W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps V - Line of Fire

Even taking into account the foliage, there was room for at least two R4Ds to sit wingtip to wingtip between the trees and the place where he decided to pound the cone into the sand.

And to seaward, there was even more sand.

Then he put the cone down and pounded it in. Next he was on his knees, bent over to read the cone's markings.

I don't believe this, George thought, it's too good to be true!

He picked the cone up and moved five feet closer to the water; then he stood the cone up and dropped the weight on it.

The cone went into the sand no farther than it did on the first try.

Jesus! Maybe there's clay or rocks or something here! This can't be right!

He scraped at the sand with his fingers, but could move only an inch or so away without difficulty.

He jumped to his feet and ran fifty yards down the beach and repeated the test. And then he ran a hundred yards down the beach end did it again.

He went back to where he started.

McCoy intercepted him, holding out for him a set of utilities.

"Put these on." Amazingly cheerful, Hart replied, "Afraid I'll get sunburned?"

"For the bugs," McCoy said.

Hart was so excited he'd forgotten he'd been waving his hand in front of his face and swatting at various parts of his body.

When he looked now, he was spotted all over with insect bites.

"The antibug grease is in the first-aid stuff," McCoy said, gesturing toward the Pelican.

Hart nodded.

"How does it look?"

"Too good to be true," Hart said. He pulled the utilities over his swimming trunks and ran farther down the beach.

Five minutes later he ran back to McCoy, who was holding the battery-powered shortwave radio.

"What do I tell them?" McCoy asked.

"Two, repeat Two, this is no mistake, Two," Hart said.

"You're sure?" McCoy said.

"I'm sure," Hart said, beaming.

McCoy put the microphone to his lips.

"Bird, this is Bird One, Over."

"Go ahead, Bird One."

"Message is Two. Repeat Two. This is not a mistake. Two.

Over.

"Understand Two No Mistake Two, Over."

"The message is Two. Over."

"Good luck, you chaps. See you soon. Bird out." McCoy and Hart smiled at each other.

"Wallace is snooping around the boondocks looking for some water for you," McCoy said.

"Good," Hart said.

What the fuck am I so cheerful about? As soon as he finds the water, he and McCoy are going to take off and leave me alone on this fucking beach.

Wallace appeared five minutes later, wearing only a loincloth. There was a compass on a thong around his neck. In one hand he held his Sten gun, and in the other was one of the funny-looking machetes Hart had seen in Townsville. His hair was now dry, and it seemed to have snapped back into place, but not to the carefully configured coiffure Hart had grown used to. Wallace did not now look like a Chief Signalman of the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve.

He looks like a fucking cannibal.

McCoy told him what Hart's tests of the beach had turned up.

"I thought it might turn out that way," Wallace said thoughtfully. "Once I saw the beach, it occurred to me that the wave action is ideal to pack the sand. And the odd large wave tends to provide the right amount of moisture to keep it from drying out." Hart had no idea whatever what Wallace was talking about.

"I found a place where you might be comfortable," Wallace went on. "And I've been thinking, Lieutenant McCoy, that it would be a rather better idea if you stayed here with Sergeant Hart."

"Why?" McCoy asked.

"No offense, Lieutenant McCoy, but I can move faster alone." Please God, let him agree with Wallace.

"If you think so, OK," McCoy said.

Wallace nodded.

"Well, let me help you two get settled, and then I'll be on my way.

[Two]

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY COASTWATCHER ESTABLISHMENT

TOWNSVILLE, QUEENSLAND

0555 HOURS 6 OCTOBER 1942

FRD1, KCY. FRD1, KCY. SB CODE OI.

Royal Australian Navy Coastwatcher Radio, This is Commander in Chief Pacific Radio.

Please stand by to receive an encrypted operational immediate message.

Signalman Third Class Paul W. Cahn, RANVR, threw the switch to TRANSMIT and tapped his key quickly

KCY, FRD1. GA.

As the message came in, in the familiar five-character blocks of gibberish, he turned to the device that made crypto- graphic tape and began to type.

Without stopping his typing, Signalman Cahn called out to Sergeant Vincent J. Esposito, USMC, "Vince, you better go get the brass. I think they're in the mess. Whatever this is, it's Operational Immediate." Operational Immediate was the second-highest priority for message transmission.

Sergeant Esposito put down his coffee cup and walked quickly out of the radio room.

Less than two minutes later, Signalman Cahn reached for his key, tapped out,

KCY, FRD1, AKN UR OI. CLR.

CINCPAC Radio, Coastwatcher Radio acknowledges receipt of your operational Immediate transmission and is clearing the net at this time.

He waited for the reply, FRD I, KCY. CLR, and then took the strip of paper which had been fed out of his tape machine and fed it into the cryptographic machine. In a moment, the keys began to clatter:

FRD1, KCY.

KCY 6OCT34

OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

FOLLOWING RECEIVED 0545 FROM BIRD FOR RELAY

START

PART ONE

PLAN BAKER RPT BAKER EXECUTED AS OF 0530 RPT 0530

PART TWO

EGGS AND CHICKS IN NEST RPT IN NEST

PART THREE

CONDITION TWO RPT TWO THIS IS NO RPT NO MISTAKE

END

By the time Cahn removed the decrypted message from the machine, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, RAN, and Major Edward Banning, USMC, had come into the radio room. Banning had a large manila envelope in his hand.

Signalman Cahn handed the message to Commander Feldt.

He read it and handed it to Major Banning, who read it and handed it to Sergeant Esposito, who had been desperately trying to read it over Banning's shoulder.

"Christ, they couldn't get through the sodding surf or something else went wrong! Bloody hell!" Commander Feldt said.

"McCoy and Wallace are ashore," Banning said, "And Condition Two!" McCoy's orders were to assess the condition of the sand on the beach on a scale of One to Five: One meant it was Perfect and Five meant it was Extremely Hazardous.

Banning took a sheet of paper from the manila envelope. He had prepared a number of messages beforehand to cover all the contingencies he could think of. The message he was looking for had three spaces that he'd left blank. He wrote BAKER in one of them and 0530 06OCT42 and TWO in the others. Then he handed the sheet to Cahn.

"The sooner the better, Cahn," he said.

"Aye, aye, Sir." Cahn set the switch on the tape machine to CLEAR, then typed the message.

FOR CINCPAC RADIO

OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE

FROM OFFICER COMMANDING RAN COASTWATCHER ESTABLISHMENT

FOR RELAY TO COMMGENERAL 1ST MAR DIVISION

FOLLOWING FOR MAJOR HOMER DILLON USMC X PLAN BAKER SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTED AS OF 0530 06OCT42 X CONDITION TWO REPEAT TWO X EXECUTE PLAN VICTOR X ADVISE ONLY DELAYS AND REASONS THEREFORE X FELDT

He then moved switches on the encryption device to ENCRYPT, fed the tape to it, and waited for the message to appear.

Two minutes later, CINCPAC Radio acknowledged receipt of Coastwatcher Radio's encrypted Operational Immediate message. Four minutes after that, CINCPAC sent another message.

FRD1, KCY. FYI 1STMARDIV AKN UR OI.

Coastwatcher Radio, this is CINCPAC Radio. For Your Information, First Marine Division Radio has acknowledged receipt of your Operational Immediate.

KCY, FRD1. THANKS. FRD1 CLR.

"They've got it, Sir," Cahn reported.

"When do we net with Ferdinand Six?" Banning asked.

"Six-fifty, Sir," Cahn said after consulting his Signal Operating Instructions for 0001-2400 6 October 1942. "About ten minutes, Sir."