Battleground

by W. E. B Griffin

  Jake Dillon was no fool. He had not been a fool when he was a staff sergeant in Shanghai, and he’d learned a good deal more about people during his time in Hollywood. He was fully aware that General Harris didn’t like him personally and regarded his official function as that of a parasite on the body of the First Marine Division specifically and the Corps generally.

  “May I get right to the point, Sir?” Dillon asked.

  “You’d better,” Harris said, tempering it with a faint smile.

  “Sir, I’ve got a pretty good friend in MacArthur’s headquarters.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me, Major Dillon?” Harris said and immediately regretted it. He saw in Dillon’s eyes the hurt the sarcasm had caused.

  “Sir, I think he could be helpful with regard to intelligence,” Dillon went on.

  “He’s an intelligence officer?” Harris asked, wondering if Dillon really didn’t know that intelligence officers pass out information outside their own headquarters only when specifically ordered to do so, and then did so reluctantly.

  “No, Sir. He’s ... Frank Knox sent him over to keep an eye on MacArthur for him.”

  “You are referring to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and General MacArthur?” Harris asked. Dillon nodded, completely oblivious to the oblique reprimand. “And how do you know this?”

  “It was all over Washington, General,” Dillon said confidently.

  This sonofabitch probably was privy to all the high level gossip in Washington. I wouldn’t really be surprised if he calls the Secretary of the Navy by his first name.

  “Who are we talking about, Dillon?”

  “Fleming Pickering, General. He’s a Navy Captain. He owns Pacific & Far East Shipping.”

  “And how do you know Captain Pickering?” Harris asked.

  “I used to shoot skeet with him in California,” Dillon said. “He’s a big skeet shooter. I met him through Bob Stack.”

  I am about to lose my temper. How dare this sonofabitch waste my time like this?

  “The actor, you mean?” Harris asked, evenly.

  “Yes, Sir. We had a team for a couple of years, me, Stack, Clark Gable, Howard Hawks—the director—and Pickering.”

  “Major,” Harris said, his voice low and icy, “are you actually suggesting to me that because a Navy captain shot skeet with you and some other Hollywood types before the war, he would make intelligence available to you that we could not get through official channels?”

  “No, Sir. Not because of the skeet. He was a Marine. He was a corporal in War One. He and Doc McInerney and Jack Stecker were buddies at Belleau Wood. He’s got the Silver Star and the Croix de Guerre. He was wounded a couple of times, too.”

  “By ‘Doc McInerney,’ Major, I gather you are referring to General McInerney?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Dillon said. “And Captain Pickering’s boy is in the Corps. The last I heard he was a second lieutenant learning to fly Wildcats at Pensacola.”

  I’ll be goddamned. This guy Pickering might be damned useful.

  “Sergeant!” Harris raised his voice. His sergeant quickly appeared at his door. “Send for Major Stecker, 2nd Battalion, 5th. Get him in here right away. And then pass the word to Colonel Goettge that I may want to see him within the next half hour.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  X

  (One)

  THE ELMS

  DANDENONG, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

  1430 HOURS 1 JULY 1942

  When Mrs. Cavendish put her head in the library and told him that there was a telephone call for him, Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, was sitting at a typewriter set up on a heavy library table. He was writing to his beloved, and he was having difficulty. It was a love letter, of course, and he was highly motivated to write it, but neither his passionate intentions, nor the typewriter, nor the privacy of being alone in the house (except for the servants) seemed to help.

  There didn’t seem to be a hell of a lot one could say on the subject, beyond the obvious, especially for someone who had absolutely no flair for the well-turned romantic phrase. He couldn’t even call to mind much of the established literature on the subject, from which he would have eagerly and shamelessly plagiarized.

  He got as far as “How do I love thee, let me count the ways—” and then his mind went blank. A phrase—“Thus have I had thee” from a poem he thought was called “Cynara” by Ernest Dowson—kept coming into his mind. But he wasn’t sure that was the title, that Ernest Dowson had actually written it; and not only couldn’t he remember what came after “Thus have I had thee,” but those words seemed to paint an erotic picture, in the biblical sense ... as in “Thus have I had thee, standing up against the refrigerator in the apartment on Rittenhouse Square.” And the last thing in the world he wanted to do was let Barbara think that all he was interested in was the physical side of their relationship.

  That was fine, marvelous, splendid, of course, but his love for her was more than that. He loved her because ...

  He knew the one thing he could not write to her about was what he was doing now in Australia. Even if he could, he still didn’t have all that squared away in his mind. So much had happened to him so quickly, so much that was so extraordinary, and so much he could only guess at, that his confusion was certainly understandable.

  Major Banning had driven him from the hill overlooking Port Philip Bay to The Elms. And Lieutenant Hon had been waiting for them there, sitting on the wide veranda of the mansion drinking a beer.

  It was the most cordial greeting Moore had ever received from an officer.

  “I’m very glad to meet you, Sergeant,” he said in Japanese, extending his hand before Moore could even begin to salute. “I owe you a big one.”

  He looked over Moore’s shoulder at Major Banning and explained his last remark: “The Captain called early this morning and said, ‘Pluto, I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it be more convenient if you moved into The Elms with the Sergeant? Would you mind?’ ”

  Banning laughed.

  “I told him that no sacrifice for the war effort, like moving into The Elms, was too much to ask of me.”

  “That was very noble of you, Pluto,” Banning said, in Japanese.

  “And I owe it all to you, Sergeant. So welcome, welcome!”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Soon after that, a motherly gray-haired woman came onto the veranda, and was introduced as Mrs. Cavendish, the housekeeper.

  “Let me show you where you’ll be staying, Sergeant, and then we’ll serve lunch,” she said.

  Moore expected that he would be given a servant’s room, probably on the third floor of the mansion. But he was taken instead to a large and airy room on the second floor complete with an enormous tiled bath.

  “Get yourself settled,” she said. “If you have any soiled clothing, or something that needs pressing, just leave it on the bed.”

  A luncheon of roast pork, green beans, applesauce, coffee, and apple pie was served in the dining room. The tableware was silver, the plates were fine china, the napkins and tablecloth linen, and the glassware that elegantly cradled Moore’s beer was Czechoslovakian crystal.

  After lunch, they drove into Melbourne to the Menzies Hotel. Lieutenant Hon told Moore to drive: “That’s the best way to learn the route. If somebody else is driving, your mind goes to sleep.”

  At the Menzies, Hon told him to park in an area marked, RESERVED FOR GENERAL STAFF OFFICIAL VEHICLES.

  “Our boss, Moore, ranks right under the Emperor in the pecking order around here. And this is his car.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  At the elevator bank, where Banning left them, Moore saw that one elevator bore a sign, RESERVED FOR GENERAL MACARTHUR. He hoped that he would get a chance to see him.

  That would be something to write and tell Barbara about. Oh, shit! I can’t do that, either.

  They rode the elevator to the basement, and then walked past an OFF LIMITS sign down a low, brick-lined corridor to a steel door gu
arded by two soldiers armed with Thompson submachine guns.

  “This the new man, Lieutenant?” one of the soldiers asked.

  “Sergeant Moore, Sergeant Skelly,” Lieutenant Hon replied.

  “Welcome to the dungeon, Moore,” Sergeant Skelly said. “The way this works is that you have to show your dog tags to the guard on duty and then sign the register. He’ll check your signature against the one on file, and let you in. If you take anything Top SECRET out of here, it has to be logged out, and you have to be armed, and you have to carry it in a handcuff briefcase.”

  “A what?”

  Hon leaned behind Sergeant Skelly’s desk and picked up a leather briefcase from a stack of them. Attached to the handle was a foot-long length of stainless steel cable welded to half of a pair of handcuffs.

  “There’s a couple of .45s in our safe,” Hon explained.

  “You also have to log out CONFIDENTIAL and SECRET,” Sergeant Skelly went on, “but you don’t need the pistol or the briefcase.”

  “OK,” Moore said.

  Hon bent over the register and signed his name, then showed Moore where he was to sign. Sergeant Skelly pushed a 3 × 5 inch card across the small desk to Moore.

  “Sign it,” he said. “This is the one we keep on file.”

  Moore signed it.

  Sergeant Skelly then went to the steel door and unlocked it with a large key.

  “Come by the NCO Club, Moore, and I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “Thank you,” Moore said.

  When the door had closed behind them, Lieutenant Hon said, “I don’t think that would be a very good idea, Moore.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I won’t tell you to be a teetotal, although that might be a good idea. And I know it would be a good idea if you let Skelly think you are.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Hon led him to another steel-doored room, the key to which he had on a cord around his neck. Inside was a small room furnished with a small table and two filing cabinets with combination locks.

  “Captain Pickering has the only other key to this room and is the only other person to know the combinations,” Hon said. “You won’t take anything out of here that I don’t give you. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Turn your back, please, while I open this,” Hon said, matter-of-factly.

  Moore complied.

  “OK, you can turn around,” Hon said after a moment. “Sit down.”

  Moore sat down at the small table.

  Hon handed him two sheets of paper, both stamped top and bottom, Top SECRET. They were in Japanese calligraphs.

  “We’re going to run a little experiment,” Hon said. “First, you are going to translate these. Then I am going to give you somebody else’s translations. I want to see if they’re different, and if they are, whether you think your translation is more accurate than the other guy’s. Clear?”

  “Yes, Sir. I think so.”

  “How long do you think it will take you?”

  Moore glanced at the calligraphs.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes, Sir.”

  “Can you type?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Well, I’ll go see about scrounging a typewriter. For the time being, do these in pencil.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Hon took a lined pad and a Planter’s peanuts can full of pencils from the top of one of the filing cabinets and put them on the table. Then, without a word, he walked out of the room. The door closed and Moore heard the key turning in the lock. He was locked in.

  He picked up a pencil and started to read the calligraphs. He became aware of a strange feeling of foreboding and decided it was because he didn’t like being locked behind a steel door with no way that he could see to get out.

  He read both documents quickly, to get a sense of them, and then again more carefully.

  They were obviously Japanese Army radio messages. The first was from the 14th Army in the Philippines to Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters in Tokyo. It was signed HOMMA. The second message was a reply to the first. It was signed, IN THE NAME OF His IMPERIAL MAJESTY.

  He began to write his translation. It was hardly, he thought, a matter of world-shaking importance. It dealt with captured American weapons, ammunition, and food supplies. Not surprisingly, there was a comment to the effect that most weapons of all descriptions had been destroyed before the American surrender. Another stated that there was a large stock of captured ammunition, mostly for large caliber artillery, but that it was in bad shape, and that the possibility had to be considered that it had been ... he had to search for the right, decorous, words in English, for what popped into his mind was “fucked up”—tampered with? rendered useless? sabotaged?—by the Americans.

  There was another comment that captured American food supplies were scarce, in bad shape, and inadequate for the feeding of prisoners.

  The reply from Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters was brief, and far more formal. It directed General Homma to ... again he had to search for the right words—to inspect and rehabilitate? evaluate and repair? inspect and salvage?—the captured artillery ammunition as well as he could using—facilities? assets? capabilities?—available to him. It reminded General Homma that shipping, of course, had to be allocated on the priorities of war. And finally, somewhat insultingly, Moore thought, it reminded Homma of the—duty? obligations? price to be paid? sacrifices expected?—of soldiers under the Code of Bushido.

  Finally, he was finished. He looked at what he had written and heard his mother’s voice in his ear, “Johnny, I can’t understand how you can do that calligraphy so beautifully, but hen scratch when you write something in English.”

  He hoped that Lieutenant Hon would have no trouble reading his handwriting and was considering copying what he had written more neatly, when he heard the key in the lock of the steel door. It creaked open—dungeon-like, Moore thought—and Hon came back into the room. Moore started to get up.

  “Keep your seat, nobody can see us in here,” Hon said, and then asked. “Finished?”

  Moore handed him the sheets of lined paper.

  Hon read them carefully, then opened one of the filing cabinets again and handed Moore two more sheets of paper with Top SECRET stamped on them.

  They were someone else’s translations of the two messages. Moore read them, wondering how different they would be from the translation he had made. There were minor differences of interpretation, but nothing significant. Moore felt a sense of satisfaction; he had obviously done as well as whoever had made the other translation.

  “OK. Now tell me what the messages mean,” Hon said.

  “Sir?”

  “Tell me what they mean,” Hon repeated.

  Moore told him and could tell by the look on Lieutenant Hon’s face that he was disappointed.

  “Look beneath the surface, beneath the obvious,” Hon said.

  “Sir, I don’t quite understand.”

  “Forget you’re a sergeant, forget that you’re an American. Think like a Japanese. Think like General Homma.”

  How the hell am I supposed to do that?

  When there was no response after a moment, Hon said, “OK. Try this. What, if anything, did you notice that was unusual, in any way, in either message?”

  Jesus Christ, what is this, Twenty Questions?

  He went over the messages in his mind, then picked up the original messages in Japanese and read them again.

  “Sir, I thought it was unusual ... I mean, Homma is a general. Why the reminder about the Code of Bushido?”

  “Good!” Hon said, and made a “keep going” gesture with his hands.

  Off the top of his head, Moore said, “If I was General Homma, I’d be a little pissed—insulted that they had given me the lecture.”

  “Good! Good!” Hon said. “Why?”

  “Because it was discourteous. Not maybe the way we would look at it, but to a Japanese ...”

  “OK. Accepting it as a given that the
IJAGS ...”

  Hon pronounced this “Eye-Jag-Ess,” saw confusion cloud Moore’s eyes, and translated:

  -the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff—did insult General Homma by discourteously reminding him about Bushido. He is a General officer who has to be presumed to know all about Bushido.“ Hon now switched to Japanese: ”Why would they do this? In what context? Reply in Japanese.“

  Beats the shit out of me, Moore thought and dropped his eyes again to the calligraphs.

  “The context is in ...” he said.

  “In Japanese,” Hon interrupted him.

  “... reference to a shortage of shipping,” Moore finished, in Japanese.

  “Is it?”

  “Homma’s message to—What did you say, ‘Eye-Jag-Ess’? —said that the food he captured from us was inadequate to feed the prisoners,” Moore said. He had in his sudden excitement switched back to English. Hon did not correct him.

  “And?”

  “IJAGS’s reply was that there was a shortage of shipping, and then reminded Homma of the Code of Bushido.”

  “Right. And how, if you know, does the Code of Bushido regard warriors who surrender?”

  “It’s shameful,” Moore said. “Disgraceful. A failure of duty. More than that, there’s a religious connotation. Since the Emperor is God, it’s a great sin.”

  “Meaning what, in this context?”

  Moore thought that over, and horrified, blurted, “Jesus, meaning, ‘fuck the prisoners, they’re beneath contempt, let them starve’?”

  “That’s how I read it,” Hon said. “You did notice that there was just a hint of sensitivity to Western concepts of how prisoners should be treated—the Geneva Convention, so to speak—the reference to the shortage of shipping, which IJAGS uses to rationalize not shipping food?”

  “My God!”

  “Why are you surprised?” Hon asked. “You grew up there.”

  Moore’s mind was now racing.

  “I still can’t accept this,” he said. “Jesus Christ, can’t we complain to the International Red Cross or somebody? Maybe they’d arrange to let us send food.”