can tell me tomorrow when you come back here to tell me what McCoy’s men have learned about Red Chinese troop dispositions.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President extended his empty glass to Charley Rogers and said, as much to himself as to the men in the room, “If I relieve MacArthur now because he’s indulging this intelligence officer of his and is not taking the proper action, and McCoy is wrong, and the Chinese don’t come in, every Republican in the country is going to say I cheated him out of his victory at the last moment for political reasons. And that’s exactly what it will look like.”
No one said anything.
Charley Rogers handed him a fresh drink.
The President took it and leaned against his desk, and stirred the ice cubes thoughtfully with his index finger.
Then he smiled.
“Six months without VD, huh?” he chuckled. “I wonder if I should tell Bess about that one?”
“I wouldn’t, Har . . . Mr. President,” Howe said.
“Hell, I couldn’t,” the President said. “If I did, Bess would immediately start to examine the ribbons of every general she saw, and God help the poor general who didn’t have a Legion of Merit.” He laughed, then raised his glass to Rogers. “Thank you very much, Charley. I needed a laugh.”
[FOUR]
THE HOUSE SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 1655 1 NOVEMBER 1950
“All of my life, Major McCoy,” Lieutenant Colonel J. D. Vandenburg, USA, greeted Major K. R. McCoy, USMCR, as McCoy walked into the dining room, “I was told that Marines, whatever the situation, are models of military sartorial splendor. I have to tell you, you are shattering that illusion.”
McCoy was wearing black pajamas, U.S. Army combat boots, a fur-collared Army zippered flight jacket, and a huge black fur cap, which he took off as he smiled at Vandenburg.
“I really like the hat,” Vandenburg said.
“I took it away from a Chinese officer—”
“You’re sure he was a Chinese officer?” Vandenburg interrupted.
“I am sure he was a Chinese officer,” McCoy said. “He told me he got it in Russia. I believed that because he spoke pretty good Russian. I’m going to give it to my wife. I think it’s Persian lamb. I thought maybe she could make a muff out of it. Or a purse, maybe.”
Vandenburg picked up the hat and examined it.
“Or wear it as a hat,” he said. “That’s very nice. Only senior officers would get such finery.”
“He admitted to being a lieutenant colonel,” McCoy said. “I suspect he’s more than that.”
“I was fascinated with your idea that the first Chinese you interrogated were messengers. . . .”
“Can we talk about that after I get something to eat?” McCoy asked as he took off his flight jacket. “I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and that was cold powdered eggs.”
“Sorry, I didn’t think. You want something to drink?”
"I’d like a stiff shot of scotch, and then a cup—several cups—of hot coffee.”
McCoy walked to the door to the kitchen and spoke with the housekeeper, who told him there was cold chicken and cold pork, but that it would take only a minute to heat it up.
“Heat it up, please,” McCoy said, “but get me some coffee right now, please.”
When he turned around, Vandenburg had put a bottle of Famous Grouse and a glass on the table.
“You want ice? Water?” he asked.
“This is medicinal, not social,” McCoy said. “Straight is fine.”
“Against the cold? Or do you hurt?”
McCoy lowered himself carefully into a chair, then splashed two inches of whiskey into the glass, picked it up, and drank about half.
He exhaled audibly, then said: “Both. If I keep moving, I’m fine. But when I sit with my knees bent—as I have just been doing in the L-19—it gets stiff, and then it hurts when I move. If I don’t move and get cold—and it was cold as hell up in the L-19—it’s worse.”
“You probably should still be in the hospital in Sasebo,” Vandenburg said.
“If I knew where I could lay my hands on somebody who speaks Russian and Cantonese and knows what questions to ask, that’s where I would be.”
The housekeeper appeared with a silver coffeepot and a cup and saucer. When she had half-filled the cup, McCoy told her to stop and poured the rest of the scotch in with the coffee.
He took a sip.
“You were telling me about the colonel with the hat,” Vandenburg said.
“Let’s do this like the professionals we’re supposed to be,” McCoy said. “We have a map?”
Vandenburg nodded, pointed to half a dozen maps rolled up and standing in a corner