Retreat, Hell!

by W. E. B Griffin

  [THREE]

  OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL HEADQUARTERS X UNITED STATES CORPS (FORWARD) WONSAN, NORTH KOREA 1245 2 NOVEMBER 1950

  The black H-19A fluttered to the ground fifty yards from a collection of vehicles of all descriptions parked in a somewhat random pattern outside a two-story brick building that had, before the war, housed a regional secondary school. The downwash from the rotor blades blew leaves all over the area as the helicopter touched down.

  There was much activity as Engineers, Signal Corps personnel, and other technicians set up the X Corps headquarters. As Major Alex Donald, USA—very carefully, to make sure he didn’t run into cables strung between telephone poles—set the H-19A down, Major K. R. McCoy, USMCR, saw two flags, their poles set in what looked like artillery shell casings, in front of a van, a 6 × 6 truck onto which was mounted a square boxlike structure.

  Such vehicles usually housed either communications gear or the machines required for some sort of maintenance function, but were sometimes used as mobile offices. That was obviously the case here. The flags hung limply on their staffs, but McCoy could see that one of them was the blue and white X Corps flag, and the other was solid red with white stars. That meant the van was occupied for the moment by the X Corps Commander, until the support troops working frantically in and around the school building could get his office and command post set up there.

  The moment the H-19A touched down, McCoy unstrapped himself and climbed down from the cockpit. The Big Black Bird had attracted the attention of a lot of people in the area, more than a few of whom noticed that the guy getting out of the helicopter—a Marine officer—seemed to be in some discomfort. A few even wondered why, but their primary interest was in the helicopter itself.

  How come the goddamn jarheads have a big machine like that, and The General himself has only a couple of lousy H-13s?

  There were two MPs, armed with Thompson submachine guns, guarding access to the general’s van, and McCoy had to wait until they verified his story that he was Major McCoy, and General Almond expected him. But finally he was passed, and walked to the van, stood on the lower step of the folding steps to the van, and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

  After a moment, Captain Al Haig pushed the door outward, saw McCoy, and waved him inside. McCoy carefully hoisted himself into the van.

  It was simply furnished. There were three identical desks. A master sergeant sat at one of the desks along the wall, using a typewriter. An identical desk sitting next to the master sergeant’s desk—it had four field telephones on it—was obviously Captain Haig’s. Major General Edward M. Almond sat at the third desk, all the way inside the van and facing the door. It held two field telephones and the leather map case Almond always carried with him.

  “Major McCoy, sir,” Haig said.

  McCoy saluted.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked.

  “What happened to your pajamas?” Almond asked.

  “I’ve been interrogating prisoners, sir,” McCoy said. “They seem to be more impressed with a Marine than by someone in pajamas.”

  Almond chuckled, and shook his head as he opened the long flap of his leather map case, came out with a sheet of paper, and handed it wordlessly to McCoy.

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT

  SUPREME HEADQUARTERS UNITED NATIONS

  COMMAND TOKYO

  0730 31 OCTOBER 1950

  EYES ONLY COMMANDING GENERAL X CORPS

  PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENARMY MACARTHUR TO MAJGEN ALMOND BEGINS

  MY DEAR NED,

  I HAVE CAREFULLY CONSIDERED YOUR

  URGENT OF 1015 30 OCTOBER.

  GENERAL WILLOUGHBY, WHO HAS ABSOLUTELY NO INTELLIGENCE DATA WHICH EVEN SUGGESTS THERE ARE CHINESE COMMUNIST FORCES OF ANY SIGNIFICANCE IN NORTH KOREA, THEREFORE BELIEVES THE SIZE OF THE CHINESE FORCE, IF INDEED IT WAS A CHINESE FORCE, WHICH ATTACKED THE INFANTRY REGIMENT OF THE 3RD ROK DIVISION 29 OCTOBER, WAS NOT AS LARGE AS REPORTED TO YOU.

  HE POINTS OUT THAT MAJGEN LEE DO WAS SHORT MONTHS AGO A LIEUTENANT COLONEL, MAY NOT HAVE PROVEN CAPABLE OF COMMANDING A DIVISION-SIZE FORCE, AND WHEN HIS DIVISION FAILED TO REPEL WHAT WILLOUGHBY FEELS WAS PROBABLY A REGIMENTAL-SIZE ATTACK, AT MOST, EXAGGERATED THE ATTACKING STRENGTH TO JUSTIFY HIS LOSS OF THE BATTLE.

  HOWEVER, SINCE YOU OBVIOUSLY FEEL SO STRONGLY ABOUT THIS, AND BECAUSE OF MY OWN PROFOUND FAITH IN YOUR JUDGMENT AND BATTLEFIELD SKILL, I HAVE DIRECTED WILLOUGHBY TO PROCEED TO YOUR HEADQUARTERS TO CONFER WITH YOU AND SEE FOR HIMSELF.

  THE BATAAN IS BEING PREPARED FOR THE FLIGHT AS THIS IS WRITTEN.

  VICTORY IS WITHIN OUR GRASP, MY DEAR NED.

  WITH PERSONAL REGARDS,

  MACARTHUR

  GENERAL OF THE ARMY

  SUPREME COMMANDER

  END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENARMY MACARTHUR TO MAJGEN ALMOND

  TOP SECRET

  McCoy muttered “Jesus Christ!” and raised his eyes to General Almond.

  Almond put up his hand to silence him.

  “Jerry,” he called. “Do not list Major McCoy’s visit in the diary, and go deaf. You understand?”

  “Can’t hear you, sir,” the master sergeant said.

  “He’s sending Willoughby here?” McCoy asked.

  “General Willoughby visited Wonsan yesterday,” Almond said. “And stayed there long enough—probably forty-five minutes—to see and hear enough so that he could get on the Bataan and return to Tokyo to assure General MacArthur that he has nothing to worry about; there are no ChiCom forces in North Korea to speak of.”

  “What do we have to do to convince that sonofabitch?” McCoy exploded.

  “It’s a good thing Sergeant Youngman is deaf,” Almond said. “Otherwise he would be shocked at such vulgar and disrespectful language coming from a Marine officer.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “However much justified,” Almond said. “McCoy, did you . . . uh . . . send the intelligence I had the feeling you were going to send?”

  “Yes, sir. And I said when I had further confirmation from my stay-behinds, I would send it, and I sent that confirmation. This time it was a lieutenant colonel with the same message.”

  “I thought you probably had,” Almond said.

  “Sonofabitch!” McCoy said, and put his hand to his forehead and wiped it.

  “You just staggered, McCoy,” Almond said. “Are you all right? Jerry, get Major McCoy a chair.”

  Master Sergeant Youngman jumped to carry his chair to McCoy.

  McCoy eased himself into it.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said.

  “Can I get you anything, McCoy?” Captain Haig asked.

  McCoy raised his head and looked at him.

  “I honest to God could use a drink,” he said.

  Almond pulled open a desk drawer and came out with a bottle of Old Forrester bourbon.

  “Is this a good idea?” Almond asked. “You look feverish. Do you have a fever?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead came around the desk and put his fingers to McCoy’s forehead.

  “You have a fever,” he announced. “Is this whiskey a good idea?”

  “I’ll be all right, sir,” McCoy said.

  Almond signaled Haig to hand over the glass Haig had in his hand. He poured whiskey into it and McCoy drank it down.

  “Thank you,” he said. He looked at Almond. “I had a bad early morning, sir.”

  “Did you?”

  “We were exfiltrating stay-behinds,” he said. “One of the teams was overrun. We brought the bodies back with us.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “They were . . . uh . . . pretty badly mutilated,” McCoy said softly. “And we didn’t think to take ponchos with us. So . . . uh . . . the reason I’m not in my pajamas is . . . uh . . . that they really needed to be washed.”

  “How many men?” Almond asked softly.

  “Four, sir. It was their first time out—they were some of the Marines that you borrowed to guard the h
angar at Kimpo, and who I asked to volunteer for this stay-behind exercise.”

  He held his hand to his head for a moment.

  “And that sonofabitch says there are no Chinese? Who does he think is running the ridges, looking for my stay-behinds? The North Koreans? They left their dead behind, too, so that there could be no question who did the . . . goddamn fucking butchery.”

  “Take it easy, Major,” Almond said.

  “Sorry, sir,” McCoy said.

  “You want some more of this?” Almond said, touching the bottle of Old Forrester.

  McCoy looked at the bottle and then at Almond, and then reached for the bottle.

  "I should say, ‘No, thank you, sir,’ ” he said. “But with one more drink in me, maybe I’ll have the courage to offer a really off-the-wall suggestion.”

  “What?” Almond asked.

  McCoy tossed down another drink and shook his head, as if to clear it.

  “If you dismiss this out of hand, sir,” he said, “I’ll understand. ”

  “Dismiss what?”

  “Why don’t we march some prisoners into the goddamn Dai Ichi Building? Twenty, twenty-five ordinary Chinese Red Army soldiers, right into Willoughby’s office.”

  “Christ,” Haig said disparagingly.

  “Could you get the Bataan back here?” McCoy pursued.

  Almond looked at McCoy for a long moment.

  “I suppose I could get an Air Force plane,” McCoy said. “But that would take time, and if this is going to happen, it has to happen now. And if I used the Bataan, it would mean you were involved, and proof that I hadn’t borrowed the Chinese from Chiang Kai-shek.”

  Almond didn’t say anything at all.

  “Sir, my orders state that I am to get any assistance I need from any military organization,” McCoy said.

  "Such as the X United States Corps?” Almond asked.

  "Yes, sir. I don’t have the orders with me. But you’ve seen them, sir.”

  “What I think you need, McCoy . . .” Haig began, and stopped when Almond raised his hand.

  “You do have some imaginative ideas, don’t you, Major McCoy?” Almond asked thoughtfully. “And you try to cover all the possibilities, don’t you? I suppose that’s very useful in your line of work.”

  “General, if I hadn’t proposed that, I’d have regretted it, really regretted it, later,” McCoy said. He turned to Haig. “And that wasn’t the booze speaking, Al. I owed it to those Marines I brought back in pieces this morning.”

  “I understand,” Haig said. “I wasn’t—”

  “Jerry,” General Almond interrupted him. “Get your pad.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Master Sergeant Youngman went quickly to his desk and returned with a stenographer’s notebook. “Ready, sir,” he said.

  “Classification, Top Secret, Priority, Operational Immediate. To Supreme Headquarters, UNC, Tokyo. Unless the Supreme Commander personally, repeat personally, rescinds this order, the Bataan will be immediately, repeat immediately, dispatched to Hamhung. I will be advised of departure time and ETA. The signature block, Jerry, is Edward M. Almond, Major General, USA, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, United Nations Command.”

  “Jesus,” Master Sergeant Youngman said softly.

  “Take it over to the comm center and get it out right now,” Almond said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  [FOUR]

  HANEDA AIRFIELD TOKYO, JAPAN 2130 2 NOVEMBER 1950

  Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, wishing he had thought to wear his raincoat, stood in the cold drizzle until he was sure the four-engine airplane landing was indeed the Bataan. Then he got in the front seat of the Buick.

  He was not in a very good mood. For one thing, he wasn’t sure that McCoy was even going to be on the airplane.

  When he had—five hours before, in desperation—telephoned General Douglas MacArthur and asked for his assistance in finding McCoy, MacArthur had asked why.

  “May I ask why you need him here so urgently? And frankly, I’m a bit surprised to hear that he has recovered sufficiently from his wounds to be in Korea at all.”

  “Mrs. McCoy called me from Tokyo General an hour ago, sir. She felt it best to be in a hospital—”

  “She’s having the baby?”

  “Possibly, sir. They don’t know if this is another false alarm or not, but . . . if she delivers, the child would be a month, maybe five weeks, premature, so they’re hoping for the false alarm. I’m at the hospital now. I just spoke with her physician, and he said it would benefit her—perhaps keep her from delivering now—if her husband could be with her. And if something goes wrong . . . Sir, I thought it over carefully before asking. I think McCoy is entitled to a little extra consideration.”

  “I quite agree. A splendid young officer. I’ll get an urgent off immediately to General Almond, asking him to locate him, and making sure he has a space on the Bataan.”

  “Sir? What about the Bataan?”

  “General Almond ordered the Bataan to Korea. I don’t know why, but I suspect he wishes to bring his disagreement with General Willoughby about the possibility of the Chinese entering the war to me personally. Anyway, the Bataan is there, and it can bring Major McCoy when it returns here.”

  “Sir, has there . . . I realize this line is not secure, sir . . . been any change in General Willoughby’s position on that matter?”

  “No. And that’s the source of the friction between Willoughby and Almond. Between you and me, Fleming, I sent Willoughby over there to placate Almond. Apparently, it wasn’t enough, and he wants to plead his case in person. Almond has dug in his heels like a mule, frankly.”

  “Yes, sir. General, I very much appreciate your courtesy to me in what really is a personal matter.”

  “That’s what friends are for, Fleming,” MacArthur said, “if I may coin a phrase. I’ll tell Jean about Mrs. McCoy, of course. I’m sure she will want to call on her.”

  A telephone call five minutes before to the hospital had reported there was no change in Mrs. McCoy’s condition, and Pickering tried to console himself with that knowledge.

  He was more than a little annoyed with McCoy for a number of reasons, based on what he had learned when he finally got through to Fishbase looking for him.

  Zimmerman had told him he didn’t know where he was exactly.

  “When he brought the bodies back from the exfiltration this morning, General . . . Did you get that message, sir?”

  “There were KIA?”

  “Four, sir. The Chinks apparently did a real job on them. To send us a message, the Killer said.”

  “Define ‘real job’ for me, Zimmerman.”

  “Well, sir, it looks like they tortured them before they killed them, and then they cut up the bodies pretty badly. It wasn’t pretty. The Killer was pretty upset.”

  “Did I understand you correctly, Zimmerman? McCoy made the run in the H-19 to extract the teams?”

  “That’s ‘exfiltrate,’ sir,” Zimmerman had courteously corrected him. “Yes, sir. He was on one of the Big Black Birds, and I was on the other.”

  “I expressly ordered him not to go on infiltration missions, ” Pickering had said. “And I thought you were aware of that.”

  “Sir,” Zimmerman had said uncomfortably, “what the Killer said you said we couldn’t do was stay behind ourselves. ”

  “I’ll discuss that with him when I see him,” Pickering had said. “But—and this is in the nature of an order, Ernie, so pay attention—if you see McCoy before I do, you are to relay to him my orders that neither of you are to make extraction runs anymore under any conditions. Is there anything about that you don’t understand?”

  “Yes, sir, there is.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I understand about the Killer, sir. He’s really in shitty shape. But I’m fine, sir. Why can’t I go?”

  “Ernie McCoy is in the hospital again—”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “—and if
I can locate him, he’s coming to Japan. That leaves you in charge, and I can’t risk losing you. Okay? No further questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll let you know what happens with Mrs. McCoy,” Pickering said.

  “That’s the Bataan,” Pickering said to Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, who was in the backseat, and Master Sergeant Paul T. Keller, USA, who was behind the wheel.

  “I saw it out the window, General,” Hart said innocently.

  “Meaning I didn’t have to stand out there and get rained on?” Pickering snapped.

  “Now that I think of it, General . . .”

  Keller chuckled.

  “I don’t know why I put up with either one of you,” Pickering said.

  “Maybe because we’re lovable, sir?” Hart asked.

  “I’m going to really give McCoy hell—if he’s on that airplane—and I will be highly annoyed if either of you acts as if it’s funny,” Pickering said.

  “General . . .” Hart said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Out with it, goddamn it, George!”

  “General, you’ve told me—Christ, I don’t know how many times—never to give an order you know won’t be obeyed.”

  “And I should have known McCoy was not going to obey that order? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “General, you asked me,” Hart said.

  “Here it comes,” Keller said, pointing out the window, as the Bataan turned off the taxiway and approached the tarmac in front of the hangar.

  “You two stay in the car,” Pickering ordered. “If McCoy is on the Bataan, I’m going to take him under the wing and bite off a large chunk of his ass, and I don’t want an audience.”

  Ground crewmen rolled up movable steps to the rear door of the airplane. Pickering got out of the front seat and walked toward it.

  The Bataan’s door opened and four military policemen, wearing steel helmets and other battlefield accoutrements, and carrying Thompson submachine guns, came down the stairs and quickly assumed positions facing the stairs.

  What the hell is going on here?