The Corps IV - Battleground Page 35

1945 HOURS 15 JULY 1942

  Both Major Ed Banning, commanding officer of U.S. Marine Corps Special Detachment 14, and Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, Officer Commanding, Royal Australian Navy Coast Watcher Establishment, were waiting at the small Townesville air strip when the Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson came in low over the sea and touched down.

  As the twin engine bomber-transport taxied to a parking place, Banning put the Studebaker President in gear and bounced over the grass to it.

  By the time the rear door opened, and Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, was emerging from it, Banning and Feldt were standing on either side of the spot where his feet would alight. After Feldt saluted elaborately, in the British palm-out manner, the hand quivering, he barked, "Sir!"

  Banning extended a towel-wrapped bottle in an ice-filled cooler. The cooler had begun life as a tomato can.

  "It's beer," he said. "But you can't fault our good intentions."

  "I expected at least a band," Pickering said, taking the bottle from the can and removing the towel. "What am I supposed to do, bite the cap off?"

  "Sir!" Feldt barked again, and bowing deeply handed him a bottle opener.

  Pickering opened the beer bottle, took a pull from the neck, and offered the bottle to Feldt.

  "Very good of you, Sir," Feldt said, taking a pull at the beer and handing it to Banning. "And may I say how honored we all feel that you could find time in your busy schedule to honor us with a visit."

  Pickering appeared to be thoughtfully considering the remark. Finally, smiling, he said, "Yes, I think you may."

  Feldt laughed with delight.

  The pilot, a silver-haired Wing Commander, the co-pilot, a Squadron Commander, and the crew chief, a sergeant, came out of the airplane. Banning introduced them, and then said, "I think, Wing Commander, that you may unload the emergency rations for these starving savages."

  "Very good, Sir," the Wing Commander said.

  The sergeant went back in the Hudson and started handing boxes out. There was a case of scotch, a case of bourbon, six cases of beer, and a wooden case marked Moet and Chandon.

  "Do you sodding Americans do everything backward? Christmas is in December," Feldt said.

  "A small contribution to the enlisted mess," Pickering said. "Knowing as I do that a fine Christian officer such as yourself would never allow alcohol to touch his lips."

  "I can get it down without it coming near my lips," Feldt said. "Anyone who comes between me and the bubbly does so at his peril."

  "What's up, Boss?" Major Ed Banning asked.

  "Never treat with the natives until you've plied them with alcohol," Pickering said. "And always hope that no one has warned them to beware of Americans bearing gifts."

  "Why don't I like the sound of that?" Feldt asked.

  "Because you're prescient," Pickering said. "You intuit that I am here to tell you how to do your job."

  Feldt continued to smile, but the warmth was gone from his eyes.

  "Will it wait until after dinner? Or should I more or less politely tell you to climb back on the sodding airplane and bugger off now?"

  "That would depend on dinner," Pickering said. "What are we having?"

  "Probably very little," Banning said. "I told them to go ahead and eat if we weren't back by 1830."

  "We ran against a forty-knot headwind all the bloody way," the Wing Commander said. "We had to set down and refuel."

  "Then I suppose we'll have to drink our dinner," Pickering said. "How are we going to get all that in the car?"

  "We'll take the booze, naturally, and leave you and Banning here," Feldt said. "There's such a thing as going too sodding far with this international cooperation crap."

  "Why don't you and the Wing Commander and Captain Pickering take half of the booze, and then send the car back to pick up the rest of us and the rest of the booze?" Ed Banning suggested.

  "Why don't we leave the Wing Commander, too?" Feldt said, "That way there would be no witnesses when I remind the Captain that the understanding was that he would keep his sodding nose the hell out of my business?"

  "That," Pickering said, after a moment, "as you suggested, can wait until after dinner."

  "It's a pity, really," Feldt said. "I was on the edge of almost liking you, Pickering. A man, even a sodding American, can't be all bad if he brings me Moet and Chandon."

  "Into each life," Pickering intoned sonorously, "some rain must fall."

  "Get in the car, you sodding bastard," Feldt said. "You drive. The sodding steering wheel is on the wrong side."

  Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet.

  "If you will excuse us, gentlemen," he said, "the time has come for me to tell Captain Pickering to bugger off before I am too pissed to do so."

  "Ed," Pickering said, as he stood up from the dinner table, "you and Wing Commander Foster, too."

  Feldt looked, not at all friendly, at Wing Commander Foster.

  "You, too, Wing Commander?" he asked. "I wondered what the hell a Wing Commander was doing chauffeuring Pickering around."

  Wing Commander Foster was aware of Lieutenant Commander Feldt's reputation even before Air Vice-Marshal Devon-Jaynes and Captain Fleming Pickering warned him that Feldt was difficult. As they all ate dinner, while Feldt bitterly criticized everyone involved in the war except the Japanese, Foster had managed to keep his mouth shut- though with an effort.

  But now, momentarily, he lost control.

  "One does what one is ordered to, Commander," he said icily. "In this instance, I am here at the direction of Air Vice-Marshal Devon-Jaynes."

  "Air Vice-Marshal Devon-Jaynes?" Feldt replied. "Well, sod him, too."

  He turned and marched out of the room. Pickering shook his head and made a gesture with his hand to Wing Commander Foster, signifying both an apology for Feldt and an order to say nothing more.

  "Sorry, Sir," Foster said.

  "Commander Feldt," Pickering said, touching Foster's arm, "is both a remarkable man, and a man whose contributions to this goddamn war cannot be overstated."

  "Yes, Sir," Foster said, and then followed Pickering into Feldt's office. Banning brought up the rear.

  Feldt was standing behind his desk, pouring scotch into a glass.

  "I presume," he said nastily, "that since the Wing Commander is here at the direction of Air-Vice Marshal Whatsisname that he has the sodding Need to Know whatever it is we're going to talk about?"

  "Wing Commander Foster has a TOP SECRET OPERATION PESTILENCE clearance," Pickering said evenly. He took a business-sized envelope from his inner jacket pocket and handed it to Feldt. "That's an authorization from Admiral Boyer to give Wing Commander Foster access to Coastwatcher classified information through TOP SECRET."

  Feldt looked at the envelope, and then tossed it unopened on his desk.

  "I'll take your word for it," he said. "Ok. Let's get to it."

  "Why don't we uncover the map?" Pickering said.

  "Why don't we?" Feldt said. He turned around and faced the wall behind his desk. A four-by-six-foot sheet of plywood, hinged at the top, lay against the wall. With some difficulty, Feldt raised it, then attached a length of chain which held it horizontally, exposing the map beneath.

  The map displayed the Solomon Islands area from New Britain and New Ireland in the North, through Santa Isabel and Guadalcanal in the Southeast, and the upper tip of Australia to the Southwest. It was covered with a sheet of celluloid, on which had been marked in grease pencil the location of the thirty or more Coastwatchers, together with their radio call signs.

  "Why don't you have a look at that, Wing Commander?" Pickering said.

  Foster went to the map and studied it carefully in silence for more than a minute.

  "This is the first time I've seen this..." he said.

  "We don't publish it in the sodding Times, for Christ's sake," Feldt said.

  "... and I had no idea how many stations you have," Foster concluded, ignoring him.

/>   "Not as many as we would like. Or had," Feldt said. "Note the red Xs."

  There were a dozen or more locations which had red grease pencil Xs drawn through them.

  "No longer operational, I gather?" Foster said.

  "No longer operational, for one reason or another," Feldt said. "Betrayed by natives. Or felled by one sodding tropical disease or another. Or equipment failure. Or the sodding Japs just got lucky and found them."

  "We are going to land on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Gavutu on August first," Pickering said. He stopped and then went on. "Actually, I don't think there is any way they can make that schedule. There's going to be a rehearsal in the Fiji Islands first. And then they'll probably land on Guadalcanal on seven August or eight August."

  "If then," Ed Banning said, a little bitterly. "I heard what a mess things are in in New Zealand."

  "It'll have to be by then," Pickering replied. "If the Japanese get that airfield near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal operational-even for Zeroes, not to mention bombers-I hate to think what they could do to an invasion fleet."

  "The point of all this?" Feldt asked.

  "At the moment, the bulk of Japanese aerial assets are in- or around-Rabaul. When they attack the invasion fleet, or the islands themselves after we land, they will use planes based at Rabaul. The more warning we have, obviously, the better. I am concerned with Buka."

  "Buka is up and running," Feldt said.

  Foster searched on the map and found Buka, a small island at the tip of Bougainville.

  "Here?" he said, but it was more of a statement than a question.

  "Buka is the only Coastwatcher station, Wing Commander," Feldt said, "manned by U.S. Marine Corps personnel. Do you suppose that has anything to do with Captain Pickering's concern?"

  Banning looked at Pickering and actually saw the blood drain from his face.

  "There is a point, Eric," Pickering said icily, "when you cross the line from colorful curmudgeon to offensive horse's ass. At that point I will not tolerate any more of your drunken, caustic bullshit. You have passed that point. Do you take my meaning?"

  "Not really," Feldt said, unrepentant. "Explain it to me."

  "Let me put it this way: How would you like to spend the rest of this war counting life preservers in Melbourne?"

  "Don't you threaten me!"

  "If I don't have an apology in thirty seconds, I'm going to pick up that telephone and call Admiral Boyer and tell him that I have reluctantly come to agree with him about the necessity of relieving you."

  "Sod you, Pickering."

  '"We're not going to need the thirty seconds, I see," Pickering said. He walked to the desk and reached for the telephone.

  He had it halfway to his ear when Feldt stayed his hand.

  "It's the booze, for Christ's sake."

  "Then leave the goddamned booze alone!"

  "I have this terrible tendency to lubricate myself when I find myself writing letters that go, 'Dear Mrs. Keller, I very much regret having to inform you that information has come to me indicating that your husband has been captured and executed by the Japanese...' "

  Pickering put the telephone back in its cradle, but did not take his hand off it, nor take his eyes off Feldt.

  Feldt avoided Pickering's eyes and looked at Wing Commander Foster.

  "When they catch one of our lads, Wing Commander, what the Nips do-after interrogation, of course-is put him down ceremonially. First, they make him dig his own grave; and then they behead him, after making sure their chap with the sword is of equal or superior grade. After that, they pray over the grave. Did you know that?"

  "No," Foster said quietly, "I did not."

  Feldt looked at Pickering.

  "Letting the side down, in my cups, I look for someone, a friend, against whom I can vent my 'caustic bullshit.' Ed Banning usually gets it. I don't know how or why he puts up with it. And I certainly can understand why you won't, Pickering. But for the record, I am fully aware that Buka would not be up and running if it weren't for your two lads. They have balls at least as big as any of my lads, and the one thing I was not suggesting was that they don't."

  Pickering looked into his eyes for a moment, then took his hand from the telephone and straightened up.

  "Let's talk about Buka," he said.

  "I gather you accept my apology?"

  "Oh, was that an apology?" Pickering asked lightly.

  "As close as I know how to come to one."

  "In that case, yes," Pickering said.

  "Let's talk about Buka," Feldt said.

  "We can't afford to lose it," Pickering said. "Worse possible case, we can't afford to lose it in the last few days before and the first few days following the invasion of Guadalcanal. Every plane the Japanese launch from Rabaul to attack the invasion force will pass over Buka. If we know the type of aircraft, how many, and when they're coming, we can have our fighters in the air to repel them. If we don't have that intelligence from Buka, a lot of people are going to be killed, and ships we can't afford to lose will be sunk."

  "So?"

  "I want to reinforce it," Pickering said. "I've discussed this with Admiral Boyer and he agrees. Wing Commander Foster has been directed to provide aircraft to drop another team, or teams, in."

  "Sod Admiral Boyer," Feldt said. "No."

  "You have reasons?" Pickering asked. Banning saw his face pale again.

  "If there is anybody in Australia or New Zealand who knows his way around Buka, I haven't been able to find him," Feldt said. "And Christ knows, it's not for want of trying."

  "What's your point?"

  "There is only one spot on Buka where we could parachute a team in with any chance of them surviving the landing. We already used it to put your lads in there. The Nips know we used it. They are now watching it. So we can't use that again. The sodding island is covered with dense jungle, except where the Nips are. You jump a team in there, what you're going to have is three skeletons in trees. And even if by some miracle that didn't happen, and they got to the ground in one piece, they still wouldn't know the island, would they? They'd never be able to get from where they were dropped to where they could do any good. Either the jungle would get them, or the natives-you understand that the natives are still reliably reported to be cannibals?-or the sodding Nips, of course."

  Pickering nodded, and then said softly, "It might become necessary to send in one team after another until one made it."

  "You are a cold-blooded bastard, aren't you, Pickering?" Feldt asked softly.

  "A lot of lives are at stake," Pickering replied. "We simply can't afford to lose that early intelligence."

  "Are you looking for advice? Or did you come here to tell me when we are going to start dropping parachutists?"

  "Advice."

  "OK. Form your teams. Banning's already done that, anyway. Lay on an airplane, have it ready around the clock. For that matter, if you have the clout, lay on a submarine, or maybe a FT boat, in case we decide the best thing is to put them ashore and not parachute them in. If Buka goes down, then we start sending people. Not before. This isn't the Imperial sodding Japanese Navy; our lads don't want to die for their emperor, and I will be damned if I'll ask them to."

  Pickering pursed his lips for just a moment. "OK," he said. "We'll do it your way. And pray that Buka doesn't go down."

  Feldt nodded.

  "Since you've been so sodding agreeable, I'm going to offer you some of my bubbly. You understand I wouldn't do that for just anybody, Pickering."

  (Three)

  COMPANY GRADE BACHELOR'S OFFICER'S QUARTERS #2

  SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, SOUTH WEST PACIFIC AREA

  (FORMERLY, COMMERCE HOTEL) BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

  0430 HOURS 22 JULY 1942

  As often happened when the telephone rang in the middle of the night, and he made a grab for it, Lieutenant Pluto Hon, BS, MS, PhD (summa cum laude, Mathematics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, knocked the unstable fucking museum piece off the bedside table and
had to retrieve it from under the bed before he could answer it. The unstable fucking museum piece held its cone-shaped mouthpiece atop a ten-inch Corinthian column, and the ear piece hung from a life boat davit on the side.

  "Lieutenant Hon, Sir."

  "What the hell was that noise?" Captain Fleming Pickering asked.

  "I knocked the phone over, Sir."

  "Pluto, I'm really sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour, but something has come up, and I really want to have a word with you before I go."