"General, you asked me," Hart said.
"Here it comes," Keller said, pointing out the window, as the Bataan turned off the taxiway and approached the tarmac in front of the hangar.
"You two stay in the car," Pickering ordered. "If McCoy is on the Bataan, I'm going to take him under the wing and bite off a large chunk of his ass, and I don't want an audience."
Ground crewmen rolled up movable steps to the rear door of the airplane. Pickering got out of the front seat and walked toward it.
The Bataans door opened and four military policemen, wearing steel helmets and other battlefield accoutrements, and carrying Thompson submachine guns, came down the stairs and quickly assumed positions facing the stairs.
What the hell is going on here?
McCoy appeared at the door, a Thompson hanging from his shoulder. He looked around the area, then started down the stairs. Then he saw General Pickering. He smiled and raised his hand in salute.
That smile's not going to do you a goddamn bit of good, McCoy!
Your ass is mine. You won't forget this ass-chewing for the rest of your life.
Pickering marched coldly toward the stairs.
He watched McCoy start down the stairs again, saw him slip, or stagger, saw him grab the railing, and then fall. He ended up sprawled on his stomach at the foot of the stairs.
Two of the MPs rushed to help him.
"Back where you were!" McCoy snapped, and tried to push himself up. And fell back down again.
Pickering rushed to him. He heard two car door slams, which told him that Hart and Keller had seen what happened, and were coming.
"You all right, Ken?" Pickering heard himself asking with concern.
There goes the goddamned ass-chewing.
"Let me sit here a second, sir," McCoy said. "I'll be all right."
"What the hell happened?"
"I guess I got a little dizzy, sir," McCoy said.
"Keller wants you to do it again, Killer," Hart said as he came up. "All he saw was the crash landing." And then he saw McCoy's face. "Jesus Christ! Did you break something?"
"No," McCoy said. "I don't think I did my fucking leg any good, but I don't think anything's broken." He looked up at Pickering. "If you'll take the Thompson, sir, these two can get me on my feet."
Pickering took the submachine gun.
Hart went behind McCoy, wrapped his arms around his middle, and with no apparent effort hoisted him erect.
"You're sure nothing's broken?" he asked.
"I would know," McCoy said. But he didn't protest when Hart grasped his right upper arm firmly, and motioned for Keller to do the same thing with the left one.
There was the sound of sirens, and moments later, four Military Police jeeps came onto the tarmac from behind the hangar.
"Well," McCoy said. "I'm glad nothing was really wrong. They took their sweet time getting here."
"What's going on?" Pickering asked.
"I had the pilot tell the tower to send MP jeeps here," McCoy explained.
Four MPs, one of them a lieutenant, all in sharply creased olive-drab Class A uniforms, with white leather accoutrements and plastic covers on their brimmed caps against the rain, rushed up.
"What's going on here?" the lieutenant demanded, and belatedly recognizing the star on Pickering's collar points and epaulets, added as he saluted, "Sir? Good evening, sir."
"I'm going to need a forty-passenger bus," McCoy said. "And an MP escort to the Dai Ichi Building," McCoy said.
"What for, Ken?" Pickering asked softly.
"To transport thirty-two Red Chinese prisoners of war, sir. They were captured this morning. I understand General Willoughby doesn't think the Chinese are in the war. If this doesn't convince him, I don't know what will."
The lieutenant looked at General Pickering. "Sir, I don't know—"
"It looks simple enough to me, Lieutenant," Pickering said. "You heard the major. Get a bus, and get it right now."
By the time the bus arrived, so had a half-dozen more Military Police jeeps, plus a jeep with the logotype of Stars and Stripes painted beneath the windshield, and carrying three men whose uniforms bore WAR CORRESPONDENT insignia. Everybody had a camera.
"What's going on here?" several of them demanded at once.
"We're about to unload some Red Chinese prisoners of war," Pickering said, "who will be transported to the Dai Ichi Building for interrogation by General Willoughby."
That produced a flood of questions—including "Who are you?"—all of which Pickering ignored.
"Lieutenant," Pickering said to the MP lieutenant. "Permit the press to take pictures as the prisoners are taken off the airplane. The Geneva Convention prohibits the interview of prisoners without their permission, and I'm sure that permission will not be forthcoming. So keep them away from the prisoners. And keep the press here when the bus leaves."
"Sir, I don't know who you are," the lieutenant said.
"That's not important," Pickering said. "I'm a general officer, and you're a lieutenant. All right?"
"Yes, sir."
"I will need a ride in one of your jeeps," Pickering said.
"Yes, sir."
"General," McCoy said. "I want to go to the Dai Ichi Building."
"Hart and Keller are going to take you to the hospital, Major, and I don't want any argument. I'll meet you there."
"I really would like to see the prisoners go into the Dai Ichi Building, sir."
"Even if I told you Ernie's back in the hospital?" Pickering asked.
McCoy's face showed his stunned reaction, but he didn't say anything.
Pickering took pity on him.
"She's all right, Ken. It's probably another false alarm."
"Then there's no real reason I couldn't go to the Dai Ichi Building, is there, sir?"
Pickering looked at him for a long moment.
"I guess you've earned that, McCoy," Pickering said. "Lieutenant, I won't need that ride. Why don't you start off-loading the prisoners?"
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said.
"George, bring the car around for Major McCoy," Pickering ordered, then climbed the stairs up to the Bataan after the lieutenant.
[FIVE]
Room 39A, Neuro-Psychiatric Ward
U.S. Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
143O 2 November 195O
In Tokyo, and in Korea, it was the middle of the night, and it was raining, a cold, steady drizzle. Halfway around the world, in San Diego, California, it was midafternoon on what Brigadier General Clyde W Dawkins somewhat grumpily thought of as "another goddamn perfect Southern California day."
In the back of his mind, there had been a faint, perhaps somewhat disloyal, hope that there would suddenly develop a thunderstorm of such proportions that a full-scale retreat parade would be out of the question. His last check of the weather, just before he got in his staff car at Camp Pendleton, had completely dashed that hope. The weather was perfect and it was going to stay that way.
Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, was not in his room when he pushed open the door and marched in.
The nurse on duty in the ward said, "General, if you had asked me, I could have told you he's in the Officers' Club."
General Dawkins turned to Captain Arthur McGowan, his aide-de-camp.
"Go fetch him, Art. Bring him up here to his room," he ordered.
Major Pickering appeared in his room ten minutes later, smiling happily.
"May the major express his deep appreciation for the general's very timely interruption?" he asked.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Major Pickering reached into the pocket of his hospital bathrobe and brought forth a very thick wad of twenty-dollar bills, which he waved happily.