“Do something useful. Make us a drink.”
“Would it be better if I just left, Sir?” Colonel Goettge asked.
“No. Of course not. I’m going to get on the phone and ask General Willoughby out here for dinner. I’m going to tell him that you’re an old friend of mine. If he comes, fine. If he doesn’t, at least he’ll know who you are when I take you in tomorrow morning to see him.”
“Sir,” Banning said, “I thought it would be a good idea to put Colonel Goettge in touch with the Coastwatchers—”
“Absolutely!”
“To that end, Sir, I asked Commander Feldt—he’s in town—”
“I know,” Pickering interrupted.
“—and Lieutenant Donnelly to dinner.”
“Good.”
“He’s bringing Yeoman Farnsworth with him,” Banning said.
“Why?”
“It was my idea, Sir. I thought it would be nice to radio Lieutenant Howard and Sergeant Koffler that we had dinner with their girls. I asked Ensign Cotter, too.”
“If General Willoughby is free to have dinner with us, Ed, I can’t imagine that he would object to sharing the table with two pretty girls. God knows, there’s none around the mess in the Menzies.”
XIV
(One)
Eyes Only—The Secretary of the Navy
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY
Water Lily Cottage
Manchester Avenue
Brisbane, Australia
Tuesday, 21 July 1942
Dear Frank:
I’m not sure if it was really necessary, but the emperor decided to move the court; and so here, after an enormous logistical effort, we are. It is (MacA.’s stated reason for the move) “1,185 miles closer to the front lines.”
El Supremo’s Headquarters are in a modern office building, formerly occupied by an insurance company. MacA. has a rather elegant office on the eighth floor (of nine ). I am down the corridor, and was surprised to learn that General Sutherland himself assigned me my office. I would have wagered he would put me in the basement, or left me in Melbourne.
MacA. and family, and the senior officers, are living in Lennon’s Hotel, which is a rambling, graceful old Victorian hostelry that reminds me of the place the Southern Pacific railroad used to operate in Yellowstone Park. This time I was assigned quarters appropriate to my rank: that is to say, sharing a two-room suite with an Army Ordnance Corps colonel. Because the Colonel is portly, mustached, and almost certainly snores, and because I wanted a place affording some privacy, and because I didn’t think I should permit anyone in Supreme Headquarters to tell me to do anything, I have taken a small cottage near the (unfortunately closed for the duration) Doomben Race Track, where this is written.
It should go without saying that I think the JCS decision of 2 July to invade the Solomons was wrong. I have the somewhat nasty suspicion that it was based on Roosevelt’s awe of King, and his dislike of MacA., rather than for any strategic purpose.
The night before (1 July) I had dinner with a colonel named Goettge, who is the First Marine Division G-2. There was no question in his mind how the JCS was going to decide the issue. I found that rather disturbing, as theoretically it was still under consideration. He was in with MacA.’s intelligence people, getting what they had on Tulagi and Guadalcanal when the JCS cable ordering Operation PESTILENCE came in.
He tells me—and I believe—that it is going to be one hell of a job getting the 1st Marines ready to make an amphibious landing in five weeks, including, of course, the rehearsal operation in the Fiji Islands.
Ghormley has requested that the 2nd Marines, of the 2nd Marine Division, be combat-loaded at San Diego. The 5th Marines were not combat-loaded, which means that they had to unload everything onto the docks, Aotea Quay, at Wellington, sort it out, and then reload it, so that it meets the needs of an amphibious landing force. That’s what they are now doing; and according to a friend of mine in the 5th Marines, it is an indescribable mess, with cans spilling out of ordinary cardboard boxes, and so on.
The problem is compounded by the dock workers, a surly socialist bunch who, I suspect, would rather see the Japs in New Zealand than work overtime or over a weekend. I’m sure that the Marines and Navy people here have been raising hell about it with port people in America, but if you could add your weight to getting something done about it, your effort would be worthwhile.
On the Fourth of July, we learned from Coastwatchers that the Japanese have started construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal. That’s frightening. Both MacA. and Ghormley are fully aware of the implications of an air base there, but they both, separately, insist that the Guadalcanal operation should not be launched until we are prepared to do it properly. It is not pleasant to consider the ramifications of a failed amphibious invasion.
That opinion is obviously not shared by the JCS. I don’t know how Ghormley took it in Auckland, but I was with MacA. when a copy of the JCS cable of 10 July ordering Ghormley to “seize Guadalcanal and Tulagi at once” reached here. He thinks, to put it kindly, it was a serious error in judgment.
It wasn’t until the next day (11 July) that the other infantry regiment (the 1st Marines) and the artillery (11th) of the 1st Marine Division reached Wellington, N.Z. Now they are expected to unload, sort, and combat-load their equipment and otherwise get set for an amphibious landing in twenty days.
The same day, as you know, we learned that Imperial Japanese Headquarters has called off its plans to seize Midway, New Caledonia, and Samoa. Under those circumstances, no one here can see the need for “immediately” landing at Guadalcanal.
Last Thursday (16 July), a courier brought a copy of Ghormley’s operation plan (OPPLAN 1-42). There are three phases: a rehearsal in the Fiji Islands; the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi; and the occupation of Ndeni Island in the Santa Cruz Islands. MacA.’s reaction to it was that it is as good as it could be expected to be, given the circumstances.
MacA. made B-17 aircraft available to the 1st Marine Division for reconnaissance, and they flew over both Guadalcanal and Tulagi on Friday. On Saturday we learned that the aerial photographs taken differ greatly from the maps already issued—and there is simply no time to print and issue corrected ones.
I’m going to leave here first thing in the morning for New Zealand, and from there will join the rehearsal in the Fijis. I don’t know what good, if any at all, I can do anyone. But obviously I am doing no one any good here.
Respectfully,
Fleming Pickering, Captain, USNR
(Two)
Supreme Headquarters
Southwest Pacific Area
Brisbane, Australia
1705 Hours 21 July 1942
It was the first time Pickering had been to the Cryptology Room in Brisbane. He found it in the basement, installed in a vault that had held the important records of the evicted insurance company. There was a new security system, too, now run by military policemen wearing white puttees, pistol belts, and shiny steel helmets. The security in Melbourne had been a couple of noncoms armed with Thompson submachine guns, slouched on chairs. They had come to know Captain Fleming Pickering and had habitually waved him inside. But the MPs here not only didn’t know who he was, but somewhat smugly told him that he was not on the “authorized-access list.”
Finally, reluctantly, they summoned Lieutenant Pluto Hon to the steel door, and he arranged, not easily, to have Pickering passed inside.
Hon waved Pickering into a chair, and then typed Pickering’s letter to Navy Secretary Frank Knox onto a machine that looked much like (and was a derivative of) a teletype machine. It produced a narrow tape, like a stock-market ticker tape, spitting it out of the left side of the machine. Hon ripped it off, and then fed the end of the tape into the cryptographic machine itself. Wheels began to whir and click, and there was the sound of keys hitting paper. Finally, out of the other end of the machine came another long
strip of tape.
When that process was done, Lieutenant Hon took that strip of paper and fed it into the first machine. There was the sound of more typewriter keys, and the now-encrypted message appeared at the top of the machine, the way a teletype message would. But there were no words there, only a series of five-character blocks.
Hon gave his original letter and both strips of tape to Pickering; then, carrying the encrypted message, he left the vault for the radio room across the basement. Pickering followed him.
“Urgent,” Hon said to the sergeant in charge. “For Navy Hawaii. Log it as my number”—he paused to consult the encrypted message—“six-six-oh-six.”
Pickering and Hon watched as a radio operator, using a telegrapher’s key, sent the message to Hawaii. A few moments later there came an acknowledgment of receipt. Then Hon took the encoded message from the radio operator and handed it to Pickering.
In a couple of minutes, Pickering thought, that will be in the hands of Ellen Feller. He wondered if her receiving a message from him triggered any erotic thoughts in her.
He followed Hon back to the Cryptology Room. Hon turned a switch, and there was the sound of a fan. Pickering dropped his letter, the two tapes, and the encrypted printout into a galvanized bucket, and then stopped and set it all afire with his cigarette lighter. He waited until it had been consumed, and then reached in the bucket and broke up the ashes with a pencil.
It wasn’t that he distrusted Hon, or any of the others who encrypted his letters to the Secretary of the Navy. It was just that if he personally saw to it that all traces of it had been burned, there was no way it could wind up on Willoughby’s, MacArthur’s, or anyone else’s desk.
“I wish I was going with you,” Pluto Hon said.
Pickering was surprised. It was the first time Pluto had even suggested he was familiar with the contents of one of Pickering’s messages. He was, of course—you read what you type—but the rules of the little game were that everyone pretended the cryptographer didn’t know.
“Why?”
“It’s liable to be as dull here as it was in Melbourne,” Pluto said.
“I could probably arrange to have you dropped onto some island behind Japanese lines,” Pickering joked. “They’re short of people, I know.”
“I already asked Major Banning,” Pluto replied, seriously. “He said I could go the day after you let him go. ‘We also serve who sit in dark basements shuffling paper.’”
“It’s more than that, Pluto, and you know it,” Pickering said, and touched his shoulder.
“Good night, Sir,” Lieutenant Hon said.
Pickering walked back through the basement, then up to the lobby and to the security desk, where, after duty hours, it was necessary to produce identification and sign in and out.
“There he is,” a female voice said as he scrawled his name on the register.
I am losing my mind. That sounded exactly like Ellen Feller.
He straightened and turned around.
“Good evening, Captain Pickering,” Ellen Feller said.
“I hope you have some influence around here, Captain,” Captain David Haughton said, as he offered Pickering his hand, smiling at his surprise. “We have just been told there is absolutely no room in the inn.”
“Haughton, what the hell are you doing here?” Pickering asked. He looked at Ellen Feller. “And you, Ellen?”
“I’m on my way to Admiral Ghormley in Auckland. They’re servicing the plane. Ellen’s for duty.”
“For duty?” Pickering asked her. “What do you mean?”
“I was asked if I would be willing to come here,” Ellen Feller said. “I was.”
Jesus Christ, what the hell is this all about?
“The boss arranged it,” Haughton said. “In one of your letters you said something about not having a secretary. So he sent you one. Yours.”
“You don’t seem very pleased to see me, Captain Pickering,” Ellen said.
“Don’t be silly. Of course I am,” Pickering said.
“Your billeting people are being difficult,” Haughton said. “I tried to get Ellen a room in the hotel…Lennon’s?”
“Lennon’s,” Pickering confirmed.
“And they say she’s not on their staff, and no room.”
“I can take care of that,” Pickering said.
“I tried to invoke your name, and they gave me a room number. But the door was opened by a fat Army officer who said he hadn’t seen you since Melbourne.”
“I’ve got a cottage just outside of town. We can stay there tonight, and I’ll get this all sorted out in the morning. Christ, no I won’t either. I’m leaving first thing in the morning. But I’ll make some phone calls tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the rehearsal,” Pickering said. “I just sent Knox a letter…”
Ellen Feller read his mind.
“I’ve taken care of everything in Hawaii. If it’s in Hawaii now, it will be on his desk, decrypted, in three hours.”
“Have you got a car?” Haughton asked.
Pickering nodded. “Why?”
“Well, Ellen’s luggage is still at the airfield. If you’ve got a car, you could pick that up; and at the same time, I can check in about the plane.”
Pickering pointed out the door, where the drop-head Jaguar was parked in front of a sign reading GENERAL AND FLAG OFFICERS ONLY.
“That’s beautiful,” Ellen said. “What is it?”
“It’s an old Jaguar. The roof leaks.”
Haughton chuckled. “I see you are still scrupulously refusing to obey the Customs of the Service.”
Pickering was surprised at how furious the remark made him, but he forced a smile.
“Shall we go?”
Ellen Feller sat between them on the way to the airport. Whether by intent or accident, her thigh pressed against his. That warm softness and the smell of her perfume produced the physiological manifestation of sexual excitement in the male animal.
An inspection of the aircraft had revealed nothing seriously wrong, Haughton was told. They would be leaving in an hour.
There was a small officers’ club. They had three drinks, during which time Ellen Feller’s leg brushed, accidentally or otherwise, against Pickering’s. Then they called Haughton’s flight. They watched him board the Mariner for New Zealand.
Fleming Pickering would not have been surprised at anything Ellen did now that they were alone. She did nothing, sitting ladylike against the far door, all the way out to the cottage.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s a cottage I rented. I told you—”
“I would have bet you were taking me to an officers’ hotel!” she said.
Why the hell didn’t I? I could have gotten her a room if I had to call General Sutherland himself.
“No.”
“Fleming, don’t look so guilt-stricken,” Ellen said. “We both know you wouldn’t do this if Mrs. Pickering were around.”
He didn’t reply for a moment. Then he pulled up on the parking brake, took the key from the ignition, got out of the car, and walked up to the house and unlocked the door.
The telephone rang. He walked across the living room to it.
“Pickering.”
“Captain Pickering?”
“Yes.”
“Sir, this is Major Tourtillott, Billeting Officer at the Lennon.”
“Yes, Major.”
“Sir, there was a Naval officer, a Captain Haughton, looking for you.”
“Yes, I know, he found me.”
“Sir, he was trying to arrange quarters for a Navy Department civilian, a lady, an assimilated Oh-Four.”
“A what?”
“An assimilated Oh-Four, Sir. Someone entitled to the privileges of an Oh-Four, Sir.”
“What the hell is an Oh-Four?”
“An Army or Marine Corps major, Sir, or a Navy Lieutenant Commander.”
“The lady has made other arrangements
for tonight, Major. I’ll get this all sorted out in the morning. She is a member of my staff, and quarters will be required.”
“Yes, Sir. I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Sir.”
Pickering hung the telephone up and turned to see what had happened to Ellen Feller.
She wasn’t in the small living room. He found her in the bedroom, in bed.
“I’ve been flying for eighteen hours,” she said. “I’m probably a little gamey. Will that bother you? Should I shower?”
Fleming Pickering shook his head.
(Three)
Aboard USS Lowell Hutchins
Transport Group Y
17 degrees 48 minutes south latitude, 150 degrees west longitude
4 August 1942
Just about everyone on board knew that five months ago the USS Lowell Hutchins had been the Pacific & Far East passenger liner Pacific Enchantress; no one had any idea who Lowell Hutchins was, or, since Naval ships were customarily named only after the dead, who he had been.
She had been rapidly pressed into service, but the conversion from a plush civilian passenger liner to a Naval transport was by no means complete. Before she had sailed from the States with elements of the 1st Marine Division aboard, she had been given a coat of Navy gray paint. It had been hastily applied, and here and there it had already begun to flake off, revealing the pristine white for which Pacific & Far East vessels were well known.
The furniture and carpeting from the first-class and tourist dining rooms had been removed. Narrow, linoleum-covered, chest-high steel tables had been welded in place in the former tourist dining room. Enlisted men and junior officers now took their meals from steel trays, and they ate standing up.
Not-much-more-elegant steel tables, with attached steel benches, had been installed in the ex-first-class dining room. Generally, captains and above got to eat there, sitting down, from plates bearing the P&FE insignia.
Most of the former first-class suites and cabins, plus the former first- and tourist-class bars, libraries, lounges, and exercise rooms, had been converted to troop berthing areas. It had been relatively easy to remove their beds, cabinets, tables, and other furniture and equipment and replace them with bunks. The bunks were sheets of canvas, suspended between iron pipe, stacked four high.
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