Call to Arms

Chapter Three

(One)

Corregidor Island

Manila Bay, Island of Luzon

Commonwealth of the Philippines

2115 Hours, 5 January 1942

The United States submarine Pickerel, a 298-foot, fifteen-hundred-ton submersible of the Porpoise class, lay two hundred yards off the fortress island of Corregidor. There was a whaleboat tied alongside, from which small and heavy wooden crates were being unloaded and then taken aboard through the fore and aft torpedo-loading hatches. A second whaleboat could just be made out alongside a narrow pier on the island itself, where it was being loaded with more of the small, heavy wooden crates.

Lieutenant Commander Edgar F. "Red" MacGregor, USN, commander of the Pickerel, was on the sea bridge of her conning tower. MacGregor was a stocky, plump-faced, redheaded thirty-five-year-old graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and he was wearing khaki shirt and trousers, a khaki fore-and-aft cap bearing the shield-and-fouled-anchor insignia of the U.S. Navy, and a small golden oak leaf indicating his rank.

When the last of the crates had been removed from the whaleboat alongside, and it had headed for the pier again, Commander MacGregor bent over a small table on which he had laid out two charts. One of them was a chart of Manila Bay itself, with the minefields marked, and the other was a chart of the South China Sea, which included portions of the islands of Luzon and Mindoro. On the "Luzon" chart was marked with grease pencil the current positions of the Japanese forces that had landed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf on the morning of December 10,1941, and were now advancing down the Bataan Peninsula.

To prevent its destruction, Manila had been declared an open city on December 26, 1941. Japanese troops had entered the city, unopposed, on January 2, 1942.

Meanwhile, General Douglas MacArthur had moved his troops, Philippine and American, to Bataan, where it was his announced intention to fight a delaying action until help reached the Philippines from the United States.

As Commander MacGregor observed the loading of his vessel, it was necessary again and again to force from his mind the thoughts that inevitably came to him. As a professional Naval officer, of course, he was obliged to view the situation with dispassionate eyes.

The Japanese had, almost a month before, destroyed the United States' battleship fleet. The only reason the Japs hadn't sent the aircraft carriers to the bottom of Pearl Harbor as well was that the aircraft carriers had been at sea when they had attacked.

The professional conclusion he was forced in honesty to draw was that the U.S. Pacific Fleet had taken a hell of a blow, one that very easily could prove fatal, and that the "help" MacArthur expected-the reinforcement of the Philippine garrison-was wishful thinking. The United States was very close to losing the Philippines, including the "impregnable, unsinkable 'Battleship' Corregidor."

The proof was that if anyone in a senior position of authority really believed that Corregidor could hold out indefinitely until "help" arrived, the Pickerel would at this moment be out in the South China Sea trying to put her torpedos into Japanese bottoms.

Instead, she was sitting here, for all intents and purposes an unarmed submersible merchantman, taking aboard as much of the gold reserves of the Philippine Commonwealth as she could carry, to keep them from falling into Japanese hands when Corregidor fell.

Commander MacGregor once again reminded himself that there was good reason for what the U.S. Navy had ordered him to do. And that he was a professional Naval officer. And that when he was given an order, he was obliged to carry it out, not to question it, or to entertain doubts about the ability of senior Naval officers. They had to bear the responsibility for getting the Navy into the kind of goddamned mess where a submarine was stripped of its torpedos and turned into a merchantman because control of the seas was in the hands of the enemy.

He did not take his eyes from the chart of Manila Bay again until the second whaleboat had tied up alongside again. Then he looked down from the conning tower.

"Christ!" he muttered. "Now what?"

"Sir?" his exec asked politely.

Commander MacGregor gestured impatiently downward.

Two ladders, lashed edge to edge, had been put over the side. The wooden crates carrying the gold reserves of the Philippine Commonwealth were heavy, too heavy to be carried aboard by one man. They had been taken from sailors in the whaleboat by two husky sailors, each grasping one rope handle, who had then together climbed the slanting ladders, carefully, grunting with the effort, one rung at a time.

What was coming aboard now was not a crateful of gold bars but a man in khaki uniform. He was being helped up the side-by-side ladders by another man in khaki uniform. He needed the help. His left shirt sleeve was empty. Commander MacGregor could not see whether the man had lost his arm or whether it was in a sling under his shirt. He could see that the man had bandages on his head, bandages covering his eyes.

When the one-armed man with the bandaged head reached the deck, he was helped to his feet. After having received the necessary permission to come aboard, he tried to observe the Naval custom of saluting the officer of the deck and then the national colors.

A Naval officer, Commander MacGregor decided.

The attempt to adhere to Naval tradition failed. The blinded man's salute of the officer of the deck and the colors was directed into the bay.

Commander MacGregor went quickly down from the conning tower to the deck. He could now see that the officer with the blinded man wore the silver eagle of a Navy captain. The blinded officer (MacGregor could not see that his arm was strapped against his chest, under his khaki shirt) was also a captain, but a captain of the United States Marine Corps, the equivalent of a U.S. Navy full lieutenant. MacGregor saluted the Navy captain.

"Commander MacGregor, sir," he said. "I'm the skipper." The Navy captain returned the salute. "Captain," he replied, acknowledging Commander MacGregor's role as captain of his vessel, "this is Captain Banning. He will be sailing with you. Captain Banning, this is Captain MacGregor."

The blinded Marine officer put out his hand.

"How do you do, sir?" he said. "Sorry to inflict myself on you."

"Happy to have you aboard, Captain," MacGregor said, aware that it was both inane and a lie. He certainly felt sorry for the poor bastard, but the Pickerel was not a hospital ship, it was a crowded submarine, with only a pharmacist's mate aboard. No place for a man who was not only wounded but incapable of feeding himself-or of seeing.

"Captain Banning," the Navy captain said, "will sail with you. I now ask you how many other then in his condition you are prepared to take aboard."

"Sir, I have only a pharmacist's mate aboard," MacGregor replied.

The Navy captain said, "There are nine others suffering from temporary or permanent loss of sight. They will require no special medical attention beyond the changing of their bandages."

"I'll have to bed them down on the deck," Commander MacGregor said.

"You can, without jeopardizing your mission, take all of them?" the Navy captain asked.

"Yes, sir."

"They will come out with the next whaleboat," the Navy captain said. "Thank you, Captain. Have a good voyage."

"Thank you, sir," MacGregor said.

"Permission to leave the ship, sir?" the Navy captain asked.

"Granted," MacGregor said.

The Navy captain saluted MacGregor, then the colors, and then backed down the ladder into the whaleboat.

"Chief!" Commander MacGregor called.

"Yes, sir?" the chief of the boat, the senior noncommissioned officer aboard, said. He had been standing only a few feet away, invisible in the darkness.

"Take this officer to the wardroom," MacGregor said. "See that he's comfortable, and then tell Doc to prepare to take aboard nine other wounded. Tell him they are… in the same condition as Captain Banning."

"The 'same condition' is blind, Chief," Captain Banning said matter-of-factly. "Once you face it, you get used to it in a hurry."

"Aye, aye, sir," the chief of the boat said to MacGregor, then put his hand on Captain Banning's good arm. "Will you come this way, please, sir?"

MacGregor noticed for the first time that Captain Banning was wearing a web belt, and that a holstered Colt.45 automatic pistol was hanging from the belt.

A blind man doesn't need a pistol, MacGregor thought. He shouldn't have one. But that guy's a Marine officer, blind or not, and I'm not going to lack him when he's down by taking it away from him.

The chief torpedoman, who had been supervising the storage of the gold crates in the fore and aft torpedo rooms, came onto the deck.

"All the crates are aboard and secure, sir," he said.

"Let's have a look, Chief," MacGregor said, and walked toward the hatch in the conning tower.

The substitution of gold for torpedos had been on the basis of weight rather than volume. The equivalent weight of gold in the forward torpedo rooms was a small line of wooden boxes chained in place down the center line. The torpedo room looked empty with the torpedoes gone.

"We're taking nine blinded then with us, Chief," Commander MacGregor said. "Ten, counting that Marine captain. I said they would have to bed down on the deck. But we can do better than that, with all this room, can't we?"

"I'll do what I can, Skipper," the chief torpedoman said.

"Let's have a look aft," MacGregor said.

Ten minutes later, the Pickerel got underway, her diesels throbbing powerfully.

Launched at the Electric Boat Works in Connecticut in 1936, the Pickerel had been designed for Pacific Service; that is, for long patrols. Since she was headed directly for the Hawaiian Islands, fuel consumption was not a problem. With at least freedom from the concern, Commander MacGregor ordered turns made for seventeen knots. Although this greatly increased fuel consumption, he believed it was justified under the circumstances. The farther he moved away from the island of Luzon into the South China Sea, the less were the chances he would be spotted by the Japanese.

There was time, until dawn-too much time-for Commander MacGregor to consider that he was now what he trained all his adult life to be, master of a United States warship at sea, in a war; but that, instead of going in harm's way, searching out the enemy, to close with them, to send them to the bottom, what he was doing was sailing through enemy-controlled waters, doing his very best to make sure the enemy didn't see him.

The one thing he could not do was fight. He hated to see night begin to turn into day. He had been running at seventeen knots for seven hours. And he had thus made-a rough calculation, not taking into consideration the current-about 120 nautical miles. But as he had been on a north-northwest course, heading into the South China Sea as well as up the western shore of Luzon, he wasn't nearly as far north as he would have liked to be.

He was, in fact, very near the route the Japanese were using to bring supplies and reinforcements to the Lingayen Gulf, where they had made their first amphibious landing in the Phillipines three days after they had taken out almost all of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

There would be Japanese ships in the area, accompanied by destroyers, and there would be at least reconnaissance aircraft, if not bombers. This meant he would have to spend the next sixteen hours or so submerged. Since full speed submerged on batteries was eight knots, he would not get far enough on available battery power to make it worthwhile; for it would not get him out of the Japanese shipping lane to the Lingayen Gulf. But he had to hide.

"Dive," Commander MacGregor ordered. "Dive! Dive! Dive!" the talker repeated.

The lookouts, then the officer of the deck, then the chief of the boat, dropped quickly through the hatch.

The captain took one last look through his binoculars as water began to break over the bow, and then dropped through the hatch himself.

The roar of the diesels had died; now there was the whine of the electric motors.

MacGregor issued the necessary orders. They were to maintain headway, that was all; as little battery energy as possible was to be expended. They might need the batteries to run if they were spotted by a Japanese destroyer. He was to be called immediately if Sonar heard anything at all, and in any event fifteen minutes before daylight. Then be made his way to his cabin.

Captain Banning was sitting on a Navy-gray metal chair before the fold-down desk. MacGregor was a little surprised that the Marine officer was not in a bunk.

"Good morning," MacGregor said. "You heard? We're submerged."

"And you want to hit the sack," Banning said. "If you'll point me in the direction of where you want me, I'll get out of your way."

"Coffee keeps most people awake," MacGregor said. "Perverse bastard that I am, I always have a cup before I go to bed. You're not keeping me up."

"I'm not sleepy," Banning said. "I've been cat-napping. I did that all the time ashore, but I thought that was because it was quiet. I thought the noises on here would keep me awake, but they haven't."

"I think it would be easier for both of us if you used my bunk," MacGregor said. "Whenever you're ready…"

"I could use a cup of coffee," Banning said. "Yours is first rate. And it's in short supply ashore."

"I'll get us a pitcher," MacGregor said. "Cream and sugar?"

"Black, please," Banning said.

When he returned with the stainless steel pitcher of coffee, MacGregor filled Banning's cup three-quarters full.

"There's your coffee, Captain," he said.

"I heard," Banning said. "Thank you."

He moved his hand across the table until his hand touched the mug.

"I issued, earlier on tonight, an interesting order for a Marine officer," Banning said. "'Piss like a woman.'"

"Excuse me?" MacGregor said.

"I went to the head," Banning said. "Ashore, you learn to piss by locating the target with your knees, then direct fire by sound. I learned that won't work with your toilet, and, to keep your head from being awash with blind men's piss, went and passed the word to the others."

He's bitter, MacGregor thought. Then, Why the hell not? "How did it happen?" MacGregor blurted. "The U.S. Army done it to me," Banning said, bitterly. "The one thing they did right over here was lay in adequate stocks of artillery ammunition."

"I don't quite follow you, Captain Banning," Commander MacGregor said.

Banning very carefully raised his coffee mug to his lips and took a swallow before replying.

"I was at Lingayen Gulf, when the Japs landed," he said. "I got the arm there"-he raised his arm-in-a-sling-"and took some shrapnel in the legs. Naval artillery from their destroyers. The kid with me… I shouldn't call him a kid, I suppose, a mustang second lieutenant, and one hell of a Marine…" (A mustang is an officer commissioned from the ranks.) "Anyway, he got me to a school, where a Filipino nurse took care of me and hid me from the Japanese until I was mobile. Then she arranged to get me through the Japanese lines. We'd almost made it when the U.S. Army artillery let fly." "Shrapnel again?" MacGregor asked gently. "No. Concussion," Banning said. " 'There is no detectable damage to the optic nerves,'" he went on, obviously quoting a doctor. " 'There is no reason to believe the loss of sight is permanent.'"

"Well, that's good news," MacGregor said. "On the other hand," Banning said bitterly, "there's no reason to believe it isn't. Permanent, I mean." His hand was tight around the cup, like a vise.

"When will you find out?" MacGregor asked. Banning shrugged. "If they really thought it was temporary, I would not have been sent home with you," Banning said. "The official reason seemed a little flimsy." "What was the official reason?" "I was the Intelligence Officer for the Fourth Marines,"

Banning said. "They said they were under orders to do whatever they could to keep intelligence officers from falling into Japanese hands."

"That makes sense," MacGregor said.

"Not if most of my knowledge is about China, and the Japanese have already taken Shanghai. And not if your regiment has been just about wiped out, as mine was. I think they wanted us out of the Philippines because we were just too much trouble to care for. The real pain in the ass about being blind is that people are very gentle with you, as if a harsh word, or the truth, will make you break into tears."

He raised his coffee cup and took another careful sip.

"You piss on the deck in my head, Banning," Commander MacGregor said, "and I'll have your ass."

Banning smiled.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said, lightly, and then seriously: "Thank you, Captain."

(Two)

The Foster Peachtree Hotel

Atlanta, Georgia

1630 Hours. 6 January 1942

Flagship Dallas, a twenty-one-passenger Douglas DC-3 of Eastern Airlines' Great Silver Fleet, touched down at Atlanta on time, after a 775-mile, four-hour-and-twenty-five-minute flight from New York's LaGuardia Field.

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, was no stranger to aerial transportation. He could not remember- even after some thought-when he had made his first flight, only that he had been a little boy. He could also recall several odd details about that airplane: The seats had been wicker, like lawn furniture, and the skin of the fuselage had been corrugated like a cardboard box.

There had been God only knew how many flights since then.

His grandfather, Andrew Foster, had leapt happily into the aviation age, for it permitted him to move between his hotels far faster than traveling by rail. He crisscrossed the country in commercial airliners, and there was even a company aircraft, a six-passenger, stagger-wing single-engine Beechcraft, which the Old Man had christened Room Service.

Once the Old Man had led the way, Fleming Pickering, Pick's father, had been an easy convert to aerial travel. Pacific Far East Shipping, Inc., used ports all up and down the West Coast, from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Diego. It made a lot more sense to hop aboard a Northwest DC-3 in San Francisco and fly the eight hundred-odd miles to Vancouver at three mile's a minute than it did to take the train, which traveled at a third of that speed. Very often his father and grandfather had taken him with them.

And Pick and his parents had been aboard one of the very first Pan American flights from San Francisco to Honolulu, an enormous, four-engined Sikorsky seaplane, the China Clipper. But airplanes had just been there, part of the scenery, like the yellow locomotives of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the white steamships of Pacific Far East Shipping, Inc. It had never entered his mind that he would personally fly an airplane, any more than he would have thought about climbing into the cab of a locomotive, or marching onto the bridge of the Pacific Conqueror and giving orders.

There were people who did that sort of thing, highly respected, well-paid professionals. But he wasn't going to be one of them. He had known from the time he had first thought of things like that that he was going to follow in the Old Man's footsteps into the hotel business, rather than in his father's into the shipping business.

By the time he was in his third year at Harvard, he got around to wondering if he hadn't hurt his father's feelings, perhaps deeply, by avoiding the shipping business. But then it had been too late. He'd gone to work for Foster Hotels at twelve, in a starched white jacket stripping tables for thirty-five cents an hour and whatever the waiter had chosen to pay him (usually a nickel a table for a party of four) out of his tips. Before he was a junior at Harvard, Pickering had been a salad chef, a fry cook, a bellman, an elevator operator, a bartender, a broiler chef, a storekeeper, a night bookkeeper, a waiter, and an assistant manager. He had spent the summer between his junior and senior years in six different Foster Hotels, filling in for vacationing bell captains.

His motive for that had been pure and simple avarice. A bell captain took home a hell of a lot more money than everybody in a hotel hierarchy but the top executives. It was not corporate benevolence; bell captains earned every nickel they made. And it was a position of prestige within the hierarchy, especially within Foster Hotels Corporation, where the Old Man devoutly believed that bell captains made more of an impression on guests than any other individual on the staff, impressions that would either draw them back again or send them to Hilton or Sheraton.

He had been proud that the Old Man had okayed his working as a bell captain… and he had driven to Cambridge that fall in an all-paid-for black 1941 Cadillac convertible.

That had been the last of the easy money. From the day of his graduation until he'd gone off to the Marine Corps, Pick Pickering had been carried on the payroll of the Andrew Foster Hotel, San Francisco, as a supernumerary assistant manager. And he'd been paid accordingly, which came out to a hell of a lot less than he'd made as a bell captain. What he'd really been doing was learning what it was like to run a chain of luxury hotels from the executive suite.

He's spent a lot of time traveling with the Old Man, and a lot of that in airliners or the Room Service, but he had paid no more attention to the way those airplanes had worked than he had to what made the wheels go around on a locomotive.

That was now all changed. A Marine brigadier general, a pilot, who had been in the trenches in France as an enlisted man with Corporal Fleming Pickering, USMC, had saved his old buddy's son from a Marine Corps career as a club officer by arranging to have him sent to flight school.

As the passengers were escorted from the terminal at LaGuardia Field to board Flagship Dallas, Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, stepped out of the line and took a good close look upward at the engine mounted on the wing, then studied the wing itself. For the first time he noticed that the front of the wing was made out of rubber (and he wondered what that was for), and that the thin back part of the wing was movable, and that on the back part of the part that moved there was another part that moved. And that there were little lengths of what looked like clothesline attached to the wing.

A stewardess finally went to him, took his arm, and loaded him aboard, eyeing him suspiciously.

He did not have his usual scotch and soda when they were airborne. The stewardess seemed relieved. He sat in his single aisle seat and watched the movable parts of the wing move, and tried to reason what function they performed.

They flew above the clouds. His previous reaction to a cloud cover, viewed from above, had been "How pretty! It looks like cotton wool."

He now wondered for the first time how the pilot knew when it was time to fly back down through the cloud cover; how he knew, specifically, when Atlanta was going to be down there, since obviously he couldn't see it.

Before today, before he was en route to Florida to learn how to fly airplanes himself, he would have superficially reasoned that pilots flew airplanes the way masters of ships navigated across the seas. They used a compass to give them the direction, and clocks (chronometers) to let them know how long they had been moving. If they knew how fast they were going, how much time they were taking, and in what direction, they could compute where they were.

Now he saw the differences, and they were enormous and baffling. The most significant of these was that a ship moved only across the surface of the water, whereas an airplane moved up and down in the air as well as horizontally. And if things were going well, a ship moved at about fifteen miles an hour; but an airplane-the airplane he was now on-moved something like twelve times that fast. And if it was lost, an airplane could not simply stop where it was, drop its anchor, sound its foghorn, and wait for the fog to clear.

When the Flagship Dallas touched down at Atlanta, Pick Pickering waited until all the other passengers had made their way down the steeply slanting cabin floor and debarked, and then he went forward to the cockpit.

The door was open, and the pilot and copilot were still in their seats, filling out forms before a baffling array of instruments and controls-what looked like ten times as many instruments and controls as there were on the Room Service. "Excuse me," Pickering said, and the pilot turned around, a look of mild annoyance on his face. The annoyance vanished when he saw that Pickering was in uniform. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" "You can tell me how you knew Atlanta was going to be down here when you started down through the clouds."

The pilot chuckled and looked at his watch. The watch caught Pickering's attention. It was stainless steel and had all sorts of dials and buttons. A pilot's watch! Pickering thought.

"We just took a chance," the pilot said. "We knew it had to be down here somewhere."

"So could a mountain have been," Pickering replied.

The pilot saw that he was serious.

"We fly a radio beam," he said, pointing to one of the dials on the control panel. "There's a radio transmitter on the field. The needle on the dial points to it. When you pass it, the needle points in the other direction, and you know you've gone too far."

"Fascinating!" Pickering said. "And the altimeter tells you when you're getting close to the ground, right?"

The pilot suppressed a smile.

"Right," he said. "What the altimeter actually does is tell you how far you are above sea level. We have charts-maps- that give the altitude above sea level of the airports."

"Uh- huh," Pickering grunted his comprehension.

"There is a small problem," the pilot said. "The altimeter tells you how high you were seven seconds ago. Seven seconds is sometimes a long time when you're letting down."

"Uh- huh," Pickering grunted again.

"Let me ask you a question," the pilot said. "This isn't just idle curiosity on your part, is it."

"I'm on my way to Pensacola," Pickering said. "To become a Marine aviator."

"Are you really?" the pilot said. "Watch out for Pensacola, Lieutenant. Dangerous place."

"Why do you say that?"

"They call it the mother-in-law of Naval aviation," the pilot said. "Blink your eyes, and you'll find yourself standing before an altar with some Southern belle on your arm."

"You sound as if you speak from experience," Pickering said.

"I do," the pilot said. "I went to Pensacola in 'thirty-five, a happy bachelor. I left with wings of gold and a mother-in-law."

"I suppose I sound pretty stupid," Pickering said.

"Not at all," the pilot said. "You seem to have already learned the most important lesson."

"Excuse me?"

"If you don't know something, don't be embarrassed to ask questions."

He smiled at Pickering and offered his hand.

"Happy landings, Lieutenant," he said. "And give my regards to the bar in the San Carlos hotel."

Pickering walked down the cabin aisle and got off the plane. The stewardess was standing on the tarmac, again looking at him with concern and suspicion in her eyes.

"I noticed that the Jensen Dynamometer was leaking oil," Pickering said, very seriously, to explain his visit to the cockpit. "I thought the pilot should know before he took off again."

He saw in her eyes that she believed him. With a little bit of luck, he thought, she would ask the pilot about the Jensen Dynamometer, and the pilot would conclude his stewardess had a screw loose.

The airlines limousine, a Checker cab that had been cut in half and extended nine feet, was loaded and about to drive away without him when he got to the terminal.

Thirty minutes later, it deposited him before the Foster Peachtree Hotel in downtown Atlanta. It was one of the smaller Foster hotels, an eight-story brick building shaped like an "E" lying on its side. The Old Man had bought it from the original owners when Pickering was in prep school, retired the general manager, built a new kitchen, installed a new air-conditioning system, and replaced the carpets and mattresses. Aside from that, he'd left it virtually untouched.

"People don't like change, Pick," the Old Man had explained to him seven or eight months ago, when they had been here on one of the Old Man's unannounced visits. "The trick to get repeat customers is to make them think, subconsciously, of the inn as another home. You start throwing things they're used to away, they start feeling like intruders."

A very large, elderly black man, in the starched white jacket of Peachtree bellmen, recognized him as he got out of the Checker limousine.

"Well, nice to see you again, Mr. Pickering," he said. "We been expecting you. You just go on inside, I'll take care of your bags."

The Old Man is right, Pickering thought as he walked up to a door being opened by another white-jacketed black man, if we dressed the bellmen in red uniforms with brass buttons, people would wonder what else was changed in the hotel, and start looking for things to complain about.

The resident manager spotted him as he walked down the aisle of shops toward the lobby, and moved to greet him. He was a plump, middle-aged man, who wore what hair he had left parted in the middle and slicked down against his scalp. Pickering knew him. L. Edward Locke had been resident manager of the Foster Biscayne in Miami when Pick had worked a spring vacation waiting tables around the pool during the day and tending bar in the golf course clubhouse at night.

"Hello, Mr. Pickering," Locke said. "It's good to see you."

"When did I become 'Mr. Pickering'?" Pick said, as he shook his hand.

"Maybe when you became a Marine?" Locke said, smiling.

"I'd rather, in deference to my exalted status as a Marine officer, prefer that you stop calling me 'Hey, you!'" Pick said. "But aside from that, 'Pick' will do fine."

"You look like you were born in that uniform," Locke said. "Very spiffy."

"It's supposed to attract females like moths to a flame," Pick said. "I haven't been an officer long enough to find out for sure."

"I don't think you'll have any worries about that at all," the resident manager said. "Would you like a drink? Either here"-he gestured toward the bar off the lobby-"or in your room? I've put you in the Jefferson Davis Suite." And then Locke misinterpreted the look in Pickering's eyes. "Which we cannot fill, anyway."

"I wasn't planning to stay," Pick said. "Unless my car hasn't shown up?"

"Came in two days ago," Locke said. "I had it taken to the Cadillac dealer. They serviced it and did whatever they thought it needed."

"Thank you," Pick said. "Then all I'll need is that drink and a road map."

They started toward the bar, but Pickering stopped when he glanced casually into a jewelry store. There was a display of watches laid out on velvet. One of them, in gleaming gold, band and all, had just about as many fascinating buttons and dials and sweeping bands as had the watch on the wrist of the Eastern Airlines pilot.

"Just a second," Pick said. "I have just decided that I am such a nice fellow that I am going to buy myself a present."

The price of the watch was staggering, nearly four hundred dollars. But that judgment, he decided, was a reflection of the way he had come by money-earning it himself or doing, by and large, without-until his twenty-first birthday. On his majority, he had come into the first part of the Malcolm Pickering Trust (there would be more when he turned twenty-five, and the balance when he turned thirty) established by Captain Richard Pickering, founder of Pacific Far East Shipping, Inc., for his only grandson.

The first monthly check from the Crocker National Bank had been for four times as much money as he was getting as a supernumerary assistant manager of the Andrew Foster Hotel. He could afford the watch.

"I'll take it," he said. "If you'll take a check."

"I'll vouch for the check," Locke said quickly, as a cloud of doubt appeared on the face of the jewelry store clerk.

"That's a fascinating watch," Locke said, as Pick strapped it on his wrist. "What are all the dials for?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea," Pick said. "But the Eastern Airlines pilot had one like it. It is apparently what the well-dressed airplane pilot wears."

Locke chuckled, and then led Pickering into the lobby bar. They took stools and ordered scotch.

"I really can't offer you the hospitality of the inn for the night, Pick?"

"I want to get down there and look around," Pick said. "What we Marine officers call 'reconnoitering the area.'"

"Not even an early supper?"

"Ah understand," Pick said, in a thick, mock Southern accent, "that this inn serves South'ren fried chicken that would please Miss Scarlett O'Hara herself."

"That we do," Locke said. "Done to a turn by a native. Of Budapest, Hungary."

Pickering chuckled. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at a table in the corner of the bar.

"You serve food here?"

"Done," Locke said. He reached over the bar and picked up a telephone.

"Helen," he said. "Edward Locke. Would you have the garage bring Mr. Pickering's car around to the front? And then ask my secretary to bring the manila envelope with 'Mr. Pickering' on it to the bar? And give me the kitchen."

The manila envelope was delivered first. It contained a marked road map of the route from Atlanta to Pensacola, Florida. It had been prepared with care; there were three sections of road outlined in red, to identify them as speed traps.

"There's a rumor that at least some of the speed traps are passing servicemen through, as their contribution to the war effort," Locke said. "But I wouldn't bank on that. And on the subject of speed traps, they want cash. You all right for cash?"

"Fine, thank you," Pickering said. "What about a place to stay once I get there?"

"All taken care of," Locke said. "An inn called the San Carlos Hotel. Your grandfather tried to buy it a couple of years ago, but it's a family business and they wouldn't sell. They're friends of mine. They'll take good care of you."

"Just say I'm a friend of yours?"

"I already called them," Locke said. "They expect you."

"You're very obliging," Pick said. "Thank you."

"Good poolside waiters are hard to find," Locke said, smiling.

(One)

Temporary Building T-2032

The Mall

Washington, D.C.

1230 Hours, 6 January 1942

There was a sign reading ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE on the door to the stairway of the two-floor frame building.

Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy pushed it open and stepped through it. Inside, there was a wall of pierced-steel netting, with a door of the same material set into it. On the far side of the wall, a Marine sergeant sat at a desk, in his khaki shirt. His blouse hung from a hanger hooked into the pierced-steel-netting wall.

The sergeant stood up and pushed a clipboard through a narrow opening in the netting. When he stood up, McCoy saw the sergeant was armed with a Colt Model 1911A1.45 ACP pistol, worn in a leather holster hanging from a web belt. Hanging beside his blouse was a Winchester Model 1897 12-gauge trench gun.

"They've been looking for you, Lieutenant," the sergeant said.

McCoy wrote his name on the form on the clipboard and pushed it back through the opening in the pierced-metal wall.

"Who 'they'?" he asked, smiling.

"The colonel, Captain Sessions," the sergeant said.

"I was on leave," McCoy said, "but I made the mistake of letting them know where they could find me."

The sergeant chuckled and then pressed a hidden button. There was the buzzing of a solenoid. When he heard it, McCoy pushed the door in the metal wall open.

"They said it was important," McCoy said. "Since I am the only second lieutenant around here, what that means is that they need someone to inventory the paper towels and typewriter ribbons."

The sergeant smiled. "Good luck," he said.

McCoy went up the wooden stairs two at a time. Beyond a door at the top of the stairs was another pierced-steel wall. There was another desk behind it, but there was no one at the desk, so McCoy took a key from his pocket and put it to a lock in the door.

He pushed the door open and was having trouble getting his key out of the lock when a tall thin officer saw him. The officer was bent over a desk deeply absorbed with something or other. He was in his shirtsleeves (with the silver leaves of a lieutenant colonel pinned to his collar points), and he was wearing glasses. Even in uniform, and with a snub-nosed.38-caliber Smith Wesson Chief's Special revolver in a shoulder holster, Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee, USMC, did not look much like a professional warrior.

He looked up at McCoy with an expression of patient exasperation.

"The way it works, McCoy," Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee said, as if explaining it to a child, "is that if you're unavoidably detained, you call up and tell somebody. I presume you were unavoidably detained?"

"Sir," McCoy said, "my orders were to report no later than oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning."

Rickabee looked at Second Lieutenant McCoy for a moment. "Goddamn it," he said. "You're right."

"The sergeant said you were looking for me, sir," McCoy said.

"Uh- huh," Colonel Rickabee said. "I hope you haven't had lunch."

"No, sir," McCoy said.

"Good," Rickabee said. "The chancre mechanics flip their lids if you've been eating."

"I had breakfast," McCoy said.

"Don't tell them," Rickabee said.

"I had a physical when I came back, sir," McCoy said. "That was just a week ago."

"You're about to have another," Rickabee said.

He bent over the desk again, shuffled the papers he had been looking at into a neat stack, and then put them into a manila envelope stamped with large red letters SECRET. He put the envelope into a file cabinet, then locked the cabinet with a heavy padlock.

"Wait here a moment, McCoy," Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee said. "I'll fetch Captain Sessions."

He went down the corridor and into an office. A moment later, Captain Sessions, USMC, appeared. He was a tall, well-set-up young officer, whose black' hair was cut in a crew cut. His brimmed officer's cap was perched on the back of his head, and he was slipping his arms into his blouse and overcoat. He had obviously removed the blouse and overcoat together.

"Hey, Killer," he said, smiling, revealing a healthy set of white teeth. "How was the leave?"

"As long as it lasted, it was fine, thanks," McCoy replied. Captain Sessions was about the only man in the Corps who could call McCoy "Killer" without offending him. Anyone else who did it seldom did it twice. It triggered in McCoy's eyes a coldness that kept it from happening again.

Captain Sessions was different. For one thing, he said it as a joke. For another, he had proved himself on several occasions to be McCoy's friend when that had been difficult. Perhaps most importantly, McCoy believed that if it had not been for Captain Sessions, he would still be a corporal somewhere-in a machine-gun section or a motor transport platoon. McCoy looked on Sessions as a friend. He didn't have many friends.

"Major Almond," Captain Sessions said as they went back down the stairs, referring to the Administrative Officer, "is looking forward to jumping your ass for reporting back in late. If he sees you before I see him, or Colonel Rickabee does, you tell him to see one of us."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"With a little bit of luck, you'll be out of here before you run into him, and he won't learn that I made a fool of myself again. I really thought you were due back at oh-eight-hundred this morning."

"Yes, sir," McCoy repeated. He didn't understand the "you'll be out of here" business, but there was no time to ask. Captain Sessions was already at the foot of the stairs, reaching for the sergeant's clipboard to sign them out.

"The car's outside?" Sessions asked.

"No, sir," the sergeant said. "Major Almond took it, sir. He went over to the Lafayette Hotel, looking for Lieutenant McCoy."

"My car's in the parking lot, sir," McCoy said.

"Why not?" Sessions said, smiling. He turned to the sergeant. "When Major Almond returns, Sergeant, tell him that Lieutenant McCoy was not AWOL after all, and that I have him."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant said, then pushed the hidden switch that operated the door lock.

McCoy's car, a 1939 LaSalle convertible coupe, was covered with snow, and the windows were filmed with ice.

"I hope you can get this thing started," Captain Sessions said as he helped McCoy chip the ice loose with a key.

"It should start," McCoy said. "I just put a new battery in it."

"You didn't take it on leave?" Sessions asked.

"I went to New York City, sir," McCoy said. "You're better off without a car in New York."

"You didn't go home?" Sessions asked. He knew more about Second Lieutenant McCoy than anyone else in the Marine Corps, including the fact that he had a father and a sister in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

"No, sir," McCoy said.

Sessions found that interesting, but didn't pursue it.

The car cranked, but with difficulty.

"I hate Washington winters," McCoy said as he waited for the engine to warm up. "Freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw. Everything winds up frozen."

"You may shortly look back on Washington winters with fond remembrance," Captain Sessions said.

"Am I going somewhere, sir?"

"Right now you're going to the Bethesda Naval Hospital," Sessions said. "You know where that is?"

"Yes, sir."

The outpatient clinic at the hospital was crowded, but as soon as Sessions gave his name, the Navy yeoman at the desk summoned a chief corpsman, who took them to an X-ray room, supervised chest and torso and leg X rays, and then led them to an examining room where he ordered McCoy to remove his clothing. He weighed him, took his blood pressure, drew blood into three different vials; and then, startling McCoy, pulled off the bandage that covered his lower back with one quick and violent jerking motion.

"Jesus," McCoy said. "Next time, tell me, Chief!"

"You lost less hair the way I done it," the chief said, unrepentant, and then examined the wound.

"That's healing nicely," he said. "But there's still a little suppuration. Shrapnel?"

McCoy nodded.

"That's the first wound like that I seen since World War I," the chief said.

A younger man in a white medical smock came in the room. The silver railroad tracks of a Navy full lieutenant were on his' collar points.

"I'm sure there's a good reason for doing this examination this way," he said to Sessions.

"Yes, Lieutenant, there is," Sessions replied.

The Naval surgeon examined McCoy's medical records, and while he was listening to his chest, the chief corpsman fetched the X rays. The surgeon examined them, and then pushed and prodded the line of stitches on McCoy's lower back.

"Any pain? Any loss of movement?"

"I'm a little stiff sometimes, sir," McCoy said.

"You're lucky you're alive, Lieutenant," the surgeon said, matter-of-factly. Then he grunted and prodded McCoy's upper right thigh with his finger. "Where'd you get that? That's a small-arm puncture, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not suffered at the same time as the damage to your back? It looks older."

"No, sir," McCoy said.

"Not very talkative, is he. Captain?" the surgeon said to Sessions. "I asked him where he got it."

"In Shanghai, sir," McCoy said.

"That's a Japanese twenty-five caliber wound?" the surgeon asked doubtfully.

"No, sir," McCoy said. "One of those little tiny Spanish automatics… either a twenty-five or maybe a twenty-two rimfire."

"A twenty-five?" the surgeon asked curiously, and then saw the look of impatience in Session's eyes. He backed down before it.

"That seems to have healed nicely," he said, cheerfully. "You don't have a history of malaria, do you, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir."

"Nor, according to this, of social disease," the surgeon said. "Have you been exposed to that, lately?"

"No, sir."

"Well, presuming they don't find anything when they do his blood, Captain, he should be fit for full duty in say, thirty days. I think he should build up to any really strenuous exercise, however. There's some muscle damage, and-"

"I understand," Sessions said. "Thank you, Doctor, for squeezing him in this way."

"My pleasure," the surgeon said. "You can get dressed, Lieutenant. It'll be a couple of minutes before the form can be typed up. I presume you want to take it with you?"

"If we can," Sessions said.

When they were alone in the treatment room, McCoy put his blouse back on and fastened his Sam Browne belt in place. Then he looked at Sessions.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" he asked.

"Well, from here we go to my place," Captain Sessions said. "Where my bride at this very moment is preparing a sumptuous feast to honor the returned warrior, and where there is a bottle of very good scotch she has been saving for a suitable occasion."

"In other words, you're not going to tell me?"

"Not here, Ken," Sessions said. "At my place."

McCoy nodded.

"Colonel and Mrs. Rickabee will be there," Sessions said.

McCoy's eyebrows rose at that, but he didn't say anything.

(Two)

Chevy Chase, Maryland

"The second house from the end, Ken," Captain Sessions said. "Pull into the driveway."

McCoy was surprised at the size of the house, and at the quality of the neighborhood. The houses were large, and the lots were spacious; it was not where he would have expected a Marine captain to live.

"Well, thank God that's home," Sessions said when McCoy had turned into the driveway. "Jeannie's getting a little large to have to drive me to work."

McCoy had no idea what he was talking about, but the mystery was quickly cleared up when Jean Sessions, a dark-haired, pleasant-looking young woman, came out of the kitchen door and walked over to the car. She was pregnant.

She kissed her husband, and then pointed at a 1942 Mercury convertible coupe.

"Guess what the Good Fairy finally fixed," she said. "He brought it back five minutes ago."

"I saw," Sessions said, dryly. " 'All things come to him who waits,' I suppose."

Jean Sessions went around to the driver's side as McCoy got out. She put her hands on McCoy's arms, and kissed his cheek, and then looked intently at him.

"How are you, Ken?" she asked.

It was more than a ritual remark, McCoy sensed. She was really interested.

"I'm fine, thanks," Ken said.

"You look fine," she said. "I'm so glad to see you."

She took his arm and led him to the kitchen. There was the smell of roasting beef, and a large, fat black woman in a maid's uniform was bent over a wide table wrapping small pieces of bacon around oysters.

"This is Jewel, Ken," Jean said, "whose hors d'oeuvres are legendary. And this is Lieutenant McCoy."

"You must be somebody special, Lieutenant," Jewel said, with a smile. "I heard all about you."

McCoy smiled, slightly uncomfortably, back at her.

"Colonel Rickabee called and said you were to call him when you got here," Jean Sessions said to her husband. "So you do that, and I'll fix Ken a drink."

She led him into the house to a tile-floored room, whose wall of French doors opened on a white expanse that after a moment he recognized to be a golf course.

"This is a nice house," Ken said.

"I think it is," Jean said. "It was our wedding present."

She handed him a glass dark with scotch.

"How was the leave?" she asked.

"As long as it lasted, it was fine," he said.

"I heard about that," Jean said. "You were cheated out of most of it, weren't you?"

"I made the mistake of telling them where they could find me," he said.

"How'd the physical go?" she asked. "You going to be all right?"

"It's fine," he said. "The only time it hurts is when they change the bandage. Most of the time it itches."

"Curiosity overwhelms me," Jean said. "Ed says you've got a girl. Tell me all about her."

The answer didn't come easily to McCoy's lips.

"She's nice," he said finally. "She writes advertising."

He thought: Ernie would like Mrs. Sessions, and probably vice versa.

Jean Sessions cocked her head and waited for amplification.

"For toothpaste and stuff like that," McCoy went on. "I met her through a guy I went through Quantico with."

"What does she look like?" Jean asked.

McCoy produced a picture. The picture surprised Jean Sessions. Not that McCoy had found a pretty girl like the one hanging on to his arm in the picture, but that he'd found one who wore an expensive full-length Persian lamb coat, and who had posed with McCoy in front of the Foster Park Hotel on Central Park South.

"She's very pretty, Ken," Jean said.

"Yeah," McCoy said. "She is."

"The colonel will be here in half an hour," Captain Ed Sessions announced from the doorway.

"So soon?" Jean asked.

"He wants to talk to Ken before his wife gets here," Sessions said. "And he asked if we could set a place for Colonel Wesley."

McCoy saw that surprised Jean Sessions.

"Certainly," she said. "It's a big roast."

"I told him we could," Sessions said.

"Ken was just showing me a picture of his girl," Jean said, changing the subject. "Show her to Ed, Ken."

Sessions said that he thought Ernestine Sage was a lovely young woman.

Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee arrived almost exactly thirty minutes later. He was followed into the room by Jewel, who carried a silver tray of bacon-wrapped oysters. Jean Sessions left after making him a drink. She explained that she had to check the roast, and she closed the door after her.

"I was sorry to have to cheat you out of the rest of your recuperative leave, McCoy," Rickabee said. "I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary."

"I understand, sir," McCoy said.

"The decision had just about been made to send you over to COI, after you'd had your leave," Rickabee said.

"Sir?"

"You've never heard of it?" Rickabee asked, but it was a statement rather than a question. "You ever hear of Colonel Wild Bill Donovan?"

"No, sir."

"He won the Medal of Honor in the First World War," Rickabee explained. "He was in the Army. More important, he's a friend of the President. COI stands for 'Coordinator of Information.' It's sort of a clearinghouse for intelligence information. A filter, in other words. They get everything the Office of Naval Intelligence comes up with, and the Army's G-2 comes up with, and the State Department, us, everybody… and they put it all together before giving it to the President. Get the idea?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"Donovan has authority to have service personnel assigned to him," Rickabee said, "and General Forrest got a call from the Commandant himself, who told him that when he got a levy against us to furnish officers to the COI, he was not to regard it as an opportunity to get rid of the deadwood. The Commandant feels that what Donovan is doing is worthwhile, and that it is in the best interest of the Corps to send him good people. Despite your somewhat childish behavior in the Philippines, you fell into that category."

McCoy did not reply. And Rickabee waited a long moment, staring at him hard in order to make him uncomfortable- without noticeable effect.

"Let me get that out of the way," Rickabee said finally, with steel in his voice. "You were sent there as a courier. Couriers do not grab BARs and go AWOL to the infantry. In a way, you were lucky you got hit. It's difficult to rack the ass of a wounded hero, McCoy, even when you know he's done something really dumb."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said, after a moment.

"Okay, that's the last word on that subject. You get the Purple Heart for getting hit. But no Silver Star, despite the recommendation."

He reached into his briefcase and handed McCoy an oblong box. McCoy opened it and saw inside the Purple Medal.

"Thank you, sir," McCoy said. He closed the box and looked at Rickabee.

Rickabee was unfolding a sheet of paper. Then he started reading from it: "… ignoring his wounds, and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, carried a grievously wounded officer to safety through an intensive enemy artillery barrage, and subsequently, gathered together eighteen Marines separated from their units by enemy action, and led them safely through enemy-occupied territory to American lines. His courage, devotion to duty, and… et cetera, et cetera…"

He folded the piece of paper and then dipped into his briefcase again, and came up with another oblong box.

"Bronze Star," Rickabee said, handing it to him. "If the Corps had told you to go play Errol Flynn, you would have got the Silver. And if you hadn't forgotten to duck, you probably wouldn't have got the Bronze. But, to reiterate, it's hard to rack the ass of a wounded hero, even when he deserves it."

McCoy opened the Bronze Star box, glanced inside, and then closed it.

"For the time being, McCoy, you are not to wear either of those medals," Rickabee said.

"Sir?"

"Something has come up which may keep you from going to COI," Rickabee said. "Which is why I was forced to cancel your recuperative leave."

McCoy looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

"You're up, Ed." Rickabee said to Captain Sessions.

"When you were in China, McCoy," Sessions began, "did you ever run into Major Evans Carlson?"

"No, sir," McCoy said. "But I've seen his name." And then memory returned. "And I read his books."

"You have?" Rickabee asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. "Captain Banning had them. And a lot of other stuff that Carlson wrote. Letters, too."

"And Captain Banning suggested you read the books?" Sessions asked.

"Yes, sir, and the other stuff."

"What did you think?" Rickabee asked, innocently.

McCoy considered the question, and then decided to avoid it. "About what, sir?"

"Well, for example, what Major Carlson had to say about the Communist Chinese Army?" Rickabee asked.

McCoy didn't immediately reply. He was, Sessions sensed, trying to fathom why he was being asked.

"Just off the top of your head, Ken," Sessions said.

McCoy looked at him, and shrugged. "Out of school," McCoy said. "I think he went Chink."

"Excuse me?" Rickabee said.

"It happens," McCoy explained. "People spend a lot of time over there, China gets to them. That 'thousands of years of culture' crap. They start to think that we don't know what we're doing, and that the Chinks have everything figured out. Have had it figured out for a thousand years."

"How does that apply to what Carlson thinks of the Chinese Communists?" Rickabee asked.

"That's a big question," McCoy said.

"Have a shot at it," Rickabee ordered.

"There's two kinds of Chinese," McCoy said. "Ninety-eight percent of them don't give a damn for anything but staying alive and getting their rice bowl filled for that day. And the other two percent try to push the ninety-eight percent around for what they can get out of it."

"Isn't that pretty cynical?" Rickabee asked. "You don't think that, say, Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kai-shek-or Mao Tse-tung- have the best interests of the Chinese at heart?"

"I didn't mean that all they're interested in is beating them out of their rice bowls," McCoy said. "I think most of them want the power. They like the power."

That's simplistic, of course, Sessions thought. But at the same time, it's a rather astute observation for a twenty-one-year-old with only a high school education.

"Then you don't see much difference between the Nationalists and the Communists?" Rickabee asked.

"Not much. Hell, Chiang Kai-shek was a Communist. He even went to military school in Russia."

I wonder how many of his brother officers in the Marine Corps know that? Rickabee thought. How many of the colonels, much less the second lieutenants?

"What about the Communist notion that there should be no privileges for officers?" Rickabee went on.

"They got that from the Russians," McCoy said. "Everybody over there is 'comrade.' Chiang Kai-shek's copying the Germans. The Germans were in China a long time, and the Germans think the way to run an army is to really separate the officers from the enlisted men, make the officers look really special, so nobody even thinks of disobeying an officer."

"And the Communists? From what I've heard, they almost elect their officers."

"I heard that, too," McCoy said. "We tried that, too, in the Civil War. It didn't work. You can't run an army if you're all the time trying to win a popularity contest."

Sessions chuckled. "And you don't think it works for the Chinese Communists, either?"

"You want to know what I think the only difference between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists is?" McCoy asked. "I mean, in how they maintain discipline?"

"I really would," Sessions said.

"It's not what Carlson says," McCoy said. "Carlson thinks the Communists are… hell, like they got religion. That they think they're doing something noble."

"What is it, then?" Rickabee asked.

"Somebody gets an order in the Nationalists and fails to carry it out, they form a firing squad, line up the regiment to watch, and execute him by the numbers. Some Communist doesn't do what the head comrade tells him to do, they take him behind a tree and shoot him in the ear. Same result. Do what you're told, or get shot."

"And the Japanese?"

"That's another ball game," McCoy said. "The Japs really believe their emperor is God. They do what they're told because otherwise they don't get to go to heaven. Anyway, the

Japs are different than the Chinese. Most of them can read, for one thing."

"Very interesting," Rickabee said. "You really are an interesting fellow, McCoy."

"You going to tell me why all the questions?" McCoy asked, after a moment.

Rickabee dipped into his briefcase again and came up with a manila envelope stiff with eight-by-ten inch photographs of the Roosevelt letter. He handed it to McCoy.

"Read that, McCoy," Rickabee said.

McCoy read the entire document, and then looked at Rickabee and Sessions.

"Jesus!" he said.

"If the question in your mind, McCoy," Rickabee said, "is whether the Marine Corps intends to implement that rather extraordinary proposal, the answer is yes."

McCoy's surprise and confusion registered, for just a moment, on his face.

"Unless, of course, the Commandant is able to go to the President with proof that the source of those extraordinary suggestions is unbalanced, or a Communist," Rickabee added, dryly. "The source, of course, being Evans Carlson and not the President's son. I don't know about that-about the unbalanced thing or the Communist thing-but I think there's probably more to it than simply an overenthusiastic appreciation of the way the Chinese do things."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but why are you showing me all this stuff?" McCoy asked.

"It has been proposed to the Commandant that the one way to find out what Colonel Carlson is really up to is to arrange to have someone assigned to his Raider Battalion who would then be able to make frequent, and if I have to say so, absolutely secret reports, to confirm or refute the allegations that he is unbalanced, or a Communist, or both."

"Named McCoy," McCoy said.

"The lesser of two evils, McCoy," Rickabee said. "Either intelligence-which I hope means you-does it, or somebody else will. There's a number of people close to the Commandant who have already made up their minds about Carlson, and whoever they arranged to have sent would go out there looking for proof that he is what they are convinced he is."

"So I guess I go," McCoy said.

"There are those in the Marine Corps, McCoy," Rickabee said dryly, "who do not share your high opinion of Second Lieutenant McCoy; who in fact think this is entirely too much responsibility for a lowly lieutenant. What happens next is that a colonel named Wesley is coming to dinner. He will examine you with none of what I've been talking about entering into the conversation. He will then go home, call a general officer, and tell him that it would be absurd to entrust you with a job like this. Meanwhile, General Forrest, who is one of your admirers, will be telling the same general officer that you are clearly the man for the job. What I think will happen is that the general will want to have a look at you himself and make up his mind then."

"Sir, is there any way I can get out of this?"

"You may not hear drums and bugles in the background, McCoy," Rickabee said, "but if you will give this a little thought, I think you'll see that it's of great importance to the Corps. I don't want to rub salt in your wound, but it's a lot more important than what you were doing in the Philippines."

(Three)

Temporary Building T-2032

The Mall

Washington, D.C.

1230 Hours, 7 January 1942

McCoy's encounter with Colonel Wesley was not what he really expected. The meeting was clearly not Wesley's idea; he had simply been ordered to have a look at the kid. Thus at dinner Wesley practically ignored him; what few questions he asked were brief and obviously intended to confirm what he had decided about McCoy before he met him.

Despite what Rickabee had said about the importance to the Corps of checking on Carlson, McCoy didn't want the job. Even the COI seemed like a better assignment. With a little bit of luck, McCoy decided, Colonel Wesley would be able to convince the unnamed general officer that McCoy was not the man for it.

He was a mustang second lieutenant. The brass would not entrust to a mustang second lieutenant a task they considered very important to the Corps.

But just before he went to sleep in a bedroom overlooking the snow-covered golf course, he had another, more practical, thought. He could get away with spying on this gone-Chink lieutenant colonel for the same reasons Colonel Wesley didn't think he could carry it off: because he was a mustang second lieutenant. Wesley would send some Palace Guard type out there, some Annapolis first lieutenant or captain. If Colonel Carlson was up to something he shouldn't be, he sure wouldn't do it with an Annapolis type around. Carlson would not be suspicious of a mustang second lieutenant; but if he hadn't really gone off the deep end, he would wonder why an Annapolis-type captain was so willing to go along with his Chinese bullshit.

In the morning, Captain Sessions told him to stick around the house until he was summoned, and then Sessions drove to work.

He tried to keep out of the way, but Mrs. Sessions found him reading old National Geographic magazines in the living room, and she wanted to talk. The conversation turned to Ernie Sage and ended with him calling her on the phone, so Mrs. Sessions could talk to her.

They had no sooner hung up than the phone rang again. It was Captain Sessions. He told McCoy to meet him outside Building T-2032 at half-past twelve.

When he got there, five minutes early, Captain Sessions was waiting for him. He was wearing civilian clothing.

"Would it be all right if we used your car again, Killer?" Sessions asked.

"Yes, sir, of course." McCoy said.

When they were in the car, McCoy looked at Sessions for directions.

"Take the Fourteenth Street Bridge," Sessions ordered.

Twenty- five minutes later, they turned off a slippery macadam road and drove through a stand of pine trees, and then between snow-covered fields to a fieldstone farmhouse on top of a hill. As they approached the house, McCoy saw that it was larger than it appeared from a distance. And when, at Sessions's orders, he drove around to the rear, he saw four cars: a Buick, a Ford, and two 1941 Plymouth sedans, all painted in Marine green.

"It figures, I suppose," Sessions said dryly, "that the junior member of this little gathering has the fanciest set of wheels."

McCoy wasn't sure whether Sessions was just cracking wise, or whether there was an implied reprimand; second lieutenants should not drive luxury convertibles. He had bought the LaSalle in Philadelphia when he had been ordered home from the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He had made a bunch of money in China, most of it playing poker, and he had paid cash money for the car. He'd bought it immediately on his return, as a corporal, before he had had any idea the Corps wanted to make him an officer.

He parked the LaSalle beside the staff cars, and they walked to the rear door of the farmhouse. A first lieutenant, wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp, opened the door as they reached it.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said to Sessions, giving McCoy a curious look. "The general is in the living room. Through the door, straight ahead, last door on the left."

"Thank you," Sessions said, and added, "I’ve been here before."

In the corridor leading from the kitchen, they came across a row of Marine overcoats and caps hanging from wooden pegs. They added theirs to the row.

Then Sessions signaled for McCoy to knock on a closed sliding door.

"Yes?" a voice from inside called.

"Captain Sessions, sir," Sessions called softly.

"Come in, Ed," the voice called. McCoy slid the door open. Then Sessions walked into the room and McCoy followed him. There was five officers there: a major general and a brigadier general, neither of whom McCoy recognized; Colonel Wesley; Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee, in civilian clothing; and a captain wearing aide-de-camp's insignia. There was also an enlisted Marine wearing a starched white waiter's jacket.

The brigadier general shook Session's hand, and then offered his hand to McCoy.

"Hello, McCoy," he said. "Good to see you again."

McCoy was surprised. So far as he could remember, he had never seen the brigadier general before. And then he remembered that he had. Once before, in Philadelphia, after he had just returned from China, they had had him at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, draining his brain of everything he could recall about China and the Japanese Army. Two then in civilian

clothing had come into the third-floor room where he was "interviewed." One of them, he realized, had been this brigadier general. And with that knowledge, he could put a name to him: He was Brigadier General Horace W. T. Forrest, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, USMC.

"Thank you, sir," McCoy said. What did Rickabee mean when he said Forrest was "one of my admirers"?

"I don't believe you know General Lesterby?" General Forrest said, gesturing to the major general.

"No, sir," McCoy said. He looked at General Lesterby and saw that the general was examining him closely, as if surprised at what he was seeing.

Then General Lesterby offered his hand.

"How are you, Lieutenant?" he said.

"How do you do, sir?" McCoy said.

"And you've met Colonel Wesley," General Forrest said.

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

Wesley nodded, and there was a suggestion of a smile, but he did not offer his hand.

"Tommy," General Lesterby said, "make one more round for all of us. And two of whatever they're having for Captain Sessions and Lieutenant McCoy. And that will be all for now."

"Aye, aye, sir," the orderly said.

"And I think you should go keep General Forrest's aide company, Bill," General Lesterby said.

"Aye, aye, sir," General Lesterby's aide-de-camp said quickly. McCoy saw that he was surprised, and even annoyed, at being banished. But he quickly recovered.

"Captain Sessions, what's your pleasure, sir?"

"Bourbon, please," Sessions said. "Neat."

"Lieutenant?" the aide asked.

"Scotch, please," McCoy said. "Soda, please."

Not another word was spoken until the drinks had been made and the aide-de-camp and the orderly had left the room.

General Lesterby picked up his glass.

"I think a toast to the Corps would be in order under the circumstances, gentlemen," he said, and raised his glass. "The Corps," he said.

The others followed suit.

"And under the circumstances," Lesterby said, "to our oath of office, especially the phrase 'against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'" He raised his glass again, and the others followed suit.

Then he looked at McCoy.

"Obviously, you're a little curious, McCoy, right? Why I sent my aide-de-camp from the room?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy admitted.

"Because if he is ever asked," General Lesterby said, "as he very well may be asked, what happened in this room today, I want him to be able to answer, in all truthfulness, that he was sent from the room, and just doesn't know."

McCoy didn't reply.

"The rest of us, McCoy," General Lesterby said, "if we are asked what was said, what transpired, in this room this afternoon, are going to lie."

"Sir?" McCoy blurted, not sure he had heard correctly.

"I said, we're going to lie," General Lesterby said. "If we can get away with it, we're going to deny this meeting ever took place. If we are faced with someone's knowing the meeting was held, we are going to announce we don't remember who was here, and none of us is going to remember what was said by anyone."

McCoy didn't know what to say.

"And we are now asking you, McCoy, without giving you any reasons to do so, to similarly violate the code of truthfulness incumbent upon anyone privileged to wear the uniform of a Marine officer," General Lesterby said, looking right into his eyes.

When McCoy didn't reply, Lesterby went on: "As perverse as it sounds-as it is-I am asking for your word as a Marine officer to lie. If you are unable to do that, that will be the end of this meeting. You will return to your duties under General Forrest and Colonel Rickabee, neither of whom, obviously, is going to hold it against you for living up to a code of behavior you have sworn to uphold."

McCoy didn't reply.

"Well, Sessions," General Forrest said, "you're right about that, anyway. You can't tell what he's thinking by looking at him."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"'Yes, sir,' meaning what?" General Lesterby asked.

"You have my word, sir, that… I'll lie, sir."

"And now I want to know, Lieutenant McCoy-and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind-why you are willing to do so."

"Colonel Rickabee and Captain Sessions, sir," McCoy said. "They're in on this. I'll go with them." General Lesterby looked at McCoy for a moment. "Okay," he said. "You're in. I really hope you don't later have cause-that none of us later has cause-to regret that decision."

McCoy glanced at Captain Session. He saw that Sessions had just nodded approvingly at him.

"I presume Colonel Rickabee has filled you in at some length, McCoy, about what this is all about?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"Just so there's no question in anyone's mind, we are all talking about a brother Marine officer, Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson, who is about to be given command of a Marine Raider battalion. We are all aware that Colonel Carlson was awarded the Navy Cross for valor in Nicaragua, and that he was formerly executive officer of the Marine detachment assigned to protect the President of the United States at Warm Springs, Georgia. We are all aware, further, that he is a close friend of the President's son, Captain James Roosevelt. Because we believe that Colonel Carlson's activities in the future may cause grievous harm to the Corps, we see it as our distasteful duty to send someone-specifically, Lieutenant McCoy here-to spy on him. This action is of questionable legality, and it is without question morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, we are proceeding because we are agreed, all of us, that the situation makes it necessary." He looked around the room and then at General Forrest. "General Forrest?"

"Sir?" Forrest replied, confused.

"Is that your understanding of what is taking place?"

Forrest came to attention. "Yes, sir."

"Colonel Wesley?"

"Yes, sir," Wesley mumbled, barely audibly.

"A little louder, Wesley, if you please," General Lesterby said. "If you are not in agreement with us, now's the time to say so."

"Yes, sir!" Colonel Wesley said, loudly.

"Rickabee?"

"Yes, sir."

"Captain Sessions?"

"Yes, sir."

General Lesterby looked at McCoy. "I understand, son," he said, "that you're very unhappy with this assignment. That speaks well for you."

Then he walked out of the room.

(One)

Pensacola, Florida

0500 Hours, 7 January 1942

Pick Pickering pulled the Cadillac convertible up before the San Carlos Hotel in Pensacola at a quarter to five in the morning. The car was filthy, covered with road grime, and Pickering himself was tired, unshaven, dirty, and starved.

From Atlanta, it had been a two-hour drive down U.S. 85 to Columbus, Georgia. Pickering saw a sign reading COLUMBUS, HOME OF THE INFANTRY, which explained why the streets of Columbus were crowded with soldiers; he was close to the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning.

He crossed a bridge and found himself in Alabama. There he found a small town apparently dedicated to satisfying the lusts of Benning's military population. Its businesses seemed limited to saloons, dance halls, hock shops, and tourist cabins.

The next 250 miles were down a narrow, bumpy macadam road through a series of small Alabama towns and then across the border to Florida. Twenty miles inside Florida he came to U.S. 90 and turned right to Pensacola, a 125-mile, two-and-a-half-hour drive.

He had grown hungry about the time he'd passed through Columbus, Georgia, and had told himself he would stop and get something to eat, if only a hamburger, at the first place that looked even half decent. But he had found nothing open, decent or otherwise, between Columbus and Pensacola. He dined on Cokes and packages of peanut butter crackers bought at widely spaced gas stations where he took on gas.

He was grateful to find the open gas stations, and he filled up every time he came upon one. This was not the place to run out of gas.

When he opened the door of the Cadillac at the hotel, he was surprised at how cold it was. This was supposed to be sunny Florida, but it was foggy and chilly, and the palm trees on the street in front of the San Carlos Hotel looked forlorn.

The desk clerk was a surly young man in a soiled jacket and shirt who said he didn't know nothing about no reservation. When pressed, the desk clerk did discover a note saying the manager was to be notified when a Mr. Pickering showed up.

"I'm here," Pick said. "You want to notify him?"

"Don't come in until eight-thirty, Mr. Davis don't," the desk clerk informed him. "Don't none of the assistant managers come in till seven."

"Is there a restaurant?" Pick asked.

"Coffee shop," the desk clerk said, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.

"Thank you for all your courtesy," Pick said.

"My pleasure," the desk clerk said.

Pickering crossed the lobby and pushed open the door to the coffee shop.

It was crowded, which surprised him, for five o'clock in the morning, until he realized that nearly all the male customers were in uniform-officer's uniforms, Marine and Navy. They are beginning their day, Pick thought, as I am ending mine.

He found a table in a corner and sat down.

A couple of the officers glanced at him-with, he sensed, disapproval.

He needed a shave, he realized. But that was impossible without a room with a wash basin.

He studied the menu until a waitress appeared, and then ordered orange juice, milk, coffee, biscuits, ham, three eggs, and home fries; and a newspaper, if she had one.

The newspaper was delivered by a Marine captain in a crisp uniform.

"Keep your seat, Lieutenant," he said, as Pickering-in a Quantico Pavlovian reaction-started to stand up, "that way as few people as possible will notice a Marine officer in a mussed uniform needing a shave."

"I've been driving all night, Captain," Pick said.

"Then you should have cleaned up, Lieutenant, before you came in here, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, sir. No excuse, sir," Pickering said.

"Reporting in, are you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then we shall probably have the opportunity to continue this embarrassing conversation in other surroundings," the captain said. Then he walked off.

Pickering, grossly embarrassed, stared at the tableware. As he pretended rapt fascination with the newspaper, he became aware that the people in the coffee shop were leaving. He reasoned out why: Officers gathered here for breakfast before going out to the base. The duty day was about to begin, and they were leaving.

When his breakfast was served, he folded the newspaper. As he did that he glanced around the room. It was indeed nearly empty.

But at a table across the room was an attractive young woman sitting alone over a cup of coffee. She was in a sweater and skirt and wore a band over her blond hair. And she was looking at him, he thought, with mingled amusement, condescension, and maybe even a little pity.

Pick, with annoyance, turned his attention to his breakfast.

A moment later, the blonde was standing by his table. He sensed her first, and then smelted her perfume-or her cologne, or whatever it was-a crisp, clean, feminine aroma; and then as he raised his eyes, he saw there was an engagement ring and a wedding band on her hand.

"That was Captain Jim Carstairs," she said, "and as a friendly word of warning, his bite is even worse than his bark."

Pick stood up. The blonde was gorgeous. He was standing so close to her man he could see the delicate fuzz on her cheeks and chin.

"And you, no doubt, are Mrs. Captain Carstairs?" he said.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Just a friendly Samaritan trying to be helpful. I wouldn't let him catch me needing a shave again."

"The last time he caught you needing a shave, it was rough, huh?" Pick said.

"Go to hell," she said. "I was trying to be helpful."

"And I'm very grateful," Pick said.

She nodded at him, smiled icily, and went back to her table.

What the hell was that all about? Pick wondered. Obviously, she wasn't trying to pick me up. Then what? There was the wedding ring, and she knew the salty captain with the mustache. She was probably some other officer's wife, drunk with his exalted rank. Well, fuck her!

He sat down again and picked up a biscuit and buttered it.

The blonde, whose name was Martha Sayre Culhane, returned to her table wondering what had come over her; wondering why she had gone over to the second lieutenant she had never seen before-much less met-in her life; wondering if she was drunk, or just crazy.

That he was good-looking and attractive never entered her conscious mind. What had entered Martha Sayre Culhane's conscious mind was that the second lieutenant looked very much tike Greg, even walked like him. And that resemblance made her throat catch and her breathing speed up.

Greg was- had been-First Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC (Annapolis '38), a tall, lanky, dark-haired young man of twenty-four. A Navy brat, he was born in the Navy hospital in Philadelphia. His father, Lieutenant (later Vice Admiral) Andrew J. Culhane, USN (Annapolis '13), was at the time executive officer of a destroyer engaged in antisubmarine operations off the coast of Ireland. He first saw his son six months later, in December of 1917, after the War to End All Wars had been brought to a successful conclusion, and he had sailed his destroyer home to put it in long-term storage at Norfolk, Virginia.

Admiral Culhane's subsequent routine duty assignments sent him to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; San Diego, California; and to the Navy Yards at Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

Two weeks after his graduation from Philadelphia's Episcopal Academy in June of 1934, Greg Culhane, who had earned letters in track and basketball at Episcopal, traveled by train to

Annapolis, Maryland, where he was sworn into the United States Navy as a midshipman.

On his graduation from Annapolis in June 1938 (sixty-fifth in his class) he was commissioned at his request-and against the advice of his father-as second lieutenant, USMC, and posted to the Marine detachment aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania, the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, whose home port was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

He immediately applied for training as a Naval aviator, which may have had something to do with his relief from the Pennsylvania four months later and his transfer to the Marine Detachment, Peking, China, for duty with troops.

Second Lieutenant Culhane traveled from Pearl Harbor to Tientsin, China aboard the USS Chaumont, one of two Navy transports that endlessly circled the world delivering and picking up Navy and Marine personnel from all comers of the globe.

In Peking, Greg Culhane served as a platoon leader for eighteen months, along with the additional duties customarily assigned to second lieutenants: He was mail officer; athletic officer, custodian of liquor, beer, and wine for the officer's mess; venereal disease control officer; and he served as recorder and secretary of various boards and committees formed for any number of official and quasi-official purposes.

In April 1939, he boarded the Chaumont again and returned to the United States via the Cavite Navy Base in the Philippines; Melbourne, Australia; Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Monrovia, Liberia; Rio de Janeiro and Recife, Brazil; and Guantanamo, Cuba.

Second lieutenant Greg Culhane reported to the United States Navy Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, on June 10,1939, nine days after the date specified on his orders. His class had already begun their thirteen-month course of instruction.

The personnel officer brought the "Culhane Case" to the attention of the deputy air station commander, Rear Admiral (lower half) (The Navy rank structure provides four grades of "flag" officers corresponding to the four grades of "general" officers of the Army and Marine Corps. The lowest of these grades, corresponding to brigadier general, is rear admiral (lower half). But where brigadier generals wear only one star, rear admirals (lower half) wear two silver stars, as do rear admirals (upper half) and major generals. The result of this inconsistency is a good deal of annoyance on the part of brigadier and major generals of the Army and Marine Corps) James B. Sayre, USN, for decision.

When he had not shown up, the training space set aside for the young Marine officer had been filled by one of the standby applicants. There were two options, the personnel officer explained. One was to go by the book and request the Marine Corps to issue orders returning Lieutenant Culhane to the Fleet Marine Force. The second option was to keep him at Pensacola and enroll him in the next flight course, which would commence 1 September.

"There's a third option, Tom," Admiral Sayre said. "For one thing, it's not this boy's fault that the Chaumont was, as usual, two weeks late. For another, I notice that he came here just as soon as he could after the Chaumont finally got to Norfolk; he didn't take the leave he was authorized. And finally, he's only nine days late. What I think is in the best interests of the Navy, as well as Lieutenant Culhane, is for me to have a word with Jim Swathley and ask him to make the extra effort to let this boy catch up with his class."

"I'll be happy to talk to Captain Swathley, sir, if you'd like," the personnel officer said.

"All right then, Tom, you talk to him. Tell him that's my suggestion."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Admiral Sayre had not considered it necessary to tell the personnel officer that he had been a year behind Greg Culhane's father at the academy, nor that in 1919-20 (before he had volunteered for aviation) he had served under Admiral Culhane with a tin-can squadron.

But as soon as the personnel officer had left his office, he had asked his chief yeoman to get Mrs. Sayre on the line, and when she came to the phone, he told her that Andy Culhane's boy had just reported aboard, and from the picture in his service jacket as well as from the efficiency reports in the record, Greg Culhane was a fine young Marine officer.

"I wonder why he went in the Marines?" Jeanne Sayre said absently, and then without waiting for a reply, she asked, "I wonder if Martha remembers him? They were just little tykes the last time… Well, we'll just have to have him to dinner. I'll write Margaret Culhane and tell her we're keeping an eye on him."

The engagement of Martha Ellen Sayre, the only daughter of Rear Admiral and Mrs. James B. Sayre, USN, to First Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC, elder son of Vice Admiral and Mrs. Andrew J. Culhane, USN, was announced at the traditional Admiral's New Year's Day Reception.

It was a triple celebration. Admiral Sayre announced jovially at midnight when he was getting just a little flushed in the face: It was the new year, 1941, and that was always a good excuse for a party; he had finally managed to unload his daughter, who was getting to be at twenty-one a little long in the tooth; and her intended, even if he was a Marine, could now afford to support her, because as of midnight he had been made a first lieutenant.

Greg and Martha Culhane were married in an Episcopal service at the station chapel at Pensacola on July 1, 1941, the day after he was graduated as a Naval aviator. It was a major social event for the air station, and indeed for the Navy. Seventeen flag and general officers of the Navy and Marine Corps (and of course their ladies) were in the chapel for the ceremony. And twelve of Greg's buddies (nine Marines and three swabbies) from flight school, in crisp whites, held swords aloft over the couple as they left the chapel.

Despite secret plans (carefully leaked to the enemy) that the young couple would spend their wedding night in Gainesville, they actually went no farmer than a suite in Pensacola's San Carlos Hotel. And the next morning, they drove down the Florida peninsula to Opa-locka, where Greg had been ordered for final training as a fighter pilot.

That lasted about two months. They had a small suite in the Hollywood Beach Hotel, which was now a quasi-official officers' hotel. Martha spent her days playing tennis and golf and swimming, and Greg spent his learning the peculiarities of the Grumman F4F-3 fighter.

In September, Greg was ordered to San Diego on orders to join Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-211. Martha drove to the West Coast with him, and she stayed until he boarded ship for Pearl Harbor. Then she left their car in storage there and returned to Florida by train. She didn't want a fight with her parents about driving all the way across the country by herself, and besides, it would be nice to have the Chevrolet Super Deluxe coupe there when Greg came back to San Diego.

Greg flew his brand-new Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat off the Enterprise to Wake Island on December 3, 1941. He wrote her that night, quickly, because he had to make sure the letter left aboard a Pan American China Clipper. Among other things, he told her that Wake had been unprepared for them, and that Marine and civilian bulldozer operators were working from first light until after dark to make revetments.

Greg also wrote that he loved her and would write again just as soon as he had the chance.

The next news she had about Greg was a letter to her father from Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, the senior Naval officer on Wake Island. Cunningham had once worked for Admiral Sayre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Commander Cunningham wrote his old commanding officer that as soon as word of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had reached Wake Island, he had ordered Major Paul Putnam, VMF-211's commanding officer, to lead a flight of four F4F-3s on a scouting mission for Japanese naval forces. The remaining eight fighter planes and the squadron itself prepared for combat.

This had posed some problems, he continued; there was more to that job than simply filling the aircraft fuel tanks and loading ammunition for the guns. Aviation fuel, presently in large tanks, had to be put into fifty-five-gallon drums and the drums dispersed. And much of the.50-caliber machine-gun ammunition had to be linked, that is to say removed from its shipping containers and fitted with metal links to make belts of ammunition.

All hands had then gone to work, officers and enlisted then alike, bulldozing revetments and taxiways; filling sandbags; pumping fuel; and working the.50-caliber linking machines.

At 0900, Putnam's four-plane patrol returned to Wake for refueling. At about 0940, immediately after the tanks of their Grumman Wildcats had been topped off, Commander Cunningham wrote, Putnam and three others took off again, taking up a course to the north and climbing to twelve thousand feet, as high as they could fly without using oxygen.

At 1158, First Lieutenant Wallace Lewis, USMC, an experienced antiaircraft artilleryman whom Major James P. S. Devereux, the senior Marine on Wake Island, had placed in charge of antiaircraft defenses, spotted a twelve-plane V of aircraft approaching Wake Island from the north at no more than two thousand feet.

The three-inch antiaircraft cannon, and the dozen.50-caliber Browning machine guns on Wake, brought the attacking formation under fire.

The pilots of the eight Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats ran for their aircraft as crew chiefs started the engines.

There were now thirty-six Japanese aircraft, three twelve-plane Vs, in sight. One-hundred-pound bombs fell from the leading V, but instead of turning away from the target once their bomb load had been released, which was the American practice, the Japanese aircraft continued on course, and began to strafe the airfield with their 20-mm machine cannon.

The projectiles were mixed explosive and incendiary. One of them, Commander Cunningham wrote Admiral Sayre, had struck Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC, in the back of the head as he ran toward his Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat. It exploded on impact,

"I'm not even sure, Admiral," Commander Cunningham concluded, "if there will be an opportunity to get this letter out. They're supposed to be sending a Catalina in here, and we are supposed to be reinforced by a task force from Pearl, but in view of the overall situation, I'm not sure that either will be possible.

"Please offer my condolences to Martha and Mrs. Sayre."

(Two)

Pickering had just about finished with the paper when a man came into the coffee shop, looked around, and then walked to his table.

"Lieutenant Pickering?"

Pickering looked up and nodded. The man was plump and neatly dressed in a well-cut suit. He looked to be in his early thirties.

"I understand you're an innkeeper yourself," the man said.

Pickering nodded.

"Then you'll understand that no matter how hard you try, sometimes the wrong guy gets behind the desk," the man said. He put out his hand. "I'm Chester Gayfer, the assistant manager. Much too late, let me welcome you to the San Carlos. May I join you?"

Pickering waved him into a chair. A waitress appeared with a cup of coffee.

"Put all this on my chit, Gladys," Gayfer said, and then looked at Pickering and smiled. "Unless you'd rather have a basket of fruit?"

"Breakfast is fine," Pickering said. "Unnecessary, but fine."

"We didn't expect you until later today," Gayfer said.

"I drove straight through," Pickering said.

"I think you may be able to solve one of our problems for us," Gayfer said. "If we extended a very generous innkeeper's discount, would you be interested in a penthouse suite? A large bedroom, a small bedroom, a sitting room, and a tile patio covered with an awning? There's even a butler's pantry."

"It's a little more than I had in mind," Pickering said.

"We have trouble renting something like that during the week," Gayfer said. "On weekends, however, it's in great demand by your brother officers at the air station. Two of them rent it. Eight, sometimes more, of their pals seem to extend their visits overnight. And they have an unfortunate tendency to practice their bombing-"

"Excuse me?"

"Among other youthful exuberances, your brother officers amuse themselves by filling balloon-type objects with water," Gayfer said, "which they then, cheerfully shouting 'bombs away,' drop on their friends as they pass on the sidewalk below."

Pickering chuckled.

"The management has authorized me to say that if the San Carlos could recoup just a little more by the week than it now gets for Friday and Saturday night," Gayfer said, "it would be delighted to offer the penthouse suite on a weekly basis. How does that sound to you?"

"I'm always willing to do what I can to help out a fellow hotelier," Pickering said. "That sounds fine."

They ceremoniously shook hands.

The good- looking blonde who had come to Pickering's table with the unsolicited Good Samaritan warning about Captain Carstairs stood up and walked out of the coffee shop. She had nice legs, and her skirt revealed much of the shape of her derriere. Pickering thought of himself, by and large, as a derriere man. This was one of the nicer derrieres he'd come across lately, and he gave it the careful study an object of beauty clearly deserved. Pity the owner was impressed with her role as an officer's wife.

And then he became aware that Gayfer was watching him stare.

"Some things do tend to catch one's eye, don't they?" Pick said.

There was not the understanding smile on Gayfer's face that he expected.

"I saw the wedding ring," Pick said. "No offense intended. Just a statement of appreciation."

"She's a widow," Gayfer said.

Pickering's eyebrows rose in question.

"Her name is Martha Culhane," Gayfer said. "Martha Sayre Culhane."

"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?" Pickering asked.

"Her father is Admiral Sayre," Gayfer said. "He's the number-three man at the Naval air station. Her husband is… was… a Marine pilot. He was killed at Wake Island."

"Oh, God!" Pickering said softly.

"She's not the only service wife around here to suddenly find herself a widow," Gayfer said. "This is a Navy town. But when she went home to her family, it was back into admiral's quarters on the base. I think that made it tougher for her. If she was back in Cedar Rapids or someplace, she wouldn't be surrounded by uniforms."

"What was she doing here this time of morning?"

"She hangs around the Marine fliers. The ones who were friends of her husband. They sort of take care of her."

Pickering would have liked an explanation of "hangs around" and "take care of her," but he suppressed the urge to ask for one.

No wonder, he thought, that she looked at me with such amused contempt.

"When you're through, I'll show you the suite," Gayfer said.

"I'm through," Pickering said, and stood up.

"Where's your car?" Gayfer asked as they entered the lobby.

The widow was standing, sidewards to him, by a stack of newspapers on the marble desk. Nice legs, Pickering thought idly, again, and then he saw how her skirt was drawn tight against her stomach, and his mind's eye was suddenly filled with a surprisingly clear image of her naked belly.

Goddamn you.' You sonofabitch! She's a widow, for Christ's sake. Her husband was shot down!

"Out in front," he replied to Gayfer.

"The Cadillac with the California plates?"

Pickering nodded.

"Give me the keys," Gayfer said, and Pickering handed them to him.

There was a new clerk behind the desk. Gayfer walked over to him, gave him the keys, told him to have the bellman bring the bags in the Cadillac convertible outside up to the penthouse, and then to put the Cadillac in the parking lot.

The widow (Martha Sayre Culhane, Pickering remembered), who couldn't help but overhear what Gayfer said, looked at Pickering with unabashed curiosity.

Gayfer, smiling, led Pickering to the elevator. When Pickering turned and faced front, Martha Sayre Culhane was still looking at him.

(Three)

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, had learned from Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, a number of things about the United States Marine Corps that were not taught in the Platoon Leader's Course at United States Marine Corps' Schools, Quantico.

One of them was that a commissioned officer of the United States Marine Corps was not required to use rail tickets issued to move officially from one place to another. Such rail tickets, Pickering had learned from McCoy, were issued for the officer's convenience.

"There's two ways to do it, Pick," McCoy had explained. "The best way, if you know they're going to issue orders, is to request TPA-Travel by Private Auto-first. If they give you that, they also give you duty time to make the trip… four, five hundred miles a day. Three days, in other words, to get from Washington to Pensacola. Then they pay you so much a mile.

"But even if you don't have TPA on your orders, you can take your car. You don't get any extra travel time, all you get is what it would have taken you to make the trip by train. But when you get there, you can turn in your ticket, and tell them you traveled TPA, and they'll still pay you by the mile."

There was more: "The duty day runs from oh-oh-oh-one to twenty-four hundred."

That had required explanation, and McCoy had furnished it.

"Whether it's one minute after midnight in the morning when you leave, or half-past eleven that night, that's one day. And whether you report in after midnight or twenty-three-and-a-half hours later, so far as the Corps is concerned, it's the same day. So the trick is to leave just after midnight, and report in just before midnight."

And there had been a final sage word of advice from McCoy: "And never report in early. You report in early, they'll find something for you to do between the time you reported in and when they expected you. Something nobody else wants to do, like counting spoons, or inspecting grease pits."

Second Lieutenant Pickering's orders, transferring him from U.S. Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., to Navy Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, for the purpose of undergoing training as a Naval aviator, had given him a ten-day delay en route leave, plus the necessary time to make the journey by rail. The schedule for rail travel called for a forty-nine-hour journey. Since forty-nine hours was one hour more than two days, he had three full days to make the rail trip.

He had flown from his Authorized Leave Destination-in other words, New York City-to Atlanta, and then driven through the night to Pensacola. He had two days of travel time left when he got to Pensacola; and taking McCoy's advice as the Gospel, he had no intention of reporting in early and finding himself counting spoons or inspecting grease pits.

He went to bed in the penthouse suite of the San Carlos and slept through the day, rising in time for the cocktail hour. He had a couple of drinks at the bar, then dinner, and then a couple of more drinks. He looked for, but did not see, the Widow Culhane, and told himself this was idle curiosity, nothing more.

Suspecting that if he stayed in the bar, he would get tanked up, which would not be a smart thing for a just-reporting-in second lieutenant to do, he left the bar and wandered around downtown Pensacola.

It was, as Chester Gayfer had told him, a Navy town. Every third male on the streets was in Navy blue. There were fewer Marines, though, and most of them seemed to be officers. There were more service people on the streets of Pensacola, Pickering decided as he saluted for the twentieth or thirtieth time, than there were in Washington.

He went into the Bijou Theatre, taking advantage of the price reduction for servicemen, and watched Ronald Reagan playing a Naval aviator in a movie called Dive Bomber. He was fascinated with the airplanes, and with the notion-truth being stranger than fiction-that he might soon be flying an airplane himself.

When the movie was over (he had walked in in the middle) and the lights went up, he kept his seat and stayed for the Bugs Bunny cartoon and The March of Time, much of which was given over to footage of the "Arsenal of Democracy" gearing up its war production.

When Dive Bomber started up again, he walked out of the theater and back to the San Carlos Hotel bar.

This time the Widow Culhane (Martha Sayre Culhane, her full name came to him) was there, in the center of a group of Marine officers and their wives and girl friends. All wore the gold wings of Navy aviators. Among them was Captain Mustache Carstairs, the one who had objected to his unshaven chin and mussed uniform the day before.

As Pickering had his drinks, both of them looked at him, the Marine captain with what Pick thought was a professional curiosity ("Has that slovenly disgrace to the Marine Corps finally taken a shave?") and Martha Sayre Culhane with a look he could not interpret.

Pick had two drinks, and then left. He went to the penthouse suite and took off his uniform, everything but his shorts, and sat on the patio looking up at the stars and smoking a cigar until he felt himself growing sleepy. Then he went to bed.