" 'The fuel there is'?" Charley quoted, interrupting him.

Big Steve waited until Charley hauled himself out of the cockpit before replying.

"Those converted tin cans that brung us here," he said, "carried 400 barrels of Avgas. That's not much. Some of it they already used to refuel the Catalinas that have been coming in."

"You're telling me we have less than 22,000 gallons of gas?"

"Maybe a little more. They're bringing in a little all the time, but when we start using it..." Oblensky gestured at the aircraft that had just flown in. "And I just heard that the Army is sending in a half dozen P-400s tomorrow."

"Jesus Christ," Charley said.

There was the sound of aircraft engines, a different pitch than a Dauntless or Wildcat made. Charley looked up at the sky and saw a Catalina making its approach.

We make fun of them, he thought. Aerial bus drivers. But it has to take more balls to fly that slow and ungainly sonofabitch in and out of here than it does to fly a Wildcat.

"And there's no fucking chow," Oblensky said, almost triumphantly. "We're eating captured Japanese shit."

"Well then, I guess we better hurry up and win the war," Charley said. "I wouldn't want you writing Flo that we officers are starving your fat ass."

(Two) U.S. NAVY HOSPITAL.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA.

0905 HOURS 24 AUGUST 1942.

The nurse bending over the chest of Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, was a full lieutenant who had been in the Navy for six years. She was competent, aware of this, and had a well-deserved reputation among her peers as being both hard nosed and unable to suffer fools.

She looked over her shoulder when she sensed movement behind her, and barked, "You'll have to leave. Who let you in here, anyhow? Visiting hours start at oh nine thirty."

Pickering laughed, and it hurt.

"Lieutenant," he said, "may I present the Secretary of the Navy?"

"Bullshit," the lieutenant said and chuckled, then looked, and said, "Oh, my God!"

"Please carry on," Frank Knox said. "How are you, Fleming?"

"I'm all right," Pickering said, and then, "Jesus Christ, take it easy, will you?"

"You want an infection? I'll stop."

"I thought they had some new kind of miracle drug- Sulfa?-you could just sprinkle on it," Pickering said, looking down at his chest.

"It's bullshit," she said.-"What I'm doing works."

"It should, it hurts like hell."

"Be a big boy, Captain, I'm just about finished."

"So, I suspect, am I. Finished, I mean," Pickering said, looking at Knox.

"No," Frank Knox said. "I checked with the hospital commander. Despite your grievous and extremely painful wounds, you'll live. You should be out of the hospital in two weeks."

"That's not what I meant," Pickering said.

"I know what you meant," Knox said.

"I'm not finished?"

"I bring the personal greetings of the President of the United States," Knox said. "That sound like you're finished?"

"It sounds suspicious."

"Take a look at this," Knox said, and walked to the bed and handed Pickering a sheet of paper.

URGENT.

CINCPAC 0915 22AUG1942.

SECRET.

PERSONAL FOR SEC NAVY.

INFORMATION: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS.

1. CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING, USNR, DEPARTED PEARL HARBOR VIA MARINER AIRCRAFT FOR.

SANDIEGO NAVAL HOSPITAL 0815 22AUG1942. THE PROGNOSIS FOR HIS RECOVERY FROM WOUNDS TO THE CHEST AND FRACTURED ARM IS QUOTE GOOD TO EXCELLENT END QUOTE.

2. IN VIEW OF CAPTAIN PICKERINGS UNIQUE ASSIGNMENT THERE IS SOME QUESTION OF THE AUTHORITY.

OF THE UNDERSIGNED TO DECORATE THIS OFFICER, AND THE MATTER IS THEREFORE REFERRED FOR DETERMINATION.

3. IF CAPTAIN PICKERING WERE SUBORDINATE TO CINCPAC, THE UNDERSIGNED WOULD AWARD HIM THE.

SILVER STAR MEDAL WITH THE FOLLOWING CITATION: CITATION: CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING, USNR, WHILE ABOARD THE USS GREGORY IN THE CORAL SEA ON 18 AUGUST 1942 WAS ON THE BRIDGE WHEN THE GREGORY WAS ATTACKED BY ENEMY BOMBER AIRCRAFT. WHEN THE CAPTAIN AND THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE GREGORY WERE KILLED IN THE ENEMY ATTACK, AND DESPITE HIS GRIEVOUS AND EXTREMELY PAINFUL WOUNDS, INCLUDING A COMPOUND FRACTURE OF HIS ARM CAPTAIN PICKERING ASSUMED COMMAND OF THE VESSEL. REFUSING MEDICAL ATTENTION UNTIL HE COLLAPSED FROM LOSS OF BLOOD, CAPTAIN PICKERING MANEUVERED THE SHIP DURING THE CONTINUING ATTACK WITH CONSUMMATE MASTERY, WHICH NOT ONLY SAVED THE SHIP FROM FURTHER ENEMY DAMAGE BUT RESULTED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENEMY AIRCRAFT, A FOUR-ENGINED JAPANESE HEAVY BOMBER. HIS CALM COURAGE, ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY INSPIRED HIS CREW AND REFLECTED GREAT CREDIT UPON THE OFFICER CORPS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE. ENTERED THE FEDERAL SERVICE FROM CALIFORNIA.

NIMITZ, ADMIRAL, USN, CINCPAC.

Pickering handed the message back to Knox.

"Before you start handing out any medals, you better look at this," Pickering said. It was handed to me a few minutes ago, just before Florence Nightingale came in here."

"Will you hold still, please?" the nurse snapped.

Pickering handed Knox the radio message Lieutenant Pluto Hon had sent to MAGIC headquarters in Pearl Harbor.

Knox glanced at it and handed it back.

"I've seen it," Knox said. "How do you think they knew where to deliver it?"

"You don't know what it means," Pickering said.

"I've got a damned good idea," Knox said. "I also have this."

He handed Pickering another radio message.

URGENT.

SECRET.

HQ FIRST MARDIV 0845 20AUGUST 1942.

SECNAV WASHINGTON DC.

PLEASE PASS URGENTLY TO CAPTAIN FLEMING PICKERING USNR SERGEANT J M MOORE USMCR HAS BEEN.

AIRLIFTED ON MY AUTHORITY TO USNAVAL HOSPITAL PEARL HARBOR FOR TREATMENT OF WOUNDS.

SUFFERED IN COMBAT 19 AUGUST 1942. THE RABBIT DID NOT GET OUT OF THE HAT. BEST PERSONAL.

REGARDS SIGNED VANDERGRIFT MAJGEN USMC.

BY DIRECTION: HARRIS BRIGGEN USMC.

"I wonder what he means about the rabbit in the hat," Knox said. "That sounds like MAGIC."

"It never entered my mind that boy would be sent to Guadalcanal," Pickering said. "How the hell did that happen?"

"No one knew any reason he should not have been sent. Not even me."

"I thought it was necessary that Hon have some help."

"So did I. That's why I sent your secretary over there."

"I didn't know she was coming," Pickering said.

"I told myself that," Knox said.

"I think you should know that I would do the same thing again, under the same circumstances."

"Except that next time, you might bring me in on it?"

"Yes. I am sorry about that. If it had been compromised, it would have been my fault."

"Who else knows?"

"Just Vandergrift."

"OK," Knox said.

The nurse finished cleaning the wounds on Pickering's chest.

"I'm going to send a nurse in to give you a sponge bath," she said. "And this time, you will not run her off."

"Yes, Ma'am," Pickering said.

"You're on the way to recovery. Don't screw it up by getting yourself infected," the nurse said.

"No, Ma'am," Pickering said, and then to Knox: "I don't suppose you know how badly Moore was hurt?"

"He's well enough to be flown home; I ordered that."

"That kid should be an officer," Pickering said.

"Why don't you make up a list of things you think the Secretary of the Navy should do?" Knox said, and then called after the nurse, "Lieutenant, there's a Captain Haughton and a lady out there. Would you send them in, please?"

"Yes, Sir."

Captain David Haughton held the door open for Patricia Pickering to enter her husband's hospital room.

She looked at him. Tears welled in her eyes.

"You goddamned old fool, you!" she said, and walked to the bed and kissed him.

"Haughton," the Secretary of the Navy ordered. "Give him the medal. I think we can dispense with the reading of the citation."

(Three) BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS.

1105 HOURS 24 AUGUST 1942.

"Here you go, Steve," First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard, USMCR, said to Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, handing him a limp, humidity-soaked piece of paper. He had had to be very careful as he encrypted the message so that his pencil would not tear through the paper.

Koffler smiled at him and laid the paper on the crude table. Koffler, Howard thought, looked like hell. There were signs of malnutrition and fatigue. There was a good chance that Koffler had malaria. There was no question that he had a tape worm, and probably a half dozen other intestinal parasites. Koffler thought much the same thing about Joe Howard, who was down to probably one hundred thirty pounds, and whose eyes were deeply sunken and unnaturally bright.

But, like Howard, he kept his thoughts to himself. Talking about it wasn't going to fix anything.

"Hey!" Koffler called. Ian Bruce was sitting on the generator. He smiled, exposing his black, filed to a point-teeth, and began to pump slowly but forcefully.

There was a whine; and after a moment, the dials on Koffler's radio began to glow a dull yellow. The yellow turned almost white, and the needles came off their pegs.

Koffler put earphones on his head and arranged his own pad of paper on the table. He had attempted to dry out his paper on a heated rock. The result was that the paper had shrunk and twisted.

Koffler reached for the key.

The dots and dashes went out, repeated three times, spelling out simply, FRD6. FRD6. FRD6.

Detachment A of Special Marine Corps Detachment 14 is attempting to establish contact with any station on this communications network.