W.E.B. Griffin - Retreat, Hell!

"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 pass 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 embarrassed 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

O62O 3O October 195O

"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 Assistant 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-l into providing their crews. Each weapon had a four-man crew: the vehi­cle driver, the assistant vehicle driver, the gunner, and the assistant gunner. The assistant vehicle driver also functioned as an assistant 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 assistant 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 accumulate 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 assignment was bullshit. 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 ass.

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.