Retreat, Hell! Part 69

"I had three steam engines painted on the fuselage of my Corsair," Pick went on, "under the impressive row of j.a.panese meatb.a.l.l.s from War Two. I even wrote the Air Force asking if they had a record of how many steam engines had been shot up in War Two, and if so, by who, to see who and what I was competing against."

"Jesus!" Dawkins said.

"Billy, of course, thought this was bulls.h.i.t, dangerous bulls.h.i.t, and told me to stop. And of course I ignored him, a senior officer. Proving his point that I have never understood that I am a Marine officer."

"What happened when you went in?"

"You mean, what put me on the ground?"

Dawkins nodded.

"I made a run at a train," Pick said. "Came in over the end of it, right on the deck, and worked my fire up the length of it. Sometimes, if there's gas on the train, you can set it off with tracer rounds; we were loading one tracer in five rounds. I don't remember any gasoline explosion, but I saw the locomotive go up just before I pa.s.sed over it and began my pull up. Immediately, large and small parts of the locomotive punctured my beautiful Corsair in Lord knows how many places. I lost power, hydraulics, et cetera, et cetera. There was a rather large rice paddy convenient, so I set it down, got out, and got maybe one hundred yards away- maybe a little farther-before it caught on fire and blew up. The landing wasn't really all that bad. I dumped a Corsair on Tinian just before the war was over-couldn't get the right gear down-that was really a h.e.l.l of a lot worse."

The door opened and Captain McGowan returned with three china cups of coffee.

"Be careful," he said. "It's hotter than h.e.l.l."

"Thank you, Art," Dawkins said, then turned back to Pick. "Were you on fire?"

"No, sir."

"I thought maybe the antiaircraft, tracers, or exploding sh.e.l.ls might have got you."

"No, sir. No ack-ack."

"And you're sure you weren't on fire?"

"Yes, sir."

"How badly were you hurt in the crash?"

"Not at all, sir."

"How close did you come to the village?"

"Sir?"

"Was there a village where you went in?"

"No, sir."

"Give me the citation, Art," Dawkins ordered. McGowan went into his tunic pocket and came out with an envelope. Dawkins took a sheet of paper from it and read it.

"Where were the Marines-the grunts-when all this happened?" Dawkins asked.

"I was nowhere near the lines, sir. I guess I was four, maybe five miles into enemy territory."

"And the weather? What was the weather like?"

"It was good weather, sir."

"Just about everything you have told me, Major Pickering, " Dawkins said, "is inconsistent with this."

"What is that, sir?"

"It's the citation to accompany your Navy Cross," Dawkins said, meeting his eyes.

"What Navy Cross, sir?" Pick asked, visibly confused.

"The one the President is going to pin on you," Dawkins said. "Or if he can't fit you into his busy schedule, and the commandant is similarly occupied, and the commanding general of Camp Pendleton can't make it, I will pin on you."

"May I see that, sir?"

Dawkins handed it to him, and Pick read it.

As he did, he shook his head and several times muttered an obscenity.

"This is somebody else's citation," he said, finally, as he handed the sheet of paper back to Dawkins. "It has to be. The weather-I told you-was good. Ceiling and visibility were unlimited. I was not flying close support for the grunts. There was no antiaircraft. I was not on fire, and if there was a village or a school, I didn't see either. Jesus, what a f.u.c.kup!"

"I don't think there's more than one Major Malcolm S. Pickering in the Corps, Pick, and that's the name on the citation, " Dawkins said.

"General, that's not my citation. I did nothing to deserve any kind of a medal. I probably should have been court-martialed for what I was doing."

"I'll look into this," Dawkins said. "In the meantime- this is an order, Pick-I don't want you saying anything to anybody about this."

"Aye, aye, sir," Pick said. "If that got out, the Corps would look pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n stupid."

"The order to give you the Navy Cross, I am reliably informed, came from the President, personally," Dawkins said. "Anything to say about that?"

"Only that I really don't understand any of this, sir," Pick said.

"Okay. I'll look into it and get back to you," Dawkins said. He smiled at Pick. "This Chinese fire drill aside, I'm really glad that you made it back, Pick. You were gone so long that we were all really getting worried."

"Thank you, sir."

"As soon as they'll let you, my wife wants you to come out to the base for dinner."

"I accept, thank you. I'm not entirely sure about you, sir, but I'm sure Mrs. Dawkins qualifies."

"Qualifies for what?"

"When they give me a pa.s.s out of this place, it has to be in the company of a responsible person."

Dawkins looked at him a moment, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

"Captain McGowan," he said. "We have just had proof that this officer belongs in the Neuro-Psychiatric Ward. No sane Marine major would say such a thing to a very senior officer such as myself. Even if he did on more than one occasion save my tail while we were off winning World War Two all by ourselves."

"Yes, sir," Captain McGowan said.

"You understood, Pick, that it was an order you are not to mention this Navy Cross business to anyone, right?"

"Yes, sir. Not a problem, sir. The only visitor I expect is my mother, and I wouldn't tell her something like that. And I don't expect any more visitors. The fewer people who know where I am, the better."

"Hey, you have absolutely nothing to be embarra.s.sed about being in here. Despite what Billy Dunn said when his mouth ran away with him, I'm sure he is as proud of the way you evaded capture for so long as I am. And so are just about all of the pilots who know what you must have gone through. What you did-proving it can be done-is probably going to keep a lot of other shot-down pilots from giving up."

"The general's right, Major," Captain McGowan said.

"I'm always right, Art," Dawkins said. "I'm a general. Write that down."

Pick and McGowan chuckled.

Dawkins pushed himself out of the folding chair and extended his hand to Pick.

"Welcome home, Pick," he said. "We'll see you soon."

[TWO].

HEADQUARTERS X U.S. CORPS WONSAN, NORTH KOREA 0620 30 OCTOBER 1950.

"Jade, Jade," Major Alex Donald said into his microphone. "How do you read?"

"Jade reads aircraft calling five by five," a metallic voice responded.

"Jade, this is Army four zero zero three."

"Go ahead, four zero zero three."

"Jade, four double zero three is approximately three miles from your field. Be advised four double zero three is a Sikorsky H-19 helicopter painted black in color. I say again, an H-19 painted black in color."

The control tower at Jade-the landing strip serving X Corps Headquarters-took a good thirty seconds to respond, and when it did there was a new voice on the radio.

"Four zero zero three, Jade reads a black H-19. Confirm."

"Four double zero three confirms. Please take necessary action to ensure strip defense does not engage. I say again, make sure no one shoots at us."

"Four zero zero three. Do not approach at this time. Action requested will take five or more minutes. Jade will advise when you may approach."

"Thank you, Jade," Donald said, looked at Major Kenneth R. McCoy in the copilot's seat, and released the microphone switch.

Major Donald was genuinely concerned about the strip defense. He had set it up himself. There had been virtually no enemy aerial attacks on American ground forces, or for that matter even enemy aerial observation of American positions. But that didn't mean there were never going to be any.

He had, therefore, when he had been the a.s.sistant X Corps Army Aviation Officer, spent a good deal of time thinking, planning, and setting up airfield defense. The basic weapons of the defense he had planned and set up were .50-caliber Browning machine guns, four of them, in a mount permitting simultaneous fire by one man, on White half-tracked armored cars.

There were "multiple-fifties" located at each end of the strip. The other two were positioned, depending on where the strip was located, so that they could fire on attacking aircraft without firing into the rather extensive X Corps headquarters tents or buildings.

The multiple-fifties put out a lot of fire.

There were other machine guns positioned around the landing strip, but it was the multiple-fifties he was worried about. He had had a good deal of trouble getting them onto the Table of Authorized Equipment, and then talking the G-1 into providing their crews. Each weapon had a four-man crew: the vehicle driver, the a.s.sistant vehicle driver, the gunner, and the a.s.sistant gunner. The a.s.sistant vehicle driver also functioned as an a.s.sistant gunner, which meant he kept a steady supply of loaded cans of .50-caliber ammunition moving from the ammunition trailer that the White towed, and helped the a.s.sistant gunner in other ways, including using an entrenchment tool to shovel red-hot fired cartridge cases from the bed of the White.

A really astonishing number of them would acc.u.mulate whenever the four Brownings were fired.

One of the problems Major Donald had recognized and done what he could to get around was that the crews of the multiple-fifties were aware that the enemy had yet to stage aerial attacks on an Army airstrip. That translated to mean that their a.s.signment was bulls.h.i.t. They just sat there in the hot sun (or, now, the getting-colder-by-the-day icy winds) and nothing happened.

Major Donald had done what he could to motivate them. He told them that if the enemy attacked from the air, they would be the first, and really only, defense the airstrip and indeed the entire X Corps Headquarters complex was going to have. He told them they had a great responsibility.

And he also arranged for them to have quickly removable canvas sun shields to protect them in the summer, and, preparing for the winter, to have oil-fired stoves called Cannon heaters specially rigged so they could be mounted in the bed of each of the Whites and keep the crews warm in the cold.

Thus, Donald had spent a lot of time and thought and effort establishing airstrip protection, and thought he had done a good job, especially in motivating the men. He was convinced they were on the alert, ready to instantly fill the skies over the airstrip with a steady stream of .50-caliber projectiles the moment they thought the airstrip was being threatened.

Threatened, for example, by a rotary-wing aircraft of a type they had not seen before, and which was painted black and completely devoid of American markings.

Major Donald knew that the Killer wouldn't have ordered him to fly into the X Corps airstrip on the way back from dropping two stay-behind teams in the mountains unless there was a good reason, but wished that the Killer had elected to travel by some other means than in one of the Big Black Birds.

Major Donald thought there was a very good chance his careful planning and training for the defense of the X Corps airstrip was about to come around and bite him in the a.s.s.

Major Donald had ten-not five-minutes to consider what the fire from a multiple-fifty would do to the delicate innards of an H-19A Sikorsky before the radio went off.

"Army four zero zero three, Jade."

"Go."

"You are cleared for an approach from the north and touchdown on the threshold of the active runway. You will hold, I say again, you will hold, on the threshold until further orders. Be advised there is light aircraft traffic in the area. Acknowledge."

"Four double zero three understand approach from the north and hold on the threshold after touchdown. Beginning approach at this time."

As he made the approach, Major Donald was able to clearly see-which surprised him not at all-the four large black barrels of the White-mounted multiple-fifty tracking his approach with care and what he thought might just be eagerness.

"Jade, I'm on the ground and holding on the threshold."

"Four zero zero three, I have you in sight. You will be met."

McCoy pointed out the c.o.c.kpit window. Two jeeps, each with a pedestal-mounted .30-caliber air-cooled Browning, were racing down the runway toward them.

Both stopped twenty yards from the Big Black Bird. The .30s were now trained on the c.o.c.kpit.

A lieutenant colonel got out of one of the jeeps, drew his pistol, and marched somewhat warily up to the helicopter.

Donald put his head and both of his arms out his window and waved.

"Sir, it's Donald," he called from the window.

The lieutenant colonel almost certainly couldn't hear over the roar of the engine, but he recognized the face.

Neither could Donald nor McCoy hear the lieutenant colonel mutter, in either disbelief or disgust, "Jesus H. Christ!"

But they saw him holster his pistol, make arm signals to both the machine-gunners in the jeeps and in the multiple-fifty half-track, telling them there was no hazard and to deflect their weapons. Then he made a follow me follow me gesture to the Big Black Bird and got in his jeep and started back down the runway. gesture to the Big Black Bird and got in his jeep and started back down the runway.

Donald waited until the jeeps were halfway down the runway, then taxied the H-19 down it after them.