“It’s on everybody’s mind,” I said.
“But we’re not supposed to talk about it.” He had once had a one-week course in Washington on security, and it left its mark on him. “Past operations aren’t so bad, but when they talk about the big operation that’s coming up–”
“Now you’re doing it.”
“The hell I am.” But he colored. “If I was an enemy spy right here this afternoon–”
“You wouldn’t have been born in Toledo and you’d have funny little slant eyes and people would point the finger of scorn at you.”
“Don’t kid yourself. The Japs are willing to spend money, and there are Caucasians who like money better than anything else.”
“Say you were a spy and managed to crash an officers’ party and picked up some information. You could gloat over it in private, but I don’t see what else you could do with it. The leaks have been plugged since December 7 a long time ago.”
Sue Sholto appeared at the foot of the stairs and came across the room toward us. The movements of her small perfect body were birdlike and precise. I had the impression that she came back to Eric like a hawk to a wrist. We stood up and she sat down between Eric and me. He poured her a drink, and another for himself. Her brilliant dark eyes followed the movements of his hands, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He sipped his drink and said: “Maybe they have been plugged. But I’ll bet a smart operative could find a way.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Eric? You look silly when you get so solemn.”
“Sam doesn’t think there’s any way an enemy agent could get information out of these islands. What do you think? You work in a radio station. “
“That’s a funny question to ask a girl. I never thought of it. In spy stories they always have a secret transmitter hidden in the mountains, don’t they?”
“That’s out,” I said. “With the direction-finders we’ve got now, we’d put the finger on an illegal transmitter two hours after it opened up. The nearest Jap islands are a long way from here now. It takes a lot of power to reach them.”
“You wouldn’t have to reach the nearest Jap island,” Eric said. “There are Jap subs in these waters. They can surface at night. They could pick up a weak broadcast and relay it to Tokyo.”
“But we’d hear both broadcasts,” I said. “And naturally we’d put a stop to them. There are plenty of Japs here, and no doubt some of them are secretly loyal to the old country. But I still don’t see what they can do about it.”
“Do about what?” a hard deep voice said behind me. It was Gene Halford. He and Mary Thompson had come back, wearing yellow leis.
Eric and I stood up and they sat down with us, Mary between me and Halford. Her yellow garland made her eyes as bright blue as cornflowers. Her hair was fragrant and shining, like pull-taffy. Her linen suit had a clean smell.
Sue Sholto’s dark eyes were turned inward, looking at something behind drawn blinds in her mind. “We were talking about how the enemy could get secret information out of the islands.” She spoke as if with an effort.
“I suppose you could send a letter to a neutral country,” Mary said. “Using a code of course. You know, ‘Uncle Harry has a cold’ means ‘The Americans have a new battleship at Pearl Harbor.’”
“That’s pretty old hat,” I said. “Don’t forget we’ve got a pretty efficient censorship.”
Eric spoke meditatively. “I wonder if a small boat could get out to a Jap sub.”
“Not a chance,” I said. “You know the restrictions on boating around here better than I do.”
Halford’s muddy green eyes had been watching us alertly. Now he spread his thick hands on the table with a slapping sound that made my nerves wince. He had the air of a man who habitually took possession of situations, then bestowed them on the original owners as his personal gift.
“Aren’t we being just a little indiscreet?” he said heavily. “Inasmuch as there is a leak of information from Pearl Harbor?”
“There is?” I repeated idiotically.
“You’re in the Navy, men. I thought you knew. Public Relations and Censorship keep pounding into us correspondents that civilians mustn’t be allowed to know what the Navy knows. I never thought it might be the other way around.”
“Where did you get this information?” I asked.
“I have my sources. I know a good many things that I can’t print. For God’s sake keep your lips buttoned over that one.”
“My lips are well-buttoned. There’s a gap in yours where the wind blows through.”
A dark flush, darker in contrast with the clear yellow of his lei, mounted from his neck through his jowls, to his padded cheekbones. I wondered if I was going to have an opportunity to hit him. A year in the forward area sharpens your combative instincts and makes you want to hit people you don’t like.
But all he said was: “The original indiscretion was not mine, I believe.”
“Indiscretion, hell,” Eric said. “We were talking hypothetically.”
“Couldn’t we just go on talking hypothetically?” Sue said in a little-girl tone. “There wasn’t so much electricity in the air when it was hypothetical.”
“Let’s put it down as scuttlebutt,” I said. “It’s perfectly possible that Mr. Halford doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Halford gave me a malevolent look. But if he argued he’d have to insist that he had made a bad break. He didn’t argue.
“It’s getting terribly close in here,” Mary said brightly. “They’re serving supper at the buffet upstairs by now. I’m starved.”
We decided to have supper. I picked up one of our bottles, which was two parts empty, and brought it along. The manager, rigid in his dusty tuxedo like a guard in uniform, was standing at the head of the stairs. There was a smile of strained affability on his sallow Eurasian face.
“Please don’t handle the bottle quite so conspicuously, sir,” he said to me. “It’s after six, and we don’t want any trouble.”
“O.K., we’ll foil the revenooers.”
“I’ll take it,” Mary said. She put the bottle in her big straw handbag. Sue took Eric’s.
We found an empty table on the verandah on the side away from the street. The sea was barely visible from there. While I watched it night took a giant step down from the mountains and sucked up the last grey light from its surface.
The blonde girl was standing beside me.
I said abruptly: “Are you with Halford? If you are I’ll fade out.”
“I’m not. I barely know him.” She touched my arm lightly with her fingers. “Don’t fade out.”
Halford and Eric had gone to join the line at the buffet, and I followed them. Before Halford got there Mrs. Merriwell intercepted him and did me a service. Mrs. Merriwell was a lady of uncertain age, but not so very uncertain. Her hair was arranged in stiffly curled bangs which masked the wrinkles on her forehead. Nothing could mask the two harsh lines which drooped from her bleak nose to her brilliantly painted mouth. Her brown eyes were restless and shrill. The natural shrillness of her voice was softened by a South Carolina accent.
“Why, Gene Halford,” she said in pleased surprise. “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon.”
She looked expectantly at Eric and me, and Halford introduced us. Mrs. Merriwell was delighted, she was sure, and it certainly was a very authentic thrill for her to meet us-all. We-all lined up at the buffet where the wardroom stewards of Eric’s destroyer were serving supper. Mrs. Merriwell thought she would have a teensy bit of chicken salad, and perhaps a mite of a sandwich.
There was a look of stultified protest on Halford’s face, but he wasn’t drunk enough to shake her off. The four of us went back to the table on the verandah together. I carried Mary’s plate and sat beside her. We had a round of drinks which Eric poured under the table.