Chapter Nine.

(One)

THE ELMS.

DANDENONG, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.

1845 HOURS 28 JUNE 1942.

Major Ed Banning and Lieutenant Pluto Hon were on the wide veranda of The Elms when Pickering drove up. It was a pleasant place to watch darkness fall.

They both stood up as soon as the Jaguar drophead stopped. Banning set his drink on the wide top of the railing, and Hon stooped and set his on the floor.

"Good evening, Sir," they said, almost in unison.

Charley Cavendish, in a striped butler's apron, came from inside the house.

"I'd have been happy to go to town for you, Sir," Charley said.

"I know. Thank you, Charley. It was no trouble. I hope you have been taking care of these gentlemen? Lemonade, tea, that sort of thing?"

"Of course, Sir."

"Major Banning," Pickering said dryly, "the Marine Corps, in its infinite wisdom, has seen fit to increase your troop strength with a Sergeant John M. Moore. I just put him in a hotel. Here's his paperwork."

"How did you wind up with Sergeant Whatsisname, Captain?" Major Banning asked, as he took the service record envelope from Pickering.

"Moore is his name," Pickering said. "I wound up with him, Major, because you have failed in your obligation to keep Melbourne NATS up to date on your telephone numbers. I know this because a Lieutenant Commander named Lentz called up here and chewed me out about it."

"What?" Banning asked incredulously.

"At the time, he thought I was a Marine and one of your subordinate officers," Pickering said.

"And you didn't tell him?"

"Not at first," Pickering said, "but I think I ruined his supper when I dropped 'we Naval officers' into the conversation later on."

"Captain, I could have gone down there and picked him up," Pluto Hon said. "You should have called me."

"Then I wouldn't have had a chance to rub all my gold braid in the Commander's face," Pickering said. "Besides, it was no trouble."

"Well, I'm sorry that this guy bothered you, Captain," Banning said.

"He didn't really bother me. And I was interested to learn how much trouble he had finding Special Detachment 14. That's the way it's supposed to be."

Banning had meanwhile torn open the envelope and was scanning through Moore's service record with a practiced eye.

"Well, he's not a radio technician," he said, and then a moment later, "nor even an operator. And they didn't send him to parachute school. According to this, he just got out of boot camp. How come he's a sergeant?"

"He said they took him out of the officer candidate program to send' him here. And made him a sergeant instead," Pickering said.

He held the service record envelope upside down and shook it. A business size envelope fell out. On it was written, "Major Ed Banning, USMC Special Detachment 14, Personal."

"And what have we here?" Banning said and tore it open.

Washington, 16 June 1942 Major Ed Banning Dear Ed: You have no idea how much trouble it was to find the young man probably now standing in front of you. He knows nothing about radios, I'm afraid, or about parachuting, or for that matter, about the Marine Corps, since I plucked him out of Parris Island before he finished boot camp.

But he speaks fluent Japanese, and I thought you could find some use for him. The FBI had quite a dossier on him (and his family) who were Methodist missionaries in Japan before the war, and he comes to you with a permanent TOP SECRET clearance.

If you can't use him, I'm sure the First Division, which should be in New Zealand by now, could. But you have the priority, so here he is. I'm working on radio people, parachute qualified, for you, but they're in nearly as short supply.

I wish I was there, instead of here. I don' t suppose you could arrange something for me, could you?

Best Regards. Semper Fi!

Edward Sessions, Captain, USMC Banning handed the letter to Pickering, who read it and handed it to Pluto Hon.

"I guess we'd better send him to the 1st Division," Banning said. "Before I came here, I thought that I would need a Japanese linguist, linguists, which is why Ed Sessions went to all this trouble to get this guy for me. But it hasn't turned out that way. A couple of Feldt's people and I can handle what translations we get into. It would be nice to have another linguist, particularly an American, but the First Marine Division really needs him more than I do. What I really need is radio operators, technicians."

"If you don't want him, Major, can I have him?" Pluto Hon asked.

"What do you want him for?" Pickering asked.

"Analysis," Hon said.

"You're talking about MAGIC?" Pickering asked.

Hon nodded. "Analysis needs someone who understands the Japanese mind, their culture."

"Christ, we can't get him cleared for that," Pickering replied.

"He doesn't have to know what it is, where it came from," Hon argued. "All he has to do is compare the intercepts with the translations we get from Pearl, and tell me if that's the translation he would have made."

"I'll have to think about that," Pickering said. "For one thing, we don't know if he speaks Japanese well enough to be of any use to you."

"Let me talk to him a couple of minutes, and I'd know," Hon said.

Pickering looked at Hon a moment, and realized that Hon really wanted Sergeant Moore.

"Well, that's easy enough to arrange. I put him in the Prince of Wales Hotel. We'll call him up and let you talk to him. But first things first. I need a drink. Unless what you've got that's 'interesting,' Ed, won't wait?"

"It'll wait long enough for a drink, Sir. I left it in the library."

"Well, let's go into the library and have a look," Pickering said. "It'll give us an excuse to get close to the liquor, anyway."

They picked up their empty glasses and followed him into the house.

"I'm going to take my coat off," Pickering said, as he did so. "Why don't you two relax, too?"

Then he went to the liquor and made drinks.

When he turned from the table, he saw that Pluto Hon was standing by the telephone.

"I found the number, Sir. Would you like me to dial it for you?"

Pickering nodded, and signaled for Hon to dial the telephone. Then he walked to him and took it from him.

"Sergeant Moore, please. I think he's in 408," he said, and then a moment later: "This is Captain Pickering, Sergeant. They taking care of you all right?" And then: "There's someone here who wants to talk to you." He handed the phone to Hon.

In Japanese, Pluto Hon said, "Welcome to Australia, Sergeant. I suppose that you're pretty beat after that long flight. How long did it take you to get from the States?"

Banning walked quickly to the telephone and put his head close to Pluto's so that he could hear Moore.

"Yes, Sir, I'm pretty..."

"In Japanese," Hon interrupted him, in Japanese. "If you will, please, Sergeant."

"Yes, Sir," Moore said, in Japanese. "I'm pretty tired, it was a long flight. And in Hawaii, I got off one plane and thirty minutes later got on another one."

"Where did you live in Japan?" Pluto Hon asked.

"In Denenchofu, Sir. Tokyo."

"And how long were you in Japan?"

"On and off", all my life, Sir."

"You went to school there? I mean Japanese schools?"

"Yes, Sir."

"The University?"

"Yes, Sir. And elementary and middle schools, too. Sir, who am I talking to?"

"My name is Hon, Sergeant. Your commanding officer is here and wants to talk to you."

He handed the phone to Banning, who didn't expect it.

"Sergeant, I'm sorry there was no one at NATS to meet you," Banning began, in English, and then switched to Japanese. "I'll be down to fetch you in the morning. Get yourself some dinner and a good night's sleep."

"Yes, Sir."

"Welcome to Australia, Sergeant," Banning said. "Good night." He hung the phone up, and turned to Pluto. "I didn't want to talk to him."

"I wanted you to be able to tell the Captain how well that kid speaks Japanese," Hon said, unabashed.

"Does he? Speak it well, I mean?" Pickering asked.

"He didn't learn that pronunciation in Japanese 202 at Princeton," Hon said. "He's been in Japan on and off all his life. He went to school there. Japanese schools, I mean. Including the University. I'd really like to have him, Captain."

"He went to Pennsylvania, too, he told me," Pickering said, "so he probably didn't graduate from University in Tokyo. So what? But I'm more than a little uneasy about giving him access to the MAGIC intercepts, even if he doesn't know what they are."

"I could have a fatherly little chat with him, Captain," Banning said. "And tell him that if it ever comes to my attention that he has discussed in any way what Hon gives him to do, or what he's learned, or thinks he's learned, with anyone but Pluto, you, or myself, I will see that he spends the next twenty years in solitary confinement at the Portsmouth Naval Prison."

"On the way to the hotel, he wouldn't even discuss Special Detachment 14 with me," Pickering said. "I don't think he would have a loose mouth. OK, Pluto. You can have him. But you have that talk with him, Ed, anyway. And don't say Portsmouth. Tell him we'll have him shot."

Banning looked quickly at Pickering and saw that he was serious.

"Aye, aye, Sir," Banning said.

Then Pickering changed the subject. "Let's see what you have, Ed, that's so interesting."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Banning repeated.

He pulled a leather briefcase from under the couch and took a large manila envelope from it.

"Would you like me to keep my eyes to myself, Captain?" Pluto Hon asked.

"Oh, no, Pluto," Pickering said. "You only thought I asked you here just for dinner."

Banning chuckled, and spread a dozen ten-inch-square aerial photos out on a library table.

Three of the photos showed a dense cloud of smoke from a grass fire rising from a field, and then, in photographs apparently taken a day or two later, the same field. There were tracks from a truck or some other vehicle crisscrossing the now blackened grassy area.

"What am I looking at?" Pickering asked.

"That's a field on an island called Guadalcanal," Banning said. "It's one of the larger islands in the Solomons chain.... Here, I have a map, too."

He took a map from his briefcase, spread it on the table, and pointed out the position of Guadalcanal in relation to New Britain and New Ireland islands, and to the islands nearer to it, New Georgia, Santa Isabel, Malaita, Tulagi, and San Cristobal.

"That field is near Lunga Point, on the north shore of Guadalcanal," Banning said, "between the Matanikau and Tenaru Rivers."

"I heard the Air Corps had taken some aerials of that area," Pickering said. "Is that what these are?"

"No, Sir. These came from the Australians. Feldt passed them to me."

"And does Feldt also think the Japanese are about to build a fighter strip there?"

"Feldt thinks-he's familiar with Guadalcanal-that when the Japanese build a field there, it will be able to handle any aircraft in the Jap inventory."

"Jesus," Pickering said softly. "If they get a fighter field going there, they can cover that whole area. And we don't have anything to stop them, and won't until we get that field on Espiritu Santo built... and God only knows how long that will take. Can I have these?"

"Yes, Sir, of course. We have Coastwatchers on Guadalcanal, but not in that area. We've radioed them to see what they can find out. But it will take them a couple of days to move over there."