"Aye, aye, Sir."
"That will be all, Major Dillon. Thank you."
"Yes, Sir."
Dillon stood up and started to leave. He had taken three steps when Mclnerney called his name.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Just between a couple of old Marines, Dillon, I don’t like flying my goddamned desk, either."
(Two)
The Commandant’s House
United States Marine Corps Barracks
Eighth and "I" Streets, S.E.
Washington, D.C.
2230 Hours 9 May 1942
A glistening black 1939 Packard 180 automobile pulled into the driveway and stopped before the Victorian mansion. Mounted above its front and rear bumpers it had the three silver stars on a red plate identifying the occupant as a lieutenant general of the United States Marine Corps.
The driver, a lean, impeccably turned-out Marine staff sergeant, got quickly out from behind the wheel, but he was not quick enough to open the rear door before Thomas Holcomb, the first Marine ever promoted to lieutenant general, opened it himself. The Commandant was home.
"Earlytomorrow, Chet," General Holcomb said to his driver. "Five o’clock."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
The general’s senior aide-de-camp, a very thin lieutenant colonel, slid across the seat and got out.
"Goodnight, Chet," General Holcomb said.
"Goodnight, Sir."
"I don’t see any need for you to come in, Bob," General Holcomb said to his aide. "I’m for bed."
The porch lights came on. General Holcomb’s orderlies had seen the headlights.
"General," the aide said, "I took the liberty of telling Captain Steward to be prepared to brief you on the Coral Sea battle. He’s probably inside, Sir."
"OK," Holcomb said wearily. He was tired. It had been a long day, ending with a long and tiring automobile ride back to Washington from Norfolk, where there had been an interservice conference at Fortress Monroe. Whatever had happened in the Coral Sea had already happened; he didn’t have to learn all the details tonight. But young Captain Steward had apparently worked long and hard preparing the briefing, and it would not do right now to tell him it wasn’t considered important.
Besides, I’ll have to take the briefing sooner or later anyway, why not now and get it over with?
The Commandant raised his eyes to the porch, intending to order, as cheerfully as he could manage, that the orderly put on the coffeepot. There was someone on the porch he didn’t expect to see, and really would rather not have seen.
"Hello, Doc," he called to Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney. "Did I send for you?"
"No, Sir. I took the chance that you might have a minute to spare for me."
Good God, a long day of the problems of Navy Ordnance and the Army’s Coast Artillery Corps is enough. And here comes Marine Aviation wanting something!
"Sure. Come on in the house. I was about to order up some coffee, but now that you’re here, I expect Tommy had better break out the bourbon."
"Coffee would be fine, Sir."
"Don’t be noble, Doc. God hates a hypocrite."
"A little bourbon would go down very nicely, Sir."
"I’m about to be briefed on a battle in the Coral Sea. You familiar with it?"
"Only that we lost the Lexington, Sir."
"Yeah. Well, you can sit in on the briefing," Holcomb said. He led the small procession into the house, handed his uniform cap to an orderly, and then went into the parlor.
"Good evening, Sir," Captain Steward said. Holcomb saw that Steward had come with all the trappings: an easel, covered now with a sheet of oilcloth bearing the Marine Corps insignia; a large round leather map case containing a detailed map; and a dozen folders covered withtop secret cover sheets-probably the immediate, radioed after-action reports themselves.
"Hello, Stew," he said. "Sorry to keep you up this late. You know General Mclnerney."
"Yes, Sir. Good evening, General."
"Is there anything in there General Mclnerney is not supposed to hear?"
"No, Sir. General Mclnerney is on the Albatross list."
The Albatross list was a short list of those officers who were privy to the fact that the Navy codebreakers at Pearl had broken several of the most important Japanese naval codes.
That’s a pretty short list,General Holcomb remembered now, a goddamned short list, and for very good reason. If the Japanese don’t find out we’re reading their mail, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of the broken codes. But the more people who know a secret, the greater the risk it won’t stay a secret long.
"How is that, Doc?" Holcomb asked evenly. "Why are you cleared for Albatross?"
"General Forrest brought me in on that, Sir."
The Commandant considered that for a moment, and decided to give Brigadier General Horace W. T. Forrest, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the benefit of the doubt.
If Forrest told Doc, he must have had his reasons.
The Commandant turned to one of the orderlies. "Coffee ready?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, bring it in, please. And a bottle of bourbon. And then see that we’re not disturbed."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"While we’re waiting, Stew, why don’t you pass around those after-actions. That’s what they are, right?"
"Yes, Sir."
Captain Steward divided the half-dozen documents with the TOP SECRET cover sheets between Generals Holcomb and Mclnerney. Before they had a chance to read more than a few lines, the orderly pushed in a cart with a coffee service, a bottle of bourbon, glasses, and a silver ice bucket. It had obviously been set up beforehand.
"Tommy must have been a Boy Scout," Holcomb said.
"He’s always prepared. We’ll take care of ourselves, Tommy. Thank you."
The orderly left the room, closing the sliding doors from outside.
Holcomb closed his folder.
"Let’s have it, Stew. I can probably get by without reading all that." "Yes, Sir."
Captain Steward went to the easel and raised the oilskin cover. Beneath it was a simple map of the Coral Sea area. A slim strip of northern Australia was visible, as was the southern tip of New Guinea. Above New Guinea lay the southern tip of New Ireland and all of New Britain. Rabaul, which was situated at the northern tip of New Britain, was prominently labeled; it had fallen to the Japanese and was being rapidly built up as a major port for them.
To the east were the Solomon Islands. The major ones were labeled: Bougainville was the most northerly; then they went south through Choiseul, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Florida, and Malaita, to San Cristobal, the most southerly.
"Keep it simple, Stew, but start at the beginning," the Commandant ordered.
"Aye, aye, Sir," Captain Steward said. "In late April, Sir, we learned, from Albatross intercepts, details of Japanese plans to take Midway Island, and from there to threaten Hawaii, with the ultimate ambition of taking Hawaii, which would both deny us that forward port and logistic facility and permit them to threaten the West Coast of the United States and the Aleutian Islands.