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

And Christ knows I tried to sell Donovan's people to El Supremo.

I went to work for Knox to be his eyes and ears over here. While I really think I could be of more use to this war running a shipping operation- God knows I could do a better job of that than three-quarters of those chair-warming admirals in Pearl Harbor-there was a certain value to that. I think I've done some good.

But I did not sign on to be a political errand boy for Knox. Or for Roose-velt. And that's what they're asking me to become.

I'll be damned if I'll go along.

He became aware that both Pluto and Hart were waiting for him to go on.

"When in doubt, Pluto," Pickering said, "tell the truth. Write that on the palm of your hand so you don't forget it."

"Sir?"

"Let me at that phone, George," Pickering said. He squeezed past Hart, picked up a red telephone, and dialed a number.

"Fleming Pickering, Sid," he said into it-telling Pluto and Hart that he had dialed MacArthur's personal number and that Lieutenant Colonel Sidney L. Huff, MacArthur's aide-de-camp, had picked up the telephone-"I would like a few minutes of the Supreme Commander's time at his earliest convenience."

There was a pause.

"No, Sid, squeezing me in for a minute or two at nineteen thirty will not be satisfactory."

There was another pause.

"I'll tell you what you can do, Colonel," Pickering said, his voice icy. "You can speak to the Supreme Commander, relay my request to him, and then relay his reply to me."

There was another pause, a longer one.

"Thank you very much, Colonel," Pickering said. "Please inform the Su-preme Commander that I'm on my way up."

Hart started to slide the metal bars out of place.

"You wait for me here, George," Pickering said. "Aides-de-camp are not invited to this t€te-…-t€te."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Fleming, my dear fellow," General Douglas Mac Arthur, Supreme Com-mander, SWPOA, said, smiling and waving his hand in a come in gesture. "Come in, curiosity overwhelms me. Sid said this was an emergency of some kind?"

MacArthur was dressed in his customary washed-soft khakis.

"No, Sir. I said nothing about an emergency. What I told Colonel Huff was that I would be grateful if you could find time for me before half past seven."

"I can always make time for you, Fleming. Sid should have known that," MacArthur said. "Sid, you may leave us."

Huff looked as if he had just been kicked.

Did El Supremo sense that I didn't want Huff to hear what I have to say? Or did he do that to humiliate him and thus placate me? He's just as Machia-vellian as Roosevelt, and I better not forget that.

MacArthur waved Pickering into a chair and looked at him expectantly.

Pickering handed him Knox's Special Channel Personal and then sat down.

MacArthur picked up a long, thin, black cigar from an ashtray and puffed on it as he read the message twice. Then he met Pickering's eyes.

"I appreciate your loyalty in showing me this, Fleming."

"General, with all the respect I can muster, loyalty was not my motive."

"Indeed?"

"I did not want you to believe I had any part in this."

"I would have known that without your telling me," MacArthur said. "Whatever terrible things may be said about you around here, no one I know has ever accused you of being devious."

Pickering found himself smiling.

"Among the things that are said about you around here is that you are mounting a supply mission to Lieutenant Colonel Fertig on Mindanao," MacArthur said. "I've been wondering when you were going to discuss this with me."

"More of a reconnaissance mission, Sir," Pickering said. "To see what's really going on with him."

"General Willoughby believes Fertig suffers from delusions of gran-deur."

"Yes, Sir, he's made that clear to me."

"I had plans, you know, Fleming, to conduct extensive guerrilla opera-tions against the Japanese-using the materiel and personnel available to Gen-eral Sharp's Mindanao Force."

"No, Sir, I did not."

"That, and good deal else, went down the toilet when the chain of com-mand became confused. You know what I'm speaking of, of course."

"No, Sir. Not exactly."

"When I was ordered to leave Corregidor by the President, it was my un-derstanding that I was simply moving my flag, not relinquishing my command and its concomitant responsibilities. I conferred with General Sharp on Min-danao-at the Dole Plantation, incidentally, do you know it?"

"Yes, Sir. I was a guest there many times before the war."

"Lovely place. It pains me to think of Japanese boots treading on the verandah of the main house... but I digress. I spoke with General Sharp at some length while waiting for the airplane. My orders to him were to hold on, that immediately on my arrival here, I would institute a resupply operation for the Mindanao Force; and, looking to the worst case-if it appeared to him that further organized resistance was not possible-to make provisions, select per-sonnel, and cache supplies and materiel for irregular operations."

"I wasn't aware of that, Sir."

"Oh, yes," MacArthur said. "But the moment that B-17 broke ground at the Dole Plantation airstrip to bring me here, General Marshall began to com-municate directly with General Wainwright on Corregidor. General Wainwright naturally assumed the chain of command had been changed, that I had been taken out of it, and that he henceforth would be getting his orders from Washington. Nothing about that was said to me, then or now."

"I wasn't aware of this, Sir."

"Few people are," MacArthur said. "When I arrived here-you were here, Fleming; you know this-I learned that I had been misled vis-a-vis the materiel and troops that would be available to me here. But I kept my word to Sharp. I drew down on the limited materiel here and instituted resupply voy-ages to Mindanao. Unfortunately, very little got through to him: two small ships containing artillery and small-arms ammunition, and not much else. And then, when George Marshall diverted to Hawaii supply ships already on the high seas to Australia, on the grounds the risk of their loss was too great to bear, I had to terminate my efforts to resupply General Sharp's Mindanao Force-with the greatest reluctance."

"I understand."

"And then, of course, the question became moot. Bataan fell, and then Corregidor. General Homma bluffed General Wainwright. He would not agree to Wainwright's surrender unless Wainwright surrendered all U.S. troops in the Philippines. Wainwright had no authority to do that, but he thought he did. And, unfortunately, so did General Sharp. As soon as I heard what Wainwright had done, I radioed General Sharp to ignore any orders from Wainwright. But by then, it was too late. General Sharp, as a good soldier, obeyed what he thought were his orders to surrender. As a good officer, he destroyed all the war materiel under his command before hoisting the white flag. All the materiel, Fleming, which could, should, have been used to mount a meaningful irregular operation against the Japanese. And the officers who would have commanded such operations, God help them, entered captivity."

MacArthur paused, took the thin black cigar from the ashtray, relit it care-fully, and then met Pickering's eyes.

"At that point I was forced to conclude that the mounting of effective ir-regular, guerrilla operations against the Japanese in the Philippine Islands was militarily impossible. I so informed General Marshall."

"Yes, Sir."

"You do understand the problem here, don't you, Fleming?"

"I'm not sure I take your meaning, Sir."

"Faith!" MacArthur said dramatically. "Faith! At the moment, the Fili-pino people have not lost their faith in me, in the United States. They believe I will return. But realistically, that faith is not very deep. It would disappear if we suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of the Japanese. If, for ex-ample, people flocked to this Fertig chap in the belief that he was in fact a general officer of the United States Army. And then, for example, he were to be captured by the Japanese and marched in chains through the streets of Ma-nila and executed as a common criminal. That would be playing right into the hands of the Japanese!"