Now he just said, “Keller.”
“Who’s speaking, please?” the caller asked.
“Master Sergeant Keller. Who’s this?”
"Sergeant, my name is Pickering. Brigadier General, Marine Corps.”
The addressee of that OpImmediate that Marine captain sent. How did he get access to this line?
“Yes, sir?”
“A short time ago, there was a message, an Operational Immediate, sent from Pusan by Captain K. R. McCoy. A Marine officer.”
“Yes, sir, I’m familiar with it.”
“Is he still there, anywhere near, by any chance?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you any idea where he went?”
“Sir, I believe he’s going to the pier.”
“I have to get a message to him. To him and Brigadier General Craig, the commanding general of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade. How can I do that?”
“General Craig’ll be no problem, sir. They’re setting up a commo center for the Marines right now.”
“Right now is when I need to send this message. It may be necessary to send someone to hand-deliver it. Can you do that, or would you rather I spoke with an officer?”
“I can arrange that, sir,” Keller said. “What’s the message? ”
“Permission denied. Repeat denied. Return immediately. Repeat immediately. Signature Pickering Brigadier General. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I’ll want you to message me, either by telephone—they’ll patch you through to me at the Imperial Hotel—or by Operational Immediate that the message has been delivered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re very obliging, Sergeant, and I realize this will foul up your schedule. But if it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t ask you to do it.”
“No problem, sir.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Thank you again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Master Sergeant Keller stuck his head in the radio room and caught Captain Peter’s eye.
“Captain, I’ve got an errand to run. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Captain Peters nodded, and Keller pulled his head back out of the door before Peters could ask him, “What kind of an errand?”
He picked up his Thompson and went outside the building and commandeered one of the message center Jeeps and told the driver to take him to the pier.
“You can’t get on the piers, Sergeant. The Marines are getting off their boats, and they put up a guard.”
“Just take me there,” Keller said.
On the way through Pusan’s narrow, filthy streets, crowded with military vehicles too large to pass side by side, Keller wondered why he had been so obliging.
Because the caller was a general, and generals—even Marine Corps generals—get what they ask sergeants to do for them?
Because, in addition to being a general, this guy had obviously had access to the SCAP/UN commo center and the landline?
Or maybe because Peters had told him the captain was CIA?
And Captain Peters, who’s a good guy, is obviously going to be pissed because I didn’t tell him what was going on.
There was a guard post at the entrance to the wharf area, and three Marines, a sergeant, and two PFCs, all of them in field gear, one of them with a Browning automatic rifle hanging from his shoulder.
The sergeant stepped into the road and held up his hand in a casual but very firm gesture meaning “stop.”
“Off-limits, Sergeant,” he said. “Sorry.”
“I’m from the Eighth Army ComCenter,” Keller said. “I have a message for General Craig.”
“Let’s have it. I’ll see it gets to him.”
“It’s an oral message, Sergeant.” Keller said.
“An oral message?” the Marine sergeant asked, dubiously.
“Is there an officer of the guard?” Keller asked.
“Of course there’s an officer of the guard,” the Marine sergeant said.
“Send for him,” Keller said.
“What?”
“Send for him.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I have six stripes and you have three, and that’s what they call an order.”
The Marine sergeant looked at Keller for a long moment, then gestured to one of the PFCs, who started off at a trot down the dock.
Two minutes later, a Marine captain walked up, trailed by the PFC.
Keller and the Marine sergeant saluted him.
“What’s up?” the captain asked.
“Sir, I’ve got a message for General Craig,” Keller said.
“An oral message,” the Marine sergeant said.
“What is it, Sergeant?” the captain said. “I’ll get it to him.”
“Sir, it is oral, and I was ordered to deliver it personally,” Keller said.
“By who?” the captain said.
“Brigadier General Pickering, sir,” Keller said, then added: "U.S. Marine Corps.”
“Never heard of him,” the captain said, matter-of-factly. “But I can’t imagine why a master sergeant would . . . Come with me, Sergeant.”
The captain started walking down the wharf, and Keller started to get back in the message center Jeep.
“The Jeep stays,” the Marine sergeant said.
“Wait for me,” Keller said to the driver, who nodded.
The reason the captain was walking and the Jeep denied access to