Behind the Lines

by W. E. B Griffin

  Elly was Mrs. Jack (NMI) Stecker.

  “I suppose,” Colonel Stecker said, reaching for the bottle of whiskey, “that it would be bad manners if I were to say I wish to hell the General had minded his own business?”

  “I suppose you’ve heard the bad news? No Aussie sub?” Pickering asked.

  “Feldt told us,” Stecker said. He held the bottle over one of the glasses and asked with a gesture if Lieutenant McCoy wanted him to pour.

  McCoy held up fingers, indicating that he wanted about an inch and a half.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he said.

  “And will Mrs. Koffler banish you from the marriage bed if you come home smelling of this?” Stecker asked Sergeant Koffler.

  “I’ve got some Sen-Sen, Sir,” Koffler said. “A little one, please.”

  “Now that you’ve taken those apart, can you put them back together again?” Pickering asked, indicating the carbines. “What are you doing, anyway?”

  “Working on the sears,” Stecker said.

  Pickering was aware that the carbines were almost certainly in perfectly functioning order as they came out of their crates. But he was not at all surprised that Stecker and McCoy felt it necessary to fine-tune them. They were not only Marines, nor even only Marine marksmen—both had drawn extra pay as enlisted men for being Expert Riflemen—but weapons experts.

  “I think we can get them back together, General,” McCoy said. “And if the Colonel can’t, Sergeant Koffler can.”

  Stecker chuckled.

  “And you’re determined that’s what you want to take with you?” Pickering asked.

  “I’d rather take a Garand,” McCoy said.

  “I thought I’d explained why we ... why you should take the carbines,” Stecker said.

  “That’s not what the General asked, Colonel,” McCoy said, smiling at Stecker. “The General asked me what I’d rather take. I will take one of these, but I’d rather take a Garand.”

  “He was a sea lawyer the first time I ever met him,” Stecker said, smiling at Pickering. “Wiseass little China Marine corporal in a handmade uniform. Knew everything. Had Expert medals pinned all over him. But when he went on the KD range, he couldn’t hit anything but the butts. It looked like a Chinese fire drill, with all those Maggie’s drawers flying.” (The KD range was the known distance small-arms range, while Maggie’s drawers was a red flag waved from the target butts to signal a complete miss.)

  “Christ.” McCoy chuckled. “I forgot about that. Until I figured out what that bastard was doing to me, I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “Until what bastard was doing what to you?” Pickering asked.

  “General,” Stecker said, “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but there were a number of officers who didn’t think Corporal McCoy should be an officer and a gentleman.”

  “There was a Master Gunny who didn’t think so either, as I remember it,” McCoy said.

  Before being called to active duty as a reserve officer, Stecker was the senior master gunnery sergeant at Marine Base, Quantico, Virginia.

  “I didn’t say that,” Stecker said. “I said that if by some miracle you got through OCS, you would probably be the worst officer in the history of The Corps. And time seems to have proved me right.”

  “Are you two going to explain what you’re talking about?” Pickering said.

  “As I was saying, General, before this impertinent sea lawyer interrupted me,” Stecker said, “there was a lieutenant who was sent right up the wall by the prospect of this young man putting on an officer’s uniform—”

  “Macklin,” McCoy interrupted. “Robert B. Macklin. That was the sonofabitch’s name!”

  “That’s the man,” Stecker said. “What happened, General, was that he tried to get the sea lawyer here kicked out of OCS.”

  “Why?” Pickering asked.

  “I had a run-in with him in China,” McCoy said, “when I was working for Ed Banning. He was—is, if he’s still alive, and I suppose it’s too much to hope that he isn’t—a miserable, lying sonofabitch. Banning wrote him an efficiency report that should have gotten him kicked out of The Corps, and would have, if the war hadn’t come along.”

  Whatever happened in China, Pickering decided, if Ed Banning sided with McCoy, the officer in question was dead wrong.

  Stecker saw the confusion on Pickering’s face.

  “I didn’t know any of this at the time,” he explained. “Ken being too proud, or too dumb, to ask for help.”

  “What was I supposed to say, ‘Gunny, this lieutenant doesn’t like me, and is being mean to me’?”

  “Yeah,” Stecker said. “Exactly. That’s exactly what you should have done. And told me why he didn’t like you.”

  “You would have laughed me out of your office,” McCoy said.

  “Anyway,” Stecker said. “I heard that McCoy wasn’t qualifying on the KD range. That didn’t seem right, so I went and had a look, and found this Lieutenant Macklin in the pits, scoring McCoy’s targets himself. He was scoring every third shot as a Maggie’s drawers. Then I did some snooping around and got the rest of the story.”

  “In other words, General,” McCoy said, “if it wasn’t for the Gunny here sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong, I would now be a buck sergeant in some nice, safe mess-kit-repair platoon somewhere.”

  Instead of, Pickering thought, getting ready for the third time to climb into a rubber boat and paddle it ashore from a submarine onto a Japanese-held island. First the Makin Island raid, then Buka to get Howard and Koffler out, and now the Philippines.

  “There’s a word for someone like you, Lieutenant,” Stecker said. “It’s spelled ungrateful sonofabitch.”

  “I didn’t think full bull colonels, Colonel, were supposed to swear at innocent junior officers like me,” McCoy said piously.

  “Speaking of sonsofbitches,” Pickering said, having decided that it was time to get to what he’d come to tell McCoy. He waited until both Stecker and McCoy were looking at him, and then went on.

  “I ran into Phil DePress,” he said. “And learned from him that Fertig is a light bird, or was, before he promoted himself.”

  “How does that make Phil a sonofabitch?” Stecker asked.

  “The sonofabitch is the unnamed brigadier general, Army type, on El Supremo’s staff who certainly knew this and elected not to tell me.”

  “Why not, General?” McCoy asked.

  “Aside from his being an all-around sonofabitch, you mean? Here’s what I’m thinking. For one thing, Fertig, who came on active duty as a captain, was twice promoted for outstanding performance. By whom? If not by El Supremo himself, then by somebody high up in the palace guard. Two promotions—in what, six months?—means that he was doing an outstanding job.”

  McCoy nodded, and made a motion of his hand toward Colonel Stecker. The meaning was obvious. Here’s the proof of what you just said: When the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, Stecker landed on Tulagi—across the channel from Guadalcanal—as a major, commanding 2nd Battalion, Fifth Marines. Shortly after that, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on Guadalcanal. And earlier today, there was a Special Channel Personal message to Pickering from the Secretary of the Navy. A paragraph of that informed him that Stecker was shortly going to be transferred to Washington, and was promoted to full colonel.

  Colonel Stecker took McCoy’s meaning, and grew uncomfortable. His promotion and transfer meant that he would not be going into the Philippines. Two things were wrong with that. Personally, he’d rather go to the Philippines than to Washington. He thought he might be of some genuine use there; he wasn’t at all sure that would be true in Washington. And secondly, although he would have been happy to publicly announce that Ken McCoy was one hell of a Marine officer, he thought that by sending him in alone to the Philippines, Pickering was placing more responsibility on his shoulders than he should really ask of a twenty-two-year-old.

  Pickering nodded. “Precisely,” he said. “And Fe
rtig being an outstanding officer does not fit in with the picture El Supremo, and especially Willoughby, want to paint of him now.”

  “You’ve lost me, Flem,” Stecker said.

  “It is their official position that setting up guerrilla activities in the Philippines is impossible. Unless, of course, they set them up, at some unspecified time in the future. And here comes this guy, a reservist, who announces that he has recruited people, set up U.S. Forces in the Philippines, and appointed himself as commanding general; then says that as soon as we can get him the matériel to do it with, he will commence guerrilla activities against the Japanese. Since it wasn’t their idea, obviously it’s bad, and so is this guy. And if he succeeds, he will make Willoughby, and by inference El Supremo himself, look foolish.”

  “You’re not suggesting they hope Fertig will fail?” Stecker asked.

  “I think that’s a possibility, Jack, that we should keep in mind,” Pickering said.

  “Did you call Willoughby on this?” Stecker asked.

  “You bet I did. He vaguely remembers hearing something about Fertig getting promoted to major, but that the records have of course been lost, and officially, they have to consider him as still being a captain.”

  “Christ,” McCoy said in disgust.

  “A captain who appoints himself commanding general of anything looks like somebody who may not be playing with a full deck,” Pickering said. “Somebody you don’t pay a lot of attention to, or more importantly, send arms and ammunition to. It’s a hell of a lot different when the fellow is a highly regarded lieutenant colonel.”

  “According to Phil DePress, Fertig is a good officer,” Stecker said.

  “And I’m sure he’s told Willoughby that,” Pickering replied. “Willoughby has selective hearing; he doesn’t hear what he doesn’t want to hear. But what really bothers me is wondering what else they haven’t told me.”

  “Now I really wish I was going with McCoy,” Stecker said. “Particularly with the silver chickens on my collar.”

  “You know that’s out of the question, Jack,” Pickering said.

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say McCoy finds Fertig and decides he’s not a lunatic and can do what he says he can do. If they’re ignoring what DePress—one of their own—tells them about Fertig, what makes you think they’ll listen to McCoy? ‘On such an important matter as this, we can’t trust the judgment of a Marine lieutenant.’ ”

  “That’s pretty simple, Jack,” Pickering said. “I trust McCoy’s judgment. And I’m not going to run his report of whatever he finds in the Philippines past Willoughby and company and give them a chance to snipe at it. My recommendation goes right to Frank Knox, who will lay it on Admiral Leahy’s desk. Leahy trusts Knox, Knox trusts me, and I trust McCoy. So will the President, I think, once he learns—as I intend that he will—that the Killer was with Roosevelt’s son on the Makin Island raid.”

  Stecker smiled. “OK. But you’re not supposed to call him that, you know,” he said.

  “Sorry, Ken,” Pickering said.

  “No offense taken, Sir,” McCoy said, not very convincingly.

  “OK, we’re getting down the line. I just told Pluto to message Nimitz at Pearl Harbor asking for the submarine Narwhal. I think he’ll give it to us. I figure ten days, two weeks on the outside, before we get it.”

  Both Stecker and McCoy nodded.

  “Is there anything else you think you need, Ken? I’m prepared to override the Colonel here if you really want to take a Garand with you.”

  “No, he’s right,” McCoy said. “If we’re going to equip the Filipinos with carbines, that’s what the Americans should carry. And with a little bit of luck, I won’t have to shoot anybody anyway.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up, Ken,” Pickering said. “You’re not being sent to shoot at the Japanese. I want your honest assessment of Colonel Fertig, and his potential. If you get yourself killed...”

  “I’ll do my very best not to, Sir.”

  “Back to the original question. Is there anything else you would like to take with you?” Pickering saw McCoy’s eyes light up momentarily, but he said nothing. “What, Ken? If I can get it for you, it’s yours.”

  “How about a gunnery sergeant?”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “We served together in China, working for Banning. He was on the Makin Island raid. I saw him on Guadalcanal. He was running the weapons shop for VMF-229”—Marine Fighter Squadron 229. “He’s an Old Breed Marine. Speaks Spanish, two or three kinds of Chinese, and even a little Japanese. I think he’d be useful. His name is Zimmerman.”

  What the hell is a man who speaks Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese doing repairing weapons? Pickering thought, more than a little angrily.

  “Give me his full name and his serial number, if you’ve got it, and I’ll get right on it,” he said, and then had a second thought. “Ken, you’re sure he’d volunteer for something like you’re going to be doing?”

  McCoy smiled at him. Tolerantly, Pickering thought. I just asked a stupid question, and this young man is smiling tolerantly at me.

  “He’s an Old Breed Marine, General,” McCoy said. “Old Breed Marines don’t volunteer for anything. They go where they’re told to go, and do what they’re told to do.”

  “I stand corrected, Mr. McCoy,” Pickering said. “And if you and this other Old Breed Marine here can get those weapons back together in the next hour or so, I will make amends by taking the both of you out to dinner.”

  [TWO]

  Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff G-1

  Headquarters, United States Marine Corps

  Eighth and “I” Streets, NW

  Washington, D.C.

  0915 Hours 17 November 1942

  Master Gunner James L. Hardee entered the office of Colonel David M. Wilson, waited until he had the colonel’s attention, and then announced that Colonel F. L. Rickabee, Deputy Chief of the USMC Office of Management Analysis, was outside, asking to see him.

  Following a hand-delivered, classified SECRET, interoffice memorandum from the Deputy Commandant of The Marine Corps ordering that no personnel actions—read transfers—involving officers assigned to the USMC Office of Management Analysis were to be taken without the specific approval in each instance of Major General Horace W. T. Forrest, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, Colonel Wilson and Gunner Hardee had correctly surmised that the Office of Management Analysis probably had more to do with intelligence than either management or analysis.

  They had no idea what it had to do with intelligence, and did not consider it their official business to make inquiries. Colonel Wilson had run into Colonel Rickabee at various times during their long service; but with the exception of the time they’d spent as students at the Naval War College, he could not recall ever knowing what Rickabee’s assignments had been. Neither were Rickabee’s records in the files of the Officers’ Branch, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1. They had been “borrowed” a long time before by the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and never returned. There had been no reply to two requests for their return.

  I haven’t seen Rickabee since the War College, Wilson thought as he made a show him in wave of his hand to Gunner Hardee.

  “How are you, Fritz?” Wilson said, trying to conceal his surprise that Rickabee was in civilian clothing. “Long time no see.”

  “David,” Rickabee replied. “How are you?”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I came here looking for Charley Stevens,” Rickabee said. “He’s out of the office.”

  Colonel Charles D. Stevens was head of the enlisted branch of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1.

  “Charley went down to Parris Island to show some congressmen around.”

  “He and his deputy, and his deputy’s deputy, leaving a young major in charge,” Rickabee said. “I didn’t want to show him this, so I came to you.”

  He handed Wilson an obviously decrypted radio message. �
��Strange paper, Fritz,” Wilson thought aloud, as he felt the unusual, slick paper.

  “It burns rapidly,” Rickabee said matter-of-factly.

  TOP SECRET

  SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SWPOA

  NAVY DEPT WASH DC

  VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL

  FOR COLONEL F. L. RICKABEE

  OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS

  BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

  MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER 1942

  DEAR FRITZ:

  WHILE JACK NMI STECKERʹS PROMOTION IS RICHLY DESERVED, IT MEANS MCCOY WILL BE GOING ON THE FERTIG OPERATION JUST ABOUT BY HIMSELF. THE MAN WHO SHOULD REPLACE STECKER OBVIOUSLY IS BANNING, BUT THAT’S OBVIOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE. MCCOY HAS ASKED ME FOR A CHINESE—AND JAPANESE—SPEAKING GUNNERY SERGEANT WHO SERVED WITH HIM IN BOTH CHINA PRE-WAR AND WAS ON THE MAKIN ISLAND RAID WITH HIM.

  UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I THINK MCCOY SHOULD HAVE WHATEVER HE THINKS HE NEEDS THEREFORE PLEASE ARRANGE THE IMMEDIATE REPEAT IMMEDIATE TRANSFER OF GUNNERY SERGEANT ERNEST ZIMMERMAN FROM VMF-229 (WHICH IS NOW AT EWA, HAWAII) TO US HERE. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES, AND KEEP ME ADVISED.

  REGARDS,

  FLEMING PICKERING, BRIGADIER GENERAL, USMCR

  TOP SECRET

  EYES ONLY, SECNAV

  “I’m surprised you showed me this,” Wilson said. “It says, ‘Eyes Only SECNAV.’ ”

  “It also says ‘do whatever it takes,’ ” Rickabee said.

  “I’m also surprised that General Pickering knows that Jack (NMI) Stecker was promoted. That was supposed to be kept quiet.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I know why. And I know that General Pickering knows about it because the Secretary of the Navy told him.”