Just before he disappeared back into the jungle, General Fertig took a last look at the carnage on the highway.
The Japanese, if for no other reason than to save face, would rush reinforcements up here. Patrols would be sent into the jungle.
There would be an opportunity for other ambushes, perhaps not as overwhelmingly successful as this one, but successful enough to kill many Japanese, to force the Japanese to expend fuel and manpower on one patrol after another–and to lose face.
There was a caveat. To conduct other ambushes, he would need ammunition.
He had come out of the ambush with only marginally greater stocks of ammunition than he had going in, and that was for the Japanese Arisaka rifles, not the Enfields and the BARs.
He turned and entered the jungle. He would now go back into hiding.
How the hell can I wage a war if they won’t supply me with what I need?
Supply me with what I need? The sonsofbitches won’t even talk to me!
[TWO]
The House on Q Street, Northwest
Chief Ellis found Captain James M. B. Whittaker in the billiards room in the basement. There were two tables in the darkly paneled room: a standard English billiards table, and a somewhat smaller pocket billiards table. Whittaker was alone at the smaller table.
“Anchors aweigh, Chief,” Whittaker said, looking up from the table when he saw Ellis. He had carefully arranged balls at the lip of each of the pockets on the table. What he was trying to do was sink as many of them as he could with one shot.
Ellis waited until he had made the shot–sinking four of the six balls–before replying.
“I hear you’ve been a bad boy again, Captain Whittaker,” Ellis said.
“Was Baker waiting for you when you got back?” Whittaker asked, and then, before Ellis could reply, he asked, “Who’s your friend?”
Ellis had with him a Navy white hat, a small man made to look even smaller by his waist-length Navy blue peacoat. He wore round-framed GI glasses. He looked, Whittaker thought, like a Sea Scout.
“Radioman Second Joe Garvey, say hello to Captain Jim Whittaker,” Ellis said.
The sailor snatched off his white hat and came to attention.
“How do you do. Sir?” he asked.
“Poorly, now that you ask,” Whittaker said, smiling at him.
“Didn’t your mother warn you to avoid evil companions when you joined the Navy?”
Then he saw that his joke had fallen flat and that the young sailor was uncomfortable, not amused. Whittaker came quickly around the pool table and, smiling, offered his hand.
“Hello, Garvey,” he said.
“If you’re with Chief Ellis, you must be somebody special. I’m happy to meet you.”
Garvey shook his hand and smiled uneasily.
“You ever know somebody named Fertig?” Ellis asked.
Whittaker thought it over.
“There is a faint tinkle of the bell of memory,” he said.
“In the Philippines?”
“I put that together,” Whittaker said, “but that’s as far as it goes. Is there some reason I should know him?”
“He’s still in the Philippines,” Ellis said.
“Poor sonofabitch,” Whittaker said.
“Garvey’s been talking to him on the radio,” Ellis said.
Whittaker’s face fit up with curiosity.
“He’s in the mountains of Mindanao,” Ellis said.
“He says there’s an army sergeant named Withers with him.”
“I knew a guy named Withers over there,” Whittaker said.
“You want to find out if it’s the same one?” Ellis said.
“I don’t think this is just idle curiosity on your part,” Whittaker said.
Ellis shrugged.
“How could we do that?” Whittaker asked.
“You got time to take a ride over to the Navy commo facility in Virginia?”
Ellis asked.
“You’re starting to act like Captain Douglass,” Whittaker said.
“You answer questions with another question.”
“Well, I don’t ‘manifest a belligerent and uncooperative attitude,”” Ellis said.
“Is that what that sonofabitch said?” Whittaker asked.
“There was more,” Ellis said.
“There was something about ‘subjecting a trainee to a humiliating public display of affection.” Two pages, single spaced.”
“Has the Colonel seen it?” Whittaker asked.
“Not yet,” Ellis said.
“I intercepted it. I can lose it, but Baker’s going to expect some kind of a reply, so you better start thinking about that. And about the fact that the Colonel thinks you’re in Virginia running around in the woods.”