"See that Hart reads it," Pickering said. "How complete is it?"
"Enough to give him the picture, General," McCoy said.
"OK. So we'll start with you, McCoy. If you were God, more to the point, if you were a general officer, how would you go about getting those people out... while at the same time keeping Ferdinand Six up?"
"General," McCoy said, uncomfortably, "if Major Banning can't do that, I don't know-"
"I'll rephrase the question. If you were Major Banning, what would you do if you were ordered to get Howard and Koffler off Buka?"
"It wouldn't be easy," McCoy said. "Even if keeping the radio station in operation wasn't a consideration."
"You'll notice, Rickabee," Pickering said, "that he didn't say `impossible."'
"Maybe I should have," McCoy said.
"OK. Explain that," Pickering said. "But don't quote Banning to me.
"Tell me why you think it would be `not easy' to `impossible."
"Yes, Sir," McCoy said in a reflex reply. "Well, my first thought was that getting them out by air would be impossible.
There's no airfield. So that left getting them out by water. We cannot send surface ships, even native boats, because the waters are heavily patrolled. That leaves submarines-" Pickering interrupted him. "What's wrong with submarines?"
"Several things," McCoy said. "First of all, I doubt if we could get one."
"Let's say we can get one," Pickering said, "and take it from there. "
"We probably could not get one to-" Rickabee said, and was interrupted by Pickering.
"Two things, Rickabee. One, McCoy has the floor, and, two I told him to go ahead on the presumption that he can get et submarine."
"-make an extraction, Sir," Rickabee went on, ignoring him. "But, since Ferdinand Six is of great value to the Navy, they probably would give us one to insert a Coastwatcher team."
"You have a point," Pickering said, not at all graciously.
"Go on, McCoy."
"A submarine could be used to land a replacement team and to take out the team that's there," McCoy said. "At least that was my first thought."
"Psychologically speaking, I think it would be a good idea," Pickering announced, "to refer to the Marines on Buka by their names. Their names are Lieutenant Joe Howard and Sergeant Steve Koffler. We're not talking about a navigation buoy we left floating around an atoll someplace."
"Yes, Sir," McCoy said.
"You were about to tell us what's wrong with a submarine," Pickering said.
"One, it would have to surface offshore someplace, obviously. That means it would have to do so at night, to lower the chances that Japanese ships, aircraft, or Japanese coastwatchers would see it."
" `Japanese coastwatchers'?" Pickering parroted.
"The Makin raid has taught the Japanese some lessons. For one, they're now afraid there'll be other raids. They are watching all their beaches."
"They don't have the manpower to watch all their coastline," Pickering argued.
"They probably have enough to watch the beaches where you could put rubber boats ashore. And rubber boats is something else."
"Explain that," Pickering ordered.
"We had trouble getting onto the beach at Makin," McCoy said. "And we damned near didn't get off. You want me to talk about putting a replacement team in by submarine?"
"Please."
"We could probably find enough people in the 2nd Raider Battalion to handle the rubber boats-"
"Why couldn't the replacement team paddle their own boats?" Rickabee asked.
"Because it's hell of lot harder than it looks, a hell of a lot harder than Colonel Carlson and Captain Roosevelt, or me, thought it would be," McCoy said simply. "It requires both skill and a lot of muscle. I just said we damned near didn't get off the beach. Seven of us didn't."
George Hart stared for a time at Lieutenant McCoy, for he und it hard to really accept it that the man now sitting across the room from him in an immaculate uniform, not even wearing any ribbons, holding a cup of coffee, the man who had entertained him and Beth the night before with stories of the trouble he'd had getting Pick Pickering through Officer Candidate School, had been one of the Marine Raiders who struck Makin Island.
"Ken," Captain Sessions asked, speaking for the first time, "you're saying you don't think we could train our people to handle rubber boats?"
"No, I don't think so. And even if we could, what about the-Lieutenant Whatsisname and the sergeant?"
"Howard and Koffler," Pickering furnished evenly.
"Yes, Sir. Howard and Koffler. They would have to be rowed back through the surf to the submarine. They sure couldn't do it themselves. The replacement team would be exhausted from rowing to shore. It's a lot harder, that sort of crap, than anyone understands until they've tried it."
"OK," Pickering said.
"Let me kill the idea, please, Sir," McCoy said. "The replacement team would be taking a radio, radios, in with them."
"Two radios," Rickabee said. "A replacement and a spare."
"Each weighing about a hundred pounds?"
"That's right."
"Then, Sir, based on our experience at Makin, you would have to send in four radios, to make sure two made it to the beach. And we didn't try to off-load anything that heavy from the submarines into the rubber boats. The heaviest thing we carried ashore was a Browning.50. And that was a bitch. We lost two I know about. Maybe, probably, more."
"You sound as negative about this as Banning, McCoy," Pickering said.
Although his tone was conversational, it was clear that General Pickering was both angry and disappointed.
"But just for the hell of it," McCoy went on, "let's suppose we could somehow get around the rubber boat problem. How would we get word to"-he searched his memory and came up with the names-"Koffler and Howard to meet up with the submarine?"
"We are in radio contact," Pickering said.