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

"I'm a Marine officer, General. I'll go where I'm told to go."

He has no interest in any of this. Why is he disinterested? There are two answers to that. Either he has closed his mind to the possibility that he's going to find himself paddling up to an enemy-held shore in a rubber boat, or, and I think this is what it is, he doesn't think he's going.

I can't believe he 'd try to miss the boat on this. But stranger things have happened.

"Lewis?"

"General, since I'm not going ashore, I'd rather not offer an opinion," Chambers D. Lewis said.

"Who's right? Pluto or McCoy?" Pickering asked impatiently.

"I would have to align myself with Major Hon, Sir," Lewis said.

"OK. You're next, Ed."

"I think I'd go with Koffler and McCoy, Sir," Sessions said.

"Jack?" Pickering said. "We already know what Pluto thinks."

"McCoy," Stecker said.

Pickering nodded.

This places me in a very awkward position. The people I admire most in this room disagree with me, including the only people who know what it is to be on an enemy-held island, and to have-what did Koffler say?-"a bunch of excited Japs running around looking for them." But they're wrong.

If you put a box around Mindanao, it would be 450 miles on a side. We don't know where Fertig is inside that box, and we certainly can't risk asking him where he is until we deliver to him a code the Japanese can't break in an hour. And if McCoy and his people go ashore and are never heard from again, hell will freeze over before we can mount another mission. MacArthur will consider himself vindicated, and Donovan will gleefully announce that if he had been in charge, the operation would have worked.

"This is what we're going to do," Pickering announced. "We will pro-ceed with what Pluto and Moore have come up with. The Sunfish will surface thirty miles south of Boston one half hour after nightfall 23 December. Mes-sage One will be sent at that time. Sunfish will wait ten minutes for acknowl-edgment. If no acknowledgment is received, she will submerge. She will resurface at hourly intervals, ten minutes past the hour, the last surfacing to be at 0010 24 December.

"That's Christmas Eve!" Captain Macklin said, shocked.

"Merry Christmas, Sergeant Koffler," McCoy said.

"... which is, of course, Christmas Eve," Pickering said. "Whether or not there is acknowledgment, the Sunfish will surface again thirty minutes before sunrise-which will occur at five twenty-nine-and off-load McCoy, Zimmer-man, Koffler, and Captain Macklin. They will carry with them only personal small arms, communications radios, the codes, and a token amount of gold and medicine. The Sunfish will remain on the surface until there is word that the landing party has made it safely to the beach..."

"Or until a Jap airplane starts dropping bombs on it," McCoy said, "whichever comes first."

"That's quite enough, thank you, from you, Mr. McCoy," Pickering said, but he was unable to restrain a smile. "As I was saying before Charley McCarthy here ran off at the mouth, the Sunfish will remain on the surface until the landing party is ashore." (A highly popular radio program of the era fea-tured ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, father of actress Candice Bergen, and his dummy, Charley McCarthy.) "She will then submerge, to resurface for five minutes at two-hour intervals, ten minutes past the hour, during the daylight hours, and from thirty minutes after sunset until thirty minutes before sunrise for a seven-day period. If contact has not been established during that period, she will return to Pearl Harbor. If there is contact between the landing party and the Sunfish, or between Fertig, somehow, and the Sunfish, we'll play that by ear."

He looked around the table.

"Any comments, Mr. McCoy?"

McCoy raised both hands palm upward.

"Permission to speak, Sir?" Captain Robert B. Macklin said.

"Certainly."

"May I ask, Sir, how you came to the 23, 24 December dates?"

"Show him, Jack," Pickering ordered.

Colonel Stecker passed to Captain Macklin a sheet of typewriter paper.

T O P S E C R E T

SPECIAL CHANNEL

FROM: CINCPAC HAWAII

1210 9DEC42

TO: SUPREME HEADQUARTERS SWPOA BRISBANE

EYES ONLY-BRIG GEN FLEMING PICKERING USMC

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL

FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM CINCPAC TO BRIG GEN PICKERING USMC

DEAR FLEMING:

HAVE BEEN INFORMED SUNFISH WILL COMPLETE FUELING AND PROVISIONING ESPIRITU SANTO BY 1200 HOURS 10 DEC 1942.

OFFICER COMMANDING NAVAL AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND BRISBANE HAS BEEN DIRECTED TO MAKE C0R0NAD0 PB2Y AIRCRAFT AVAILABLE TO YOU FOR TRAVEL ESPIPJTU SANTO ON ARRIVAL BRISBANE ETA 0500 10 DEC 1942

(3) PLEASE PASS TO ALL HANDS ON BEHALF MYSELF AND REAR ADMIRAL DANIEL J. WAQAM GODSPEED GOOD SAILING AND GOOD LUCK.

BEST PERSONAL REGARDS CHESTER

END PERSONAL FROM ADM NIMITZ BRIG TO GEN PICKERING

BY DIRECTION:

WAGAM REARADM USN

T O P S E C R E T

"It's about 1,300 nautical miles from here to Espiritu Santo," Pickering said. "Say, seven hours in a Coronado. If it arrives here when it's expected, at 0500 tomorrow, I think we can reasonably expect to get in the air by noon. That would put us into Espiritu no later than 1800. We should be able to load every-thing aboard the Sunfish in an hour or so, and we should be able to sail at first light the day after tomorrow."

" 'We?' " Colonel Stecker asked warily. "I thought we discussed that."

"Slip of the tongue, Jack. The Sunfish will sail, with me standing on the pier, at first light the day after tomorrow, which will be the eleventh. It's 3,200 nautical miles from Espiritu Santo to Boston. Using Lewis's ballpark figures that the Sunfish can cruise on the surface at fifteen knots, she should be able to make Mindanao in ten days. That would be the twenty-first. To give us a little slack, I've scheduled her to be off Mindanao on the twenty-third."

He looked around the table.

"Any questions?"

"Sir," Captain Robert B. Macklin said.

"Yes?"

"Nothing, Sir. Excuse me."

"If you've got something to say, Captain," McCoy said, not very pleas-antly, "let's hear it."

"Very well, Mr. McCoy," Macklin said. "Since you have the responsibil-ity for this mission, I was wondering, if you have considered my physical con-dition, how that might adversely affect the mission."

"I watched you paddle the rubber boat, Captain. It looked to me like you could handle that without much trouble. What exactly is your physical condi-tion?"

"Macklin," Colonel Stecker said, even less pleasantly, "if you'd like, we can run you past a doctor and get an official report on your condition."

"I was only thinking of the mission, Colonel," Macklin said. "But I do have one question, Sir."

"Let's have it."

"Has the OSS been kept up on how the mission is proceeding?"

"No," Pickering said. "They haven't."

"Do I have your permission to do so, Sir?"

"I don't see why not...."

"Why don't we just tell them when we come back?" McCoy said.

For some reason, McCoy doesn't like the idea of Macklin getting in touch with the OSS. I can't see what harm it would do, but I think I should indulge McCoy.

"Don't worry about the OSS, Captain Macklin," Pickering said. "As soon as the Sunfish puts out to sea, I'll see that Secretary Knox is notified. I'm sure he'll pass the word to Mr. Donovan."

"Thank you, Sir," Captain Robert B. Macklin said.

[TWO]

Water Lily Cottage

Brisbane, Australia

2305 Hours 11 December 1942

First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter, laid it on the dining-room table, stood up, took a Waterman's fountain pen from his shirt pocket, and scrawled his name at the bottom. Then he picked it up and read what had taken him the better part of an hour to write.