you. I neither heard or saw anything that sounded remotely like a helicopter.”
“But, sir—” the staff sergeant said.
“And neither did you,” Colonel Lowman said. “Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir,” they said, almost in unison.
“And I don’t want it to get back to me that whatever you thought you saw or heard, but didn’t, is the subject of any conversation anywhere. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” they said.
“Keep up the good work, men,” Colonel Lowman said, smiled at them, and left the control tower.
Outside, he could hear the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata of rotor blades diminishing to the southeast.
Colonel Lowman wondered where the hell they were going with the H-19s and what they were going to do with them.
But there had been something in the eyes of the Marine major that had told him that his curiosity would have been not only highly unwelcome but maybe even a little dangerous, and he hadn’t asked.
[FIVE]
SOCHO-RI, SOUTH KOREA 0545 4 OCTOBER 1950
Major Donald had told McCoy there were three ways to get to Socho-Ri, one flying at an altitude that would permit them to look for an arrow stamped out in a rice paddy. The trouble with that option was, Donald said, that if they could see a sign like that, people on the ground could see them.
The second option was to fly what he called “nap of the earth,” which meant flying just a few feet off the ground. That would expose them to eyes on the ground for only a fleeting moment, but flying at ninety knots, that wouldn’t be much different from driving over the ground at that speed; the chances of spotting a stamped-out arrow would be slim, unless they just happened to fly right over it and were paying close enough attention not to miss it.
The third option—which Donald recommended— would be to ascend quickly to, say, 9,000 feet, which would for all practical purposes make them invisible to eyes on the ground, and incidentally keep them safely above any rock-filled clouds they might encounter en route. There was a line of mountains running down the peninsula, Donald said, and he did not have a deep and abiding faith in the navigation charts he had been given.
McCoy opted for the high altitude. The priority was to get the helos to Socho-Ri intact and undetected. Even if they were spotted by only friendly forces—I ROK Corps—the sudden appearance of two black helicopters would very likely cause some South Korean commander to make a report of “unidentified, black, type previously not seen, rotary-wing aircraft” flying over his position.
There was also a chance that the two helos would be spotted by Air Force, Navy, or Marine fighters making an early-morning reconnaissance. Their pilots would more than likely—out of curiosity, if nothing else—make a pass at them before shooting them down. In that case, Donald said, he would get on the emergency radio frequency and try to contact them.
“You could enthusiastically sing ‘The Marines’ Hymn,’ ” Donald said.
Pick would just have to wait. There had been no word from the Badoeng Strait that any signs of Pick had been found, anyway.
But as it had grown light, turned into day, as they had flown eastward across the peninsula, McCoy rarely took his eyes from the ground far below them.
When the coastline appeared and Donald flew over it and above the Sea of Japan, McCoy wondered what was happening and looked at Donald, who read his mind.
“I’m going to fly a couple of miles out to sea before I make the descent,” Donald explained. “And then approach Socho-Ri with our wheels just far enough above the water to keep them from getting wet.”
McCoy gave him a thumbs-up.
“You’re pretty good at this, Alex. A quick learner.”
“I had another thought,” Alex said. “Just now. How are you and Dunston going to get back to Seoul?”
“I thought we’d get in a jeep. Maybe we could talk somebody in I ROK Corps into giving us a ride. Dunston and I talked about it. He said they have a few L-4s and L-19s.”
“And if they won’t, it’s a long ride back to Seoul,” Donald said. “We need our own fixed-wing airplane. What we really need is an L-20, a Beaver, but I think we’d have a better chance of getting an L-19.”
“What’s a Beaver?”
“Single-engine, six-place DeHavilland. Canadian. Designed for use in the Alaskan bush. The Army bought a dozen—and ordered a hell of a lot more—off the shelf when this started. There were six of them on the baby aircraft carrier with the H-19s.