"And when the invasion doesn't take place in the next three or four days, you think they will relax?"
"Yes, sir," Pickering said. "I spoke with Captain McCoy on the radio shortly before I came here. He said the North Koreans on the islands were not in radio contact with the mainland. So they could not have reported they were under attack by U.S. and Royal Marines. He believes the decep-tion worked."
"Royal Marines?"
"Yes, sir. From HMS Jamaica. And HMS Charity pro-vided naval gunfire for the assaults."
"So Admiral Matthews also felt D Minus One for the as-sault on the islands was not a good idea," MacArthur said. "I wonder why he didn't come to me with his objections."
"I can only guess that he felt much as I felt, sir."
MacArthur looked at him for a long moment, then asked, thoughtfully, "We have no idea what will happen between now and the invasion, do we?"
"No, sir. But McCoy feels-and I concur-that if there is an attack on the islands, and we refrain from using gunfire from the Charity to repel it, it would lend credence to the idea that the whole thing was a South Korean operation, nothing more."
"In which case, we would lose the islands."
"Not necessarily, sir. There're thirty South Korean po-lice already on the islands, and we intend to reinforce them. If an attack doesn't come for several days, We should have enough South Koreans in place to repel anything but a major effort."
"That's a pretty iffy situation," MacArthur said. "So iffy that I don't consider it wise to throw this equation-what if we already held the islands?-into the last-minute plan-ning just yet. Right now, the fewer people who know about this, the better, and we will take things as they develop. Wouldn't you agree, Fleming?"
"Yes, sir."
Don't tell me that's it?
We're back to "Fleming"? And he just wants to sit on this, "take things as they develop " ?
"Would you like another little drop before we go into supper, Fleming?" the Supreme Commander asked. "Or not?"
"I think another one would go down nicely, sir. Thank you."
[FIVE]
TOKCHOK-KUNDO ISLAND
0530 26 AUGUST 1950
"I can stay," Lieutenant David Taylor, USNR, said to Cap-tain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMC. "Kim is as good a skipper for the Wind of Good Fortune as I am, and Major Kim will be aboard."
"What, are there two last names in all of Korea-Kim and Lee?" Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman observed rhetorically.
Taylor and McCoy chuckled.
"Don't let this go to your head, Taylor," McCoy said. "But I disagree, and right now we can't afford to get in trouble with the Wind of Good Fortune. You go. We'll be all right."
"Says the eternal optimist," Zimmerman said.
"The sooner we get the militia off the islands, and Kim's national police on them, the better off we're going to be," McCoy said.
"What makes you so sure there's going to be more na-tional police?" Zimmerman asked.
"Because we now hold the islands, and I don't think any national police commander would want to take the chance of becoming known as the guy who was responsible for us losing them again, simply because he was afraid to rein-force them."
Zimmerman's shrug indicated he accepted the logic.
"I wish we could have kept the Limeys," Zimmerman said. "At least the boats."
"They couldn't swim back to the Charity," McCoy said. "They left us one of their boats, and the radio..."
"But not the guy to drive it," Zimmerman argued.
"... and we'll have to do with that," McCoy went on, ig-noring him. And then he changed his mind.
"I want you to have this straight in your mind, Ernie, so I'll go over it one more time. There is no way we can hold any of these islands if the North Koreans really want to take them back. And if they tried they would become damned curious if we put up a hell of a fight-"
"So what we're going to do is hope they stay stupid," Zimmerman interrupted.
"You're getting close to the line, Ernie," McCoy said very coldly. "What we're going to do is when they send a couple of boats-and they will-to see what happened on Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, is have the militia fire on them with rifles. They may get lucky-none of the militia can really shoot, and all they have is the Japanese Arisakas-and kill a couple of the NKs. But even if they don't, bullets will be flying, and nobody likes that. The first time that happens, the NKs may pull back. But they'll come back, and when they do, the militia takes a couple more shots at them, and then takes off into the hills. The NKs, we hope, will take a look around, see no evidence of anybody but Koreans being there, and maybe, maybe, go into the hills after them. More likely, they'll just get back in the boats. They won't have enough men, we don't think, to leave enough men on the islands to garrison them. And why should they? There's nothing on the islands but a bunch of South Koreans armed with some Jap rifles, piss-ing in the wind against the inevitable triumph of the Armies of Socialism. Their misguided brethren can be left there to be dealt with later, by somebody else."
"And when they come here? They'll know Americans are here."
"We'll deal with that when it happens," McCoy said. "And pray it doesn't happen in the next two weeks. What we have to do now is buy time. You got all that straight, now?"
"I got it," Zimmerman said.
"What I was hoping to get, Mr. Zimmerman, was the ex-pected response of a Marine who has been given an order."
Zimmerman met his eyes.
"Aye, aye, sir," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman."
"Jesus, Killer, all I was doing was asking."
"I'll leave you lovebirds now," Lieutenant Taylor said.
"With a little luck, I'll be back in forty-eight hours."
"With fresh eggs, chickens, and bread, right?" Zimmer-man asked.
"With fresh eggs, chickens, and bread," Taylor said.
He saluted, which surprised McCoy, and walked down onto the wharf, gestured to the crew of the Wind of Good Fortune to let loose her lines, and climbed aboard. The ebbing tide immediately started to pull her away from the wharf and toward the Flying Fish Channel, even before Taylor made it to the stern and started her engine.
"Can I say something?" Zimmerman said.
"Why not?"
"Remember Guadalcanal? The Navy dumped the First Division on the beach, and then they took off with the heavy artillery and the rations, leaving the Division on the beach?"
"I remember hearing something about that," McCoy said.
"I used to wonder how those guys felt about getting dumped on some island and watching the Navy sail away. Now I know."
[SIX]
U.S. NAVY BASE SASEBO
SASEBO, KYUSHU, JAPAN
1500 5 SEPTEMBER 1950
LST stands for Landing Ship, Tank, which means the ves-sel was designed to deposit tracked armored fighting vehi-cles directly onto beaches. When approaching a beach, the less draft-the portion of the vessel extending underwa-ter-the better. So the design for the LST had provided for a flat bottom. It was known by the Naval architects, of course, that a flat-bottomed oceangoing vessel was, in any but the calmest of waters, going to toss and turn and twist and otherwise move in such a manner that passengers aboard were liable to be very uncomfortable and possibly, even probably, suffer mal de mer, but passenger comfort was not a design criterion, and getting tanks as close to the beach as possible was.