Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

The master sergeant saluted as Pickering and Huff en-tered the limousine, then walked around to the front of the car and slipped a red flag with one star-the flag to which Pickering was entitled-over the shrouded flag. Then he got behind the wheel and started down the drive.

"I think we have some disappointed people standing there, Sid," Pickering said.

"The Supreme Commander's car always attracts that kind of attention, sir," Huff said. "The Japanese people re-vere him."

"They really do, don't they?" Pickering agreed, thought-fully.

Huff led Pickering into what had been the U.S. Embassy and was now The Residence-and so called-of the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, and now Supreme Commander, UN Forces, and to the MacArthur apartment.

He knocked at a double door, but did not wait for a re-sponse before pulling it open and announcing, "Brigadier General Pickering, United States Marine Corps."

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur carefully laid a long, thin, black cigar into the ashtray and then rose from a red leather armchair. He was wearing his usual washed-soft khakis.

He started toward Pickering, but before he reached him, Mrs. Jean MacArthur, in a simple black dress with a single strand of pearls, walked to Pickering, took his hand in both of hers, and said, "Oh, Fleming, we're so sorry."

She then stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

Pickering could smell her perfume.

I wonder if she can smell the scotch; I should have used Sen-Sen or something.

MacArthur came up and laid a hand on Pickering's shoulder.

"I got the word only now, just before I sent Sid to the ho-tel," he said. "I'm so very sorry, Fleming."

"Thank you," he said.

"You should have told us," Jean MacArthur said.

"Yes," her husband agreed.

What the hell was I supposed to do? Call up and say, "General, I thought you would like to know my son has just been shot down " ?

Pickering didn't reply.

MacArthur looked in his eyes, then patted his shoulder and turned and walked to a sideboard.

"I think a little of this is in order," he said, picking up a bottle of Famous Grouse by the neck.

"Thank you, sir," Pickering said.

Jesus, what's wrong with me? The last thing I need is another drink. Not here.

MacArthur poured an inch of scotch in a glass, walked to Pickering, handed it to him, and then returned to the sideboard, where he poured white wine in a glass, walked to his wife and handed it to her, then returned to the side-board a final time to pour scotch in a glass and then re-turned.

He solemnly touched his glass to Pickering's. His wife touched her glass to Pickering's.

"Major Pickering," MacArthur said, solemnly.

They all sipped at their glasses.

Not that I really give a damn, but how did he find out? He's not on a next-of-kin list-anything like that-and I can't believe he reads a report with the names of every-body who's KIA or MIA on it.

"General Cushman was at the Dai-Ichi Building... ," MacArthur said.

My God, is he reading my mind?

"... briefing General Almond and myself on the splen-did-absolutely splendid!-job Marine aviation is doing in the Pusan area. He concluded his briefing by saying that `sadly, our operations have not been without a price' and then told us what has happened to Major Pickering."

"General Cushman was kind enough to message me with the details," Pickering said, and took a pull at his drink.

"General Cushman also told me that Major Pickering flew the Marines' first combat sortie of this war, during which he destroyed an enemy train..."

"I understand that's the case, sir."

"... and is in complete agreement with me that Major Pickering's flying skill and valor entitle him without ques-tion to the Distinguished Flying Cross. The citation at this moment is being prepared."

What am I supposed to do, say "thank you"?

"Thank you."

"Thanks are not in order, Fleming. Your son upheld the finest traditions of the Marine Corps."

"Pick was a fine Marine officer," Pickering said.

"Indeed, he was."

"I don't know why I said that, past tense," Pickering heard himself say. "Colonel Billy Dunn flew over the site where Pick crashed his Corsair and said the cockpit was empty. It's entirely possible that he's alive. That was not the first Corsair he was shot down in."

You know better than that: "Never end a sentence with a preposition."

You're pissing in the wind, and you know it.

If he didn't get killed in the crash landing, the odds are that he was shot by the North Koreans.

MacArthur looked at him intently for a moment.

"Jean, darling," he said. "Would you give Fleming and me a moment alone?"

Jesus, what's this? Does he know something I don't? Did Cushman find Pick's body?

He imagined the exchange:

Does Pickering know that they found the body?

No, sir. I'd planned to go to the Imperial from here to tell him myself.

That will not be necessary. I will tell him. We are old friends.

"Of course," Mrs. MacArthur said, softly, touched Pick-ering's arm for a moment, and then walked out of the room.

"Let us speak as soldiers," MacArthur said.

Pickering waited for him to go. He was aware that his stomach ached.

"General Willoughby believes there is more than a seventy-thirty probability that Major Pickering survived the crash," MacArthur said.

"He does?"

"And, if that is the case, that there is an eighty-twenty probability that Major Pickering is now a prisoner of the enemy."

Pickering didn't reply.

"I know you're as aware as I am, Fleming, that the en-emy has been executing prisoners out of hand," MacArthur went on, "but-and this is Willoughby's professional judg-ment, not a clutching at straws-in this case, because (a) your son is an officer; and (b) a Marine aviator, about whom the enemy knows very little, it would be in the en-emy's interests to keep him alive."

"I see," Pickering said.

"As one soldier to another, Fleming, there is something that might happen to turn this situation."

"Sir?"

"As we speak, Ambassador Averell Harriman and Gen-eral Matt Ridgway are somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii, en route here."

"General Howe told me, sir," Pickering said.

"Did he tell you why?"

"In general terms, sir."

"Harriman is coming because the President didn't quite understand my going to Taipei to meet with Chiang Kai-shek," MacArthur said. "I had no intention of asking for Chinese Nationalist troops for the war in Korea, and not only because all he would have to offer is poorly trained and poorly equipped troops. What I feared at the time was that the Chinese might see our difficulties in Korea as an opportunity for them to invade Formosa. I wanted to disa-buse them of the notion that the United States would per-mit them to do so without instant retaliation. My presence there made that point. I was prepared to send several fighter squadrons to Formosa, but intelligence developed by Willoughby has convinced me that will not be neces-sary. The Chinese Communists are not preparing to attack Formosa. They do not wish to go to war with us."

"I see."

"The President, as I say, apparently didn't quite under-stand my motives. When I meet with Harriman, I will be able to put any misunderstanding to rest once and for all."

"And General Ridgway?"

"General Ridgway is coming for two reasons, I believe. He is the prime candidate to become chief of staff. I think he wants to see for himself what's going on in Korea. There is-again, a question of not having firsthand knowl-edge of the situation-some concern with the manner in which General Walker is waging that war. There is also, in the Pentagon, far from the scene of action, a good deal of uneasiness about my plan to invade the west coast of Ko-rea, at Inchon, at the earliest possible date."