to Captain Howard Dunwood as the two Higgins boats closed on Tokchok-kundo.
“Yeah, I see it. Careful. I don’t like the smell of this place.”
“I think that’s the drying fish, sir,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt said.
“Very goddamn funny,” Dunwood said. “I’ll tell your widow you died with a smile on your face. Now be careful, goddamn it!”
The Higgins boat touched shore. The ramp fell onto the rocky shore with a loud clang.
The Marines ran down the ramp and turned right and left, spreading out, weapons at the ready. Captain Dunwood was in the center of what ultimately was a formation in the shape of a V, holding his carbine in one hand.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” a voice shouted, an obviously American voice.
A figure appeared. He was in black pajamas, and had a band of the same material around his forehead. He held his hands over his head in a gesture of surrender.
“That’s Jennings, Captain,” Staff Sergeant Schmidt said.
“You know him?”
“Sir, when they put out the call for Marine Raiders . . .”
“He was one of them, huh?”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said. “Jennings?”
“How they hanging, Smitty?” Technical Sergeant Jennings inquired.
“You’re a Marine Raider, Sergeant?” Captain Dunwood asked. He’d never actually seen a Marine Raider before.
“No, sir, they put the Raiders out of business a long time ago. But it’s like being a Marine, Captain. Once a Raider, always a Raider. There’s a bunch of us here.”
“You’re in charge, Sergeant?”
“No, sir,” Jennings said.
“I am,” a voice said, and Dunwood saw another character in black pajamas with a black headband, his hands over his head in gesture of surrender. A Garand was hanging from his shoulder, and he had some kind of knife strapped to his wrist.
“You’re a Marine officer?”
“Captain K. R. McCoy, USMCR, at your service, sir.”
Captain Dunwood looked at Captain McCoy.
He didn’t look much like what Dunwood thought a Marine Raider should look like, but there was something familiar about him.
“Don’t I know you?”
“We’ve met,” McCoy said, smiling, and then asked: “How’s your finger?”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch. You’re the candy-ass on the airplane! ”
“Is it safe to put my hands down now?” McCoy asked.
[FIVE]
USS MOUNT MCKINLEY THE FLYING FISH CHANNEL 0610 15 SEPTEMBER 1950
“Permission to come aboard, sir?” Captain K. R. McCoy inquired of the officer of the deck.
“Granted.”
McCoy stepped onto the deck, saluted the OD and the national colors, and then Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.
“How are you, Ken?”
“In great need of a bath,” McCoy said.
“I don’t care how you smell,” Miss Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune, said. “I’ll kiss you anyway.”
She kissed his cheek and hugged him enthusiastically.
Pickering greeted every man as he stepped from the ladder on the deck. The next to the last to come aboard was Technical Sergeant Jennings.
“Jennings,” McCoy ordered, and Jennings walked to them.
“Show her,” McCoy ordered.
Jennings dug in the pocket of his black pajamas and came out with three aluminum cans of 35-mm film.
“Jennings, in addition to his many other talents,” McCoy said, “is an amateur photographer. I told him you’d probably give him a good price for those.”
“If they’re what I think they are, I damned sure will.”
“I couldn’t take money,” Jennings said.
“The hell you can’t,” McCoy said.
“I don’t know if they came out, Miss Priestly,” Jennings said. “But I was in the lighthouse with Mr. Taylor when the barrage started.”
“Like I said, Jeanette, a picture like that would be worth a lot of money,” McCoy said.
Taylor came aboard last.
“General, I don’t know what’s going on . . .”
“The 5th Marines are about to land on Wolmi-do,” Pickering said.
“I’ve got some last-minute intel—fresh as of about 0500.”
“Then we’ll get it and you to General Willoughby,” Pickering said.
“Dressed like this, sir?” Taylor said.
“Yes, Mr. Taylor, dressed just like that,” Pickering said. “And you come along, too, McCoy.”
In the passageway en route to the command center, Pickering put his hand on McCoy’s arm.
“A heads-up, Ken,” he said. “I told General MacArthur about your report.”
McCoy seemed surprised.
“And?”
“I don’t know, Ken,” Pickering admitted. “I can’t imagine him dumping Willoughby, but he knows. And I think he now believes.”
“So you’re telling me watch my back again?”
“Let me put it this way, Ken. Look surprised when MacArthur tells you he and the Commandant have decided you’re entitled to put on the gold leaf again and I’m sure he’ll tell you.”
“What’s MacArthur got to do with that?”
“He personally messaged the Commandant. Had a number of nice things to say about you.”
“And you had nothing to do with that?”
“I’m a little ashamed—I should have done something about it a long time