“It will have to wait. Banning said he wanted everybody here at ten.”
“What’s up?”
McCoy shrugged, indicating he didn’t have any idea. He looked at his watch, then went to one of the tables and started folding the oilcloth that covered it.
Zimmerman examined a rack of cues mounted on the wall, rejecting three of them before finding one that matched his standards. Then he walked to the table.
“There’s no fucking holes!” he announced, surprised and annoyed.
“They call this ‘billiards,’” McCoy said.
“How the fuck do you play it?”
“I have no idea,” McCoy confessed. “I think you have to hit three cushions and then another ball.”
“Fuck that,” Zimmerman said. “I’ll play you close-to-the cushion for a nickel a shot.”
“A quarter,” McCoy countered.
“You ain’t that good, Killer.”
Why is Ernie the only man in the world who doesn’t piss me off when he calls me “Killer”? Maybe because he was there and knows I only did what I had to do? Or is it because he is such a simple sonofabitch that I hate to jump on him?
“Knowing you’re playing for a quarter, are going to lose a whole quarter, will make you so nervous a six-year-old could beat you.”
“Fuck you, Killer,” Zimmerman said. “Get yourself a fucking cue stick.”
Ten minutes later, McCoy blew the shot he was making when Zimmerman suddenly barked, “Ten-hut!”
As he came to attention, he saw that Colonel Edward Banning, USMC, and Colonel H. A. Albright, USA, had entered the billiards room.
“Stand at ease,” Banning said. “Go on with your game. The others will be here in a minute.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said, and then, turning to Zimmerman, said in Wu, “Ernie, try to remember you don’t call ‘attention’ when you’re in civvies, will you?”
“Sorry,” Zimmerman said in Wu, sounding as if he meant it. Then he asked, “What’s that fat doggie colonel got to do with us? That’s the third time I’ve seen him with Banning.”
“I think he’s in charge of getting us to China,” McCoy replied. “He must be all right. Banning seems to like him. My shot, right?”
“Your shot, my ass, Killer! You blew your fucking shot!”
“Only because you shouted ‘attention’ in my ear when Banning and the doggie colonel came in here,” McCoy replied.
Colonel H. A. Albright had learned to speak Wu (and some Cantonese and Mandarin) during a three-year tour with the 15th Infantry in China. Even though he understood what Zimmerman had said about him, he was not really offended. Neither Zimmerman nor McCoy had any reason to suspect that he spoke Wu; very few Americans did, even those soldiers, Marines, and sailors who had spent long years in China.
Their ability to speak Chinese probably explained why they were being sent into Japanese-occupied Mongolia. That and the fact that they had both worked for Banning in Shanghai before the war. He wondered if they knew—or, for that matter, if Banning knew—what the Deputy Director (Administration) of the OSS thought of their chances of getting back alive.
Five minutes later, Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook and Master Gunner Harry Rutterman entered the room. Rutterman looks old enough to be Easterbrook’s father, Banning thought.
“Sorry to be late, sir,” Easterbrook said to Banning. “I was in the commo section.”
“Problem with the radios?” Banning asked.
“No, sir. We were testing the packaging.”
“How?”
Easterbrook looked uncomfortable.
“‘How’?” Banning repeated.
“Actually, sir, we disassembled one of them—took the tubes out, like that—packed everything in the bags with foam rubber, and then I stood on a table and dropped all the bags onto the floor a half-dozen times. Then we put the radio back together to see if it would still work.”
“Did it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, Lieutenant,” Colonel Albright said, “we call the ‘drop it on the floor and see if we can bust it’ testing technique, ‘simulated extensive field use testing.’ It’s really the only way to do it.”
“Yes, sir,” the Easterbunny said.
Christ, he actually blushed!
“That’s why I was late, sir,” the Easterbunny blurted. “I just had to see if it would work when I put it back together.”
“No problem, you’re here,” Banning said. “Harry, you want to check the doors, please?”
Rutterman locked the door he had just passed through, then checked the other two doors to make sure they were locked, and finally drew blinds across the windows, after making sure the windows themselves were closed.
“This won’t take long,” Banning began. “Making reference to Section Two, Paragraph Five(a) of Opplan China Clipper, you may consider that as of this moment, you are alerted for overseas movement. You will depart the United States by military aircraft from Newark, New Jersey, sometime in the morning of 17 March—that’s Wednesday—for service in the China-Burma-India theatre of operations.”
Colonel Albright heard Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman mutter, in Wu, “‘China Clipper’? What the fuck is that?”
“Having been so alerted,” Banning went on, “you are advised that under the Articles for the Governance of the Naval Service, any failure to appear at the proper place at the proper time in the properly appointed uniform until you have physically departed the Continental Limits of the United States will be regarded not as Absence Without Leave, but as Absence Without Leave With the Intent to Avoid Overseas and/or Hazardous Service, and will make you subject to the more severe penalties for that offense as a court-martial may prescribe.”
Colonel Albright heard Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman mutter in Wu, “What the fuck is that all about?” to which Captain McCoy hissed, in muttered Wu, “Put a fucking cork in it, Ernie!”
“Colonel Albright is in charge of the movement, which he will now explain to you, following which we will all go to the firing range and qualify with the weapons with which we will be armed.”
“What the fuck is that all about?” Captain McCoy asked in English.
“Did you say something, Captain McCoy?” Lieutenant Colonel Banning asked.
“Sir, did the Captain correctly understand the Colonel to say, sir, that we are going to the range to qualify with the weapons with which we will be armed?”
“You heard me correctly, Captain McCoy,” Banning said. “Do you have any problem with that, Captain?”
“No, sir.”
“Splendid! And to answer your first question, Captain McCoy, ‘what the fuck is that all about?’—or words to that effect—we are going to do so because Colonel Albright here is under orders to ensure that every t in Operation China Clipper is crossed correctly and every last i has a dot in the proper place. Have you any further questions, Captain McCoy?”
“No, sir.”
“And you, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman? Do you have any questions?”
Zimmerman popped to rigid attention. “Sir, begging the Colonel’s pardon, sir. What the fuck is Operation China Clipper?”
“You’ve never heard of China Clipper, Sergeant?” Colonel Albright asked.
“No, sir. Not one fucking word.”
“Well, sit back down, Sergeant, and I’ll tell you all about it,” Colonel Albright said.
The firing range of the OSS training facility was not much of a firing range by USMC standards: A U-shaped berm, no more than twenty feet high and perhaps a hundred feet long, had been built of sandbags on what had been the practice driving range before the OSS took over the Country Club. At the open end of the U were six firing positions. There were no pits. Target frames had been made from two-by-fours and plywood. Two were in position, and another four were lying on the ground. The “feet” of the erect frames sat in sections of pipe buried upright in the ground. Life-size silhouette targets had
apparently been obtained from the FBI, for they showed a likeness of John Dillinger, the bank robber, clutching a .45 and glowering menacingly. These had been stapled to the plywood of the two target frames in use. Three-foot-long pieces of two-by-fours laid on the ground showed where the shooter was to stand.
The sandbags in the berm behind the targets showed evidence of the projectiles that had been fired downrange. McCoy noticed a lot of holes in sandbags not directly behind the targets.
Three men were waiting for them, standing by a rough table on which was placed two Mauser Broomhandle pistols, two Thompson submachine guns, and a rack holding five 1911A1 Colt .45 pistols with dowels in their barrels. Two of the men were in U.S. Army fatigues and the third was wearing an Army olive-drab woolen uniform.
He’s probably the instructor, McCoy decided, and the other two are on labor detail.
The man in ODs—on which McCoy now saw silver first lieutenant’s bars and the crossed sabers of cavalry—saw them coming, called attention, and saluted Colonel Albright. “Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning,” Albright said. “These are the weapons they’ll be taking with them?”
“Yes, sir. And they’ve been checked over by both Gunny Zimmerman and myself.”
One of the GIs in Army fatigues handed the lieutenant a clipboard. “These are the hand receipts for the weapons, sir,” he said. “I’ll need to have them signed.”
One by one, Banning and the others signed the hand receipts for the weapons. Banning signed for a 1911A1 .45—caliber pistol only; McCoy and Zimmerman both for a pistol and a Mauser machine pistol; and Easterbrook and Rutterman both for a pistol and a Thompson submachine gun.
Both Colonel Albright and Captain McCoy had private thoughts, which they did not express, about the Thompsons: Albright wondered, if it came down to it, how effectively Lieutenant Easterbrook could use his Thompson. Controlling their recoil was difficult even for a muscular man, and Easterbrook was anything but muscular.
McCoy, who had seen Easterbrook running around on Guadalcanal with a Thompson, was not concerned about his skill with the weapon, but with the weapon itself. These were civilian versions of the submachine gun, which he supposed the OSS had gotten from the FBI, like the John Dillinger silhouette targets. They had fifty-round “drum” magazines. In McCoy’s opinion, the drum magazines were unreliable.
“How would you like us to do this, sir?” Lieutenant Colonel Banning asked of Colonel A. H. Albright.
“I don’t think we have to bother about the pistols,” Albright said, and then changed his mind. He didn’t want to have to lie to General Adamson unless he really had to. “But on the other hand, to go by the book, maybe we should. How about a magazine from each weapon at a silhouette? Five out of seven shots from a .45 anywhere in the torso will qualify. And how about one in three shots from the automatic weapons? Say seventeen out of fifty from the Thompsons? How many shots are there in the Mausers?”
“Twenty, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said.
“How about seven shots anywhere in the torso from the Mausers, then?”
“That sounds reasonable,” Banning said. He turned to McCoy. “Captain, you are the range officer. I will relieve you after I have fired.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said.
Banning proceeded to the wooden table, examined the pistols until he found the serial number of the one he had signed for, stuck it in his belt, and then charged a magazine from a box of cartridges. “Gunny, would you charge the magazines of the automatic weapons, please?” he said.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Zimmerman said, then went to the wooden table and started loading cartridges into a Thompson fifty-round drum.
Banning walked up to the piece of two-by-four marking the firing line, turned, and looked at McCoy.
“The flag is up,” McCoy ordered. “With one seven-round magazine, lock and load.”
Banning slipped the magazine into the pistol and worked the action.
“The flag is waving,” McCoy said. “Commence firing!”
Everybody but Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman put their fingers in their ears. Colonel Albright looked closely at Zimmerman and saw that he had inserted fired 9mm cartridges in his ears as protection against the noise, then saw that McCoy had done the same thing.
Banning raised the pistol and began to fire. The shots were evenly spaced. When the magazine was empty, he raised the pistol’s muzzle.
“Cease fire,” McCoy ordered. “Clear your piece and step back from the firing line.”
Banning turned and walked to the wooden table and laid his pistol on it. Then he followed Colonel Albright to the silhouette target. All seven shots were in John Dillinger’s torso.
“I suppose this makes you an expert,” Colonel Albright said.
“Colonel, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Banning said, then turned and raised his voice. “Can I have some target patches, please?”
One of the soldiers trotted out with a roll of black paper adhesive-gummed patches, and covered the holes in Banning’s target.
With Colonel Banning serving as range officer, Lieutenant Easterbrook and Master Gunner Rutterman fired next. First they fired their pistols, both of them scattering all seven shots across the torso area of the targets.
When the holes had been patched, they fired the Thompson submachine guns. Colonel Albright was relieved to see that Easterbrook was familiar enough with the weapon not to lose control of it. He emptied the fifty-round magazine in two-and three-shot bursts. But he was actually surprised when he walked forward to count and patch the holes: Easterbrook had put forty-six of his fifty shots into John Dillinger, including three high (into the head) and five low (two in the crotch and three in the upper leg). Master Gunner Rutterman managed to get only forty-two of his fifty shots into Dillinger, but all but three high and one low were in the torso.
I will report that splendid marksmanship to General Adamson with more than a little pleasure.
“Actually sir, when they fired, Lieutenant Easterbrook, the officer who looks so young? He actually shot a little better with the Thompson than Master Gunner Rutterman did.”
Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman fired last. Both put all seven shots from their pistols into John Dillinger’s torso, and when the holes had been patched, went to the wooden table and attached the removable stocks to the Broomhandle Mausers, then loaded the pistols.
Colonel Albright heard Captain McCoy quietly issue an order, in Wu, to Gunny Zimmerman: “Shoot him in the head, Ernie.”
They stepped to the firing line, and Banning went through his range officer’s routine. Zimmerman finished firing a second or two before McCoy did.
McCoy checked to see that his Mauser was no longer loaded, then handed the weapon to Zimmerman. Then he walked to the targets, followed by Banning and Albright.
“It would appear that Gunny Zimmerman shot a little high, Colonel,” Banning said. “Most of his rounds seem to have struck John Dillinger in the face.”
He then began to count the holes out loud. There were nineteen. A twentieth hole was a quarter of an inch away from John Dillinger’s ear.
“I wonder why he missed?” Captain McCoy asked innocently. “Usually he’s a pretty good shot.”
“You have made your point, Captain,” Colonel Albright said, smiling at him.
Banning walked to McCoy’s target. The .45 in John Dillinger’s hand was no longer visible. Nor was the hand itself. McCoy’s twenty shots had obliterated them. There was just one hole in the target, no larger than two balled fists held together.
“Colonel,” Banning said, “in the Marine Corps, that’s what we call ‘a nice little group.’”
“I’m suitably impressed,” Albright confessed.
“And does that mean we have crossed all your ts and dotted all your is?”
“Yes, I think we can say that,” Albright said.
“If you’re going back into Washington, Colonel, I think Captain McCoy would like a ride into Unio
n Station.”
“You’re not going?” McCoy asked evenly.
“He’s not going where?” Albright blurted. He had naturally presumed that no one would leave the Country Club until, per Paragraph 12(d)(2) of Opplan China Clipper, the two station wagons departed at 0515 hours on Wednesday to drive everybody and their luggage and equipment to Newark Airport.
“I’ve decided the best thing for me to do, Ken, is stick around here.”
“Where are you going, McCoy?”
“I’ve decided, Colonel, there being no reason that Captain McCoy has to be here, that he can have a pass until 0900 Wednesday morning, when he will report to base operations at Newark airport. He’s going to be in New York City, and I know where to reach him, if necessary.”
There is no reason General Adamson has to know that, Colonel Albright decided.
“You want me to call somebody for you?” McCoy asked, and Albright understood that the conversation was now not between colonel and captain but between close friends.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Ken,” Banning said, confirming this. “I may call her from here, but I think everything that has to be said has been said.”
McCoy nodded.
XIV
[ONE]
U.S. Army Air Corps Staging Area
Newark Airport, New Jersey
0845 17 March 1943
“Just so we understand each other,” Miss Ernestine Sage said, as the silver 1939 LaSalle convertible splashed through the slush of a now mostly melted early-morning snowstorm, “You are not just going to get out of the car at the gate and wave good-bye to me. I’m going to see you take off.”
“I’m not sure I can get you inside, Ernie,” McCoy said.
“Wave your goddamned magic wand,” she said. “Either that, or I’ll throw an hysterical fit at the gate.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
They had spent the night at Rocky Fields Farm. Though he had gone there more than a little reluctantly, Ernie had announced that if they spent the night at her apartment in New York City alone, she would go crazy. And in fact it had turned out better than he thought it would. Ernie’s father and mother had not only been very nice, but he finally accepted that they were sorry to see him go. Maybe only because that was going to make Ernie unhappy, but so what?
In Danger's Path Page 35
