Retreat, Hell! Part 5

"Master Gunner?" Captain Allen asked as he offered his hand. "The Marine equivalent of our master sergeant?"

"Mr. Zimmerman is what the Army would call a chief warrant officer," McCoy corrected him.

"Neither of you is wearing any insignia-" Major Masters began.

"I know," McCoy interrupted, smiling.

Masters glowered at him.

"If you work for Colonel Lemuleson, you're just the man I want to see," McCoy went on.

"Is that so?"

"I need two things, Major," McCoy said. "I need to get a message to Colonel Lemuleson, and-"

"Before we go any further, Major, Major," Masters interrupted, "I'd like to see some identification and your orders. Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

"If you work for Colonel Lemuleson, and he didn't tell you, then I guess he decided you don't have the need to know," McCoy said.

He turned to Allen.

"Have you got a landline I can use to call 25th Division, Captain?" McCoy asked.

"It was working fifteen minutes ago, sir," Allen said. He pointed toward his command post.

"I demand to see your identification, Major!" Masters said loudly.

His face was red. McCoy seemed amused rather than cowed.

"Colonel Lemuleson's holding all that for us, sorry. Why don't we see if we can get him on the horn?"

He started to walk toward the CP. Masters, red-faced, stood with his hands on his hips, watching McCoy walk away.

Allen started to follow him, saw Foster Four with a May I go too? May I go too? look on his face, and nodded permission. look on his face, and nodded permission.

Allen caught up with McCoy.

"Somehow, sir, I get the feeling Major Masters is annoyed with you," he said.

McCoy chuckled.

"I . . . uh . . . didn't know what to think when I saw your jeep," Captain Allen said. "The first one, I mean. Or this thing . . ."

He stopped when he became aware that Major Masters was trotting after them.

"We've been doing a reconnaissance," McCoy said. "No big deal, but it's none of that guy's business."

"I thought the Marines were operating in Seoul, north of it," Allen said.

"They are," McCoy said.

"Where'd you get the Russian jeep?"

Major Masters was now walking beside them. He announced: "We'll see what Colonel Lemuleson has to say about all this."

McCoy acted as if he hadn't heard him. He turned to Allen. "We bagged some Inmun Gun. They were driving this thing. I figured, what the h.e.l.l, why not take it with us?"

Major Masters picked up on that.

"Can I take that to mean you have engaged the enemy?"

"It wasn't much of an 'engagement.' They were coming up the road, Mr. Zimmerman shot the tires out on the first vehicle, and we bagged them."

"You have prisoners?" Masters demanded.

"Uh-huh," McCoy said. "That's the second thing I need from you, Major. Somebody to take four of the five off our hands. One of them is a lieutenant colonel. He's a keeper."

"By which you mean?"

"That I'm going to take him to Seoul with me."

"I'll want to interrogate him, of course."

"You speak Korean?" McCoy asked.

"No, of course I don't speak Korean. There's Korean-speaking interrogators at Division. We'll take him-all of the prisoners-there."

They were down at the doorway to the CP.

McCoy stopped and looked at Major Masters.

"Sorry, the colonel goes with me," he said. "And if I can get Colonel Lemuleson on the phone, I'm not going anywhere near your headquarters."

"Let's clear the air here, Major," Major Masters said. "I'm the a.s.sistant G-2-"

"So you said," McCoy interrupted.

Major Masters glowered at him, then picked up: "-of the 25th Division. Interrogation of prisoners is my responsibility. You do understand that?"

"None of these people will tell any of your interrogators anything," McCoy said. "I think maybe, once he sees we're back in Seoul, the colonel may be more cooperative."

"We won't know what any of the prisoners will say, will we, Major, until we sit them down before an interrogator who speaks Korean?"

"Mr. Zimmerman and I both speak Korean, Major, and we've already talked to these people. And to clear the air, these are our prisoners, not yours."

"That brings us back to Question One, doesn't it?" Major Masters asked icily. "Just who the h.e.l.l are you, Major? And what are you doing in the 25th Division's area?"

McCoy looked at him for a moment, then ducked through the narrow sandbagged opening into the CP without replying.

A slight, very young corporal was sitting on a folding metal chair by the radio and an EE-8 field telephone.

"Corporal," McCoy said, "see if you get through to G-2 at Division on the landline."

The corporal looked to Captain Allen for guidance. Allen nodded. The corporal cranked the generator handle on the side of the leather-cased EE-8.

"Patch me through to Regiment," he ordered after a moment, and then, a moment after that, he ordered, "Patch me through to Division."

McCoy walked to him and took the handset from him.

"Wolf Two, please," he said.

Twenty miles away, in a small village called Anyang, seven miles or so south of Seoul, in what had been built to be the waiting room of the railway station, Technical Sergeant Richard Ward picked up the handset of one of three EE-8 field telephones on the shelf of his small, folding wooden field desk.

"Wolf Two, Sergeant Ward, sir."

"Trojan Horse Six for the colonel, Sergeant," McCoy said.

"Hold one," Ward said, and extended the handset to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lemuleson, a short, thin forty-year -old in too large fatigues, who was the intelligence officer of the 25th Division.

"For you, Colonel," Ward said, and added, "Trojan Horse Six."

Colonel Lemuleson turned from the map board leaning against the wall.

"Good!" he said. "I was getting worried."

He took the handset, pressed the b.u.t.terfly switch, and said, "Wolf Two."

"Trojan Horse Six, sir. Good evening, sir."

Captain Allen handed Major McCoy a china mug of steaming coffee. McCoy smiled his thanks.

"Welcome home," Colonel Lemuleson's voice came somewhat metallically over the landline. "You're all right? Where are you?"

"At a roadblock south of Suwon, sir. We just came through."

"And apparently n.o.body shot at you. I was concerned about that."

"Yes, sir, that was a concern."

"I've got a message for you. Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

" 'Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. Acknowledge. Confirm. Signature Hart, Capt., USMCR, for Admiral Dewey.' Got it?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Got that just after you left," Colonel Lemuleson said. "It was in the clear. Couldn't get you on the radio."

"It was in the clear" meant that the message had not been encrypted, which meant further that someone had decided there wasn't time to go through the encryption process. And that it wasn't encrypted explained "Admiral Dewey." Captain George S. Hart, USMCR, aide-de-camp (and bodyguard) to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, a.s.sistant Director for Asia of the Central Intelligence Agency, did not want to use Pickering's name in a non-encrypted message.

"The radio in the jeep went out before we were out of Seoul, sir," McCoy said. "Can you take a reply, sir?"

"Shoot."

"Acknowledge and confirm Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. All well. Fresh eggs but no ham. Signature, McCoy."

Lieutenant Colonel Lemuleson said, "Got it," read it back for confirmation, and then asked, "Are you going to explain the ham and eggs business, McCoy? And who the h.e.l.l is Admiral Dewey?"

"I better not, sir. But if memory serves, Admiral Dewey won the battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War."

Lemuleson chuckled. "I knew I'd heard the name someplace. Anything else I can do for you, McCoy?"

"Yes, sir, there is. Sir, if I'm to be at Kimpo at 0900, I'd like to go there tonight-"

"That may be risky, McCoy," Lemuleson said. "I don't want to get a report in the morning that somebody shot first before asking any questions."

"Yes, sir. But I don't think I have much choice. Making things more difficult is that we picked up some prisoners. What I'd like to do is send four of them to you with one of my sergeants. You could give him that envelope-"

"It's under a thermite grenade in my safe," Lemuleson interrupted.

"-and he could bring it to us in Seoul at first light."

"And if you need some identification tonight?"

"I'll have to take that chance, sir."

"Your call, McCoy," Lemuleson said. "Done."

"May I have that phone, please, Major?" Major Masters asked. It was more of an order.

McCoy considered the request for a moment, then said, "Hold one, sir, please. Major Masters wants to talk to you."

"What the h.e.l.l is he doing there?" Lemuleson said.

McCoy handed the handset to Masters.

"Masters, sir. These people have five prisoners, one of them a lieutenant colonel, and Major McCoy refuses to turn him over to me."

He looked triumphantly at McCoy.

McCoy and the others could hear only one side of the ensuing conversation.

"Trying to stay on the top of the situation, sir," Major Masters said, and then, "Yes, sir."

And then, "Yes, sir."

And then, "Yes, sir."