Captain McCoy would be aft on the deck to starboard, sitting on the deck, where he hoped the solid railing would keep him from being seen by anyone on the shore. He didn't look much like a Korean sailor.
Neither did Lieutenant Taylor, even though he was now also wearing a black cotton shirt and trousers, and had his hair and forehead wrapped in black cotton. He was in the best position to see what was on the wharf and shore, and was also in the worst position to try to pass himself off as a Korean sailor.
The Marines were to be in the passage below the bridge on the stern, ready to move at McCoy's order.
That order would come when either Major Kim or Lieu-tenant Taylor decided that it no longer mattered if someone on shore could see that McCoy was not a Korean seaman and would call his name.
McCoy would then stand up, have a look himself, and decide what was the smart thing to do.
A flash of reflected light struck the solid railing behind which McCoy was concealing himself. He looked and saw Jeanette Priestly, on her hands and knees, crawling toward him from the door to the passageway under the stern. Her Leica, its case open, hung from her neck and dragged along the deck.
"Okay?" she asked when she reached him, and was sit-ting on the deck, her back against the stern bulkhead.
"Fine. With a little luck, when the shooting starts, you'll catch a bullet."
"You don't mean that," she said.
"Don't I?"
"No," she said, and put the Leica up and took his picture.
"I told you the next time you took my picture without asking, I'd throw your camera over the side."
"You didn't mean that either," she said. "And anyway, you can't do that now. Anyone on shore would see it."
He shook his head.
"You looked very thoughtful, just now, before you saw me," Jeanette said. "Penny for your thoughts, Captain Mc-Coy."
"Jesus Christ!" he said, but he realized he was smiling.
"Well?"
"When I was a kid," he said, "my grandmother had a big plate-from China, I guess-in her dining room. It was painted with pictures of pagodas, and there was a junk, and trees-"
"Willows," she interrupted. "They were willow trees. They call those dishes `Blue Willow,' I think."
"If you say so," he went on. "And I used to look at the damn thing all the time. It fascinated me. Little did that lit-tle boy know that one day he would get to ride on a real junk in the Yellow Sea-"
"Maybe you are human after all," she said.
"-with a crazy lady who's likely to get herself killed, like the cat, from curiosity."
"I'm just trying to do my job," she said.
"Your job is interfering with me doing mine," he said. "When I stand up in a couple of minutes, you stay where you are until I tell you you can move. If you stand up, I'm going to knock you down. Got it?"
"That, I think you mean," she said. "Okay."
A minute later, McCoy gingerly raised his head alongside a stanchion, took a quick look, and dropped quickly back down.
"Remember the cat," Jeanette said. "What did you see?"
"We're fifty yards, maybe a little more, from the wharf. Aside from a couple of hungry-looking dogs on shore, I didn't see any sign of life at all."
Korean seamen lowered all but one sail.
McCoy waited for Taylor to start the engine, in case they had to make a quick exit.
And waited.
And waited.
"What?" Jeanette asked.
"Taylor said he was going to start the engine," McCoy said.
He looked down the deck to Major Kim, who met his glance, then shrugged and held both hands, palms up and out. The message was clear: I don't see anything.
McCoy stood up, as the Wind of Good Fortune scraped against the stone wharf.
Aside from the dogs, who had come from the shore out onto the wharf in curiosity, there was still no sign of life.
"Kim, get your men over the side, get us tied up," Mc-Coy ordered in Korean, and then switched to English. "Ernie, send four men down the wharf to see what they can see in the village."
Zimmerman came out of the passageway under the stern in a crouch, carrying his Thompson. He laid it on the deck and tossed a rope ladder over the side. By the time he had done that, two Marines, one armed with a Browning auto-matic rifle, the other with a Garand, came out of the pas-sageway and knelt behind the rail, training their weapons on the wharf.
Zimmerman, his Thompson slung over his back, started down the ladder and passed from sight. Sergeant Jennings, also with a Thompson, came out of the passageway and immediately went down the ladder. The Marine with the M-l then slung it over his back and went over the side. He was followed by the Marine with the BAR, who chose to toss his weapon over the side to one of the Marines on the wharf before getting on the ladder.
McCoy was pleased with the way that had gone. Not only did the Marines who had been recruited from the brigade seem to know what they were doing, but they were halfway down the wharf before Kim's national policemen managed to get the Wind of Good Fortune tied up to the pier.
"Can I stand up now?" Jeanette asked.
"In a minute," McCoy answered.
An elderly Korean man came out of one of the thatch-roofed stone houses as the Marines reached the shore. Zimmerman motioned for two of the Marines following him to go around him and into the houses nearest to the wharf.
Moments later, they came out of the houses, one of them making a thumbs-up gesture.
"Okay, you can stand up," McCoy said, slung his Garand over his back, and started down the ladder.
When he was on the wharf, and had turned toward the houses, he saw Major Kim, armed with a carbine, trotting down it, almost at the shore. One of his national policemen was right behind him, and as McCoy trotted toward shore, another ran past him.
Kim introduced the old man to McCoy as the village chief, and McCoy as the officer commanding. The old man didn't seem at all surprised that McCoy spoke Korean.
The old man told them that no North Koreans had been to Tokchok-kundo since Kim had last been there, and that he had seen no indication that the small garrisons on Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do had been reinforced with ei-ther men or heavier weapons.
"Okay, Ernie," McCoy ordered, "let's get the stuff off the boat."
The old man turned suddenly and walked, or trotted, as fast as he could on his stilted shoes toward the houses, and went inside first one of them, and then two others. Immedi-ately, people, men, women, and children, came out of the house and started down the wharf toward the Wind of Good Fortune, obviously to help carry whatever the Wind of Good Fortune held ashore. Then he came back to McCoy, Kim, and Zimmerman.
"Do you speak English?" McCoy asked, surprised.
The old man looked at him without comprehension.
"You were speaking Korean," Major Kim said, with a smile.
McCoy saw Jeanette kneeling on the wharf, taking pic-tures of the Koreans.
I didn't tell her she could come ashore, just that she could stand up. But I should have known what she would do.
"First priority, Ernie, is to get the SCR-300 on the air."
Major Kim asked the old man if the generator was run-ning, and where it was.