W E B Griffin - Corp 03 - Counterattack

by Counterattack(Lit)

  "It's all over Washington, Flem," Jake Dillon said, "that you and Dugout Doug have become asshole buddies."

  A wave of rage swept through Fleming Pickering. It was a long moment before he trusted himself to speak.

  "Jake, old friends or not," he said finally, calmly, "if you ever refer to MacArthur in those terms again, I'll bring you up on charges myself." But then his tone turned furious as anger over-whelmed him: "Goddamn you, you ignorant sonofabitch! Gen-eral Willoughby-who is a fine officer despite the contempt in which you, Goettge, and others seem to hold him-told me that on Bataan, MacArthur was often so close to the lines that there was genuine concern that he would be captured by Japanese in-fantry patrols. And on Corregidor they couldn't get him to go into the goddamned tunnel when the Japs were shelling! Who the fuck do you think you are to call him `Dugout Doug'?"

  "Sorry," Dillon said.

  "You fucking well should be sorry!" Pickering flared. "Stick to being a goddamned press agent, you miserable pimple on a Marine's ass, and keep your fucking mouth shut when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"

  There was silence in the room.

  Pickering looked at them, the rage finally subsiding. Jake Dil-lon looked crushed. Colonel Goettge looked painfully uncom-fortable. Ed Banning was...

  The sonofabitch is smiling!

  "You are amused, Major Banning?" Pickering asked icily.

  "Sir, I think Major Dillon was way out of line," Banning said. "But, Sir, I was amused. I was thinking, `You can take the boy out of the Marines, but you can't take the Marines out of the boy.' I was thinking, Sir, that you sounded much more like a Marine corporal than like the personal representative of the Sec-retary of the Navy. You did that splendidly, Sir."

  "Christ, Flem," Jake Dillon said. "I just didn't know... If I knew what you thought of him..."

  "Jake," Pickering said. "Just shut up."

  "Yes, Sir," Dillon said.

  "Do something useful. Make us a drink."

  "Would it be better if I just left, Sir?" Colonel Goettge asked.

  "No. Of course not. I'm going to get on the phone and ask General Willoughby out here for dinner. I'm going to tell him that you're an old friend of mine. If he comes, fine. If he doesn't, at least he'll know who you are when I take you in tomorrow morning to see him."

  "Sir," Banning said, "I thought it would be a good idea to put Colonel Goettge in touch with the Coastwatchers-"

  "Absolutely!"

  "To that end, Sir, I asked Commander Feldt-he's in town-"

  "I know," Pickering interrupted.

  "-and Lieutenant Donnelly to dinner."

  "Good."

  "He's bringing Yeoman Farnsworth with him," Banning said.

  "It was my idea, Sir. I thought it would be nice to radio Lieu-tenant Howard and Sergeant Koffler that we had dinner with their girls. I asked Ensign Cotter, too."

  "If General Willoughby is free to have dinner with us, Ed, I can't imagine that he would object to sharing the table with two pretty girls. God knows, there's none around the mess in the Menzies."

  Chapter Fourteen

  (One)

  TOP SECRET

  Eyes Only-The Secretary of the Navy

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYP-TION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAVY

  Water Lily Cottage

  Manchester Avenue

  Brisbane, Australia

  Tuesday, 21 July 1942

  Dear Frank:

  I `m not sure if it was really necessary, but the emperor decided to move the court; and so here, after an enormous lo-gistical effort, we are. It is (MacA.`s stated reason for the move) "1,185 miles closer to the front lines. "

  El Supremo' s Headquarters are in a mod-ern office building, formerly occupied by an insurance company. MacA. has a rather elegant office on the eighth floor (of nine). I am down the corridor, and was surprised to learn that General Suther-land himself assigned me my office. I would have wagered he would put me in the basement, or left me in Melbourne.

  MacA. and family, and the senior offi-cers, are living in Lennon' s Hotel, which is a rambling, graceful old Victorian hostelry that reminds me of the place the Southern Pacific railroad used to oper-ate in Yellowstone Park. This time I was assigned quarters appropriate to my rank: that is to say, sharing a two-room suite with an Army Ordnance Corps colo-nel. Because the Colonel is portly, mustached, and almost certainly snores, and because I wanted a place affording some privacy, and because I didn't think I should permit anyone in Supreme Head-quarters to tell me to do anything, I have taken a small cottage near the (unfortu-nately closed for the duration) Doomben Race Track, where this is written.

  It should go without saying that I think the JCS decision of 2 July to invade the Solomons was wrong. I have the somewhat nasty suspicion that it was based on Roo-sevelt's awe of King, and his dislike of MacA., rather than for any strategic pur-pose.

  The night before (1 July) I had dinner with a colonel named Goettge, who is the First Marine Division G-2. There was no question in his mind how the JCS was going to decide the issue. I found that rather disturbing, as theoretically it was still under consideration. He was in with MacA.'s intelligence people, getting what they had on Tulagi and Guadalcanal when the JCS cable ordering Operation PESTILENCE came in.

  He tells me-and I believe-that it is going to be one hell of a job getting the 1st Marines ready to make an amphibious landing in five weeks, including, of course, the rehearsal operation in the Fiji Islands.

  Ghormley has requested that the 2nd Ma-rines, of the 2nd Marine Division, be combat-loaded at San Diego. The 5th Ma-rines were not combat-loaded, which means that they had to unload everything onto the docks, Aotea Quay, at Welling-ton, sort it out, and then reload it, so that it meets the needs of an amphibious landing force. That's what they are now doing; and according to a friend of mine in the 5th Marines, it is an indescrib-able mess, with cans spilling out of or-dinary cardboard boxes, and so on.

  The problem is compounded by the dock workers, a surly socialist bunch who, I suspect, would rather see the Japs in New Zealand than work overtime or over a weekend. I'm sure that the Marines and Navy people here have been raising hell about it with port people in America, but if you could add your weight to getting something done about it, your effort would be worthwhile.

  On the Fourth of July, we learned from Coastwatchers that the Japanese have started construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal. That's frightening. Both MacA. and Ghormley are fully aware of the implications of an air base there, but they both, separately, insist that the Guadalcanal operation should not be launched until we are prepared to do it properly. It is not pleasant to consider the ramifications of a failed amphibious invasion.

  That opinion is obviously not shared by the JCS. I don' t know how Ghormley took it in Auckland, but I was with MacA. when a copy of the JCS cable of 10 July ordering Ghormley to "seize Guadalcanal and Tulagi at once" reached here. He thinks, to put it kindly, it was a serious error in judgment.

  It wasn't until the next day (11 July) that the other infantry regiment (the 1st Marines) and the artillery (11th) of the 1st Marine Division reached Wellington, N.Z. Now they are expected to unload, sort, and combat-load their equipment and otherwise get set for an amphibious landing in twenty days.

  The same day, as you know, we learned that Imperial Japanese Headquarters has called off its plans to seize Midway, New Caledonia, and Samoa. Under those cir-cumstances, no one here can see the need for "immediately" landing at Guadalca-nal.

  Last Thursday (16 July), a courier brought a copy of Ghormley's operation plan (OPPLAN 1-42). There are three phases: a rehearsal in the Fiji Islands; the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi; and the occupation of Ndeni Island in the Santa Cruz Islands. MacA.`s reaction to it was that it is as good as it could be ex-pected to be, given the circumstances.

  MacA. made B-17 aircraft available to the 1st Marine Division for reconnais-sance , and they flew over both Guadalca-n
al and Tulagi on Friday. On Saturday we learned that the aerial photographs taken differ greatly from the maps al-ready issued-and there is simply no time to print and issue corrected ones.

  I'm going to leave here first thing in the morning for New Zealand, and from there will join the rehearsal in the Fijis. I don't know what good, if any at all, I can do anyone. But obviously I am doing no one any good here.

  Respectfully,

  Fleming Pickering, Captain, USNR

  top secret

  (Two)

  Supreme Headquarters

  Southwest Pacific Area

  Brisbane, Australia

  1705 Hours 21 July 1942

  It was the first time Pickering had been to the Cryptology Room in Brisbane. He found it in the basement, installed in a vault that had held the important records of the evicted insur-ance company. There was a new security system, too, now run by military policemen wearing white puttees, pistol belts, and shiny steel helmets. The security in Melbourne had been a cou-ple of noncoms armed with Thompson submachine guns, slouched on chairs. They had come to know Captain Fleming Pickering and had habitually waved him inside. But the MPs here not only didn't know who he was, but somewhat smugly told him that he was not on the "authorized-access list."

  Finally, reluctantly, they summoned Lieutenant Pluto Hon to the steel door, and he arranged, not easily, to have Pickering passed inside.

  Hon waved Pickering into a chair, and then typed Pickering's letter to Navy Secretary Frank Knox onto a machine that looked much like (and was a derivative of) a teletype machine. It produced a narrow tape, like a stock-market ticker tape, spit-ting it out of the left side of the machine. Hon ripped it off, and then fed the end of the tape into the cryptographic machine it-self. Wheels began to whir and click, and there was the sound of keys hitting paper. Finally, out of the other end of the ma-chine came another long strip of tape.

  When that process was done, Lieutenant Hon took that strip of paper and fed it into the first machine. There was the sound of more typewriter keys, and the now-encrypted message ap-peared at the top of the machine, the way a teletype message would. But there were no words there, only a series of five-character blocks.

  Hon gave his original letter and both strips of tape to Picker-ing; then, carrying the encrypted message, he left the vault for the radio room across the basement. Pickering followed him.

  "Urgent," Hon said to the sergeant in charge. "For Navy Ha-waii. Log it as my number"-he paused to consult the encrypted message-"six-six-oh-six."

  Pickering and Hon watched as a radio operator, using a telegrapher's key, sent the message to Hawaii. A few moments later there came an acknowledgment of receipt. Then Hon took the encoded message from the radio operator and handed it to Pick-ering.

  In a couple of minutes, Pickering thought, that will be in the hands of Ellen Feller. He wondered if her receiving a message from him triggered any erotic thoughts in her.

  He followed Hon back to the Cryptology Room. Hon turned a switch, and there was the sound of a fan. Pickering dropped his letter, the two tapes, and the encrypted printout into a galva-nized bucket, and then stopped and set it all afire with his ciga-rette lighter. He waited until it had been consumed, and then reached in the bucket and broke up the ashes with a pencil.

  It wasn't that he distrusted Hon, or any of the others who encrypted his letters to the Secretary of the Navy. It was just that if he personally saw to it that all traces of it had been burned, there was no way it could wind up on Willoughby's, MacArthur's, or anyone else's desk.

  "I wish I was going with you," Pluto Hon said.

  Pickering was surprised. It was the first time Pluto had even suggested he was familiar with the contents of one of Pickering's messages. He was, of course-you read what you type-but the rules of the little game were that everyone pretended the cryp-tographer didn't know.

  "Why?"

  "It's liable to be as dull here as it was in Melbourne," Pluto said.

  "I could probably arrange to have you dropped onto some island behind Japanese lines," Pickering joked. "They're short of people, I know."

  "I already asked Major Banning," Pluto replied, seriously. "He said I could go the day after you let him go. `We also serve who sit in dark basements shuffling paper.' "

  "It's more than that, Pluto, and you know it," Pickering said, and touched his shoulder.

  "Good night, Sir," Lieutenant Hon said.

  Pickering walked back through the basement, then up to the lobby and to the security desk, where, after duty hours, it was necessary to produce identification and sign in and out.

  "There he is," a female voice said as he scrawled his name on the register.

  I am losing my mind. That sounded exactly like Ellen Feller.

  He straightened and turned around.

  "Good evening, Captain Pickering," Ellen Feller said.

  "I hope you have some influence around here, Captain," Cap-tain David Haughton said, as he offered Pickering his hand, smiling at his surprise. "We have just been told there is absolutely no room in the inn."

  "Haughton, what the hell are you doing here?" Pickering asked. He looked at Ellen Feller. "And you, Ellen?"

  "I'm on my way to Admiral Ghormley in Auckland. They're servicing the plane. Ellen's for duty."

  "For duty?" Pickering asked her. "What do you mean?"

  "I was asked if I would be willing to come here," Ellen Feller said. "I was."

  Jesus Christ, what the hell is this all about?

  "The boss arranged it," Haughton said. "In one of your letters you said something about not having a secretary. So he sent you one. Yours."

  "You don't seem very pleased to see me, Captain Pickering," Ellen said.

  "Don't be silly. Of course I am," Pickering said.

  "Your billeting people are being difficult," Haughton said. "I tried to get Ellen a room in the hotel... Lennon's?"

  "Lennon's," Pickering confirmed.

  "And they say she's not on their staff, and no room."

  "I can take care of that," Pickering said.

  "I tried to invoke your name, and they gave me a room num-ber. But the door was opened by a fat Army officer who said he hadn't seen you since Melbourne."

  "I've got a cottage just outside of town. We can stay there tonight, and I'll get this all sorted out in the morning. Christ, no I won't either. I'm leaving first thing in the morning. But I'll make some phone calls tonight."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To the rehearsal," Pickering said. "I just sent Knox a letter

  Ellen Feller read his mind.

  "I've taken care of everything in Hawaii. If it's in Hawaii now, it will be on his desk, decrypted, in three hours."

  "Have you got a car?" Haughton asked.

  Pickering nodded. "Why?"

  "Well, Ellen's luggage is still at the airfield. If you've got a car, you could pick that up; and at the same time, I can check in about the plane."

  Pickering pointed out the door, where the drop-head Jaguar was parked in front of a sign reading general and flag offi-cers only.

  "That's beautiful," Ellen said. "What is it?"

  "It's an old Jaguar. The roof leaks."

  Haughton chuckled. "I see you are still scrupulously refusing to obey the Customs of the Service."

  Pickering was surprised at how furious the remark made him, but he forced a smile.

  "Shall we go?"

  Ellen Feller sat between them on the way to the airport. Whether by intent or accident, her thigh pressed against his. That warm softness and the smell of her perfume produced the physiological manifestation of sexual excitement in the male ani-mal.

  An inspection of the aircraft had revealed nothing seriously wrong, Haughton was told. They would be leaving in an hour.

  There was a small officers' club. They had three drinks, during which time Ellen Feller's leg brushed, accidentally or otherwise, against Pickering's. Then they called Haughton's flight. They watched him board the Mariner for New
Zealand.

  Fleming Pickering would not have been surprised at anything Ellen did now that they were alone. She did nothing, sitting lady-like against the far door, all the way out to the cottage.

  "What's this?" she asked.

  "It's a cottage I rented. I told you-"

  "I would have bet you were taking me to an officers' hotel!" she said.

  Why the hell didn`t I? I could have gotten her a room if I had to call General Sutherland himself.

  "No."