“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I think maybe tonight, we need each other,” she said. She patted his cheek, smiled, and walked to the door, picking up her jacket on the way.
“Shall we go?” she asked.
Pick put his drink down and walked toward the door.
Chapter Eleven
[ONE]
Office of the Supreme Commander
South West Pacific Ocean Area
Brisbane, Australia
0805 Hours 26 October 1942
“Good morning, General,” MacArthur’s secretary, a technical sergeant, said in a voice loud enough to alert everyone in the office to the presence of a general officer-meaning that everybody was supposed to stop what he was doing and come to attention.
“As you were,” Brigadier General Fleming Pickering said quickly. The sergeant dropped back into his seat, and a couple of other enlisted men and a captain resumed what they were doing. But Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Huff, MacArthur’s senior aide-de-camp, remained on his feet behind his desk.
“You too, Sid,” Pickering said with a smile. “Sit down.”
He’s looking at my ribbons. Have a good look, Sid.
I should have started wearing the damned things long before this; people are impressed. It’s not so much, look at me, the hero, but rather don’t try to pull that “I’m a regular, you’re nothing but a civilian in uniform” business on me. As these colorful little pieces of cloth attest, I have been there when people were trying to kill me, and failed. And this makes me a warrior, too, if only part time.
“The Supreme Commander is in conference with General Willoughby, General. I’ll see if he can be disturbed.”
“Thank you.”
Huff depressed a lever on what must have been the world’s oldest intercom device and announced Pickering’s presence.
“Show the General in,” MacArthur’s voice replied metallically.
Huff started for MacArthur’s door.
“Sid, I know where it is,” Pickering said.
Huff ignored him. He tapped twice on MacArthur’s door, immediately opened it, stepped halfway inside, and announced, “General Pickering, Sir.”
“Come in, Fleming,” MacArthur said. “I am delighted to receive a Marine this morning. You are entitled to bask in reflected glory.”
“Good morning, General,” Pickering replied with a polite nod in MacArthur’s direction, and then added, “General,” to Brigadier General Charles A. Willoughby, who was standing at a large map of the Solomon Islands mounted on a sheet of plywood, which itself rested on what seemed to be an oversize artist’s tripod.
Willoughby nodded and said, “Pickering.”
Was that to remind me that generals get to call each other by their last names? Or is he emulating El Supremo, who calls everybody but a favored few by their last names?
“That will be all, Huff, thank you,” General MacArthur said. Colonel Huff stepped back into the outer office and closed the door.
“I presume you have a MAGIC intercept,” MacArthur said. “When I had Huff try to find you earlier, he reported you were in the building but not available.”
“Yes, Sir. You sent for me, Sir?”
“Have you seen Vandegrift’s latest After-Action Report?”
“I glanced at it, Sir. You’re referring to the twenty-three hundred twenty-five October AA?”
“Yes. I’ve got it here somewhere.”
He walked to his desk and started to rummage through manila folders.
“There were a number of intercepts, General. Pluto and I were trying to find something interesting.”
“And presumably you did?” MacArthur said. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice. This surprised Pickering until he realized that El Supremo was not annoyed at him; he was annoyed because he couldn’t instantly find what he was looking for.
“One, Sir, I thought would be of particular interest to you,” Pickering said.
MacArthur finally found what he was looking for.
“Ah-ha!” he said triumphantly, and handed a manila folder to Pickering. It was stamped SECRET. “Here you go. Take the time to read it.”
He either didn’t hear anything I said, or chose not to.
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
It was the After-Action that had come in just after one in the morning. He had scanned it, and then gone back to trying to find something of special interest in the MAGIC intercepts.
I better read this carefully. I suspect there’ll be an oral exam. El Supremo is in one of his good moods. And that usually triggers a lecture.