The colonel looked at McCoy for a long moment, then turned to the sergeant.
"You heard the captain," he said. "Get a canteen and a box of C-rations in here."
McCoy took the sergeant's carbine from him and held it on his hip, like a hunter, until the sergeant returned with two canteens and a box of C-rations.
He set the box on the floor, and tried to hand one of the canteens to the North Korean sergeant. He shook his head, "no."
"Take the water," McCoy ordered in Korean. "You are all prisoners. I give the orders here, not your officer."
The sergeant looked at the private, then took the can-teen.
"Bingo," McCoy said, very softly, to the colonel, handed the American sergeant his carbine, and walked out of the room.
He walked out of earshot of the room, then stopped.
"You speak Korean. I'm impressed," the colonel said.
"Are they your prisoners, sir? Or did you inherit them?"
"My third battalion captured them," the colonel said. "Division was supposed to send for them-take them for interrogation...."
"They're from the 83rd Motorcycle Regiment," McCoy said. "They're pretty good. The regimental commander is-the last I heard, a Colonel Pak Sun Hae, who used to be a lieutenant in the Soviet Army. They're well trained, and well equipped."
"Which is, sadly, more than I can say about the 34th In-fantry," the colonel said.
"Colonel, for my purposes-it would make them even more uncomfortable than they are-I'd like Miss Priestly to take their picture. Would that be all right?"
The colonel thought that over.
"Why not?" he said, after a minute, and turned to a master sergeant standing nearby. "There's a lady and a Marine in a Jeep outside, Sergeant. Would you ask them to come in, please?"
`Tell her to bring her camera, Sergeant," McCoy or-dered.
As Jeanette Priestly followed Zimmerman and the ser-geant through the narrow building, there were looks of dis-belief on the faces of the regimental officers and soldiers.
"With the caveat that I don't think you should be here," the colonel said, "welcome to the 34th Infantry, Miss Priestly."
"Thank you," she said, and looked at McCoy. "What's up?"
"There're three North Korean prisoners in there," Mc-Coy said, pointing. "I want you to take their picture. Plural. Pictures."
"And then you take my film, right?"
"No. I don't want your film. When you have it processed in Tokyo, I'm sure they'll make prints for G-2. Ernie, you go in there and see if you think any of them speak Chinese. The little guy in the good boots is, I suspect, an officer. He's not going to say much, but if you think one of the oth-ers speaks Chinese, take him someplace and see what he knows. They're from the 83rd Motorcycle Regiment."
Zimmerman nodded. "Aye, aye, sir."
"I would like to use the ladies' room," Jeanette an-nounced.
"I'm afraid we can't offer you much, Miss Priestly," the colonel said.
"I didn't expect that you could," she said, and smiled dazzlingly at him. "Why don't you call me `Jennie,' Colonel. We're friends, right?"
"Sergeant, escort Miss Priestly to the latrine, and stand guard," the colonel ordered. Then he turned to McCoy. "Would you like to have a look at the map, Captain?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
The map, covered with transparent celluloid, was mounted on a sheet of plywood against the wall behind the colonel's desk.
"Here we are now, the regiment-and the division- strung out along the Kum River." He pointed.
"Yesterday morning, Item Company of my 3rd Battal-ion, here, on the south bank of the Kum, was brought under tank fire at about 0600-first light. No real damage was done, but the artillery forward observer couldn't come up with the coordinates of the tanks, so we couldn't hurt them either.
"About the same time, an outpost of Love Company- here on the far left flank-reported seeing two barges ferrying North Koreans across the river two miles to their west. Accidentally, or intentionally, they were out of range of any of our artillery.
"By 0930, they had five hundred men across the river. The North Korean artillery was working, and they brought Love Company under fire, at about the same time as did the mortars of the North Koreans who had crossed the river: 0935 to 0940."
The colonel stopped and looked at McCoy.
"Have you ever been under mortar and artillery fire, Cap-tain? Or have you spent your entire career in intelligence?"
"I've been under fire, sir."
"More than once?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you remember the first time?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where was that?"
"In the Philippines, sir. The Japanese used naval gunfire before landing."
"Were you afraid?"
"Very much, sir."
"Did you `withdraw'?"
"Sir?"
"Did you `withdraw'-the new word for that is `bug out'?"
"No, sir."
"Do you remember why not?"
"No, sir," McCoy said. "We were there to try to repel the landing barges."
"My first time was in Italy," the colonel said. "I shat my pants. But I didn't bug out."
"Sir?"
"The company commander of Love Company, Captain, within minutes of coming under fire, `withdrew.' Not only personally, but ordered his soldiers to do likewise."
McCoy did not reply.
"As it turned out," the colonel went on, "it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The artillery fire on Love Company was apparently a diversionary attack to conceal their real intention, which was to move to the south in this direc-tion-he pointed-and sever the road here. If they had at-tacked the deserted positions of Love Company..."
"I think I get the picture, sir," McCoy said.
"I relieved the officer in question, of course, as soon as what he had done came to my attention, but I didn't come into that information until some time after it happened. By that time-several hours later, whatever time it took them to move three miles against virtually no opposition-ap-proximately three hundred North Korean infantry were here, on this road, near the village of Samyo.
"So was the 63rd Field Artillery Battalion, 105-mm howitzers. They had been providing much of my artillery support. The North Koreans launched an immediate attack against them. Tell me, Captain, how are Marine can-noneers armed?"
"Sir?"
"Are they armed with carbines?"
"I'm not sure. It's my understanding that the officers, and some senior non corns, can elect to carry carbines..."
"But the junior NCOs and privates have Ml Garands, and are trained in their use?"
"Sir, every Marine is a rifleman."
"There were very few Garands in the 63rd Field Ar-tillery," the colonel said, matter of factly, "which is the ex-planation offered for the failure of the 63rd to adequately defend itself by an officer who managed to escape the de-bacle there."
"Sir?"
"Wouldn't you agree that roughly two hundred men- which was the strength of the 63rd-should be able to hold out longer than two hours against three hundred infantry, not supported by artillery?"
"Yes, sir, I would."
"The enemy attacked the 63rd at approximately 1330. By 1530, the enemy had killed or captured all but a lucky few officers and men who managed to escape, and cap-tured all of the 63rd Field's vehicles, cannon, and a consid-erable supply of ammunition."