Battleground
Page 46
“And for the rest of his career, he can command attention in the officer’s club by beginning a sentence, ‘When I was on the beach at Guadalcanal ...’ ” Pickering said.
“Fleming, have you ever heard that old saw about people who live in glass houses?” Vandergrift said.
Pickering looked at him in surprise and saw Vandergrift smiling at him.
“Touché, General,” Pickering said.
We have become friends, Pickering thought. It didn’t take long.
When the landing barge touched on the beach and dropped its ramp, a dozen Marines who had been waiting on shore went up the ramp and began rolling the 55-gallon barrels onto the beach.
The officer who had been standing next to the coxswain came ashore. When he arrived, he spoke to another officer, who looked around and then pointed to Vandergrift and Pickering.
The officer made his way up the beach to them. He was wearing a steel helmet, and he carried a pistol on a web belt. He even wore canvas puttees. His khaki uniform was starched. There was a crease in his trousers.
“Natty, wouldn’t you say?” Vandergrift said softly.
The officer saluted. Vandergrift and Pickering returned it.
“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Goldberg. I’m executive officer of the Gregory. ”
“We’re very glad to see you, Mr. Goldberg,” Vandergrift said. “Welcome to Guadalcanal. I really regret the division band is otherwise occupied. You really deserve a serenade.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“What have you got for us, Mr. Goldberg?”
“Each of us is carrying 100 drums of AvGas, Sir, and eight drums of Aviation lubricants. We also have some aircraft bombs, one hundred pounders, and linked .50 caliber ammo. And there’s some tools.”
“Chamois? I especially asked for chamois.”
“Yes, Sir, there are several cartons of chamois.”
“Thank God, for that. The AvGas wouldn’t have done us any good without a means to filter it.”
“There’s chamois, Sir,” Goldberg said. “And we’re carrying some tools. The Little and the Calhoun have some ground crewmen aboard, too.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, Mr. Goldberg, you are very welcome indeed.”
“And I have this for you, General,” Goldberg said and handed Vandergrift an unsealed envelope.
Vandergrift took a sheet of paper from the envelope, glanced at it, and handed it to Pickering.
“I got my copy of this last night,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve seen it.”
Pickering took it. It was a radio message, all typed in capital letters.
URGENT
SECRET
FROM: CINCPAC
TO: COMMANDER DESTROYER FORCE TWENTY INFORMATION: COMMANDING GENERAL FIRST MARINE DIVISION1. BY DIRECTION OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY YOU WILL TRANSPORT FROM YOUR DESTINATION TO SUCH PLACE AS WILL BE LATER DIRECTED CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING, USNR, PRESENTLY ATTACHED HQ FIRST MARDIV.
2. YOU WILL ADVISE CINCPAC, ATTENTION: IMMEDIATE AND PERSONAL ATTENTION OF CINCPAC, WHEN YOU HAVE SAILED FROM YOUR DESTINATION WITH CAPTAIN PICKERING ABOARD.
BY DIRECTION: D.J. WAGAM, REARADM USN
Pickering looked at Vandergrift, who smiled.
“Lieutenant Goldberg, may I present Captain Pickering?” Vandergrift said.
“How do you do, Sir?” Goldberg said. His surprise was evident. He had not expected to see a Navy Captain in Marine Corps utilities, carrying a Springfield rifle like a hunter.
“I think I’ve just been sandbagged, as a matter of fact,” Pickering said.
“That boat is about ready to go back out to the Gregory, Captain Pickering. Don’t you think you had better get on it? I’m sure her captain wants to get underway as soon as possible.”
Pickering didn’t reply.
“Major Stecker was good enough to pack your gear, Captain,” Vandergrift said, and pointed to the landing barge.
Pickering saw Jack NMI Stecker handing a bag to one of the Marines on the barge. It was the bag he brought with him from the command ship USS McCawley when he’d come ashore.
“I know I’ve been sandbagged,” Pickering said. “I gather there is no room for discussion?”
“Thank you for your services, Captain Pickering,” Vandergrift said. “They have been appreciated by all hands.”
Vandergrift handed Pickering the Ernest Leitz binoculars.
“General, I would be honored if you would hang onto those,” Pickering said.
Vandergrift looked at the binoculars and then met Pickering’s eyes.
“That’s very kind of you, Fleming, thank you,” he said. He put out his hand to Pickering.
Pickering had to grab the Springfield rifle with his left hand in order to take Vandergrift’s hand with his right.
Then he held the rifle up.
“I won’t need this any more, will I?”
“Why don’t you take it with you?” Vandergrift said. “If nothing else, you could hang it on your wall. Then for the rest of your life, you could command attention by pointing to it and beginning a sentence, ‘when I was on the beach at Guadalcanal ...’”
“Touché, again, General.”
“Bon voyage, Fleming,” Vandergrift said. “I look forward to seeing you again.”
He touched Pickering’s arm and then walked away.
(Five)
WATER LILY COTTAGE
MANCHESTER AVENUE
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
0815 HOURS 17 AUGUST 1942
Mrs. Ellen Feller had just about finished dressing when she heard the crunch of tires on the driveway. A few seconds later, the double slamming of the front doors told her that Sergeant John Marston Moore had returned to the cottage.
The slamming doors annoyed her. She was already annoyed. Lieutenant Pluto Hon had been summoned to Townesville by Major Ed Banning—for reasons Banning had not elected to tell her. And that meant she was going to have to spend all day in the dark, damp cell two floors underground at SHSWPA. And probably do the same thing all day tomorrow, too. Someone had to be available to deliver MAGIC intercepts to Generals MacArthur and Willoughby, and since Banning and Hon were in Townesville, and Moore was officially not supposed to know even what MAGIC meant, that left her.
When she looked at her watch and saw that it was only a quarter after eight, she was even more annoyed. She had told him to pick Hon up at the Commerce Hotel and deliver him to the airport; then to stop at the Cryptographic Facility, pick up what had come in, and run it through the machine; and then, ‘about nine, Baby, come pick me up.’ “
She decided she knew what was in his mind, the horny little devil, and while that was flattering, now was not the time. She had just spent an hour washing and doing her hair, and if that happened, as appealing as it was, she would have to go through the whole process again, starting with the shower.
The door to her bedroom was flung open.
“You ever think of knocking?”
“Sorry,” he said, visibly unrepentant. “Take a look at these.”
There was something important in the overnights, she thought. He doesn’t have that delightfully shyly naughty look in his eyes.
She took the two sheets of onion skin from him, and read them.
URGENT
SECRET
HQ USMC WASHDC 2205 15AUG42
VIA: SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA
TO: COMMANDING OFFICER
USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14
1. ON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE SGT JOHN M. MOORE IS DETACHED FROM USMC SPECDET 14, ATTACHED HQ FIRST MARDIV, AND WILL PROCEED THERETO IMMEDIATELY.
2. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO INFORM SHSWPA THAT AN URGENT REQUIREMENT FOR JAPANESE-LANGUAGE LINGUISTS EXISTS WITHIN FIRST MARDIV AND REQUEST OF THEM HIGHEST POSSIBLE AIR TRANSPORTATION PRIORITY FOR SERGEANT MOORE.
BY DIRECTION: H.W.T.FORREST, BRIGGEN USMC
ACOFSG-2
URGENT
CONFIDENTIAL
HQ USMC WASHDC 2207 15 AUG42
CINCPAC LIAISON OFFICER
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA
INFORMATION: CINCPAC ATTN: CHIEF OF STAFF
COMMANDING GENERAL 1ST MARINE DIVI-
SION
1. ON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE YOU ARE DETACHED FROM PRESENT DUTIES AND WILL PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO HEADQUARTERS FIRST MARDIV FOR DUTY AS ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-2. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES AUTHORITY FOR AAAA AIR TRAVEL PRIORITY.
2. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO INFORM SHSWPA THAT THE EXIGENCIES OF THE SERVICE MAKE THIS TRANSFER NECESSARY AND THAT A LIAISON OFFICER TO REPLACE YOU WILL BE ASSIGNED AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE TIME.
3. IF POSSIBLE, AND TO THE DEGREE THAT IT WILL NOT REPEAT NOT INTERFERE WITH YOUR MOVEMENT TO FIRST MARDIV, YOU ARE DIRECTED TO FACILITATE THE MOVEMENT TO FIRST MAR DIV OF SERGEANT J.M.MOORE, PRESENTLY ASSIGNED USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14.
BY DIRECTION OF BRIG GEN FORREST:
F L RICKABEE, LTCOL, USMC
“I called Townesville,” Moore said. “They either don’t know where Banning is, or he doesn’t want it known.”
“I wonder why Rickabee signed the one to Dailey?” Ellen said, thoughtfully, “and General Forrest the one about you? And the one about you is classified Secret, and the one to Dailey only Confidential?”
“What the hell difference does it make?” Moore asked, but he took the onion skins from her hand. “Probably because everything about the detachment is classified Secret but the name,” he said.
“Obviously, you don’t want to go,” Ellen said. “Is that why you tried to call Banning?”
“I can’t go, for Christ’s sake,” Moore said. “I’m privy to MAGIC.”
“Not officially,” she thought out loud.
“That’s not the point,” he said. “I know about MAGIC.”
“The point is, they—Rickabee and Forrest—don’t know that. That’s why they’re sending you to Guadalcanal.”
She thought: And if it comes out that Fleming Pickering compromised MAGIC by letting you in on it, he’s in trouble. I don’t want to see that happen.
Banning is supposed to be clever. Let him see if he can find a solution to this.
“I think the thing for you to do is make yourself scarce until we can get in contact with Major Banning,” Ellen said.
“Too late. That was the first thing I thought of. But Dailey’s caught me.”
“How?”
“His orders didn’t have to go through crypto. So as soon as they came in, the message center gave them to him ... Christ, that’s why they classified them Confidential, so they wouldn’t have to go through crypto ...”
Ellen thought about that quickly, and said, “Yes. Probably.”
“I had just run the radio to Banning through the crypto machine and was trying to get him on the telephone, when an MP came to the cell and said I had a visitor at Outer Security.”
“Dailey?”
“Yeah. Pumped full of his own importance. You could practically hear the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps playing the Marine Hymn in the background.”
She smiled, and their eyes met.
I’m going to miss him.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“ ‘Sergeant Moore,’ Moore quoted sonorously, ‘I have been ordered to Guadalcanal by Headquarters, USMC. You are to accompany me. We leave immediately.’ ”
She smiled at him again.
“I didn’t tell him I had just decrypted my own orders; I told him I worked for Banning, and he would have to talk to him.”
“And?”
“ ‘Sergeant, I am the ranking Marine officer present. I will see that Major Banning is informed of what has transpired,’ or bullshit to that effect.”
“My God!”
“I tried refusing,” Moore said. “Politely. I told him that Major Banning had told me to take orders from nobody else.”
“And?”
Moore pointed toward the window. Ellen went and pushed the curtain aside. There was a 1941 Ford staff car in the drive. It had MILITARY POLICE painted on the doors. An MP wearing a white helmet liner was sitting on it. Another rested his rear end on the front fender.
“They’re going to take me to the airport,” Moore said. “Dailey apparently rushed to tell Willoughby, or maybe Sutherland, of his orders ... for all I know, The Emperor himself may have gotten into the act by now. Anyway, a B-25 is going to fly us to Espiritu Santo. The field at Guadalcanal won’t take a B-25 yet. So from Espiritu Santo, we’ll go by Catalina.”
“He didn’t put you under arrest?” Ellen asked.
“No. Except by inference. The MPs are to ‘help me gather’ my gear and get me to the airport.”
“I don’t see what else you can do,” Ellen said.
“I’ve got to go, there’s no question about that. And what you have to do is one of two things: Call Willoughby now, tell him you have just heard about this, and that I’m into MAGIC.”
“I don’t think that’s smart,” Ellen said. “I think a decision like that should be made by Major Banning.”
“That’s ‘B,’ ” Moore said. “Get on the phone and keep trying to get through to Banning.”
“I will,” she said. “That’s the way to handle this.”
The horn on the MP car blew.
“Shit,” he said.
He walked out of her bedroom and across the living room to his bedroom and began stuffing his belongings into his seabag.
Ellen stood in his doorway and watched.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I can handle it,” he said.
Inasmuch as she was unaware how many times Private John Marston Moore had, under the skilled eye of a Parris Island Drill Instructor, packed and unpacked, packed and unpacked a seabag until he had it right, Ellen was genuinely surprised to see how quickly and efficiently he packed his gear.
He finally picked up the seabag and bounced it three or four times on the floor. This caused the contents to compact. He reached inside, removed a precisely folded pair of pants, reached under the skirt of his blouse, and came out with a Colt .45 and four extra magazines. He put these in the bag, replaced the pants on top, and closed the bag.
“I decided I needed that pistol more than one of the classified documents messengers,” he said. “So I signed it out before I left the basement. If they come looking for it, send them to Guadalcanal.”
My God, he really is going to the war! He is too beautiful to be killed!
She stepped into the room and closed the door after her.
She walked up to him and put her hand on his cheek, then raised her head and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
“Do you think they’ll wait another five minutes, Baby?” she asked, dropping her hand down his body, pushing aside the skirt of his blouse, and finding the buttons of his fly. “Or will they break the door down?”
When he was gone, she decided calmly that it was probably a good thing. Their relationship could easily have gotten out of hand.
If only Fleming Pickering hadn’t been such a damned fool and brought him into MAGIC!
The thing to do about that, she decided, is nothing. The chances that John Moore will fall alive into Japanese hands are negligible to begin with. And even if he does, he is only a sergeant. Sergeants are not expected to be privy to important secrets.
She would have to make that point to Banning. Hon would argue against it, but Hon was a lieutenant and Banning a major. The important thing to do was to protect Fleming Pickering. Banning, for his own reasons, would understand that, and he almost certainly would be able to convince Pluto Hon as well.
That was going to be possible, she decided. Fleming Pickering would be protected ... and it followed that he would be available to protect her, if need be.
She had—years ago, she couldn’t remember where—heard someone described as “being able to walk around raindrops.” She was a little uneasy about thinking that she was one of these people, but t
he facts seemed to bear it out. Just when things started to get out of hand, something happened that put them in order again.
XVIII
(One)
ABOARD USS GREGORY (APD-44)
CORAL SEA
0735 HOURS 18 AUGUST 1942
Captain Fleming Pickering stood in the port leading from the Chart Room to the bridge until the captain turned, saw him, and motioned him to come in.
“Permission to come onto the bridge, Sir?” Pickering asked. He was wearing borrowed khakis that were just a bit too tight for him.
“Captain, aboard this tin can, you have the privilege of the bridge at any time.”
“That’s very kind of you, Captain,” Pickering said, coming onto the bridge. “But—in the olden days—when I was a master and carrying supercargo, I always wanted the bastard to ask.”
The USS Gregory’s Captain, a Lieutenant Commander, laughed.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Sir, but I repeat: You have the privilege of this bridge whenever you wish. Can I offer you some coffee?”
“No, thank you. I just had a potful for breakfast.”
“And you slept well, Sir?”
“Like a log. Despite the fact that I felt like an interloper in your cabin.”
“My pleasure, Sir. I rarely use it at sea, anyway.”
“You’re very gracious.”
“We seldom have a chance to show our party manners to a VIP, Sir.”
Christ, is that what I am?
“Beautiful day,” Pickering said.
“We’re making good time, too, Sir. Did you check the chart?”
“We’re making, if I haven’t forgotten how to read a chart, better than twenty knots?”
“We are making ‘best speed consistent with available fuel,’ Sir,” the captain said, then took a sheet from his shirt pocket and handed it to Pickering.
URGENT
SECRET
FROM: CINCPAC
TO: COMMANDER DESTROYER FORCE TWENTY
1. GREGORY IS DETACHED FROM DESFORCE TWENTY. GREGORY IS TO STEAM FOR BAKER XRAY MIKE AT BEST SPEED CONSISTENT WITH AVAILABLE FUEL.
2. DESFORCE TWENTY WILL PROCEED TO BAKER XRAY MIKE IN COMPLIANCE WITH PRESENT ORDERS.