(One)
The Elms
Dandenong, Victoria, Australia
22 May 1942
“Oh, good morning! We didn’t expect you to be up so early,” Mrs. Hortense Cavendish said, with a smile, to Corporal Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, when she saw him coming down the stairway. “Why don’t you just go into the breakfast room, and I’ll get you a nice hot cup of tea?”
“Good morning, thank you,” Steve said, smiling, but not really comfortable.
Mrs. Cavendish was as old as his mother, and looked something like her, too. She was the housekeeper at The Elms, a three-story, twelve-room, red brick house set in what looked to Steve like its own private park fifteen miles or so outside Melbourne. It was called The Elms, Major Banning had told him, because of the century-old elm trees which lined the driveway from the “motorway” to the house.
He also told him (You’ve come up smelling like a rose again, Koffler.) that the whole place had been rented by Captain Pickering, and, for the time being at least, he and the other members of Special Detachment 14 would be living there. He explained that the housekeeper was something like the manager of a hotel, in charge of the whole place, and was to be treated with the appropriate respect.
At the moment, Corporal Koffler was the only member of Special Detachment 14 in residence. The day before, Major Banning had driven him out here in a brand-new Studebaker President, then had him installed in a huge room with a private bathroom. After that, Captain Pickering had come out and taken Major Banning to the railroad station in Melbourne. Banning was going “up north” to some place called Townesville, Queensland, where the Coastwatchers had their headquarters. He told Steve he had no idea when he would be back, but that he would keep in touch.
Steve now understood that Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria were something like the states in America, but that was really about all he understood about Australia.
From what Major Banning had told him, and from what he’d heard from the other guys, the Japs were probably going to take Australia. He had heard Major Banning talking to Lieutenant Howard back in ’Diego about it. Steve had long ago decided that if anybody would have the straight poop about anything, Major Banning would. Major Banning had told Lieutenant Howard that he didn’t see how anything could keep the Japs from taking Australia, as long as they took some island named New Guinea first. And he really didn’t see how the Japs could be kept from taking New Guinea.
To tell the truth, the closer they got to Australia, the more nervous Koffler had become. More than nervous. Scared. He tried hard not to let it show, of course, in front of all the Army and Navy officers on the airplane (he was, after all, not only a Marine, but a Marine parachutist, and Marines aren’t supposed to be nervous or scared). But when the airplane landed, he would not really have been surprised if the Japs had been shelling or maybe bombing the place. That would have meant they’d have started fighting right away. He had cleaned and oiled his Springfield before they left Hawaii, just to be double sure.
But it hadn’t been that way at all. There was no more sign of war, or Japs, in Melbourne than there was in Newark. Melbourne was like Newark, maybe as big, and certainly a hell of a lot cleaner. Except for the funny-looking trucks and cars, which the Australians drove on the wrong side of the road, and the funny way the Australians talked, sort of through their noses, you’d never even know you were in Australia.
He’d spent his first night in a real nice hotel, and Captain Pickering had given him money, and he had had a real nice meal in a real nice restaurant. The steak was a little tough, but he had no call to bitch about the size of it—it just about covered the plate—and he had trouble getting it all down. Then he went to the movies, and they were playing an American movie. It starred Betty Grable, and he remembered seeing it in the Ampere Theatre in East Orange just before he joined the Corps. And that started him off remembering Dianne Marshall and what had happened between them. And between the movie and the memories, he got a little homesick…until he talked himself out of that by reminding himself that he was a Marine parachutist, for Christ’s sake, and not supposed to start crying in his goddamned beer because he was away from his mommy or because some old whore had made a goddamned fool out of him.
The table in the breakfast room was big, and the wood sort of glowed. There was a bowl of flowers in the middle of it. When he sat down at it, he looked out through windows running from the ceiling to the floor; outside he could see a man raking leaves out of a flower garden. There was a concrete statue of a nearly naked woman in the garden, in the middle of a what looked like a little pond, except there wasn’t any water in the pond.
Mrs. Cavendish followed him in in a moment, and laid a newspaper on the table. Right behind her was a maid, a plain woman maybe thirty years old, wearing a black dress with a little white apron in front. She smiled at Steve, then went to one of the cabinets in the room, and took out a woven place mat and silver and set it up in front of him.
“What would you like for breakfast?” Mrs. Cavendish asked. “Ham and eggs? There’s kippers.”
Steve had no idea what a kipper was.
“Ham and eggs would be fine,” he said. “Over easy.”
“We have tomato and pineapple juice.”
“Tomato juice would be fine,” Steve said.
“The tea’s brewing,” Mrs. Cavendish said. “It’ll just be a moment.”
She and the maid left the room. Steve unfolded the newspaper. It was The Times of Victoria. The pages were bigger than those of the Newark Evening News, but there weren’t very many of them. He flipped through it, looking in vain for comics, and then returned to the first page.
There were two big headlines: ROMMEL NEARS TOBRUK and NAZI TANKS APPROACH LENINGRAD. There was a picture of a burning German tank, and a map of North Africa with wide, curving arrows drawn on it.
Steve wondered why there wasn’t anything in the newspaper about the Japs being about to invade Australia.
He went through the newspaper, mostly reading the advertisements for strange brands of toothpaste, used motorcars, and something called Bovril. He wondered what Bovril was, whether you ate it, or drank it, or washed your mouth out with it, or what.
The maid delivered his ham and eggs, cold toast in a little rack, tomato juice, and a tub of sour orange marmalade. He had just about finished eating when the maid came in the breakfast room.
“Telephone for you, Sir,” she said, and pointed to a telephone sitting on a sideboard.
The telephone was strange. There was sort of a cup over the mouthpiece, and the wire that ran from the base to the handset was much thinner than the one on American phones; it looked more like a couple of pieces of string twisted together than like a regular wire.
“Corporal Koffler, Sir,” Steve said.
“Good morning, Corporal,” a cheerful voice said. “Lieutenant Donnelly here.” He pronounced it “leftenant,” so Steve knew he was an Australian.
“Yes, Sir?”
“I’m the Air Transport Officer, Naval Station, Melbourne. We have two things for you. Actually, I mean to say, two shipments. There’s several crates, priority air shipment, and we’ve been alerted that several of your people are scheduled to arrive about noon.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Your Captain Pickering said to send the crates out there by lorry, and that you’ll meet the aircraft. Any problems with that?”
“No, Sir,” Steve said, an automatic reflex. Then he blurted, “Sir, I’m not sure if I can find…where the plane will be. Or how to get back out here.”
Lieutenant Donnelly chuckled. “Well, you’ll be able to find your way about soon enough, I’m sure. In the meantime, I’ll just send a map, with the route marked, out there with the lorry driver. Do you think that will handle it?”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you.”
“The lorry should be there within the hour. Thank you, Corporal.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Steve hung up and went looking for Mrs. Cavendish. He was going to need some place to store the crates, whatever they contained. She showed him a three-car garage behind the house, now empty, that was just what he was looking for. There were sturdy metal doors which could be locked, and there were no windows.
The truck arrived forty-five minutes later. Steve, who had been looking out his bedroom window for it, saw that it said “Ford” on the radiator, but it was unlike any Ford Steve had ever seen. There were three people in the cab, all in uniform, and all female.
They all wore the same kind of caps, something like a Marine cap, except the visor wasn’t leather. They wore the caps perched straight on top of their hair, and Steve thought they all looked kind of cute, like girls dressed up in men’s uniforms. Two of them wore gray coveralls. The third, who looked like she was in charge, wore a tunic and a shirt and tie and a skirt, with really ugly stockings.
“Corporal Koffler?” she said, smiling at him and offering her hand. “I’m Petty Officer Farnsworth.”
“Hi,” Steve said. She was, he guessed, in her early twenties. He couldn’t really tell what the rest of her looked like in the nearly shapeless uniform and those ugly cotton stockings, but her face was fine. She had light hazel eyes and freckles.
“Good day,” the other two women said. In Australia that came out something like “G’die,” which took some getting used to. One of them looked like she was about seventeen, and the other one looked old enough to be the first one’s mother. Neither of them, Steve immediately decided, had the class of Petty Officer Farnsworth.
“How are you?” Steve said, and walked over and shook hands with them.
“After we unload your crates,” Petty Officer Farnsworth said, “Lieutenant Donnelly said I was to ask if you would like me to wait around and drive into Melbourne with you, to show you the way.”
“Great!” Steve said.
“Where would you like the crates?”
“Let’s see what they are,” Steve said, and walked to the back of the truck. He saw three wooden crates, none of them as large as a footlocker. He couldn’t tell what they contained, and there was nothing stenciled on them to identify them.
Petty Officer Farnsworth, who had followed him, handed him a manila envelope. “The shipping documents,” she said.
He tore the envelope open. The U.S. Army Signal Center, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, had shipped, on AAAA Air Priority, by authority of the Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Commanding Officer, USMC Special Detachment 14, Melbourne, Australia:
1 EA SET, TRANSCEIVER, RADIO, HALLICRAFTERS MODEL 23C, W/48 CRYSTALS
1 EA ANTENNA SET, RADIO TRANSMISSION, PORTABLE, 55-FOOT W/CABLES & GUY WIRES
1 EA GENERATOR, ELECTRICAL, FOOT AND HAND POWERED, 6 AND 12 VOLT DC
“Wow!” Steve said. He knew all about the Hallicrafters 23C, had studied carefully all of its specifications in the American Amateur Radio Relay League magazine, but he’d never seen one before.
“Am I permitted to ask what they are?” Petty Officer Farnsworth asked.
“Just about the best shortwave radio there is,” Steve said.
“Lieutenant Donnelly said that I wasn’t to ask questions,” Petty Officer Farnsworth said, “about what you’re doing out here.”
“You didn’t. You just asked what was in the boxes. There’s nothing secret about that.”
She smiled at him.
Nice teeth. Nice smile.
“Where would you like them?”
“Around in back,” Steve said. “I’ll show you.”
When the crates had been unloaded, Petty Officer Farnsworth sent the truck back into Melbourne.
“It will take us no more than forty-five minutes to get to the quay,” she said. “Which means we should leave here at eleven-fifteen. It’s now quarter past nine. Where can I pass two hours out of your way, where I will see nothing I’m not supposed to see?”
“I don’t have anything to do. And there’s nothing out here for you to see. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Tea?”
“Oh, sure.”
“That would be very nice, Corporal,” Petty Officer Farnsworth said.
Steve took her into the breakfast room, sat her down, and then went into the kitchen and asked for tea. They waited for several minutes in an awkward silence until one of the maids delivered a tea tray, complete to toast and cookies.
“Where are you from in America?” Petty Officer Farnsworth asked.
“Where the radios come from. New Jersey. How about you?”
“I’m from Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales.”
“Wagga Wagga?” he asked, smiling.
“I think that’s an Aborigine name.”
“That’s what you call your colored people?”
“Yes, but as I understand it, they’re not like yours.”
“How come?”
“Well, yours were taken from Africa and sent to America, as I understand it, and the Aborigines were here when we English arrived.”
“Sort of Australian Indians, in other words?”
“I suppose. New South Wales, of course, is named after South Wales, in England.”
“So is New Jersey,” he said. “Jersey is in England.”
“I thought it was an island.”
“Well, it could be. I never really paid much attention.”
Petty Officer Farnsworth had an unkind thought. Corporal Koffler was a nice enough young man, and not unattractive, but obviously bloody goddamned stupid.
Petty Officer Farnsworth was twenty-three years old, and she had been married for five years to John Andrew Farnsworth, now a sergeant with the Royal Australian Signals Corps somewhere in North Africa.
Before the war, she and John had lived in a newly built house on his family’s sheep ranch. When John had rushed to the sound of the British trumpet—a move that had baffled and enraged her—his family had decided that she would simply shoulder his responsibilities at the ranch in addition to her own. After all, John’s father, brothers, and amazingly fecund sisters reasoned, she had no children to worry about, and One Must Do One’s Part While the Family Hero Is Off Defending King and Country.
Petty Officer Farnsworth, whose Christian name was Daphne, had no intention of becoming a worn-out woman before her time, as the other women of the family either had or were about to. She used the same excuse to get off the ranch as John had: patriotism. When the advertisements for women to join the Royal Australian Navy Women’s Volunteer Reserve had come out, she had announced that enlisting was her duty. Since John was already off fighting for King and Country, she could do no less, especially considering, as everyone kept pointing out, that she had no children to worry about.
The RANWVR had trained her as a typist and assigned her to the Naval Station in Melbourne. She had a job now that she liked, working for Lieutenant Donnelly. There was something different every day. And unlike some of the other officers she had worked for, Lieutenant kept his hands to himself.
Every once in a while she wondered if Donnelly’s gentlemanly behavior was a mixed blessing. Lately she had been wondering about that more and more often, and it bothered her.
“Do all Marines wear boots like that?” she asked.
“No. Just parachutists.”
“You’re a parachutist?”
He pointed to his wings.
“Our parachutists wear berets,” she said. “Red berets.”
“You mean like women?”
My God, how can one young man be so stupid?
“Well, I suppose, yes. But I wouldn’t say that where they could hear me, if I were you.”
“I didn’t mean nothing wrong by it, I just wanted to be sure we were talking about the same thing.”
“Quite. So you’re a wireless operator?”
“Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?”
“Well, I am, but the Marine Corps doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t tell them, and then when they gave everybody the Morse code test, I made sure I flunked it.”
“Why?” Now Daphne Farnsworth was fascinated. John had written a half-dozen times that the worst mistake he’d made in the Army was letting it be known that he could key forty words a minute. From the moment he’d gotten through basic training, the Army had him putting in long days, day after day, as a high-speed wireless telegrapher. He hated it.
“Well, I figured out if they was so short of guys who could copy fifty, sixty words a minute—you don’t learn to do that overnight—they would be working the ass off those who could. Ooops. Sorry about the language.”
“That’s all right,” Daphne said.
Well, Daphne, you bitchy little lady, you were wrong about this boy. Not only is he smart enough to take Morse faster than John, but he’s smart enough not to let the service hear about it.
“My husband’s a wireless operator,” Daphne said. “With the British Eighth Army in Africa. He’s a sergeant, but he hates being a wireless operator.”
“I figured somebody as pretty as you would be married,” Steve Koffler replied.
Is that the distilled essence of your observations of life, or are you making a pass at me, Corporal Koffler?
“For five years.”
“You don’t look that old.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I’d really like to do before we go into town?”
Rip my clothes off, and throw me on the floor?
“No.”
“I’d like to unpack that Hallicrafters. I’ve never really seen one. Could you read the newspaper, or something?”
“I think I’d rather go with you and see the radio. Or is it classified?”
“What we’re doing is classified. Not the radio.”
And now I am curious. What the bloody hell is going on around here? Marine parachutists? Villas in the country? “World’s best wireless” shipped by priority air?
(Two)
Townesville Station
Royal Australian Navy
Townesville, Queensland
24 May 1942
The office of the Commanding Officer, Coastwatcher Service, Royal Australian Navy (code name FERDINAND) was simple, even Spartan. The small room with whitewashed block walls in a tin-roofed building was furnished with a battered desk, several well-worn upholstered chairs, and some battered filing cabinets. A prewar recruiting poster for the Royal Australian Navy was stapled to one wall. On the wall behind the desk was an unpainted sheet of plywood, crudely hinged on top, that Major Ed Banning, USMC, immediately decided covered a map, or maps.
The Officer Commanding, Lieutenant Commander Eric A. Feldt, Royal Australian Navy, was a tall, thin, dark-eyed, and dark-haired man. He was not at all glad to see Banning, or the letter he’d brought from Admiral Brewer; and he was making absolutely no attempt to conceal this.
“Nothing personal, Major,” he said finally, looking up at Banning from behind the desk. “I should have bloody well known this would be the next step.”
“Sir?” Banning replied. He was standing with his hands locked behind him, more or less in the at-ease position.
“This,” Feldt said, waving Admiral Brewer’s letter. “You’re not the first American to show up here. I ran the others off. I should have known somebody would sooner or later go over my head.”
“Sir,” Banning said, “let me make it clear that all I want to do here is help you in any way I can.”
“Help me? How the hell could you possibly help me?”
“You would have to tell me that, Sir.”
“What do you know about this area of the world?”
Banning took a chance: “I noticed you drive on the wrong side of the road, Sir.”
It was not the reply Commander Feldt expected. He looked carefully at Banning; and after a very long moment, there was the hint of a smile.
“I was making reference, Major, to the waters in the area of the Bismarck Archipelago.”
“Absolutely nothing, Sir.”
“Well, that’s an improvement over the last one. He told me with a straight face that he had studied the charts.”
“Sir, my lack of knowledge is so overwhelming that I don’t even know what’s wrong with studying the charts.”
“Well, for your general information, Major, there are very few charts, and the ones that do exist are notoriously inaccurate.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“I don’t suppose that you’re any kind of an expert concerning shortwave wireless, either, are you, Major?”
“No, Sir. I know a little less about shortwave radios than I do about the Bismarck Archipelago.”
There was again a vague hint of a smile.
“I know about your game baseball, Major. I know that the rule is three strikes and you’re out. You now have two strikes against you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Sir.”
“Here’s the final throw—”
“I believe the correct phrase is ‘pitch,’ Sir.”
“The final pitch, then. What do you know of our enemy, the Jap?”
In Japanese, Banning said, “I read and write the language, Sir, and I learned enough about them in China to come to believe that no Westerner can ever know them well.”
“I will be damned,” Commander Feldt said. “That was Japanese? I don’t speak a bloody word of it myself.”
“That was Japanese, Sir,” Banning said, and then translated what he had said a moment before.
“What were you doing in China?”
“I was the Intelligence Officer of the 4th Marines, Sir.”
“And you went home to America before they were sent to the Philippines?”
“No, Sir, afterward.”
“Are we splitting a hair here, Major? You went home before the war started?”
“No, Sir. After.”
“You were considered too valuable, as an intelligence officer who speaks Japanese, to be captured?”
“No, Sir. I was medically evacuated. I was blinded by concussion.”
“How?”
“They think probably concussion from artillery, Sir. My sight returned on the submarine that took me off Corregidor.”
“Are you a married man, Major?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“How would your wife react to the news—actually, there wouldn’t be any news, she just wouldn’t hear from you—that you were behind the Japanese lines?”
“That’s a moot point, Sir. The one thing I have been forbidden to do is serve as a Coastwatcher myself.”
Feldt grunted. “Me too,” he said.
“My wife is still in China, Commander,” Banning said.
Feldt met his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Feldt grunted as he heaved himself to his feet. He raised the sheet of plywood with another grunt, and shoved a heavy bolt through an eyebolt so that it would stay up. A map, covered with a sheet of celluloid, was exposed.
“This is our area of operation, Major,” Commander Feldt said. “From the Admiralty Islands here, across the Pacific to the other side of New Ireland, and down to Vitiaz Strait between New Guinea and New Britain, and then down into the Solomon Sea in this area. The little marks are where we have people. The ones that are crossed out are places we haven’t heard from in some time, or know for sure that the Japs have taken out.”
Banning walked around the desk and studied the map for several minutes without speaking. He saw there were a number of Xs marking locations which were no longer operational.
“The people manning these stations,” Feldt explained, “have been commissioned as junior officers, or warrant officers, in the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve. The idea is to try to have the Japs treat them as prisoners of war if they are captured. There’s sort of a fuzzy area there. On one hand, if someone is in uniform, he is supposed to be treated as a POW if captured. On the other hand, what these people are doing, quite simply, is spying. One may shoot spies. The Japanese do. Or actually, they either torture our people to death; or, if they’re paying attention to the code of Bushido, they have a formal little ceremony, the culmination of which is the beheading of our people by an officer of suitable rank.”
Banning now grunted.
“My people,” Feldt went on, “are primarily former civil servants or plantation managers and, in a few cases, missionaries. Most of them have spent years in their area. They speak the native languages and dialects, and in some cases—not all—are protected by the natives. They are undisciplined, irreverent, and contemptuous of military and naval organizations—and in particular of officers of the regular establishment. They are people of incredible courage and, for the obvious reasons, of infinite value to military or naval operations in this area.”
“I heard something about this,” Banning said. “I didn’t realize how many of them there are.”
“Supporting them logistically is very difficult,” Feldt went on, as if he had not heard Banning, “for several reasons. For one thing, the distances. For another, the nonavailability, except in the most extreme circumstances, of submarines and aircraft. And when aircraft and submarines are available, they are of course limited to operation on the shorelines; and my people are most often in the mountains and jungle, some distance from the shore. Landing aircraft in the interior of the islands is ninety percent of the time impossible, and in any case it would give the Japs a pretty good idea where my people are. The result is that my people are eating the food they carried with them into the jungle (if any remains), and native food, which will not support health under the circumstances they have to live under. If illness strikes, or if they accidentally break an ankle, their chances of survival are minimal.”
“Christ!” Banning said.
“In addition, the humidity and other conditions tend to render wireless equipment inoperable unless it is properly and constantly cared for. And these people are not technicians.”
Banning shook his head.
“And now, Major, be good enough to tell me how you intend to help me.”
“In addition to what you tell me to do,” Banning said, after a moment, “money, parachutists, and radios. I might also be able to do something about aircraft priorities.”
“Do you Americans really believe that money can solve any problem? I noticed you mentioned that first.”
“I’m not sure about any,” Banning replied. “But many? Yes, Sir, I believe that. I’ve got a quarter of a million dollars in a bank in Melbourne that can be used to support you, and I can get more if I need more.”
“That sounds very generous.”
“The Marine Corps wants access to your intelligence,” Banning said.
“You would have it anyway, wouldn’t you, via your Navy?”
“We would like it direct,” Banning said.
Feldt grunted.
“You said ‘parachutists’? Have you got parachutists?”
“I have one, Sir, already in Australia,” Banning replied. He did not say, of course, The notion of sending Koffler off on a mission like these is absurd on its face. Then he added, “I can get more in a short period of time.”
“What about wireless sets? I thought you said you didn’t know anything about that.”
“Sir, I don’t,” Banning said. “But some are on the way.”
“What kind?”
“Sir, I don’t know. I was told ‘the best there is.’”
“I would like to know what kind.”
“I’ll find out for you,” Banning said. “Just as soon as they show up. So far, the only asset I have in Australia is the money.”
“And, of course, you.”
“Yes, Sir. And my clerk,” Banning said, and added, “He’s the parachutist I mentioned. He’s eighteen years old. I can’t imagine sending him off to parachute onto some island. But, Sir, he knows about parachuting. He could tell us what we need, and probably what’s available in the States.”
Feldt either grunted or snorted, Banning wasn’t sure which. Then he turned and pulled the bolt out of the eyebolt and lowered the sheet of raw plywood so that it again covered the map.
“Tell me, Major Banning,” he said, “do you have a Christian name?”
“Yes, Sir. Edward.”
“And your friends call you that? Or ‘Ed’?”
“Ed, Sir.”
“And do you drink, Ed? Wine, beer, spirits?”
“Yes, Sir. Wine, beer and spirits.”
“Good. Having a Yank around here will be bad enough without him being a sodding teetotaler.”
“May I interpret that to mean, Sir, that I may stay?”
“On condition that you break yourself of the habit of using the word ‘Sir.’ Are you aware, Ed, that you use ‘Sir’ in place of a comma?”
“I suppose I do.”
“My Christian name is Eric,” Feldt said. “But to keep things in their proper perspective around here, Ed, I think you had better call me ‘Commander.’”
They smiled at each other.
“Let’s go drink our lunch,” Feldt said. “When we’ve done that, we’ll see what can be done about getting you and your savages a place to live.”
(Three)
Townesville Station
Townesville, Queensland
31 May 1942
Major Edward Banning, USMC, was on hand when his command, less the rear echelon (Corporal Koffler), disembarked from the Melbourne train. USMC Special Detachment 14 debarked after the last of the civilian and a half-dozen Australian military passengers had come down from the train to the platform.
The first Marine off the train was Staff Sergeant Richardson, the senior NCO, who either didn’t see Major Banning or pretended not to. He took up a position on the platform facing the sleeper car. Then, one by one, quickly, the others filed off and formed two ranks facing Staff Sergeant Richardson. They were carrying their weapons at sling arms. Most of them had Springfields, but here and there was a Thompson submachine gun.
They were not, however, wearing any of their web field equipment, Major Banning noticed. They were freshly turned out, in sharply creased greens, their fore-and-aft caps at a proper salty angle. Two or three of them seemed a bit flushed, as if, for example, they had recently imbibed some sort of alcoholic beverage.
Staff Sergeant Richardson fell them in, put them through the dress-right-dress maneuver, and did a snappy, precise, about-face. At that point, First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard descended the sleeping-car steps.
He too either did not see Major Banning or pretended not to. He marched before Staff Sergeant Richardson, who saluted him crisply.
“Sir,” Staff Sergeant Richardson barked, “the detachment is formed and all present or accounted for.”
Lieutenant Howard returned the salute crisply.
“Take your post, Sergeant,” he ordered.
Salutes were again exchanged. Then Staff Sergeant Richardson did a precise right-face movement, followed by several others that ultimately placed him in line with, and to the right of, the troop formation. At the same time, Lieutenant Howard did an equally precise about-face movement and stood erectly at attention.
Major Banning understood his role in the ceremony. He dropped his cigarette to the ground, ground his toe on it, and then marched erectly until he faced Lieutenant Howard.
Howard saluted.
“Sir,” he barked, “Special Detachment 14, less the rear echelon, reporting for duty, Sir.”
Banning returned the salute.
He looked at his men, who stood there stone-faced, even the two or three who he suspected had been at the sauce.
“At ease!”
The detachment assumed the position.
“Welcome to Townesville,” Banning said. “And let me say the good news: your drill sergeants would be proud of you. You would be a credit to any parade ground.”
There were smiles and chuckles.
“The bad news is that it’s about a mile and a half from here to our billets, and there are no wheels.”
Now there were grins on all their faces.
“May I respectfully suggest that the Major underestimates his command, Sir?” Joe Howard said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Banning asked.
“If the Major would be good enough to accompany me, Sir?” Howard asked.
“Where?”
“To the rear of the train, Sir,” Howard said.
“All right,” Banning said.
“First Sergeant,” Lieutenant Howard ordered formally, “take the detachment.”
Staff Sergeant Richardson marched up in front again, and a final salute was exchanged.
Banning and Howard walked to the end of the train, where he stopped at a flatcar. Whatever it carried was covered with a canvas tarpaulin.
“They call these things ‘open goods wagons’ over here, Sir,” he said. “That caused a little confusion for a while. We kept asking for flatcars, and they didn’t know what the hell we were talking about.”
“What’s in here? The radios?”
“I think the radios are in the last car, Sir,” Howard said.
He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, then gestured. Half a dozen Marines handed their weapons to the others and came trotting down the platform.
An officer and a gentleman is not supposed to whistle like that, Banning thought, so it’s a good thing there’s nobody here but me to see it.
The Marines clambered up on the flatcar and started to remove the tarpaulin. Large wheels were revealed.
“You stole a truck,” Banning accused Howard.
“No, Sir. That truck was issued to us. It’s perfectly legal.”
The tarpaulin was now almost off, revealing a Studebaker stake-bodied truck. In the bed of the truck was a 1941 Studebaker automobile. On the doors of both the truck and the car were neatly stenciled the Marine Corps emblem and the letters USMC.
“Is that the car from The Elms?” Banning asked, and then, without giving Howard a chance to reply, continued, “You sure that’s not stolen, Joe?”
“I checked on it myself, Sir, when Richardson showed up with them.”
“Them?”
“We have two trucks and three cars, Sir. I mean, counting the one you already had. I left that in Melbourne with Koffler. I figured you’d need it when you went back there.”
Banning saw that the automobile was stuffed with duffel bags.
Well, that explains why they weren’t carrying them over their shoulders when they got off the train.
“How do you propose to get that truck off the flatcar?” Banning asked.
“No problem, Sir,” Lieutenant Howard said.
The Marines now pulled thick planks from under the truck and placed them against the flatcar, forming a ramp. As two of the Marines loosened chains holding the truck chassis to the railroad car, a third got behind the wheel and started the engine.
Moments later, the truck was on the platform. The planks were now moved to form a ramp so that the car could be driven off the truck. The duffel bags were taken from the car and thrown onto the truck.
As the entire process was being repeated for the second flatcar, Major Banning said to Lieutenant Howard, “Why do I have this uncomfortable feeling that I am going to end my career in Portsmouth?”
“This is all perfectly legal, Sir,” Howard said. “Trust me.”
“God, it better be!”
When the tarpaulin covering a third flatcar was removed, Banning walked down to see what it held. There were wooden crates, containing Hallicrafters radios, portable antennas, and generators.
Well, they’re here. I hope to hell they work. I’m going to look like a fool in front of Eric Feldt if they don’t.
“Let’s hope at least one of them works,” Banning said to Howard.
“They all work, Sir,” Howard said. “Sergeant Haley and Corporal Koffler checked them out.”
Sergeant Haley, Banning remembered, was a pudgy-faced buck sergeant, one of his three radio operators. But he also remembered that Haley had told him he was an operator, not a technician. And Koffler?
“Haley and Koffler?”
“Yes, Sir. When I got to The Elms, I saw Koffler had set up one of the radios and an antenna and some batteries and was listening to KYW in Honolulu. I had them check out the others as they came in to make sure they worked. I figured if they didn’t, it would be easier to get them fixed in Melbourne than here. A couple of them needed a little work, but they’re all working now.”
“Haley fixed them?”
“No. Koffler. Haley had never seen one of them before.”
“And Koffler had?”
“No. But…it took me a while to figure this out, Major. Haley went to Radio School. He knows about Marine and Navy radios. Koffler was a radio amateur, what they call a ham.”
“He told me,” Banning interrupted. “So what?”
“So he can apparently make a radio from parts. He understands what makes them work. Even Haley was impressed. There’s more to Koffler than meets the eye.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” Banning said dryly, then asked, “How many radio sets are there?”
“Eight, Sir. I brought seven of them up here. Koffler rigged one of them so we can talk to Melbourne as soon as we get one set up here.”
Another sergeant, whose name, after a moment, Banning remembered was Solinski, marched happily up and saluted.
“Sir, the convoy is formed. If the Major would care to enter his staff car?”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Banning said. “Nice work, getting this all organized so quickly.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Sergeant Solinski said, pleased.
Lieutenant Commander Feldt had arranged for USMC Special Detachment 14 to take over a two-story, tin-roofed frame building that had belonged to the now-defunct Townesville Young Men’s Christian Association. In addition to a small suite of offices, there was a room with a billiards table, as well as six small bedrooms, a small gymnasium with a rusty collection of weightlifting machines, and a reception room with a soft-drink bar that Banning suspected was about to be converted to a saloon.
Banning had prepared notes for the little speech he intended to deliver to his men, but he decided that would have to wait until he got the full story of the cars and trucks. The speech mostly dealt with the importance of getting along with the Aussies, and included the details of their rationing (with the Aussies) and other housekeeping information. The story of the cars and trucks was obviously more important.
He called Lieutenant Howard and Staff Sergeant Richardson into what would serve as the detachment office and told Howard to close the door.
“I want to know about the trucks and cars,” he said. “And I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“Yes, Sir,” Staff Sergeant Richardson said. “Well, Sir, Lieutenant Howard sent me and Sergeant Jenkins on the next plane. After yours and Koffler’s. Koffler met us on the dock, with the Studebaker, and drove us out to The Elms. I asked him where he got the car. He said he didn’t know where it had come from.”
“Captain Pickering arranged for it. He got it from a Navy depot.”
“Yes, Sir. But Koffler didn’t know that. So I told him to ask somebody. He asked an Aussie lady sailor he’d met, and she told him there was a Navy depot. A U.S. Navy depot. So I went down there. It’s not a regular depot. What I found out is that it’s a place they store stuff that was supposed to go China, but didn’t make it.”
“Go over that again?”
“Well, Sir. There was a lot of stuff being shipped to China. What they call Lend-Lease. When they couldn’t get in there, they went on to Australia and just unloaded the stuff. The only Americans around was a small Corps of Civil Engineers depot, and they suddenly had all this stuffed dumped in their laps. They didn’t know what the hell to do with it all. One of the ships was full of Studebakers, cars and trucks.”
“I see. And you stole the ones you brought with you?”
“No, Sir. I didn’t have to. I just had Koffler drive me down there, and I told an officer I found that I had come for the rest of our vehicles. He said he couldn’t issue any of what he had without authority, and I told him we had the authority, and there was our Studebaker, to prove it. He asked me who we worked for, and since you weren’t in Melbourne, I told him this Captain Pickering. Lieutenant Howard gave me his name in Hawaii, in case we needed it.”
“And this officer called Captain Pickering?”
“Yes, Sir. And Captain Pickering, I guess, told him it was all right. He asked me how many trucks I wanted, and how many cars, and I said two, and he said, ‘All right, but you’re going to have to get them running yourself, I don’t have anybody to help you.’ I think I could have gotten a dozen of each, if I had been smart enough to ask for them.”
“I think you’ve done very well, Sergeant Richardson,” Banning said. “Thank you.”
(Four)
Air Transport Office
Royal Naval Station, Melbourne
1 June 1942
Lieutenant Vincent F. Donnelly, RAN, said, “Yes, Sir. Right away,” and put the telephone handset back in its cradle.
He looked across the crowded office to where Yeoman Third Class Daphne Farnsworth, her lower lip clipped under her teeth in concentration, was filling out one more sodding form on her typewriter.
“Daphne!” he called. He had to call again before he broke through her concentration.
“Yes, Sir?”
“We’ve been summoned to the Captain’s office,” Donnelly said.
“I don’t suppose we could ask him to wait thirty minutes, could we?” Daphne asked, smiling. “I’m finally almost finished with this.”
“He wants us right away.”
“Should I bring my pad?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Lieutenant Junior Grade Eleanor McKee, Royal Australian Navy Women’s Volunteer Reserve, commanding officer of all the women aboard RA Naval Station, Melbourne, was in the Captain’s office when they got there.
She looks as if she’s been sucking a lemon again, Daphne thought. I wonder what the hell this is all about. I haven’t done a damned thing, so far as I know.
The Captain stood up.
“Yeoman Farnsworth,” he said, “it is my sad duty to inform you that your husband, Sergeant John Andrew Farnsworth, Royal Australian Signals, has been killed in action in North Africa.”
“Oh, God!”
“You will, I am sure, be able to find some solace in knowing he died for king and country,” the Captain said.
“Oh, shit!” Daphne said.
“I’m very sorry, my dear,” the Captain said.
(Five)
Townesville, Queensland
5 June 1942
“I’m only saying this, you two must understand, because I have been drinking,” Lieutenant Commander Eric A. Feldt, RAN, said to Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, and Lieutenant Joe Howard, USMCR, “but I am far more impressed with your band of innocents than I ever thought would be the case.”
They were in Commander Feldt’s quarters, sitting on folding steel chairs, facing one another across a rickety wooden table on which sat a half-filled bottle of Dewar’s Scotch and the empty hulk of another. A rusting bucket on the floor held a half-dozen bottles of beer and a soda siphon in a pool of melting ice.
“You’re only saying that,” Major Banning responded, “because you found out I outrank you.”
“That’s beneath you, Banning,” Feldt said, “bringing up a sodding six days’ difference in the dates of our promotions.”
“And we gave you a truck,” Joe Howard said, somewhat thickly. “We have a saying in America, ‘Never look a gift truck in the mouth.’”
“You didn’t give me the truck, you only loaned it to me. And anyway, the steering wheel is on the wrong side.”
“The steering wheel is in the right place,” Howard said. “You people insist on driving on the wrong side of the road.”
Feldt stood up and walked, not too steadily, to a chest of drawers. He returned with a box of cigars, which he displayed with an elaborate gesture.
“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 stamped MOST 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 whatever 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 RAAF?”
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—”
“Arguably, the most important station,” Feldt agreed. “Certainly one of the most important.”
“Staffed by one man who apparently knows very little or nothing about radios.”
“That’s why we’re going to jump Koffler in to join him.”
“Koffler doesn’t know a Zero from a Packard,” Howard said. “If something happens to your man Reeves, Commander, what you’re going to have is a perfectly functioning radio station from which we’ll get no intelligence because Koffler won’t know what to send.”
“Granted,” Feldt said. “So what?”
“So what you need is a team. Send two people in. The other one should be someone who can identify Japanese aircraft and ships as well as your man Reeves. If something should happen to Reeves, that man could possibly keep the station operating. At least better than someone who was in high school this time last year.”
“I don’t have anybody to spare at the moment,” Feldt said. “I grant your point. Reeves should have a replacement. I’ll work on it.”
“The time to send him in is now,” Howard argued. “You said that getting planes is difficult. You might not be able to get another; and even if you could, it seems to me the Japanese would sense that something important was going on in that area.”
“Commander Feldt says he doesn’t have anyone to send,” Banning said curtly.
“I was in the First Defense Battalion at Pearl,” Howard said. “In addition to my other duties, I taught Japanese aircraft and vessel recognition.”
“Fascinating,” Commander Feldt said, softly.
“You’re not a parachutist,” Banning said.
“Neither was Steve Koffler, this time last year,” Howard argued.
“Ed,” Feldt said softly, “I was given a briefing on agent infiltration by an insufferably smug British Special Operations Executive officer. He told me, among other things, that their experience parachuting people into France has been that they lost more people training them to use parachutes than they did jumping virtually untrained people on actual operations. Consequently, as a rule of thumb, they no longer subject agents going in to the risks of injury parachute training raises.”
Banning looked between the two of them, but said nothing.
“What worries me about this is why Joe wants to go,” Feldt said. He looked directly at Howard. “Why do you want to do this?”
“I don’t want to do it,” Howard said after a moment. “I think somebody has to do it. Of the people available to us, I seem to have the best qualifications.”
“Are you married? Children?” Feldt asked.
“I have a…fiancée,” Joe said. It was, he realized, the first time he had ever used the word.
“The decision, of course, is Major Banning’s,” Commander Feldt said formally.
Banning met Howard’s eyes for a moment.
“I think it might be better if Joe and I went to Melbourne,” Banning said finally, evenly. “I don’t know, but maybe Joe and Koffler will need some equipment I don’t know about. If there is, it would more likely be available in Melbourne to a major than to a lieutenant.”
“Your other ranks seem to do remarkably well getting things from depots,” Feldt said. “But of course you’re right. I’ll arrange with Deane to have you two flown down there in the morning.”
He reached for the Scotch bottle and topped off everyone’s glass.
“And of course, Melbourne’s the best place to get the shots.”
“Shots?”
“Immunizations.”
“The Marine Corps has given me shots against every disease known to Western man,” Howard said.
“I don’t really think, Joe, that your medical people have a hell of a lot of experience with the sort of thing you’re going to find on Buka,” Feldt said. “And since Major Banning and I have decided to indulge you in this little escapade, it behooves you to take your shots like a good little boy.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Howard said.
“Cheers,” Feldt said, raising his glass.
(Six)
Two Creeks Station
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
6 June 1942
It had been called a memorial service, but what it really had been, Daphne Farnsworth realized, was a regular funeral missing only the body. There had even been an empty, flag-covered casket in the aisle of St. Paul’s Church. The Reverend Mr. Bartholomew Frederick, his World War I Australian-New Zealand Army Corps ribbons pinned to his vestments, had delivered a eulogy that had been at least as much a recitation of the virtues of Australian military prowess and courage generally as it had been a recounting of the virtues of the late Sergeant John Andrew Farnsworth.
And before and after, before even she had gotten home, the neighbors had gone through the ritual of visiting the bereaved. In the event, Daphne Farnsworth only barely counted as one of the bereaved. The visitors had “called on” John’s parents at the big house, instead of at John’s and her house. Their house had been more or less closed up, of course, and his parents’ house was larger; but she suspected that the roasts and the casseroles and the clove-studded hams and potato salad would have been delivered to the big house even if she hadn’t joined the Navy.
She was both shamed and confused by her reaction to the offerings of sympathy. They annoyed her. And she resented all the people, too. She was either being a genuine bitch, she decided, or—as she had heard at least a half-dozen people whisper softly to her in-laws—she was still in shock and had not really accepted her loss. That would come later.
She had been annoyed at that, too. They didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. She had accepted her loss. She knew that John was never coming back, even, for Christ’s sake, in a casket when the war was over. She knew, with a horrible empty feeling in her heart and belly, that she would never again feel John’s muscular arms around her, or have him inside her.
She was angry with him, too—the decisive proof that she was a cold-hearted bitch. He didn’t have to go. He had gotten himself killed over there for the sole reason that he had wanted to go over there, answering some obscene and ludicrous male hunger to go off and kill something…without considering at all the price she was going to have to pay.
And their childlessness—a question John had decided for all time by enlisting and getting himself killed—had been a subject of some conversation by those who had come to call to express their sympathy. The males, gathered in the sitting room, drinking, and the women in the kitchen, fussing with all the food, seemed to be divided more or less equally into two groups: those who thought it a pity there wasn’t a baby, preferably a male baby, to carry on the name; and those who considered it a manifestation of God’s wise compassion that he had not left poor Daphne with a fatherless child to add to her burden.
Daphne had started drinking early in the morning, when she awoke in their bed and cried with the knowledge that John would never again share it with her. She had tossed down a shot of straight gin before she’d left their bed for her bath.
And she’d had another little taste just before they’d gotten in the cars to go to St. Paul’s for the service. And she had had three since they had returned from church, timing them carefully. John had once told her that if you took only one drink an hour, you could never get drunk; the body burned off spirits at the rate of a drink an hour. She believed that.
As if she needed another one! There was one more proof that she was a bitch, because she knew that what she really wanted to do was get really drunk. She had been really drunk only three times in her life, the last time the day after she had returned here after watching John’s ship move away from the pier in Melbourne.
She could not do that today, of course. It would disgrace her—not that that seemed important. But it would hurt her family, especially her mother and John’s mother, if she let the side down by doing something like that, when she was expected to be the grieving, virtuous young widow.
She left the crowd of people in the big house to walk to her own house. She did that because she had to visit the loo, and there was actually a line before the loo in the big house.
She just happened to notice the car coming across the bridge over the Murrumbidgee River. It made the sharp right onto their property.
Still somebody else coming? I really don’t want one more expression of sympathy, one more man to tell me, “Steady on, girl,” or one more woman to tell me, “The Lord works in mysterious ways. You must now put your trust in the Lord.”
There’s no one behind the wheel.
Of course not. It’s an American car, a Studebaker like the Americans at The Elms have.
What is an American car doing coming here?
Oh, my God, it’s him. It can’t be. But it is.
What in the name of God is Steve Koffler doing here?
She cut across the field and got to the Studebaker a moment after Steve Koffler had parked it at the end of a long row of cars, got out, and opened the rear door.
The first thought she had was unkind. When she saw his glistening paratrooper boots, sharply creased trousers, and the tightly woven fabric of his tunic and compared it with the rough, blanketlike material John’s uniform had been cut from, and his rough, hobnailed boots, she was annoyed: Bloody American Marines, they all look like officers.
He got whatever he was looking for from the backseat of the Studebaker, then stood erect and turned around and saw her.
“Hello,” he said, startled, and somewhat shy.
“What are you doing here?”
“Lieutenant Donnelly told me about your husband,” Steve said, holding out what he had taken from the backseat: a bouquet of flowers, a tissue-wrapped square box, and a brown sack, obviously containing a bottle.
“What are you doing here?” Daphne repeated.
“I didn’t know what you’re supposed to do in Australia,” he said, “to show you’re sorry.”
“What is all that?”
“Flowers, candy, and whiskey,” Steve said. “Is that all right?”
“It’s unnecessary,” Daphne snapped, and was sorry. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to tell you how sorry I am about your husband getting killed,” Steve said.
“And you drove all the way out here to do that?”
“It’s only two hundred and eighty-six miles,” he said. “I just checked. And that includes me getting lost twice.”
It never even entered his stupid American mind that he might be intruding here; he wanted to come, so he just got in his sodding car and came!
“I really don’t know what to say to you,” she said.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry.”
Is that it? Or did you maybe think that now that I’m a widow, you could just jump into my bed?
What the hell is the matter with me? He’s just stupid and sweet. Except that I know he’s not really as stupid as I first thought. Naïve and sweet, rather than stupid.
“That’s very kind of you, Steve, I’m sure. Thank you very much.”
Steve Koffler relaxed visibly.
“It’s OK. I wanted to do it.”
But my mother is not going to understand this. Or John’s mother. Or anybody. They’re going to suspect that this boy and I are…what? Something we shouldn’t be. That that is absurd won’t matter. That’s what they’re going to think.
And I can’t just send him packing, either. Not only would that be cruel of me, but by now everyone has seen the car and will be wondering who it is. What the hell am I going to do?
“I suppose you must think I’m terrible,” Daphne Farnsworth said to Steve Koffler as the Studebaker turned onto the bridge over the Murrumbidgee River, “lying to my family like that.”
“No. I understand,” he replied, turning his head to look at her.
“Well, I feel rotten about it,” she said. “But I just couldn’t take any more. I was going to scream.”
After quickly but carefully coaching Steve in the story, she had led him up to the big house and introduced him to her family. She had told them that her officer, Lieutenant Donnelly, had learned that the American Marines were sending a car to the Wagga Wagga airfield. The lieutenant had arranged with a Marine officer to have Steve, the driver, whom she referred to as “Corporal Koffler,” stop by the station and offer her a ride back to Melbourne. Her “death leave” was up the next day anyway. It would save her catching a very early train, and a long and uncomfortable ride.
It sounded credible, and she was reasonably sure that no one had questioned the story. They had been effusive in their thanks to Steve for doing her a good turn. All of which, of course, had made her feel even worse.
“I’m just glad I decided to come,” Steve Koffler said.
They rode in silence for a long time, while Daphne wallowed in her new perception of herself as someone with a previously unsuspected capacity for lying and all-around deceit, the proof of which was that she felt an enormous sense of relief at being able to get away from people who shared her grief and would, quite literally, do anything in the world for her.
Steve Koffler broke the silence as they reached the outskirts of Wangaratta, fifty miles back into Victoria.
“Would it be all right if I looked for someplace I could get something to eat? I could eat a horse.”
“You mean you haven’t eaten?”
He nodded.
“You should have said something at the station,” she said. “There was all kinds of food…”
He shrugged.
“On condition that you let me pay,” Daphne said. “I really do appreciate the ride.”
“I’ve got money,” he said.
“I pay, or you go hungry.”
He smiled at her shyly.
As he wolfed down an enormous meal of steak and eggs, Daphne asked, “Tell me about your family, Steve. And your girl.”
“There’s not much to tell about my family. My mother and father are divorced. I live with her and her husband. And I don’t have a girl.”
“I thought Marines were supposed to have a girl in every port.”
“That’s what they say,” he said. “I know a bunch of girls, of course, but there’s no one special. I’ve been too busy, I suppose, to have a steady girl.”
He’s lying. That was bravado. He’s afraid of women. Then why did he drive all the way out to Wagga Wagga? For the reason he gave. He felt really sorry for me. Whatever this boy is, he is no Don Juan. He’s just a sweet kid.
When they were back on the road, she found herself pursuing the subject, wondering why it was important.
“There must have been one girl that…stood out…from all the others?”
From his reaction to the question, she sensed that there had not only been a girl in Steve Koffler’s life, but that it had not been a satisfactory relationship.
“Who was she, Steve?”
Why am I doing this? What do I really care?
Over the next hour and a half, Daphne drew from Steve, one small detail after another, the story of Dianne Marshall Norman. By the time she was sure she had separated fact from fantasy and had assembled what she felt was probably the true sequence of events, she had worked up what she told herself was a big-sister-like dislike for Diane Marshall Norman and a genuine feeling of sympathy for Steve.
Women can be such bitches, she thought, getting what they want and not caring a whit how much they hurt a nice kid like Steve Koffler.
(Seven)
U.S. Navy Element
U.S. Army General Hospital
Melbourne, Australia
1705 Hours 6 June 1942
Soon after they met, Commander Charles E. Whaley, M.D., USNR, told Ensign Barbara T. Cotter, NC, USNR, that he had given up a lucrative practice of psychiatry in Grosse Point Hills, Michigan, and entered the Naval Service in order to treat the mental disorders of servicemen who had been unable to cope with the stress of the battlefield. He was happy to do so.
But he had not entered the Naval Service, he went on to tell Ensign Cotter, to administer to the minor aches and pains of the Naval brass gathered around the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, and especially not to cater to their grossly overdeveloped sense of medical self-protection. And he had absolutely no intention of doing so.
He specifically told Ensign Cotter, who was in his eyes an unusually nice and bright kid, that he had no intention of making a goddamned house call to the “residence” of some Navy brass hat named Pickering. This guy had apparently heard somewhere of a battery of rare tropical diseases. Since, for some half-assed reason, he felt threatened by those diseases, he wanted himself immunized against them. At his quarters.
“I think I know where this goddamn thing started, Barbara,” Dr. Whaley said. “I have never even seen a case of any of these things—and I interned and did my residency in Los Angeles, where you see all sorts of strange things—but this morning there was a Marine officer in here, armed with a buck slip from an admiral on MacArthur’s staff, ordering that he be immediately immunized against them. They had to get the stuff from the Australians to give it to him.
“Then I get a message—if I’d been here to take the call, I would have told him what I thought—from this Captain Pickering, ordering me to come to his residence prepared to give the same series of shots to at least one other person. What I think happened is that this sonofabitch Pickering heard about the Marine and decided he wasn’t going to take the risk of coming down with something like this himself. No, Sir. I mean, why should he? I mean, after all, here he is, far from the Army-Navy Club in Washington, risking his life as a member of MacArthur’s palace guard.”
Barbara chuckled.
“What would you like me to do, Doctor?”
“If I go over there, Barbara, I’m liable to forget that I’m an officer and a gentleman and tell this Pickering character what I think of him specifically and the Naval Service generally. So, by the power vested in me by the Naval Service, Ensign Cotter, I order you to proceed forthwith to”—he handed her an interoffice memorandum—“the address hereon, and immunize this officer by injection. See if you can find a dull needle. A large one. And it is my professional medical judgment that you should inject the patient in his gluteus maximus.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Ensign Cotter replied.
“And go by ambulance,” Commander Charles E. Whaley, M.D., USNR, added.
“Ambulance?”
“With a little bit of luck, Captain Pickering will inquire about the ambulance. Then you will tell him that the immunizations sometimes produce terrible side effects,” Dr. Whaley said, pleased with himself. “And that the ambulance is just a precaution.”
“You’re serious?” Barbara chuckled.
“You bet your ass I am,” Commander Whaley said.
(Eight)
The Elms
Dandenong, Victoria, Australia
1755 Hours 6 June 1942
When Barbara Cotter saw The Elms, she was glad that Dr. Whaley had sent her and not come himself. This Captain Pickering, whoever he was, seemed one more proof that Karl Marx might have been on to something when he denounced the over-accumulation of capital in the hands of the privileged few. Navy captains, for rank hath its privileges, lived well. But not this well. Dr. Whaley could have gotten himself in deep trouble, letting his Irish temper loose at this Navy brass hat.
A middle-aged woman opened the door.
“Hello,” Mrs. Hortense Cavendish said with a smile. “May I help you?”
“I’m Ensign Cotter, to see Captain Pickering. I’m from the hospital.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a nurse,” Barbara said.
“I think he was expecting a doctor,” Mrs. Cavendish said. “But please come in, I’ll tell him you’re here.”
She left Barbara waiting in the foyer and disappeared down a corridor. A moment later a man appeared and walked up to her. He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing suspenders. And his collar was open and his tie pulled down. He held a drink in his hand.
Barbara was prepared to despise him as a palace-guard brass hat with an exaggerated opinion of his own importance—and with what Dr. Whaley had so cleverly described as “an overdeveloped sense of medical self-protection.”
“Hello,” Pickering said. “I’m Fleming Pickering. I was rather expecting Commander Whaley, but you’re much prettier.”
“Sir, I’m Ensign Cotter.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” he said. “We saw the ambulance. What’s that all about? Is the Navy again suffering from crossed signals?”
“Sir, I’m here to administer certain injections,” Barbara said. “There is a chance of a reaction to them. The ambulance is a precaution.”
“Well, the first stickee seems to be doing fine,” Pickering said. “We’re hoping that your intended target will show up momentarily. I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until he does.”
“Sir?”
“You’re here to immunize Corporal Koffler,” Pickering said. “At the moment, we don’t know where he is. You’ll have to wait until he shows up. If that’s going to pose a problem for you at the hospital, I’ll call and explain the situation. This is rather important.”
“I was under the impression the immunizations were intended for you, Captain.”
“Oh, no,” Pickering said, and smiled. “I suspected crossed signals. Shall I call the hospital and straighten things out?”
“If I’m going to have to stay, I’d better call, Sir,” Barbara said.
“The phone’s right over there,” Pickering said, pointing to a narrow table against the foyer wall. “If you run into any trouble, let me know. Sometimes the Regular Navy is a bit dense between the ears.”
She looked at him in shock.
“Between us amateurs, of course,” Pickering smiled. “I presume you’re a fellow amateur?”
“I’m a reservist, Sir, if that’s what you mean.”
“I was sure of it,” Pickering said. “When you’re through on the phone, please come in the sitting room.” He pointed to it.
“Yes, Sir,” Barbara said.
“Oh, Barbara,” Dr. Whaley said when she called him at his quarters. “I hope you’re calling because you’re lost.”
“Excuse me?”
“You found The Elms without any trouble?”
“Yes, Sir. I’m here now. I’ve just met Captain Pickering.”
“How did that go?”
“It’s not what you thought, Doctor.”
“I already found that out. The men to be immunized, the Marine officer who was here at the hospital, and the one you’re there to see, are about to go on some hush-hush mission behind the lines. High-level stuff. And I learned five minutes after you left that Pickering is not what I led you to believe he was.”
“He’s really nice,” Barbara said.
“He’s also General MacArthur’s personal pal,” Dr. Whaley said. “And Frank Knox’s personal representative over here. Not the sort of man to jab with a dull needle.”
“No, Sir,” Barbara chuckled. “The other man to be immunized isn’t here yet. Captain Pickering said I’ll have to stay here until he shows up. That’s why I’m calling.”
“You stay as long as you’re needed,” Dr. Whaley said, “and be as charming as possible, knowing that you have our Naval careers in your hands.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You better send the ambulance back, Barbara. When you’re finished, I’ll send a staff car for you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Barbara hung up, walked out of The Elms, sent the ambulance back to the hospital, and then reentered the house.
“Everything go all right?” Captain Pickering asked her when she reached the room he’d directed her to. “Come in.”
“Everything’s fine, Sir,” Barbara said.
“Gentlemen, this is Ensign Cotter,” Pickering said. “Ensign Cotter, this is Major Ed Banning, Lieutenant Vince Donnelly, and Lieutenant Joe Howard.”
Lieutenant Joe Howard, who had been mixing a drink at the bar, turned, looked at Barbara, dropped the glass, and said, “Oh, my God!”
“Joe!” Barbara wailed.
“Why do I suspect that these two splendid young junior officers have met?” Banning asked dryly.
“Lieutenant Howard,” Captain Pickering said, “Ensign Cotter was just telling me that sometimes these shots have adverse effects. Why don’t you take her someplace where she can examine you?”
He hardly had time to congratulate himself on having produced—snatching it from out of the blue—a Solomon-like solution to the problem of how to handle two young lovers who were embarrassed to manifest a display of affection before senior officers. For, unfortunately, his brilliance was wasted; Ensign Cotter, forgetting that she was an officer and a gentlewoman, ran to Howard and threw herself in his arms, and cried, “Oh, my darling!”
After a moment, Captain Pickering spoke again.
“Joe, why don’t you take your girl and show her the grounds?”
Howard, not trusting his voice, nodded his thanks and, with his arms around Barbara, led her out of the sitting room and started down the corridor.
All of a sudden, she stopped, spun out of his arms, and faced him.
“You’re on this mission, aren’t you?” she challenged.
He nodded.
“Oh, my God!”
“It’ll be all right,” he said.
“They don’t send people on missions like that unless they volunteer,” she said, adding angrily, “You volunteered, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Goddamn you!”
He didn’t reply.
“Why? Can you tell me why?”
“It’s important,” he said.
“When do you go?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she wailed. He nodded.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
He shrugged helplessly.
“We could go to my room,” Joe blurted.
She met his eyes.
“They’d know,” she said.
“Do you care?” he asked.
She reached out and touched his face and shook her head.
He took her hand from his face and held it as he led her the rest of the way down the stairs and then up the broad staircase to his room.