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

"Well, Mr. Taylor," Captain Jones-Fortin said, "another option would be to steam on an east-northeasterly course, hoping to find calmer waters on the storm's eastern edge."

"Your decision, of course, Captain," Taylor said, but his tone of voice made it clear what he hoped Jones-Fortin's decision would be.

"Then that's what we'll do," Jones-Fortin said.

"What that means, Ken," Taylor said, "is that it probably won't get much worse than it is now."

"Wonderful," McCoy said.

[FIVE]

ABOARD HMS CHARITY

39 DEGREES 06 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,

123 DEGREES 25 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE

(THE YELLOW SEA)

0405 19 AUGUST 1950

"Have a look at that, Mr. McCoy," Captain Jones-Fortin said, pointing out the spray-soaked window of the bridge. "What is it they say, `all good things come to those who wait'?"

There was a bright glow of light coming through the cloud cover.

"Is that the northern edge of the storm?" McCoy said.

"Not exactly," Jones-Fortin said. "We are in the northern edge of the storm-I'm sure you will not be much surprised to learn that the weather people have finally decided what we have been steaming through is a hurricane-and that light you see is dawn coming up over what I devoutly hope will be calm waters."

"Me, too."

The Charity didn't seem to be tossing as much as she had been for the past forty hours, but McCoy wasn't sure if this was the case, or wishful thinking.

Ten minutes later, Jones-Fortin turned to McCoy again.

"Master mariner that I am, Mr. McCoy, it is my profes-sional judgment that in, say, ten minutes, it will be safe to step into my shower and have a wash and a shave. If you feel a similar need, may I suggest you go to your cabin, and then join me for breakfast in the wardroom in twenty minutes?"

"Thank you, sir."

"If you'd be so kind, ask Mr. Taylor to join us."

"Yes, sir, of course."

Jones-Fortin raised his voice. "Number One, you have the conn. I will be in my cabin."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"If, in your judgment, the situation continues to im-prove, in ten minutes order the mess to prepare the break-fast meal."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Twenty minutes later, McCoy and Taylor walked into the wardroom. Jones-Fortin was already there, wearing a fresh, crisply starched uniform of open-collared white shirt, shorts, and knee-length white socks. Taylor was in his usual washed soft khakis, and McCoy in Marine Corps utilities.

A white-jacketed steward handed them a neatly typed breakfast menu the moment they sat down, and poured tea from a silver pitcher for them.

A moment later, another steward delivered what McCoy at first thought was breakfast for all of them. But he set the entire contents of his tray-toast, six fried eggs on one plate, and a ten-inch-wide, quarter-inch-thick slice of ham on another-before the captain, then turned to McCoy and Taylor.

"And what can I have Cooky prepare for you, gentle-men?"

They gave him their order.

"Shortly after joining His Majesty's Navy," Jones-Fortin said, as he stuffed a yolk-soaked piece of toast into his mouth, "I learned that the hoary adage, `If you keep your stomach full, you do not suffer from mal de mer,' did not apply at all to Midshipman the Honorable Darwin Jones-Fortin. Quite the contrary. If I eat so much as a piece of dry toast in weather such as we have just experienced, I turn green and am out of the game. I trust you will forgive this display of gluttony. I haven't had a thing to eat since we left Sasebo."

"I haven't been exactly hungry myself, sir," McCoy said.

"On the subject of food," Jones-Fortin said. "Is there anything we can give you from Charity's stores to better the fare on Tokchok-kundo?"

"You're very kind, Captain," Taylor said.

"Bread, sir," McCoy said. "The one thing I really miss when I'm... I really miss fresh bread."

"I'll see to it."

"When do you think we'll be getting to the Flying Fish, sir?" Taylor asked.

"It's about two hundred twenty miles. The storm is mov-ing southward at about fifteen knots. That should put us off the lighthouse somewhere around 2100. It'll be dark then, and I think the seas will have subsided."

"But how would we find Tokchok-kundo in the dark?" McCoy asked. "The original idea was to head for shore in the dark, but to arrive there as it was getting light."

"And I think we had best stick to that, too," Taylor said. "I don't want to try running in the channel in the dark."

"Then that means we'll have to arrange things to arrive at the original hour."

"Three days late," McCoy said.

"Unfortunately," Jones-Fortin agreed.

"They'll be worried about us," McCoy said. "On Tokchok-kundo and in Tokyo."

"They'll know, of course, about the storm," Jones-Fortin said. "Tokchok-kundo's been in it."

"And General Pickering will be worried about that, too," McCoy said.

"He does have quite a bit on his plate, doesn't he?"

Jones-Fortin said.

There was something in his voice that made McCoy look at him.

"It came out somehow," Jones-Fortin said. "Fitz-Tony Fitzwater, my brother-in-law-said that Sir William had heard that General Pickering's son had gone down."

"That's right," McCoy said.

"That's rotten luck," Jones-Fortin said. "It must be really tough for a senior officer to lose a son. I mean, more so than for someone not in the service."

"There's a chance that Pick-Major Malcolm Pickering, who's my best friend-"

"Oh, God, I am treading on glass, aren't I?" Jones-Fortin interrupted.

"-may walk through raindrops again," McCoy fin-ished.

"Oh?"

"There's some reason to believe he survived the crash," McCoy said. "I think he has. He's done that before. And is running around behind the enemy's lines waiting for some-one to come get him before the North Koreans capture him."

"And they really can't go looking for him, can they?" Jones-Fortin said, sympathetically.

"If I wasn't on my way to Tokchok-kundo, I'd be look-ing for him," McCoy said.

"I thought, when we were in Pusan, that you told Dunston to ratchet up the search operation?" Taylor said. "You don't think that's going to work?"

"That was a tough call," McCoy said. "I don't know who Dunston's agents are, or who they're working for. Agents have been known to change sides. Ratcheting up the search also ratcheted up the risk that the North Koreans will learn we're looking for someone, and they would know we would only be running an operation like this for someone important. All I may have done is ratchet up the search for him by the North Koreans, if they even had one going. Or, if they've already caught him, it would let them know they have an important prisoner."

"And yet you ordered this... search?" Jones-Fortin asked.

McCoy nodded.

"I decided if I was in his shoes..."

`Tough call, Ken," Taylor said. "But I'd have made the same one."

"I rather think that I would have, too," Jones-Fortin said. "Thank God, I didn't have to."

[SIX]

ABOARD HMS CHARITT

37 DEGREES 41 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,

126 DEGREES 58 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE

(THE YELLOW SEA)

0405 20 AUGUST 1950

HMS Charity was dead in the water.

Captain the Honorable Darwin Jones-Fortin, RN, in starched and immaculate white uniform, Lieutenant (j.g) David R. Taylor, USNR, and Captain K. R. McCoy, USMCR-both in Marine utilities-were on her flying bridge, looking down to the main deck where, in the glare of floodlights, a work gang was loading the supplies into the two lifeboats bobbing alongside.

The work was being supervised by a wiry chief petty of-ficer, also in immaculate whites, who stood no taller than five feet three and weighed no more than 120 pounds, but whose bull-like "instructions" to his work detail could be easily heard on the flying bridge.