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

McCoy had been surprised that someone had found the time and material to make the sign.

They had shaved with McCoy's electric razor, plugged into the 110-volt AC outlet of a gasoline generator whose primary outlet cable fed into the school building through an open window.

There was a great deal of activity, soldiers unloading from six-by-six trucks everything from folding field desks and file cabinets to Coca-Cola coolers and barracks bags, and either carrying them into the building or simply dump-ing them to the side of the door.

McCoy had entered the building, found the G-2 section, and-surprisingly to him, he was not challenged by any-one-took a look at the situation map. The action was around someplace called Taejon. McCoy made a compass with his fingers and determined that Taejon was about sixty miles-as the crow flies, probably considerably more on winding Korea National Highway One-from Taegu. They would need wheels to get there, and to move around once they did.

When he came out of the building, he found Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, waiting for him. Zimmerman had a Thompson.45-caliber submachine gun hanging from his shoulder. Two spare magazines for it were in one of the pockets on his utility jacket, and the other bulged with two, or possibly three, hand grenades.

"No wheels, Ernie," he said. "You have any luck with ra-tions?"

"I took care of it," Zimmerman replied. "Let's get some-thing to eat, and then get the hell out of here."

"Where's the rations?"

"I'll show you when we've had something to eat," Zim-merman said, and pointed to a line of people-officers and enlisted men-moving through a chow line.

Breakfast was powdered eggs, Spam, toast, and coffee served on a multicompartment plastic tray in a canteen mess cup. At the end of the line, there was a stainless-steel tray filled with butter already liquefied by the heat.

When they had finished, Zimmerman led him outside the not-yet-completed ring of concertina barbed wire sur-rounding the headquarters compound and down a road to a field in which sat half a dozen communications vans, and finally behind the most distant van, where a Jeep sat.

It had a wooden sign reading press war correspon-dent in yellow letters mounted below the windshield. There were two cases of C-rations and two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline in the backseat. A third jerry can was in its mount on the back of the Jeep.

Zimmerman went to the Jeep, put his Thompson on the seat, raised the hood, and then reached into one of the cav-ernous pockets of his utilities and took out a distributor cap, a distributor rotor, and the ignition wires.

He put them in place.

"Where did you get this?" McCoy asked.

"With respect, sir, the captain does not want to know," Zimmerman said, lowered the hood, fastened the hood re-tainers, and got behind the wheel. The engine started im-mediately.

"Let's get the hell out of here before the wrong guy wakes up," Zimmerman said.

McCoy jumped in the Jeep.

"Isn't that press sign going to make us conspicuous?" McCoy asked, as Zimmerman started to move.

"I thought about that," Zimmerman said. "Isn't that what we're doing? Sending reports from the war?"

Moments after they passed the entrance to the Eighth Army headquarters compound, a slight figure in an Army fatigue uniform leapt to his feet from the side of the road and jumped in front of them, angrily waving his arms.

"Guess who got up early?" McCoy said.

"That's my Jeep, you sonsofbitches!" the angry creature shouted in a high-pitched voice.

"He's a fucking fairy," Zimmerman said, as he slammed on the brakes.

"He's a she, Ernie," McCoy said, chuckling.

The creature, now recognizable as a female by the hair tucked under her fatigue camp, and a swelling in her fa-tigue jacket that was not hand grenades, stormed up to the Jeep.

"MP!" she screamed. "MP!"

McCoy looked over his shoulder back toward the MPs standing at the entrance to the Eighth Army Headquarters compound. She had attracted their attention.

He jumped out of the Jeep, went to the woman, wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her to the Jeep, sat down-his legs outside the Jeep, and with the woman in his lap-and ordered, "Go, Ernie! Go!"

Zimmerman let the clutch out and the Jeep took off.

"If you keep struggling, we're both going to fall out," McCoy said to the woman.

"You're not going to get away with this, you bastard!" the woman said.

"When you get around the next bend, Ernie, stop," Mc-Coy ordered.

"You're going to wind up in the stockade!" the woman said.

Zimmerman made the turn in the road, then pulled to the side and stopped.

"What are you going to do, dump her here?" Zimmer-man asked.

"Only if Miss Priestly can't see the mutual benefit in the pooling of our assets," McCoy said.

"You know who I am!" Jeanette Priestly said. She was now standing by the side of the road, her hands on her hips, glowering at McCoy.

"Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune" McCoy said.

Slight recognition dawned.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

"We had dinner a couple of weeks ago in Tokyo," Mc-Coy said.

"McCoy," she said. "The Marine."

"Right," McCoy said.

"Just what the fuck do you think you're doing?" she said. "You just can't steal my Jeep."

"Let me explain your options," McCoy said. "If we leave you here by the side of the road, you can run back to the MPs and tell them you just saw your Jeep driving off down the road-"

"My stolen Jeep!"

"-they will tell you they will do what they can, and you will go to the motor pool where-as I suspect you already know-that fat slob of a major will tell you he doesn't even have enough Jeeps for full colonels-"

"You son of a bitch!"

"Which will leave you where we found each other, you walking," McCoy continued. "I can't imagine how they would do it, but let's say they radio ahead of us, and we are stopped by some other MPs...."

"That's exactly what's going to happen to you," she said. "And it's off to the stockade you go."

"First of all, I don't think they've had time to set up a stockade, but let's say we get stopped. At that point, we show them our orders, and say all we know..." He reached into his pocket and handed her the orders he had shown to the motor pool officer; she snatched them out of his hand and read them. "... is that we went to the motor officer, showed him our orders, and he said we sure had a high priority and gave us the Jeep." He paused. "Who do you think will be believed?"

"You miserable son of a bitch!" Jeanette said after a mo-ment.

"If you're going to be traveling with us, Miss Priestly, you're going to have to watch your mouth. Gunner Zim-merman is a very sensitive man. Say `hello' to Miss Priestly, Ernie, and tell her you will forgive her for swear-ing like a Parris Island DI if she promises not to do that no more."

Zimmerman smiled but didn't say anything.

Although she really didn't want to, Jeanette Priestly was aware that she was smiling, too.

"Traveling with you?" she said. "Traveling where with you?"

"We're here to see how the war is going. According to the map in the G-2, that's up around Taejon."

"What's in it for you, if I go along?" she asked.

"You've been here before; we haven't. I think we can be very useful to each other."

She thought that over a minute.

"Okay," she said. "I'll go."

"You have one more option," McCoy said. "You can ride along and wait until we get to the next MP checkpoint, and then scream that we've stolen your Jeep and kidnapped you. What would happen then, I think, is that we would all be held until a senior officer could be found to straighten things out. Which would mean that none of us would get to the war."

"You son of a bitch!" she said. There was an admiring tone in her voice.