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."
"No problem, Sir. Where?"
"Here. On the way to the airport. Is that going to be a problem?"
"No, Sir. I'll catch a ride out there as soon as I can."
"No. I called Moore and told him to pick you up on his way out here. He should be at the hotel in ten, fifteen minutes."
"I'll be waiting for him, Sir."
"Thank you, Pluto. I am really sorry to have to do this to you. But I think it's important."
"No problem, Sir."
I have just spoken to the only officer in the grade of Army captain or above at the Emperor's Court who would dream of apologizing for waking a lowly lieutenant up. I am really going to miss Captain Pickering.
Pickering was leaving Brisbane to join the Guadalcanal invasion fleet in time for the rehearsal in the Fiji Islands. Hon suspected he would not be back for a long time, if ever.
Pickering hadn't come right out and said so, but there was little doubt in Hon's mind that when the rehearsal was over, Pickering was going with the invasion fleet to Guadalcanal instead of resuming his duties as the Secretary of the Navy's personal representative to the Emperor. Hon thought it was entirely likely that Pickering wouldn't stop there-watching the landing from the bridge of the command ship USS McCawley-but would actually go ashore with the Marines.
Pickering's contempt for the brass hats-at least for their petty bickering-at SHSWPA and CINCPAC had been made clear in the reports he had written (and Hon had read in the process of transmission) to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. And Pickering had also taught Hon that there was still life in the old saw, "Once A Marine, Always A Marine." Pickering thought of himself as a Marine. He felt a tie of brotherhood with the men who were actually invading Guadalcanal and Tulagi. The notion of returning to the cocktail party circuit in Australia while they were going in harm's way was repugnant to him.
In Hon's opinion, it would not be at all hard for Pickering to convince himself that he could best discharge his duty by going ashore with the Marines. If he was actually on the scene, he'd be in a better position to keep Frank Knox informed than if he were back in Australia-or at least so he would rationalize. Hon half expected that Pickering would actually suggest this plan to Knox in one of his reports. When he didn't, Hon suspected it was because he knew Knox would immediately forbid him to go anywhere near Guadalcanal.
If he decided to go ashore with the invasion force, there was nobody in the Pacific with the authority to stop him. His orders made it absolutely clear that he was subordinate only to Frank Knox.
Lieutenant Pluto Hon got out of the narrow iron bed, with its lumpy mattress, and took a very quick shave over the tiny sink in his room. The toilet and bath, in separate rooms, were down the corridor. About the only good thing Hon could think to say about the Commerce Hotel was that it was only a block and a half from the new Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Area. After the move from Melbourne, that was established in an eight-story building from which an insurance company had been evicted for the duration.
Before the war, the Commerce Hotel had apparently catered to traveling salesmen on very limited expense accounts. It was, of course, good enough for company grade officers assigned to the Emperor's Court.
He dressed quickly, ran down the stairs rather than wait for the small, creaking elevator (which often did not answer the button, anyway), and was standing outside on the sidewalk when Sergeant John Marston Moore pulled up in the Studebaker President sedan Banning's sergeant had scrounged for them.
Hon got in the front seat beside him.
Moore had really been screwed by the move from Melbourne, he thought. In Melbourne, he'd lived in a large room at The Elms. In Brisbane, the only property Pickering could find was a small house, called Water Lily Cottage, out by the racetrack. There was not only no room for Moore there, but when Pickering had ordered Hon to find someplace decent for Moore to live in and give him the bill, Hon had been unable to find any kind of a room at all.
So Moore lived outside of town with the other headquarters enlisted men in an old Australian barracks. When he didn't have the Studebaker, he had to ride back and forth to work on Army buses, when they were running. Worse, in the barracks, a headquarters company commander and a first sergeant, who could not be told what Moore was doing, saw in him just one more sergeant who could be put to work doing what sergeants are supposed to do, like supervising linoleum waxing and serving as sergeant of the guard.
Captain Pickering spoke several times with the headquarters commandant about his needing Moore around the clock, which meant he would not be available for company duties. The last time he made such a call, he told the headquarters commandant he would register his next complaint with General Sutherland. And that worked. But with Pickering gone, it would happen again. Lieutenant Hon could not register complaints with MacArthur's Chief of Staff, "Dick, I'm having a little trouble with your headquarters commandant."
"I think we're going to miss Captain Pickering, Lieutenant," Moore said as they pulled away.
"Don't read my mind, please. Lowly sergeants should not be privy to the thoughts of officers and gentlemen."
"I went by the shop," Moore said, chuckling. "To see if there was anything for the boss. Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Two more of Feldt's Coastwatchers are-'no longer operational.'"
"Buka?"
"Buka's all right. Should I tell the boss?"
"Not unless he asks. What can he do anyway?"
There were lights on all over Water Lily Cottage when Moore turned off Manchester Avenue into the driveway. Pickering's borrowed Jaguar drophead coupe was parked in the driveway ahead of them.
Pickering came out onto the porch in his shirt-sleeves as Hon got out of the car.
"Come on in, the both of you," he said. "There's time for coffee, and I want you to meet someone."
There was a woman in Water Lily Cottage. She had apparently spent the night, for she was wearing a bathrobe. It covered her from her neck to her ankles. She was, Hon quickly judged, in her thirties. Her dark hair was parted in the middle, brushed tightly against her scalp, and drawn up in a bun at the back. She wore no makeup.