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

When the artillery barrage lifted, and Major Allman and others tried to call the battalion and company CPs, in many cases there was no response.

Major Allman, sensing McCoy's eyes on him when he failed to make three connections in a row, said, "I guess the artillery cut a lot of wire."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

Or the outposts, the platoons, and maybe even the com-panies have been overrun.

McCoy went outside the command post. It was black dark. There was the sound of small-aims fire.

He went back into the command post.

"Let's go," he ordered.

"I thought you said we couldn't leave until light," Jeanette said.

"If you want to stay, stay," McCoy said, and turned to the North Korean major.

"Let's go, Major," he said, in Russian.

The major got to his feet.

"If you try to run, you will die," McCoy added. "They're not here yet."

It took them forty-five minutes, running with the Jeep's blackout lights, to reach 24th Division Headquarters, and when McCoy asked where the provost marshal was, so that he could not only turn the prisoner over to military police but make sure that he was treated as an officer, he was told that the provost marshal had been pressed into service with the 21st Infantry, and the MPs had been fed into the 21st as replacement riflemen.

Taking the major with them, McCoy drove back to Eighth Army Headquarters in Taegu. There was a POW compound there, and McCoy was able to get rid of the prisoner.

They exchanged salutes. The major then offered his hand. After a moment's hesitation, McCoy took it and wished him good luck.

But despite the "Dai-Ichi" orders, he got no further with the Eighth Army signal officer than he had with the Eighth Army headquarters motor officer when he'd arrived in Ko-rea.

"Captain, I don't care if you have orders from General MacArthur himself, I've got Operational Immediate mes-sages in there that should have been sent hours ago, and I will not delay them further so that you can send your re-port."

And once again he got back into the Jeep.

"Pusan," he said to Zimmerman. "K-l. Their commo is tied up."

"I have dispatches to send," Jeanette protested indig-nantly.

"I should probably encourage you to wait until the commo has cleared," McCoy said. "But, from the way the signal officer talked, that's not going to happen anytime soon. If you're in a rush to get something out..."

"`rush' is a massive understatement," Jeanette said,

"... then I suggest you come back to Tokyo with us."

Jeanette thought that over for a full two seconds.

"Okay," she said. `Tokyo it is. I really need a good hot bath anyway."

They departed K-1, outside Pusan, at one o'clock the next morning, aboard an Air Force Douglas C-54.

After they broke ground, McCoy took out his notebook and wrote down the time.

Then he did the arithmetic in his head.

He and Zimmerman had landed in Korea just after mid-night on the fifteenth, and they were leaving forty-eight hours later.

But two days was enough. I saw enough to know that the Eighth United States Army really has its ass in a crack, and unless something happens soon, they'll get pushed into the sea at Pusan.

Chapter Nine

[ONE]

U.S. NAVY/MARINE CORPS RESERVE TRAINING CENTER

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

1025 21 JULY 1950

Captain George F. Hart, USMCR, commanding Company B, 55th Marines, USMC Reserve, was more or less hiding in his office when First Lieutenant Paul T. Peterson, USMC, Baker Company's inspector/instructor, came in with a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in his hand.

"There's a story in here I thought you would like to see, sir," he said. "Apparently things are pretty bad over there."

"Thank you," Hart said.

By "over there," Peterson obviously meant Korea.

It seemed self-evident that "apparently things are pretty bad over there"; otherwise Company B 55th Marines would not have been called to active duty for "an indefinite period."

The official call had come forty-eight hours, more or less, before.

The Marine Corps had found Captain Hart, USMCR, in the office of the second deputy commissioner of the St. Louis Police Department, discussing a particularly unpleas-ant murder, that of a teenaged prostitute whose obscenely mutilated body had been found floating in the river.

The deputy commissioner had taken the call, then handed Hart the telephone: "For you, George."

Hart had taken the phone and answered it with the an-nouncement, "This had better be pretty goddamned impor-tant!"

His caller had chuckled.

"Well, the Marine Corps thinks it is, Captain," he said. "This is Colonel Bartlett, G-l Section, Headquarters, Ma-rine Corps."

"Yes, sir?"

The second deputy commissioner looked at Hart with unabashed curiosity.

"This is your official notification, Captain," Colonel Bartlett said, "Baker Company, 55th Marines, USMC Re-serve, is called to active duty, for an indefinite period of service, as of 0001 hours today. You and your men are or-dered to report to your reserve training station within twenty-four hours prepared for active service. Any ques-tions?"

"No, sir."

"I have a few for you. Unofficially. What would be your estimate of the percentage of your officers and men who will actually report within twenty-four hours?"

"All my officers, sir, and probably ninety-five percent or better of the men."

"And the percentage, officers first, prepared to perform in the jobs?"

"All of them, sir."

"And the men?"

"I have fourteen kids who have yet to go through boot camp, sir. With that exception..."

"And your equipment?"

"Well, sir, we have some things that need replacement, but generally, we're in pretty good shape."

"Including weapons?"

"Individual and crew-served weapons are up to snuff, sir. We ran everybody-including the kids who haven't been to boot camp-through the annual qualifying course. Finished last week."

"Really?" Colonel Bartlett asked, obviously surprised. "I didn't know you had a range."

"The police loaned us theirs, sir."

"Then you're really ready to go, aren't you?" Colonel Bartlett asked, rhetorically, as if surprised, or pleased, or both.

"Yes, sir."

"If it were necessary, how soon could you depart your reserve training station?"

"I'd like to have seventy-two hours, sir, but we could leave in forty-eight."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, sir. Sir, may I ask where we're going?"

"That hasn't been decided yet, Captain, but I feel sure you'll be ordered to either Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton. There will be official confirmation of your mobiliza-tion, by Western Union. And as soon as it is decided where you will go, you will be notified by telephone, with West-ern Union confirmation to follow. Any other questions?"

"No, sir."

"Good morning, Captain Hart."

"Good morning, sir."

Hart put the telephone down and looked at the second deputy commissioner.

"You've been mobilized?" the commissioner asked.

"As of midnight last night," Hart replied. "It looks as if I'm back in the Marine Corps."

"You have to leave right away? What do you suggest we do about this?" He pointed at the case file.

Hart shrugged.

"I'm in the Marine Corps now, Commissioner," he said. "Right away means I go from here to the Reserve Center."

"I thought they'd give you a couple of weeks to settle your affairs," the commissioner said.

"I didn't," Hart said. "I thought if they called us at all, they would want us as of the day before."

He looked down at the case file, at the gruesome photo-graph of the victim's body. He tapped the photo.

"Gut feeling: A sicko did this, not a pimp. If he's getting his rocks off this way, he's going to do it again. I was going to suggest setting up a team, under me, of vice guys. Look for the sicko. If I'm not here, that means setting it up under Fred Mayer, because he's a captain, and Teddy, who I pre-sume will take my job, is only a lieutenant. But Fred's a vice cop...."