With a screech, NHK's signal was clean again. Ingram kicked his feet back and forth, having no choice but to listen. "...four more days, boys. Four more days. April twenty-ninth is his Imperial Majesty's birthday, and it will be on that day you will experience artillery like none has ever seen or felt on this earth before.
"I beg you, listen to reason. Give up now, before it is too late. Once the bombardment starts, General Homma cannot stop until you are all dead.
"Lay down your arms. Save yourselves for your wives and sweethearts who at this very moment are entertaining 4-F cowards back home. Back-biting weasels with phony disabilities and falsified records. You know the weak ones who are getting rich off the black market and spending time with your ladies.
"Men of Corregidor! You've proven yourselves. You've put your lives on the line. But unlike you, the 4-Fs are too afraid to die for your country. Too afraid to stand for principle." Rose's voice softened, her timing perfect. "Too afraid to fight for the ones they love.
"And now..." she whispered. A record, Harbor Lights sung by Rudy Vallee began.
Ingram closed his eyes. It was "their" song. He was dancing with Miriam again in the Coronado Hotel's Crown Room. A whirlwind marriage. Crossed swords at the wedding chapel. They'd only known each other for six months. They met in San Diego, his first duty station where he was assigned to the U.S.S. Hayes, a swift, fourstack destroyer that sported four, five-inch guns.
For four of those six months he was at sea on the Hayes fighting the Battle of San Clemente Island returning to San Diego harbor for weekend liberty and steamy lovemaking to the tune of "Harbor Lights."
He lowered his head thinking of her and why it didn't work out. Why, on December 6, 1941, her letter dated two months earlier caught up to him in Cavite, announcing she had moved to Reno to commence divorce proceedings. That she wanted a "Nevada quickie" was evidence enough for Ingram to believe Tokyo Rose was right in his case.
But the image of some poor, unsuspecting 4-F ending up with Miriam made him laugh. She'd inherited her father's hair-trigger temper and would eat the little bastard alive the first time he got in her way. A little 4-F slob wouldn't have time to backbite. And if he did, Miriam would bite back with a ferocity that could rip up a mountain lion.
Miriam. After the wedding he discovered she liked art. He liked sailing. She liked Chopin. He liked Louie Armstrong. He wanted children; she didn't. She liked cruising in her father's Packard. He admitted he liked that on occasion, especially when her father wasn't there.
Finally, he screwed up his courage and told her he liked walking on the beach more than riding in daddy's Packard. Her eyes turned to slits and, as expected, Miriam reached for something to throw, but Ingram stymied her by standing before the large bay window of their Point Loma rental overlooking San Diego Harbor.
After fumbling a grip on a Wedgewood pitcher, Miriam oddly stopped. She gave a long exhale and simply walked from the room. Miriam moved back to Beverly Hills; Ingram to the BOQ. For a while neither started paperwork. It grew to a marriage of convenience with both becoming complacent. He wondered if--
"Todd. What goes on?" Epperson stuck out his hand.
"Where can we talk?" asked Ingram.
Epperson nodded to a conference area and they walked in and sat.
Ingram explained about the PBY crash, noting Epperson sat a little straighter with the subject of Richardson.
"What did he look like?" asked Epperson.
Ingram pulled out Richardson's water-soaked wallet and looked at the picture, still unsure if it were Richardson or not. "Here." He flipped the wallet over. "Don't tell the Army I kept this. Mordkin will toss me into his stockade."
"Who?" asked Epperson.
Ingram told him.
"Guy is a dope." Squinting at the wallet for a moment, Epperson pulled out Richardson's photo ID, rubbed it on his shirt, and held it to the light. "Beantown accent?"
"Yes."
"He talk about anything? A city?"
"San Francisco."
"Photo is all screwed up. He had a mustache, but it's Fowler, all right."
"How do you know him?"
"Taught a security class when I was at Treasure Island. We tipped a few in town. Picked up girls at the Top of the Mark."
Ingram smirked.
"Made fools of ourselves. Fifteen minutes later, they went for flyboys because they had gleaming brass wings and flashy campaign ribbons on their blouses."
Ingram blurted, "And now you're bald. They'll never let you in the Mark, again."
Epperson gave him a "not funny" look and said, "Anything else?"
"I think he had something for you. Like guard mail or something. He had a pouch around his neck and asked me to look in it. But it was empty."
"Empty? Did it have a lock?"
"No. Just a flap. Whatever it was, he wanted it delivered to you. But it was gone."
"You didn't find the inner?"
"Inner what?"
"Pouch. There is an inner section. That must be what they went looking for."
"Oh."
Epperson rested his chin on his forearms and stared for a moment. At length, he said, "Is that it?"
"Cars."
"What?"
"He likes cars. Just before he died he said 'Pontiac.' That mean anything?"
Epperson said, "You sure?"
Ingram nodded.
Epperson stood and walked past Portman's floor-high radio unit and stooped at a large, open safe. He rose and returned with a thick, three-ring binder and flopped it on the table.
Ingram caught the typed front label as Epperson flipped pages:
SECRET
STANDING ORDERS
Commanding Officer, U.S. Army, Fort Mills,
Corregidor Island, Philippines.
"Here it is. It's how Wainwright plans to end the party." Epperson sat back and picked at a scab on his head.
"Stop it, damnit!"
"Sorry." Epperson sighed, and said, "We have enough food for another two months. I think that's when Wainwright plans to surrender."
It roared over Ingram. Within weeks for sure, maybe even days he would be in a Japanese prison camp. "Surrender," he mumbled. A shell hit, making the room shake violently like a shark worries living flesh off its victim. "This place won't last two months," he said softly.
With a nod, Epperson said, "That's why Nimitz wants me out. Now." He folded his arms on the table and rested his chin. "If I'm captured and they find out where I worked, then all they have to do is shove hot pokers in my eyes."
"Dwight. I don't think you would--"
Epperson held up his hand. "And I'll tell 'em all."
"No."
"The Japs have exquisite methods. Another favorite is one they learned from the Russians. They pound nails into your skull. Then they--"
"Okay. Okay."
"I'm no hero. Neither are you." Epperson gave a long exhale, his eyes unfocused. "I radioed my own analysis last night. Tokyo Rose is right. The Japs can't screw around anymore. They can't afford to wait two months or however long they think it will take to starve us out. They need Manila Bay, now. An all-out bombardment on Hirohito's birthday makes sense. They'll throw everything they have at us, then they'll try a landing. Amphibious probably."
"They haven't enough landing craft."
"Yes they do." Epperson looked up. "More than enough. Tanks, too. They'll roll the damn things through the tunnels squashing sick and wounded while firing into laterals."
Deep in his spine, Ingram felt cold. "My God."
"Yeah."
"What's Pontiac?"
Epperson picked up the Army manual, ran his finger down a column and looked back to Ingram. "It means 'destroy everything above .45 caliber.' PONTIAC would precede a surrender order. It means prepare to give yourselves up but destroy large weapons and ammo so they can't fall into Jap hands." Ingram's mind drifted back to the terrible night Bataan surrendered. The Army had touched off several ammo bunkers on the peninsula. Even o
n Corregidor, the earth shook violently and flames roiled thousands of feet skyward. It was all the more macabre when an earthquake shook Bataan at the same time. With ammo belching into the sky and the earth shaking, it was as if Vulcan stood tall above them, laughing, toying with them.
They stared at the walls, as shells exploded outside. "But why did Richardson--"
"Fowler," corrected Epperson.
"Fowler said PONTIAC? Wouldn't he want that relayed to Wainwright instead of you?"
Epperson said, "I don't think Fowler meant that at all. Without whatever was in the pouch, I think he was trying to tell me something. PONTIAC means he wants me to destroy something."
"What?"
Running a hand over his scalp, Epperson eyed fresh Marines relieving the detail at the crypto room door. "I'm not sure."
CHAPTER NINE
25 April, 1942
U.S.S. Pelican (AM 49)
Caballo Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
Ingram's eyes flipped open and he focused on the overhead tracing cable arcing its way around a ventilation duct. He moved an arm. It was stuck to the sheet with last night's sweats. This morning promised another day of miserable, perspiring humidity.
He rolled his eyes to check the bulkhead mounted clock: 0627.
After turning in at two-thirty, he'd slept four hours in his skivvies and his bunk was, as usual, drenched in sweat. He rose, ran his hands through his hair, and bent over--what the hell? It was quiet. Where was the artillery?
A salvo, 150s perhaps, landed on Corregidor answering his question. While flipping the fan switch to high, another string of Japanese shells established the plan of the day on Caballo Island as well.
He looked out the porthole seeing Caballo’ s barren cliffs rise sharply. At the top of the cliff, green jungle jutted out making the facade look like a man with a high forehead; two boulders almost level with one another formed beady eyes while a feral pig trail (the pigs were extinct, having been run to ground by hungry defenders) scribed a mouth with a cruel smile. With air attacks in mind, Ingram felt safe from artillery tucked in here. There wasn't much of a swell. Another reason he lay close to the mile-long island was he hoped General Moore, stuck in Corregidor's Malinta Tunnel, would forget his plans to have the Pelican scuttle: Out of sight--out of mind, he thought.
With MacArthur's departure on March 11, two other minesweepers and three ancient river gunboats were all that remained of the once mighty Cavite-based Asiatic Fleet. Now all they could do was defiantly ply the waters of Manila Bay. With critically low fuel and obsolete weapons, they still put up effective antiaircraft barrages. Ironically, the Japanese let them alone and even ignored the plight of their own bombers which occasionally spilled from the sky in fiery plumes from American ack-ack.
It wasn't until they became hungry for targets that the Japanese finally swooped down to take the little ships under fire. Usually, it was just one ship at a time, with twenty or thirty airplanes doing their best to pound her to junk. The Pelican had been lucky last week. She'd been underway and was able to avoid the strafing and all but two crippling near misses.
In one way, the atmosphere was circus like. Survivors of the minesweeper Finch, paddling about while their ship wallowed in death throes, watched three Zeros fly upside-down at deck level in a perfect vee. The plane's canopies were cranked open and the damned pilots flipped them the finger as they zipped overhead. The waterlogged sailors asked in amazement, how the hell did they know what that meant?
Otherwise, it was bloody, macabre; war as usual. Like a shark frenzy, Zeros and Vals and Kates bored in from all directions, making it impossible for a ship to effectively direct its antiaircraft barrage. Soon the ship would be smothered with explosions and begin her trip to the bottom. Some straggling attackers simply buzzed the stricken ship as the crew abandoned her. Other aircraft strafed men in the water or aboard lifeboats. Now, all were gone except the Pelican and her sister ships, Quail and Tanager.
Ingram shuffled to the stainless washbasin and bent over to sponge himself off.
Someone rapped on the door.
"Come."
Fred Holloway walked in, pulled up a chair, and sat.
Ingram sloshed brackish water in his eyes and groped at a rack. "Yeah?"
Holloway threw a towel. "Rocky likes your idea."
"What?"
"He thinks we should head for China. He's an old Yangtze sailor. He was on the Panay and knows some of the lingo."
"Yeah?"
Holloway grinned. "Knowing Rocky, it's probably just dirty words. Anyway, he talked to the engineering gang. He says they're for it."
"Okay."
"Our motor whaleboat isn't good, he says. The engine is a wreck."
"Ran swell last night."
"Claims he stuffed Fuller's earth in the crankcase. He's going to look for something else."
Drying his face completed Ingram's morning ablutions. He buttoned up a stained sleeveless khaki shirt and was ready for the day. "What about Ollie?"
"Don't know."
"Come on, Fred."
"Shit. Alright. He hasn't talked to the deck force yet."
"I better fire a blast at him. We need to get this thing moving." Ingram rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Look. I think we might have something. There are three shoreboats at the South Dock. It would be tight, but I think we can get everyone in."
"Wow."
"Food and water is a big problem."
Holloway made a wry face. "If the price for escaping the Japs is eating canned salmon and rice for another couple of weeks, I'll go for it." He looked out the port for a moment. "But, what if we get there to discover rice and canned salmon is all the Chinese have?"
"That may not be a problem."
"Oh, yeah?"
"I've been thinking of another route. One that takes us--"
Someone rapped on the door. "Come," said Ingram.
Toliver poked his head in the door. "Shoreboat headed our way, Captain. Army guys."
Ingram reached for his garrison cap. "Be right there."
Toliver left and Ingram asked, "What's with him?"
Holloway tipped his hand from side to side. "I think he's tired. A lot of the guys are. They're ready to throw in the towel and let the Japs run things."
Ingram said. "They're not worried about what happens to them?"
"They don't care anymore."
He squared his cap and stood in the doorway. "It's their choice. I'll try to fix it so everyone on this ship has a chance to go with me. Put the word out."
Holloway stood. "Yes, Sir."
Ingram turned and walked to the quarterdeck to find the 51 Boat pulling in with Mordkin and another nervous looking Army captain. With them was an Army major with a lightly pockmarked face, wearing Jodhpurs. A thin mustache underlined a large hawk billed nose. Deep-set eyes hid in shadows under a campaign hat.
After salutes, Mordkin introduced Major Otis DeWitt, and the other officer, Captain Henry Fletcher of the Quartermaster Corps, who wore large round glasses that obscured constantly darting eyes. Ingram lead them to the wardroom and poured coffee. Mordkin acted as if he hadn't had any for years, finishing his cup in three gulps. DeWitt took his time, savoring his portion while Fletcher sipped slowly with a cocked pinkie. Finally, DeWitt spoke with a resonant Texas twang, "I understand you're taking the party out to meet the submarine."
Come on. Epperson's deal is supposed to be top secret, thought Ingram. "Who says so?"
DeWitt sat back and sniffed. "Are you not the one assigned, Lieutenant?" For whatever reason, DeWitt had tossed a poorly conceived gauntlet; he'd addressed Ingram by his actual rank, one junior to DeWitt which was technically correct. But Ingram figured this staffer and his two weenies who sat slopping up his coffee on his eleven-hundred-ton United States Navy fighting ship for which he had been commissioned to command should favor him with the traditional honorific of captain.
He rose, snatched a phone from the overhead bracket and punched a call button.
"Mr. Toliver? This is the captain. We're two minutes late for General Quarters. And set the anchor detail." He looked at DeWitt. "I may want to get underway at a moment’s notice."
The 1MC screeched, "General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations." A bell gonged, hatches crashed shut and were dogged. First Fletcher, then Mordkin stood and looked about nervously as the exhaust and vent blowers--the ship's breathing system--wound down making it immediately fetid. Without the blowers, the bulkheads began to sweat with the humidity. Little rivulets of condensation worked their way to the deck. More hatches slammed shut as men clumped in adjacent compartments, energizing their equipment and hooking up their telephone headsets to report in.
The wardroom hatch banged open. DeWitt jumped up as Yardly and two perspiring hospital corpsmen pounced into the wardroom.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Yardly, handing DeWitt, Mordkin, and Fletcher their cups and saucers. With a practiced flourish, he yanked the green-felt cloth off the wardroom table while another hospital corpsman flipped out a white pad. Quickly, the three men spread surgical instruments and a portable medicine chest on a side table. Yardly plugged in sound powered telephones and said, "Bridge? Wardroom. Manned and ready."
Yardly looked at the other two and said, "Who's gottum?"
"Me," said one of the hospital corpsmen. He reached in the portable medicine chest producing poker chips and a deck of cards. Judiciously, the three glanced at Ingram then took seats in a far corner and began playing.
Ingram checked his watch: Forty-three seconds to set GQ; not bad. The average was forty-six; the best time ever was thirty-four. He enjoyed watching DeWitt's wild eyes wishing it could be prolonged. But then war was the Pelican's business and his men were paid to be quick and professional.
Mordkin recovered first and with a glance at Ingram, nonchalantly walked over and poured more coffee. DeWitt opened his mouth to speak but Ingram beat him to it.
"Major. You need authorization to discuss something like that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must take my place on the bridge." He started to walk out.
THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1) Page 10