Maggie paused again and Boomer didn’t know what to say. Maggie glanced at the darkened house, then back at Boomer.
“I’ve never told Ski about all this. I wanted to years ago, but George told me it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. And then Peter, Ski’s brother, was killed in Vietnam and it seemed better to let it lie. But all that’s been happening the last couple of days, it just seems some of it is coming alive inside me again.”
Boomer didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but he knew enough about people to keep quiet and let her say what she felt she had to.
Her voice was wistful as she continued. “The man I was with was a lieutenant on the fleet staff — Jimmie. What a wild man. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I cut quite a figure back then.
“Jimmie worked in Navy Intelligence. He certainly shouldn’t have been in bed with me on the morning of the seventh,” she added with a low chuckle. Her voice turned sad.
“None of those boys should have been asleep that morning. Jimmie was the man who picked up the telegraphs when they came in and brought them to Admiral Kimmel’s G-2, so he was able to get a lot of information.”
She poured a cup of coffee, then wearily leaned back against the wicker.
“We all knew war was coming. It was inevitable. Europe was in flames.
France had fallen. England was surrounded. The Japs were expanding everywhere.
“We knew it was coming, but we didn’t think it was coming here. We thought the Japs would have to be crazy to attack here. All you had to do was look down in the harbor to know that. Those ships were so beautiful and proud.
“Jimmie and I tajked about it a lot. He was stationed shoreside and George was always at sea so that made things convenient. Bull Halsey was in charge of the Enterprise task force and he ran his ships hard.
He didn’t want to get caught here in the harbor at least.
“Jimmie said that the Philippines would get attacked for sure. Wake. Singapore.
Malaya. Hong Kong. But not Pearl he said. At least not until a month before the attack. Then he started saying things that worried me.” She paused and took a drag on her cigarette.
“Did you ever hear of Magic?” Maggie asked, the question catching Boomer off-guard.
“The Pacific version of Ultra?” he asked.
Maggie nodded.
“It was the codeword for the machine they used to break the Japanese code.” She stopped as if reconsidering what she was saying.
“Listen, this Line organization that Ski says you think exists, didn’t Trace say it started before World War II?”
“Yes. She says it started in the late twenties.”
“With Marshall and other top people in the Army?”
Maggie pressed.
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Marshall was chief of the Army at the time of Pearl Harbor. He was on the Ultra list that got to look at Magic intercepts.
Did you know that President Roosevelt was taken off the Ultra list for a while just prior to the attack here?”
Maggie leaned forward, not waiting for an answer. “Jimmie saw all the Magic intercepts. The ones they forwarded here to Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the Navy and Army commanders on the island. He was only a messenger but he was in a position to see a lot.
“But more important than the ones they forwarded are the ones they didn’t forward. Many historians have looked at the record and deduced that Army and Navy headquarters in Washington had sufficient information to indicate that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent.
That’s why some believe the President was the one who decided to withhold the information in order to drag us into war.
“But no one has even considered the fact that maybe it all stopped at Marshall’s desk. That maybe the President didn’t know beforehand either. It was the military’s responsibility to know and they did know. And they allowed it to happen.
“And why?” Maggie asked, her voice rising.
“Because although we all felt war was inevitable, most people didn’t want it. Isolationism was at an alltime high. We didn’t want war and nothing short of what happened out there”-she pointed out to the harbor—“could have galvanized the country into war fever. We went from a depression and isolationism in three short years to become the most powerful military force on the face of the planet!”
Her words chilled Boomer. Since hearing about The Line he had only obliquely considered what such an organization would have done. To think that military men would have allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to occur when they had foreknowledge was abhorrent to him and his training. But Boomer also remembered his words at the airport to Trace about the bombing of Coventry.
“Surely they wouldn’t have allowed such a devastating defeat,” he objected.
“I don’t know,” Maggie replied.
“On one hand, I don’t think they thought it would be the disaster it was. Jimmie told me that the Navy was sure that the harbor was too shallow for torpedoes to be used and since dive bombing was still very inaccurate they felt the fleet was relatively safe in the harbor. But on the other hand, my husband told me that when Task Force 8, the Enterprise task force, sailed out of Pearl before the seventh, Admiral Halsey put them on full war footing. Any ships they spotted were to be sunk, any aircraft shot down.
“So why the two different attitudes? Here at Pearl we were asleep. On board the carriers, the heart of the fleet and the true objective of the Japanese attack, they were on full alert, ready to fight.
“And Marshall did send an alert message to General Short and Admiral Kimmel on the morning of the seventh.
A message that arrived in time only to become a historical document after the fact, rather than a warning. A cover your-ass telegram that was used to relieve Kimmel and Short from their commands in the aftermath.” The chair creaked as Maggie shifted position.
“You know, not only was there ample evidence pointing to foreknowledge of the attack in Washington, but they did things here that almost aided in the attack.
“The night of the sixth, the radio station here, KGMB, stayed on all night, broadcasting. It usually went off the air for the early morning hours, but that night the Army paid for it to stay on. Their reason was to help guide in some B-17s flying in from the mainland, but those radio waves also helped guide the attacking Japanese force to the island.
“And did you know that the tunnel you’re working in now was where the radar element up at Kahuku Point called to warn of the incoming attack flights? And that some Army officer there, ignored the warning? But what if he didn’t just blow it off out of ignorance?”
Maggie shook her head.
“I’m sorry. It’s so confusing and there are so many strange things that happened that day that I guess I see a conspirator behind everything. I do know what happened to me that morning though.
“I was in the BOQ at Pearl when the first bombs fell.
Seven-fifty-four A.M.on Sunday.” She looked up at Boomer with tears in her eyes.
“I’d left my daughter in the care of our Filipino housekeeper. When we heard the first explosions, we thought it was a drill. Jimmie ran to the window and saw what was happening, and he ran out the door half-dressed, going to his post at headquarters. I looked out. It was unbelievable. There was smoke and fire everywhere. The Japanese were flying just like a practice drill in perfect formation and the ships were sitting ducks.
“When the Arizona got hit, the concussion blew out the windows in the room and jarred me out of my shock. I was cut and bleeding, but it got me moving. I threw on my clothes and ran out. I remembered when I got out, that I’d left my car at the house. Jimmie had driven me and he’d taken his car to headquarters. I started running through the streets.”
Maggie shook her head slowly.
“My housekeeper took my daughter and tried to drive away to the hills.