time with some difficulty—got the engine started.
He motioned for the other two Marines on deck to get into the boat, seated them, then looked up toward the flying bridge.
“We seem to be ready for the officers, Captain,” he called, in a deep voice that did not need the amplification of a bullhorn.
“They will be down directly,” Jones-Fortin called. “Good show, Chief!”
Jones-Fortin offered his hand first to Taylor and then to McCoy.
“Best of luck,” he said. “We’ll see you again soon.”
The chief watched from the deck as Taylor—nimbly—and McCoy—very carefully—both got into one boat.
Taylor checked McCoy out on the engine controls again, then signaled to the chief to let loose the lines. Then, very carefully, he took the tiller and moved the boat alongside the second.
“Just follow me, Ken,” he said. “You steered the Wind of Good Fortune—you can steer this.”
McCoy nodded and took the tiller.
Taylor jumped into the second boat, signaled for its lines to be let loose, and then shoved it away from Charity’s hull with a shove with his foot. Then he took the tiller, advanced the throttle, and moved away from Charity.
McCoy waited until ten feet separated the boats, then advanced his throttle.
The floodlights went out a moment later. It took Mc-Coy’s eyes what seemed like a very long time to adjust to the darkness. When they had, he saw that Taylor’s boat was getting farther away.
He eased the throttle forward a hair.
Moments after that, Jones-Fortin’s amplified voice called, “Godspeed, gentlemen!” across the darkness.
When McCoy looked over his shoulder, he could barely see HMS Charity.
Thirty minutes later, a bump on the just barely visible horizon changed slowly into the lighthouse at the entrance to the Flying Fish Channel.
And thirty minutes after that—by then it was light—the houses on the shore of Tokchok-kundo came into view. As they came closer, the damage the storm had caused became visible.
The roofs of two of the houses were gone, and the doors and windows of most of them.
They were almost at the wharf before anyone appeared, and then it was Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC.
He stood on the wharf and saluted as Lieutenant Taylor skillfully brought his lifeboat up it, and managed to keep a straight face when the boat conned by Captain McCoy rammed into Taylor’s boat, knocking Taylor off his feet.
XIX
[ONE]
THE DAI-ICHI BUILDING TOKYO, JAPAN 0905 20 AUGUST 1950
The two-starred red flag of a major general flew from a small staff on the right front fender of the glistening olive-drab Buick staff car. Even before it stopped before the main entrance of the Dai Ichi Building, a captain of what was usually referred to as the Honor Guard—or, less respectfully, as the Palace Guard, and, even less respectfully, as the “Chrome Domes”—sent two members of the guard trotting quickly down the stairs so they would be in position to open the staff car’s doors when it stopped.
The “Chrome Domes” appellation made reference to the chrome-plated steel helmets worn by the troops who guarded the headquarters of the Supreme Commander, and the Supreme Commander himself. The rest of their uniforms were equally splendiferous. They wore infantry blue silk scarves in the open necks of their form-fitting and stiffly starched khaki shirts. Their razor-creased khaki trousers were “bloused” neatly into the tops of glistening parachutist’s boots. This was accomplished by using the weight of a coiled spring inside the leg to hold the trousers in place.
Not all of the Chrome Domes were parachutists entitled to wear Corcoran “jump” boots. The basic criteria for their selection was that they be between five feet eleven and six feet one in height, between 165 and 190 pounds in weight, and possessed of what the selection officers deemed to be a military carriage and demeanor.
The standard-issue boot for nonparachutists was known as the “combat boot.” It consisted of a rough-side-out ankle-high shoe, to which was sewn a smooth-side-out upper with two buckles.
The combat boot was practical, of course, but the rough-side -out boot was difficult to shine, and it was not really suited to be part of the uniform of the elite troops selected to guard the Supreme Commander and his headquarters, and jump boots were selected to replace them.
The brown laces of the Corcoran boots were also replaced, with white nylon cord salvaged from parachutes no longer considered safe to use. The “laces” were worn in an elaborate crossed pattern.
Officers of the Palace Guard wore Sam Browne leather belts, which had gone out of use in the U.S. Army in the early days