In Danger's Path (7 page)

Pluto watched Huff's face as he read the message. It was a study of surprise and displeasure.

“Where is General Pickering, Pluto?” MacArthur asked. “Still on Espíritu Santo?”

“So far as I know, sir. I've had no word from him.”

“You had best get the President's message to him as soon as possible,” MacArthur ordered.

“I've already had Radio do that, sir.”

“You didn't think, Major,” Huff snapped, “that you should have waited for the Supreme Commander's authority to do so?”

Pluto's temper flared, although it did not show on his face.

“What I thought, Colonel,” he said coldly, “was that General MacArthur would expect me to immediately carry out the wishes of the President.”

“Absolutely,” MacArthur said with a smile.

“I was thinking, sir,” Huff explained, somewhat lamely, “that the President's message was classified
MAGIC
. There's no one on Espíritu Santo cleared for
MAGIC
.”

“No, Colonel,” Pluto said, in the manner of a professor explaining something simple to a dense student. “The President's message was classified Top Secret, not Top Secret—
MAGIC
. The President—or, more likely, Admiral Leahy—chose to transmit it over the Special Channel, probably because that would guarantee the most rapid transmission.”

Huff's face tightened.

Whether MacArthur saw this and decided to pour oil on obviously troubled waters, or whether he was simply in a garrulous mood, he decided to change the subject. “The miracle of modern communications,” he said. “Did I ever tell you, Pluto, that I am a qualified heliograph operator?”

“No, sir,” Pluto said. It took him a long moment to search his brain until he could recall that the heliograph was a Spanish-American War—era method of transmitting Morse code from hilltop to hilltop using tripod-mounted mirrors to reflect the rays of the sun.

“I was seven or eight at the time,” MacArthur went on. “A Signal Corps officer on my father's staff was kind enough to take the time to teach me. By the time I was finished, I could transmit twelve words per minute, which was the speed required of enlisted men assigned to such duties.”

“I've only seen pictures,” Pluto said.

“I believe there's a photo in my album,” MacArthur said. “I'll show it to you tonight, Pluto, before we begin our bridge game.”

“Thank you, sir,” Pluto said.

“About half past seven?” MacArthur asked.

“Whenever it's convenient for you, sir.”

“Then seven-thirty,” MacArthur said. “Thank you, Pluto.”

[THREE]
Espíritu Santo Island
New Hebrides, Southern Pacific Ocean
1620 8 February 1943

At 1130 that morning, Rear Admiral Jerome J. Henton, USN, the commander of US Navy Base (Forward) Espíritu Santo, summoned Captain Howell C. Mitchell, Medical Corps, USN, who commanded the Navy hospital, to his office. Henton told him that he was about to receive six patients, U.S. civilians, four of them female, all in need of urgent medical attention.

“Sir?” Mitchell was confused.

“They were evacuated by submarine from Mindanao, and a Catalina picked them up at sea,” Admiral Henton explained.

Mitchell's eyes widened—Mindanao was in the hands of the Japanese—but he said nothing.

“It's part of a hush-hush Marine Corps operation,” Henton went on. “And the man running it, Brigadier General Pickering, will probably be on the beach to meet the Cat. A very interesting man. Hell of a poker player. And—forewarned is forearmed, as they say—he has friends in very high places.”

“I will treat the gentleman accordingly.”

Six patients in need of urgent medical attention translated to three ambulances. Captain Mitchell ordered four ambulances to the beach, plus four doctors, four nurses, and twelve corpsmen.

When he himself arrived at the beach, he found that the ambulances were already lined up in a row, backed up to the beach. He looked around to see if General Pickering had arrived, and decided he hadn't. Neither of the two staff cars on the island used to transport flag and general officers was in sight. Nor did he see any sign of a general officer's aide-de-camp, or of a vehicle adorned with the silver star on a red tag that proclaimed it was carrying a Marine brigadier. The only other vehicles around were a three-quarter ton truck, carrying the ground crew who would guide the Catalina ashore, and a jeep. Both were parked at the far end of the line of ambulances. Only one man was in the jeep. Captain Mitchell decided the man in the jeep was probably a chief petty officer sent to supervise the beaching of the Catalina.

Before he took another look at the lone man in the jeep, Mitchell worked his way to the end of the line of ambulances, chatting for a moment with each of the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen while simultaneously checking to make sure everything was as it should be.

But when he came close enough to see who was in the jeep, he realized he'd guessed wrong. The man sent to supervise the beaching of the Catalina wasn't a chief petty officer. Pinned to the collar points of his somewhat mussed khakis were the silver stars of a brigadier general.

He walked up to the jeep and saluted.

“Good afternoon, General.”

The salute was returned.

Mitchell's next thought was that General Pickering had intelligent eyes; but, more than that, he also had that hard to define yet unmistakable aura of command. This man was used to giving orders. And used to having his orders carried out.

“Afternoon, Doctor,” General Pickering said, and offered his hand. And then he pointed up at the sky.

Mitchell followed the hand. The Catalina was in the last stages of its amphibious descent. And together they watched as it splashed down and taxied through the water toward the beach.

Pickering got from behind the wheel of the jeep and walked to the edge of the water.

“I'll be damned!” he said, a curious tone in his voice.

“Sir?”

“I just saw one of my men,” Pickering replied. “I really didn't think any of them would be on that airplane.”

“Killer, General Pickering's on the beach,” the tall, solid, not-at-all-bad-looking man peering out the portside bubble of the Catalina announced to the man standing beside him. The man who was standing kept his balance by hanging on to the exposed framing of the Catalina's interior.

The insignia pinned to the khaki fore-and-aft cap stuck through the epaulets of the khaki shirt of the man in the bubble identified him as a Navy lieutenant. His name was Chambers D. Lewis III, and he was aide-de-camp to Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam, who was on the staff of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific.

“Goddamn you, don't call me that,” the other replied, and then the even-featured, well-built, fair-skinned young man leaned far enough into the now-water-splattered bubble to confirm Lewis's sighting. He did not look old enough to be entitled to the silver railroad tracks and Marine globe on his fore-and-aft cap that identified him as a captain, USMC. His name was Kenneth R. McCoy, and he had recently passed his twenty-second birthday.

McCoy and the other two Marines in the Catalina, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman and Staff Sergeant Koffler, were assigned to the USMC Office of Management Analysis. All four men had just been exfiltrated by submarine from the Japanese occupied Philippine island of Mindanao.

When Mindanao had fallen to the Japanese early in 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Wendell W. Fertig, a reserve officer of the Corps of Engineers, had refused to surrender. Instead, he'd gone into the hills, proclaimed himself to be a brigadier general in command of U.S. forces in the Philippines, and commenced guerrilla activities against the Japanese. When he'd finally managed to establish radio communication with the United States and asked for supplies, there was some question about his bona fides. For one thing, General Douglas MacArthur had firmly stated that guerrilla operations in the Philippines were impossible. For another, Army records showed only a Lieutenant Colonel Fertig, not a brigadier general.

In order to better explain these irregularities, President Roosevelt ordered the mounting of a covert operation. This would infiltrate into Mindanao to determine whether Fertig was actually commanding a bona fide guerrilla organization that could do harm to the Japanese, or a pathetic and deluded poseur who, after somehow eluding the Japanese, now had convinced himself that he was a general. Responsibility for the covert operation had been given to Brigadier General Pickering, who had sent McCoy, Zimmerman, and Koffler into the Philippines. They had infiltrated onto Mindanao on a submarine.

Lieutenant Lewis had been assigned to accompany them on the submarine—carrying with him his admiral's authority—and at the very last minute had decided to stay on Mindanao with McCoy and the others.

“Jesus!” Captain McCoy said, then turned from the bubble to a stocky, barrel-chested, ruddy-faced man who had planted himself precisely on the centerline of the fuselage floor. “That's the general, all right, Ernie. I wonder where the hell we're going now.”

Ernest W. Zimmerman, who was twenty-six but looked older, grunted.

The man—the boy—beside Gunny Zimmerman looked very much as if he should be in high school and was, in fact, just a few weeks past his nineteenth birthday. But he was also, in fact, Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler, USMC.

“McCoy,” he asked, in a still-boyish voice. “You think maybe the General's got a letter for me?” Mrs. Daphne Koffler, Sergeant Koffler's Australian wife, was in the terminal days of her first pregnancy.

“We're back in the world, asshole,” Gunny Zimmerman said. “You better get back in the habit of calling the Killer ‘Captain' and ‘Sir.'”

“I don't know, Koffler,” Captain McCoy said. “I wouldn't get my hopes up.”

There was a jolt as one of the lowered wheels encountered the sand of the beach, followed a moment later by a second jolt. The roar of the engines increased as the pilot taxied the Catalina onto the shore.

The port in the fuselage opened and Captain Howell C. Mitchell, MC, USN, stepped through it. He glanced at the four men who were standing, then turned his attention to the patients on litters.

“Doctor, would you rather we got out of the way, or got off?” McCoy asked.

“I think it would be better if you got off,” Mitchell said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said, and, jerked his thumb toward the port in the fuselage, ordering the others to leave the plane.

Doctor Mitchell made the same judgment about the young Marine captain he had made about Brigadier General Pickering. This man was used to giving orders. And having them obeyed.

Koffler went through the port first, followed by Zimmerman, Lewis, and finally McCoy.

When McCoy stepped down from the plane, General Pickering had his arm around Lieutenant Lewis's shoulder and was pumping his hand.

Captain McCoy saluted.

The salute was returned with a casual wave in the direction of General Pickering's forehead, which quickly changed into an arm reaching for McCoy. The General hugged the young captain enthusiastically. To judge by the looks on their faces, few of the medical personnel had ever seen such behavior before on the part of a general. “Goddamn, I'm glad to see you guys,” Pickering said, “and I've got something for you, Ken.”

Pickering walked quickly to his jeep, opened a battered leather briefcase, and withdrew from it a heavy envelope, large enough to hold several business-size envelopes inside. He walked back to McCoy and handed it to him.

McCoy looked at it.

The return address was “Office of Management Analysis, HQ USMC, Washington, D.C.”

It was addressed to General Pickering, at Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Ocean Area. And it had two messages stamped in red ink:
BY HAND OFFICER COURIER ONLY
; and
ADDRESSEE ONLY
.

McCoy looked at General Pickering. Smiling, Pickering gestured for him to open the envelope. It was not sealed. It contained two smaller envelopes. These bore a printed return address on the back:

M
ISS
E
RNESTINE
S
AGE

R
OCKY
F
IELDS
F
ARM

B
ERNARDSVILLE
, N.J.

Without really realizing what he was doing, Captain McCoy raised one of the envelopes to his nose and sniffed.

Oh, God, I can smell her!

Captain McCoy closed his eyes, which had suddenly watered. When he opened them, he saw Staff Sergeant Koffler looking at him as if someone had stolen his little rubber ducky.

If there had been a letter from Daphne for him
, McCoy thought,
the general would already have given it to him
.