At 0900, Putnam's four-plane patrol returned to Wake for refueling. At about 0940, immediately after the tanks of their Grumman Wildcats had been topped off, Commander Cunningham wrote, Putnam and three others took off again, taking up a course to the north and climbing to twelve thousand feet, as high as they could fly without using oxygen.
At 1158, First Lieutenant Wallace Lewis, USMC, an experienced antiaircraft artilleryman whom Major James P. S. Devereux, the senior Marine on Wake Island, had placed in charge of antiaircraft defenses, spotted a twelve-plane V of aircraft approaching Wake Island from the north at no more than two thousand feet.
The three-inch antiaircraft cannon, and the dozen.50-caliber Browning machine guns on Wake, brought the attacking formation under fire.
The pilots of the eight Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats ran for their aircraft as crew chiefs started the engines.
There were now thirty-six Japanese aircraft, three twelve-plane Vs, in sight. One-hundred-pound bombs fell from the leading V, but instead of turning away from the target once their bomb load had been released, which was the American practice, the Japanese aircraft continued on course, and began to strafe the airfield with their 20-mm machine cannon.
The projectiles were mixed explosive and incendiary. One of them, Commander Cunningham wrote Admiral Sayre, had struck Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC, in the back of the head as he ran toward his Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat. It exploded on impact,
"I'm not even sure, Admiral," Commander Cunningham concluded, "if there will be an opportunity to get this letter out. They're supposed to be sending a Catalina in here, and we are supposed to be reinforced by a task force from Pearl, but in view of the overall situation, I'm not sure that either will be possible.
"Please offer my condolences to Martha and Mrs. Sayre."
(Two)
Pickering had just about finished with the paper when a man came into the coffee shop, looked around, and then walked to his table.
"Lieutenant Pickering?"
Pickering looked up and nodded. The man was plump and neatly dressed in a well-cut suit. He looked to be in his early thirties.
"I understand you're an innkeeper yourself," the man said.
Pickering nodded.
"Then you'll understand that no matter how hard you try, sometimes the wrong guy gets behind the desk," the man said. He put out his hand. "I'm Chester Gayfer, the assistant manager. Much too late, let me welcome you to the San Carlos. May I join you?"
Pickering waved him into a chair. A waitress appeared with a cup of coffee.
"Put all this on my chit, Gladys," Gayfer said, and then looked at Pickering and smiled. "Unless you'd rather have a basket of fruit?"
"Breakfast is fine," Pickering said. "Unnecessary, but fine."
"We didn't expect you until later today," Gayfer said.
"I drove straight through," Pickering said.
"I think you may be able to solve one of our problems for us," Gayfer said. "If we extended a very generous innkeeper's discount, would you be interested in a penthouse suite? A large bedroom, a small bedroom, a sitting room, and a tile patio covered with an awning? There's even a butler's pantry."
"It's a little more than I had in mind," Pickering said.
"We have trouble renting something like that during the week," Gayfer said. "On weekends, however, it's in great demand by your brother officers at the air station. Two of them rent it. Eight, sometimes more, of their pals seem to extend their visits overnight. And they have an unfortunate tendency to practice their bombing-"
"Excuse me?"
"Among other youthful exuberances, your brother officers amuse themselves by filling balloon-type objects with water," Gayfer said, "which they then, cheerfully shouting 'bombs away,' drop on their friends as they pass on the sidewalk below."
Pickering chuckled.
"The management has authorized me to say that if the San Carlos could recoup just a little more by the week than it now gets for Friday and Saturday night," Gayfer said, "it would be delighted to offer the penthouse suite on a weekly basis. How does that sound to you?"
"I'm always willing to do what I can to help out a fellow hotelier," Pickering said. "That sounds fine."
They ceremoniously shook hands.
The good- looking blonde who had come to Pickering's table with the unsolicited Good Samaritan warning about Captain Carstairs stood up and walked out of the coffee shop. She had nice legs, and her skirt revealed much of the shape of her derriere. Pickering thought of himself, by and large, as a derriere man. This was one of the nicer derrieres he'd come across lately, and he gave it the careful study an object of beauty clearly deserved. Pity the owner was impressed with her role as an officer's wife.
And then he became aware that Gayfer was watching him stare.
"Some things do tend to catch one's eye, don't they?" Pick said.
There was not the understanding smile on Gayfer's face that he expected.
"I saw the wedding ring," Pick said. "No offense intended. Just a statement of appreciation."
"She's a widow," Gayfer said.
Pickering's eyebrows rose in question.
"Her name is Martha Culhane," Gayfer said. "Martha Sayre Culhane."
"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?" Pickering asked.
"Her father is Admiral Sayre," Gayfer said. "He's the number-three man at the Naval air station. Her husband is… was… a Marine pilot. He was killed at Wake Island."
"Oh, God!" Pickering said softly.
"She's not the only service wife around here to suddenly find herself a widow," Gayfer said. "This is a Navy town. But when she went home to her family, it was back into admiral's quarters on the base. I think that made it tougher for her. If she was back in Cedar Rapids or someplace, she wouldn't be surrounded by uniforms."
"What was she doing here this time of morning?"
"She hangs around the Marine fliers. The ones who were friends of her husband. They sort of take care of her."
Pickering would have liked an explanation of "hangs around" and "take care of her," but he suppressed the urge to ask for one.
No wonder, he thought, that she looked at me with such amused contempt.
"When you're through, I'll show you the suite," Gayfer said.
"I'm through," Pickering said, and stood up.
"Where's your car?" Gayfer asked as they entered the lobby.
The widow was standing, sidewards to him, by a stack of newspapers on the marble desk. Nice legs, Pickering thought idly, again, and then he saw how her skirt was drawn tight against her stomach, and his mind's eye was suddenly filled with a surprisingly clear image of her naked belly.
Goddamn you.' You sonofabitch! She's a widow, for Christ's sake. Her husband was shot down!
"Out in front," he replied to Gayfer.
"The Cadillac with the California plates?"
Pickering nodded.
"Give me the keys," Gayfer said, and Pickering handed them to him.
There was a new clerk behind the desk. Gayfer walked over to him, gave him the keys, told him to have the bellman bring the bags in the Cadillac convertible outside up to the penthouse, and then to put the Cadillac in the parking lot.
The widow (Martha Sayre Culhane, Pickering remembered), who couldn't help but overhear what Gayfer said, looked at Pickering with unabashed curiosity.
Gayfer, smiling, led Pickering to the elevator. When Pickering turned and faced front, Martha Sayre Culhane was still looking at him.
(Three)
Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, had learned from Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, a number of things about the United States Marine Corps that were not taught in the Platoon Leader's Course at United States Marine Corps' Schools, Quantico.
One of them was that a commissioned officer of the United States Marine Corps was not required to use rail tickets issued to move officially from one place to another. Such rail tickets, Pickering had learned from McCoy, were issued for the officer's convenience.