Once an Eagle (105 page)

Bryson was up now, doing his stuff, maundering on about ammunition and rations estimates, and the 600 tons to be landed the first day, and the absolute necessity for 30 days' supply; his furrowed brow shiny with sweat, his chin vanishing into his collar. What the hell did he think—that everybody was going to be sitting on the beach in a tight little circle, cheering him on as he unloaded? God, it was stupid, sending corps staffs out here, all wrapped up like Christmas goodies: stupid and insulting. Here they sat in this bloody palace—Frenchy had nicknamed it the Petty Trianon and the sobriquet had stuck—loaded down with all the rank they could carry, overweight and overpaid, eager to be in on The Big Moment. Meanwhile the hours slipped away, awash in papers and walla-walla. Ours but to ossify.

He'd stepped out of line really, writing Tommy that way. He'd had no business doing it except that they'd known each other so long, at Benning and Garfield. He'd only started out to convey his condolences, and then the more he'd scribbled the more worked up about it he'd got and the more it had turned into a kind of goofy appeal. Stupid. He should have kept his mouth shut, it probably only made her worse. Women were tricky creatures, tough to cope with on anything above what you might call the operational level. Sam hadn't made any mention of it though, so perhaps she hadn't told him; she certainly hadn't answered his own letter.

His arm felt stiff and crampy, and he thrust it down between his legs and kneaded the flesh above the elbow. Well, the Tanahill girl had been a good thing: Sam would have jumped out of his skin if that hadn't happened. His stomach had been giving him trouble—something that had never bothered him before—and he'd been awfully worn down and irascible after that amphibious flap …

Bryson had finished the Dead March from Saul. Massengale introduced the problem of air cover and Krisler raised his head now, listening intently.

“My reports indicate that there are four hundred and fifty to five hundred planes on Palamangao, and another probable two sixty in the Visayas,” Murtaugh was saying in his high, hoarse voice. “That's exclusive of what they can fly in from Formosa, of course.”

“Oh come on, Tug,” Bucky Warren protested. “You're getting Asiatic. They can't field half that many. Our last two raids we drew only forty-five interceptions and destroyed one twenty-five on the ground. Hell, all they've got is the flag and two guys to hold it up. Nip air is kaput.”

Murtaugh stared at him ominously. “I wish I could share your optimism.”

“You can. It's easy. The field at Masavieng is a wreck, Tug.”

Farnham said: “On precisely what do you base that statement?”

“Personal inspection at two hundred feet.” Bucky's smile could be even more glittering than Prince Hal's. “Confucius say: One bird's-eye view worth a thousand timid estimates. If you boys weren't sitting around in the wardroom all the time guzzling chocolate malteds you'd be a hell of a lot more optimistic about this jamboree. Whyn't you get on your bikes and ride down to the PX now and then?”

“Joyriding,” Murtaugh muttered. He and Bucky had been at loggerheads ever since the Vunakanau hit-and-run when the Air Force had flown a covering strike and run into a hornet's nest, and Bucky had accused the Navy of letting the Nips read their mail. If there was anything the Navy was sensitive about it was security, and the marshmallow fluff had really hit the fan all the way back to Pearl. “I'll tell you why I haven't been buzzing Visayan dromes,” Murtaugh went on balefully, his deep blue eyes lost under the hanging thickets of brows. “The reason, friend, is because for the past five days I've been folded into a slit trench on Tacloban while they worked over the beach in squadrons …”

“Hot damn!” Bucky Warren slapped the table; the gold ID bracelet jingled gaily. “I'd give six months' pay to have seen that! Did you get your shoulder boards crumpled, mate?”

Tug nodded, smiling grimly back. “Okay. Have your fun. We'll see how you make out when they start raiding from the Luzon fields.”

“Gentlemen,” Massengale broke in genially, “we seem to be wandering rather far afield, wouldn't you say?” He turned to the carrier admiral. “Would you proceed with your operational capabilities, Spencer.”

Murtaugh blinked at him. Nobody had called him Spencer since he'd left home in Galveston, Texas, thirty-six years ago. In some confusion he peered at a sheaf of notes before him, cleared his throat, and looked up again. “I am prepared to commence strikes on the seventeenth with seven carriers. Five full days, weather permitting.”

“Can you guarantee air cover over both beachheads, Admiral?” Bryson asked him anxiously.

Murtaugh's face convulsed on itself until there seemed to be nothing but eyebrows and jaw. “Colonel, I'm guaranteeing nothing. We will take out the strips and intercept everything we can from the Visayan and Luzon fields. I have seven carriers and about four hundred planes operational, and this number, less losses, will be what I will have for PALLADIUM.”

“Then what's your problem, Tug?” Bucky chided him. He was irritated because for the first time he would have to wait on the Navy until the strips were secured and he could fly his people in. The total flight distance from Benapei to Davao on Mindanao was 470 miles, and it was another 380 from Davao to Palamangao. “If I could get a couple of my groups up here and work over that rock for five full days the troops could go ashore with their rifles on their backs.”

“Oh sure,” Murtaugh snapped, “—the way they did at Wokai.”

“What do you mean by that? Enemy air capability was practically nil on that beachhead. That cliff was your baby, not mine …”

“Gentlemen,” Massengale said. “Surely there will be opportunities galore for all arms on PALLADIUM. I have complete confidence in Admiral Murtaugh's carriers to maintain air support until the Air Force can make the Masavieng and Reina Blanca airstrips operational. Let us go on to greener fields.”

“We will do everything in our power,” Murtaugh went on dourly. “But I must emphasize that we cannot stay beyond the afternoon of the third day following the landing.”

“Now wait a minute, Tug,” Bucky protested. “You'll have to stick around a while longer than that. If the Masavieng strip isn't operational with parking space for at least one fighter group, my hands are tied …”

Bliss Farnham examined his nails with care. “I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, Bucky,” he murmured. “Tug has commitments at Lingayen Gulf which he must meet. Admiral Kincaid has explicitly—”

“But look, you've got to hold that tiger until I can get my gang in place—that was the deal …”

The argument went back and forth, hung between Warren's overweening recklessness and the Navy's excessive caution, with Ryetower now and then interjecting something, referring to his notes. He was a rather heavy man with a sharp nose and overlong hair. Massengale was sitting back, watching his Chief of Staff with faintly patronizing indulgence—the look of a parent toward a child who is trying to enter an adult conversation. Ryetower was a plugger, methodical, cautious, a touch pessimistic—Krisler could see some of it in the narrow, compressed lips, the pinched expression around the eyes. But deferential, genial, and possessing to a marked degree that unique ability to dissolve his own personality in the desires and attitudes of a superior. He had been a Massengale man since the days with Pershing, right after the war. Krisler had known him at Bailey. What was abundantly clear was that Massengale was going to be his own Chief of Staff.

He looked hard at the map. He didn't like the assault plan: it was too complicated, too chancy. That secondary landing in Dalomo Bay—what was the sense in it? Amphibious landings were risky enough, desperate enough as it was, without compounding the perils with
two
of them, sixty-five miles apart by water. Where in Christ's name was Massengale getting all the AK's and landing craft from? He glanced suddenly at Farnham, but the Admiral was listening—or pretending to listen—to Ryetower, the fastidious cast of his face intensified by the arch of his eyebrows and the long, white lids. The whole deal was needlessly elaborate. The main landing at Babuyan astride the Kalahe River was good enough, or bad enough—there was room for two divisions to come in abreast there: the Double Five on the left, Swanny's crowd on the right. Secure the beachhead, drive in to Ilig and Umatoc and cut the road, and then pass Bannerman's green division through them for the assault on the airstrip, with Swanny throwing a block on the right flank toward Kalao. What was the purpose of all this seaborne Cannae envelopment talk? What did Massengale think—it was all going to be smooth, grassy plains with paved roads and lordly hills studded with historic old castles for comfortable OPs?

The air cover hassle had apparently been settled for the time being: Massengale was going to hit CINCPAC for three additional days' naval support, and Tug had agreed to leave four carriers in the area until D plus 7, contingent on Kincaid's approval. Burckhardt, Massengale's G-1, a powerfully built man Krisler had served with at Gaillard, was giving a report on the replacement depot at Isle Désespoir and the projected establishment of a forward depot on Wokai. Fussing, fidgeting, Krisler watched them in his mind's eye—the kids in their shiny fatigues policing between the tents, grab-assing in the chowlines, huddled in rows at the movies, their eyes glittering under their chamberpot helmet liners, rapt and still; sitting on their cots engaged in the interminable, stultifying games of 21 and hearts and pinochle or writing the letters that always began: “Dear Folks: I can't tell you where I am right now, but it's hotter than it ever gets in Gaines Corners, and there's a whole forest of palm trees right outside my tent …”

This was an operation conceived by a man who had never knelt in water up to his waist, who had never peered wildly through the wet murk of jungle, straining to see until the eyeballs ached, or sweated a five-gallon expeditionary can of water up a mud-slick trail, wincing at the raucous cries of birds and praying it wasn't Nip snipers signaling to each other. The fact of the matter was that Sam should have had the Corps command when Thiemann left. Or even Swanny for that matter, he had time in grade on everyone. A DC in the area should move up. But MacArthur thought Sam was too young. Hell, yes: if you weren't seventy-seven and ossified from the knees up you were too young. Boy, Lightning Joe Collins had got out of the Theater in the nick of time—he already had a Corps in France, he'd probably roar all the way up to Army command by the time they got into Germany. If three-star staff types like Massengale wanted combat commands they ought to be willing to step down and take a bust to get a division.

Sure: and the moon should make extremely edible green cheese …

The breeze was fair and fresh in his face; the sea glittered prettily beyond the broad lacy fan of the reef. Unreal. This room, the maps and typed lists and papers, the contests of personality, the feuds and assertions of will were a dream. What was
real
was First Sergeant Jackson passing back and forth in front of the replacements, lean and minatory, saying: “—he's out to kill you, any place, any time, any way he can. Now you've been lally-gagging around back in the States and they've filled you up with a lot of bullshit about the Nip being stupid and half-blind and chicken all the way through. Well, I'm here to tell you he ain't stupid, he ain't half-blind, he ain't the least little bit chicken—and he's never heard word-one about the Geneva Convention. So get
that
thought out of your feeble minds right away. You're out here for one thing and one thing only: to starch the fucking slopehead bastard before he starches you …”

Massengale was looking at him; slumped in the high-backed narrawood chair, his hands on the carved arms. It seemed to be a smile—that is, the lips were turned faintly in that direction; but the amber eyes held no hint of amusement. A contained, enigmatic stare, like the gaze of a cat crouched in long grass. What was this all about? Maybe it was the cigarette Krisler was holding by its ends, between thumb and middle finger: the Corps Commander considered the act insubordinate, even though he hadn't lighted it. Maybe that was it. In spite of himself Krisler felt constrained to return the gaze—a moment of naked confrontation that fused with his anger at this ominously elaborate tactical plan, his resentment at these visiting firemen in their clean new khaki with their talk of beach gradients and phase lines and cover plans … It was stupid, he knew, making a duel out of this—it was worse than stupid, it was dangerous; but he could not break his glance. He couldn't.

Just then Burckhardt dropped a sheet of paper, or the breeze took it out of his hands—a tiny commotion that enabled him to look away. To his surprise his heart was pounding thickly and sweat had broken out under his arms. The cigarette had snapped in two; tobacco crumbs were strewn on the dark, oily, brilliantly patterned surface. He put the pieces in the shell-butt ashtray with slow industry. What the hell was the matter with him? He was afraid, then: afraid. Not because Massengale had three stars, he didn't care a hoot in a gale for that. It was something else, something entirely different—the kind of alarm a man might feel on glimpsing the long gray ridge of a tidal wave offshore, or a high wall swaying, about to fall on an unsuspecting crowd. It was a fear he had never felt before. The cold-blooded son of a bitch, he thought almost frantically, sweeping the tobacco crumbs off the table's edge into his palm, he's going to kill every last mother's son of us. If it fits in with his plans.

His ankle throbbed dully, deep in the bone; he thrust his leg across the floor, encountered one of Bryson's feet and withdrew it. He felt a little ashamed of himself—staring back like some truculent schoolboy. Sam had warned him about this when Massengale had first come out six weeks ago. “Ben, I know your nose is out of joint because of that go-round in Manila. I'm not wild with delight myself. But the object of the game is still the same. And Massengale is our CO. I hope you'll bear that in mind.”