Retreat, Hell! Read online

  “I asked a couple of them, ‘What if I find Pickering? Could you help?’ And the answer was very simple: ‘Give us thirty minutes’ notice, and precise coordinates, and we’ll go snatch him.’ ”

  “So you don’t need more than one helicopter?”

  “I’d like to have eight, ten of them,” McCoy said. “But since that’s out of the question—there aren’t that many— all I can use is one.”

  “And if you had eight or ten of them, Ken?” Dunn asked.

  “I’d take that many Marines to the last marker he left. They’d drop us off and leave us. Then we’d follow his tracks. I think we could find him. If so, then we could call the helicopters back and have everybody picked up. But that’s wishful thinking. Six or eight helicopters aren’t available.”

  Howe grunted thoughtfully.

  “And even if they were, General, that probably wouldn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are North Korean soldiers all over this area. And North Korean spies. Six or eight helicopters landing someplace all at once would attract a lot of attention.”

  “One helo taking in six or eight people one at a time?” Dunn asked.

  “I thought about that, too,” McCoy said. “Same answer—it would attract too much attention. And then if the NKs saw how few people there were, and went after us . . .”

  “You could not be evacuated,” Howe said.

  “No, sir,” McCoy said. “Not with one helo.”

  “General,” Master Sergeant Rogers said. Howe looked at him. Rogers tapped his wristwatch. Howe nodded, then stood up.

  “Shower time,” he said. “You said you have some clean fatigues for us, Bill?”

  “Yes, sir, clean and starched, but I don’t know what we’ll do for chevrons for Charley.”

  “Well, then I guess he’ll just have to look like the oldest private in the Army,” General Howe said, then turned to McCoy. “Ken, I want to hear what you and Ernie think of what this North Korean colonel has to say about the prospects of Chinese intervention.”

  “I’ll go down there right now, sir,” McCoy said.

  Everyone rose from the table as General Howe and Master Sergeant Rogers walked out of the room.

  [FOUR]

  HANEDA AIRFIELD TOKYO, JAPAN 0620 29 SEPTEMBER 1950

  One hundred yards away from the Bataan, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s personal Douglas C-54, a very large MP sergeant, whose impeccable uniform included a chrome-plated steel helmet, a glistening leather Sam Browne belt, and paratrooper boots with white nylon laces, held up his hand to stop the 1950 black Buick Roadmaster.

  The Buick had an oblong red plate with a silver star mounted to the bumper, identifying it as a car occupied by a brigadier general of the United States Marine Corps.

  The MP bent over to look into the rear seat as the window rolled down.

  There were two men in the rear seat, both of them wearing fur-collared zippered leather jackets officially known as Jacket, Flyers, Intermediate Type G-1. The driver was a U.S. Army sergeant.

  “General Pickering,” the younger of the two men in the backseat said.

  There was no insignia on the leather jacket, but the silver railroad tracks of a captain were visible on the collar points of his shirt. The captain, in his early thirties, was built like a circus strong man.

  “Good morning, sir,” the MP said, courteously, then added, a little uneasily, “Sir, the general is not on my list.”

  “Then your list is wrong, Sergeant,” the captain said reasonably.

  “Yes, sir,” the MP said, straightened, came to attention, raised his hand in a crisp salute, and said, “Pass.”

  Both men in the back of the Buick returned the salute.

  The Buick drove up to the mobile stairway to the glistening C-54, around which were gathered half a dozen officers and men, including two impeccably and ornately uniformed military policemen, one standing at parade rest at each side of the ladder.

  The driver of the Buick got out and hurriedly opened the rear door.

  Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, a silver-haired man of six feet one, 190 pounds, who thought of himself as being one year past The Big Five Zero, got out of the car. The captain followed a moment later.

  Colonel Sidney Huff, a large, somewhat plump fifty-year -old wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a General of the Army, walked up and saluted.

  “Good morning, General,” he said. “I wasn’t aware you were coming along.”

  Pickering and the captain returned the colonel’s salute.

  “Good morning, Sid,” Pickering said, and added, “Neither was the MP back there.”

  “May I suggest you board, sir?” Colonel Huff said. “The Supreme Commander’s due any moment, and you know he doesn’t like to wait to board the Bataan.”

  Pickering nodded.

  “See you on board, Sid,” Pickering said, and started for the ladder, trailed by the captain, who now had a web pistol belt with a holstered Colt Model 1911A1 pistol in his hand.

  The MPs at the foot of the stairway saluted as the two Marines climbed the ladder.

  There was an Air Force master sergeant standing inside the aircraft at the door.

  “Captain Hart will be sitting with me,” Pickering said.

  The sergeant obviously didn’t like to hear that, but sergeants do not argue with brigadier generals.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “How about the fourth row back on the left of the aircraft, sir?”

  Pickering found the row, slid in, and took the window seat. The captain opened the overhead bin, put the pistol belt in it, then sat down beside Pickering.

  Pickering pointed out the window.

  An olive-drab 1950 Chevrolet staff car had stopped at the foot of the stairway. One of the Army officers hurried to open the rear door, as Colonel Huff stood by.

  A slight, elderly, gray-haired Oriental in a business suit somewhat awkwardly extricated himself from the car, then turned to offer his hand to the other passenger. This was a Caucasian woman in a black dress.

  “Rhee?” Captain Hart asked softly.

  Pickering nodded.

  Colonel Huff saluted, then waved the couple to the stairway.

  A moment later they appeared inside the aircraft. The Air Force master sergeant led them to one of the two VIP suites, the one on the right.

  “So where does the Palace Guard get to sit?” Hart whispered.

  Pickering smiled at him but held his finger in front of his lips, suggesting that further observations of that nature would be inappropriate. Then he pointed out the window again.

  The Chevrolet staff car was gone, replaced by a black 1942 Cadillac limousine, which had a small American flag mounted on the right front fender and a small flag with five stars in a circle mounted on the left fender.

  Colonel Huff personally opened the passenger door.

  General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Allied Powers and United Nations Forces, got out.

  MacArthur was wearing well-washed khakis, his famous battered, gold-encrusted uniform cap, and an Air Force A-2 leather flight jacket, not unlike the fur-collared Naval aviator’s jackets Pickering and Hart were wearing.

  Pickering was reasonably sure that his Naval aviator’s jacket was not an authorized item of uniform for Marine officers, but he was equally sure that no one was going to call him on it. So far as he was concerned, his—and El Supremo’s—leather jackets were a comfortable, practical garment for senior officers, who were not likely to find themselves rolling around in the dirt. Furthermore, he had heard somewhere that as a privilege of rank, general officers were permitted to select their own uniforms. He thought that if this were true, it probably applied only to Army officers, but had decided on the jacket anyway.

  And had extended the privilege to his aide-de-camp (and bodyguard), Captain George F. Hart, as well.

  “General, would it be all right if I got one of those leather jackets?” Hart had asked. “It would ma
ke hiding these a lot easier.”

  Hart had shown what he meant by first pulling up his trousers’ leg and revealing a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 Special five-shot revolver—his “backup” gun—in an ankle holster, then showing General Pickering his back and the Colt Model 1911A1 semiautomatic .45-ACP-caliber pistol he carried in a skeleton holster in the small thereof.

  Captain Hart, who as a civilian commanded the Homicide Bureau of the Saint Louis, Missouri, Police Department, had brought the weapons with him when recalled to the Corps for the Korean Conflict. He was never either without the pistols or very far from Brigadier General Pickering.

  It makes sense, and if the Palace Guard doesn’t like it, sorry about that.

  “Sure, George. Why not?” Pickering had replied.

  Hart now carried the .45 in a shoulder holster and the snub-nose in the right side pocket of the leather jacket.

  And, predictably, the Palace Guard hadn’t liked the sight of Captain Hart in a Naval aviator’s leather jacket identical to that of General Pickering’s, and had used it to take a shot at what really bothered them—Marine General Pickering wearing a leather jacket much like the one worn by the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers and United Nations Forces.

  “General,” Colonel Sidney Huff had said, “I’m sure you won’t take offense where none is intended, but do you think your aide’s leather jacket is appropriate?”

  The translation of that, of course, was: “Do you think your leather jacket is appropriate when (a) General MacArthur’s leather jacket has become his trademark and (b) General MacArthur has made it plain he would prefer that his staff officers do not wear leather jackets or battered gold-bedecked uniform caps?”

  General Pickering had smiled at Colonel Huff.

  “Let me think about that, Sid. Thank you for bringing the subject up.”

  After that, George’s leather jacket—and of course his—were set in concrete. Brigadier General Pickering, the Assistant Director of the CIA for the Far East, was not a lowly brigadier on the staff of the Supreme Commander, as much as the staff—and probably El Supremo himself—would like it so. He was, de jure, subordinate only to the Director of the CIA, Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillencoetter, USN, but, de facto, only to President Harry S Truman.

  MacArthur’s people had to be reminded of that every once in a while. If the petty nonsense about who could wear leather jackets and who couldn’t served to accomplish this, so much the better.

  General MacArthur somewhat impatiently returned the salutes being offered and hurried up the stairway into the aircraft, trailed by Colonel Huff and some of the others.

  Air Force ground crewmen hurried to move the stairway away from the aircraft, and there immediately came the whine of an aircraft engine being started.

  MacArthur entered the cabin, knocked politely at the door of the VIP suite on the right, entered, and a moment later reappeared in the aisle.

  He looked around, spotted what he was looking for, and gestured for Brigadier General Pickering to join him.

  “I guess you get to sit on the right hand of God,” Captain Hart said.

  “George, you’re going to get us both in trouble,” Pickering said, but he was smiling.

  Hart got out of the way, and Pickering made his way to the VIP cabin on the right.

  There were six leather-upholstered seats in the compartment, two double sets facing forward, and two against a bulkhead that faced to the rear. A table, on which sat a coffee thermos, cups and saucers, and a map case, was between the forward- and rear-facing seats.

  MacArthur was in the window seat of the first forward-facing row, in the process of fastening his seat belt. He waved Pickering into one of the seats opposite him.

  Colonel Huff stepped into the compartment.

  “That will be all, Huff. Thank you,” MacArthur said, dismissing him.

  There was the sound of a second engine starting, and the aircraft began to move.

  “Good morning, General,” Pickering said.

  “Good morning, Fleming,” MacArthur replied. “I’m pleased you could come with me.”

  There was a discreet knock at the door, and then, without waiting for permission, an Air Force colonel entered.

  “Good morning, General,” he said.

  “Storms, turbulence, and a bad headwind all the way, right?” MacArthur greeted him.

  “Quite the contrary, sir. Weather’s fine en route and there.”

  He laid a sheet of paper on the table and went on: “I think we’ll be wheels-up at six thirty-five, which should put us in Seoul a few minutes before ten.”

  “Splendid! Thank you, Colonel.”

  The colonel left, and a white-jacketed airman came in with a plate of pastry.

  The Bataan taxied to the end of the runway, ran the engines up quickly, and then began to race down the runway.

  When the rumble of the wheels stopped and the whining of the gear being retracted ended, MacArthur said: “I think dignity and simplicity should be the style for this business in Seoul, Fleming. Do you agree?”

  “I would trust your judgment about that above anyone else’s,” Pickering said.

  I meant that, even if it made me sound like a member of the Palace Guard.

  “Let me make a note or two,” MacArthur said. He reached for a lined tablet on the table, then changed his mind and instead picked up the coffeepot.

  He held it over a cup, then asked with a raised eyebrow if Pickering wanted some, and when Pickering said, “Please,” poured coffee for him.

  He poured a second cup for himself, then picked up a pencil and slid the tablet to him.

  Pickering pulled the sheet of paper the pilot had left on the table to him.

  It was their routing. There was a simple but adequate map, and the data:

  Direct Haneda-Kimpo.

  Ground Miles: 739

  Estimated Air Speed en route 227 mph

  Estimated Flight Time 3 hours 16 min

  Rendezvous with fighter escort over Fukui (before

  reaching Sea of Japan)

  No Adverse Weather Expected.

  Presuming Haneda Take-Off 0635

  ETA Kimpo 0951

  Pickering thought: The Constellations cruise at 323; that’s almost 100 knots faster than this. No wonder El Supremo wants one.

  General Pickering knew more about aircraft than he ever thought he would. In another life, he was chairman of the board of the Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation. Among the wholly owned subsidiaries of P&FE was Trans-Global Airways.

  The first president of Trans-Global—Pickering’s only child, Malcolm, then just out of Marine Corps service as a fighter pilot—had argued long, passionately, and in the end successfully that Trans-Global should start up with Lockheed L-049 aircraft, rather than with surplus (and thus incredibly cheap) military aircraft.

  Pick’s argument had been threefold:

  First, the maiden flight of the DC-4—Air Force designation C-54—had been in 1938, and the first Constellation flight in 1943, five years later. It had, thus, five years’ design experience on the Douglas, longer really if you considered the development money thrown at the aviation industry with war on the horizon.

  Second, Pick argued, the Connie had a range of 5,400 miles, more than twice the 2,500-mile range of the Douglas, which would permit them to open routes in the Pacific that the Douglas simply couldn’t handle.

  And third, Pick had argued, if the fledgling Trans-Global acquired, as it could with the 323-knot Constellation, a reputation for providing the fastest transoceanic service, it would keep that reputation even after the other airlines smartened up and got Connies themselves.

  “Nobody, Pop, has ever accused Howard Hughes of being stupid.”

  The legendary Howard Hughes was known to have had a heavy hand in the design of the Constellation, and Trans-World Airlines, in which he held a majority interest, was equipping itself with Constellations as quickly as they could come off the Lockheed production line.

 
; Fleming Pickering had given in to his son’s recommendations, in part because he thought Pick was right and in part because he was—P&FE was—cash heavy from the sale of all but two of P&FE’s passenger liners to the Navy during World War II.

  Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Flem Pickering had flown over the Boeing plant in Seattle and seen long lines of B- 17 aircraft, each plane capable of flying across any ocean in the world. He had known that day that the era of the luxurious passenger ship was over. Time was money.

  He had willingly sold seventeen of his passenger ships to the Navy, but flatly refused to sell them one P&FE merchantman. Airplanes were not about to haul heavy materials.

  When MacArthur ordered/invited Pickering to ride in his private compartment, Pickering had assumed MacArthur wanted to chat, either about military matters or the Good Old Days in Manila or Australia, or to perhaps deliver one of his lectures on strategy.

  But, surprising Pickering, he busied himself with his lined pad until, forty-five minutes later, Pickering said, “General,” and pointed out the window.

  A Chance Vought Corsair fighter plane, with MARINES lettered large on its fuselage behind the cockpit, was on their wingtip. Others were visible elsewhere in the sky.

  “Our fighter escort,” MacArthur said needlessly.

  The cockpit of the Corsair was open, and they could clearly see the pilot, a young redhead with earphones cocked on one ear. He saluted crisply, held his position a moment, then shoved the throttle to the firewall. The Corsair then pulled very rapidly ahead and upward, then turned and began to assume a position above and just ahead of the Bataan.

  Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, had flown such an airplane in the Pacific, becoming an ace in the process, and had been flying such an airplane when he was shot down.

  Brigadier General Pickering vainly hoped that General of the Army MacArthur would not see the tears that came to his eyes.

  “Has there been any further word, Fleming?” MacArthur asked gently.

  Pickering waited until he was sure he had control of his voice before replying.

  “There was a message last night from Major McCoy, sir. He seems to feel that Pick is all right, and that he missed making contact with him by just a matter of hours.”