James Benn - The White Ghost

“Please excuse Lieutenant Boyle,” Kaz said, placing his hand on Howe’s shoulder from the backseat. “He has the police detective’s habit of asking questions even when there is no need.”

“No problem, sir, glad to help.” Without actually having helped, Howe parked the jeep near a Quonset hut and a couple of weathered clapboard buildings that once perhaps reminded a European of home, but were now ready to decay into the ground. They all had wide verandahs, which I figured was standard because of the heat. It had to be stifling indoors at midday, even with the breeze wafting in from twenty different directions.

Howe offered to wait and drive us to our quarters. I figured he was going to report our every move to Ritchie, so I told him to knock off for the day. On an island as small as Tulagi, we couldn’t get lost for long. He looked dejected as we turned away and took the rickety steps up to the base commander’s office. A sailor on duty showed us into Ritchie’s office, where we found the captain reading from a file. There were two chairs in front of his desk, on which we were not invited to sit. As a matter of fact, Ritchie didn’t react at all. He kept reading, turning each page over carefully as if his superior officer might give him points for neatness.

Howe had been right. The open windows on each wall let in a cool seaside breeze. The view wasn’t bad either, with Guadalcanal in the distance and the lush green of Florida Island on either side. A ceiling fan revolved slowly overhead. A sheet of paper moved about a half inch as the air wafted in. Ritchie put it back, aligning it with the others. I caught a few upside-down words, Boyle and Kazimierz among them. Uncooperative was there, too. No US Navy letterhead either, only flimsy paper that looked like it came out of a teletype.

Salutes weren’t done indoors except when reporting to a superior officer, and I wondered if Ritchie was waiting for his due. We weren’t under his command, but perhaps he liked that sort of stuff.

I glanced at Kaz, who had his British service cap tucked under his arm. I stiffened my posture into a semblance of attention and he caught on quick, snapping his heels and doing one of those Brit palm-out salutes, his arm practically vibrating above his eyebrow. I did the best I could, but I didn’t have the panache for it.

“Lieutenants Boyle and Kazimierz reporting, sir!” I intoned.

“Glad to see the army taught you basic military discipline,” Captain Ritchie said. He had about ten years and twenty pounds on us. His wavy brown hair was in retreat and his voice was a combination of sarcasm and weariness with a thin layer of disdain as a chaser. I could see we were going to be great pals.

“Our orders, sir,” I said, holding out the crumpled sheets I’d been carrying halfway around the world.

“I know all about your orders, Lieutenant Boyle,” Ritchie said, looking me in the eye and ignoring the proffered papers. “I’m the one who contacted ONI and asked for an investigator to be sent in.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Are you clear on what you are here to do?” Ritchie asked. I had about half a dozen theories on the subject, but figured I’d better stick to the official version.

“Yes sir. To find out who killed Daniel Tamana and bring him to justice.”

“The native, yes, of course,” Ritchie said. “It is vital that we treat his killing seriously.”

“But?” I said, urging him along in the hopes he’d offer us a seat.

“It must be done in a manner that reflects well upon the United States Navy,” Ritchie said, his chin jutting out as if it were the bow of a battleship cutting through the water.

I thought about that. And about the teletype sheets, and how the Office of Naval Intelligence had its fingerprints all over this investigation.

“You worked in ONI, didn’t you, Captain Ritchie?” I said.

“My previous assignment has nothing to do with this situation,” he said, the disdain a little heavier in his tone.

“I don’t believe that, sir,” I said. Then I sat down. Kaz followed suit. The hell with this guy and his pompous airs. “I didn’t understand how ONI got on top of this so fast. But once I saw you had a report with our names in it, I knew you had a connection.”

“I didn’t invite you to sit, Lieutenant,” Captain Ritchie said as he closed the file in front of him, nervously patting it down as if it might spring open and scatter pages for all to see.

“And I don’t think your commanding officer would take kindly to you doing political favors in a war zone, Captain. I bet you and Alan Kirk were at ONI at the same time, right?” Kirk was Joe Kennedy’s naval attaché in London, who had gone on to head ONI. He didn’t last long, and was heading up a bunch of destroyers in the Mediterranean last I heard.

“What of it?” Ritchie said, worry lines appearing in his forehead.

“Kirk is connected to Joe Kennedy Senior,” I said. “You’re connected to Kirk. Jack Kennedy gets himself involved in the murder of a local native, and the first thing you do? You don’t investigate, you don’t bring in the British or Australian police, instead you contact your buddies at ONI, who can get to Joe Senior. Then things begin to happen and favors accrue. I bet old Joe would pay a bundle to have his son’s name cleared.”

“I don’t have the time or inclination to listen to your preposterous theories,” Ritchie said, standing and sucking in his gut. That was our cue to leave. “Find out what happened to Tamana and try not to disgrace the uniform while you do it. Report to me if you find out anything useful.” I felt his glare on my back as we left.

“That was interesting,” Kaz said as we stood on the verandah, surveying the bustle of soldiers, sailors, and natives around the headquarters area. “When were you sure about Ritchie and ONI?”

“When he didn’t throw me in the brig for sitting in his damn chair,” I said, watching a crew of natives loading a truck from a supply tent. “And the few words I caught in that report didn’t sound like a military memo. It was the lowdown on us. On me, probably direct from old Joe himself.”

“Do you think Ritchie is really being paid off?” Kaz asked.

“Not with money or anything that can be traced,” I said. “But I bet he’ll get a promotion and a plum assignment next.”

“Unless we do not proceed in a manner that reflects well on the United States Navy,” Kaz said, in a rough attempt at imitating Ritchie’s growl.

“I’m tempted to disgrace the navy just to see him transferred to Greenland,” I said. “Come on, let’s find Jack and see what the hell he has to say about all this.”

We maneuvered the jeep through the heavy traffic around headquarters and the nearby docks. Seaplanes floated near their moorings offshore and a steady stream of small craft motored men and materials back and forth. Tulagi had become a backwater island when the fighting moved on up the Slot, but it was still a busy backwater.

The hospital was a long whitewashed cement block building with a red cross against a white background prominently painted on the roof. It sat high on a slope facing the sound, with breezes off the water drifting through the wide-open windows. I asked a clerk at a desk in the main corridor which room Jack Kennedy was in.

“He’s up the hill, Lieutenant,” the clerk said. “Go out the back door, third hut on the right.”

“In a hut?” I asked, expecting to find Jack bandaged and bruised, stretched out on white sheets.

“Yeah, the VIP lounge we call it,” he said. “It’s for officers with minor wounds. Not much different from in here except we don’t have to check on them that often.”

“No nurses here?” I asked, noticing the all-male character of the staff walking the hallways.