W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

"If that is your perception, Sir," Pickering heard himself say, "I'm truly sorry."

"You don't perceive that to be the case?"

Oh, to hell with it. He asked me. I'll tell him.

"I would suggest that there are people around General MacArthur who believe CINCPAC isn't doing all it can, Admiral."

"You believe that?"

"I'm in no position to make any judgment whatever, Sir."

"Right about now, your Major... what was his name? Vanning?"

"Banning, Sir."

"... Banning... is presumably briefing Secretary Knox. Which carries with it the unpleasant connotation that he does not trust the reports being sent to him by me."

"I think he wants all the information he can lay his hands on, Sir."

"Do you think it's likely that Secretary Knox will go to the President with the information Banning carried with him?"

"Yes, I do," Pickering replied.

"Do you think General MacArthur shares the opinion of those around him that we're not doing everything we can?"

"No, Sir. I do not."

"When you see General MacArthur, will you give him my personal assur-ance that I am doing everything I can?"

"I will, Sir, but I don't think it's necessary."

"And assure him that I have absolute faith that he's doing the same thing?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing-or are free-to tell me the nature of your current mission to SWPOA?" (South West Pacific Ocean Area)

Pickering exhaled audibly.

On one hand, it's none of your business, CINCPAC or not. But on the other, you are CINCPAC.

"General MacArthur, for whatever reasons, has not chosen to receive the emissaries of Wild Bill Donovan...."

"General Donovan, of the Office of Strategic Services?"

"Yes, Sir. General Donovan and the President are old friends. He has complained to the President, and the President has sent me to extol the virtues of the OSS to General MacArthur."

"Do you think you'll succeed?"

"General MacArthur rarely changes his mind. He told me that he doesn't think the good the OSS can do for him is worth what the OSS will cost him."

"Have you ever wondered, Pickering, why the President, or General Mar-shall, doesn't simply order Douglas MacArthur to do what he's told to do vis-a-vis the OSS?" (General George Catlett Marshall was U.S. Army Chief of Staff.)

"I'd heard there was bad blood between Marshall and MacArthur."

"When MacArthur was Chief of Staff, he wrote an efficiency report on Marshall, who was then commanding the Infantry School at Fort Benning, stat-ing he was not qualified to command anything larger than a regiment."

"I hadn't heard that, Sir."

"There's bad blood between them, all right, but that's not the reason I'm talking about. Marshall put a knife in MacArthur's back after he left the Philip-pines. MacArthur left under the impression he was simply moving his flag and that the Philippines would remain under his command. But the minute he boarded that PT boat, the Army started dealing directly with General Skinny Wainwright, in effect taking him out from under MacArthur's command."

"I'd heard that story, Sir."

From El Supremo himself. By admitting that, am I violating his confi-dence ?

"There was a brigadier general on Mindanao, with 30,000 effectives. Fel-low named Sharp. They had food and rations, munitions, and they weren't in the pitiable state of the troops on Bataan. When Bataan fell, and then a month later, Corregidor, the Japanese forced Wainwright to order Sharp on Mindanao to surrender. Sharp obeyed Wainwright's order. MacArthur feels, with some justification, that if he had retained command of the Philippines, that wouldn't have happened. He told me it was his plan to use Sharp's people, and materiel, to continue the war, either conventionally or as guerrillas. If he had retained command of the Philippines, he feels, Sharp wouldn't have had to surrender until he at least got a guerrilla operation off the ground and running. And now they want to send somebody not under MacArthur's command in to start guer-rilla operations? You have your work cut out for you, Pickering, to talk Doug-las MacArthur into agreeing to that."

"What's the difference who would run it, so long as it's hurting the Japa-nese?"

CINCPAC looked at Pickering and smiled.

"Of all people, Pickering, I would have thought that you would be aware of the effect of the egos of very senior officers on warfare. And actually, it's a moot point. The surrenders have taken place. Whatever materiel could have been used by a guerrilla operation has either been destroyed or captured, and there's simply no way to get any into the Philippines."

"What did the Russian partisans do for supplies?" Pickering asked.

"Getting supplies across an enemy's lines is much easier than trying to ship them across deep water," Nimitz said.

"Luncheon, gentlemen," Denny called from the far end of the terrace, "is served."

[FOUR]

The Foster Lafayette Hotel

Washington, D.C.

0005 Hours 17 October 1942

Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, a tall, well-built thirty-six-year-old, fresh from a shower and wearing only a towel, sat on the bed and stared at the tele-phone. After a full thirty seconds, he reached for it.

He gave the operator a number in New York City from memory.

Maybe, he thought, as he counted the rings to six, torn between disappoint-ment and relief, she's not home. Away for the weekend or something. Or maybe she's got a heavy date. Why not?

A woman's voice came on the line, her "Hello?" expressing a mixture of annoyance and concern.

Oh, God, I woke her up.

"Carolyn?"

Why did I make that a question? God knows, I recognized her voice.

"Oh, my God! Ed!"

"Did I wake you?"

"Where are you?"

"Washington."

"Since when?"

"Since about nine o'clock."

"This morning?"

"Tonight."

"I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and believe this is the first chance you've had to call me."

"It really was," he said. "They just left."

"They being?"

"Two bare-breasted girls in grass skirts and a jazz quartet."

"In other words, you don't want to tell me."

"Colonel Rickabee, Captain Sessions, some other people."

I purposely did not tell her the others were Senator Fowler and the Admin-istrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. Was that because of some noble concern with security, or because I am just too tired to get into an explanation?

"Where are you?"

"At the Foster Lafayette."

"Very nice!"

The Foster Lafayette was one of Washington's most prestigious-and inarguably one of its most expensive-hotels.

"You know why I'm here, Carolyn," he said.

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was married to the only child of Andrew Foster, who owned the Foster Lafayette and forty-two other hotels. Foster had turned over to Pickering a Foster Lafayette suite for the dura-tion; and Pickering had left standing orders that the suite be used by the offi-cers on his staff when he wasn't actually using it himself.

"He's in the Pacific, isn't he?" Carolyn asked innocently. "Is anyone else there with you?"

"Christ, Carolyn, I don't think that's such a good idea," Banning said.

"If the bare-breasted girls in the grass skirts come back, tell them you've made other plans," she said, and hung up.

Banning stared for a moment at the dead phone in his hand, and then put it in its cradle.

"Jesus Christ!" he said, smiling.

The telephone rang.

He grabbed it.

"Major Banning."

"I forgot to tell you something," Carolyn said. "Welcome home. And I love you."

"You're something," he said, laughing.

"With just a little bit of luck, I can catch the one-oh-five milk train," she said, and hung up again.

He put the phone back in its cradle again, swung his feet up on the bed, and lowered his head onto the pillow.