“Where are you going to get the gasoline to do that, Ken?” Pickering asked.
“That’s one of the things I haven’t figured out yet,” McCoy said. “One possibility is to have caches of it, and another is having it flown in by the Catalinas. I figure it would take five gallons of gas a day, a hundred and fifty gallons a month, to send the ambulance twenty-five miles away from the weather station every day.”
“Caches of gasoline?” Colonel Platt asked. “Where would you get those?”
“I think it’s time,” Pickering said, “that we hear Ken’s ideas on this operation. Start at the beginning, Ken.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said. He paused, obviously collecting his thoughts. “Well, when we started to ask questions, we heard about the bandits—which was not exactly news—and we heard that the Nationalists are sending patrols into the deserts. Long range patrols, on camels and Mongolian ponies.”
“We’re aware of those patrols,” Sampson said. “In addition to their intelligence-gathering function, they are supposed to suppress the bandit activity.”
Pickering looked at McCoy, who was staring at Sampson with a strange look in his eyes.
Is he annoyed at the interruption? Pickering wondered. Or is he amused? Or disgusted? Or maybe all three?
“More likely,” McCoy said, “they’re holding hands with the bandits.”
“I don’t think I understand,” Pickering said.
“Sir, it’s more than likely that, in exchange for letting the bandits operate, the patrols—or at least the patrol’s officers—get a cut of what the bandits have stolen, and the bandits provide intelligence about the caravans, and maybe even about the Japanese.”
“Or, Ken,” Banning said thoughtfully, “maybe about a group of westerners running around out there.”
“We are regularly furnished with intelligence reports from the Chinese about what those patrols have turned up,” Colonel Platt said. “We have specifically requested information about any Americans. There has been nothing, absolutely nothing.”
McCoy ignored him.
“The Nationalist Chinese, on patrol and off,” he went on, “have to live a lot off the land. They have to, or starve. Which is one of the reasons Mao Tse-Tung’s Communists are so popular; they don’t steal from the peasants the way the Nationalists do.”
“You sound as if you approve of the Communists, Captain,” Colonel Platt said.
“I don’t, sir, but if I were a peasant, and the Communists didn’t steal my last pig, and the Nationalists did, I probably would.”
“What’s your point, Ken?” Banning challenged.
“The first thing I thought was that I would get in touch with these Nationalist patrols, to see if they had heard anything about Westerners that they hadn’t sent up through channels.”
“If they had heard something, why wouldn’t they have reported it?” Colonel Platt asked.
“Because, sir, they might get orders to investigate further,” McCoy said. “If I was a Nationalist lieutenant, I wouldn’t want to get an order like that. Life is tough enough as it is without me almost volunteering to stick my neck out to look for a bunch of Westerners.”
“You said that was the first thing you thought of, McCoy?” Pickering asked.
“Yes, sir. Then I realized that there is no way that a long-range patrol can live off the land in the Gobi. There’s nothing to steal out there except from caravans. And caravans would not have enough food to feed forty men for long. Which meant that the patrols would have to be resupplied. And I found out they run regular truck convoys out there, to preestablished rendezvous points. Sometimes it’s just rations, and sometimes they take troops, even horses, out there to replace lost horses and bring back the sick, lame, and lazy.”
He stopped and took a thin cigar from his pocket and lit it. Then he went on.
“That’s when I started to think that if Zimmerman and I could hook up with one of these motor supply convoys, we could go as far as they go, then take off on our own. With a little bit of luck, maybe we could get them to tell me what they’ve heard about a group of Westerners.”
“What makes you think they’d tell you something they haven’t reported through the appropriate channels?” Captain Sampson asked.
McCoy looked at him coldly, then decided the question was a request for information rather than a challenge.
“I’d pay them,” McCoy said. “They aren’t getting paid by whoever sends them out there.”
“What makes you think they’d tell you truth?” Colonel Platt asked.
“I’d have to take a chance on that, sir,” McCoy said. “But my gut feeling is that if I was a Nationalist officer, I’d be a little afraid to lie to a White Russian officer.”
“Why?” Captain Sampson asked. Again McCoy gave him the benefit of any doubt that it might be a challenge.
“They all came out of the Imperial Army,” he explained. “A lot of them say they were colonels and generals—and maybe they were. The way I understand it, if you lied to an officer in the Czar’s army—for that matter, talked back to one—they shot you on the spot, and let the paperwork catch up later.”
“You seem to know a good deal about both the Chinese and Czarist armies, Captain McCoy,” Colonel Platt said.
He’s barely able, Pickering thought, to control his sarcasm. Well, that’s understandable. They not only had a serious run-in the first time they met, but now the man who in essence told him to go fuck himself is making it very clear he thinks very little of an Opplan Platt thinks solves all our problems.
“I knew some Chinese officers in Shanghai, sir,” McCoy said. “And some White Russians.”
McCoy’s and Banning’s eyes met.
“Going along with your line of thinking, Captain,” Platt went on. “As I understand you, you’re suggesting that you just drive off into the Gobi in your ambulance…”
“And the weapons carrier, sir. Both towing five-hundred-gallon water trailers filled with gas.”
“…in the hope that you will be able to establish contact with this group of Americans thought to be somewhere in the desert.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what if you run out of gasoline before finding the Americans?”
“Then we fire up the radio, sir, and hope the Catalinas can find us.”
“Wouldn’t it really make more sense, Captain, to just find some good location for the weather station and establish contact from there? Without running around an immense desert looking for people who might not be there?”
“I’m not prepared to give up on the Marines out there, sir, without trying.”
“That may not be your decision to make, Captain,” Colonel Platt said.
“No, sir,” McCoy said. “As I understand it, that would be General Pickering’s decision to make.”
“That’s pretty close to insolence, Captain!” Platt flared.
“Whoa!” Pickering said sharply. “For one thing, I’m sure Captain McCoy didn’t intend to be insolent. For another, he’s right. This is my decision, and I just realized that I’m not prepared to make it without further information.”
He waited a moment, until he thought Colonel Platt had regained control of his temper.
“What I suggest we do now is have a drink,” Pickering went on. “Maybe more than one. And then dinner. Then we’ll sleep on this, and have another go at it in the morning. Is there room for Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman to spend the night here, Platt?”
“Sir, we could put a couple of cots in my room,” Captain Sampson said.
McCoy looked at him in surprise. Then he turned to Pickering.
“I’d hate to put the Captain out, sir. And our place isn’t that far away.” He turned to Sampson. “But thanks, anyway.”
“Tell me about your place,” Pickering said.
“Actually, sir, it’s pretty comfortable. It’s a nice house, and we have a pretty good cook.” He looked at Banning. “I’d almost forgotten how nice it was in Sha
nghai to have houseboys bring you a cup of tea in the morning, when they deliver your wash and pressed uniform.”
“You have houseboys?” Banning asked, smiling.
“And you don’t think your house and your houseboys have attracted attention?” Platt asked.
“You really can’t hide anything in China, Colonel,” McCoy said, on the edge of condescension. “What you can do is make something look like something else. What we look like is a couple of White Russian officers living like White Russian officers. In other words, well. Zimmerman got uniforms for the houseboys. Every White Russian officer in the Nationalist Army has at least two orderlies. And orderlies are expected to have rifles.”
“How many ‘orderlies’ do you have?” Pickering asked, smiling.
“Fourteen,” McCoy said. “Two of them take care of us, two take care of the vehicles, and the others are our perimeter guard, and run errands.”
“Errands like watching this place and the airport?”
“Yes, sir.”
Pickering saw that Colonel Platt did not at all like hearing that McCoy had had people watching his compound.
“Your own private army, huh?” Pickering chuckled.
“More like my private squad, sir,” McCoy said.
“What had you planned to do with this private army of yours if you followed your original plan and went into the Gobi by yourself?” Platt asked. “Take them all with you?”
There is an implication in that question, Pickering thought, none too subtly phrased, that he has decided McCoy’s plan is dead.
He looked at McCoy and saw in his eyes that McCoy had come to the same conclusion.
“When I go into the desert, Colonel,” McCoy said, “I’m going to take four of the Chinese with me—maybe six; I haven’t thought that through yet. The rest I’d planned to turn over to Colonel Banning. The men, and the house.”
“What’s that all about?” Platt asked.
“Sir,” McCoy replied, but looked at Pickering as he did. “I thought Colonel Banning—and the Easterbunny and the others…”
“The ‘Easterbunny’?” Colonel Platt asked incredulously.
“…would need a place to stay besides a BOQ…” McCoy went on.
“The ‘Easterbunny’?” Platt repeated.
“…and I didn’t think they’d want to live here,” McCoy finished doggedly.
Platt glowered at him.
“Unfortunately, Colonel Platt,” Pickering said, “Captain McCoy can’t seem to remember not to call Lieutenant Easterbrook ‘The Easterbunny.’ Worse, neither can I.”
“Sorry, sir,” McCoy said.
“There’d be room for all of us in this house of yours?” Banning asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s got beds, et cetera?”
“Not enough for everybody, sir. But getting what else we need wouldn’t be hard.”
“From the same place you got the vehicles, right?” Banning chuckled.
“Yes, sir, you can buy anything you want in Chungking, if you have gold.”
“You had five thousand dollars’ worth of gold twenty-dollar pieces,” Banning said. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but how much is left?”
“About eighteen hundred. I got a good deal on the ambulance, the weapons carrier, and the five-hundred-gallon water trailers,” McCoy said, smiling. “But I had to pay six months’ rent in advance on the house. And good tailors—as Pick taught me—don’t come cheap. And then I have rations to buy, and the weekly payroll to meet.”
“In other words, you’re going to need more money to go into the desert?” Pickering asked.
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“I think I want to see this house of yours, McCoy,” Pickering said. “Is there any reason we can’t go there?”
“Would you mind riding in the back of the ambulance, sir? One of these OSS Studebakers would make people wonder.”
“I’ve no problem with that,” Pickering said. “After dinner we’ll go there. At least Colonel Banning will know where to find you in the future.”
XXI
[ONE]
Muku-Muku
Oahu, Territory of Hawaii
1745 9 April 1943
When Lieutenant Commander Warren T. Houser, commanding officer of the United States Submarine Sunfish, was shown onto the patio behind the house, he was wearing a fresh-that-morning khaki uniform that now bore grease and oil stains in several places. Commander Houser had not changed into a fresh uniform before leaving the Sunfish, reasoning that he was going directly—in a staff car—from the pier at Pearl Harbor to Muku-Muku, and directly back. He would almost certainly not be seen by anyone who might look askance at an officer attired in an oil-stained uniform. Soiling a uniform could not be avoided on a submarine—even on an extraordinarily shipshape boat, as he believed the Sunfish to be. Some Naval officers just didn’t seem to be able to understand that. Usually, they were officers who had never been to sea on anything smaller than a battleship, and had spent the preponderance of their Naval careers behind a desk on the beach.
Furthermore, upon returning to the Sunfish, Commander Houser intended to inspect his boat from bow to stern planes. He was going to sea at first light, and he wanted to once again personally check the storage aboard of fifty five-gallon jerry cans of avgas; twenty-seven odd-shaped aluminum crates; and two inflatable rubber boats. Commander Houser was understandably nervous about having that much avgas in his boat.
Any uniform he wore when he made his way around the Sunfish would become oil-stained. Since the one he was wearing was only lightly stained (compared with what usually happened to his uniforms), it just made sense not to change it.
In the morning, of course, he would put on fresh, crisply starched khakis. He suspected that Rear Admiral Wagam would be on the pier to offer a few words of encouragement before the Sunfish sailed off into the Kaiwi Channel to try to move the avgas and the aluminum crates from the boat to a Catalina without drowning anybody and/or blowing up the airplane and/or the Sunfish.
Tonight, Major Jake Dillon, USMCR, had invited him out to Muku-Muku to have a couple of drinks and a nice dinner. They’d be joined there by Wagam’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III. Lewis was a submariner himself; he knew all about oil-stained uniforms; and Jake Dillon was not unfamiliar with them, either. It was also likely that Charley Galloway would be there, and Big Steve Oblensky; both of them were fliers, so both of them understood oil-stained uniforms. And it was also likely that Peter T. McGuire, the most incredible character he had ever encountered in the uniform of a chief petty officer of the U.S. Navy, would break bread with them. What McGuire thought about Houser’s uniform was unimportant.
When Commander Houser walked onto the patio, he found that Rear Admiral Daniel Wagam had also been invited to Muku-Muku. He was standing, with a glass in hand, at the edge of the patio, gazing down at the surf.
Admiral Wagam was wearing a crisp, immaculate, pure white, high-collared dress uniform. Also attired in snow-white dress uniforms were the other Naval persons on the patio: Lieutenant Lewis; Commander Florence Kocharski Oblensky, NC, USN; and even Chief Carpenter’s Mate Peter T. McGuire, of the Naval Reserve. When Commander Houser last saw Chief McGuire—two hours before, as the chief left the Sunfish—he was naked except for a pair of torn-off-above-the-knees khaki trousers and a pair of rubber-and-canvas sneakers.
The Marine contingent—Major Jake Dillon, Captain Charles Galloway, and Master Gunner Big Steve Oblensky—was also magnificently attired in dress white uniforms.
“Good evening, Admiral,” Commander Houser said.
“Came right from the boat, did you, Houser?” Admiral Wagam asked.
“If I have kept the Admiral waiting, sir…”
“You didn’t know I was coming,” Wagam said. “I didn’t know I was coming myself until Commander Kocharski called at 1500.”
“Good evening, Commander,” Lieutenant Commander Houser said.
“I thought we all needed a littl
e party,” Flo said. “You guys have been working around the clock.”
“I apologize for my appearance, sir,” Houser said.
“Your appearance? I thought all submariners look that way,” Admiral Wagam said, visibly pleased with his sense of humor.
A white-jacketed steward appeared with a tray of drinks. “Bourbon in the red glasses, Commander,” he said. “Scotch in the green. Or whatever you want, sir.”
“A little bourbon will do just fine, thank you very much,” Commander Houser said gratefully.
“The Chief,” Admiral Wagam said, “has just been telling me he anticipates no trouble at all in the dry run tomorrow.”
“We think, sir, we have everything under control,” Houser said. “But it’s nice to have Chief McGuire’s vote of confidence.”
“Don’t mention it,” Chief McGuire said graciously.
Captain Galloway, in the midst of taking a swallow of his drink, suddenly found himself coughing.
“What I’m going to do tomorrow,” McGuire went on, “is just get out of the way, and let your boys do the whole thing themselves.”
“You think we can safely take that risk?” Houser asked, unable to restrain his sarcasm, which sailed six feet over Chief McGuire’s head.
“Well, if they screw up, I’ll be there to set them straight,” Chief McGuire said. “I was about to say that I won’t be there when they do it for real, but I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve just about decided I’d better go along when you go on the real thing.”
“You’ve decided that, have you, Pete?” Big Steve Oblensky asked.
“Just about. I mean, what the hell, this is supposed to be damned important. Why take a chance?”
“Why indeed?” Admiral Wagam said. “Have you ever been aboard a submarine, Chief?”
“No, but I’m a deepwater sailor, Admiral.”
Captain Galloway had a second fit of coughing.
“Tell me, Chief,” Admiral Wagam said, “how do you define ‘deepwater sailor’?”
Chief McGuire looked at the Admiral as if he thought an admiral should know how to define a deepwater sailor.
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