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

He knew that McCoy worked for Fleming Pickering. He didn't know what Pickering did for the Marine Corps-Pickering had told him he was the general in charge of mess-kit repair-and he thought he probably was going to find out right now.

"Well, right now, I've been trying to make sure that the Navy doesn't steal everybody who speaks an Oriental language from the Draft Board for the Navy; that The Corps gets at least a few of them. I've spent the last week at the Armed Forces Induction Center in New York."

"I mean, ordinarily."

"Whatever General Pickering tells me to do."

"You're his assistant in charge of repairing mess kits, right?"

"Yes, Sir. That's about it."

"You're wasting your time, Daddy," Ernie said. "I live with him, and he won't tell me anything either."

You had to say that, 'I live with him," didn't you ?

Maintaining a smile with some difficulty, Sage said, "I don't mean to pry, Ken. Would asking you how long you're going to be around be prying?"

"No, Sir. I'll be around a long time, I think. Four, five, maybe even six months."

Well, I suppose, if you're young, and in uniform, five or six months is a "long time."

"And then?"

"They haven't told me."

"And if they had, he wouldn't tell us," Ernie said, adding intensely, "I really hate this goddamn war!"

"You are not too big to be told to watch your mouth, young lady."

"What would you prefer, that I call it 'this noble enterprise to save the world for democracy'?"

"That has a nice ring to it," McCoy said.

"Oh, go to hell!" Ernie said.

Ken McCoy did, in fact, know where he would be going in four to six months-he'd been told the week before; it was classified TOP SECRET. And he had been really impressed with what he would be doing, and with the long-range planning for the war the upper echelons of the military establishment were now carrying on.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff intended to bomb the home islands of the Empire of Japan. Though the islands from which the planes would fly to attack Tokyo and other Japanese cities were now firmly in Japanese hands, the big brass was so sure that the war in the Pacific would see their capture that they had turned their attention to the details.

One of the details was weather information. Without accurate weather pre-dictions-including something called "Winds Aloft," which McCoy had never heard of before last week-long-range bombing of Japan would not be possible.

The ideal place to locate a weather-reporting station would be as close to Japan as possible. Since locating a weather station near Japan was out of the question, the next-best place-for reasons not explained to McCoy-was the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

Until he had time to think about it, he was genuinely surprised that United States military personnel were presently in the Gobi Desert, which was about as far behind the enemy lines as it was possible to get. Though there were a few soldiers and sailors, the majority of them were United States Marines who had been stationed in Peking and elected not to surrender to the Japanese when the war began. They had made for the Gobi Desert for reasons that were not en-tirely clear but that certainly included avoiding capture.

They had taken with them a number of ex-China Marines, Yangtze River Patrol sailors, and members of the Army's 15th Infantry who had taken their retirement in China and considered themselves recalled from retirement. There were supposed to be sixty-seven of them.

They had established radio contact through American forces in China, and were now in direct contact with Army and Navy radio stations in Hawaii, Aus-tralia, and the continental United States. They were ordered to maintain contact and to avoid capture, but not informed of the plans being made for them.

Once they could be trained in a number of skills, including parachuting, it was planned that an initial reinforcement detachment would be sent to the Gobi Desert. In their number would be radio operators, meteorologists, cryptogra-phers, and other technicians.

Their ability to collect, encrypt, and transmit weather data from the Gobi would be tested, as would the efficacy of predicting weather from the data fur-nished.

Inasmuch as the personnel in the Gobi were predominantly Marines, and the Marines were part of the Navy, the Navy had been given overall command of the operation. The meteorologists, cryptographers, and communications personnel would be sailors. But the Secretary of the Navy, with the concur-rence of the President's Chief of Staff, had given the Marine Corps Office of Management Analysis responsibility for staging the operation.

The Deputy Chief of Management Analysis had in turn named Major Ed-ward Banning as Officer in Charge, with Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy as his deputy. Nothing had been said to McCoy, but he knew that Banning held a MAGIC clearance, and thus could not be put in risk of capture, so Banning would not make the mission. He also felt quite sure that he himself would not become Officer in Charge by default; command of the mission would not be entrusted to a lowly lieutenant. Consequently, sometime between now and the time the mission left the United States, a field-grade officer would be assigned.

But between now and then, he knew he would be in charge, turning to Banning only when he ran into a problem he could not handle himself. It would give him, as he had told Ernie and her father, four to six months in the States. And he was sure he could arrange his schedule to spend a good deal of time with her.

Starting, he thought, almost immediately. He was about to go through the Marine Corps Parachutist's School at Lakehurst, New Jersey. While he was there, he could go into New York City every night and every weekend. But he would also have to periodically return to Lakehurst to check on the progress of the others learning how to parachute themselves and their equipment from air-planes.

The thought of parachuting into Mongolia was a little unnerving, but he told himself it was probably a good deal safer than being a platoon leader on Guadalcanal. The real problem with the Mongolian Operation was that once he went in, it would be a long time before he could even think of getting out, perhaps not until the end of the war. But there was nothing he could do about that.

[THREE]

The Congressional Country Club

Fairfax County, Virginia

1 November 1942

Technically, the status of Major James C. Brownlee III, USMCR, at the Office of Strategic Services Reception and Training Station-the pressed-into-service Congressional Country Club-was "Agent, awaiting assignment."

That meant he had successfully completed the training program and passed the "Final Board"-a group of five senior OSS officers who had con-sidered his military background, the comments of his training officers at the Country Club, and then called him in for an hour-long session to finally make the determination whether or not he was the sort of man who could success-fully function behind the enemy's lines.

Jim Brownlee, a tall, blond, slender, twenty-seven-year-old who wore spectacles, had always wanted to be a Marine. While at Princeton, he par-ticipated in the Marine Corps Platoon Leader's Program, which was rather like the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. During the academic year, it ex-posed young men who thought they might like to be officers to courses with a military application. And then, during summer vacations, it gave them six weeks of intensive training in basic military subjects-"The Three M's," marching, marksmanship, and map reading-at USMC Base Quantico, Vir-ginia, and Parris Island Recruit Depot, South Carolina.

Jim Brownlee intended to apply for a commission in the Regular Marine Corps; but his eyes did not meet the Marine Corps' criteria for the regular ser-vice. Instead, on his graduation from Princeton in June 1937, he was commis-sioned as a second lieutenant, USMCR. After that, he went through the Basic Officer Course at Quantico, and was released to inactive duty.