Casey handed him the telephone.
“Ken? What did you do, forget the number? Where are you?”
“In Kansas City. Fuel stop. We’re on a B-25. They’re going to drop us off at Anacostia—”
“Who’s we?”
“Dillon and me,” McCoy went on. “The pilot said we should be there in about four hours.”
“I’ll meet you,” Sessions said.
“That’s not why I called,” McCoy said. “I need a favor.”
“Name it.”
“Could you call somebody for me?”
“Ernie? You mean you haven’t called her?”
Ernie was Miss Ernestine Sage, whom Sessions—and his wife—knew and liked very much. She was not simply an attractive, charming, well-educated young woman, but she had the courage of her convictions: Specifically, she had decided, despite the enormous gulf in background between them, that Ken McCoy was the man in her life, and if that meant publicly living in sin with him because he wouldn’t marry her, then so be it.
As for McCoy, though he was far from hostile to marriage, or especially to marrying Ernie Sage, he had nevertheless decided—not without reason, Sessions thought, considering what he had done so far in the war, and what the future almost certainly held for him—that the odds against his surviving the war unscathed or alive were so overwhelming that marriage, not to mention the siring of children, would be gross injustice to a bride and potential mother.
“I didn’t know when I could get east until now,” McCoy said, somewhat lamely. “And now I can’t get her on the phone.”
“That’s kind of you, Killer,” Sessions said sarcastically. “I’m sure she was mildly interested in whether or not you’re still alive.”
“Tell her I tried to call her, and that I’ll try again when I get to Washington.”
“Anything else?”
“I’ll need someplace to stay. Would you get me a BOQ?” (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters.)
“OK. Anything else?”
“I’ve got an envelope for the Colonel from the General.”
“I’ll take it at the airport and see that he gets it. You have a tail number on the aircraft?”
“Two dash forty-three eighty-nine. It’s an Air Corps B-25 out of Los Angeles.”
“I’ll be there,” Sessions said. “Welcome home, Kil... Ken.”
“Thank you,” McCoy said, and the phone went dead in Sessions’s ear.
Sessions put the handset back in its cradle.
“Thank you,” he said to the sergeant.
“That was Lieutenant McCoy, and he’s back already?”
“Maybe this time they’ll let him stay a little longer,” Sessions said.
“I guess everything went all right over there?”
“What do you know about ‘everything,’ Sergeant?” Sessions said, not entirely pleasantly.
“You hear things, Sir.”
“You’re not supposed to be listening,” Sessions said. “But yes. Everything went well.”
“Good,” Sergeant Casey said.
“You didn’t get that from me,” Sessions said.
“Get what from you, Sir?”
“You can be replaced, Sergeant. By a woman.”
“Sir?”
“They’re talking about having lady Marines. You haven’t heard?”
“No shit?”
“Scout’s honor,” Sessions said, and held up his hand, three fingers extended, as a Boy Scout does when giving his word of honor.
“Women in The Corps?”
“Women in The Corps,” Sessions said firmly.
“Jesus Christ!”
“My sentiments exactly, Sergeant,” Sessions said.
Then he turned and went up the stairs to report to Colonel Rickabee that Lieutenant McCoy would be at the Anacostia Naval Air Station in approximately four hours.
“J. Walter Thompson. Good afternoon.”
“Miss Ernestine Sage, please.”
“Miss Sage’s office.”
“Miss Sage, please.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Captain Edward Sessions.”
“Oh, my!” the woman’s voice said. “Captain, she’s in a meeting.”
“Could you ask her to call me in Washington when she’s free, please? She has the number.”
“Just a moment, please,” Sessions heard her say, and then faintly, as if she had covered the microphone with her hand and was speaking into an intercom system: “Miss Sage, Captain Sessions is on the line. Can you take the call?”
“Ed?” Ernie Sage’s voice came over the line. “I was about to call you.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I haven’t heard from you-know-who.”
“I’ve heard from you-know-who. Just now. He’ll be in Washington in four hours.”
“Is he all right?”
“Sounded fine.”
“The bastard called you and not me.”
“He said he tried.”
“Where in Washington is he going to be in four hours?”
“He asked me to get him a BOQ.”
“Damn him!”
“Where would you like him to be in four hours?”
“You know where.”
“Your wish, Fair Lady, is my command. Have you got enough time?”
“I can catch the noon Congressional Limited if I run from here to Pennsylvania Station. Thank you, Ed.”
[FIVE]
The Foster Lafayette Hotel
Washington, D.C.
1625 Hours 19 October 1942
“What are we doing here?” Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, asked, looking out the rain-streaked windows of the Marine-green Ford as it pulled up last in a long line of cars before the marquee of the hotel.
McCoy’s uniform was rain-soaked, and he needed a shave.
“Obeying orders,” Captain Sessions said. “I know that’s hard for you, but it’s a cold cruel world, Killer.”
“I asked you not to call me that,” McCoy said. His eyes grew cold.
When his eyes get cold, Sessions thought, he doesn’t look twenty-two years old; he looks like Rickabee.
“Sorry,” Sessions said. “As I was saying, Lieutenant, we are obeying orders. General Pickering’s orders to Colonel Rickabee, ‘there’s no point in having my apartment sitting empty. Put people in it while I’m gone,’ or words to that effect. Colonel Rickabee’s orders to me. ‘Put McCoy in the General’s apartment,’ or words to that effect. And my orders to you, Lieutenant: ‘Get out. Go In. Have a shave and a shower. Get your uniform pressed. The Colonel wants to see you at 0800 tomorrow.’ Any questions, Mister McCoy?”
“The Colonel said to put me in there?” McCoy asked doubtfully.
“I am a Marine officer and a gentleman,” Sessions replied. “You are not doubting my veracity, are you?”
“0800?” McCoy asked.
“If there’s a change, I’ll call you. Otherwise there will be a car here at 0730.”
“OK. Thanks, Ed. For meeting me, and for ... Jesus, I didn’t ask. Did you get through to Ernie?”
“I would suggest you call her,” Sessions said. “I can’t imagine why, but she seemed a trifle miffed that you called me and not her.”
“I’ll call her,” McCoy said, and started to open the door.
“You need some help with your bag, Lieutenant?” the driver asked.
“No. Stay there. There’s no sense in you getting soaked, too,” McCoy said. He turned to Sessions. “Say hello to Jeanne. How’s the baby?”
“You will see for yourself when you come to dinner. Get a bath, a drink, and go to bed. You look beat.”
“I am,” McCoy said, opened the door, and ran toward the hotel entrance, carrying a battered canvas suitcase.
A doorman in an ornate uniform was somewhat frantically trying to get people in and out of the line of cars, but he stopped what he was doing when he saw the Marine lieutenant, carrying a bag, running toward the door.
“May I help you, Lieutenant?” he asked, discreetly blocking McCoy’s passage. It was as much an act of kindness as a manifestation of snobbery. Full colonels could not afford the prices at the Foster Lafayette. It was his intention to ask if he had a reservation—he was sure he didn’t—and then regretfully announce there were no rooms.
“I can manage, thank you.”
“Have you a reservation, Sir?”
“Oh, do I ever,” McCoy said, dodged around him, and continued toward the revolving door.
The doorman started after him, and then caught a signal from one of the bellmen. He interpreted it to mean, Let him go.
He stopped his pursuit and went to the bellman.
“That’s Lieutenant McCoy,” the bellman said. “He stays here sometimes. In 802.”
The doorman’s eyebrows rose in question.
Suite 802 was the five-room apartment overlooking the White House, reserved for the duration of the war for Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR.
“He works for General Pickering,” the bellman said. “And he’s Lieutenant Pickering’s best friend.”
“Lieutenant Pickering?” the doorman asked.
“The only son, and the only grandson,” the bellman said. “The heir apparent. Nice guy. Worked bells here one summer. Marine pilot. Just got back from Guadalcanal.”
“The next time, I’ll know,” the doorman said. “Somebody should have said something.”
“Welcome to Foster Hotels,” the bellman said. “We hope your stay with us will be a joy.”
The doorman chuckled and went back to helping people in and out of taxis and automobiles.
Lieutenant McCoy dropped his bag beside one of the marble pillars in the lobby and stepped up to the line waiting for attention at the desk.
A young woman in a calf-length silver fox coat, with matching hat atop her pageboy haircut, rose from one of the chairs in the lobby and walked toward him. She stood beside him. When it became evident that he was oblivious to her presence, she touched his arm. With a look of annoyance, he turned to face her.
“Hi, Marine!” she said. “Looking for a good time?”
A well-dressed, middle-aged woman in the line ahead of McCoy snapped her head back to look, in time to see the young woman part her silver fox coat with both hands, revealing a red T-shirt with the legend MARINES lettered in gold across her bosom.
“Jesus!” Lieutenant McCoy said.
“I’m just fine, thank you for asking. And how are you?”
“Sessions,” McCoy said, having decided how Ernestine Sage happened to be waiting for him.
“Good old Ed, whom you did call,” Ernie Sage said.
“I tried,” McCoy said.
Ernestine Sage held up two hotel keys.
“I don’t know if I should give you your choice of these, or throw them at you,” she said.
“What are they?”
“Daddy’s place, and Pick’s father’s,” she said. “Ken, if you don’t put your arms around me right now, I will throw them at you.”
Instead, he reached out his hand and lightly touched her cheek with the balls of his fingers.
“Jesus Christ, I’m glad to see you!” he said, very softly.
“You bastard, I didn’t know if you were alive or dead,” she said, and threw herself into his arms. “My God, I love you so much!”
After a moment, as he gently stroked the back of her head, he said, his voice husky with emotion, “Me, too, baby.”
Then, their arms still around each other, they walked to where he had dropped his bag by the marble pillar. He picked it up and they walked across the lobby to the bank of elevators.
[SIX]
The Bislig-Mati Highway (Route 7)
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
0705 Hours 20 October 1942
The Intelligence Section of Headquarters, United States Forces in the Philippines had developed, through the interrogation of indigenous personnel, certain information concerning enemy activity. Specifically, that each Tuesday morning a convoy of Japanese army vehicles, usually two one-and-one-half-ton trucks, plus a staff car and a pickup truck, departed the major Japanese base at Bislig, on Bislig Bay, on the Philippine Sea for Boston, on Cateel Bay, Baganga, and Caraga.
According to the best cartographic data available (the 1939 edition of Roads of Mindanao For Automobile Touring, published by the Shell Oil Company), it was approximately 125 miles from Bislig to Caraga. The road was described by Shell as “partially improved”; and automobile tourists were cautioned that the roads were slippery when wet, and that caution should be observed to avoid stone damage to windshields when following other vehicles.
Indigenous personnel reported that the trucks were laden with various supplies, including gasoline, kerosene, and rations for the small detachments the Japanese had stationed at Boston, Baganga, and Caraga. Each truck was manned by a driver, an assistant driver, and a soldier who rode in the back. The staff car contained a driver, a sergeant, and an officer. And the pickup truck carried a driver, an assistant driver, and two to four soldiers riding in its bed.
This information was personally verified by the G-2, Captain James B. Weston, USMC, and his deputy, Lieutenant Percy Lewis Everly, who walked six hours down narrow paths from Headquarters, USFIP, to the road, watched the convoy pass, made a reconnaissance of the area to determine a suitable place for an attack, and then walked back to Headquarters, USFIP. The return journey, being mostly uphill, and because it was raining, took nine hours.
Among additional intelligence data gathered was that the staff car was a 1940 Buick Limited, seized by the Japanese, and that the pickup truck was a 1939 Dodge requisitioned by the U.S. Army in the opening days of the war and subsequently captured by the Japanese. The Dole Company insignia was still faintly visible beneath the olive-drab paint on the doors.
The information gathered was presented to the Commanding General, USFIP, and various aspects of the operation were discussed with him and officers of his staff.
General Fertig suggested that the Buick was probably the property of the Dole Company, which had provided such a vehicle for the general manager of their pineapple plantation.
“Interesting machine,” General Fertig observed. “Not only was it clutchless—they called it ‘Automatic Drive,’ or something like that; all you had to do to make it go was step on the gas—but it had a little lever, which when flicked flashed lights on the top of the front fenders and in the middle of the trunk, showing the direction you intended to turn. I’m seriously considering getting one after the war.”
The pros and cons of an operation against the Japanese convoy were discussed at some length.
Captain John B. Platten, USFIP (formerly Master Sergeant, 17th Philippine Scouts) G-4 (Supply) Officer, stated that while the trucks very likely would contain bags of rice, and possibly other transportable rations, from what he had heard from Captain Weston, the gasoline and kerosene were in fifty-five-gallon drums. Moving them any distance would be difficult. He also pointed out that even with strict fire discipline, any attack would dangerously diminish the very limited stocks of .30 and .45 caliber ammunition available to USFIP, and that it was probable that the Japanese soldiers guarding the convoy possessed limited (no more than, say, twenty or thirty rounds per man) of ammunition for their 6.5mm Arisaka rifles, much of which, it had to be anticipated, would be expended during the attack.
“We’re liable to wind up with less ammo and weapons after we hit the convoy than we have now, even counting the weapons we take from the Japs. And the six-point-five is a lousy round, anyway.”
“In other words, it is your studied opinion, Captain,” General Fertig asked, “that, so to speak, an attack on this convoy would be wasted effort?”
“No, Sir,” Captain Platten said quickly. “I mentioned these things so we could plan for them.”
“Such as?”
“I suggest, Sir, that we form a group
of people whose sole mission it will be to carry the portable supplies—the rice, canned goods, whatever—back here as soon as we lay our hands on them.”
“And the nonportable? The gas and kerosene?”
“I suggest, Sir, that we gather together whatever we can lay our hands on that will hold liquid—canteens, water bottles, whatever—and have people to fill them and carry what they can back here with the rations. What we can’t bring back, we bury in the jungle, and maybe go back for it later.”
“And the question of having less weaponry subsequent to the attack than we have now? How do we deal with that?”
“Permission to speak, Sir?”
“Certainly, Lieutenant Everly.”
“That Arisaka’s not a Springfield, I’ll grant you that. But it’s more reliable than the Enfields—their extractor is always busting—which is what we mostly have. And the Filipinos can handle the recoil from an Arisaka better than they can from a .30-06. And we know we’re not going to get any more .30-06 ammo anytime soon.”
That was a reference, which everyone understood but no one commented upon, to the silence of Headquarters, South West Pacific Ocean Area, in response to repeated USFIP radio requests for the supply of small arms and ammunition.
“Your point, Lieutenant Everly?” General Fertig asked with either a hint of reproach or impatience in his voice.
“I think we have to kill the Japs before they have a chance to shoot off much of their ammo,” Everly said. “Even if that means shooting up the U.S. ammo we have.”
“And how do we do that?”
“First, we stop the convoy by shooting the driver of the Buick. Then, when the trucks are stopped, we kill the soldiers in the backs of them. And finally, we kill the truck drivers and whoever is left over. Every rifleman has a target, and we tell him he don’t shoot anybody else until his target is down.”
“I was about to suggest we try to find marksmen,” Fertig said, “but I think if we put the question to the troops, every one of them will swear, as a matter of masculine pride, that he is Dead-Eye Dick.”
Behind the Lines Page 17