shape is the provisional brigade in?” General Pickering asked.
“I saw General Dawkins at Pendleton,” Pick said. “Ed Banning was there. They knew I was coming here, and asked me to relay this to you.”
“Relay what?” McCoy asked.
“Okay. The 1st Marine Division at Pendleton was not, apparently, a division as we remember. Way understrength. And that got practically stripped to form the provisional brigade. So the way the Corps decided to deal with that was to transfer people from the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune to Pendleton to fill out the 1st Marine Division, bring it to wartime strength. Since there weren’t enough people to strip from the 2nd Division to do this, they also ordered to Pendleton whatever Marines they could find anywhere—Marine Barracks at Charleston, recruiting offices, et cetera, et cetera. No sooner had they started this than the word came to bring the 2nd Division to wartime strength. The only way to do that was mobilize the entire reserve!”
“Including you?” General Pickering asked.
“VMF-243 was mobilized two days ago,” Pick said.
“So what are you doing here?” McCoy asked.
“I got a delay for Stu James and me, so that we could come here and get the lay of the land,” Pick said. “We go on active duty when the squadron gets here.” He paused and looked at McCoy. “I don’t suppose you’re brimming with information about airfields, et cetera, in Korea?”
“Not much,” McCoy said. “The ones we still hold are full of Air Force planes.”
“I really want to take a look at what’s there,” Pick said. “Dad, can you get me an airplane?”
“Get you an airplane?” General Pickering asked, incredulously.
“I’m not talking about a fighter. What I’d really like to have is a Piper Cub, something like that.”
“I don’t know, Pick,” General Pickering said, dubiously.
“There’s a Marine Corps air station at Iwakuni,” Pick said. “I don’t know what’s there. That’s one of the things I want to find out.”
“Where’s that?” McCoy asked.
“Not far from Hiroshima, east,” Pick said.
McCoy bent over the map, found what he was looking for, and laid a plastic ruler on the map.
“It’s almost exactly two hundred miles from Iwakuni to Pusan,” McCoy announced. “Most of it over the East China Sea. Can you fly that far in a Piper Cub?”
“If I wind the rubber bands real tight,” Pick said. “From the coast, it’s just a little over a hundred miles. You can make that in a Cub. Step one, get a Cub. Step two, fly to Iwakuni. See if there isn’t a small field on the coast somewhere where I could take on fuel. . . .”
“Pick, that sounds—”
“General,” McCoy interrupted, “if Pick had a Cub in Korea, it would make things a lot easier for Zimmerman and me.”
“What about this Marine Corps air station?” General Pickering asked. “Couldn’t you borrow a plane there? Or—with Ken and Zimmerman in the picture—borrow one from the Army, or the Air Force, there?”
“General,” McCoy said. “I have to steal Jeeps in Korea. What light airplanes Eighth Army has they are not about to willingly loan to anybody. And I would really hate to make them loan us one; they need what they have.”
“What makes you think there’s an airplane here they don’t need and would willingly lend us?”
McCoy and Pick smiled at each other.
“With all possible respect, General, sir,” Pick said, smiling, “we lower grade officers sometimes suspect that senior officers sometimes have more logistical support than they actually need.”
“In other words, if I decide you really need an airplane, better that I take one away from the brass?”
“Very well put, sir, if I may say so, with all due respect, General, sir,” Pick said.
Pickering shook his head.
“Did you bring a Marine uniform with you?” General Pickering asked.
Pick nodded.
“We brought all our gear in footlockers,” he said. “They wouldn’t fit in a cab, but they’re going to bring them into town in a pickup. Mine should be here any minute. I told them to take Stu James’s to the Hokkaido.”
“Well, as soon as it gets here, put a uniform on. General Almond—El Supremo’s chief of staff—is coming here. You can tell him yourself what junior officers think about excess logistics for senior officers.”
McCoy smiled at Pick’s discomfiture. Pickering saw it.
“Your smile is premature, Captain McCoy,” he said. “General Almond is coming here to see you.”
“What for?”
“He didn’t say, but he made it pretty clear that he’d rather Willoughby didn’t know about it,” Pickering said. He turned to Pick and went on: “If you can convince General Almond that