"The Sunfish won't be there," McCoy said.
"Excuse me?"
"We'll leave for Tarragona tomorrow, ambush the convoy the next day, if we're lucky, or the day after that, or the day after that. That way we know there will be a convoy to ambush. And then the Sunfish comes on 5 February as scheduled."
"And where will the civilians and wounded be..." Fertig began. "Of course, at Site Sugar."
"That's the risk, General," McCoy said. "That the Japs will find us at Site Sugar, or near Site Sugar. If the Japs find them there... well. But there is less risk of being discovered if we're trying to hide twenty-five people in one place than if we're trying to move 102 people around for days."
Fertig stood up suddenly and left the room. He came back a moment later with a bottle of Famous Grouse and three glasses. He put everything on his desk and started, carefully, to pour the whiskey.
"I have an interest in getting the wounded and the civilians to Pearl Har-bor that is not entirely altruistic," he said as he poured. "There will be a cer-tain interest on the part of the press in these American civilians snatched from the claws of the Japanese, and in the brave men grievously wounded fighting the Japanese against terrible odds. Once these people get out, it will not be nearly as easy for certain people to pretend United States Forces in the Philip-pines does not exist."
He walked to the door, raised his voice, and called, "Sergeant!"
His Filipino sergeant appeared almost immediately.
"Please pass the word that an officer's call will be conducted here imme-diately," he said.
"Yes, Sir."
He walked back to the drinks and handed McCoy and Everly a glass, then picked up his own.
"Before the others join us," he said, "I think we should raise a glass to your successful evacuation. For the first time, I'm beginning to think we can get away with it."
[SIX]
Headquarters, U.S. Forces in the Philippines
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
1305 Hours 26 January 1943
Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, took a U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30-06, Model 1903, from Lieutenant Percy L. Everly, USFIP, held down the catch, and removed the bolt. He put his thumb into the action, raised the muzzle to his eye, and then turned his body until the rays of the sun reflected off his thumb-nail and illuminated the interior of the barrel.
"It's pitted," he announced.
"We've been a little short on bore cleaner around here, Mr. McCoy," Ev-erly said.
McCoy examined the bolt.
"What have you been oiling these with, coconut oil?"
"Motor oil," Everly said.
"They're all like this?"
Everly nodded.
"That's it, unless you want to try doing this with a carbine."
"No. We've got to try for headshots, and I don't want to try headshots with a carbine," McCoy said. "I can't believe we didn't think to bring bore cleaner and oil with us."
Everly shrugged, and then McCoy had a second thought.
"But there's something," he said. "You see that thing that holds the sling in the carbine stock? It's an oiler."
"No shit?" Everly asked, impressed.
"Give me that," McCoy said, pointing to a carbine. Gunny Zimmerman handed it to him. McCoy loosened the web sling where it passed through a slot in the stock and took out a two-inch-round metal tube. He unscrewed the top and pulled it off. A metal rod, flattened at the end, was attached to the top. A drop of light-brown oil dropped off.
"Lube oil," he announced.
"I'll be damned," Everly said, impressed.
"Let's get the motor oil, or whatever the hell this gunk is, off the bolts," McCoy said. "And at least lube them right."
With a practiced skill, he began to disassemble the bolt. He looked up and saw the others watching him-Lieutenant Chambers Lewis, USN; Captain Robert B. Macklin, USMC; Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, USMC; two for-mer 4th Marines PFCs (now 2nd Lieutenants, USFIP), Oscar Wendlington and Charles O. Pierce; First Lieutenant Claudio Alvarez, late of the Philippine Scouts; and Master Sergeant Fernando Lamar, late of the 26th Cavalry.
"This isn't a goddamn demonstration," he said. "You know how to take a bolt apart. Or should."
The others turned to the other Springfields and began to remove their bolts. They had three battered, intended-for-weapons-cleaning toothbrushes between them-McCoy's, Zimmerman's, and Everly's-and in a few minutes the bolts had been cleaned of the thickened motor oil and lubricated with a thin coat of the finer gun oil from the carbine oiler.
Zimmerman was finished first. He replaced the bolt in his Springfield and worked the action a half-dozen times, finally nodding with satisfaction.
"Ernie, pace off a hundred yards," McCoy ordered. "We'll zero for two hundred yards. We should be shooting at anywhere from fifty to a hundred fifty yards. Trajectory will be pretty flat with two-hundred-yard Zero."
Zimmerman marched off toward the end of the clearing, found a suitable tree, and then marched back toward them, one hundred measured three-foot paces.
McCoy drew a one-inch circle in the center of a piece of typewriter paper with a grease pencil, and then filled in the center.
"Now let's see if these things will shoot into eight inches at a hundred yards," he said.
"We have sixty-eight rounds, period," Everly said, then took from a mu-sette bag four gray cheap cardboard boxes labeled ORDNANCE CORPS U.S. ARMY. TWENTY CARTRIDGES CALIBER.30-06 ARMOR PIERCING and laid them carefully on the ground. They showed signs they'd been wet; the cardboard had shrunk when it dried, and the outline of the cartridges they contained was clearly visible. McCoy picked up one of the boxes, the one that was not full.
He took a black-tipped cartridge from the box and examined it. On the base it was stamped fa 1918.
"Frankford Arsenal, 1918," he announced. "Jesus Christ! They're as old as I am! What makes you think these will fire? They've been water-soaked, God knows how many times."
"There's shellac over the primers," Everly said. "Most of them work fine."
" 'Most of them,' " McCoy said, and then turned to Captain Macklin. "Make some more targets," he said, handing him the grease pencil.
Then he took the target, walked to the tree Zimmerman had selected, and stood for a moment frustrated. Then he took the knife strapped to his left wrist from its sheath and used it to pin the target to the tree.
Then he walked back to the line in the dirt Zimmerman had drawn with the toe of his boondockers and sat down. He unfastened the frogs of the leather sling on his rifle and converted it to a rifleman's sling. He adjusted the sling, twice, until he was satisfied, and then rolled onto his stomach.
By this time, the others had walked up to him. He took three cartridges, loaded them into the magazine, and rammed one into the chamber with the bolt.
He took a long time finding the proper sight picture before touching off the first round. Then he chambered another round, fired, and repeated the process a third time.
"Well, at least they all went off," he said as he rose to his feet and went to the target-removing the sling as he walked. A half-inch above the black circle and two inches to the right of it were three holes in the target. He was able to conceal them with his thumbs held together.