W E B Griffin - Corp 05 - Line of Fire
Page 51
"Six-fifty, Sir," Cahn said after consulting his Signal Operating Instructions for 0001-2400 6 October 1942. "About ten minutes, Sir."
"Try them now," Commander Feldt ordered.
Cahn did so. There was no reply from Ferdinand Six. Neither was there a reply at the appointed hour.
"Keep trying," Feldt ordered.
At 120-second intervals, Cahn tapped out FRD6, FRD1.
FRD6, FRDI.
At 0710, twenty minutes late, FRD6 came on the air:
FRD1, FRD6. FRD1, FRD6.
"He's calling us, Commander," Cahn said. "Not responding to us. Maybe his reception is bad."
"Try him again."
FRD6, FRD1. FRD6, FRD1.
FRD1, FRD6. UR 2 x 5.
FRD6, FRD1, SB CODE.
FRD1, FRD6. GA.
FRD6, FRD1.
USE AS SIMPLE SUBSTITUTION
FIRST NAME BELLE OF WAGGA WAGGA
SECOND NAME DITTO
MODEL RPT MODEL BANNINGS CAR
05xO8xl5xl6xO2
O5x2lxl2xO2xO4
15x04x21x11x10
13x14x24x25x13
11x23x06x17x02
15x21x23x24x02
ACKNOWLEDGE UNDERSTANDING
FRD1,SB
Signalman Cahn listened carefully, making minute adjustments to his receiver for half a minute.
"I lost his carrier, Sir. He probably shut down to decode that. "
"We hope," Banning said. He turned to Sergeant Esposito.
"Esposito, get on the Teletype and send what we have to Brisbane. Eyes only, Lieutenant Hon."
"Aye, Aye, Sir."
"Tell him I suggest-use that word, suggest-that he relay to General Pickering on the special channel."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Feldt asked. "Falsely raised hopes are worse than no news at all."
"O ye of little faith," Banning said. "Send it, Esposito."
Sergeant Esposito picked up the various messages and sat down at the Teletype machine and started typing.
[Three]
FERDINAND SIX
BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS
0715 HOURS 6 OCTOBER 1942
"I hope you know what the hell Wagga Wagga is," Lieutenant Joe Howard, USMCR, said to Sub-Lieutenant Jakob Reeves, RANVR. "Because I don't."
"It's a backwater town in New South Wales," Reeves said.
"A town?"
Reeves nodded. "Using the term generously. And as far as I know I don't know a living soul there, much less the belle thereof."
"My girl's from Wagga Wagga," Sergeant Steve Koffler said.
"That must be it," Howard said.
"I thought your girl was down at the creek, washing your linen Reeves said.
"I told you, goddamn it, you sonofabitch, to knock that shit off"
"That's enough, Koffler."
"Fuck him, I told him to stop!"
"That's enough, Sergeant Koffler," Howard said firmly.
`Shit!"
"He has been diddling-"
"That's enough out of you, too, Reeves," Howard said.
"You don't give me orders, Lieutenant!" With a great effort, Howard controlled his temper, although he did not flinch under Reeves' angry glare.
Eventually Reeves shrugged.
"Sergeant, I apologize," he said. "I was making a joke. Or thought I was."
"Forget it," Koffler said, sounding not at all sincere.
"For reasons I can't imagine, I think all of our tempers are on a short fuse," Howard said. "None of us can afford to let things get out of hand."
"Just for the fucking record," Koffler said, the picture of righteous indignation, "that happened just once, and I was drunk." Howard had a terrible urge to laugh.
"On that beer shit that Reeves makes," Koffler said.
"Well, fuck you, Sergeant," Reeves said. "If you feel that way, you can't have any more of my beer shit."
Howard laughed out loud. Reeves looked pleased with himself.
"You just dug your own grave, Koffler," he said. "No more of Lieutenant Reeves' splendid, tasty beer for you."
"That shit sneaks up on you," Koffler said.
The flare-up seemed to have passed, Howard decided with relief.
"What do you think they mean by `model of Banning's car'?" Reeves asked.
"Studebaker," Howard said. "Right? Or are they talking about that English car, the Jaguar, that Captain Pickering was driving?"
"It says `model repeat model,' " Koffler said. "I think they mean `President,' a Studebaker President. If they meant the Jaguar they would have said `Pickering."'
"I'm sure Steve's right " Reeves said.
"Let's try it," Howard I said. It did not go unnoticed by him that Reeves had used Koffler's first name.
"Well, it's English," Howard said five minutes later, "but what the hell does it mean?" Reeves and Koffler looked down at the sheet of paper. On it Howard had written the message in code blocks, then his interpretation of that:
N A T H A
N S W A N
T H I S N
0 R N T 0
S E E P A
T I E N S
Nathan Swan This Norn to See Patiens
"'Norn' is maybe `North'?" Koffler guessed.
"There's no `M' in `Daphne Farnsworth Patiens,"' Reeves said. "Make it `swam' and `morn."' "Nathan swam this morn to see Patience," Howard said.
"That makes more sense, but what does it mean?"
"Nathan is obviously the Nathaniel of the first message, Reeves said. "What it could mean is that he came ashore, swam ashore, from a submarine or something."
"This morn? This morning?"
"Yes. If that's what it means. This morning."
"Could he do that?" Koffler said.
"He could try to do it. That's not quite the same thing. The reason there are so few ports on Buka is that the surf is so rough in most places-this time of the year especially. Presumably they know that. That means he would either have to try to make it ashore near a port, which would place him very fat away, or through the surf somewhere near here. Which won be quite difficult."
"They know what shape we're in supplywise," Howard said "Maybe they figured it was worth the risk."
"You think there's a chance he's not alone?" Steve asked.
"This could very well be wishful thinking, Steve," Reeve said. "Certainly, it is. But if I were the man in charge and we going to all the trouble of sending someone up here, I would the extra mile and try to send in more than one person-an supplies, of course."
"Get on the air, Steve," Howard ordered. "Send, `Message acknowledged and understood."
"That's all?"
"That's all. If they wanted to tell us more than they did, the would have."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
[Four]
COMMAND POST, 2ND BATTALION, FIFTH MARINES
GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS
0830 HOURS 6 OCTOBER 1942
Using his arm as a pillow, Major Jack (NMI) Stecker USMCR, was curled up asleep on his side on the deck of the S-3 section. His Garand rifle, with two eight-round clips pinned to the strap, was hanging from a nail in the wooden frame the situation map.
When the flyboy from Henderson Field walked into the command post asking to see the Old Man, Stecker's S-3 sergeant was reluctant to disturb him.
"He was up all goddamned night, Captain," he said. "Can't this wait a couple of hours?" Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR, shook his head no, and then said it aloud: "No, it won't, Gunny."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the gunny said, and went to Stecker an knelt beside him and gently shook his shoulder.
"Sir? Sir?" Stecker woke reluctantly, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder. But then he was suddenly wide awake, forcing himself to sit up.
"What's up, Gunny.?" Stecker asked as he looked at his watch.
"An officer to see you, Sir." Stecker searched the dark area and found Galloway.
"This better be important, Captain," Stecker said, matter-of-factly.
"Give us some privacy, will you, Gunny?" he said softly.
He waited until the gunny was out of earshot and then said, "OK, let's have it."
"Your son crashed on landing about twenty-five minutes ago, Sir," Galloway said.
"You're here, that means bad news," Stecker said.
"He's pretty badly banged up, Sir, but he's alive."
"Define `pretty badly,' would you, please?"
"Both of his legs are broken; he has a compound fracture of the right arm; his collarbone has probably been cracked. He almost certainly has broken ribs, and there are probably some internal injuries."
"Jesus Christ!" Stecker exhaled. "Is he going to live?"
"Commander Persons-I just left him-said that barring complications-"
"Persons?" Stecker interrupted. "Mean little guy?" He held his hand up to nearly his shoulder level, to indicate a runt.
"Yes, Sir."
"Barring complications, what?"
"He will recover and will probably even be able to return to flight status." I'm telling you that because that's what Persons told me, and because I want to believe it, not because I do believe it. When they pulled him from the wreck, I was surprised that he was alive.
"I don't like to think what Mrs. Stecker will do when she gets the telegram," Stecker said. "I suppose you've already set that in motion?"
"No, Sir. I haven't. MAG-21 handles that, Sir. You could probably talk to Colonel Dawkins-"
"What happened? `Crashed on landing'? Is that a polite way of saying it was his fault?"
"It looked to me as if his right tire was flat, Sir."
"You saw the accident?"
"Yes, Sir. I was right behind him in the pattern.
"And?"
And a second after he touched down, he started to ground loop to the right, and then he was rolling end over end down the strip; the only way it could have been worse was if there had been more gas in his tanks and it exploded "He was attempting to make a dead-stick landing, Sir. He was out of fuel."
"How did that happen?"
"They hit us pretty badly this morning, Major-"
"I was up earlier, I saw it."
"_and he stayed up as long as he thought he could, as long as he thought he had fuel to stay."
"You encourage that sort of thing, Captain, do you? Staying up there until you have just enough fuel to maybe make it back to the field?" Stecker asked nastily, and then immediately apologized. "Forgive me. That was uncalled for. And you were up there, too, weren't you, presumably doing the same thing?"
"We lost three Wildcats this morning, Sir. And the Air Corps lost two of their P400s."
"Counting my son?"
"No, Sir. Not counting him."
But including a Wildcat piloted by Major Jack Finch. Finch wouldn't have been up there if I hadn't told him he could, for auld long syne.
"All lost? Or just shot down?"
"One of the P400 pilots made it back to the field, Sir. Just him."
"Tell me about this flat tire," Stecker said after a moment.
"He told me that he'd taken some hits.... Major, I didn't mention this, but he shot down two Bettys and a Zero this morning. He's an ace. That makes it six total for him."
"All I knew he had was one," Stecker said. "The flat tire?"
"He called and said he'd taken some hits, so I pulled up beside him and took a look, and there were holes in the area of his landing gear."
"And you told him this?"
"I signaled him, Sir. His radio was not working. But he understands my signal."
"Then why didn't he try to make a wheels-up landing?"
"I can only presume he thought he could make it, Sir."
"And that he wanted to save the airplane?"
"Yes, Sir. I think that probably had a lot to do with the decision he made."
"What about the Pickering boy?" Stecker asked. "Was he one of the other three you lost?" Galloway was surprised at the question.
"No, Sir. He made it back all right. He was flying on your son's wing, Major." And he landed three minutes before your boy-time enough for him to be walking away from his revetment when your boy came in, to see the crash, and to run to the plane and listen to your boy scream for the five minutes or so it took to pry him from the wreckage. He made it back all right, but I'm going to have trouble with him. I know the look he had in his eyes.
"I know his father," Stecker said.
"Yes, Sir. Major, I have a jeep-" Stecker met his eyes.
"I've been trying to decide if I have the courage to go see him. Jesus Christ, they ought to skip a generation between wars so that fathers don't have to see their children torn up,"
"They're going to fly him out, to Espiritu Santo, Sir."
"If I ride down there with you, can I get a ride back up here?"
"Yes, Sir. No problem."
"Squadron commanders at Henderson have their own jeeps?" Stecker asked.
"I borrowed Colonel Dawkins' jeep, Sir. I didn't think he'd mind."
Stecker pushed open the canvas flap.
"Gunny, I've got to go down the hill for a while," he said.
"Major, I'm goddamned sorry," the gunny said and glowered at Galloway as if it were obviously his fault.
"Thank you, Gunny," Stecker said. "It is not for dissemination."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Hello, Pick," Major Jack (NMI) Stecker said to Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering. "How are you?"
Pickering was on a hospital cot next to the one where Second Lieutenant Richard J. Stecker lay. Tubing ran from Pickering Is arm into Stecker's; a transfusion was taking place.
"Jesus Christ, I'm sorry!" Pick said and sat up. There were tears in his eyes.
Stecker quickly pushed him back on the cot.
"Watch out for the tubes," he said. Then he dropped to his knees and put a firm hand on Pick's shoulders.
"There was just too fucking many of them!" Pick said. "I just couldn't cover him!"
"I'm sure you did the best you could, Pick," Stecker said, and then he turned and looked at the adjacent cot.
The suit, Flying, Cotton, Tropical Climates, had been cut from Second Lieutenant Richard J. Stecker's body. He was clothed now in undershorts and vast quantities of bandage and adhesive tape. There were splints on both legs. He was unconscious.
Major Jack Stecker laid a very gentle hand on his son's face and held it there for a long time.
Captain Charles M. Galloway felt like crying.
"Major, I'll go find Commander Persons," he said.
Stecker nodded.
Major Jake Dillon found Captain Galloway before Galloway found the medical officer.
"I thought you'd be here," Dillon said.
"What the hell do you want?"
Dillon handed him a message form:
FOLLOWING FOR MAJOR HOMER DILLON USMC X PLAN BAKER SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTED AS OF 0530 06OCT42 X CONDITION TWO REPEAT TWO X EXECUTE PLAN VICTOR X ADVISE ONLY DELAYS AND REASONS THEREFORE X FELDT
"Victor means go to Moresby, right?" Galloway asked.
Dillon nodded.
"What are you going to do for a copilot?" Dillon said.
"Sorry to hear about Major Finch."
"The way you were supposed to say that, Jake," Galloway said nastily, "was, `Sorry about Jack Finch,' and then ask what I'm going to do about a copilot,"
"OK, I'm sorry. But what are you going to do about a copilot?"
"I'm going to take the other kid in there, the one giving blood to Stecker."
"What kid?"
"Pickering."
"He's not a qualified R4D pilot. What the hell are you talking about?"