“Sir, Colonel Banning was a regular before the war. He’s a Citadel graduate. You know what a fine Marine he is. He was never given command of a battalion, much less a regiment, and he was never promoted above colonel. For that matter, they never used him as an intelligence officer.”
“Then why did he stay in the Marine Corps?” Pickering blurted. “God knows, he doesn’t need the money.”
“He’s a Marine, General,” McCoy said. “He knows it, even if there are a lot of bastards in the Corps who don’t want to acknowledge it.”
“That’s the end of my contribution to this,” General Howe said. “But I’m going to stick around so that I’ll be able to tell the President what the new broom is sweeping, and where.”
“I’d like to know what you two,” Pickering said, pointing at Vandenburg and McCoy, “think the priorities are. You first, McCoy.”
“Finding out when the Chinese are coming in,” McCoy said. “The 1st MarDiv landed at Wonsan yesterday—”
“Only part of them, McCoy,” Howe interrupted. “The 1st Marine Air Wing is ashore and operating out of Wonsan—and Bob Hope and a USO troupe have entertained them there. Even I was there. But there are still elements of the division sailing around in circles waiting for the mines at Wonsan to be cleared. When I saw General Almond— when he told me what had happened to you—he had just had himself flown off the Mount McKinley on a helicopter. I guess by tonight—certainly by tomorrow—everybody should be ashore. The Marines, I mean. They’re not going to even try to land the 7th Infantry Division at Wonsan; they’re going to land at Iwon.”
“That’s a hundred sixty, seventy miles north of Wonsan, ” McCoy said. “When’s that supposed to happen?”
“Tomorrow,” Howe said.
“Pyongyang has fallen,” McCoy said. “Which means there is no need for X Corps to start back across the peninsula. Which means that pretty soon they’ll be ordered to move north instead—”
“They already have been,” Howe interrupted again. He looked at Pickering. “I was in Wonsan last night and this morning. I used the L-19.” Pickering nodded. “Almond already has his orders. The Capital ROK Division will continue advancing up the coastline toward the Russian border. The ROK 3rd Division is going to go north from Hamhung to the Chosin Reservoir, and then up to the Manchurian border. When the 1st MarDiv gets organized ashore, they will follow the 3rd ROK, and—I don’t think the 3rd ROK has been told this—pass through their lines, probably near the reservoir, and beat them to the Manchurian border to make sure our Koreans don’t cross it. The 7th Division, once it’s ashore at Iwon, will attack north straight for the Manchurian border.”
“I didn’t hear any of this in Tokyo,” Pickering said, more than a little bitterly.
“Did you talk to MacArthur?” Howe asked.
Pickering shook his head no.
“Almond told me he got his orders via officer courier,” Howe went on. “They’re probably known only to the Bataan Gang in the Dai Ichi Building, and they wouldn’t tell you unless MacArthur specifically ordered them to. . . .”
“And I didn’t ask,” Pickering said. “They wouldn’t have lied to me if I asked, but I didn’t ask.”
“Okay. Well, that’s it,” Howe said. “That’s all I know.”
“Sir, in these circumstances,” McCoy said, “our obvious priority is to get as early a warning of the Chinese intervention as possible, especially since no one else thinks it will happen.”
“I think General Almond does,” Howe said. “He didn’t come right out and say so, but I had the feeling he won’t be terribly surprised to encounter the Chinese Red Army.”
“How do you propose to get ‘as early a warning as possible’? ” Pickering asked.
“Well, that opens a new can of worms,” McCoy said.
“Let’s have it,” Pickering said.
“Well, while Colonel Van and I were looking for General Dean and Pick—”
“One final question about that,” Howe interrupted. “What about General Dean? I know the President will ask.”
“I’m afraid all indications are that he’s in China, sir,” Vandenburg said.
“Okay. You did your best, and I’ll make sure the President knows that,” Howe said. “Go on, McCoy. Sorry for the interruption.”
“When we were looking for the General and Pick, we also trained the men—the Marines we have on loan—as overnight stay-behinds. By that I mean, we dropped them off and went back the next day and got them.”
“Using the Sikorsky helicopters, you mean?” Pickering asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And using—what was the term you used—‘overnight stay-behinds’?”