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

The cocktail hour, Weston thought, to which I was not invited.

"You sent for me, Sir?" he asked.

'"As our intelligence officer, and, of course, as a Marine, Captain Wes-ton," Fertig said. "I'm sure you are a veritable cornucopia of arcane informa-tion vis-a-vis Naval lore."

"Sir?"

I don't think anybody but The General was invited to his cocktail hour.

"Lieutenant Ball, Sergeant LaMadrid, and myself have all been wonder-ing what the Navy expects to find in heaven," Fertig said.

Is he plastered?

"I don't think I understand, Sir."

"I'm disappointed," Fertig said. "I was hoping the answer to that intrigu-ing conundrum would immediately occur to you."

"Sorry, Sir, I just don't understand."

"What occurred to me was that what a sailor would hope to find would be a bevy of naked beauties and real, cold beer, but that doesn't seem to fit. Show that to Captain Weston, would you, please, Lieutenant Ball?"

Ball handed Weston a sheet of paper, its carbon-paper characters hard to read in the dim light.

1334567890123456789012345

LUDMILLAZHIVKOVZANESVILLE

U S E W H

02 20 19 04 10

A T N A V

17 09 18 14 21

E B W I L

19 25 04 05 23

L F I N D

24 09 11 18 03

I N H E A

22 18 10 19 08

V E N A S

12 19 18 08 20

S I M S U

20 05 04 20 02

B C 0 D E

09 13 14 03 25

"That came in about an hour ago," Lieutenant Ball said.

"A strong signal, Sir," Sergeant LaMadrid amplified, "and it was re-peated, two, three times, from both Australia and Pearl Harbor."

"Use what Nave-Navy-" Weston read haltingly, "will find in heaven as sim sub code. 'Use what Navy will find in heaven'? What the hell does that mean?"

Jesus, that sounds familiar, Jim Weston thought, and then felt a chill.

" 'If the Army and the Navy,' " he intoned softly, " 'ever look on heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Ma-rines. '

"Bingo!" Lieutenant Ball said. "That has to be it."

"The Marine Hymn," Weston said. "How long will it take you to decrypt the message using that?"

"About ten minutes," Ball said. "After we get the message."

"That's all you've got? You don't have the message?"

"That's all we have," Sergeant LaMadrid said.

"I'm sure there will be more," Fertig said. "And while we're waiting, Captain Weston, would you care for a beer?"

"Yes, thank you, Sir."

The Signal Officer of USFIP, the Intelligence Officer, his deputy, and the Commanding General had considerably more trouble decrypting the number blocks of Message Two when it arrived two hours later.

06 07 06 08 03

18 23 36 40 45

49 81 04 05 06

07 08 IS 23 38

33 39 43 51 53

01 02 06 18 21

34 47 50 07 15

22 46 27 27 38

02 06 83 47 27

49 51 06 11 26

The highest number used was 53. It was therefore logical to presume that the phrase to use for simple substitution contained fifty-three characters.

STREETSGUARDEDBYUSMARINES

1234667890123456789012345

This was twenty-five characters, although it was possible that the phrase would be repeated twice. They could, Lieutenant Ball said, come back to this later if nothing else seemed to work.

STREETSAREGUARDEDBYUNITEDSTATESMARINES

12345678901234567890123456789012345678

was thirty-eight characters, too short by itself and too long if the phrase was to be duplicated.

THESTREETSAREGUARDEDBYUNITEDSTATESMARINES

12345678901234567890123456789012345678901

was forty-one characters, also too short and too long.

THESTREETSAREGUARDEDBYUSMARINES

1234567890123456789012345678901

was thirty-one characters, also too short by itself, but if used twice, not too much longer (sixty-two characters versus the required fifty-three). It was wor-thy of further consideration. Perhaps the extra nine characters in the repeated phrase would not prove to be important.

Finally, the complete phrase from the Marine Hymn-as precisely as it could be remembered by Weston and Second Lieutenant Percy L. Everly- was tried:

THEYWILLFIINDTHESTREETSAREGUAREDBYUNITEDSTATESMARINES

12345678901234567890123456789012348678901234567890123

It was precisely fifty-three characters. It had to be the substitution phrase. The number blocks of Message Two were decrypted. They made some-not very much, but some-sense.

Lieutenant Percy L. Everly had a stab at it. "Lille-who the hell is Lille?- and Erny-that has to be Zimmerman-will eat beans-what the hell does that mean?-thirty miles suuth-that could be, probably is, 'south' but south of what?-this murning-this morning."

"Sir," Sergeant LaMadrid said, "that's iiller.' With an 'r,' Sir, before the 'and.' "

"Killer!" Lieutenant Everly said. "Goddamn, LaMadrid, you're not as dumb as you look. 'Killer and Erny,' that's what it is."

"Killer and Erny meaning the people you knew, Lieutenant Everly?" General Fertig asked.

"Yes, Sir. China Marines, Sir. Ernie Zimmerman and Killer McCoy."

"Will eat beans thirty miles south this morning?" Weston thought aloud. "The key words are 'beans' and 'thirty miles south.' What the hell can that mean?"

"Beans, beans, beans, lima beans, string beans... isn't there a village called 'St. Rose of Lima" or something like that?" Ball asked.

"Yes, there is," General Fertig said. "And there is also a village called Boston on the east coast. Boston baked beans. Weston, for God's sake I hope you still have our one National Geographic Society map of this island?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I suggest you bring it," Fertig said.

"Thirty miles south of St. Rose of Lima is fifty miles from nowhere, up here in the hills," Captain Weston said, using his finger as a pointer on the tattered map. "Thirty miles south of Boston is this little bump sticking into the ocean."

"I believe they call that a 'promontory,' Captain Weston," Fertig said. "How far is that from here?"

Weston measured it with a scrap of paper applied to the legend on the Na-tional Geographic Society map.

"Sixty miles, Sir."

"If we are to accept that these two people will be eating beans there this morning, we have to define 'morning,' " Fertig said. "One of two things is true. They are already on Mindanao, and are suggesting this as a rendezvous point. Or they will land there, presumably from a submarine. I think I'd bet on the latter. If this assumption is correct, and we further assume a submarine would prefer to surface no longer than is absolutely necessary, I would suggest 'morning' would mean at first light."

"My God," Ball said. "Do you really think someone's coming this morn-ing?"

"Are there any arguments to my assumptions?" Fertig asked.

There were none.

"The next question would then seem to be, gentlemen, what are we going to do about it? There is no way we could get anyone from here-you said sixty miles, Weston?"

"Yes, Sir."

"No way we can get anyone to this point," Fertig went on, "sixty miles distant from here by first light. The possibility exists that whoever these people are, they will attempt to make contact with USFIP, fail to do so, and withdraw."

"General, Sir, excuse me?" Sergeant LaMadrid said.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"I have the motorcycle, General, Sir."

"Shit," Lieutenant Percy L. Lewis said. "I forgot about that."

"Can we get the motorcycle down to the road at night?" Fertig asked.

"More important, is it running?" Weston asked. "Do we have gas for it? Will it make it for sixty miles?"

"It doesn't have a muffler. It'll call every Jap in ten miles," Everly said.

"It has the gasoline," Sergeant LaMadrid said. "And it will go the dis-tance if the oil does not exhaust itself. I will conduct it with great care."

"You're not going, Sergeant," Fertig said. "I can't afford to lose my radio operator."