Retreat, Hell! Part 33

"Thank you," Truman said, and walked out the door.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Pickering said when the door had closed.

"Indeed," Senator Fowler chuckled. "I would hazard the guess that Ol' Harry's just a little piqued with MacArthur."

"And I'm probably at least partially responsible," Pickering said.

"I wouldn't flatter myself and think that, Flem," Fowler said.

"Well, finding the silver lining in that black cloud," Pickering said. "I guess that settles the question of his offering me the CIA, doesn't it?"

"In my professional opinion, Fleming, you are absolutely wrong about that."

"You're kidding!"

"Uh-uh," Senator Fowler said, shaking his head. "I'll give you seven-to-three for a hundred bucks that I'm looking at the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency."

[THREE].

THE HOUSE SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 0725 6 OCTOBER 1950.

"That's the fifth time you've looked at your watch in the last five minutes," Lieutenant Colonel D. J. Vandenburg said to Major Kenneth R. McCoy. "Expecting somebody?"

They were at the dining room table. The dishes and silverware had been cleaned away, and the table was covered with large maps of Korea, and with stacks of reports- many of them written in Korean-that reported sightings of Prisoners of War held by the North Koreans.

"Dunston," McCoy said. "I guess he couldn't catch a ride in an airplane. And General Howe. I'm getting a little worried about both of them."

"General Howe is fine, thank you for your concern," Major General Ralph Howe said, walking into the dining room trailed by Master Sergeant Charley Rogers.

Howe draped the web strap of his M-2 Grease Gun on the back of a chair and sat down. Then he gestured impatiently for McCoy and Vandenburg, who had come to attention, to relax. Rogers, after glancing at the map, sat down on the other side of the table.

"Sir," McCoy said, "this is Lieutenant Colonel Vandenburg. Colonel, General Howe."

Howe extended his hand.

"How do you do, Colonel?" he said. "This is Master Sergeant Charley Rogers." He paused. "That out of the way, have we missed breakfast?"

"Of course not, sir," McCoy said. "Ham and eggs?"

"That would be very nice," Howe said.

McCoy walked to the kitchen, spoke to the housekeeper, and then came back into the room.

"We tried to make it back here last night, it got dark, so we sat down on a First Cav airstrip and spent the night," Rogers said. "We pa.s.sed on the cold rations that were offered, the horses kept us up all night, and we pa.s.sed on a cold breakfast. So we are hungry."

Howe chuckled.

"Not really horses," he said. "But apparently in the Cav their sentinels are taught to shoot first, and then challenge, 'Halt, who goes there?' Charley's a little too long in the tooth to keep jumping up all night the way he did."

"The 7th Cav CP sounded like the O.K. Corral," Rogers said. "And I kept remembering what happened to them at the Little Big Horn."

Vandenburg laughed.

"Well, we're here," Howe said. "I guess Dunston is not? Where is he?"

"We took the helos to Socho-Ri yesterday, sir. I came back as soon as I could. Dunston stayed on to start the agent insertions. I caught a ride back in a Capital ROK Division L-4. I guess he couldn't get an airplane and had to drive."

Howe nodded, then turned to Vandenburg.

"Colonel, since Major McCoy is talking about inserting agents from Socho-Ri, I presume you have the need to know about such things."

"Sir," Vandenburg said, smiling, "since Major McCoy has told me who you are, I presume it's all right to tell you I'm here to see about getting General Dean back."

"Okay," Howe said. "I think I know about that. You came from the States for that purpose, right?"

"Yes, sir. My orders are from DCSOPS,4but I have been led to believe the orders came from the Chief of Staff."

"You were led wrong, then," Howe said. "They came from the top. One of the first questions the President put to the new Chief of Staff, General Bradley, was 'What can we do about getting General Dean back?' I have a message from the President-it arrived here just after General Pickering left for the States-saying that somebody was beingsent here, and ordering me to do what I could to help."

"I didn't know that, sir," Vandenburg said.

"If you had come to me, I would have referred you to Major McCoy, so you've come to the right place. You weren't told to contact me?"

"I was told to contact General Pickering, sir. But not you, sir. Maybe there wasn't time. An hour after I got my orders, I was on a plane for the West Coast."

"Or maybe," Howe said, thinking out loud, "what happened was that I got a copy of the President's message to General Pickering, in case that didn't reach him before he left."

"Yes, sir," Vandenburg said.

"I was a little surprised with the message. I'm not supposed to get involved in operations here; I'm strictly an observer. Now it makes sense. Anyway, we know what the orders are. Let's see what we can do about getting General Dean back. Is that what this is all about?"

He waved a hand toward the map and reports.

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. "But we don't have anything of value."

He patted one of the stacks of reports.

"These are mostly pre-Inchon," he said. "They locate POW holding points we know are no longer there . . ."

"Spit it out, Ken," Howe said.

"My gut feeling is that General Dean may already be in Peking," he said. "The ChiComs know what a valuable propaganda tool he could be-h.e.l.l, is is-and they know we'll probably stage an operation to get him back. If he's in China-even just a couple of miles across the border . . ."

"I take your point," Howe said. "McCoy, this is in the nature of an order. Even 'a couple of miles across the border' is not the Flying Fish Channel Islands. I don't want you staging any kind of an operation across the border unless the President gives the okay. You understand me?"

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

"So tell me what you two have decided," Howe ordered.

"Aside from dividing the peninsula between us, sir, with Colonel Vandenburg looking on the west and me on the east, not much. And I thought we'd better wait and talk to Dunston before we decide even that."

"And he's not here," Howe said. "You said he had to drive?"

"Probably, sir."

"Why couldn't he have used one of the helicopters?"

"We're going to keep them as quiet as possible, as long as possible, sir," McCoy said.

"What we need is a couple of regular airplanes, General, " Vandenburg said.

"A couple?"

"An L-19," McCoy said. "I'll settle for an L-4. And a Beaver."

"What's a Beaver?"

"Six-place, single-engine high-wing, General," Vandenburg said. "Designed for Alaska, Canada. Rugged, and they can land on a dime."

"I think I've seen one," Howe said. "Okay. I'll see what I can do."

"General, I'm pretty sure I can get both, but hanging on to them-especially the Beaver-is going to be a real problem. They're in short supply, and every general in Korea thinks he should have one. And probably should."

"But you need one more than they do, eh?"

"Yes, sir. I think it's a question of deciding priorities. I think getting General Dean back qualifies."

"Yeah, so do I. Not to mention getting young Pickering back," Howe said. "Has McCoy told you about him?"

"No, sir."

"Okay. Major Pickering, General Pickering's son, was shot down about two months ago, and has been evading capture ever since. . . ."

"You know that, sir? That he's alive and hasn't been captured?"

"McCoy thinks he's alive," Howe said.

"Where is he?" Vandenburg said, turning to McCoy.

"The last sighting was east of Wonju," McCoy said.

"You sighted him?"

"We sighted where he had stamped out a signal . . . his initials and an arrow on the ground, not him. I figure we missed him by no more than a couple of hours."

"You couldn't pick him up with a chopper?"

"We didn't have the choppers then, and we couldn't take one away from the 1st MarDiv-they're using them to transport wounded."

" 'Couldn't take one' from the Marines-or anyone else who has one-is past tense, Ken," Howe said. "The rules have changed."

"Sir?"

"This is absolutely not for dissemination," Howe said. "I think the reason the President called General Pickering to Washington is to give him the CIA. He asked me what kind of a director I thought he'd make, and I told him I couldn't think of anyone better qualified to take it over and straighten it out. So what we have is a changed priority with regard to Major Pickering. We can't afford to have the son of the Director of the CIA in enemy hands." He paused. "That, too, Ken, is in the nature of an order."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Okay, Colonel," Howe went on. "You lay your hands on these airplanes you need, and I will do my d.a.m.nedest to see that no one takes them away from you."

"Sir, may I offer a suggestion about how that might be done?" Vandenburg asked.

"Shoot."

"I notice the general doesn't have an aide-de-camp."

"I don't need one," Howe said simply, then chuckled and added: "I shine my own shoes."

"Sir, I respectfully suggest that you do need an aide-de-camp, " Vandenburg said. "A fairly senior one. And I volunteer for the duty."

"Where are you going with that idea?"

"I don't think any general here, from MacArthur on down, would try to take an airplane away from the aide-de-camp of-What's your official t.i.tle, sir?"

"We're the Presidential Mission to the Supreme Command, United Nations Command," Master Sergeant Rogers said. "His official t.i.tle is Chief of Mission. Boss, I think the colonel's had a fine idea."

Howe thought it over for ten seconds.

"Okay," he said. "Do it. Type up something appropriate, Charley, naming the colonel my deputy. Somehow, he doesn't look like an aide-de-camp."

"Even better, sir," Vandenburg said.

"Yes, sir," Rogers said. "And we get to use the airplanes, too, right?"

"Of course," Vandenburg said.

"You're a . . . I was about to say 'devious man,' Colonel," Howe said admiringly. "But I think the word I'm looking for is 'ruthless.' I can see where you and The Killer are going to get along just fine."

[FOUR].

USAF AIRFIELD K-1 PUSAN, SOUTH KOREA 0945 8 OCTOBER 1950.

The breakout-and advance northward-from the Pusan Perimeter of the Eighth Army had done little or nothing to reduce the pressure on what had once been the only operational airfield in South Korea.

It had become, however, more of a pa.s.senger and freight terminal than a base for the fighters and light bombers it had been when the Pusan Perimeter needed fighting aircraft to keep from being pushed into the sea.

When the USAF C-47 from Seoul arrived at the port city, it had to take its place at the end of a long line of aircraft making their approaches to the field. Many of the aircraft ahead of them were four-engine C-54 transports bearing the insignia of the Military Air Transport Command, and there were four essentially identical aircraft wearing the insignia of the civilian airlines from which they had been chartered.

The warplanes were not entirely gone. The stack also held a dozen or more warplanes, USAF F-51 Mustang fighters, A-20 and A-26 attack bombers, and several Corsairs from the Marine Corps and Navy.