soon as we can. Maybe as soon as this afternoon. Time is important.”
Major Kim nodded.
“On the dry run—the practice run, the rehearsal run— we’ll take half of the Marines and eight or ten of your men with us,” McCoy said.
“May I ask why?”
“In the Marine Corps, we try to make a dry run as much like the real thing as we can,” McCoy said.
“I will tell my lieutenant to prepare the men,” Kim said.
And he swallowed that, too. So far, so good.
“I don’t know how much, if any, fuel is aboard the junk,” Taylor said. “Or available here.”
“Give that problem to Sergeant Jennings, Mr. Zimmerman, ” McCoy said. “Have it solved by the time we get back from Pusan.”
"Aye, aye, sir,” Zimmerman said.
McCoy looked down at his plate and was surprised to see he had finished eating.
He stood up.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” he said.
[FOUR]
MARINE LIAISON OFFICE USAF AIRFIELD K-1 PUSAN, KOREA 1105 5 AUGUST 1950
“The Badoeng Strait’s COD isn’t here yet, McCoy,” Captain Kenneth Overton said when McCoy and Zimmerman walked into his office.
“Colonel Dunn said ‘by twelve hundred,’ ” McCoy replied.
“But you have an envelope,” Overton said, smiling somewhat smugly, and handed McCoy a business-size envelope, with “Capt K. McCoy, USMC” written on it in pencil.
McCoy took it and opened it. There was a note, written in pencil.
K-1, 0800 5 AUG
McCoy:
I want to know what’s happened to Pick Pickering.
I know what his father really does for a living.
The PIO at Eighth Army will know where I am.
If I don’t hear from you, I will write my story on what I do know.
Jeanette Priestly
Chicago Tribune
“Shit,” McCoy said, and handed the note to Zimmerman.
“Oh, Jesus!” Zimmerman said.
“When was she here?” McCoy asked of Captain Overton.
“She was here twice. Last night, right after you were. And again this morning. She was asking about a Major Pickering.”
“What was she asking about Pickering?”
“If I’d heard anything about him.”
“And had you?”
“Isn’t he the guy who’s been busting all the locomotives? ”
“That’s all you know about him?”
“I had the feeling the lady has the hots for him. She said he was aboard the Badoeng Strait, and she wanted a ride out to her.”
“And?”
“Last night, I told her there wouldn’t be a COD until first thing this morning. She was back here at oh seven hundred. A COD from the Sicily landed at oh seven thirty and she leaned hard on the pilot to take her out to the Badoeng Strait.”
“And?”
“She’s a persuasive lady. Good-looking lady, too. The Sicily pilot caved in enough to get the Air Force to radio for permission. It was denied. Then she asked if I ever saw you around here.”
“And you told her ‘yeah’?” McCoy asked, icily.
“I told her you’d been here.”
“And that I would be back before noon?”
“No. Just that you came by sometimes. And then she wrote that note and told me to give it to you.”
“What are you going to do, Ken?” Zimmerman asked.
“I know what I’d like to do to her,” McCoy replied.
“You and every other Marine in Korea,” Captain Overton said.
“I’m not talking about nailing her,” McCoy said.
He pointed to the telephone on Overton’s desk.
“Can I get the Eighth Army PIO on that?”
“You can try,” Overton said.
“Ernie, go to Eighth Army. Get her. Take her out to the Evening Star.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come?”
“Take her out to the Evening Star,” McCoy repeated. “I don’t care how you do it.”
“How are you going to get back there?”
“Dunston said he would send Major Kim out there in a Jeep. I’ll have Kim pick me up here. And I’ll call Eighth Army—if I can get through—and get word to Miss Priestly that you’re on the way.”
“You want her to see the Evening Star?”
“I don’t want her to write a story based on what she thinks she knows.”
“And if she asks about Pick?”
“Tell her I’ll tell her everything she wants to know,” McCoy said.
Captain Overton touched McCoy’s arm and pointed out the window. An Avenger had taxied up in front of the Base Operations building.
“There’s your Badoeng Strait COD,” Overton said.
“Get going, Ernie,” McCoy said.
[FIVE]
EVENING STAR HOTEL TONGNAE, SOUTH KOREA 1215 5 AUGUST 1950
When McCoy and Major Kim drove around the hotel to the pier, there was a U.S. Army water trailer backed up to the shore end of the pier behind one of the freshly painted USMC Jeeps. A white legend on it read “Potable Water ONLY!!!” But what was coming out of the faucet and being fed into five-gallon jerry cans was obviously not