preparing overlays. There were two sets of them, one set for the waters offshore the Korean peninsula, and the other set for the islands in the Flying Fish Channel. The overlays in each set were identical. On each were drawn a number of boxes, each one labeled with numbers. The numbers were—intentionally—in no way sequential. “063,” for example, was surrounded by “109,” “040,” “101,” and “171.”
When he placed the overlay on the chart, Hart saw that the position Captain Kim had pointed out to him was inside the box numbered “091.” Hart wrote the number in his notebook, then carefully folded the chart and the overlay and put them back in his tunic pocket, with the aerial photo of the Flying Fish Channel islands and its overlay.
Then, carefully studying the first of the notes he had made during Captain Peters’s very patient orientation, he threw BOTTOM LEFT-HAND SWITCH on the Hallicrafter and was relieved and pleasantly surprised when the dials immediately lit up.
Three minutes later, all the dials and gauges on both the transmitter and the receiver were lit up, and indicating what Hart’s notes said they should.
He put on his earphones, and heard a hiss.
He picked up the microphone, pressed the PRESS TO TALK switch, and said, “Dispatch, Dispatch, H-1, H-1.”
H-1 was the radio call sign assigned to the chief of the homicide bureau of the St. Louis police department. When the question of radio call signs for the good ship Wind of Good Fortune had come up about 0300 that morning, H-1 had seemed be as good a call sign as any of the others suggested, and a lot better than some. And, Hart knew, he was unlikely to forget it.
He thought about this now, and of St. Louis, and its police department, and asked aloud, “What the fuck am I doing here?”
The hiss in his earphone vanished suddenly, and a voice so loud it actually hurt his ears said, “Dispatch. Go ahead.”
“Zero Niner One,” Hart said into the microphone, and then repeated it.
“Dispatch understands Zero Niner One, Confirm,” the too loud, very clear voice said in Hart’s earphones.
“Confirm, confirm,” Hart said into the microphone.
“Dispatch clear,” the too loud voice said, and the hiss came back to Hart’s earphones.
Hart put the microphone on top of the SCR-300, then carefully studied the front of the Hallicrafters, finally settling on a round knob. He moved it very carefully. The hiss in his earphones diminished. He started to leave the knob where it was, but on reflection—If I turn it too far down, I might not be able to hear him the next time—turned it back up.
Then, consulting his notes, he began to shut the radio down.
[FIVE]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND 0405 25 AUGUST 1950
They had spent most of the previous day rehearsing how to get the boats into the water, and their equipment into the boats, and what ran through Captain Kenneth R. McCoy’s mind as he jumped from the wharf into Boat Two was that at least the boat part of the operation wasn’t going to cause any problems.
He pushed the starter button on the control panel, and the lifeboat’s engine, after a few anemic gasps, came to life.
The rehearsals for getting the boats into the water had been sort of fun, although smiling at the men’s activities would have been inappropriate.
He had begun the exercise by explaining that they weren’t actually going to remove the camouflage netting over the boats—because the boats might then be seen— they were going to mimic uncovering them, and getting them into the water, and getting the equipment into them once they were in the water.
Everyone seemed to agree that was a logical approach to the problem.
As the boats when they were really put into the water would have to be carried there, they started with that. They were heavy, and would require eight men on each side to carry them.
The men were assigned numbers, Left #1 through Left #8, Right #1 through Right #8.
After Boat One was in the water, Boat Two would be uncovered and put in the water. Whereupon Left #7 and Left #8 would remain in Boat Two, Right #7 and Right #8 would move to Boat One, and everybody else would form a line to the now-roofless house where their weapons, ammunition, and everything else they were taking with them had been laid out in a precise pattern. Then, first each individual weapon would be passed from man to man down and into the boats, and then each man’s equipment.