“Then I guess that makes it you and me against the rest of The Corps, doesn’t it, Jack?”
“I wondered about that, Sir. How the… how senior officers feel about him.”
“I’ve heard the word ‘brass’ before, Jack. And the answer is that most of the brass who haven’t worked with him think he’s the worst thing to hit The Marine Corps since…” Vandegrift stopped, and then, smiling, finished, “… since the Garand rifle.”
Stecker chuckled. “Well, I guess they’re going to be proved wrong on both counts, then, aren’t they, Sir?”
“There is one occasion when I am not very opposed to influence, Jack, and that is when it’s for the good of The Corps, or, more specifically, for the good of the First Division. Pickering has a lot of influence. I want you to keep that in mind when somebody in Australia tells you you can’t have something the First Marine Division should have on hand when it gets there. It doesn’t seem to be much of a secret that he has MacArthur’s ear.”
“Is that why I’m being sent there, Sir, because of my relationship with General Pickering?”
“You’re being sent there, as I said a moment ago, because you’re the best man for the job. Pickering is… the olive in the martini.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You will proceed via Espiritu Santo to Pearl Harbor, thence to Brisbane. I don’t see any reason why you can’t have a week, or longer, on leave in Hawaii when you’re there.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Give my regards to Elly, please, Jack, and offer my congratulations to your son.”
“Sir?”
“By now they’ve given him the DFC. It now comes just about automatically with being an ace.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Now go turn over to Newberry, Colonel, and pack your gear. You are dismissed.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
[TWO]
Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence
Supreme Headquarters
South West Pacific Ocean Area
Brisbane, Australia
1615 Hours 2 November 1942
“Pull up a chair, Pickering, I’ll be with you in a minute,” Brigadier General Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence officer, said to Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR.
Why am I offended when this sonofabitch calls me by my last name?
Pickering walked over to General Willoughby’s office window and looked out, although this meant searching for and operating the cords that controlled the drapes.
A minute or so later, General Willoughby raised his eyes from his desk and found Pickering at the window.
“So, Pickering, what’s on your mind?”
“General, thank you for seeing me.”
Willoughby made a deprecating gesture.
“I want to talk about guerrillas in the Philippines,” Pickering said.
Willoughby shrugged.
“Sure,” he said, “but there’s not much to talk about.”
Willoughby always spoke with a faintly German accent, but now, for some reason, his accent was more than usually apparent. Pickering’s mind went off at a tangent: Willoughby sounds like an English name, not a German one. Where did he get that accent?
“Let’s talk about this General Fertig,” Pickering said.
“He’s not a general. He’s a captain. A reserve captain. Technically, I suppose, he’s guilty of impersonating an officer.”
Well, I know how that feels. Every time I check my uniform in the mirror and see the stars, I feel like I’m impersonating an officer.
“What did he do before the war?”
“He was a mining engineer, I think. Or a civil engineer. Some kind of an engineer.”
Pickering had a sudden suspicion, and jumped on it.
“You knew him, didn’t you, General?”
“Yes. I met him at parties, that sort of thing.”
Now, that’s interesting. The question now becomes what kind of parties. Patricia and I met El Supremo half a dozen times at parties in Manila. But they were business parties Pacific & Far East Shipping gave. El Supremo and his wife were invited there under the general category, Military/Diplomatic. I don’t recall that you were ever invited to one of those, Willoughby. Colonels didn’t make that list.
Come to think of it, did I ever meet this guy? I don’t think so. I would have remembered that name. Wendell Fertig isn’t John Jones. And “Fertig” in German means “finished. ” I would have remembered that, I think.