The Corps V - Line of Fire

by W. E. B Griffin

  "I heard they're thinking about making a movie about the Makin raid," McCoy said.

  "Not thinking. They approved the treatment, a screenplay is in the works, and they signed Randolph Scott to play Colonel Carlson."

  " Jesus Christ," McCoy said disgustedly. "Why not Errol Flynn?"

  "Sir, does The General want Lieutenant Moore and Sergeant Hart in on this?" Colonel Rickabee asked.

  "I told you to knock off that `The General' crap," Pickering said sharply, which Rickabee correctly interpreted to mean that The General was at least slightly hung over and in a nasty mood. "And, yeah, I think so," Pickering went on. "Does that pose a security clearance problem for you?"

  "No, Sir. Sergeant Hart is cleared to TOP SECRET. And no problem, of course, with Moore."

  "OK, then. They stay," Pickering ordered. "I think they're going to be involved in this anyway, to one degree or another."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "On the security business, what is said in this room, for reasons that will become obvious, is classified TOP SECRET," Pickering said. "Everybody understand that?" There was a chorus of "Yes, Sir."

  "Let me state the problem, then," Pickering said. "Our first priority is to keep Ferdinand Six up and running. Our second priority is to get Howard and Koffler off Buka-and Reeves too, probably. Just as soon as I can get out of here, my intention is to go back to Australia and get our people to do whatever is necessary to bring Howard and Koffler back. For reasons I don't want to get into, they seem to have just written them off."

  "No, Sir," Colonel Rickabee said, flatly.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  " You can't go back over there, General, That's out of the question," Rickabee said.

  Pickering looked at him coldly. There was a long and awkward silence.

  When Pickering finally spoke, it was not in response to Rickabee.

  "Hart has no idea what the rest of us will be talking about,"

  he said. "And I really don't know how much McCoy knows."

  "I read the file last night, Sir," McCoy said.

  "Sessions has it with him, Sir," Rickabee said.

  "See that Hart reads it," Pickering said. "How complete is it?"

  "Enough to give him the picture, General," McCoy said.

  "OK. So we'll start with you, McCoy. If you were God, more to the point, if you were a general officer, how would you go about getting those people out... while at the same time keeping Ferdinand Six up?"

  "General," McCoy said, uncomfortably, "if Major Banning can't do that, I don't know-"

  "I'll rephrase the question. If you were Major Banning, what would you do if you were ordered to get Howard and Koffler off Buka?"

  "It wouldn't be easy," McCoy said. "Even if keeping the radio station in operation wasn't a consideration."

  "You'll notice, Rickabee," Pickering said, "that he didn't say `impossible."'

  "Maybe I should have," McCoy said.

  "OK. Explain that," Pickering said. "But don't quote Banning to me.

  "Tell me why you think it would be `not easy' to `impossible."

  "Yes, Sir," McCoy said in a reflex reply. "Well, my first thought was that getting them out by air would be impossible.

  There's no airfield. So that left getting them out by water. We cannot send surface ships, even native boats, because the waters are heavily patrolled. That leaves submarines-" Pickering interrupted him. "What's wrong with submarines?"

  "Several things," McCoy said. "First of all, I doubt if we could get one."

  "Let's say we can get one," Pickering said, "and take it from there. "

  "We probably could not get one to-" Rickabee said, and was interrupted by Pickering.

  "Two things, Rickabee. One, McCoy has the floor, and, two I told him to go ahead on the presumption that he can get et submarine."

  "-make an extraction, Sir," Rickabee went on, ignoring him. "But, since Ferdinand Six is of great value to the Navy, they probably would give us one to insert a Coastwatcher team."

  "You have a point," Pickering said, not at all graciously.

  "Go on, McCoy."

  "A submarine could be used to land a replacement team and to take out the team that's there," McCoy said. "At least that was my first thought."

  "Psychologically speaking, I think it would be a good idea," Pickering announced, "to refer to the Marines on Buka by their names. Their names are Lieutenant Joe Howard and Sergeant Steve Koffler. We're not talking about a navigation buoy we left floating around an atoll someplace."

  "Yes, Sir," McCoy said.

  "You were about to tell us what's wrong with a submarine," Pickering said.

  "One, it would have to surface offshore someplace, obviously. That means it would have to do so at night, to lower the chances that Japanese ships, aircraft, or Japanese coastwatchers would see it."

  " `Japanese coastwatchers'?" Pickering parroted.

  "The Makin raid has taught the Japanese some lessons. For one, they're now afraid there'll be other raids. They are watching all their beaches."

  "They don't have the manpower to watch all their coastline," Pickering argued.

  "They probably have enough to watch the beaches where you could put rubber boats ashore. And rubber boats is something else."

  "Explain that," Pickering ordered.

  "We had trouble getting onto the beach at Makin," McCoy said. "And we damned near didn't get off. You want me to talk about putting a replacement team in by submarine?"

  "Please."

  "We could probably find enough people in the 2nd Raider Battalion to handle the rubber boats-"

  "Why couldn't the replacement team paddle their own boats?" Rickabee asked.

  "Because it's hell of lot harder than it looks, a hell of a lot harder than Colonel Carlson and Captain Roosevelt, or me, thought it would be," McCoy said simply. "It requires both skill and a lot of muscle. I just said we damned near didn't get off the beach. Seven of us didn't."

  George Hart stared for a time at Lieutenant McCoy, for he und it hard to really accept it that the man now sitting across the room from him in an immaculate uniform, not even wearing any ribbons, holding a cup of coffee, the man who had entertained him and Beth the night before with stories of the trouble he'd had getting Pick Pickering through Officer Candidate School, had been one of the Marine Raiders who struck Makin Island.

  "Ken," Captain Sessions asked, speaking for the first time, "you're saying you don't think we could train our people to handle rubber boats?"

  "No, I don't think so. And even if we could, what about the-Lieutenant Whatsisname and the sergeant?"

  "Howard and Koffler," Pickering furnished evenly.

  "Yes, Sir. Howard and Koffler. They would have to be rowed back through the surf to the submarine. They sure couldn't do it themselves. The replacement team would be exhausted from rowing to shore. It's a lot harder, that sort of crap, than anyone understands until they've tried it."

  "OK," Pickering said.

  "Let me kill the idea, please, Sir," McCoy said. "The replacement team would be taking a radio, radios, in with them."

  "Two radios," Rickabee said. "A replacement and a spare."

  "Each weighing about a hundred pounds?"

  "That's right."

  "Then, Sir, based on our experience at Makin, you would have to send in four radios, to make sure two made it to the beach. And we didn't try to off-load anything that heavy from the submarines into the rubber boats. The heaviest thing we carried ashore was a Browning.50. And that was a bitch. We lost two I know about. Maybe, probably, more."

  "You sound as negative about this as Banning, McCoy," Pickering said.

  Although his tone was conversational, it was clear that General Pickering was both angry and disappointed.

  "But just for the hell of it," McCoy went on, "let's suppose we could somehow get around the rubber boat problem. How would we get word to"-he searched his memory and came up with the names-"Koffler and Howard to meet up with the submarine?"

&n
bsp; "We are in radio contact," Pickering said.

  "I think we have to presume that the Jap's are monitoring transmissions, and that they have broken the code," McCoy said. "They are not stupid."

  Rickabee remembered again that Corporal McCoy had not applied for OCS. A report he had written about Japanese troop movements when he worked for Captain Ed Banning in the Fourth Marines in China had come to the attention of General Forrest. Forrest's reaction had been blunt and to the point. "I think we ought to put bars on that corporal's shoulders. Right now he and I are the only two people in The Marine Corps who don't seem to devoutly believe that all Japs are five feet two, wear thick glasses, and that we can whip them with one hand tied behind our backs. Captain Ed Sessions had marched a very reluctant Corporal McCoy before an officer candidate selection board. Before he did that, Captain Sessions had informed the president of the board that if he found reason to reject Corporal McCoy as suitable officer material , he better be prepared to defend that to General Forrest.

  "Going off at a tangent, McCoy, accepting what you just said," Rickabee asked, "why do you think the Japanese haven't located and taken out Ferdinand Six?"

  "Yeah," Pickering said thoughtfully.

  "They know where they are within a mile or so. So the question is really, why haven't they taken them out?"

  "OK."

  "That's rough terrain. Steep hills, thick jungle. Which also explains why they don't try to take them out with aircraft, it would be a waste of effort. They can't see them from the air, and even if they did, bombing or strafing them would be a waste of effort. And by the time they got within a couple of miles on the ground, the Coast watchers would know about it.

  The Coast watchers have natives who know the terrain. They can keep out of the Japs' way. And the Japs know that. They're not stupid.

  "They must know what Ferdinand Six is costing them," Pickering said.

  "Yes, Sir. But they also know that radios don't function forever in the jungle, and that white men can't live there for any length of time. They're patient, the problem will solve itself."

  "You were saying that you think the Japanese have broken the code?"

  "What are they using?" McCoy asked, looking at Captain Sessions.

  "An old SOI," Sessions offered, meaning Signal Operating Instruction. "When they repeat it, they jump ahead, using Howard's serial number. I think you're right. They've broken it.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," Pickering said.

  "General, they have a code book with a different code for each of thirty days," Sessions explained. "When they run past thirty days, they start over again from the beginning. But not in the same sequence this time-not one, two, three. This time, say, if Howard's serial was 56789, they use the code for the fifth day; and the day after that, they count ahead six days, the second number of his serial number. You understand how it works, General?"

  "I do now."

  "So what I was saying," McCoy went on, "was that even if we got a submarine, found a beach which would take rubber boats, and managed to get the replacement team and their hundred-pound radios ashore, it wouldn't do us any good, because we have no way of letting-Howard and Koffler-know when and where to meet the submarine. If we tried to tell them, we have to assume the Japanese would intercept the message. The Japs would then ambush them on their way to the beach. And they'd be waiting for the submarine to surface."

  Colonel F. L. Rickabee was very impressed with Lieutenant K. R. McCoy. Having placed a great deal of confidence in Major Ed Banning's ability, he had not given a great deal of thought to the problems of extracting the-Howard and Koffler-from Buka... until his somewhat strained luncheon the previous afternoon with a somewhat intoxicated and very upset Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.

  After giving the problem some hard thought, he had come up with very much the same conclusion that Banning had obviously reached in Australia-that getting those two guys out was impossible. It seemed pretty clear that McCoy had reached the same conclusion now that the facts were available to him.

  This should shut Pickering up, Rickabee thought with a great sense of relief. As a veteran of the Makin raid, McCoy was obviously an expert in rubber boat landings. Pickering would accept his judgment. And McCoy was a Mustang: A former Marine would not decide they couldn't go and pick up the dead and wounded unless it was really impossible.

  Better he should get this painful truth from McCoy than from me again.

  "I gather that you and Major Banning are in agreement, then, McCoy, that there is absolutely nothing we can do for Joe Howard and Steve Koffler?" General Pickering asked, his voice now sounding very tired.

  "No, Sir," McCoy said. "I didn't say that."

  "Well then, goddamn it, let's have it!"

  "I thought of two ways we might be able to carry this off," McCoy said.

  "One's kind of wild."

  "Let's hear it, McCoy."

  "I started out with the submarine idea," McCoy said.

  "Christ, there's so much I don't know!"

  "We can get answers. Go ahead," Pickering said.

  "Yes, Sir. OK. Step one. We find a beach that will take boats. Depending on what the surf and the beach are like when we get there, we put ashore the radios, the replacement Marines, and an Australian Coastwatcher. We'll also bring one, or better, two natives who know the island and can find Ferdinand Six. If the surf is bad, we just put the natives ashore. We don't try to land the radios and the replacement team. Then the natives find Ferdinand Six and tell them where the submarine will be probably a different beach. Maybe with a little bit of luck, there would be native boats to go out to the submarine-"

  "I like it," General Pickering said, looking triumphantly at Colonel Rickabee.

  Oh, shit! Rickabee thought.

  "Then," McCoy went on, "as I was thinking about that, I had a wild hare."

  And how, Lieutenant McCoy, Rickabee wondered, would you describe your previous "Errol Flynn Fights the Nasty Nips" idea as a tame hare?

  "Well'?"

  "Use an R4D, just go in, off-load the replacement team and radios, and pick up the guys that are there," McCoy said.

  "I thought it was pretty well established that there was no airfield."

  "There's beaches," McCoy said. "Maybe there's the right kind of sand, packed so it will take an R4D."

  "I don't think so," Sessions said.

  "You're talking about landing an R4D on a beach?" Rickabee asked incredulously. "It would just sink in."

  "I've been nosing around for the Mongolian Operation," McCoy said. "We can make that flight only one time. If the Japs see the plane, we have to hope they think it was some guy just got lost. But if two planes got lost, they would be very suspicious. So we're going to have to take everything we'll need in with us and get it safely on the ground. And it's a one-way ride; there's no way the plane can get out again. So the question came up-they're still talking about it-of what to do with the airplane."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about, McCoy," Pickering said.

  "General, I'll have the Mongolia file in your hands this afternoon," Rickabee said.

  "I want to hear about it now."

  "General, we're getting into Need to Know," Rickabee said, gesturing toward Dillon and Hart.

  "I'll decide who needs to know what," Pickering said icily.

  "Go on, McCoy."

  "Sir, we're setting up a weather observation station in the Mongolian desert. The only way we can get in is by air. So they're going to add auxiliary fuel tanks to an R4D that will give us the necessary range from the Aleutian Islands-"

  "The Japanese hold Attu in the Aleutians," Pickering interrupted.

  "Yes, Sir. That's one of the problems. Anyway, we can probably get enough range to make it in. The original idea was to parachute the team in and then leave the airplane on automatic pilot and let it crash when it ran out of fuel. But they were still cutting the fuel supply so tight, they were afraid it would run out too close to the drop site.
So then they thought if they didn't use parachutes and the packing necessary for the equipment, they could carry that much more fuel. So they've been wondering how they land the plane in the desert. Maybe just land it and bury it in sand. Or maybe land it, unload it, and then take off again and put it on autopilot. Anyway, they're working on how to land it on sand. I don't know whether that will work, or if it does, whether it would work on a beach in Buka, but it would sure solve a lot of problems."

  "The plane that dropped Howard and Koffler on Buka was shot down on its way home," Rickabee said.