James Benn: The White Ghost

“Or not,” I said. “If he sits on his hands next year.”

“Jack always said you were a dumb bastard, Boyle. I think my little brother got that wrong.”

“An unpleasant man,” Kaz said as Joe Junior went off in search of chow and a bunk.

“Not all Boston Irish are the happy-go-lucky types,” I said as I leafed through the orders he’d left with us. Joe Kennedy was a loudmouth lout, as far as I was concerned. But his big mouth told me a few things that were interesting. ONI was not to be trusted in this investigation, and Joe Senior was ready to do anything to clear Jack’s name, guilty or not.

I didn’t much care for the news that the former ambassador was behind my appointment to General Eisenhower’s staff. I’d always known the Boyle tribe traded political favors, and a few markers had been called in to get me my posting. What worried me was what the Kennedys wanted in return. I stopped reading the orders and gazed out the window, wondering what it had cost Dad or Uncle Dan to approach Joe Senior. Not in terms of the quid pro quo, but rather in their own self-respect.

“What is the nature of your past acquaintance?” Kaz said, breaking the silence. “It sounds like it must be an interesting story.”

“Yeah, and a long one. Two stories, actually, but I’ll have to fill you in later. These orders say we need to depart immediately. It’s going to be a long trip, Kaz.”

“Made twelve hundred miles longer by the summons to Morocco,” Kaz said as we left the room. “All to listen to insufferable Kennedy demands.”

“You must have been prepared, having met him in London,” I said, quickstepping it to the flight office.

“I had a low opinion of his father, having heard his comments favoring the appeasement of Hitler. Lady Astor and her friends were in the same camp, but I must admit I paid little attention to the son of the American ambassador. My only recollection is that he seemed obsequious around the titled British and brusque with everyone else.”

“That must have been a fun weekend,” I said.

“The high point was hearing Lady Astor lament that Hitler looked too much like Charlie Chaplin to be taken seriously,” Kaz said. “Jakie and I then retired to play billiards and drink a bottle of Blandy’s Bual Madeira to recover our equilibrium.”

We showed General Marshall’s orders to our corporal pal who gasped and called in Major Kilpatrick, who cursed and hustled us down the runway where he pulled a war correspondent and a colonel off a packed C-47 transport about to take off. Once again, a couple of lieutenants trumped the bigwigs, making no friends in the process. Not that it mattered. So far I hadn’t run into many of the senior brass who cared a fig about second lieutenants, so I made sure to return the favor.

The C-47 held twenty-eight passengers. Mainly officers above the rank of captain with one remaining war correspondent and a congressman on a fact-finding junket. Those last two were seated directly across from us. They told us that the reporter we’d replaced was from the congressman’s hometown and the colonel was with Army Public Relations and carried the liquor supply in his pack. The congressman asked who the hell we were to rate special treatment, in a southern drawl that told me I couldn’t sell either Kaz or myself as coming from his district. So I told him it was top secret, which wasn’t far from the truth. Close enough for a politician, and it shut him right up.

“What does the report tell us?” Kaz said as soon as the C-47 had gained altitude and the ride smoothed out. I took out the paperwork from the envelope and leafed through it. No letterhead, nothing to indicate who had written it up or to whom it was sent. Meaning Ambassador Kennedy had his sources. The file also held a thick sheaf of official navy documents, including a service record.

“The deceased is Daniel Tamana,” I said. “From Guadalcanal. He was originally a native scout with a detachment of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defense Force. Apparently those are natives who work with the Australian Coastwatchers and as scouts for the marines. He’d recently become a full-fledged Coastwatcher.”

“How was he killed?” Kaz asked, leaning closer and adjusting his glasses as he read along.

“Head bashed in,” I said. “He was found on a beach at Tulagi, near the naval hospital.”

“Found by whom?”

“Kennedy,” I whispered. It wasn’t an uncommon name, but I didn’t want to arouse the curiosity of the reporter or politician seated across from us.

“Didn’t Joe say his feet were badly cut up from the coral?” Kaz said. “That might make it difficult to get around, not to mention kill a man.”

“That’s something to check out,” I said. “All it says here is that he was being treated for fatigue, abrasions, and lacerations. No way to know how incapacitated he was.”

“Who was it that reported the incident to ONI?” Kaz asked. I flipped through the carbon copies, wondering who had possession of the original.

“It’s not entirely clear. Maybe Lieutenant Commander Thomas Garfield, commanding PT Boat Squadron Two,” I said, finally finding the name. “Or someone above him. Squadron Two is Jack Kennedy’s squadron. He’s the skipper of PT-109. Or was. Says here a Japanese destroyer rammed his boat and cut it clean in two.”

“One wonders how young Jack got into that predicament,” Kaz said. “His brother mentioned the navy might court-martial him.”

“It’s possible, I guess. But that would be bad publicity. If the navy operates anything like the army, some admiral will pin a medal on Jack and send him on a war bond tour. Did you ever run into him in England? I know he spent some time in London when the old man was there.”

“No,” Kaz said. “I heard about him chasing women and being seen at the best nightclubs every evening, but we didn’t travel in the same circles. I was rather surprised when he wrote a book and it became a bestseller. I didn’t peg him as the intellectual type.”

“He’s a Harvard boy,” I said. “He had to write a thesis. And when you’ve got his family connections, it’d be a snap to get it published. Did you read it?”

“I skimmed parts,” Kaz said. “Intriguing title. Why England Slept . He argued that appeasement was the logical course to follow, since Great Britain was not well prepared for war. I had to admit there was some logic to that. At least he did not support appeasement for its own sake, as did his father.”

“The rumor was dear old dad bought thousands of copies and stored them in the basement of their place on Cape Cod.”

“The path to success is always easier for the rich,” Kaz said.

Not always, I wanted to say, but bit my tongue. Kaz was rich, but had little success to show for it. He’d been a student at Oxford when the war broke out and Germany invaded Poland. His entire family had been murdered by the Nazis, not long after the Germans and the Russians carved up Poland between them. Kaz’s father had seen bad times coming, and was readying his family to leave the country. He’d transferred his bank accounts to Switzerland before hostilities, but was too late in getting himself and his family out. That left Kaz alone in the world, stranded in England with a small fortune to remind him of all he’d lost.

“We have to be careful,” I said, leaning closer to Kaz and keeping my voice low. “If Jack is involved, his old man will come down hard on us. On me, to be precise.”

“Do you think he still has the influence?” Kaz said.

“He’s got deep pockets and connections everywhere,” I said. “What Joe said about the next election is true enough. It may be the old man’s last card, but he’ll play it for all it’s worth.”