" 'We?' " Colonel Stecker asked warily. "I thought we discussed that."
"Slip of the tongue, Jack. The Sunfish will sail, with me standing on the pier, at first light the day after tomorrow, which will be the eleventh. It's 3,200 nautical miles from Espiritu Santo to Boston. Using Lewis's ballpark figures that the Sunfish can cruise on the surface at fifteen knots, she should be able to make Mindanao in ten days. That would be the twenty-first. To give us a little slack, I've scheduled her to be off Mindanao on the twenty-third."
He looked around the table.
"Any questions?"
"Sir," Captain Robert B. Macklin said.
"Yes?"
"Nothing, Sir. Excuse me."
"If you've got something to say, Captain," McCoy said, not very pleas-antly, "let's hear it."
"Very well, Mr. McCoy," Macklin said. "Since you have the responsibil-ity for this mission, I was wondering, if you have considered my physical con-dition, how that might adversely affect the mission."
"I watched you paddle the rubber boat, Captain. It looked to me like you could handle that without much trouble. What exactly is your physical condi-tion?"
"Macklin," Colonel Stecker said, even less pleasantly, "if you'd like, we can run you past a doctor and get an official report on your condition."
"I was only thinking of the mission, Colonel," Macklin said. "But I do have one question, Sir."
"Let's have it."
"Has the OSS been kept up on how the mission is proceeding?"
"No," Pickering said. "They haven't."
"Do I have your permission to do so, Sir?"
"I don't see why not...."
"Why don't we just tell them when we come back?" McCoy said.
For some reason, McCoy doesn't like the idea of Macklin getting in touch with the OSS. I can't see what harm it would do, but I think I should indulge McCoy.
"Don't worry about the OSS, Captain Macklin," Pickering said. "As soon as the Sunfish puts out to sea, I'll see that Secretary Knox is notified. I'm sure he'll pass the word to Mr. Donovan."
"Thank you, Sir," Captain Robert B. Macklin said.
[TWO]
Water Lily Cottage
Brisbane, Australia
2305 Hours 11 December 1942
First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter, laid it on the dining-room table, stood up, took a Waterman's fountain pen from his shirt pocket, and scrawled his name at the bottom. Then he picked it up and read what had taken him the better part of an hour to write.
Brisbane, Australia
9 December 1942
Dear Ernie:
Ed Sessions is going to the States the day after tomorrow, and has promised to carry this with him. This will be the last letter for a while, as I've got a job to do someplace where there isn't mail service. That means you don't have to write, either, as I wouldn't get it anyhow.
I can't tell you where I'm going, and I don't know when I'll be back. Please don't put Ed on the spot by trying to get him to tell you. I can't see the necessity for all the secrecy, but Ed is an intelligence type, and they're all a little hysterical about secrets. If they could, intelligence types would classify the telephone book TOP SECRET.
I'll be taking that Episcopal cross, or whatever it's called, you sent here with Ed with me. And the people going with me are first rate Marines.
Actually, I'm sort of looking forward to it. All those native girls in grass skirts and nothing else doing the hula hula, and eating roasted pigs with apples in their mouths, etcetera.
I was thinking a while ago that I met you 20 November last year. That's just a little over a year, even if it seems like much longer. And I remembered that saying, "It's better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all."
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if something goes wrong, not that I think it's going to, I really think I'm still ahead of the game. I never thought I would be lucky enough to get to know somebody like you, much less have you as my girl friend, and to even think that maybe you like me half as much as I like you.
But, let's face it, things sometimes do go wrong. If that happens, what I want you to do is get on with your life. I'm really grateful we had our thirteen months. If it turns out that I do find myself sitting on a cloud playing a harp, that's the way the ball bounced, at least it will have happened doing something I'm good at, and that has to be done. A lot of people get killed doing stupid things like getting hit by a bus walking across a street.
I know Pick will be around for you if something goes wrong, and to tell you the truth, if I had to pick a husband for you, he would be at the head of the list.
Thanks for everything, Baby.
Love,
Ken
He very carefully folded the letter in thirds, found an envelope, and wrote "K.R. McCoy, 1/LT USMCR" in the upper-left-hand corner, "Miss Ernestine Sage, Personal" in the center, inserted the letter, licked the adhesive flap with his tongue, and carefully sealed the envelope.
He looked at the envelope, tapped it against his hand, and exhaled audibly. His eyes fell on the cupboard. He walked to it, opened it and took out a bottle of Famous Grouse, put it to his lips, and took a healthy swallow.
Then he walked out of the dining room, across the living room, and down the corridor to Ed Sessions's room. There was a crack of light under the door. McCoy knocked, waited for a response, and then opened the door and went inside.
Sessions, in pajamas, 'was about to get into bed. He saw the envelope in McCoy's hand.
"For Ernie?"
McCoy nodded and handed it to him.
"Thanks, Ed."
Sessions shrugged. "You all right, Ken?"
"Yeah, sure," McCoy said, and then asked, "You want to go somewhere and get a drink?"
"Don't tell me there's nothing here?"
"I want to get out of here. I've been in that goddamned dining room since half past four this afternoon."
The last thing in the world I want to do is go somewhere and get a drink; I was also in that goddamned dining room for hours. But he really wants some company.
And this is the first time since I've known him that McCoy has ever asked me for something. 1 suspect it's one of the few times that Killer McCoy has ever asked anybody, except Ernie, to keep him company.
"Having a drink, or three, is the best suggestion I've heard all day," Ed Sessions said. "Have we got wheels?"
"There's a jeep outside."
"Be right with you."
"God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world," Ed Sessions said as he walked up to Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis, USN, at the bar of the SWPOA Company Grade Bachelor Officers' Quarters. "The U.S. Navy is nobly doing its duty, holding the bar in place with its elbows."
"I didn't expect to see you two in here," Lewis said. He did not seem especially happy to see them.