Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

Aware that his thinking was probably colored by his personal feelings toward OSS Director Colonel «Wild Bill» Donovan, Pickering thought the very idea of setting the OSS up in the South West Pacific Ocean Area probably had more to do with Donovan playing Washington politics than anything else.

Pickering had little use for Donovan, a law school classmate of President Roosevelt who had been a hignly successful Wall Street lawyer before Roosevelt had appointed him to lead the OSS.

Lawyer Donovan had once been engaged by Chairman of the Board (of the Pacific & Far East Shipping Corporation) Pickering to represent P&FE in a maritime legal dispute. Pickering had liked neither the quality of the legal services rendered—the suit had been decided against them—nor the size of the bill rendered, and had called Donovan on the telephone and bluntly told him so.

William Donovan was not used to people talking to him the way Pickering did; and he was Irish. He was still angry two weeks later when he ran into Pickering in the lobby of the Century Club in New York City. There was some disagreement about who uttered the first unkind remark, but it was universally agreed that only the intervention of friends—strong friends—of both gentlemen had prevented adding to the many Century Club legends a fistfight in the main lobby between two of its most prominent members.

The enmity between the two men had continued after Donovan became Roosevelt's intelligence chief as head of the newly created Office of Strategic Services and Pickering had performed various intelligence services—separate from the OSS—for Navy Secretary Frank Knox, leading to his appointment as head of the highly secret Office of Management Analysis. The new marriage—at Roosevelt's direction—between Pickering and the OSS was likely to become a marriage made in hell from the point of view of everyone except the President.

Brigadier General Fleming Pickering looked at General Douglas A. MacArthur, shrugged, shook his head, took a healthy swallow of his Famous Grouse, and then shook his head again.

«Yes, Fleming?» MacArthur asked. «What is it you are having such a hard time saying?»

«I was wondering how a simple sailor like myself ever wound up between a rock named MacArthur and a hard place named Roosevelt,» Pickering said.

«All I ask of you, Fleming, with every confidence in the world that you are incapable of doing anything else, is to tell the President the truth. I don't think the OSS can play a valuable role here—I wish that it were otherwise—and neither do you.»

Pickering didn't reply.

«Elsewhere in Asia,» MacArthur went on, «India, China, Indochina, Burma, the OSS may prove, under your leadership, to be very useful.»

Christ, I didn't even think of those parts of the world! Are they considered within the area of responsibility of

—

what the hell is my title

?—«

OSS Deputy Director for Pacific Operations «

?

«I hadn't even thought about China, or India,» Pickering thought aloud. «I can't believe that Roosevelt would give me the responsibility for intelligence and covert operations in those areas.»

That's not true. I did think about that when McCoy asked me if he could expect to be sent into the Gobi Desert. And I told him I didn't think so. And I told him that because the Gobi Desert doesn't sound like the Pacific to me.

And now MacArthur is telling me that I'm wrong.

«If I were in his shoes,» MacArthur said, «I would.»

«It borders on the absurd,» Pickering said.

«Absurd? No. Imaginative? Yes. I guess you're just going to have to ask the President for clarification of your role.»

«Yeah,» Pickering said thoughtfully.

«When are you going to Washington, Fleming?»

«As soon as I can,» Pickering thought aloud. «The day after tomorrow, if I can get things here organized by then.»

«Please be good enough to personally pass to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt the best regards of Jeanne and myself,» MacArthur said. «Now, with that out of the way, would you like another drink before I speak to Manuel about dinner?»

«I would very much like another drink, please, General,» Pickering said, and raised the glass in his hand to his mouth and drained it.

note 15

Water Lily Cottage

Brisbane, Australia

0815 12 February

Second Lieutenant George F. Hart, USMCR, knocked at the door to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering's room. «General, Colonel Waterson is here.»

Using the first joint of his thumb as a gauge, Pickering was in the act of pinning his brigadier general's stars to the collar points of a tropical worsted shirt.

«Offer the Colonel a cup of coffee—for that matter, breakfast—and tell him I'll be right out,» Pickering called.

Pickering had specified the time he expected Colonel Waterson to arrive at Water Lily Cottage: 0830. Waterson was fifteen minutes early.

What the hell, if I was meeting my new boss, I would err on the side of being too early myself.

But does he know that I'm his boss? Or does he think I summoned him over here to tell him he's finally going to get the audience with El Supremo that Willoughby promised him

?

He pushed the pins on the underside of the star through the cloth of the right collar point, then compared that with the star on the left collar point. It was close enough. He picked up his fruit salad—an impressive display of colored ribbons, all mounted together, representing his decorations and services in two world wars—and started to pin the device to the shirt. And then changed his mind.

While he certainly wasn't ashamed of his decorations, wearing some of them sometimes made him uncomfortable—especially the Silver Star Admiral Nimitz had given him for taking the con of the destroyer USS

Gregory

when her captain had been killed and he himself painfully wounded; he thought that was worth no more than a Purple Heart. He was proud of his Navy Cross. He had been too young and stupid to think about what he was doing at the time, but the bottom line, looking back, was that he had behaved in Belleau Wood the way Marines are supposed to behave and the Navy Cross proved it.

To judge by the curriculum vitae MacArthur had provided, Colonel Waterson was not going to have many ribbons pinned to his chest; and Pickering decided that he was not going to make him uncomfortable by using his own ribbons to rub it in that Waterson had never heard a shot fired in anger. It was going to be bad enough as it was. MacArthur had made it quite clear that he still had no intention of permitting the OSS to operate in the South West Pacific. There was only one role he saw for Waterson, and he probably wasn't going to like it. Nor would Donovan when he heard about it.

Pickering put the shirt on, tucked it in his trousers, zipped up his fly, checked in the mirror to see that the button line on his shirt was aligned with his belt buckle and the trousers fly, shifted the belt buckle until it was in alignment, and then walked out of his bedroom.

Waterson, a chubby forty-odd year old who brushed his hair straight back, was sitting on one of the upholstered rattan couches in the living room. He was in civilian clothing—which surprised Pickering—a well-tailored, single-breasted, tropical worsted suit, a white button-down collar shirt, a finely printed silk necktie, and well-polished wing-tip shoes. When he saw Pickering, he stood up.

He looks more like a business executive than an Army colonel

, Pickering thought.

But, of course, that's what he really is. El Supremo told me he had been vice president of some company

—

Malloy Manufacturing. He's no more a bona fide colonel than I am a bona fide brigadier general