W E B Griffin - Corp 08 - In Dangers Path

by In Dangers Path(Lit)

  "Yes, sir, of course."

  "May I use your telephone, Colonel?" Rickabee asked.

  "Of course, sir."

  Rickabee dialed a number from memory.

  "David, Fritz," he said. "We're at Eighth and I. I'm going to put you on the line with Colonel Warren. He's the enlisted personnel guy in G-1, and he needs the Secretary's authority to promote Rutterman."

  He handed the telephone to Colonel Warren.

  "Captain David Haughton, USN, is Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy," Rickabee said.

  Colonel Warren took the telephone.

  He said "Yes, sir" five times; "I understand, sir" twice; and then "Glad to be of service, sir" once.

  [FOUR]

  Office of the Deputy Director, USMC Aviation

  Building F

  Anacostia Naval Air Station

  Washington, D.C.

  1115 9 March 1943

  "General," Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney's aide-de-camp announced, "there is a General Pickering and a Colonel Stecker to see you, sir."

  "Tony, that's the General Pickering and the Colonel Stecker," Mclnerney said. " 'A' suggests there's more than one of each, and that's just not the case."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Send them in, and then lock up the silver. I don't think they're here just to say hello."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the aide said.

  He turned and opened the door.

  "Gentlemen, General Mclnerney will see you."

  They walked into the office.

  "To what do I owe the honor of such distinguished visitors to my humble abode?" Mclnerney greeted them, coming from around his desk.

  "You want the truth, Mac?" Pickering asked, as their handshake turned into a hug.

  "If possible, that would be very nice," Mclnerney said, as he gave Stecker an affectionate hug.

  "We want to pick your brains," Pickering said, "and eventually steal things."

  "Tony, am I flying today?" Mclnerney asked.

  "No, sir."

  "In that case, a little nip is called for. Bring in the cheap stuff."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  First Lieutenant Anthony I. Sylvester had not been General Mclnerney's aide for long. He was still on limited duty following hospitalization for injuries to his neck suffered in a bad arrested landing. But he had been around long enough to know that these two officers were somehow special to Mclnerney. He had never heard of General Pickering, but wondered if Colonel Stecker could be the near-legendary Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker.

  A moment later, Sylvester returned to Mclnerney's office with two bottles, one of scotch, the other of bourbon, the best available in the lower filing case in the office.

  "I said the cheap stuff, Tony," Mclnerney said. "I had the great misfortune to serve with these two in what used to be called The Great War-I was one of Sergeant Stecker's corporals, believe it or not. They wouldn't know good booze if they were drowning in it."

  My God, that is Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker!

  "And even then, Lieutenant," Pickering said, "he was known for his peculiar sense of humor. That liquor will do very nicely, thank you."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Lieutenant Sylvester-Tony-just came to me from Philadelphia," Mclnerney said. "And to answer your question, yes, he knows Dick. I asked him, and he confirmed what I'd heard, Dick's doing all right."

  "You're Lieutenant Stecker's father, sir?" Lieutenant Sylvester asked.

  Stecker nodded.

  "We had therapy together," Sylvester said.

  "They do amazing things at Philadelphia," Stecker said. "For a while." He decided not to pursue that thought. "But now," he continued, "thank God, Dick's walking around with only a cane."

  "He told me he'd been pretty badly banged up," Sylvester said.

  "Young Stecker and young Pickering were in VMF-229 on the 'Canal," Mclnerney said. "So this is sort of a family gathering. With that in mind, Flem, should I tell Tony to pour himself a drink? Or is this visit official?"

  Pickering looked uncomfortable. "I'd rather you decide later, Mac, how much Lieutenant Sylvester should know about what we're going to talk about," he said finally.

  "Okay, Tony. Out. Bar the door. Nobody but the Commandant."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Lieutenant Sylvester said, and left the office.

  "What the hell is going on?" Mclnerney asked.

  "What I said. I need to pick your brains."

  "About what?"

  "What follows is Top Secret," Pickering said.

  Mclnerney nodded. "Understood."

  "We're going to set up a weather station in the Gobi Desert," Pickering said.

  "Who is 'we'?"

  "The OSS," Pickering said.

  "I saw that in the paper-I mean, you going over there. You too, Jack?"

  "Jack is my liaison to the Corps," Pickering said. "Unofficially."

  "When is Vandegrift going to take over? Any word on that?"

  "He wants to stay with the First Marine Division until he gets it back in shape. Whenever he decides it is, he'll take over," Stecker said.

  "So you're going to have to wait awhile for your star?"

  "If that ever happens," Stecker said.

  "It'll happen. Vandegrift told me it would," Mclnerney said firmly, then looked at Pickering. "Okay, tell me about your Gobi Desert weather station. I heard the Army Air Corps was going to set one up in Russia. Same idea?"

  "The Russians won't let the Air Corps in. Nimitz and Leahy want a weather station as soon as possible. Leahy gave the mission to the OSS, and Nimitz got Leahy to 'suggest' that I be given the job."

  "Which means Leahy and Nimitz think you're the guy who can do it," Mclnerney said. "Proving once again that I was wrong when I told you you couldn't do the Corps any good."

  "You told me that because you believed it, Mac," Pickering said. "And that's why I'm here. I want you to tell me what you believe, not what you think I'd like to hear."

  "Okay. I don't think you can do it. That blunt enough? The Gobi Desert is in the middle of nowhere, a long way from anything we control. How the hell are you going to put people in there? On camels?"

  Stecker chuckled. "That's one of the options, Mac, but what Flem wants to ask you about is airplanes."

  "I don't need a map and a compass to measure the distance. I can tell you the Gobi Desert is beyond the range of any airplane in the inventory-Marine, Navy, or Air Corps. You didn't know that?"

  "When you speak of range, you're talking round trips, right?" Pickering asked.

  Mclnerney thought that over for a minute.

  "A one-way mission, huh? Who are you going to find to fly it? More important, where will it go?"

  "There's reliable information that a group of Americans is somewhere in the Gobi Desert, some of them Marines from the Legation Guard at Peking who didn't surrender. Most of these people are supposed to be retired from the Fourth Marines, the Yangtze River patrol, and the Fifteenth Infantry."

  "You're in contact with them?"

  "Not reliably. We're working on that."

  "We're going to send decent radios to them, Mac," Stecker said. "On camels."

  Mclnerney's eyebrows rose in either surprise or disbelief.

  "We also have somebody who's been all over the Gobi desert," Pickering said. "A gunnery sergeant who used to be in the Fourth in Shanghai. He tells us that a good deal of the Gobi Desert is not sand but flat rock. In other words, an airplane could land there."

  "Erring on the side of caution, how about 'crash-land'?" Mclnerney said sarcastically.

  "Okay. Crash-land," Pickering said. "As long as it delivers the weather station equipment in workable condition, we can write off the airplane."

  "If it gets that far, and I have serious doubts that it will, this weather station would be secret, right?"

  "It would be better if it were," Pickering said.

  "If you sent an airplane on a one-way mission, the wreckage would stick out like a sore thumb in the desert," Mc
lnerney said.

  "Yeah, I guess it would," Pickering said. "Let's fly an airplane there first, and then worry about concealing the wreckage. What should we use for an airplane?"

  "That would depend on where the airplane is going to fly from," Mclnerney said. "You have two choices. Russia, and you say that's out of the question. Or India."

  "Tell me about India," Pickering said.

  "The Air Corps is flying Curtiss C-46s from Sadiya-something like that, anyway. God, I'm not sure what I'm talking about."

  Mclnerney picked up his telephone. "Tony, bring me maps of India and China," he said, hung up, and then went on: "They call it 'Flying the Hump.' Meaning they have to climb to sixteen thousand feet to fly over it, most of the way on oxygen. They fly supplies over the Himalayas into Kunming, China."

  "Kunming is in the south of China," Stecker said. "The Gobi Desert is in the north, the far north."

  "I'll have to check the map, but I'm thinking, Jack, that the distances are about the same. A C-46 would have the range, especially if it wasn't planning to make a round trip."

  "Correct me if I'm wrong," Pickering said. "But wouldn't you say that even if the Japanese can't shoot these planes down-"

  "They shoot them down," Mclnerney interrupted.

  "-they keep track of them. Either themselves, or with informants, spies, on the ground?"

  "Sure."

  "And wouldn't they notice if one of these C-46s routinely flying to Kunming suddenly went in the other direction?"

  "Probably. But it wouldn't be the first aircraft to get lost out there. A friend of mine told me the pilots call it 'the Aluminum Trail,' because you can navigate by the wrecks of planes that have gone down."

  "But wouldn't you say they would go looking for an airplane, the wreckage of an airplane, that didn't head for Kunming?"

  "Flem, you're going to have to get used to the idea that you don't have many options," Mclnerney said.

  Lieutenant Sylvester appeared with four maps packed in cardboard tubes.

  Mclnerney came from behind his desk, pulled the rolled-up maps from the tubes, and spread them out on the floor. He and Stecker dropped to their knees. Pickering stood behind them.

  "Here it is," Mclnerney said, pointing. "I was right. Sadiya, in the Brahmaputra Valley. From there over the mountains to Kunming." He traced the route with his fingers, and then, using his little finger and thumb as a compass, compared the distance between Sadiya and Kunming and Sadiya and the center of the Gobi Desert.

  "Like I thought," he said, "about the same distance. Five hundred miles, maybe five-fifty. A C-46 could make it, one-way, without any trouble."

  "Does the Corps have any C-46s?" Pickering asked.

  "The Corps has a few, reluctantly contributed by the Air Corps, and none of which I- speaking for the Corps-am willing to give to the OSS for a one-way mission."

  Pickering did not reply directly. "What about the R4-D?" he asked.

  "It has the range, but getting it over the mountains? Risky-damned risky- at best."

  "And you can't fly an R4-D through the mountains, or around them?"

  Mclnerney shook his head. "You have to have the altitude to get over them.

  The R4-D just doesn't have it. There's always exceptions to everything, of course. But so far as I'm concerned, you'd better forget about using an R4-D."

  Pickering dropped to his knees and put his finger on the map.

  "That, General," Mclnerney said, "is the Yellow Sea."

  "Yeah, General, I know," Pickering said. "I used to be a sailor."

  "What are you thinking, Flem?"

  "Catalina," Pickering said. "Maybe two Catalinas. From fifty miles offshore, they would have more than enough range."

  "Not by the time they reached a position fifty miles off the coast. Not from any base where they are now operating."

  "They would if they met a submarine and took on fuel from it," Pickering said.

  "A rendezvous at sea?" Mclnerney said, doubtfully but thoughtfully. "I don't know, Flem."

  "The Catalina has a range of twenty-three hundred miles," Pickering said. "It cruises at a hundred sixty knots, or thereabouts. And it can carry two tons of bombs."

  "It carries the bombs under its wings," Mclnerney said.

  "But it can lift that much weight, right? Two tons is a lot of meteorological equipment."

  "I thought you came here for my expert advice about airplanes."

  "We did. And you came up with the same arguments against using India as a base for C-46s that Jack and I did. You ever hear the true test of an intelligent man is how much he agrees with you?"

  "I'm not agreeing with you. I am having unpleasant mental images of what would happen if you could talk the Navy into giving you a submarine or a Catalina."

  "What kind of unpleasant images?"

  "First of all, the Navy is not going to be thrilled about putting several thousand gallons of avgas in one of their boats," Mclnerney said. "Avgas tends to explode. And then how would you get it into the tanks of the Catalina? I have visions of white hats trying-and failing-to get drums of gas over the side of a sub into a rubber boat. And then how would you get it from the rubber boat into the Catalina? The fuel receptacles are on the upper surface of a Catalina's wings. You plan to stand up in a rubber boat on the high seas and manhandle a fifty-five-gallon drum of avgas up onto the wing of a Catalina?"

  "There has to be a way to do it," Stecker said.

  "Jesus, Jack!"

  "We got avgas onto Guadalcanal by tossing fifty-five-gallon drums of avgas over the side of those old four-stacker War One destroyers and letting the tide float it ashore."

  "So?"

  "Barrels of avgas float," Pickering said. "That might be useful."

  "Flem, I can think of a hundred reasons this won't work!"

  "That's why Jack and I came to see you, Mac," Pickering said. "We figured you could come up with everything that could go wrong. And then the solutions to fix the problems."

  "You're presuming the Navy is going to give you a submarine, and Catalinas."

  "Or, if we decided we need it, an old four-stacker destroyer or two. And, for that matter, one or more of the Marine Corps' precious C-46s. Whatever we need, Mac."

  "What makes you believe that?"

  "Because Admiral Leahy has ordered Admiral Nimitz to give us whatever we think we need, and Admiral Nimitz really wants this weather station."

  "You know, I was really happy when you two walked in here," Mclnerney said. "I should have known better."

  "Can we buy you lunch, General?" Pickering asked.

  "You have ruined my appetite for at least the next three days," Mclnerney said. "I'm going to have to think long and hard about this, Flem."

  "Does that mean you don't want to have lunch with us?" Pickering asked.

  "Eat with you? I would be happier if I never saw either of you again," Mclnerney said. "How much time do I have?"

  "Would yesterday morning be too soon?"

  "Get the hell out of here," Mclnerney said. "Call me tomorrow afternoon."

  "No, we'll come see you," Pickering said. "I don't want to talk about this on the telephone."

  Mclnerney nodded, then thought of something else: "Who's going to fly this airplane?"

  "Jack and I were really thinking we need two Catalinas."

  "Who's going to fly the two Catalinas?"

  "We thought you might be helpful there too, General," Pickering said, and then turned serious. "I want Marine Corps pilots. I want to keep it in the family, so to speak."

  "But you're not in the family anymore, are you?" Mclnerney said, and immediately added, "Sorry, that slipped out. I shouldn't have said that."

  "What about 'once a Marine, always a Marine'?" Pickering said. "You ever hear that?"

  "I said I was sorry. I am."

  "Both of you, knock it off," Stecker said.

  They looked at Stecker, and then at each other.

  "Okay," Mclnerney said. "I'll even have lunch
with you and your ugly jarhead friend. If he buys."

  "That's better," Stecker said.

  "Give me a minute to lay some errands on Tony," Mclnerney said. "And then I'll be with you. You've got a car?"