ask God for special treatment, but his parents and Jeanette and the others shouldn’t have pain on his account. Maybe God would see it that way, too.
He had just turned onto his stomach when he heard the sound of tearing metal. That caught his attention, and then he heard the sound of clashing gears and an engine racing.
He got up, and walked as quickly as he could manage around an outcropping of rock to the cliff he decided he would not take a dive from, and looked down at the road.
It was a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles. A very strange one. In the lead was a jeep. Behind it were two M-26 tanks, a tank recovery vehicle, a heavy-duty wrecker, another tank recovery vehicle, and then another heavy-duty wrecker.
Pickering closed his eyes and shook his head to make sure he wasn’t delusionary. When he opened his eyes again, the convoy was still there. It wasn’t moving, and he saw why. The first heavy-duty wrecker had collided with the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle and knocked its rear wheels off the road.
Pickering went down the hill as fast as he could.
He made it to the road.
He put his hands over his head and started walking down it.
“American!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot!”
And then he began to sing and shout, as loud as he could manage:
“From the Halls of Montezuma,
“American! Don’t shoot!
“To the Shores of Tripoli
“American! Don’t shoot!
“We will fight our nation’s battles!
“American! Don’t shoot!
“On the Land and on the Sea!
“American! Don’t shoot!”
Captain Francis P. MacNamara, commanding officer of the 8023d Transportation Company (Depot, Forward), who had elected to lead the test over-the-road run to the east coast, who was examining the considerable damage the wrecker had done to the retrieval trailer, heard the noise.
He drew his .45, worked the action, shouted “Heads up!” and stepped into the center of the road.
A tall, thin human being, too large for a Korean, was walking down the center of the road with his hands in the air. He was wearing what looked like the remnants of some kind of coveralls. His face was streaked with mud.
And he was making strange sounds.
I’ll be a sonofabitch if he isn’t singing! And it’s “The Marines’ Hymn ”! I’ll be a sonofabitch!
“Who the hell are you?” Captain MacNamara demanded.
“Major Malcolm S. Pickering, United States Marine Corps,” Pick croaked . . . and then fell first to his knees, and then flat on his face.
MacNamara hurriedly holstered his .45 and ran to him.
He first felt for signs of life, then turned him over and wrapped his arms around him and held him like a baby.
“Get some water up here!” he shouted. “And there’s a bottle of bourbon in the glove compartment in my jeep. Bring that. And some blankets.”
“And if you happen to have some food,” the walking skeleton in his arms said, very faintly.
“You got it, Major,” Captain MacNamara said.
Five minutes later, Major Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was laid out on several blankets on the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle. He had been given a stiff drink of Captain Mac-Namara’s Old Forester—which he had promptly thrown up—and half a dozen spoonfuls of ham chunks in pineapple sauce, three of which he had managed to keep down.
The blankets had been provided by Technical Sergeant Alvin H. Donn, U.S. Army, who was the NCO in charge of the M-26 tanks. He had also held Major Pickering up in a sitting position while Captain MacNamara had, with all the tenderness of a mother, spoon-fed him the ham chunks in pineapple sauce, and while he had thrown up.
There were now a dozen men standing at the side of the tank recovery trailer looking down with mingled amazement, curiosity, and pity at the human skeleton on the blankets.
Sergeant Donn pointed to Staff Sergeant James D. Buckley, the commander of the second tank.
“Stay with the major,” he ordered. “Try to get some food in him. No more booze.”
When Buckley had taken his place, Donn slid off the trailer and nodded his head at Captain MacNamara, a signal he wanted a word with him. MacNamara followed him to the recovery vehicle tractor.
He had made a snap judgment when he had first met Sergeant Donn. A goddamn good NCO, as he himself had been. He had then thereafter treated him accordingly.
“That guy’s in really bad shape,” Sergeant Donn said. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”
“We’ll have to get this out of the way,” MacNamara agreed, slamming the tank retriever trailer with his fist.