What
OSS station Chungking?»
«The magic compromise, possible compromise, is more important than the Gobi Desert operation,» Rickabee said. «This came in two hours ago. To confirm what I suspect, this is the first you've seen of it?»
«Yeah,» Pickering said. «Damn!» He looked at Rickabee.
If it came in two hours ago, there was plenty of time to send it over here from the OSS.
«Where did you get it, Fritz?» Pickering asked evenly.
«One of my people was in the crypto room at Navy when it came in,» Rickabee said. «A pal of Rutterman's, and an admirer of Banning and McCoy. He thought I would be interested in it, and defying just about every regulation in the book, he brought it to me. I don't know whether I should court-martial the sonofabitch or promote him for his initiative.»
«This is the original?» Pickering asked, confused.
«No. That's the JCS file copy. You're supposed to have the original.»
«And I damned sure don't!»
«Is Donovan going to be at lunch?» Rickabee asked.
«Oh, yeah. Marshall, Leahy, Donovan, me, and, of course Frank Knox and the President.»
«You're in a minefield here, I guess you understand,» Rickabee said. «
We're
in a minefield.»
«You don't think Donovan is going to blame me for the compromise of
MAGIC?»
«I don't know,» Rickabee said. «I'm paid to look for the worst that can happen.»
«General,» Lieutenant Hart said, «the car is supposed to be downstairs right now.»
«Okay,» Pickering said as he rose to his feet and walked toward Hart, who was holding Pickering's tunic out to him. Pickering put it on and buttoned it, then, examining himself in the mirror, tugged at its skirt. Satisfied, he looked at Rickabee.
«He said his door would always be open to me. Let's see if that was just another campaign promise.»
«Keep me posted,» Rickabee said.
«Posted hell, General, you're going with me,» Pickering said.
Neither the driver of the White House Packard limousine nor the Secret Service agent in the front seat raised any objection when Rickabee climbed into the car with Pickering and Hart. But when they drove across Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, they were stopped by a determined guard at the gate. He was unimpressed with Rickabee's credentials as a Special Agent of Naval Intelligence, and immune to Pickering's announcement, «He's with me.»
«I'm sorry, sir, the gentleman is not on my list, and I can't pass him.»
«Get on the phone to either Admiral Leahy or General Marshall and tell him that General Pickering is here with General Rickabee and we have to see either of them immediately,» Pickering ordered. Then he had another thought: «Tell them I am not coming in without General Rickabee.»
The guard went into the guardhouse and returned two minutes later.
«Drive to the side entrance, please,» he said. «Someone will meet you.»
When they were met by an Army colonel wearing the insignia of an aide-decamp to a four-star general, Pickering concluded that the guard had spoken with either General George C. Marshall or someone empowered to act for him.
The colonel led them into an elevator, and they rode to the corridor outside the presidential apartments.
«I don't suppose any of you gentlemen are armed?» a Secret Service agent standing there asked politely.
«I am,» Rickabee and Hart said, almost in unison. Rickabee took his .45 pistol from his shoulder holster and handed it to the Secret Service agent. Hart retrieved a snub-nosed .38 revolver from under his tunic and handed it over.
«I'll have to see what's in the briefcase,» the Secret Service agent said.
«Not on your life,» Rickabee said.
General George C. Marshall and Admiral William Leahy, trailed by Colonel William J. Donovan, came into the corridor. Donovan was in uniform—surprising Pickering. The top ribbon on his impressive row of brightly colored pieces of cloth was that representing the Medal of Honor he had won in France in the First World War.
«General,» Leahy said.
«Admiral,» Pickering said, «there's something I think I should bring to your immediate attention.»
«A Special Channel from Chungking?»
«Yes, sir,» Pickering said.
«May I ask what your aide is doing here, General?» Leahy said. «Before we get into this matter?»
«I asked the President if I might bring him to lunch,» Pickering said. «And the President said, 'Absolutely.' «
«My God!» Donovan said in disbelief.
«Lieutenant Hart is cleared for magic, Admiral, and knows all about Operation Gobi.»
Leahy looked as if he was about to say something, but General Marshall, perhaps innocently, perhaps intentionally, shut him off before he could speak. «Colonel Donovan was just about to give us his thoughts on that when you called from the gate,» Marshall said. «You apparently have seen it?»
«Yes, sir,» Pickering said, meeting Donovan's eyes. «The Special Channel I'm referring to was addressed to me.»
«So I noticed,» Marshall said. «I also noticed it was a Duplication Forbidden message.»
«What Genera] Pickering has seen, General,» Rickabee said, «is the Joint Chiefs' file copy.»
Marshall looked at Rickabee closely, even coldly. «Which presumably you have in there?» he asked, indicating Rickabee's briefcase.
«Yes, sir,» Rickabee said.
«General Marshall and I,» Admiral Leahy said, «are agreed that despite the seriousness of the matter, it is still a matter that can be dealt with administratively. In other words, we shouldn't waste the President's time with it at luncheon. Does that pose a problem,» he asked, looking first at Pickering and then at Donovan, «for either of you?»
«No, sir,» Donovan said.
«Sir, I'm scheduled to depart from Anacostia at half past four,» Pickering said. «Should I reschedule?»
«Why would you want to do that?» Donovan asked.
«I don't want to leave before this problem is dealt with,» Pickering replied, but he looked at Leahy rather than at Donovan as he spoke.
«Once we decide who's responsible for this situation,» Admiral Leahy said, «dealing with it won't take long. But to cover all the bases, while we're lunching with the President, General Rickabee, I don't think there will be any trouble setting another place for you at lunch.»
«Aye, aye, sir,» Rickabee said.
«And now, gentlemen,» General Marshall said. «I suggest we join the President.»
The President was in his wheelchair, sitting at the head of a table set for lunch. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was sitting beside him, his chair pulled close. Before them on the table was a stack of eight-by-ten-inch photographs that Roosevelt was examining carefully.
«What they have been doing, Frank,» Roosevelt said, without taking his cigarette holder from his mouth, «is gathering their courage to face the lion in his den.»
«Nothing like that at all, Mr. President,» General Marshall said. «An administrative matter.»
«I wonder why I have trouble believing that,» Roosevelt said, smiling broadly.
» 'Administrative' can cover a lot of territory, Mr. President,» Secretary Knox said.
«Good to see you, Fleming,» the President said. «You're all prepared, I gather, for your trip to the mysterious East?»
«And all points in between, sir,» Pickering said.
«General Rickabee I know,» the President said. «It's good to see you, Fritz.»
«Good afternoon, Mr. President.»
«But I don't know this young fellow,» Roosevelt went on.
«Mr. President, may I present Lieutenant George F. Hart?» Pickering said. «He's both my aide-de-camp and my friend.»
Roosevelt offered his hand.
«I recognize the name,» the President said. «You must be an unusual young man. Lieutenant, if all these old fogies are agreed you can be entrusted to hold a magic clearance.»
Hart actually blushed. Leahy and Pickering exchanged looks.
«I'm honored, Mr. President,» Hart said.
A white-jacketed steward passed a tray of drinks, indicating with his head which glass the men were to take. Pickering sipped his and recognized the taste. It was Famous Grouse. He wondered if there was a card file kept somewhere with drink preferences listed on it.
«When we're finished,» Roosevelt said to the steward, «ask the photographer to take a picture of me with Lieutenant Hart. Perhaps his parents would like to have one.»
«Thank you very much, Mr. President,» Hart said.
«I have a soft spot for young Marine officers,» Roosevelt said. «Very possibly because my son Jimmy is one of you.»
«Yes, sir, I know,» Hart said.
«Let me propose a toast,» the President said. «To the success of General Pickering's mission.»
The others raised their glasses and there were murmured «Hear, hears.»
«I feel a good deal better about this,» the President said mischievously, «now that Bill and Fleming have kissed and made up.»
«I'll agree with the 'made up' part, Franklin,» Donovan said, «but I want to go on record as saying we have never kissed.»
Pickering laughed politely. None of the others did.
Roosevelt picked up on this and correctly guessed the reason.
«Bill, when you're wearing your uniform, you're supposed to call me 'Sir,' and 'Mr. President,' and bow three times before backing out of my presence.»
«No disrespect was intended, sir, if I have to say that.»
«What I think it is, Bill, is that you're nervous as the second junior officer present with all these admirals and generals.»
«That may be it, sir.»
«We're going to have to see if we can't get you a star, Bill, so that you'll feel at home.»
There was dutiful laughter.
«Speaking of generals,» Frank Knox said, «is someone going to volunteer to tell me why General Rickabee is joining us?»
«An administrative matter, Mr. Secretary,» Admiral Leahy said. «We were a little pressed for time. The General met us here, and we'll deal with the matter after lunch.»
«What sort of an administrative matter? Important enough to have Pickering bring Fritz here? And look uncomfortable when I asked why?»
«There was a radio from Chungking,» Admiral Leahy said. «Something we all felt should be dealt with before General Pickering left for Hawaii.»
«Now mv curiosity is aroused,» the President said. «I always get very curious when people are reluctant to talk about anything.»
Everyone looked at Admiral Leahy, who took a long moment to collect his thoughts before beginning:
«Mr. President, you are aware that at your direction, and against my recommendation and that of General Marshall, we sent a magic device, together with the personnel to op—«
«Hold it a second, Admiral,» the President interrupted. «I just had another one of my inspirations. Correct me if I'm wrong, Frank, but didn't you have Fleming commissioned because you knew he would report back to you what you should know, rather than what people wanted you to hear?»
«That's correct, Mr. President,» the Secretary of the Navy said.
«You have the floor, General Pickering,» the President said, tempering the order with one of his famous smiles. «Proceed.»
«What we know for sure, Mr. President,» Pickering began, «is that someone ran off at the mouth about the magic machine going to Chungking.»
«Has magic been compromised?» Roosevelt asked, now deadly serious. «Is this what everyone has been working up the courage to tell me?»
«We don't believe, based on the facts available—« Admiral Leahy said.
«Admiral,» the President interrupted impatiently, «General Pickering has the floor.»
«Sorry, sir,» Leahy said, flushing.
«What we do know for sure, Mr. President, is that when Colonel Banning got to Chungking, they knew he was coming and why.»
«Banning took a magic machine to Chungking?»
«Two machines, sir.»
«Who is 'they' as in 'they knew he was coming'?»
«The signal officer and his deputy, sir.»
«And they don't have magic clearances? Then how in the hell did they find out?»
«We don't know that yet, sir.»
«How many people knew what was happening?»
«It's a very short list, sir,» Pickering said. «Aside from the people in this room, only those people in JCS who were involved.»
«Your people were involved, Fleming,» Donovan said.
«Plus, of course, two people at OSS, besides Colonel Donovan and me,» Pickering said icily. «And I don't think any of my people even know anyone in Chungking—certainly not these signal officers.»
«What about the cryptographers in Chungking?» Donovan asked.
«So far as I know, they know
no one
in Chungking,» Pickering said.
«Okay,» Donovan said. «That narrows it down to people in my shop and people at the JCS.»
«Admiral, we can't have things like this,» the President said. «It has to be nipped in the bud.»
«I agree, sir,» Admiral Leahy said.
«I'll leave getting to the bottom of this to you. As well as ensuring that it—or the circumstances that permitted it—never happens again.»
«Yes, Mr. President,» Admiral Leahy said.
«And I want Bill Donovan and Fleming Pickering involved. Fleming, you might not be able to get away today. I want you here until this is resolved.»
«Yes, Mr. President,» Pickering said.
«I think General Rickabee should be involved, too,» Navy Secretary Knox said. «He's very good about finding snakes under rocks.»
It was obvious that neither Admiral Leahy nor General Marshall liked the suggestion. Neither protested, but both looked at the President for his decision.
«That might prove very useful,» the President said.
«What about Operation Gobi?» Knox asked. «Is that compromised too?»
«This signal officer—his name is Dempsey—asked Colonel Banning what McCoy and Zimmerman—«
«McCoy?» Roosevelt interrupted again. «The young chap who was with Jimmy at Makin Island? Who briefed us on General Fertig?»
«Yes, sir. He's going into the Gobi Desert to try to establish contact with the Americans there.»
«What's this signal corps officer got to do with that? I thought it was agreed that you and Bill—the OSS—were going to undertake that mission.»
«Apparently, Mr. President, this fellow wanted to know what Captain McCoy's special mission was. On the JCS orders on which Banning and the devices went to Chungking, it was referred to, vaguely, as a JCS mission. When Banning refused to tell him—«
«As well he should have,» the President interrupted.
»—this General ordered Banning to have McCoy report to the OSS Station Chief in Chungking,» Pickering went on.
«I don't understand,» the President said.
«Until I got Colonel Banning's Special Channel, Mr. President, I didn't know there was an OSS station in Chungking.»
«You didn't know about an OSS station in Chungking?» the President asked.
«No, sir, I did not,» Pickering said, looking at Colonel Donovan.
«That's odd, isn't it, Bill?» the President said to Donovan. «The signal officer in Chungking knows about an OSS station there, and the OSS Deputy Director for Pacific Operations doesn't?»
«Mr. President—« Donovan began.
The President held up his hand to shut him off. Then he kept him waiting while he fished a cigarette from a silver box, stuffed it into his holder, and waited for the steward to produce a light for it. Then he went on, calmly, not smiling: «Do what you have to do, Admiral,» the President said, «to straighten out this 'administrative matter.' Just as soon as we finish our lunch.»
«Yes, Mr. President.»
note 64
The White Room
The Office of Strategic Services
The National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
1405 28 March 1943
Immediately after lunch, in the corridor outside the presidential apartment. Colonel Donovan suggested that the most suitable place to conduct their business would be at the OSS. «It would attract attention if Pickering, Rickabee, or I appear at the Joint Chiefs of Staff,» he argued. «The White Room will provide a secure space, and it's equipped with microphones, in case Admiral Leahy would like a written record of what was said.»
Admiral Leahy nodded his agreement.
When Admiral Leahy's Cadillac limousine, the White House Packard limousine that had carried Pickering, Hart, and Rickabee to the White House, and Donovan's Buick Roadmaster rolled up outside the White House, Donovan made a «follow me» gesture to the Buick's driver and climbed into Leahy's Cadillac.
Once they were in the White House Packard, Rickabee gave voice to what Pickering was thinking: «I wonder what that sonofabitch is saying to Leahy?»
«We'll find out soon enough, I suppose,» Pickering replied.
As soon as the small convoy arrived at the National Institutes of Health Building, Leahy and Donovan got out and waited for the others to join them. «Colonel Donovan,» Leahy began, «has pointed out to me that he is an attorney and has experienced distasteful interrogations. Would either of you object to his conducting the interrogations? We will be able to listen on earphones, he tells me.»
«Sir, what if we have questions Colonel Donovan didn't think to ask?» Rickabee asked.
«Colonel Donovan brought that up himself,» Leahy said. «When he is finished with the individual, he will join us. If you have any questions, he will either ask them himself, or you may. Having an experienced man do the interviews strikes me as the quickest way to get to the bottom of this.»
«I think it's a fine idea, sir,» Pickering said.
Rickabee gave him a surprised look.
But first they had to get into the building. In the belief that he and Hart would not be returning to OSS headquarters before traveling to the Pacific, Pickering had ordered Hart to place their red-striped Any Area Any Time identification badges in the safe in his apartment in the Foster Lafayette. Neither General Rickabee nor Admiral Leahy had OSS identification badges.
If he were Donovan, Pickering knew, he would have just marched past the guards, saying something like, «these people are with me,» especially since one of the people with him was the chief of staff to the President of the United States.
But he didn't.
«Sorry about the inconvenience, Admiral,» he said. «We didn't plan on having you with us this morning.»
Leahy and Rickabee were furnished with Visitor 5th Floor Only badges, and pinned them to their lapels.
Though Donovan was visibly annoyed when Pickering told the guard lieutenant, «Lieutenant Hart and I will need a couple of those, too, please,» he said nothing.
They rode the elevator to the fifth floor and walked down the corridor to Donovan's office.
The Deputy Director (Administration) was behind his desk. He rose to his feet. «Good morning, Admiral,» he said. «Mr. Director.» He nodded at Pickering, Rickabee, and Hart, but didn't say anything.
«Something's come up, Charley,» Donovan said. «Is anyone using the White Room?»
«No, Mr. Director.»
«How long will it take you to get… let's say, three stenographers up and running?»
The DDA didn't respond directly. Instead he picked up one of the telephones on his desk, pushed a button on it, and announced, «The Director requires three stenographers in the transcription room immediately.» He put the receiver back in its cradle and went on: «By the time we walk down the corridor, Mr. Director, you'll have your stenographers.»
Donovan nodded. «Call JCS,» he ordered. «Tell General Adamson that Admiral Leahy wishes to see him and Colonel… What's his name. Fleming?»
«Albright,» Pickering furnished.
»… Colonel Albright here as soon as possible. Have badges waiting for them downstairs.»
«General Adamson has a badge, sir,» the DDA said.
«And locate the Deputy Director (Operations) and tell him I need to see him immediately.»
«He's on his way here from the training establishment, Mr. Director.»
«Is there a radio in his car?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Contact him and make sure he is coming here,» Donovan ordered. «And then join us, please, in the White Room.»
«Yes, Mr. Director.»
«I don't believe you've seen the White Room, have you, Admiral?» Donovan said to Leahy.
Leahy shook his head, «no.»
«If you'll follow me, please, Admiral?» Donovan said, and led the group down the corridor to the White Room. By the time they had satisfied the two guards at the door that they were who they represented themselves to be, and Donovan had authorized Rickabee and Leahy to go inside, the DDA had caught up with them.
They entered the White Room.
«Charley, explain to the Admiral and these gentlemen how the transcription system works,» General Donovan ordered.
«Yes, sir,» the DDA said. «Microphones have been placed in various locations around the room,» he began. «They are connected with an amplification system in the room behind that door.» He pointed to a door at the rear of the room. «There are provisions for six sets of headphones, although our experience has been that we have never needed more than three stenographers to transcribe even the largest conference. So each of you gentlemen will have earphones.»
«I took that precaution, sir. They are either next door, or will be momentarily.»
«They will let us know when General Adamson and the others arrive, right?» Donovan asked.
«The Deputy Director (Operations), Mr. Director, said he will be here in no more than ten minutes. General Adamson, who has Colonel Albright with him, has probably left the Pentagon by now.» He paused and then added: «Mr. Director, General Adamson was naturally curious about what this is all about.»
«I'm sure he was, Charley, and I'm sure you are, too. You find out first. You can be our guinea pig, so to speak. Will you take these gentlemen to the stenographer's room, make sure everything is in place? And then come back in here. We'll start with you. Pure formality, of course.»
Well
, Pickering thought,
what did I expect Donovan to do ? Accuse his Director for Administration of having a big mouth
?
Because of the three stenographers—two middle-aged women and a young man—there were only enough spare headphones for three people. Pickering solved that problem by separating one of the earphones on his headset from the frame and, motioning Hart to stand close to him, handed him the loose earphone.
He saw Leahy looking at him curiously, perhaps disapprovingly. «I like to have George listen in on everything, Admiral,» Pickering said. «To refresh my memory.»
«I see.»
«He used to be a police detective.» Pickering went on.
«Perhaps we should have left him in there with Donovan,» Admiral Leahy said.
«Okay, Charley, let's have our practice run,» Donovan's voice came, very clearly, into Pickering's single earphone.
«Yes, Mr. Director.»
«This is pretty serious business,» Donovan said. «Someone has been talking too much about magic.»
«Yes, sir?»
«We're trying to find out who, and under what circumstances,» Donovan said, and then, before the DDA could reply, said, «If you can all hear us in there, let me know.»
«George,» Pickering ordered.
Hart took his loose earphone from his ear, let it dangle from Pickering's headset, looked at everybody in the room until they nodded, and then walked to the door and announced, «Colonel, we read you five-by-five.»
He closed the door and resumed his place next to Pickering.
«Okay, Charley, at least that much works,» Donovan's voice came over the system.
«I personally check on the system frequently, Mr. Director,» the DDA said.
«Good idea,» Donovan said. «Okay. Now… I really don't know how to start this… The possible compromise occurred in connection with the shipment of magic devices to Chungking.»
«When I saw General Pickering, Mr. Director, I thought that might be the case.»
«Were you happy with the security arrangements, Charley? You were, of course, familiar with them?»
«Yes, sir. I was familiar with them. And no, sir, I wasn't absolutely satisfied with the security arrangements.»
«In what regard, Charley?»
«It's a little embarrassing for me, sir, with General Pickering privy to this.»
«That can't be helped, I'm afraid. What is it about General Pickering and the magic movement that made you uncomfortable?»
What is this sonofabitch doing
? Pickering wondered.
Asking questions that make me look like a fool? Trying to lay the blame on me
?
«Well, there was the matter of the CIC agents, Mr. Director.»
«Tell me about that, Charley.»
«General Adamson had arranged for Army CIC agents to accompany the magic devices. General Pickering said that his people could adequately guard the devices and declined the services of the CIC. Is that what's happened, sir? Something has happened to the devices?»
«You and General Adamson worked pretty closely on the whole thing together?»
«Yes, sir.»
«And General Adamson told you that General Pickering declined the use of CIC agents?»
«Yes, sir.»
«And he wasn't satisfied when you told him that Pickering's people were probably as well-qualified to guard the devices as CIC agents?»
«No, sir, he wasn't. And frankly, neither was I.»
«Why was that, Charley? I mean, giving General Pickering the benefit of the doubt here. He has a good deal of faith in Colonel Banning and Captain McCoy…«
«They had no real experience in transporting the devices, sir. And General Adamson has.»
«Did you discuss this with the Deputy Director (Operations)?»
«Well, I tried to, sir. But he seemed to feel that it was General Pickering's operation, and that we shouldn't interfere.»
«But you and General Adamson remained concerned?»
«Yes, sir.»
«You were afraid that the movement of the devices wasn't as secure as it could be? That perhaps there was a genuine risk that the operation to move them…«
«Operation China Clipper, sir,» the DDA furnished.
»… that Operation China Clipper would be compromised, and perhaps magic itself?»
«Both General Adamson and I felt that was a real possibility, Mr. Director.»
«I'm surprised, Charley, that General Adamson didn't do something about it, since both of you were concerned.»
«I think he did, sir.»
«Really? What?»
«General Adamson and General Dempsey are old friends. Dempsey is the military mission to China signal officer. They were classmates at the Command and General Staff College. He sent him a heads-up.»
«So that General… Dempsey, you said?»
«Yes, sir. Major General F. T. Dempsey.»
«So that General Dempsey would be aware of the potential problem?»
«Exactly, sir. Both the potential problems with Operation China Clipper and with—I don't quite know how to phrase this—the potential problems with Lieutenant Colonel Banning.»
«A moment ago you said that you
think
General Adamson sent a heads-up to General Dempsey. Presumably by Top Secret message?»
«He showed me a copy of the heads-up, sir. And, of course, it was a Top Secret, Eyes Only, General Dempsey.»
«Does General Dempsey have a magic clearance?» Donovan asked.
«Not at the moment, sir. But I'm sure it's in the works.»
«Okay, Charley,» Donovan said. «That's enough.»
«Sir?»
«What happens now, Charley, is that as of this moment, I have accepted your resignation.»
«Sir?»
«As of this moment, your duties will be assumed by your deputy,» Donovan said. «His first duty will be to go through your desk, gather up your personal belongings, and have them delivered to your home, where you will have been taken by our security people, and will be waiting, under guard, for my decision about what to do with you. My immediate reaction is to send you over to St. Elizabeth's in a straitjacket and keep you there until the war is over, but I know that reaction is colored by my anger, so I want to think that through.» St. Elizabeth's was the Federal government psychiatric hospital in the District of Columbia.
«Sir, I don't understand.»
«Most of my anger is directed at myself. I'm the man who put you in a position where you could do all this damage. I should have known that you couldn't take orders.»
«Sir, I was simply trying to carry out my responsibilities to the best of my ability.»
«Yeah, I know. That's what makes this so sad. I should have known that you weren't equipped to discharge those responsibilities. What you have done, Charley, and I don't think you really understand this, is put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk—and that's what the compromise of magic would mean—by disobeying your orders. If I have to explain it to you: the moment you heard that General Adamson was even thinking of communicating anything about magic to anyone who does not have a magic clearance, you were supposed to bring this to my attention.»
«Sir, General Adamson is the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…«
«That's my point, Charley, you still don't understand what you both have done,» Donovan said calmly, even sadly. «Wait here, Charley, someone will come for you.»
Donovan walked into the transcription room.
«Admiral, would you like my resignation?»
«I don't see where that would accomplish anything, Colonel,» Admiral Leahy said. «I would recommend to the President that he decline your resignation.»
«In that case, sir, what would you like me to do?»
«I think we should next talk to General Adamson, and then to Colonel Albright,» Leahy said. «To see how far down this unfortunate business has gone.»
» 'We,' sir?»
«On reflection, I will talk to General Adamson, alone,» Leahy said. «He is due here any moment. But by the time he gets here, the White Room will be available, will it not?»
«Yes, sir. Give me a moment to find the security duty officer, and to locate Charley's deputy to tell him what he has to do.»
One of the White Room guards put his head into the transcription room.
«Colonel Donovan, General Adamson is being checked into the White Room.»
«Thank you,» Donovan said, and reached for a headset. He sensed Pickering's eyes on him.
«Pickering, I guess I owe you an apology.»
«The shoe's on the other foot, Mr. Director,» General Pickering said. «I thought, at first, that you were trying to cover for that sonofabitch. I'm truly sorry.»
«So am I,» Donovan said, and put the earphones over his head.
«Good afternoon, Admiral,» the voice of Major General Charles M. Adamson, USA, came clearly over the transcription system headsets. «I came as quickly as I could.»
Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, did not respond to the greeting.
«It has been alleged, General,» Leahy began, «that you sent a Top Secret message to the signal officer of the U.S. military mission to China which made reference to Operation China Clipper. Is this true?»
There was a perceptible hesitation before General Adamson replied.
«Yes, sir.»
«Specifically, to Major General F. T. Dempsey?»
«Yes, sir, the message was addressed, Eyes Only, General Dempsey.»
«I'm really sorry to hear that, General,» Admiral Leahy said.
«Admiral, may I explain the circumstances?»
Leahy ignored the question.
«General Dempsey apparently believes that both he and his deputy will shortly be granted magic security clearances. Do you have any idea where he got that idea?»
«Yes, sir. Sir, I presumed that it would only be a matter of time before General Dempsey would be granted access to magic. I don't see how he could perform his duties in connection with magic without such clearance.»
«And you therefore told him you believed he, and presumably his deputy as well, would shortly have magic clearance?»
«Yes, sir. And I also cautioned him that the magic cryptographic officer who was being sent to military mission China in charge of the devices did not enjoy the full confidence of either myself or the OSS, and that he—«
«Who told you, General, that Colonel Banning does not enjoy the full confidence of the OSS?»
«Sir, that information was given to me in confidence. I'm reluctant—«
«Was it the OSS Deputy Director (Administration)?»
«Yes, sir.»
«I regret to inform you, sir, that you stand relieved of your duties at JCS. You will proceed directly from this room to your quarters, where you will hold yourself available for orders from General Marshall. I inform you, sir, that when I speak to General Marshall, I shall recommend to him that you be immediately reduced to whatever permanent grade you hold.»
There was a long silence.
«That will be all,» Admiral Leahy said. «You are dismissed.»
«Yes, sir.»
«Donovan,» Admiral Leahy said, as he walked into the transcription room, «we have to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again in the future.»
«Yes, sir,» Donovan said.
«I think you'd do better talking to Colonel Albright than I would, Colonel.»
«Yes, sir,» Donovan said, handed his headset to the Admiral, and walked into the White Room.
«I don't like to think, Pickering,» Admiral Leahy said, «what would have happened if your Colonel Banning had been cowed by General Dempsey.»
«What's going to happen to General Adamson, sir?»
«In any army but ours, he would be handed a pistol and expected to do the right thing. I'm not sure if he's a colonel or a lieutenant colonel in the regular army. I suppose he'll wind up as commanding officer, or executive officer, of a POW camp. Something like that.»
«That's sad.»
«Yes, it is,» Leahy said. «Eisenhower has already reduced six general officers to their permanent grade and sent them home for not being able to keep their mouths shut.»
«I didn't know that.»
«General, it's not the sort of thing they issue press releases about,» Leahy said, and put his headset on.
«To get right to the point, Colonel Albright,» Donovan's voice came over the earphones, «it has come to my attention that a back-channel message was sent to the signal officer, Eyes Only, Major General Dempsey, of the military mission to China, which among other things announced the imminent arrival of magic devices and personnel to operate the Special Channel. Did you have anything to do with that message?»
«No, sir,» Colonel H. A. Albright said immediately.
«Do you know anything about such a message?»
«No, sir,» Albright said immediately.
«Have you any idea who could have sent such a message.»
Colonel Albright did not reply.
«Colonel, do you have any idea who could have sent such a message?» Donovan asked, impatience in his voice.
«I don't like to speculate about that sort of thing, Colonel.»
«Let me rephrase, Colonel. I am not asking for a name. Do you have any private suspicions about who would have sent such a message?»
Again Albright didn't reply.
«Yes or no, Colonel?» Donovan asked, not unkindly.
After a perceptible hesitation, Albright replied, «Colonel, to repeat myself, I don't like to speculate about such matters.»
«Yes or no?»
«If I have your word, Colonel, that you will not ask me for a name?»
«You have my word.»
«Yes, sir, I think I could make a good guess who would send such a message.»
«But you won't give me the name?»
«That's correct.»
«I could get General Adamson in here and have him order you to give a name. For God's sake, Albright, we're talking about the compromise of magic.»
Albright didn't reply.
«If you refused a legal order from General Adamson, you would, as I'm sure you realize, be opening yourself up for disciplinary action?»
«Any accusation—and that's what it would be—I would make without knowledge of the facts would ruin someone's career, even if I was wrong. In that circumstance…«
«Wait here, please, Colonel,» Donovan said. «I'll be back in a moment.»
«If you're going for General Adamson, Colonel,» Colonel Albright said, «I can probably save you time. I won't answer the question from him, either.»
«Just wait here, please, Colonel,» Donovan said.
«I feel like Diogenes,» Donovan said when he walked into the transcription room. «I've just found an honest—read, ethical—man.»
«In the Navy, they call that loyalty upward. It's commendable,» Admiral Leahy said. «But is this the exception that proves the rule?»
«The question is,» Pickering said, «did Albright know about the heads-up? If he did and didn't report it, he's wrong. If he didn't, the question is what would he have done if he did know about it.»
«Do you think he knew, Pickering?» Leahy asked.
«No, I don't,» Pickering said thoughtfully, and only then remembered to add, «Sir.»
Leahy pointed at Second Lieutenant Hart.
«I should have asked that question of you first, son,» he said. «So your answer would not be colored by hearing what General Pickering said.»
«He would have told somebody, sir,» Hart replied. «He guards magic like a lioness guards her cubs. And he was almost like one of us, sir. That message could have fucked up McCoy and Zimmerman. Whatever it cost him, he'd have done whatever he had to do to keep that from happening.»
«General Rickabee?»
My God, I forgot he's here
, Pickering thought, actually surprised to see him, and even more surprised to realize that he had been there all the time.
And he has never opened his mouth.
Does that mean he was cowed by Donovan and Leahy?
Or that he had nothing to say? With the implication he approved of the way Donovan has conducted the questioning?
«Admiral, I'd bet on Albright,» Rickabee replied. «He knows when to keep his mouth shut.»
So much for my theory that Fritz is cowed by Admiral Leahy.
«Colonel Donovan?» Leahy asked.
«If I had to bet on it, sir—and that's what we're doing, isn't it? Taking a chance with other people's lives?—I don't think Albright knew, and I think if he knew. he would have done whatever had to be done.»
«That makes it unanimous, gentlemen,» Admiral Leahy said.
«So what do we do now?» Pickering asked. «The way I read Colonel Banning's back channel, anything we send over the Special Channel to Chungking will be read by Dempsey and/or his deputy.»
«Can we get something to your station chief in Chungking, Donovan, with any assurance that it won't be read by anyone else?» Leahy asked.
«I know very little about the Chungking Station, or how it operates,» Pickering said coldly. «The first time I heard we have—more correctly, that I have—an OSS station in Chungking was in Banning's Special Channel.»
«You have station chiefs all over the Pacific, General,» Donovan said. «Including one in Chungking. You were supposed to be briefed on that. I presumed that you had been.»
«Who was supposed to brief me, your Deputy Director (Administration)?» Pickering asked sarcastically.
«As a matter of fact, yes.»
«Well, goddamn it, I wasn't,» Pickering said. «Now I'm starting to wonder what else I should know that I haven't been told.»
«Your position, Colonel Donovan,» Leahy asked, «is that General Pickering's—what shall I say, 'inadequate briefing'?—was another failure on the part of your Director for Administration, and that until just now, you knew nothing about it?»
«It's a failure on my part, Admiral,» Donovan said sincerely. «It was my responsibility to make sure that
my
DDA did what he was supposed to do. And I just didn't do it.»
«What's the damage assessment?» Leahy asked, looking at Pickering.
«Reading between the lines of Colonel Banning's back-channel, Admiral, what he's done has told McCoy and Zimmerman to make themselves scarce while he waits to see what I'm going to be able to do for them.»
«There was supposed be a message to the Chungking station chief giving him a heads-up that Banning and the others were coming,» Donovan said.
«By
name
?» Admiral Leahy asked softly. But there was enormous menace in his voice.
«No, sir,» Donovan said. «The standard phraseology would be 'you will be contacted by an officer whose orders will be self-explanatory,' or words to that effect.»
«Was this message sent?» Leahy asked.
«What difference would that make?» Pickering snapped. «Banning wasn't told about an OSS station chief.»
Leahy gave him a dirty look.
Donovan picked up a telephone and dialed a three digit number. «I'm in the transcription room,» he ordered. «I want a copy of every message sent to Chungking since we became involved with Operation Gobi, and I want them right now.»
«Has this officer, whose name I still don't know, been made aware that I was appointed Deputy Director (Pacific)?» Pickering asked sarcastically.
«General, make a very serious attempt to put your anger under control,» Admiral Leahy said, almost conversationally, but the enormous menace was again present.
«I beg the Admiral's pardon,» Pickering said.
«My original question, which started all this, was 'Can we communicate with the OSS station chief in Chungking without the U.S. MilMission to China signal officer reading it?»
«If I may answer General Pickering first, sir,» Donovan said, and then went on without giving Leahy a chance to stop him: «Of course. He's at your orders.»
Pickering said nothing.
«To answer your question, Admiral,» Donovan went on. «Sir, since the U.S. MilMissionChi signal officer has ordered Banning to route everything through him, I would say, that we cannot communicate with any degree of security, vis-a-vis the signal officer, with the Chungking station chief.»
Pickering thought: I
can raise further hell about Donovan hiding this station chief, and presumably some sort of in-place organization
—
and goddamn it, it was wrong
—
and not only look like a petulant child
—
the sonofabitch is the Director, and can do what he wants
—
or for once in my life I can keep my mouth shut
.
«I suggest we Special Channel Colonel Waterson in Brisbane,» Pickering began.
«Who is he?» Leahy asked.
«The OSS station chief. He works for me,» Donovan said, then corrected himself. «He works for Pickering.»
«We know the Special Channel there is secure,» Pickering went on, «and if Colonel Waterson has not yet been cleared for magic…«
«He has been cleared,» Leahy said.
And, Christ, I did the same thing Adamson did
, Pickering thought. /
told him before the fact
.
«We can Special Channel Waterson with whatever orders you're going to give the commanding general of the military mission to China, plus what orders I'm going to give him, and have him carry them physically to Chungking.»
«This is a JCS matter,» Leahy said. «I'll be giving the orders, Pickering.»
«You'll have to forgive me, Admiral. I don't really know how the system works. But if you're sending orders, sir, I respectfully request that you tell this General Dempsey to keep his hands off my men.»
«You may consider that added to the orders I will send to Chungking,» Leahy said. «I also consider it important that someone get to Chungking as quickly as possible to see that my orders are carried out. Right now, Pickering, you're the logical choice to do that.»
«Am I qualified to do that, sir?»
«If I didn't think so, I wouldn't send you.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
«What I'm asking, Pickering, considering the President gave Donovan, me, and you the responsibility to deal with this affair, is whether you are satisfied that Donovan and I can handle it from here on.»
Pickering thought that over a moment before replying. Then he looked at Donovan. «I have no doubt whatever, Admiral, that with Colonel Donovan here, I am not needed.»
«How soon can you be in Chungking?» Leahy asked.
«I'd planned to stop in Australia on the way, sir,» Pickering replied. «But under the circumstances, I could skip that.»
«Is there any reason you couldn't go to Chungking the way Banning and the devices went?» Donovan asked. «Via Europe? It would be quicker.»
«I'm taking the meteorologists and their equipment with me to Pearl Harbor. I don't want them shunted aside en route because they're enlisted men. And I'd like to see how they're coming with the submarine.»
«Do what you think is best,» Leahy said, putting out his hand. «But get to Chungking as quickly as you can.»
«Aye, aye, sir.» Pickering looked around the small room for Hart. «Let's go, George.»
«For what it's worth, Fleming,» Donovan said, as Pickering reached the door. Pickering turned to face him. «I've changed my mind again. The former Deputy Director (Administration) of the OSS will enter St. Elizabeth's within the hour.»
«What good will that do?»
«It'll make me feel better, and it might be educational for others,» Donovan said. The two men locked eyes. Finally, Pickering shrugged and followed Lieutenant Hart into the corridor.
Chapter Seventeen
note 65
Base Operations
Anacostia Naval Air Station
Washington, D.C.
1730 28 March 1943
One of the petty officers behind the counter at base operations spotted General Pickering as he passed through the door. He came to attention and loudly announced, «General officer on deck!»
Ten people were in the room. All of them popped to attention. Pickering saw that two of them—a chief and a third-class—wore the sleeve insignia of weathermen and presumed they were the meteorologists who had volunteered for the Gobi Desert operation. He smiled at them and waved his hand, ordering them to sit down again.
«As you were,» Pickering said, as he walked to the counter. «My name is Pickering. There's supposed to be an airplane—«
«Yes, sir. General Mclnerney is expecting the general, sir,» a chief petty officer said, quickly rising from his desk and walking to the counter. «If the general will please follow me, sir?»
«What did you say about General Mclnerney, Chief?»
«Sir, General Mclnerney has been waiting for the general, sir. He asked me to bring you into Flight Planning.»
«In a moment,» Pickering said, and walked to the two sailors, who rose to their feet.
Pickering put out his hand.
«Chief, I'm General Pickering,» he said.
«Chief Spectowski, sir,» the chief said. «This is Weatherman Third Damon.»
Pickering shook Damon's hand.
«I can tell you this much,» Pickering said. «Our ultimate destination, right now, is Pearl Harbor. We're going to spend the night in Memphis, fly on to Chicago in the morning to pick up three more people, and then fly to San Diego. From San Diego, we'll go Naval Air Transport Command to Pearl. I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you. Except that what you'll be doing will be damned important.»
«Yes, sir,» Weatherman Third Damon said.
Chief Spectowski nodded but didn't speak.
«When we get to Pearl, I'll probably be able to tell you some more,» Pickering said. «But for now, that's it.»
«I understand, sir,» the chief said.
«I don't know exactly what's happening here, but as soon as I find out, I'll let you know,» Pickering said.
«Yes, sir,» the two of them said, almost in unison.
Pickering turned, and with Hart on his heels, followed the base operations chief through a door bearing a large sign, air crews only, into a room whose walls, and a large table in the center, were covered with aerial charts.
Mclnerney and First Lieutenant Anthony I. Sylvester, his aide-de-camp, were standing in front of one of the aerial charts on the wall.
«Hello, Mac,» Pickering said.
Mclnerney turned to look at him.
«Another ten minutes, General, and you would have walked to Memphis,» Mclnerney said. «Where the hell have you been?»
«It's a long and painful story,» Pickering said, smiling at his old friend. «Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what the hell are you doing here?»
«Before we get into that, General, you don't notice anything different about me?»
Pickering studied him, then shook his head, «no.»
«I never thought you were very bright, but I did think you were capable of counting as high as two,» Mclnerney said.
Pickering now understood. There were two stars on each of Mclnerney's collar points, and on each epaulet. Mclnerney was now a major general.
«Well, when did that happen? Damn, Mac, it's long overdue!»
«This morning,» Mclnerney said. «Loudly complaining that the Corps is going to hell, the Commandant pinned them on himself.»
«Well, congratulations!»
«Thank you, Flem,» Mclnerney said. «Who would have believed, at Chateau-Thierry?»
«I would have,» Pickering joked. «Anyone as ugly as you was sure to get to be a major general, if he stuck around long enough, and didn't get shot by a jealous husband first.»
«You can go to hell, General.»
«When I come back, we'll have a party,» Pickering said.
«That's what we're going to do tonight,» Mclnerney said.
«I'm on my way to Pearl Harbor.»
«You're on your way to Memphis,» Mclnerney corrected him. «And I'm driving the pumpkin, Cinderella. Unless, Flem, you wanted to be alone with your boy?»
«Don't be silly,» Pickering replied automatically, and then thought it through, and added: «Actually, Mac, I'm delighted. You can keep the grand farewell from getting maudlin.»
«You're sure?»
«Absolutely. But let me call ahead and make sure we have a hotel room for you.»
«Something wrong with the visiting Flag Officers' Quarters?» Mclnerney asked.
«Pick's living in a hotel in Memphis…«
«I should have guessed,» Mclnerney said.
«And what was that I heard about wise officers keeping their indiscretions as far from the flagpole as possible?»
«It's 'a hundred miles from the flagpole,' actually,» Mclnerney said. «But you're right. A hotel would be better.»
«George,» Pickering ordered, «call the Peabody in Memphis and get a suite for General Mclnerney and me. You and Sylvester can bunk with Pick and Dunn.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
«And while Hart's doing that, Tony, you get our passengers loaded.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
«You learned how to fly, I seem to recall?»
Pickering nodded. «P&FE has a Staggerwing Beech,» he said. «I've got a couple of hundred hours in that.»
«You think you could get the wheels up on a Gooney Bird? And then back down again? If so, you can ride up in front with me.»
«I think I might be able to do that,» Pickering said. «But are you sure it will be all right?»
«What do you mean?»
«I didn't know the Corps let old men like you fly by themselves,» Pickering said, straight-faced.
«You sonofabitch,» Mclnerney said. «If memory serves, and mine always does, you're eight months older than I am.»
The Douglas R4-D was parked right outside base operations. A ground crew of Navy white-hats was standing by. Several of them manned a fire extinguisher on wheels. One of them had been stationed in the cockpit. The moment he saw General Mclnerney his responsibility was to stick his arm out the pilot's side window and place a small red flag with the two stars of a major general in a holder.
When Mclnerney saw Pickering staring at the flag, he said, «That's the Navy.
I have passed the word in the Corps that any Marine AOD found hanging a flag on any airplane I'm flying will have to wash the airplane.»
«You've earned the prerogatives, Mac,» Pickering said, meaning it. «Enjoy them.»
Mclnemey waved him onto the airplane. A number of packages were strapped to the deck of the cabin. «That's your weather station gear,» Mclnemey said. «No package weighs more than sixty-five pounds, most of them no more than fifty.»
«You're not going all the way with us, are you, Mac?»
«No. Sylvester is. We're going to draft a copilot for him at Memphis. I'm taking one of the Memphis MAG's Corsairs back here in the morning.»
«You can fly a Corsair?» Pickering asked, genuinely surprised.
«Don't start that crap again, Flem,» Mclnemey said.
«Sorry,» Pickering said.
Spectowski and Damon were already strapped into BuAir versions of airline seats. Pickering smiled at them as he followed Mclnemey into the cockpit. A moment after he sat down in the copilot's seat and strapped himself in. Mclnemey handed him the major general's flag.
«Stick this in your ear, or some other suitable bodily orifice. General,» Mclnemey said.
«Aye, aye, sir,» Pickering said. He took the flag and found a place for it behind his seat.
Lieutenant Sylvester stuck his head in the cockpit door.
«Anytime you're ready, General,» he said.
«Okay, Tony. Find yourself a seat,» Mclnemey said, and reached for the plastic-coated checklist. «Ordinarily, the guy in the right seat reads this off for the pilot,» he said. «But I realize that the eyes of an old fart like you can't handle the small print.»
Three minutes later, Anacostia Departure Control cleared Marine Oh Oh Six for immediate take off on Runway Two Six, and Mclnemey reached for the throttle quadrant and advanced the throttles to takeoff power.
He was about to reach for his microphone when he heard Pickering's voice in his earphones: «Anacostia, Marine Double Oh Six, rolling.»
Thirty seconds later, Mclnemey eased back on the wheel and the rumble of the wheels stopped.
«Wheels up,» he ordered.
«Wheels up,» Pickering parroted, and then a few seconds later added, «Wheels up and locked.»
Mclnemey looked at him. «Well, maybe I'm wrong,» he said. «Maybe you're not as useless as teats on a boar hog.»
When they had reached cruising altitude and Mclnemey had trimmed the Gooney Bird up, he turned to Pickering. «What do you want first, the good news or the bad?»
«Let's start with the good,» Pickering said. «I haven't had much of that lately.»
«For once, the phones worked, and I got through to Dawkins at Ewa. You know the Dawk, don't you?»
«He had the MAG on Guadalcanal,» Pickering said. «Very good guy.»
«Yeah. Well, I had an idea. Big Steve Oblensky has forgotten more about Catalinas than most people ever leam. Before his heart went bad, he picked up a lot of time flying them. And he's one hell of a mechanic, too. Airframe
and
engine. So I asked the Dawk if he would mind lending him to this project of yours. For the first of the bad news, Dawkins seemed to know a lot about it. One of the Navy's pilots involved in the first refueling attempt ran off at the mouth.»
«There seems to be an epidemic of that,» Pickering said.
Mclnemey looked at him curiously but didn't pursue it. «Anyway, Dawk told me that Big Steve is already working on the Catalinas with your pal Jake Dillon.»
«Thank you,» Pickering said. «I should have thought of that.»
«Then the Dawk asked me a question, which brings us to Part Two of the bad news. He wanted to know if I was thinking of volunteering Charley Galloway to fly the mission. He obviously hoped I would say no firmly, which I did.»
«I didn't even think that Charley would volunteer.»
«You know how many volunteers we did get?»
Pickering shook his head, «no.»
«Two,» Mclnemey said.
»
Two
?» Pickering parroted incredulously.
«One of them is up on charges for writing rubber checks all over the West Coast, and the other is facing a Flight Evaluation Board. According to his commanding officer, the Board is almost certain to take his wings for gross incompetence.»
«I'm surprised,» Pickering confessed. «Only two.»
«Almost nobody wants to fly a Catalina in the first place,» Mclnemey said. «And most of the people who are flying them want to get out of Cats. Long-over-water flights are (a) dangerous and (b) boring, and that's what you do when you fly Catalinas, day after day. If I was flying fighters, I damned sure wouldn't volunteer to fly Catalinas. I wasn't all that surprised, but I did think we'd get maybe six, maybe more, volunteers.»
«And what do we do now?»
«The night you almost got blown away in France, do you remember volunteering to go take out that machine gun?»
Pickering didn't reply.
«The way I recall it,» Mclnemey said, «Lieutenant Davis said, 'Pickering, go take out that machine gun. And take Mclnerney and'—what the hell was his name? He got about thirty feet out of the trench.»
«Blumenson,» Pickering said softly, remembering an entirely different war a long time ago. «Private Aaron Blumenson. He was from Cicero, Illinois. A sniper got him. In the throat.»
»… and
Blumenson
with you.' « Mclnerney went on. «In other words, realizing (a) that Sergeant Pickering, Corporal Mclnerney, and Private Blumenson were not about to volunteer to do something dangerous and (b) that unless somebody took that Maxim away from Fritz, a lot of Marines were going to have holes in them, Lieutenant Davis did what he had to do. He volunteered us to do what had to be done.»
«Is that what you're going to do?» Pickering asked, and then, before Mclnerney had a chance to reply, added: «I volunteered McCoy to go into the Gobi and see if he can find those people. It has to be done, and he was the guy to do it.»
«You can have Galloway, Flem, if you say so,» Mclnerney said.
Pickering looked at him.
«It has to be done, and Charley's good at this sort of thing,» Mclnerney added.
«I thought you said you told Dawkins you weren't volunteering Galloway?»
«I'm not. I'm really short of fighter pilots, Flem. In my judgment what Charley is doing now, putting some backbone into that collection of misfits in VMF-229, is damned important. I don't know anybody else who could do what he's doing. But it's your call, General. You have the priority. If you want Charley Galloway, you can have him.»
Pickering did not reply directly. «Who else is available? Who else were you thinking of volunteering?» he asked.
«One major for sure. He's got a lot of Catalina time, and more important, he's a good officer. That will be important, because the volunteers I volunteer are probably going to show up manifesting a magnificent lack of enthusiasm. I'll get you pilots, Flem. Good ones.»
«Let's put Charley Galloway on the Only If Absolutely Necessary List,» Pickering said.
«Thank you,» Mclnerney said.
«Where is this major I am going to get? How soon can I have him?»
«He's at Pensacola,» Mclnerney said. «What I think I'll do, Flem, instead of going back to Anacostia tomorrow, is go to Pensacola and tell him that not only has he just volunteered, but he'll see if he can't come up with somebody else, too.»
«How soon can I have him? And the somebody else?»
«It'll take a couple of days to get orders cut.»
«Plus a week or so for a delay en route leave to see his family,» Pickering said.
«He's got his family with him at Pensacola.»
«The sooner I can have him, have all the pilots, the better.»
«I understand.»
note 66
Base Operations
Memphis Naval Air Station
Memphis, Tennessee
2245 28 March 1943
Rear Admiral Jesse R. Ball, USN, Flag Officer Commanding Naval Air Station, Memphis, arrived at base operations in his official 1941 Navy gray Plymouth staff car, at almost the same time that First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, drove up in his privately owned motor vehicle, a fire-engine-red 1941 Cadillac convertible coupe. Admiral Ball knew Lieutenant Pickering only by reputation, and to the best of his recollection had never before laid eyes on him, but there was no question in his mind that the driver of the fire-engine-red Cadillac was Lieutenant Pickering.
There had been seven incident reports in the office of the base provost marshal, five of them chronicling off-base speeding-limit violations and two of them on-base speeding-limit violations by a Lieutenant Pickering at the wheel of a Cadillac convertible. Admiral Ball thought it highly unlikely that the driver of the Cadillac was anyone but First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR.
Though it had been Admiral Ball's intention to speak with Lieutenant Pickering as this day's first order of business, that did not prove possible. When his aide had called VMF-262 to direct Lieutenant Pickering to present himself forthwith at the Admiral's office, he had been informed that Lieutenant Pickering was leading half a dozen of VMF-262 'ts Corsairs on a cross-country training flight and was not expected back until late that night, or—considering the possibilities of bad weather or some other exigency of the Naval Service—possibly not until the following morning.
Admiral Ball had then directed his aide to ask Captain William C. Dunn, USMCR, Lieutenant Pickering's immediate superior officer, to present himself immediately. Admiral Ball knew Captain Dunn and regarded him as a fine officer. He also knew that Captain Dunn and Lieutenant Pickering had flown together—had indeed become aces together—flying Wildcats off Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. It was not surprising, therefore, that Captain Dunn proved extremely reluctant to discuss his knowledge of Lieutenant Pickering's amorous activities, or other strayings from the path of righteousness. In fact, he did a remarkable job trying to cover his buddy's ass. It became immediately apparent to Admiral Ball that if he was going to get a full picture of Lieutenant Pickering, it was not going to be from Captain Dunn. He sought out other sources of information.
By noon, it was clear to Admiral Ball that Lieutenant Pickering was a royal fuckup, even by comparison with other Marine Corps fighter pilots. His transgressions ranged from doing barrel rolls at an estimated altitude of 100 feet and a speed of 350 knots over the Memphis Air Station's control tower to hiding his salami in the banker's wife. His only surprise was that an officer with such a history had not previously come to his official attention.
Admiral Ball had left word with VMF-262 late that afternoon that he expected to see Lieutenant Pickering either at 0800 the next day or immediately upon his return to Memphis NAS, whichever occurred first.
Then he put from his mind the unfortunate business of an out-of-control Marine fighter pilot and turned to something pleasant. Memphis NAS had been informed that Major General D. G. Mclnerney, the just-promoted Deputy Chief of Marine Corps Aviation, would arrive sometime after 2200 hours and would remain overnight. Jesse Ball and Mac Mclnerney went way back. They had done a tour together aboard the old
Lexington
, when the Admiral had been a j.g. lieutenant and Mac a brand-new Marine captain. As far as Jesse was concerned, Mac's promotion was long overdue. They would wet down his new stars together. Jesse wouldn't have been at all surprised if Mac was coming to Memphis for just that purpose.
And now here was the notorious Lieutenant Pickering, getting out of his red Cadillac, wearing, the Admiral noticed, his leather flight jacket and not the prescribed uniform, including any sort of uniform headgear. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he might just have landed and not yet had time to put on what he was supposed to be wearing. According to record, he'd been cited fourteen times for not being in the properly appointed uniform.
When Lieutenant Pickering saw the Admiral, he saluted. It was more in the nature of a casual wave of his hand in the vicinity of his forehead than a proper salute. «Good evening, Admiral,» Lieutenant Pickering said.
Admiral Ball returned the salute. He said nothing about the absence of headgear. That violation of regulation paled in comparison to his other transgressions against good order and discipline.
«Just landed, did you, Lieutenant?» Admiral Ball asked.
There was a slight hesitation before Lieutenant Pickering replied. «More or less, sir.»
Which means, of course, that he does not want to lie about it.
«You're going out again, are you, Lieutenant?»
«Actually, sir, I'm meeting someone coming in,» Pickering replied.
With a little bit of luck, he'll be standing there, hatless, when Mac gets off his airplane. Once Mac has had a word with him regarding the necessity of Marine officers always being in the proper uniform
—
all of it, including headgear
—
he will wear a hat when taking a shower
.
Admiral Ball grunted and walked into base operations. Five minutes later, the R4-D touched down on time (it had filed a Direct Memphis flight plan from Anacostia). Admiral Ball was so informed by the AOD. Admiral Ball immediately began asking himself questions: Had something happened and Mac wasn't on the Gooney Bird? There had been no word from the aircraft to the tower that a general officer was aboard. And when the plane taxied up to the ramp in front of base ops, there was no general's flag flapping from a short staff next to the pilot's side window.
It wasn't until the Gooney Bird had turned around and its nose was facing base ops that Admiral Ball saw General Mclnerney's face in the cockpit.
Admiral Ball smiled as he walked toward the airplane. The smile vanished when he saw that Lieutenant Pickering was doing the same thing.
What the hell is he doing out here
?
He waited until Mac had shut down the engines and then called up at him, «Still letting you fly, are they, old buddy?»
«Damn, Jesse,» General Mclnerney called back. «What are you doing out here this late at night? Isn't it long past your bedtime?»
«Well, I was going to buy you a drink, but now I'm not so sure.»
«I accept. Let me shut this thing down, and I'll be right with you.»
Admiral Ball walked to the fuselage door just as it opened, and the steps dropped down.
The first person off was a Marine brigadier general. I
wonder who that is? Mac's deputy? He's not an aviator
. Lieutenant Pickering addressed the general officer: «What the hell were you doing in the cockpit?»
«1 am perfectly able to manipulate the landing gear, as you damned well know, hotshot,» the general said, and then he wrapped his arms around Lieutenant Pickering.
My God, it's his father!
General Pickering spotted Admiral Ball and saluted. «I'm Fleming Pickering, Admiral,» he said, as Ball returned the salute.
«Welcome to Memphis NAS, General,» Admiral Ball said. «We didn't know you were coming, or we'd have had the senior Marine here to greet you.»
«No problem at all. This is the Marine I came to see.»
Lieutenants Sylvester and Hart deplaned next, followed by Chief Spectowski and Petty Officer Damon. Baggage followed. Finally, Major General Mclnerney came down the ladder. Lieutenant Pickering saluted him. Mclnerney returned it.
«How are you, Pick?» General Mclnerney called cheerfully. «Skating on thin ice as usual, I see?»
God, he knows Mac well enough for Mac to call him by his first name!
«Sir?»
«This aging admiral here is old Navy, Pick,» Mclnerney said, nodding at Admiral Ball. «He likes officers to be in uniform. Where the hell is your cover?»
Lieutenant Pickering snapped his fingers and looked mildly embarrassed. «I must have left it in the car. I'll go get it.»
«Don't bother,» Admiral Ball heard himself saying. «No one will see you out here.»
«Getting soft in your old age, are you, Jesse?» Mclnerney asked. «There was a time when you would have ordered him keelhauled.»
«Now I know a wise officer has to make allowances for Marines,» Admiral Ball said. «They're not really human.»
I
am not going to let this goddamn pup foul up my seeing Mac
!
«I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Jesse,» Mclnerney said. «In case you haven't noticed, you're outnumbered by Marines.»
«We're going to need more wheels than we have,» General Pickering said.
«That means we're really going to have to impose on your hospitality, Jesse,» Mclnerney said.
«What do you need, Mac?»
«We need a guard on this airplane. An armed guard,» General Pickering said.
«No problem, General,» Admiral Ball said. «And what else?»
«Quarters overnight for the Chief and his friend.»
«No problem. What else?»
«In the morning, I'll need a copilot for the Gooney Bird. It's going first to Chicago and then to 'Diego,» Mclnerney said. «And I'm going to have to borrow one of your Corsairs.»
«That can be arranged, no problem,» Admiral Ball said.
«And then we'll need a ride for the rest of us into Memphis, to the hotel,» Mclnerney said. «We all won't fit in Pick's car.»
«You're going to Memphis?»
«To the Peabody,» General Pickering confirmed. «And a cordial invitation is extended to you, Admiral, to join us while Mac and I wash down his new stars.»
«General Mclnerney and I go back a long way, General,» Admiral Ball said.
«Not as far as Flem and I do, Jesse,» Mclnerney said. «Flem was my sergeant at Chateau-Thierry.»
«Why don't you and your aide ride with me, Mac? And General Pickering and his aide can ride with Lieutenant Pickering?»
Who will as certainly as the sun will rise drive that Cadillac into Memphis wearing his leather jacket and no cover. Probably at twenty miles over the speed limit.
«Sounds fine,» General Pickering said. «How about the Chief and his friend? And the guard for the airplane?»
«The AOD can handle that.» Admiral Ball nodded at the AOD, who was standing a respectful distance away waiting for his orders. Admiral Ball motioned for him to come over.
«So you and General Pickering are old friends, are you?» Admiral Ball asked General Mclnerney as they were driving into Memphis.
«I was with him the night he got—and damned well earned—the Navy Cross. All bullshit aside, he saved my life that night.»
«I don't think I've ever met him before.»
«He got out after the war. He runs—owns—Pacific and Far East Shipping. And his father-in-law owns the Foster hotel chain. Roosevelt commissioned him a brigadier when he came back in the Corps.»
«What's the Corps having him do?»
«Keep this under your hat, Jesse. He's the Director for Pacific Operations for the OSS. That's where he's headed now. I can't tell you what for, but my orders from SecNav, personally, were to give him anything he thinks he needs to get his job done.»
«Sounds like an interesting man.»
«One of the best, Jesse, one of the best,» Mclnerney said. «And the boy, Pick, is a chip off the old block. He could have spent this war running an officers' club. For that matter, he probably could have gotten himself declared essential, exempt from the draft, to run either P&FE or Foster Hotels. But he didn't. He came into the Corps, went through OCS, then came to me and begged me to get him out of a desk job and into flight school. He flew for Charley Galloway in VMF-229 on Guadalcanal. An ace. Seven Japs, I think.»
«I'd heard something about that.»
«Turned out to be one hell of an officer,» Mclnerney said.
One hell of a
lousy
officer
, General Ball thought, but did not, of course, say it.
This is not the time to deal with this disgrace to his uniform. Not with his father about to go back to the Pacific, with a lot obviously on his mind. And not when we're all about to wash down Mac's second star.
note 67
The Gobi Desert
150 Miles Southeast of Chandmani, Mongolia
1545 28 March 1943
No one had ever come up with a proper name universally accepted for whatever-it-was-they-were. Many of its members thought of it as «The Caravan,» for that was the idea, the dream, to get the hell out of China and Mongolia and into either Russia or India, by caravan.
Chief Motor Machinist's Mate Frederick C. Brewer, USN, a large, muscular but tending to fat, florid-faced forty-six-year-old, who had been elected as commanding officer of whatever-it-was-they-were, thought of it, spoke of it, as «The Complement.» In the Navy, «ship's complement» meant the enlisted men assigned to a ship. Many—but by no means all—of the other Yangtze sailors followed his lead.
The term «complement» was perfectly satisfactory to Technical Sergeant Moses Abraham, USMC, who had retired from the 4th Marines. But to Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr., U.S. Army, Retired, who was the oldest man in whatever-it-was-they-were, a «compliment» was something you paid: «Nice dress, Hazel.» It made absolutely no sense as a term to describe what he privately thought of as a pathetic band of mostly over-the-hill gypsies.
Staff Sergeant Cawber, who had decided in 1933 to take his retirement from the 15th Infantry—after thirty-two years in the Army—described whatever-it-was-they-were collectively as «Us,» breaking «Us» down when necessary into the subgroups «The Soldiers.» «The Women,» and «The Sick, Lame and Lazy.»
«The Soldiers» were those who were physically fit and relatively skilled in the use of arms, and could be called upon to fight, if necessary. The Soldiers included some other former members of the 15th Infantry (all of whom, like Cawber, had retired from active duty), many of the Marines, and even a half-dozen Yangtze sailors who had acquired some small-arms proficiency and rudimentary squad tactics while aboard the river patrol boats of the Yangtze River patrol.
«The Women» included the wives (mostly Chinese, but including two White Russian «Nansen» women, a French woman, and a German woman) and the children, twenty-two of them, ranging in age from toddlers to two girls and a boy in their early teens.
«The Sick and the Lame» included those who were really sick or lame, in several cases because of age. But «The Lazy» didn't actually mean that. Rather, it meant those (almost all of them retired Yangtze sailors) who had brought to whatever-it-was-they-were no useful «military» experience. They had been, for example, «ship's writers» (clerks) or some such (one had been a chaplain's assistant) before transferring to the Fleet Reserve and staying in China. But the term «sick, lame and lazy» had been used in the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps before the war, primarily to describe those lining up to go on Sick Call. And that term had been adopted by just about everybody.
One major piece of whatever-it-was-they-were was occupied by Sergeant James R. Sweatley, USMC, and seven other enlisted Marines. Sweatley and the others had been assigned to the Marine detachment in Peking and had either «gone off,» or «gone over the hill,» or deserted, rather than obey orders to surrender and become prisoners of the Japanese.
With twenty-two years of service in the Corps, Sweatley could have retired in early 1941—and now very often thought he should have. If he had been recalled to active duty after retiring, he would now have been with a Marine unit, not wandering around fucking Mongolia with a herd of doggies and swabbies just waiting for the fucking Japs to find them.
But he had shipped over one more time, on the reasonable chance he could make staff sergeant—maybe even gunnery sergeant—in four more years. And on his last hitch, he vowed, he would
really
start saving his money.
Chief Brewer, Technical Sergeant Abraham, Staff Sergeant Cawber, and Sergeant Sweatley were the command structure of whatever-it-was-they-were. They had formally been elected to their positions by all the men. That had been Chief Brewer's idea; it had been the way the volunteer regiments in the Civil War had elected their officers.
They had even chosen by vote the titles of those who would lead whatever-it-was-they-were: Chief Brewer was the «commanding officer»; Technical Sergeant Abraham was the «executive officer»; Staff Sergeant Cawber was the «administrative officer»; and Sergeant Sweatley was the «tactical officer.»
In 1937, Chief Brewer had transferred off the USS
Panay
of the Yangtze River patrol into the Fleet Reserve. Soon after that he opened a bar, the Fouled Anchor, installing himself as bartender and bouncer and his Mongolian wife, Doto-Si, as the business manager. Doto-Si handled the cash, the merchants, and the Chinese authorities.
The bar did not prove to be an immediate roaring success. And after three months, when there wasn't much left of his savings, he gave in to Doto-Si's suggestion to operate a hotel. There were rooms to let above the Fouled Anchor that could be converted into hotel rooms for not very much money. Fred Brewer knew damned well what kind of hotel Doto-Si wanted to operate. He had met her in one, called the Sailor's Rest.
He was thirty-six when he met her, just off a four-month cruise up and down the Yangtze aboard the
Panay
. He was more than a little drunk, and flush with cash from an unusual run of luck at the vingt-et-un tables in the basement of the Peking Paradise Hotel.
If he hadn't been drunk, he often thought later, he wouldn't have taken her upstairs in the Sailor's Rest. He always thought there was something sick about sailors taking very young girls upstairs.
And Doto-Si was very young. She was new there, fresh from the country. She told him she was sixteen. It was probably more like fourteen. But he took her upstairs, because he was drunk, and because he hadn't been laid in four months. He had been acting chief of the boat on the cruise, and he thought that chiefs of the boat should not set an example for the ship's complement by getting their ashes hauled by whatever slope whore was waiting when the
Panay
tied up.
The truth was, there was something different about Doto-Si. She was small, and she had a pretty face and had a soft voice, and she was shy, and she looked at him funny, as if she really liked him. He almost didn't screw her when they were in the room and she took off her clothes and he saw how young she was. He gave her five bucks and told her to forget it.
She told him that if he did that, she would get in trouble with Kan-Chee. Kan-Chee had told her to treat him right, because he was an important chief aboard the
Panay.
So he screwed her, and it wasn't at all like getting his ashes hauled usually was. He really liked it, even though he was ashamed of himself for slipping it to a slope whore who was really just a kid.
So he gave her another five and went back down to the bar and had a drink.
A couple of minutes later, she came walking down the stairs and he thought that however the hell old she was, she was too young to be peddling her ass to a bunch of drunken American sailors—and worse—in a joint like the Sailor's Rest.
A bosun's mate second off the
Panay
took one look at Doto-Si and headed for her like a fucking cat about to play with a mouse.
And Brewer was drunk and he was flush, so he turned off his barstool and told the bosun's mate second he was too late, he wanted that one for himself.
He looked around for Kan-Chee, who wore Western suits and talked pretty good English, even to old hands like Brewer who spoke pretty good Wu, and waved him over.
«You liked that little Mongolian, huh, Chief?»
«Yeah. How much will you take for her?»
«You going in business, Chief? Maybe be my competition?»
«Fuck you. You want to sell her or not?»
«I sell anything for right price. How much you willing to pay?»
«How much, goddamn you!»
«You a friend. A good customer. I treat you right. I paid two hundred Americanfor her. i buy her clothes. teach her what she has to do. I got at least three hundred American in her, maybe foiur hundred. I sell her to you for five hundred, and I buy her back in a month, if she still look good, not sick, not pregnant, for four hundred.»
Now Brewer was sore, as well as more than a little drunk and flush with cash. Kan-Chee was playing games with him. He didn't think Brewer could come up with five hundred American. Fuck him!
«I'll give you four hundred for her. Take it or leave it.»
«After one month, you want me to buy her back, I give you three hundred. American.»
Kan-Chee, the bastard, had been more than a little surprised when Brewer reached in his money belt and counted out four hundred dollars American, but a deal was a deal.
So he took Doto-Si back upstairs and told her what the deal was. In the morning, he would give her some more money and she could go back where she came from, to her village in Mongolia, and she didn't have to be a whore anymore; he had taken care of her debt to Kan-Chee.
«If I go back to my village, my uncle just sell me again.»
«Your uncle? What about youir father?»
«Father dead. Mother dead. Uncle no want to feed me. He just sell me again.»
He was really drunk by then, and understood that he wasn't going to make any smart decisions that night, so he said, «Fuck it, we'll talk about it in the morning.»
And then he passed out.
When he woke up in the monning, he was naked in the bed, and alone, and remembered what a stupid fucking thing he had done the night before. He saw his jacket and pants hanging on the one hanger in the closet, but no money belt.
He had really fucked up big time, gotten shitfaced, screwed a little girl, and given Kan-Chee a lot of his money. And now what he hadn't given Kan-Chee, the little Mongolian whore had stolen.
Served him fucking right.
And then Doto-Si came into the: room, carrying a pot of tea, a plate of egg rolls, and even a little packet of aspirin.
She sat on the bed and poured him a cup of tea and opened the packet of aspirin and handed him two.
He took the aspirin and drank the tea and ate all the egg rolls—he was starving; he hadn't eaten anything yesterday after coming ashore, which explained why he had gotten so shitfaced. And then he looked at her.
«Where's my money belt?»
She unbuttoned her dress and took it off, and stood naked in front of him. She had his money belt hanging from her shoulder. She took it off and handed it to him.
«Lots of money,» Doto-Si said. «I afraid to leave it in room with you asleep. Somebody steal.»
He took the money belt and unzipped it. There was a hell of a lot of money in it. Even if the girl had stolen some, there was a hell of a lot left. He really must have made a killing at the Peking Palace.
And she had the chance to steal all of it, and didn't!
«Thank you,» he said, and then had a generous thought. He took out a twenty, and then a second twenty, and then a third, and handed them to her.
«Thank you,» he repeated.
«For twenty dollar American, I can get nice room, with real bed, and sink and toilet,» Doto-Si said.
«Is that what you want to do? How will you live?»
«I cook for you, and wash clothes, be your woman. You give twenty dollars a month for food?»
«I'm old enough to be your fucking father!»
«My father dead,» Doto-Si said.
Brewer said what he was thinking: «I eat aboard the
Panay
. The wash boys do my clothes.»
«You can fuck wash boys?»
«Jesus Christ!»
«I like to fuck with you,» Doto-Si said. «I be good to you.»
«Don't say 'fuck,' « he said.
«What I should say?»
«Just don't say 'fuck.' «
«You sleep. I come back in two hours. Okay?»
He didn't reply.
«You better put money belt and pants on,» she said.
«This isn't going to work,» he thought aloud. «Christ, I don't want a Chinese woman!»
«I be good to you. We try it, okay?»
When he didn't say no, she picked up her dress and put it on and started to leave.
«Hey!» he said, as she reached the door. She turned to look at him. «What's your name?»
«Doto-Si,» she said.
She came back in two hours. He had tried to sleep, but couldn't.
She sat on the bed. «I find two rooms. Living room, bedroom, and toilet. For twenty-five dollar American. Too much money?»
«Let's have a look,» he said.
«Okay,» Doto-Si said.
They continued to look at each other for a long moment, and then he put his fingers to her cheek. «You're so young,» he said.
«I old enough for you,» she said firmly, and then she took his hand and pulled him to his feet.
As they walked through the Sailor's Rest bar to the street, Brewer decided it was really a depressing place. And when he saw Kan-Chee smirking at him and Doto-Si knowingly, he decided he would never come in this fucking joint again, and he never did.
They had one child, a boy, and another was on the way when Chief Brewer transferred off the
Panay
into the Fleet Reserve and opened the Fouled Anchor. A week after he went ashore from the
Panay
for the last time, Brewer and Doto-Si were married by a minister from the Christian & Missionary Alliance.
Even though Doto-Si thought that was sort of comical, he was uncomfortable about being the proprietor of a whorehouse. The only time he went upstairs was when something—a light fixture, a water pipe, something like that—needed fixing, and he had nothing to do with the girls.
Nobody ever got rolled in the Fouled Anchor, or got the clap or anything worse. A lot of people who came to the bar and restaurant never went upstairs, and the girls didn't come downstairs to the bar looking for customers. Doto-Si handled that side of the business upstairs, where there was a parlor.
The whole thing seemed to be too good to be true. He was making more money than he ever imagined, and Doto-Si was good to him, and he loved the kids. They had a first-class apartment now, and they rode back and forth to work in a 1940 Oldsmobile that had an automatic transmission. Brewer didn't think that would work, or work long, but it did. Didn't even have a clutch pedal.
By then, Brewer didn't tend bar anymore, or serve as the bouncer. Doto-Si hired Chinese to do that. Brewer spent his time in the Fouled Anchor keeping an eye on things, sitting at a rear table in the bar playing poker or acey-deucey, making a few loans, serving as respected intermediary between westerners wanting to do business with Chinese and doing a little business himself.
But war was coming, and when that happened, everything was going to hell. He started making plans. Primarily, he started accumulating gold, which was all anyone was going to take when the war started.
Because he was respected, other old Yangtze sailors and Army and Marine retirees who also knew what was coming sought him out and talked over what they would do when the time came. The Americans could, of course, leave anytime they wanted to and be in San Francisco in a month. But their wives could not get visas to enter the United States. Some Americans went home anyway, just leaving their Chinese wives and children and promising to send money.
But Brewer never even considered leaving Doto-Si and the kids. She was his
wife
, for Christ's sake, the
mother
of his
children
. You don't just up anchor and sail away and leave your wife and kids to make out as best they can to save your own ass.
Soon, several others had decided to band together and get the hell out with their wives and kids. There were nine other retired Yangtze sailors with Chinese wives and kids, and one with a German wife; and there were two retired Marines, one with a White Russian wife, and one, Technical Sergeant Abraham, whose Chinese wife had died, but whose mother-in-law was taking care of his three kids.
And then word of what they were planning also reached some of the soldiers who had retired from the 15th Infantry in Tientsin, and they sent a retired staff sergeant named Willis T. Cawber, Jr., to Peking to see what Brewer had in mind.
From the beginning, Doto-Si had made it clear to the others that the only way they could get out of China was through Mongolia—the Gobi Desert—and into India. That wasn't easy for them to grasp: she was the only one in the band who had ever even been to Mongolia, and most thought the Gobi Desert was miles and miles of shifting sand, like the Sahara. But eventually they came around to her way of thinking. Even though she still looked young as hell, there was something about her eyes that made others realize that she was smart and tough as hell.
Much of the Gobi was rocks and thin vegetation, she told them, not sand. That meant it could be traversed by wagon. In the summer, there was enough grass to feed sheep and goats and horses. On the other hand, water was a problem—you had to know where to find it, but it was there—and it was very, very cold at night.
There was also, Doto-Si told Brewer privately, a genuine threat from Chinese and Mongolian bandits, who robbed caravans whenever they thought they had the caravan outnumbered. That meant they would have to be armed, and prepared to fight.
That was going to be a hell of a problem, Brewer realized. Very few of the Yangtze sailors had any experience in that kind of fighting. And though soldiers from the 15th Infantry could be presumed to know how to handle weapons, he didn't know how many of them would be willing to trust their survival to the Mongolian madam of a Peking whorehouse.
But about that time he began to hear scuttlebutt in the Fouled Anchor that Sergeant James R. Sweatley and some of the other active-duty Marines in the Peking legation detachment had announced they weren't just going to raise the white flag when the war came and turn themselves in as Japanese prisoners.
The very next time—in early November 1941 —Sergeant Sweatley came into the Fouled Anchor, Chief Brewer and Technical Sergeant Abraham were waiting for him. They bought him a couple of drinks, then took him into Brewer's office to sound him out.
Brewer didn't think much of Sweatley. He was still only a buck sergeant after twenty years in the Marines, and on several occasions, he had been a troublesome drunk both in the bar and upstairs.
But Abraham argued that he was a Marine sergeant on active duty, and that meant he would be in a position to get weapons, which the others didn't have and damned sure were going to need. On top of that, he and the other Marines he'd bring with him were young. A good thing, under the circumstances—especially considering some of the others who would be going into the Gobi.
«What we say here goes no further,» Brewer began.
«What we say about what?»
Technical Sergeant Abraham decided to cut through the bullshit. «The scuttlebutt is that you and some of the other Marines are not going to surrender to the Japanese when this war starts. Is that true, or are you just running your mouth?»
«Who said I said something like that?»
«Two of the Marines who say you're taking them with you,» Abraham told him, and furnished their names.
Who else
, Sergeant Sweatley wondered,
have those bastards been running their mouth to
?
Then he said the thought aloud.
«As far as I know, nobody else,» Abraham replied. «I had a little talk with them. Told them if any of their officers, or even some of their noncoms, heard them, they'd be confined until it was time to surrender.»
«What do you want, you and Brewer?»
«The same thing you do, to stay out of a Jap POW enclosure. To get the hell out of China, into India, or maybe even Russia.»
«Yeah?»
«And to take our families with us,» Brewer added.
Sweatley knew about Brewer's family. And he knew about Abraham. He had three kids with his Chinese woman, and then she'd up and died on him, and he had stayed in China because of the kids, to take care of them.
«If I was planning something like that, and I'm not saying I am, what I would do is head for India,» Sweatley said. «On horseback. Traveling fast and light across the Altai Mountains into the Gobi Desert and then across it.»
Jesus
, Chief Brewer thought,
that makes him the second person
—
Doto-Si being the first
—
who understands that the only way to get out of China is through the Gobi Desert
.
«Ride horses across sand dunes?» Brewer countered sarcastically.
«Let me tell you something, Chief. The Gobi is mostly rocks, not sand. If you had a car and enough gas, you could drive across the sonofabitch.»
«Then why don't you just drive across it?»
«I thought about it. And did the numbers. For one thing, there's no way I couldcarry that much gas. for another, trucks would be conspicuous. That's the last thing I can afford.»
«You really think a dozen or more Marines on horseback wouldn't be conspicuous?» Abraham asked.
«Meaning what?»
«Meaning you'd be white men in Mongolia.»
«I'll worry about that later. If, I mean, I was thinking about something like this.»
«I've been thinking along the same lines,» Brewer said. «My wife and me, and some other people. My wife is a Mongolian. She knows all about the Gobi Desert.»
«No shit?»
«We're thinking of crossing it in horse-drawn, rubber-tired wagons,» Abraham said.
They were doing more than thinking about it: Three days before, Brewer had sent Doto-Si to Peking in the Oldsmobile, with the kids and one of the bouncers, to go to Baotou to buy wagons.
«And you don't think you're going to stand out as a white man in Mongolia?»
«I've got a Nansen passport,» Brewer said. «It's phony, but I can't tell the difference between it and a real one. I can pass myself off as a White Russian.»
«Uh.»
Brewer's smarter than I thought
, Sweatley thought. I
didn't even think about getting a phony Nansen passport
.
«And I got a Mongolian wife and kids,» Brewer went on. «If I stay in the wagon and let her do the talking, I might not even have to show anybody my Nansen passport.»
«So what do you want from me?» Sweatley asked.
Brewer looked at Abraham, who nodded. Then Brewer took the chance and told Sweatley. «There's ten Yangtze sailors, including me, who stayed here when we went into the Fleet Reserve. All of us are married. Mostly to Chinese, but there's a German wife, and a White Russian. There's two Marines, Abraham and a guy named Brugemann, who used to be the finance sergeant in the Fourth. And, all told, twenty kids. I have also been talking to some soldiers who took their retirement here. There's maybe six, seven of them in Tientsin.»
«Like I said, what do you want from me?»
«We could be useful to each other,» Brewer said.
«You tell me, Sergeant Abraham, how is—what did you say, twelve?—twelve wives and twenty kids going to help me get to India.»
«You know how to navigate?» Chief Brewer asked.
«I know what a compass is,» Sweatley said.
«A compass won't be much help in the middle of the Gobi Desert,» Abraham said. «There's only a few roads, and the Japs will be watching them. You're goingto have to cross the gobi desert the same way you cross an ocean, by celestial navigation, by the stars.»
Sweatley understood that he was being told the truth. And navigating across the Gobi Desert was something else he hadn't given much thought to. Brewer and Abraham obviously had.
«For the third time, what do you want from me?»
«You've seen the wagon train movies,» Chief Brewer said. «Women and children and fanners, protected by cavalry. That's what you're going to be. The Marines, and maybe some of the 15th Infantry soldiers, would be the cavalry. In exchange for that, we'll feed you, and hide you from the Japs and Chinese bandits.»
Sweatley, thinking it over, did not immediately respond.
«The only way to get across the desert is by wagon train,» Abraham argued reasonably. «Or camels. You got any money to buy wagons? You think you could ride a camel?»
«I got some horses,» Sweatley replied. «Including spares. Pack animals.»
«Listen to me. I know what I'm talking about,» Abraham said. «There's no way you can cross the Gobi like you're on some cavalry patrol fighting Indians in the movies. It has to be crossed very slowly, maybe five miles a day. When the weather gets really bad, you don't move at all.»
Brewer joined in the attack. «We're going to have to take our meat with us, on the hoof. When we find water, we'll fill up our water barrels, because we may not find any more for another hundred miles. You getting the picture?»
Sweatley shrugged. «Your wife's a Mongolian?»
«Yeah, and she speaks it, too. Which—correct me if I'm wrong—is something else you don't have, somebody who speaks Khalkha, which is what they call their language. In case you need to ask directions, for example.»
«How do you plan to get from here to the Gobi?»
«By car from here to Baotou…« Abraham said.
«That's where we have the horses,» Sweatley blurted.
»… and then by wagon from there. Across the mountains into Mongolia and into the desert.»
Sweatley grunted, then asked: «How many of the others have Nansen passports? Can you get them for us?»
«Three of us have Nansens,» Brewer replied. «And I've got one more. Blank. All it needs is a picture.»
He means
, Sweatley thought,
that I can have the blank passport. If I join up with him. Him meaning him and the Chink women and half-breed children
.
«How do you know your horses are going to be there when you need them?» Chief Brewer asked.
«Because I got two Marines with Thompson submachine guns up there, living with them in the stable.»
«How are you going to get from here to Baotou when the time comes?» Abraham asked.
«We have two trucks, International ton-and-a-halfs.»
«Two trucks for how many Marines?»
«Nine, not including me. With the two at Baotou, that makes a dozen of us.»
«Supplies?»
«Yeah, we got supplies. That's why we need two trucks.»
«And if one truck breaks down between here and Baotou?»
«Then we move our stuff from the one that broke down to the one that didn't.»
In turn, Chief Brewer was more favorably impressed with Sergeant Sweatley than he expected to be.
For a Marine
, Brewer thought.
Sweatley isn't too slow
.
«What about weapons?» Abraham asked.
«That's a problem,» Sweatley confessed. «All we have, in addition to our individual weapons, is the Thompsons and an air-cooled Browning .30. In Baotou.»
«You can't get any more from the legation?»
«There aren't any more at the legation. We got the Thompsons and the Browning from the Fourth Marines in Shanghai.»
«You heard they've been ordered to the Philippines?» Abraham asked.
Sweatley was surprised. He shook his head, «no.»
«And the Yangtze River gunboats,» Brewer chimed in.
«You know that?»
«One of our guys was a radioman first on the
Panay
,» Brewer said. «He was aboard her—'visiting'—when the word came. He's working on getting us a shortwave radio.»
A shortwave radio
, Sweatley thought,
is something else I didn't think about
.
«Do you know when they're going?»
«It has to be soon,» Brewer said.
«Then we don't have much time to get our wagon train on the road, do we?» Sweatley observed, extending his hand to first to Abraham and then to Brewer.
They left Peking, independently, on 7 December 1941, within hours of hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Taking off was much harder for Sergeant Sweatley than he thought it would be.
It wasn't even going over the hill. Over the hill meant fuck it, I'm going to party until my money runs out or the Shore Patrol finds me, whichever comes first.
What I'm doing is fucking deserting. In time of war, which means they can shoot me if they catch me.
And shoot everybody I'm taking with me.
But the only alternative is not going, which means surrendering, just as soon as the Japs find time to go to the legation. If the Japs don't just line the Marines up and shoot us. Or use us for bayonet practice.
Fuck it, Marines are supposed to fight, not surrender. This way, maybe we can do the flicking Japs some damage, somewhere, somehow, and we sure as hell can't do that if we just put our hands in the air and walk out of the legation and hope they don't shoot us, or bayonet us.
But it was still tough to actually go to the go-down where they had the stolen (and repainted in Marine Green) International trucks, and open the doors and drive away, when everybody knew they were supposed to be in the legation, putting into execution the Plan in the Event of Hostilities.
They had the duty of burning the classified records and smashing the code machine and everything else they didn't want the Japs to get their hands on— including the stock of whisky and wine—and they weren't doing it.
They managed to get out of Peking without trouble, taking back roads to avoid the roadblocks they knew the Japs would set up on the Peking-Changchiak highway. There were roadblocks, of course, but they were manned by Chinese, who were not yet ready to challenge two U.S. Marine Corps trucks guarded by Marines in field gear and steel pots, Springfields at the ready.
It took them a long time, at low speed on dirt or mud back roads, to make it around the Japanese roadblocks and onto the Peking-Changchiak highway beyond them. And it was dark when they reached the Great Wall of China, no more than a hundred miles from Peking. That put them behind schedule, but Sweatley decided it made more sense to stop for the night rather than risk what they might find at the gate in the wall without looking at it first.
At first light, he took a long, good look with a pair of binoculars at the passage through the wall. When he saw only Chinese, no Japs, he decided they could probably bluff their way through this one the same way they'd bluffed their way through the others near Peking.
That worked, too. And by one in the afternoon—five hours after passing through the Great Wall—they were outside Changchiak. There three men stepped into the road to flag them down—scaring Sweatley more than a little. But they turned out to be Chief Brewer, Technical Sergeant Abraham, and Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr., U.S. Army, Retired.
Cawber had brought with him the other retirees from the 15th Infantry, along with their wives and children. One of the wives was a White Russian, and one of them a French woman. They had seven children among them.
Cawber, whom he had not met before, immediately got off on the wrong foot with Sweatley. «You were supposed to be here last night,» he complained in a sour voice.
Deciding to let that pass, Sweatley explained why he had spent the night on the other side of the Great Wall.
«You were supposed to be here last night, Sergeant,» Cawber repeated.
«You better get this straight,» Sweatley snapped. «I don't have to explain a fucking thing to you. So far as I'm concerned, you're just going along for the ride.»
And then Cawber made things worse by trying to tell Sweatley how he thought they should organize the convoy of vehicles.
«You don't listen, do you?» Sweatley said. «I've been running convoys around China for six years, and I don't need a retired Doggie to tell me how to do it.»
Chief Brewer and Technical Sergeant Abraham took Staff Sergeant Cawber aside, and Sweatley proceeded to set up the convoy the way he thought it should be run.
Chief Brewer would head it up in his Oldsmobile, with another car behind him, and a Marine would be in each car. Then would come the first of the Marine trucks, with four Marines in it—including Technical Sergeant Abraham. There were seven other cars. These would follow the first truck, with either a Marine or one of the 15th Infantry retirees, carrying a weapon, in each. Cawber could ride in any of the cars he wanted to. The second Marine truck, carrying Sweatley and the rest of the armed Marines, would be at the tail of the convoy.
That day they met a pretty fair amount of traffic on the road; and because the Great Wall of China made a U-shaped loop to the west, they had to pass through it again. That meant they didn't reach Chining, 150 miles down the highway, until half past seven that evening. As night began to fall, Sweatley made another decision.
When Brewer stopped to talk things over, Sweatley explained that he thought it would be better to keep going and pass through Chining right now, even if it proved difficult to find someplace to stop on the other side in the dark. By morning, he explained, the Chinese might have gotten word to arrest westerners. Sergeant Abraham agreed with Sweatley, and so did Brewer. Even though Staff Sergeant Cawber didn't say anything, Sweatley sensed he didn't like it when Brewer agreed to the plan without asking him.
They spent the night parked by the side of the road. Sweatley put out a perimeter guard and spent most of the night awake, but there was no trouble.
They started moving again at first light, and made the 175 miles to Huhehot by three in the afternoon. On the other side of Huhehot, Brewer stopped the convoy again. There were problems. Three of the eight automobiles were running low on gas. Though Sweatley's trucks had more than enough gasoline, in five-gallon Texaco tin cans, to refuel them, Sweatley was opposed to doing that.
«We're going to abandon the cars in Baotou anyhow,» he said. «Hiding them will be a problem. What we should do is load the people in the trucks and other cars and get rid of the cars here.»
«You're making all the decisions, are you, Sweatley?» Staff Sergeant Cawber asked, sarcastically.
«I'll get rid of my Olds,» Chief Brewer said, nipping the argument in the bud, «and the Packard and the Buick. The more gas we can take with us, the better. And I don't think we can be sure of finding gas in Baotou.»
The supplies the Oldsmobile, Packard, and Buick were carrying were transferred to Sweatley's trucks, while the passengers were distributed among the other cars and trucks. Several miles farther down the road, they came to a narrow trail leading to the left. The cars were abandoned there, out of sight from the road. At Sweatley's suggestion, their ignition keys were left in place, but the Peking license plates were removed.
It began to snow thirty minutes after they resumed their march to Baotou. They reached the city after dark. By then it was covered with snow.
The women and children were put into a go-down Brewer had arranged for, guarded by several of the Marines and soldiers. Meanwhile, the Sick, Lame, and Lazy; the Marines; and the other able-bodied men spent the night at a stable transferring the supplies to the rubber-tired wagons and carts. The cars and trucks were then abandoned—scattered in inconspicuous areas all over Baotou.
Again, the keys were left in the ignition switches. With a little bit of luck, the vehicles would be stolen, and therefore concealed from the authorities.
Chief Brewer and Sergeant Abraham came early the next morning to the stable where Sweatley had spent the night.
«We have a couple of problems,» Brewer said. «The snowfall is heavy; under it is ice. We're going to have trouble moving.»
«We don't have any choice,» Sweatley said. «We have to get out of here before someone turns us in.»
«That's just about what I decided,» Brewer said. «But as part of that problem, the wagons are pretty heavily loaded. Some of them are likely to get stuck.»
«We worry about that when it happens,» Sweatley said. «If necessary, we just dump whatever we can't carry. Anything else?»
«You and Sergeant Cawber.»
«Fuck him.»
«We need him. You're just going to have to get along with him,» Abraham argued softly.
«Tell him.»
«I have.»
«Tell him not to start giving me, or my Marines, orders.»
«I did,» Chief Brewer said. «He said I should tell you the same thing. From now on, you want him to do something, you don't tell him, you tell either Abraham or me. Understood?»
«You're in charge, right?»
«You don't like that?»
«I'll go along with you two, just as long as Cawber doesn't think he's next in line, and over me.»
«Done,» Brewer said. «What we have to do, I think, is elect officers.»
«Elect officers'?»
«We'll talk about that, later. What we have to do now is start to pack essentials on wagons we know won't get stuck.»
»
We
start doing that? You and me and my Marines?»
«Everybody,» Brewer said.
«Okay.»
«The first thing we have to do is decide what has to go and what doesn't.»
What had to go with them was food, the bare necessities of clothing, the air-cooled Browning .30-caliber machine gun, and a gasoline generator and twenty gallons of gasoline to run it.
The Yangtze sailor who had been a radioman first on the
Panay
had a shortwave radio. He didn't know how well it worked, but Brewer thought that they should take it with them. Maybe they could establish contact with a radio station someplace.
They left Baotou eighteen hours later.
It took them a month to reach and cross the Altai mountain range, and then to reach the edges of the Gobi Desert.
There Brewer called a meeting; and here they all agreed to a command structure.
With the election of officers came the division of responsibility. Sweatley and his Marines, plus several able-bodied Yangtze sailors and several of the 15th Infantry retirees, provide the armed force to protect everybody. They'd be, so to speak, «the soldiers.»
The rest—under Staff Sergeant Cawber—would be responsible for feeding everybody.
The «soldiers,» in pairs, mounted on the small Mongolian ponies, went on what amounted to permanent perimeter guard duty. One pair preceded the main body of wagons. One pair moved on each side of the wagon train, left and right. And the fourth pair brought up the rear. Everybody did four hours at a time, but the reliefs were on a staggered schedule. Every two hours, one man was sent out from the caravan to relieve one of the men on each two-man team. No «guard post» was ever unmanned.
Almost as soon as they began their trek, they encountered caravans moving toward China. Most were camel caravans, but a few were like their own with ponies pulling rubber-tired wagons and carts. After the second week, they were overtaken and passed by camel caravans headed toward either India or Russia. On the one hand, they were encouraged that their caravan closely resembled so manyothers. On the other hand, they were surprised at how quickly the camel caravans overtook and passed them. They seemed to move at least twice as fast as their horse-drawn wagons.
It was three weeks before they risked having dealings with the other caravan people. When one of the perimeter guards caught sight of a caravan coming up on them, Brewer's wife and one of the other Chinese women who spoke Khalkha, would wait on the road, and half a dozen Marines would take the air-cooled Browning .30 and hide away in the rocks where they could come to their aid, if necessary. The gold they had went very far, but they didn't have much gold. They bought sheep, goats, and pigs; food for the animals; firewood; and animal fat for their lamps.
One day was much like any other.
Chief Brewer shot the sun with a sextant whenever the night sky was clear. The chart he kept showed their slow movement across the desert. They were making, on average, about five miles a day.
The radioman first did somehow manage to get his shortwave radio working, or so he thought, but there was never a response to his calls.
The women and some of the children spent most of their days scrounging for wood to feed their fires. Some of the larger wagons kept small fires burning inside on the move. People climbed in and out of these wagons to keep warm.
And there were some bad times: One of the 15th Infantry retirees died of a heart attack. The German woman committed suicide after two of her children succumbed to a sickness no one understood. Some people began to talk of just going back into China and turning themselves over to the Japanese. The Jap prison camps were supposed to be truly awful, but they couldn't be much worse than living the way they were now, at the edge of starvation, in bitter cold, and with no real hope of things ever getting better.
So when the first winter snow of 1942 came, Chief Brewer gave permission to three Yangtze River sailors, the chaplain's assistant, and two of the 15th Infantry retirees to take their families back to China. He gave them horses, wagons, and enough food to make the journey.
And then the caravan moved off again, headed for whatever it was whatever-it-was-they-were would find at the far side of the Gobi Desert.
Corporal Douglas J. Cassidy, USMC, formerly of the Marine Guard, U.S. Legation, Peking, China, rode slowly up to the third rubber-tired wagon of the caravan and swung easily out of his lambskin saddle. His horse looked hardly large or sturdy enough to carry the big Marine. Cassidy was wearing an ankle-length sheepskin coat, fur side out, a lambskin hat, the ear flaps tied under his chin, and lambskin boots. A Ml903 Springfield .30-06-caliber rifle hung, muzzle down, from his saddle. A USMC web cartridge belt hung across his chest. He tied the reins of the horse to a rope dangling from the side of the wagon, then climbed up onto it. He pushed aside the double camel skin covering the canvas body of the wagon, ducked his head, and went inside.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light. There were no openings in the body of the wagon except for the one around the chimney over the stove. It was May, but it was still bitterly cold. Since the chimney did not adequately exhaust the smoke, the interior was smoky. An oil taper burning in the center of a table with very short legs provided very little light. The «chairs» for the table were pads of sheepskin.
This wagon, one of the four-wheelers, served as the command post of the caravan. Cassidy was not surprised to find the Chief, Sergeant Abraham, Staff Sergeant Cawber, and Sergeant Sweatley there. One of the four was always in here; often all four of them.
He made his way to the stove and used a government-issue mess cup to ladle tea from a large cast-iron pot into a bowl. Then he used a mess-kit spoon to add brown sugar to it. He took several sips of the tea before looking into the face of Sergeant Abraham.
«Something really weird on the road,» he announced.
«Like what?» Staff Sergeant Cawber asked, not very pleasantly.
«Two wagons, rubber-tired, each with two camels pulling—both rubber-tired, both two-wheelers. Eight more camels. Three men riding the camels.»
«What's strange about that?» Chief Brewer challenged.
«Two women and maybe five, six kids in the wagons,» Cassidy went on. «One of the women is white.»
«How do you know?»
«They stopped for lunch. One of the women watched the fire and the kids while the other went to take a piss. A piss and a crap. The one who took a crap took off her robe when she did it. She was white.»
«Compared to what?» Staff Sergeant Cawber asked.
«Compared to the other one, who was yellow. And shorter. One of them was white.»
«They see you?» Chief Brewer said.
«Yeah,» Cassidy said. «I rode a little ways ahead and stopped, letting them see me, and one of the guys on the camels rode up and took a good look at me. He had a beard, a white beard, so he's probably white, too.»
«And?» Cawber asked impatiently.
«He let me see he had one of them Mauser Broomhandle pistols, the ones with a stock? But he didn't aim it at me or anything. So I just rode off until I was out of sight, and then I come here.»
«What do you think, Sergeant Abraham?» Chief Brewer asked.
«If anybody cares what I think,» Cawber said before Abraham could reply, «we should just let them go their merry way. If there's only that many of them, they probably don't have anything they'd be willing to sell. If Cassidy made sure they didn't see him turn back this way, they don't know we're here. Leave it that way, is what I say.»
«What is a white woman and maybe a white guy with a beard doing out here all alone?» Sergeant Sweatley asked.
«Making a lot better time than we are, Sergeant, I'll tell you that,» Corporal Cassidy said. «If we had camels pulling our wagons, we'd be a lot farther down the road.»
«I mean, what are they up to?»
«Who the fuck cares?» Cawber said.
«Maybe they have something we can use,» Sweatley said.
«And maybe they don't, and maybe they'll just get ahead of us and tell somebody that we're here,» Cawber responded.
«Sweatley, you curious enough to ride out there and have a look for yourself?» Chief Brewer asked Sergeant Sweatley.
«Shit,» Staff Sergeant Cawber said. «The last fucking thing we need around here is another woman, two women, to feed and worry about. Don't start thinking you're the Good Samaritan, Sweatley.»
Sweatley considered the question a minute, then said, «Yeah, I am that curious.»
«Shit,» Staff Sergeant Cawber repeated.
«Take Doto-Si with you,» Chief Brewer said.
«I think I'll have a look myself,» Sergeant Abraham said, rising to his feet.
«Cassidy, you're going to have to show us where they are,» Sergeant Sweatley said.
«I figured,» Corporal Cassidy said.
«Sweatley, you go roll two Marines out of the sack while I go find Doto-Si,» Sergeant Abraham ordered.
Father Boris saw the six riders on Mongolian ponies and didn't like it.
Two hours before he had seen the large man with a rifle, and now he was back, with four other men and what looked like a woman—all armed with rifles.
We are in God's palm
, Father Boris decided.
Whatever happens will happen
.
Turning the camel, he rode back to the first wagon and told Mae Su what he had seen. Both times.
«I will come with you,» she said, and reined in the camels pulling her wagon.
Father Boris brought his camel to its knees and slid off, then went to one of the camels tied behind Mae Su's wagon and tightened its saddle cinch and brought it to its knees.
By then Mae Su was out of the wagon, carrying her Broomhandle Mauser and a blanket. She climbed onto the camel and got it to its feet, then concealed the machine pistol under the blanket.
They rode toward the four horsemen and the woman. Their small Mongolian ponies were standing in a line halfway up a gentle rise.
It took them five minutes to get within shouting distance.
«We come in peace,» Father Boris announced, and then he realized that the five men were all white. Their faces were mostly hidden by scarves. But their skin was white, and they had Caucasian features.
«You are the Americans we have been hearing about,» Father Boris said.
«Who the fuck are you?» Sergeant Sweatley demanded.
«I am a servant of God, a priest, my son,» Father Boris said.
«You are Americans?» Mae Su asked.
«Who are you?» Sergeant Abraham asked courteously.
«I am the wife of Sergeant Ernest Zimmerman, Fourth Marines,» Mae Su said.
«You said 'Ernie Zimmerman'?» Sweatley asked, obviously surprised.
«Yes,» Mae Su said.
«We talking about the same guy? Used to run the motor convoys out of Shanghai?»
«Sergeant Ernie Zimmerman,» Mae Su repeated, nodding her head.
«Shit, I knew him,» Corporal Cassidy said.
«I'm Technical Sergeant Abraham, retired from the Fourth Marines,» Abraham announced formally. «And these are Marines from the guard detachment, at the U.S. legation in Peking.»
«What are you doing out here?» Corporal Cassidy asked.
«Probably, my son, doing the same thing you are,» Father Boris said. «Trying to leave China, perhaps go to India.»
«How many of you are there?»
«Two of the priest's men, Chinese,» Mae Su said. «Another woman. And our children. How many are there of you?»
«Twelve Marines, some soldiers, and some Yangtze River sailors,» Sweatley said. «And wives and children.»
«In numbers there is strength, my son,» Father Boris said.
«The other woman. She's white?»
«She is Russian,» Father Boris said.
«She is the wife of Captain Edward J. Banning, of the Fourth Marines,» Mae Su said.
«How is it she didn't get out of China with the other officer's dependents?» Abraham asked.
«Because she is a Russian,» Mae Su said.
«You mean a Nansen passport Russian,» Abraham said.
«Yes,» Mae Su said.
«If you're thinking what I think you're thinking. Sergeant. I'm with you. Fuck Cawber,» Corporal Cassidy said. «Ernie Zimmerman is one of us.»
«Yeah, me too,» another of the Marines said. Abraham looked at the second Marine. «Yeah, me too, Sergeant.»
Sergeant Abraham looked at Sweatley, then kicked his little pony and cantered toward the two small wagons below him.
A .45 Colt automatic pistol appeared in an opening of the canvas of the second wagon, aimed at his midsection.
«Mrs. Banning?» Sergeant Abraham asked.
After a pause, in a faint voice, the Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov replied, «I am Mrs. Edward J. Banning.»
Sergeant Sweatley trotted up on his little pony. Sergeant Abraham turned to look at him, then turned back to Milla. He saluted. «Technical Sergeant Abraham, ma'am. United States Marine Corps.»
Sweatley saluted. «Sergeant Sweatley, ma'am. I know the Captain, ma'am.» The flap opened and Milla was visible. She had the pistol at her side now. She held her baby with her other arm. Tears ran down her cheeks.
I
am the daughter of an officer and the wife of an officer. I must not lose control.
«How do you do?» Milla said formally. «I am pleased to meet you. This is Captain Banning's and my son, Edward Edwardovich.»
«Is he all right, ma'am?» Sergeant Abraham asked.
«He's fine, thank you.»
«What we're going to do now, ma'am, is take you to the caravan. You'll be better off with us, I think, than out here by yourself.»
«Thank you.»
Sergeant Sweatley thought of something else. «There's another Russian lady, ma'am,» he said, and then reconsidered that. «Well, maybe not a lady, she's married to an old Yangtze River patrol sailor. But at least she's Russian.»
«I look forward to meeting her,» Mrs. Edward J. Banning said.
Chapter Eighteen
note 68
Base Operations
Memphis Naval Air Station
Memphis, Tennessee
0815 28 March 1943
Admiral Jesse Ball's aide-de-camp arrived at the Peabody Hotel at 0715 with instructions to present both the Admiral's compliments and his regrets to Major General D. G. Mclnerney, USMC, and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, that he would be unable to join them for breakfast. «The Admiral,'» the aide said, «will of course be at base operations for your departure, which we have scheduled for 0815.»
«You don't suppose ol» Jesse is a little hungover, do you, Flem?» General Mclnerney inquired of General Pickering.
«If he's not, he should be,» Pickering replied. «I feel terrible.»
The new stars on General Mclnerney's shoulders had been well and truly wet down by his old friends.
Admiral Ball's aide then informed the two generals that the Admiral had sent his staff car to transport them and their aides to the air station, and that he further suggested that Captain Dunn and Lieutenant Pickering travel to base operations in their privately owned vehicles. The night before, since Dunn had been in the apartment he shared with Lieutenant Pickering in the Peabody, he had been able to participate in the wetting down of General Mclnerney's new stars.
«The Admiral, Captain, expressed the desire that you be there to see the Generals off,» Admiral Ball's aide said.
«Of course,» Captain Billy Dunn said.
In point of fact, Admiral Ball was a little hungover, but that was not the reason he did not take breakfast with his old friends. He had a little ceremony to arrange, and he wanted it to go off without a hitch.
When the Admiral's staff car, followed by Captain Billy Dunn's Oldsmobile and Lieutenant Pickering's Cadillac, pulled up before base operations, a Navy captain in dress uniform, complete to sword, bellowed, «Atten-hut!»
Three squadrons of sailors and three of Marines came from Parade Rest to Attention. The sailors were separated from the Marines by a ten-man Marine flag guard. The national color was in the center, with the flags of the U.S. Navy and the USMC to either side. To the left of the Navy flag was Admiral Ball's two-starred blue flag, and to the right of the Marine Corps flag were the red starred flags to which Generals Mclnerney and Pickering were entitled.
«Sound off!» the Navy captain bellowed, as General Mclnerney stepped out of the Admiral's staff car.
The Memphis Naval Air Station band struck up the Navy hymn. Admiral Ball marched up to Generals Mclnerney and Pickering, and saluted them with his sword.
«Will the Generals honor me by trooping the line?» he inquired. «I would be honored,» General Mclnerney said, and added softly, so that no one but Admiral Ball could hear him, «Goddamn you, Jesse.»
With General Mclnerney in the place of honor, and Admiral Ball and General Pickering trailing after him, the flag officers marched off to troop the line.
After thinking about it a moment, Captain William Dunn trotted quickly to the formation and took up his position as commanding officer before the assembled Marines of VMF-262.
Smiling broadly. Lieutenant Pickering, who was attired in a leather flight jacket but now wearing a fore-and-aft cap, leaned against the fender of his Cadillac and watched the proceedings.
With the trooping of the line completed, Admiral Ball led Generals Mclnerney and Pickering into base operations.
The band segued into «Stars and Stripes Forever,» and the Navy captain and his staff marched to a position at the head of the Navy troops.
«Right face!» the Navy captain bellowed, and when the sailors and Marines had turned, bellowed «For-ward, h-arch!»
The parade moved around the base operations building to the parking ramp.
Lieutenant Pickering went into base operations.
It took just a minute or two for General Mclnerney to put on a flight suit and to have a quick—but thorough—look at the flight plan for his flight to Pensacola. The Memphis NAS pilot who would be the copilot for the R4-D's flight to Chicago also had a flight plan prepared for the approval of Lieutenant Sylvester, who would be the pilot-in-command.
A Corsair and the R4-D were parked right in front of base operations. There was a red flag with a single white star flapping from a small staff beside the pilot's side window of the R4-D.
«Come see us anytime, General,» Admiral Ball said to General Mclnerney.
«Thanks, Jesse,» General Mclnerney said. He was obviously touched. He shook Admiral Ball's hand and then General Pickering's. «Take care of yourself, Flem,» he said. «And good luck!»
«You, too, Mac,» Pickering said.
General Mclnerney offered his hand to Lieutenant Pickering.
«It was good to see you, Pick,» he said. «Keep up the good work.»
Good work, my ass
, Admiral Ball thought, but he smiled.
«Thank you, sir,» Pick said. «It was good to see you, sir.»
General Mclnerney nodded, then walked toward the Corsair.
The band began to play «The Marines' Hymn,» and kept playing it until General Mclnerney climbed into the Corsair and fired up its engine, and until General Pickering—who embraced his son quickly before walking to the R4-D—was aboard. Then the band began playing «Auld Lang Syne.»
In the cockpit of the Corsair, General Mclnerney waited for the needles to move into the green, then looked at Admiral Ball, saluted, and started taxiing. A moment later, the R4-D began moving.
Pick waved at his father.
General Mclnerney turned onto the active runway and immediately began his takeoff roll. As soon as he had broken ground, the R4-D began to roll. Once airborne, the R4-D took up a course for Chicago. The Corsair, which had made a shallow climbing turn to the left after takeoff, now headed back to the field. It flashed over the field at 250 feet, with its throttles to the firewall, and then pointed its nose skyward. At 5,000 feet, it entered a layer of clouds and disappeared.
Admiral Ball walked over to Lieutenant Pickering.
«I think General Mclnerney enjoyed all this, don't you, Lieutenant? And your father, too, of course?»
«Yes, sir. I'm sure they did.»
«And what about you, Lieutenant. Did you enjoy it?»
«Very much, sir.»
«And last night? Did you have a good time last night?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Commit it to memory, you disgrace to the uniform you're wearing. It will be the last thing you'll enjoy for a hell of a long time.»
«Sir?»
Two Marines with Shore Patrol brassards on their sleeves, one of them a technical sergeant, marched up and saluted Admiral Ball.
«This officer is under arrest,» Admiral Ball said. «Escort him to his quarters— his
on-base
quarters—and when he has changed into the prescribed uniform, bring him to my office.»
«Aye, aye, sir,» the technical sergeant said. «This way, please, Lieutenant.»
note 69
Office of the Base Commander
Memphis Naval Air Station
Memphis, Tennessee
0910 29 March 1943
Three Marines, two of them wearing shore patrol brassards and armed with .45 –caliber pistols, marched in a line into the base commander's office.
«Detail, halt,» the Marine technical sergeant ordered, then «Detail, left FACE!» The three were now facing Rear Admiral Jesse Ball, USN. «Sir…« the technical sergeant barked as he saluted.
Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, started to raise his hand in a reflex action to salute, but catching something in Admiral Ball's eyes—a look of contemptuous surprise—stopped with his arm half up and lowered it.
»… Technical Sergeant Franz reporting to the Admiral with the prisoner as ordered, sir,» the technical sergeant finished.
Admiral Ball returned the salute. «Leave the prisoner and stand by in the outer office,» he ordered.
«Aye, aye, sir!» the technical sergeant barked, then went on. «Guard detail, one: step backward, ha-arch! Right, FACE! Forward, ha-arch!»
The two Shore Patrolmen marched out of the room.
Lieutenant Pickering remained at attention, facing Admiral Ball.
«Pickering, prisoners are denied the privilege of saluting,» Admiral Ball said conversationally. «That's something you might wish to keep in mind.»
«Yes, sir,» Lieutenant Pickering said.
«Have you any idea why I have placed you under arrest, Mr. Pickering?»
«No, sir.»
«I have the odd feeling, perhaps naively, that you may possess one—one only—of the characteristics required of an officer in the Naval Service,» Admiral Ball said. «You may not be a liar. Are you a liar, Mr. Pickering? Are you capable of answering a question put to you truthfully?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Yes, sir, which? Yes, you are a liar? Or yes, you will answer a question bearing on your fitness to be an officer truthfully?»
«Sir, I am not a liar. I will answer any question put to me truthfully.»
«Well, then, let's put that to the test. Mr. Pickering, it has been alleged that you have had on several occasions carnal knowledge of a female who is not only not your wife but is married to someone else. Specifically, one Elizabeth-Sue Megham, sometimes known as Mrs. Quincy T. Megham, Jr. Do these allegations have any basis in fact?»
«Sir, I was raised to believe that a gentleman does not discuss—«
«Don't hand me any crap about you being a gentleman, you miserable sonofabitch!"' Admiral Ball exploded furiously. «Have you. or have you not, been fucking this banker's wife?»
«Yes, sir,» Pick said.
«Knowing that she was a married woman?»
«Yes, sir.»
«The basis of all law in what we think of as the Western world, Mr. Pickering, is generally agreed to be the Old Testament. In the Old Testament it is recorded that Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying in his arms two stone tablets on which God himself had etched a number of rules by which God-fearing men were to conduct their lives. Are you familiar with that story, Mr. Pickering?»
«Yes, sir.»
«These ten rules, which came to be called the Ten Commandments, provide for God-fearing people a list of some things they are supposed to do and some things they are not supposed to do. Are you familiar with the Ten Commandments, Mr. Pickering?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Two of them have a special meaning for us here today. One of them is 'thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days,' et cetera, et cetera. Are you familiar with that particular commandment, Mr. Pickering?»
«Yes, sir.»
«I'm told you are an imaginative young man. 1 believe that. When you told the flight safety officer that you weren't even aware you had barrel rolled over the control tower because you had an oil-pressure warning light at the time, and were devoting all of your attention to that problem, now. that was imaginative. You were lying through your goddamned teeth, of course, but it was imaginative.»
«Yes, sir.»
«You admit that you lied to the flight safety officer?»
«I didn't think of it as a lie at the time, sir.»
«Goddamn you!» Admiral Ball exploded again. «Did you lie to the flight safety officer or not?»
«Yes, sir. I lied about that.»
«For your general fund of knowledge, Mr. Pickering, the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service, to which you are subject, provide that any officer who knowingly and willfully utters any statement he knows to be untrue shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.»
«Yes, sir.»
«We were talking about your imagination, Mr. Pickering. Can you imagine which of the Ten Commandments in addition to the 'thou shalt honor thy father' one has an application here today?»
«No, sir.»
«You mean you really don't know? Or, sniveling little smart-ass that you are, you're afraid to say?»
«The one concerned with adultery, sir?»
«Thou shalt not commit adultery,' « Admiral Ball said. «Now, that seems a simple enough order to me. 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' It means you shouldn't screw somebody else's wife. Was that commandment beyond your comprehension, Mr. Pickering?»
«No, sir.»
«But you disobeyed it anyway, right?»
«Yes, sir.»
«The next real codification of the law as we know it, to the best of my understanding, Mr. Pickering, was the Magna Carta, granted by his Majesty King John of England, Ireland, Scotland, et cetera, et cetera, to his nobles at Runnymede in June in the Year of Our Lord one thousand two hundred and fifteen. Are you familiar with the Magna Carta, Mr. Pickering?»
«Somewhat, sir.»
«Goddamn you, you sniveling pup, don't waffle with me! Yes, goddamnit, or no?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Then you are doubtless aware, Mr. Pickering, that the Magna Carta is the basis of what we think of as English common law?»
«Yes, sir.»
«And that when the Founding Fathers of this great republic of ours got around to writing the laws for it, they incorporated much of English Common law? Except that we pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States and the country for which it stands, et cetera, et cetera, instead of to the English monarch. You do have that straight in your head, Mr. Pickering?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Then possibly you are also aware that the duly elected officials of this great republic of ours, recognizing that the basic law provided for the ordinary citizens of this great republic of ours was not really adequate to govern its navy, came up with what we call the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service. You are familiar with that, Mr. Pickering?»
«Yes, sir.»
«And you are aware that you, as a Marine, are subject to it?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Then perhaps you can tell me what the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service has to say about what you can do with the physiological symbol of your gender?»
«Sir?»
«Where you may insert your pecker, Mr. Pickering.»
«No, sir.»
«Are you trying to plead ignorance of the law, you miserable little prick?»
«No, sir.»
«Ignorance of the law is no defense, Mr. Pickering. You might wish to make note of that.»
«Yes, sir.»
«It says—this is not a direct quote, but it's close enough—that anybody who has carnal knowledge of—sticks his pecker into—any woman to whom he is not lawfully joined in holy matrimony shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.»
«Yes, sir.»
«Were you aware of that, Mr. Pickering?»
«No, sir, I was not.»
«I am not surprised. Now, in addition to providing suitable punishment for someone who can't keep his pecker in his pocket, the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service makes special provision for those whom Congress has seen fit to declare officers and gentlemen. Are you aware of any of these provisions, Mr. Pickering?»
«No, sir.»
«I am not surprised. Let me enlighten you. The Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service provide that any officer found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.»
«Yes, sir.»
«Did you really believe, Mr. Pickering, that doing a barrel roll over my airfield's control tower, endangering not only the lives of the fine sailors performing their duty therein, but also the valuable aircraft with which you had been entrusted, was conduct
becoming
an officer and a gentleman?»
«Sir, I didn't think about it in quite those terms.»
«Did you, for some perverse reason, think that handing the flight safety officer that bullshit about having all your attention on an oil-pressure warning light was conduct
becoming
an officer and a gentleman?»
«No, sir.»
«But you did believe that hiding your salami in this banker's lonely and probably sexually unsatisfied wife was in keeping with behavior of a Marine officer and gentleman? That you were, perhaps, performing some sort of public service? Keeping up morale on the home front?»
«No, sir.»
«You didn't think it was conduct becoming an officer? And a gentleman?»
«The truth, sir, is that I didn't give it much thought.»
«You may have guessed, Mr. Pickering, that I don't like you very much,» Admiral Ball said.
«Yes, sir.»
«One of the reasons I don't like you is because, in the short time I have been privileged to know him, it is apparent that your father is a fine Marine. Cast from the same mold as my old friend General Mclnerney. I would have had a fine time last night, celebrating the promotion of my old friend, and in the company of another fine Marine, if you hadn't been there, you miserable pimple on a Marine Corps PFC's ass.
«How, I asked myself, is it possible that a fine man, a fine Marine officer such as General Pickering, holder of the nation's second-highest decoration for valor— a man decorated for valor in both world wars, a Marine who has
shed blood
in both world wars, a man who enjoys the confidence of the Commander in Chief himself, can have spawned such a miserable, irresponsible, amoral, useless son-ofabitch like you?»
He glowered at Lieutenant Pickering.
«Any comment, Mr. Pickering? How can this have happened?»
«No comment, sir.»
«May I hazard a guess what's running through that probably diseased mind of yours at this moment?»
«Yes, sir.»
«You are thinking, I will bet ten dollars to a doughnut, something along these lines: 'Doesn't this old bastard realize that I myself am something of a hero? I stand before him a veteran of Guadalcanal, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, a superb fighter pilot who has shot down seven enemy aircraft, and managed to shed a little of my own blood in the process.' Were you thinking something along those lines, Mr. Pickering?»
«Sir, I'm proud of my service with VMF-229,» Lieutenant Pickering said uncomfortably. «I like to think I did my duty on Guadalcanal, sir.»
«Let me tell you what I think of your service with VMF-229, Mr. Pickering,» Admiral Ball said. «First of all, God gave you more hand-eye coordination than he saw fit to give other people. Since you had nothing to do with that, you can't take pride in it. Your hand-eye coordination, from God, gives you the ability to fly airplanes better than most people. But you really shouldn't take pride in that. You are, of course, aware of the study, vis-a-vis pilots, conducted by the University of California?»
«No, sir,» Lieutenant Pickering said, confused.
«The behavioral scientists at the University of California, after extensive research, concluded that the best human material to train to be a pilot are classified intellectually as cretins. Do you know what a cretin is, Mr. Pickering?»
«No, sir.»
«A cretin is a high level moron,» Admiral Ball said. «Judging by your behavior outside the cockpit, it fits you to a T. So you went to Guadalcanal, God havingmade you a cretin, and the Marine Corps having seen fit to put you in a cockpit, and you got lucky. God, it is said, takes care of fools and drunks, and you obviously qualify for His special concern on both counts. You managed to shoot down seven of the enemy, and—to be fair about this—the enemy pilots were probably divided, say four and three, into the incompetent and the unlucky.
«And then you came home, Mr. Pickering, entrusted by the Marine Corps to train other Marine Aviators in the techniques of aerial combat. To train is to lead. How is the best way to lead, Mr. Pickering?»
«I'm not sure I understand the Admiral's question, sir.»
«The best way to train, Mr. Pickering, the best way to lead, is by example. You might make note of that, since it apparently never occurred to you before.»
«Yes, sir.»
«And what sort of example did you set for the young Marines entrusted to your hands to lead, Mr. Pickering? You made it perfectly clear to the men entrusted to your care that the way to become a splendid Marine fighter pilot like you is to ignore any regulations you find it inconvenient to obey; to spend as much time as possible racing, over the speed limit, out of uniform, between bars; to endanger the lives of enlisted men by barrel-rolling over the base control tower; to lie through your teeth to flight safety officers and other officers; and finally, to hide your salami in the first married woman you could entice to raise her skirt, without one goddamned thought about the trouble this might cause for her, for her husband, for me, and for the United States Marine Corps, which for reasons I don't pretend to understand, thought you had the character of an officer and a gentleman, and gave you a commission.»
Admiral Ball met Lieutenant Pickering's eyes for a full sixty seconds, which seemed to be much longer.
«Would you say, Mr. Pickering, that the foregoing was an accurate assessment of the situation?»
«Yes, sir,» Lieutenant Pickering said. «Sir—«
Admiral Ball raised his hand to silence him. «I have several options open to me,» Admiral Ball said. «One of which, I am sure, you devious sonofabitch, has already occurred to you.»
«Sir?»
«The Marine Corps has been sending some of its misfit aviators—fuckups of your ilk, Mr. Pickering—to a squadron based in Hawaii. There is a shortage of fighter pilots in the Pacific, Mr. Pickering, and the reasoning is that it is better to try to salvage these ne'er-do-wells, these disgraces to the uniform, and utilize their flying skills, rather than send them to the Portsmouth Naval Prison. Wiseass that you are, I am confident that you are thinking, 'Fine, let the old bastard send me to VMF-229. Charley Galloway is the skipper, and he appreciates what a fine fellow and all-around splendid aviator I am.» Did that thought occur to you, Mr. Pickering?»
«Sir, if I could be transferred to VMF-229…«
«Transferring you to VMF-229 is not one of the options available to me, you miserable sonofabitch. I know Charley Galloway too. I have known him for years, I think what the Marine Corps is doing to him is disgraceful, and I am not going to add to his burden by sending him a miserable excuse for a human being like you to baby-sit.» He let that sink in.
«Neither am I going to take you off flight status and send you to Quantico for retraining as an infantry officer. For that matter, as a platoon leader in a mess-kit repair company. You are not fit to command men.
«That leaves me with very few other options. One of them is to offer you the chance to resign for the good of the service, which would make you immediately available for the draft. Unfortunately, you might be drafted back into the Marine Corps as a private, or, God forbid, into the U.S. Navy as an apprentice seaman, and I wouldn't want that on my conscience.
«Similarly, while six months or a year in the Portsmouth Naval Prison—I believe the penalty for unlawful carnal knowledge is five years at hard labor, but I have been told that prisoners are being released early—might give you an opportunity to ruminate on your behavior, I am reluctant to do that, too. The idea of you sitting in a warm cell, eating three hot meals a day while good and decent men are being sent in harm's way, offends my sense of right and wrong.
«Furthermore, if I send you off in irons to Portsmouth, your father would be distressed. And probably General Mclnerney, too—why he likes you is a deep mystery to me. Your father would be ashamed and humiliated. As I said, I like your father.»
Admiral Ball let this sink in a moment.
«Going back to my observation that God takes care of fools and drunks like you, and what I said about there being a shortage of pilots, there is one other option available to me.»
«Yes, sir?»
«General Mclnerney has a requirement for twin-engine, R4-D or PB Y-5A, aviators. He was not at liberty to divulge the nature of the operation, except to say that it was somewhere in the Pacific and involves an unusual degree of risk to the participants.»
«I have some R4-D time, sir.»
«So I understand,» Admiral Ball said. «But no PB Y-5A time, as I understand it?»
«No, sir.»
«My problem in offering you the chance to volunteer for General Mclnerney's operation—glossing over, for the moment, your manifold character weaknesses—is that if I send you, you might be more trouble to the people involved than you would be worth. This mission does not need fuckups, Mr. Pickering, and you have proved yourself to be a world-class fuckup.»
«Sir, am I being offered the chance to volunteer for this mission?»
«I'll have to give that some serious thought,» Admiral Ball said. «Right now. on a scale of one to ten, your chances that I will are hovering around two. If you're looking for advice, what I would do in your shoes is get a copy of the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service and see what you can learn about defending yourself in a court-martial.»
«Sir, I'll do anything to keep flying.»
«Marine officers don't beg,» Admiral Ball said. «God, you are a disgusting specimen of a human being!»
Admiral Ball pushed the lever on his intercom.
«Send the guard detail in here,» he ordered. «And if my aide is out there, send him in, too.»
The Marine guards marched into the room.
«Take the prisoner to his quarters,» Admiral Ball ordered. «Post a guard outside his door. Arrange for his meals to be brought to him from the enlisted mess. See that he's provided with a copy of the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service.»
«Aye, aye, sir,» Technical Sergeant Kranz barked. «Prisoner, one step backward, h-arch.» Lieutenant Pickering took one step backward. «About-FACE! Forward, h-arch.»
Preceded by one Marine Shore Patrolman and trailed by Technical Sergeant Krantz, Lieutenant Pickering marched out of Admiral Ball's office.
Admiral Ball waited until the door was closed before looking at his aide. «God, Marines!» he said. «They're never anything but trouble. If we didn't need them to fight wars, there would be a bounty on them!»
«Yes, sir,» his aide said.
«Call flight scheduling,» Admiral Ball ordered. «Lay on a PBY-5A, and the best IP on the base for 0730 tomorrow. Tell him I want Pickering qualified in the PBY5-A as fast as possible—I don't care if they fly ten hours a day—and to give me daily reports on his progress. And then send a TWX to General Mclnerney's office telling him I think, repeat think, I will have a PBY-5A volunteer for him in a week.»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
Admiral Ball then reached for his telephone and dialed a number. He worked his way through the switchboard of the Planter's Bank & Trust Company of Memphis, and then a secretary, and finally got Braxton V. Lipscomb on the phone.
«Brax, Jesse. That little problem we had? Romeo and Juliet? It's fixed. No further problem, Brax.»
note 70
Naval Air Transport Command
U.S. Naval Base
Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii
1715 2 April 1943
Major Jake Dillon, USMCR, leaned against the fender of a 1941 Ford station wagon, with the logo of Pacific & Far East Shipping painted on its doors, and watched as the huge four-engine NATC Coronado with Brigadier General Fleming Pickering aboard splashed down at Pearl Harbor. Parked beside the Ford were a General Motors two-and-a-half-ton canvas-bodied truck and the Plymouth staff car assigned to Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam, USN, of the CINCPAC staff. A detail of white hats had sought shelter from the brass hats by stationing themselves at the rear of the truck.
Admiral Wagam was in the backseat of his Plymouth, using his briefcase as a desk. His aide, Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, USN, was leaning on the Plymouth's fender.
When the Coronado was safely down, Lewis went to the rear window of the Plymouth and told Admiral Wagam, who nodded, glanced out the window, and returned his attention to his paperwork. He knew it would be a good five minutes before the passengers could be ferried ashore, and five minutes was precious.
Wagam had come to the terminal to see if he could hasten Pickering, whose time was also valuable, and the cargo—which he knew Pickering would insist on seeing through the bureaucratic process—through deembarkation.
As the first of the barges sent to off-load the Coronado's passengers and cargo reached the wharf, a black 1939 Cadillac pulled in beside the Ford and stopped.
Admiral Wagam saw it out of the corner of his eye and recognized it. It was the staff car assigned to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC. Wagam hurriedly stuffed his papers into his briefcase and got out of the car.
Nimitz was not in his car. Captain Kurt Groscher heaved himself out of the backseat. In Wagam's view, Groscher was the brightest of the intelligence officers on the CINCPAC staff.
When he saw Wagam, he saluted.
«What brings you here, Groscher?» Wagam asked, as he returned the salute.
«The Boss wants to see General Pickering,» Groscher said.
«Am I allowed to ask about what?»
«You're allowed to
ask
, Admiral,» Groscher said with a smile.
«Okay, fellas, let's go,» Lieutenant Lewis said to the work detail, and led them toward the pier.
Major Jake Dillon walked up to Admiral Wagam and Captain Groscher and saluted.
«Do you know Major Dillon, Captain?» Admiral Wagam asked.
«Only by reputation,» Groscher said. «How's the refueling project going?»
Dillon didn't reply.
«Captain Groscher, Major,» Admiral Wagam said, «not only knows everything about everything but, more important, is considered to have the Need To Know everything about everything.»
Dillon shrugged. «We're just about finished installing some auxiliary fuel tanks in one of the Catalinas,» he said. «We'll test that. Them. If that works, we'll put tanks in the other one.»
«And if it doesn't?» Groscher asked.
«We'll try something else,» Dillon said.
«I don't have to tell you the Boss is personally interested in this project,» Groscher said. «Is there anything you need?»
«No, sir,» Dillon said.
«There he is,» Wagam said, as Brigadier General Pickering and Lieutenant Hart came onto the wharf. The three walked toward them. Salutes were exchanged.
«I trust the General is pleased with the reception he is being given?» Dillon said jokingly.
«Actually, Jake, I'm a little disappointed. When I left Memphis—I stopped in to see Pick—there were troops lined up and a band playing 'The Marines' Hymn.' «
«Really?»
«Mac Mclnerney flew me up there,» Pickering said, more to Wagam than Dillon. «The base commander turned out to be an old pal of his.»
«Jesse Ball,» Wagam said.
«Right. We wetted down Mac's new stars together.»
«I'm surprised you could get on an airplane after a night with those two,» Wagam said.
«Admiral Nimitz's compliments, General,» Captain Groscher said. «The Admiral would be pleased if you could see him at your earliest convenience.»
Pickering looked at Wagam.
«I'll handle things here, Fleming,» Wagam said. «The Admiral does not like to be kept waiting.»
«I don't want that equipment to disappear somewhere,» Pickering said.
«Where do you want it? Ewa?»
«That would mean we'd have to bring it back here when we need it,» Pickering said. «But on the other hand, it probably wouldn't disappear at Ewa.»
«It will be at Ewa, under guard, in an hour or so.»
«Let's go, Captain,» Pickering said, then called to Lieutenant Hart. «George, go with the equipment to Ewa. Find Lieutenant Colonel Dawkins, and tell him I would regard it as a personal favor if he put this stuff somewhere safe, and under guard. Then I'll see you—and you, too, Jake—at Muku-Muku.»
«Aye, aye, sir,» Hart said.
Pickering got into the Cadillac.
The car had barely started to move when Captain Groscher reached into the interior pocket of his tunic and handed Pickering a sealed—but not addressed or otherwise marked—envelope.
«I thought it would be better if you were familiar with these before you saw the Admiral,» Groscher said. «The one from Marshall came in two days ago; the one from Donovan this morning.»
Pickering tore open the envelope and took off two sheets of paper and read them.
T O P S E C R E T
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
WASHINGTON
0900 30 MARCH 1943
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
CINCPAC HAWAII
EYES ONLY ADMIRAL CHESTER W. NIMITZ
FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM CHIEF OF STAFF US ARMY TO CINCPAC
DEAR CHESTER:
THE MESSAGES ATTACHED TO THIS ARE FOR YOUR INFORMATION, BUT OF GREAT IMPORTANCE AS WELL TO BRIG GEN PICKERING WHO IS PRESENTLY ENROUTE TO HAWAII. PLEASE SEE THAT HE SEES THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE ON HIS ARRIVAL. HIS EXPLAINING THE BACKGROUND TO ALL OF THIS MAKES MORE SENSE TO ME THAN TRYING TO DO SO IN A MESSAGE OF THIS TYPE.
BEST PERSONAL REGARDS GEORGE
END PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM CHIEF OF STAFF US ARMY TO CINCPAC
ATTACHMENT ONE
COPY OF MESSAGE FROM CHIEF OF STAFF USARMY TO COMMANDING GENERAL
US MILITARY MISSION TO CHINA.
T O P S E C R E T
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
WASHINGTON
0900 30 MARCH 1943
COMMMANDING GENERAL
USMILMISSCHINA CHUNGKING
EYES ONLY LTGEN JOSEPH STILLWELL, USA
1. IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU WILL RELIEVE MAJGEN FREDERICK T. DEMPSEY AND BRIGGEN J.R. NEWLEY OF THEIR DUTIES. THESE OFFICERS ARE TO BE PLACED IN ARREST IN QUARTERS STATUS PENDING FURTHER ACTION BY THE JCS. THEY ARE TO BE DENIED ACCESS TO ANY COMMUNICATIONS FACILITY UNDER YOUR CONTROL, AND YOU WILL PERSONALLY CENSOR ANY OUTGOING PERSONAL MAIL THESE OFFICERS WISH TO DISPATCH.
2. COLONEL (BRIGGEN DESIGNATE)HULIT A. ALBRIGHT, SIGC, USA, IS PRESENTLY ENROUTE BY AIR FROM WASHINGTON DC TO USMMCHI. BRIGGEN(DES) ALBRIGHT IS CARRYING WITH HIM A LETTER FROM ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY, CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE PRESIDENT, TO YOU WHICH WILL EXPLAIN THE NECESSITY OF THE ACTION DIRECTED IN PARA 1 ABOVE. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU NAME BRIGGENCDES) ALBRIGHT AS SIGNAL OFFICER, USMMCHI.
3. COLONEL JOHN J. WATERSON, USA, OF THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES IS PRESENTLY ENROUTE BY AIR FROM BRISBANE AUSTRALIA TO CHUNGKING. COL WATERSON HAS BEEN PROVIDED WITH A COPY OF ADMIRAL LEAHY'S LETTER TO YOU (PARA 2 ABOVE) AND DIRECTED TO PRESENT IT TO YOU IMMEDIATELY ON HIS ARRIVAL. THE INTENTION WAS TO GET ADM LEAHY'S LETTER TO YOU INTO YOUR HANDS AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE TIME.
4. BRIGEN FLEMING PICKERING, USMCR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR PACIFIC OPERATIONS, THE OFFJCE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES, IS PRESENTLY EN ROUTE BY AIR TO USMMCHI VIA PEARL HARBOR. IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT EITHER OR BOTH BRIGEN(DES) ALBRIGHT AND COL WATERSON WILL REACH CHUNGKING BEFORE BRIGGEN PICKERING, BUT BRIG GEN PICKERING HAS BEEN ORDERED TO REPORT TO YOU PERSONALLY ON HIS ARRIVAL IN ORDER TO EXPLAIN THE NECESSITY OF THE ACTIONS DESCRIBED IN PARA 1 AND TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE.
5. THE CONTENTS OF THIS MESSAGE ARE TO BE MADE KNOWN TO LT COL EDWARD J. BANNING, USMC, PRESENTLY IN CHUNGKING, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
6. EVERY EFFORT SHOULD BE MADE TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER WITHIN USMMCHI. IF IT IS NECESSARY TO INVOLVE CINC CHINA THEATER OF OPERATIONS, JCS WILL BE NOTIFIED BY SPECIAL CHANNEL.
GEORGE C MARSHALL
GENERAL, US ARMY
CHIEF OF STAFF, USARMY
T O P S E C R E T
T O P S E C R E T
THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
WASHINGTON
1615 1 APRIL 1943
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
CINCPAC HAWAII
EYES ONLY ADMIRAL CHESTER W. NIMITZ
FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM DIRECTOR OSS TO CINCPAC DEAR ADMIRAL NIMITZ:
I WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU WOULD PASS THE FOLLOWING TO BRIGGEN FLEMING PICKERING PRESENTLY ENROUTE HAWAII AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
BEGIN MESSAGE
DEAR FLEMING:
GENERAL MARSHALL TELEPHONED AT 1345 WASHINGTON TIME TO ASK WHEN I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE IN CHUNGKING. I ASSURED HTM YOU WOULD GET THERE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE FOLLOWING CONCLUSION OF YOUR BUSINESS IN PEARL HARBOR.
SENATOR FOWLER TELEPHONED AT 1405 WASHINGTON TIME TO SAY SENATE HAS GIVEN ITS ADVICE AND CONSENT TO PROMOTION OF COLONEL ALBRIGHT TO BRIGADIER GENERAL.
BEST REGARDS,
BILL
END MESSAGE
END PERSONAL FROM DIRECTOR OSS TO CINCPAC
T O P S E C R E T
Pickering read both messages twice and then handed them back to Captain Groscher. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then met Groscher's eyes. «Banning works for me—« he began.
«I know him,» Groscher said. Pickering understood that he had been interrupted in order to save time; an explanation of who Banning was and what he did would not be necessary.
«When he got to Chungking with the magic devices the President had sent to China, these two signal officers—and God only knows who else—knew all about it.»
«Who told them?» Groscher asked coldly.
«The Secretary of the JCS and the Deputy Director for Administration of the OSS,» Pickering said.
«My God!»
«Yeah,» Pickering agreed.
«What happened to them?» Groscher asked. «Admiral Nimitz will want to know.»
«The OSS fellow was sent to St. Elizabeth's,» Pickering said. «I don't know what's happened to General Adamson.»
«Adamson, Charles M?» Groscher asked. «Major General?»
Pickering nodded.
«They should have been shot,» Groscher said.
Pickering looked at him in surprise and realized Groscher was perfectly serious.
«Any explanation why they did what they did?» Groscher asked when Pickering didn't reply.
«None that made any sense to me,» Pickering said.
«I know Albright,» Groscher said. «I went to Washington when we were going to get magic devices here. He checked me out on them. Good man. He should have been a general long before this.»
«I like him,» Pickering agreed.
He looked out the window and saw they were pulling up before the two-story white masonry building that housed the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and his senior staff.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, CINCPAC, was busy. When one of his aides put his head in the door of his office, a dozen officers were sitting at the conference table. Most of them were admirals and generals, but a few Navy captains and one Marine colonel were sprinkled among them.
«General Pickering and Captain Groscher are here, Admiral.» There were barely concealed looks of annoyance on the faces of the men at the table. They sensed an interruption to their labors and didn't like it. Nimitz understood. He really resented the interruption to his schedule that was about to take place, but it had to be done.
«Gentlemen,» he said. «Take a ten-minute coffee break. I'll be as quick as possible.»
Everyone began to stuff documents into briefcases. Almost all of the documents were stamped secret and top secret.
For a moment Nimitz considered telling them to belay that. Captain Groscher had already seen everything on the table, or soon would, and Pickering was cleared for anything classified. Time would be saved by telling his staff just to leave the documents where they were. But he immediately realized that that would set a bad precedent. If the Admiral was a little sloppy with classified material, that would constitute a license for the others to be sloppy.
He waited until all the documents had disappeared from sight, then stood at the door of his office until all the officers had filed through it.
«Welcome to beautiful Hawaii, again, Fleming,» he called. «Come on in. You, too, Groscher.»
«Good afternoon, sir,» Pickering said.
Nimitz closed the door himself. He saw the clock on the wall.
«Actually, it's the cocktail hour,» he said. «Can I offer you something stronger than coffee?»
«Sir, I think I'd rather wait until I talk to my people,» Pickering said.
«Okay, coffee it is,» the Admiral said, and walked to a table against the wall that held a coffee machine and a rack of standard Navy white china cups. He worked the lever, filling a cup, and then handed it to Pickering. He filled another, handed it to Groscher, and finally poured one for himself.
«Would you mind standing?» he asked. «My doctor's been telling me that sitting for long hours with my knees bent is bad for an old man's circulation.»
«You're not old, sir,» Pickering protested automatically.
«You've read the two messages?» Nimitz asked, getting to the point.
«Yes, sir.»
«Fill me in, please,» Nimitz said.
Pickering told him what he knew of the events in Chungking and Washington.
«How bad is it? How long can we continue to believe that the Japanese don't know about magic?»
«I just don't know, sir,» Pickering said.
«I think that's why George Marshall wants you in Chungking as quickly as possible,» Nimitz said. «For the damage evaluation.»
«Sir, I think that's why he promoted Colonel Albright,» Pickering said. «And is sending him to Chungking. He would be much better at that than me.»
«Groscher knows and likes this fellow. He told me he's just the man to keep the barn door closed. The question is, how many cows got out?»
«Let me give you the worst possible scenario, General,» Captain Groscher said. «That's my job.»
«And he's very good at it,» Nimitz said.
«The real harm those two in Washington did was to degrade the secrecy of magic,» Groscher began. «Remove the awe for it, if you like. It's obvious—to me, at least—that they regarded access to magic as a prerogative of rank or position, a marshal's baton, so to speak. They didn't really understand the necessity for keeping magic secret.»
«Yeah,» Pickering agreed thoughtfully.
«I would suppose that of the senior officers around here, ninety percent know something about magic, at least that it exists, and that only a very few, very senior officers—the Admiral and his chief of staff—and a handful of middle-level underlings like me have access to it. Everybody wants to be important, you follow me?»
Pickering shook his head sadly, in agreement, and blurted, «God, in Brisbane, MacArthur's G-2 pouted like a child until he got a magic clearance.»
«We have that situation here. It is reasonable to presume it exists in Chungking,» Groscher went on. «What was the USMMCHI's signal officer's name? Dempsey?» Groscher asked.
«Right,» Pickering said.
«General Dempsey almost certainly knew of the existence of magic and that only important people got access to it. The difference between here, Hawaii, and Brisbane is that the Admiral and General MacArthur knew of the importance of magic, and more important, the absolute necessity of keeping it secret…«
Groscher stopped. «How much do you know of the command structure over there?» he asked.
«Very little.»
«There is an overall command,» Admiral Nimitz said. «The China-Burma-India theatres of operation. Theatres, plural. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten is the Supreme Commander. He's in New Delhi. As of this moment, he does not have magic, although over the objections of Admiral Leahy and General Marshall, he's going to get it.
«There is also, under CBI, the China theatre of operations, with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek the theatre commander. He asked for, and got, an American chief of staff. General Joseph Stillwell. Stillwell is also the commanding general of the U.S. military mission to China.
«The President has similarly decided that Chiang Kai-shek will be given magic access. Again over the objections of Admiral Leahy and General Marshall. Probably in the hope that the President can be persuaded to change his mind, neither Chiang Kai-shek nor General Stillwell, so far as I know, has been told either that magic exists or that they are to be given access to it,» Nimitz concluded, and then asked, «This is the first time you're hearing this?»
«I knew, sir, of Admiral Leahy's reluctance to give Mountbatten and Chiang Kai-shek magic access.»
«Inasmuch as General Stillwell knows nothing of magic—except probably that something with that name exists, classified Top Secret—there has been no reason for him to impress on his staff the absolute necessity to keep magic uncompromised. So far as General Stillwell is concerned, it is just one more Top Secret project, and he has filing cabinets full of those.»
«I think I'm beginning to get the picture, sir,» Pickering said.
«Go on, Groscher,» Nimitz ordered.
«So General Dempsey hears that he is going to get magic and a magic clearance, which means he is now important. He wants to share this proud accomplishment with somebody. So he shares it with his deputy. Why not? He doesn't know that magic is not just one more military secret. His deputy has a Top Secret clearance. So he tells him. The deputy now feels important. He needs to tell somebody. And since he doesn't know how really important magic is,
he
feels safe in telling a trusted subordinate, one who has a Top Secret clearance. And so on.»
«I'm very afraid Groscher may be right,» Admiral Nimitz said. «And I think that's why General Marshall wants you to be in Chungking as soon as you can get there, Pickering. You will be the OSS delegate from JCS—for that matter, from the President himself—to General Stillwell. I think you are expected to impress on him the importance of keeping magic really secret, and also to let them know in Washington how far down the chain the breaking of the secret has gone.»
«I'm comfortable with the first part, sir,» Pickering said. «But I'm not at all sure I'm competent to judge how far magic has been compromised.»
«Like an ONI or CIC agent would be?» Groscher asked.
«Right.»
«To know what they were looking for, an ONI or CIC agent would have to be told about magic,» Groscher said. «Too many people already know about magic.»
«There is a B-17 laid on for you, Pickering,» Admiral Nimitz said. «Whenever you're ready to go, it will take you to Espiritu Santo, where—courtesy of our friend Douglas MacArthur, who also feels it important that you talk with Stillwell in Chungking as soon as possible—another B-17 will be waiting to take you, via India, to Chungking.»
«Sir, I really would like to see how my people are coming—«
«They have been told to have the aircraft available as of 0700 tomorrow morning,» Nimitz interrupted him. «Will that give you enough time to see what you have to see here?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Admiral Wagam is aware of my interest in the Gobi Desert project, and has been asked to make sure that we're doing whatever we can to get that moving,» Nimitz said.
Admiral Nimitz put out his hand. «I have every confidence, Pickering, that you are the man who will do what has to be done in Chungking,» he said.
«Thank you, sir,» Pickering replied, and realized that he was being dismissed.
note 71
U.S. Highway 98
Near Pensacola, Florida
2130 3 April 1943
A billboard was by the side of the road, getting a little seedy, and no longer illuminated, but Captain James B. Weston, USMC, could easily read it when the headlights of his Buick convertible flashed over it.
The San Carlos Hotel
Pensacol's Best
Air
Conditioned Rooms
and Suites
Swimming Pool
Restaurant-Cocktail Lounge Bar
Free Parking
Downtown Pensacola
The sign triggered a stream of thoughts in Captain Weston's somewhat weary brain:
I
can get a room there, and go out to the base first thing in the morning
.
What I really need right now is a couple of drinks. I can either go to the bar, or have the bellboy bring me a bottle.
And if I get a room there, I can call Martha. She expects me. But God, I don't want to see her. Not tonight. Not until I can figure out what the hell I'm going to do.
That makes sense, get a room, call Martha, and then get a bottle and have a couple of drinks, and get some sleep. If I don't have a couple of drinks, I'll never get to sleep.
So I'll call Martha and tell her I'm in the San Carlos…
Whereupon she will say, «I'll be right there, darling», or words to that effect.
An image of Mrs. Martha Sayre Culhane in her birthday suit jumped into his brain, accompanied by astonishingly clear and sharp memories of how warm, soft, and exciting the various parts of Martha's anatomy were.
And would be if she came to the San Carlos.
You really are a rotten sonofabitch, Weston. Despicable. Beyond contempt.
You really would do that to her. Exactly as you took advantage of Janice's innocence, her inability to suspect what a conscienceless prick you really are.
An image of Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NC, USNR, in her birthday suit jumped into his brain, accompanied by astonishingly clear and sharp memories of how warm, soft, and exciting the various parts of Janice's anatomy had been in the room in the Benjamin Franklin immediately before he departed Philadelphia for Pensacola.
Though he hadn't actually given his own character much serious consideration until very recently—until Janice Hardison had entered his life, and Martha Sayre Culhane had reentered it—Captain Weston had believed that his character was as good as most, and possibly even a little better than some people's. When he spoke, for example, he told the truth. He was, after all, a Marine officer. Marine officers do not lie.
And he had thought of himself as a gentleman, as well. Perhaps not in the same leagues as Sir Galahad or Cary Grant, but a gentleman nonetheless. A gentleman, he had heard somewhere and believed, never intentionally hurts the feelings of others. A gentleman never takes advantage of the weak, male or female, but with obvious emphasis on the gentle sex.
And of course, when a gentleman does something he knows goddamn well is wrong, he quickly confesses the error of his ways to the individual wronged, tries to make amends, and willingly accepts whatever punishment is involved.
He now knew this to be absolutely untrue.
The facts spoke for themselves.
He was a despicable sonofabitch, period.
He had reached this conclusion while driving from Philadelphia to Pensacola. The long drive had given him plenty of time to think, but the thinking had not produced any solution to his problem.
Suicide had even been considered.
But if he did what probably was the gentlemanly thing to do, and put a bullet through his warped and perverse and frankly disgusting brain, both Janice and Martha would show up at his funeral and each would blame themselves for what he had done to himself… He had had a mental image of them, both dressed in black, wearing little hats with black veils, meeting at his casket.
Neither was capable of understanding what a despicable prick had entered their lives.
Despite the fact that he had been wholly uninterested in getting to Pensacola quickly—in fact, at all—Weston had been twice stopped for violating the wartime speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour while traveling from Philadelphia to Pensacola.
Weston knew why he had been speeding when he was in no hurry whatsoever to get to Pensacola. He had not been paying any but the absolute minimum attention to driving. His mind had been occupied with what was going to happen to him once he got to Pensacola.
The truth of the matter was that he had never been much of a success with the opposite gender. In high school and college, and in the Corps, he'd known severalmen who were. and indeed, he had been awed by those lady-killers who seemed to have their choice of desirable females—often two or more of them at the same time. Frankly, that had made him more than a little jealous.
What must it be like to have two beautiful women in love with you at the same time? he had asked himself more than once.
Now he knew.
Before the San Carlos Hotel billboard had appeared in the headlights of the Buick, he had resolved to settle the situation once and for all. It was the decent thing to do, and he would do it, whatever the cost.
There was a slight problem with that. He didn't have any idea how to settle the situation once and for all.
And—as if he needed it—the sight of the San Carlos Hotel billboard brought with it further confirmation of what kind of a prick he was. His first thought was getting Martha into a bed in the San Carlos Hotel. And/or getting drunk.
He made a new resolution. He would
not
get a room in the San Carlos Hotel; he would
not
go anywhere
near
the San Carlos Hotel. He would go directly to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, sign in, and get a room in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters.
Ten minutes later, he turned off U.S. Highway 98 in Pensacola and onto Navy Boulevard. Navy Boulevard, as the name suggested, led to the U.S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola. The San Carlos Hotel was on Navy Boulevard. On it was a neon sign, a flashing red arrow above the words «Cocktail Lounge.»
In what he recognized as his first victory over temptation in a long, long time, Captain Weston drove past the San Carlos without stopping.
«Captain,» the white-hat clerk on duty at Billeting said, looking up from a copy of Weston's orders. «According to your orders, you don't have to sign in until 2359 tomorrow.»
«Is that so?»
«Captain, there's a good hotel in town, the San Carlos.»
«Will you just give me the key to a BOQ room, please?» Weston said, just a little sharply. He immediately regretted it. «The truth is, I lost more than I could afford playing poker.»
The white hat smiled understandingly.
God, I have become an accomplished, automatic liar. I don't even think about whether I'm lying or not. I just automatically say what I think people want to hear, and truth isn't even in the equation.
The frame, two story BOQ building was just what he expected—in fact, hoped for. There was a charge of quarters downstairs, a chubby petty officer. There was a sign on the wall: no female guests past this point.
Even if I weaken and telephone Martha, she would not pass that point. She is, after all, the Admiral's daughter.
Tonight, I will be celibate.
I will not even go to the club for a couple of drinks, because I know what an amoral prick I am. I would use alcohol as my excuse for calling Martha.
Christ, I promised Janice I would call her the minute I got here!
But I also promised Janice I would not drive straight through, which I did, breaking my word again. But since she thinks I lived up to my promise and stopped somewhere to get at least eight hours' sleep, she won't expect that call until sometime tomorrow.
And Martha probably doesn't expect me to be here until tomorrow, either. So I have at least ten hours to find a solution.
Which I will try very hard to do, sober, in my celibate bed.
He took his luggage from the Buick, carried it up to the second floor of the BOQ, and then down a long, narrow corridor smelling of new linoleum and disinfectant.
His room was all he thought, and hoped, it would be. Sort of a monastic cell. A single bed, a chest of drawers, one armchair, and a desk with a folding chair before it and a lamp that didn't work sitting on it.
He had just hung his Val-Pak in the closet when a knock came at the door.
It can't be for me. Nobody knows I'm here.
«Captain Weston?» the charge of quarters called.
«Yes?»
My God
—
she is an admiral's daughter and knows how things work around here
—
Martha has found me
!
«Telephone for you, sir.»
«You're sure?»
«Yes, sir.»
The telephone was on a small table halfway down the hall. It had no dial. He remembered that from flight school. If you wanted to make an off-base or longdistance call, you had to find a pay station and feed it coins.
Weston picked up the telephone. «Captain Weston.»
«You're here, obviously,» the voice said. It took a moment for Weston to recognize Major Avery R. Williamson, USMC.
«Yes, sir.»
«You drove straight through, apparently?»
«Yes, sir.»
«I thought you might. I left word with Billeting they were to call me the minute you got here… if you came here. But they didn't. It's a damned good thing I called.»
«Yes, sir.»
Weston could tell that Major Williamson was upset about something.
«Something has come up. I need to see you right away.»
«Yes, sir.»
«You know where I live?»
«No, sir.»
«Have you a pencil and sheet of paper?»
«No, sir.»
«Well, get one, Weston!»
«Aye, aye, sir.»
Weston laid the telephone on the table and ran down the corridor and the stairs to the charge of quarters' desk. He took a pencil and a pad, then picked up the telephone on the CQ's desk.
«Ready, sir.»
Major Williamson gave him directions from the BOQ to his quarters.
Major Williamson opened the door to his quarters, an attractive, obviously prewar bungalow not far off Pensacola Bay, and motioned Weston inside.
His wife and two kids, a boy and a girl, were sitting on a couch in the living room. All of them looked unhappy. When Weston was introduced to them, they were polite—the wife even offered him a cup of coffee—but Weston sensed that he was somehow intruding. He declined the coffee.
«I'm glad you came in early,» Major Williamson said. «I won't be here in the morning, and I wanted to see you before I left.»
«Where are you going, sir?» Weston blurted, and immediately sensed he should not have asked the question.
«Hawaii,» Williamson said. «You remember that temporary job over there we discussed? I told you it was one of General Mclnerney's little projects?»
«Yes, sir, I do,» Weston said.
Christ, he's talking about that request for volunteers to fly the Catalina
. Weston remembered the wording: «a classified mission involving great personal risk in a combat area.»
«Well, I was allowed to apply for it,» Williamson said. «And apparently, I was the best-qualified applicant.»
Applicant, my ass
, Weston thought.
You didn't volunteer. General Mclnerney apparently didn't get the eight volunteers he was looking for, and you were volunteered
.
«How long will you be gone, sir?»
«Not long. Ninety days at the most. Probably a lot less than that.»
God, I would kill to get out of here for ninety days, to go someplace where I'd have time to figure out what the hell to do about Martha and Janice!
«You're going first thing in the morning, sir?»
«I'm going in about an hour,» Williamson said. «That's what I wanted to see you about. This sort of fouls up the training schedule I was laying on for you.»
«Sir, I wonder if I could speak to you privately for a moment?» Weston asked.
«I really don't have the time for your personal problems, Weston,» Williamson said, annoyance in his voice.
«I would consider it a great personal favor, sir,» Weston said. «It won't take but a minute or two.»
Williamson looked at him coldly for a moment, then gestured at the front door. «With the understanding that I am really out of time, Weston.»
«Yes, sir, I fully understand,» Weston said.
They walked onto the small porch of the bungalow. Major Williamson closed the door. «Make it quick,» he ordered.
«Sir, we're talking about the classified Catalina mission?»
«General Mclnerney—who got his second star, by the way—flew in here in a Corsair, told me he had gotten zero volunteers, and under the circumstances thought that I might wish to consider the opportunity again.»
«You were volunteered?»
«Me and several other people, one of whom doesn't know it yet. I'm out of here in a twin Beech in an hour bound for NAS New Orleans, where I will pick up another, quote, volunteer, unquote, and then head for San Diego. That poor bastard just came back from the Pacific.»
«General Mclnerney must think this project is important,» Weston said. Major Williamson didn't reply.
«What's your personal problem, Weston? Try to explain it in thirty seconds or less.»
«Sir, I'd like to volunteer.»
«Are you out of your mind, Weston? Christ, you're just out of the hospital.»
«Sir, with respect, I have twelve hundred hours as pilot-in-command of a Catalina.»
«That's right, isn't it?» Williamson said thoughtfully.
«Sir, I'm a Marine officer. Apparently one with the special qualifications needed for General Mclnerney's project.»
«I thought you wanted to be a fighter pilot?»
«Sir, I am a fighter pilot. Captain Galloway checked me out in the Corsair. I would just be wasting my time, and the Corps' time, to go through the training again here.»
«And maybe you're thinking that if you did this job for General Mclnerney you wouldn't have to do the training again.»
«That thought did occur to me, sir, but it's not the reason I am volunteering.»
«I know,» Williamson said.
«Sir?»
«You're volunteering for the same reason I did,» Williamson said emotionally. «Because, goddammit, you're a Marine and you want to serve where you can do the most good for the Corps.»
«That's not really it, sir.»
«You're sure about this, Weston?»
«I'm sure, sir.»
«One more time, I put the question to you. Warning you beforehand that I have orders to appear at San Diego as soon as I can get there, with any qualified Marine Aviator I choose to take with me. As you have pointed out, you have the necessary qualifications.»
«Yes, sir.»
«You want to go, is that it?»
«Yes, sir.»
«How long will it take you to get packed? To say goodbye to Martha?»
«I'm already packed, sir, and as far as Martha goes, I think I would rather call her from San Diego and tell her my orders have been changed. I don't feel up to facing her with this.»
«You're chicken, Mr. Weston, but in your shoes, I'd do the same thing. I know how it is. I have lied to my wife about this mission—I don't think she believes me, but that's not the point—and I didn't like having to do that.»
«I understand, sir.»
«Women just don't seem to be able to understand that a Marine, at least an honorable Marine, has to answer the call of duty even when that involves a certain amount of personal sacrifice.»
«I suppose that's true, sir.»
«You've got your car?»
«Yes, sir.»
«Go get your luggage. Meet me at base operations. I'll arrange for somebody to take care of your car until we get back. And we will come back, Weston. Get that firmly fixed in your mind.»
«Yes, sir.»
But maybe with a little luck I can stretch the ninety days a little. Maybe to six months. Maybe for the duration of the war plus six months.
Major Williamson touched Captain Weston's shoulder in a gesture of affection. «I should have known, since Charley Galloway likes you, that you are really a Marine, Weston. It shouldn't have taken this to prove it.»
«Thank you, sir.»
Chapter Nineteen
note 72
Patrol Torpedo Boat 197
Kaiwi Channel
North Pacific Ocean
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