Retreat, Hell!

by W. E. B Griffin

  “What Ralph tells you is to go no farther,” Truman said. “Especially not across the Potomac to the Pentagon.”

  “I understand, Mr. President,” Smith said.

  “What have you got for me?” Truman asked.

  “An Eyes Only from General Pickering,” Smith said.

  He started, somewhat awkwardly, to try to open his briefcase.

  “That would be a lot easier if you were sitting down,” Truman said.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Smith said, and found a place on a small couch.

  “Are you a drinking man, Smith?” the President asked. “Or is it a little early for you?”

  Smith hesitated, and finally said, “I take a drink from time to time, sir.”

  “Ralph and I are about to have a very stiff Jack Daniel’s,” the President said. “Is that all right, or would you like something else?”

  “Jack Daniel’s would be fine, sir, thank you.”

  Howe got out of his chair and walked to the door.

  “Charley, get us three Jack Daniel’s—better make that a bottle—and ice, et cetera,” he ordered, then came back in time to carry the envelope Smith had finally gotten out of his briefcase to the President.

  Truman opened the envelope, took out the contents, and then pushed himself far back in his red leather judge’s chair to read it. He did so carefully, put the papers back in the manila folder, and then, just as Charley Rogers, also in civilian clothing, came into the office trailed by a white-jacketed steward, threw the folder on his desk and said angrily, “Sonofabitch!”

  “Mr. President?” Charley Rogers asked.

  “Not you, Charley,” Truman said. He pointed to the manila folder. “Hand that to your boss, and then sit down and have a drink with us.”

  Rogers moved to comply as the steward poured the drinks.

  “That’ll be all, when you finish, thank you,” Truman said to the steward. “Leave the bottle.”

  The steward quickly finished what he was doing and left the room.

  “Charley, do you know Director Smith?” Truman asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “This is Charley Rogers,” the President said. “Master Sergeant Charley Rogers. He and I go as far back as General Howe and myself.” He paused, then added, “One vote the other way, and it would more than likely be General Rogers and Master Sergeant Howe.”

  “Sir?” Smith asked, confused.

  “When we mobilized for the First War,” Truman said, “we elected our officers. Did you know that?”

  “I think I heard something about that, sir,” Smith said.

  “I got my commission, captain, and command of Battery B that way. I was elected to it,” Truman said. “Ralph got his the same way. He beat Charley by one vote . . .”

  “True,” Howe said.

  “. . . and Charley didn’t want to be a second lieutenant . . .”

  “Also true,” Rogers said, chuckling. “I still don’t.”

  “. . . so he became first sergeant,” Truman finished. “I’ve often thought electing officers is a pretty good way to get them.”

  Rogers and Smith shook hands.

  “Well, Ralph?” the President asked. “What do you think of that message?”

  “Mr. President,” Howe said, “from what Pickering says, and knowing McCoy as well as I do, I’d say you can take this to the bank.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as taking it to the bank,” Truman said. “It has to go to the Pentagon. And that opens a whole new can of worms. There’s a lot of pressure on me to relieve Douglas MacArthur. If they see this, that’ll give them one more argument that he’s—how do I say this?—past his prime. And should go. Ralph tells me that he’s a military genius, and Pickering agrees with him.”

  “General Howe . . .” Smith began, then stopped to look at the President for permission to go on. Truman nodded. “You said you place credence in this major’s intelligence?”

  “That’s right, I do.”

  “It doesn’t surprise you at all that he seems to have intelligence that refutes what we’re hearing from General MacArthur?”

  “The only thing that surprised me . . . What do I call you? ‘General’?”

  “Not ‘General,’ please,” Smith said. “I really don’t mind ’Beetle.’ ”

  “Okay, Beetle. The only thing that surprised me—and now that I think about, it didn’t really surprise me—was that the Killer was back in Korea. Charley and I saw him just before we left Seoul to come home. General Almond told me he took a pretty good hit.”

  “What did you say, Ralph?” the President asked. “ ‘Took a pretty good hit’? What do you mean?”

  “The Killer? Is that what they call him?” Smith asked, chuckling.

  “His friends can,” Howe said. “Charley and I are in that category.”

  “ ‘Took a hit,’ Ralph?” the President pursued. “Back in Korea from where?”

  “The Navy Hospital in Sasebo,” Howe said. “He was in North Korea, way up where the Russian, Manchurian, and North Korean borders come together, listening to Soviet Army radio traffic. On his way out, he got hit.”

  “You didn’t tell me that, Ralph,” the President said.

  “I didn’t think it was important. All he heard was routine stuff. Not enough to be able to say the Russians won’t come in, but enough to make him think they probably won’t.”

  “Goddamn it, Ralph,” the President said. “I meant about him getting hit. How badly?”

  “Apparently not badly enough to keep him from going back to Korea,” Howe said.

  “Presumably he had General Pickering’s okay?”

  “Mr. President,” Charley Rogers said, “if the Killer thought he should be in Korea, he’d go if he had to crawl, and I don’t think General Pickering would try to stop him.” He paused, then added: “He wasn’t crawling, sir. He was limping, and you could tell he was in some pain, but—”

  “Sonofabitch,” the President said.

  “You sound as if you’re angry with him, Har . . . Mr. President,” Howe said. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “My displeasure, General, is with Emperor Douglas the First, and this deaf, dumb, and blind intelligence officer of his, not Major McCoy,” the President said. “And my displeasure is such that, knowing myself, I know that whatever decision I make right now I’ll regret later.”

  “You have time, sir,” Smith said. “McCoy’s message said he was going to insert observation teams to verify what the prisoners told him. It’ll be twenty-odd hours before we get that report, probably.”

  “Yeah,” the President said, then grunted. “When I heard what he did to rescue Pickering’s son, I told General Bradley I wanted him decorated. With the Silver Star. Did that happen?”

  “I understand General MacArthur ... at least intended . . . to make the presentation himself,” Rogers said. “McCoy didn’t say anything about it. He wouldn’t.”

  “Goddamn it, I was decorating him, not the goddamn Emperor!” Truman exploded. “Give him another medal. Give him a . . . Legion of Merit. That’s for senior officers, isn’t it? He’s been functioning like a senior officer—give him a senior officer’s medal!”

  The President saw the look on Rogers’s face.

  “You find that amusing, Charley?” Truman challenged. “Why is that amusing?”

  “I’m afraid to tell you, sir,” Rogers said.

  “What’s so goddamn funny, Charley?” the President said, and there was menace in his tone.

  “The thing is, sir,” Rogers said carefully, “that enlisted men, like me, and junior officers, like Major McCoy, who are close to the men, consider the Legion of Merit to be the brass’s good-conduct medal. If they don’t get social disease for six consecutive months, they get the Legion of Merit.”

  Howe laughed. Truman glowered at him.

  Then Truman laughed.

  “I never heard that before,” he said, shaking his head. “Did you, Smith?”

  “
Yes, sir, Mr. President,” Smith said. “My wife told me, when I was given the Legion of Merit.”

  That produced a hearty laugh from the President.

  “Well, then, to hell with the Legion of Merit for McCoy, ” the President said. “Give him something else. Give him another Silver Star.” He paused. “Will you relay my wishes to the Pentagon for me, Smith? Right now, I don’t want to talk to anybody over there.”

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “And while you’re at it,” the President ordered, “find out if Pickering’s boy got the Navy Cross I ordered for him. If he doesn’t have it already, find out why.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “You can tell me tomorrow when you come back here to tell me what McCoy’s men have learned about Red Chinese troop dispositions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The President extended his empty glass to Charley Rogers and said, as much to himself as to the men in the room, “If I relieve MacArthur now because he’s indulging this intelligence officer of his and is not taking the proper action, and McCoy is wrong, and the Chinese don’t come in, every Republican in the country is going to say I cheated him out of his victory at the last moment for political reasons. And that’s exactly what it will look like.”

  No one said anything.

  Charley Rogers handed him a fresh drink.

  The President took it and leaned against his desk, and stirred the ice cubes thoughtfully with his index finger.

  Then he smiled.

  “Six months without VD, huh?” he chuckled. “I wonder if I should tell Bess about that one?”

  “I wouldn’t, Har . . . Mr. President,” Howe said.

  “Hell, I couldn’t,” the President said. “If I did, Bess would immediately start to examine the ribbons of every general she saw, and God help the poor general who didn’t have a Legion of Merit.” He laughed, then raised his glass to Rogers. “Thank you very much, Charley. I needed a laugh.”

  [FOUR]

  THE HOUSE SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 1655 1 NOVEMBER 1950

  “All of my life, Major McCoy,” Lieutenant Colonel J. D. Vandenburg, USA, greeted Major K. R. McCoy, USMCR, as McCoy walked into the dining room, “I was told that Marines, whatever the situation, are models of military sartorial splendor. I have to tell you, you are shattering that illusion.”

  McCoy was wearing black pajamas, U.S. Army combat boots, a fur-collared Army zippered flight jacket, and a huge black fur cap, which he took off as he smiled at Vandenburg.

  “I really like the hat,” Vandenburg said.

  “I took it away from a Chinese officer—”

  “You’re sure he was a Chinese officer?” Vandenburg interrupted.

  “I am sure he was a Chinese officer,” McCoy said. “He told me he got it in Russia. I believed that because he spoke pretty good Russian. I’m going to give it to my wife. I think it’s Persian lamb. I thought maybe she could make a muff out of it. Or a purse, maybe.”

  Vandenburg picked up the hat and examined it.

  “Or wear it as a hat,” he said. “That’s very nice. Only senior officers would get such finery.”

  “He admitted to being a lieutenant colonel,” McCoy said. “I suspect he’s more than that.”

  “I was fascinated with your idea that the first Chinese you interrogated were messengers. . . .”

  “Can we talk about that after I get something to eat?” McCoy asked as he took off his flight jacket. “I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and that was cold powdered eggs.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think. You want something to drink?”

  "I’d like a stiff shot of scotch, and then a cup—several cups—of hot coffee.”

  McCoy walked to the door to the kitchen and spoke with the housekeeper, who told him there was cold chicken and cold pork, but that it would take only a minute to heat it up.

  “Heat it up, please,” McCoy said, “but get me some coffee right now, please.”

  When he turned around, Vandenburg had put a bottle of Famous Grouse and a glass on the table.

  “You want ice? Water?” he asked.

  “This is medicinal, not social,” McCoy said. “Straight is fine.”

  “Against the cold? Or do you hurt?”

  McCoy lowered himself carefully into a chair, then splashed two inches of whiskey into the glass, picked it up, and drank about half.

  He exhaled audibly, then said: “Both. If I keep moving, I’m fine. But when I sit with my knees bent—as I have just been doing in the L-19—it gets stiff, and then it hurts when I move. If I don’t move and get cold—and it was cold as hell up in the L-19—it’s worse.”

  “You probably should still be in the hospital in Sasebo,” Vandenburg said.

  “If I knew where I could lay my hands on somebody who speaks Russian and Cantonese and knows what questions to ask, that’s where I would be.”

  The housekeeper appeared with a silver coffeepot and a cup and saucer. When she had half-filled the cup, McCoy told her to stop and poured the rest of the scotch in with the coffee.

  He took a sip.

  “You were telling me about the colonel with the hat,” Vandenburg said.

  “Let’s do this like the professionals we’re supposed to be,” McCoy said. “We have a map?”

  Vandenburg nodded, pointed to half a dozen maps rolled up and standing in a corner of the room, and then went and got one.

  “Northeast Korea, right?”

  “Better bring one of the northwest, too,” McCoy said.

  McCoy took a healthy sip from his coffee cup and then stood up as Vandenburg laid a map of northeast Korea on the table and anchored it in place with whiskey glasses.

  “The first Chinese I talked to were captured here,” McCoy said, using his finger as a pointer, “southeast of the Chosin Reservoir. The positions he gave me of ChiCom forces here, and here, and here, all checked out.”

  “Interesting,” Vandenburg said.

  “One of the reasons I came here was to get confirmation to General Pickering as soon as I could,” McCoy said.

  “And the other reason—reasons?”

  “I thought if you had turned up the same sort of intel, it probably should go in the same report,” McCoy said. “I have the feeling there are only two senior people who don’t think I’m a nutcase on the loose. Pickering and Almond.”

  “Almond believes you?” Vandenburg asked.

  McCoy nodded. Then he asked, “Have you got anything that would back me up?”

  “A hell of a lot of rumors and unconfirmed sightings, but nothing solid, I’m afraid. Just before you came in, I got a report that the 24th Division—they’re on the west coast, past Chongju, almost to the Yalu—has taken some Chinese prisoners, but it was too late for me to go up there today. I’m going to go at first light.”

  “I have to send my report tonight,” McCoy said.

  Vandenburg nodded his understanding.

  “The colonel with the hat was captured here,” McCoy said, pointing again at the map, “thirty miles east of the eastern shore of the Chosin Reservoir. Same scenario as before, except this guy was wearing an officer’s uniform, and I didn’t have to ‘discover’ that he was an officer. But he said and did the same things. The Chinese are coming in with overwhelming force, which they intend to use when X Corps is stretched out making a dash for the border. And he gave me troop dispositions. I hope I can check those out tonight, but I’m going to be very surprised if they don’t check out.”

  “If they do, that would support your idea that they’re sending us a message, right?”

  “I think it would,” McCoy said. “What the hell else could it mean?”

  The housekeeper came into the dining room carrying a plate of roast pork, rice, and gravy.

  “I should be noble and ignore that,” McCoy said, “and go upstairs and send the report. But I’m hungry, and I don’t want to climb all those goddamn stairs.”

  “I’ll get a typewriter,” Vandenburg said. “You c
an dictate it to me while you eat.” He saw the look on McCoy’s face. “I’m actually a very good typist. I used to be a CIC agent; a typewriter to a CIC agent is like a rifle to a Marine. ”

  “I wasn’t asking—”

  “I know, Killer,” Vandenburg said, and walked out of the dining room.

  “Well, Major McCoy,” Vandenburg said, handing McCoy the sheets of paper he had just pulled from the typewriter, “can this old soldier type, or can he type?”

  McCoy took the papers and read them.

  TOP SECRET

  OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

  SEOUL >>ENTER TIME DATE HERE

  EYES ONLY BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING

  TOKYO

  1. REFERENCE MY MESSAGE FROM FISHBASE 30 OCTOBER 1950: QUESTIONING OF THREE EXFILTRATED STAY-BEHIND TEAMS THIS DATE CONFIRMED IN EVERY SIGNIFICANT DETAIL THE CHICOM TROOP DISPOSITIONS FURNISHED THE UNDERSIGNED BY CHICOM PRISONERS YESTERDAY.

  2. ADDITIONALLY, ONE OF THE TEAMS CAPTURED CHICOM CAPTAIN WON SON HI, WHO WAS EXFILTRATED WITH THEM AND INTERROGATED BY THE UNDERSIGNED. DESPITE CONSIDERABLE PRESSURE HE REFUSED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIS UNIT, ORDERS, OR ANYTHING ELSE. HOWEVER, HIS IDENTITY DOCUMENTS AND A LETTER FROM HIS MOTHER, CAPTURED WITH HIM, ESTABLISHED THAT HIS UNIT WAS THE 2077TH RECONNAISSANCE COMPANY, 42D FIELD ARMY. AT THE TIME OF HIS CAPTURE HI AND THREE NONCOMS WERE RECONNOITERING CREST OF HILL LINE WHERE TEAM HAD BEEN INSERTED. NONCOMS DIED IN ENGAGEMENT.

  3. REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT ONE OF THE FOUR TEAMS INSERTED WAS APPARENTLY DISCOVERED BY CHICOM FORCES, AND MUST BE CONSIDERED MISSING IN ACTION, POSSIBLY CAPTURED, BUT PROBABLY KIA. CREW OF EXTRACTION AIRCRAFT REPORTED SIGNS OF HEAVY ENGAGEMENT, AND WERE THEMSELVES DRIVEN FROM AREA BY SMALL ARMS FIRE. ZIMMERMAN IS SENDING SEPARATELY FROM FISHBASE NAMES OF THOSE LOST AND OTHER DETAILS.

  4. AT APPROXIMATELY 1400 HOURS THIS DATE, UNDERSIGNED INTERROGATED TWO CHICOM OFFICER PRISONERS, LIEUTENANT COLONEL KEY HOW AND CAPTAIN LEE SOU, CAPTURED BY ROK 502D INFANTRY IN VICINITY OF KUDONG, APPROXIMATELY 30 MILES EAST OF EASTERN SHORE OF CHOSIN RESERVOIR. EXCEPT THAT THESE OFFICERS MADE NO EFFORT TO CONCEAL THEIR OFFICER STATUS, IT WAS ESSENTIALLY A REPEAT OF THE POW INTERROGATION THE UNDERSIGNED MADE YESTERDAY. CHICOM FORCES WILL NOT ATTACK US FORCES UNTIL THEIR LINES ARE OVEREXTENDED BETWEEN HAMHUNG AND BORDER, WHEN QUOTE ANNIHILATION WILL BE ASSURED ENDQUOTE.