Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “Fair enough,” Pickering said.

  “And I also wondered if there was any news about Pick.”

  Pickering signaled McCoy with his eyes not to mention the photographs McCoy had gotten from Dunn.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Pickering said.

  “Damn,” she said.

  “Where’s the film you shot on the Wind of Good Fortune? ” McCoy asked.

  “In here,” she said, tapping her purse.

  “I forgot to impound it,” McCoy said. “Or to tell Taylor to. May I have it, please?”

  “You still don’t trust me?”

  “Let’s say I’m cautious by nature,” McCoy said.

  “Give them to me, please, Miss Priestly,” Pickering said. “You have my word you’ll get them back.”

  She shrugged, opened her purse, and took from it a rubberized bag and handed it to Pickering.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Is it really all right to talk?” she asked.

  Pickering nodded.

  “How are you coming with the boats?” she asked McCoy.

  “What boats?” Pickering asked.

  “Do you suppose I could have that roll?” Jeanette asked, pointing at one on Pickering’s bread plate. “I’m really starved.”

  “Of course,” Pickering said.

  “You didn’t eat?” McCoy said.

  "We had some powdered eggs at K-1 about 0500,” Taylor said.

  “Nothing here?” McCoy asked.

  “I told you,” Jeanette said. “This couldn’t come here looking like this did when this got off the Queen Mary. That took a little time.”

  “You didn’t eat either?” McCoy asked Taylor, smiling.

  “You told me to sit on her,” Taylor said, not amused. “I sat on her. I sat in her room in the Press Club while she had a bath, and the rest of it, and then I took her to my room while I had a quick shower. No, I didn’t eat either.”

  “We can fix that,” Ernie McCoy said, and walked to the telephone, picked it up, and, in Japanese, asked for room service.

  “What boats?” General Pickering asked again.

  “Didn’t Ken tell you?” Jeanette said. “We’re going to need a couple of boats to move the men from Tokchok-kundo to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do. We can’t use the Wind of Good Fortune. Not only can’t we count on having enough water under the rudder, but a junk makes a lousy landing craft.”

  “ ‘We’re going to need a couple of boats’?” Pickering parroted.

  “You weren’t listening, General, when I said I wasn’t going to let Captain Bligh and Jean Lafitte out of my sight until this operation is over. That means when they go to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, the Chicago Tribune is going to be there.”

  “Which one is Captain Bligh?” Pickering asked, smiling.

  She pointed at Taylor.

  “And it fits, too,” she said. “Taylor told me Bligh was really the good guy, and Fletcher Christian a mutineer who should have been hung.”

  Pickering chuckled.

  “That’s true,” he said. “Bligh was also a hell of a sailor. He sailed the longboat from the Bounty a hell of a long way, after they put him over the side. Okay, Captain Bligh, tell me about the boats.”

  “She said it, sir,” Taylor said. “We’re going to need a couple of boats. Maybe small lifeboats. Just large enough to carry eight, ten, men and their equipment. It would be better if they had small engines, maybe even outboards— it’s a long row from Tokchok-kundo to either Taemuui-do or Yonghung-do. But in a pinch we can make do with just oars.”

  “The first thing I thought was ‘no problem,’ ” Pickering said. “We’ll see if P&FE here can’t come up with a couple of boats. But that doesn’t answer the question of how to get them to Tokchok-kundo, and quickly and quietly, does it?”

  “No, sir,” McCoy said. “And if we go to the Navy, they’d want to know what we want them for.”

  “And even if we could talk our way around that, we still would have to get them to Tokchok-kundo,” Pickering said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I just thought of a long shot,” Pickering said. “Taylor, do you know who Admiral Matthews is?”

  “The Englishman?”

  Pickering nodded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is there anybody you could call at the Dai-Ichi Building and get his number, without it getting around that you asked for it?”

  “Is he in town, sir?”

  “He was at the meeting this morning,” Pickering said.

  “Who is he?” McCoy asked.

  “He commands the UN fleet blockading the west coast of Korea,” Pickering said.

  Five minutes later, Taylor had the telephone number of Admiral William G. Matthews, and three minutes after that, the Admiral came on the line.

  “Yes, of course, I remember you, Pickering. You were one of the very few people in that room this morning who seemed to understand that tides rise as well as fall.”

  “Admiral, could I have a few minutes of your time?”

  “I was about to leave for Sasebo, but yes, certainly, if you could come here right away. You know where I am?”

  “Yes, sir. And I will leave right away.”

  “I’ll even buy you a drink. God knows we earned one in that bloody roomful of fools this morning.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Pickering said, and hung up.

  He turned to the others.

  “We may just have gotten lucky,” he said. “And no, Miss Priestly, you may not go. But you have my word that I will bring Captain Bligh and . . . who was it, Bluebeard the Pirate? . . . back to you.”

  “Jean Lafitte, sir,” McCoy said.

  [FOUR]

  THE OFFICE OF THE NAVAL ATTACHÉ HM DELEGATION TO THE SUPREME COMMAND, ALLIED POWERS IN JAPAN TOKYO, JAPAN 1605 10 AUGUST 1950

  “Ah, Pickering!” Admiral Sir William G. Matthews, RN, said, getting to his feet as Pickering was shown in. Then he saw Taylor and McCoy, and added: “I didn’t know you were bringing these gentlemen with you. Now I will have to mind my manners. And my mouth.”

  “I apologize, sir.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Matthews said. “I am so glad to be out of that bloody room that I’ll give them a drink, too.”

  “Very kind of you, sir,” Pickering said. “And please feel free to say anything you like. Both Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor know how I feel about that bloody meeting, too.”

  Matthews growled.

  A Japanese in a white coat appeared and took drink orders. Matthews waited until he had finished, then ordered another double for himself.

  “I was just telling Fitzwater here,” he said, pointing to a very slim, very tall Royal Navy captain, “that I’d finally found a Marine who’d actually been to sea. God, I had trouble keeping my temper when that Army general started lecturing me on the hazards of tides.”

  “Actually, sir,” Pickering said, “I’m more of a seaman than a Marine.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I was about to tell Sir William, sir,” Captain Fitzwater said, “that unless I was mistaken, you are connected with Pacific and Far East Shipping. Was I correct?”

  “So far as I know,” Pickering said, “I am the only P&FE master who has run his vessel aground on the Inchon mudflats. ”

  “Really?” Admiral Matthews asked. “How did that happen? ”

  “I was a little younger at the time,” Pickering said. “And thus far more impressed with myself as a mariner than the facts warranted.”

  “So what the hell were you doing dressed up in a Marine’s uniform in that bloody room?”

  “Admiral, I’m the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia,” Pickering said.

  “Ah!!” the admiral said.

  “I was hoping you would offer that information, General, ” Captain Fitzwater said. “Otherwise, I would have had to whisper it in Sir William’s ear.”

  “And are these two spies as well?” the admiral asked. “That one looks like a sailor.�
�

  “Lieutenant Taylor, sir,” Taylor said.

  “Actually, he’s a hell of a sailor,” Pickering said. “He just returned from sailing a junk in the Yellow Sea.”

  “Really? What was that about? A junk, you say?”

  “I’d love to tell you, Sir William,” Pickering said, stopping when the steward handed him his drink.

  “Cheers!” Admiral Matthews said when he had raised his fresh drink. “And you would love to tell me, but?”

  “I would hate to have it get back to anyone in that bloody room. For that matter, to leave this room.”

  “Ah, the plot darkens,” the admiral said, and thought over what Pickering was clearly asking. “You have my word, sir.”

  “Would you prefer that I . . .” Captain Fitzwater asked.

  “No,” Pickering said, “but if you could give me your word?”

  “Of course,” Fitzwater said.

  Pickering had decided it made more sense to have Fitzwater on his honor not to repeat what he heard than to really arouse his curiosity by asking him to leave. Pickering thought he was obviously some sort of intelligence officer—he had known about P&FE and the CIA—and he would go snooping, with no restrictions on disseminating what he found out. And Pickering was pleased when he saw approval on McCoy’s face.

  “Lieutenant Taylor just sailed the junk Wind of Good Fortune to Tokchok-kundo Island,” Pickering said. “Aboard were four Marines, in addition to Captain McCoy, and eight South Korean national policemen.”

  “How interesting,” the admiral said.

  “With which Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor plan, just as soon as they can, to occupy Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do Islands, and thus deny the North Koreans a platform from which to fire upon vessels navigating the Flying Fish Channel.”

  “You know the plan calls for the neutralization of those islands on D Minus One?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You got them to change their minds about that?”

  “No, sir. They do not know about this operation.”

  “Ah!” Admiral Sir William Matthews said.

  “And what about the lighthouse?” Captain Fitzwater asked.

  “On the night of 13-14 September,” Taylor said. “Presuming we can take Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do without attracting too much North Korean attention, we’ll take that, too.”

  “And why is it, if I may ask, you don’t want this operation of yours to come to the attention of the fools in the Dai-Ichi Building?”

  “Because I know they would object to it,” Pickering said. “Probably forbid me to go on with it.”

  “They almost certainly would object, and object rather strenuously, for the very good reason that it makes a bloody hell of a lot more sense than what they’re proposing. Your intention is to present them with a fait accompli ?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How can I help without—how do I phrase this delicately? —without exposing my scrotum to the butcher’s ax on the chopping block to the degree you are?”

  “Taylor,” Pickering said. “Tell the admiral what you need.”

  “Two small boats, sir, lifeboats would do. Capable of carrying eight or ten men and their equipment. Preferably with an auxiliary engine—”

  “No problem,” the admiral interrupted.

  “—delivered as soon as possible as near as possible to Tokchok-kundo,” Taylor finished.

  “Ah!” the admiral said.

  He looked around for his drink, found it, took a sip, and then frowned.

  “Fitz, when is Charity due to leave Sasebo?” he asked, finally.

  “At first light on the sixteenth, sir.”

  “Round figures, she should be able to make twenty knots easily; it’s about five hundred miles to Inchon. That would put her off the Flying Fish Channel lighthouse twenty-four hours later. At first light, and I don’t think Mr. Taylor wants to do this in the daylight.”

  The admiral paused, and everyone waited for him to go on.

  “Signal the yardmaster at Sasebo that (one) I should be seriously distressed to hear Charity didn’t make that at-first-light departure schedule, and (two) before she sails, he is to mount on her two ten-man open boats with functioning auxiliary engines—emphasize functioning—in such a manner that they may be launched quickly on the high seas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And when he inquires, as he doubtless will, what in the hell is going on, as politely as you can, hint that I have been at the gin again, and you haven’t an idea what it’s all about.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The admiral turned to Taylor.

  “HMS Charity is a destroyer. Before she leaves Sasebo to return to her blockade duty in the Yellow Sea, I will have a private word with her captain—or Fitz will, he’s his brother-in-law and that might attract less attention—telling him, (one) that two Americans will board her as supercargo on the night of August fifteenth, for a purpose to be revealed to no one but him until after she is under way, and (two) that he is to authorized to make whatever speed is necessary to put Charity three miles off the Flying Fish Channel lighthouse not later than 0300 17 August, where he will put the boats and the Americans over the side.”

  He paused again.

  “This all presumes that nothing will go awry,” he went on, “as it almost certainly will. But it is the best I can do under the circumstances. Will that be satisfactory?”

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Admiral,” Pickering said.

  “One way would be to make sure that when Charity starts down the Flying Fish Channel on fifteen September, the lighthouse will be operating, and she will not come under artillery fire.”

  XVIII

  [ONE]

  HANEDA AIRFIELD TOKYO, JAPAN 1530 15 AUGUST 1950

  There were seven officers—the senior of them a captain— and eleven enlisted men—ranging in rank from technical sergeant to corporal—in USMC Platoon Aug9-2 (Provisional) . The platoon was the second of two that had been organized at the Replacement Battalion (Provisional) at Camp Joseph J. Pendleton, California, six days before, on August 9. All of the members of Aug9-2 were Marine reservists, involuntarily called to active duty by order of the President of the United States for the duration of the present conflict, plus six months, unless sooner released for the convenience of the government.

  Both platoons had the same purpose, to get replacements to the First Marine Brigade (Provisional) in Pusan, South Korea, as expeditiously as possible. The size of Aug9-2 had been determined by the number of seats available on Trans-Global Airways Flight 1440, San Francisco to Tokyo, with intermediate stops at Honolulu, Hawaii, and Wake Island.

  Platoon Aug9-2 had been formed at 0715 in the morning, and had departed Camp Pendleton by Greyhound Bus for San Francisco at 0755. Travel was in utilities. The trip took a little more than ten hours, including a thirty-minute stop for a hamburger-and-Coke lunch outside Los Angeles.

  There was just time enough at the airfield in San Francisco for the members of Aug9-2 to make a brief telephone call to their families. Most of them did so, and although each member of Aug9-2 had been admonished not to inform their family members of their destination until they reached it, with the exception of one officer, a second lieutenant, all of them told their family members they were in San Francisco about to get on an airplane for Tokyo and eventually South Korea.

  Why the hell not? Who did the goddamn Crotch think it was fooling? What was the big goddamn secret? Where else would the goddamn Crotch be sending people except to goddamn Korea?

  The flight aboard Trans-Global Airways Flight 1440 was a pleasant surprise. It was a glistening—apparently not long from the assembly line—Lockheed Constellation. There was a plaque mounted on the bulkhead just inside the door, stating that on June 1, 1950, the City of Los Angeles had set the record for the fastest flight time between San Francisco and Tokyo.

  The seats were comfortable, the stewardesses good-looking and charming. Almost as soon as they were in the air,
the stewardesses came by asking for drink orders. Drinks were complimentary.

  One of the staff sergeants of Aug9-2, who three weeks before had been a maritime insurance adjuster in Seattle, and often flew to Honolulu on Trans-Global and other airlines, was surprised that Trans-Global was passing out free booze in tourist class, and asked about it.

  “I don’t really know,” she said. “I heard something that the president of the company was a Marine, or something. All I know is that all our military passengers get complimentary refreshments.”

  The military passengers in tourist class also got the same meal—filet mignon, baked potato, and a choice of wine—that was being served in first class. The civilians in the back got a chicken leg and no wine.

  Still, with the fuel stops in Hawaii and Wake Island, it was a hell of a long flight to Tokyo, and all of Aug9-2 got off the plane at Haneda on 12 August tired, needing a bath and a shave, and in many cases, more than a little hung-over.

  They were taken by U.S. Army bus to Camp Drake, outside Tokyo, for processing, which included a review of the inoculation records; their service record; an opportunity for those who didn’t have it to take out an insurance policy that would pay their survivors $10,000 in the case of their death; zeroing their individual weapons; issuance of 782 gear and a basic load of ammunition; and two hour-long lectures.

  One of the lectures, by an Army captain, told them what they could expect to find, in a military sense, once they got to Korea. It surprised none of them, for they had all read the newspapers.

  The goddamned Army was getting the shit kicked out of it, and—what else?—had turned to the goddamn U.S. Marine Crotch to save its ass.

  The second lecture, by a Navy chaplain, told them what they could expect to find in Korea in a sexually-transmitted -diseases sense. It included a twenty-minute color motion picture of individuals in the terminal stages of syphilis, and of other individuals whose genitalia were covered with suppurating scabs.

  At 1200 15 August 1950, Marine Corps Platoon Aug9-2 (Provisional) was fed a steak-and-eggs luncheon, causing many of its members to quip cleverly that the condemned men were getting the traditional hearty last meal.