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

(2) COMMANDING GENERAL HAWAII DEPARTMENT USARMY AIRCORPS HAS DETERMINED B-17 AIRCRAFT 42-455502 ITS CREW AND PASSENGER PERISHED IN THE LINE OF DUTY 0730 HOURS MIDWAY TIME 22 NOVEMBER 1942. INASMUCH AS AIRCORPS DOES NOT HAVE INFORMATION REGARDING MAJOR BROWNLEE'S UNIT, ROUTINE NOTIFICATION OF NEXT OF KIN, ET CETERA HAS NOT REPEAT NOT BEEN MADE. PLEASE ADVISE SOONEST HOW YOU WISH THIS TO BE HANDLED.

(3) REAR ADMIRAL DANIEL J.WAGAM OF MY STAFF DEPARTED PEARL HARBOR 1625 THIS DATE TO CONFER WITH SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA. WHILE IN BRISBANE, HE WILL DISCUSS WITH YOU PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH SUBMARINE AVAILABILITY. COMPLIANCE WITH 17 NOVEMBER DIRECTIVE FROM ADMIRAL LEAHY IN THIS REGARD WHICH I PRESUME YOU HAVE SEEN WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT FOR REASONS WAGAM WILL MAKE KNOWN TO YOU.

BEST PERSONAL REGARDS CHESTER

END PERSONAL FROM ADM NIMITZ BRIG TO GEN PICKERING

BY DIRECTION:

MCNISH, CAPTAIN USN

T O P S E C R E T

[FIVE]

Water Lily Cottage

Brisbane, Australia

0610 Hours 29 November 1942

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering found First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy in the library, sitting before a typewriter at one of the desks, obviously deep in thought. Or frustration. The long, thin, black cigar in his mouth seemed cocked at an angry angle.

"Am I interrupting, Ken?" Pickering asked.

In one smooth continuous movement, McCoy rose to his feet, snatched the cigar from his mouth, and came to something like the prescribed position of attention.

"Good morning, Sir," he said. He was, Pickering noticed, clean-shaven, his haircut was perfect, and he was wearing a fresh uniform. "No, Sir."

"Typewriter giving you trouble?"

Pickering had sent Pluto out to buy typewriters for Water Lily Cottage on the open market, after getting them from the officer in charge of office equipment at SWPOA seemed more trouble than it was worth. The battered Under-woods Pluto found had cost approximately three times what they had cost new ten years before. Australia had been at war since 1940. Despite official price controls, shortages of practically everything but food had driven prices up.

"It's seen better days, Sir."

"I heard the typewriter, the noise, and thought you could probably use some coffee," Pickering said, holding up a silver coffeepot in one hand and two coffee cups in the other. And then he told the truth. "I'd like to talk to you, Ken."

"Yes, Sir?"

"But it will hold. Finish what you're doing."

"This will hold," McCoy said. "It's only a letter to Ernie."

" 'Only a letter to Ernie'?" Pickering parroted. "That's not important anymore?"

McCoy reached into his open collar and came out with a round silver me-dallion on a silver chain.

"I'm writing a thank-you for this," he said. "I really don't know what to say."

"What is it?"

"It's an Episcopal serviceman's cross," McCoy said. "It was in that pack-age Sessions brought me."

"You're Episcopal?"

"I'm not much of anything. Most people hear McCoy, think it's Irish, and that I'm Catholic. But I'm Scotch, and that's Presbyterian, and I never had much to do with them."

"Ernie's Episcopal," Pickering said. "So am I. Would you believe that Pick sang in the choir, that he was an altar boy?"

"Pick's behind this," McCoy said. "Charley Galloway's girlfriend sent him one. Pick saw Galloway's on the Buka Operation and decided he wanted one. He wrote and asked his mother for one. She told Ernie's mother, Ernie's mother told Ernie, and here is mine. It came in a little red velvet bag with 'Tif-fany and Company' printed on it."

"Well, I think it's a very nice gesture. It can't hurt, Ken." He paused, and then went on. "You're not religious? Is that the problem?"

"Oh, I believe in God, I suppose. But I think there's a lot of guys in graves on Guadalcanal, and in the Philippines, who did a lot of hard praying just before they were blown away."

"I have my problems with organized religion," Pickering said. "But I'm a sailor. I don't see how anyone who has counted the stars on a clear night on the high seas or watched the sun come up in the middle of an ocean can doubt the existence of a superior power."

McCoy chuckled. "Me either. My problem is that I really don't believe that God is all that interested in Ken McCoy, personally."

"Did you pray when you were hit?" Pickering asked.

McCoy shook his head, no. "But I said 'thank you' when I got back to Washington and Ernie was waiting for me."

"I said 'thank you' when El Supremo told me VMF-229 was relieved on the 'Canal, and that Pick had come through all right. And when you all came back from Buka in one piece."

"Not when you got hit?" McCoy asked.

"You mean this time?" Pickering asked, and then went on before McCoy could reply. "I suppose I did. I probably did. I don't really remember. At my age, you say 'thank you' for other people's lives. I figure I've had my fair share and more."

McCoy looked at him in curiosity.

"I didn't really expect to come back from France," Pickering said. "When I did, when I came out of the trenches for the last time, I figured what-ever came afterward would be gravy. And it turned out that way."

"It was bad in France, huh?"

"The artillery was terrible," Pickering said evenly. "Especially when we were moving. But what really terrified me was the poison gas. I watched peo-ple die that way. I didn't want that to happen to me. That thought scared me bad."

McCoy nodded his understanding.

"I'm not particularly afraid of dying," McCoy said. "What scares me is dying slowly, hanging upside down on a rope while some Jap uses me for bay-onet practice."

"They do that?"

"Sometimes they use their rifle butts to see how many bones they can break before the prisoner dies."

Pickering nodded his understanding.

"You said you wanted to talk to me, Sir?"

The exchange of confidences was over.

"I'm going to have to ask you to go into the Philippines, Ken," Pickering said.

McCoy nodded. "I figured that when I heard we lost the OSS major."

"I think we have to do whatever we can to help Fertig and his people."

"Yes, Sir. I agree."

"I wish the other one had been on the B-17," Pickering said.

McCoy chuckled.

"That thought occurred to me, too, General."

"But he didn't, and..."

"I was going to come to you, Sir, and tell you that I thought I better go with them, even before I heard the B-17 went down."

"It's still a volunteer mission, Ken. You don't have to go."

"Who else is there?" McCoy replied.

"Is that why you're having a hard time with your letter to Ernie?" Picker-ing asked. "You wrote and told her you would be coming home, and now you have to write and tell her you won't be?"

McCoy met Pickering's eyes.

"I was pretty vague about when I was coming home. Getting relieved seemed to be too good to be true."

"I'll have a word with Captain Macklin and tell him who's really in charge."

"I can handle Macklin."

"Have you seen him?"

"No, Sir. I've been avoiding that."

"How are you going to handle him?"

"If I have to, I'll kill him."

Pickering looked into McCoy's eyes.

"It would be awkward if that was necessary."

"I won't, unless I have to."

"Anything I can do?"

"I want Zimmerman, and I don't want Koffler."

"Because it would be unfair to Koffler?"

"Because he wants to be an officer, and I'm afraid he thinks the way he can do that is to be a hero. Heroes get people killed."

"They're working on Zimmerman. There's an admiral coming in today from CINCPAC who wants to talk about the submarine. I don't think we can get one for another week or ten days. Zimmerman certainly should be here by then."

"It'll take me another five, six days to get everything ready anyhow."