Part 22 (1/2)
”Mr. Zimmerman!” McCoy called out, and Zimmerman marched over to them.
”Yes, sir?”
”I'm going to need some of our discretionary funds,” McCoy said.
”I saw the sign,” Zimmerman said, taking an oilcloth wallet from his rear pocket. ”How much do you want?”
”We don't want to be greedy,” McCoy said. ”Give Major Dunston two-better make it three-hundred dollars.”
Zimmerman opened the wallet, took from it a packet of money labeled ”$500-Twenty-Dollar Notes,” and counted off two hundred dollars.
He handed what was left to Dunston.
”That should be three hundred,” he said.
”I guess I'm going to try to buy the booze?” Dunston said.
”Uh-huh,” McCoy said. ”And into your capable hands, Major Dunston, I entrust the entire wagon train.”
”Where are you going?”
”Major Donald is going to take Mr. Zimmerman and me on a reconnaissance mission.”
”I'd like to go along,” Dunston said.
”I don't think all three of us should go at the same time,” McCoy said. ”If this flying egg beater should crash and burn with all of us on it, the entire war could well be lost.”
”Indeed it could,” Dunston said.
”Where are we going?” Major Donald asked.
”Not far from Suwon,” McCoy said. ”How well do you know the area?”
”I've flown over it. Not a h.e.l.l of a lot.”
”One of the things we hope to do with your aircraft, Major, is locate and pick up a shot-down Marine pilot who's down there somewhere.”
”I thought the Marines did that sort of thing themselves, ” Donald said.
”Yes, they do,” McCoy said. ”But this is sort of a special case. I'll tell you about it at The House.”
”The House?”
”Where we stay in Seoul,” McCoy explained.
”Do you have any idea where this pilot is?” Donald asked.
”We know where he was thirty-six hours ago.”
He took a map from his pocket, opened it, and pointed out the rice paddy where Pickering had last stamped out his arrow and his initials.
”Can you find that?”
Donald glanced at the map and nodded. ”No problem.” Then he looked at McCoy. ”You think he's there?”
”He was there. He's not now.”
”How do you know?”
”Because we were there,” McCoy said.
”That area's not secure,” Donald blurted. ”The whole NK army is trying to escape through there.”
”So Zimmerman told me,” McCoy said.
Donald digested that a moment, then asked, ”Where do you think this pilot is now?”
”I have no idea. Maybe he's heading east. Maybe we'll get lucky.”
”Whatever you say,” Donald said.
”Send the other helo back to Kimpo and have it put in the hangar,” McCoy ordered.
”Right.”
”We'll see you at the hangar, Bill,” McCoy said. ”And I think I should tell you this: I don't know how it is in the Army, but in the Marine Corps, officers who fail to adequately protect their Cla.s.s VI supplies are castrated.”
”I'll keep that in mind,” Dunston said.
[THREE].
TWO MILES NNE OF HOENGSONG, SOUTH KOREA 1115 30 SEPTEMBER 1950.
Major Malcolm S. Pickering's efforts to drain the rice paddy near Yoju the previous evening so that he could stamp out his initials and the arrow had failed.
It would have been a waste of effort to try to stamp the Here I am, for Christ's sake, come and get me Here I am, for Christ's sake, come and get me message in the dark, so he had waited until morning, hoping that the ground would still be wet and soft enough for the stamping. message in the dark, so he had waited until morning, hoping that the ground would still be wet and soft enough for the stamping.
The reverse proved to be true. When it grew light enough for him to see, he saw that the rice paddy was covered with water, only an inch or two deep, but covered with water.
He thought at first that he hadn't kicked away enough of the earthen dam to completely drain the water. But a quick investigation of the site showed that the paddy was a natural depression in the hillside, and the only way it could possibly be drained would be to dig a trench and empty it across the dirt path into the next-lower rice paddy.
To dig a trench like that, he quickly saw, would require a pick and shovel, and he had neither tool.
This was not the first time he'd had trouble draining a paddy. Very much the same thing had happened to him three times before. This knowledge of itself was not very comforting.
He had put the A-Frame over his shoulders and climbed up and over the crest of that hill, then worked his way eastward.
He had risen at first light, and left the undrained paddy forty minutes later. By eleven-fifteen, he had moved, in his best guess, about ten or eleven miles. As the crow flies, about four.
He was at the crest of another hill-he hadn't counted, but he thought it was probably the fourth crest-when he heard the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata of a helicopter. of a helicopter.