"I mean it," he said. "Have a cigar."
"Thank you, I don’t mind if I do," Banning said. He took one and passed the box to Howard.
"I got them from a Dutchman, master of an inter-island tramp," Feldt said, sitting down again, and helping himself to a little more of the Dewar’s. "He swore they were rolled between the thighs of fourteen-year-old Cuban virgins."
Banning raised his glass. "Here’s to fourteen-year-old Cuban virgins."
"Here, here," Howard said.
"And here’s to Captain Vandenhooven," Feldt said. "He gave me those cigars just in time."
"Just in time?" Banning asked.
"The next time he went out for me, the Japs got him. One of their sodding destroyers. They caught him off Wuvulu Island."
"Shit," Howard said.
Banning raised his glass again. "To the Captain," he said.
He lit the cigar and exhaled slowly through pursed lips.
"That’s all right," he said approvingly.
"Virginal thighs’ll do it every time," Feldt pronounced solemnly.
There was a polite knock at the door.
"Come," Feldt called.
A young, thick-spectacled man in the uniform of a Leading Aircraftsman, Royal Australian Air Force, came into the room and, in the British manner, quick-marched to the rickety table and saluted with the palm outward as he stamped his foot.
"Sir!" he barked.
Feldt made a vague gesture with his right hand in the direction of his forehead; it could only charitably be called a salute.
"What have you there, son?"
"Group Captain Deane’s compliments, Sir. He said he thought you should see these straight off."
He handed Feldt a large manila envelope. Feldt tore it open. It contained a slightly smaller envelope, this one stampedmost secret. Feldt opened this one and took out a half-dozen eight-inch-square photographs. Banning guessed they were aerials.
"These are from where?" Feldt asked after a moment. Banning heard no suggestion in his voice now that Feldt had been drinking.
"Buka Island, Sir," the RAAF man said.
"That will be all, thank you. Please convey to Group Captain Deane my deep appreciation."
"Sir!" the RAAF man barked again, saluted and stamped his foot, and quick-marched out of the room.
Feldt shoved the thin stack of photographs across the table to Banning and then stood up.
Banning saw a man in a field, holding his arms above his head. There were three views of this, each differing slightly, as if they had been taken within seconds of each other. Matching each view were blow-ups, showing just the man and a small area around him.
Feldt reappeared with a large magnifying glass with a handle. He dropped to his knees and examined each of the photographs with great care.
"Well, at least he was still alive when these were taken," Feldt said.
"What am I looking at?" Banning asked. He enunciated the words very carefully; for he now very much regretted helping himself so liberally to the Scotch, and he wanted at least to sound as sober as possible.
"Can I look?" Joe Howard asked.
"Sure," Feldt said, and then went on, "Sub-Lieutenant Jacob Reeves. From whom we haven’t heard in the last ten days or so. He’s on Buka. Important spot. I was afraid the Nips had nipped him. But it’s just that his wireless is out."
Banning looked at him. There had been no intent on Feldt’s part, he saw, to play with words. Feldt was perfectly serious when he said nipped by the Nips. He was now icily serious. "How do you know his radio is out?" Howard asked. "What the bloody hell else do you think ‘RA’ could mean?" Feldt asked impatiently, almost contemptuously. He pointed, and Banning saw what he had missed. The tall grass, or what ever the hell it was, in the field had been cut down so it spelled out, in letters twenty-five or thirty feet tall, the letters RA.
More gently now, as if he regretted his abruptness, Feldt said, "Interesting man, Jacob Reeves. He’s the far side of forty. Been in the islands since he was a boy. Been on Buka for fifteen years. Never married. Has a harem of native girls. I don’t think he’s been off the island more than three times since he’s been there. We had a hell of a time teaching him Morse code, at first. And of course, he doesn’t know a sodding thing about how a wireless works."
Banning raised his eyebrows at that.
"It could be anything from a loose wire," Feldt explained, "through a complete failure. Or his generator has gone out-he has a small gasoline-powered generator . . . God only knows."
"Where does he get gas for the generator?" Howard asked.
"There were supplies of it on Buka," Feldt said. "He took a truckload of supplies, presumably including fuel, when he went up into the hills. If he was out of petrol, I think he would have cut PET in the grass."
"Where did the pictures come from?" Banning asked.
"I asked Group Captain Deane to send an aircraft over there. He has a couple of Lockheed Hudsons."
Banning nodded. The twin-engine, low-winged monoplane with a twin tail obviously traced its heritage to the famous airplane in which Amelia Earhart had been lost trying to set an around-the-world speed record.
"I think we had better send Sub-Lieutenant Reeves one of your Hallicrafters sets, Major Banning," Feldt said. "I’m glad you mentioned the petrol. I have no idea how much he has left. If any. That bicycle generator is what he needs."
"They’re yours," Banning said immediately.
"That poses several questions. First, how we get it to him. He’s in the hills, so that eliminates either a submarine-even if I could get the use of one-or a ship."
"By parachute, then," Banning said. "Would your Group Captain Deane be able to do that?"
Feldt nodded, meaning that he could get an aircraft. "The question then becomes, can a Hallicrafters set be dropped by parachute?"
"I’m sure our Corporal Koffler could answer that," Banning said. "Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a reason why not."
"The question then becomes, would your Corporal Koffler be willing to go in with it?"
"Why would that be necessary?" Banning asked.
He immediately saw on Feldt’s face that his simple question had been misinterpreted; Feldt suspected that Banning was reluctant to send one of his men behind the Japanese lines.
"I’m afraid it really would be necessary, Banning," Feldt said. "Otherwise dropping the Hallicrafters would be useless; Reeves would have no idea how to operate it. And I don’t think he could work from a set of directions; his mind doesn’t work that way."
"How soon would you like Koffler to jump in?" Banning asked.
"Today’s Friday. How long would it take your man to prepare the Hallicrafters to be rigged for a parachute drop?"
"Again, I’ll have to ask him. But again, off the top of my head, I can’t imagine why it would take more than a couple of hours. I presume we can get parachutes from the RAAF7"
Feldt nodded. "I’ll ring Deane and ask him to arrange for your man to be flown up here tomorrow."
"Am I allowed to say something?" Howard asked.
Banning looked at him curiously, even impatiently.
"Sure," Feldt said.
"If I understand this correctly," Howard said, "what we have here is a very important Coastwatcher station-"