decided where you will go, you will be notified by telephone, with West-ern 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 photo-graph 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 pre-sume 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 t
he 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 mes-sage 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 Peter-son 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 mobi-lized, and he didn't know when he could get home, cer-tainly 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 peo-ple 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 mobi-lized, and the Post-Dispatch wanted to know when would be a convenient time for them to send a reporter and a pho-tographer 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 be-tween Chicago and Dallas, and would arrive in St. Louis at 1725. One of the cars was a baggage car. Two were sleep-ers, 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 dining 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-l 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 put-ting 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 vehi-cles 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 Train-ing 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 Ma-rine, 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 Com-pany B marched up there to board the train.

  Hart said nothing, because he didn't trust himself to speak.

  His immediate reaction had been that the whole public relations business was bullshit, and he didn't have time to fool with it.

  But he was a captain, and captains do what majors want.

  After he had had his breakfast, he had accustomed him-self to the picture-taking and the parade to the railroad sta-tion. The men seemed to like the attention, and it really didn't do any harm.

  When he came back from Kramer's Kafeteria, he saw- because he had failed to officially "discourage" it-that the men-and three of his officers-had arrived with wives, mothers, children, cousins, and four rather spectacular girl-friends.

  There were a number of things wrong with that, starting with the presence of the civilians interfering with what they had to do before they left, and that most of the wives, mothers, children, and cousins and two of the four spectac-ular girlfriends had wanted to meet "the skipper."

  Plus, of course, he had made Louise stay at home. And she was sure to hear that the families had been at the cen-ter. If by no other way than on the pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, whose photographers had shown a good deal of interest in the spectacular girlfriends.

  He had finally decided to hell with it, he'd call Louise and tell her to come to the Center, and while she was at it, to get the kids out of school, and bring them, too.

  "Oh, all right," Louise said. "But I'll have to call Teddy back and tell him not to pick us up here."

  Lieutenant Theodosus Korakulous, now Acting Chief, Homicide Bureau, had called Louise and offered to take her and the kids to Union Station.

  "If you're with me," Teddy had told Louise, "we can get through the barriers. Traffic told me it looks like a lot of people are going to
be there."

  He had not wanted to go back into the main room to try to smile confidently at one more wife/mother/spectacular girlfriend and assure her he would take good care of the Family Marine now going off to war.

  He wasn't at all sure that he could do that. He was a Ma-rine captain, he had thought at least a dozen times that morning, but he really knew zero, zip, zilch about being a Marine Infantry company commander.