“Pluto,” Feldt asked, almost lovingly, “are you well versed in that jiujitsu business, or can I tell you to go sod yourself?”
Pluto leapt to his feet and waved his arms around, mimicking as best he could an Oriental character he had once seen in a Charley Chan movie. “At your peril, Commander Feldt! My hands are lethal weapons!”
“Pluto, sit down before you fall down,” Pickering ordered. Then he turned to Stecker again. “And we had trouble with guerrillas in the Philippines, didn’t we, Jack?”
“The Corps and the Army did,” Stecker said. “That’s where the.45 caliber round came from, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Feldt said. “Forty-five caliber round what?”
“The pistol cartridge,” Stecker said. “The standard sidearm was the.38. The Filipinos-mainly the Moros-used to come out of the bush swinging machetes. The.38 round just wouldn’t put them down. The.38 bullet just wasn’t heavy enough. So they came up with the.45. There’s not much a 230-grain.45 bullet won’t put down with one shot.”
“Pickering, this old mate of yours is a sodding encyclopedia of military lore, isn’t he?” Feldt asked.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” Pickering said.
“Commander,” Stecker said, “are you familiar with arm wrestling? I think I’d like to break your wrist.”
“Oh, you would, would you?”
“We are not going to start breaking up the furniture,” Pickering announced.
It was too late. Commander Feldt and Colonel Stecker were already removing the candelabra from a small table suitable for arm wrestling.
[FOUR]
=TOP SECRET=
Eyes Only – Captain David Haughton, USN
Office of the Secretary of the Navy
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAV
FOR COLONEL F. L. RICKABEE
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS
Brisbane, Australia
Monday 9 November 1942
Dear Fritz:
I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but Lt Colonel Jack NMI Stecker is here in Brisbane. He went to Staff Sergeant Koffler’s wedding with me, as a matter of fact, and is at this moment moving his stuff from the Army BOQ into my house.
He’s here to set up facilities for the First Mardiv when they are relieved from Guadalcanal and brought here for rehabilitation and refitting. According to Stecker, they are in really bad physical shape; almost everybody has malaria.
Stecker was relieved of his command of Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, and is now officially assigned to SWPOA in some sort of vaguely defined billet. I am unable to believe he was relieved for cause, and strongly suspect that it is the professional officer corps’ pushing a reservist/up-from-the-ranks Mustang to give the command to one of their own. I can’t imagine why General Vandegrift permitted this to happen. But it has happened, and it may be a blessing in disguise for us.
I had a talk with Stecker after the wedding, and it came out that he had extensive experience with guerrilla operations in the Banana Republics, especially Nicaragua, between the wars. It seems to me that if you know how to fight against guerrillas, it would follow that you know how to fight as a guerrilla…. and certainly to knowledgeably evaluate how someone else is set up, and equipped, to fight as guerrillas.
I haven’t said anything to him yet, but I know him well enough to know that he would rather be doing something either with or for this fellow Fertig on Mindanao than arranging tours of picturesque Australia or USO shows, which is what The Corps wants him to do now. So I want him transferred to us, with a caveat: He has already suffered enough humiliation as it is (goddamn it; he has the Medal of Honor; how could they do this to him?), so I want you to take every precaution to make sure there is no scuttlebutt circulating that he has been further demoted by his assignment to us.
Do it as quickly as you can, and I think you had better send McCoy over here too, as quickly as that can be arranged. I think the sooner we get somebody with Captain/General Fertig, the better.
Regards,
Fleming Pickering, Brigadier General, USMCR
=TOP SECRET=
[FIVE]
The Main Ballroom
The Hotel Portland
Portland, Oregon
1930 Hours 10 November 1942
Veronica Wood excused herself politely from the knot of local dignitaries gathered around her and walked across the crowded floor to First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR. She was wearing a silver lame cocktail dress and, he was convinced, absolutely nothing else.