MacArthur chuckled, and Pickering looked at him.
“Pluto and Lieutenant Whatsisname, the one who was wounded…”
“Moore, Sir,” Pickering furnished.
“…the one who limps. When they arrive with a MAGIC, they normally come not only armed to the teeth but with the MAGICs in a briefcase chained to their wrists. You are a delightfully informal fellow, Fleming.”
“My aide, Sir, is in your outer office—armed to the teeth and with the briefcase chained to his wrist. That is known, I believe, as delegation of responsibility.”
MacArthur’s face froze.
Watch your mouth, Pickering. You may think El Supremo is more than a little pompous, but El Supremo thinks of himself as The Supreme Commander. One does not say anything to The Supreme Commander that he might possibly interpret as insolent.
After almost visibly making up his mind, MacArthur apparently decided the humor was neither out of place nor disrespectful. He laughed.
“Pay attention, Willoughby,” he said. “I think we can all learn something from the Marines.”
“General,” Willoughby replied, “I’m fully aware that General Pickering can be quite ruthless as far as security is concerned.”
Christ! That can’t be anything but a reference to Ellen Feller. God, let’s not open that bag of worms!
MacArthur looked at Willoughby, curiosity on his face.
“I think that is expected of someone with his responsibilities,” MacArthur said finally. “He is also very tenacious, bringing up again and again a subject he knows I would rather he didn’t. I find both characteristics admirable, in their way.” He met Pickering’s eyes. “You were about to tell me about the intercept.”
I have just had my wrist slapped. I’ve been told he doesn’t want to hear me try to sell Donovan’s people to him again. But he didn’t ask Willoughby what he meant. Or does he already know about Ellen Feller?
“Sir, there’s a Japanese Naval officer that the people at CINCPAC and Pluto have been keeping track of—Commander Tadakae Ohmae, an intelligence officer.”
“What about him?” MacArthur asked impatiently.
“He’s apparently on Guadalcanal. Just after midnight last night, he sent a radio to Tokyo, using Japanese 17th Army facilities. It was addressed to the Intelligence Officer of their Navy. Pluto and I think it’s significant; CINCPAC doesn’t.”
“What colors CINCPAC’s thinking?”
“Pluto believes that Commander Ohmae is more important than his rank suggests: that he is in effect the Japanese Navy’s man on Guadalcanal, sent there to find out what’s really going on….”
“Someone like you, in other words, Fleming?” MacArthur asked.
“Yes, Sir. Although I don’t consider myself possessed of Ohmae’s expertise or influence.”
MacArthur grunted. “Go on.”
“The tone of Ohmae’s radio suggests that he reports things as he sees them…”
“Another similarity, wouldn’t you say?”
I’m going to ignore that. I think he’s trying to throw me off balance. Why?
“…which, in Pluto’s judgment, tends to support the idea that he is a man of some influence.”
“And CINCPAC disagrees?”
“CINCPAC feels that if this fellow were as important as Pluto believes he is, he wouldn’t have used a fairly standard code. He’d have used something more complex—and less likely to be broken now or in the future.”
“Like your own personal code, you’re saying, the one that is denied even to my cryptographers?”
I wondered how long it would take before you brought that up. You can’t really be the Emperor, can you, if one of the mice around the throne can send off letters you can’t read?
“Access to that code is controlled by Secretary Knox, Sir.”
“I’m just trying to understand what you’re driving at, Fleming,” MacArthur said disarmingly.
“Yes, Sir. Pluto feels, and I agree, that he didn’t use a better code, because a better code is not available to the Japanese on Guadalcanal; Ohmae used what was available.”
MacArthur grunted again. “What did Commander Ohmae say in his radio to Tokyo?”
“It was a rather blanket indictment of the 17th Army, Sir. He cited a number of reasons why he believed the attack failed.”
“Such as?”
Pickering dropped his eyes to the MAGIC intercept.
“He feels that General Nasu and his regimental commanders were, quote, grossly incompetent, unquote.”
“That accusation is always made when a battle is lost,” MacArthur said, “almost invariably by those who have not shouldered the weight of command themselves. Unless a commander has access to the matériel of war, his professional competence and the valor of his men is for nothing.”
He’s talking about himself, about his losing the Philippines.
“Commander Ohmae touches on those areas, Sir,” Pickering said, and dropped his eyes to the intercept again. “He says, quote, the severe fatigue of the troops immediately before the attack is directly attributable to the gross underestimation by 17th Army of terrain difficulties, unquote.”
“Willoughby and I were saying, just before you came in, that it was amazing the enemy could move as much ammunition as they did to the battle line.”
El Supremo’s beginning to approve of Commander Ohmae; the true test of somebody else’s intelligence is how closely he agrees with you.
“He also faults 17th Army for their, quote, faulty assessment, unquote, of our lines despite, quote, aerial photography showing the enemy had completed a complex, in-depth, perimeter defense of their positions, unquote.”
“Willoughby and I were just talking about that, too. When they struck the lines, they attacked in inadequate force at the wrong place. Isn’t that so, Willoughby?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“We had decided that it was due to lack of adequate intelligence. But if they had adequate aerial photos and ignored them, then that is incompetence.”
“Ohmae also stated, bluntly,” Pickering said, “quote, General Oka was chronically indifferent to his orders, and General Kawaguchi was chronically insubordinate, unquote.”
“‘Chronically insubordinate’?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“A serious allegation,” MacArthur said thoughtfully. “But it happens, even among general officers. We know that, don’t we, Willoughby. We’ve had our experience with that, haven’t we?”
“Yes, Sir. Unfortunately, we have.”
“General Wainwright,” MacArthur went on, “disobeyed my order to fight on. He apparently decided he had to. But then, with every expectation his own order would be obeyed, he ordered General Sharpe on Mindanao to surrender. General Sharpe had thirty thousand effectives, rations, ammunition, and had no reason to surrender. Yet he remembered his oath—the words ‘to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me’—and hoisted the white flag.”
“It’s a tough call,” Pickering said without thinking.
MacArthur looked at him.
“I was ordered to leave the Philippines, Fleming. Did you know that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What I wanted to do was resign my commission and enlist as a private and meet my fate on Bataan….”
By God, he means that!
“It was, as you put it, ‘a tough call.’ But in the end, I had no choice. I had my orders. I obeyed them.”
“Thank God you did,” Willoughby said. “The Army, the nation, needs you.”
He believes that. He is not kissing El Supremo’s ass. He believes it. And he’s right.
MacArthur looked at Willoughby for a long moment. Finally, he spoke.
“Willoughby, I think I would like a doughnut and some fresh coffee,” he said. “Would you see if Sergeant Gomez can accommodate us? Will you have some coffee and a doughnut with us, Fleming?”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you,” General Pickering replied.
[TWO]
; Los Angeles Airport
Los Angeles, California
0910 Hours 27 October 1942
Major Jake Dillon, USMCR, waited impatiently behind the waist-high chain-link fence as Transcontinental & Western Airline’s City of Portland taxied up the ramp and stopped. This was Flight 217, nonstop DC-3 service from San Francisco.
The door opened, and a stewardess appeared in the doorway. (Nice-looking, Jake noticed almost automatically, good facial features, nice boobs, and long, shapely calves.)
The steps were nowhere in sight. Jake looked around impatiently and saw they were being rolled up by hand from a hundred yards away.
They were finally brought up to the door, and passengers began to debark. These were almost entirely men in uniform; but a few self-important-looking civilians with briefcases were mixed in.
A familiar face appeared. It belonged to First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR. Lieutenant Pickering was in the process of buttoning his unbuttoned blouse and pulling his field scarf up to the proper position. After that he correctly adjusted his fore-and-aft cap, then glanced around until he spotted Dillon, whereupon he waved cheerfully.
He walked over to Dillon. At the last moment, as if just remembering what was expected of him as a Marine officer, he saluted.
“And good morning to you, Sir. And how is the Major this fine, sunny morning?”
Dillon returned the salute.
“Have you been drinking, Pick?” he asked.
“Not ‘drinking,’ Sir, which would suggest that I have been hanging around in saloons. I did, however, dilute that awful canned orange juice they served on the airplane with a little gin.”
“Where’re the others?”
Pickering pointed back toward the airplane, where First Lieutenant William C. Dunn was in intimate conversation with the stewardess. As they watched, she surreptitiously slipped him a matchbook containing her name and telephone number.
“He’s wasting his time,” Dillon said. “You’re on another airplane in thirty-five minutes.”
“Really? That’s a shame. The stewardess has her heart set on mothering Little Billy before The Marine Corps sends him off to the war.”
“Where’s Charley?”
“The Major is referring to Captain Charles M. Galloway?”
“Where is he, Pick?”
“The Captain came down with a severe case of diarrhea, Major. He—”
“You can hand that diarrhea crap to Macklin, Pick. Don’t try to pull it on me. Where’s Galloway?”
“He’s not coming,” Pick said.
“What do you mean, he’s not coming?”
“I didn’t tell him you called.”
Dillon looked at him to make sure he wasn’t having his chain pulled.
“You want to explain that?”
“He’s with his girlfriend. I decided that whatever this public relations bullshit you’ve set up is, it’s not as important as that. So I didn’t tell him you called. I left him a note, to be delivered with his room-service breakfast, saying that Little Billy and I would be out of town for a couple days, and to have fun.”
“Goddamn you!” Dillon exploded.
“So court-martial me, Major,” Pick said, not entirely pleasantly.
“You’re liable to regret playing Fairy Godfather,” Dillon said, after the moment he gave himself to control his temper.
“How so?”
“You are now, officially, the escort officer assigned to take Staff Sergeant McCoy and Lieutenant Dunn to Washington for their decoration ceremonies, Vice Captain Galloway.”
“Is that what this is all about?”
“You will escort Lieutenant Dunn and Sergeant McCoy to Washington. You will see that they appear—sober, in the appointed uniform, at the appointed place, at the appointed time—or so help me Christ, I will call in every favor I have owed me, and you will spend the rest of this war ferrying Stearmans from the factory to Pensacola.”
“Do you think I could have that in writing?”
Dillon glowered at him. After a moment, Pick shrugged.
“OK, Jake. I’ll take care of them.”
“The proper response, Mr. Pickering, is ‘aye, aye, Sir.’”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Pick said. “I said I’d take care of them. I will.”
“Sergeant McCoy and his escorts will be billeted at Eighth and I. I have no objection to you and Dunn staying in your dad’s apartment, but I am holding you responsible for McCoy.”
“Then I had better stay at Eighth and I, too, hadn’t I? What escorts?”
“I’ve got two gunnies, large ones, sitting on McCoy. You work out the details with them. Somebody from Public Relations will meet your plane. You call me on arrival, and at least once a day. And whenever anything happens you think I should know about. I’ll give you the numbers of the Public Relations office here, and my house in Malibu. The officer-in-charge is a lieutenant named Macklin.”
“OK, Jake,” Pick said.
“When we’re around Macklin, it’s ‘Major’ and ‘Yes, Sir.’ Get the picture?”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Dunn walked up.
“Can I meet you guys later someplace? The lady wants to show me around Hollywood.”
“In half an hour, you’ll be on another airplane,” Dillon said. “Follow me, please, gentlemen.”
“Major, this is a sure thing!” Dunn protested.
“The only sure things are death and taxes,” Dillon said. “I broke my ass to get seats on the airplane. You’ll be on it.”
“What if I, for example, had diarrhea and missed it?”
“Then you would spend the next four days having diarrhea crossing the country by train,” Dillon said. “Follow me, please.”
There were four Marines inside the terminal: three noncommissioned officers standing by a not-in-use-at-the-moment ticket counter, and one second lieutenant sitting in a chrome and plastic chair in a waiting area on the other side of the terminal space.
As Major Dillon and Lieutenants Dunn and Pickering approached the enlisted men, the largest of these, a barrel-chested, 220-pound, six-foot-two-inch master gunnery sergeant, softly said, “Ten-hut!” and came to attention. The next-largest Marine, a six-foot-one, 205-pound, barrel-chested gunnery sergeant, decided that the smallest Marine, a six-foot, 195-pound staff sergeant, was not complying with the order with sufficient dispatch. He corrected this perceived breach of the code of military courtesy by punching the staff sergeant just above the kidneys with his thumb, which caused the staff sergeant not only to grunt painfully but rapidly assume the position of attention.
“As you were,” Major Dillon said. “Gunny, there’s been a slight change in plans. This is Lieutenant Pickering, who will be in charge.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” the master gunnery sergeant said.
“Lieutenant Pickering, this is Master Gunnery Sergeant Louveau, who is Sergeant McCoy’s escort, and this is Gunnery Sergeant Devlin.”
Pickering shook hands with both Louveau and Devlin, then offered a hand to McCoy.
“I have the advantage on you, Sergeant,” he said. “Not only do I know who you are, but I’m a friend of your brother’s. This is Lieutenant Dunn.”
“I know who you are, too, Sergeant,” Dunn said.
Staff Sergeant McCoy said not a word, for which breach of courtesy he received another thumb over the kidney.
“The officers spoke to you, McCoy,” the gunnery sergeant said.
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Staff Sergeant McCoy said.
“Gunny, I’m sure they’re ready to board the aircraft,” Dillon said. “Would you see that Sergeant McCoy finds his seat?”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” the master gunnery sergeant said. He took Staff Sergeant McCoy’s elbow and, followed by the gunnery sergeant, propelled him down the terminal toward an area occupied by United Airlines.
“You want to tell me what that’s all about?” Pick asked.
“He’s a mean sonofabitch when he’s sober,” Dillon said. “Dru
nk, he’s worse. The gunnies are going to keep him sober while the President or the Secretary of the Navy—just who is still up in the air—hangs The Medal around his neck. And while you all are out selling war bonds.”
“Major, did you hear what he did on Bloody Ridge?” Dunn asked. “He’s one hell of a Marine.”
“I also heard what he did in a whorehouse in San Diego.” Dillon replied. “The only reason he’s not on his way to Portsmouth Naval Prison is because of what he did on Bloody Ridge.” He paused for a moment, catching each of their eyes in turn, as he said: “Let me tell both of you something: A smart Marine officer knows when to look the other way when good Marine sergeants, like those two, deal with a problem. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I get the picture,” Pickering said.
“Good,” Dillon said. “I really hope you do. I know Charley would have. Whether you like it or not, Pick, you’re going to have to start behaving like a Marine officer; flying airplanes isn’t all The Corps expects you to do.”
He raised his hand over his shoulder and made a come on over gesture to the second lieutenant sitting in the chrome and plastic chair across the terminal.
“Surprise two,” Dillon said.
Pick and Dunn turned to see Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook, USMCR, standing up and then walking over to them.
“I’ll be damned,” Bill Dunn said. “What do you call that, a three-day wonder?”
“Good morning, Sirs,” the Easterbunny said.
My God, Pick thought, he’s actually blushing.
“Where’s your camera, Easterbunny?” Dunn asked. “You have to have a camera around somewhere.”
“Shit,” the Easterbunny said, blushing even redder as he ran back to where he’d been sitting and retrieved a 35mm Leica from under the seat. He returned looking sheepish.
“Lieutenant Easterbrook is one more responsibility of yours, Lieutenant Pickering,” Jake said. “Since you so graciously excused Captain Galloway from this detail.”
“What do I do with him?”
“The Director of Public Affairs, a brigadier general named J. J. Stewart whom you will find at Eighth and I, is not only determined to have a look at this most recent addition to the officer corps, but he’s going to pin a medal on him. You will work that into your busy schedule, too. After that, Easterbrook, you have until Thursday, 5 November, to make your way back out here.”
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