pigs, too, come to thing of it.”
McCoy glowered at him.
“You want me to throw up, too, right?” he said, pointing toward the helicopter pilot, who was now sitting, pale-faced, on the ground, trying to regain control of himself.
Zimmerman smiled at him.
McCoy, Dunston, Zimmerman, Dunwood, and Donald were sitting on the stone wharf, where the smell didn’t seem as bad. There was a breeze from the sea, and the smoke of the fires built over where the dead had been left to rot had sort of diluted the smell of the bodies.
“Then we’re agreed?” Dunston asked.
McCoy looked at him and made a little come on gesture with his hand.
Dunston began to lay out the plan of action. “The priority is to get some agents up north as quickly as possible, the more the better, but for right now, three teams is all that seems feasible.
“We call the Wind of Good Fortune back, to dock here an hour after dark. She picks up the agents and goes north. Using just one of the rubber boats—keeping the other in reserve; the Wind of Good Fortune can bring more boats on her next trip—she puts them ashore and then heads for Pusan. She has enough fuel aboard to run the diesel, balls to the wall, all night.
“Unless they come across something really interesting, the agents will not get on the radio for twenty-four hours, or forty-eight. If they get in trouble, they will yell for help. If they do—Donald makes the decision whether or not the risk is manageable—we’ll send one of the helicopters after them and see what happens.
“Presuming they don’t get in trouble: Donald, Dunwood, and Zimmerman will start preparing to use the choppers as flying trucks to take a squad of men wherever they have to go. As I understand you, Alex, most of that training will be pretty basic.
“First, Zimmerman decides how they’ll be armed and equipped. Then we’ll find out how many men we can load on a chopper. Then we practice their getting out of the chopper in a hurry. None of this will require flying the choppers. When they get pretty good at that, we’ll start making dry runs, first just taking off and landing here, and finally, flying inland a little to practice insertion and withdrawal on the kind of terrain they’ll find up north.
“By the time we do all this, maybe the war will be over. If not, the Wind of Good Fortune will be back here, and we’ll decide what to do next.” He paused. “That’s about it.”
“Ernie?” McCoy asked.
“Sounds fine to me,” Zimmerman said.
“Donald?”
“What about me going back with you, McCoy? We talked about that. To see about getting a fixed-wing airplane? I’d rather stay here, but . . .”
“Let’s see what Dunston and I can do, begging on our knees,” McCoy said.
Donald nodded.
“Dunwood?” McCoy asked.
“I don’t have any problems with any of this,” Dunwood said.
“Okay. That’s it,” McCoy said, and then added: “I don’t think Bill Dunston and I should go back to Seoul together. I think we should go separately—say, an hour apart, in two jeeps. Dunwood, can you let each of us have, say, six Marines? With a couple of BARs?”
“No problem,” Dunwood said.
“You go first, McCoy,” Dunston said. “I’ll want to explain all this to the Koreans, and I’d like to see what I can do about identifying my people the NKs found here.”
“The sooner I get out of here, the better,” McCoy said, scrambling to his feet. “Ernie, I don’t care if you have to keep those fires burning all week.”
“That thought ran through my mind, Major, sir,” Zimmerman said.
[SIX]
HEADQUARTERS, CAPITAL ROK DIVISION NEAR SAMCHOK, SOUTH KOREA 0830 4 OCTOBER 1950
McCoy’s two-jeep convoy was stopped by two diminutive South Korean soldiers who stepped out of the ditches alongside National Route 5, about twenty miles south of Socho-Ri, with their rifles at their shoulders and aimed at McCoy, who was driving the lead jeep.
They wore the shoulder patches of the Capital ROK Division safety-pinned to the shoulders of their too-large U.S. Army fatigues, and looked, on one hand, slightly ludicrous in their outsized uniforms, not looking as if they were large enough to effectively wield the M-1 Garands with which they were armed. But on the other hand, they looked tough and mean.
They were visibly surprised to see two jeeps carrying Americans coming toward them from what, so far as they knew, was territory still controlled by the North Koreans.
And even more surprised when McCoy snapped at them, in