“Have you eaten?” McCoy asked. “Do you need water?”
The North Korean sergeant said “water” in Korean.
The private glowered at him.
“Colonel,” McCoy said, “the private of the 83rd Motorcycle Regiment, the one with the good leather boots, is almost certainly an officer, and very probably speaks English. Most of the officers of the 83rd do. I will speak with him, with all of them, after your sergeant gets them water, rations, and some cigarettes.”
The colonel looked at McCoy for a long moment, then turned to the sergeant.
“You heard the captain,” he said. “Get a canteen and a box of C-rations in here.”
McCoy took the sergeant’s carbine from him and held it on his hip, like a hunter, until the sergeant returned with two canteens and a box of C-rations.
He set the box on the floor, and tried to hand one of the canteens to the North Korean sergeant. He shook his head, “no.”
“Take the water,” McCoy ordered in Korean. “You are all prisoners. I give the orders here, not your officer.”
The sergeant looked at the private, then took the canteen.
“Bingo,” McCoy said, very softly, to the colonel, handed the American sergeant his carbine, and walked out of the room.
He walked out of earshot of the room, then stopped.
“You speak Korean. I’m impressed,” the colonel said.
“Are they your prisoners, sir? Or did you inherit them?”
“My third battalion captured them,” the colonel said. “Division was supposed to send for them—take them for interrogation. . . .”
“They’re from the 83rd Motorcycle Regiment,” McCoy said. “They’re pretty good. The regimental commander is—the last I heard, a Colonel Pak Sun Hae, who used to be a lieutenant in the Soviet Army. They’re well trained, and well equipped.”
“Which is, sadly, more than I can say about the 34th Infantry, ” the colonel said.
“Colonel, for my purposes—it would make them even more uncomfortable than they are—I’d like Miss Priestly to take their picture. Would that be all right?”
The colonel thought that over.
“Why not?” he said, after a minute, and turned to a master sergeant standing nearby. “There’s a lady and a Marine in a Jeep outside, Sergeant. Would you ask them to come in, please?”
“Tell her to bring her camera, Sergeant,” McCoy ordered.
As Jeanette Priestly followed Zimmerman and the sergeant through the narrow building, there were looks of disbelief on the faces of the regimental officers and soldiers.
“With the caveat that I don’t think you should be here,” the colonel said, “welcome to the 34th Infantry, Miss Priestly.”
“Thank you,” she said, and looked at McCoy. “What’s up?”
“There’re three North Korean prisoners in there,” McCoy said, pointing. “I want you to take their picture. Plural. Pictures.”
“And then you take my film, right?”
“No. I don’t want your film. When you have it processed in Tokyo, I’m sure they’ll make prints for G-2. Ernie, you go in there and see if you think any of them speak Chinese. The little guy in the good boots is, I suspect, an officer. He’s not going to say much, but if you think one of the others speaks Chinese, take him someplace and see what he knows. They’re from the 83rd Motorcycle Regiment.”
Zimmerman nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“I would like to use the ladies’ room,” Jeanette announced.
“I’m afraid we can’t offer you much, Miss Priestly,” the colonel said.
“I didn’t expect that you could,” she said, and smiled dazzlingly at him. “Why don’t you call me ‘Jennie,’ Colonel. We’re friends, right?”
“Sergeant, escort Miss Priestly to the latrine, and stand guard,” the colonel ordered. Then he turned to McCoy. “Would you like to have a look at the map, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The map, covered with transparent celluloid, was mounted on a sheet of plywood against the wall behind the colonel’s desk.
“Here we are now, the regiment—and the division— strung out along the Kum River.” He pointed.
“Yesterday morning, Item Company of my 3rd Battalion, here, on the south bank of the Kum, was brought under tank fire at about 0600—first light. No real damage was done, but the artillery forward observer couldn’t come up with the coordinates of the tanks, so we couldn’t hurt them either.
“About the same time, an outpost of Love Company— here on the far left flank—reported seeing two barges ferrying North Koreans across the river two miles to their west. Accidentally, or intentionally, they were out of range of any of our artillery.
“By 0930, they had five hundred men across the river. The North Korean artillery was working, and they brought Love Company under fire, at about