The Corp - Counterattack Part 50

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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 a.s.signed 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 G.o.d, 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 highspeed 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 a.s.s off those who could. Ooops. Sorry about the language."

"That's all right," Daphne said.

Well, Daphne, you b.i.t.c.hy 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.sified?"

"What we're doing is cla.s.sified. Not the radio."

And now I am curious. What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is going on around here? Marine parachutists? Villas in the country? "World's best wireless" s.h.i.+pped by priority air?

(Two) Townesville Station Royal Australian Navy Townesville, Queensland 24 May 1942 The office of the Commanding Officer, Coast.w.a.tcher 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 h.e.l.l 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 j.a.p?"

In j.a.panese, 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 d.a.m.ned," Commander Feldt said. "That was j.a.panese? I don't speak a b.l.o.o.d.y word of it myself."

"That was j.a.panese, 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 j.a.panese, 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."

"Axe 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 j.a.panese lines?"

"That's a moot point, Sir. The one thing I have been forbidden to do is serve as a Coast.w.a.tcher 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 j.a.ps 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 j.a.ps 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 j.a.panese do. Or actually, they either torture our people to death; or, if they're paying attention to the code of Bus.h.i.+do, 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 circ.u.mstances, of submarines and aircraft. And when aircraft and submarines are available, they are of course limited to operation on the sh.o.r.elines; and my people are most often in the mountains and jungle, some distance from the sh.o.r.e. Landing aircraft in the interior of the islands is ninety percent of the time impossible, and in any case it would give the j.a.ps 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 circ.u.mstances 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."