The Secret Warriors

by W. E. B Griffin

  They were back to first names. The crisis had passed.

  “Very well,” Roosevelt said. “George Marshall’s going to call at five this afternoon. I’ll tell him then.”

  “Thank you,” Donovan said.

  “Anything else?”

  There was a just-detectable hesitation before Donovan said, “No, Sir.”

  Roosevelt picked up on it. “Yes, there is,” he said. “Let’s have it.”

  Donovan shrugged. “I’d like to know what’s happened to Jim Whittaker,” he said.

  “Would you, now?” the President said coldly.

  “Chesly and I were friends for as long as I can remember,” Donovan said. “As you, and he, and a certain lady are old friends.”

  Roosevelt’s head snapped toward him. There was fire in his eyes again.

  Oh, God! He thinks I’m talking about Whatsername, his lady friend! I simply forgot about her.

  “And what lady would that be, Bill?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Barbara Whittaker,” Donovan said quickly.

  “Oh, yes,” Roosevelt said. “How is Barbara?”

  Now he thinks that the famous glower has made me back down!

  “She’s probably more than a little upset,” Donovan said. “She hasn’t heard a word from Jimmy since he called her from San Francisco.”

  “If you think I should,” Roosevelt said, “I will call Barbara and assure her that we’re doing everything possible for Jimmy.”

  “I’ve already told her that. What she wants to know is where he is, so that she can go see him.”

  “That’s going to be impossible, I’m afraid.”

  “Because of his condition?”

  Roosevelt nodded.

  “What exactly is his condition?” Donovan asked.

  “Somehow, Bill, I think you know,” the President said.

  “I know he’s being held virtually a prisoner at George Marshall’s personal order in the Army hospital at Fort Knox, Kentucky. And I would like to know why.”

  “Where did you get the notion he’s a prisoner?”

  “When Barbara told me she couldn’t get any information out of the hospital there, I told her that it was probably just the military system at work, and that I would call down and have Jimmy telephone her. But I couldn’t get through to him. They denied all knowledge of him. So I called Georgie Patton, since he’s in command there and an old friend of mine, and at first he wouldn’t tell me anything either. I pushed him hard, and he finally told me he had specific orders from ‘very close to heaven’ and that he simply couldn’t tell me anything more.”

  “The orders came from me,” Roosevelt said. “Not George Marshall.”

  Donovan’s surprise registered on his face.

  “Jimmy Whittaker is being given every comfort and the best of medical attention. He was a very sick young man on the edge of physical collapse. He was forty-five pounds underweight. His teeth were about to fall out of his mouth, and he had, I have been informed, three kinds of intestinal parasites.”

  “Why can’t he talk to Barbara—or me, for that matter—on the telephone?”

  “You know what happened in the apartment, Bill,” the President said.

  “Canidy told me,” Donovan said. “I think Douglas MacArthur might have done the same thing. It doesn’t mean that he’s crazy.”

  “I’m the President,” Roosevelt said.

  “And you were playing the role of Uncle Franklin,” Donovan said. “In Jimmy’s condition, I can see where the two roles might be blurred in his mind.”

  “That’s Eleanor’s argument,” Roosevelt said. “George Marshall argues—after taking into consideration that Jimmy probably knows what MacArthur wrote—that keeping him at Knox is the prudent thing to do.”

  “What did MacArthur write?” Donovan said.

  “You don’t know?” Roosevelt said. “I’m a little surprised.”

  “I only intercept enemy mail, Mr. President,” Donovan said.

  “Touché, Bill,” Roosevelt said. “General Marshall thought you might be—what shall I say?—more efficient.”

  “And according to Canidy, Jim Whittaker said he had no idea what the letter said.”

  “Then far be it from me to violate Douglas MacArthur’s confidence,” the President said. “Suffice it to say that when I showed Douglas’s letter to George, he wanted MacArthur to be given the chance to resign. And if he didn’t, George wanted me to court-martial him.”

  “It was that bad?” Donovan asked.

  “One of the kinder things Douglas said was that he has had no reason to reconsider his opinion that George Marshall is only marginally fit to command a regiment, and that giving him the authority I have seen fit to give him borders on an impeachable offense. Oh, how the Chicago Tribune would love to have that letter.”

  “And because George Marshall thinks Jimmy Whittaker may know the contents of that letter, you intend to hold him incommunicado indefinitely?” Donovan asked.

  “You obviously don’t think that’s necessary?”

  “For one thing, it presumes—and this presumes he knows what the letter said, and I don’t think he does—that the moment he has the chance, he would rush to Colonel McCormick with it. But really, Franklin, I don’t think he’d do that to you—not as an officer, and certainly not as a friend.”

  “Marshall believes that MacArthur, in his usual Machiavellian way, hopes Jimmy would do just that.”

  “Bologna!” Donovan said.

  “Eleanor’s word, exactly,” the President said. “All right, Bill, tell me what you would do.”

  “Assign him to me,” Donovan said.

  “And what would you do with him?”

  “He’s entitled to a thirty-day home leave,” Donovan said.

  “I’d give it to him—at Summer Place in Deal. Canidy’s going to be there, and he’s privy to much of this anyway. I can tell him enough more to make sure that Jimmy doesn’t do anything to embarrass George Marshall.”

  “George would argue that Jimmy requires psychiatric care,” Roosevelt said.

  “George is saying Jimmy’s crazy?” Donovan snapped. “I don’t think he’s mad. I think he was under a terrible strain. And besides, I don’t think he’s the only officer who would like to do to George Marshall what he did.”

  “You don’t think his actually doing it raises the question of his mental health?” Roosevelt asked.

  “He’s as sane as you or I,” Donovan said. “Christ, Franklin, you’ve got Putzi von Hanfstaengel,5 a certified Nazi, in the Hotel Washington, and you have him for dinnerhere. How can you keep that boy under what amounts to arrest?”

  “Putzi is an ex-Nazi,” the President said coldly. “And you know, Bill, how valuable he’s been to us.”

  Though he let his displeasure show, Donovan didn’t back down.

  “I would say that Jim Whittaker has done his fair share of being valuable to us,” Donovan said. “At the very least, if he has to be—what shall I say?—restrained, then we can do that as well at Summer Place as Fort Knox.”

  “You may have a point,” the President said.

  “There’s one more thing,” Donovan said. “Jim Whittaker’s name has come up in connection with the North African invasion, in connection with a man named Eric Fulmar.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Another valuable-to-our-cause German, Franklin,” Donovan said. When Roosevelt glared at him, Donovan went on: “We used him to help us get the mining engineer out of Morocco. He’s close to the pasha of Ksar es Souk, who, Holdsworth Martin suggests, might just be able to arrange for a rebellion when we invade.”

  “What’s his connection with Jimmy?”

  “He, Jimmy, and Canidy were in boarding school together. St. Mark’s,” Donovan said. “We used Canidy to get to him in the Grunier operation, but that burned Canidy out for Fulmar after we decided to leave Fulmar in Morocco although we’d promised to take him out. If we go ahead with the idea of stirring up the Berbers, we’ll need anothe
r contact. Among the names that the researchers came up with, absolutely independently, was James M. B. Whittaker.”

  Roosevelt didn’t reply for a moment. Finally he asked, “Again, Bill, exactly what is it you want me to do?”

  “Turn Jimmy over to me,” Donovan said. “I’ll guarantee his silence.”

  “I’ll discuss it with George,” Roosevelt said.

  “We both know what he’ll say,” Donovan protested.

  “As I’ve told you, George doesn’t always get what George wants,” the President said. “But under the circumstances, I think I should ask him what he thinks.”

  Donovan just looked at him.

  “And under the circumstances, I think you should relay my gratitude to Barbara for her hospitality to the admiral. You may tell her that I said I have every hope that she will soon be able to see Jimmy.”

  PART FOUR

  1

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  JUNE 15, 1942

  Lieutenant Commander Edwin H. Bitter returned to the United States aboard the Swedish passenger liner Kungsholm. The Kungsholm was then engaged in returning diplomatic and civilian personnel of the various belligerent powers to their homelands. Its last voyage in this capacity had been to Japan, carrying among others a hundred Japanese of American citizenship who preferred Japan to detention in the camps established for them in Arizona and elsewhere.

  The Swedish ambassador to the Empire of Japan then received Japanese permission to charter the vessel to the United States for service as a hospital ship. On instructions from Berlin, the German ambassador supported the Swedish request. The German Foreign Ministry believed that Germany might require similar services at some time in the future. The German request overcame reluctance from some quarters in the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

  The Kungsholm—floodlights illuminating the huge red crosses painted on its white hull—steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge and docked at the Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco Bay. Most of the Navy and Marine Corps personnel aboard were transferred immediately to a hospital train for transportation to the Navy hospital in San Diego. But since Lieutenant Commander Bitter was ambulatory—he required a cane—he was driven to the Alameda Naval Air Station in a Navy station wagon.

  After a complete physical examination he was given an interim classification of “convalescent” and a partial pay, then ordered to report to the Great Lakes Naval Station. He was told he would be given a fourteen-day convalescent leave to his home of record, and that a reservation priority had been authorized for a roomette aboard a train to Chicago the next day.

  Bitter arrived in the United States wearing Army-issue khakis with an Army major’s golden oak leaf on each collar point. There had been no Navy-size (smaller) rank insignia available in Calcutta.

  As soon as he could, he went to the officers’ sales store and outfitted himself with uniforms off the rack. These would do for the time being. When he left for the Orient a year before, he had sent most of his Navy uniforms from Pensacola Naval Air Station, where he had been stationed with Dick Canidy, to his parents’ home in Chicago.

  He bought two sets of khaki tunics, trousers, and shirts; two sets of khaki shoulder boards (two white, two blue); and the appropriate metal insignia of rank. He purchased golden Naval Aviator’s wings to replace the set he had taken to China. They had been either misplaced or stolen.

  The clerk had never heard of the Order of the Cloud Banner, so he could not buy a ribbon to represent that. And he was further disappointed when he realized that since he’d gotten his wound while he was in Chinese service, it did not qualify him for the Purple Heart medal. The clerk told him, however, that anybody with ninety days’ service in the Pacific was entitled to a Pacific Theater ribbon, but Bitter decided he wasn’t entitled to that either, since he did not have ninety days’ U.S. Navy service in the Far East. He also did not choose to wear the single ribbon everyone in the service was entitled to, the American Defense Service Medal. Finally, he pinned his American Volunteer Group wings above the right breast pocket and his Navy wings above the left, where regulations prescribed they should be worn.

  When he examined himself in the mirror, he was pleased with what he saw. It was good to be back in a Navy uniform, and he thought that the AVG wings would more than make up to anyone who knew what they were—and he didn’t really care about anyone who didn’t—for the lack of campaign ribbons on his left breast.

  In the men’s room of the officers’ club that night, he ran into a nonflying rear admiral who did not know what the AVG wings were and was drunk enough to inquire.

  “Commander,” the admiral asked, “what the hell is that pinned to your jacket?”

  “They’re AVG wings, Sir,” Ed replied, properly modest.

  “What say?”

  “AVG wings, Sir,” Ed repeated, and when there was no glint of understanding in the admiral’s eyes, he explained: “The American Volunteer Group, Sir. In China.”

  “Chinaman’s wings?”

  “Americans flying for China, Sir.”

  “I would suggest, Commander,” the admiral said nastily, “that you remove those immediately from the uniform of the U.S. Navy. Chinaman’s wings! Good Christ! On a naval officer!”

  The admiral stormed out of the head.

  Fuck the old fart! Bitter thought angrily. Dumb chair-warming shore sailor didn’t even know what the AVG is! I earned those wings, and I’ll goddamned well wear them!

  In ninety seconds he was calmed down enough to realize that he was reacting like Dick Canidy, who questioned every order he was ever given, and not like an Annapolis graduate and lieutenant commander in the Regular Navy. He wondered again what had become of Canidy. He had thought often of writing to him after Canidy had been sent home in disgrace, but had never done so. He really hadn’t known what to say. It was uncomfortable to say anything at all to a man who had shown the white feather in combat, even though he himself now understood with insight born of his own combat experiences how close anyone could come to that.

  But as he stepped to the men’s room mirror to comply with the admiral’s order, he realized that his feelings really had nothing to do with Canidy. He had earned the wings as a Flying Tiger, and so far as he was concerned, AVG wings lent distinction to the Navy uniform rather than shaming it. He didn’t take the wings off, then, and he was wearing them the next morning when he went by the transportation office and picked up his tickets for the trip to Chicago.

  The first couple of days at home were a euphoric emotional bath. Although he professed to be embarrassed, he was really pleased to see the letters from the Chinese Embassy attesting to his all-around heroism expensively framed and hanging on the dining-room wall.

  When he went with his father to the Commercial Club for lunch, a half-dozen of his father’s friends came by the table to warmly shake his hand and to tell him how proud his father—and for that matter, everybody who knew him—was of him.

  The same thing happened when he went with both his parents to the Lake Shore Club for dinner, and there, if it hadn’t been for his mother hovering around him, he felt sure that he could have made a date with at least one—and probably two—of the young women who followed their parents to the Bitter table.

  On the third day, there was a telephone call for him. One of the maids came out on the patio. She was carrying a telephone on a long extension cord, and wordlessly she handed it to him.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Commander Bitter, please,” a crisp military voice demanded.

  “This is Commander Bitter,” Ed said. He was still not used to his new rank, and rather liked the way that phrase sounded.

  “Hold on, Commander, please, for Admiral Hawley,” the crisp voice said.

  Faintly he heard, “I have Commander Bitter for you, Admiral,” and then another voice came on the line, deeper, older.

  “Commander Bitter?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Admiral Hawley, Commander,” the admiral
said. “I’m Chief, Aviation Allocation, BUAIR.”6

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “First, let me welcome you home, both to the States and the Navy.”

  “Thank you very much, Sir.”

  Who the hell is he? I know the name from someplace. What does he want with me?

  “Commander, I need an aide-de-camp, preferably someone like yourself, Annapolis, who has been in harm’s way, and one who is not at the moment on flight status. What he’ll be doing, rather than passing hors d’oeuvres, is helping me distribute our assets where they will do the most good. Unless you have objections to the assignment, BUPERS7 says I can have you. Interested?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Now, I don’t want you rushing down here to Washing- ton, Son. You take your leave. From what I hear, you damned well have earned it. The reason I called now is so that we can get the paperwork moving.”

  “I’m on a fourteen-day leave, Sir.”

  “Well, you take the full fourteen days, and however much longer you feel you need. I don’t want you returning to duty before you feel up to it.”

  “Fourteen days will be enough, Sir.”

  “Welcome aboard, Commander,” Admiral Hawley said, and hung up.

  Ed Bitter was pleased at this development. It would be some time before he could get back on flight status, if ever. Thus, he had been a little afraid that when he reported for duty, he would find himself officer in charge of enlisted recreation, or in some other “essential” occupation that could be handled by a grounded aviator.

  This was different. Not only would he be on the staff of a BUAIR flag officer, but that flag officer wanted him because he was Annapolis, and had been in harm’s way, not just because he was an available body. Duty as an aide-de-camp was considered an essential part to the advancement of an officer’s career, and he was now getting that chance. He was no longer the shallow junior officer who had gone to China. He was an ace, nearly a double ace, and he was quite sure that Admiral Hawley would not object to his wearing his AVG wings. Admiral Hawley obviously knew what they represented.

  By the end of the week, however, the euphoria had palled, and his mother and the procession of friends she marched to hover over her son the wounded hero now made him more than a little uncomfortable. By the weekend, he knew he had to get away.