"Yes, Sir."

Hon took a lined pad and a Planter's peanuts can full of pencils from the top of one of the filing cabinets and put them on the table. Then, without a word, he walked out of the room. The door closed and Moore heard the key turning in the lock. He was locked in.

He picked up a pencil and started to read the calligraphs. He became aware of a strange feeling of foreboding and decided it was because he didn't like being locked behind a steel door with no way that he could see to get out.

He read both documents quickly, to get a sense of them, and then again more carefully.

They were obviously Japanese Army radio messages. The first was from the 14th Army in the Philippines to Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters in Tokyo. It was signed HOMMA. The second message was a reply to the first. It was signed, IN THE NAME OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY.

He began to write his translation. It was hardly, he thought, a matter of world-shaking importance. It dealt with captured American weapons, ammunition, and food supplies. Not surprisingly, there was a comment to the effect that most weapons of all descriptions had been destroyed before the American surrender. Another stated that there was a large stock of captured ammunition, mostly for large caliber artillery, but that it was in bad shape, and that the possibility had to be considered that it had been... he had to search for the right, decorous, words in English, for what popped into his mind was "fucked up"-tampered with? rendered useless? sabotaged?-by the Americans.

There was another comment that captured American food supplies were scarce, in bad shape, and inadequate for the feeding of prisoners.

The reply from Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters was brief, and far more formal. It directed General Homma to... again he had to search for the right words-to inspect and rehabilitate? evaluate and repair? inspect and salvage?-the captured artillery ammunition as well as he could using- facilities? assets? capabilities?-available to him. It reminded General Homma that shipping, of course, had to be allocated on the priorities of war. And finally, somewhat insultingly, Moore thought, it reminded Homma of the-duty? obligations? price to be paid? sacrifices expected?-of soldiers under the Code of Bushido.

Finally, he was finished. He looked at what he had written and heard his mother's voice in his ear, "Johnny, I can't understand how you can do that calligraphy so beautifully, but hen scratch when you write something in English."

He hoped that Lieutenant Hon would have no trouble reading his handwriting and was considering copying what he had written more neatly, when he heard the key in the lock of the steel door. It creaked open-dungeon-like, Moore thought-and Hon came back into the room. Moore started to get up.

"Keep your seat, nobody can see us in here," Hon said, and then asked. "Finished?"

Moore handed him the sheets of lined paper.

Hon read them carefully, then opened one of the filing cabinets again and handed Moore two more sheets of paper with TOP SECRET stamped on them.

They were someone else's translations of the two messages. Moore read them, wondering how different they would be from the translation he had made. There were minor differences of interpretation, but nothing significant. Moore felt a sense of satisfaction; he had obviously done as well as whoever had made the other translation.

"OK. Now tell me what the messages mean," Hon said.

"Sir?"

"Tell me what they mean," Hon repeated.

Moore told him and could tell by the look on Lieutenant Hon's face that he was disappointed.

"Look beneath the surface, beneath the obvious," Hon said.

"Sir, I don't quite understand."

"Forget you're a sergeant, forget that you're an American. Think like a Japanese. Think like General Homma."

How the hell am I supposed to do that?

When there was no response after a moment, Hon said, "OK. Try this. What, if anything, did you notice that was unusual, in any way, in either message?"

Jesus Christ, what is this, Twenty Questions?

He went over the messages in his mind, then picked up the original messages in Japanese and read them again.

"Sir, I thought it was unusual... I mean, Homma is a general. Why the reminder about the Code of Bushido?"

"Good!" Hon said, and made a "keep going" gesture with his hands.

Off the top of his head, Moore said, "If I was General Homma, I'd be a little pissed-insulted that they had given me the lecture."

"Good! Good!" Hon said. "Why?"

"Because it was discourteous. Not maybe the way we would look at it, but to a Japanese..."

"OK. Accepting it as a given that the IJAGS..."

Hon pronounced this "Eye-Jag-Ess," saw confusion cloud Moore's eyes, and translated: "-the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff-did insult General Homma by discourteously reminding him about Bushido. He is a General officer who has to be presumed to know all about Bushido." Hon now switched to Japanese: "Why would they do this? In what context? Reply in Japanese."

Beats the shit out of me, Moore thought and dropped his eyes again to the calligraphs.

"The context is in..." he said.

"In Japanese," Hon interrupted him.

"... reference to a shortage of shipping," Moore finished, in Japanese.

"Is it?"

"Homma's message to-What did you say, 'Eye-Jag-Ess'?-said that the food he captured from us was inadequate to feed the prisoners," Moore said. He had in his sudden excitement switched back to English. Hon did not correct him.

"And?"

"IJAGS's reply was that there was a shortage of shipping, and then reminded Homma of the Code of Bushido."

"Right. And how, if you know, does the Code of Bushido regard warriors who surrender?"

"It's shameful," Moore said. "Disgraceful. A failure of duty. More than that, there's a religious connotation. Since the Emperor is God, it's a great sin."

"Meaning what, in this context?"

Moore thought that over, and horrified, blurted, "Jesus, meaning, 'fuck the prisoners, they're beneath contempt, let them starve'?"

"That's how I read it," Hon said. "You did notice that there was just a hint of sensitivity to Western concepts of how prisoners should be treated-the Geneva Convention, so to speak-the reference to the shortage of shipping, which IJAGS uses to rationalize not shipping food?"

"My God!"

"Why are you surprised?" Hon asked. "You grew up there."

Moore's mind was now racing.

"I still can't accept this," he said. "Jesus Christ, can't we complain to the International Red Cross or somebody? Maybe they'd arrange to let us send food."

"We cannot complain to anybody," Hon said.

"Why not?"

"We cannot complain to anybody," Hon repeated. "And stop that line of inquiry."

"We have their goddamn messages," Moore plunged on. "Why the hell not?"

Hon held up both hands, palms out, to shut Moore up.

"In about ten seconds, that will occur to you. And in ten seconds, Major Banning's warning to you will move from the realm of the hypothetical to cold, cruel reality."

Moore looked at him, confusion all over his face. And then, in five seconds, not ten, he understood.

"We've broken their code, haven't we? That was a coded message, and we intercepted it and decoded it, right?"

"Since I didn't hear the question, Sergeant Moore-If I had, I would have to inform Major Banning-I obviously can't answer it."

"Jesus!" Moore exhaled.

"Apropos of nothing whatever, the correct phraseology is 'encrypted' and 'decrypted,' " Hon said. "The root word is 'crypt,' variously defined as 'burial'; 'catacomb'; 'sepulcher'; 'tomb'; and 'vault.'"

"And they don't know we can do that, do they?" Moore asked, more rhetorically than anything else.

"I hope you're about to get your mouth under control, Sergeant Moore," Hon said, "because I feel my memory is returning."

Moore exhaled audibly.

"Jesus Christ!" he said.

"Yeah," Hon said. "OK, Sergeant, we will now proceed to Lesson Two in Pluto Hon's Berlitz in the Basement School of Languages. Just one more thing, apropos again of nothing whatever. There is a security classification called TOP SECRET-MAGIC. There are four people in this headquarters with access to TOP SECRET-MAGIC material: General MacArthur, his G-2, Colonel Charles A. Willoughby, Captain Fleming Pickering, and me. You will not, repeat, not have access to TOP SECRET-MAGIC. I mention it only because if anyone other than the people I just mentioned ever even mentions MAGIC to you, you will instantly tell me or Captain Pickering. Clear?"

What I just read is MAGIC. There's no question about that.

"Yes, Sir."

Hon met his eyes for a moment, and then nodded.

"Lesson Two deals with administrative procedures," Hon said. "If you look under the table, you will find a wastebasket. In the wastebasket is a paper bag. The bag is stamped TOP SECRET-BURN in large letters. It is intended for TOP SECRET material that is to be burned. TOP SECRET material includes this lined pad you have been writing on. Not just the pages you wrote on, but the whole pad, because your pencil made impressions on pages underneath the top one. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I'm about to give you a key to the dungeon and the combination to one of the file drawers. You will memorize the combination. When you come to work here-which will be at any hour something comes in-if I'm not here, you will find that material in your drawer. You will make your translation-one copy only-and when you leave, you will put that in your drawer with the original material and make sure it is locked. Then you will take your notes, if you made any, or if you have written on a pad, anything at all, put them in the burn bag, and, accompanied by one of the guards, take it to an incinerator and burn it. You'll find a supply of burn bags in your drawer. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You will not, repeat not, burn anything that I give you."

"Yes, Sir."

"You will not take anything from this room, except burn bag material in a burn bag, unless specifically directed to do so by either Captain Pickering or myself."

"Yes, Sir."

"The people around here have been told that you are a cryptographic clerk-typist. If anyone, anyone, ever asks you what you're really doing in here, you will tell me instantly. If I'm not available, find Captain Pickering and tell him."

"Yes, Sir."

"To my considerable surprise, when I went to scrounge a typewriter, I managed to get two. I carried one down here. When you are doing MAGIC... Shit!" Hon stopped abruptly, and then continued, "When you use the typewriter to do translations for me, you will use a ribbon reserved for that purpose and kept in your file drawer. When that wears out, you will dispose of it via the burn bag. But you will not leave the ribbon in the typewriter when you leave the room... even to take a leak. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

Lieutenant Hon handed him a large key.

"Wear this on your dog tag chain," he said. "And for Christ's sake, don't lose it."

"No, Sir."

"OK. Go get the typewriter outside, and the box of ribbons, and bring them in here. Then we'll show you the incinerator, and the procedure to burn things. And finally, we'll get the other typewriter, before the supply officer changes his mind, and lock it in the car."

The phone was ringing.

Moore left his-mostly failed-love letter and walked across the library to the telephone.

"Sergeant Moore, Sir."

"Major Banning, Sergeant. I understand you have the car out there?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Is there any reason you could not drive to the airport and pick up some people, and then run past the Menzies and pick me up?"

"No, Sir."

"There'll be two Marine officers waiting for you. A Colonel Goettge and a Major Dillon. Can you leave right now?"

"As soon as I hang up, Sir."

"I'll be waiting in front," Banning said and hung up.

Moore went back to the typewriter, pulled his letter to his beloved from it, read it with very little satisfaction, and started to tear it up. Then he changed his mind.

He laid the letter on the table, took a pen, and wrote, "Duty calls. I have to run. I love you more than life itself."

He addressed an envelope, wrote "free" where a stamp would normally be placed, stuffed the letter in it, and put it in his pocket. There was an Army Post Office Box at the airfield. He would mail the letter to Barbara first and then go pick up the officers.

As he drove the Studebaker to the airport, he thought that "I love you more than life itself was a pretty well-turned phrase and was sort of pleased that Major Banning's call had rescued him from more time at the typewriter.

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