"Then leave the goddamned booze alone!"
"I have this terrible tendency to lubricate myself when I find myself writing letters that go, 'Dear Mrs. Keller, I very much regret having to inform you that information has come to me indicating that your husband has been captured and executed by the Japanese...' "
Pickering put the telephone back in its cradle, but did not take his hand off it, nor take his eyes off Feldt.
Feldt avoided Pickering's eyes and looked at Wing Commander Foster.
"When they catch one of our lads, Wing Commander, what the Nips do-after interrogation, of course-is put him down ceremonially. First, they make him dig his own grave; and then they behead him, after making sure their chap with the sword is of equal or superior grade. After that, they pray over the grave. Did you know that?"
"No," Foster said quietly, "I did not."
Feldt looked at Pickering.
"Letting the side down, in my cups, I look for someone, a friend, against whom I can vent my 'caustic bullshit.' Ed Banning usually gets it. I don't know how or why he puts up with it. And I certainly can understand why you won't, Pickering. But for the record, I am fully aware that Buka would not be up and running if it weren't for your two lads. They have balls at least as big as any of my lads, and the one thing I was not suggesting was that they don't."
Pickering looked into his eyes for a moment, then took his hand from the telephone and straightened up.
"Let's talk about Buka," he said.
"I gather you accept my apology?"
"Oh, was that an apology?" Pickering asked lightly.
"As close as I know how to come to one."
"In that case, yes," Pickering said.
"Let's talk about Buka," Feldt said.
"We can't afford to lose it," Pickering said. "Worse possible case, we can't afford to lose it in the last few days before and the first few days following the invasion of Guadalcanal. Every plane the Japanese launch from Rabaul to attack the invasion force will pass over Buka. If we know the type of aircraft, how many, and when they're coming, we can have our fighters in the air to repel them. If we don't have that intelligence from Buka, a lot of people are going to be killed, and ships we can't afford to lose will be sunk."
"So?"
"I want to reinforce it," Pickering said. "I've discussed this with Admiral Boyer and he agrees. Wing Commander Foster has been directed to provide aircraft to drop another team, or teams, in."
"Sod Admiral Boyer," Feldt said. "No."
"You have reasons?" Pickering asked. Banning saw his face pale again.
"If there is anybody in Australia or New Zealand who knows his way around Buka, I haven't been able to find him," Feldt said. "And Christ knows, it's not for want of trying."
"What's your point?"
"There is only one spot on Buka where we could parachute a team in with any chance of them surviving the landing. We already used it to put your lads in there. The Nips know we used it. They are now watching it. So we can't use that again. The sodding island is covered with dense jungle, except where the Nips are. You jump a team in there, what you're going to have is three skeletons in trees. And even if by some miracle that didn't happen, and they got to the ground in one piece, they still wouldn't know the island, would they? They'd never be able to get from where they were dropped to where they could do any good. Either the jungle would get them, or the natives-you understand that the natives are still reliably reported to be cannibals?-or the sodding Nips, of course."
Pickering nodded, and then said softly, "It might become necessary to send in one team after another until one made it."
"You are a cold-blooded bastard, aren't you, Pickering?" Feldt asked softly.
"A lot of lives are at stake," Pickering replied. "We simply can't afford to lose that early intelligence."
"Are you looking for advice? Or did you come here to tell me when we are going to start dropping parachutists?"
"Advice."
"OK. Form your teams. Banning's already done that, anyway. Lay on an airplane, have it ready around the clock. For that matter, if you have the clout, lay on a submarine, or maybe a FT boat, in case we decide the best thing is to put them ashore and not parachute them in. If Buka goes down, then we start sending people. Not before. This isn't the Imperial sodding Japanese Navy; our lads don't want to die for their emperor, and I will be damned if I'll ask them to."
Pickering pursed his lips for just a moment. "OK," he said. "We'll do it your way. And pray that Buka doesn't go down."
Feldt nodded.
"Since you've been so sodding agreeable, I'm going to offer you some of my bubbly. You understand I wouldn't do that for just anybody, Pickering."
(Three)
COMPANY GRADE BACHELOR'S OFFICER'S QUARTERS #2
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, SOUTH WEST PACIFIC AREA
(FORMERLY, COMMERCE HOTEL) BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
0430 HOURS 22 JULY 1942
As often happened when the telephone rang in the middle of the night, and he made a grab for it, Lieutenant Pluto Hon, BS, MS, PhD (summa cum laude, Mathematics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, knocked the unstable fucking museum piece off the bedside table and had to retrieve it from under the bed before he could answer it. The unstable fucking museum piece held its cone-shaped mouthpiece atop a ten-inch Corinthian column, and the ear piece hung from a life boat davit on the side.
"Lieutenant Hon, Sir."
"What the hell was that noise?" Captain Fleming Pickering asked.
"I knocked the phone over, Sir."
"Pluto, I'm really sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour, but something has come up, and I really want to have a word with you before I go."
"No problem, Sir. Where?"
"Here. On the way to the airport. Is that going to be a problem?"
"No, Sir. I'll catch a ride out there as soon as I can."
"No. I called Moore and told him to pick you up on his way out here. He should be at the hotel in ten, fifteen minutes."
"I'll be waiting for him, Sir."
"Thank you, Pluto. I am really sorry to have to do this to you. But I think it's important."
"No problem, Sir."