Chuck and Eddie had both been promoted. As thousands of conscripts poured into the US military, there was a shortage of officers, and pre-war enlisted men who knew the ropes rose fast. Chuck and Eddie were now permitted to live off base. They had rented a small apartment together.
Chuck put out his hand, but Donegan did not shake it.
Chuck sat down again. He slightly outranked a sergeant, and he was not going to be polite to one who was rude. ‘Something I can do for you, Captain Vandermeier?’
There were many ways a captain could torment petty officers in the navy, and Vandermeier knew them all. He adjusted rotas so that Chuck and Eddie never had the same day off. He marked their reports ‘adequate’, knowing full well that anything less than ‘excellent’ was, in fact, a black mark. He sent confusing messages to the pay office, so that Chuck and Eddie were paid late or got less than they should have, and had to spend hours straightening things out. He was a royal pain. And now he had thought up some new mischief.
Donegan pulled from his pocket a grubby sheet of paper and unfolded it. ‘Is this your work?’ he said aggressively.
Chuck took the paper. It was a map of New Georgia, a group in the Solomon Islands. ‘Let me check,’ he said. It was his work, and he knew it, but he was playing for time.
He went to a filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer. He took out the file for New Georgia and shut the drawer with his knee. He returned to his desk, sat down, and opened the file. It contained a duplicate of Donegan’s map. ‘Yes,’ Chuck said. ‘That’s my work.’
‘Well, I’m here to tell you it’s shit,’ said Donegan.
‘Is it?’
‘Look, right here. You show the jungle coming down to the sea. In fact, there’s a beach a quarter of a mile wide.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Sorry!’ Donegan had drunk about the same amount of beer as Vandermeier, and he was spoiling for a fight. ‘Fifty of my men died on that beach.’
Vandermeier belched and said: ‘How could you make a mistake like that, Dewar?’
Chuck was shaken. If he was responsible for an error that had killed fifty men, he deserved to be shouted at. ‘This is what we had to work on,’ he said. The file contained an inaccurate map of the islands that might have been Victorian, and a more recent naval chart that showed sea depths but almost no terrain features. There were no on-the-spot reports and no wireless decrypts. The only other item in the file was a blurred black-and-white aerial reconnaissance photograph. Putting his finger on the relevant spot in the photo, Chuck said: ‘It sure looks as if the trees come all the way to the waterline. Is there a tide? If not, the sand might have been covered with algae when the photograph was taken. Algae can bloom suddenly, and die off just as fast.’
Donegan said: ‘You wouldn’t be so goddamn casual about it if you had to fight over the terrain.’
Maybe that was true, Chuck thought. Donegan was aggressive and rude, and he was being egged on by the malicious Vandermeier, but that did not mean he was wrong.
Vandermeier said: ‘Yeah, Dewar. Maybe you and your nancy-boy friend should go with the marines on their next assault. See how your maps are used in action.’
Chuck was trying to think of a smart retort when it occurred to him to take the suggestion seriously. Maybe he ought to see some action. It
On the other hand, it would mean risking his life.
Chuck looked Vandermeier in the eye. ‘That sounds like a good idea, Captain,’ he said. ‘I’d like to volunteer for that duty.’
Donegan looked startled, as if he was beginning to think he might have misjudged the situation.
Eddie spoke for the first time. ‘So would I. I’ll go, too.’
‘Good,’ said Vandermeier. ‘You’ll come back wiser – or not at all.’
Volodya could not get Woody Dewar drunk.
In the bar of the Hotel Moskva he thrust a glass of vodka in front of the young American and said in schoolboy English: ‘You’ll like this – it’s the very best.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Woody. ‘I appreciate it.’ And he left the glass untouched.
Woody was tall and gangly and seemed straightforward to the point of naivety, which was why Volodya had targeted him.
Speaking through the interpreter, Woody said: ‘Is Peshkov a common Russian name?’
‘Not especially,’ Volodya replied in Russian.
‘I’m from Buffalo, where there is a well-known businessman called Lev Peshkov. I wonder if you’re related.’
Volodya was startled. His father’s brother was called Lev Peshkov and had gone to Buffalo before the First World War. But caution made him prevaricate. ‘I must ask my father,’ he said.
‘I was at Harvard with Lev Peshkov’s son, Greg. He could be your cousin.’
