“Would you like a little taste, Buchanan?” Fertig asked as Buchanan came up the bamboo stairs of the General’s quarters, shaking the whole building.
“Don’t mind if I do, Sir,” Buchanan said, and helped himself to a glass of the mixture. He poured it from a pottery mug in the shape of a cow’s head. This was originally intended for milk, and was also salvaged from the pineapple plantation manager’s cottage.
Fertig read the two messages, which were both on the same sheet of paper:
PRIORITY FROM KAZ FOR WYZB
ATTENTION LT COL FERTIG
YOUR RADIO MESSAGE OF 15 FEBRUARY 1943 FOR SEC WAR
WASHINGTON HAS COME TO THE ATTENTION OP THIS HEADQUARTERS.
ALL REPEAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS FROM YOUR DETACHMENT OF
WHATEVER NATURE WILL BE DIRECTED TO THIS HEADQUARTERS. NO
DEVIATION FROM THIS POLICY WILL BE TOLERATED.
BY COMMAND OF GENERAL MACARTHUR. WILLOOGHBY BRIO GEN
FROM JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF WASH DC
VIA KSF FOR WYZB HQ US FORCES IN PHILIPPINES
ATTENTION BRIGADIER GENERAL FERTIG
KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON
JR. ELLIS CHIEF USN
“I rather expected the first one,” Fertig said. Then he read the second message “I rather like the sound of the second,” Pertig said, “even if I haven’t the faintest idea what it means” “I’d say it’s the reason General Willoughby sounds just a little pissed,” Capt.
Buchanan said.
“The one from Washington–from the Joint Chiefs–is addressed to “General Fertig,” you’ll notice ” “You think Willoughby knows about it?” Fertig asked “He knew about our message to the Secretary of War,” Buchanan said.
“Sure, I think he heard about it. He’s probably got the whole message.”
“What do you mean by that?” Fertig asked curiously “The signature on the message is incomplete,” Buchanan said.
“There had to be more to it than “Chief USN.” Chief of something. What?”
“I thought it meant ‘chief petty officer,”” Fertig said “Chief petty officers don’t sign messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Buchanan said “Admirals and generals do that.”
He remembered–and then was a little ashamed of the memory–that
General Fertig, who had been a civilian eighteen months ago, knew damned little about the military services.
“Then what the hell does it mean?” Fertig asked. “”Keep your shirt on’ doesn’t sound at all military, does it?”
Buchanan filled his glass again before replying.
“I thought about that, General,” he said.
“It may be… maybe even probably is… a reply to your message to the Secretary of War. And it just might mean exactly what it says.”
“That we should be patient, that they are sending help?”
“I wonder at what point you want something so desperately that you lose sight of reality and imagine you see what you’re looking for behind every bush,” Buchanan said.
“But?”
“The message is from the Joint Chiefs,” Buchanan said.
“And we have a ‘we are pissed’ message from MacArthur. Which just might mean MacArthur has been asked to explain why no help has been sent to us. Or even that he has been ordered to get off his ass and send some.”
“Yes,” Fertig said softly, thoughtfully.
“Could be.”
“And if I wanted to get a message to somebody who doesn’t have any cryptographic equipment worth a damn,” Buchanan went on, “it would run through my mind to send a message in slang, in the clear, and hope that the Japs wouldn’t understand the slang, and would try to decode the slang.”
“We have heard from MacArthur about the Secretary of War message,” Fertig said, “and there was no reply to our message about VD medicine.”
“That might be because it would be beneath the generalissimo’s dignity to acknowledge. Nobody talks to MacArthur that way.”
“You really think there was more to that message than what we got-specifically, a rank and a job title?” Fertig asked.
“I think there just had to be.”
“If there was a message, it seems common decency would have required MacArthur, or Willoughby, to relay it to us. To make sure we got it.”
Buchanan shrugged.
“”Common decency,”” he parroted bitterly.
“The last time I saw the Generalissimo,” Fertig said, “was in the Manila Club. There was a buffet. MacArthur, of course, and his queen and the crown prince didn’t stand in the line. But I went through it with my wife. And as we walked to our table, we had to squeeze around their table. He was in a planter’s white suit. I had a large bowl of shrimp bisque. I will regret for the rest of my life not having had an accident with it.”