W E B Griffin – Men at War 1 – The Last Heroes

“I’ll take care of it, if you’ll give me an address.”

She gave it to him and thanked him; then, without saying goodbye, she hung up.

They drove to the funeral home. The casket fit as Ellis said it would in Baker’s station wagon. Cynthia Chenowith got in beside Edward, and they drove off.

While the others went to take care of the body, Ellis drove Donovan and Douglass to their homes. Donovan owned a town house in Georgetown, and Douglass had a small apartment nearby.

Donovan, exhausted, fell into bed without even taking his ritual shower. But as he mashed the pillow beneath him, he remembered that he had told Barbara he would do what he could to get word t( Jimmy Whittaker that Chesty was dead.

The international operator told him that they weren’t accepting calls for the Philippines. And both Western Union and MacKay told him that while they would accept messages, they would not guarantee delivery. The military had priority, and all the circuits were tied up with official business.

He put the handset in the cradle and started to turn off the light. Then he thought of something he had to do right then.

He dialed a number from memory. A woman’s voice answered.

“This is Bill Donovan. Is he still up?” Donovan said.

“Yes, Bill?” the familiar voice came on the line a moment later.

“Mr. President, if you hadn’t ordered me to report on this, I wouldn’t bother you. We’ve sent Chesty Whittaker’s body to New Jersey,” Donovan said.

“I’ll telephone Barbara in the morning,” the President said. “Bu you’ll have to represent me at the funeral, Bill.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“And I’ll see you in the morning. Thank you for calling.”

“Good night, Mr. President.”

The President of the United States had a personal, kind thought when he hung up the telephone. Poor Chesty had never had any children. But he had looked upon Jimmy as his son, and Jimmy would have to be told. Communication with the Philippines was difficult.

He summoned one of his military aides. “If there’s a moment’s free time on the lines to the Philippines, I would like to ask General MacArthur to pass the word to Lieutenant James Whittaker that his uncle Chesty has passed away. I’m sure he’ll know where he is.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the aide said. “I’ll take care of it.”

An hour later a radio message went out from Washington:

PRI THE whrrf- HOUSE WASHINGTON 0005 HOURS 8 DEC 41

HEADQUARTERS US FORCES PI-IILIPPINFS PERSONAL FOR GENERAL MACA_RTHUR DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT STOP LOCATE A-ND RELAY 2D IT JAMES M. C. WHFFTAXER USARMY AIRCORPS CONDOLENCES OF PRESIDENT RE CIIESLEY HAYWOOD WHITTAKER DECEASED WASH DC OF STROKE 7

DEC 1941 STOP LEWIS MAJOR GEN USA Memphis, Tennessee 8:30 pm., December 7, 1941

Ann Chambers had been in the city room of the Memphis Daily Advocate when the bells had rung on the AP and the INS, and finally the UP teletype machines, announcing the arrival of a flash. She was covering the hospitals with the “good” funerals (as opposed to routine obituaries, the province of a feisty old lady). When the bells rang, she was working on a feature story about questionable business practices of certain funeral directors.

The instant he was told of the Pearl Harbor story, Orrin Fox, the editor of the Daily Advocate, decided to put on an extra. Since the Advocate was a morning paper, which normally went to bed at two in the morning, he had to move the deadline forward to six that night, which he thought would give him and his staff time both to get out the news the paper would normally print eight hours early and to assemble the facts about the Japanese attack from the wires.

Ann’s greedy funeral directors’ story went into a drawer as she and everybody else worked frantically to put together the paper. It was half past eight when Ann went home to the four-room suite she shared with Sarah in the Peabody Hotel.

Ann found Sarah sitting on the windowsill, looking in the general direction of the Mississippi River, tears running unashamedly down her cheeks. Her pregnancy was now obvious: she was in her sixth month.

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