Above the Fold

by Peter Yeldham

  The trouble was, she wanted to protect Luke. No more weeks of trauma, no more tension of not knowing if he was alive or dead. She was in a position of some influence and, if she was careful, could use it to keep him out of harm’s way in safe places like the city of Pusan. Or even safer, back in Tokyo, as long as she could be there with him. Sometimes she even envisaged them both in the safest place of all, back in Washington DC.

  But care was essential, for she knew Luke had come to relish being with the front-line troops at what he called the sharp end. He might’ve hated the icy discomfort, but in hindsight it was exhilarating, and he’d begun to savour the acclaim that followed. So it was important not to reveal she wanted to keep him out of danger, even if it meant in the end depriving him of all that flattering approbation.

  In the second week of March, the General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, had been summoned to a surprise meeting with President Harry Truman. It was a private conference from which the press were excluded. It meant Hannah had a few free days, and she and Luke took a passenger ferry to nearby Jeju Island. The weather was benign. It was difficult to believe the temperature was so much milder than on the 38th where Luke had been.

  They booked a suite in a seafront hotel, and planned a romantic weekend. It was a calm crossing to the island. An almost cloudless sky, a soft breeze, the sun reflecting off the sea as they stood by the rail of the ferry, watching the terminal as they approached.

  Hannah was in a happy and relaxed mood. Free days were rare in her tight schedule working for the man who combined the roles of Military Governor in Tokyo and Commander-in-Chief in Korea. Being his press liaison was a prestigious job, but left her little time for a personal life. The chance of being able to spend a few days together, without the pressure of MacArthur’s agenda, was a welcome relief. It was also an opportunity she had been waiting for, a fortuitous gamble that, if it eventuated, might ensure Luke’s future and link it with her own. She was not by nature a plotter, but this concerned the rest of her life if events evolved the way she hoped. The rest of her life that she hoped would be spent with him.

  “Beware the Ides of March,” Hannah said abruptly, as they sat late over their wine, looking out the restaurant window to where small fishing boats were at anchor. It was a surprise remark, coming after what had been a languorous afternoon, a walk though the exotic temples and Buddhist pagodas, then a return to their hotel to make late afternoon love before dinner.

  “Say that again?” said Luke puzzled by this sudden quote. “What’s the Ides of March got to do with anything?”

  “It was a warning to Julius Caesar by a soothsayer …”

  “I know who said it. Just before he was assassinated in March,” he said, and added, “I learnt that in school.”

  “I learnt it when I was Calpurnia in the play.”

  “Were you?”

  “I was,” Hannah assured him.

  “I seem to remember Calpurnia was supposed to be only sixteen years old,” Luke said. “Julius liked his wives young. Were you sweet sixteen?”

  “Near enough,” Hannah said, smiling. “And virginal at the time. I never told you I wanted to be an actress, did I?”

  “When was this?”

  “At Vassar. I saw myself as a star of Broadway and Hollywood. A youthful Bette Davis or a Katie Hepburn.”

  “What prompted this recollection, my love?”

  “Probably the wine,” said Hannah with a laugh. “Or else thoughts of Big Mac, on his way to do battle with our President. The haberdasher from the mid-west.”

  “Battle?” Luke gazed at her. “Did you say battle?”

  “Well,” she gave a little shrug, “perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Not exactly battle. I’d better withdraw that word.”

  “But you always choose your words so carefully?”

  “Do I, Luke?”

  “You do. So is there something going on that I should know about?”

  “Of course not, darling.”

  “Of course not,” he parodied. “Something I might be able to find out because of my close link to the press attaché.”

  “You want a close link to this attaché,” she asked. “That might be arranged, if you play your cards right.”

  “Hannah, quit fooling. Is there a battle between the Commander and the Boss?”

  “It was a mistake. Why don’t we sip our last few mouthfuls of this wine that you Aussies call plonk, then go back to our hotel and partake again in what you Aussies call a root?”

  Luke laughed, but eyed her with a careful appraisal. “I think you’re trying to change the subject. Not that I mind!” he hastened to add.

  “Well then, down the hatch and back to the casting couch,” said Hannah, raising her glass and flicking her chestnut hair from her face with a lovely innocent smile.

  It was long after midnight, and they lay in the disheveled bed. Luke was wide awake, and he felt certain she was just pretending to sleep. Her breathing was too regular. A battle, he thought. Why did she say a word like battle?

  “Are you asleep, darling?”

  “Nearly,” she said. “I was just about to drop off.”

  “Is there something happening that I ought to know about?”

  “How could I have any idea of that, my sweet?”

  “I can’t think of anyone who knows more about it than you.”

  “I should’ve shut my trap,” said Hannah.

  “You have a delicate beautiful trap, when words emerge from it they sound like pearls.”

  “My God,” she said, snuggling against him. “I never realised I’m in bed with a warrior poet. Words like pearls, indeed!”

  “I love you. I’ll bet you were wonderful as Caesar’s wife.”

  “Not bad, or so the Vassar theatre critic said in our college paper. Mind you, I was the paper’s editor at the time, so she had to say that.”

  “Hannah …” He propped himself on an elbow so he could gaze down at her. “Why did you mention the word battle?”

  “Go to sleep,” Hannah said softly. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s the fifteenth, the actual Ides of March. Why don’t we go for a walk on the beach?”

  “Now?”

  “Why don’t we?”

  “It’s an unearthly hour. Why don’t we go to sleep?”

  “Did you really want to be Bette Davis?”

  “I think I’d rather have been Kate Hepburn. Or Doris Day.”

  “Not Doris Day,” said Luke. “She always played a virgin.”

  “Well, I was a virgin then. Sweet sixteen and extremely virginal.”

  “You don’t fancy a walk along the beach?”

  “I suppose I could be coerced.”

  “I would love to coerce you.”

  “Good. Coerce me, and then we’ll go for a walk and after that we’ll talk about the Ides of March.”

  “My God, are you serious?’’ Luke asked her. It was their third brisk walk up and down the same stretch of dark beach, where the sound of launches and fishing boats at their moorings were ruffled by the breeze, making the rigging chime like carillons. “How did you find out, and is it true?”

  “It’s true,” said Hannah. “A week ago MacArthur ordered bridges across the Yalu River to be bombed, to slow down the Chinese advance.”

  “Did he?”

  “He most certainly did. Truman countermanded the order.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly. It’s become a tug-of-war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are with the General while the White House administration are with the President. He and they want to restrict operations and be able to offer the Chinese an eventual ceasefire. They’re afraid of it turning into a full-scale war. Whereas MacArthur insists we keep attacking. He’s said Truman’s strategy is crap, and if the Chinese don’t retreat behind the 38th parallel he wants to use a nuclear bomb.”

  “Fuck,” Luke whispered. “How the hell did you get hold of this?”

  “Where do you think I am each da
y, Luke? My desk is about ten seconds walk from MacArthur’s office. Who gets the calls from the Secretary of Defense or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Me from Poughkeepsie! Big Duggie makes these wild statements, and I get complaints asking me what the hell am I doing, allowing him to foam off at the mouth like this. I feel like telling them I’m not his controller, just a bloody reporter who got the unlucky number in the lottery, and why don’t they speak to the Mikado himself.”

  “I’ll tell you why they don’t,” Luke said, “they haven’t the guts.”

  “Too true, my darling. But nor have I. The only person who can make MacArthur shut up is the haberdasher in the White House.”

  “And do you think he will?”

  “I think he has to. I think it’s piss or get off the pot time.”

  Luke smiled. “You’ve picked up some disgusting phrases from your Aussie mate, haven’t you?”

  “Revolting phrases,” said Hannah, “but he’s awfully sweet, and rather good in bed.”

  “Let’s leave him out of this.”

  “I don’t think we can, darling boy. That’s why I’m telling you.”

  “What the hell can I do?”

  “Report it.”

  “What?”

  “Rumours that Truman is about to dismiss MacArthur.”

  “You want to get me fired?”

  “I want you to prepare it, so it’s ready when this hits the fan. Or use the old journo trick about rumours being denied, if Truman refuses to do anything. “Look,” she said seriously, “he has to dismiss him. Or resign himself. He can’t stay on as a lame duck leader, with Big Mac running the show.”

  “When do you think it might happen?”

  “Either at their meeting, or very soon after. My guess is in a week or so. He has to get the Joint Chiefs on side, isolate MacArthur as a dangerous hawk, and appoint a new commander in chief.”

  “Who?”

  “Probably Ridgway.”

  Luke nodded. It made sense. General Ridgway had taken over the 8th army several months earlier, and radically improved morale and tactics. Until then the American force, softened by years of occupation duty in Japan, had been no match for the fanatical North Koreans backed by 200,000 Chinese troops. And perhaps MacArthur, who’d made some muddled decisions in the campaign, was now showing his ineptitude by resorting to the unimaginable. A nuclear attack would surely bring in Russia and God alone knew what the result of that would be. All out war seemed the most likely and appalling answer.

  “Let me think about it, Hannah.”

  “Don’t think for too long.”

  “You really want this? No feeling of loyalty to MacArthur?”

  “Not when he started talking about atom bombs.”

  “I can’t believe he’d do it. Truman must stop him.”

  “Are you sure of that? Who was the President who gave the order to hit Nagasaki? The bomb that you described as the ultimate obscenity.”

  “Shit,” Luke said, for the second time.

  They were about to pass an unturned dinghy lying on the beach but Hannah wanted a rest and sat on it. He sat beside her, took her hand and their fingers interlocked.

  “You realise if I write a story predicting this and I’m wrong, I could be booted out of Korea. And it wouldn’t be hard to identify you as the source.”

  “So I’d be out as well,” Hannah agreed. “We could perhaps find some employment elsewhere.”

  “Like where in particular?”

  “Like The Washington Post, perhaps.”

  “You’ve thought about this.”

  “Often,” said Hannah. “If you pre-empted action by Truman, you’d have a real scoop. The biggest scoop since Noah said it’s gunna rain, so we’d better build an ark.”

  The following week she was sent a copy of a letter from a source in Washington, a letter that MacArthur had written to the Republican leader in the House of Representatives. It was a bitter complaint about Truman and his tactics:

  Here in Asia is where the Communists have elected to make their play for global conquest — here we fight Europe’s war with arms, while the diplomats there still fight it with words.

  If we lose this war to Communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable; win it and Europe will avoid war and preserve freedom.

  There is no substitute for victory on the ground, he insisted, and went on to ask why the President could not seem to understand this. Winning by any means is the only way, his angry letter ended.

  Hannah gave a copy of it to Luke. “This is open defiance. He’s out of control writing a letter like this,” she said. “Time to say so, Luke.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Claudia drove out of the hospital car park, took the road that ran beside the mangroves and stopped at the garage to get petrol. It was a general store as well, and she bought some eggs and bread, then noticed The Courier-Mail news placard.

  KOREA RIFT. MACARTHUR AND TRUMAN.

  “I’ll have the newspaper, too, thanks, Brenda,” she said, and there it was, staring at her on the front page: TENSION IN WASHINGTON by Luke Elliott. His name above the fold on page one.

  “Bit of strife there, I reckon,” said Brenda, who owned the store, but Claudia’s attention was on the newspaper. “Strife, Missus Pascoe,” she repeated. “Always said we shouldn’t send our boys to more wars, didn’t I?”

  “That’s right, you always said so, Brenda.” She paid and drove off, anxious to get home and read it. “Missus Pascoe,” she said aloud, “I am not Missus Pascoe.” She’d given up asking them to call her Claudia, or if they wished to be formal they could call her Miss Marsden, but she’d prefer Claudia and she definitely was not Mrs Pascoe.

  “But he’s yer hubby, yer’re married to ‘im, ain’t yer?” was the answer that came back, so Claudia said, yes, she was indeed married to him, and so she put up with being called Missus Pascoe. Steven knew she hated it, on account of her strong dislike of his father. Claudia, he said, was quite justified; his father, to put it in the simplest terms, was an absolute prick.

  “I’ve had to put up with it for years,” he told her with a wry smile, and suggested the only escape was a name change by deed poll, but Claudia had laughed and said they’d have to move. It would be too complicated for Brenda at the general store and the locals. Noosa was a sweet little town, a bit more sophisticated now people were finding the Gold Coast becoming a bit expensive and were looking at the Sunshine Coast for holiday places, but the original inhabitants dominated. Brenda and her ‘hubby’, were nice people, “but you wouldn’t want to be stuck at the same table on a holiday cruise ship, would you?” she asked, and Steven laughingly had to agree.

  She parked outside their building, went in and put the groceries in the kitchen. Steven was dozing on the divan wearing a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. In an hour it’d be time to help him into the wheelchair and they’d walk the half mile to the physiotherapist. It was a level footpath and a pleasant ten-minute walk each way, easier to push the chair than to go through the routine off helping him in and out of the car. That was only worthwhile when they went for a day trip up to Nambour, or to Maroochydore at nights when there was a decent film at the drive in. Last week they’d seen The African Queen. Wonderful Katie Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. They’d come home and lain awake for ages talking about it. Steven loved movies — it was worth the effort of getting him in and out of the car, just to watch how much he enjoyed it.

  The radio was on, but he wasn’t listening. She switched it off and his eyes opened as she sat on the floor beside the divan, showing him the front page of the paper with Luke’s name below the headline.

  “Wow!” he said. “Our Luke’s mixing with the big boys!”

  “Want me to read it to you?”

  He nodded. They both knew the physiotherapy had freed much of the paralysis in his arms so he could hold a book or newspaper, but he liked to hear the sound of her voice. He put an arm on her shoulder as she leaned against the day bed and read it.

 
“These are tense days at The White House, where President Truman is daily closeted with his team of advisers: Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, General Marshall and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Bradley. It is believed they are meeting daily to discuss the growing rift between the administration in Washington and Allied Headquarters in South Korea, where General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is in what appears to be direct conflict with his President and Commander in Chief.”

  “Big names, a big bunch of brass epaulets there,” Steven said.

  Claudia smiled and read on. “At a recent press conference General MacArthur was asked by a reporter if he agreed with the President’s tactics, or were the restrictions Mr Truman imposed a handicap to military operations. MacArthur bluntly replied that the President’s interference was ‘an enormous handicap, quite without precedent in my experience, and perhaps without any previous instance in military history.’ He has since expressed this even more forcibly in an open letter to a Republican friend in Washington, a letter that has been circulated at army headquarters, and seen by this correspondent.

  “The row between the two men erupted when MacArthur ordered the bridges across the Yalu River on the border of South and North Korea to be bombed, and President Truman countermanded the order. It is said at his headquarters the General finds this an example of further interference in his campaign. He has been forced to order a retreat, and Pusan is today filled with rumours that the Americans may abandon their intervention in the Korean conflict as a result.”

  “Holy cow!” Steven said.

  “Hang on, there’s more.” She read the final paragraph. “His staff have denied this may happen, just as they have vigorously refuted there has been discussion about the possible use of nuclear bombs, if Chinese troops do not retreat back across the border of this warring country. The ancient Chinese proverb said ‘may you live in interesting times’. It is the opinion of this correspondent that in today’s nuclear age these could also be highly dangerous times.”