In Danger's Path by W. E. B. Griffin Page B

khaki fore-and-aft cap stuck through the epaulets of the khaki shirt of the man in the bubble identified him as a Navy lieutenant. His name was Chambers D. Lewis III, and he was aide-de-camp to Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam, who was on the staff of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific.
    â€œGoddamn you, don’t call me that,” the other replied, and then the even-featured, well-built, fair-skinned young man leaned far enough into the now-water-splattered bubble to confirm Lewis’s sighting. He did not look old enough to be entitled to the silver railroad tracks and Marine globe on his fore-and-aft cap that identified him as a captain, USMC. His name was Kenneth R. McCoy, and he had recently passed his twenty-second birthday.
    McCoy and the other two Marines in the Catalina, Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman and Staff Sergeant Koffler, were assigned to the USMC Office of Management Analysis. All four men had just been exfiltrated by submarine from the Japanese occupied Philippine island of Mindanao.
    When Mindanao had fallen to the Japanese early in 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Wendell W. Fertig, a reserve officer of the Corps of Engineers, had refused to surrender. Instead, he’d gone into the hills, proclaimed himself to be a brigadier general in command of U.S. forces in the Philippines, and commenced guerrilla activities against the Japanese. When he’d finally managed to establish radio communication with the United States and asked for supplies, there was some question about his bona fides. For one thing, General Douglas MacArthur had firmly stated that guerrilla operations in the Philippines were impossible. For another, Army records showed only a Lieutenant Colonel Fertig, not a brigadier general.
    In order to better explain these irregularities, President Roosevelt ordered the mounting of a covert operation. This would infiltrate into Mindanao to determine whether Fertig was actually commanding a bona fide guerrilla organization that could do harm to the Japanese, or a pathetic and deluded poseur who, after somehow eluding the Japanese, now had convinced himself that he was a general. Responsibility for the covert operation had been given to Brigadier General Pickering, who had sent McCoy, Zimmerman, and Koffler into the Philippines. They had infiltrated onto Mindanao on a submarine.
    Lieutenant Lewis had been assigned to accompany them on the submarine—carrying with him his admiral’s authority—and at the very last minute had decided to stay on Mindanao with McCoy and the others.
    â€œJesus!” Captain McCoy said, then turned from the bubble to a stocky, barrel-chested, ruddy-faced man who had planted himself precisely on the centerline of the fuselage floor. “That’s the general, all right, Ernie. I wonder where the hell we’re going now.”
    Ernest W. Zimmerman, who was twenty-six but looked older, grunted.
    The man—the boy—beside Gunny Zimmerman looked very much as if he should be in high school and was, in fact, just a few weeks past his nineteenth birthday. But he was also, in fact, Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler, USMC.
    â€œMcCoy,” he asked, in a still-boyish voice. “You think maybe the General’s got a letter for me?” Mrs. Daphne Koffler, Sergeant Koffler’s Australian wife, was in the terminal days of her first pregnancy.
    â€œWe’re back in the world, asshole,” Gunny Zimmerman said. “You better get back in the habit of calling the Killer ‘Captain’ and ‘Sir.’”
    â€œI don’t know, Koffler,” Captain McCoy said. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
    There was a jolt as one of the lowered wheels encountered the sand of the beach, followed a moment later by a second jolt. The roar of the engines increased as the pilot taxied the Catalina onto the shore.
    The port in the fuselage opened and Captain Howell C. Mitchell, MC, USN, stepped through it. He glanced