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

Wishful thinking aside, that's the most likely situation.

So we sail in there, fat, dumb, and happy, and we get grabbed. And get shot as spies, especially me in these god-damn pajamas.

Oh, shit! Report immediately means that if he doesn't hear from me, immediately, I will have been grabbed-which would mean that everybody else has been grabbed, too-and that would mean this whole operation has gone down the toilet.

Of course, he'd want to know that immediately. Maybe there would be time to try something else, maybe not, but he would want to know right away.

So what's the point of the great caution?

If the NKs are holding Tokchok-kundo, is there any chance I could see them before they see me and get out of there with my ass intact?

About as much chance as there is of me being taken bod-ily into heaven.

So what this really boils down to is we go in there and (a) McCoy greets me with a brass band and asks me what took me so long, or (b) we go in there and half the North Korean army greets me with a couple of machine guns.

And after a suitable interrogation, shoots me-which they have every right to do, with me in my spy pajamas.

I don't want to be interrogated; somehow I suspect I won't be able to claim my constitutional right to refuse to answer any questions on the grounds they may tend to in-criminate me.

So what else is there I can do?

I can get out of these fucking pajamas, is what I can do. And if I am going, to get blown away, maybe I can take some of them with me before I go. And get buried in a Ma-rine uniform.

Ten minutes later, Captain George F. Hart came on the stern again. He was now in the prescribed semi-dress uni-form for the summer months of the year for officers of the U.S. Marine Corps, including a field scarf. The uniform had lost its press and was not very clean. A Thompson Submachine Gun Model 1928 Caliber.45 ACP was hang-ing from his shoulder on a web strap.

When he looked around, the Flying Fish Channel light-house was behind him to his left.

There was a nautical way to say that, but he couldn't think what it was.

[EIGHT]

TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND

1535 25 AUGUST 1950

One of the two national policemen Major Kim had sta-tioned on the end of the wharf came running down the wharf to where Kim was watching another of his men hammering at the dull red-not heated quite enough- shaft of Boat Two.

He reported that a junk was on the horizon, coming down the Flying Fish Channel, but that it was too early to tell whether it was headed for Tokchok-kundo.

Major Kim started to make the translation, then stopped when McCoy held up his hand.

`Thank you," McCoy said, in Korean, to the national po-liceman. "I would be grateful if you would return to your post and perhaps climb down from the wharf itself, so that anyone looking might not see you. And please tell us what else you see."

The national policeman saluted and ran back out onto the wharf.

"So what do we do," Zimmerman said, "if it comes here, or even close enough to get a look?"

"Dave, could you climb onto that junk from the lifeboat if it was, say, fifty yards offshore?"

"I could if there weren't people on the deck shooting at me," Taylor replied.

"Zimmerman and I will try to make sure there's nobody on the deck alive," McCoy said. "We'll go halfway up the hill, Ernie, so we'll have a good shot at the deck...."

"We could do sort of a TOT on it," Zimmerman sug-gested. "We have enough firepower to really sweep it clean."

"There's probably no more than four or five people on it," McCoy said. "I'll start at the stern, you start at the bow."

Zimmerman nodded his acceptance.

"I don't want a sudden burst of small-arms fire to attract anybody else's attention," McCoy said, then turned to Ma-jor Kim: "Major Kim, see how well you can hide this"-he gestured at the upside-down lifeboat and the makeshift forge-"and then make sure everybody's out of sight."

Major Kim nodded.

"If we take it just as it approaches the wharf," McCoy said to Zimmerman, "it would be moving slowly. And it would be, I'd say, about two hundred yards from halfway up the hill."

"I'd make it two hundred yards," Zimmerman agreed.

"Hold fire until I fire," McCoy said.

Ten minutes later, from his firing position-behind a knee-high rock halfway up the hill-McCoy surveyed the vil-lage below him. There was no one in sight, no sign of activity at all.

He pulled the operating rod lever of his National Match Garand far enough back so that he could see the gleam of a cartridge halfway in the chamber, and then, after letting the operating rod slide forward again, hit it with the heel of his hand to make sure it was fully closed.

Then he took a quick sight-primarily to make sure he had a good firing position-at the end of the wharf, then carefully laid the rifle on the rock.

Then he put his binoculars to bis eyes and took a good look at the junk, starting at the bow.

Then he said, "I'll be a sonofabitch."

"What?" Zimmerman asked from his position, twenty yards to McCoy's left.

"I was just about to shoot George," McCoy said, laugh-ing, and got to his feet, picked up the Garand, put the safety back on, and started to go as fast as he could down the hill.

Zimmerman put his binoculars to his eyes and looked at the junk, then shook his head and got to his feet, and started after McCoy.

"Dispatch, Dispatch, H-l, H-l," Hart said into his micro-phone.

"H-l, Dispatch, go."

"Five, I say again, Five," Hart said.

Five was a code phrase-one of eight hastily prepared in Pusan-that stood for: "In Tokchok-kundo. McCoy party safe."

"H-l, understand Five, Five, confirm."

"Confirm, confirm."

"Standby."

"Standing by."

A new voice with a strong British accent came over the air.

"H-l, this is Saint Bernard. H-l, this is Saint Bernard."

"Jesus, who the hell is that?" Hart asked, and told Mc-Coy what he had heard over his earphones.

McCoy gestured for him to hand over the headset and the microphone.

"Station calling H-l, go ahead," McCoy said.

"Delighted to hear you're all right, my friend," the voice said. "We were getting a bit concerned."

"It's Captain Jones-Fortin," McCoy said.

"My present position is Four Zero Three," Jones-Fortin said.

"Hold one," McCoy said. "George, give me your chart and the overlay."

"Understand Four Zero Three," McCoy said to the mi-crophone.

It took Hart at least a minute to unfold the chart and get the overlay in place. It seemed like much longer.

"I have your location."

"Could you possibly come there at nine tonight? We need to talk."

"Dave, can you find that place in the dark?"

"I think so. It's about ten miles off the lighthouse, just about due west."

"Affirmative, affirmative," McCoy said.

"See you then," Jones-Fortin said. "Saint Bernard Clear." "George, do you know anything about this?" McCoy asked. Hart shook his shoulders helplessly.

Chapter Twenty-one

[ONE]

ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE

37 DEGREES 36 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE,

126 DEGREES 53 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE

THE YELLOW SEA

2055 25 AUGUST 1950

"You understand this is dead-reckoning navigation," Lieu-tenant David Taylor, USNR, said to Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR. "Sometimes known as by-guess-and-by-golly navigation."

They were standing by the forward rail of the "bridge" on the high stern of the Wind of Good Fortune with Major Kim. A Korean seaman had the tiller, and two more had been posted as lookouts, one high on the rearward mast, the other on the forecastle.

They had been at sea since shortly after their radio con-tact with HMS Charity at 1800. McCoy hadn't wanted to have the Wind of Good Fortune at the wharf in Tokchok-kundo, where it might be seen, and Taylor said the simplest way of concealing her would be to sail her back down the Flying Fish Channel into the Yellow Sea, out of sight of the Korean peninsula.