the Army—how it would cut the enemy’s supply lines, leaving the troops now in South Korea unable to wage war, in a position where they can be annihilated.”
“General, I’m way over my head here, but I understand there are problems involved in bringing an invasion fleet to Inchon.”
“Ned Almond and I have considered them carefully,” MacArthur said. “They can be overcome.”
“Yes, sir,” Pickering said.
“All of this is to bring a ray of hope—faint but real—into your painful situation,” MacArthur said. “The situation as I see it is this: The North Koreans have failed to sweep us into the sea at Pusan. Walker’s Eighth Army grows stronger by the day, and the enemy weaker. Willoughby believes, and I concur, that they are growing desperate. They will make every effort to continue their attack, and every day Walker will be better prepared to turn the attack. In that circumstance, the movement of prisoners of war to North Korea—if indeed they ever intended to do so—has a low priority.
“If Ned Almond can land with a two-division force at Inchon and cut the head of the dragon from its body—and I believe he can—then it is entirely possible that rapidly moving armored columns can sweep through the territory now held by the enemy and liberate our men from their prison compounds. In much the same way the First Cavalry operated—you were there, you remember—when I returned to the Philippines.”
“I remember,” Pickering said.
That’s more pissing in the wind. But right now, pissing in the wind is all I have.
“Your glass is empty, Fleming. Another?”
“Thank you, sir, but no.”
“One more, Fleming, and then you can go. It will help you to sleep.”
“All right,” Pickering said. “Thank you.”
[TWO]
Master Sergeant Charley Rogers was sitting in one of the armchairs in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel when Pickering walked into it. He was in civilian clothing, and there was a copy of Life magazine in his lap. He rose quickly and intercepted Pickering.
“Hello, Charley,” Pickering said. “What’s up?”
“General Howe thought maybe you’d feel up to a nightcap, General,” Rogers said. “But he said it was a suggestion, not an order.”
Howe has heard about MacArthur’s limousine hauling me off.
“Sure,” Pickering said. “Why not? How was dinner?”
“We went to a place that serves Kobe beef,” Rogers said. “What that means is they massage the cattle to make it tender. The steaks were beautiful, cost an arm and a leg, and tasted like bread dough.”
Pickering chuckled.
“I had ham and eggs for breakfast years ago in a hotel in—here, come to think of it, Yokohama—and it looked like a magazine advertisement. Just beautiful. But it was ice cold. They’d made it the night before and put it in the refrigerator.”
Rogers smiled. “The CIA guy was here. Hart wasn’t here, so I took the message. The CIA guy in Pusan got your message about McCoy.”
“Thank you.”
“How are you doing, General?”
Pickering shrugged.
“First, I feel sorry for my wife, then for me, and finally I get around to feeling sorry for my son. I think my priorities are screwed up.”
“I lost a boy in War Two,” Rogers said, and left it at that.
“Thank you for coming, Fleming,” General Howe said. “Bullshit aside, I wondered what the Viceroy had to say.” He turned to Rogers and signaled that he was to make Pickering a drink.
“He was very gracious about my son,” Pickering said, “and I wondered how he found out. And then I got—now that I think about it—a very skillful pitch that I should do what I could to convince General Ridgway that Inchon makes sense.”
“I got a message he and Harriman are in—I suppose were in—Hawaii. It was just a fuel stop,” Howe said, and then asked, “What did he say about his going to see Chiang Kai-shek?”
“That the President misunderstood his intentions. He said he never wanted Chinese Nationalist troops because they’d have to be trained and equipped, and he went there solely to impress on the Communists that we were behind Chiang and wouldn’t permit an invasion of Formosa.”
“You believe him?”
Pickering nodded.
Master Sergeant Rogers handed him a drink. Pickering noticed that he’d made himself one.
Rogers is far more to Howe than an errand boy. What is that line, “Command is a lonely thing”? I guess the next step is “Even generals need friends.”
I’ll bet that when I get to my room, George Hart will be sitting there, waiting for me, wondering, worrying, where the hell I am.
“You mind if I message the President, and tell that to Harriman when he gets here?”