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

"And if the weather is foul?"

"As soon as it starts to turn nasty, the men are going to have to go in the holds, with the hatch covers battened."

"That's not going to be much fun."

"It'll be more fun than capsizing," Taylor said.

"What are you going to do for a crew?" McCoy asked.

"Three of Kim's men were sailors. They can show the others what to do. There's not much to know about the rig-ging on a junk. The sails are square-Okay, oblong-and they're stiffened with bamboo. They're like Venetian blinds, you open-raise-them by pulling on a rope. There's no wheel, just this thing..."

He pointed to a six-inch-square handle, lashed to the stern.

"... the rudder. The rudder is huge; it also serves as the centerboard when you're under sail. Sometimes-to turn sharply-you need more than one man on it. Same thing when you're under way with the engine. There's one pro-peller, mounted forward of the rudder. All the power of the engine is directed at the rudder. If you can hold the rudder, you can make really sharp turns."

"I don't see any engine controls, or a compass," McCoy said.

Taylor walked to the forward rail and pulled backward on what McCoy had thought was a sturdy support for the railing. Inside was a control panel for the Caterpillar diesel engine, and a compass. They were chrome-plated, and completely out of place on the junk.

"Like I said, McCoy, Macao shipbuilders know what they're doing," Taylor said.

He reached down into the small compartment and threw several switches. The compass and the engine instrument dials lit up and became active. There was a red light-ob-viously a warning light of some kind.

McCoy was about to ask what it was when it went out. Taylor reached into the compartment again and pressed a button. There was a rumble, and then the diesel engine started.

"I'll be damned," McCoy said. "Very nice."

Taylor shut the engine off again.

"You're confident we can use this to make the land-ings?" he asked.

"Hell no, I'm not," Taylor replied, shaking his head. "I don't know much about the waters off Yonghung-do and Taemuui-do, but I've never seen a junk tied up at a pier ei-ther place. That makes me think the adjacent waters are too shallow, even at high tide, to take a junk's rudder. We're going to have to get boats somewhere."

"Jesus!"

"I was thinking we could get some from the Navy," Tay-lor said. "A couple of shore leave boats would be perfect."

"And asking for them would make the Navy very curi-ous about what we planned to do with them...."

"And we'd have to tow them from Kobe or Yokohama or someplace."

"We have to think about that," McCoy said. "Goddamn it!"

Taylor shrugged.

"I'm going ashore to see if I can find out where Zim-merman and that goddamned woman are," McCoy said. "And we better start loading everything we're taking with us. You tell Kim."

Taylor gave a thumbs-up sign, and McCoy started down the ladder to the main deck.

[SIX]

EVENING STAR HOTEL

TONGNAE, SOUTH KOREA

1625 5 AUGUST 1950

Master Gunner Zimmerman drove right to the pier, fol-lowed by a Jeep with a war correspondent sign mounted below the glass of its windshield. Zimmerman got out of his Jeep, and collected his Thompson and a can-vas musette bag from the Jeep.

Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune, who was dressed in U.S. Army fatigues much too large for her and had her hair tucked up inside her fatigue cap, got out of her Jeep, then leaned over the rear seat and took a notebook and a Leica camera from a canvas bag and walked toward McCoy, who was leaning on a pier piling.

"What's going on, McCoy?" she greeted him, stopped, opened the Leica's leather case, and raised the camera to take a picture of him with the Wind of Good Fortune in the background.

McCoy put one hand, fingers extended, in front of his face, then extended the fingers of the other hand in an ob-scene gesture.

"You sonofabitch!" she said. There was a tone of admi-ration in her voice, then, smiling, she asked: "How long are you going to stand there with your hand in front of your face?"

"Until you put the camera away," he said.

After a moment, she closed the Leica's case and he took his hand from his face.

`Tell me about Pick Pickering," she said.

"If you take that camera out of the case again without permission, I'll take it away from you," he said.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Having said that, I think I can guarantee you some pic-tures for your newspaper," he said.

"Are you going to tell me about Pickering, or not?"

"Once we get under way," he said. "Get on the junk."

"The hell I will!"

"Suit yourself," he said, and started to walk down the pier.

After a moment, she went back to her Jeep, took a car-bine and a musette bag from it, and trotted after him. When she caught up with him, he mockingly bowed, and ges-tured that she should climb the ladder ahead of him.

When she had started up the ladder, McCoy signaled for Zimmerman to get the rest of her things from her Jeep.

The Marines lining the rail of the Wind of Good Fortune watched the female war correspondent climbing the ladder with great interest.

When-not without effort, she had the carbine, the Le-ica, and her musette bag all hanging around her neck-she finally made it to the deck, she found herself facing Lieu-tenant David R. Taylor, USNR.

She flashed him a dazzling smile.

"I'm Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune," she said.

"Welcome aboard," he said.

Jeanette smiled and waved at the Marines.

McCoy came over the rail.

"Permission to get under way, sir?" Taylor asked.

"Granted," McCoy said.

Taylor walked aft and went up the exterior ladder to the junk's stern. Jeanette followed him. She did not see Zim-merman come aboard carrying the rest of her things.

Taylor began to issue orders in Korean.

McCoy came up the ladder.

"Permission to come on the bridge, sir?" he asked.

"Granted," Taylor said.

Taylor opened the cover of the control panel and started the engine, which fascinated Miss Priestly.

Korean sailors, assisted by Marines, hauled on ropes, and three sails rose up their masts like so many Venetian blinds.

Taylor unlashed the rudder, then engaged the engine. The Wind of Good Fortune moved almost sidewards away from the pier.

"What's going on?" Jeanette asked, in her most charm-ing voice.

No one replied.

Taylor got the Wind of Good Fortune headed out to deep water, then shut down the engine.

The Wind of Good Fortune's sails filled with wind, and she began to act like a sailing vessel.

"Ah, come on, McCoy, tell me what's going on," Jeanette asked, entreatingly.

"In just a minute," McCoy said. "I've got to have a word with Major Kim first. Enjoy the sights."

He went down the ladder to the main deck and walked forward to Major Kim, who was standing midway between the stern and the forecastle. McCoy had given a lot of thought about how he was going to deal with Major Kim, and had finally decided that the old saw, "When in doubt, tell the truth," seemed to be not only the best, but really the only, solution.

When he reached Kim, the Korean national police offi-cer looked at him expectantly.

"Major, we're headed for Tokchok-kundo," McCoy said.

Kim nodded, and waited for him to go on.

"There is a strong possibility that General MacArthur will make an amphibious invasion at Inchon," McCoy said. "There are two islands in the Flying Fish Channel, now oc-cupied by the enemy, from which the ships of the invasion fleet could be brought under artillery fire-"

"Yonghung-do and Taemuui-do," Kim interrupted, nod-ding. ,

McCoy was surprised, even startled, that Kim knew of the islands.

"-and should be taken as quickly and as quietly as pos-sible," McCoy went on, hoping that his surprise had not been evident on his face or in his voice.