a strong British accent came over the air.
“H-1, this is Saint Bernard. H-1, this is Saint Bernard.”
“Jesus, who the hell is that?” Hart asked, and told McCoy what he had heard over his earphones.
McCoy gestured for him to hand over the headset and the microphone.
“Station calling H-1, go ahead,” McCoy said.
“Delighted to hear you’re all right, my friend,” the voice said. “We were getting a bit concerned.”
“It’s Captain Jones-Fortin,” McCoy said.
“My present position is Four Zero Three,” Jones-Fortin said.
“Hold one,” McCoy said. “George, give me your chart and the overlay.”
“Understand Four Zero Three,” McCoy said to the microphone.
It took Hart at least a minute to unfold the chart and get the overlay in place. It seemed like much longer.
“I have your location.”
“Could you possibly come there at nine tonight? We need to talk.”
“Dave, can you find that place in the dark?”
“I think so. It’s about ten miles off the lighthouse, just about due west.”
“Affirmative, affirmative,” McCoy said.
“See you then,” Jones-Fortin said. “Saint Bernard Clear.”
“George, do you know anything about this?” McCoy asked.
Hart shook his shoulders helplessly.
XXI
[ONE]
ABOARD WIND OF GOOD FORTUNE 37 DEGREES 36 MINUTES NORTH LATITUDE, 126 DEGREES 53 MINUTES EAST LONGITUDE THE YELLOW SEA 2055 25 AUGUST 1950
“You understand this is dead-reckoning navigation,” Lieutenant David Taylor, USNR, said to Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR. “Sometimes known as by-guess-and-by -golly navigation.”
They were standing by the forward rail of the “bridge” on the high stern of the Wind of Good Fortune with Major Kim. A Korean seaman had the tiller, and two more had been posted as lookouts, one high on the rearward mast, the other on the forecastle.
They had been at sea since shortly after their radio contact with HMS Charity at 1800. McCoy hadn’t wanted to have the Wind of Good Fortune at the wharf in Tokchok-kundo, where it might be seen, and Taylor said the simplest way of concealing her would be to sail her back down the Flying Fish Channel into the Yellow Sea, out of sight of the Korean peninsula.
McCoy had again left Zimmerman in charge on Tokchok-kundo, because he was obviously better qualified to have that command than George Hart, but after thinking about taking Hart with them on the Wind of Good Fortune, realized that Hart would be more useful on the island with Zimmerman, if for no other reason than Zimmerman could bring him up to date on what was planned. Hart was a Marine, and all Marines can fire rifles, and when they finally went to seize Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, Hart would be needed.
Only after it had grown dark had Taylor set a course that would take them to the rendezvous at sea with HMS Charity.
“I’m afraid you’re going to tell me what that means,” McCoy said.
“We don’t know precisely where we are,” Taylor said. “We have been sailing a compass course, which may or may not have taken us precisely where we want to go. There may be—probably are—currents moving us off course.”
“What do we have to do to establish ‘precisely’?” McCoy asked.
“Shoot the stars with a sextant is the usual means,” Taylor said. “But we don’t have a sextant.”
A few minutes later, there was a flash of white light to port. It seemed to be pointed right at them. It was followed at ten-second intervals by a flash of light that seemed to be pointed ahead of them, then directly away from them, then behind them.
Then the light went out and stayed out.
“Are you trying to make this exciting for me, or don’t you know what that is?” McCoy asked.
“Make for the lights,” Taylor called in Korean to the Korean on the tiller.
“That’s the Charity?” McCoy asked.
“God, I hope so,” Taylor said piously.
Taylor reached into the control compartment and came up with a four-cell flashlight. He flashed it—sending, McCoy realized after a moment, the Morse code short and long flashes spelling M C—to port.
“Is that the flashlight Dunn dropped to us?” McCoy asked.
“All it needed was one battery, and it was as good as new,” Taylor said, somewhat smugly. “I had batteries.”
Now there came a light aimed directly at them, spelling C.
The C message was repeated once every sixty seconds after that. Five minutes later, just as McCoy began to think he could make out the ship on the horizon, floodlights mounted fore, aft, and amidship on the Charity lit the hull for five seconds and then went off again. It was now possible to judge the distance—no more than two hundred yards—separating the sleek, dead-in-the-water destroyer from the junk.
A