The Corps V - Line of Fire Read online

  He felt a hard blow in the back, between the shoulder blades, and felt himself flying through the air.

  What the hell?

  His face slid a foot through the dirt and pebbles. The breath was knocked out of him.

  He heard the crunch of boots on the dirt and a pair of highly shined service shoes and the cuff of sharply creased khaki pants appeared in his view.

  "On your feet!"

  He recognized the voice of the drill sergeant before he saw his face.

  Shit, he saw what happened. He kicked me.

  Private Hart, breathing hard, came to attention.

  "Look at me," the drill instructor said evenly.

  He was a leathery-faced, leanly built staff sergeant in his early thirties. His eyes were gray and cold.

  "Try me, tough guy," the drill instructor said, and Hart felt a jabbing at his stomach. He looked down and saw that he was being offered a trench knife, butt first. The sheath had been removed.

  He looked into the drill instructor's face again.

  He looks, Hart thought, more contemptuous than angry.

  "Go on, tough guy, take it," the drill instructor said, and jabbed Hart in the stomach again with the butt of the trench knife.

  Hart shook his head and blurted what came into his mind: "I don't have anything against you." The drill instructor's eyes examined him with renewed interest.

  "Meaning you think you could hurt me?"

  Again, Hart blurted what came into his mind: "I don't know. But I've got no reason to cut you."

  There was a moment's silence.

  "'Ten'hut!" the-drill instructor barked. "Fow-wud, Harch!

  Double-time, Harch!" Hart's compliance was Pavlovian. He started double-timing across the parade ground. After a moment, he became aware that the drill instructor was double-timing a step or two behind him, just within his peripheral vision.

  He came to the end of the parade ground, then crossed a narrow macadam road and moved between two barracks buildings.

  "Column left, Harch!" the drill instructor ordered when they reached the far end of the long frame building. "Detail, halt!" Hart stopped and stood at attention. The drill instructor stepped in front of him.

  What the fuck do I do now? Let him beat me up?

  "Who taught you to fight?" the drill instructor demanded, and then, without waiting for a reply, "What did you do before you came in The Corps?"

  "I was a cop"

  "A cop?"

  "A detective," Hart said.

  "Where?"

  "Saint Louis."

  "Were you really going to break his arm?"

  "He's a vicious, sadistic sonofabitch," Hart heard himself say. "Yeah, I was going to break his arm. Nobody calls me a motherfucker."

  "He's on his way out of here," the drill instructor said.

  "Before the war, there's no way an asshole like Warren would have made corporal, much less been assigned here. But he is here, and you just made him-made a DI-look like an asshole in front of the platoon. Maybe I should have let you break his arm we could have said it was an accident." Jesus Christ, he's talking to me like a human being.

  "I'll fix it with the Captain somehow," the drill sergeant said, obviously thinking out loud. "If I can get you transferred to another platoon, can you keep your mouth shut about what happened?" He looked intently at Hart, as if finally making up his mind.

  Hart nodded.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Stick your thanks up your ass. I'm not doing this because I like you.

  I'm doing it because it's the best thing for The Corps."

  (Two)

  ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY COASTWATCHER ESTABLISHMENT

  TOWNSVILLE, QUEENSLAND

  30 AUGUST 1942 The letters USMC were stenciled on both sides of the hood of the gray 1941 Studebaker President, and a stenciled Marine Corps globe and anchor insignia were on each rear door.

  The driver was a Marine, a tall, muscular man in his early thirties. He wore a green fore-and-aft cap adorned with the Marine insignia and the golden oak leaf of a major. Otherwise, he was substantially out of uniform. Instead of the forest green tunic prescribed for officers during the winter months in Australia, he wore a baggy, off-white, rough woolen thigh-length jacket that was equipped with a hood and was fastened with wooden pegs inserted through rope loops. The letters RAN, for Royal Australian Navy, were stenciled on the chest.

  The passenger, a lean, sharp-featured man of about the same age, wore an identical duffel coat and a Royal Australian Navy officer's brimmed cap, the gold (actually brass) braid of which was both frayed and green with tarnish. There was no visible means to determine his rank.

  Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, RAN, Commanding Officer of the Royal Australian Navy Coastwatcher Establishment, turned to Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, Commanding Officer of USMC Special Detachment 14, gestured out the window, and inquired, "Is that for you?" Banning, who had heard the engines, leaned forward to look out the window, and saw what he expected to see. A United States Army Air Corps C-47 had begun its approach to the landing field.

  "I don't expect anyone," Banning said.

  "But we couldn't expect the Asshole to let us know he was coming, could we?" Under practically any other circumstances, Major Ed Banning's sense of military propriety would have been deeply offended to hear a brother officer call another officer an anal orifice. And he would have been especially offended when the insult came from a foreigner, and the officer and gentleman so crudely characterized was a full colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps.

  But at the moment, Major Banning was not at all offended. For one thing, he had a profound professional admiration and a good deal of personal affection for Commander Feldt. And for another, so far as Banning was concerned, Feldt's vulgar characterization fit to a T Colonel Lewis R. Mitchell, USMC, Special Liaison Officer between the Commander in Chief Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPAC-Admiral Chester W. Nimitz) and the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific (SWPOA-General Douglas MacArthur).

  Banning knew far more about Colonel Lewis R. Mitchell than Mitchell would have dreamed possible, including the fact that Mitchell had been given his present assignment in the belief that he could do less damage to the war effort there than he had been causing as one of a half dozen colonels assigned to the Personnel Division at Headquarters, USMC.

  "You really think it's Mitchell?"

  "Who else would it be? That's a sodding Dakota, not a puddle-jumper. If it were your Nip, he'd be in a puddlejumper." The "your Nip" reference was to First Lieutenant Hon Song Do, Signal Corps, U.S. Army.

  "I'm telling you for the last fucking time, Eric!" Banning flared furiously. "Don't you ever refer to Pluto as a Nip, mine or anyone else's!"

  "Sorry," Feldt said, sounding genuinely contrite. It did not satisfy Banning.

  "For one thing, he's a serving officer. For another, he's a friend of mine. And finally, for Christ's sake, he's Korean, not Japanese." Pluto Hon had made a good many trips by puddle-jumper from MacArthur's headquarters to Townsville to deliver to Banning classified messages that could not be entrusted to ordinary couriers. It was a long way to fly in a Piper Cub. Pluto Hon was a good man, a good officer, and he was not a fucking Nip.

  "I'm really sorry, old boy," Feldt said. "That just slipped out"

  "That's your fucking trouble!"

  Feldt did not respond.

  Banning decided he had gone far enough. In fact, he was chagrined that he had lost his temper.

  "Well, what do you say?" he asked. "Should we go down to the field and see if that is the Asshole?"

  "Sod him," Feldt said. "Let him walk."

  "We'd just have to send one of the men back for him," Banning replied as he braked and prepared to turn around.

  "And if one of my guys were out of uniform, say wearing one of these RAN sleeved blankets, the Asshole would have apoplexy."

  Feldt and Banning had been en route from the Coastwatcher Establishment antennae farm to their headquarters when Feldt had spotted
the airplane. The airfield was in between; it took them only a few minutes to reach it.

  By then the C-47 had landed and taxied to the transient ramp. The door opened as Banning stopped the Studebaker at the hurricane fence between the parking lot and the field itself.

  As Banning walked to the policeman guarding the gate, Colonel Lewis R. Mitchell climbed down the short ladder, tugged at his trench coat to make sure it was in order, and marched toward the terminal.

  He looks like an illustration.- "Field Grade Officer, Dress Uniform, Winter, " Banning thought.

  He intercepted him and saluted crisply, "Good afternoon, Sir." Colonel Mitchell returned the salute but said nothing.

  What he's doing is mentally composing something memorable to say to me about the duffel coat.

  Colonel Mitchell's lips worked as if he was distinctly uncomfortable.

  "Major Banning," he said finally, "a communication has arrived which I have been instructed to place before you." What the hell is he talking about?

  "Yes, Sir?" Mitchell reached into the inside pocket of his blouse, removed an envelope, handed it to Banning, and then adjusted his uniform again.

  The envelope was unsealed. It contained a single sheet of paper. From its feel, even before he saw the red TOP SECRET classification stamped on it, Banning knew that it had come from the Cryptographic Room. The paper was treated somehow to aid combustion. When a match was touched to it, it almost exploded.

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT

  HEADQUARTERS USMC WASH DC 29 AUG 1942 1105

  TO: HEADQUARTERS SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA

  ATTN: (EYES ONLY) COLONEL L. R. MITCHELL USMC

  1. Reference your radio 25Aug42 subject, "Request for clarification of role SWPOA-CINCPAC liaison officer vis-a-vis USMC Special Detachment 14 and RAN Coastwatcher Establishment, which has been referred to HQ USMC for reply.

  2. You are advised that you have no repeat no role vis-a-vis USMC Special Detachment 14 or RAN Coastwatcher Establishment. You are further advised that Commanding Officer USMC SPECDET 14 is under sole and direct repeat sole and direct command of the undersigned and therefore not subject to orders of any USMC officer in CINCPAC or FPOA, regardless of position or rank.

  1. In order to insure that there is absolutely misunderstanding, you are directed to personally make the contents of this message known to Major Edward Banning, USMC; LTCOM Eric A. Feldt, ; and 1st Lt S.D. Hon, SigC, USA.

  It Hon is directed to inform the undersigned )f date and time he has seen this message. Major Banning is directed to inform the undersigned of -the date and time he has seen this message, and to inform the undersigned when its contents were made known to LTCOM Feldt. A consolidated reply, classified Top Secret, will be dispatched by urgent radio.

  5. You are further advised that your raising of this question has called into doubt your ability to perform the duties of your present assignment.

  FOR THE COMMANDANT

  HORACE W. T. FORREST

  MAJOR GEN, USMC

  ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G2, USMC

  TOP SECRET

  Banning raised his eyes to Colonel Mitchell's.

  "Yes, Sir," he said.

  "I apparently overstepped my authority and responsibility as I understood it..." Mitchell said.

  Jesus Christ, I actually feel sorry for him.

  "... and if an apology is in order, Major, please consider one extended."

  "No, Sir. No apology is required, Sir. They should have briefed you."

  "Is that Commander Feldt in the car?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "If you will give me that message back, I will show it to Commander Feldt and then see about getting back to Melbourne."

  "Colonel," Banning said, "unless you have some pressing business in Melbourne, why don't you spend the night with us, and let us show you what we're doing here?"

  "In light of that message, that strikes me as-"

  "Sir, it was a question of Need to Know. With respect, Sir, you have not been cleared for what we're doing here."

  "I have a TOP SECRET clearance," Mitchell said. "I'm the liaison officer between the two senior headquarters in the Pacific, and I'm the senior Marine officer present at SWPOA." Banning, aware that he was about to lose his temper, spoke very carefully.

  "Colonel, you have two choices. You can get back on that airplane or you can spend the night with us, let us show you why this is all so important."

  "You had something to do with that message I just got, didn't you, Major? It was not just a reply to my radio, was it?"

  "Sir, when you told me what you wanted me to do, and I told you what you asked was impossible, and when I learned you had sent that radio, I sent a back-channel message-"

  "Who told you about my radio? That Oriental cryptographer?"

  "That Oriental cryptographer"? Fuck you, Asshole!

  Banning came to attention.

  "Sir, I will bring this message to Commander Feldt's attention and arrange to have the confirmation of its receipt radioed to General Forrest. Good afternoon, Sir." He saluted, and without waiting for it to be returned, executed a perfect about-face movement and then marched toward the Studebaker.

  "Now see here, Banning!" Colonel Mitchell called after him.

  Banning reached the Studebaker, got behind the wheel, and drove off.

  "The Asshole, I gather, is not coming to tea?" Commander Feldt asked.

  "Sod him," Major Banning said.

  The story that ended with the arrival of Colonel Mitchell in Townsville had its start some months earlier with what Banning now recognized to be a hell of a smart idea on the part of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. At the beginning of the war, Knox realized that he was going to read very few honest reports on the functioning of Navy in the Pacific so long as those reports were written by Navy captains and admirals.

  Knox concluded that if he was going to get anything like what he actually needed, he'd have to find someone who was not a member of the Navy establishment, yet who understood the Pacific and the Navy's responsibilities there. He found him, in spades, in the person of Captain Fleming W. Pickering. In addition to having been an any-tonnage, any-ocean master mariner (hence Captain) since he was twenty-six, Pickering was Chairman of the Board of Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation.

  Pickering, in other words, had all the necessary credentials that Knox required.

  It is a sign of Frank Knox's considerable integrity that he actually chose Fleming Pickering for the job; for their initial encounter was not pleasant, Fleming Pickering being a notably outspoken man with very strong views indeed. They met in connection with Pickering's refusal to sell his forty-two-vessel cargo fleet to the Navy (he did sell the Navy his twelve-vessel passenger-liner fleet). During their meeting (it took place not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor), Pickering told Knox that he should have resigned after that fiasco, and they should have shot the admirals in charge.

  Peace between the two was arranged by their mutual friend, Senator Richmond F. Fowler (R., Cal.), and Pickering was commissioned into the Navy as a Captain on Knox's personal staff. He left almost immediately for the Pacific, where he filed regular reports on what the Navy and Marine Corps were actually doing-as opposed to what they wanted Frank Knox to know about.

  Unfettered by the restraints he would have endured had he been under the command of CINCPAC, and with a wide network of friends and acquaintances in Australia and elsewhere in the Far East, Pickering put his nose in wherever he wanted to.

  Very soon after he learned of the Royal Australian Navy Coastwatcher Establishment, he realized its great intelligence value. And it didn't take Pickering long after that to realize that he and Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt were both just about equally contemptuous of the brass hats the Navy sent to work with the Coast watchers.

  As a result, a lengthy radio message from Pickering to Navy Secretary Knox resulted in the formation of Marine Corps Special Detachment 14, Major Edward S. Banning, commanding, under the Mari
ne Corps Office of Management Analysis (its name was purposely obfuscatory). Banning's mission was not only to get along with Commander Feldt at any cost, but to provide him with whatever personnel, material , and money Feldt felt he could use.

  Shortly after he took command of Special Detachment 14, Banning was made aware of one of the great secrets of the war, a secret that Pickering was also privy to.

  Navy cryptographers at Pearl Harbor had broken many (but not all) of the codes of the Imperial Japanese General Staff.