“He was dying and he didn’t realize he said shoe instead of foot!” Randall breathed softly.
Nobody else made any comment. They all watched breathlessly as Colonel Denton probed at the square pad with his fingers. They watched him peel off two layers of a sort of fish skin covering. And everybody gave a little gasp when Colonel Denton finally unfolded a four-inch square of rice paper that was covered on both sides with writing and figures so small that no human eye could possibly read them.
The silence continued for a moment longer, and then Colonel Denton looked at Randall and spoke.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’ve got sharp eyes. My congratulations. What did you say your name was, Lieutenant?”
“Randall, sir,” Red told him.
“Well, Lieutenant Randall,” the Colonel began. And then he stopped short and blinked. “Randall did you say?” he asked sharply. “Do you happen to be the Lieutenant Randall who helped get General MacArthur out of the Philippines?”
“Yes, sir,” Red said. “We helped a little. This is Lieutenant Joyce, sir, who was with me.”
Colonel Denton looked at Jimmy Joyce, and then back at Randall. He pointed at the Distinguished Flying Cross ribbon that both youths wore under their silver pilot’s wings.
“That proves you helped more than a little,” he said with a smile. “Well, I am indeed glad to meet you two officers.”
“Thank you, sir,” Randall replied. “We’re glad that we had the chance to help. But, sir... I mean...?”
“You mean what?” Colonel Denton asked as Randall flushed and stumbled to a halt.
“Well, sir,” the redhead grinned, “I imagine that you can see that I’m...that we’re all curious about everything. So I was wondering if you’d object to some questions?”
The Chief of Far East Intelligence smiled, then abruptly nodded his head.
“Yes, I do object,” he said. “This is a matter that is strictly Intelligence. Until I’ve put this paper under a glass I won’t know the whole story myself. However, I can say this much. Your preventing that cursed Jap from shooting this man down into the Indian Ocean may change a lot of things in our war with Japan. Yes, change them, or prevent them. I’m not sure which, yet. No, I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything. But my Department is grateful for what you two officers have accomplished.”
“If we’d only acted sooner, it might have been much more,” Randall said with a bitter note in his voice.
“No, that wasn’t your fault at all!” the Colonel said sharply. “You had no way of knowing that it wasn’t a Jap trick of some kind to catch you two off guard. Any pilot with any sense would have done the same thing. Don’t you agree, Major Clarke?”
“I certainly do, sir,” the C.O. of the field spoke for the first time. “Besides, Randall and Joyce had additional reason to fly on the cautious side because of the nature of the search patrol yesterday. They did perfectly right to hold off their own attack until they couldn’t do anything else about it.”
“There you are, Randall,” Colonel Denton smiled at the redhead. “No need to blame yourselves for a single thing. On the contrary, your feeling should be one of satisfaction.”
“Thank you, sir,” Randall said and stared at the dead man. “I only wish I could feel that way. But I can’t help feeling that I let him down.”
“And I feel the same way, too,” Jimmy Joyce echoed. “I wish there was some way I could make up for it.”
“Perhaps you have already,” Colonel Denton said, and tapped the folded square of rice paper he held in his hand. “He wanted to give me this. Through your efforts he has been able to do that. So don’t feel bad, either of you. And now I’ve got to hurry back to Melbourne.”
Disappointment and anger flooded through Randall as Colonel Denton carefully put the folded square of rice paper in his pocket. He felt that he had been cheated out of information that Jimmy and he had more or less earned the right to learn. The feeling remained for only a moment, however. After all, he was just a fighter pilot, and the secrets of Intelligence were not his business.
“Please make arrangements to have the body flown to Melbourne, Major Clarke,” Colonel Denton’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I’ll arrange for the burial there. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back as quickly as I can. Lieutenants, my sincerest thanks and congratulations, again. You both have performed another valuable service for your country. Good day, gentlemen.”
Ten minutes later the Colonel’s plane had taken off, and Randall and Jimmy Joyce were watching it lose itself in the Australian sky to the southeast. Randall gave a little sigh as the plane finally passed out of sight.
“Well, and there goes that,” he grunted. “But, boy! Would I like to have been told all that was in that Colonel’s mind. He has a poker face, but I could tell that he was adding up a lot of things in his mind as he walked around that poor fellow on the table.”
“Yes, I could see that, too,” Jimmy Joyce murmured. “He recognized him the minute he laid eyes on him. And what we told him gave him quite a jolt, it seemed to me. Oh, well, back to the war, I guess.”
“Yes, back to the war,” Randall echoed sadly.
Chapter Five – Beyond Duty
MAJOR CLARKE, C.O. of the Broome Base, shrugged and made a little gesture with his two hands, palms upward.
“If I knew anything more about it, I’d certainly be glad to tell you,” he said to Randall and Jimmy Joyce. “All I know is that this morning Colonel Denton called me from Melbourne and requested me to send you two down there in a hurry. For what reason, your guess is as good as mine. He simply made the request and hung up. I didn’t even get a chance to ask questions.”
“I see, sir,” Randall murmured and frowned a little. “He probably just wants to check our story again, in case he might have missed something.”
“Either that, or to find out if we’ve remembered some point we forgot to tell him about yesterday,” Jimmy Joyce added.
“Well, guessing won’t help any of us,” Major Clarke put in. “The Colonel wants to see you two, and that’s that. You can take one of the Vultee two-seaters. You can sit down at Alice Springs for gas. You should reach Melbourne in nine or ten hours. In case you don’t come back, the next pilot headed this way can bring the Vultee back.”
“In case we don’t come back, sir?” Randall echoed, and gave his senior officer a sharp look. “You think we won’t?”
“I don’t think one way or the other, Randall,” the Major said with a little laugh. “Things move fast in this war. If you are sent elsewhere, I want you to know that we’ll miss you. You are the kind of pilots I like to have around.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jimmy Joyce spoke up for the two of them. “So far as I’m concerned, I hope we come back and continue to serve under your command.”
“And I feel exactly the same way sir,” Randall added.
Major Clarke chuckled. “Thank you, and good luck to you both.”
The two pilots saluted smartly, about-faced and went out the door. Thirty minutes later they were in the air. And just ten hours and forty-five minutes later, as the sun was sliding clown to end another day, an orderly ushered them into Colonel Denton’s office in the Yank G.H.Q. building in Melbourne. The Chief of Far East Intelligence was busy at his desk. After greeting them, he waved them toward a couple of comfortable chairs and went on with his work.
It was ten minutes before he pushed aside the papers on his desk, and leaned back in his chair to regard them gravely and silently. Presently he leaned forward, rested his arms on the edge of the desk and clasped his fingers together.
“I met a very good friend of yours last evening, Lieutenants,” he said. “He was just passing through on his way north. He asked me to give you his very best. He was Colonel Stacey, of Air Corps Intelligence in the Hawaiians.”
“Colonel Stacey, here in Melbourne, sir?” Randall asked. “How was he? And was Major Nichols with him?”
“No, just th
e Colonel,” the senior officer replied. “But he was looking fine. We talked quite a bit about you two. As a matter of fact, it was right after my talk with Colonel Stacey that I decided to have you two fly down to see me today.”
“You say he was passing through, sir?” Jimmy Joyce asked. “He isn’t in Melbourne now? I’d certainly like to see him again.”
“And so would I,” Randall echoed. “I owe a lot of good things to the Colonel.”
“Well, he’s not in Melbourne now, I’m sorry,” Colonel Denton said. “He went north by plane last night. He didn’t tell me his destination. But to get back to the reason why I sent for you…”
The Intelligence Officer paused, got up from his chair, and slowly paced up and down the length of his office, hands locked behind him, a faint frown on his face, and his eyes fixed on the office rug. Randall and Joyce exchanged glances, shrugged, and waited. They did not have to wait long. Colonel Denton suddenly stopped pacing and looked at them.
“War is an unpredictable thing,” he said. “This is my second war, and I often wonder if I really learned anything from my experiences in the first World War.”
“There’s nothing that teaches so much as experience, they say,” Randall said quietly.
“Yes, you’re right,” the Colonel said and frowned. “But war, and particularly this war, travels at so rapid a pace that what is new today is out of date tomorrow. But to get to the point of what’s on my mind. I made a decision last night that I wouldn’t have dreamed of making any other time. I’m still not sure that it is a sound and sensible decision. Colonel Stacey approves of it. In fact, he was the one who suggested the thing in the first place. On his recommendation I’ve decided to take a chance. A very long chance, but one that conditions warrant as absolutely necessary.”
The Colonel stopped talking as abruptly as he had started. And once again he began pacing up and down the office. Randall and Jimmy Joyce looked at each other, arched their eyebrows and silently indicated to each other that they hadn’t the faintest idea of what the Colonel was talking about. Presently the senior officer again stopped pacing, and once more fixed them both with his eyes.
“How would you two like to take on a mission to Japan?” He fairly shot the question at them. Both youths sat up straight in their chairs and gaped openmouthed at the officer. Randall was first to regain control of his tongue.
“Japan, sir?” he blurted out. “You really mean it?”
“I really do mean it,” the Intelligence Officer said and nodded gravely. “To a place called Takahara on the Japanese island of Honshu.”
“Takahara?” Jimmy Joyce echoed sharply. “That’s the name that dead man spoke. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say at the time. Excuse me, sir, but may I ask if he was one of your agents?”
“You may, and I’ll tell you,” the senior officer replied. “He was one of the two best agents under my command. The other, whom he referred to as Number Six, is right now at Takahara. He is the man whom I hope you two will be able to contact. He is...”
Colonel Denton suddenly cut himself off short, walked over to his desk and sat down.
“This whole business is absurd and insane,” he spoke again as though arguing with himself. “You have about one chance in a hundred of getting into Japan. And one chance in a million of getting out again with your lives and the information Agent Six will be able to give you. However, as I said a moment ago, it’s a chance that I have to take. Before I go any further, let me say that this is definitely a volunteer affair. I’ll give you the story as I know it, and then you two can offer your services, or otherwise, as you see fit. If you do not care to tackle this thing, you have only to say so and we’ll simply regard this meeting as never having taken place.”
“Speaking for myself, sir,” Red Randall said as the senior officer lapsed into silence, “if there is any way I can possibly help out in the war effort, I want to do it regardless of what kind of job it is.”
“And I’ll second that, sir,” Jimmy Joyce spoke up. “I’m quite willing to tackle anything, so long as it will help lick the Japs.”
“This job may go a long way toward doing just that,” the Colonel said, “if you pull it off successfully. After the way Colonel Stacey spoke about you last night, I had no doubt that you would accept the job. I’ll give you the story as I know it, and we can discuss the details later.”
The Colonel paused. He reached for a cigarette, but changed his mind and leaned forward a little in his chair, resting his clasped hands on the edge of the desk.
“The story begins almost two years before Pearl Harbor,” he began. “Intelligence knew that Japan was arming herself to the teeth, and that it was not strictly because she was at war with China. We knew something of Japan’s desire for Asiatic conquest, but little did we realize that she would strike so soon. Anyway, all the data that my department was gathering on Japan and her territorial ambitions was collected by two men who knew Japan and the Japanese almost better than they knew themselves. One man is the one I call Number Six. I cannot reveal his real name because in his kind of work it is essential for his own safety that he remain simply a number. The other agent is the one you saved from being shot down into the Indian Ocean. He was known as Number Ten. Number Ten and Number Six lived most of their lives in Japan and at regular intervals sent me information that was of inestimable value. And then...Pearl Harbor.”
Colonel Denton paused, and his jaw muscles bunched.
“Not until yesterday had I received any word at all of either Number Six or Number Ten since Pearl Harbor,” he suddenly spoke again. “Frankly, I didn’t know if they were alive or dead, and I was deeply afraid that the latter was true. Number Ten is now dead; that we know. But the information he brought back proves that Number Six is still alive.”
The Intelligence Officer stopped talking long enough to open his top desk drawer and take out from it the folded square of rice paper that had been stuck to the dead man’s foot.
“From what I can gather from this,” he went on speaking, tapping the square of paper, “Number Six and Number Ten acquired some information that they just had to get out of Japan as soon as possible. They decided that one of them should try to get the information out, and Number Ten was the one selected to do it. What route he followed, and what his experiences were, we’ll probably never know. But he finally did get to Timor and succeeded in stealing a Japanese plane for the flight to Australia, where he believed he would be able to contact me. Somehow the Japs found out what he was trying to do, and one of their pilots gave chase in another Zero. And the rest you know.”
“Then that doesn’t contain the information he was trying to get out of Japan, sir?” Red Randall asked, indicating the folded square of rice paper with a gesture of his hand.
“No, it does not, unfortunately,” the senior officer replied with a sad shake of his head. “Of course it contains some information regarding various events inside Japan. But it is simply a general report, and much the same as other reports he had sent through before Pearl Harbor. What Agent Ten really wanted to tell me was carried in his mind. And now he is dead!”
The Intelligence Officer paused, and a tingling silence seemed to settle over the room. Randall and Jimmy Joyce edged forward a bit on their chairs and waited with silent impatience.
“No, it does not reveal what Agent Ten was carrying in his head,” Colonel Denton presently went on speaking. “However, at the end of his report, he has written that in the event anything should happen to him, I am to move heaven and earth to contact Agent Six who remained behind in Takahara. He even describes in detail a little Japanese farmhouse on the outskirts of Takahara, right on the bend of a river, where Number Six goes every night. There Number Six can be contacted, and he will be able to reveal the information that Number Ten did not even dare put down on paper. But there are many thousands of miles between here and the village of Takahara. And, as I said, there is about one chance in a hundred of your contacting Agent Six. In fac
t, I’m still not convinced that I should let you make the attempt.”
“You haven’t even an inkling of what the information might be, sir?” Jimmy Joyce pressed as the senior officer lapsed into frowning silence.
“None, worse luck,” the Colonel replied bitterly. “All that I know is that it is of vital importance—so important that Agent Ten risked his life to get it through to me...and died before he could tell me. As I said, in his report he begs me to contact Agent Six, if it’s the last thing I do. And for me that is proof enough that the secret he carried was of utmost importance.”
The Intelligence Officer glanced sharply at Jimmy Joyce’s frowning face.
“You’re thinking about something in particular, Lieutenant?” he asked.
Young Joyce did not answer immediately. He deepened his frown and appeared to scrutinize the fingernails of his two hands.
“Not thinking so much as wondering, sir,” he said presently. “Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I’m still willing and eager to tackle any job you have in mind. And I’m sure Lieutenant Randall feels exactly the same. But...well, frankly, sir, why did you pick us instead of some of your own men who are trained in that sort of thing? And…have you any plans on how Randall and I could get to Japan?”
“I have,” the Colonel said with a grave nod. “But I’ll answer your first question first. I have selected you two at the suggestion of Colonel Stacey. You see, gentlemen, this is definitely a hit-or-miss affair. It’s the kind of thing not necessarily suited only to a trained agent. According to the plans I’ve worked out, anybody could contact Number Six. That is, anybody who is a pilot, and possesses a great amount of courage. You both are pilots, and there is no question about your courage. As Colonel Stacey told me last night, you two have the faculty of accomplishing the impossible. Your brief but highly exciting war careers prove that. However, it all boils down to a matter of chance. And after what Colonel Stacey told me last night, I have the feeling that if anybody can accomplish this mad thing, you two can.”
Red Randall Over Tokyo Page 3