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

The ribbons and other decorations on this one's tunic—she recognized only a few of them—seemed to attest to that. Judging by just the number of them, this master gunner had been in every war since the American Revolution, and wounded in all of them.

One of the medals on his chest she did recognize was the Purple Heart, awarded for having been wounded in action. She had seen enough of them pinned on hospital gowns here in the ward to know what that was. The master gunner's Purple Heart medal was just about covered with little things—Lieu­tenant Hills had forgotten what they called the little things—pinned to it. But she knew that each one of the little things meant a different award of the Pur­ple Heart for getting wounded in action.

Lieutenant Hills saw that he was carrying a small canvas bag in his left hand, as a woman carries a bag. She wondered what was in it.

Then she realized that she had no idea how master gunners were addressed.

Do you call them "Master Gunner," as you would call a major "Major"? If not, then what?

"May I help you, sir?" Lieutenant Hills finally asked, even though she knew that as a lieutenant j.g. she outranked the master gunner and therefore he was no; entitled to be called "sir."

"Major Pickering," the master gunner said.

"What about Major Pickering?" she asked.

"Where is he?"

I think he was supposed to say, "Where is he, ma'am?"

"He's in 404," Lieutenant Hill said. "But he's on Restricted Visitors. If you want to visit him, you'll have to go to ..."

The master gunner nodded at her, then turned and marched down the cor­ridor toward room 404.

"Just a minute, please," Lieutenant Hills called after him as firmly as she could manage. "Didn't you hear me? Major Pickering is on Restricted Visitors. You have to have permission of the medical officer of the day—"

When she realized she was being totally ignored, she stopped in mid-sentence.

She came from behind the nurses' station counter and looked down the cor­ridor in time to see the gunner enter room 404.

Master Gunner Ernest Zimmerman, USMC, marched to the foot of the cranked-up hospital bed in which Major Malcolm S. Pickering was sitting and looked at him without speaking.

"Look what the goddamn tide washed up!" Pick cried happily. "I'll be god­damned, Ernie, it's good to see you!"

"You won't think so in a minute, Pick," Zimmerman said. "Can you han­dle some really shitty news?"

There was a just-perceptible pause, long enough for his bright smile to van­ish before Pickering asked, "Jesus Christ, not the Killer?"

"Not the Killer," Zimmerman said.

"Dad? Has something happened to my father?"

Zimmerman opened the straps on his canvas bag and extended it to Pick­ering.

"What's this?" Pick asked, but looked, and then reached inside without waiting for an answer.

He came out with a fire-blackened object that only after a moment he rec­ognized as a camera.

"Jeanette's camera," Zimmerman said, and then when Pick looked at him curiously, went on: "I picked it up yesterday near where the plane went in."

"Jeanette's?" Pick asked. "What plane?"

"An Air Force Gooney Bird headed for Wonsan," Zimmerman said. "It clipped a mountain and blew up. Nobody got out."

"Jeanette was on the Gooney Bird?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure?" Pick asked softly.

"Yeah."

"How can you be sure? How did you get involved?"

"From the top?"

"From the fucking top, Ernie," Pickering said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Every fucking tiny little fuck­ing detail."

Lieutenant Hills went back behind the nurses' station aware that she had two choices. She could ignore what had happened, or she could report it. She had just decided to ignore the breach of orders—

What harm was really being done? It wasn't, after all, as if Major Pickering was at death's door. What they were trying to do for him was fatten him up, and making sure the dysentery wouldn't recur. And having a visitor might make him feel better. He looked so unhappy, which was sort of funny because he was just back from escaping from the enemy, and you'd think that would make someone happy.

—when she was forced to reverse it. The hospital commander, Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, was now standing at her nurses' station.

With him was a very pretty, very pregnant young woman.

"Good afternoon, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.

"This is Mrs. McCoy, Lieutenant," Captain Schermer said. "She is to be the exception to the Restricted Visitors on Major Pickering. They're old friends, and she just came from Tokyo to see him."

Schermer had received a telephone call that morning from Major Pickering's father, who was a Marine brigadier, saying that Mrs. McCoy, "the wife of one of my officers," was on the way to Sasebo to see his son.

"They're very close, they grew up together. They're like brother and sister."

"We'll be happy to take care of her, General."

"You may have to. She's very pregnant and traveling against medical advice."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said.

"Four oh four, right?" Captain Schermer asked.

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hills said. "Captain, Major Pickering already has a visitor."

"Who would that be?" Captain Schermer asked, not very pleasantly. "You were aware, were you not, of the Restricted Visitors?"

"Sir, I tried to tell him, but he just ignored me."

"A journalist? Was the person who ignored you a journalist? Is that why he thought he could ignore you? Because he was a journalist?"

"No, sir. Sir, it's a Marine, a master gunner Marine. . . ."

"About this tall?" Mrs. McCoy said, holding up her hand. "Built like a tank?"

Lieutenant Hills smiled and nodded.

"That has to be Ernie Zimmerman," Mrs. McCoy said. She turned to Cap­tain Schermer and added, "He works for General Pickering."

"I see," Captain Schermer said with a somewhat strained smile. "Well, why don't we ... ?" He waved Mrs. McCoy down the corridor toward 404.

Master Gunner Zimmerman stopped in midsentence as the door swung open. Major Malcolm S. Pickering looked angrily at Captain F. Howard Scher­mer, USN, and was about to say something when Mrs. K. R. McCoy brushed past the captain.

I've seen you looking better," she said, and went to the bed and bent over him and kissed him. "But I'm glad to see you anyway."

"I guess you haven't heard, huh?" Pick said.

"Heard what?" Ernie replied, and turned to Zimmerman. "What's going on, Ernie?"

"Obviously, you haven't," Pick said. "Carry on, Mr. Zimmerman. Maybe you better start from the top again." Then he looked at Ernie McCoy and added: "I think maybe you better sit down, mother-to-be. I don't think you're going to like this." He gestured toward a folding chair, then made a go on ges­ture to Zimmerman.

"Well," Zimmerman began, "we don't know how she got from Pusan to Seoul—"

"She being Jeanette?" Ernie McCoy asked. "You mean Jeanette doesn't know we've got Pick back yet? Jesus Christ, why not?"

"Let him finish, Ernie," Pick said. "And I meant it, sit down."

"I think I will," Ernie said, and lowered herself into the folding chair.

"—whether on the Air Corps medical Gooney Bird or some other way," Zimmerman went on. "She wasn't on any manifest that we could find."

"Okay," Pick said. "But clever fucking OSS agent that you are, you have de­duced that she was on the fucking medical Gooney Bird when it took off from Seoul for Wonsan, right? Because she was on it when it crashed?"

"Oh, my God!" Ernie said. "Is she all right?"

Zimmerman looked at her.

"Sorry, Ernie," Zimmerman said.

"You were saying, Mr. Zimmerman?" Pick said.

"What Dunston did was, when the general found out we hadn't told her about you and sent him to find her, was go out to K-16 and ask the Air Corps guy what possibilities there were," Zimmerman said. "The only thing he could think of was that maybe she'd hitched a ride aboard the Gooney Bird that had gone missing. Then he—the Air Force guy—found out they'd located the crash site."