Pacific Nocturne, 1944

by Don DeNevi

  After a pause, Peter grinned,

  “Believe me, I know the type.”

  “Now, let me have your sealed confidential letter. I will destroy it for you. I will read your new order. You will listen to your new order and, once again, not receive a copy. In this instance, as well, the order will be destroyed. All you have in hand for your new assignment will be a pass document Captain Wallace will give to you for train travel to and from Arkansas, and my phone number.”

  Peter remained silent as he handed over the old confidential envelope.

  Colonel Paige tore open the newly arrived radiogram; showed it to Peter for a moment, then read him the contents:

  U.S. Navy Department

  Washington, D.C.

  August 21, 1944

  In Reply Refer

  To Number

  M/O 12/1164

  From: The Director

  The Officer-In-Charge, Security

  Reference:

  1) You are temporarily ordered for the duration of the spoken word assignment as an undercover agent, special and unencumbered, to the 1st Provisional Military Police Battalion FMFPAC. All modes of travel will be Class A (Special)

  2) Colonel Stuart Paige, temporarily commanding the 2nd Provisional MP Battalion, will be your exclusive monitor.

  Major General Homer Isetti

  As the two Command vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the Southern Pacific - Union Pacific Station terminal in west Sacramento, the busiest in the San Joaquin Valley, and the third busiest in the state of California, Peter was dismayed that the colonel had ordered the driver to drive past the long line of local autos dropping off or picking up passengers. An M.P. traffic officer waving his baton and calling out there was no parking in the area, Paige jumped from the auto and confronted the M.P. with a document. The MP immediately waved Peter, Paige, and Wallace through, then pointing to where the drivers were allowed to park.

  Entering the station-terminal on the western outskirts of Sacramento, Peter was amazed how the station had grown and developed in less than four years. For decades, it had been the main starting point for long-distance central California travelers to all points east, especially New York and Washington, D.C. Lined up on the sidewalk outside the terminal’s entrance were more than 200 troops with M-1 rifles, backpacks, and carry-on gear waiting to board Southern Pacific’s 3767 for transportation to the Oakland-Berkley Ferry for passage across the Bay to San Francisco’s Fort Mason, the west coast’s main point embarkation for the islands of the Pacific.

  “Let’s go, Peter,” Colonel Paige said somberly. “Captain Wallace will accompany you. I’ll explain in a moment.”

  Into the terminal Paige led Peter, with Captain Wallace following. Long noisy lines of civilian passengers standing before ticket booths greeted them. Cutting straight through, Peter overheard such comments as, “Lady, stop shoving me! You ain’t going nowhere,” “Oh, dear! I’ve got to meet my sailor husband in San Diego tomorrow and he’s only got a one-day pass,” “All I’ve done since I got here is stand in line to get a back seat”, “I hear the ticket agent hasn’t slept for six months’ “I should have had my reservation before I gave up my hotel room”, etc.

  Paige, noticing Peter’s curiosity, chuckled, “Lieutenant, this is precisely why we have millions of posters throughout stateside reading, ‘IS YOUR TRIP ESSENTIAL?’”

  As Peter nodded, soberly, the colonel said, “Hopefully, we’re going to miss the ‘Big Rush’. I see through the far windows a troop train is just pulling up. All the boys on that train will be running in here to the two canteens. Happens every few hours. The train pulls in for less than half an hour and everyone on board dashes for the station canteens, one where you pay, the other free of charge. Never fails, a few don’t allow enough time to buy their ‘goodies’, and the train pulls out leaving them behind or running down the track after it. It’s really quite hilarious. They walk back, some of them almost in tears, because they know they are in huge trouble.”

  As the three continued toward the departure-arrival platform, Paige pointed to his left at a “waiting canteen” that had been setup. He said with a smile,

  “The ladies and women, mostly housewives of Sacramento, all volunteers, now wait for every troop train going through the Capitol of California that stop to drop off and pick up troops. They put up that big sign, ‘Come and enjoy our way of saying thanks for protecting our shores’. God bless them. They always have ready for the soldiers hot coffee, cold drinks, doughnuts, homemade cookies, and sandwiches.

  With Captain Wallace bringing up the rear, Paige led the three-man group through the lobby of the main station to the military passenger boarding platform. Wallace had not uttered a single word since being introduced.

  “I’d say, by my watch, she’ll pull in about seven minutes from now,” commented the colonel.

  “You’re that exact?” Peter asked, “Marvelous! But look around this place. That yard over there: Unloading vehicles, crates, weapons; tanks, half-traks being loaded on flat cars. And, look at those coaches with troops leaning out the windows talking to ground personnel. On the other side there, more military trains awaiting departure from staging area landing platforms. And, there,” he pointed, “Pullman Company Streamliner sleeping cars with a detachment of WAAC’s, 46th Company, I think, waiting to board.”

  “You bet. Lots of action at this key railway center, especially on the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific yards. So much needed equipment pouring out to fellas spread offensively across the Pacific. And, the newly-designed troop carriers, or trains, with army kitchen cars at the head-ends,” Paige enthused excitedly. “And all headed to either Fort Mason by ferry, or by freight car or flatbed to the Oakland Naval Supply Center, near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. And, Peter, I don’t know if you know this, but see all those ‘old timers’ around here and on the yards over there. Every one of those old guys is between 40 and 85 years of age. They’ve taken over the jobs of the younger men assigned to the Military Railway Battalions. They are the conductors, brakemen, flagmen, porters, cooks, etc. who wear gold insignias showing their lengths of service. For example, a gold star depicts 25 years of service while a gold bar indicates five years of service.”

  “No. When there’s time, I want to research and read about the activities of the Military Railway Battalions formed directly from the Railway Companies themselves. A great concept!”

  “Peter, here comes your Southern Pacific train now. It’s the Southern Pacific’s 4313 Troop Train No. 9, the ‘Fast Mile’. It won’t be the most comfortable of troop trains because it’s made up of mail and express cars with a few passenger cars at the rear end. It’s a very fast train that carries the California bulk mail. Someday, after the war, the airlines will carry all that mail.”

  “For me, the faster the train to get me to the Rohwer Internment Camp in McGehee, Arkansas, the better. If necessary, I’ll stand all the way. Believe me, colonel, she’ll do.”

  “Peter, we have less than a few minutes. Let me explain. When Major General Commandant Rupertus informed us the top-secret aspect of your next assignment, and the fact that you had an almost three-week furlough coming, and that you had shared with a friend or two your desire to travel to the Rohwer Camp, several officers in different transportation departments, as I’ve outlined, planned everything for you. They chose the fastest, quickest method to get you there and back in the shortest amount of time. The Union Pacific route would take 2 ¾ days, the Southern Pacific, less than two days. There is no single route between Sacramento and Rohwer, or McGehee, the town. Either way, either railroad company, means endless stops, but less so by the Southern Pacific across the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. For example, the route to Arkansas using all Union Pacific trains take you through Nevada, Northern Utah, Southern Wyoming, then change to UP trains to travel through northeast Colorado, Northern Kansas to St. Louis, then another change to the Dixie Line, I think, to Little Rock and a bus to Rohwer. Along that route,
you’d be service by mostly the ‘old timers’ since the company has more than 7,000 employees.”

  “Well, we put you on the Southern Pacific which is coming up. It’s not the ‘San Joaquin Daylight’, ‘Sunbeam’, or ‘Lark’ streamliners, which are far more comfortable, but, as you say, ‘It’ll do’. Mail train, No. 9, the ‘Fast Mile’, will take you to Los Angeles, over to Phoenix and Tucson, over the Continental Divide to El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, and up into Arkansas and McGehee on or near the Mississippi. You’ll cross pleasant valleys, mountain ranges, deserts, and both beautiful and ugly territories. You’ll be in the thick of America at war railroading, which, in a way, is quite thrilling. So, sit back window-side and enjoy the scenery.”

  After a pause, Colonel Paige glanced at Captain Wallace, and with a slight wave of hand, added, “Lieutenant Toscanini, you are now at the full mercy of this officer. He’ll see to it that all your travel documents to and from McGehee are in order. He’ll also see to it your seating, sleeping berths, and dining needs are met. All in all, we’ve done the best we could on such short notice. I will be monitoring the best way I can all your movements. You’ll report to me immediately upon reentering California. Goodbye, for now, lieutenant. After meeting you, I’m certain you’re the right man for the job to come. It’ll be a pleasure working with you.”

  With that, a sharp strident shrill of a locomotive whistle pierced the terminal, and as lieutenant Peter waved a final “Then, until... “, Paige quickly departed, Captain Wallace stepped forward. In a low, dull voice, he uttered sullenly, “Follow me.”

  And, within moments, Peter found himself relaxing in the window seat of the last of six passenger cars attached to the heavily laden mail train. As Captain Wallace wiped the seat clean opposite the lieutenant, and shuffled the papers in his carry-on, searching for a memorandum, Peter noted Southern Pacific yard workers attaching a string of flatcars loaded with heavy antiaircraft guns and M3 tanks to his car.

  “Strange to see all this so close to my home in Stockton, down the road,” he said more to himself than Captain Wallace.

  “Happens every half hour,” responded Wallace, without looking up.

  Peter, with his duffle bag on the seat next to him, nodded silently.

  Leaning back on the cushioned padding of the leather seat, Peter studied Wallace for the first time since being introduced to him less than an hour and a half before. He certainly was heavy, large, and powerful. Although a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Army Transportation and Movement Division, he offered not a word of explanation, advice, or guidance. If anything, he walked in a manner suggesting sententious petulance. He was ugly, and his behavior didn’t offset that apparent façade. It wasn’t that Peter felt unsure of him. He simply didn’t like this man who appeared to be a deaf mute.

  Then, after two shrill whistles from the locomotive cabin, the Train #10 began to pull away from the military passenger terminal for the 400-mile journey to Los Angeles and the Southern Pacific yards there. Opposite Peter, Captain Wallace looked up and said with a touch of anger,

  “Now that the little shit is gone, I have things to tell you. First, the Mad Ghoul hung himself early this morning. He was assigned a single cell in the Guadalcanal stockade and had virtually the entire hospital staff on Canal at his service. He left you a long letter and the commandant is studying it now.”

  Shaken to his core by the news, Peter was instantly, alert, wide-eyed, and speechless. After a long silence, he asked weakly, almost inaudibly,

  “Say it again, please, and how? Besides, how would you know?”

  “He used one bed sheet, and a dozen boot laces. He somehow managed to hang himself from the upper bunk of his bed since he was in his cell alone. And, he was supposedly being watched 24/7. Today, he would have been placed aboard the hospital ship in a super secure cell and taken to Honolulu, presumably for trial and execution.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Why, of course. Everyone is talking about you and how you saved Bob Hope’s life. I know little of what the Ghoul did. No one really does, because the USMC wants to rid itself of the incident forever. Can’t have that in the Corps, a Marine murdering Marines. So, the news people will never hear of it, and, if it gets out, the Corps will deny it. So, no details about him and his nurse partner. But the officers know, and won’t tell, or will deny, deny, and deny. But everyone knows about Lieutenant Peter Toscanini.”

  Peter turned to gaze out the window as the train, well on its way south, was approaching the northern limits of Galt, California.

  “Lieutenant, allow me to give you a clue…”

  “Damn, I needed to talk to him. He kept muttering, ‘Give me a gun’ or, ‘wonder man, will you lend me a gun?’ something or other about a ‘wonder man’, as he grappled for mine! But I couldn’t quite make out what he said as he was cursing me at the same time in his thick overworked lisp. I’ve been bothered since his identification and capture about something; I just can’t figure out what. Were there additional murderers operating together? If so, whom? And why? Why our own men? And, now he’s cheated us out of answers unless he put it all in his letter to me. How do you hang yourself with shoelaces? How do I make out his words?”

  “I have no answers for you, lieutenant. Our offices were all informed so as to get you where you wished to go. But I do have information on what follows after your next assignment, should you survive it.”

  “Go ahead,” Peter asked, intently, leaning forward forgetting the upper San Joaquin Valley scenery that glided by. The air, hot and a bit stale, in the coach couldn’t be ignored, however.

  “Nothing about as violent as you’ve just gone through, and are about to go through at Camp Elliott,” the stocky, taciturn captain began, “but certainly an interesting story.”

  After a pause, Captain Wallace continued,

  “It seems that the USMC has a Jap turncoat on its hands. Not an ordinary ‘Banzai’ screaming foot soldier, but a highly intelligent, English-speaking lieutenant who was born somewhere in California in the 1920s, taken by his parents to live and go to school in Japan in the 1930s, then became an officer in the early 40s, served on Guadalcanal fighting our boys of the 1st Division, then suddenly one night, made it through his and our lines by crawling among the millions of land crabs, and finally walked up to a sentry outside one of the camps, introduced himself and said he really was an American and not a Jap enemy. He needed to speak to an officer, then be turned over to our Intelligence Division. The sentry was about to shoot him when another sentry intervened. Since then, he’s been helping our people plan strikes against the Imperial Army’s various Divisions, especially the 100th. He’s continuing to help, and everyone who deals with him likes him. I forgot his name, but he’s a Kibei, a person of Japanese descent born here, but returns to Japan. Your woman is a Nisei, born here by parents who were born here, but whose grandparents emigrated to California from Japan, I think. It’s something like that.”

  “Well, the upshot is this: The guy is helping us a lot. But is he leading us, our intelligence people, down a primrose path to the ultimate battle that will win the war for Japan by betraying our Allied Forces? He’s been grilled for months, trying to discern whether the Jap is nuts, or an elaborate subterfuge to lead our militaries into a huge trap. Your job will be to get next to him, befriend him, with your Nisei woman, and get to the truth. In fact, you’re not to know any of this. You are not to even tell your woman about any of this. You may even have a change of assignment as you arrive back and meet with the little traitor. I’m telling you all this because it’s only fair, and my way to sticking it up the ass of that little shit, Colonel Paige. I hope you’ll never tell, or bring up, what I forewarned you about. With this, you won’t be caught off-guard.”

  Occasionally, the train’s whistle blew, and, approaching Woodbridge, Lodi, and North Stockton, slowed down to less than 40 miles per hour. For several minutes, Peter said nothing, as he gazed out the window at the beautiful flatlands of varying a
gricultural crops growing in the late summer heat. Finally, he looked over at Captain Wallace and said, pensively,

  “Captain, thank you. I truly appreciate your well-meaning forewarning. It will help me and may even save my life in the assignments to come. I’m indebted and won’t forget. Thank you, sir.”

  A bare grin played upon the captain’s clenched lips, as he nodded. Both men then fell into a long silence as each gazed through the window. Without stopping, the troop train slowly passed through the northern southern Pacific Station. Peter, changing seats, could look down familiar streets to his grandmother’s home on East Sonora Street 25 blocks away. He knew she would be busy in the kitchen.

  For the following three hours, Peter sat or stretched out on the upholstered seat watching pedestrians, or the scenery, small towns, and large cities roll by. He saw for himself at virtually every stop of the train #10 how the war’s great demands for fighting men, munitions, and equipment were making on transportation’s normal freight and passenger priorities.

  And, for the first time, he saw for himself how patriotic everyone was, per railroad managers, ticket sellers and ticket takers, railway military police, shippers, government agency personnel, and yard workers, handling every type of movement locomotives wielded, including livestock, vehicles, baggage of every imaginable shape and size.

  As Captain Wallace put it when he shook Peter’s hand, bidding him farewell until they met again, standing together for a final moment on the military passenger platform of the Southern Pacific’s Union Station in Los Angeles,

  “Well, lieutenant, you’ll only see a fraction of the 41,000 locomotives of America’s fighting railroads, of the 2,000,000 freight cars deep speeding over 230,000 miles of rail lines. You’ll see an incredible amount of handling and tendering. The whole nation is at war against the Krauts and Nips, and you’ll be thick in the machinery that will bring about victory.”