There was therefore the smell of rotting bodies that seemed to be getting worse, not better, even though it was getting chilly all the time, and freezing cold at night.
There was no question that the tide of war had changed. The North Koreans were not only retreating but bore little resemblance to an organized military force.
So obviously all he had to do was . . .
Make himself invisible to the P-51 pilots, so they wouldn't blow him away. To that end, he had plastered his face and hands with mud, so they would not be a bright spot on the ground to be investigated and strafed. Or maybe just strafed, skipping the investigation, and . . .
Make himself invisible to the retreating North Koreans, who would almost certainly shoot him if they could, not for a military reason but to see if he had anything to eat, and . . .
Wait for friendly troops to come up one of the roads. There were several problems with that. Friendly troops would, like the P-51 pilots, conclude that anybody here in the middle of nowhere was a North Korean. American troops might take such people prisoner. From what he had seen, the South Koreans would not.
The major problem was that he had been on short rations since he'd been shot down, and over the last four or five days the short rations had diminished to zero. And since he had stopped eating, he could feel his strength diminishing with each step—each labored breath—he took.
He didn't think, in other words, that he was going to make it.
He was not going to give up, but on the other hand there wasn't much difference between what he was able to do and giving up. Unless, of course, he gave up by taking a dive off the nearby cliff or putting the .45 to his temple, and even being hungry, dirty, tired, and sick seemed better than those options. With his luck, he thought, he wouldn't get killed taking a dive off the cliff, he would break both legs and arms and lie in agony for Christ only knew how long.
There was another option to checking out, if that's what was going to happen, and that was to lie on one of the boulders and let the sun warm him while he thought of Jeanette.
At first, when he thought of Jeanette, the thoughts were erotic. Now when he thought of her, there was little lust in the fantasy. He remembered how she smelled and the soft touch of her fingers on his face.
It would be very nice, he thought, if he wasn't going to make it, if he went to sleep in the sun thinking of Jeanette and then just never woke up.
He thought about asking God to give him at least that, but decided against it. He asked God to make it as easy on Jeanette and his mother and father, and Ernie, and even Killer McCoy. It wasn't right, he thought, to ask God for special treatment, but his parents and Jeanette and the others shouldn't have pain on his account. Maybe God would see it that way, too.
He had just turned onto his stomach when he heard the sound of tearing metal. That caught his attention, and then he heard the sound of clashing gears and an engine racing.
He got up, and walked as quickly as he could manage around an outcropping of rock to the cliff he decided he would not take a dive from, and looked down at the road.
It was a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles. A very strange one. In the lead was a jeep. Behind it were two M-26 tanks, a tank recovery vehicle, a heavy-duty wrecker, another tank recovery vehicle, and then another heavy-duty wrecker. Pickering closed his eyes and shook his head to make sure he wasn't delusionary. When he opened his eyes again, the convoy was still there. It wasn't moving, and he saw why. The first heavy-duty wrecker had collided with the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle and knocked its rear wheels off the road. Pickering went down the hill as fast as he could. He made it to the road.
He put his hands over his head and started walking down it. "American!" he shouted. "Don't shoot!"
And then he began to sing and shout, as loud as he could manage: "From the Halls of Montezuma, "American! Don't shoot! "To the Shores of Tripoli "American! Don't shoot! "We will fight our nation's battles! "American! Don't shoot! "On the Land and on the Sea! "American! Don't shoot!"
Captain Francis P. MacNamara, commanding officer of the 8023d Transportation Company (Depot, Forward), who had elected to lead the test over-the-road run to the east coast, who was examining the considerable damage the wrecker had done to the retrieval trailer, heard the noise.
He drew his .45, worked the action, shouted "Heads up!" and stepped into the center of the road.
A tall, thin human being, too large for a Korean, was walking down the center of the road with his hands in the air. He was wearing what looked like the remnants of some kind of coveralls. His face was streaked with mud.
And he was making strange sounds.
I’ll be a sonofabitcb if he isn't singing! And it's "The Marines' Hymn"! I'll be a sonofabitch!
"Who the hell are you?" Captain MacNamara demanded.
"Major Malcolm S. Pickering, United States Marine Corps," Pick croaked . . . and then fell first to his knees, and then flat on his face.
MacNamara hurriedly holstered his .45 and ran to him.
He first felt for signs of life, then turned him over and wrapped his arms around him and held him like a baby.
"Get some water up here!" he shouted. "And there's a bottle of bourbon in the glove compartment in my jeep. Bring that. And some blankets."
"And if you happen to have some food," the walking skeleton in his arms said, very faintly.
"You got it, Major," Captain MacNamara said.
Five minutes later, Major Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was laid out on several blankets on the trailer of the tank recovery vehicle. He had been given a stiff drink of Captain MacNamara's Old Forester—which he had promptly thrown up—and half a dozen spoonfuls of ham chunks in pineapple sauce, three of which he had managed to keep down.
The blankets had been provided by Technical Sergeant Alvin H. Donn, U.S. Army, who was the NCO in charge of the M-26 tanks. He had also held Major Pickering up in a sitting position while Captain MacNamara had, with all the tenderness of a mother, spoon-fed him the ham chunks in pineapple sauce, and while he had thrown up.
There were now a dozen men standing at the side of the tank recovery trailer looking down with mingled amazement, curiosity, and pity at the human skeleton on the blankets.
Sergeant Donn pointed to Staff Sergeant James D. Buckley, the commander of the second tank.
"Stay with the major," he ordered. "Try to get some food in him. No more booze."
When Buckley had taken his place, Donn slid off the trailer and nodded his head at Captain MacNamara, a signal he wanted a word with him. MacNamara followed him to the recovery vehicle tractor.
He had made a snap judgment when he had first met Sergeant Donn. A goddamn good NCO, as he himself had been. He had then thereafter treated him accordingly.
"That guy's in really bad shape," Sergeant Donn said. "We've got to get him to a hospital."
"We'll have to get this out of the way," MacNamara agreed, slamming the tank retriever trailer with his fist. "Fuck it, we'll just push it the rest of the way off the road. Maybe we could lay him on the hood of the jeep. But where the hell do we take him?"
"I've got a radio in the tank that sometimes lets me talk to light aircraft," Donn said. "We could give that a shot." MacNamara nodded his head.
They walked past the second tank to the first, and crawled onto it. Donn lowered himself into the turret and came up a minute later with a microphone and a headset.
"What do they call this circus?"
"Task Force Road Service," MacNamara said. That had been Colonel Kennedy's whimsical suggestion/order.