over the side while they were being washed? Or, actually, being dried? One moment, they were on the deck of our luxury liner, drying in the sun, and the next minute a wave came out of nowhere, and so long utilities.”
“I don’t think you’re kidding,” Peters said. “What were you doing on a boat?”
“That you’re not allowed to ask,” McCoy said.
“I am under the personal orders of a Marine brigadier general to get you on the horn to him thirty seconds after I lay eyes on you. That time is up.”
“Before I call him, maybe you can help.”
“What?”
“I need a part for an SCR-300,” McCoy said.
“What part?”
“The oil-filled transformer,” McCoy said.
“There are three oil-filled transformers in an SCR-300,” Peters said. “Which one?”
“The one that looks like a square tin can.”
“They all look like square tin cans,” Peters said.
“Marvelous!” Jennings said.
“Then we’ll have to have three of each.”
“You don’t happen to have the one that’s broke?” Peters asked.
“No.”
“When do you need them?”
“Now.”
“I’ve got two SCR-300s here, about to go back to Japan for depot-level maintenance. I can take the transformers out of them, if that would help?”
“How would we know if they’re any good?”
“We don’t,” Peters said. “But as a general rule of thumb, if they haven’t lost their oil, they run forever.”
“That’s what Sergeant Worley said, Captain,” Jennings said. “He said it was the last thing he expected to fail.”
“Are they hard to get out?”
“Unfasten a couple of screws, unsolder a couple of connections. . . .”
“Give Sergeant Jennings a soldering iron and a screwdriver, and he can get started while I report in.”
“If you’d like, I’ve got a pretty good sergeant who could take these out and put them in yours,” Peters said.
“Mine is a long way away,” McCoy said. “But thanks anyway.”
“You know what you’re looking for, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re out in back, I’ll show you.”
[SEVEN]
K-1 USAF AIR FIELD PUSAN, KOREA 0325 10 AUGUST 1950
The Transient Officers’ Quarters at K-1 was a dirt-floored U.S. Army squad tent. The tent was furnished with six folding wooden cots and one lightbulb.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Preston Haywood, USNR, hadn’t planned to spend the night in Pusan, but he’d had a couple of red lights on the panel of his Avenger and by the time he’d gotten the Air Force mechanics to clear them, it had been too late to take the COD aircraft back to the USS Sicily.
Night landings on aircraft carriers are understandably more dangerous than daylight landings, and unless there was a good reason to make them, they were discouraged. In Lieutenant Haywood’s judgment—discretion being the better part of valor—carrying half a dozen mail bags out to the Sicily was not a good enough reason to make a night landing on her.
After making sure that Aviation Motor Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class José Garcia, his crew chief, would have a place to sleep and be able to get something to eat, Haywood had taken advantage of the situation and gone to the K-1 O Club, thinking, if nothing else, he could probably have a beer there. There was, of course, no beer, or any other kind of alcohol, aboard the Sicily.
He had four bottles of Asahi beer in the K-1 O Club. And he had occasion to muse again that the Air Force didn’t feed as well as the Navy. Supper had been two tough pork chops, mashed potatoes, and mushy green beans.
There being absolutely nothing else to do at K-1, when he’d finished his fourth beer, he’d gone to bed, which is to say he’d gone to the tent, stripped to his underwear, and lay down on the folding wooden cot, sharing it—there being nothing else he could find to do with his khakis and flight suit.
Haywood sat up abruptly when the bare lightbulb suddenly turned on.
Two men had entered the Transient Officers Quarters. One he recognized as the Marine liaison officer. The other was a strange apparition, a white man wearing what looked like black pajamas, and with a Garand rifle slung from his shoulder. He was carrying, as was the Marine liaison officer, a cardboard carton.
“Haywood, right?” the Marine liaison officer asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Haywood, this is Captain McCoy,” the Marine liaison officer said.
“Yes, sir?” Haywood asked, wondering if he should try to get dressed.
“I need a ride out to the Badoeng Strait,” the white man in the black pajamas said. “As soon as possible.”
“Sir, I’m from the Sicily.”
“Captain Overton told me,” McCoy said. “I want to get there before the Marines fly their first flight of the morning. ”