W E B Griffin – Men at War 4 – The Fighting Agents

That could explain why MacArthur had pointedly reminded him that he was a lowly lieutenant colonel.

There was another possibility: If he had not promoted himself, and thus offended MacArthur’s sense of the military proprieties, it was possible (now that he thought of it, even likely) that he would have been promoted to colonel and named “military guerrilla chief of temporarily occupied enemy territory.”

The really worrisome paragraph was the one about forbidding him to issue scrip. He’d been issuing the scrip, signing each one-, five-, and ten-dollar bill himself; and the crude money had been accepted by the Filipinos; they had taken him at his word that, when the war was over and the Japanese had been driven from the Philippines, it would be redeemed at face value.

And since MacArthur obviously was not about to send him gold, the scrip he was “expressly forbidden repeat expressly forbidden” to issue was the only way he had to pay the troops and to buy whatever the natives were willing to sell.

That was even more important than his rank, or Colonel Peralta’s appointment as “military guerrilla chief.” Peralta was on the island of Panay. There was little or no chance that he would try to exercise command over Fertig. Peralta was no fool; he knew that Fertig would simply ignore him.

“Captain Buchanan,” Fertig said, “I presume that no one but you has seen the contents of this message?”

“No, Sir.”

“It is herewith classified Top Secret,” Fertig said, and put a match to it.

“No one else is to be made privy to its contents.”

“You may tell Lieutenant Ball and whomever else you wish,” Fertig said, “that the message dealt with our reinforcement in the future.”

“Yes, Sir,” Buchanan said.

“Sir, what do I call you?”

“That would seem, Captain Buchanan,” Fertig said, looking at him, “to be entirely up to you.”

There was a just-perceptible hesitation before Buchanan spoke. Then he said, “Will there be a reply, General Fertig?”

“No, no reply,” Fertig said.

“That will be all, Captain, thank you.”

“Permission to withdraw, General?”

“Granted,” Fertig said. Then, suddenly, “Yes, there will be a reply, Captain.”

Fifteen minutes later, MFS went on the air:

MPS FOR KAZ

PERSONAL FOR GENERAL MACARTHUR

REFERENCE PARA FIVE YOUR VALENTINES DAY MESSAGE STOP

URGENTLY REQUEST VIA FIRST AVAILABLE TRANSPORTATION

NECESSARY DRUGS TREAT VENEREAL DISEASE CONTRACTED BY KEY

PERSONNEL STOP FERTIG

[FOUR]

14 February 1943–St. Valentine’s Day

“I think the thing to do with Charity Hoche, Helene,” It. Colonel Stevens had said to Helene Dancy earlier that morning, “is for you to meet her at the airport, run her past the officer’s sales store, get her into uniform, and take her out to Whithey House. She is a young lady who attracts a great deal of attention, and to the extent we can, I think we ought to keep her out of sight.”

Colonel Stevens had then decided that it would be best to put Charity Hoche into the uniform of a WAC first lieutenant.

“We’ll think about actually getting her a commission,” Stevens had said.

“In the long run, that might be the thing to do. But for the short run, anyway, I think it makes more sense than putting her into a civilian specialist’s uniform.

That attracts attention.”

The first impression Capt. Helene B. Dancy had of Miss Charity Hoche was not particularly favorable.

Miss Hoche descended the stairway from the door of the ATE C-54, “the Washington Courier,” wearing the uniform of a War Department civilian, with the uniform cap perched perkily atop a mass of long golden hair. Neither Capt. Dancy nor Colonel Stevens had expected that Miss Charity Hoche would arrive in England in a civilian specialist’s uniform.

She also managed to display a good deal of shapely thigh and lace-hemmed black petticoat as she came daintily down the stairs. She wore the gabardine uniform topcoat over her shoulders.

Two officers (one of them, in Capt. Dancy’s opinion, old enough to know better) hovered solicitously around her. They were rewarded for their efforts with a radiant display of perfect white teeth between lips that Capt. Dancy thought had entirely too much lipstick of a too dazzling shade.

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