"What are you doing, Ken?" Sessions asked.
McCoy's left hand waved in a don't bother me now gesture.
Pluto looked at Stecker, who shrugged and held both hands palm up in a let's see what he's up to gesture.
Two minutes later, McCoy pushed the pad to Pluto. "What can you spell with that alphabet, Pluto?" McCoy asked. "The line on top."
Pluto looked at the sheet of paper.
ACDEHILMNOPRSUXY
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXY
BFGJKVWY
QUENTIN ALEXANDER MCPHERSON
"There's no 'W,' no Y' " Pluto said
"It's got all the vowels," McCoy argued.
"OK," Pluto said. "Using obvious substitution, 'M' for 'W,"U' for 'V,' et cetera, it would be useful."
"Slide me that, please," Colonel Stecker ordered, his curiosity aroused. He read it, then looked at McCoy.
"Who is Quentin Alexander McPherson?" he asked.
Looking quite pleased with himself, McCoy smiled at Stecker.
"I thought of this when you said you'd been with the Fourth Marines, Gunny Stecker," he said.
He stood up, put his hands on his hips, thrust out his stomach, and in a harsh guttural mimicry announced, "The next time one of youse swine think youse can ruin my VD record by bringing some ay-moral, slant-eyed, diseased, Chinese bimbo into my barracks, I will cut yer talleywacker off with a dull bayonet and shove it down yer throat, or my name ain't Quentin Alexander McPherson."
Stecker chuckled.
"Oh, yes," he said. "I remember First Sergeant McPherson."
"If Pluto's Sergeant Percy Everly is my Percy Everly," McCoy went on, "the one thing about his service with Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Ma-rines, that he will never forget is First Sergeant Quentin Alexander McPherson. And if he remembers him, he'll remember Zimmerman, too; he made the mis-take of taking him on."
T O P S E C R E T
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
CHIEF USMC OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
MONDAY 23 NOVEMBER 1948
DEAR FRITZ:
BECAUSE OF A PRIORITY PROBLEM AT PEARL HARBOR, SESSIONS AND SUPPLIES ARRIVED ALONE THIS MORNING. MAJOR BROWNLEE AND CAPT MACKLIN EXPECTED HERE ON FOLLOWING PLANE TOMORROW MORNING. WILL ADVISE.
MCCOY BELIEVES SERGEANT PERCY L. EVERLY WITH FERTIG MAY HAVE SERVED WITH BANNING IN 4TH MARINES. IF THIS IS SO, IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT BANNING FURNISH IMMEDIATELY REPEAT IMMEDIATELY WHATEVER PERSONAL INFORMATION RE: EVERLY BANNING FEELS MIGHT BE VALUABLE IN ESTABLISHING SOI OF TYPE USED VIS-A-VIS HOWARD AND KOFFLER.
DESPITE THE HIGH REGARD WITH WHICH EVERYONE IN THE NAVAL SERVICE SEEMS TO REGARD CAPTAIN MACKLIN, I HAVE BEEN WONDERING WHY HE IS A CAPTAIN AND MCCOY ISN'T. PLEASE SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT THIS.
REGARDS,
FLEMING PICKERING, BRIGADIER GENERAL, USMCR
T O P S E C R E T
[THREE]
Headquarters, U.S. Forces in the Philippines
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
0810 Hours 24 November 1942
"Come up, gentlemen, please," Brigadier General Wendell W. Fertig, Com-manding General, USFIP, said, making the appropriate gesture with his hand.
He was sitting at a rattan table on the verandah of his headquarters, a thatched-roof building on stilts built against a hill.
Second Lieutenant Robert Ball, the USFIP signal officer, and his chief radio operator, Sergeant Ignacio LaMadrid, Philippine Army, who had been standing near the top of the ladderlike steps to the verandah, climbed the rest of the way up.
Both saluted, and Fertig returned the salute.
"We've got a message from Australia, Sir," Ball said. "It doesn't make a lot of sense."
"They rarely do, do they, Lieutenant?" Fertig said, and put his hand out to take the sheet of paper in Ball's hand.
It appeared to be a carbon copy of a decrypted message, but it was in fact the original. Though two typewriters, eight reams of typewriter paper, and a ream of carbon paper had been acquired-from the basement of the ruins of the burned Manuel Quezon Primary School-for the use of HQ, USFIP, neither had a ribbon. It was consequently necessary to make a paper-carbon-paper sandwich to type anything on the ribbonless machines; the original looked like a carbon.
"It's longer than usual, isn't it?" Fertig said as he began to read.
"Yes, Sir," Ball agreed.
The great bulk of their traffic from Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA, was usually very brief: Your request being considered, or various paraphrases, all meaning the same thing. We 're still thinking about whether or not we 're going to help you.
GYB TO MFS
USING FULL REPEAT FULL NAME OF FIRST DOG BAKER FOURTH
REPEAT BAKER FOURTH SEND LAST REPEAT LAST NAME MOTOR
SERGEANT MISSIONARY RESCUE CONVOY
GYB STANDING BY
"What the hell does this mean?" Fertig asked, baffled. Lieutenant Ball and Sergeant LaMadrid responded with a shrug.
"Sergeant, would you please ask Captains Weston and Buchanan to join us?" General Fertig ordered.
"Yes, Sir," LaMadrid said, saluted, and went back down the ladder.
Captains Buchanan and Weston appeared several minutes later. Captain Buchanan was freshly shaved and was wearing a neat khaki uniform. He had even hemmed the trousers and sleeves where they had been cut off. Captain Weston was wearing a pith helmet with a Marine Corps insignia, baggy and somewhat soiled loose white cotton garments of local manufacture, and a full beard.
"I believe, Sir, they're after a simple substitution code," Buchanan of-fered. "In other words, if we have the full name they mention, we use that to construct a simple substitution code."
"What name?"
"First sergeants are called First Dogs," Buchanan said.
"That could mean Baker Company of the Fourth Marines, Sir," Weston offered, becoming convinced as he spoke that that was exactly what it meant. "We sent out Everly's name. He was in the 4th Marines."
"Where is he?"
"Not here, Sir. He took a patrol out toward Bunawan."
"And won't be back," Fertig said, chagrined that he had forgotten he had ordered the patrol himself, "until when? Day after tomorrow?"
"No, Sir," Buchanan said. "Not until Friday. 27 November. If everything goes well."
"Can we send a runner after him?" Fertig wondered aloud.
"Yes, Sir, we could," Buchanan said, his tone making it perfectly clear he thought this would be ill-advised.
"OK, where are we?" Fertig asked. "It is your opinion, gentlemen, that we need a code based on a name which might be that of a first sergeant in the Fourth Marines, and that name might, just might, be known to Lieutenant Everly? Because he served with the Fourth Marines?"
"What about the other Marines?" Lieutenant Ball asked.
"They're with Everly," Buchanan said.
"Damn!" Fertig said.
He exhaled audibly, then bent over the rattan table and wrote out the reply of Headquarters, USFIP, to the message from Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA. He wrote using very small letters. When the four reams of typewriter paper from the Manuel Quezon elementary school were exhausted, he had no idea where they were going to get more.
MPS TO GYB
REGRET TACTICAL OPERATIONS PRECLUDE RESPONSE TO YOUR 24 NO-VEMBER MESSAGE PRIOR TO 27
NOVEMBER
COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN OUR HEADQUARTERS WOULD BE GREATLY FACILITATED IP SUPPLY OP
TYPEWRITER RIBBONS COULD BE INCLUDED IN NEXT WHICH OF COURSE WOULD BE FIRST SUPPLY
SHIPMENT
END
FERTIG BRIG GEN COMMANDING
[FOUR]
Signal Section
Office of the Military Governor f
or Mindanao
Cagayan de Oro, Misamis-Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
1305 Hours 25 November 1942
Lieutenant Hideyori rose from behind his desk and bowed as Captain Matsuo Saikaku walked in.
"I would have been happy, Sir, to have brought this to your office."
"Not a problem, Hideyori. This was quicker. I have my Lincoln V-12, you know."
"I called as soon as the decryption came in from Signals Intelligence, Sir," Hideyori said, handing Saikaku a single sheet of paper. "GYB, Sir, is the call sign, one of the call signs of American Headquarters in Australia."
"Yes, so you have told me," Saikaku said, somewhat impatiently.
GYB TO MFS
USING FULL REPEAT FULL NAME OF FIRST DOG BAKER FOURTH REPEAT BAKER FOURTH SEND LAST REPEAT
LAST NAME MOTOR SERGEANT MIS-SIONARY RESCUE CONVOY GYB STANDING BY
MFS TO GYB
REGRET TACTICAL OPERATIONS PRECLUDE RESPONSE TO YOUR 84 NOVEMBER MESSAGE PRIOR TO 27
NOVEMBER
COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN OUR HEADQUARTERS WOULD BE GREATLY FACILITATED IF SUPPLY OF
TYPEWRITER RIBBONS COULD BE INCLUDED IN NEXT WHICH OF COURSE WOULD BE FIRST SUPPLY
SHIPMENT
END
FERTIG BRIG GEN COMMANDING
After reading both messages, he asked, "Presumably, this copy is for me?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Did Signals Intelligence offer anything that would make sense of this?"
"No, Sir," Hideyori replied. "All they offered in amplification was that this was encrypted on the same U.S. Army device."
"Has there been anything else?"
"No, Sir."
"Make sure your operators are especially alert on 27 November, Hideyori, for Fertig's reply."
"Yes, Sir. I will."
"And call me, no matter the hour, if there are any developments at all."
"Yes, Sir, I will."
Captain Saikaku got back in his Lincoln and drove to the house behind the wall.
The sergeant and his young Filipino friend were sitting side by side eating a pineapple on their bed-a mattress laid against the wall. They both looked at him with fear in their eyes as they jumped to their feet. As they had been taught to do, they bowed to him from the waist.
"I am having some slight difficulty with American vernacular," Captain Saikaku announced. "Perhaps you will be good enough to assist me."
"Yes, Sir. Of course."
"What does the phrase 'baker fourth' mean?"
In the fear in the sergeant's eyes, Saikaku read his answer before he gave it.
"I don't think I know, Sir."
"What about 'First Dog'?"
The sergeant's eyes again showed fear and incomprehension.
"I don't know, Sir."
"That is unfortunate," Saikaku said. "I thought you were beginning to understand the benefits of cooperation with me."
"Captain, maybe if you showed me that," the sergeant said.
Saikaku carefully creased off the upper portion of the page and then care-fully tore it off.
Now there was a sign of relief in the sergeant's eyes.
"I think I know what this means," he said. "They sometimes call the first sergeant of a company First Dog."
"The first sergeant? The senior noncommissioned officer?"
"Yes, Sir. Sometimes that's what they are called."
"Is it disrespectful?"
"Yes, Sir, it is. And baker fourth probably means Baker Company, B Company of the Fourth Something."
"Fourth something?"
"Some kind of a battalion, Sir. Like the 4th Signal Battalion, or the 4th
Quartermaster Battalion."
"Were there such units here?"
The fear returned to the sergeant's eyes.
"I don't remember, Sir."
"You don't remember, or you don't want to tell me?"
"If I knew I would tell you, Sir."
"Can you help me with the second part of the message? Were you familiar with any missionary rescue mission?"
"No, Sir. I saw that, Sir, and thought about it. I was in Personnel, Sir. I wouldn't know about things like that. That would be considered an operation, Sir, and Personnel never gets involved."
"I know people, Sergeant, who enjoy playing with your friend. Some-times, when you have been cooperative, I am motivated to discourage them."
"I'm being as cooperative as I can, Sir, I really am."
He looks, Captain Saikaku thought, as if he is about to weep. He is an utterly despicable parody of a man.
"I don't know how I feel about you right now," Saikaku said. "Whether you are being cooperative or not. I will have to think about it."
He turned and walked out of the bedroom. He thought he would order the Filipino deviate to be beaten, but decided against it. The fear of a beating, he decided, would probably be more useful than another beating.
He returned to his office and told his sergeant to search through the index of captured American documents and prepare a list of every American or Fili-pino Army unit designated by the Arabic numeral 4.
[FIVE]
T O P S E C R E T
HQ USMC WASHINGTON
SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA
EYES ONLY BRIG GEN F.W. PICKERING, USMCR
0708 25 NOVEMBER 1942
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL
(1) PERCY LEWIS EVERLY FOURTH MARINES WORKED FOR ME SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE FROM CHINA OF
SESSIONS MCCOY AND ZIMMERMAN.
(2) EVERLY'S HOMETOWN ZANESVTILLE WEST VIRGINIA. SERGEANT JOHN V. CASEY DISPATCHED
ZANESVILLE IMMEDIATELY ON RECEIPT YOUR MESSAGE TO DEVELOP FURTHER BIOGRAPHIC DETAILS.
(3) BELIEVE EVERLY WILL REMEMBER MAIDEN NAME OF MY WIFE, LUDMILLA ZHIVKOV.
(4) TRYING TO RECALL FROM MEMORY NAME EVERLY'S CHINESE WIFE.
(5) REGRET SPARSENESS OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE. MORE WILL FOLLOW AS DEVELOPED.
BANNING, MAJ USMC
T O P S E C R E T
[SIX]
Naval Air Transport Passenger Terminal
Brisbane, Australia
0715 Hours 26 November 1942
Captain Robert B. Macklin, USMC, was rather pleased that things had turned out as they did, even if it meant his arrival in Brisbane was delayed an additional twenty-four hours.
At Hickam Field, Major Brownlee succeeded in finding space for himself aboard a B-17, one of a flight of seven bound for Australia via Midway Island. But that was only possible because one of the plane's crewmen was taken unexpectedly ill, and the decision was made to continue without him.
There was no space for Macklin, which meant that after he saw Major Brownlee off, he returned to Pearl Harbor and a very nice steak dinner at the Pearl Harbor Officers' Club and a comfortable bed in the BOQ.
When he reported the next morning to the Pearl Harbor Naval Air Trans-port Passenger Terminal, Lieutenant (j.g.) L. B. Cavanaugh, the Officer in Charge Passenger Seat Assignment, told him there would be an additional delay. The plane on which he was scheduled to fly to Brisbane, Cavanaugh explained, had encountered some really bad weather on the way into Pearl Har-bor from Midway. It had been temporarily removed from service so that the amount of damage, if any, it had suffered could be ascertained and if necessary repaired.
The entire passenger roster was therefore set back twenty-four hours, Cavanaugh said. That meant a day on the beach, and another dinner at the Offi-cers' Club-a luau, complete to whole roasted pig-and another night in a comfortable BOQ bed. The only thing wrong with the evening was that the Navy nurse he met at the bar almost laughed at him when he suggested they go to his BOQ-after letting him charm her and feed her drinks for hours, teasing him, rubbing her body against him while they danced.
W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines Page 34