"I had an ulterior motive in bringing the wine to you," Peter said. "Actually, several of them."
Now he wants the favor.
"I'm not surprised."
"Oberst Grner called me into his office this afternoon."
"The military attach‚?"
Peter nodded. "He wanted to make sure that everyone here tonight sees that we have become friends..."
"And the champagne is intended to do that?"
"... because he has good reason to believe you will not be among us much longer."
"Really?"
What the hell is this all about?
"He has learned from a reliable source in Internal Security that you are about to engage in a very foolish, amateurish operation... and that it is doomed to failure."
"I can't imagine what he's talking about."
"If his information is correct, you are about to use your father's airplane to make a bombing run on a neutral ship in the Bay of Samboromb6n, with the hope of igniting her fuel tanks with homemade incendiary bombs."
Shit, if Oberst Whatsisname knows, they'll be waiting for us.
That miserable sonofabitch Delgano!
What is this "homemade incendiary bomb" bullshit?
Christ, they mean the flares. Which means they haven't thought of a submarine!
"I think your Oberst Whatsisname has been at the schnapps," Clete said.
"Oberst Grner went on to say that the ship, the Reine de la Mer, is armed with two dual forty-millimeter Bofors and some heavy machine guns. It will have no trouble at all shooting you down."
Clete met Peter's eyes but said nothing.
"Now I personally felt that the Oberst's information was wrong," Peter went on. "For one thing, a pilot with your expe-rience would know that if the pilot on such a mission were ac-tually lucky enough to hit the ship with an incendiary bomb, the only thing the bomb would do is lie around on thick steel plates and burn itself out."
"I never gave the subject much thought," Clete said. "But now that you mention it, I think you're right."
"I did not offer my opinion on the subject to Oberst Grner," Peter said. "I suppose that I should have. And I daresay in some quarters that my failure to do so would constitute treason."
"Why are you telling me all this, Peter?" Clete asked.
"Treason is a subject I've given a good deal of thought to, lately," Peter said.
"Where are we going with this conversation?" Clete asked.
"That remains to be seen," Peter said. "Did you mean what you said?"
"Said about what?"
"You said, if memory serves, that I have 'a blank check' with you."
"As long as it has nothing to do with the... idiotic notion your Oberst Whatsisname has, you do."
"I need your help."
"Anything I can do, you've got it."
"When I give you this, I'm putting my father's and several other people's lives in your hands," Peter said. He took his fath-er's letter from his pocket and handed it to him.
Clete glanced at it.
"I don't speak German, Peter. You're going to have to translate this."
"Yes, of course, I didn't think about that," Peter said, and took the letter back and read it aloud, translating it with some effort into Spanish.
Toward the end, through eyes themselves bleared with tears, Clete saw that Peter's eyes, too, were teary. And his voice was breaking.
"I think I need a little more champagne," Clete said, picking up the bottle and filling their glasses.
"Can you help me?" Peter asked.
"I can't help you," Clete said. "I'll have to go to my father. He'll have to hear what this letter says."
Peter nodded.
Clete went to the bedside and pushed the servant call button.
"You're doing what?" Peter asked.
"I'm sending for my father."
"I didn't mean tonight."
"That's all the time we have."
"Grner was right?"
There was a knock at the door, so quickly that Clete was sur-prised. It was a maid.
"Se¤or Cletus?"
"How did you get here so quickly?"
"El Coronel told me to wait in the upstairs pantry in case you needed something, Se¤or Cletus."
"Please tell el Coronel that I need him here immediately; that it is something you can't do for me."
"S¡, Se¤or," the maid said, and quickly left the room.
"Grner was right?" Peter repeated. "Clete, you don't stand a chance."
"I am not going to bomb anything with incendiary bombs, OK? Now leave that alone, Peter, for Christ's sake!"
Peter met Clete's eyes again.
"As you wish, my friend," he said.
"What now?" el Coronel demanded as he came in the room. "Your guests will start eating the furniture."
He saw the look on Clete's face and stopped.
"What is it?"
"You know I owe Peter my life," Clete said. "It's payback time. Or partial payback time."
"A debt of honor?" Frade asked. "What is it?"
"Peter has a letter from his father. It's in German. He'll have to translate it for you."
"Let's have the letter. I speak German. Among other things you don't know about me, I'm a graduate of the Kriegsschule."
Peter handed Clete's father the letter.
When he finished reading the letter, it took el Coronel Frade a long moment before he trusted his voice enough to speak.
"I can only hope, my friend," he said finally, "that one day my son will have reason to be half as proud of me as you must be of your father."
"Danke schon, Herr Oberst."
"Perhaps you will be able to find time in your busy schedule to spend a few days at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in the very near future. I will ask my brother-in-law, who is Managing Director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, to join us for a private conversation."
"That's very kind of you, Herr Oberst."
"That business concluded, can we finally join Cletus's guests?"
The No-Longer-Virgin Princess' knee found Clete's knee within thirty seconds of their taking their seats at the dinner table. Her hand followed a moment later.
Anticipating this move, Clete caught it with his own hand and held it.
She turned to him in surprise.
"You look very nice in your dinner jacket," she said inno-cently.
"And you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life," Clete said.
[FOUR]
Radio Room
USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107
100 Nautical Miles Due East of Punta del Este,
Uruguay
0615 30 December 1942
Ensign Richard C. Lacey, USNR, the Communications Officer of the Thomas, a short, somewhat pudgy twenty-two-year-old, had spent most of the night trying to familiarize himself with the intricacies of the ship's cryptographic machine. Though all of his effort had resulted in virtually no success, he was hoping he'd be able to muddle through when he had to.
When Chief Schultz was still aboard, he politely suggested more than once that while only the supervision of shipboard cryp-tographic activity was among the communication officer's duties, not the actual operation of the equipment, it might be a good idea for him to show Mr. Lacey how the equipment actually worked.
Lacey declined the Chiefs offer, thinking that as long as the Chief was aboard, the Chief could handle the decryption opera-tions. And he would of course supervise them.
Captain Jernigan himself made it crystal clear that Chief Schultz would remain aboard. "When you get a good chief, Mr. Lacey," Captain Jernigan said, "any good chief, but in particular a good Chief Radioman, you do what you can to keep him. Chief Schultz will leave the Thomas only over my dead body."
Captain Jernigan was -still alive. But Chief Schultz was gone, replaced by Radioman First Class Henry Clatterman, who was younger than Ensign Lacey. Clatterman promptly announced that he really didn't know diddly-shit about the
cryptographic machine when he came aboard, and that despite Chief Schultz's on-the-job training on the voyage, he was still baffled by most of what he was supposed to do.
With a little bit of luck, however, Mr. Lacey felt that the pro-fessional inadequacies of the communications section might not be brought to Captain Jernigan's attention. Or at least delayed: The first attempt to communicate with the Devil Fish was sched-uled for 0615. At this hour, the Captain, following his routine inspection of the ship after rising, normally took his breakfast.
At 0612, Captain Jernigan entered the radio room.
"We all set up, Mr. Lacey?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Clatterman?"
"We're ready, Sir."
Precisely at 0615, Clatterman started pounding his key in an attempt to communicate with the US submarine Devil Fish, which was somewhere on the high seas between the coast of Africa and the coast of South America.
There was no reply after three attempts.
Mr. Lacey was enormously relieved. They would try again, according to the schedule, at six-hour intervals hereafter-at 1215, 1815, 0015, and 0615. Eventually communication would be established. Between each try, there would be an additional six hours for him to learn how to operate the cryptographic ma-chine.
"Clatterman, try to contact the Nantucket," Captain Jernigan ordered. "They should be monitoring the frequency. If you reach them, send Contingency Code Six in the clear, and then stand by for a crypted reply."
"The Nantucket, Sir?"
"The Devil Fish, I hope, has by now made a rendezvous with, and is being accompanied by, a fleet tanker," the Captain ex-plained. "I only know the names of two fleet tankers operating out of Panama, the Nantucket and the Biloxi. We'll try both of them; a fleet tanker will have better communications than a sub-marine. What have we got to lose?"
"The call sign, Sir?"
"It's in the book," Captain Jernigan said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. "You mean you don't have the book out?"
"No, Sir," Clatterman replied. "Mr. Lacey didn't tell me to, Sir."
"My God, Lacey!" Captain Jernigan said, went to the safe, worked the combination, opened the safe, and removed a note-book.
He looked at Mr. Lacey.
"You did remember to take the contingency codes out of the safe, Mr. Lacey?"
"I thought I would wait until we established contact with the Devil Fish, Sir. I don't like TOP SECRET material lying around the radio room."
"Mr. Lacey, go find the Exec. Tell him I'll be here for a while, and would he please remain on the bridge. And then see if you can make yourself useful to him."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Do you mean you don't want me to return here?"
"That is correct, Mr. Lacey," Captain Jernigan said. He turned to Radioman First Class Clatterman. "GHR, Clatterman. See if you can raise them, please."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Clatterman put his hand on his key.
GHR, DSI, GHR, DSI.
There was no response from the Fleet Tanker Nantucket, call sign GHR.
"Try HJI," Captain Jernigan ordered. "That's the Biloxi."
Clatterman turned to his key.
This time there was a reply:
GHR, HJI, GA GHR, HJI, GA.
"Send them, in the clear, Contingency Code Six," Captain Jernigan ordered, and headed for the cryptographic machine.
Radioman First Class Clatterman heard the Captain mutter, "Now if I can only remember how to operate this sonofabitch."
Twenty minutes later, Captain Jernigan examined a decrypted message from the Fleet Tanker USS Biloxi, which advised that she and the Devil Fish were proceeding according to orders, and that they expected to reach Point J at 0345 Greenwich time 1 January.
"Send them in the clear: "We will maintain established radio schedule and will monitor frequency,' " Captain Jernigan or-dered.
"Aye, aye, Sir," Clatterman responded.
The Captain waited until there was acknowledgment from the Biloxi, then ordered: "Now try HKG. If they respond, send Con-tingency Code Six, and if they reply, relay the Biloxi's radio to us."
There was no response in four tries from HKG.
"Try HKG at hourly intervals," Captain Jernigan ordered. "If they respond, send them Contingency Code Six, then relay the last radio from the Biloxi. Notify me at any hour when you es-tablish contact."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Captain Jernigan then left the radio room for the bridge, where he asked Mr. Lacey to join him in the chart room. He delivered there a five-minute lecture to Mr. Lacey, whom he caused to stand to attention. During the lecture Mr. Lacey was advised that his performance of duty in the radio room half an hour before was below his expectations of his communications officer, and that if Mr. Lacey did not wish to spend the balance of the war serving as a permanent ensign and a venereal-disease-control officer aboard a yard tug operating in the Aleutian Islands, it would well behoove him to learn how to do what was expected of him, and then to demonstrate his ability to perform his duties when called upon to do so.
[FIVE]
Radio Room
USS Alfred Thomas. DD-107
100 Nautical Miles Due East of Punta del Este,
Uruguay
2220 30 December 1942
"What have you got, Sparks?" Captain Jernigan inquired as he entered the radio room. He was attired in his underwear, his bath-robe, and the somewhat battered brimmed cap with its somewhat moldy insignia and gold strap he customarily wore at sea.
Radioman First Class Clatterman was at the radio console. En-sign Lacey, in a crisp cotton uniform, showing evidence that he had recently shaved and was in need of sleep, sat before the cryptographic machine.
"HKG, Captain," Ensign Lacey replied. "We have..."
"I was speaking to Clatterman, Mr. Lacey, if you don't mind. Sparks?"
"HKG, Sir. They're coming in five-by-five. It's Chief Schultz, Captain. I recognize his hand."
"Did you relay the Biloxi's last radio?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Send, 'Well done,' Sparks," Captain Jernigan ordered. "And then advise HKG that we will be monitoring the frequency."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"I'll be in my cabin. Call me if we hear from anyone."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
[SIX]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province
0740 1 January 1943
The chief operator of Navy Radio Station HKG tore the sheet of paper from the typewriter on his makeshift desk and turned around, taking off his headset as he did so.
"That has to be the oldest fucking typewriter in the world," he announced.
"Beggars, Chief Schultz," First Lieutenant C. H. Frade, USMCR, replied, somewhat unctuously, "cannot be choosers."
"Up yours, Mr. Frade," Chief Schultz said, adding, "it'll take me fifteen, twenty minutes to decode this; without a machine, it's a pain in the ass. Whatever it is, it's not just one of them 'standing by' messages. It's too long for that, and they said switch to Contingency Code Eleven."
"I don't have anyplace to go, Chief."
"You want to hand me one of them beers? It's hotter than hell in here."
Eighteen minutes later, Chief Schultz handed Lieutenant Frade a sheet of typewriter paper.
"It's two messages, Mr. Frade," he said.
Clete read the messages, then passed the sheet of paper to Sec-ond Lieutenant Pelosi, who read it and handed it to Staff Sergeant Ettinger.
TOP SECRET
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FROM: ALFRED THOMAS DD107 0320 GREENWICH
IJAN43
TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASH DC
ALL TJSNAVY VESSELS AND SHORE STATIONS RELAY
1. RENDEZVOUS WITH BILOXI AND DEVIL FISH MADE AT POINT J 0310 1JAN43.
. REFUELING WILL TAKE PLACE AT FIRST LIGHT.
. IN CONTACT WITH PETER.
. PROCEEDING ACCORDING TO ORDERS.
JERNIGAN, LTCOM USN COMMANDING.
W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound Page 67
