W E B Griffin - Corp 03 - Counterattack

by Counterattack(Lit)

  "Actually, he said he had a week to get out there," Caroline McNamara said, "and suggested we could drive out there to-gether."

  Jim Ward looked a little uncomfortable when she said that, Schneider noticed.

  And well he should. There is absolutely no suggestion that his aunt finds anything wrong with the idea that she has been asked to drive cross-country alone with a man to whom she's not mar-ried. Having a shameless aunt like that should embarrass any-body.

  "That sounds like he's on orders," Jim Ward said. "But when Caroline showed up here, and no Charley Galloway, I checked. No orders have come down on him that anyone knows about."

  "I can't imagine what's going on," Schneider said. "Did any-one in the squadron office know he was in Pensacola?"

  "All the squadron knows is that he went to Washington on the verbal orders of Colonel Hershberger. That was eight, nine days ago," Jim Ward said.

  "Is there a Lieutenant Jim Ward in here?" the bartender called, holding up a telephone.

  Jim Ward got up and walked to the bar and took the tele-phone. Less than a minute later he was back at the table, smiling.

  "Our wandering boy has been heard from," he said. "That was Jerry O'Malloy. He's the duty officer. I asked him to let me know the minute he heard anything about Galloway."

  "And?" Caroline McNamara asked excitedly.

  "Charley just called the tower. He's twenty minutes out," Ward said, then turned to look at Schneider and added, "In an F4F."

  "In a what?" Caroline asked.

  "A Wildcat," Jim Ward said. "A fighter plane. I wonder where he got that, and what he's doing with it?"

  "Well, I intend to find out," Lieutenant David Schneider said, and started to get up.

  "Sit down, Dave. I told O'Malloy to have Charley call me here the minute he gets in."

  "I'm going to be at Base Operations when he lands," Schnei-der said.

  "What the hell is the matter with you?"

  "You know damned well what's the matter with me. For one thing, and you know it as well as I do, he is absolutely forbidden to fly fighters."

  "And for another?" Ward asked coldly.

  "I would prefer to discuss that privately with you, if you don't mind."

  "Sit down, Dave," Jim Ward said.

  Schneider looked at him in surprise.

  "You heard me, sit down," Jim Ward repeated firmly. "I don't know what Charley is doing with an F4F, but I do know that it's none of your business or mine. That's between him and the squadron commander."

  Schneider sat down.

  "When he calls, I'll ask him what's going on," Jim Ward said. "In the meantime, we'll pursue the legal principle that you're innocent until proven guilty."

  "I don't like the way this sounds," Caroline said. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

  "Never worry about things you can't control," Jim Ward said. "So far as we know, nothing is wrong."

  Charley Galloway did not telephone. Half an hour later, he walked up to the table, leaned down, said, "Hi, baby," to Mrs. McNamara, and kissed her on the lips.

  He was wearing his fur-collared leather flight jacket over trop-ical worsteds. He had jammed a fore-and-aft cap in one pocket of the flight jacket, and thin leather flying gloves in the other. He almost needed a shave, and there was a light band around his eyes where his flying goggles had protected the skin from the oily mist that often filled a Wildcat cockpit. It was obvious that he had come to the club directly from the flight line.

  "Where have you been, honey?" Caroline asked. "I was get-ting really worried."

  "That's a long story," he said.

  "Charley," Jim Ward asked uncomfortably, "should you be in here?"

  "He knows damn well he shouldn't," Dave Schneider flared. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Galloway?"

  "Are you talking to me, Lieutenant?" Charley asked pleasantly. He shrugged out of the leather jacket and dropped it on the floor.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Then please use the words `Captain,' and `Sir,'" Charley said. He faced Dave Schneider, smiled broadly, and pointed to the twin silver bars on each of his collar points.

  "Jesus!" Jim Ward said. "Are they for real?"

  "I got them from the Commandant himself, believe it or not," Charley said. "Together with a brief, but memorable, lecture on the conduct expected of me now that I was going to be an officer and a gentleman."

  "What about the West Coast?" Caroline asked softly.

  "I'm going to be given a fighter squadron, baby," Charley Galloway said. "As soon as I can get out to the Pacific and or-ganize one. They're going to fly me at least as far as Pearl. I've got six days to get to San Diego."

  "Oh, God!"

  "Can I go with you?" Jim Ward asked softly.

  "With Aunt Caroline and me? Hell, no," Charley Galloway said indignantly. "Didn't you ever hear that three's a crowd?"

  "That's not what I meant, Captain, Sir."

  "If, in the next three weeks or a month, you can scare up an IP here who is willing to check you out in that Wildcat I just brought up here, you can come along later. I've got authoriza-tion to steal five pilots from here," Galloway said. Then he faced Dave Schneider. "That's an invitation to you too, Dave. You're a real horse's ass sometimes, but you're not too bad an airplane driver."

  (Five)

  Melbourne, Australia

  19 May 1942

  The Martin PBM-3R Mariner made landfall on the Austra-lian continent near Moruya, in New South Wales, seventy-five miles southeast of the Australian capital at Canberra. The PBM-3R Mariner was the unarmed transport version of the standard PBM Mariner, a deep-hulled, twin-engined gull-winged mono-plane.

  Aboard were a crew of six, nineteen passengers, and eight hundred pounds of priority cargo, including a half-dozen mail bags.

  When the excitement of finally making landfall had died down-for most aboard, it was their first view of Australia- Captain D. B. Toller, Civil Engineer Corps, USN, permitted his curiosity to take charge. He walked to the forward part of the cabin, just below the ladder leading to the cockpit, and sat down beside a Marine Corps major.

  "All right if I sit here?"

  "Certainly, Sir."

  "I'm Captain Dick Toller, Major," he said, offering his hand.

  "Ed Banning, Sir."

  "Well, we're finally here. Or almost. This has been a long flight."

  "Yes, Sir, it has. I'll be glad to get off this thing and stretch my legs."

  "Now, if I'm asking something I shouldn't, just tell me to mind my own business," Captain Toller said. "But I'm really curious about something."

  "Yes, Sir?"

  "Him," Captain Toller said, nodding his head to a small area to the left of the ladder of the cockpit, where Corporal Stephen M. Koffler was curled up asleep, under blankets he had removed from his duffel bag. Koffler had rolled around in his sleep and wound up with his arm around his Springfield 1903 rifle. It looked as if he was holding it protectively, affectionately, as a child holds a teddy bear.

  Banning chuckled.

  "Corporal Koffler. He's got the right idea. He slept from `Diego to Hawaii; and except to eat, he's been asleep most of the way here."

  "I saw you get on the plane at Pearl," Captain Toller said. "I mean to say, I saw a very annoyed lieutenant commander and an even more annoyed captain being told to give up their seats in favor of passengers with higher priorities. And then you two came aboard."

  Banning didn't reply. He was not particularly surprised by the question. The bumped-from-the-flight captain and lieuten-ant commander had glowered at him with barely contained in-dignation when they climbed down from the airplane into the launch and he and Koffler climbed aboard. Getting bumped by a Marine major was bad enough; but to be bumped by a Marine corporal with a higher priority was a little too much of a blow to a senior officer's dignity.

  It was a question of priorities. Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee had set up their travel; and he apparently had easy-and probably unquestioned-access to the higher p
riorities. Special Detachment 14 had occupied most of the seats on the Mariner from San Diego to Pearl. The Air Shipment Officer at Pearl had been almost apologetic when he explained that seats were in even shorter supply from Pearl onward, and that all he could provide on this flight were two seats. The others in Special Detachment 14 would have to follow later. A lot of people with high priorities had to get to Australia.

  Banning had decided to take one of the two available seats himself, not as a privilege of rank, but because he was hand-carrying a letter from the Secretary of the Navy himself to Cap-tain Fleming Pickering, and because he thought that, as com-manding officer, he should get there as soon as possible. He had taken Koffler with him because he suspected that his most im-portant personnel requirement immediately on reaching Aus-tralia would be for a typist. Koffler had boarded the Mariner carrying his portable typewriter as well as his rifle.

  Banning had no intention of satisfying Captain Toller's curi-osity about Corporal Koffler's presence on the Mariner. For one thing, it was none of Captain Toller's business why Koffler was aboard the Mariner. And for another, it would only exacerbate the Captain's annoyance if he told him the unvarnished truth.

  "It's a strange war, isn't it?" Captain Toller went on, "when getting a major and his corporal to the theater of operations is of more importance to the war effort than getting a lieutenant commander and a captain there."

  Banning resisted the temptation to, politely of course, tell the Captain to go fuck himself.

  "Our orders are classified, Sir," Banning said. "But out of school, apropos of nothing at all, may I observe that there are very few people in the Naval Service, commissioned or enlisted, who were raised in Yokohama and speak Japanese fluently?"

  Captain Toller nodded solemmly.

  "I thought it might be something like that," he said. "I wasn't trying to pry, Major, you understand. Just curious."

  "Your curiosity is certainly understandable, Sir. But I think I've said more than I should already."

  Captain Toller put his finger in front of his lips in the gesture of silence, and winked.

  "Thank you, Sir," Banning said politely.

  There was now a range of mountains off the right wing tip. When there was a break in their tops, Banning could see what was obviously a near-desert area on the far side. Below them, the terrain was either green or showed signs of fall cultivation.

  I should have remembered that the seasons here are the reverse of those in America.

  The plane began to let down an hour or so later. When the pilot corrected his course, Banning for a moment could see they were approaching a populated area. And then an enclosed body of water appeared.

  Port Phillip Bay, Banning decided, pleased that he had taken the trouble to look at some maps.

  He went to Koffler and pushed at him with the toe of his shoe. And then pushed twice more, harder, before Koffler sat up.

  "Yes, Sir?"

  "We're here," Banning said.

  "Already?" Koffler asked.

  The Mariner touched down several minutes later with an enormous splash, bounced airborne again; and then, with an even larger splash, it made final contact with the waters of Port Phillip Bay and slowed abruptly.

  A launch carried them from the Mariner to a wharf. U.S. navy was stenciled on the wharfs sides. There was a bus, an English bus, now painted Navy gray. But when Banning started toward it, someone called his name.

  "Major Banning?"

  A tall, handsome, distinguished-looking man in a Navy cap-tain's uniform was smiling at him.

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I'm Fleming Pickering," the Captain said, offering his hand. "Welcome to Australia."

  Steve Koffler came up to them, staggering under the weight of his duffel bag, rifle, and typewriter.

  "I'll get your bags, Sir," he said, and walked back toward the launch.

  "He's with you?"

  "Yes, Sir. I thought I was probably going to need a typist."

  "Good thinking," Pickering chuckled. "But I didn't know you would have him with you, so that's one problem I hadn't thought of."

  "Sir?"

  "Putting him up," Pickering said. "You'll be staying with me. But having a corporal there would be a little awkward."

  "I understand, Sir."

  "Don't misunderstand me, Major," Pickering said. "I have nothing whatever against Marine corporals. In fact, I used to be a Marine corporal; and therefore I am well acquainted with what splendid all-around fellows they are. But you and I are in the Menzies Hotel, in an apartment directly over MacArthur and his family. We'll have to get him into another hotel for the time being."

  "Sir, I have a letter for you from Secretary Knox."

  "Wait till we get in the car," Pickering said, and gestured to-ward a 1939 Jaguar drop-head coupe.

  "Nice car."

  "Yes, it is. I hate like hell having to give it back. It belongs to a friend of mine here. It annoys the hell out of MacArthur's palace guard."

  Major Ed Banning decided he was going to like Captain Flem-ing Pickering, and his snap judgment was immediately confirmed when Pickering picked up Steve Koffler's duffel bag and Springfield and started toward the Jaguar.

  "It's been a long time since I had a duffel bag in one hand and a Springfield in the other," Pickering said, smiling. "You go help the Corporal with your bags, while I put these in the car."

  "Your tax dollars at work," Captain Pickering said, chuck-ling, to Major Banning, when Banning came out of the bath-room in a bathrobe. He handed Banning a green slip of paper.

  It was a check drawn on the Treasurer of the United States. It was payable to the bearer, and was in the amount of $250,000.

  They were in Pickering's suite in the Menzies Hotel. First they'd installed Corporal Koffler in a businessmen's hotel (Pick-ering had handed him some money and told him to get some-thing to eat, and to try to stay out of trouble). Then they'd come to the Menzies, where Pickering had made him a drink, then called the valet to have Banning's uniforms pressed.

  "The Commander-in-Chief dresses in worn thin khakis, no tie, and wears a cap I think he brought home from World War I. Naturally, if you know MacArthur, he consequently expects everyone else around him to look like a page from The Officer's Guide."

  "Sir, what is this?" Banning asked, pointing to the check.

  "Your expense money. Or our expense money. It's from the Secretary's Confidential Fund. It was in the letter you brought. Knox says that it's unaccountable, but I think it would be wise for us to keep some sort of a record of where we spend it. Koffler's hotel bill, for example. In the morning we'll go around to the Bank of Victoria, deposit it, and arrange for you to be able to write checks against it. And you'd better take some cash, too. Six thousand-odd dollars of that is mine."

  "Sir?"

  "I bought some maps that neither the Army nor the Navy could come up with on their own. I was happy to do it, but I want my money back. Whiskey all right?"

  "I'm overwhelmed by your hospitality, Sir."

  "I'm delighted that you're here. I sometimes feel very much the lonely soul. At least I won't have to watch what I say to you after I've had a couple of drinks."

  "I'm carrying a message for you from Mrs. Feller, Sir, too."

  "Oh. She was my secretary in Washington when I first came in the Navy. And, of course, you know what she's doing in Ha-waii."

  "Yes, Sir. When I saw her there, she said to give you her best regards, and to tell you that she hopes you'll soon have a chance to resume your interrupted conversation."

  "What?"

  "She sends her regards and says she hopes you'll soon have a chance to resume your interrupted conversation."

  "Oh. Yes, of course. Private joke."

  My God, she's not only not embarrassed about what happened in the Coronado Beach Hotel, but wants me to know she meant what she said Thank Christ she's in Hawaii!

  A bellman delivered a crisply pressed uniform and a pair of highly polished shoes.

  Pickerin
g followed Banning into the bedroom as Banning started to get dressed.

  "Tomorrow, I'm going to take you around to meet Admiral Brewer," he said. "Australian. Deputy chief of their naval intel-ligence. I want you to meet him and see if we can't get a letter of introduction for you to the man who runs the Coastwatcher operation. They're working out of a little town called Townesville, on the northeastern coast. The man in charge is a guy named Eric Feldt, Lieutenant Commander, Australian Navy.