Zimmerman paused thoughtfully.
"What the hell," he said finally. "If you can fix it, why not? I'd be working for you?"
"I don't know about that," McCoy said. "But it would be a better billet than fixing carburetors at Parris Island would be.
Chapter Three
(One)
Corregidor Island
Manila Bay, Island of Luzon
Commonwealth of the Philippines
2115 Hours, 5 January 1942
The United States submarine Pickerel, a 298-foot, fifteen-hundred-ton submersible of the Porpoise class, lay two hundred yards off the fortress island of Corregidor. There was a whaleboat tied alongside, from which small and heavy wooden crates were being unloaded and then taken aboard through the fore and aft torpedo-loading hatches. A second whaleboat could just be made out alongside a narrow pier on the island itself, where it was being loaded with more of the small, heavy wooden crates.
Lieutenant Commander Edgar F. "Red" MacGregor, USN, commander of the Pickerel, was on the sea bridge of her conning tower. MacGregor was a stocky, plump-faced, redheaded thirty-five-year-old graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and he was wearing khaki shirt and trousers, a khaki fore-and-aft cap bearing the shield-and-fouled-anchor insignia of the U.S. Navy, and a small golden oak leaf indicating his rank.
When the last of the crates had been removed from the whaleboat alongside, and it had headed for the pier again, Commander MacGregor bent over a small table on which he had laid out two charts. One of them was a chart of Manila Bay itself, with the minefields marked, and the other was a chart of the South China Sea, which included portions of the islands of Luzon and Mindoro. On the "Luzon" chart was marked with grease pencil the current positions of the Japanese forces that had landed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf on the morning of December 10,1941, and were now advancing down the Bataan Peninsula.
To prevent its destruction, Manila had been declared an open city on December 26, 1941. Japanese troops had entered the city, unopposed, on January 2, 1942.
Meanwhile, General Douglas MacArthur had moved his troops, Philippine and American, to Bataan, where it was his announced intention to fight a delaying action until help reached the Philippines from the United States.
As Commander MacGregor observed the loading of his vessel, it was necessary again and again to force from his mind the thoughts that inevitably came to him. As a professional Naval officer, of course, he was obliged to view the situation with dispassionate eyes.
The Japanese had, almost a month before, destroyed the United States' battleship fleet. The only reason the Japs hadn't sent the aircraft carriers to the bottom of Pearl Harbor as well was that the aircraft carriers had been at sea when they had attacked.
The professional conclusion he was forced in honesty to draw was that the U.S. Pacific Fleet had taken a hell of a blow, one that very easily could prove fatal, and that the "help" MacArthur expected-the reinforcement of the Philippine garrison-was wishful thinking. The United States was very close to losing the Philippines, including the "impregnable, unsinkable 'Battleship' Corregidor."
The proof was that if anyone in a senior position of authority really believed that Corregidor could hold out indefinitely until "help" arrived, the Pickerel would at this moment be out in the South China Sea trying to put her torpedos into Japanese bottoms.
Instead, she was sitting here, for all intents and purposes an unarmed submersible merchantman, taking aboard as much of the gold reserves of the Philippine Commonwealth as she could carry, to keep them from falling into Japanese hands when Corregidor fell.
Commander MacGregor once again reminded himself that there was good reason for what the U.S. Navy had ordered him to do. And that he was a professional Naval officer. And that when he was given an order, he was obliged to carry it out, not to question it, or to entertain doubts about the ability of senior Naval officers. They had to bear the responsibility for getting the Navy into the kind of goddamned mess where a submarine was stripped of its torpedos and turned into a merchantman because control of the seas was in the hands of the enemy.
He did not take his eyes from the chart of Manila Bay again until the second whaleboat had tied up alongside again. Then he looked down from the conning tower.
"Christ!" he muttered. "Now what?"
"Sir?" his exec asked politely.
Commander MacGregor gestured impatiently downward.
Two ladders, lashed edge to edge, had been put over the side. The wooden crates carrying the gold reserves of the Philippine Commonwealth were heavy, too heavy to be carried aboard by one man. They had been taken from sailors in the whaleboat by two husky sailors, each grasping one rope handle, who had then together climbed the slanting ladders, carefully, grunting with the effort, one rung at a time.
What was coming aboard now was not a crateful of gold bars but a man in khaki uniform. He was being helped up the side-by-side ladders by another man in khaki uniform. He needed the help. His left shirt sleeve was empty. Commander MacGregor could not see whether the man had lost his arm or whether it was in a sling under his shirt. He could see that the man had bandages on his head, bandages covering his eyes.
When the one-armed man with the bandaged head reached the deck, he was helped to his feet. After having received the necessary permission to come aboard, he tried to observe the Naval custom of saluting the officer of the deck and then the national colors.
A Naval officer, Commander MacGregor decided.
The attempt to adhere to Naval tradition failed. The blinded man's salute of the officer of the deck and the colors was directed into the bay.
Commander MacGregor went quickly down from the conning tower to the deck. He could now see that the officer with the blinded man wore the silver eagle of a Navy captain. The blinded officer (MacGregor could not see that his arm was strapped against his chest, under his khaki shirt) was also a captain, but a captain of the United States Marine Corps, the equivalent of a U.S. Navy full lieutenant. MacGregor saluted the Navy captain.
"Commander MacGregor, sir," he said. "I'm the skipper." The Navy captain returned the salute. "Captain," he replied, acknowledging Commander MacGregor's role as captain of his vessel, "this is Captain Banning. He will be sailing with you. Captain Banning, this is Captain MacGregor."
The blinded Marine officer put out his hand.
"How do you do, sir?" he said. "Sorry to inflict myself on you."
"Happy to have you aboard, Captain," MacGregor said, aware that it was both inane and a lie. He certainly felt sorry for the poor bastard, but the Pickerel was not a hospital ship, it was a crowded submarine, with only a pharmacist's mate aboard. No place for a man who was not only wounded but incapable of feeding himself-or of seeing.
"Captain Banning," the Navy captain said, "will sail with you. I now ask you how many other then in his condition you are prepared to take aboard."
"Sir, I have only a pharmacist's mate aboard," MacGregor replied.
The Navy captain said, "There are nine others suffering from temporary or permanent loss of sight. They will require no special medical attention beyond the changing of their bandages."
"I'll have to bed them down on the deck," Commander MacGregor said.
"You can, without jeopardizing your mission, take all of them?" the Navy captain asked.
"Yes, sir."
"They will come out with the next whaleboat," the Navy captain said. "Thank you, Captain. Have a good voyage."
"Thank you, sir," MacGregor said.
"Permission to leave the ship, sir?" the Navy captain asked.
"Granted," MacGregor said.
The Navy captain saluted MacGregor, then the colors, and then backed down the ladder into the whaleboat.
"Chief!" Commander MacGregor called.