James Benn: The White Ghost

“Then I hope we find that the younger Kennedy is guilty of nothing more than bad seamanship,” Kaz said.

“He’s been sailing small craft off Cape Cod since he was a kid. If he got into a jam out on the water, I’ll bet it wasn’t due to faulty seamanship,” I said. “If he’s innocent, our problem is going to be how to find out who killed Daniel Tamana. The Solomon Islands are not exactly my home turf.”

“You have managed to work things out in England and Algeria,” Kaz said. “Therefore you must use the same techniques in the Solomon Islands.”

“Think the luck of the Irish will hold on the other side of the world?”

“Jack Kennedy’s Irish luck held,” Kaz said. “He’s a living example.”

“If you call luck getting your PT boat sawed in half and losing two crewmen,” I said. “My dad had a saying about luck like that. If he’d been really lucky, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

We were interrupted by turbulence, a gentle bumping as the C-47 flew into a cloud bank, grey mist enveloping the wings. The congressman across from me turned white and then went a pale shade of green, as I prayed for the ride to smooth out or for someone to bring him a bucket. The bumps turned to crashes as heavy winds slammed into the aircraft. Every loose item on board took on a life of its own, hitting the ceiling and sides of the fuselage as we tossed about. I felt the plane gain altitude and the turbulence calm as patches of blue sky showed outside the windows.

Nervous laughter broke out among the passengers, and the congressman began to assume his regular shade of blustery pink. I leaned forward to pick up papers that had slipped from the thick file I’d been holding. It was Jack Kennedy’s service record, complete with a photograph of him in his dress blues, a newly minted naval lieutenant.

“Hey, isn’t that Joe Kennedy’s son?” bellowed the congressman, squinting his eyes to study the photograph. “The younger kid, not the good-looking one.”

“Joe who?” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the roar of the engines as I gathered up papers and stowed them in the heavy manila envelope.

“Joseph P. Kennedy,” he said. “His kid wrote a book, and that’s him, I’d swear to it.”

“I don’t read much,” I said, looking to Kaz to come to the rescue. He shrugged, seeming to enjoy my predicament. I tended to provide Kaz with a good deal of amusement.

“Don’t tell me you never heard of Ambassador Kennedy,” the congressman said, poking the reporter in the ribs to get his attention. “He almost ran for president last time around. What are you doing with a picture of his kid? John, I think his name is.”

“Did you read the book?” I asked.

“Of course I did,” he said, in an indignant tone of voice that suggested he hadn’t cracked the spine yet. “The ambassador himself sent me a copy.” I wasn’t surprised. He probably sent every congressman in Washington a copy. Nothing like greasing the skids for the next generation. “What business do you have with the Kennedys?”

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward and stifling a desire to smack this guy. “It’s-”

“It is all part of a joint public relations effort,” Kaz said, his hand on my shoulder gently pulling me back into my seat. “We are developing a series of stories on where the children of famous politicians are serving. Of course Ambassador Kennedy’s sons are on the list. How about you sir? Do you have any sons in the service?”

That unleashed a torrent of parental pride. He had a daughter about to complete nursing school who’d already volunteered for the Army Nurse Corps. His son was in the navy, serving on the USS Little , a destroyer transport in the South Pacific. Kaz cautioned the congressman and the reporter that the whole thing was not yet for release, and dutifully wrote down the names of the politician’s two kids, Kennedy offspring long forgotten.

“Thanks,” I whispered, after the ride had smoothed out and the congressman was cutting ZZZs. “Good story.”

“I thought it preferable to you punching the gentleman,” Kaz said. “Now tell me, what is it with the Boyles and the Kennedys? What sort of feud do you have going?”

The congressman yawned and his eyes opened. I wondered if he’d heard the magic word.

“Later,” I said. “It’s a long story.” I closed my eyes and tried to forget I’d ever heard the Kennedy name.

We parted ways with the congressman in Cairo where we were rushed aboard a Stirling transport aircraft, its four engines warming up as we boarded, holding onto our hats against the prop wash. The door shut tight behind us as the pilot began taxiing down the runway even before we could grab the last two seats, nowhere near each other. Conversation wasn’t in the cards, so I focused on ignoring the glares from a couple of British generals and a gold-braided admiral. Or he might have been the doorman from the Copley Square Hotel, it was hard to say. Cairo became Karachi, where we dined on Spam sandwiches and tea as the Stirling was refueled for the southerly hop along the coast of India to China Bay in Ceylon. Kaz chatted with a general whose son had attended the same college at Oxford as he had. Of course, Kaz knew the kid and that loosened the general up. A hip flask made an appearance, but before it could make it in my direction, we were off again. I slept the length of the Indian subcontinent.

The rains hit as soon as we landed in Ceylon. The China Bay airstrip was next to the harbor, and we were scheduled to take a Sunderland flying boat as soon as the weather cleared. We ran from the Stirling to the nearest Quonset hut, musette bags held over our heads against the downpour. It didn’t help.

“It is monsoon season,” Kaz said, shaking off the wet as we made for the tea kettle and tray of cheese sandwiches. We were the only passengers on the next leg of the journey. The Sunderland was flying reconnaissance, on the lookout for Japanese naval forces from Java or Sumatra making a run to the Indian Ocean. “We may as well settle in. I doubt they can take off in this weather.”

“It’s a flying boat, Kaz,” I said, dumping sugar into my tea and grabbing a couple of sandwiches. “A little rain shouldn’t bother a Sunderland.” It was actually a lot of rain, as if the earth had turned upside down and the oceans were being emptied on our heads. Kaz wasn’t fond of rough seas. “I’m sure we’ll have to wait for a while, if only so we won’t get swamped being ferried out to the Sunderland.”

“Let us talk about something else, Billy,” Kaz said as he sipped his tea. “Tell me about the Kennedys, now that we are away from prying ears. How did this enmity begin?”

“Okay,” I said, glancing at a couple Royal Air Force officers in the mess hall and the few stewards cleaning up. No one was paying us any mind. Plus the drumming rain kept a beat on the Quonset hut roof that made it impossible to hear a conversation two yards away. Perfect conditions for talk of Kennedys, Boyles, and bootlegging.

“It was 1929,” I began. “My dad had finally made detective. He’d been on the force for ten years and it was a big deal to make the grade to plainclothes detective. He said he’d never dreamed of a big Irish lug like himself dressing up in a suit and tie every day. I told you how he got into the department, didn’t I?”

“Yes, the great Boston Police Strike of 1919,” Kaz said.

“Yep. Over a thousand rank and file walked off the job,” I said. “A new recruit was still making only two bucks a day, the same wage as sixty years before.”

“It seems the strike was justified,” Kaz said. “Although it must have been illegal.”

“It was,” I said. “And the sad truth is they all lost their jobs when Governor Coolidge broke the strike with the National Guard. The police commissioner fired those who had gone off the job and hired fifteen hundred new cops.”