W E B Griffin - Corp 05 - Line of Fire

by Line Of Fire(Lit)

  " `Subtle differences of shading' does very well, Sir. We are in general agreement with Pearl Harbor."

  "We? Does that mean this is not your analysis? Mrs. Feller's perhaps?"

  "Actually, Sir, those analyses were done by Lieutenant Moore. I'm in complete agreement with them, Sir."

  "Fascinating, don't you think, that I picked up on that?" MacArthur said. "That I could tell it wasn't you?"

  "You're used to my style, I suppose, Sir."

  "Yes, literary style, one could say, right? I seem to be able to recognize yours, don't I?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Actually, a day or two ago, I paid Mrs. Feller something of a left-handed compliment," MacArthur said. "Willoughby was in here, impressed with an analysis Mrs. Feller had prepared; and I said, yes, it's quite good, it sounds like Pluto."

  He knows! Why am I surprised? He's a goddamned genius!

  "Yes, Sir."

  "If we are to accept this analysis," MacArthur said, "plural, these analyses, we are forced to the conclusion that a reason-a major reason, perhaps even the major reason-why the Japanese have not thrown the Marines back into the sea at Guadalcanal is that there's a breakdown in communication between the Japanese Army and Navy. I find it difficult to accept that."

  "Sir, why the analyses, Pearl Harbor's and ours-"

  "Yours and the other lieutenant's, what's his name?"

  "Moore, Sir."

  "What's the condition of his health? When he was in here, he looked terrible."

  "There has been a recurrence of his malaria, Sir. They have it back under control."

  "He was walking with obvious discomfort, using a cane," MacArthur said. "I wonder if Pickering did the right thing sending him back over here in that condition."

  "He's getting physical therapy, General."

  "Good. We were talking about a breakdown in communication between the Japanese Army and Navy."

  "Yes, Sir. I was saying that Pearl Harbor, Moore, and I all agree that Japanese pride got in the way of efficient operation. Neither the Navy nor the Army was willing to ask each other -or the Imperial General Staff, for that matter-for help. If they did, that would admit to some kind of inability to deal with the situation. The honor of the Army and Navy and of the individual commanders would then be open to question."

  "That's what I said," MacArthur said somewhat coldly. "A breakdown in communication."

  "An absence of communication, Sir, rather than a breakdown.

  MacArthur gave him a frosty took.

  "I suppose that semantics are your profession, Pluto, aren't they?"

  "Actually, Sir, I'm a mathematician," Pluto said.

  MacArthur looked at him for a moment and then laughed "You're also a skilled semanticist, Pluto," he said with an airy wave of his hand.

  "So it is your analysis that that situation no longer prevails," he went on, "and we may now expect from the Japanese more coordinated activity, more interservice cooperation, and less prideful, selfish rivalry?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "And why would you come to that conclusion? What made them, so to speak, see the light?"

  "They had to go to the Emperor and confess failure, Sir. And their worlds didn't come to an end."

  "'They' being the senior officers of the Army and Navy?"

  "And of the Imperial General Staff, Sir."

  "They did do rather well in the opening days of this war, didn't they? Everything they set out to do, they did."

  "Yes, Sir, they did."

  "No confessions of failure were needed, were there?"

  "No, Sir."

  "And you think they led the Emperor to believe then that our Guadalcanal operation was something they could easily deal with?... almost certainly because they believed it themselves. "

  "We have the intercepts to prove that, Sir. I could get them for you if you'd like to see them." MacArthur waved his hand grandly.

  "I've seen them," he said.

  The implication, Pluto thought, is that once he's read something, he is incapable of forgetting it.

  "What I'm saying, Sir, is that the Guadalcanal landing was on 7 August. That was almost two months ago, and the Marines were not thrown back into the sea. Not only are they still there, but Henderson Field is operational. So the Japanese commanders had to confess that the American presence could not be easily dealt with. For all intents and purposes, the battle of Bloody Ridge simply wiped out Kawaguchi Butai.

  Prisoners have reported that its commander, Major General Kiotake Kawaguchi, actually committed hara-kiri-"

  "Has there been confirmation of that?" MacArthur interrupted.

  "No, Sir. Not as far as I know." I wish to hell there was. MacArthur is fully aware that Kawaguchi Butai wiped out the last American resistance on Mindanao. He'd be pleased to know that their general has disemboweled himself after a defeat by Americans who are only slightly better fed and equipped than the Americans he had such an easy time with in the Philippines.

  "It was a humiliating defeat for them, wasn't it?" MacArthur asked rhetorically.

  "Yes, Sir. I think the senior people expected to relieved, Sir. They weren't. But now they're dealing with the changed situation."

  "And this assessment of their change in attitude is based on what, Pluto?"

  "On the language, Sir. In our judgment, there is less intentional obfuscation. That's based on word choice, Sir. I don't know if I'm making myself clear."

  "You're doing fine," MacArthur said. "Go on."

  "It's as if they've decided that their mission now is to regain Guadalcanal... as a national mission, not as a task the Army or Navy can handle by itself."

  "And are they going to be more difficult to deal with? Is there a chance we will be thrown off Guadalcanal? That there will be more efficient resistance to our operations on New Guinea?"

  "Yes, Sir. To a degree; we'll have to wait and see to what degree. But, yes, I think we can expect greater naval activity against Guadalcanal. I don't think they'll be able to throw us off, though."

  MacArthur nodded, spun around in his chair, and for a moment stared thoughtfully at the huge map on the wall behind his desk. Then he turned around again.

  "All right, Pluto, I would now like to hear how General Pickering's clandestine operation is going."

  Christ, talk about getting taken by surprise!

  What do I do now, lie? You can't lie to the Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Area!

  "What would you like to know, Sir?"

  "General Willoughby came to me a day or so ago, agitated.

  He said that an impeccable source had informed him that a clandestine intelligence operation is being conducted here by people acting on Pickering's orders."

  "Sir, I wouldn't define it as a clandestine intelligence operation," Pluto said. MacArthur waited for him to go on. "It's more on the order of support for the Coast watchers."

  "The Coastwatcher Establishment is an intelligence operation. General Willoughby feels that anything connected with intelligence is his responsibility."

  "General Pickering is attempting to relieve the Coastwatcher detachment on Buka, to replace it with fresh men and equipment."

  "And he decided that this was none of General Willoughby's business?"

  "I wouldn't know how to answer that, Sir."

  MacArthur tilted his head toward Pluto and examined him carefully.

  "I asked how the operation is going," he said.

  "An attempt to land the replacement team and equipment from a submarine will be made as soon as possible. If that fails, an attempt will be made to make the insertion and extraction by airplane."

  "Show me," MacArthur ordered, pointing at the map.

  Pluto outlined the operation.

  "Presumably thought has been given to a diversionary attack on Japanese air bases on Buka and New Ireland?"

  "It was decided, Sir, that was not feasible."

  "Nonsense," MacArthur said. "An unarmed airplane will have no chance without a diversionar
y attack to draw their fighters off."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Not feasible! Whose decision was that?" MacArthur asked.

  But he did not expect a reply; he was already picking up the telephone:

  "Get me General McKinney," he ordered. A moment later, imperiously, he said, "Then send the senior officer present in here right away."

  An Army Air Corps colonel appeared a minute or so later, marched to MacArthur's desk, and saluted.

  "Colonel," MacArthur said, "this officer is Lieutenant Hon.

  He will brief you on the details of a clandestine operation which is about to take place. In my judgment, a diversionary attack on Japanese fighter bases in the Rabaul/Buka area is essential to the success of this operation. If there is some reason General McKinney feels this is not feasible, please ask him to be good enough to explain this to me personally."

  "Yes, Sir," the Air Corps Colonel said.

  "That will be all," MacArthur said. "Lieutenant Hon will be with you in a minute."

  "Yes, Sir," the Air Force Colonel said, saluted again, did an about-face, and marched out of the room.

  "Would you be free, Pluto, for a little bridge tonight? Say, half past seven?"

  "Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir."

  "Sometime between now and then, get this off, will you?" He handed Hon a folded sheet of paper.

  "Yes, Sir," Hon said, saluted, and marched out of the office.

  The Air Corps Colonel was waiting for him.

  "If you're free, Lieutenant, I think it would be best to discuss this in my office." Pluto looked at the sheet of paper MacArthur had handed him.

  "Colonel, if you'll give me the room number, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. I have to go to the dungeon and get off a Personal for the Supreme Commander."

  "Of course. I'm in 515."

  "Thank you, Sir," Hon said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  [One]

  HMAS PELICAN

  OFF BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS

  0405 HOURS 6 OCTOBER 1942

  From the very moment Sergeant George Hart stepped off the train in the middle of the night at Port Royal, S.C., and boarded the truck for transportation to The U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island; from the moment, in other words, that he realized he was really in The Marine Corps and would almost certainly go into battle, he had given a good deal of thought to his first time in harm's way.

  In the image of himself he conjured up most often, he was pictured in utilities, with USMC and the Marine emblem stenciled on his chest. Neatly buckled under his chin, he wore a steel helmet covered with netting that bore a camouflage of twigs and leaves. He was laden down with field gear and armed with a rifle-possibly even the new one, the semiautomatic Garand-and bandoliers of ammunition and hand grenades.

  He heard the roar of artillery and the rattle of machine guns.

  And he was led by a captain who looked like Tyrone Power and by a sergeant who looked like Ward Bond (both men had made a lot of money playing Marines in the movies). One or the other of them shouted, "Let's go, Marines! Let's go kill the dirty Japs! Semper Fidelis! " And then he blew a whistle as he jumped up and charged toward the enemy, firing a Thompson submachine gun from the hip.

  In the event, that wasn't exactly what Sergeant George Hart got.

  What he got was a very young-looking lieutenant who didn't look anything like Tyrone Power or Ward Bond. He was wearing swimming trunks, had black grease smeared all over him, and his call to battle was, "With just a little bit of luck, we can make it onto shore without the Japanese seeing us. I will personally castrate anybody who loads, much less shoots, his weapon unless we're fired on." Sergeant Hart took some reassurance from his conviction that Lieutenant K. R. McCoy knew what he was doing. After all, he'd been on the Marine Raider raid on Makin island.

  They hadn't been ashore on Makin more than two minutes, he'd told everybody on this expedition more than once, when some asshole accidentally fired his rifle, telling the Japanese they had visitors.

  As far as Hart was concerned, Lieutenant McCoy's castration threat was not total hyperbole, either. McCoy was skilled with knives. He'd earned the "Killer McCoy" nickname, for instance, by killing people with one-several people. And at this moment Lieutenant McCoy had a non-issue, nasty-looking dagger affair adhesive-taped to his upper leg. There was no way of knowing it for sure, but Hart had a strong suspicion that it was the knife he'd used on the Chinese and Italians he'd killed when he was a corporal in China.

  Sergeant Hart himself had a non-issue knifelike device adhesive-taped to his upper right leg. This had started life as a dull-edged bayonet for the U.S. Carbine, Caliber.30 Ml, and had been converted to a kind of dagger by putting a sharp edge on both sides of the blade and then blueing the blade so it wouldn't reflect light.

  Sergeant Hart was not only armed with a modified bayonet from a U.S. Carbine, but he carried the Carbine itself, as well.

  Compared to the.30-06 cartridge used by the Springfield and Garand rifles and the light Browning machine gun, the.30 caliber Carbine cartridge looked puny-more like a long pistol cartridge than a real rifle cartridge.

  During a briefing to the members of the landing team on board the submarine, McCoy did not challenge this notion: "Think of the carbine as a pistol with a stock, not a rifle," Lieutenant McCoy had advised them. "If you make sure of your target before you fire, it will put him down.

  During the briefing, all the members of the landing team showed an intense interest in the Carbine. For everybody was to be armed with one-with the exception of Chief Signalman Wallace and Lieutenant McCoy, who were armed with Australian Sten 9mm submachine guns.

  "There are two reasons we're not taking anything heavier," McCoy had explained. "For one thing, a Garand would be harder to handle in the rubber boats. For another, we are not invading Buka, we're sneaking ashore. And with a little bit of luck, we won't even see a Japanese soldier." There had been some grumbling about this at Townsville and on the Pelican, particularly from Staff Sergeant Tom Kelly, who was an expert with the Thompson submachine gun, and from Sergeant Al Doud, who wanted to bring a light Browning machine gun. But the grumbling had quickly dissipated. Not only was McCoy a veteran of the Makin Island raid, but he was just not the sort of officer you fucked with.

  They were taking very little field equipment with them, just packs stuffed with field rations, clothing, and some first-aid equipment. And they would paddle in, McCoy had informed them, because outboard motors were unreliable and made too much noise.

  In the boats, they would wear swimming trunks; paddling the rafts was easier that way; and it was hard to swim in water-soaked utilities.

  The plan was now a little different from the one McCoy and Banning had first put together. Now Lieutenant McCoy, Staff Sergeant Kelly, and Corporal Harry Godfrey would go in on one raft, while Chief Signalman Wallace and Sergeants Al Doud and George Hart would be in the other.

  "Yes, the boats will be unbalanced," McCoy said, in answer to a question from Staff Sergeant Kelly, "but they will also be 150 or 180 pounds lighter than if we had four people in each one. We need that weight for the radios."

  When his briefing was over, McCoy required each member of the team to recite not only his own role in the landing operation, but that of each of the others. If anyone didn't know exactly what he was supposed to do, Hart thought, he really had to be stupid:

  On landing, McCoy would immediately radio the Pelican that they had made it through the surf. After that, he and Wallace would remove the weapons from their waterproof packs, and then select from their equipment those items to be carried inland. Meanwhile, Sergeant Doud and Corporal Godfrey would deflate the rafts, and Sergeant Hart would begin to test the sand. Staff Sergeant Kelly would accompany him to provide what assistance was required.

  Without changing out of their bathing suits, Sergeant Hart and Staff Sergeant Kelly would run a test every ten yards or so along the beach. While they were doing this, the others would dress; then the boats wou
ld be deflated, the weapons distributed, and the rafts, the radios, and the supplies they weren't taking to Ferdinand Six would be moved to some spot off the beach where they could be concealed.

  After departure of the party going to Ferdinand Six, the party that was staying behind-that is to say, Sergeant Hart and Corporal Godfrey-would complete the concealment of the radios and supplies, put on their uniforms, and wait for the others to return. Presuming they didn't encounter Japanese en route and that Chief Signalman Wallace could really find Ferdinand Six (it was some ten or twenty or thirty miles away in the mountainous jungle), the journey would take from thirty-six to seventy-two hours.