Kim in the weapons carrier following, then braked.
He pointed to a copse of gnarled pine trees a hundred yards or so down the road.
“I don’t think anyone’ll see us in there,” he said, adding, “I’m hungry.”
He slowed to a crawl as he approached the trees. Zimmerman first leaned out the side of the jeep, studying the shoulder, and then held his hand up in a signal to stop.
Then he got out of the jeep and intently studied the shoulder before motioning to McCoy to come ahead. Then he walked carefully across the shoulder and down a slope into a wide ditch. McCoy carefully eased the jeep after him, then Sergeant Kim followed with the weapons carrier.
McCoy took a Thompson from a rack below the windshield, got out of the jeep, and walked carefully southward along the ditch, looking for signs of disturbance in the mud—and for trip wires, booby traps, anything.
Finally, when he was about one hundred yards from the vehicles, he stopped and turned his attention to the grassy slope up to the road. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he scurried up the slope. From the road, he looked back to the copse of trees. He could not see anything but the top of the jeep’s antenna and maybe eight inches of the flag.
He went back into the ditch and returned to the vehicles. When he got there, Sergeant Cole and two of the Koreans were waiting for him.
“See that they’re fed,” McCoy ordered, “and then post one up there. You can see where I climbed the slope.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cole said.
“And then post another one a hundred yards north. Watch out for mines and wires.”
“Mr. Zimmerman’s already been down there, sir.”
“Then you really better be careful,” McCoy said with a smile.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cole said, smiling back.
McCoy walked to the jeep. The hood was up, and Zimmerman was warming cans on the radiator. McCoy grabbed the antenna, bent it nearly horizontal, and tied it down.
Without really thinking about it, he made sure that no part of the flag was touching the ground.
“I couldn’t see anything from the north,” Zimmerman said.
“I could see maybe eight inches of the flag,” McCoy replied. “What are we eating?”
“Salisbury Steak and Beans and Franks,” Zimmerman said. “Your choice.”
McCoy laid the Thompson on the driver’s seat, then reached for a ration can.
“I wonder who they think they’re fooling when they call hamburger ‘Salisbury Steak’?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
He leaned against the side of the jeep, took a fork from the baggy side pocket of the Army fatigues, and began to saw at the Salisbury Steak in the ration can.
He had just about finished raising the final forkful to his mouth when there was a short, shrill whistle, and then a second. He laid the ration can between the rear of the jeep and the back of the radio as he looked toward the sound of the whistle.
Sergeant Cole, who had posted himself with the Korean to the south, made several hand signals, not all of them official, indicating that something of interest was happening and he thought Major McCoy should pay whatever it was his immediate attention.
“Heads up,” McCoy ordered as he passed the jeep— picking up the Thompson and a pair of U.S. Navy binoculars as he did—and headed for Cole.
Zimmerman, similarly, made several hand signals to Technical Sergeant Jennings—these indicating that appropriate defense measures immediately be taken. Jennings indicated his understanding of his orders with a thumbs-up gesture. Zimmerman then trotted after McCoy, toward Sergeant Cole.
There was little doubt in either McCoy’s or Zimmerman’s mind that what had caught Sergeant Cole’s attention were elements of the army of the People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea.
The questions were: How large an element and what were they up to? Had McCoy’s two-vehicle convoy been spotted, and were the North Koreans in pursuit of them? Or was it a unit trying to get away from the Eighth Army, which had broken out of the Pusan Perimeter and was in hot pursuit of the North Koreans up the peninsula?
Shattered, demoralized, whatever, if it was a company-strength unit—or a single tank, for that matter—McCoy & Company were going to be seriously outnumbered, or outgunned, or both.
“What have you got, Cole?” McCoy asked.
“Looks like a couple of jeeps, sir,” Cole said. “Russian jeeps.”
McCoy crawled up the slope to the shoulder of the road and looked down it through the binoculars. He then handed them to Zimmerman, who had crawled beside him, and then slid down