President; he wants me in Washington as soon as I can get there.”
“What’s that all about?”
“I really don’t know. But he’s the President, Ernie. I do what he tells me to do.”
“Don’t tell Jeanette?”
“She’s a reporter.”
“She’s Pick’s . . . I was about to say girlfriend, but she’s much more than that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I still don’t want you to tell her.”
“About you going to Washington, or about anything?”
“This will sound cruel, perhaps, but the less Jeanette knows about anything, the better. Let me, or Ken, decide what she can know.”
“You’re going to Washington, and Ken’s in Korea,” Ernie replied.
“Come to Washington with me,” Pickering said.
“No.”
“You could see your parents for at least a couple of days.”
“No.”
“And then come back here, if you’d like.”
“No, Uncle Flem. Thank you, but no.”
“You want to tell me why?”
“Ken’s here. This is our home.”
“A couple of days with your parents would be good for all concerned,” Pickering argued.
“They would spend all their time arguing that I should stay with them, and then be really hurt when I wouldn’t. It’s better the way it is.”
“You don’t want your mother here when the time comes?”
“Not unless Ken’s here, too. Then, sure.”
“If she decides to come, you can’t stop her, Ernie.”
“She knows how I feel. Can we get off this subject?”
“Got your Minox, George?” Pickering asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then take a couple of pictures of me and the hard-headed pregnant lady in the kimono.”
“Okay,” Ernie said, and smiled.
“And then we have to get out of here, sweetheart,” Pickering said. “If you need anything, tell Paul. And if he can’t get what you need, he knows how to contact General Howe, and Howe will get it for you.”
“Thanks, Paul.”
“Anything you need, Ernie,” Paul Keller said. “Anything. ”
Pickering stood up and put his arm around Ernie’s shoulders, and George Hart took three shots of them with the tiny Minox.
[FIVE]
HANGAR 13 KIMPO AIRFIELD (K-14) SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 0815 30 SEPTEMBER 1950
Captain Howard C. Dunwood, USMCR, was having breakfast—ham chunks with raisin sauce, out of a can—with Major Alex Donald, U.S. Army, when the small door in the left hangar door opened and a Marine corporal, a very large fair-skinned man in his early twenties, his field cap perched precariously on his head, came through, followed by four other men.
“Heads up!” Major Donald whispered. “That must be the people I was told to expect.”
Captain Dunwood said nothing.
After a moment, he recognized two of the men. He had seen them before, the last time when Baker Company had landed on Tokchok-Kundo Island in the Flying Fish Channel leading to Pusan. At that time, both had been wearing black cotton pajamas, with bands of the same material wrapped around their foreheads. The tall and lanky one was now dressed in crisply starched utilities, with the chevrons of a technical sergeant painted on the sleeves. The other character who had been wearing black pajamas on the island was now in crisp utilities, with the gold leaves of a major pinned to his collar points.
Dunwood had seen that one once before Tokchok-Kundo.
At Haneda. On 15 August, the day I arrived in Japan from the States. Six weeks ago. It seems like a hell of a lot longer.
At Haneda the major had been wearing a tropical worsted uniform and the insignia of a captain. A Marine brigadier general and a strikingly beautiful woman had put him and a Navy lieutenant on a C-54 bound for Sasebo.
And I was half in the bag, and pegged him as a candy-ass chair warmer and made an ass of myself on the airplane, for which I paid with a dislocated thumb that still hurts sometimes. I suppose it’s too much to hope he doesn’t remember that incident.
Dunwood had no idea who the other two were—a Marine master gunner and an Army Transportation Corps major in a rumpled uniform—and absolutely no idea what was going on.
Major Donald—subtly making it clear that he was privy to highly classified information that he could, of course, not share with a lowly Marine captain—had told him only that “there had been a change of plans” and that “sometime in the immediate future, I will be contacted with further orders reflecting that change.”
Major Donald put down his can of ham chunks in raisin sauce and marched to meet the newcomers. The crews of the two helicopters, who were also having their breakfast, sitting on the floor of their aircraft, watched with interest.
Dunwood shrugged, put his can of ham chunks in raisin sauce down, and walked after