of DDT, which would both kill the flies and sort of serve as a deodorant, and a box of candles.
MacNamara walked to the rear of the structure and examined his personally designed waste-disposal system. This consisted of cut-in-half fifty-five-gallon fuel barrels to which handles had been welded. A wooden shelf structure permitted the half-barrels to be slid under the holes in the four-holer. They would be changed twice a day.
Five minutes later, just as Captain MacNamara decided he was very pleased with the latrine he had designed and ordered constructed for his men, First Sergeant Jamison touched his arm and directed his attention to the line of three-quarter trucks down which they had recently walked.
A jeep was now coming down the line. Standing up in the front seat was Colonel T. Howard Kennedy, the X Corps Transportation Officer.
Captain MacNamara had three thoughts.
He’s looking for me. I wonder what he wants?
Who does he think he is? Patton?
If I handle the sonofabitch right, he might be helpful in me getting to stay on active duty when the war is over, as it looks like it’s going to be any day now.
MacNamara said, “Damn good job, First Sergeant. Tell the men.”
“Yes, sir.”
MacNamara then hurried around to the front of the latrine, and saluted crisply as Colonel Kennedy drove up.
“You weren’t in your office, MacNamara,” Colonel Kennedy said, more of an accusation than an observation.
“I was having a look at the new latrine, sir. Perhaps the colonel would like to have a look?”
Kennedy gave him a strange look.
“Perhaps some other time, MacNamara,” Colonel Kennedy said.
“Yes, sir. I realize the colonel’s a busy man.”
“You have no idea how busy,” Kennedy agreed, then turned to the business at hand. "MacNamara, I want you, right now, to start moving your vehicles up around Hamhung. You’re too far south to do anybody any good here.”
“Yes, sir. Where in Hamhung would you like me to set up, sir?”
“Anyplace you can do your job, Captain,” Colonel Kennedy said, somewhat abruptly. “But start moving now. Not after supper, not tomorrow morning—now.”
“Yes, sir,” MacNamara said.
Colonel Kennedy looked at him for a moment, then said: “It’s important that we get your vehicles north, MacNamara. X Corps is attacking north, and we’ll be moving rapidly. If you have any trouble, let me know. Can you think of any problems right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well?”
“Drivers, sir,” MacNamara replied.
“What about drivers?”
“Sir, I have right at six hundred vehicles to move. I have four officers and one hundred thirty-seven men—I have eight in hospital—and with just that many men, I’ll have to make a lot of trips. Four, at least.”
“You know, I didn’t think about drivers,” Colonel Kennedy confessed. “Let me get back to you, MacNamara. In the meantime, get off the dime.”
“Yes, sir.”
An hour later, Colonel Kennedy returned.
“We’re going to kill two birds with one stone, MacNamara, ” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “Maybe more than two.”
“Yes, sir?”
“The 7th Infantry Division Replacement Company has to be moved to Hamhung, too. Tents, equipment, and men. Instead of having them moved by a Transportation Truck Company, you’re going to move them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They have about three hundred replacements waiting assignment,” he said. “I figure one in two of them should be able to drive a truck, and just about all of them should be able to drive a jeep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That should give you all the drivers you need. Hie thee over to the Repple-Depple, MacNamara, they’ll be expecting you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Time is of the essence, MacNamara. Time is of the essence.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Roscoe T. Quigley, Adjutant General’s Corps, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division Replacement Company, had quickly informed Captain MacNamara that he wasn’t exactly happy with his orders from Colonel Kennedy, which he described as “verbal and vague in the extreme.”
“I don’t even know where I am to set up in Hamhung,” he said, almost wistfully.
The moment he laid eyes on Captain Roscoe T. Quigley, AGC, a tall and slender officer with a pencil-line mustache, MacNamara had decided that Quigley (a) would much prefer to be in a heated office somewhere carefully checking Daily Morning Reports for prohibited strikeovers than where he was, trying to keep warm and dry in a leaking, dirt-floored tent, with the responsibility for feeding and housing three hundred-plus soldiers and (b) that Quigley, like most AGC officers in his experience, would be a real pain in the ass if he didn’t quickly understand who was giving the orders.
“I think I know what we should do, Captain Quigley,” MacNamara had said, firmly.