“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Tell Colonel Dawkins to prepare for a 2330 departure,” Nimitz ordered. “Subject to change. And get off a Special Channel personal to General Pickering. We were expecting contact before this, and he’s probably concerned.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Admiral Wagam said.
XXIV
[ONE]
Kiangpeh, Chungking, China
1115 2 May 1943
“Good morning, General,” Lieutenant Colonel Richard C. Platt said, saluting as he came through the door of McCoy’s house.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Pickering said. “To get right to the point, get word to Yümen immediately that the expedition is not to move into the desert until further orders.”
“Is that wise, sir?” Platt said.
“The proper reply in the Marine Corps to an order is ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ which means the order is understood and will be obeyed. What do they say in the Army, Colonel?”
“Sir, no disrespect was intended. But under the circumstances, sir, I felt obliged—”
“The circumstances? Meaning that Captain McCoy has not been heard from, and that we must reluctantly conclude that he has been lost in a futile hunt for Americans who we must also reluctantly conclude are lost?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the Marine Corps, Colonel, if we feel an explanation of an order is necessary, we say, ‘Aye, aye, sir. May I ask to be told the reason?’ If you had done that, Colonel, I would have shown you this.” He handed Colonel Platt the most recent message to have come over the Special Channel.
* * *
TOPSECRET
CINCPAC HAWAII
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
0700 LOCAL TIME 1 MAY 1943
US MILITARY MISSION TO CHINA
EYES ONLY BRIGGEN FLEMING PICKERING,
USMC
BEGIN PERSONAL FROM RADM WAGAM TO BRIG GEN PICKERING
DEAR FLEMING:
AT 0430 THIS MORNING CINCPAC WAS CONTACTED BY MCCOY. HE IS IN GOOD SHAPE AND WITH THE GYPSIES, WHO NUMBER FIFTY-SEVEN (57) INCLUDING THIRTY-THREE (33) WOMEN AND CHILDREN WHO ARE ALSO IN GOOD SHAPE.
REFERENCE OPPLAN GOBI DESERT MAP OVERLAY NUMBER THREE, HE GIVES HIS COORDINATES AS 1456 X 3401 REPEAT 1456 X 3401 BUT STATES THEY ARE UNRELIABLE. HOWEVER EVEN ALLOWING FOR A TWO HUNDRED (200) MILE ERROR THIS POSITION IS WITHIN CATALINA RANGE.
ANOTHER CONTACT IS SCHEDULED IN SEVERAL HOURS, AND PERHAPS HE WILL BE ABLE TO FURNISH A MORE PRECISE LOCATION AT THAT TIME.
ADMIRAL NIMITZ HAS ORDERED THE CATALINAS TO BE PREPARED TO DEPART AT 2330 1 MAY BY WHICH TIME WE SHOULD HAVE AN ON-SITE WEATHER REPORT FROM SUNFISH, WHICH WILL ALSO BE ADVISED OF CATALINA ETA ON SITE.
I WILL OF COURSE KEEP YOU ADVISED OF ALL DEVELOPMENTS.
BEST PERSONAL REGARDS,
DAN
END PERSONAL FROM RADM WAGAM TO BRIGGEN
PICKERING
TOPSECRET
* * *
“This is very good news, General,” Colonel Platt said.
“Yes, I thought so. That will be all, Colonel, you are dismissed.”
[TWO]
United States Submarine Sunfish
121° 03” East Longitude 39° 58” North Latitude
Yellow Sea
1025 2 May 1943
Since he’d come aboard the Sunfish, Chief Carpenter’s Mate Peter T. McGuire, USNR, had to some extent increased his knowledge of the customs of the Naval Service. Thus as he stuck his head through the port leading to the conning tower, he politely inquired, “Permission to come up, sir?”
Lieutenant Commander Warren T. Houser, USN, and Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, USN, looked down at him. Except for his face, Chief McGuire was bundled in cold-weather gear, including a parka with a wolf fur-trimmed hood. All of those on the conning tower were wearing cold-weather gear. “Permission granted,” Captain Houser said.
The third man on the conning tower, the chief of the boat, chief bo’sun’s mate Patrick J. Buchanan, did not look at Chief McGuire. Chief Buchanan had come to loathe and detest Chief McGuire—who had the bunk immediately above his—virtually from McGuire’s first moment aboard. He did not wish to look at him. If he never saw him again in his life, it would be too soon.
These feelings were perhaps not very charitable, and he knew it. He was well aware that some lesser human beings were simply not equipped by their Maker to sail aboard submersible vessels. In fact, he was usually quite sympathetic to their plight. But Buchanan’s patience and understanding had been pushed beyond his limits.
Early on, Captain Houser explained to him that Chief McGuire suffered from claustrophobia, a malady that was unsuspected until the first time the Sunfish slipped beneath the surface. There was simply nothing to be done about it, Houser elaborated. They were just going to have to deal with it for the duration of the patrol.
Chief McGuire’s symptoms went far beyond a feeling of unease at being contained, at feeling that the walls, so to speak, were closing in on him. There were psychosomatic manifestations. He had severe headaches, for one thing.
For another, he suffered psychosomatic gastric problems, including nausea, flatulence, and diarrhea. In Chief Buchanan’s many years at sea, during many patrols on submarines, he had never before encountered smells as foul as those he encountered when visiting a head vacated as long as a half hour before by Chief McGuire.
For another, Chief McGuire’s sleep was disturbed. He tossed and turned as long as he was in the sack, and he frequently whimpered in his sleep, like a small child having a bad dream. It is not pleasant under any circumstances to take one’s rest in a small, confined area with one’s nose separated from the man above by not more than twenty inches. When the man above is whimpering or breaking wind, or worse, regurgitating without warning and with astonishing force ninety percent of what he ate at the last meal, it is even less pleasant.
Chief Buchanan often thought that in the old Navy—and maybe even today, on say a destroyer, or other smaller man-of-war—the problem would have solved itself. The chief would have fallen overboard. The skipper would have penned a letter of condolence to his next of kin, authorized the auctioning off of the contents of the chief’s sea chest, conducted a brief memorial service, and that would have been the end of the sonofabitch.
“How are you feeling, Chief?” Lieutenant Lewis asked.
Lewis actually showed sympathy to the bastard, as did Captain Houser. And Lewis was even genuinely worried about the state of Chief McGuire’s health generally and his mental health specifically. McGuire had lost perhaps twenty-five pounds, and there were deep black rings under his eyes. No one on a submarine has an enviable tan, but McGuire’s skin was an unhealthy white.
“I’m all right,” McGuire said, not very convincingly. “It’s only when I’m downstairs and they close the hole in the roof that I start getting sick.”
“Well, if everything goes all right in the next hour or so, Chief,” Captain Houser said, “we’ll be on our way home.”
“I hope,” Chief McGuire said, and then broke wind. The sound immediately penetrated his cold-weather gear. By the time the odor inevitably followed, the skipper of the Sunfish, her chief of the boat, and Mr. Lewis, her supercargo, all had independently decided to look in the direction of the prevailing wind to see what might be out there.
“Bridge, Radio,” the squawk box went off.
To provide Chief McGuire with a space on the bridge, Captain Houser had decided to dispense with the services of the talker who normally would have relayed commands from the bridge.
Captain Houser bent over the squawk box, pressed the switch, and said, “Radio, go.”
“Captain, I have a faint signal on the aviation frequency, transmitting G.S.”
“Radio, send five G.S. signals at thirty-second intervals,” Captain Houser asked.
“Aye, aye, sir,” the radio operator replied.
“You don’t suppose they’ve actually found us, and on sch
edule?” Lieutenant Lewis asked.
“You don’t believe in miracles, Mr. Lewis? Shame on you,” Captain Houser said.
“Captain, I’ve been thinking,” Chief McGuire said.
“Not now, Chief, please,” Captain Houser said.
“That maybe I could go with the airplanes,” McGuire plunged ahead.
“I thought you got sick on airplanes, Chief,” Lieutenant Lewis asked.
“Not as sick as I am on here,” McGuire replied. “And anyway, Flo gave me some inner-ear airsickness pills.”
Captain Houser held up his finger before Chief McGuire’s pale face and said, “Sssssssh!”
“I believe, Captain,” Lieutenant Lewis said, “that Chief McGuire is referring to Commander Florence Kocharski, of the Navy Nurse Corps.”
Commander Kocharski had confided in Lieutenant Lewis that the inner-ear seasickness pills she had given Chief McGuire were placebos, usually prescribed for women in the early stages of pregnancy. Sometimes, Flo said, they stopped morning sickness and sometimes they didn’t. But they wouldn’t do Chief McGuire any harm.
“Thank you, Mr. Lewis, I never would have guessed.”
“Bridge, Radio.”
“Go.”
“Aircraft sent Verifier Sea Gypsy. It checks.”
“Continue sending G.S. at thirty-second intervals.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I hope he’s not far away,” Houser said, almost to himself. “I don’t like sitting out here like this.”
“There’s supposed to be two of them,” Chief McGuire said. “Two Catalinas.”
“What do I have to do to make you shut up, McGuire?” Captain Houser flared, and was immediately sorry. McGuire’s face was that of a kicked child. A sick kicked child.
“Sorry, sir.”
Chief Buchanan suddenly stopped in his binocular sweep of the skies, moved to the port bulkhead, and rested his elbows on it.
“Got anything, Chief?” Lieutenant Lewis asked.
“I have two objects at estimated two miles.”
Captain Houser pressed the lever on the squawk box. “Suit up the deck crew. Notify when ready.” This command was necessary because it was too warm in the interior of the Sunfish for the deck crew to put on their cold-weather gear until they were needed.
“Two Catalinas at two miles,” Chief Buchanan said.
Captain Houser reached inside his hood and came out with a cord for his earphones. He plugged it in, then picked up a microphone. “Sea Gypsy One, this is Gas Station.”
“We have you in sight, Gas Station. What are the seas?”
“The seas are three-to-four-foot swells. The wind is from the north at estimated twenty miles,” Houser replied.
“We’ll turn into the wind and have a shot at it,” the pilot replied.
Captain Houser pressed the squawk box switch. “Pass the word, aircraft in sight,” he said. Then he looked at Lieutenant Lewis. “Would there be space? Weight-wise?”
“I’d say the chief weighs about thirty-five gallons of avgas,” Lewis said, and then added: “He’s really sick, I think.”
“Yeah,” Captain Houser said thoughtfully. “McGuire, make up your mind. Do you really want to go on one of the airplanes? You know where they’re going.”
“Yes, sir,” Chief McGuire said. “I think I could probably make myself useful, sir. Maybe help the weather people. Keep their generator working. I can fix practically anything—”
Houser held up his finger again. “Ssssssh!”
“Do you think they could make do with one less meteorologist?” Lieutenant Lewis asked.
“I don’t think we could go that far,” Houser said. “But that would be your decision, wouldn’t it, Mr. Lewis?”
He bent to the squawk box. “As soon as the deck crew goes on deck, suit up the supercargo,” he ordered.
“The first one’s down, Skipper,” Chief Buchanan reported.
Captain Houser looked. The first Catalina had not only landed but had slowed enough for her pilot to start turning toward the Sunfish. As Houser watched, the second touched down.
He bent over the squawk box. “Deck crew on deck, break out and prepare to launch rubber boats. Suit up the supercargo. Prepare to pass cargo onto the deck.”
He picked up the microphone. “Sea Gypsy One, what would an additional two hundred and fifty pounds do to you?”
“That would depend. Any change in our coordinates?”
“No.”
“We can handle another two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Thank you,” Houser said. “McGuire, your decision. You want to go?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then go below, and have someone show you how to go on deck.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Chief McGuire said. “Thank you, Captain.” He saluted, which Captain Houser returned. Then he saluted Lieutenant Lewis, which Lewis returned. “I’m sorry to have been such a mess, Buchanan.”
Chief Buchanan turned and looked at him, then put out his hand. “Take care of yourself, Chief,” Buchanan said. “Don’t take any wooden nickels or anything.”
[THREE]
* * *
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
ALL RECEIVING USNAVAL COMMUNICATIONS
FACILITIES RELAY TO CINCPAC
ATTENTION RADM WAGAM
RENDEZVOUS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED IN ALL ASPECTS. SEA GYPSIES DEPARTED 1105 LOCAL TIME.
WILL CONDUCT ROUTINE PATROL ACTIVITIES EN ROUTE TO PEARL HARBOR.
HOUSER, LTCMDR, USN COMMANDING
* * *
[FOUR]
Somewhere in the Gobi Desert
Mongolia
1500 2 May 1943
For the past several hours, people had been removing all the supplies stored inside the ambulance—and lashed all over its outside—and then distributing them among the wagons and carts of the caravans. Doing all that had converted the ambulance into the radio room of what, if everything went well, would be known as Station Nowhere. The single radio in the rear of the ambulance at the moment was one of the two small portable radios designed and built by Collins Radio to be transported on camelback. It was connected by a cable to a stationary bicycle-driven generator set up just outside the rear doors of the ambulance.
A long wire antenna came out of the passenger window, the other end fastened to the three-quarter-ton weapons carrier. It was a jury rig, but it worked. Proper, collapsible antenna masts and more powerful radios were aboard the Catalinas. According to their last contact with Pearl Harbor, these had left Pearl Harbor just before midnight the day before.
It was now time to find out if they had found the Sunfish a hundred miles off the coast of China in the Yellow Sea, had landed, and more important, had taken off again, and when.
So far as McCoy was concerned, there were entirely too many people crowded into the ambulance. He had considered ordering everybody but Jerry Sampson out, but decided against it, partly because he understood their interest and partly because he was aware that most of the gypsies had already decided he was a prick. While he really didn’t care what they thought of him, that might get to be a problem.
McCoy was sitting in the driver’s seat. Chief Motor Machinist’s Mate Frederick C. Brewer, Fleet Reserve, USN, sat in the passenger’s seat. As McCoy saw it, the chief had a right to be in the ambulance. He was the ranking man, and the gypsies were accustomed to doing what he told them to do. Captain Jerome Sampson sat on the floor of the rear of the ambulance. He was the radio operator, and obviously had to be there.
The man sitting beside Sampson didn’t need to be there. He was the gypsies’ radioman, a radioman first who had transferred off the gunboat Panay into the Fleet Reserve when McCoy was in the fifth grade. The radio he had somehow managed to cobble together from parts “borrowed” from another Yangtze River patrol gunboat had allowed him to transmit the few messages announcing the very existence of the gypsies. His delight at seeing the Collins radio, and his awe at the tiny little radio’s capability to s
o easily communicate with Pearl Harbor, had been almost pathetic. McCoy didn’t have the heart to tell him to get out of the trailer.
Technical Sergeant Moses Abraham, USMC, who had retired from the 4th Marines; and Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr., who had retired from the US Army’s 15th Infantry; and Sergeant James R. Sweatley, USMC, were also in the back of the trailer and had no business there, except for the positions of authority they had given themselves.
McCoy had immediately disliked Cawber; and Technical Sergeant Abraham had immediately made it apparent he didn’t like taking orders from a youngster who was a corporal in the machine gun section of Baker Company of the Fourth two years before and now thought he was really a captain of Marines. Though McCoy was sure he had put Sweatley in his place, he had no doubt that Sweatley considered it a great injustice to a longtime Marine such as himself to take orders from Zimmerman, who was a corporal when he knew him before, and was now a gunnery sergeant.
The truth was that this was one of those situations where people had to do what they were told, when they were told, and not ask questions. McCoy knew there was going to be a confrontation sooner or later, but decided that provoking one now by ordering Cawber, Abraham, and Sweatley out of the trailer didn’t make any sense.
“Okay, McCoy?” Sampson asked.
“Go ahead,” McCoy said.
Sampson raised his voice, and one of the Chinese “soldiers” they had brought with them started to pump the generator. Sampson put earphones on and, when the needles on the dials came to life, started to tap his radiotelegrapher’s key. “Got ’em,” he announced thirty seconds later. And a moment after that, he began to recite numbers, which McCoy wrote on a small pad. There were not many numbers. “That’s it. They want an acknowledgment,” Sampson said.
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