Behind the Lines

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I’m surprised you heard about that, Sir,” Galloway said.

  “Not as surprised as the Secretary of the Navy is going to be,” McInerney said, and handed Galloway the telephone memorandum he had shown Dawkins at Ewa.

  Galloway read it and handed it to Oblensky, who read it and winced.

  “Permission to speak, Sir?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Oblensky,” Mclnerney said.

  “The Captain really didn’t know much about this,” Oblensky said. “I was mostly responsible for this, Sir.”

  “I’m so carried away with auld lang syne, I may cry,” McInerney said.

  “Zimmerman was a Raider before we got him, Sir,” Galloway said. “He came to me when we were relieved on the ’Canal and said he wanted to go back to the Raiders. I told him to go ahead, I’d fix the paperwork later.”

  “And why didn’t you?” McInerney said.

  “I tried, Sir,” Galloway said. “I ran into a couple of problems.”

  “Be specific, Charley. I’m fascinated.”

  “Sir, the Personnel Officer at Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor, told me the only way to get Zimmerman into the Raiders was for Zimmerman to apply for them. I couldn’t apply for him. They have to be volunteers.”

  “Did you tell him Zimmerman was already running around behind the Jap lines on Guadalcanal with the Raiders?”

  “I didn’t think that would be a wise course of action under the circumstances, Sir.”

  McInerney chuckled.

  “So you just decided to sit tight and see what happened?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Something was bound to happen, right?”

  “I’m sorry the Secretary of the Navy got involved, Sir. And that you did, Sir.”

  “So am I,” McInerney said.

  “I’d love to stay here and have several strong drinks, Charley,” McInerney said. “But I have to go find a message center so I can send a radio to General Forrest telling him that Gunny Zimmerman is running around Guadalcanal somewhere.”

  “Sir, you can call him from here, if you like,” Charley said.

  “Call, as in telephone call, Charley?”

  “The Pacific & Far East Shipping Company Office in Honolulu has a dedicated line to their office in San Francisco.”

  “And you can use it?” McInerney asked incredulously.

  Galloway walked to the wall of the patio and returned with a telephone on a long cord. He dialed a number.

  “This is Captain Galloway,” he said. “Would you put me through to San Francisco, please?”

  He handed the phone to General McInerney.

  XI

  [ONE]

  Naval Air Transport Station

  Brisbane, Australia

  0625 Hours 24 November 1942

  The storm struck as the Consolidated PB2Y-3 Coronado made its final approach. They’d had bad weather all along the route from Hawaii, and their takeoff from the refueling stop at Midway Island was delayed for over two hours by weather. As Captain Edward Sessions, USMC, saw the flashes of lightning, heard the rain drumming on the fuselage, felt the huge plane being buffeted by strong winds, and saw the whitecaps on the water, he thought it entirely likely that having flown literally close to halfway around the world, he was about to get killed on landing.

  It had been a long trip. It was 2,269 miles from Washington to San Diego; 2,606 miles from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and 4,702 from Pearl Harbor to Brisbane—with a refueling stop at Midway Island.

  The landing itself was a series of crashes against the water. When they finally stopped, the Coronado rocked sickeningly from side to side, as the pilot taxied it as close as he dared to the shoreline. The storm seemed to worsen by the minute.

  A little train of open whaleboats started out through the choppy waters to the Coronado. It required great boat-handling skill to transfer the passengers and cargo (with the exception of the boxes Sessions was carrying, mostly mail-bags) into the whaleboats without permitting the boats to crash against the thin aluminum of the seaplane.

  By the time the whaleboats made it from the seaplane to the shore, all the passengers were soaked through. On the face of the quai itself, there was a flight of narrow stone steps onto which the passengers had to jump from the bobbing whaleboats.

  Sessions was amazed that no one fell into the water, and that he finally managed to heave his personal luggage and the boxes onto the steps without losing anything.

  He surveyed the boxes, decided the one carrying the obsolete M94 Cryptographic Device and its replacement was the most valuable, picked it up, and carried it up the stone stairs.

  A Marine, a very young one, wearing an Army poncho and a rain-soaked khaki fore-and-aft cap, walked up to him and saluted.

  “Captain Sessions, Sir?”

  “Right.”

  “Staff Sergeant Koffler, Sir. If you’ll point out your gear, Sir, I’ll take care of it. General Pickering’s over there, Sir.” He pointed to two cars, a Studebaker President and a Jaguar convertible.

  “Everything that’s on those steps, Sergeant. Thank you,” Sessions said, and headed toward the Studebaker.

  He was halfway there before his tired mind slipped into gear.

  “Staff Sergeant”? Is that what he said? That boy is a staff sergeant? And what did he say his name was? “Koffler”? That’s the kid who’s been living like an animal under the noses of the Japs on Buka?

  As he came close to the Studebaker, the rear door opened, and he stepped in. Brigadier General Fleming W. Pickering extended his hands to take the box from him.

  “Hello, Ed, how was the flight?” Pickering said.

  “About like that, Sir,” Sessions said, waving a hand at the rough water. “Most of the way from Midway.”

  A hand was thrust at him, and Sessions took it before he saw that it was attached to First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR.

  “Welcome to sunny Australia,” McCoy said.

  “If it hasn’t melted, I have a letter—actually a little package—from Ernie for you,” Sessions said.

  “Give it to him now,” Pickering said. “You have to go back out in the rain. You’re going to be staying with us. Which means you and McCoy will go in the Jaguar to the house, while George and I take our guests to the SWPOA BOQ.”

  “They’re not here, Sir. They should be on tomorrow’s plane, unless Major Brownlee was able to scrounge a ride on an Air Corps B-17. He was going to try.”

  “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Ed, but how is it the Major waited while the Captain got to fly?”

  “I tried to give him my seat, Sir, but the Navy wouldn’t let me.”

  “You hear that, George?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Drive up to Koffler and tell him to bring Captain Sessions’s stuff to the house.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “Hello, George,” Sessions said. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

  “If I thought I deserved it, Captain, I’d say thank you.”

  “You wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t deserved,” Sessions said.

  Hart started the engine, drove to the edge of the quai, and waited for Koffler to appear. Then he rolled down the window.

  “Koffler, nobody else is coming. Bring all of Captain Sessions’s gear out to the house.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  Sessions waited until they were under way, then said, “I can’t believe that kid is Koffler.”

  “Don’t let that baby face fool you,” McCoy said. “He’s one hell of a Marine.”

  “Speaking of Marines,” Pickering said. “What do you think of the two OSS Marines?”

  “The Major’s all right. Nice guy. Bright. Got his head screwed on correctly. Speaks perfect Spanish.”

  “And the Captain?”

  “The Captain is named Macklin,” Sessions said evenly.

  “Not . . .” McCoy said.

  “One and the same, Lieutenant McCoy.”

  “Shit,” McCoy said.


  For a moment, Pickering was confused. He was also somewhat surprised at the deep bitterness of McCoy’s obscenity. And then he remembered hearing Jack Stecker and McCoy talking about an officer named Macklin. There had been some trouble with him in China, where Banning sided with McCoy against him, and again in Quantico, where Macklin tried to keep McCoy from getting commissioned.

  “Is this the same officer you and Jack Stecker were talking about, Ken?” Pickering asked. “The one who gave you trouble on the rifle range at Quantico?”

  “I’m still hoping Sessions is pulling my chain,” McCoy said. “He has a strange sense of humor.”

  “I wish I was kidding about this, Ken,” Sessions said.

  “General, this is the officer, using the term very loosely, with whom McCoy, and I, and Major Banning had trouble in China.”

  “Does Banning know it’s the same man? More important, does Colonel Rickabee?”

  Sessions went into his tunic and came out with a soggy envelope.

  “Colonel Rickabee asked me to give you this, Sir,” he said.

  It was a glossy photograph of the abrupt note Secretary Knox had sent Rickabee.

  After he read it, his first reaction was that Knox must have written it in anger, and that was uncharacteristic of him.

  Was Knox boiling because Rickabee had the audacity to object to this man Macklin? Or is there something else?

  Well, Frank Knox can tell Rickabee he doesn’t “desire” any “further discussion” of this, but he can’t tell me that. Just as soon as we get to the house, I’ll call Pluto in the dungeon and tell him to send Knox a Special Channel Personal. If Banning, Sessions, and McCoy all think this man is no good, so far as I’m concerned, it’s three strikes and he’s out!

  “May I keep this, Ed?” Pickering asked politely.

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “Let me think about this.”

  By the time they reached Water Lily Cottage, he’d had time to control his temper, consider his options, and choose one. It was so simple that he was a little afraid of it. He decided to say nothing now. He’d ask a few more questions and have a couple of cups of coffee and a cigar before finally making up his mind.

  “Did I understand you to say, Ed, that Major Brownlee strikes you as a competent officer?” Pickering asked conversationally.

  “Yes, Sir. First class. And he impressed Colonel Rickabee the same way, Sir.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Sessions said. “We had a hurry-up briefing session with some Philippine experts from ONI, and the Colonel sat in on it. He quickly came to the same conclusion I did, that Brownlee should have been the briefer, rather than the briefee. The Colonel told me to find out who in G1 had sent Major Brownlee to OSS instead of to us, and have him shot.”

  “That good, eh?” Pickering chuckled.

  Fascinating!

  Captain Ed Sessions had heard references to “the cottage.” So he was not surprised when Hart pulled the Studebaker up against the verandah of a rambling frame house, and Pickering announced, “Here we are, Ed. Our home away from home.”

  But he was surprised at the size of the place, and then even more surprised when the rear door of the Studebaker was pulled open by a plump, gray-haired, motherly woman in her late fifties, who was wearing a flowered dress and a frilly apron. She held an enormous umbrella over her head.

  “Welcome to Australia, Captain Sessions,” she said, and thrust two more umbrellas into the backseat.

  Pickering sensed Sessions’s surprise.

  “Captain Sessions, this is Mrs. Hortense Cavendish,” he said, laughter in his voice. “She’s in charge around here. You disobey her at your peril.”

  Inside Water Lily Cottage, Sessions found that a hotel-like buffet of scrambled eggs, sausages—“They call those bangers, Ed,” McCoy offered helpfully—ham, and three kinds of biscuits and toast was laid out in a large dining room.

  “God, war is hell, isn’t it?” Sessions asked.

  “Since I went through boot camp,” Pickering said solemnly, “I have always disagreed with the Marine Corps belief that you need practice to be miserable and hungry.”

  Over breakfast, Pickering explained that when he first came to Australia, MacArthur’s SWPOA Headquarters was in Melbourne.

  “So I rented a house,” he said, “presided over by Mrs. Cavendish. By the time El Supremo moved his headquarters here, Mrs. Cavendish had concluded that if it were not for her, all of us, in unwashed clothing and needing haircuts, would die of starvation in unmade beds. So she signed on for the duration, and came up here when I rented this place.”

  “Some people have all the luck,” Sessions said.

  “She has a husband and two sons in the service,” Pickering went on, the timbre of his voice changing. “One each Royal Australian Army, Navy, and Air Force. All in Africa.”

  “Oh,” Sessions said.

  When he finished his breakfast, Pickering lit a cigar and then somehow summoned Mrs. Cavendish. Sessions heard the dull ring of a bell and decided there must be a button on the dining-room table, or else the floor.

  “Can I bring something else, General?” Mrs. Cavendish asked.

  “Would you please make a fresh pot of—”

  “It’s already through,” she interrupted.

  “And then leave us for a while? And if Koffler is out there, send him home.”

  “Certainly, Sir.”

  Sessions desperately wanted to climb into bed and the shower, and not necessarily in that order; but he knew that would have to wait until Pickering finished whatever he had in mind. Pickering puffed thoughtfully on his cigar until the coffee was delivered and the buffet and dirty dishes removed.

  “Are you going to want me for this, Sir?” McCoy asked, starting to rise out of his chair.

  “Stick around, Ken, and you, too, George.”

  McCoy lowered himself back into his chair and reached for the silver coffeepot.

  “One more time, Ed,” Pickering said to Sessions. “Both you and Rickabee are favorably impressed with Major Brownlee?”

  “Yes, Sir. I suppose you could say he’s everything Captain Macklin is not.”

  “I would have liked to make the judgment on my own,” Pickering said. “But your opinion, and Colonel Rickabee’s, is the next-best thing. And I want this in place before they get here. You said tomorrow morning, right?”

  “Yes, Sir. They had seats on today’s plane. But maybe sooner, if Major Brownlee was able to get the Army Air Corps to carry them on a B-17.”

  “OK. The participation of the OSS—which means Major Brownlee and Captain Macklin—in the mission to have a look at General Fertig and his guerrilla operation has been directed. That’s a given. That poses certain problems, but also resolves some.”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “For one thing, it may solve the radio operator problem. Against my better judgment, I agreed to let Koffler go with McCoy.” He looked at McCoy and saw in his eyes that he didn’t like that at all. “He’s a hell of a radio operator, Ken. And there is apparently some way one radio operator can recognize another radio operator. I think they say every operator has ‘a hand’ that’s unlike anyone else’s.”

  McCoy exhaled audibly and shrugged his acceptance of that. That was valuable. If the Japanese captured the new encryption device, and they attempted to send deceptive information—for example, ordering the submarine to appear at a location where it would find a Japanese destroyer waiting for it—the receiving operator would be immediately suspicious if the correctly encrypted message was not in Koffler’s hand.

  “I have discussed this mission with General MacArthur, including the participation of the OSS,” Pickering went on. He saw the surprise in Sessions’s eyes. “That surprises you, Ed?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Sessions said.

  “Because you believe that Colonel Donovan, and for that matter Secretary Knox, and for all we know, the President himself, would prefer that General MacArthur had no knowledg
e of OSS participation until the mission is over?”

  “Yes, Sir. I saw the Special Channel Personal from Secretary Knox to you, Sir. With respect, Sir, they seemed to spell that out pretty clearly.”

  “I’m just a simple civilian in uniform, Captain Sessions, a former enlisted man. If it was bad judgment on my part to make the Supreme Commander, SWPOA, aware of a mission contemplated for execution within his area of responsibility, and if this comes to the attention of Secretary Knox—I don’t give much of a damn whether Bill Donovan likes it or not—then the Secretary will have to take the action against me that he deems appropriate.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Sessions said.

  “General MacArthur graciously offered any assistance he personally and Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA, can provide to help me in the execution of this mission. And I intend to ask him for a qualified high-speed radio operator. It seems entirely likely to me that among those who escaped from the Philippines, there should be such a person, probably a senior noncommissioned officer who also speaks Spanish, and thus would be even more highly qualified than our own Staff Sergeant Koffler.”

  Pickering now saw approval in McCoy’s eyes.

  “I have also decided to remove Lieutenant McCoy from the roster of officers who will participate in this mission. I have several reasons for so doing, which I am of course prepared to defend to Secretary Knox. For one thing, there is the consideration of space available on the submarine. The fewer personnel, obviously, the more medical supplies the initial party can take with them. And finally, Lieutenant McCoy is not only the junior of the officers, but he has not been able to avail himself of the splendid training Bill Donovan provides for his agents.”

  “General,” Ed Sessions said, smiling broadly, “at the risk of sounding like a toady, may I say that I wholeheartedly agree with the General’s reasoning?”

  “Yes, you may,” Pickering said, chuckling, and then turned to McCoy.

  “You have any problems with this, Ken?”

  “Three, Sir,” McCoy said immediately, surprising Pickering.

  “OK,” Pickering said, making a let’s have them gesture with his hand.