"I'm glad to hear that, Sir," Colonel DePress said.
"What, Colonel? That my health is better? Or that I can't convince the doctors that it is?"
Colonel DePress, looking uncomfortable, finally managed, I'll m glad to hear the General is feeling better, Sir," and then, somewhat awkwardly-because it was chained to his wrist opened his briefcase and handed Pickering a large manila envelope.
A signature had been scrawled across the flap and then covered with transparent tape. The signature was General Douglas MacArthur's.
Pickering tore open the manila envelope and took from it a smaller, squarish envelope. A red blob was on its flap.
I'll be damned, Rickabee thought. Didn't sealing wax go out with the nineteenth century?
Pickering opened the second envelope and read the letter it contained.
"Will there be a reply, General?" Colonel DePress asked.
"Will you be seeing General MacArthur anytime soon?"
"Yes, Sir. I'll be returning in two or three days, Sir."
"Please tell General MacArthur"-Pickering began and then interrupted himself-"could I send a letter back with you?"
"Of course, General."
"I'll try to do that. If something goes wrong, please tell General MacArthur that I am very grateful for his gracious courtesy, and ask him to offer my best wishes to Mrs. MacArthur."
"I'll be happy to do that, General. And I will check with you before I leave to see if the General has a Personal for the General."
"I'd appreciate that," Pickering said. "Thank you very much, Colonel."
"My pleasure, Sir. With your permission, Sir?" To judge by the look on his face, General Pickering was baffled by the question. Rickabee knew why: The Army officer was asking ritual permission to leave the Marine general's presence, and Pickering was unfamiliar with the ritual.
"Colonel," Rickabee said, doing his best to finesse the situation, "Sergeant Hart will take you wherever you need to go.
And with General Pickering's permission, he'll stay with you as long as you need him."
"Very kind of you, Sir. Just to General Marshall's office would be a great help."
"On your way, Sergeant Hart," Pickering said.
"Aye, aye, Sir," Hart said.
Colonel DePress saluted again. This time Pickering returned When the door had closed on them, Jake Dillon asked, "What the hell was that all about?"
"Goddamn it, Jake," Pickering said. "You're just a lousy major. How about a little respect for a goddamned general?"
"Yes, Sir, Goddamned General. What the hell was that all about?"
Pickering chuckled and tossed him the small envelope from General MacArthur.
So they really are close friends, Rickabee decided. Dillon isn't just another one of Pickering's suck-up acquaintances.
"I'll be damned," Dillon said, when he had read the letter.
"Show it to Rickabee and Moore," Pickering said.
Dillon handed it to Rickabee.
OFFICE of THE SUPREME COMMANDER
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC OCEAN AREAS
13th September 1942
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMC
By Hand of Officer Courier
My Dear Fleming,
I shall probably be among the last to offer my congratulations upon your appointment to flag rank. But you of all people, with your deep understanding of the communications problems in this theater of war , will understand why the news reached here so belatedly; and as a cherished friend and comrade in arms you will believe me when I say that had I known sooner, I would sooner have written to say with what great joy Mrs. MacArthur and I received the news.
Please believe me further that had it been within my power, that is to say if you had been under my command during your distinguished and sorely missed service here, you would long ago have been given rank commensurate with your proven ability and valor in combat.
Mrs. MacArthur joins me in extending every wish for your continued success in the future, and our warmest personal good wishes,
Yours,
Douglas
Pickering waited until Rickabee finished reading, then said, "That's what's known as the old el softo soapo, of which the General is a master, Rickabee."
"I don't think so," Dillon said.
"Neither do I," Rickabee said, thinking aloud. "Those references to his wife made it personal. I think he really likes you."
"The staff over there hated your ass, Flem," Dillon said, "which is the proof of that pudding."
"So what brings you here, Jake, to change the subject?"
"You mean to the States, or here, here and now?"
"Both."
"Well, I am about to win the war by running a war bond tour. I brought eight heroes here from the `Canal-really seven, plus one asshole who managed to get himself shot and looks like a hero."
"Straight from Guadalcanal or via Australia?"
"I saw Feldt and Ed Banning, if that's what you're asking. And I saw the girls in Melbourne, Howard's and that kid sergeant's."
"That's what I was asking. And Howard and Koffler are still on Buka?"
"That's an unpleasant story, Fleming. They're really up shi creek. "
"Damn," Pickering said. "Banning was trying to come up with some way to relieve them."
"I don't think that's going to happen," Dillon said. "Not that Banning wouldn't swap his left nut to get them out of there."
"You understand what we're talking about, Rickabee?"
"Yes, Sir," Rickabee said. "We had a back-channel front Banning this morning-you'll find a carbon of it in that material I had Sessions put together for you-and Ferdinand Six was still operational as of-what?-thirty hours ago."
"When they do go down," Dillon said softly, "Feldt and Banning are going to drop in one team after another until one makes it. So far they have four teams ready to go-two Aussies and two Marines."
"Banning should not have told you that," Rickabee said.
"Banning took his lead from me," Pickering said a little sharply. "I don't think Major Dillon is a Japanese spy or his a loose mouth."
"With respect, Sir," Rickabee said, "there is an absolute correlation between the number of people privy to a secret and the time it takes for that secret to be compromised."
"That may well be, Colonel," Pickering said icily, reminding Jake Dillon that Fleming Pickering was not accustomed to being corrected, and didn't like it at all. "But in this circumstance, I believe I have the authority to decide who gets told what. "
"Yes, Sir. That is correct, Sir." Rickabee said.
In Dillon's judgment-looking at Rickabee's tight lips and white face Rickabee's temper was at the breaking point. Career Marine Colonels are not fond of reservists, period, but they go into a cold, consuming rage when reservists who outrank them bring them up sharp.
"And I brought some film from the `Canal," Jake said, hoping to change the subject. "From Hawaii to the West Coast in an ice-filled garbage can."
"What did you say?" Pickering asked after a moment, after he had stared Rickabee down. "An ice-filled garbage can?"
"I got one of those insulated whole-blood containers from the medics on the `Canal," Jake explained. "They took it away from me at Pearl Harbor. So I got a garbage can and put the film in, packed in ice."
"What kind of film?" Pickering asked.
"Combat footage, from the `Canal. I'm going to make up a newsreel feature. Maybe, if the film is any good, and if there's enough usable footage, a short."
"I'd like to see that," Pickering said. "Where is it?"
"So would I," Rickabee said.
"I had it souped at Metro-Magnum," Jake replied, adding, "Hell, now that I think about it, it may be at the Willard now."
"Find out," Pickering ordered.
"Yes, Sir, General," Dillon said.
"Don't push your luck, Jake," Pickering said.
Jake had no idea if Pickering was kidding or not. He picked up the tele
phone and called the Willard. He was told that an air freight package had arrived for him thirty minutes before.
"It's there," he said. "I'll get in a cab and go get it."
"If I sent someone to get it, would they give it to him?"
"Probably not. It's probably in a Metro-Magnum can and they guard those like Fort Knox."
"What kind, what size, film is it?"
"Sixteen millimeter."
Rickabee picked up the telephone and asked for the office of he hospital commander.
"Good morning, Sir. Colonel Rickabee, General Pickering's Deputy. The General needs a staff car to transport Major Dillon into Washington and return. And the General will require that a 16mm projector and screen be set up in his sitting room right away.
"No, Sir. The General will not require a projectionist. Just the camera and screen. Plus, of course, the car.
"Thank you, Sir." He hung up and turned to Dillon.
"There will be a staff car waiting at the main entrance, Major."
"Thank you, Sir."
"I trust you are suitably awed by my power as a general, Jake," Pickering said.
"Yes, Sir, Goddamn General, I am truly awed." Rickabee and Pickering laughed.
Well, at least I got them laughing. For a moment there, it looked like it was going to get goddamned unpleasant.
[Four]
"Interesting man," Rickabee said after Dillon left... and after sending Moore to get a pot of coffee he didn't really want. "I think there's more there than meets the eye."
"He was-I suppose still is-Vice President for Publicity for Metro-Magnum Studios. I don't think they'd pay him the kind of money they did unless he was worth it. Clark Gable told me once that Jake's real value came when movies were in production. He could tell whether the public would like them or not, just from looking at rushes. And he knew how to fix them."
"I wasn't aware you I guess the phrase is `traveled in those circles'?"
"Oh, no. I never did. I was a skeet shooter. There were some movie people, Gable, Bob Stack, people like that, and Jake, who shot skeet. That's how I met him. Marines can smell each other. Jake was a China Marine, a sergeant, before he went Hollywood. He was a better shot with a sixty-nine-dollar Winchester Model 12 from Sears, Roebuck than Gable was with his thousand-dollar English shotguns."
"What did you shoot, General?" Rickabee asked.
"When my wife was watching, one of the pair of Purdys she gave me for my thirtieth birthday," Pickering said. "When she wasn't, a Model 12. 1 don't think a better shotgun was ever made."
Rickabee was not surprised.
"I still don't know how you and Jake managed to show up here together," Pickering said.
"He came to the office looking for Lieutenant McCoy."
"What did he want with the Killer?"
"He doesn't like to be called that," Rickabee said.
"To hell with him, I'm a general, I'll call him whatever I want to," Pickering said. "Besides, I am literally old enough to be his father."
"McCoy's brother apparently was quite a hero on Bloody Ridge. An INS reporter has dubbed him `Machine Gun McCoy." Dillon's boss, a Brigadier General named Stewart, in Public Relations at Eighth and Eye, found out about our McCoy and wants to make public relations about him. When they started asking us questions, we gave them the runaround, and General Stewart sent Dillon to straighten us out. Moore recognized Dillon-"
"Jake met him at my house in Australia," Pickering interrupted.
"-and brought him into my office."
"So what do we do about McCoy? You want me to call this General-Stewart, you said?-and get him off our back?"
"I thought perhaps you would be willing to call General Forrest. That would keep us out of it entirely. And it would give you a chance to talk to him."
Major General Horace W. T. Forrest was Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Headquarters, USMC.
"Why do I suspect an ulterior motive, Rickabee? Why didn't you just call Forrest?"
"I thought it might be of value, General, to remind General Forrest that you are not just a nightmare of his."
"You really think it's that bad?"
"My job is to see things as they are, General. Let me put it this way: I suspect that General Forrest secretly hopes that your recovery will take some time, maybe until the war is over. He has not come to see you, you may have noticed, or even had his aide call your aide to ask about your condition."
"In that case, get the sonofabitch on the phone," Pickering said. "After you tell me what to say to him."
"The General has been made aware of the problem, Sir. Another general officer, who has no need to know why, has to be discouraged from asking about one of your officers. I'm sure the General will know how to deal with the situation."
"I haven't the foggiest idea... " Pickering said, and stopped.
Rickabee was already picking up the telephone.
"General Pickering for General Forrest," Rickabee said, and then handed Pickering the telephone.
"Forrest."
"Pickering, General."
"Well, what a pleasant surprise, General. I understand you've been a little under the weather."
"I'm feeling much better, General."
"Ready for duty, General?"
"I've placed myself on limited duty, General, until I can get the doctors to agree with my prognosis."
"Well, General, you really don't want to rush things. You'd better listen to the doctors."
"I have a little problem, General. I thought I could ask you help with it."
"Anything within my power, General."
"It has to do with General Stewart-"
"Public relations type, that Stewart?"
"That's right, General."
"Well, you and I, General, are really not in the public relations business, are we?"
"That's precisely the problem, General. General Stewart apparently has an interest in putting one of my officers into the public eye."
"Who would that be, General?"
"Lieutenant McCoy, General."
"Oh, yes. I know McCoy. What the hell does Stewart want with him?"
"It seems that McCoy's brother did something spectacular on Guadalcanal, General. General Stewart is having him returned for publicity purposes. He found out that Sergeant McCoy's brother is my McCoy and wants to involve him."
"Give him the runaround, General."
"General Stewart is a determined man, General. He sent a major to see Colonel Rickabee."
"Give the major the runaround. I was under the impression that Rickabee was pretty good at that sort of thing."
"Colonel Rickabee is, General. But the Major is about as determined as General Stewart. Which is why I'm asking for your help, General."
"I'll deal with General Stewart, General. Put it out of your mind."
"Thank you very much, General."
"As soon as you feel up to it, General, have your aide call mine and we'll set something up. You and I really have to sit down and have a long talk."
"That's very kind of you, General. I'll do that."
"Good to finally have the chance to talk to you, Pickering," General Forrest said, and the line went dead.
Pickering put the telephone back in its cradle and looked at Rickabee.
"How'd I do?"
"General officers are expected to do very well, General. You didn't let the side down."
"If I were Forrest, I wouldn't like me either," Pickering said.
"I wouldn't like it a goddamn bit if somebody I never heard of, who got his commission in a damned strange way, showed up as one of my senior subordinates."
"General, President Roosevelt is the Commander in Chief. There should be no questioning of his orders by a Marine."
"I don't think Forrest is questioning the legality of the order, but I suspect he has some question about its wisdom."
"Who was it, General-Churchill?-who said, `War is too important a matter to leave to the generals'?"
"I
think it was Churchill," Pickering said. "But that leaves me sort of in limbo, doesn't it? As a general who really shouldn't be a general?"
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