Colonel F. L. Rickabee was very impressed with Lieutenant K. R. McCoy. Having placed a great deal of confidence in Major Ed Banning's ability, he had not given a great deal of thought to the problems of extracting the-Howard and Koffler-from Buka... until his somewhat strained luncheon the previous afternoon with a somewhat intoxicated and very upset Brigadier General Fleming Pickering.
After giving the problem some hard thought, he had come up with very much the same conclusion that Banning had obviously reached in Australia-that getting those two guys out was impossible. It seemed pretty clear that McCoy had reached the same conclusion now that the facts were available to him.
This should shut Pickering up, Rickabee thought with a great sense of relief. As a veteran of the Makin raid, McCoy was obviously an expert in rubber boat landings. Pickering would accept his judgment. And McCoy was a Mustang: A former Marine would not decide they couldn't go and pick up the dead and wounded unless it was really impossible.
Better he should get this painful truth from McCoy than from me again.
"I gather that you and Major Banning are in agreement, then, McCoy, that there is absolutely nothing we can do for Joe Howard and Steve Koffler?" General Pickering asked, his voice now sounding very tired.
"No, Sir," McCoy said. "I didn't say that."
"Well then, goddamn it, let's have it!"
"I thought of two ways we might be able to carry this off," McCoy said.
"One's kind of wild."
"Let's hear it, McCoy."
"I started out with the submarine idea," McCoy said.
"Christ, there's so much I don't know!"
"We can get answers. Go ahead," Pickering said.
"Yes, Sir. OK. Step one. We find a beach that will take boats. Depending on what the surf and the beach are like when we get there, we put ashore the radios, the replacement Marines, and an Australian Coastwatcher. We'll also bring one, or better, two natives who know the island and can find Ferdinand Six. If the surf is bad, we just put the natives ashore. We don't try to land the radios and the replacement team. Then the natives find Ferdinand Six and tell them where the submarine will be probably a different beach. Maybe with a little bit of luck, there would be native boats to go out to the submarine-"
"I like it," General Pickering said, looking triumphantly at Colonel Rickabee.
Oh, shit! Rickabee thought.
"Then," McCoy went on, "as I was thinking about that, I had a wild hare."
And how, Lieutenant McCoy, Rickabee wondered, would you describe your previous "Errol Flynn Fights the Nasty Nips" idea as a tame hare?
"Well'?"
"Use an R4D, just go in, off-load the replacement team and radios, and pick up the guys that are there,"
McCoy said.
"I thought it was pretty well established that there was no airfield."
"There's beaches," McCoy said. "Maybe there's the right kind of sand, packed so it will take an R4D."
"I don't think so," Sessions said.
"You're talking about landing an R4D on a beach?" Rickabee asked incredulously. "It would just sink in."
"I've been nosing around for the Mongolian Operation," McCoy said. "We can make that flight only one time. If the Japs see the plane, we have to hope they think it was some guy just got lost. But if two planes got lost, they would be very suspicious. So we're going to have to take everything we'll need in with us and get it safely on the ground. And it's a one-way ride; there's no way the plane can get out again. So the question came up-they're still talking about it-of what to do with the airplane."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, McCoy," Pickering said.
"General, I'll have the Mongolia file in your hands this afternoon," Rickabee said.
"I want to hear about it now."
"General, we're getting into Need to Know," Rickabee said, gesturing toward Dillon and Hart.
"I'll decide who needs to know what," Pickering said icily.
"Go on, McCoy."
"Sir, we're setting up a weather observation station in the Mongolian desert. The only way we can get in is by air. So they're going to add auxiliary fuel tanks to an R4D that will give us the necessary range from the Aleutian Islands-"
"The Japanese hold Attu in the Aleutians," Pickering interrupted.
"Yes, Sir. That's one of the problems. Anyway, we can probably get enough range to make it in. The original idea was to parachute the team in and then leave the airplane on automatic pilot and let it crash when it ran out of fuel. But they were still cutting the fuel supply so tight, they were afraid it would run out too close to the drop site. So then they thought if they didn't use parachutes and the packing necessary for the equipment, they could carry that much more fuel. So they've been wondering how they land the plane in the desert. Maybe just land it and bury it in sand. Or maybe land it, unload it, and then take off again and put it on autopilot. Anyway, they're working on how to land it on sand. I don't know whether that will work, or if it does, whether it would work on a beach in Buka, but it would sure solve a lot of problems."
"The plane that dropped Howard and Koffler on Buka was shot down on its way home," Rickabee said.
This Mongolian Operation, obviously, is just about as risky for the people involved as Ferdinand Six, Pickering thought. And one of the reasons McCoy is so matter-of-factly willing to go on it is that he believes, as a matter of faith, that if he gets in trouble, somebody else in The Corps will do all that's humanly possible to get him out.
I'm right about this! Even if Rickabee, and probably Sessions, think I'm a goddamned fool "We could solve that problem, too," Pickering said. "Who's `they,' McCoy? Where are they working on this land-on-sand business?"
"At an Army Air Corps airfield in Florida, General. On the Florida panhandle, up near the Alabama border."
"That's where Jimmy Doolittle trained for his B-25 Shangrila mission on Tokyo," Pickering thought aloud.
"Eglin Field, I think, Sir," McCoy said.
"No. It's probably an auxiliary field, between Eglin and Pensacola. I was there a while back. Is there any reason you can't go down there and find out something for sure?"
"I can go down there, yes, Sir."
"Then go."
"General, if I could have Lieutenant Moore and Sergeant Hart... having them with me might be helpful."
"OK. Whatever you think you need," Pickering said, and went on: "We have concluded that the extraction of Joe Howard and Steve Koffler is not impossible..." You have the fantasy that it's not impossible, Rickabee thought. Jesus Christ, landing an airliner on a beach, right under the nose of the Japanese! Fifty, sixty miles from a Japanese fighter base!
"We will now deal with your statement, Colonel, that my going to Australia is òut of the question."
"Admiral Leahy would not give you permission, General", Rickabee said. And then, anticipating Pickering's response to that, he went on. "And if you were to go without permission, he would order you home as soon as he heard about it. Among other things, that would serve to call attention to this operation, which is the last thing you want to happen."
"Jesus!" Pickering said bitterly.
It was clear to Rickabee that he had made his point.
"Lieutenant McCoy," he said, "carrying a letter of instructions from you, General, to Major Banning, would, I suggest, be all that's needed."
"I don't think so," Pickering said. "McCoy is a lieutenant, Banning a major. What I have been thinking is that Jake outranks Banning." Goddamn it, I should have known he would pick up on that, Rickabee thought. Dillon came back into The Corps as a major while Banning was still in the Philippines as a captain.
"Flem, for Christ's sake," Jake Dillon said uncomfortably, "I'm a press agent wearing a major's uniform. I don't know anything about this sort of thing."
"You're a Marine, Jake," Pickering said. "And all you have to do is go there and report to me that Banning is or is not doing what you tell him to do. And what you tell him to do is what McCoy tells you he
wants done."
"General, that puts me in a hell of a spot," McCoy said.
"There is a limited access communications channel available to us. Moore is familiar with it..." Pickering said.
Jesus, he's talking about the MAGIC channel, Rickabee thought. He shouldn't even think of using that for this harebrained scheme of his! But Jesus, except for Admiral Leahy or the President himself there's no one to tell him he can't.
"We will utilize that to keep in touch with day-to-day developments. As Rickabee just pointed out, the less attention paid to this operation, the better. The question, John, is whether you feel up to going back to Australia."
"Yes, Sir. I feel fine."
"General, he's walking around with a cane!" Rickabee protested.
"You're sure?" Pickering asked Moore.
"Yes, Sir, I'm sure," Lieutenant Moore said.
"OK. We're under way," Pickering said. "Now we start with the administrative details. I've got some letters to write. Can I have a typewriter sent over here, Rickabee?"
"I'll send you a secretary, Sir."
"I asked for a typewriter," Pickering said.
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"You can start on getting orders cut," Pickering said. "And McCoy and Moore and Hart will need plane tickets right away." "Sir," Lieutenant McCoy said, "the overnight train to Miami-`Seacoast Airline' they call it for some reason I never understood comes through Washington at half past six. If we could get on that, we could get a good night's sleep. We could get off in Tallahassee and catch the Greyhound bus to Eglin."
"See if you can get them a compartment-compartments- on the train," Pickering ordered. "And see if you can't arrange to have somebody from Eglin pick them up at Tallahassee."
"Aye, Aye, Sir," Sessions said. "No problem, we have an officer there in connection with Operation CHINA SUN." In the car on the way back to the Mall and Temporary Building T-2032, Captain Edward Sessions turned to Colonel F. L. Rickabee and asked, "Do you think they'll be able to pull this off, Colonel?"
"It isn't my place to think about my orders, Captain. I'm a Marine officer; when I am given an order, I do my best to carry it out. But since you asked, no, I don't think so. Do I hope they can? Yes, I do."
"Why do you suppose McCoy wanted to take Moore and Hart with him to Florida?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Rickabee said, "my mind being otherwise occupied with such mundane questions as under what authority we are going to be able to transport Major Dillon to Australia. He is assigned to Public Affairs, after all.
... And on the subject of Major Dillon, did it occur to you that Dillon has been made privy to Operation CHINA SUN?"
"I think Dillon can be trusted to keep his mouth shut, Colonel. "
"I hope so," Rickabee said. "Jesus Christ, I hope so!" Second Lieutenant John Marston Moore waited until they were in suite 614 of the Foster Lafayette Hotel before asking the question Captain Sessions asked: "Exactly what are we going to do in Florida, McCoy?"
"I'm going to talk to an Air Corps guy I met down there. He knows all about the kind of sand you need to land airplanes on.
And, more important, he invented a gimmick... you stick a cone, sort of, just far enough into the sand to make it stand up.
Then you drop a ten-pound weight on it from exactly twenty
four inches. How far that drives the cone into the ground tells you how much weight the sand will support."
"Fascinating," Moore said.
"I want to talk to him and talk him out of a couple of the cone things-as many as he'll give me," McCoy said. "That'll probably take the better part of an hour. Two hours if he buys us lunch in their officer's club.
That reminds me, Hart, you're going to have to wear civilian clothes."
"Yes, Sir," Hart said.
"And what else?"
"The beach along the Gulf Coast there is as pretty as any in Hawaii," McCoy said. "And the seafood is great. With a little bit of luck, we'll have twenty-four hours, maybe thirty-six, before Sessions gets us seats on the courier plane out of Pensacola back here."
"What do you need us along for?" Hart asked.
"Beth said she was on vacation," McCoy said. "Don't you think she'd like a day or two on the beach in Florida? And a romantic dinner on a train? I know damned well Ernie will."
"Who's Beth?" Moore asked.
"Hart's girlfriend," McCoy said. "She came to Washington to see him."
"That was the mysterious telephone call?" Moore asked.
Hart nodded.
Jesus, what the hell will happen if they find out what Beth does for a living? Hart asked himself.
It took Hart a moment to decide that McCoy was perfectly serious.
McCoy saw the look on his face, and on Moore's.
"Would you two like a few words of wisdom from an old Marine?" he asked, and went on without waiting for a reply "In case you haven't figured this out yet, we're about to get shipped out. The way Pickering is pushing Rickabee, we're going just as soon as they can cut orders. When Pickering said he wanted me to find out about landing an R4D on sand, the first thing I thought was that I would call this Air Corps guy, tell him the problem, then send Hart down there to get the gimmicks to test the sand.
Then I thought that if I hung around here waiting for him to come back, Rickabee and Sessions would find things for me to do. Then I decided that I would have to go myself, even though that's a sacrifice.
Then I decided that it would not be fair to a wounded hero-such as yourself, Lieutenant Moore-to leave you behind to run errands while Sergeant Hart and myself and our girlfriends are riding on a luxury train and lying on a Florida beach. Am I getting through to you two?"
Moore laughed. "It sounds like we'll be busy!" he said.
"As General Pickering said to me just this morning," McCoy said, " `Take what you can, when you can get it." Who am I to argue with a general?" Then he saw the look on Hart's face.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you think Beth will want to, go?"
"I'm sure she'll want to go," Hart said.
I'm not sure I should take her. Jesus, why did she have to be a whore?
"Then you better get your ass over to Union Station and get tickets for the girls on the Seacoast Airline Limited or whatever the hell they call it. You got any money?" he asked, as he took a sheaf of bills from his pocket.
"Pity you don't have a girl, Moore," McCoy said. "But maybe you'll get lucky in the club car."
When Major Jake Dillon walked into the Metro-Magnum Studios suite in the Willard Hotel, Veronica Wood was preparing herself for her day's work: Her long blond hair was pulled tightly back against her head, and she had converted the coffee table in the sitting room to a makeup table. She was wearing a really ugly brown cotton bathrobe.
"Where the hell have you been?" she asked, looking up at him. The bathrobe was hanging open.
Fantastic teats!
"I had work to do," Jake said.
"You think those cheap bastards would put a decent goddamned dressing room in here," Veronica said.
"I've got an interview with that bitch from the Post at noon. I'm going to look like shit."
"This is Seymour's apartment," Dillon said, referring to the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Metro-Magnum Studios. "He doesn't like to look at himself in mirrors." She chuckled and smiled at him.
"You had a telephone call," she said. "Couple of them.
Same guy. Name of Stewart. He's pissed at something."
"Did he say he was `General' Stewart?" Veronica thought about that a moment, and then nodded.
"Yeah. He did."
"Oh, shit."
"He said you were supposed to call him the minute you got I in."
"OK, thank you, sweetheart."
"You're going to be with me at lunch, right?"
"I don't think that's possible, honey."
"Goddamn, Jake, you know I can't deal with that goddamned dyke!"
"Bobby O'Hara will be there," Jake sa
id. "I'll call him."
"I want you there, goddamn it, Jake!"
"Bobby is very good with her," Dillon said. "They're both Irish." He picked up the telephone and made two calls. The first was to Mr. Robert T. O'Hara, of the Washington office of Metro-Magnum Studios, Inc., to remind him he had a luncheon engagement with Miss Veronica Wood. The call lasted about sixty seconds.
The second, to Colonel F. L. Rickabee of the Office of Management Analysis, was even more brief.
"Colonel, Jake Dillon. General Stewart has been looking for me. I'm supposed to call him."
"Don't call him. Don't go near him. I'll take care of it," Rickabee said, and then the line went dead.
"Please, Jake!" Veronica Wood asked. "Come with me'." I was nice to you. "
"That was last night. What have you done for me today?"
"You sonofabitch!" Veronica said delightedly. "That's why I love you. You're a prick but you admit it."
"If I go to lunch with you, will you promise not to say `prick'? I don't think Whatsername from the Post likes that word." The telephone rang again. Dillon picked it up. As he spoke his name, he realized that was pretty dumb. It was probably General Stewart, shitting a brick about something.
"Hey, Jake. Charley Stevens. How the hell are you?" Charley Stevens was a screenwriter.
"How are you, Charley?"
"Got a question, Jake. I'm doing the first rewrite of the Wake Island script. Got a question, figured you were a Marine and could answer it. Need some love interest. Please tell me, there were nurses on Wake Island?"
"No nurses on Wake Island, Charley, sorry."
"Shit!" Charley Stevens said.
"You'll think of something, Charley," Jake said and hung up.
[Two]
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
OFFICE HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Line of Fire Page 34
