S-3 sergeant at 24th Infantry Division headquarters had been rather vague:
“I think it’s probably here, Captain,” the sergeant had said, pointing to a map. “On Route One, a little village called Nonsan. That’s where it’s supposed to be.”
Nonsan turned out to be a typical small Korean town, a collection of thatch-roofed stone buildings surrounding a short, sort of shopping strip of connected two-story, tin-roofed buildings, two of which, according to a plywood sign, had been taken over by “Hq 34th Inf Regt.”
The officer standing outside one of the stores—probably the regimental commander; there was a white colonel’s eagle painted on his helmet—looked, McCoy thought, a lot like the motor officer at Headquarters, Eighth Army.
Not only was he a portly man armed with a .45 ACP pistol, his fatigue jacket sweat-stained under his armpits, and with a sweaty forehead, as the major had been, but from the moment he had seen the Jeep, it was clear he was not at all pleased at what he saw.
McCoy pulled the Jeep in beside two other Jeeps and a three-quarter-ton truck, and got out.
“Stay in the Jeep,” he ordered, then walked up to the colonel and saluted.
The colonel returned the salute.
“Who’s the woman?” the colonel asked.
“Miss Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune, sir,” McCoy replied.
The colonel motioned for McCoy to precede him into the building, and when they were both inside, asked, disgustedly, “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s an accredited war correspondent, sir, with orders permitting her to go wherever she wants to go.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” the colonel said. “With two body-guards, right?”
“Not exactly, sir,” McCoy said. “May I show you my orders? ”
The colonel gestured impatiently for McCoy to hand them over. McCoy gave him the Dai-Ichi orders. The colonel read them and handed them back.
“Marines, huh? I thought your fatigues were a little odd.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, Captain McCoy of the Marine Corps, what exactly is your mission, except for escorting a female—who has absolutely no business being here—around?”
“We’ve been sent here, sir, to see what’s going on.”
“By who? General Almond himself?”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“That was a question, Captain,” the colonel said, sharply.
“Sir, we work for General Pickering.”
Almost visibly, the colonel searched his memory for that name, and failed.
“He’s in the Dai Ichi Building?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So what is your connection with the lady?”
“When Eighth Army couldn’t give us a Jeep, sir, I commandeered hers.”
“And brought her along with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Captain, she’s your responsibility. I don’t want to be responsible for her safety. Not that I could if I wanted to.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to ‘see what’s going on’? Presumably you somehow intend to relay what you see to your boss—General Pickering, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t have any communications that will permit you to do that, and I would be surprised if division does.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But it has just occurred to me,” the colonel said, somewhat bitterly, “presuming you can find some way to communicate with the Dai Ichi Building, that it might be a very good thing for our senior officers to learn ‘what’s going on’ here. Come with me, Captain, and I’ll tell you what I know about ‘what’s going on.’ ”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
The colonel turned and walked farther into the long and narrow building, which, judging from the shelves on both walls, had been a store of some kind or another.
There were the usual officers and enlisted men, and their equipment, of a regimental headquarters crowding the room, and the colonel had apparently elected to put his field desk at the far end, where there was another door.
As McCoy followed the colonel between the desks and around the field telephone switchboard and radio sets, he glanced into a side room.
In it were three North Korean soldiers, wearing insignia that identified them as a sergeant, a corporal, and a private. They were seated with their backs against a wall. A sergeant with an M1 carbine sat on a folding chair, guarding them.
“Colonel,” McCoy called. “Excuse me, Colonel.”
The colonel looked impatiently over his shoulder. By then, McCoy had gone into the room.
“God damn!” the colonel said, and went after him.
The sergeant looked at McCoy curiously.
“Get to your feet when an officer enters a room, Sergeant!” McCoy snapped unpleasantly.
The sergeant did so with very little enthusiasm.
The colonel appeared at the door, his mouth open to speak.
McCoy spoke first. He pointed at the North Korean private.
“That applies to you, too,” he said, nastily, in Korean.
The private looked for a moment as if he was going to stand, but then relaxed against the wall.