Captain McCoy picked up the telephone. It was a direct line, and when the receiver was lifted, the communications switchboard operator in Tokyo answered.
“Patch me through to the Hotel Imperial, please,” McCoy said. A moment later, he added, “Captain McCoy for General Pickering.”
And a moment after that, he repeated those exact words, then: “When will he be back, do you know?” Another pause, then: “No. No message, thank you.”
He turned to the other Marine.
“Not there, and no ETA.”
"OpImmediate him,” the Marine warrant officer suggested.
“Yeah,” McCoy said, and picked up a lined pad, wrote quickly on it, and handed it to Master Sergeant Keller.
Operational Immediate
Unclassified
Hq SCAP
Eyes only Brig General Pickering, USMC
Telephoning failed 0730 2 Aug.
Going to pier to meet 1st Provisional Marine Brigade. Request permission for Zimmerman and me to temporarily attach ourselves to Gen Craig to make ourselves useful. Will continue to report.
McCoy, Capt, USMCR
“You want this to go Operational Immediate?” Master Sergeant Keller asked, a little dubiously.
“He has the authority,” Captain Peters said. “I guess I should have said there’s an exception to the colonel’s rule. Captain McCoy.”
“And Mr. Zimmerman,” McCoy said.
“And Mr. Zimmerman,” Captain Peters echoed.
“I’ll get this right out,” Keller said, and went into the radio room. When he came out, the two Marines were gone.
“What’s with those two?” Keller asked.
“CIA,” Captain Peters said.
He was not really surprised. He’d handled a lot of traffic for CIA agents when he was in Europe, especially in Berlin.
“They’re not Marines?”
“They’re Marines, and they’re CIA. If you really want to know what’s going on here, you ought to encrypt their reports yourself.”
“Interesting.”
Keller decided he would do just that.
[TWO]
PIER THREE PUSAN, KOREA 0805 2 AUGUST 1950
Captain McCoy found Brigadier General Edward A. Craig, USMC—in utilities, sitting in a U.S. Army Jeep that he was apparently driving himself—on the wharf, looking more than a little unhappy as he watched the USS George Clymer (APA-27) being tied up, her rails lined with utilities-clad Marines acting for all the world as if they were being docked at a liberty port.
McCoy and Zimmerman got out of their “borrowed” U.S. Army Jeep—the lettering on the bumpers of which identified it as belonging to Fox Company, 21st Infantry— and approached Craig’s Jeep. Craig heard them coming and looked over his shoulder.
McCoy and Zimmerman saluted.
“Good morning, sir,” McCoy said.
Craig returned the salute.
“You two look like you need a bath,” he said.
“We were up at Taejon, sir,” McCoy said. “We wanted to see this,” he gestured at the Clymer and the USS Pickaway (APA-222), another attack transport, which was tying up farther down the pier, “and there’s something else. . . .”
“Take a good look at those happy tourists, McCoy,” General Craig said, a little bitterly. “Would you suspect that I sent them a radio ordering that ammo be issued and they debark prepared to fight?”
McCoy was trying to frame a reply to that when Zimmerman laughed, and said, “Jesus, will you look at that!”
A military unit was marching down the pier, between the warehouses and the ships. There was a color guard, in mussed and baggy khakis, carrying the flags of the United States, Korea, and the United Nations. Marching behind them, in U.S. Army fatigues, was a Korean Army military band, playing what could have been—and then, on the other hand, might not have been—the Marine Hymn.
General Craig smiled.
“In the interests of international cooperation, Mr. Zimmerman, ” he said. “I think we should commend those splendid musicians for at least trying.”
“Yes, sir,” Zimmerman said.
They could hear guffaws and laughter from the Marines hanging over the rails of the decks and gun positions of the Clymer.
“You said there was something else, McCoy?” General Craig asked.
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said. “Sir, I just asked General Pickering for permission for Zimmerman and myself to attach ourselves temporarily to the brigade. I thought we could be useful. If nothing else, as interpreters.”
“And General Pickering’s reply?”
“I couldn’t get through to him, sir. But I can’t think of any reason he’d object. I told him we’d continue to report.”
“Subject to General Pickering’s approval, I accept,” General Craig said. “For the time being, consider yourselves attached to me.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Thank you,” McCoy said, and went on: “We were at Headquarters Eighth Army last night, sir. They hadn’t decided where the brigade will be sent.”
It was a statement that was also a question.
“They still haven’t,” Craig said. “What do you know about Masan, McCoy?”
“It looks to me like the next North Korean objective, sir,” McCoy said. “And a couple of prisoners