The generator was running, or would be, if there was fuel. And he pointed to a small stone, thatch-roofed build-ing. McCoy saw that there was a small electrical network coming out of it, with one wire leading to several of the houses and another leading out to the wharf.
McCoy walked to the building and went inside, with Kim following him. There was a small, diesel-powered generator. McCoy saw that it had been made in Germany. And there was room to set up the SCR-300, and he said so.
"I'll have them bring it here," Kim said.
"And then I think we should see if the mayor can see anything on the aerial photos we may have missed," Mc-Coy said. "And see about finding someplace my people can stay. I don't like the idea of them being at the water's edge-too easy to see if somebody comes calling."
"There's several houses up the hill," Kim said.
"Let's have a look at those. We can have the mayor look at the photos there."
The houses on the hill had two advantages. They were within range of the Marines' weapons should the North Koreans decide to have a look at Tokchok-kundo, but they were far enough away so that Marines wearing Korean clothing could probably pass for Koreans.
And one disadvantage. They had been placed where they were to facilitate the drying of fish on racks fastened to their thatched roofs.
What the hell, after a day, they'll probably not even no-tice the smell.
The houses were made of stone, basically round struc-tures, with small rooms with straight walls leading off them. In the center structure were platforms apparently used as beds against the outer wall. There was a place for a fire in the middle, apparently used both for cooking and to heat the floors and the platforms in winter. They were at once simple and sophisticated.
McCoy had been in similar huts on the mainland during the winter, and had never been able to figure out how the heating system worked.
A bare lightbulb-one of three strung over the plat-forms-glowed red for a moment and then shone brightly, signaling that the generator was now up and running. Mc-Coy laid out the aerial photographs on the platform, and told the old man he would be grateful if he would look at them.
Surprising McCoy not at all, the war correspondent of the Chicago Tribune came into the house as the old man was looking at the aerial photographs.
"Is this where I get to stay?" she asked.
"Probably," McCoy said. "Every maiden's prayer-the only girl sharing a seaside cottage with four handsome and virile Marines."
"What are you doing?" she asked, annoyed.
"These are aerial pictures of Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do," he said. "The islands we're going to have to take."
As she bent over them for a look, Zimmerman, Taylor, and Staff Sergeant Worley, the radio operator, a small, slim man in his late thirties, came into the house. All three were sweating.
They ran up the hill, McCoy decided. But they look more disgusted than angry or alarmed. Now what?
"Look at this goddamn thing," Zimmerman said, point-ing to a nearly square-about five inches on a side-olive-drab tin can in Worley's hand.
"What is it?"
"It's from the SCR-300...."
"It's a transformer, sir," Sergeant Worley said.
"Without which the SCR-300 won't work?"
Oh, shit!
"When we took it out of the crate, sir, I noticed oil," Worley said. "It came from here, I found out."
He pointed to a corner of the transformer, where the sol-dered joint had separated.
"The question was, the radio won't work without it?"
"No, sir."
"You can't fix it? Replace the oil, whatever?"
"I could maybe have done something," Worley said, em-barrassed. "But I burned the sonofabitch up when I fired up the transformer." He met McCoy's eyes. "Captain, I never had one of these fail on me before. But it's my fault, I should have checked."
Yeah, you should have. But there's no point in eating you out now. What's done is done.
"I told you getting that thing up was the first priority,"
McCoy said. "So you hurried. It's as much my fault as yours."
"No, sir, it's not," Worley said.
"So what do we do now?"
"I'll try to rig something, Captain, but I can't promise..."
"How long will that take?" McCoy asked.
"Longer than we have," Taylor said. "Unless you want to spend another twelve-maybe twenty-four-hours here."
"Those fucking tides?" McCoy asked angrily.
"Those... expletive deleted... tides," Taylor replied.
"Sorry, Jeanette," McCoy said. "That slipped out."
"I told you," Taylor said. "The data in the tide book is wrong."
"Is that the same tide book they're using in the Dai-Ichi Building?"
"That's where I got this one."
"And it's wrong?"
"I told you, this place has mixed tides. And this must be, for here, the worst part of the monthly cycle. This area was not supposed to be as low as it is. Or going out as fast as it is."
"And what about an invasion fleet?"
"We better have that radio up and running by the time they decide to try to come down the Flying Fish," Taylor said. "Or there's liable to be ships stuck in the mud from here to Inchon."
"How soon do we have to leave?"
"Now," Taylor said. "The sooner the better."
"Okay," McCoy said. "Worley, I'll get a transformer to you as quick as I can. How delicate are they?"
"They're usually built... hell, sir, look at it. What hap-pened to this one probably won't happen again for years."
"If we wrapped one up well, cushioned it good, could it be dropped from an airplane?"
"Yeah, but dropping it with a chute would probably be better, sir."
"Zimmerman, I'm going to take Jennings back with me. He's a world-class scrounger. And we have to do some fast and fancy scrounging."
Zimmerman nodded his understanding.
"I suggest you set up in these houses. Make firing posi-tions in case you need them. When you put out panels, put them between the houses. Start training the natives," Mc-Coy said. "And make sure the bad guys don't learn you're on the island."
Zimmerman touched his forehead in a gesture only vaguely resembling a salute. But that's what it was.
"You're going to drop supplies on here from an air-plane?" Jeanette asked.
"If I can," he said.
"And you're going to Tokyo?"
"Right."
"I need to talk to you a minute," she said.
"You heard what Taylor said. We have to get out of here now."
"It's important to me," she said.
"Okay," he said, gesturing to one of the small rooms opening off the center of the house.
He followed her into the room.
"Make it quick," he said when she didn't immediately start to talk.
"I don't know why the hell I'm so embarrassed," she said. "You're a married man, right? And you had those `personal hygiene' classes in high school, right?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Would you please ask your wife to go to the PX and get me sanitary napkins and tampons? And then drop them in here with that transformer for the radio?"
He didn't reply for a moment.
"Don't be clever about this, McCoy," she said. "I hadn't planned to make this trip."