“My aide, Sir, is in your outer office-armed to the teeth and with the briefcase chained to his wrist. That is known, I believe, as delegation of responsibility.”
MacArthur’s face froze.
Watch your mouth, Pickering. You may think El Supremo is more than a little pompous, but El Supremo thinks of himself as The Supreme Commander. One does not say anything to The Supreme Commander that he might possibly interpret as insolent.
After almost visibly making up his mind, MacArthur apparently decided the humor was neither out of place nor disrespectful. He laughed.
“Pay attention, Willoughby,” he said. “I think we can all learn something from the Marines.”
“General,” Willoughby replied, “I’m fully aware that General Pickering can be quite ruthless as far as security is concerned.”
Christ! That can’t be anything but a reference to Ellen Feller. God, let’s not open that bag of worms!
MacArthur looked at Willoughby, curiosity on his face.
“I think that is expected of someone with his responsibilities,” MacArthur said finally. “He is also very tenacious, bringing up again and again a subject he knows I would rather he didn’t. I find both characteristics admirable, in their way.” He met Pickering’s eyes. “You were about to tell me about the intercept.”
I have just had my wrist slapped. I’ve been told he doesn’t want to hear me try to sell Donovan’s people to him again. But he didn’t ask Willoughby what he meant. Or does he already know about Ellen Feller?
“Sir, there’s a Japanese Naval officer that the people at CINCPAC and Pluto have been keeping track of-Commander Tadakae Ohmae, an intelligence officer.”
“What about him?” MacArthur asked impatiently.
“He’s apparently on Guadalcanal. Just after midnight last night, he sent a radio to Tokyo, using Japanese 17th Army facilities. It was addressed to the Intelligence Officer of their Navy. Pluto and I think it’s significant; CINCPAC doesn’t.”
“What colors CINCPAC’s thinking?”
“Pluto believes that Commander Ohmae is more important than his rank suggests: that he is in effect the Japanese Navy’s man on Guadalcanal, sent there to find out what’s really going on….”
“Someone like you, in other words, Fleming?” MacArthur asked.
“Yes, Sir. Although I don’t consider myself possessed of Ohmae’s expertise or influence.”
MacArthur grunted. “Go on.”
“The tone of Ohmae’s radio suggests that he reports things as he sees them…”
“Another similarity, wouldn’t you say?”
I’m going to ignore that. I think he’s trying to throw me off balance. Why?
“… which, in Pluto’s judgment, tends to support the idea that he is a man of some influence.”
“And CINCPAC disagrees?”
“CINCPAC feels that if this fellow were as important as Pluto believes he is, he wouldn’t have used a fairly standard code. He’d have used something more complex-and less likely to be broken now or in the future.”
“Like your own personal code, you’re saying, the one that is denied even to my cryptographers?”
I wondered how long it would take before you brought that up. You can’t really be the Emperor, can you, if one of the mice around the throne can send off letters you can’t read?
“Access to that code is controlled by Secretary Knox, Sir.”
“I’m just trying to understand what you’re driving at, Fleming,” MacArthur said disarmingly.
“Yes, Sir. Pluto feels, and I agree, that he didn’t use a better code, because a better code is not available to the Japanese on Guadalcanal; Ohmae used what was available.”
MacArthur grunted again. “What did Commander Ohmae say in his radio to Tokyo?”
“It was a rather blanket indictment of the 17th Army, Sir. He cited a number of reasons why he believed the attack failed.”
“Such as?”
Pickering dropped his eyes to the MAGIC intercept.
“He feels that General Nasu and his regimental commanders were, quote, grossly incompetent, unquote.”
“That accusation is always made when a battle is lost,” MacArthur said, “almost invariably by those who have not shouldered the weight of command themselves. Unless a commander has access to the materiel of war, his professional competence and the valor of his men is for nothing.”
He’s talking about himself, about his losing the Philippines.
“Commander Ohmae touches on those areas, Sir,” Pickering said, and dropped his eyes to the intercept again. “He says, quote, the severe fatigue of the troops immediately before the attack is directly attributable to the gross underestimation by 17th Army of terrain difficulties, unquote.”