“What about the Communist notion that there should be no privileges for officers?” Rickabee went on.
“They got that from the Russians,” McCoy said. “Everybody over there is ‘comrade.’ Chiang Kai-shek’s copying the Germans. The Germans were in China a long time, and the Germans think the way to run an army is to really separate the officers from the enlisted men, make the officers look really special, so nobody even thinks of disobeying an officer.”
“And the Communists? From what I’ve heard, they almost elect their officers.”
“I heard that, too,” McCoy said. “We tried that, too, in the Civil War. It didn’t work. You can’t run an army if you’re all the time trying to win a popularity contest.”
Sessions chuckled. “And you don’t think it works for the Chinese Communists, either?”
“You want to know what I think the only difference between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists is?” McCoy asked. “I mean, in how they maintain discipline?”
“I really would,” Sessions said.
“It’s not what Carlson says,” McCoy said. “Carlson thinks the Communists are…hell, like they got religion. That they think they’re doing something noble.”
“What is it, then?” Rickabee asked.
“Somebody gets an order in the Nationalists and fails to carry it out, they form a firing squad, line up the regiment to watch, and execute him by the numbers. Some Communist doesn’t do what the head comrade tells him to do, they take him behind a tree and shoot him in the ear. Same result. Do what you’re told, or get shot.”
“And the Japanese?”
“That’s another ball game,” McCoy said. “The Japs really believe their emperor is God. They do what they’re told because otherwise they don’t get to go to heaven. Anyway, the Japs are different than the Chinese. Most of them can read, for one thing.”
“Very interesting,” Rickabee said. “You really are an interesting fellow, McCoy.”
“You going to tell me why all the questions?” McCoy asked, after a moment.
Rickabee dipped into his briefcase again and came up with a manila envelope stiff with eight-by-ten inch photographs of the Roosevelt letter. He handed it to McCoy.
“Read that, McCoy,” Rickabee said.
McCoy read the entire document, and then looked at Rickabee and Sessions.
“Jesus!” he said.
“If the question in your mind, McCoy,” Rickabee said, “is whether the Marine Corps intends to implement that rather extraordinary proposal, the answer is yes.”
McCoy’s surprise and confusion registered, for just a moment, on his face.
“Unless, of course, the Commandant is able to go to the President with proof that the source of those extraordinary suggestions is unbalanced, or a Communist,” Rickabee added, dryly. “The source, of course, being Evans Carlson and not the President’s son. I don’t know about that—about the unbalanced thing or the Communist thing—but I think there’s probably more to it than simply an overenthusiastic appreciation of the way the Chinese do things.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but why are you showing me all this stuff?” McCoy asked.
“It has been proposed to the Commandant that the one way to find out what Colonel Carlson is really up to is to arrange to have someone assigned to his Raider Battalion who would then be able to make frequent, and if I have to say so, absolutely secret reports, to confirm or refute the allegations that he is unbalanced, or a Communist, or both.”
“Named McCoy,” McCoy said.
“The lesser of two evils, McCoy,” Rickabee said. “Either intelligence—which I hope means you—does it, or somebody else will. There’s a number of people close to the Commandant who have already made up their minds about Carlson, and whoever they arranged to have sent would go out there looking for proof that he is what they are convinced he is.”
“So I guess I go,” McCoy said.
“There are those in the Marine Corps, McCoy,” Rickabee said dryly, “who do not share your high opinion of Second Lieutenant McCoy; who in fact think this is entirely too much responsibility for a lowly lieutenant. What happens next is that a colonel named Wesley is coming to dinner. He will examine you with none of what I’ve been talking about entering into the conversation. He will then go home, call a general officer, and tell him that it would be absurd to entrust you with a job like this. Meanwhile, General Forrest, who is one of your admirers, will be telling the same general officer that you are clearly the man for the job. What I think will happen is that the general will want to have a look at you himself and make up his mind then.”
“Sir, is there any way I can get out of this?”
“You may not hear drums and bugles in the background, McCoy,” Rickabee said, “but if you will give this a little thought, I think you’ll see that it’s of great importance to the Corps. I don’t want to rub salt in your wound, but it’s a lot more important than what you were doing in the Philippines.”
(Three)
Temporary Building T-2032
The Mall
Washington, D.C.
1230 Hours, 7 January 1942
McCoy’s encounter with Colonel Wesley was not what he really expected. The meeting was clearly not Wesley’s idea; he had simply been ordered to have a look at the kid. Thus at dinner Wesley practically ignored him; what few questions he asked were brief and obviously intended to confirm what he had decided about McCoy before he met him.
Despite what Rickabee had said about the importance to the Corps of checking on Carlson, McCoy didn’t want the job. Even the COI seemed like a better assignment. With a little bit of luck, McCoy decided, Colonel Wesley would be able to convince the unnamed general officer that McCoy was not the man for it.
He was a mustang second lieutenant. The brass would not entrust to a mustang second lieutenant a task they considered very important to the Corps.
But just before he went to sleep in a bedroom overlooking the snow-covered golf course, he had another, more practical, thought. He could get away with spying on this gone-Chink lieutenant colonel for the same reasons Colonel Wesley didn’t think he could carry it off: because he was a mustang second lieutenant. Wesley would send some Palace Guard type out there, some Annapolis first lieutenant or captain. If Colonel Carlson was up to something he shouldn’t be, he sure wouldn’t do it with an Annapolis type around. Carlson would not be suspicious of a mustang second lieutenant; but if he hadn’t really gone off the deep end, he would wonder why an Annapolis-type captain was so willing to go along with his Chinese bullshit.
In the morning, Captain Sessions told him to stick around the house until he was summoned, and then Sessions drove to work.
He tried to keep out of the way, but Mrs. Sessions found him reading old National Geographic magazines in the living room, and she wanted to talk. The conversation turned to Ernie Sage and ended with him calling her on the phone, so Mrs. Sessions could talk to her.
They had no sooner hung up than the phone rang again. It was Captain Sessions. He told McCoy to meet him outside Building T-2032 at half-past twelve.
When he got there, five minutes early, Captain Sessions was waiting for him. He was wearing civilian clothing.
“Would it be all right if we used your car again, Killer?” Sessions asked.
“Yes, sir, of course.” McCoy said.
When they were in the car, McCoy looked at Sessions for directions.
“Take the Fourteenth Street Bridge,” Sessions ordered.
Twenty-five minutes later, they turned off a slippery macadam road and drove through a stand of pine trees, and then between snow-covered fields to a fieldstone farmhouse on top of a hill. As they approached the house, McCoy saw that it was larger than it appeared from a distance. And when, at Sessions’s orders, he drove around to the rear, he saw four cars: a Buick, a Ford, and two 1941 Plymouth sedans, all painted in Marine green.
“It figures, I suppose,” Sessions said dryly, “that the junior membe
r of this little gathering has the fanciest set of wheels.”
McCoy wasn’t sure whether Sessions was just cracking wise, or whether there was an implied reprimand; second lieutenants should not drive luxury convertibles. He had bought the LaSalle in Philadelphia when he had been ordered home from the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He had made a bunch of money in China, most of it playing poker, and he had paid cash money for the car. He’d bought it immediately on his return, as a corporal, before he had had any idea the Corps wanted to make him an officer.
He parked the LaSalle beside the staff cars, and they walked to the rear door of the farmhouse. A first lieutenant, wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp, opened the door as they reached it.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Sessions, giving McCoy a curious look. “The general is in the living room. Through the door, straight ahead, last door on the left.”
“Thank you,” Sessions said, and added, “I’ve been here before.”
In the corridor leading from the kitchen, they came across a row of Marine overcoats and caps hanging from wooden pegs. They added theirs to the row.
Then Sessions signaled for McCoy to knock on a closed sliding door.
“Yes?” a voice from inside called.
“Captain Sessions, sir,” Sessions called softly.
“Come in, Ed,” the voice called. McCoy slid the door open. Then Sessions walked into the room and McCoy followed him. There was five officers there: a major general and a brigadier general, neither of whom McCoy recognized; Colonel Wesley; Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee, in civilian clothing; and a captain wearing aide-de-camp’s insignia. There was also an enlisted Marine wearing a starched white waiter’s jacket.
The brigadier general shook Session’s hand, and then offered his hand to McCoy.
“Hello, McCoy,” he said. “Good to see you again.”
McCoy was surprised. So far as he could remember, he had never seen the brigadier general before. And then he remembered that he had. Once before, in Philadelphia, after he had just returned from China, they had had him at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, draining his brain of everything he could recall about China and the Japanese Army. Two men in civilian clothing had come into the third-floor room where he was “interviewed.” One of them, he realized, had been this brigadier general. And with that knowledge, he could put a name to him: He was Brigadier General Horace W. T. Forrest, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, USMC.
“Thank you, sir,” McCoy said. What did Rickabee mean when he said Forrest was “one of my admirers”?
“I don’t believe you know General Lesterby?” General Forrest said, gesturing to the major general.
“No, sir,” McCoy said. He looked at General Lesterby and saw that the general was examining him closely, as if surprised at what he was seeing.
Then General Lesterby offered his hand.
“How are you, Lieutenant?” he said.
“How do you do, sir?” McCoy said.
“And you’ve met Colonel Wesley,” General Forrest said.
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
Wesley nodded, and there was a suggestion of a smile, but he did not offer his hand.
“Tommy,” General Lesterby said, “make one more round for all of us. And two of whatever they’re having for Captain Sessions and Lieutenant McCoy. And that will be all for now.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the orderly said.
“And I think you should go keep General Forrest’s aide company, Bill,” General Lesterby said.
“Aye, aye, sir,” General Lesterby’s aide-de-camp said quickly. McCoy saw that he was surprised, and even annoyed, at being banished. But he quickly recovered.
“Captain Sessions, what’s your pleasure, sir?”
“Bourbon, please,” Sessions said. “Neat.”
“Lieutenant?” the aide asked.
“Scotch, please,” McCoy said. “Soda, please.”
Not another word was spoken until the drinks had been made and the aide-de-camp and the orderly had left the room.
General Lesterby picked up his glass.
“I think a toast to the Corps would be in order under the circumstances, gentlemen,” he said, and raised his glass. “The Corps,” he said.
The others followed suit.
“And under the circumstances,” Lesterby said, “to our oath of office, especially the phrase ‘against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’” He raised his glass again, and the others followed suit.
Then he looked at McCoy.
“Obviously, you’re a little curious, McCoy, right? Why I sent my aide-de-camp from the room?”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy admitted.
“Because if he is ever asked,” General Lesterby said, “as he very well may be asked, what happened in this room today, I want him to be able to answer, in all truthfulness, that he was sent from the room, and just doesn’t know.”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“The rest of us, McCoy,” General Lesterby said, “if we are asked what was said, what transpired, in this room this afternoon, are going to lie.”
“Sir?” McCoy blurted, not sure he had heard correctly.
“I said, we’re going to lie,” General Lesterby said. “If we can get away with it, we’re going to deny this meeting ever took place. If we are faced with someone’s knowing the meeting was held, we are going to announce we don’t remember who was here, and none of us is going to remember what was said by anyone.”
McCoy didn’t know what to say.
“And we are now asking you, McCoy, without giving you any reasons to do so, to similarly violate the code of truthfulness incumbent upon anyone privileged to wear the uniform of a Marine officer,” General Lesterby said, looking right into his eyes.
When McCoy didn’t reply, Lesterby went on: “As perverse as it sounds—as it is—I am asking for your word as a Marine officer to lie. If you are unable to do that, that will be the end of this meeting. You will return to your duties under General Forrest and Colonel Rickabee, neither of whom, obviously, is going to hold it against you for living up to a code of behavior you have sworn to uphold.”
McCoy didn’t reply.
“Well, Sessions,” General Forrest said, “you’re right about that, anyway. You can’t tell what he’s thinking by looking at him.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“‘Yes, sir,’ meaning what?” General Lesterby asked.
“You have my word, sir, that…I’ll lie, sir.”
“And now I want to know, Lieutenant McCoy—and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind—why you are willing to do so.”
“Colonel Rickabee and Captain Sessions, sir,” McCoy said. “They’re in on this. I’ll go with them.”
General Lesterby looked at McCoy for a moment.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re in. I really hope you don’t later have cause—that none of us later has cause—to regret that decision.”
McCoy glanced at Captain Session. He saw that Sessions had just nodded approvingly at him.
“I presume Colonel Rickabee has filled you in at some length, McCoy, about what this is all about?”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“Just so there’s no question in anyone’s mind, we are all talking about a brother Marine officer, Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson, who is about to be given command of a Marine Raider battalion. We are all aware that Colonel Carlson was awarded the Navy Cross for valor in Nicaragua, and that he was formerly executive officer of the Marine detachment assigned to protect the President of the United States at Warm Springs, Georgia. We are all aware, further, that he is a close friend of the President’s son, Captain James Roosevelt. Because we believe that Colonel Carlson’s activities in the future may cause grievous harm to the Corps, we see it as our distasteful duty to send someone—specifically, Lieutenant McCoy here—to spy on him. This action is of questionable legality, and it is without question morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, we are proceeding because
we are agreed, all of us, that the situation makes it necessary.” He looked around the room and then at General Forrest. “General Forrest?”
“Sir?” Forrest replied, confused.
“Is that your understanding of what is taking place?”
Forrest came to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“Colonel Wesley?”
“Yes, sir,” Wesley mumbled, barely audibly.
“A little louder, Wesley, if you please,” General Lesterby said. “If you are not in agreement with us, now’s the time to say so.”
“Yes, sir!” Colonel Wesley said, loudly.
“Rickabee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain Sessions?”
“Yes, sir.”
General Lesterly looked at McCoy. “I understand, son,” he said, “that you’re very unhappy with this assignment. That speaks well for you.”
Then he walked out of the room.
V
(One)
Pensacola, Florida
0500 Hours, 7 January 1942
Pick Pickering pulled the Cadillac convertible up before the San Carlos Hotel in Pensacola at a quarter to five in the morning. The car was filthy, covered with road grime, and Pickering himself was tired, unshaven, dirty, and starved.
From Atlanta, it had been a two-hour drive down U.S. 85 to Columbus, Georgia. Pickering saw a sign reading COLUMBUS, HOME OF THE INFANTRY, which explained why the streets of Columbus were crowded with soldiers; he was close to the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning.
He crossed a bridge and found himself in Alabama. There he found a small town apparently dedicated to satisfying the lusts of Benning’s military population. Its businesses seemed limited to saloons, dance halls, hock shops, and tourist cabins.
The next 250 miles were down a narrow, bumpy macadam road through a series of small Alabama towns and then across the border to Florida. Twenty miles inside Florida he came to U.S. 90 and turned right to Pensacola, a 125-mile, two-and-a-half-hour drive.
He had grown hungry about the time he’d passed through Columbus, Georgia, and had told himself he would stop and get something to eat, if only a hamburger, at the first place that looked even half decent. But he had found nothing open, decent or otherwise, between Columbus and Pensacola. He dined on Cokes and packages of peanut butter crackers bought at widely spaced gas stations where he took on gas.
Call to Arms Page 10