Retreat, Hell! Read online

  “You have prisoners?” Masters demanded.

  “Uh-huh,” McCoy said. “That’s the second thing I need from you, Major. Somebody to take four of the five off our hands. One of them is a lieutenant colonel. He’s a keeper.”

  “By which you mean?”

  “That I’m going to take him to Seoul with me.”

  “I’ll want to interrogate him, of course.”

  “You speak Korean?” McCoy asked.

  “No, of course I don’t speak Korean. There’s Korean-speaking interrogators at Division. We’ll take him—all of the prisoners—there.”

  They were down at the doorway to the CP.

  McCoy stopped and looked at Major Masters.

  “Sorry, the colonel goes with me,” he said. “And if I can get Colonel Lemuleson on the phone, I’m not going anywhere near your headquarters.”

  “Let’s clear the air here, Major,” Major Masters said. “I’m the assistant G-2—”

  “So you said,” McCoy interrupted.

  Major Masters glowered at him, then picked up:

  “—of the 25th Division. Interrogation of prisoners is my responsibility. You do understand that?”

  “None of these people will tell any of your interrogators anything,” McCoy said. “I think maybe, once he sees we’re back in Seoul, the colonel may be more cooperative.”

  “We won’t know what any of the prisoners will say, will we, Major, until we sit them down before an interrogator who speaks Korean?”

  “Mr. Zimmerman and I both speak Korean, Major, and we’ve already talked to these people. And to clear the air, these are our prisoners, not yours.”

  “That brings us back to Question One, doesn’t it?” Major Masters asked icily. “Just who the hell are you, Major? And what are you doing in the 25th Division’s area?”

  McCoy looked at him for a moment, then ducked through the narrow sandbagged opening into the CP without replying.

  A slight, very young corporal was sitting on a folding metal chair by the radio and an EE-8 field telephone.

  “Corporal,” McCoy said, “see if you get through to G-2 at Division on the landline.”

  The corporal looked to Captain Allen for guidance. Allen nodded. The corporal cranked the generator handle on the side of the leather-cased EE-8.

  “Patch me through to Regiment,” he ordered after a moment, and then, a moment after that, he ordered, “Patch me through to Division.”

  McCoy walked to him and took the handset from him.

  “Wolf Two, please,” he said.

  Twenty miles away, in a small village called Anyang, seven miles or so south of Seoul, in what had been built to be the waiting room of the railway station, Technical Sergeant Richard Ward picked up the handset of one of three EE-8 field telephones on the shelf of his small, folding wooden field desk.

  “Wolf Two, Sergeant Ward, sir.”

  “Trojan Horse Six for the colonel, Sergeant,” McCoy said.

  “Hold one,” Ward said, and extended the handset to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lemuleson, a short, thin forty-year -old in too large fatigues, who was the intelligence officer of the 25th Division.

  “For you, Colonel,” Ward said, and added, “Trojan Horse Six.”

  Colonel Lemuleson turned from the map board leaning against the wall.

  “Good!” he said. “I was getting worried.”

  He took the handset, pressed the butterfly switch, and said, “Wolf Two.”

  “Trojan Horse Six, sir. Good evening, sir.”

  Captain Allen handed Major McCoy a china mug of steaming coffee. McCoy smiled his thanks.

  “Welcome home,” Colonel Lemuleson’s voice came somewhat metallically over the landline. “You’re all right? Where are you?”

  “At a roadblock south of Suwon, sir. We just came through.”

  “And apparently nobody shot at you. I was concerned about that.”

  “Yes, sir, that was a concern.”

  “I’ve got a message for you. Ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “ ‘Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. Acknowledge. Confirm. Signature Hart, Capt., USMCR, for Admiral Dewey.’ Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “Got that just after you left,” Colonel Lemuleson said. “It was in the clear. Couldn’t get you on the radio.”

  “It was in the clear” meant that the message had not been encrypted, which meant further that someone had decided there wasn’t time to go through the encryption process. And that it wasn’t encrypted explained “Admiral Dewey.” Captain George S. Hart, USMCR, aide-de-camp (and bodyguard) to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, Assistant Director for Asia of the Central Intelligence Agency, did not want to use Pickering’s name in a non-encrypted message.

  “The radio in the jeep went out before we were out of Seoul, sir,” McCoy said. “Can you take a reply, sir?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Acknowledge and confirm Kimpo oh nine hundred twenty-nine September. All well. Fresh eggs but no ham. Signature, McCoy.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Lemuleson said, “Got it,” read it back for confirmation, and then asked, “Are you going to explain the ham and eggs business, McCoy? And who the hell is Admiral Dewey?”

  “I better not, sir. But if memory serves, Admiral Dewey won the battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War.”

  Lemuleson chuckled. “I knew I’d heard the name someplace. Anything else I can do for you, McCoy?”

  “Yes, sir, there is. Sir, if I’m to be at Kimpo at 0900, I’d like to go there tonight—”

  “That may be risky, McCoy,” Lemuleson said. “I don’t want to get a report in the morning that somebody shot first before asking any questions.”

  “Yes, sir. But I don’t think I have much choice. Making things more difficult is that we picked up some prisoners. What I’d like to do is send four of them to you with one of my sergeants. You could give him that envelope—”

  “It’s under a thermite grenade in my safe,” Lemuleson interrupted.

  “—and he could bring it to us in Seoul at first light.”

  “And if you need some identification tonight?”

  “I’ll have to take that chance, sir.”

  “Your call, McCoy,” Lemuleson said. “Done.”

  “May I have that phone, please, Major?” Major Masters asked. It was more of an order.

  McCoy considered the request for a moment, then said, “Hold one, sir, please. Major Masters wants to talk to you.”

  “What the hell is he doing there?” Lemuleson said.

  McCoy handed the handset to Masters.

  “Masters, sir. These people have five prisoners, one of them a lieutenant colonel, and Major McCoy refuses to turn him over to me.”

  He looked triumphantly at McCoy.

  McCoy and the others could hear only one side of the ensuing conversation.

  “Trying to stay on the top of the situation, sir,” Major Masters said, and then, “Yes, sir.”

  And then, “Yes, sir.”

  And then, “Yes, sir.”

  And then, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that, sir.”

  Then he handed the handset back to McCoy.

  “The colonel wants to speak to you, Major,” he said.

  “Yes, sir?” McCoy said.

  “Sorry about that, McCoy. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and for obvious reasons—God save us all from well-meaning idiots—I didn’t want to tell him.”

  “I understand, sir. No problem.”

  “I told him to do whatever you tell him to do, and to ask no questions.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “If you need anything else, give a call.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” McCoy said, and handed the handset to the corporal.

  “Major, would you be willing to lead my Marines—the jeep and the weapons carrier—to Division?” McCoy asked.

  “Certainly,” Major Masters said. “Anything I can do to be of servi
ce. . . .”

  [TWO]

  SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 1935 28 SEPTEMBER 1950

  Staff Sergeant John J. Doheny, USMC, thought it highly unlikely that “fleeing remnants” of the North Korean Army would drive boldly up Korean National Route 1 with their headlights blazing, but it never hurt to be careful.

  “Heads up!” Doheny ordered when the headlights first illuminated, then stopped at the wrecked and burned General Motors 6 × 6 truck he had ordered dragged into the middle of the road as sort of a prebarrier to his roadblock fifty yards up the road.

  “Halt, who goes there?” a voice in the darkness called to the lights.

  That was Corporal Daniel Meredith, USMCR, whom Doheny had stationed with three other Marines, one of them armed with a BAR, in the ditches on either side of the burned truck barrier.

  On one hand, Doheny thought, that sounded a little silly, as if they were at Parris Island or someplace, waiting for a drill instructor to inspect the guard post and demand a recitation of the Ten General Orders, instead of here, in the middle of a war.

  On the other hand, he couldn’t think of any other challenge that could be made that did the job as well. What else could Meredith shout? “Hi, there! Mind stopping there a moment, and telling me who you are?” or maybe, “Pardon me, sir, are you a friendly or a fucking gook Communist?”

  “Marines!” a deep voice called back.

  The beam of one flashlight and then another appeared, one from each side of the road. If his orders had been followed—and Sergeant Doheny had no reason to think they hadn’t—PFC Miller, the big hillbilly with the BAR, now had it trained on the vehicle on the road from his position nowhere near the flashlights, waiting for orders to fire from Meredith.

  Sergeant Doheny could now see enough to know there was something really strange down there. There were three men in a strange-looking jeep. The two in the front had their hands over their heads. The one in the back just sat there.

  There was an American flag draped over the hood of the vehicle.

  As Doheny got to his feet, he saw Meredith come onto the road from behind the vehicle, holding his carbine at the ready.

  A moment later, Corporal Meredith bellowed, “Sergeant Doheny, I think you better come down here!”

  Doheny ran quickly down the ditch, pushing the safety off on his M-1 Garand as he did. When he was beside the funny-looking vehicle, he came out of the ditch, holding the Garand like a hunter expecting to flush a bird.

  A not-at-all-friendly voice called to him from the vehicle.

  “Doheny, tell that moron to get that fucking light out of my eyes, or I’ll stick it up his ass!”

  “Who is that?” Doheny called back.

  “Gunner Zimmerman! Are you blind as well as deaf?”

  I knew I knew that fucking voice!

  Staff Sergeant Doheny and Master Gunner Zimmerman had been professionally associated at one time or another at the USMC Recruit Training Facility, Parris Island; Camp Lejeune; and Camp Pendleton.

  Doheny was more than a little in awe of Master Gunner Zimmerman. He was a Marine’s Marine: tough, competent, and fair. And—although Zimmerman had never said anything about it himself—Doheny knew that during War Two Zimmerman had been a Marine Raider.

  “Turn those fucking flashlights off,” Sergeant Doheny ordered. They were out immediately.

  “Jesus, Mr. Zimmerman, what the fuck are you doing out here?” Doheny inquired.

  “Major McCoy,” Gunner Zimmerman said, “this is Staff Sergeant Doheny. He’s not too bad a Marine—when he’s sober.”

  Sergeant Doheny saluted.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t see any insignia. . . .”

  “How are you tonight, Sergeant?” McCoy replied, returning the salute.

  “Can’t complain, sir. Sir, with respect, what the fuck is this vehicle?”

  “We took it away from the prisoner in the backseat, Sergeant,” McCoy said. “As best as I can tell, it’s a Chinese copy of a Russian vehicle the Russians copied after a German jeep.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Doheny said, and then stepped close to the vehicle and looked in the backseat. There was enough reflected light from the headlights for him to be able to see a hatless North Korean officer tightly trussed up and then tied to the backseat.

  “What happened to the truck?” Zimmerman asked.

  “No fucking idea. I had it drug into the road so anyone coming down the road would have to stop.”

  “Good thinking, Sergeant,” McCoy said. “How do we get around it?”

  “Sir, if you’re careful, you can get around it in a jeep,” Doheny said. “I done that. I don’t know about in this.”

  “Well, we’ll try. What’s between here and Seoul, Sergeant?”

  “There’s a checkpoint at the pontoon bridge over the Han River, sir. And that’s about it. So far as action is concerned, we’ve got it pretty well cleaned out, but there’s action north and east.”

  He pointed. There were flashes of dull light, and booming noises. It could have been a distant thunderstorm. It was, in fact, artillery.

  “You got a landline to the checkpoint?” Zimmerman said. “I would really hate to get this close only to get blown away because somebody thought if it’s riding around in a gook vehicle, it’s probably a gook.”

  Sergeant Doheny sensed that the explanation was a shot at the major.

  “No problem, sir,” he said. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  The major turned around and said something to the North Korean officer, who, after a moment, responded. Then the major turned to Sergeant Doheny.

  “The colonel needs to relieve himself, and so do I. Can your people untie him, and watch him?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re about fifty yards the other side of the truck.”

  “Okay. We’ll do that next. And then . . . have you got any sandbags?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll need a couple of them, please.”

  “Yes, sir. Sandbags?”

  “Empty ones.”

  “I got stacks of them, sir.”

  “I think two will be enough, thank you.”

  [THREE]

  THE HOUSE SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA 2045 28 SEPTEMBER 1950

  The sound of the cannon fire and the muzzle flashes lighting the sky had grown progressively louder and brighter as they approached the center of Seoul. There was obviously fighting, heavy fighting, on the outskirts of the city.

  They were stopped three times inside the city, twice by Army military policemen and once by a Marine patrol, but the American flag on the hood and Zimmerman’s gruff declaration that they were “transporting a prisoner”—and, of course, the prisoner himself, with two sandbags over his head—was enough to satisfy the MPs and a Marine sergeant. They were not asked for either orders or identification.

  The city was in ruins. The North Koreans had defended it block by block, and there was the smell of burned wood and rotting flesh. The streets were full of debris, and their progress was slow.

  But finally McCoy turned the Russian jeep off a narrow street, stopped before a wrought-iron fence in a brick wall, and blew the horn.

  Immediately—startling them—floodlights mounted on the brick wall glowed red for an instant, then bathed them in a harsh white light.

  Master Gunner Zimmerman bellowed the Korean equivalent of “Turn those fucking lights off!”

  The lights died and the gate swung open. As McCoy drove though it, he saw that an air-cooled .30-caliber Browning machine gun was trained on them.

  The building inside the wall looked European rather than Asiatic. It was of brick-and-stone construction, three stories tall. It had been built in 1925 for Hamburg Shipping, G.m.b.H., which had used it to house their man in Seoul. It was purchased from them in 1946 by Korean Textile Services, Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Far East Fur & Textiles, Ltd., of Hong Kong, which, it was alleged, was owned several steps distant by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as “The Hou
se.”

  A Korean in U.S. Army fatigues came out of the front door as McCoy pulled the Russian jeep up in front of the veranda beside three jeeps and a three-quarter-ton ambulance. The overpainted Red Cross markings on the sides of the ambulance body were still visible.

  The Korean—he was at least six feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds, enormous for a Korean—came down the stairs, slinging his Thompson submachine gun over his shoulder as he did.

  He said nothing.

  In Korean, McCoy ordered, “Take the colonel in the house. Put him in one of the basement rooms. Once he’s there, put a guard on him, untie him, take the sandbags off his head, and give him something to eat. I want him alive and unhurt.”

  The enormous Korean nodded his understanding. “The others?” he asked in English.

  “They’ll be here early tomorrow morning, all of them,” McCoy said. Then he asked, “Is he here?”

  “In the library,” the Korean replied, again in English.

  McCoy nodded, and he and Zimmerman got out of the Russian jeep and walked into the house.

  The library was the first door on the right off the foyer. McCoy pushed open the door and walked in.

  The first time McCoy had been in the room, the bookshelves lining three walls had been full. Now they were bare. The Inmun Gun had stripped the house of everything reasonably portable as soon as they had taken over the building.

  “It’s not amazing how little is left,” Dunston had philosophized, “but how much.”

  Dunston, a plump, comfortable-appearing thirty-year-old whose Army identification card said that William R. Dunston was a major of the Army’s Transportation Corps, sat at a heavy carved wooden table. A Coleman gasoline lantern on the table glowed white, and Dunston was using it to read Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper.

  Dunston was not actually a major, or even in the Army, despite his uniform and identity card. He was in fact a civilian employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, and before having been run out of Seoul by the advancing North Korean Army had been the Seoul CIA station chief. After the landings at Inchon, Dunston had flown back into the city as soon as enough of the runway at Kimpo Airfield had been cleared to take an Army observation aircraft.