Elizabeth-Sue confessed she really didn't know what that meant.


«It means she takes home probably twice as much money every month as Lady-killer McCoy and I do together.»


«That's enough about me, thank you very much,» Ernie said. «Get on the phone and order us some hors d'oeuvres.»


«Yes, ma'am,» Pick said, and went to the telephone.


«How long are you going to be in Memphis?» Elizabeth-Sue asked.


«Just as soon as Ken can get us a compartment on a train to Florida—and he's very good at that sort of thing—we're going to Palm Beach for a little sun. With a little bit of luck, maybe tomorrow.»



note 34


Temporary Building T-2032



The Mall


Washington, D.C.



0805 3 March 1943




A painfully sunburned Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, walked down the sidewalk between the rows of temporary buildings until he came to T-2032, then approached the door and rang the bell. A face appeared at a small window in the door, and a moment later there was a buzzing noise as the solenoid-operated lock functioned. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.


The «temporary» buildings on The Mall, built during World War I, had been designed to last no more than five years. Despite a quarter century's painting and patching to keep them functional, they showed their age. Floors sagged, roofs leaked, and keeping windows and doors operational required a small army of maintenance people.


The sign, painted Marine Corps Green, hung from a small pole on the tiny lawn before Temporary Building T-2032. It read, «USMC Office of Management Analysis.» From the street Temporary Building T-2032, a two-story frame building with a shingle roof, looked no different than Building T-2034, «USMC Office of Dependent Affairs,» to its right, or Building T-2030, «USMC Office of Procurement Contract Management,» to its left.


Inside T-2032, there were considerable differences from the other buildings. Just beyond the ground-floor entrance was a counter behind which sat two Marine noncoms armed with pistols and World War I trench guns—Winchester Model 12 12-gauge pump-action shotguns, with six-round magazines and twenty-inch barrels with bayonet fixtures. They controlled access to the rest of the building. This was through a door covered (as was the wall itself) with pierced steel planking normally used to pave temporary aircraft runways.


«You look like you been out in the sun, Captain McCoy,» Technical Sergeant Harry Rutterman said.


«Oh, you are an observant sonofabitch, aren't you, Harry?» McCoy said, and touched his shoulder in a gesture of affection between old friends.


And then he reached for his ONI credentials. No one was passed through the steel planking until the security provisions had been complied with. There were no special credentials for personnel assigned to the Office of Management Analysis; if there were, McCoy knew, people would wonder exactly what Management Analysis did that required special identification. The less people wondered about Management Analysis, the better. ONI credentials served just fine; everybody knew about ONI; and no one asked questions of people with ONI credentials.


Rutterman checked the credentials and handed them back with a smile.


«And who is being honored with the pleasure of your visit?»


«Got a little last night, Harry, did you? You're in a very good mood.»


Rutterman laughed.


«Major Banning get in yet?» McCoy said.


«He don't work here no more,» Rutterman said. «Captain Sessions is here.»


«Sessions, then,» McCoy said.


Rutterman picked up a telephone and dialed two digits. «Captain McCoy to see you, sir,» he said, listened a moment, and then hung up. «Pass, friend,» he said to McCoy, indicating the door covered with pierced steel planking.


As he reached it and tugged on it, there was another solenoid buzz, and the door opened. McCoy passed through it and then up a narrow flight of stairs. Captain Ed Sessions was waiting for him at the top.


«Don't tell me, let me guess,» he said. «You've been in Florida.»


«It's not funny,» McCoy said.


«Come with me. Captain, the General wishes the pleasure of your company.»


«He's here?» McCoy asked, surprised. General Pickering normally spent very little time in Building T-2032.


Sessions didn't reply. He led McCoy three quarters of the way down a narrow corridor, then knocked at a door before opening it.


«Captain McCoy to see you, General,» he said, and motioned McCoy through.


«Christ,» Brigadier General F. L. Rickabee greeted him, «what did you do, fall asleep on Palm Beach?»


«Yes, sir,» McCoy said. «Good morning, sir. Good morning,

General


«Ah, you noticed! I was hoping you might.»


«Congratulations, Sir. Well deserved.»


«I'm not sure about that. There has been a promotion frenzy around here. I got caught up in it.»


«Sir?»


«A silver leaf now adorns Ed Banning's collar points, and sometime this week even Sessions is going to have go buy major's leaves.»


«That's about time, too,» McCoy said to Sessions, then turned to General Rickabee. «Sergeant Rutterman said Major—Lieutenant Colonel—Banning doesn't work here anymore?»


«I would say Rutterman talks too much,» Rickabee said coldly.


«Sir, he wasn't running off at the mouth. I told him I wanted to see Major Banning, and he said, 'Sorry, he doesn't work here anymore.' «


Rickabee seemed only partially satisfied.


«Sir,» Captain Sessions said, «not only is he a good Marine, but Rutterman knows McCoy.»


«I like that,» Rickabee said. «Loyalty down is a desirable characteristic of a Marine officer. But—correct me if I'm wrong—what Rutterman was

supposed

to say was, 'Sorry, sir. I don't know the name.' «


«Yes, sir,» Sessions said.


«Let it pass, Ed,» Rickabee said. «Rutterman

is

a good man.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Well, now that security has been breached, and the cat, so to speak, is out of the bag, I might as well confirm that Lieutenant Colonel Banning is now assigned to the OSS. And so, Captain McCoy, are you.»


«Yes, sir. General Pickering told me that was going to happen.»


«Your records have already been sent over there. You know where it is, the National Institutes of Health Building?»


«Yes, sir.»


«Maybe when this goddamn war is over I can get you back, McCoy. This is where you belong, and you've always done a good job for me.»


«Thank you, sir.»


«Send him over there in a car, Ed,» Rickabee ordered. «Don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out, McCoy.»


«Sir, I've got the ONI credentials,» McCoy said. It was a question.


Rickabee thought that over a moment.


«Banning sold me on the idea of letting him keep his. Said we'll be working together, and they might come in handy. Same logic applies to you. Keep them. I'll deal with ONI if necessary.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


Rickabee came from behind his desk and gave McCoy his hand.


«Good luck, McCoy,» he said. «Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.»



note 35


The Office of the Deputy Director (Administration)


The Office of Strategic Services


The National Institutes of Health Building


Washington, D.C.


0955 3 March 1943



«The Deputy Director will see you now, Captain,» the DDA's secretary said, and motioned him toward a closed door.


McCoy, who had been cooling his heels for the better part of an hour, rose up from the couch and walked to the door. He hesitated, then knocked. There was no answer. McCoy looked over his shoulder at the secretary, who gestured for him to go in. He opened the door and stepped inside.


The well-dressed man behind the desk did not look up from his papers on his desk. After a moment, McCoy closed the door behind him and then stood near it in a position very close to Parade Rest.


Finally the man looked up at him, and after a moment McCoy understood he was expected to speak first. «Good morning, my name is McCoy,» he said.


«Good morning. Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, is that right?»


«Yes, sir.»


«I'm the OSS Deputy Director for Administration,» the man said. «I've just been going over your records, Captain.»


«Yes, sir.»


«They're a… bit unusual,» the DDA said. «If I'm reading them correctly, your formal education ended with high school, is that correct?»


«Yes, sir.»


«And after service as an enlisted man—in China?»


«Yes, sir.»


«You went through the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, and were commissioned second lieutenant?»


«Yes, sir.»


«I had been under the impression that a college degree was a prerequisite for going to Officer Candidate School.»


«I wouldn't know about that, sir.»


«You have to understand, Captain, that you don't quite measure up to what we expect—in terms of education—of applicants for the OSS.»


McCoy did not reply.


«On the other hand, your records indicate that you speak Chinese. Does that mean you can only speak—carry on a conversation? Or does that mean you can read and write Chinese?»


«I read and write Wu, Mandarin, and Cantonese,» McCoy said.


«And Japanese?» the DDA asked dubiously after having another look at McCoy's service record.


«Not as well as I read and write the Chinese languages,» McCoy said.


«And German and French?»


«And a little Italian and Spanish,» McCoy said.


«Well, I'm sure you do,» the DDA said, «but we'll run you through our Languages Division to see just how well you speak so many languages. Perhaps what the Marine Corps considers fluency… You understand?»


McCoy nodded.


«Let me be very frank,» the DDA said. «We're going to send you through our training program. It's conducted at a base we operate in Virginia. And I'm frankly wondering if you might have some difficulty with the academic aspects of the course.»


McCoy said nothing.


«Well, I suppose the way to handle this is, as I said, to run you through our Languages Division, have you tested, and then send you to the base.»


The door to the DDA's office opened and the secretary walked in. «Sorry to interrupt, sir,» she said, «but I thought you should know Colonel Banning is outside.»


«Tell the Colonel I'm tied up,» the DDA said, somewhat impatiently, «and that I will see him as soon as I can.»


«Sir, I couldn't help but overhear. Colonel Banning is telephoning a General Rickabee.»


«And?» the DDA interrupted impatiently.


«He's trying to locate Captain McCoy.»


The DDA thought that over a moment. «Ask Colonel Banning to step in, will you, please?»


Banning came through the door a moment later. «What a pleasant surprise, Captain McCoy,» he said. «I was just asking General Rickabee when we might expect to see your smiling face. Also, if I may say so,

really

sunburned?»


«Good morning, sir.»


«I'll take the Captain off your hands, sir,» Banning said to the DDA.


«I beg your pardon, Colonel?»


«I said I'll take Captain McCoy off your hands, sir.»


«Colonel, Captain McCoy is about to go to the Languages Division to determine the exact level of his languages proficiency. That will probably take up most of the morning. After that, he will be transported to the training base.»


«Sir, I don't think that's what General Pickering has in mind for Captain McCoy.»


«Colonel, why don't you ask General Pickering to discuss that with me?»


«Yes, sir, I'll do that,» Banning said, and walked out of the office.


«I gather you and Colonel Banning are acquainted?» the DDA asked.


«Yes, sir.»


«Unfortunately, he hasn't been here long enough to understand our system of operation.»


McCoy didn't reply.


«Now, where were we?» the DDA said. «Oh, yes. I'll telephone the Languages Division.» He reached for one of the telephones on his desk.


His office door opened again.


«I'll take Captain McCoy off your hands, Charley,» the Deputy Director (Operations) said.


«I just told Colonel Bann—«


«I just saw him in the hall; he told me,» the DDO interrupted.


»—that it was my intention to have Captain McCoy's extraordinary facility with languages tested, and then to send him to the training base.»


«Charley, you were there when General Pickering told Wild Bill that one of the officers he was bringing in with him had already done three successful behind-the-lines operations. He was speaking of Captain McCoy. And Pickering wasn't counting what McCoy did for Banning in China before the war. I've just made the decision that it would be a waste of time and money either to test his language skills—I'll take Colonel Banning's word about that—or to send him to the Country Club. Do we understand each other?»


«I'll have to discuss the matter with Director Donovan.»


«And at the same meeting, it was decided that all of General Pickering's people will be issued barber's pole badges. Why don't we give McCoy's to him while he's here, and save him time?»


The DDA looked at the DDO for fifteen seconds, then picked up his telephone. «Mrs. Rogers, would you please pull Captain McCoy's Any Area Any Time identification badge from the safe and have him sign for it as he leaves? And then come in here, please. I need to dictate a memorandum for the record.»


«You want to come with me, please, Captain?» the DDO asked.


McCoy followed him out of the office.


The DDO watched as Mrs. Rogers made McCoy sign for the identification badge, politely told her, «Thank you, very much, Mrs. Rogers,» and then led McCoy out of the outer officer into the corridor.


Banning, who had been leaning against the corridor wall, stood erect.


The DDO put his hand out to McCoy. «Welcome aboard, McCoy,» he said. «I'm out of time right now—Banning will explain—but we'll find time for a chat as soon as possible. In the meantime, are you familiar with that great truth about any bureaucracy?»


«Sir?»


» 'In any bureaucracy, one may expect to find, near the top, a certain percentage of assholes,' « the DDO said. «You might want to write that down.» Then he turned to Lieutenant Colonel Banning: «He's all yours, Ed.»


He touched McCoy's shoulder and walked away.


«You owe him,» Banning said. «If I hadn't bumped into him in the hall, you would have been doing push ups and knee bends at the Country Club by the time I found General Pickering.»


«Who is he?»


«The number-two guy around here, the Deputy Director (Operations), he's on our side. I'm not sure about the other clown. Come on. I'll show you the White Room, and put you to work.»


In order for McCoy to gain entrance to the White Room, it was necessary for one of the two armed guards on duty outside the unmarked door to compare his face with the photo on the identification badge, and then to check a typewritten list under a top secret cover sheet to make sure his name was on the list. He then nodded to the other security officer, who unlocked the door to the room.


The room was windowless, illuminated with concealed lighting. Thick carpets covered the floor and sound-absorbing material was on the walls. A lectern and a projection screen were at one end of the room, a motion picture and slide projector at the other. The large central conference table showed signs of use; it was littered with paper, some of it crumpled, dirty coffee cups, and empty Coke bottles.


The door was closed, and immediately a whirring noise came from the film and slide projectors. The projectors were automatically shut off when the door was opened, McCoy realized. A moment later, a map flashed onto the screen.


Shit, that's the goddamned Gobi Desert! 1 thought that operation was canceled, or at least on hold!


Well, what the hell did I expect?


«We've been in here for the best part of two days,» Banning said. «Without accomplishing very much. You are hereby appointed,

vice

Lieutenant Colonel Banning, cleaning officer.»


«Which means?»


«You will pick up every scrap of paper and put it in a burn bag. You will then telephone Classified Files—the number's on the phone—and they will come and collect everything—maps, slides, notes, and the burn bag, or bags—and haul it off. Then you will go outside and sign a certificate stating that the White Room is clean—meaning of classified material; somebody will come and deal with the Coke bottles and coffee cups—and it is available for use by others.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Let me give you a quick run-through of where we are on Operation Gobi — which frankly is nowhere. And then you can perform your cleaning officer duties and go home. Where is home, by the way?»


«I'm at the Lafayette,» Ken said.


«If you're uncomfortable in the General's apartment, you can bunk with me for a couple of days until we can find you something.»


«I'm not in General Pickering's apartment,» McCoy said. «I'm in the American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite.»


«Ernie's with you?»


McCoy nodded.


«Then you go home to Ernie and tell her to do something about your sunburn. You really look awful.»


«I feel awful.»


Banning walked to one end of the room and stood in front of the map projected on the screen. «What is needed, Ken, is a weather station in this area,» he gestured at the map, «to give what Colonel Hazeltine describes as reports of atmospheric fronts and conditions there.


«Now, we have reason to believe that a few Americans are already in the neighborhood, some former Marine guards at the Peking legation, the rest retired Marines, soldiers, and Yangtze River patrol sailors. And their wives and children.» He paused. «At any point, Ken, ask questions.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said. He slipped into one of the upholstered chairs and reached for a coffee pitcher.


«Communication with them is spotty at best, and we don't know where they are, and we can't ask them, because they have no cryptographic capability. And, to repeat, the communications are lousy.


«Ideally, we would make up a meteorological team—that's a minimum of four men, and about a ton of equipment, much of it expendable: weather balloons, for example, which will be consumed at the rate of two or three a day, and have to be resupplied, if we ever get that far—and send it in by airplane. Since no airplane has the range to make it back and forth from one of our bases, even if it wasn't intercepted, that means it would be a one-way mission.


«But since we don't know where our people are, or where the Japanese are, it doesn't make any sense to send in a team on an expendable airplane. Or should I say an expendable team on an expendable airplane? We need knowledge of the terrain, and the disposition of Japanese forces. We have neither.»


«Zimmerman spent four months in the Gobi Desert,» McCoy said.


«What?» Banning asked in disbelief.


«When he first went to the Fourth Marines, 1938, somewhere around then, there was a bunch of people from the

National Geographic

magazine who went up there. The Fourth Marines provided the truck drivers. Zimmerman was one of them.»


«You sure about that, Ken?» Pickering asked.


«Yes, sir. He told me about it. There's hardly any sand, he told me, it's mostly flat and rocky.» He hesitated. «I think he went back up there after the explorers left.»


«Why do you say that?»


«Out of school?»


«Sure.»


«I think he was involved in smuggling,» McCoy said.


«Smuggling what? And from where to where?»


«Jade and fancy vases out of China into India, and gold back from India. Or stuff from Russia, through some other country inside Russia.»


«Kazakhstan?»


«I think so.»


«You're telling me Zimmerman was on a caravan smuggling things into India and the Soviet Union?»


«No, sir. Zimmerman was bankrolling the smugglers—actually his woman was. with Zimmerman's money. He—or Mae Su—bought the jade and the vases et cetera, in China, and then sent them out on caravans. The caravan guys got a percentage of what they sold it for.»


«How did he know he would ever see the caravan people again?» Banning asked incredulously.


«Sometimes… when

everybody's

making money, people are honest,» McCoy said. «And Zimmerman's not the sort of guy anyone wants to cross.» he added matter-of-factly.


«In other words, you believe this story?»


McCoy nodded.


«This wasn't big time stuff. Nothing more than a couple of hundred dollars at a time,» McCoy said. «But he and Mae Su have a pretty good-size farm in her village. I went up there a couple of times. They even have a little sausage factory. And they lived good in Shanghai—a lot better than he could live on a corporal's pay. He told me he was saving money for when he retired.»


«But you're sure he's been in contact with smugglers?»


McCoy nodded. «And then they would buy the stuff—mostly icons. You know what they are? Sort of folding pictures of saints painted on wood?»


«I know what they are,» Banning said.


«They would bring the icons smuggled out of Russia, bring them to Shanghai, and sell them to the antique dealers.»


«I don't suppose you were involved in this?» Banning said.


«I thought about it, but I didn't like the odds,» McCoy replied.


«This Chinese wife of his,» Banning asked, thinking out loud. «Where do you think she is?»


«Well, maybe… no, probably, she's playing it safe in the village,» McCoy said. «It's called Paotow-Zi, on the Yellow River twenty, thirty miles from the nearest city. Baotou.»


«Show me on the map,» Banning ordered, went to the table and flipped through a half-dozen large maps until he found what he was looking for, then pulled it from the others and laid it on top.


McCoy found what he was looking for quickly, and held his finger on it for Banning to see. Banning took a compass and made some quick measurements.


«It's a long way from there to the Gobi Desert,» he said.


McCoy didn't argue.


«You said Zimmerman's Chinese wife is 'probably' playing it safe in this village. Was there anything significant in that?»


McCoy looked uncomfortable.


«What, Ken?» Banning pursued.


«She may be in the middle of the Gobi Desert with some caravan,» he said.


«Doing what?»


«Trying to make it to India. Or, for that matter, into Russia.»


«Into Russia? Why the hell would she want to go into Russia? Or India?»


«That's what Zimmerman told her to do, get into India, go to the first American consulate she can find. Have the consul send word to Zimmerman's mother that she and the kids are in India. And then try to get them to the States.»


«That seems like a pretty forlorn hope,» Banning said. «The American Consul is not liable to pay a lot of attention to a Chinese woman with some half-breed children who says she's married to an American.»


«They're married. Some Catholic priest married them. There's a wedding certificate, and Zimmerman went to the consulate and made some sort of statement that the kids are his.»


«I don't think that will work, Ken. You have to admire him—both of them— for trying.»


«I don't think it will work, either. But strange things happen.»


«What did you say about Russia?» Banning asked. «You said something about them trying to get into Russia.»


McCoy looked even more uncomfortable.


«Let's have it, McCoy,» Banning said very softly.


«I asked Mae Su to try to take care of Milla if anything happened,» McCoy said, meeting Banning's eyes.


«You never said anything about that to me.»


«I didn't want you to get your hopes up. If I were Mae Su, I would be trying to cover my ass, and protecting the kids, and wouldn't want to have to worry about taking care of a white woman with a Nansen passport.»


«And since she's a typical Chinese, she said 'yes, of course, certainly' and then forgot about it?»


«She said she would think about it,» McCoy said. «Mae Su's all right.»


«You don't really think they're together?»


«I don't know. I've thought about it. On one hand, Mae Su wants to protect her kids, and will let nothing get in the way of that. On the other hand, when I asked her, you weren't married to Milla. I didn't know about that until you told me. But Zimmerman knew, and I'm sure he told Mae Su. A woman married to an American, an American officer, is not the same thing as a stateless woman. Mae Su may have decided that Milla might be useful. Any consulate would do more for a white woman married to an American officer than he would for a Chinese married to a corporal. Mae Su would know that. She's the brains in that family.»


«Jesus Christ!» Banning said.


«Did Milla have any money?»


«Not much.» Banning said. «All I could lay my hands on on short notice. Whatever she could get for my stuff, which probably was damned little. And she had some money of her own—damned little, I'm sure.»


McCoy didn't reply.


«Jesus Christ. Ken, why didn't you tell me any of this before?»


«I didn't think there was anything you could do if you knew,» McCoy said. «I didn't want to open the wound.»


«Because you don't think that they'll…«


«The odds aren't very good,» McCoy said.


«There's nothing wrong with betting on a long shot if it's the only bet open,» Banning said.


McCoy shrugged what could have been agreement.


«The one thing we'd agreed on in here after two days is that we need to talk to someone who knows more about the Gobi Desert than what he's read in the

National Geographic,''

Banning said.


McCoy chuckled.


«So where is Gunny Zimmerman?»


«On his way here,» McCoy said. «Which means he's either still in Brisbane, or in Pearl Harbor, or maybe San Diego. Zimmerman and Koffler—and Mrs. Koffler—are coming on the same orders. They're entitled to thirty-day leaves. There's some kind of a rest hotel somewhere…«


«The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia,» Banning furnished.


«I guess the idea was they could hold each other's hands. But I don't think that will last after they get off the first plane. Zimmerman will 'get lost,' and the Kofflers will go on without him. And I don't think that Zimmerman is interested in going to a rest hotel someplace. So he's probably at Pearl, 'Diego… anywhere… and will check in at Management Analysis when his leave is up. Maybe even before.»


«We need him here, and now,» Banning said, «which means we're going to have to find him. I'll go see General Rickabee and see what he can do.»


McCoy nodded.


«I need a big favor from you, Ken,» Banning said.


«Yes, sir.»


«When you brief the team tomorrow morning, and you will, I want you to leave Milla and the possibility that she might be with Zimmerman's wife out.»


«Okay. But why?»


«Because if either the DDO or General Pickering hears that my wife is involved in this, they'll take me off this operation. It would be too much of an emotional involvement for me to function rationally. You understand?»


«If I can get to Zimmerman first,» McCoy said. «I'll tell him to leave Milla out.»


«I'll do my damnedest to arrange that,» Banning said.


«Ed, don't get your hopes up,» McCoy said.


That's the first time since I first laid eyes on him that he's ever called me by my first name

, Banning thought.


«I won't. I understand the odds.»


McCoy nodded.


But what if he's wrong ? What if the long shot comes in ? What if Milla is alive ? What do I tell Carolyn?


«I'm going over to T-2032,» Banning said. «We really need Zimmerman. Can you handle the cleaning by yourself?»


«Yes, sir.»


«Then go home and ask Ernie to do something for that sunburn. We can't afford to have you in the hospital.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


Chapter Ten


note 36


USMC Transient Barracks


U.S. Naval Station


San Diego, California


0720 4 March 1943



Staff Sergeant Karl Krantz had been a clerk for the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad before a surge of patriotism sent him to the Marine Recruiting Office on December 9, 1941. After graduating from Parris Island, he had been a clerk in the Marine Corps.


That hadn't kept him from being wounded on Guadalcanal; but it had kept him from carrying a rifle on the line. Having seen what happened on the line to people who carried rifles, he was now profoundly grateful for that.


He had been wounded by bomb shrapnel during a Japanese raid on Hendersonfield. a half-inch chunk of jagged shrapnel had struck him in the left buttock— which was not nearly as funny as it sounds. In due course, Corporal Krantz was sent to the Navy Hospital at Pearl Harbor. And on discharge from the hospital, he had been declared «limited duty.» He could walk, but not very far, and it hurt when he did.


After three months as a clerk at Pearl Harbor—long enough to make sergeant—they sent him home, thus allowing some fully fit sergeant clerk to be sent to the war zone. Back in the States, he had been assigned to San Diego, doing much the same thing he had done for the Delaware & Lackawanna—except here it was people getting on and off ships and airplanes, as well as trains.


He thought of himself as sort of an expediter. He was good at it and took his responsibilities seriously, and this had gotten him another stripe.


Which explained his presence at the office at 0720 on a Sunday morning. The man with the duty—Corporal Vito Martino, who had also been in the wrong place at the wrong time on the 'Canal, and who now had a wired-together jaw that gave him a perpetual leer—did not, in Staff Sergeant Krantz's opinion, have either the dedication or the brains to be relied upon. Sergeant Krantz was not surprised to find Corporal Martino sound asleep on a cot behind the enlisted transients report here counter. That in itself did not bother him—there was nothing wrong with crapping out if nothing was coming in or going out. What bothered him was that Martino had slept through breakfast. He would, in other words, really rather crap out than eat.


Sergeant Krantz woke Corporal Martino up by kicking the legs of the cot. Corporal Martino opened his eyes, then pushed himself up on the cot, supporting himself with his elbows.


«Hey, Sarge, what's up?»


«That was what I intended to ask you. Anything happen?»


«The 2100 Coronado from Pearl was damned near two hours late. They was getting real worried. But it got here, and I was up to damned near midnight working it.»


«Any problems?»


«No. Usual thing. Some brass, some guys who got hit. Customs caught two guys trying to smuggle in Nambu pistols. The usual shit,» Corporal Martino said, and then remembered something. «There was a gunny on it, mean-looking fucker, with some really strange orders.»


«What do you mean, 'really strange orders'?»


«They're over there, in the Incoming Enlisted box,» Corporal Martino said, pointing.


Staff Sergeant Krantz went to the counter and found the orders Martino considered damned strange.


Headquarters


U.S.M.C. Special Detachment 16 FPO, San Francisco, Cal.


February


Subject: Detachment of


Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, 66230, USMC.


Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler, 166705, USMC


Previous verbal orders CTNCPAC detaching Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman from temporary duty with Snd Raider Bn, USMC, and VMF-229 are confirmed and made a matter of record.


Verbal orders of Supreme Commander SWPOA awarding Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman and Staff Sergeant Koffler the Bronze Star Medal for «Conspicuous valor and intrepidity in the face of the enemy in an extremely hazardous classified operation» are confirmed and made a matter of record. The citations will be forwarded to Hq, USMC when available.


Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman is detached USMC SpecDetl6, FPO, San Francisco, Cal. effective 10 Feb 1943 and attached USMC Office of Management Analysis, Washington, DC, for further reassignment.


Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman will proceed from present station to USMC Office of Management Analysis, Washington, DC, by first available US Government or commercial air transportation. Priority AA1 is authorized. Under the provisions of USMC PersReg 42-101 «Recuperative Leave for Personnel Returning to USMC Control After P0W Status or Other Service Behind Enemy lines» 30 days Delay En Route Leave Hot Chargeable As Ordinary Leave is authorized.


Inasmuch as the exigencies of the Naval Service have caused Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman's service and pay records to become unavailable, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman is authorized to draw a partial pay of no more than ninety-percent (90%) of the anticipated pay of a Gunnery Sergeant with eight (8) years service each month until his records can be located or reconstructed.


Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler is detached USMC SpecDet16, FPO, San Francisco, Cal. Effective 10 Feb 1943 and attached USMC Schools, Quantico, Va., for enrollment in Officer Candidate School.


Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler will proceed from present station to USMC Schools, Quantico, Va., by first available US Government or commercial air transportation. Mrs. Daphne F. Koffler (Dependent Wife) is authorized to accompany Staff Sergeant Koffler. Travel will be arranged so that Staff Sergeant and Mrs. Koffler will not be separated during travel. Priority AAA1 is authorized. Under the provisions of USMC PersReg 42-101 «Recuperative Leave for Personnel Returning to USMC Control After P0W Status or Other Service Behind Enemy Lines» 30 days Delay En Route Leave Not Chargeable As Ordinary Leave is authorized.


Authority:


Letter, Office of the Secretary of the Navy, Subject, «Establishment of U.S. Marine Corps Special Detachment 16.» 8 Apr 1942.


Verbal Order, BrigGen F.Pickering, USMCR


10 Feb 1943.


BY DIRECTION OF COLONEL WATERSON:


Official:


John Marston Moore st Lt John Marston Moore, USMCR


Adjutant


Staff Sergeant Krantz had seen the orders before. Five days earlier Staff Sergeant Koffler and his wife had passed through San Diego. Koffler looked as if he had left boot camp about that long ago, and his wife was an Aussie girl who looked as if she was going to be a mother in the

next

five days.


And now the gunny on the same orders had apparently shown up.


«You should have called me, Martino,» Sergeant Krantz said.


«It was midnight, Sergeant,» Martino said. «I figured you'd be in the sack.»


«Anytime you get something out of the ordinary like this, you call me. Understand?»


«You got it, Sarge.»


«You got him into the hospital okay?» Krantz asked.


«Hospital? No. He said he was going into 'Diego and see if he could find a poker game.»


«What?»


«I told him to check back at 0900 Monday, by then his tickets would probably be ready, and he could draw a partial pay, and I asked him if he wanted a ride to the Staff NCO quarters. And he said no, he was going to catch the bus, go into 'Diego, and see if he could find a poker game.»


«Jesus Christ, I don't believe you,» Krantz said. «Didn't you read the goddamned orders? This guy is either an escaped POW—which seems likely, since he doesn't have his service records—or he was doing something behind the enemy's lines.»


«So?»


Krantz walked to the wall of the office, took down a clipboard, and threw it to Corporal Martino. «You are supposed to read the goddamned thing every day. If you ever did, you would know people like that get special treatment. First, they go to the hospital, then they go to some rest hotel in West Virginia.

Jesus

, Martino!»


Staff Sergeant Krantz picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory. «Sir, sorry to bother you at this hour, and on Sunday, but we have a little problem down here. I think you had better come down here, sir.»


Captain Roger Marshutz, an enormous man with a temper to match, arrived at the office ten minutes later. After hearing what had happened, he delivered a verbal chastisement to Corporal Martino that Martino would remember for a long time.


Then he set about solving the problem. He personally visited both the officer of the guard and the Shore Patrol Detachment duty officer and explained the predicament. Both officers were sympathetic and promised to do their very best to locate gunny Sergeant Zimmerman. He was not, of course, to be arrested. You don't arrest somebody who just got out of a POW camp, or wherever the hell he had been, and throw him in the back of a jeep. Whoever found him was to politely inform Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman that a little problem had come up, and would he please come with them and help them to straighten it out?


Captain Marshutz waited around the office until 1330, in the vain hope that Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman would be located and delivered to him. Then he went to his quarters, with orders to summon him immediately when anything came up.


Staff Sergeant Krantz waited around the office until 1630, in the same vain hope. Then he went to his quarters. Before he left, he informed Corporal Martino that he didn't give a good goddamn that he had previously promised Corporal Martino the day off, he would stay there for fucking ever, if necessary, until Gunnery Zimmerman was located.


Both Captain Marshutz and Staff Sergeant Krantz were back at the office at


Monday morning. With a little bit of luck, they told themselves, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, in compliance with that idiot Martino's instructions, just might show up at 0900 to pick up his tickets and partial pay.


Oh nine hundred came and passed. And so did 0930 and 1000. At 1025, just as Captain Marshutz was about to pick up the telephone and inform Lieutenant Colonel Oswald that they were having a little problem, and he thought he had better discuss it personally with the Colonel, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman walked into the office, looked at Staff Sergeant Krantz, burped, and announced he had been told that by now he could pick up his tickets and draw a partial pay.


«Your name is Zimmerman, Gunny?» Captain Marshutz asked.


«Yes, sir.»


«Would you mind telling me where you've been?»


«No, sir.»


«You don't want to tell me?»


«Sir, the Captain asked if I would mind telling him.»


«So tell me.»


«Sir, I went downtown for a while, sir, and then I tried to get a hotel, but they wanted two dollars and fifty cents, so I told myself fuck that, sir, and come back out here and got a bunk in the transient Staff NCO quarters.»


«You've been in the Staff NCO quarters all this time?»


«Yes, sir. I told that fucking feather merchant charge of quarters to wake me up so's I could be here at 0900, and the fucker didn't do it. If the Captain is pissed because I'm late. I respectfully ask the Captain to get that little shit in here and ask

him

didn't I tell him to wake me up so's I could be here on time.»


«I'll take your word for it, Gunny,» Captain Marshutz said. «But there is a little problem.»


«Yes, sir?»


«There's a special program for men like yourself, recently escaped POW's…«


«Begging the Captain's pardon, sir. I was never no POW.»


«But you were behind the enemy's lines?»


«Yes, sir. Twicet. First, on the 'Canal, with the Second Raiders, and the last time we was on Mindanao.»


«In the Philippines?»


«Yes, sir.»


«So you escaped from the Philippines?»


«Begging the Captain's pardon, sir. Not escaped. They sent us in on a submarine, and then they sent the submarine back and it brung us out. What was the name of that fucking pigboat? The

Sunfish

. That's what it was, the

Sunfish


«Well, welcome home, Gunny.»


«Thank you, sir.»


«As I was saying before, Gunny, there's a special program for men like yourself…«


«Yes, sir.»


«First, we run you through the hospital, to make sure you're shipshape, physically, and then you go to a hotel in West Virginia—all expenses paid, of course— for a month.»


«No, sir.»


» 'No, sir'?»


«Sir, begging the Captain's pardon, the General told me the first thing I do is go to Washington and check in with Major Banning.»


«Well, perhaps 'the General' wasn't aware of this program, Gunny. It's relatively recent.»


«With all respect, sir, 'An order received will be obeyed unless countermanded by an officer of senior grade.' The General told me to go to Washington and check in with Major Banning. Them's my orders, sir. With all respect, sir.»


Christ, he memorized that.


«Sir, I got Major Banning's number, if the Captain would like to check with him,» Gunny Zimmerman offered.


«Perhaps that would be a good idea,» Captain Marshutz said.


«Sir, Liberty Three, twenty-nine zero eight,» Zimmerman said. «That's in Washington, D.C.»


He memorized that, too.


A minute later, Staff Sergeant Krantz handed Captain Marshutz the telephone. «It's ringing, sir,» he said.


The telephone was answered on the second ring.


«Liberty 3-2908.»


«With whom am I speaking, please?»


«Will you tell me who you wish to speak to, please?»


«Major Banning,» Captain Marshutz said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. He added «please» as a late-coming afterthought.


«Sir, there is no one of that name at this number.»


«Gunny, they say they don't have a Major Banning.»


«Bullshit!» Gunny Zimmerman said. «I never forget no numbers. With respect, sir, you got the right number?»


«What is it again, Gunny?»


«Sir, Liberty Three, twenty-nine zero eight,» Zimmerman said


«Is this Liberty 3-2908?»


«Yes, it is. Who's calling, please?»


«There is no Major Banning at this number?»


«That is correct.»


Captain Marshutz looked at Zimmerman and shook his head.


«Sir, tell them the call is from me,» Zimmerman said.


«Would Major Banning be there if he knew it was Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman calling?» Captain Marshutz asked very politely, which was his manner when his temper was on the verge of eruption.


«Are you Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman?»


«Sir, if that don't work, ask for Captain McCoy,» Zimmerman said.


«Have you a Captain McCoy?» Marshutz asked.


«Captain

Kenneth R

. McCoy,» Zimmerman amplified.


«Captain

Kenneth R

. McCoy,» Marshutz parroted.


«Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman is calling for either Major Banning or Captain McCoy. Is that correct?»


«That is absolutely correct.»


«Hold on, please.»


There was the sound of another telephone ringing, just once, and then another voice came on the line.


«Yes?»


«With whom am I speaking, please?» Captain Marshutz asked politely.


«Whom do you wish to speak to?»


«Either a Major Banning or a Captain McCoy.»


«With regard to what? Who are you, please?»


«My name is Captain Roger Marshutz, USMC,» Marshutz said, as he sensed his temper going from simmer to boil. «I'm calling with regard to a goddamned gunnery sergeant named Zimmerman. Does that satisfy your goddamned curiosity?»


«It helps a great deal, as a matter of fact. I'm always happy to chat on the telephone with a fellow Marine, even one who uses language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But, pray tell me, how can I help you, Captain?»


«With whom am I speaking?»


«My name is Rickabee, Captain. Brigadier General Rickabee, USMC.»


Oh, shit!


«Sir, I was asked to call this number, by Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, Ernest W…«


«Is there some sort of problem with the gunny? Where are you?»


«Marine Barracks, San Diego, sir.»


«And he's there, with you?»


«Yes, sir.»


«Put him on the phone, please. I want his side of the story first.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


Marshutz handed the phone to Zimmerman. «General Rickabee wishes to speak to you.»


«I'll be goddamned! General!» Zimmerman said to himself, then spoke into the telephone. '"Sir, the General told me to call Major Banning if I ran into trouble. Sorry to bother

you

, sir.»


«What sort of trouble are you in, Gunny?»


«Sir, they want to put me in the fucking hospital and then send me to some fucking hotel someplace. I told them I couldn't do that.»


«Welcome home, Zimmerman. When did you get in?»


«Sir, about 2300 Saturday.»


«Put the Captain back on, will you, please?»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


Zimmerman handed the telephone back to Captain Marshutz.


«Yes, sir, General?»


«It is my desire, Captain, that you (a) have Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman on the next available airplane to Washington; (b) telephone the number he gave you after he has actually taken off, prepared to give me his ETA in Washington.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«As far as this rest hotel business is concerned, Gunny Zimmerman considers himself to be taking a rest whenever no one is actually shooting at him. He's one hell of Marine, and we'll take care of entertaining him here.»


«Yes, sir.»


The line went dead.


Marshutz looked at Zimmerman. «Curiosity overwhelms me, Gunny,» he said. «Just who is General Rickabee?»


«Sir, with respect, I don't think the Captain has the fucking need to know.»


«You're probably fucking right,» Captain Marshutz said, and turned to Staff Sergeant Krantz. «Karl, get the gunny on the next flight out of here. I don't care who gets bumped to get him a seat.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«And the minute he's airborne, call that number he gave…«


«Sir, Liberty Three, twenty-nine zero eight,» Zimmerman said.


»… and give them the ETA.»



note 37


Main Gate



U.S. Naval Air Station


Pensacola, Florida



1215 6 March 1943




The galling thing about this chickenshit little sonofabitch

, Captain James B. Weston, USMCR, thought as he sat fuming in the Buick waiting for the duty offi-cer to show up after he was summoned by the main gate guard,

is that he's a Marine, not a sailor. You'd think a Marine would cut a fellow Marine a little slack

. The whole trip had not gone well, beginning with the reason he was making it in the first place: Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NC, USNR, had told him, firmly, that she had the duty, midnight to eight, Friday

and

Saturday, and that he should not come up to Philadelphia because there wouldn't be time for them to do anything if he did.


So he had driven

down

, leaving the Greenbrier as early as he could on Friday afternoon, and driving through the night. During the journey, he had been stopped twice for speeding. One of these, early that morning in Georgia, had seen him forking over fifty-five dollars to a justice of the peace roused from his bed by the deputy sheriff who had arrested him.


He had arrived in Pensacola a few minutes before seven, and had decided the smart thing to do would be to get a room at the San Carlos Hotel before driving out to the air station. There would, of course, be a telephone in the room, over which he could conveniently contact Major Avery R. Williamson, USMCR.


He had to practically beg the manager to give him a room, and the only thing left was a two-room suite at $32.50 a night, a luxury he needed like a hole in the head. And then, a little later when he got on the telephone, the air station operator refused to put him through to Major Williamson's quarters, saying that he would have to telephone Major Williamson's office, which, since it was Saturday,

might

be open after 0800.


So then he stretched out on the bed to wait for 0800, and wakened at 1200, whereupon he had called again, requested Major Williamson's office number, and listened as the number rang and rang and rang and no one answered.


The thing to do, obviously, was go out to the goddamned air station and run down Major Williamson by whatever means proved to be necessary. Seeing Major Williamson was important.


He got as far as the main gate, expecting to get waved through after a crisp salute from the guard. But instead he was waved to a halt by a five-foot-two, 120-pound Marine PFC, who asked him what his business was at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.


«I'm just visiting,» Weston had told him.


The PFC had then asked him for his identification card and his pass, or orders.


He had only his ID card.


Weston more or less patiently explained that he was on temporary duty at the Greenbrier Hotel, which was serving as a rest and recuperation facility for personnel returning from overseas, and didn't have a pass because it was the policy at the Greenbrier that passes were not needed to leave the place on weekends.


Clearly convinced that he had at the minimum apprehended an AWOL officer, and perhaps even a Japanese spy intent upon infiltrating the air base to blow up the aircraft on the flight lines, the Marine PFC showed Weston where he should park the car until the duty officer arrived. Then he stood in the door of the guard shack, his eyes never leaving Weston for more than five seconds. Should Weston attempt to drive off, he was obviously prepared to take any necessary action, like shooting him with his .45.


The duty officer, a lieutenant (j.g.) who was

not

wearing the golden wings of a Naval Aviator, appeared ten minutes later. He eyed Weston warily, while Weston repeated his tale about being at the Greenbrier, and not needing a pass because no passes were required.


«Sir, it's my understanding that the Greenbrier Hotel has been taken over as sort of a hospital for personnel who have escaped, or have otherwise been returned from POW status.»


«That's correct.»


«You were a POW?» the j.g. asked.


«Yes,» Weston said, deciding that this was not the time to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing else. «Lieutenant, if you don't believe me, you can call the Greenbrier. I'm sure they will tell you I am who I'm telling you I am.»


And if he calls the Greenbrier, and I can't get Commander Bolemann on the line, he is going to be told that while I am who I say I am, the No Pass Required rule is for the «Local Area Only» and does not include Pensacola, Florida.


«Sir, what are you doing at Pensacola?»


«I'm carrying a message to Major Avery R. Williamson,» Weston replied, «from a mutual friend.»


The way things are going, he'll ask to see the message, and I will really be fucked up. Colonel Dawkins said I was to personally give it to Major Williamson and to make sure nobody else sees it. So I will obey the Colonel, which means I will have to tell this clown, «Ooops, I seem to have misplaced the message.»


MAG-21, Ewa


FPO San Francisco


13 Feb 43



Major Avery R. Williamson


Pensacola NAS, Florida


Dear Dick:


The day before yesterday,

I gave

the bearer of this note, captain jim weston, his f4u check ride. Since Charley Galloway trained him, I was not surprised that he passed it 4.0.


For unbelievably idiotic reasons, however, he will soon be sent to P'Cola to learn how to fly all over again. He will tell you the details of this moronic behavior in high places.


Moreover, he's a friend of Charley's, Big Steve's, and mine. Do what you can for him as a favor to all of us.


Always,


Clyde W. Dawkins, LtCol, USMC


«I saw Major Williamson half an hour ago at the Yacht Club,» the j.g. said, displaying a nearly miraculous change of attitude. «I was sanding my bottom.»


Captain Weston had an instant mental image of the j.g. sanding his bottom, before he realized he was talking about the bottom of a boat. The smile that came to his face, however, was misinterpreted by the j.g. as a gesture of friendship between fellow sailors. He smiled warmly back.


«I'd say go down there,» he said. «But I think he's probably gone by now.»


«I've been trying to get his phone number.»


«Marine!» the j.g. ordered, «bring the base phone book over here!»


The PFC delivered the phone book. Major Williamson's name was not listed. The j.g. examined the cover of the phone book.


«This is outdated!» he said.


«Sorry, sir,» the PFC said.


«I think the smartest thing for you to do, sir,» the j.g. said, «is go to the Main Officer's Club. You know where that is?»


«I trained here,» Weston said.


«They'll have the latest phone book,» the j.g. said.


«Thank you,» Weston said.


«I'm really sorry you were inconvenienced here, Captain. But sometimes—no offense intended—Marines sometimes get carried away.»


«No offense taken,» Weston said. «I presume I'm free to go?»


«Yes, sir,» the j.g. said. «Of course. Welcome home, sir.»


The Main Officer's Club was a rambling white stucco building that he remembered as stifling in the summer, but that now had air-conditioning. Weston found it without trouble. The cocktail lounge he also found without trouble. There he decided what he needed before lunch was at least two drinks.


He was about to order the second double scotch when it occurred to him that he might not make the proper impression on Major Avery Williamson if he appeared in a cloud of scotch fumes.


«Where can I find a phone book?» he asked.


«There's a phone booth in the lobby, sir.»


Weston paid for the drink and went to the lobby. There was indeed a phone book, and it listed the quarters telephone number for Williamson, A. R., Maj. USMC. Weston wrote it down, then waited for the occupant of the phone booth to finish. She was a slightly portly matron in a floppy hat whose husband, Weston decided, was probably at least a lieutenant commander.


«Sir,» a crisp naval voice said in his ear. Weston turned to see a full lieutenant wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp.


Now what?


«Sir, is your name Weston?»


Weston nodded.


«Sir, the Admiral's compliments. Sir, the Admiral would be grateful for a few words with you.»


What admiral

? Weston wondered.


«That would be my great pleasure, Lieutenant,» Weston said.


The lieutenant marched across the lobby and into the dining room, then led him to a corner table where a vice admiral, a rear admiral, a Navy captain, and a Marine colonel were sitting. Weston recognized the vice admiral.


«Good afternoon, sir,» he said.


«Jim, a little eagerness is a good thing,» Vice Admiral Richard B. Sayre said, rising to his feet and putting out his hand. «But you're not due here for a month.»


«Sir?»


«But we'll talk about that later. I'm really glad to see you. Until General Mclnerney called, I thought you'd been lost in the Philippines.»


Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney was the Deputy Director of Marine Corps Aviation.


«I managed to get out, sir,» Weston said.


«So I understand. General Mclnerney and I had a long talk about that, and about Ewa, and about our mutual friend, Colonel Dawkins. He led me to believe you wouldn't be coming here for a month.»


«I'm just passing through, sir. On a weekend pass.»


«Well, I know that Mrs. Sayre and Martha would be very disappointed to miss you. Could you find time to call?»


«At your convenience, sir,» Weston said, then asked, «Martha's here?»


«Yes, she is,» Admiral Sayre said simply.


«And where's Greg?»


Jesus, with a little bit of luck, Greg might be here too, if Martha is.


Admiral Sayre looked at him sharply.


And then the look softened.


«Of course, you were trapped in the Philippines, there was no way you could know. Greg was shot down at Wake Island, Jim. Right at the beginning.»


«Oh,

shit

!» Weston blurted bitterly. «I'm so sorry to hear that!»


«Captain Weston, gentlemen,» Admiral Sayre said, retaining control of his voice with great effort, «and my late son-in-law Lieutenant Gregory Culhane, USMC, Class of '38, got their wings here together. Jim was Greg's best man when he and my daughter Martha were married.»


«And this is the first you'd heard of Lieutenant Culhane's loss, Captain?» the Marine Colonel asked.


«Yes, sir.»


«You were obviously pretty busy in the Pacific yourself,» the Colonel said, pointing at Weston's fruit salad.


«Jim refused to surrender,» Admiral Sayre said. «He made his way from Corregidor to Mindanao, where he was G-2 of the guerrilla organization operating there, until they brought him out by submarine.»


Jesus, how did he know about that?


What did he say about General Mclnerney calling him ?


«Really?» the Marine Colonel said, impressed.


«Well, now he's back to flying,» Admiral Sayre said, meeting Weston's eyes as he spoke. «Or soon will be. What Mac Mclnerney and I are trying to do is get him back in a fighter cockpit as quickly as possible.»


I'll be damned! Mclnerney didn 'tjust give up, and give in to those bastards in Wa,tfüngton.


«I'd like to talk to you about that, Jim,» Admiral Sayre went on. «If you would have the time while you're here.»


«I'm going to have to leave here early tomorrow morning, sir.»


Local Area Only authority to leave the grounds of the Greenbrier on the verbal orders of the commanding officer expired at midnight on Sunday.


«We don't want you hungover when you begin your happy rest-and-recupera-tion program on Monday morning,» Commander Bolemann had explained.


«Well, I suggest that you go over to the house and see Mrs. Sayre and Martha now—Jerry, call up and tell them he's coming.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» the Admiral's aide said.


«And as soon as I'm through here, I'll come home, and we can have a chat. There's someone I want you to meet.»


'"Aye, aye, sir,» Weston said.


«Jerry, run down Major Williamson, and ask him if he could come by my quarters at, say, 1530.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«I'm really glad to see you, Jim,» Admiral Sayre said, offering Weston his hand again.


Weston sensed he had been dismissed.


Mrs. Jean Sayre, a tall, slim, gray-haired woman with gentle and perceptive eyes, came out the front door of Quarters Number One as Jim Weston drove the Buick into the driveway.


«Oh, Jim,» she said when he stepped out of the car, «when I heard you escaped from the Philippines, I was afraid you'd look like death warmed over! You look wonderful!»


She hugged him. He felt his eyes start to water and closed them. When he opened them he saw Martha, standing in the door. She was tall and slim, and looked very much like her mother. She was deeply tanned and her sun-bleached blond hair hung down to her shoulders.


What is she now, twenty-three, twenty-four? And a goddamn widow! Goddamn it! Did they have a kid?


She came halfway down the walk to him as he walked toward the door.


«Well, look what floated in with the tide,» she said.


«Don't I get a hug?» he asked.


She hugged him. He was uncomfortable when he felt the pressure of her breasts against his abdomen, and quickly broke away.


«Mother said I wasn't to ask you how you were, or comment on your appearance,» Martha said. «So I won't.»


«I'm fine, thank you for asking.»


«You look good,» she said. «God, Jimmy, I'm glad to see you.»


«I didn't know about Greg, until just now,» he said. «Jesus Christ, I'm sorry.»


«Let's go in the house,» Mrs. Sayre said, coming up behind them. «There's no champagne, but 1 think we should have a drink.»


A dark-skinned man in a crisply starched white cotton jacket stood just inside the door.


Christ, he's a Filipino messman. We let them join the Navy, but only as messmen. They're our Little Brown Brothers, not good enough to serve as real sailors.


«Good morning, sir,» he said.


»

Buenos dias

,» Weston said.


«Pedro, would you roll the bar onto the patio?» Mrs. Sayre asked. «Despite thehour, we are going to have a drink. Possibly two. You remember Captain Weston, don't you? He's a dear friend of the family.»


«Yes, ma'am,» the messman said.


Does that mean he remembers me? I don't remember him.


«That being the case,» Martha said, as they walked through the house and onto the patio, «dear friend of the family, why didn't you call and tell us you were coming? For that matter, why didn't you call and just tell us you were alive?»


He met her eyes, and noticed how blue they were.


«I don't know, Martha,» he said. «The last couple of weeks have been really hectic.»


They sat down on upholstered white metal lawn furniture. The way she was sitting—innocently, of course—Weston could see a long way up her cotton skirt. She was not wearing hose, and he remembered Janice telling him that silk stockings were almost impossible to find.


Pedro wheeled a bar loaded with whisky bottles onto the patio, then stood, obviously waiting for orders.


«What would you like, Jim?» Mrs. Sayre asked.


Among the nearly dozen bottles on the bar, there was a bottle of good scotch, scotch too good to be diluted with water. Without thinking about it, Weston asked, in Spanish, for «some of the good stuff, a double, please, ice but no water.»


«That's new,» Martha said. «When did you learn to speak Spanish?»


«Ninety percent of U.S. forces in the Philippines are Filipinos,» Weston said, as much to the messman as Martha. «You either learn to speak Spanish, or you don't get much done.»


«Permission to speak, sir?» the messman asked.


«Of course,» Weston said.


«Sir, there was a story in the newspaper. It said there were guerrilla forces operating on my home island of Mindanao.»


«Yes, there are,» Weston said.


«Sir, and you were there?»


Weston nodded.


«Just a minute, Pedro,» Jean Sayre said. «Make the drinks. I'll have whatever Captain Weston is having.»


«Good scotch, ice, double, no water, ma'am.»


Weston felt anger well up within him.


«With a little water. Fix a single for Miss Martha.»


«Yes, ma'am.»


Weston was surprised at his fury at her treatment of the Filipino.


«Then make yourself whatever you want, pull up a chair and sit down with us. Captain Weston's going to start at the beginning and tell us everything.»


«Yes, ma'am,» the messman said. «Thank you.»


Christ, I should have known better. She's what an officer's lady is supposed to be.


He sensed Martha's eyes on him, and knew somehow that she had seen his reaction.


«Pedro's been taking care of us for a long time,» Martha said. «He was Daddy's steward on the

Lexington

. When Daddy made rear admiral and came ashore, Pedro came with him. You don't remember him?»


«I thought you looked familiar, Pedro,» Weston said.


That's bullshit. If he was here the last time I was here, he was simply part of the furnishings. I was as bad then about our Little Brown Brothers as I thought Mrs. Sayre was now.


Pedro made the drinks, handed them around, then took a Coca-Cola for himself and pulled up a chair.


«The last we heard, Jim, you'd been sent to a Navy Catalina Squadron at Pearl… Wait a minute. What should we drink to?»


«Greg,» he blurted without thinking.


«Greg,» Mrs. Sayre said softly, raising her glass.


Martha, looking at Jim, raised her glass but didn't speak.


«You were at Pearl, Jim?» Mrs. Sayre said. «How did you get to the Philippines?»


«I flew a Catalina into Cavite on December eight,» Weston began, and related, over the next hour, his experiences in the Philippines. He left out, of course, the less pleasant aspects. But he did tell them, in some detail, about Sergeant Percy L. Everly, USMC—now First Lieutenant Percy Everly, U.S. Army Reserve—and about how Brigadier-General Wendell W. Fertig came to be a brigadier general.


«That was very clever of him,» Mrs. Sayre said, «wouldn't you say so, Pedro? No one would pay much attention to a reserve lieutenant colonel, would they?»


«I am afraid not,» Pedro said. «He apparently knows Filipinos.»


«And admires them,» Weston said, hoping it would please the messman. His face showed it did.


«I wonder if I could not be useful there,» Pedro wondered out loud. «I have sixteen years in the Navy and Mindanao is my home.»


«The problem we had with Filipinos when I left, Pedro,» Weston said, «was not finding recruits, but sending them away because we didn't have arms for them.»


That, too, pleased Pedro, and that pleased Weston.


«And taking care of the Admiral is important, Pedro,» Mrs. Sayre said. «I don't know what he would do without you. And he, too, would rather be over there than here.»


The door chimes went off.


«That's probably Daddy,» Martha said. «He doesn't know how to open a door by himself. I'll go, Pedro.»


Without meaning to, Weston got another look up her dress as she lifted herself out of the chair.


It was not Admiral Sayre, it was a Marine major, short, lean, and suntanned, in a blond crew cut. «Afternoon, Mrs. Sayre,» he said. «The Admiral asked me to call at 1530.»


When Weston politely rose to his feet, he felt a little dizzy. As long as he'd been talking, he managed to remember, Pedro had quietly freshened up his glass whenever it had dropped below half empty.


Christ, I'm half in the bag!


And then he remembered that Pedro had freshened up Martha's drink several times, too. He looked at her. Her face seemed a little flushed.


Mrs. Sayre glanced at her wristwatch.


«Well, if he said half past three, he'll be here at half past three,» she said. «Major Williamson, this is a dear friend of the family—«


«So dear that he didn't even call up to tell us he was alive,» Martha said.


Jesus, is she plastered too ?


Martha's mother ignored the interruption, and went on: «—Captain Jim Weston.»


«How do you do, sir?»


«Weston,» Major Williamson said, with no cordiality whatsoever.


I

think he senses I have been at the sauce in the middle of the afternoon

.


«Can Pedro fix you something, Major?» Mrs. Sayre asked.


Major Williamson gave it perceptible thought before replying, «A light scotch, Mrs. Sayre, would be very nice.»


«Captain Weston was my late husband's best man when we were married. He's been telling us of his experiences as a guerrilla in the Philippines,» Martha said.


«You were a guerrilla in the Philippines, Captain?» Williamson said, looking at him dubiously.


«Yes, sir.»


The door chimes went off again as Major Williamson opened his mouth to press for details.


«That has to be Daddy,» Martha said. «I'll go.»


Weston got another look up her dress at her spectacular legs as she left her chair again.


You got the look up her dress, because you knew she would probably, and certainly innocently, expose herself that way again when she got out of her chair. Which proves you are a despicable sonofabitch

she's your buddy's widow, for Christ's sake

or drunk. Or both

.


What you came here to do was get Colonel Dawkins's letter into Major Williamson's hand, not make an ass of yourself, not be a despicable bastard.


And

only

a despicable bastard would think… Jesus, I'd like to run my hands


«Sir,» Weston heard himself blurting, «I believe we have some mutual friends.»


«Is that so?»


After some difficulty finding it, Weston took Colonel Dawkins's letter from an inside pocket and thrust it at Major Williamson.



«What's this?» Williamson said.



«I believe it will be self-explanatory, sir,» Weston said.



Williamson took the letter, unfolded it, and looked at Weston. «I'll be damned,» he said, his tone indicating that he was truly surprised to learn that they did have mutual friends.


Admiral Sayre marched into the room, trailed by his aide. «Dick,» he said, touching Williamson's shoulder, «I really appreciate your coming here on Saturday afternoon.»


«No problem at all, sir.»


«I won't have the time—as I had hoped to—to talk to you about Weston. But I just got the word that Admiral Wheeler is due in here in about thirty minutes—God only knows what he wants—and I will, of course, have to meet his plane. But at least you got to meet Weston. It's a long story, but he comes highly recommended by General Mclnerney, and we're going to have to do what we can for him.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Just as soon as I can find a minute, I'll bring you up to speed on this.»


«Yes, sir.»


«And I really appreciate your coming here on a Saturday afternoon. Pedro got you a drink, at least?»


«Yes, sir,» Williamson said, holding it up.


«And as far as you're concerned, Jim,» Admiral Sayre said, «unless you're really in love with listening to a battleship admiral insist that the sole function of aviation is to serve as the eyes of the fleet, you'd better get out of here right now.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«We'll make it up to you when you come here,» Admiral Sayre said. «Finish your drink, of course.»


«Thank you very much for your hospitality, sir,» Weston said. «Don't be silly.»


«Wait until I get my purse, Jim,» Martha said. «I'm going with you.»


«What?» her father asked, surprised.


«Daddy, I already know that the sole function of aviation is to serve as the eyes of the fleet. I really don't want to hear it again.»


«Well, you're imposing on Jim, don't you think? He may have other things on his mind.»


«Am I, Jim?» Martha asked, meeting his eyes. «Or can you put up with me for a couple of hours.»


«I'd welcome the company,» Weston said.



«You see, Daddy?» Martha said, and walked off the patio. Admiral Sayre waited until she was out of earshot.


«I don't know how tough it will be for you, but I think Martha needs to talk over what happened to Greg with you. She knows how close you and Greg were.»


«Yes, sir.»


«If you have the time, Jim,» Mrs. Sayre said, «I'd appreciate it if… what? Take her to dinner or something. She needs to get out of the house, be with someone her own age.»


«I'd be happy to, if she'd want to go.»


«Thank you, Jim,» the Admiral announced, and, trailed by his aide and his wife, marched off his patio.


«Weston,» Major Williamson waved Colonel Dawkins's letter in his hand, «do you think this is what the Admiral wishes to discuss with me about you?»


«Yes, sir, I think that's probably it.»


«Very interesting. Good afternoon, Captain Weston.»


Jim was left alone on the patio. Martha returned several minutes later, finished her drink, and then took his arm and led him back through the house to the driveway.


He was very conscious of the pressure of her breasts against his arm.


From this point on, black coffee, no booze, and absolutely no physical contact.


«I like your car,» she said. «Does the roof go down?»


«Yes.»


«Put it down, then.»


«Yes, ma'am.»



note 38


Zeke's Shrimp & Oyster House

Alabama Point, Alabama

1815 6 March 1943


The restaurant hadn't changed much from the last time Weston had been here.

And that, he was acutely aware, had been in the company of Second Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC (USNA '38); his fiancee, Miss Martha Sayre; and a tall redhead named… what the hell was her name?

It was a rickety building on a pier just inside the inlet to the Gulf of Mexico. Shrimp boats were tied up to the pier. The tables were rough planking picnic tables, and waitresses carried plates to them stacked high with steaming shrimp. You made your own sauce in paper cups from bowls of ketchup, horseradish. Worcestershire, and Tabasco, peeled and ate the shrimp with your fingers, and wiped your hands on paper towels. Rolls of towels sat among the bowls of ketchup and other condiments.

There was a jukebox and a piano, and a small plywood dance floor. The patrons were almost entirely young Navy and Marine pilots, and a scattering of aviation cadets who got off-base passes on weekends during the last month of their training. Some of their girls were almost as good looking as Martha.

«The last time I was here, I was with you and Greg,» Jim said.


«I remember,» she said.


They found places at a picnic table occupied by two Marine lieutenants—both aviators—and their girls. When the waitress appeared, she asked, «Shrimp and a pitcher of beer?» in a tone suggesting she would be surprised by a «no.»


«I'd really like a cup of coffee,» Jim said.


«I'll have a scotch,» Martha said. «And the shrimp, and the beer.»


When she saw the look he gave her, she smiled and said, «Why, Captain Weston. I seem to recall that it was from you I learned 'you can't fly on one wing.' «


«I didn't say a word,» he said.


«You wanted to,» she said, then turned to the Marines and their girls. «Captain Weston is just back from the Pacific. The first thing he did when he got off the plane was to call me—we're very dear friends—to report that contrary to published reports, he was not only alive but back and on his way to see me.»


«Welcome home, sir,» one of the lieutenants said.


«You were reported KIA, sir?»


«It was a mistake,» Weston said.


«Christ, that must have been tough on your family.»


«As well as his very dear friends,» Martha said.


«If I'm out of line asking this, shut me up, but what did they do, sir, when they found out they made a mistake? Apologize? What?»


«You must have been in the Corps long enough to know that the Corps never makes a mistake, haven't you?» Weston said.


There was the expected dutiful laughter.


«But I am so glad to see you that I forgive you,» Martha said, and kissed him. Not on the mouth, but on his forehead. When she pulled his head down, he found his face against her breasts.


Oh, Jesus Christ! Just as soon as we eat the shrimp, and she drinks as little of the beer as I can arrange, I'm getting her out of here. We'll ride around with the roof down. Maybe that will sober her up.


Only a three-star no-good sonofabitch with bells would take advantage of agirl like Martha when she was in her cups. And the reason she's drinking is that she's a widow, your best friend's widow.


«Here,» one of the lieutenants said, handing Martha a paper cup full of beer. «Until your pitcher gets here.»


«Thank you very much,» Martha said. «And yes, I would.»


«Yes, you would what?»


«Like to dance. My very dear friend here is a lousy dancer.»


«I'm a good dancer,» he blurted.


«Okay, then you dance with me,» she said, and stood up and held arms out to him.


The last thing in the world I want to do is put my arms around her.


He stood up, and she gave him her hand and led him to the dance floor. He carefully avoided any body contact beyond the absolutely necessary.


«I get the feeling, very dear friend, from your rigid body and the worried look on your face, that you think I am misbehaving.»


«I think you've had a little too much to drink,» Jim said. «So have I.»


«In which case, I will ease up,» she said. «The last thing I want to do is embarrass you.»


«I didn't say you were embarrassing me.»


«You didn't have to. I know what you're thinking. I could always tell.»


Christ, I hope not.


He saw over her shoulder that the waitress had delivered their shrimp and drinks—two scotches, no coffee—and a pitcher of beer.


«We have our shrimp,» he said.


«Damn,» she said, but she turned out of his arms, and, hanging on to his hand, led them back to the table.


He was surprised—and greatly relieved—that she didn't touch the scotch, and * drank only a little of the beer from the pitcher. He was also surprised that they were able to eat all of the steaming pile of boiled shrimp. And then he remembered he hadn't had any lunch.


Which is why I felt the booze, and allowed myself to forget that a decent human being doesn't look up the dress of a friend, who incidentally happens to be the widow of my best friend.


Or completely forgets Janice!


Jesus, what about Janice? What the hell would I have done about Janice if something had happened?


«I hate to rain on this parade,» Martha announced, as she daintily wiped her fingers and mouth with a paper towel. «But 1 have had a very busy day, and tomorrow is going to be busier. And if we're going to have a nightcap at the San Carlos, we're going to have to leave this charming company now.»


«We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos,» Weston said.


«I wouldn't think of it,» Martha said, as she rose to her feet.


The men shook hands, and one of the lieutenants repeated, «Welcome home, sir.»


In the car, Weston repeated, «We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos's bar.»


«There's something I want to show you there,» she said. «And didn't you notice that I was a good girl and didn't even touch my scotch? I'm entitled to a nightcap.»


It was too cold now to have the roof of the Buick convertible down, or even to have the windows open. In a matter of minutes, as they headed down the two-lane macadam road back to Pensacola, Martha's perfume overwhelmed the smell of the red leather seats.



note 39


The Cocktail Lounge

The San Carlos Hotel

2030 6 March 1943


The bar was crowded with Navy and Marine Aviators and their women, but it was captains and majors, an older, more senior crowd, than the aviation cadets and lieutenants in Zeke's.

After a minute their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and Jim Weston saw an empty banquette. He took Martha's arm and led her to it.

«You forgot, huh?» Martha asked, as she slid onto the seat.


«Forgot what?»


«That you weren't going to touch me.»


«Oh, Jesus, Martha!»


«Your intentions, I know, are very honorable,» she said.


A waitress took their order. Martha ordered a scotch, and after a moment's hesitation, Weston said to make it two.


«You said you wanted to show me something?»


«I do. But first, something's been bothering me.»


«What?»


«How come you were reported KIA?»


«How did you hear that I was?»


«Daddy told me you had been reported KIA on Luzon on April 3, 1942. He'd seen some kind of a report.»


«You're sure of the date?»


«I'm sure of the date. It was another of the red-letter days in my life.»


«That figures, then,» Weston said, as much to himself as to Martha.


«What figures?»


«On April first, I deserted,» he said. «I remember the date clearly, because it was April Fools' Day, and that seemed somehow appropriate.»


«You

deserted


He nodded. «I deserted. Probably in the face of the enemy. I didn't mention that while reciting my inspiring tale of heroism to your mother.»


«I don't understand, Jim.»


The waitress delivered the drinks before he could reply.


He raised his to Martha.


«Thank you for a very interesting afternoon,» he said.


«Interesting?» she asked.


«How about delightful?»


«You don't mean that either,» Martha said, taking a sip of her drink.


«What do you mean by that?»


«I told you, I can always tell what you're thinking. Mostly you've been uncomfortable.»


«What gives you that idea?»


«We're back to I can read your mind,» she said. «Finish the story.»


«Okay. I was on Corregidor. That's the fortress in Manila Bay…«


«I know.»


«Luzon was about to fall. Corregidor was going to fall. I decided I didn't want to become a prisoner. I had some idea I could get out of the Philippines and make myself useful as a pilot. So I just took off. Deserted.»


«Just like that? You just walked away?»


«No. It was a little more complicated. I worked for a major named Paulsen. He knew what I was thinking. So he sent me—and Sergeant Everly—to Luzon, ostensibly looking for generator parts. But he knew we wouldn't be coming back. We didn't. We used the money we were supposed to buy generator parts with to buy a boat, and headed for Mindanao.»


«It didn't bother you that whoever needed the parts wasn't going to get them?»


«There were no parts to be bought, and Paulsen knew that when he gave me the money to buy them. But there's an interesting question. What if I had stumbled on some parts? Would I have gone back to the Rock?»


«Would you have?»


«I don't know. Moot point. There were no parts. I went to Mindanao.»


«Which constituted desertion.»


«Right. Major Paulsen stayed, of course, knowing he was either going to get killed when the Japs took Corregidor, or become a prisoner. As a good Marine officer, he couldn't bring himself to desert. But without actually coming out and saying I should, he helped me to desert. Interesting question of morality.»


«In other words, he was like Greg, and you were like… you?»


«What do you mean by that?»


«For Greg, everything was black or white. You're smarter. You understand that everything is really one shade or another of gray.»


That sounded like a shot at Greg. Did she mean that, or is that the booze talking?


«Yeah, I suppose so. I can now rationalize, of course, that I was of more value as a guerrilla on Mindanao than I would have been as a prisoner, and now I'm going back to flying. But every once in a while I look myself in the mirror, and there's the guy who deserted his post in the face of the enemy. Another interesting question of morality.»


«What's this got to do with you being reported KIA?»


«I think Paulsen must have reported me KIA, two days after I didn't come back.»


«Why?»


«There's a couple of possibilities. He had to say something when I didn't come back. Desertion was becoming a real problem. We got lectures about our duty as Marine officers: 'Marine officers don't desert; Marine officers man their posts until properly relieved.' «


«Which you decided didn't apply to you?»


«Sticking around waiting to get killed or become a prisoner when there were other options didn't make much sense to me,» Weston said.


«In other words, sometimes what people expect you to do—the conventional morality—doesn't make any sense?» Martha asked, and added: «I've come to the same conclusion myself.»


Now, what the hell does she mean by that?


«So, what I think happened was that Paulsen reported me KIA,» he said. «He had to report something. If he reported me AWOL, they would have put my name on the list of probable deserters, and the MPs would have been looking for me.»


«So you did what you thought was the right thing for you to do, right? And to hell with what other people thought you should do?»


«Yeah, I guess you could put it that way,» he said.


«I'm really glad you did, Jimmy,» she said, grasping his hand. «You're here. You're alive.»


He exhaled audibly.


Martha drained her drink and stood up. «I have to go to the ladies' room,» she said. «Order me another drink?»


«Don't you think we'd better call it a night?»


She looked at her watch.


«It is getting late,» she said. «Pay the bill. Meet me in the corridor.»


He nodded, watched her walk out of the cocktail lounge, and looked around for their waitress.


He was waiting for her in the corridor, beside the elevator, when she came out of the ladies' room.


She walked past him to the elevator.


«Good. It's here,» she said. «Come on.»


«Where are we going?» '


«I told you I had something to show you. I don't want to show it to you in the corridor.»


He stepped onto the elevator. She pushed the door close and stop buttons.


«Somebody's going to want to use the elevator,» he said.


«This won't take long,» Martha said. She reached for his hand and put something in it, then leaned against the wall of the elevator, smiling at him.


He looked down at his hand. At first he thought the small, foil-wrapped package was a piece of candy. Then he recognized it for what it was really was. «What am I supposed to do with this?» he asked.


«I think you know what it's for,» she said.


«Martha, that wouldn't make any sense at all.»


«Don't be a hypocrite, Jimmy,» she said. «You want to as much as I do. You've been looking up my dress all afternoon.»


«I'm sorry you saw that,» he said.


«You shouldn't be.»


He looked at her.


«I'm not going to beg you, you sonofabitch!» she said.


She turned from him to the row of elevator buttons.


«Which one do I push?» she said. «Your call.»


He didn't reply until she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He saw tears forming in her eyes.


«Six,» he said.


She pushed the button, the elevator started to move, and then she was in his arms.


«That's the second time I bought one of those things from the machine in the ladies' room,» Martha said.


They were lying in bed, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.


«What?» he asked.


«Consumed with guilt, are we?» Martha said, and then went on. «I always wondered why they had a condom machine in the ladies' room. To protect the ladies? Or the men?»


«Jesus, Martha!»


«The first time I bought one, he was willing, but when I went to his room, I wasn't. Actually, it was the penthouse, here in the San Carlos. He was a very rich, and very nice, really, young Marine Aviator, and he told me he was in love with me. Maybe if he hadn't said that, I would have gone through with it. Anyway, I didn't. You're the first man since Greg, if you've been wondering. And since he was the first, you're number two.»


«Oh, Christ, Martha!»


«I've had a number of offers, of course,» she said. «But aside from… the very nice, very rich young aviator… I never really wanted to. And I didn't go through with that. Until today, when I saw you get out of the car, I had just about convinced myself that whatever I was, I was not the Merry Widow of fame and legend. You know what that means, really, in German?»


«What?»


«The title of that operetta,

Die Lustige Witwe

? Popularly known as

The Merry Widow

? Lustige means 'lusty.' Full of lust.»


«Oh, for Christ sake!»


«But when I saw you get out of your car, I realized I was wrong. I was suddenly very

lustige

indeed.»


«Martha, for Christ's sake!»


«And now that you know, are you really disgusted with me, or do you think, as a kindness, you could force yourself to put your arms around me? Right now, I feel very lonely.»


He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her and comforted her as she sobbed against his chest.


«I thought I was going to die when Greg got killed. I did, inside. And then I started having fantasies about you. Jim would come home. Jim would comfort me.»


«Jesus!»


«Today wasn't the first time I've caught you looking up my dress,» she said, her sobs turning into giggles. «Thought I didn't notice? I noticed!»


«You're really something, Martha.»


«And then

you

were KIA, you bastard!» she said. «And I really died inside all over again. And then you came back from the dead, and

didn't

call, and I understood that I'd been a little crazy, thinking that you felt anything for me—or I felt anything for you. And then, you bastard, you show up without warning at the house, and started looking at me like that.»


«You mean looking up your dress?»


«That too,» she said. «But I meant the look in your eyes when you saw me. You know the first thing I thought when I saw you?»


«I'm afraid to ask.»


«Actually, the second thing. The

second

thing I thought was that I was really glad I hadn't gone to bed with… the nice young man.»


«What was the first thing?»


«You'll never know. You can probably guess, but I'll never tell you.»


«And what are you thinking now?»


«I'm thinking you don't seem very enthusiastic. Anyway, it's time for you to take me home, or Daddy will get suspicious.»


«I didn't expect this, Martha,» he said. «I'm trying to sort it out.»


«You've got to learn to take a chance,» she said. «Go for broke. Hope for the best. Like I did when I bought two of those things in the ladies' room.»


He didn't reply.


She pushed herself up and looked down at him.


«I'm getting the feeling I'm making you uncomfortable,» Martha said. «If I am, for God's sake, don't try to be a gentleman.»


He touched her nipple with his finger.


«Only

two

? You should have bought three, four, half a dozen.»


She moved her body so that he could get his mouth on her nipple.


«Is that what you were thinking? Is that what you wanted to do?» she asked.


«Oh, God, yes,» he said.


«I told you I always know what you're thinking,» Martha said, as she pressed her breast against his face. «Oh, God, Jimmy, I'm so glad you're back!»



Chapter Eleven



note 40


The Greenbrier Hotel

White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

0440 8 March 1943


Under the military administration of the Greenbrier Hotel, the desk clerk was called the charge of quarters. Whatever he was called, he was the same petty officer second who had the duty when Weston reported in, and he was asleep in an armchair behind the desk when Weston walked up to ask for his key.

Weston took a certain cruel pleasure in ringing the bell on the desk with sufficient energy to bring the charge of quarters to sudden wakefulness.

Jim Weston was not in a very good mood. He had driven straight through from Pensacola, stopping only for gas and a couple of really terrible hamburgers. During that time, he'd had plenty of time to consider what an unprincipled miserable sonofabitch he was, first for what he had done to Martha, and second for what that meant with regard to his relationship to Janice.

«Sorry to wake you,» Weston said with monumental insincerity.


The charge of quarters looked at his watch.


«You just got back in time to keep the shit from hitting the fan, Captain, « he said.


«And what does that mean?»


«Commander Bolemann told me to call him if you wasn't back at 0500. If you wasn't, he was going to call the state police. It's 0441.»


He picked up the telephone on the desk and gave the operator who answered a number. «Sir, Ulrich at the front desk? Captain Weston just came in, sir.» There was a pause, then Ulrich added: «Aye, aye, sir.»


He hung up and turned to Weston. «You're to go to the Commander's quarters, Captain,» he said. «Two oh one. Take the corridor to the right at the head of the stairs.»


Weston was halfway to the wide staircase when Ulrich called his name. He turned and saw that Ulrich was holding out his key and a stack of small yellow sheets of paper. To discourage guests from taking them out of the hotel, the keys were attached to enormous, heavy brass plates.


He turned, walked back to the desk, and took them.


There were eight small yellow sheets of paper, each a message for Captain Weston, each with a date-and-time stamp.


Lieutenant (j.g.) Hardison asks that you call her, Female Officers' Quarters, USN Hospital, Phila.


That one was date-and-time stamped 1540 5Mar43. Ten minutes after he had made his surreptitious early exit from the Greenbrier. He wondered why she didn't give a number, then remembered there was some sort of dedicated line between USNH Philadelphia and the Greenbrier. Commander Bolemann had told him that he could use it if he wanted to.


Lieutenant (j.g.) Hardison asks that you call her, Ward G-4, USN Hospital, Phila.


That one was date-and-time stamped 0039 6Mar43. Janice apparently tried to call him again as soon as she went off duty, in her sweet, naively trusting belief that at midnight he would certainly be in bed.

Alone

in bed. There were five more messages, indicating that Janice tried and failed to contact him five more times— one of which coincided with a time when he was engaged in carnal union with Mrs. Gregory F. Culhane in the San Carlos Hotel. Pensacola, Florida. The eighth message had originated within the Greenbrier Hotel:


Whenever

you float in, please call upon me in my quarters. Bolemann, Cmdr, MC USN.


The date-and-time stamp on that one indicated it had been left for him at just about the time he was leaving Pensacola.


Weston jammed the messages in his pocket and started up the wide staircase to the second floor of the Greenbrier.


«There may be joy in heaven when the prodigal returns,» Commander Bolemann, attired in a bathrobe, greeted him at the door of his suite, «but what I want to know, you bastard, is where the

hell

have you been?»


«I was in Pensacola, sir.»


«Pensacola?»


«Yes, sir.»


«Am I correct in presuming, Captain Weston, that you didn't ask my permission to leave the local area to go to Pensacola fucking Florida because you knew goddamned well I would have said 'no, no,

absolutely fucking no'


«Yes, sir.»


«What the hell were you doing in Pensacola?»


«I had a letter from my MAG commander at Ewa to a friend of his there.»



«They have this thing called the U.S. mail.» Bolemann said. «You give them three cents, and they will deliver letters just about anywhere.»


«Yes, sir.»


«Well, I should not be surprised,» Bolemann said. «One must expect that someone who has not only suffered the severe emotional trauma that you have sustained over a prolonged period, but is trying so hard to conceal its effects, will suffer some sort of dementia.»


«No excuse, sir. But I'm not crazy.»


«That's not my diagnosis. That's Lieutenant Hardison's diagnosis.»


«She called you?»


«Oh, yes. Several times. She has visions of you wandering around in the hills of West Virginia, suffering from amnesia, or perhaps reliving your terrible experiences in the Philippines. For reasons that baffle me, she seems terribly—and I must say most unprofessionally—concerned with your well-being.»


«Oh, God!»


«Call her,» Bolemann said.


«Sir?»


Bolemann turned and made a «follow me» gesture to Weston. He sat down in an armchair—actually more or less crashed into it—and reached for the telephone on the table beside it.


«Commander Bolemann,» he said. «Get me Lieutenant Hardison at the Female Officers' Quarters, Naval Hospital, Philadelphia.»


Then he handed the handset to Captain Weston.


«Female Officers' Quarters.»


«Lieutenant Hardison, please.»


«Jim, where have you been? I've been out of my mind worrying about you!»


«Hi,» he said.


«Are you all right?»


«I'm fine, Janice, how about you?»


«Where were you?»


«Wheeling,» he said. Wheeling was the only town in West Virginia he could call to mind. He thought about Charlestown, but on second thought decided that was in South Carolina.


«Wheeling?»


«Wheeling, West Virginia.»


Dear God, let Wheeling be in West Virginia.


«What were you doing there?»


«Well, I wanted to get out of here for a little while, and then I had a little car trouble, so I took a hotel room.»


«Honey, I was so worried!»


«Honey» ? Christ, she called me «honey'.'


«I'm fine, honey.»


«I even called Dr. Bolemann,» Janice said.


«I know,» he said.


«Can you get away next weekend?» Janice asked. «I want to see you so badly.»


«Just a moment,» Jim said, and covered the microphone with his hand. «She wants to know if I can get away next weekend.»


Bolemann looked at him thoughtfully. «You really wouldn't want to hear my initial reaction to that,» he said, and motioned for Weston to give him the telephone.


«This is Dr. Bolemann, Janice,» he said. «I really don't think I could authorize Jim to drive all that way and back over the weekend. But I think there is a Greyhound bus he could take. If there is, could you meet him at the bus station?»


Janice apparently expressed her willingness to do that.


«Very well, then, we'll check into it and Jim will call you. Here he is.»


«Hi!»


«I'll meet you at the bus station.» Janice said. «I'll get a forty-eight-hour pass.»


«Fine.»


«Jim, I think I love you, too,» Janice said, and the phone went dead.


Weston put the phone in its cradle.


«You're a lousy liar,» Dr. Bolemann said. «If she wasn't in love with you, you'd never have gotten away with that car-trouble-in-Wheeling bullshit. I would be very distressed if you were just fucking around with that girl. She's as nice as they come.»


«I love her,» Weston said.


Bolemann nodded. «What are you plans for 0800?» he asked.


«I plan to be sound asleep,» Weston said. «I drove straight through from Pensacola.»


«Tell me, which do you like better, tennis or volleyball?»


«Sir?»


«You heard me. Answer the question.»


«Tennis, I suppose, sir.»


«Splendid. At 0755, Captain Weston, you will be at the volleyball courts, suitably attired to participate. You will

enthusiastically

participate until the noon hour, or until your ass is really dragging, whichever comes last. Do I make myself clear?»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Be there, Captain Weston,» Commander Bolemann said, and pointed to the door.



note 41


The White Room



The Office of Strategic Services


The National Institutes of Health Building



Washington, D.C.


0930 8 March 1943




Gunnery Sergeant Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, looked distinctly uncomfortable as he followed Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, and Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, down the fifth-floor corridor to the White Room. Like many enlisted men of the regular, prewar Marine Corps, he devoutly believed that the route to happiness in the Corps was to stay as far away as possible from officers you don't

really

know. He had been told who was going to be at the briefing, and he didn't hardly know any of the fuckers.


Colonel Banning and McCoy were, of course, not threatening. He had worked for then Captain Banning in the 4th Marines in Shanghai where Banning had been the 4th Marine's G-2. He liked and trusted Banning.


He also liked and trusted Captain McCoy, of course, but McCoy wasn't a

real

officer. The Corps had hung officer's insignia on McCoy because of the war, but that was just temporary. Just as soon as the war was over and things got back to normal, the Killer would go back to the ranks. Probably as a staff sergeant. Maybe, if he got lucky, they'd make him a technical sergeant. He himself would be perfectly happy, when the war was over and things went back to normal, if he got to keep staff sergeant's stripes. That way, with a little bit of luck, he could make technical sergeant himself before he retired.


The Corps really went ape-shit in war time. They'd even pinned a lieutenant's bar on that kid, the Easterbunny. He was living in the hotel too, running around all dressed up in an officer's uniform, Sam Browne belt and lieutenant's bars and all. There was nothing

wrong

with the Easterbunny. The gutsy little shit had proved he had the balls of a gorilla—and earned that 2nd Raider Battalion patch—on Bloody Ridge, trying to carry his officer down that fucking hill with every fucking Jap this side of Tokyo shooting at him. But that didn't make

him

no

officer

.


And they were even going to make a temporary officer out of Koffler, when he finished officer school at Quantico. Koffler was a good kid, a good Marine—he'd probably make a good corporal. But an

officer? No fucking

way!


And the officers he was going to have to face today were all going to be

real

officers…

real senior

officers. And the only way to get along with real senior officers was to stay as fucking far away from them as you could get.


Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman was splendidly turned out in a brand-new, freshly tailored-to-fit uniform. Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker had shown up at the hotel with a supply sergeant from Eighth & I in tow. The supply sergeant had measured Zimmerman, and then written down all his qualifications and decorations, and then come back no more than four hours later with two complete sets of greens with everything all sewn or pinned on. Stripes, 2nd Raider Battalion shoulder patch, fruit salad, marksmanship badges, hash marks, everything.


While he was examining himself in the mirror, Zimmerman had had to admit that he looked pretty fucking sharp and shipshape.


He also thought that the red-striped badge with his picture on it that McCoy had pinned to the pocket of his new tunic made him look like a fucking dummy in a clothing-store window.


Two guys in cop-type uniforms at a little counter went through some bullshit about comparing his face and signature on some cards they had in a file with his picture and signature on the badge. As they did that, Zimmerman wondered where the hell they had got his signature from. And then one of the cops unlocked the door and motioned them inside.


«Sorry to be late, gentlemen,» Banning said. «Would you believe a flat tire?»


«Colonel,» Brigadier General Fleming Pickering said, standing up. «I never look a gift horse in the mouth.» He turned to look at the others sitting around the table:


The Deputy Director (Operations) of the Office of Strategic Services; Brigadier General F. L. Rickabee, USMC; Captain David W. Haughton, USN; Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMCR; Major Jake Dillon, USMCR; 2nd Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR; and an Army Air Corps officer, whose identification badge identified him as Lt. Col. H. J. Hazeltine USAAC. Rickabee, Stecker, and Haughton were wearing VISITOR 5th Floor Only badges; the others had red-striped any area any time badges.


This told Pickering that Colonel Hazeltine was assigned to the OSS, and not as an Air Corps representative to the meeting.


Pickering went to Zimmerman and shook his hand, then put his arm around his shoulder.


«Gentlemen, there has been a good deal in the newspapers of late about 'old-breed Marines.' Here's one in the flesh, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, whom I'm proud to say I know and consider my friend.»


Zimmerman looked very uncomfortable.


«I think everybody knows everybody else, except… Ken, do you know the OSS's weather expert. Colonel Hazeltine?»


«No, sir.»


Hazeltine stood up and walked to McCoy and gave him his hand.


«I've heard a lot about you, Captain,» he said.


«How do you do, sir?»


Hazeltine turned to Zimmerman.


«And you, too, Sergeant,» he said.


«Yes, sir,» Zimmerman said.


Hazeltine restrained a smile. Pickering had warned everyone that all they were going to hear from Gunny Zimmerman was «Yes, sir.»


«No, sir,» or «Aye aye, sir,» unless it was pried—or dynamited—out of him.


«How do you want to handle this, Ed?» Pickering asked.


«Sir, I thought I would sort of conduct the briefing myself, with the understanding that Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman will interrupt me if I leave anything out, or if—when—I get something wrong.»


«Sounds fine. Have at it.»


«Jake, I need the number-three China map on the screen,» Banning said.


Jake Dillon had once been a sergeant in the 4th Marines in Shanghai. To the surprise of many people—including himself—he'd been directly commissioned as a major, USMCR. At that time, he was Vice President, Public Relations, of Metro-Magnum Motion Picture Studios. It had been the belief of certain senior officers within the Marine Corps that he would be of great value performing similar duties for the Marine Corps.


In that capacity, he had led a team of still and motion picture cameramen onto the beach during the invasion of Guadalcanal. But then he had been pressed into service by General Pickering—they were friends before the war—when Pickering was staging a covert operation on the Japanese-occupied island of Buka. He proved as adept at covert operations as at placing the names of motion picture stars onto the front pages of newspapers. To the great annoyance of the Marine Corps publicity people Pickering had again pressed him into service, this time permanently, by having him transferred to the OSS shortly after Pickering's presidential appointment.


«Aye, aye, sir,» Dillon said, and went to the slide projector. In a moment a map of the northern area of China, from Peking (Beijing) north across Mongolia (including the Gobi Desert) to the Russian border, and west to the borders of Kazakhstan and Kyr.


«Captain McCoy, Gunny Zimmerman, and I,» Banning began, «have spent most of the past two days discussing this area, with emphasis on the Gobi Desert, which is where Howard thinks we need a weather station.»


«Right in the middle of it would be nice, Ed,» Colonel H. J. Hazeltine said.


«Gunny Zimmerman is personally familiar with the area,» Banning said. «Which means we can send the

National Geographic

magazines back to the library.»


There were appreciative chuckles.


«How well do you know the area, Sergeant?» the Deputy Director (Operations) asked.


There was a silence.


«Sir, Zimmerman has made two trips across the desert with camel caravans,» McCoy answered for him. «One to the Russian border, and one to the Indian border.»


«Yes, sir,» Zimmerman confirmed.


«How did that come to be, Sergeant?» the DDO asked.


«Sir, Gunny Zimmerman operated what you might call an import-export business,» Banning answered for Zimmerman.


The DDO looked at Zimmerman, who nodded his head.


«The details of which are not, in my judgment, important to us here,» Banning went on. Zimmerman looked relieved. «What is important is that Zimmerman is familiar with the workings of the cross-border import-export business and, probably more important, is personally acquainted with a number of people in the business.»


Banning waited for that to sink in, then added: «And so is his wife. Who Zimmerman believes may be in a small village, Paotow-Zi, which is twenty or thirty miles downriver from Baotou.»


He indicated the position on the map.


«I don't know if I should ask you, Ed, or Zimmerman, but why does he think his wife is in this village?» Rickabee asked.


«Sir,» McCoy said, «Zimmerman owns a farm there, and a sausage factory. When we pulled out of Shanghai, he told her to go there.»


«'Pulled out of Shanghai'?» the DDO asked. «What do you mean by that, Captain?»


«When the Fourth Marines were sent to the Philippines, sir,» McCoy said.


«Did you know about Zimmerman's wife, Ed?» Rickabee asked.


«No, sir.»


«Pity, she might have been useful.»


«Zimmerman told his wife,» Banning said, «to try to make it into India when she thought it would be safe to try it. She would then find an American consulate, or legation—some American agency—and give them the name of Zimmerman's mother here. The idea was to get Mrs. Zimmerman and their children to the United States.»


«That hasn't happened, I gather,» the DDO said. «I mean, there has been no word from Mrs. Zimmerman?»


«No, sir,» Banning said.


«Does that mean we can presume she's still in this village? Paotow-Zi, you said?»


«No, sir.»


«Fritz—excuse me,

General

—have you any assets in that area? Can we find out?» Haughton asked.


«You can call me Fritz in here, David,» Rickabee said. «We're among friends. But don't forget to kiss my stars when you leave the room.» He waited for the chuckles to die down, then went on: «Simple answer is 'yes.' It would mean diverting them from other things… for what, ten days, two weeks? It would probably be three weeks before we had an answer. How important is finding out?»


«Let's come back to that in a minute,» Pickering said.


«Aye, aye, sir,» Rickabee said. «But, Gunny, as soon as possible, go to Management Analysis and tell Captain Sessions everything you can about your wife and children and this village.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» Zimmerman said.


«I told Ed that, as I see it, our first priority is to establish contact with the people in the Gobi Desert,» General Pickering went on. «And to see what ideas Zimmerman had about how to do that.»


«McCoy,» Banning said.


«Sir,» McCoy began, «Zimmerman feels—with a lot of ifs, and a lot of money—that it may be possible to get radios into the people in the Gobi Desert.»


«Money's not a problem,» the DDO said. «What are the other ifs?»


«The first is a question, sir,» McCoy said. «What kind of radios do we send them? They'd have to be transported by camel. Weight would be a problem. We'd have to talk to some expert in Navy Communications—maybe, better, the Army's Signal Corps…«


«Collins Radio,» Captain Haughton said. «In Cedar Rapids, Iowa.»


«What about Collins Radio?» Pickering asked.


«You remember when Admiral Byrd went to the Antarctic a couple of years before the war?»


Grunts indicated everyone remembered Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expedition. Some of them were dubious:

What the hell does Admiral Byrd and the Antarctic have to do with this

?


«Well, the Navy couldn't maintain radio communication with him. The communications experts were very embarrassed. But a radio amateur, a chap named Collins, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,

could

talk to Byrd. And did. Just about all the time. That was even more embarrassing. But the point of this is that after this happened, the Navy has spent a lot of money with Collins. He's become the expert in difficult radio communications.»


«Wouldn't his equipment be heavy-duty stuff?» Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker asked. «We're talking about moving this stuff on camels.»


«We won't know what he's got, will we, until we ask him?» Pickering said. «Specifically, until Banning asks him.» He looked at Banning and added, «As soon as possible.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» Banning said.


«Jumping way ahead,» Colonel Hazeltine said. «Presuming we establish contact with these people and provide them with the necessary meteorological equipment, could we move their expendables into them by camel caravan?»


«I don't think we'd better count on that,» Pickering said. «But let's get back to Zimmerman's plan to get the first radio in to these people?»


»

Radios

, sir,» McCoy said. «Zimmerman thinks the way to do this is to join up with caravans about to go back into Mongolia. Three, four different caravans, maybe as many as six. When they bring back evidence that they delivered the radios to Americans in the Gobi, we give them money—which means gold— enough to make them hungry for more.»


«But… I see what you mean, Captain, by 'a lot of ifs'… but if we get the radios to these people, wouldn't they get on the air to us?» the DDO asked. «We would know if they had them. We'd be talking to them.»


«Yes, sir. But Zimmerman said if we pay them anyway, they would be available to carry other stuff in. I don't know what the Colonel meant by 'expendables'…«


«Balloons, for example. To check the winds aloft,» Colonel Hazeltine explained.


«Okay,» Pickering said.


«Then there's the problem of cryptography,» Haughton said. «We don't dare send in a code book.»


«Sir, we figure the simple substitution code we used for Buka and Mindanao will work just fine here.»


«I don't understand what you're talking about,» the DDO said.


«Sir,» McCoy said, «we worked out a system to establish as secure as possible communication with a Coastwatcher team on Buka. And we used the same system to communicate with General Fertig on Mindanao. It worked twice, and there's no reason it wouldn't work here.»


»

How

does it work?» the DDO asked.


«Sir, it's a simple substitution code, using personal data of people we both know and the Japanese have no way of knowing—their mother's maiden name, the name of somebody, or something.»


«Any simple substitution code is easy to crack.» the DDO said.


«Yes, sir,» McCoy agreed. «But it enables us to establish initial contact. It would be enough for them to tell us where they are, and for us to tell them when the weather team is coming in.»


«Zimmerman,» Pickering asked, «you think we can get radios into these people?»


«Yes, sir.»


«Where would you meet them?»


«Let me have China number two on the screen, Jake, please,» Banning said.


A moment later, a map of northern China appeared on the screen.


«Somewhere in here, sir,» Banning said, pointing to the map. «In the Gobi itself, on one of the caravan routes operating out of Ulaanbaatar.»


«That's assuming the caravans are still operating,» the DDO asked. «In wartime?»


«Yes, sir,» Banning said. «These caravans have been operating for centuries. A little thing like World War Two isn't going to stop them.»


There were chuckles.


«A main caravan route runs between Ulaanbaatar, in the Gobi, toward India. We believe the Americans will try to make it into India,» Banning said.


«Why not just head for Chungking?» the DDO asked.


Chungking was then the seat of the Chinese Nationalist government. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Nationalist government sinceand the leader of the nationalist chinese during World War II, had retreated before the Japanese to Chungking, where they operated from bomb-shelter caves.


«They wouldn't be sure our Chinese would be there by the time they got there,» McCoy said. «And that's bandit country.»


«Bandit country?» the DDO asked.


«Warlords, sometimes aligned with Chiang Kai-shek, sometimes with the Communists, and always ready to steal whatever they can from anybody. They don't operate in the Gobi because there's not much to steal there, and also because they use the caravans to smuggle things into Russia and India.»


«According to Zimmerman,» Banning went on, pointing to the map as he spoke, «Ulaanbaatar is

the

marketplace, the transshipment point, so to speak, for caravans moving all over that area. Into the interior of China, to India, and, for that matter, into Russia.»


«Have you been there, Sergeant?» the Deputy Director (Operations) asked.


«Yes, sir.»


«I think we're at the point where we can come up with some sort of plan,» Pickering said, «and start putting it into execution… even though whatever we start will almost certainly have to be changed. I hate that, but I don't think we have any choice.»


There were no objections.


«Okay, Ed, tell us what you and McCoy are thinking,» Pickering said.


«Given that the priority, sir, is establishing reliable communications with the people in the Gobi,» Banning replied, «I think we should get Zimmerman and radios to China—into Ulaanbaatar, if that can be done—as quickly as possible.»


«Zimmerman, radios, and gold,» McCoy said. «Any radios we can put our hands on right now. With hand-cranked generators. We can get better radios into the Gobi on the airplane. Airplanes. What we have to do is set up communication with those people.»


«Fritz,» Pickering asked, «did you ever send anybody with a magic clearance to Chiang Kai-shek?»


«What's that all about?» the DDO asked. «What about Chiang Kai-shek and MAGIC?»


«I had dinner with the President, Frank Knox, and Admiral Leahy just before I went back to the Pacific… When the hell was that?»


«Fourteen October 1942,» General Rickabee furnished from memory.


»… where I learned that the President had decided to bring Mountbatten and Chiang Kai-shek in on magic. Over the objections of Knox and Leahy.»


Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the great-grandson of Queen Victoria, commanded Allied operations in China, Burma, and India.


«Why?» the DDO asked incredulously. «That strikes me as a hell of a good way to compromise magic.»


«Which, I think, is why Leahy and Knox objected,» Pickering said. «But the point is that he told me to find people with a magic clearance we could send to India and China. This, of course, took place before the President decided to send me over here?»


«The answer to your question, General,» Rickabee said, «is that I had just about decided to send Colonel Banning to Chungking. This, of course, was before

you

decided to send him over

here

.?'


«Do I detect a needle in there somewhere. General?»


«No, sir,» Rickabee answered with monumental insincerity.


«Chungking is where we want to send Colonel Banning now, right? And Sergeant Zimmerman,» the DDO said, then added: «And presumably Captain McCoy?»


«That makes sense, Ken,» Pickering said, looking at McCoy.


«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said.


«If we send Banning to Chungking—Chiang Kai-shek—now,» Pickering said, «that would mean we would have a magic communications team we control. And it would give us Special Channel communications.»


«Yeah,» the DDO said, and then asked, «Does the President want Chiang Kai-shek to have unlimited access to magic material?»


«I don't know about the President, but I don't think Frank Knox and Admiral Leahy do,» Pickering said. «Which means we would have in Banning someone who could immediately give to Chiang Kai-shek magic material which would be of interest to him. And not—«


«I take your point, General,» the DDO said.


«What about the cryptographers?» Banning asked. «I'm sure the British would be delighted to have some of their men trained—«


«But if we have our own men, that wouldn't be necessary, would it?» Pickering interrupted. «The question is, do we have anyone?»


«Me, sir,» 2nd Lieutenant Hart said. It was the first time he had opened his mouth.


«Yeah,» Pickering said thoughtfully.


«No,» Rickabee said. «You need Hart.»


«McCoy?» the DDO asked. «Or do you plan to use him operationally?»


«I don't think Ken should have a magic clearance,» Pickering said.


Which is one way of telling me I'm going into the goddamned Gobi Desert

, McCoy thought.


«Hart,» McCoy asked, «how long did it take them to teach you to operate the machine?»


«Four, five days, before they'd let me at it by myself,» Hart said.


«The Easterbunny,» McCoy said, looking at Pickering.


» 'The

Easterbunny'T

the DDO asked.


«Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook,» Pickering said. «One of the officers I brought with me.» He turned to McCoy. «Yeah,» he said. «Where is he?»


«I sent him over to the Smithsonian,» McCoy said. «To improve his mind.»


«Where's he staying?»


«With me, sir. He and Zimmerman.»


«That must be cozy,» Pickering said, smiling.


«I can give you Sergeant Rutterman,» Rickabee said. «He told me he's going stir-crazy in Washington, and I told him the first thing that came along…«


«Could he teach Easterbrook what he has to know?» Pickering asked.


«Yes, sir.»


«That would give us two. We need three, at least,» Pickering said.


«General,» Hart asked, «do you think Colonel Waterson has had time to select and train two of his officers? I'm thinking of Moore, sir. That would also give Colonel Banning an analyst.»


«Fritz, you're right,» Pickering said. «I really can't do without Hart.» He turned to Hart. «As soon as we're finished here, George, Special Channel Colonel Waterson and tell him that as soon as he has two people up and running with magic, he should be prepared to send Lieutenant Moore to… Where do I tell him to send him?»


«We've got a couple of days to determine that,» Rickabee said.


«You know what to say to Waterson, George,» Pickering said.


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Is there a magic machine at this country club I keep hearing so much about?» Pickering asked.


«There is, for training purposes, but I don't think it's connected with the network. Or, for that matter, has current codes,» the DDO replied.


«All you need is the machine, sir,» Hart said, «to teach someone how to use it.»


«We're going to need a staging area and quarters,» Pickering said. «And despite the patriotic generosity of American Personal Pharmaceuticals in offering their quarters, I think maybe we better move to the Country Club.»


«No problem,» the DDO said. «And I'm not even going to ask what American Personal Pharmaceuticals has to do with anything.»


Banning and Rickabee chuckled.


«I'll call out there and tell them to give you whatever you need,» the DDO went on. «What do you think that will be?»


«Quarters for Lieutenant Easterbrook and Sergeants Zimmerman and Rutterman,» Pickering said. «On-call quarters for Banning, McCoy, and Jake. A place to store the radios and whatever else we're going to send to China. On that subject, Jake, I don't think Banning will have the time to go to Collins Radio. You can do that, after you and McCoy lay your hands on what is immediately available.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» Dillon said.


«I think the thing for us to do,» Pickering said, «is to chew over what we've decided. We've made a lot of decisions here today, and we're going to have to change some of them, I'm sure. I think we should get together again tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. I presume we can find a secure room out there?»


«Absolutely,» the DDO said. «The day after tomorrow. Better yet, Wednesday afternoon. Say about five?»


«Wednesday at five it is,» Pickering said, getting to his feet. «Unless someone has anything else?»


«Sir?» McCoy said.


«Okay, Ken, what?»


«Sir, Zimmerman thinks it would be safe for him to accompany one of the caravans to Ulaanbaatar.»


«How would he pass himself off as a Chinese, or a Mongolian?» the DDO asked.


«He wouldn't, sir. He said there are a lot of Russians and some Germans and some other people in the area. Stateless persons. Some with Nansen passports, some without. He thinks he could do it if he grew a beard and had a Nansen passport.»


«That could be arranged,» the DDO said thoughtfully. «I presume Sergeant Zimmerman speaks Russian?»


«No, sir, German.»


«You do, too, don't you, Ken?» Pickering asked.


«Not as fluently as the gunny, sir.»


Was that modesty speaking? Or was I trying to get out of going into Mongolia with a Nansen passport?


«I think it would be a mistake to send someone in this early in the game,» the DDO said. «But down the pike, it might be necessary and valuable. I'll check into the passports. Do you and Sergeant Zimmerman have civilian clothing, Captain?»


«I have a few things,» McCoy said. «I'm sure Zimmerman doesn't.»


«No, sir,» Zimmerman said.


«I think we should put that on our things to do list, too,» the DDO said. «Civilian clothing suitable for here. I'll ask our specialists about clothing for northern China, but I suspect you could probably buy that easier there.»


«Why civilian clothing?» Pickering asked.


«You heard what he said. Nansen passports and beards. Don't you think that Captain McCoy and Sergeant Zimmerman would attract attention in uniform as they were growing beards?»


Well, that was decided in a goddamn hurry, wasn't it

? McCoy asked himself.

If Zimmerman playing camel driver is a good idea, sending me with him is an even better idea

.


«I'll want to think a long time about sending either of them into China with a camel caravan,» Pickering said. «In civilian clothing, they could be shot as spies.»


«Yes, they could,» the DDO said matter-of-factly. «That's the rules of the game we play here.»


The implication

, McCoy thought,

is that he's surprised and disappointed that General Pickering would say something dumb like that. And it was dumb

.


Pickering's temper flared.


«I'm sure that both Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman are well aware of the rules,» he said icily. «But I think you had better clearly understand that before I ask—operative word 'ask'—them, or anyone else, to risk getting shot as a spy, I intend to be convinced that it is absolutely necessary. I don't think this is a game.»


The two men locked eyes for a moment, then the DDO walked over to Gunny Zimmerman and offered him his hand.


«Thank you, Sergeant,» he said. «For the first time since I heard about this operation, I don't feel we're just spinning our wheels.»


«Yes, sir,» Zimmerman said.


The DDO then turned to McCoy and opened his mouth as if to speak. But instead he changed his mind and walked out of the room.



note 42


Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff G-1



Headquarters, United States Marine Corps


Eighth and I Streets, NW



Washington, D.C.


0905 9 March 1943




Technical Sergeant K. L. Carruthers, Chief Clerk of the Enlisted Personnel Division, entered the office of Lieutenant Colonel Richard B. Warren, USMCR, Deputy Assistant G-1 for Enlisted Personnel, and announced that Brigadier General Pickering wished to see him.


«Who is he?» Colonel Warren thought aloud, and quickly checked into the telephone book of Headquarters, USMC, looking for the name. He didn't find it, which told him that General Pickering was not assigned to Headquarters, USMC.


When Colonel Warren glanced quizzically up at Sergeant Carruthers, the sergeant raised his hands in a gesture indicating he had no idea either.


«Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker is with him,» Sergeant Carruthers offered. «And another brigadier general named Rickabee.»


Colonel Warren had heard that name, but he could not recall in what connection. colonel jack (nmi) stecker was an old friend. They had both been sergeant majors in the prewar Corps.


«Ask them to come in, please,» Colonel Warren said, and stood up behind his desk.


The ribbons on the chests of General Pickering and Colonel Stecker showed that they had both been around the Corps a long time, and had been in harm's way more than once. Colonel Warren noticed, however, that Jack Stecker was not wearing the blue-starred ribbon of the Medal of Honor. He wondered why he had never heard of General Pickering.


The other general did not have many ribbons. Colonel Warren decided he was probably another administrative officer of some kind. He looked like an administrative type. And he was carrying a battered briefcase.


«Good morning, gentlemen,» Colonel Warren said. «How can I be of service?»


«How are you, Dick?» Stecker said, offering his hand.


«Long time no see,» Warren said.


After introducing the others, Jack (NMI) Stecker said, «You're going to love this, Dick.»


General Rickabee opened the briefcase and came out with a service record jacket. He handed it to Colonel Warren.


«Those are the records of Technical Sergeant Harry Rutterman,» General Rickabee said.


«Yes, sir,» Colonel Warren said.


«We want to have him promoted to master gunner,» Rickabee said.


«I don't think I quite understand, sir,» Warren said. «Has the sergeant been recommended for promotion? I've got to tell you, the promotion board has been rejecting just about all recommendations for people who aren't master sergeants.»


«Well, I really don't care about any promotion board,» General Pickering said. «We need to pin master gunner's bars on Sergeant Rutterman right away.»


«Sir, I'm afraid I don't understand.»


«Where Rutterman is going, he can perform his duties better if he has a bar on his collar,» Pickering said. «This has to do with the efficiency of the mission. Not that Rutterman isn't fully qualified to be a master gunner.»


«May I ask what that mission is, sir? What this man will be doing?»


«No. You don't have the need to know, Colonel,» Rickabee said.


«Sir, without some sort of special justification, I don't think that it's going to be possible to promote Sergeant Rutterman,» Warren said uncomfortably, looking at Stecker, who seemed to be amused by the exchange.


«There's always a waiver,» Rickabee said. «What we need from you, Colonel, is to tell us who can grant a waiver in this case.»


«Sir, a request for a waiver of this type has to go up through channels. I'll have to check. But, unless I'm mistaken, it has to be approved by the post commanderwhere the sergeant is stationed, and then by both the G-1 and the deputy commandant.»


«How about the Secretary of the Navy?» General Pickering asked. «Could he grant such a waiver?»


The Secretary of the Navy? Personally? What the hell is going on here


«That would be very unusual, sir, for the Secretary of the Navy to become personally involved in something like this.»


«If the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy told you it was the Secretary's desire to promote Sergeant Rutterman, would that do it?» General Rickabee asked.


«Yes, sir, of course.»


«May I use your telephone, Colonel?» Rickabee asked.


«Of course, sir.»


Rickabee dialed a number from memory.


«David, Fritz,» he said. «We're at Eighth and I. I'm going to put you on the line with Colonel Warren. He's the enlisted personnel guy in G-1, and he needs the Secretary's authority to promote Rutterman.»


He handed the telephone to Colonel Warren.


«Captain David Haughton, USN, is Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy,» Rickabee said.


Colonel Warren took the telephone.


He said «Yes, sir» five times; «I understand, sir» twice; and then «Glad to be of service, sir» once.



note 43


Office of the Deputy Director, USMC Aviation


Building F


Anacostia Naval Air Station


Washington, D.C.


1115 9 March 1943



«General,» Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney's aide-de-camp announced, «there is a General Pickering and a Colonel Stecker to see you, sir.»


«Tony, that's

the

General Pickering and

the

Colonel Stecker,» Mclnerney said. « 'A' suggests there's more than one of each, and that's just not the case.»


«Yes, sir.»


«Send them in, and then lock up the silver. I don't think they're here just to say hello.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» the aide said.


He turned and opened the door.


«Gentlemen, General Mclnerney will see you.»


They walked into the office.


«To what do I owe the honor of such distinguished visitors to my humble abode?» Mclnerney greeted them, coming from around his desk.


«You want the truth, Mac?» Pickering asked, as their handshake turned into a hug.


«If possible, that would be very nice,» Mclnerney said, as he gave Stecker an affectionate hug.


«We want to pick your brains,» Pickering said, «and eventually steal things.»


«Tony, am I flying today?» Mclnerney asked.


«No, sir.»


«In that case, a little nip is called for. Bring in the cheap stuff.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


First Lieutenant Anthony I. Sylvester had not been General Mclnerney's aide for long. He was still on limited duty following hospitalization for injuries to his neck suffered in a bad arrested landing. But he had been around long enough to know that these two officers were somehow special to Mclnerney. He had never heard of General Pickering, but wondered if Colonel Stecker could be the near-legendary Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker.


A moment later, Sylvester returned to Mclnerney's office with two bottles, one of scotch, the other of bourbon, the best available in the lower filing case in the office.


«I said the cheap stuff, Tony,» Mclnerney said. «I had the great misfortune to serve with these two in what used to be called The Great War—I was one of Sergeant Stecker's corporals, believe it or not. They wouldn't know good booze if they were drowning in it.»


My God, that is Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker!


«And even then, Lieutenant,» Pickering said, «he was known for his peculiar sense of humor. That liquor will do very nicely, thank you.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Lieutenant Sylvester—Tony—just came to me from Philadelphia,» Mclnerney said. «And to answer your question, yes, he knows Dick. I asked him, and he confirmed what I'd heard, Dick's doing all right.»


«You're Lieutenant Stecker's father, sir?» Lieutenant Sylvester asked.


Stecker nodded.


«We had therapy together,» Sylvester said.


«They do amazing things at Philadelphia,» Stecker said. «For a while…« He decided not to pursue that thought. «But now,» he continued, «thank God, Dick's walking around with only a cane.»


«He told me he'd been pretty badly banged up,» Sylvester said.


«Young Stecker and young Pickering were in VMF-229 on the 'Canal,» Mclnerney said. «So this is sort of a family gathering. With that in mind, Flem, should I tell Tony to pour himself a drink? Or is this visit official?»


Pickering looked uncomfortable. «I'd rather you decide later, Mac, how much Lieutenant Sylvester should know about what we're going to talk about,» he said finally.


«Okay, Tony. Out. Bar the door. Nobody but the Commandant.»


«Aye, aye, sir,» Lieutenant Sylvester said, and left the office.


«What the hell is going on?» Mclnerney asked.


«What I said. I need to pick your brains.»


«About what?»


«What follows is Top Secret,» Pickering said.


Mclnerney nodded. «Understood.»


«We're going to set up a weather station in the Gobi Desert,» Pickering said.


«Who is 'we'?»


«The OSS,» Pickering said.


«I saw that in the paper—I mean, you going over there. You too, Jack?»


«Jack is my liaison to the Corps,» Pickering said. «Unofficially.»


«When is Vandegrift going to take over? Any word on that?»


«He wants to stay with the First Marine Division until he gets it back in shape. Whenever he decides it is, he'll take over,» Stecker said.


«So you're going to have to wait awhile for your star?»


«If that ever happens,» Stecker said.


«It'll happen. Vandegrift told me it would,» Mclnerney said firmly, then looked at Pickering. «Okay, tell me about your Gobi Desert weather station. I heard the Army Air Corps was going to set one up in Russia. Same idea?»


«The Russians won't let the Air Corps in. Nimitz and Leahy want a weather station as soon as possible. Leahy gave the mission to the OSS, and Nimitz got Leahy to 'suggest' that I be given the job.»


«Which means Leahy and Nimitz think you're the guy who can do it,» Mclnerney said. «Proving once again that I was wrong when I told you you couldn't do the Corps any good.»


«You told me that because you believed it, Mac,» Pickering said. «And that's why I'm here. I want you to tell me what you believe, not what you think I'd like to hear.»


«Okay. I don't think you can do it. That blunt enough? The Gobi Desert is in the middle of nowhere, a long way from anything we control. How the hell are you going to put people in there? On camels?»


Stecker chuckled. «That's one of the options, Mac, but what Flem wants to ask you about is airplanes.»


«I don't need a map and a compass to measure the distance. I can tell you the Gobi Desert is beyond the range of any airplane in the inventory—Marine, Navy, or Air Corps. You didn't know that?»


«When you speak of range, you're talking round trips, right?» Pickering asked.


Mclnerney thought that over for a minute.


«A one-way mission, huh? Who are you going to find to fly it? More important, where will it go?»


«There's reliable information that a group of Americans is somewhere in the Gobi Desert, some of them Marines from the Legation Guard at Peking who didn't surrender. Most of these people are supposed to be retired from the Fourth Marines, the Yangtze River patrol, and the Fifteenth Infantry.»


«You're in contact with them?»


«Not reliably. We're working on that.»


«We're going to send decent radios to them, Mac,» Stecker said. «On camels.»


Mclnerney's eyebrows rose in either surprise or disbelief.


«We also have somebody who's been all over the Gobi desert,» Pickering said. «A gunnery sergeant who used to be in the Fourth in Shanghai. He tells us that a good deal of the Gobi Desert is not sand but flat rock. In other words, an airplane could land there.»


«Erring on the side of caution, how about 'crash-land'?» Mclnerney said sarcastically.


«Okay. Crash-land,» Pickering said. «As long as it delivers the weather station equipment in workable condition, we can write off the airplane.»


«If it gets that far, and I have serious doubts that it will, this weather station would be secret, right?»


«It would be better if it were,» Pickering said.


«If you sent an airplane on a one-way mission, the wreckage would stick out like a sore thumb in the desert,» Mclnerney said.


«Yeah, I guess it would,» Pickering said. «Let's fly an airplane there first, and then worry about concealing the wreckage. What should we use for an airplane?»


«That would depend on where the airplane is going to fly

from

,» Mclnerney said. «You have two choices. Russia, and you say that's out of the question. Or India.»


«Tell me about India,» Pickering said.


«The Air Corps is flying Curtiss C-46s from Sadiya—something like that, anyway. God, I'm not sure what I'm talking about.»


Mclnerney picked up his telephone. «Tony, bring me maps of India and China,» he said, hung up, and then went on: «They call it 'Flying the Hump.' Meaning they have to climb to sixteen thousand feet to fly over it, most of the way on oxygen. They fly supplies over the Himalayas into Kunming, China.»


«Kunming is in the south of China,» Stecker said. «The Gobi Desert is in the north, the far north.»


«I'll have to check the map, but I'm thinking, Jack, that the distances are about the same. A C-46 would have the range, especially if it wasn't planning to make a round trip.»


«Correct me if I'm wrong,» Pickering said. «But wouldn't you say that even if the Japanese can't shoot these planes down—«


«They shoot them down,» Mclnerney interrupted.


»—they keep track of them. Either themselves, or with informants, spies, on the ground?»


«Sure.»


«And wouldn't they notice if one of these C-46s routinely flying to Kunming suddenly went in the other direction?»


«Probably. But it wouldn't be the first aircraft to get lost out there. A friend of mine told me the pilots call it 'the Aluminum Trail,' because you can navigate by the wrecks of planes that have gone down.»


«But wouldn't you say they would go looking for an airplane, the wreckage of an airplane, that didn't head for Kunming?»


«Flem, you're going to have to get used to the idea that you don't have many options,» Mclnerney said.


Lieutenant Sylvester appeared with four maps packed in cardboard tubes.


Mclnerney came from behind his desk, pulled the rolled-up maps from the tubes, and spread them out on the floor. He and Stecker dropped to their knees. Pickering stood behind them.


«Here it is,» Mclnerney said, pointing. «I was right. Sadiya, in the Brahmaputra Valley. From there over the mountains to Kunming.» He traced the route with his fingers, and then, using his little finger and thumb as a compass, compared the distance between Sadiya and Kunming and Sadiya and the center of the Gobi Desert.


«Like I thought,» he said, «about the same distance. Five hundred miles, maybe five-fifty. A C-46 could make it, one-way, without any trouble.»


«Does the Corps have any C-46s?» Pickering asked.


«The Corps has a few, reluctantly contributed by the Air Corps, and none of which I— speaking for the Corps—am willing to give to the OSS for a one-way mission.»


Pickering did not reply directly. «What about the R4-D?» he asked.


«It has the range, but getting it over the mountains? Risky—damned risky— at best.»


«And you can't fly an R4-D through the mountains, or around them?»


Mclnerney shook his head. «You have to have the altitude to get over them.


The R4-D just doesn't have it. There's always exceptions to everything, of course. But so far as I'm concerned, you'd better forget about using an R4-D.»


Pickering dropped to his knees and put his finger on the map.


«That, General,» Mclnerney said, «is the Yellow Sea.»


«Yeah, General, I know,» Pickering said. «I used to be a sailor.»


«What are you thinking, Flem?»


«Catalina,» Pickering said. «Maybe two Catalinas. From fifty miles offshore, they would have more than enough range.»


«Not by the time they reached a position fifty miles off the coast. Not from any base where they are now operating.»


«They would if they met a submarine and took on fuel from it,» Pickering said.


«A rendezvous at sea?» Mclnerney said, doubtfully but thoughtfully. «I don't know, Flem.»


«The Catalina has a range of twenty-three hundred miles,» Pickering said. «It cruises at a hundred sixty knots, or thereabouts. And it can carry two tons of bombs.»


«It carries the bombs under its wings,» Mclnerney said.


«But it can lift that much weight, right? Two tons is a lot of meteorological equipment.»


«I thought you came here for my expert advice about airplanes.»


«We did. And you came up with the same arguments against using India as a base for C-46s that Jack and I did. You ever hear the true test of an intelligent man is how much he agrees with you?»


«I'm not agreeing with you. I am having unpleasant mental images of what would happen if you could talk the Navy into giving you a submarine

or

a Catalina.»


«What kind of unpleasant images?»


«First of all, the Navy is not going to be thrilled about putting several thousand gallons of avgas in one of their boats,» Mclnerney said. «Avgas tends to explode. And then how would you get it into the tanks of the Catalina? I have visions of white hats trying—and failing—to get drums of gas over the side of a sub into a rubber boat. And then how would you get it from the rubber boat into the Catalina? The fuel receptacles are on the upper surface of a Catalina's wings. You plan to stand up in a rubber boat on the high seas and manhandle a fifty-five-gallon drum of avgas up onto the wing of a Catalina?»


«There has to be a way to do it,» Stecker said.


«Jesus, Jack!»


«We got avgas onto Guadalcanal by tossing fifty-five-gallon drums of avgas over the side of those old four-stacker War One destroyers and letting the tide float it ashore.»


«So?»


«Barrels of avgas float,» Pickering said. «That might be useful.»


«Flem, I can think of a hundred reasons this won't work!»


«That's why Jack and I came to see you, Mac,» Pickering said. «We figured you could come up with everything that could go wrong. And then the solutions to fix the problems.»


«You're presuming the Navy is going to give you a submarine, and Catalinas.»


«Or, if we decided we need it, an old four-stacker destroyer or two. And, for that matter, one or more of the Marine Corps' precious C-46s. Whatever we need, Mac.»


«What makes you believe that?»


«Because Admiral Leahy has ordered Admiral Nimitz to give us whatever we think we need, and Admiral Nimitz really wants this weather station.»


«You know, I was really happy when you two walked in here,» Mclnerney said. «I should have known better.»


«Can we buy you lunch, General?» Pickering asked.


«You have ruined my appetite for at least the next three days,» Mclnerney said. «I'm going to have to think long and hard about this, Flem.»


«Does that mean you don't want to have lunch with us?» Pickering asked.


»

Eat

with you? I would be happier if I never saw either of you again,» Mclnerney said. «How much time do I have?»


«Would yesterday morning be too soon?»


«Get the hell out of here,» Mclnerney said. «Call me tomorrow afternoon.»


«No, we'll come see you,» Pickering said. «I don't want to talk about this on the telephone.»


Mclnerney nodded, then thought of something else: «Who's going to fly this airplane?»


«Jack and I were really thinking we need two Catalinas.»


«Who's going to fly the

two

Catalinas?»


«We thought you might be helpful there too, General,» Pickering said, and then turned serious. «I want Marine Corps pilots. I want to keep it in the family, so to speak.»


«But you're not in the family anymore, are you?» Mclnerney said, and immediately added, «Sorry, that slipped out. I shouldn't have said that.»


«What about 'once a Marine, always a Marine'?» Pickering said. «You ever hear that?»


«I said I was sorry. I am.»


«Both of you, knock it off,» Stecker said.


They looked at Stecker, and then at each other.


«Okay,» Mclnerney said. «I'll even have lunch with you and your ugly jarhead friend. If he buys.»


«That's better,» Stecker said.


«Give me a minute to lay some errands on Tony,» Mclnerney said. «And then I'll be with you. You've got a car?»


«We have Senator Fowler's car,» Stecker said.


«Bring it around. This won't take me a minute.»


He walked with them into his outer office, then waited for them to leave before speaking with his aide.


«I'm going to lunch with them,» he said. «By the time I get back, whenever that is, I want the three most experienced Catalina pilots on the base sitting here waiting for me. And I also want, waiting for me on my desk, the draft of a teletype to be sent to every stateside air station soliciting twin-engine—preferably Catalina—qualified volunteers for a mission outside the United States involving great personal risk.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


Mclnerney saw the look in his eyes.


«Yeah, Tony, I am going to explain this to you. After lunch.»


«Yes, sir.»



Chapter Twelve



note 44


Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne, Advertising

698 Madison Avenue


New York City, New York



1145 9 March 1943



«There's a

Colonel

Banning on the line for you, Miss Sage,» Darlene, the secretary, announced. Ernie shared Darlene with H. Oswald Tinner, the account executive for the American Personal Pharmaceuticals account. Then curiosity got the better of her: «Was he promoted?»


«Yes, Darlene, he was,» Ernie Sage replied, forcing herself to smile, as she punched the button for the internal line on her telephone.


When Ed Banning called, she always answered the telephone expecting the worst. Even when it was good news, it generally took her several minutes to calm down.


«Hello, Ed,» she said.


«Ernie, as a favor to me, when you see Ken will you do something about his clothing?»


«Excuse me?»


«You'll know what I mean when you see him,» Banning said.


«Til see him late this afternoon,» she said. «I'm going to try to catch the 2:40 Congressional Limited. What about his clothes?»


«He's on his way to New York,» Banning said. «

We're

on our way to New York. I'm calling from the station. And I have to go, or I'll miss the train. Maybe we'll see you tonight. Do something, please, about his clothes. He'll pay attention to you.»


The line went dead, as the red light indicating a call on her private line lit up, and the bell began to ring. She pushed the red light.


«Hello?»


«Baby, I'm on my way to New York,» Captain Kenneth R. McCoy announced. «I'm at Union Station.»


Well, thank God. That means I won't have to catch the Congressional Limited again.


«Can you spend the night?»


«Yeah. Where should I meet you?»


She thought that over quickly.

If he's catching the train now, that's three hours and something. Call it three and a half. That means he would get into Pennsylvania Station at 3:15. Twenty minutes to catch a cab and come here. Say quarter to four

.


«Come to the office, baby,» she said.


«To the office?»


From the tone of his voice, he didn't like that.


«I can't get out of here any earlier,» she said. «Come here.»


«Jesus, Ernie!» he started to protest. «Christ, I have to go.»


«Six ninety-eight Madison, twenty-second floor,» she said.


There was no reply.


And then she saw the green light flashing, indicating an incoming call on the interior line. She punched the button.


«Ernestine Sage.»


«Your private line was busy,» Mr. Ernest Sage announced somewhat indignantly, as if he considered that a personal affront.


«Hi, Daddy! I'm fine. How are you?»


«Since you have a lamentable tendency to miss appointments, I thought it would be a good idea to remind you that we have one this afternoon.»


Oh, shit!


«I said I would meet you if I could, Daddy,» she said. «That's not quite the same thing as an appointment.»


«I gather you cannot? Aren't you getting a little tired of commuting to Washington daily?»


«I consider it my contribution to the war effort,» she said, and was immediately sorry. «And I didn't say I wasn't going to meet you. 1 said we didn't have an appointment.»


«Well, may I infer from that that you will meet me?» he asked. He sounded pleased.


«Ken and I will meet you,» Ernie said.


«Splendid,» he said, considerably less pleased. «Jack and Charley's at five-thirty?»


«We'd better make it six, or even six-thirty,» Ernie said. «Ken's coming up by train, and you never know if they're going to be on time.»


«Six, then,» he said, and hung up.


At half past three, Miss Ernestine Sage was notified by the BBD&O receptionist that a Mr. McCoy was in the lobby.


«Mr.

McCoy»? Doesn't she recognize a Marine officer when she sees one

?


BBD&O protocol dictated that when an executive-level employee had a visitor, the employee was to dispatch a secretary or other clerical employee from his or her office to the reception desk on the twentieth floor, to escort the visitor to the executive-level employee's office.


Miss Sage was well aware of this protocol, but decided to hell with it.


«I'll be right down,» she said, and hung up.


After a quick glance at her watch and her desk, she decided that doing any more work today was a lost cause, grabbed her hat and coat, and left the office.


«See you in the morning,» she said to Darlene.


«If someone calls?»


«Tell them I'll be in in the morning,» Ernie said, and went to the fire-exit stairwell. That was the quickest way down to the twentieth floor.


As soon as she pushed open the fire-exit stairwell door and entered the reception area, she saw Captain McCoy. What she saw immediately explained why the receptionist mistook him for a civilian and why Ed Banning asked her to do something about his clothes.


I

love him anyway

, Ernie thought.

But

my God.'

Where did he get those clothes? He looks like a coal miner all dressed up for a night out on payday

.


McCoy was wearing a two-tone sport jacket with a plaid body and blue sleeves. It had four pockets, with flaps, made of the same material as the sleeves. The open collar of a yellow shirt was neatly folded over the collar of the jacket. He had on a pair of light brown trousers, and was wearing his Marine Corps uniform shoes.


Ernie kissed him on the lips, not the cheek, which obviously made him uncomfortable.


«What are you doing dressed like that?» she asked.


«You don't like it, huh? Neither did Banning. I could see it on his face.»


«I meant, baby, what are you doing in civilian clothing?»


«It's sort of a long story,» he said. «Can we get out of here? I want to go to Brooks Brothers before they close.»


«You mean the clothing store?» she asked.


«Yeah. Sure. The clothing store.»


«You're going to buy some other clothes?»


«With you and Banning looking at me like I escaped from the circus, yes, I'm going to buy some other clothes.»


«Well, Brooks Brothers has nice things,» Ernie said. «That's a good idea.»


But, unless they're having a fire sale, nothing a Marine captain can afford. Doesn't he know that?


As if he had been reading her mind, he answered the question. «I finally paid off what I owed for my uniforms,» he said. «So I suppose my credit is good. And I've got a two-hundred-fifty-dollar civilian clothes allowance check.»


«You bought your uniforms at Brooks Brothers?» Ernie asked, as she led him onto the elevator.


«When Pick and I were about to graduate from OCS, he said the best place for us to buy officer's uniforms was Brooks Brothers,» McCoy said. «He didn't mention what they were going to charge for them.»


«Oh,» Ernie said.


Damn Pick! He should have known Ken couldn't afford Brooks Brothers!


«Anyway, I thought that since I don't know diddly-shit— Sorry, that slipped out…«


Ernie made a gesture meaning she wasn't offended by the vulgarity.


»… about civvies, Brooks Brothers was the place to go for them.»


«Good idea.»


«Can you go with me?» he asked, almost shyly.


My God, he wants me to help him!


«Of course.»


«I thought you would know the right thing to buy.»


«We'll find something,» Ernie said. «Are you going to tell me why you need civilian clothing?»


«Well, I'm going to grow a beard,» he said. «I am ordered to grow a beard, and a Marine officer with a beard would make people ask questions.»


«I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you've been ordered to grow a beard?»


«I can't, honey,» McCoy said.


What the hell does that mean? Where are they going to send him now where he needs to have a beard? And/or wear civilian clothing? What's he going to be doing? When is he going?


I

knew damned well when Darlene said Banning was on the phone that it was going to be bad news

.


«The first thing you're going to need is shoes,» Ernie said when they had pushed through the revolving door into Brooks Brothers.


«I suppose,» he said, looking down at his feet.


«Go in there and ask them to show you some loafers,» she said. «I'm going to the ladies' room. I'll meet you there.»


He nodded and headed toward the footwear department. She couldn't help but notice the look of amusement, surprise, and contempt one of the salesmen gave him as he walked past. Then she went looking for another salesman.


«I'd like to see the manager,» she told him.


«Perhaps I can help you, miss,» the salesman said.


«If I thought so, I wouldn't have asked for the manager,» Ernie snapped at him, and was immediately sorry.


He didn't look down his nose at Ken. The sonofabitch by the tie counter did.


«May I help you, madam?» a middle-aged man asked a moment later.


«You're in charge?»


«Yes, I am.»


«I'm not sure if I have an account here or not. I know my father does.»


«Perhaps you have a family account.»


«My father's name is Ernest Sage. It's probably billed to him at American Personal Pharmaceuticals.»


«I know your father,» he said, now smiling warmly. «I've known him for years. How may I assist you? It is Miss Sage?»


«I'm Ernestine Sage,» she acknowledged.


«I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Sage.»


«Thank you,» Ernie said. «I'm here with a gentleman friend. He needs some clothing, and he needs it right now. Which means you're going to have to put him at the head of the alteration line.»


«That may be difficult.»


«But not impossible, right?»


«We do try to take the best possible care of our good customers,» he said.


«By ten minutes to six, we'll need a sport coat and a pair of trousers altered.»


«I think we can handle that.»


«And by noon tomorrow, he will also need two business suits, probably two more jackets, and two or three pair of pants.»


«That may be difficult,» he said.


«We're back to 'difficult but not impossible,' right?»


The manager smiled at her.


Ernestine Sage did not look at all like her father, but she was obviously a chip off the old block.


«We will accommodate the gentleman, Miss Sage,» he said.


«Now we come to payment,» Ernie said. «My gentleman friend has an account here, and will sign for whatever he buys. But I don't want him to pay for what he buys, or to know, right now, that he won't be paying for it. It's sort of a surprise present.»


«I understand. And should I bill Mr. Sage?»


«No. I'm going to pay for this. You can either open an account for me—you can check my credit with Bergdorf Goodman, or the Park Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street branch of First National Bank—or I'll send a check down here by messenger.»


«So far as I am concerned, Miss Sage, you have just opened an account with us. And checking your credit won't be necessary. I happen to know you're employed.»


«How do you know that?» Ernie asked, surprised.


«Your father told me you're the creative director for APP at BBD&O. He's very proud of you.»


«I'll be damned,» Ernie said.


«Shall we go see what we can do for your gentleman friend?» the manager said.


When they arrived at the footwear department, they found Ken dubiously examining the loafers on his feet. The manager could not quite conceal his surprise when he saw how Ken was dressed.


«I'm going to need some real shoes, too, right, Ernie?» McCoy said.


«Oh, I don't think so, sir,» the manager said. «Slip-ons like those are now considered appropriate for wear with just about anything.»


McCoy looked at Ernie, who nodded in agreement.


«Okay,» McCoy said. «I'll take these.»


«One in oxblood,» Ernie said. «And one in black.»


McCoy considered that a moment, then shrugged.


«What the hell,» he said. «Why not?»



note 45


S E C R E T



HQ USMC



1705 09 MAR 43


PRIORITY



COMMANDING OFFICERS



ALL USMC ATR BASES AND STATIONS IN CONTINENTAL US AND TERRITORY OF HAWAII


ALL MAG IN CONTINENTAL US AND TERRITORY OF HAWAII


ALL SEPARATE USMC AVIATION SQUADRONS AND MARINE AVIATION COMPLEMENTS IN CONTINENTAL US AND TERRITORY OF HAWAII


SUBJECT: SOLICITATION OF VOLUNTEERS FOR HAZARDOUS DUTY


1. YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY DETERMINE WHICH MARINE AVIATORS UNDER YOUR COMMAND ARE, OR HAVE BEEN, RATED AS COMMAND PILOTS OF PBY5, PBY3A AND R4-D AIRCRAFT.


2. YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY PERSONALLY INTERVIEW EACH SUCH MARINE AVIATOR AND AFFORD HIM THE OPPORTUNITY TO VOLUNTEER FOR A CLASSIFIED MISSION INVOLVING GREAT PERSONAL RISK IN A COMBAT AREA LASTING APPROXIMATELY NINETY DAYS.


3. THE NAMES OF VOLUNTEERS WILL BE TRANSMITTED WITHIN SEVENTY-TWO (72) HOURS OF RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE BY THE MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS AVAILABLE CLASSIFIED SECRET TO HEADQUARTERS USMC, ATTENTION BRIG GEN D.G. MCINERNEY USMC.


4. THE NAMES OF MARINE AVIATORS WHO ARE QUALIFIED AS IN PARA 1 ABOVE, AND REPEAT AND WHO HAVE 1,000 HOURS OR MORE OR WHO HAVE BEEN RATED IN PBY5, PBY-5A AND R4-D AIRCRAFT OR A COMBINATION THEREOF AND WHO DID NOT REPEAT NOT ELECT TO VOLUNTEER FOR THE MISSION DESCRIBED IN PARA 2 ABOVE WILL SIMILARLY BE TRANSMITTED WITHIN SEVENTY-TWO (72) HOURS OF RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS AVAILABLE


CLASSIFIED SECRET TO HEADQUARTERS USMC ATTENTION BRIG GEN D.G. MCINERNEY USMC.


BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDANT:



D.G. MCINERNEY BRIG GEN USMC


S E C R E T



note 46


The 21 Club



21 West Fifty-second Street


New York City, New York



1930 9 March 1943




«There they are,» Mrs. Carolyn Spencer Howell said, pointing across the crowded room, and then asking softly, «What's wrong with the way he's dressed? He looks fine to me.»


Colonel Banning saw that Captain McCoy was now attired in a muted blue-gray herringbone jacket; a white button-down-collar shirt; and a regimentally striped necktie. The legs he had stretched out beside his table were covered with gray flannel trousers. He was wearing oxblood loafers and gray stockings.


Ernie did a good job

and damned quickly

, Banning thought.

If it wasn't for that GI haircut, he'd look like he belongs in here

.


«That's not the same guy I rode up here with on the train,» Banning said. «That's Ernie's father with them, probably. Her secretary said she was going to meet him here.»


At that moment, Ernie spotted them and waved them over.


«We'll be joining Miss Sage,» Carolyn said to the headwaiter, who followed the nod of her head, spotted the Sages, and then unfastened the red velvet-covered chain and passed them into the dining room.


From the look on his face when they approached the table, Ernest Sage liked the looks of Carolyn Howell.


Well, why not

? Banning thought.

Carolyn's tall, graceful, willowy, chic, and damned good-looking. Just because you become a father doesn't mean you can no longer appreciate women

.


Ernie gave her cheek to Carolyn to be kissed.


They're two of a kind, really

. Banning thought somewhat unkindly.

Two very nice young women sleeping with Marines they aren't married to and don't give much of a damn who knows it

.


«I hope we're not intruding,» Banning said.


«Not at all,» Ernest Sage said, snapped his fingers to attract a waiter's attention, and signaled for him to bring two chairs to the table.


«Mr. Sage, this is Colonel Banning and Mrs. Howell,» McCoy said.


«How do you do?» Sage said.


He picked up on that «Mrs

. Howell,» Banning thought. Confirmation came when Ernie's father's eyes dropped to Carolyn's hand, looking for a wedding ring. There was none.


Would I put a wedding ring on that finger if there wasn''t already a Mrs. Edward J. Banning? Of course I would. Do I regret marrying Milla? I do not. So what does that make me, a would-be bigamist? Or just a no-good sonofabitch for getting involved with Carolyn, getting her involved with me?


«You look very elegant tonight, Ken,» Carolyn said. «How's your face?»


«Excuse me?»


«Ed told me about the rash,» Carolyn said. «I hope I didn't embarrass you?»


«No,» McCoy answered after a pause that wasn't quite awkward. «Of course not. The medics said as long as I don't shave, it will clear up.»


Ernest Sage looked carefully at McCoy's face. He could see nothing remotely resembling a rash.


I

wonder what that's all about

? Ernest Sage wondered.

That rash on his face is obviously hogwash. He had to think quick when she asked him about it; he didn't know what she was talking about

.


But she's right. He does look good in civilian clothes.


Why the hell couldn't Ernie fall in love with some nice young man who is 4-F and doesn't have to concoct stories about why he's wearing civilian clothing.


«I called your office,» Banning said to Ernie. «Your secretary told me she thought you were coming here.»


«Darlene talks too much,» Ernie replied, and then: «Oh, hell, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'm glad to see you.»


«And I'm very happy to meet you, Colonel,» Ernest Sage said. «I understand you're Ken's commanding officer?»


«In a manner of speaking, sir,» Banning said.


«He and Ken are old friends, Daddy,» Ernie said. «They were in Shanghai together.»


We weren't exactly friends in Shanghai

, Banning thought.

The Corps frowns on captains getting friendly with corporals. But we're friends now, and obviously McCoy thought of himself as my friend when he was Corporal McCoy in Shanghai. Otherwise he wouldn't have leaned on Zimmerman and his


Chinese woman to help Milla. Zimmerman didn't do that out of the goodness of his heart.


«We're working together on a project, Mr. Sage,» Banning said. «Since I'm senior to Ken, that makes me sort of his commanding officer.»


«For General Pickering, right?» Ernest Sage said. «Now of the OSS, whatever the hell that is.»


«Yes, sir,» Banning said.


«What kind of a project? Or is that an impolite question?»


«Well, tomorrow morning Ken and I are going to Fort Monmouth to look at some new shortwave radios,» Banning said. Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, was the «Home of the Army Signal Corps»; the U.S. Army Signal Corps Laboratories were located on the base.


«Really? What kind of radios?»


«Daddy, stop!» Ernie said firmly. «You're putting him on a spot.»


«I'm sorry, Colonel,» Ernest Sage said. «I didn't mean to.»


«We're really not supposed to talk about what we're doing,» Banning said. «I personally don't think this place is crawling with Japanese spies—or any other kind—but orders are orders.»


«I'm not asking when he would be going, or where,» Sage pursued, «but is whatever you're doing going to take Ken away anytime soon?»


Banning looked at McCoy, who shrugged, and then at Carolyn.


«I'm afraid so,» Banning said. «Both of us.»


Banning saw the pained look in Carolyn's eyes, but saw too that she wasn't surprised.


«And for how long?» Ernie asked brightly.


«We don't know that, Ernie,» Banning said.


«In other words, for a long time,» she said bitterly. «My God, he just got back!»


«There's a whole division of Marines in Australia, Ernie,» McCoy said, «who went over there a year ago, took Guadalcanal, and are now training to take some other island. They haven't been back home since they left, and they have no idea when they will get back.»


«That's supposed to make me feel better?» she challenged. «It doesn't.»


«We have tonight,» Carolyn said. «Let's be grateful for what we have.»


«Live today, for tomorrow they die, right?» Ernie said.


«Knock it off, Ernie,» McCoy said.


She looked at him, then at Carolyn.


«I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that,» she said.


«Let's talk about where we're going to have dinner,» Carolyn said.



note 47


Apartment 7B



705 Park Avenue


New York City, New York



2305 9 March 1943




Carolyn Spencer Howell, fresh from the shower and wearing a pink negligee, stood in the door of her bathroom and brushed her hair, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Ed Banning to notice her.


He was sitting in his pajamas, propped up in the bed, reading the

Daily News

. A bottle of Remy Martin cognac and two balloon glasses sat on the bedside table.


After she had had time to consider once again that he was a really handsome man, and that she loved him very much, he sensed her eyes on him and let the

Daily News

drop onto his lap.


«I have a profound philosophical insight to share with you,» she said.


«And what would that profound philosophical insight be?»


«I hate this goddamned war, and by extension, the goddamned United States Marine Corps, and the goddamned OSS.»


«Did this great truth suddenly appear to you, or did something trigger it?»


«Ken,» she said.


«I don't think Ken can be blamed for the war, the Marine Corps, or the OSS,» Banning said.


«He looked so nice in Jack and Charley's,» Carolyn said. «

They

looked so nice.»


«Jack and Charley's?» Banning asked, confused.


«Jack and Charley Kriendler own the 21 Club,» she said.


«I didn't know that,» Banning said. «I'm just a simple Marine from South Carolina. But yeah, the Killer looked fine. Thanks to Ernie. I didn't know he even knew what Brooks Brothers was.»


«You know what I thought? In Jack and Charley's 21 Club?» she asked.


«I think you're about to tell me.»


«There we were, the nice young man and the nice young woman, in love, and the slightly older female and her gentleman friend, all dressed up—ignoring for the moment your goddamned uniform—and wouldn't it be nice if we could all go home to our respective apartments after agreeing to have the same kind of a night out, say, next week? Or maybe decide to go to the shore for the weekend.»


Banning didn't reply.


«Instead of pretending that everything was hunky-dory,» Carolyn went on, «and that the two of you are not going God only knows where, and God only knows when, to do God only knows what, except that either or both or you are liable to be killed doing it.»


«To coin a phrase,» Banning said, «there's a war on, you may have heard.»


«I think I did hear something about that,» she said.


«I don't know what you want me to say, sweetheart,» he said.


«I don't expect you to say anything,» Carolyn said. «I just wanted you to know how I feel.»


«I wish things were different,» Banning said, and then added: «As soon as we finish what we have to do here—which will probably take a couple of weeks— I'm going to Chungking, China, where I will assume the duties of staff officer on the staff of the U.S. Mission to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.»


«You're serious?» she asked, but it was more of a statement. Banning nodded. «Ken, too?»


«Ken, too.»


«Why do I suspect—feminine intuition?—that that's not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I like Ken, you know that, but I can't see him passing a tray of canapes around. Or you either, for that matter.»


«It's all I can tell you,» Banning said. «I probably—probably hell—

shouldn't

have told you that much. What I did tell you was the truth.»


Carolyn went off at a tangent: «What's going to happen to them, after the war?»


«I suppose they'll get married and live more or less happily ever after.»


«They're from different worlds,» Carolyn said.



«How about iove conquers all'?»


«You think that will apply to you and me, after the war?»


«I have a wife, Carolyn,» Banning said.


«Maybe the Mormons have the right idea. I'd be willing to share you, if that was the only alternative to not having you at all.» He shrugged helplessly but didn't reply. «You think she's still alive?»


He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. «I don't know,» he said. «And if she is still alive, will she be the same woman you married? I suppose what I'm asking is will you still be in love with her?»


» 'In sickness and in health,' « he quoted, « 'until death doth you part.' «


«You left out 'forsaking all others,' « Carolyn said, a little too brightly. He didn't like what he heard in her voice.



«Would you rather I left, Carolyn?» Banning asked. «Maybe that would be the best—«


«It's midnight,» she said practically, interrupting him. «Where would you go? You'd never find a hotel room this time of night. And besides, I meant what I said about maybe the Mormons have the right idea.»


«You're getting the short end of this stick,» he said.


«I know,» she said. «But I knew that when we started, didn't I?»


«If you want me to say I feel guilty as hell…«


«I know that,» Carolyn said. «If you didn't feel guilty, I don't think I'd love you. Or at least love you as much.» She turned and went back into the bathroom.


Banning stared at the bathroom door for a moment, then angrily picked up the newspaper and threw it across the room.



note 48


Office of the Commander in Chief, Pacific



U.S. Navy Base


Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii



1405 11 March 1943




Commander J. Howard Young, USN, Flag Secretary to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, stood in CINCPAC's door and waited until the Admiral noticed him. «Admiral Wagam is here, Admiral,» he said. «With his aide.»


Nimitz's face grew pensive:

Lewis knows more about submarines

, he was thinking,

has more nuts-and-bolts knowledge, than Dan Wagam or I do

. In a moment he replied, «Ask them both to come in.»


Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Daniel J. Wagam, USN, and his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, USN, marched into the room, stopped, and stood at attention.


«At ease, gentlemen,» Nimitz replied. «Good afternoon.»


«Good afternoon, Admiral,» the two replied in unison.


«Sit down,» Nimitz said, gesturing to a pair of upholstered chairs facing his desk. «I'm about to have some coffee. Would you like some?»


Moments later, when they all had coffee, he said, «We have heard from General Pickering.»


He opened the center drawer of his desk, took out a large manila envelope stamped top secret and handed it to Wagam.


«Three possibilities, Dan,» Nimitz said with a smile. «The General either has a limited knowledge of correct military form, or none, or he

does

, and doesn't give a damn.»


«I see what you mean, sir,» Admiral Wagam said, chuckling.


Lewis had to wait to satisfy his own curiosity about that until Admiral Wagam had finished reading the communication. Then Nimitz said, «I think Lewis better have a look at that, too.»


Brigadier General Pickering's proposed Operations Plan was in the form of a personal letter to Admiral Nimitz:


T O P S E C R E T


OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES WASHINGTON


0905 GREENWICH 11 MARCH 1943



VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL


DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN


CINCPAC HAWAII


EYES ONLY ADMIRAL CHESTER W. NIMITZ


FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM DDPACIFIC TO ADMIRAL NIMITZ



DEAR ADMIRAL NIMITZ:


GETTING WHAT SOMEBODY DECIDED TO CALL 'OPERATION GOBI' UNDERWAY HAS TAKEN LONGER THAN I HOPED IT WOULD, BUT WE ARE FINALLY AT A POINT WHERE I CAN BRING YOU UP TO DATE, AND EXPLAIN THE PROBLEMS WE ARE HAVING.


WE TURNED UP AN EX-4TH MARINES GUNNERY SERGEANT WHO BEFORE THE WAR APPARENTLY AUGMENTED HIS INCOME SMUGGLING GOLD AND ART WORK INTO AND OUT OF INDIA AND THE SOVIET UNION USING CAMEL CARAVANS. WE ARE ABOUT TO SEND HIM TO CHINA WHERE HE THINKS, AND I BELIEVE, HE CAN USE HIS FORMER BUSINESS ASSOCIATES TO GET DECENT RADIOS INTO THE HANDS OF THE AMERICANS NOW IN THE GOBI DESERT.


LT COLONEL ED BANNING, ALSO EX 4TH MARINES, WHO I BROUGHT INTO THE OSS WITH ME, TELEPHONED ME AN HOUR OR SO AGO FROM FORT MONMOUTH TO TELL ME HE HAS HALF A DOZEN CAMEL TRANSPORTABLE RADIOS. BANNING, WHO HAS SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS, IF YOU TAKE MY MEANING, WILL SHORTLY DEPART FOR CHUNGKING TO TAKE UP DUTY AS A STAFF OFFICER ON THE STAFF OF THE US MILITARY MISSION TO CHIANG KAI-SHEK. AND WILL OVERSEE THE RADIO DELIVERY FROM THERE. ONCE HE IS PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN CHUNGKING, WE WILL HAVE SPECIAL CHANNEL CAPABILITY.


THESE RADIOS WILL NOT, REPEAT NOT, BE OF MUCH USE BEYOND GIVING US MORE OR LESS RELIABLE COMMUNICATION WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE DESERT, AND, OF COURSE, TO GIVE US A POSITIVE POSITION FOR THEM.


ONCE WE LOCATE THESE PEOPLE AND ESTABLISH COMMUNICATIONS WITH THEM, WE COME TO THE NEXT PROBLEM, WHICH IS HOW TO SEND THE NECESSARY METEOROLOGICAL EQUIPMENT, AND THE PEOPLE TO OPERATE IT IN THERE.


AFTER CONSULATTON WITH GENERAL MAC MCINERNEY I HAVE DECIDED THE BEST, AS A MATTER OF FACT ONLY, WAY TO DO THIS IS BY SPECIALLY EQUIPPED AIRCRAFT, SPECIFICALLY AMPHIBIOUS CATALINAS. THEY ARE THE ONLY AIRCRAFT WITH BOTH THE RANGE AND WEIGHT CARRYING CAPABILITY WE HAVE TO HAVE. FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS, USE OF LARGER NAVY AND AIR CORPS AIRCRAFT HAS BEEN DECIDED AGAINST.


THE IDEA IS TO REFUEL THE CATALINAS BY HAVING THEM RENDEZVOUS AT SEA WITH A SUBMARINE IN THE YELLOW SEA, A HUNDRED MILES OR SO NORTHEAST OF TIENTSIN.


THERE ARE SOME OBVIOUS PROBLEMS WITH THIS, INCLUDING THE HAZARDS OF TRANSPORTING AVIATION FUEL ABOARD A SUB, GETTING THE FUEL OFF THE SUBMARINE AND INTO THE AIRCRAFT ON THE HIGH SEAS, AND OF COURSE MAKING SURE THE SUBMARINE WILL BE WHERE IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE WHEN THE CATALINAS GET THERE.


ANOTHER OF THE PROBLEMS IS THAT NOT ONLY WILL THE AIRCRAFT ALMOST CERTAINLY BE UNABLE TO FLY OUT OF THE GOBI, BUT THEY ARE SOMEHOW GOING TO HAVE TO BE CONCEALED FROM AERIAL AND OTHER OBSERVATION ONCE THEY GET THERE.


MCINERNEY FEELS THAT FAIRING OVER THE FUSELAGE BUBBLES AND THE FORWARD GUN TURRET WILL APPRECIABLY INCREASE BOTH RANGE AND SPEED, THE FORMER POSSIBLY, JUST POSSIBLY TO THE POINT WHERE BY DRAINING FUEL FROM ONE OF THE CATALINAS INTO THE OTHER, ONE OF THE AIRCRAFT MIGHT BE ABLE TO FLY OUT, EITHER BACK TO THE YELLOW SEA OR POSSIBLY INTO CHINA.


THE COLLINS RADIO COMPANY OF CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA IS DEVELOPING, OR PERHAPS MORE ACCURATELY MODIFYING, ON AN EMERGENCY PRIORITY BASIS, THE MORE POWERFUL RADIO TRANSMITTERS WHICH WILL BE REQUIRED FOR THEweather station itself. the meteorological equipment is at HAND. WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF RECRUITING VOLUNTEER WEATHER PEOPLE, AND MCINERNEY HAS PUT OUT A CALL FOR CATALINA OR OTHER MULTI-ENGINE PILOTS WITH LONG DISTANCE NAVIGATION EXPERIENCE.


SO WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW IS TWO AMPHIBIOUS CATALINAS, WHICH WILL HAVE TO HAVE THE NECESSARY MODIFICATIONS MADE TO THEM, THE FAIRING OVER OF THE BUBBLES, AND THE INSTALLATION OF AUXILIARY FUEL TANKS. PLUS OF COURSE A SUBMARINE SPECIALLY EQUIPPED TO HANDLE THE REFUELING ON THE HIGH SEAS.


I AM OF COURSE WIDE OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS OF ANY KIND.



WITH BEST PERSONAL REGARDS, I AM, RESPECTFULLY,



FLEMING PICKERING, BRIG GEN USMCR


END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM DDPACIFIC TO ADMIRAL NTMITZ



T O P S E C R E T


«Just a few minor problems,» Wagam said. «Like transporting several thousand gallons of avgas on a submarine; making a rendezvous at sea without any navigation aids to speak of, and then refueling a Catalina on the high seas in winter.»


»

Two

Catalinas,» Nimitz corrected him. «But you know what really bothers me about the way Pickering has set this whole thing up?»


«No, sir.»


«Nothing will work unless we can establish communication with the people who are

supposed

to be wandering around in the Gobi Desert. It all hinges on this gunnery sergeant both finding them and then smuggling radios into them on camelback. We won't need a submarine or two Catalinas if he can't do that.»


«Yes, sir,» Wagam said. «My orders, sir?»


«Give him whatever he thinks he wants, Dan. I don't think we have any choice.»


«Aye, aye, sir.»


«Lewis, you have any thoughts about avgas on a submarine?» CINCPAC asked.


«No, sir. Not a one. But submariners are resourceful, Admiral. We'll work out some way to do this.»



note 49


Female Officers' Quarters



U.S. Navy Hospital


Philadelphia, Pennsylvania



2025 12 March 1943




Just as Captain James B. Weston, USMC was about to step up into the hotel bus that would carry him to the Trailways bus terminal in White Sulphur Springs, Commander T. L. Bolemann, MC, USN, walked onto the wide outside stairway of the Greenbrier, called Weston's name, and tossed him the keys to the Buick. «If it doesn't shame you to drive that gas-guzzling automobile of yours, on black-market gasoline and wasting precious rubber that is desperately needed in the war effort, I won't stop you. Never let it be said about Ted Bolemann that he erected roadblocks in the path of true love.»


«Thank you,» Jim said.


«Try to stay on the black stuff between the trees,» Bolemann said. «And if you want my advice, stop lying to that nice young woman. Love is only partially blind.»


«I'll keep that in mind,» Jim replied, as he started for the hotel garage.


I

don't want to lie to her, certainly. But I don't think I should give her a full accounting of what happened in Pensacola

.


What happened in Pensacola isn't going to happen again. We were both carried away by the emotion of the moment; we were both suffering from that well-known service-connected malady known as enforced celibacy; and Martha Sayre Culhane

probably because of the emotion

had much more to drink than she could handle

.


Plus, of course, I am an unprincipled no-good sonofabitch.


When Jim stopped in Wilmington, Delaware, for gasoline, he telephoned Janice to tell her she didn't have to meet him at the bus station.


«Commander Bolemann called and said you were driving. Where are you?»


Her voice, he thought, sounded a little cold and distant.


«I'm in Wilmington,» he said. «I should be there in about an hour.»


«I'll wait for you at the FOQ,» she said. «Drive carefully.»


He was now sure that her voice had sounded cold and distant.


Is there some sort of female intuition that tells them when their

what am I, «boyfriend»

?—

has been unfaithful

?


Or did she sense that I was lying to her about where I spent last weekend? Bolemann said I was a lousy liar and that love is only partially blind.


He was wandering around in the FOQ parking lot looking for a place to park when Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NC, USNR, appeared, in her blues, with her uniform cap perched attractively on top of her upswept hair.


She was carrying a leather valise.


That's it. That's the reason she sounded cold and distant on the phone. She has changed her mind about this weekend. She's going someplace, and she wanted to tell me in person and not on the telephone.


Jim stopped the Buick and leaned across the seat to push the door open.


«Hi,» Janice said, pulled the seat forward, and put her valise in the backseat.


«Hi,» Jim said.


This was obviously not the time or place to try for a kiss.


She opened her purse, found what she was looking for, and handed it to him.


«What's this?»


«Ration coupons for twenty gallons of gas,» she said. «They're mine, I've been saving them up.»


«I don't need them,» he said. «But thank you just the same.»


«I don't feel right using black-market gasoline,» Janice said.


Well, if you feel that way, why don't we swap the wheels and tires off your Ford? That way we wouldn't be riding on black-market tires, either, thereby ensuring that if we lose the war, nobody can point an accusing finger at you.


What are you making fun of her for? She's right, and you're wrong. Among other reasons, because she is a highly principled woman, and you know what you


are.


«Whatever you say, Janice,» he said, taking the coupons.


Her perfume had now begun to fill the car.


«I have a seventy-two-hour pass,» Janice said. «And I thought it would be nice to get out of Philadelphia.»


«Good idea.»


«I went to the chaplain—he's a friend of mine…«


Of course he is.


»… and he arranged for rooms for us at the Chalfont-Haddon Hall, in Atlantic City—there's some sort of a program, a tie-in with the hospital. I hope that's all right with you.»


Rooms, plural. Of course. You don't go to the chaplain and ask him to help you find a room where you and the boyfriend can carry on carnally over the weekend.


«That's fine with me,» Weston said.


«The rooms and the food come with a twenty-percent discount, but not the liquor.»


Of course. What self-respecting chaplain would be pushing discounted booze?


«Well, then, we'll have to go easy on the booze,» Jim said.


«Have you been drinking a lot, Jim?»


«Oh, I have a drink from time to time with Dr. Bolemann.»



No more than three or four beers at lunch,followed, at the cocktail hour, by as many martinis, to give us courage to face the really bad wine they offer in the dining room

?


There you go, you're lying to her!


«He's a really nice man,» Janice said. «My father told me he knows him. I'm glad you've become friends.» She went into her purse again and this time came out with a road map. «I marked the route,» she said. «I think the best way is to go into Philadelphia and take the Tacony-Palmyra bridge.»


«I'm Lieutenant Hardison,» Janice said to the desk clerk. «And this is Captain Weston. I believe Chaplain Nesbitt made reservations for us?»


The desk clerk checked. «Yes, ma'am,» he said. «Two rooms at the Chaplain's Program discount.» The desk clerk examined Weston carefully.


And I know what you're thinking, buddy

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