Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Well, hello, Lieutenant,” Pickering said when he saw Lieutenant Hon. Hon sometimes made him feel slightly ill at ease. For one thing, he didn’t know what to call him. Something in his mind told him that “Hon” was, in the American sense, his last name. He could not, in other words, do what he had long ago learned how to do with other junior officers; he couldn’t put him at ease by calling him by his first name, or even better, by his nickname. He simply didn’t know what it was.

  And Lieutenant Hon was not what ordinarily came to Pickering’s mind when “Asian-American” or “Korean-American” was mentioned. For one thing, he was a very large man, nearly as tall and heavy as Pickering; and for another, he had a deep voice with a thick Boston accent. And on top of this, he was what Pickering thought of as an egghead. He was a theoretical mathematician. He had been commissioned as a mathematician, and he’d originally been assigned to Signal Intelligence as a mathematician. Only afterward had the Army learned that he was a Japanese linguist.

  “Good evening, Sir,” Lieutenant Hon said, rising to his feet. “I have a rather interesting decrypt for you, Sir.”

  “Why didn’t you bring it downstairs?”

  “I didn’t think it was quite important enough for me to have to intrude on the Commander-in-Chief’s dinner.”

  Pickering looked at him. There was a smile in Lieutenant Hon’s eyes.

  “Well, come on in, and I’ll buy you a drink,” Pickering said, then added, “Lieutenant, I think I know you well enough to call you by your first name.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Sir,” Lieutenant Hon said dryly. “‘Do’ doesn’t lend itself to English as a first name. Why don’t you call me Pluto?”

  “Pluto?”

  “Yes, Sir. That’s what I’ve been called for years. After Mickey Mouse’s friend, the dog with the sad face?”

  “OK,” Pickering chuckled. “Pluto it is.”

  He snapped the lights on.

  “What will you have to drink, Pluto?”

  “Is there any of that Old Grouse Scotch, Sir?”

  “Should be several bottles of it. Why don’t you give me the decrypt and make us both one? I think there’s a can of peanuts in the drawer under the bar, too. Why don’t you open that?”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Pluto Hon said, and handed Pickering a sealed manila envelope.

  Pickering tore it open. Inside was a TOP SECRET cover sheet, and below that a sheet of typewriter paper.

  NOT LOGGED

  ONE COPY ONLY

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  FOLLOWING IS DECRYPTION OF MSG 234545 RECEIVED 061742

  OFFICE SECNAVY WASHDC 061642 1300 GREENWICH

  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SOUTHWEST PACIFIC

  EYES ONLY CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING USNR

  REF YOUR 8 JUNE 1942 REPORT

  SECNAVY REPLIES QUOTE

  PART ONE YES

  PART TWO YOUR FRIEND BEING INVITED HAWAIIAN PARTY

  PART THREE BEST PERSONAL REGARDS SIGNATURE FRANK

  END QUOTE

  HAUGHTON CAPT USN ADMIN OFF TO SECNAVY

  Pickering walked to the bar. Pluto was just about finished making the drinks.

  “A little cryptic, even decrypted, isn’t it?” he said to Pluto, taking the extended drink.

  Pluto chuckled. “I don’t think it’s likely, but even if the Japs have broken the Blue Code, their analysts are going to have a hell of a time making anything out of that.”

  “Would you care to guess, Pluto?”

  “There was a message from the JCS adding General Willoughby to the Albatross list. Am I getting warm?” Pickering smiled and nodded. “I have no idea what ‘Yes’ means,” Pluto Hon said.

  “I asked for permission to give Major Banning access to Magic intercepts,” Pickering said. “What I decide to show him. I didn’t ask that he be put on the Albatross list.”

  Pluto nodded. “Are you going to want that logged, Sir?”

  Pickering shook his head, then took out his cigarette lighter and burned the sheet of typewriter paper, holding it over a wastebasket until it was consumed.

  Lieutenant Pluto Hon refused a second drink and left. Pickering went to bed.

  In the morning, at breakfast, Major General Willoughby walked over to Captain Pickering’s table in the Menzies Hotel dining room and sat down with him. A large smile was on his face.

  “Have you had a chance to read the overnight Magics yet, Pickering?”

  “No, Sir,” Captain Pickering said.

  “You should have a look. Very interesting.”

  General Willoughby looked very pleased with himself.

  (Seven)

  The Elms

  Dandenong, Victoria, Australia

  1825 Hours 1 July 1942

  It was windy; and there was a cold and unpleasant rain. As Captain Fleming Pickering drove the drop-head Jaguar coupe under the arch of winter-denuded elms toward the house, he was thinking unkind thoughts about the British.

  As cold as it gets in England, and as much as this car must have cost, it would seem reasonable to expect that the windshield wipers would work, and the heater, and that the goddamned top wouldn’t leak.

  As he neared the house and saw Banning’s Studebaker, his mind turned to unkind thoughts about Major Ed Banning, USMC.

  He didn’t know what he was doing here, except that he would be meeting “a friend” and somebody else Banning wanted to introduce him to. Banning, on the telephone, acted as if he was sure the line was tapped by the Japanese, even if all he was discussing was goddamned dinner. No details. Just cryptic euphemisms.

  And I will bet ten dollars to a doughnut that both “a friend” and “somebody else” are going to be people I would rather not see.

  He got out of the car and ran through the drizzle up onto the porch.

  Mrs. Cavendish answered his ring with a warm smile.

  “Oh, good evening, Captain,” she said. “How are you tonight?”

  “Wet and miserable, Mrs. Cavendish, how about you?”

  She laughed. “A little nip will fix you right up,” she said. “The other gentlemen are in the library.”

  I had no right to snap at her, and no reason to be annoyed with Banning. For all I know the goddamned phone is tapped. Maybe by Willoughby. And it is absurd to fault an intelligence officer for having a closed mouth. You are acting like a curmudgeonly old man. Or perhaps a younger man, suffering from sexual deprivation.

  The latter thought, he realized, had been triggered by the perversity of his recent erotic dreams. He had had four of them over not too many more nights than that. Only one had involved the female he was joined with in holy matrimony. A second had involved a complete stranger who had, in his dream, exposed her breasts to him in a Menzies Hotel elevator, then made her desires known with a lewd wink. The other two had been nearly identical: Ellen Feller had stood at the side of his bed, undressed slowly, and then mounted him.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Mrs. Cavendish,” Pickering said.

  “I didn’t know that you had,” she said, smiling, as she took his coat.

  He walked down the corridor to the library and pushed the door open.

  “I will be damned,” he said, smiling. It really was a friend. “How are you, Jake?”

  Major Jake Dillon, USMC, crossed the room to him, smiling, shook his hand, and then hugged him.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Dillon said. “Patricia’s sitting at home knitting scarfs and gloves for you, imagining you living in some leaking tent; and here you are, living like the landed gentry—even including a Jaguar.”

  “If I detect a broad suggestion of jealousy, I’m glad,” Pickering said. “I see you’re already into my booze.”

  “Banning took care of that, after I told him how dry it was all the way from the States to Wellington, New Zealand.”

  “That was probably good for you. I’m sure you hadn’t been sober that long in years. You came with the 1st Division?” Headquarters, 1st Marine Division, and the ent
ire 5th Marines had debarked at Wellington, New Zealand, on June 14, 1942.

  “All the way. And it was a very long way. The ship was not the Pacific Princess. The cuisine and accommodations left a good deal to be desired.”

  “What are you doing here? And where did you meet Ed Banning?”

  “Here. Tonight. He’s a friend of Colonel Goettge.”

  “Who’s Colonel Goettge?”

  “I am, Sir,” a voice said, and Pickering turned. Banning and a tall, muscular Marine colonel had come into the library from the kitchen. “I suspect that I may be imposing.”

  “Nonsense,” Pickering said, crossing to him and offering his hand. “Any friend of Banning’s, etcetera etcetera.”

  “Very kind of you, Captain,” Goettge said.

  “Also of Jack Stecker’s,” Jake Dillon said. “It was Jack’s idea that I come along. He sends his regards.”

  “So far, Colonel,” Pickering said, “that’s two good guys out of three. But how did you get hung up with this character?”

  “Watch it, Flem. I’ll arrange to have you photographed being wetly kissed by a bare-breasted aborigine maiden, and send eight-by-ten glossies to Patricia.”

  “He would, too,” Pickering said, laughing. “Colonel, you’re in dangerous company.”

  “Colonel Goettge is the 1st Division G-2, Captain Pickering,” Banning said. “He was sent here to gather intelligence on certain islands in the Solomons.”

  Pickering met Banning’s eye for a moment. They both knew more about pending operations in the Solomon Islands than Colonel Goettge was supposed to know, even though he was G-2 of the 1st Marine Division.

  Pickering was worried, however, about how much Goettge actually knew.

  On Friday, June 19, twelve days before, Vice-Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, USN, had activated his headquarters at Auckland, New Zealand, and become Commander, South Pacific, subordinate to Admiral Nimitz at Pearl Harbor.

  Pickering immediately flew down to meet him, not sure in his own mind if he was doing so in his official role as observer for Frank Knox, or as a member (if unofficial) of MacArthur’s palace guard.

  Once he saw Pickering’s orders, Admiral Ghormley had no choice but to brief him on his concept of the war, and on his planning. But he went further than paying appropriate respect to an officer wrapped in the aura of a personal representative of the Secretary of the Navy required.

  There were several reasons for this. For one, they immediately liked each other. Over lunch, Ghormley drew out of Pickering the story of how he had worked his way up from apprentice seaman in the deck department to his “Any Ocean, Any Tonnage” master’s ticket. And it quickly became clear that the two of them were not an admiral and a civilian in a captain’s uniform, but that they were two men who had known the responsibility of the bridge in a storm.

  And, too, Ghormley had come to the South Pacific almost directly from London. Thus he had not spent enough time in either Washington or Pearl Harbor to become infected with the parochial virus that caused others of his rank to feel that the war in the Pacific had to be fought and won by the Navy alone—perhaps as the only way to overcome the shame of Pearl Harbor.

  And to Pickering’s pleased surprise, Ghormley had independently come up with a strategy that was very much like MacArthur’s. He saw the Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain as a likely and logical target for the immediate future. He thought it would be a very reasonable expenditure of assets to assault New Britain amphibiously with the 1st Marine Division, and, once the beachhead was secure, to turn the battle over to the Army’s 32nd and 41st Infantry Divisions.

  Pickering then informed Admiral Ghormley that he was privy to General MacArthur’s thinking, and that the two of them were in essential agreement. He made this admission after briefly considering that not only was it none of Ghormley’s business, but that telling Ghormley such things would enrage both Frank Knox and Douglas MacArthur if they learned of it, as they almost certainly would.

  Which was to say, of course, that MacArthur and Ghormley both disagreed with Admiral Ernest King’s proposed plans for immediate action: These called for a Navy attack under Admiral Nimitz on both the Santa Cruz and Solomon Islands, while MacArthur launched a diversionary attack on the East Indies.

  When Pickering returned to Brisbane, he dropped the other shoe (after one of MacArthur’s private dinners) and informed MacArthur of Ghormley’s ideas for the most efficient prosecution of the war. Lengthy “independent” cables then went from Ghormley (to Admiral King, Chief of Naval Operations) and MacArthur (to General Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army). These strenuously urged an attack to retake Rabaul as the first major counterattack of the war.

  General Marshall cabled MacArthur that he fully agreed Rabaul should be the first target, and that he would make the case for that before the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Admiral King, however, not only flatly disagreed with that, but was so sure that his position would prevail when the final decision was made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he “unofficially” alerted Nimitz, who in turn “unofficially” alerted Ghormley, that a Navy force, with or without MacArthur’s support, would attack the Solomons as soon as possible—probably within a month or six weeks.

  “Presuming” that Nimitz certainly would have told MacArthur of the Navy’s plans, Ghormley discussed (by memoranda, hand-carried by officer courier) Nimitz’s alert with MacArthur. This, of course, resulted in more emphatic cables from MacArthur to Marshall. It was still possible that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would decide against King and in favor of striking at Rabaul first.

  The decision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not yet made, although it was clear that it would have to be made in the next few days.

  Pickering had briefed Banning on his meetings with Ghormley and all that had happened after that. He now wondered if that had been a serious mistake. Had Banning told his old friend, Goettge, the First Division G-2, any—or all—of what Pickering had told him in confidence?

  “Captain Pickering,” Colonel Goettge said, “it’s been my experience that when you have something delicate to say, you almost always get yourself in deeper trouble when you pussyfoot around it.”

  “Mine, too,” Pickering replied. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I can only hope this won’t leave this room—”

  “You’re pussyfooting,” Pickering interrupted.

  “The word in the 1st Division is that General MacArthur’s attitude toward the Navy generally, and the Marine Corps in particular, is ‘Fuck you,’” Goettge said.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Pickering said.

  “There’s a story going around that he wouldn’t give the 4th Marines a Presidential Unit Citation in the Philippines because ‘the Marines already get enough publicity,’” Goettge said.

  “I’m afraid that’s true,” Pickering said. “But I’m also sure that he made that decision under a hell of a strain, and that he now regrets it. MacArthur is a very complex character.”

  “General Vandergrift thinks we will invade the Solomons. Or at least two of the Solomon Islands, Tulagi and Guadalcanal,” Goettge said.

  “Where did he get that?” Pickering said.

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  Pickering looked at Banning. Banning just perceptibly shook his head, meaning I didn’t tell him.

  I should have known that, Pickering thought. Why the hell did I question Banning’s integrity?

  “My job, therefore,” Colonel Goettge said, “is to gather as much intelligence about Guadalcanal and Tulagi as I possibly can. Phrased as delicately as I can, there is some doubt in General Vandergrift’s mind—and in mine—that, without a friend in court, so to speak, I won’t be able to get much from General Willoughby when I go to see him tomorrow.”

  My God, Pickering thought, sad and disgusted, has it gone that far?

  “And you think I could be your ‘friend at court’?”

  “Yes, Sir, that’s about it.”

  “It�
��s all over Washington, Flem,” Jake Dillon said, “that you and Dugout Doug have become asshole buddies.”

  A wave of rage swept through Fleming Pickering. It was a long moment before he trusted himself to speak.

  “Jake, old friends or not,” he said finally, calmly, “if you ever refer to MacArthur in those terms again, I’ll bring you up on charges myself.” But then his tone turned furious as anger overwhelmed him: “Goddamn you, you ignorant sonofabitch! General Willoughby—who is a fine officer despite the contempt in which you, Goettge, and others seem to hold him—told me that on Bataan, MacArthur was often so close to the lines that there was genuine concern that he would be captured by Japanese infantry patrols. And on Corregidor they couldn’t get him to go into the goddamned tunnel when the Japs were shelling! Who the fuck do you think you are to call him ‘Dugout Doug’?”

  “Sorry,” Dillon said.

  “You fucking well should be sorry!” Pickering flared. “Stick to being a goddamned press agent, you miserable pimple on a Marine’s ass, and keep your fucking mouth shut when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

  There was silence in the room.

  Pickering looked at them, the rage finally subsiding. Jake Dillon looked crushed. Colonel Goettge looked painfully uncomfortable. Ed Banning was…

  The sonofabitch is smiling!

  “You are amused, Major Banning?” Pickering asked icily.

  “Sir, I think Major Dillon was way out of line,” Banning said. “But, Sir, I was amused. I was thinking, ‘You can take the boy out of the Marines, but you can’t take the Marines out of the boy.’ I was thinking, Sir, that you sounded much more like a Marine corporal than like the personal representative of the Secretary of the Navy. You did that splendidly, Sir.”

  “Christ, Flem,” Jake Dillon said. “I just didn’t know…If I knew what you thought of him…”

  “Jake,” Pickering said. “Just shut up.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Dillon said.