"Are you planning on staying on after the war?"
"If the army'll have me, yes. It took me a while to realize it, but this is my calling." Monck grinned. "Of course, my kids are almost all old enough to find food on their own now."
Eichelberger rose. The interview was drawing to a close. "Good, then you will not want to screw up your meeting with MacArthur. He is a very proud and complex man, and some people find it comical. He also doesn't trust everyone, and some people think him paranoid for that. He strongly feels that Washington betrayed him and left his Pacific command to wither on the vine in the early days of the war when they declined to rescue his men from Bataan and Corregidor. History will decide whether he is right or wrong when everything about those tragic events comes out.
"But make no doubts about it, MacArthur is a very strong and forceful commander who has conquered about a quarter of the globe and done so with very little resources. He will not suffer incompetents or anyone else who stands in his way."
Monck had also stood. "General, there are those who say he wants to be president."
"They may well be right. He may just run for president on the Republican ticket when this war is over, and, yes, that would be very interesting. It also may well be the reason he makes certain that all battle announcements come from his office. You came from Europe, where people like Patton and Bradley got a lot of publicity, but that's not MacArthur's style. For right or wrong, damn few people back home have ever heard of anybody named Eichelberger or Krueger, and you would be well advised to make sure that no one hears of John Monck either."
"Understood."
"Good, and stay on the good side of Generals Willoughby and Sutherland as well. They work directly for MacArthur and think the sun rises and sets on him. They will cheerfully ruin anyone who they think is either working against their leader or who has a private agenda. If you run afoul of them, you will be through in the military, and there won't be anything either Krueger or I could do to change things."
"Understood."
General Sutherland was MacArthur's chief of staff, while Willoughby was in charge of intelligence. Willoughby was rumored to be haughty and arrogant, while Sutherland had recently returned from a brief banishment because of what may have been an affair with another officer's wife. The banishment was supposed to have been permanent, but MacArthur would hear nothing of it and Willoughby had returned.
"Good," Eichelberger said. "Let's go."
They walked down a short corridor and entered a large waiting room. They were immediately admitted to MacArthur's large and well-appointed office. It looked more like something in the Pentagon than a place where a major battle had been fought only a few months earlier. Monck wondered if this was what a papal audience was like. Like a young plebe, Monck snapped to attention and reported. This pleased MacArthur, who rose from behind his ornate wooden desk and smiled. MacArthur was surprisingly tall, slim, and had a stern and hawklike face. His eyes seemed to flash with excitement.
"Welcome to the Pacific, General Monck," MacArthur's stentorian voice boomed.
"Thank you, sir, it's a pleasure to be here and working for you." Monck noticed that both Willoughby and Sutherland had taken up positions flanking MacArthur. The set of their stance said that they were ready to protect their liege lord. MacArthur, erect and dark-haired, looked to need little protection from anyone. It was hard to realize that MacArthur was sixty-five and had already retired once.
"I see you served under Eisenhower. Fine man Ike. He was my chief of staff in Washington for a while, and I thought he was an excellent clerk. I'm a little surprised he's gotten as far as he has, though. Did you know him well?"
"Very little, sir. While I recalled him from the Point, our paths never crossed in Europe. He sent me a letter of congratulations on my promotion, but that's about it."
The answer seemed to satisfy MacArthur that Monck was not a part of the Eisenhower club. "General Monck, I am supremely confident that your tenure as a combat commander here will be a brief but successful one. The Japanese are finished and it's only a question of time before they realize it. We have done our studies"- MacArthur turned to Willoughby, who almost smirked- "and we firmly believe that the Japanese military will break when we invade Kyushu and that there will be minimal casualties."
MacArthur then laughed sharply. "There are those in Washington and elsewhere who think the Japanese will resist strongly, but they are wrong. The Japanese will be defeated in open battle by our overwhelming strength, and they will break and retreat, just as it happened here in the Philippines. When that occurs, the war will be over. Do you know what happens then, General?"
Monck felt that he was sweating and almost prayed it didn't show. "No, sir, I don't."
MacArthur had an almost dreamy look on his face. When he answered, it was almost as if he were giving a speech or were a missionary preaching to the heathen. "When the Japanese surrender, I will become the military governor of Japan. When that occurs, every man, woman, and child in Japan will be under my thrall, and that includes the emperor. Yes, General Monck, the emperor of Japan, the God-Emperor Hirohito, will acknowledge me as his superior. Think of it. After all these years of fighting, they will kowtow to an American."
Sutherland whispered something to MacArthur, who nodded impatiently. There was doubtless another appointment, and Monck's brief time before the throne was up. He departed with Eichelberger, who patted him on the back and said he'd done just fine, and don't forget to avoid correspondents and publicity like the plague.
Brig. Gen. John L. Monck assured him he wouldn't. He found his driver and rode back to the airstrip wrapped in thought. He needed a drink and a conversation with Major Parker, whom he'd sent on a snooping expedition of his own.
He found Parker in the shade of a tent, sipping a can of cold beer. Parker took one from a cooler and offered it. Monck swallowed half the can in one gulp.
"Did you meet God?" Parker asked irreverently.
Monck finished the beer and grabbed another one. "No, I met his boss, MacArthur. Jesus, you wouldn't believe it. I wonder just what the hell we've gotten into."
"General, did you get the crap about taking only light casualties if we invade?"
"Yeah, and I believe it about as much as I do the tooth fairy. What did you find out?"
Parker took another can for himself. "MacArthur has this disturbing habit of proclaiming victories before the fighting's over. Yes, the Japanese were defeated here in the Philippines and have retreated, but they haven't surrendered. After causing more than fifty thousand American casualties, they've just gone to ground in the hills and are awaiting word from Tokyo of what to do next."
"How many are still left?"
"Maybe fifty thousand under General Yamashita here in Luzon, plus smaller groups elsewhere. They don't have any tanks, damned little artillery, and less ammunition, and they may be starving to death, but unless they are ordered to surrender, someday someone's gonna have to go in and root them out, and that's gonna be bloody painful."
Parker rubbed his forehead with the cold can and continued, "Mac thinks the campaign is over and he can move on, but it's far from complete, and I don't like his casualty estimates any more than you do. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but he based his estimate on what happened here in the Philippines and not the fanatical resistance we met on Okinawa. A little bird told me he's now saying we can have all of Kyushu for only fifteen thousand casualties because the Japs are in such bad shape and we are so unbeatable."
Monck crumpled the can and threw it against the side of the tent. How could Mac Arthur say it would cost only fifteen thousand to take one of the home islands of Japan when the battle for the Philippines had already consumed four times that? How could he ignore the horrific casualty percentages that had been suffered on Iwo Jima and Saipan, as well as most recently on Okinawa. It didn't make sense. "Then why is he doing it, Don? Why the low numbers?"