by Homer Hickam
Josh recognized one of the resting Raiders, a hatchet-faced gunnery sergeant named Frank Billocks. Josh had fought alongside Billocks in the battle for Wilton’s Ridge on Guadalcanal. “How’s it going, Gunny?” Josh greeted him. When Billocks didn’t reply, Josh thought he hadn’t heard him, so he persisted. “You been out contending with the Jap?”
Billocks spat forth a long stream of tobacco juice into the grass. “It ain’t my place to tell you where we been, Commander, but I reckon you’ll hear it soon enough.” Billocks spat again and stared at Josh, a cold dead fish of a stare.
Josh walked on. Anytime a man didn’t want to talk, it was best to leave him alone. God only knew what horrible thing Billocks and his men had seen, or done. Josh hoped it wouldn’t be too long before the gunny found that copse with the wood smoke. Applejack tasted awful, but it could make you unconscious in short order, and that, Josh perceived, was what Billocks and his boys needed right now.
The old plantation house where Colonel Burr held forth sat back of the beach within a small stand of chinaberry trees. The house was nothing special, a weather-beaten wood frame structure with a rusty tin roof, typical of the plantation houses in the Solomons. Josh climbed the steps to the veranda and went inside, nodding to the colonel’s clerk, a gray-haired sergeant, always in need of a shave, who was typing with two fingers on a battered black typewriter. Josh checked the sergeant’s sleeve and was pleased to notice the man had regained his stripes. It was a camp joke that Burr periodically had the clerk’s stripes removed for this minor offense or that one, only to restore them when his petty anger was exhausted. “Hidy, Captain,” the clerk said, using Josh’s complimentary rank. “Colonel’s got somebody in there right now but shouldn’t be long.”
“The word I got was to get down here toot sweet,” Josh said, implying that he didn’t care to wait.
The clerk eyed Josh for a long second. “Well, hell, sir, then why don’t you just barge in on the colonel and shake up his day?”
Josh knew poor advice when he heard it, but didn’t care. He knocked once on the frame of the office door and let himself in, finding Colonel Burr seated at his big steel desk. The colonel’s left hand rested on a mildewed ink blotter, and his right held a flyswatter at full alert. Sitting in a folding chair alongside, balancing a teacup on a bare knob of a knee, was a man Josh recognized as Elrod Vickers, the commander of the British-led coast-watchers in the Solomons.
The colonel eyed Josh and said, “Well, Thurlow, I don’t see a hole in you, so I guess Captain Clooney found another way to persuade you to come down from your mountain resort.”
“Colonel Burr,” Josh said by way of a greeting, then reached across the colonel’s desk to shake hands with the thin coast-watcher. “Hello, Elrod. How are things in the bush?”
Vickers responded with a grin revealing his big false teeth. Quinine, the malarial antidote of choice of most of the old Solomon hands, had taken its toll. “Oh, I’m quite out of the bush now, Josh, with the Jap chased north. I am back on Tulagi in my office, only slightly ventilated by shell holes, and attempting to make some sense of what’s left of our colonial administration.”
“I’m sure you’ll have everything wrapped up in triplicate in a shake or two,” Josh said, in honest admiration of British bureaucracy.
“One can only hope,” Vickers replied in good cheer. “Although I doubt that many of the planters will come back. I suspect this part of the old empire is quite finished. What will come of it I have no idea.”
“Maybe the natives will run things,” Josh suggested.
Vickers shrugged. “After we’re gone, a lot of them will be back to headhunting and eating the blokes in the next village in a fortnight. But there are some good people here, too. If they can prevail over their more savage brethren, then the Solomons might have a chance.”
Colonel Burr growled, “Josh, usually officers take their caps off in my office.”
Josh removed his cover. “Didn’t mean disrespect, Colonel.”
“You are nonetheless an insolent man,” Burr replied, then wearily waved Josh to a chair. “But that’s neither here nor there considering what’s up.”
Josh adjusted his big frame on the indicated rusty folding chair. It creaked beneath his bulk as he settled in. He didn’t say anything, knowing full well the colonel would get to the subject at hand when he was ready. It didn’t take long. Burr-put down the flyswatter and leaned forward. “You see, Josh,” he said, “there’s been a bit of trouble.” He chewed over his next words as if they were difficult to get out of his mouth. “I need your help,” he said at last, and then took on the gravest expression Josh had yet seen on the colonel’s typically grave puss.
Josh nearly laughed. “Colonel, the one thing in this old world I know is you don’t need my help. I’m but a Coast Guard doofus on an inspection trip for Secretary Knox that’s taken a little longer than expected.”
“You’re quick to mention Knox,” Burr said in an accusing tone.
“He’s the only reason I’m out here.”
Burr could not argue the point. He knew very well that Josh had been sent to the Solomon Islands by none other than Frank Knox, the secretary of the navy himself, who was, before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had appointed him to the job, a wealthy industrialist and a Republican to boot. The story Burr had heard was that Josh had saved Knox off a shipwreck in Alaska many years before, and Knox had not forgotten. The secretary had sent Josh to the Pacific with orders to report directly back to him on the situation. Josh and his Killakeet boys had been around ever since, sticking their noses mostly where, as far as Burr was concerned, they had no business.
But now things had changed. Burr clasped his big hands on his desk and said, “Lieutenant David Armistead.”
Josh waited for more, but when it didn’t come, he said, “I just saw David’s gunny outside.”
“Doubtlessly, you did not see Lieutenant Armistead with him,” Burr replied in a sardonic tone.
“Where is he?”
Vickers leaned forward. “We believe he has gone north.”
“On a raid?”
“I’m afraid not. You see—” Vickers stopped speaking, mainly because Burr had raised his hand to stop him.
“You were with Armistead on Wilton’s Ridge,” Burr-said, his cold eyes burrowing into Josh. “What did you think of him?”
“He was steady enough,” Josh replied.
“Steady? Is that all you can say about him?”
“He did his duty on the ridge. Some said more than his duty.”
“How about you? What do you say?”
“I say every man on the ridge that night did more than his duty. What’s this all about, Colonel?”
After an uncomfortable silence, Colonel Burr said, “Let me bring you up to speed on New Georgia, Josh. We’ve taken the airfield at Munda, so we’ve declared victory, but nobody’s doing cartwheels over this campaign. It was a FUBAR* screw-up from the get-go. Taking the island was supposed to be the army’s show. We marines were supposed to use the time to refit after Guadalcanal, but the doggies got themselves bogged down as soon as they hit the beach. A lot of those boys were brave, I’m not saying they weren’t, but they were poorly trained and badly led. Jap came close to kicking their tails. A couple of months ago, Regiment asked me to send somebody up there, give the army some advice, and see what otherwise might be done. When Armistead got wind of it, he volunteered. I let him take twelve handpicked men, and they did one helluva job. The army commander Armistead was attached to said if it hadn’t been for that boy, he’d still be on the beach.”
“David’s a good marine,” Josh replied. “His men like him because he trains them hard and fights them that way, too. I’ll ask you again. What’s this about?”
“Plainly put,” Burr replied, “it appears Lieutenant Armistead has deserted.”
Josh took a moment to absorb Burr’s words. “How is that possible?” he finally managed.
Vickers spoke up. �
��We think he’s run off with Todd Whitman’s wife.”
Josh needed no explanation as to who Todd Whitman was. He was a legend in the South Seas, having organized a remarkable band of warriors on New Georgia. He and his men had been brilliant, both as coast-watchers, spotting the destroyers and cruisers of the Tokyo Express, and also as guerrillas, killing the Jap in flash raids. Admiral Halsey himself had said that the battle for Guadalcanal could not have been won without Whitman’s alerts on the activities of the Japanese ships coming down through the Slot. “I didn’t know Whitman was married,” Josh said, the only thing he could think to say. It was as lame as he felt.
“Oh, he’s married, old man,” Vickers said. “And to a Marie. Dark as toast but pretty as a peach. A toasted peach, you might say.”
Burr tracked a fly that had landed on his desk. He slapped at it with the swatter but missed. The fly flew off, merrily buzzing, only to return for another run past Burr’s face. He waved at it with the swatter, then came back to the conversation. “About three weeks ago, Mister Vickers came to me with intelligence that Whitman and his men were trapped by the Japanese on an abandoned plantation.”
“The Truax plantation,” Vickers supplemented. “Until I received a radio transmission from Whitman, I assumed he was dead. It had been over a month since I’d heard from him.”
Burr shot Vickers a look, then continued. “Apparently, the local Japanese commander decided to even the score with Whitman before pulling out of New Georgia. Admiral Halsey thinks the world of Whitman, you know, so I decided to help. I radioed Lieutenant Armistead, told him I was sending up an LCI for transport. He was to send two machine-gun teams to support Whitman. I told him to put his gunny in charge. I also told him to stay with the army and keep the doggies moving. He came back with a request that he lead the gun teams, that the army was moving, and that he’d feel better about it if he went into harm’s way, rather than his gunny. How could I turn him down? Any officer of mine who volunteers to fight is going to get my permission. So Sergeant Billocks stayed behind, and Armistead and his teams shipped out. The LCI skipper said he couldn’t get too close to the Truax plantation because of Japanese destroyers in the area, so he delivered Armistead a few miles south. Other than the reports from Whitman, that’s the last I heard.”
“David didn’t call in?”
“He didn’t take a radio. He left his with Billocks, saying he’d depend on Whitman’s gear.”
Vickers put in. “That was a mistake. Radio communication with Whitman has been damnably spotty for some time. I heard nothing until three days after Lieutenant Armistead had been landed, although it was still mostly static. Whitman told me Armistead and his weapons teams had arrived after slipping through the Japanese lines. Two days later, I heard from him again, complaining most bitterly. He said Armistead had taken his wife in a canoe and headed north. Then his radio went completely on the fritz. Not a word since.”
Josh was incredulous. “A tall white man paddling around in those waters? Why, Jap would have him in ten minutes! Whitman’s story is nuts, Colonel. When the Raiders who were with David get back, they’ll tell you.”
Vickers cleared his throat. “I fear that won’t be possible, Commander. Whitman said they were all killed.”
Josh took on an expression of complete disbelief. “Colonel, Whitman’s reports should be dismissed out of hand.”
“I can’t dismiss desertion in the face of the enemy, Josh,” Burr answered in a surprisingly quiet voice. He pointed skyward. “And there’s no way I can sweep this under the rug. This is more than Raider business. There’s a great deal of interest on high. Armistead, you see, comes from a very important family.”
“David Roosevelt Armistead,” Josh said, recalling that the lieutenant had once told him his full name. That was on a night both of them had expected to die as Jap had lined up for a final rush on the nasty earthen mound called Wilton’s Ridge on Guadalcanal. Just before the charge, Armistead had suddenly waxed nostalgic and started to talk about his family. It had been a curious mix of bitter and joyful recollections of a family that was distant from one another but joined by a common ambition, that he, David Armistead, the only son, would enter politics and rise perhaps even to become president of the United States, just like his cousins Theodore and Franklin.
“His mother’s a first cousin of the president,” Burr continued, interrupting Josh’s recollection. “And on top of that, his father is Howard Armistead, the ambassador to France before the war and now a top adviser in the Roosevelt administration. He’s also one of the richest men in the country. Coal mines, natural gas, that kind of thing. One might say he’s one of the most powerful—”
The sudden windup of a siren stopped Burr from continuing to list the attributes of the father. He immediately rose from his desk and waved Josh and Vickers along. They followed him outside to a dugout of palm logs and sandbags. After the men climbed inside, the sirens quieted, and an odd muttering could be heard over the Raider camp. “Washing-Machine Charlie,” Vickers said. “Brave chaps, those Japanese bomber pilots, coming down here night and day. I’ll give them that.”
Josh cocked his ear to the stutter of the Japanese bomber, determined it was flying off toward Guadalcanal, and got back to the matter in question. “So why am I here?” Josh asked.
“You are here,” Burr replied, “because the only way to find out what really happened to Armistead is for someone to go up to New Georgia, talk to Whitman, then go find the boy, wherever he is. The powers that be think that person ought to be you.”
Startled, Josh asked, “Why me? I’m in the Coast Guard. This sounds like Marine Corps business.”
Burr either didn’t hear Josh’s question or preferred not to answer. In any case, he remained silent until Washing-Machine Charlie had wandered off and the siren howled all clear. “Give us a moment, won’t you, Elrod?” he asked the coast-watcher.
“Of course, Montague.”
Vickers crawled out of the bunker, and Josh and Burr eyed one another for a long second. Then Burr said, “Now, Josh, we all know you’re more than a simple Coast Guard officer on an extended inspection trip.”
Josh replied, “Then you know more than I do.”
Burr smirked, then continued. “After the battle on Wilton’s Ridge, Major Wilton did all the paperwork needed to get Armistead the Medal of Honor. But when he asked you to co-sign his recommendation, you refused. Why?”
Josh didn’t answer. He just looked at Burr and waited him out.
“You’re not going to tell me why you think he didn’t deserve it?”
“I never said he didn’t deserve it.”
“By God, Thurlow, you are insolent,” Burr muttered, then dug into his shirt pocket and brought out an envelope. “This is for you.”
Josh took the envelope and opened it, not difficult since it had already been slit open, even though it was addressed to him and was stamped EYES ONLY on the front and back. Josh raised his eyebrows and Burr shrugged. “Admiral Halsey got wind of it,” Burr said. “Even diplomatic pouches can be opened by mistake.”
Josh was not the least bit surprised that his mail might be read by Bull Halsey, who made it his business to know everything that happened in the South Pacific. The letter was simple and to the point, characteristic of Frank Knox. It asked Josh to find out what had happened to David Armistead and to please bring him home to his parents. That was all there was to it, signed in a flourish by Knox’s distinctive hand.
“Now, here’s the thing,” Burr said, after Josh finished reading and looked up. “Admiral Halsey ordered me to pass along a suggestion to you.” Burr took a breath, then said out loud the suggestion of the great admiral.
Josh’s reaction was instantaneous. “Colonel, you know I can’t do that!”
Burr nodded. “He said you’d say that very thing. He also asked me to say one word to you. I don’t know what it means, but here it is. Hypo.” Burr watched while Josh’s expression turned neutral. “Is that your poker face?�
� he asked slyly.
“Don’t ask me anything, Colonel,” Josh replied, and his voice had steel in it. “And never mention that word to anyone else again.”
Burr’s smile was grim. “Look, Thurlow, you and I disagree about a lot of things, but one thing we both know is that this war is far from won. We’ve got a lot of battles yet to fight. If the men think their officers are going to desert them . . .” Burr left the thought dangling.
“Tell you what, Colonel,” Josh said, after a moment more of contemplation. “I’ll go after David, and if he’s alive, which I sincerely doubt, I’ll bring him back trussed up on a stick if you like. But this suggestion, you can tell Admiral Halsey I won’t do it.”
“Well, let’s leave it as a suggestion,” Burr said, “and you can think about it.”
Josh had already thought about it. He knew that Bull Halsey and Admiral Nimitz, Halsey’s boss, and Secretary Knox and no doubt even President Roosevelt himself had thought about it, too, or the word “Hypo” would have never been allowed to be on the lips of a lowly Raider battalion commander like Burr. Lieutenant David Roosevelt Armistead was an ambassador’s son and a close relative of the president of the United States himself. If he had deserted, it wouldn’t take long before troops all over the Pacific heard about it, with the newspapers not far behind. The best thing for all in this case would be a dead hero, with a good story, if necessary, as to why he’d left the battlefield. As Burr had quoted Halsey: In my opinion, any American officer who deserts his men in combat is already dead. Some bastard should find Armistead and make it official.