T O P S E C R E T
Chapter Eight
[ONE]
Water Lily Cottage
Brisbane, Australia
0815 Hours 9 November 1942
When he walked into the kitchen of the rambling frame house-the term "cot-tage," he had decided when he rented the place, was another manifestation of Australian/British understatement-Brigadier General Fleming W. Pickering, USMCR, obviously fresh from his shower, was wearing a pale-blue silk dress-ing gown that reached almost to his bare feet.
He went to the stove, poured himself a mug of coffee, and then sat on a high stool at the kitchen table. A tall, muscular, deeply tanned man of the same age, wearing a khaki shirt and Marine-green trousers, was already sitting at the table. Something about him suggested illness and/or exhaustion.
For a moment they quietly examined each other without expression.
"Sergeant Stecker," Pickering finally said, "you realize that you and I did not set a good example for the men last night. I trust you are properly ashamed of yourself?"
Lieutenant Colonel Jack (NMI) Stecker, USMCR, who had the previous day flown into Brisbane from Guadalcanal, chuckled. Then he replied slowly, with a smile, "Don't worry about it, Corporal Pickering, I don't think anyone was in any condition to notice."
Pickering looked at his old friend with affection and concern-they had once, a generation before, in a previous war, in France, actually been Sergeant Stecker and Corporal Pickering.
"God, I hope so, Jack. I haven't been that plastered in years."
"I used to think I could handle my liquor," Stecker said.
"That was before we got old," Pickering said.
"Or started drinking with the Coastwatchers. In particular the head Coast-watcher," Stecker said. "I think that is the root of our problem. With the honor of The Corps at stake, I tried to match Commander Feldt drink for drink. That was a colossal error in judgment."
"Well, no real harm done, and I suspect that the newlyweds will remem-ber their reception for a long time."
"Probably not too fondly," Stecker said. "They're nice kids, aren't they? Staff Sergeant Koffler doesn't look old enough to be a father-to-be, or a staff sergeant, or to have done what he did on Buka. And the bride looked a little younger."
"I don't think they come much better," Pickering said. "I was about to ask where the hell the cook is, but on reflection, I'm not sure I'm up to looking a couple of sunny-side-up eggs in the face."
"I have been sitting here wondering whether a little hair of the dog would make me feel better."
"What was your conclusion?"
"I don't want to breathe fumes on the senior Marine officer aboard when I report for duty."
"What?"
"His name is Mitchell. Do you know him?"
Pickering nodded. "Oh, yes, I know Colonel Lewis R. Mitchell," he said, not very pleasantly. "The Special Liaison Officer between CINCPAC and SWPOA. What do you mean, you have to report to him?"
"He's the senior Marine officer at SWPOA. I'm supposed to 'coordinate' with him."
"Fuck Mitchell. Stay away from him."
"I don't see how I can, Flem. Anyway, what have you got against him?"
"Well, for one thing, the minute the pompous sonofabitch showed up here, he tried to tell Eric Feldt how to run the Coastwatcher Organizer, and walked all over Ed Banning in the process. I heard about it, and had Forrest send him a radio telling him in some very plain language to butt the hell out of our business."
Major General Horace W. T. Forrest was Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Headquarters, USMC.
Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR-his chest and biceps strain-ing the material of his skivvy shirt-came into the kitchen.
"Good morning, General," Hart said. "Colonel. I thought I heard some-thing in here."
"What you probably heard was my stomach growling," Pickering said. "George, get on the horn. Present my compliments to Colonel Mitchell, and tell him that I will be 'coordinating' Colonel Stecker's activities at SWPOA. And on your way back in here, bring a bottle of Courvoisier. Colonel Stecker and I require a medicinal dose."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"And if you feel the need, George, have one yourself. But just one. You're going to help Colonel Stecker move his things from the BOQ here."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Hart said. "Welcome to Water Lily Cottage, Colonel."
Stecker smiled uneasily, but waited until Hart had left the room before speaking.
"I think we had better think about my moving in here, Flem. I don't know what you're doing here..."
"For one thing, I'm the senior Marine around here, so don't argue with me, Colonel."
"... except that it's highly classified."
"You don't look like a Japanese spy to me. Just don't ask too many ques-tions, Jack."
"I don't want to be in the way."
"If you would be in the way, Jack, I wouldn't have asked you to move in," Pickering said. "And I need you. With all these kids around, I feel like I'm trapped in a fraternity house. I need someone my own age to keep me com-pany."
Stecker looked as if he was framing a reply.
"Changing the subject, Colonel," Pickering said. "Through the haze, I seem to recall that we discussed guerrilla operations at some time last night. Do you remember what you said? And if so, would you mind repeating it?"
Stecker looked at him in surprise, then thought aloud.
"You're serious, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am. What was it you said about the ratio between the strength of a guerrilla force and conventional forces required to contain them?"
"What I said-and Fleming, I don't regard myself as any kind of an expert on this-"
"How long were you involved, down in the Banana Republics?" Picker-ing interrupted.
"I did three tours in Nicaragua and two in Haiti. So did a lot of other peo-ple. Chesty Puller, Lew Diamond..."
"Until somebody comes along with more experience than you have, you're my expert," Pickering said. "Go on, please, Jack."
"What I said was that when The Corps was in Haiti and Nicaragua, we used to say that one guerrilla tied up seven Marines."
"Define a guerrilla for me."
Stecker considered his reply before giving it:
"An armed man who is willing to take a risk to make things difficult for an occupying force."
"Define difficult."
"Anything from ambushing his supply lines, blowing up his supply dumps, denying him the use of roads unless he sends large military forces to guard his convoys, to... I don't know quite how to put this, making him look bad, incompetent, ineffective, in the eyes of the native population."
"One guerrilla ties up seven men?" Pickering quoted thoughtfully.
"At least seven. I always thought that it was closer to ten. We outnum-bered the banditos in Nicaragua ten to one, and they gave us a lot of trouble."
"What sort of supplies does a guerrilla need?"
"A good guerrilla operation lives off the land. Like the Chinese Commu-nists do. Getting the civilians-without antagonizing them-to provide food and shelter. And intelligence. Paying for it, if at all possible. Aside from that, nothing but the basics, the Three B's-boots, bullets, and beans."
"Is there a racial factor?"
"What do you mean?"
"In the Banana Republics, the guerrillas came from the native population. It was the brown man against white gringos. Is that right?"
"Yes, I suppose it is."
"In the Philippines, what would it be?"
"Oh, I see what you mean. You're asking would the Filipinos support an American guerrilla operation?"
Pickering nodded.
"Fleming, over the years, you've spent as much time in the Philippines as I have."
"I'm asking you."
"Unless American officers did something really stupid-and that's a real possibility-I think seventy-five percent, eighty-five percent of the Filipinos would help an American guerrilla operation."
Picke
ring nodded.
"Are you going to tell me why you're interested in this?" Stecker asked.
"There's a chap on Mindanao, a reserve officer who chose not to surren-der. His name is Wendell Fertig. He's trying to set up a guerrilla operation."
"And?"
"We know he's got some Marines with him. That seems to make it our business. We're looking into what, if anything, we can do for him, and what, if any, good he can really do against the Japs."
"Who's we?"
"Frank Knox, Chester Nimitz, and me. El Supremo doesn't seem to be at all interested."
There aren't very many people around, Stecker thought, who can so casu-ally refer to the Secretary of the Navy and the Commander-in-Chief Pacific, by their first names. Or refer, with obviously amused affection, to General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Areas, as "El Supremo.
I probably should have insisted on obeying my orders, but the truth is, I'm glad he's going to keep this Colonel Mitchell off my back. And, in the final analysis, Flem Pickering is the senior Marine officer around here; I really don't have any choice.
Lieutenant Hart returned to the kitchen carrying a bottle of Courvoisier cognac and two crystal cognac snifters.
"Colonel Mitchell's compliments, Sir," he said. "He asked me to tell you that he stands ready to render any assistance to Colonel Stecker requested."
Pickering snorted.
"Shall I pour, Sir?" Hart said, smiling.
"Those snifters are for officers and gentlemen, Hart," Pickering said. "At the moment, what you have is just a couple of badly hung-over old Marines. Just pour about an inch of that stuff into our coffee, will you, please?"
=TOP SECRET=
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SWPOA
NAVY DEPT WASH DC
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL
FOR COLONEL F.L. RICKABEE
USMC OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1942
DEAR FRITZ:
I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE HEARD OR NOT, BUT LT COLONEL JACK NMI STECKER IS HERE IN BRISBANE. HE WENT TO STAFF SERGEANT KOFFLER'S WEDDING WITH ME, AS A MATTER OF FACT, AND IS AT THIS MOMENT MOVING HIS STUFF FROM THE ARMY BOQ INTO MY HOUSE. HE'S HERE TO SET UP FACILITIES FOR THE FIRST MARDIV WHEN THEY ARE RELIEVED FROM GUADALCANAL AND BROUGHT HERE FOR REHABILITATION AND REFITTING. ACCORDING TO STECKER, THEY ARE IN REALLY BAD PHYSICAL SHAPE; ALMOST EVERYBODY HAS MALARIA.
STECKER WAS RELIEVED OF HIS COMMAND OF SECOND BATTALION, FIFTH MARINES, AND IS NOW OFFICIALLY ASSIGNED TO SWPOA IN SOME SORT OF VAGUELY DEFINED BILLET. I AM UNABLE TO BELIEVE HE WAS RELIEVED FOR CAUSE, AND STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT IT IS THE PROFESSIONAL OFFICER CORPS PUSHING ASIDE A RESERVIST/UP FROM THE RANKS MUSTANG TO GIVE THE COMMAND TO ONE OF THEIR OWN. I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY GENERAL VANDEGRIFT PERMITTED THIS TO HAPPEN, BUT IT HAS HAPPENED, AND IT MAY BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE FOR US.
I HAD A TALK WITH STECKER AFTER THE WEDDING, AND IT CAME OUT THAT HE HAS HAD EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE WITH GUERRILLA OPERATIONS IN THE BANANA REPUBLICS, ESPECIALLY NICARAGUA, BETWEEN THE WARS. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IF YOU KNOW HOW TO FIGHT AGAINST GUERRILLAS, IT WOULD FOLLOW THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO FIGHT AS A GUERRILLA... AND CERTAINLY TO KNOWLEDGEABLY EVALUATE HOW SOMEONE ELSE IS SET UP, AND EQUIPPED, TO FIGHT AS GUERRILLAS.
I HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING TO HIM YET, BUT I KNOW HTM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT HE WOULD RATHER BE DOING SOMETHING EITHER WITH, OR FOR, THIS FELLOW FERTIG ON MINDANAO THAN ARRANGING TOURS OF PICTURESQUE AUSTRALIA OR USO SHOWS, WHICH IS WHAT THE CORPS WANTS HIM TO DO NOW. AND THERE IS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THIS EFFORT WOULD BE OF MUCH GREATER VALUE THAN WHAT HE IS DOING NOW. SO I WANT HIM TRANSFERRED TO US, WITH A CAVEAT: HE HAS ALREADY SUFFERED ENOUGH HUMILIATION (GODDAMN IT, HE HAS THE MEDAL OF HONOR; HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO HTM?) AS IT IS, SO I WANT YOU TO TAKE EVERY PRECAUTION TO MAKE SURE THERE IS NO SCUTTLEBUTT CIRCULATING THAT HE HAS BEEN FURTHER DEMOTED BY HIS ASSIGNMENT TO US.
DO IT AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN, AND I THINK YOU HAD BETTER SEND MCCOY OVER HERE, TOO, AS QUICKLY AS THAT CAN BE ARRANGED. I THINK THE SOONER WE GET SOMEBODY WITH CAPTAIN/GENERAL FERTIG, THE BETTER.
REGARDS,
FLEMING PICKERING, BRIGADIER GENERAL, USMCR
T O P S E C R E T
[TWO]
Naval Air Transport Station
Brisbane, Australia
0455 Hours 14 November 1942
First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, was not in a very good mood when the Consolidated PB2Y-3 Coronado splashed down in Brisbane Harbor; a drenching in the whaleboat that carried him ashore made his mood worse; and when he saw Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR, standing on the wharf, the golden cords of an aide-de-camp hanging from his epaulets, his mood grew worse still.
The sonofabitch hasn't been in The Corps long enough to be a goddamned corporal, and there he stands in an officer's uniform!
The flight from Pearl Harbor in the huge, four-engined flying boat was long and rough. A Medical Corps lieutenant commander got airsick thirty min-utes out of Pearl, threw up what looked like the remnants of an entire Hawaiian luau and two quarts of beer all over himself and the deck, and then spent the rest of the flight either moaning, dry-heaving, or rubbing his vomit-soaked uni-form in McCoy's face as he made his way-every fifteen minutes-to the head.
Before McCoy boarded the Coronado at Pearl Harbor, he had run into a zealous Navy lieutenant who wouldn't let him get on the airplane-AAAAA priority or not-until his shot record was up to date. McCoy's shot record re-corded that he had been injected with every inoculation against every disease known to the Navy Medical Corps. The record itself, however, was in Wash-ington. Ed Sessions had suggested that since he was going to be around for a while, it would make sense to have the contents of the shot record incorporated into all his official records.
Sessions hadn't gotten it back to him when the hurry-up call from General Pickering to go to Brisbane came in.
The idiot at Pearl actually wanted to give him the entire series of inocula-tions again. But a medical lieutenant commander at the hospital was more rea-sonable. He gave McCoy "credit" for all the shots given Marines in the States, but insisted that McCoy take the series prescribed for people headed for the Pacific and/or South West Pacific Ocean Areas-despite McCoy's protesta-tions that he had been in Australia only the month before, and had had the shots then.
So he suffered from the side effects of half a dozen inoculations-includ-ing a left buttock that felt as if it had been bitten by a poisonous snake. He couldn't sit on his sore left buttock without pain, and there was no way, on the pipe-and-cloth seats of the Coronado, to avoid sitting on it.
Before the Coronado took off from Pearl Harbor, there was a long flight on an Army Air Corps B-17 Flying Fortress from San Francisco. He spent that flight making himself as comfortable as possible on a pile of mail sacks.
McCoy climbed out of the whaleboat and then, carrying his bag, made his way up the stone steps cut into the wharf.
Second Lieutenant Hart saluted First Lieutenant McCoy.
There was nothing wrong with the salute. It was crisp and accompanied by a smile.
"Give me your bag, Mr. McCoy," Hart said. "You must be a little weary."
McCoy returned Hart's salute and handed over his bag. Hart picked it up effortlessly-the sonofabitch really has a build-and then gestured down the wharf. McCoy looked and saw General Pickering's Studebaker staff car.
"You're cleared through the arrival processing, Mr. McCoy," Hart said. "The General arranged it."
"Thank you," McCoy said, and started walking toward the Studebaker.
There's nothing really wrong with Hart. He didn't ask for that gold bar; and for that matter, I'm the guy who recruited him for General Pickering from Parris Island.
And, oh, shit, I know for a fact he's not a candy-ass. When I told him I was going to leave him alone overnight on the beach at Buka,
all he said was "OK." That took balls.
What's wrong around here, McCoy, is you. You've got a bad case of candy-ass yourself. "It isn't fair that I'm back here."
"I don't think the discipline of the entire Marine Corps would collapse if you called me 'Ken,' George."
"That would presume I have forgiven you for leaving me on that beach all by my lonesome, Mr. McCoy. I'm not quite at that point yet."
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