The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War Read Online Free PDF Page A

Verity had loved it since.
    She asked about her mother, where she was, and why. These were the hard questions. Compared to these, the Brothers Grimm were simple. But Verity tried. Without a real anchor of religion or alternate theory, it was very difficult to tell a child why her mother was dead. And what dead meant. Verity had his own problems with such questions. Why the hell was his twenty-one-year-old wife dead and why did he have to explain that to anyone—stranger or municipal authority, or a little girl?
    Or to himself, for he had no answers.
    Soon Kate would be old enough to understand and to accept such things, and he would be long home by then. A couple of weeks, a couple of months of listening to the Chinese on radios, that was all. That was what the Marine Corps said, a month or two and out. He didn’t know quite how to explain this to Kate, and in a war, of course, one never really knew.

     
    Verity’s orders were simple enough, once you fought through the official forms and poetry about “duty beyond the seas” and joining “Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, with all expedition.”
    He was supposed to report in to Gen. Oliver P. Smith as soon as he could. Except that General Smith was on board a ship rounding the Korean peninsula a few hundred miles at sea. Verity slid one haunch onto the jeep’s fender and pulled out a folded small-scale map of Korea he’d brought from Washington and had studied on and off inside the plane. Gunnery Sergeant Tate, as was right and proper, stood a few paces away, not at attention or anything, waiting.
    “Wonsan?” Verity finally said, wanting to be sure he’d understood Tate’s account of the fleet’s destination.
    “Yessir, Wonsan. Up there on the east coast of North Korea.”
    It was clear enough on the map, which was little more than a Texaco road map. Maybe one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty miles north, north by northeast more precisely, from here on the west coast to Wonsan on the east. There were roads showing on the map; how good, it didn’t indicate.
    “Too bad they didn’t issue you a driver coming over, Gunny.”
    “They did, sir. Had one who wasn’t very good and then he got shot.”
    Tate didn’t look distressed about the driver having been shot, so he must not have been very good. Gunnies were notoriously difficult to please.
    Tate added, not as if it was important, “They said he’d live.”
    Verity was about to inquire who’d shot the driver, “us” or “them,” but bit it off. He didn’t know this Tate yet, not enough to try wit. Instead, he asked, “That radio of yours work at sea?”
    “No better than on land, Captain.”
    “OK, then,” Verity said, a finger tracing the route from Inchon to Wonsan on the spread map, “we’ll get up there by car and meet the navy coming in.”
    “Yes, sir,” Tate said, “like bar girls in Subic Bay welcoming the fleet.”
    Verity must have looked stern, because Tate rolled a tongue around in his mouth as if regretting humor.
    The two Marines were still feeling each other out. Officer and NCO. It was Verity who decided to bridge the distance between them before it became an obstacle. They would, after all, be working together. He didn’t need antagonism.
    “Well,” he said with a small grin, “I don’t know about you, Gunny, but I’m getting a bit old to be a very successful tart.”
    It wasn’t much of a joke, but it relaxed Tate. And that is what bad jokes are for, aren’t they?
    “Yes, sir,” Tate said, not attempting to top Verity. Gunnery sergeants know where to draw the line.
    While the two men talked, all around them was hubbub and expedition, much energy and some work, as a Casual Company left behind by Division finished dismantling what had days earlier been a promising small city. The Marines now taking it down and stowing it away for erection elsewhere were more carpenters and riggers and electricians than anything else, construction workers who happened to carry