"You were a Marine?" Knox asked.
"I was," Pickering said, "but, as the General reminded me, only a corporal."
"Both Napoleon and Hitler were only corporals," said Frank Knox. "I, on the other hand, was a sergeant."
Pickering looked at the dignified Secretary of the Navy, saw the twinkle in his eyes, and smiled.
"Were you really?"
"First United States Volunteer Cavalry, Sir," Knox said. "I charged up Kettle Hill with Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt."
"The good cousin," Pickering said.
"Oh, I wouldn’t put it quite that way," Knox said. "Franklin grows on you."
"I will refrain from saying, Mr. Secretary, how that man grows on me."
Knox chuckled. "The Marine Corps turned you down, did they?"
"Politely, but firmly."
"The Marine Corps is part of the Navy. I’m Secretary of the Navy. Are you a bartering man, Pickering?"
"I’ll always listen to an offer."
Knox nodded, and paused thoughtfully before going on. "The reason I was sorry to hear that you’re not going to be working for Bill Donovan, Pickering, is that I came here with the intention of making this argument to you: Since you will be working for Donovan, you will not be able to run the Pacific and Far Eastern Shipping fleet, so you might as well sell it to the Navy."
"Since Fowler apparently has been doing a lot of talking about me," Pickering replied, not pleasantly, "I’m surprised he didn’t tell you I told him I have no intention of selling any more of my ships. To the Navy, or anyone else."
"Oh, he told me that," Knox said. "I came here to try to get you to change your mind." "Then I’m afraid you’re on a wild-goose chase."
"You haven’t even heard my arguments." Pickering shrugged.
"We’re desperate for shipping," Knox said.
"My ships will haul anything the Navy wants hauled, anywhere the Navy wants it hauled."
"There are those who believe the maritime unions may cause trouble when there are inevitable losses to submarines and surface raiders."
"My crews will sail my ships anywhere I tell them to sail them," Pickering said.
"There are those who believe the solution to that problem, which I consider more real than you do, is to send them to sea with Navy crews."
"Then they’re fools," Pickering said.
"Indeed?" Knox asked icily.
"Pacific and Far Eastern doesn’t have a third mate, or a second assistant engineer, who is not qualified to sail as master, or chief engineer," Pickering said. "Which is good for the country. My junior officers are going to be the masters and chief engineers of the ships-the vast fleets of cargo ships-we’re going to have to build for this war, and my ordinary and able-bodied seamen and my engine room wipers are going to be the junior officers and assistant engineers. You can’t teach real, as opposed to Navy, seamanship in ten or twelve weeks at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. If somebody is telling you that you can, you had better get a new adviser."
"What’s the difference between Navy seamanship, Flem, and ‘real’ seamanship?" Fowler asked.
"It takes three or four Navy sailors to do what one able-bodied seaman is expected to do on a merchantman," Pickering replied. "A merchant seaman does what he sees has to be done, based on a good deal of time at sea. A Navy sailor is trained not to blow his nose until someone tells him to. And then they send a chief petty officer to make sure he blows it in the prescribed manner."
"You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of the U.S. Navy," Knox said sharply.
"Not if what happened at Pearl Harbor is any indication of the way they think. I was there, Mr. Knox."
Knox glowered at him; Fowler saw the Secretary’s jowls working.
"There are those," Knox said after a long pause, "who advise me that the Navy should stop trying to reason with you and simply seize your vessels under the President’s emergency powers."
"I’ll take you to the Supreme Court and win. You can force me-not that you would have to-to have my ships carry what you want, wherever you want it carried, but you can not seize them."
"A couple of minutes ago, the thought entered my head that I might be able to resolve this difference reasonably by offering you a commission in the Marine Corps, say, as a colonel. That now seems rather silly, doesn’t it?"
"I don’t think silly is the word," Pickering said nastily. "Insulting would seem to fit. To both the Corps and me."
"Flem!" Senator Fowler protested.
"It’s all right, Dick," Knox said, waving his hand to shut him off. "And I don’t suppose saying to you, Pickering, that your country needs your vessels would have much effect on you, would it?"
"My ships are at my country’s disposal," Pickering said evenly. "But what I am not going to do is turn them over to the Navy so the Navy can do to them what it did to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor."
"That’san insult," Knox said, "to the courageous men at Pearl Harbor, many of whom gave their lives."
"No, it’s not," Pickering said. "I’m not talking about courage. I’m talking about stupidity. If I had your job, Mr. Secretary, I would fire every admiral who was anywhere near Pearl Harbor. Fire them, hell, stand them in front of a firing squad for gross dereliction of duty. Pearl Harbor should not have happened. That’s a fact, and you can’t hide it behind a chorus of patriotic outrage that someone would dare sink our fleet."
"I’m ultimately responsible for whatever happens to the Navy," Knox said.
"If you really believe that, then maybe you should consider resigning to set an example."
"Now goddamn it, Flem!" Senator Fowler exploded. "That’s going too goddamned far. You owe Frank an apology!"
"Not if he really believes that, he doesn’t," Knox said. He leaned over and set his glass on the coffee table. "Thank you for the drink, Dick. And for the chance to meet Mr. Pickering."
"Frank!"
"It’s been very interesting," the Secretary of the Navy said. "If not very fruitful."
"Frank, Hem’s had a couple too many," Senator Fowler said.
"He looks like the kind of man who can handle his liquor," Knox said. "Anyway, in vino veritas. " He walked to the door and opened it, and then half-turned around. "Mr. Pickering, I offered my resignation to the President on December seventh. He put it to me that his accepting it would not be in the best interests of the country, and he therefore declined to do so."
And then he went through the door and closed it after him.
Fleming Pickering and Richardson Fowler looked at each other. Pickering saw anger in his old friend’s eyes.
There was a momentary urge to apologize, but then Fleming Pickering decided against it. He had, he realized, said nothing that he had not meant.
Chapter Three
(One)
On Board USSTangier
Task Force 14
1820 Hours 22 December 1941
"Now hear this," the loudspeakers throughout the ship blared, harshly and metallically. "The smoking lamp is out. The smoking lamp is out."
Staff Sergeant Joseph L. Howard, USMC, was on the bow of the Tangier when the announcement came. He was smoking a cigarette, looking out across the wide, gentle swells of the Pacific at the other ships of Task Force 14.
The USS Tangier, a seaplane tender pressed into duty as a troop transport, with the 4thMarine Defense Battalion on board, was in line behind the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, which flew the flag of Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher, Commander of Task Force 14.