Retreat, Hell! Part 78

"I think Beetle's idea is a good one, Mr. President," General Howe said.

Truman looked directly at him for perhaps thirty seconds.

"Okay," he said finally. "That's what we'll do. But I want you to write the message, Ralph."

"Why me, Mr. President?"

"Because, of the three of us, you're the only one who really knows Emperor Douglas the First. I don't think we had an hour together on Wake Island. And G.o.d only knows what kind of a message he'd get from the Pentagon if Smith just told them I wanted a message sent. Either it would be mostly an apology for questioning his genius, or it would be designed to get a response they know would make me mad. What I want him to do when he gets the message is personally think it over, and not just buck it down to General Willoughby. You know how to phrase it to make him do that."

"Okay. Good thinking," Howe said thoughtfully.

"And when you two have finished writing it, I want you, Smith, to take it to the Pentagon, give it to General Bradley, and tell him I want it sent as-is and right now."

"He's not going to like that, Harry . . . Mr. President," Howe said.

"He doesn't have to like it. I'm not sure about some of the others, but I am absolutely sure General Bradley knows who is Commander-in-Chief," Truman said.

"Will there be anything else, Mr. President?" Howe asked.

"Yes," the President said. "Get me the names of those Marines who are missing, the 'stay-behinds' who got caught. When this is over, I want to write their families."

"That's very generous of you, Mr. President-" Smith began.

" 'Generous' is not the word," Truman interrupted him.

"I was about to say, sir, it is generous of you to find the time."

"Abraham Lincoln did it when he was living across the street," Truman said. "And as bad as things are, things were worse for him when he did it."

"Yes, sir," Smith said.

"I'll get the names and addresses of the next of kin, Mr. President," Smith said.

"And that reminds me," the President said. "What about the Navy Cross for Pickering's son?"

"The commandant a.s.sures me, Mr. President, that the decoration will be awarded within the next forty-eight hours. And he told me that yesterday. He may have it already. "

"Okay. Thank you."

[TWO].

8023D TRANSPORTATION COMPANY (DEPOT, FORWARD) HAMHUNG, NORTH KOREA 1235 2 NOVEMBER 1950.

The maps Captain Francis P. MacNamara had obtained from the X Corps Engineer-not without difficulty; maps were in short supply-showed that it was approximately sixty miles by highway from Wonsan to Hamhung, and a few miles farther, no highway, to Hungnam, which was on the Sea of j.a.pan.

The problem was that this was Korea, where a highway was any two-lane paved road, and the definition of "paved" was loose. It often meant that it was paved with a thin layer of gravel. Furthermore, the road-there was only one "highway"-had not been built to withstand the traffic now moving up it, in terms of either weight or numbers.

The United States X Corps was on the move. The order had been issued to advance to the Chinese border. That meant not only the American 7th Infantry Division and 1st Marine Division, and the four ROK Divisions, which were "up front," but the mind-boggling support and logistical train needed to support it.

It wasn't simply a question of supplying the attacking divisions with food, fuel, and ammunition, or even also moving their supporting tactical units, the separate tank and artillery battalions, and so on-and their food, fuel, and ammunition-but the nonfighting units had also been ordered moved out of Wonsan. These ranged from Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals to Quartermaster Ration Depots, Ordnance Ammunition Supply Points, down to smaller units such as Water Purification Platoons, Shower Points, and a Mobile Dental Surgical Detachment.

Into this mix, all trying to move up the same winding, crumbling, narrow two-lane "highway," Colonel T. Howard Kennedy, the X Corps Transportation Officer, had added Captain MacNamara's 8023d Transportation Company (Depot, Forward) and the Replacement Company of the 7th United States Infantry Division.

It was worse than anything MacNamara had seen in France in World War II, and when he first got into the line of moving vehicles, he had used his experience in France to predict that it would take six hours to move the sixty miles. It took eighteen.

Not all of that time-in fact very little-was spent on the move. Most of it was spent stopped, as units, or individual vehicles, with a higher priority pa.s.sed them on the left lane. The basic rule of thumb was that medical supplies went first, then ammunition, then food.

Overworked, and thus sometimes snarling, military policemen guided high-priority convoys onto the left lane, past stopped convoys with lesser priorities.

The first military police officer Captain MacNamara encountered had asked him for his movement priority, which would then be painted on the lead vehicle for the edification of military police along the route.

"Verbal orders of the X Corps Transportation Officer," MacNamara had replied, with as much a.s.surance as he could muster. "The colonel said, 'Time is of the essence.' "

The MP officer, also a captain, had smiled at him.

"Good try, Captain," he said, and dabbed a blue paint circle on the windshield of MacNamara's jeep. Within an hour or so, MacNamara understood that the blue circle indicated a priority way down on the list.

Several times MacNamara seriously considered replacing the blue circle with a yellow one. Yellow seemed to represent the priority immediately after ration trucks, and there was an a.s.sortment of paint in one of the mobile workshops he had included in the first convoy, but he decided against it. For one thing, it didn't seem right, and for another, he didn't want another letter of reprimand in his service record, which he would get, sure as Christ made little green apples, if he was caught.

He wondered how long it was going to take him to return from wherever he was going in the Hamhung-Hungnam area to Wonsan. The southbound lane, so to speak, of the highway was usually crowded with north-bound vehicles with a priority. Only a few vehicles were pa.s.sing him going south.

He wondered if maybe he could somehow get a message to the officers he had left behind, telling them to saddle up and get moving as soon as they could because he would not be returning. In the end, he decided against this, too. It was his responsibility to go back and set things up, and he would.

Sixteen and a half hours after MacNamara had left Wonsan, he was again stopped in the right lane as priority convoys pa.s.sed him in the left. Another MP officer, this one a lieutenant, came southward down the shoulder of the road in a jeep.

"Where are you headed, Captain?"

"Hamhung, Hungnam," MacNamara replied.

"Which?"

"I don't know. I have to find somewhere to set up-on the highway, preferably. I'm a vehicle replacement outfit. And I've got the advance party of the 7th Repple-Depple with me. They need a place too."

"When I come back, say, in thirty minutes or so, you- just you-follow me. The turn off to Hamhung's about five miles up the road. You can find a place, or places, to set up while the rest of your convoy is still on the highway."

MacNamara had little trouble finding a suitable area for the 8023d. It was about half a mile in on the turnoff to Hamhung. The only thing wrong with it was that it was terraced, which would seem to indicate that it had once been a rice paddy, or paddies.

It was dry now, and obviously hadn't been a rice paddy for some years. That left the question in his mind: How long would human s.h.i.t contaminate a rice paddy? How long would human s.h.i.t contaminate a rice paddy?

He had no idea. But it didn't matter. He had seen enough of the area to know that the terrain was either rocky hills or flat areas that either were or once had been a rice paddy. He thought the one he had chosen didn't smell all that rotten, but on the other hand, he had smelled so many rotten things since arriving in the Land of the Morning Calm that he suspected his sniffer had been overwhelmed.

He consoled himself with the thought that it was now getting chilly-it had been as cold as a witch's teat in the jeep overnight-and one of the prerogatives of being a Transportation Depot commander was being able to tell your noncom in charge of the Radiator Repair Section to rig a heater for your jeep, and that would keep the smell down.

He set up a temporary headquarters in one of the mobile service vans he had thoughtfully included in the convoy. Nature called, and he didn't think it would wait until the men dug a quick latrine, so he went up the hill a little and dropped his trousers behind a large boulder.

The wind coming off the hill was surprisingly unpleasant on the cheeks of his a.s.s, and he thought that about the first thing the men were going to do when they finished laying the perimeter barbed wire was build another latrine like the one he had just finished building in Wonsan.

Jesus! If I can get through to Wonsan on a landline, I can tell Lieutenant Wright to just put the sonofab.i.t.c.h on the back of a tank retriever. I'll have to tell Wright to cover it with a tarpaulin so people won't know what it is. But that would save a lot of work.

As soon as I finish my dump, I'm going to see if I can find a phone. There's no telling how long it'll take to get the X Corps Signal Company to lay a couple of lines in here.

He heard a sound he hadn't heard since those CIA guys dropped in on the 8023d in Inchon. Fluckata-fluckata-fluckata. Fluckata-fluckata-fluckata.

He looked up and around and, as the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata sound grew louder, located it in the sky. sound grew louder, located it in the sky.

It was flying over the road in the direction of Hungnam.

It was painted black. He wondered if it was one of the two he had seen at Inchon. He wondered what the h.e.l.l it was doing.

Jesus, if I could get my hands on one of those, I'd have that G.o.dd.a.m.n latrine up here tonight!

[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 sh.e.l.l 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 c.o.c.kpit. 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 G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sed, 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 SECRETURGENT.

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS UNITED NATIONS.

COMMAND TOKYO.

0730 31 OCTOBER 1950EYES ONLY COMMANDING GENERAL X CORPSPERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENARMY MACARTHUR TO MAJGEN ALMOND BEGINSMY 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 COMMANDEREND PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENARMY MACARTHUR TO MAJGEN ALMONDTOP 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 Bataan and return to Tokyo to a.s.sure General MacArthur that he has nothing to worry about; there are no ChiCom forces in North Korea to speak of." and return to Tokyo to a.s.sure 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 sonofab.i.t.c.h?" 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.

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h!" 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.