Captain Schermer ordered: “Get the bed, Commander.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Chief of Nursing Services Stenten said, and went to the telephone on Ernie’s bedside table. She dialed a number and then issued several orders of her own: “Chief, this is Commander Stenten. Get the sumo bed out of the attic. Bring it, now, to 308 in the Maternity Ward, together with two new mattresses and linen.” She hung up, then turned to Captain Schermer. “On the way, sir.”
“As a matter of historical interest,” Captain Schermer said, “when we took over this hospital after the last war, we found that it was equipped to handle sumo wrestlers in need of medical attention. Some of them weigh well over two hundred kilograms—more than four hundred pounds—and they apparently didn’t fit in standard Japanese hospital beds. I think these two should both fit comfortably into it.”
“Thank you,” Pickering said.
“But I think I should tell you, Major,” Commander Stenten said, “that if you don’t behave, you will almost instantly find yourself in a single bed in Ward F-7, where we care for those suffering from what is euphemistically called ‘social disease.’ ”
“Commander Stenten, Major,” Captain Schermer said, “is more or less affectionately called, behind her back, of course, ‘The Dragon Lady.’ Don’t cross her.”
[FIVE]
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS UNITED NATIONS COMMAND THE DAI ICHI BUILDING TOKYO, JAPAN 0900 21 OCTOBER 1950
As they started down the corridor to the office of the Supreme Commander, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, caught the arm of Colonel Edward Banning, USMC, who stopped and looked at him.
“When we march in there, Ed, we salute,” Pickering said. “The Army salutes indoors.”
“Yes, sir,” Banning said. “I remember.”
Pickering waved him down the corridor.
In the outer office, Colonel Sidney L. Huff, Mac-Arthur’s senior aide-de-camp, stood up when Pickering and Banning walked in.
“Good morning, General,” he said.
“How are you, Sid?” Pickering said. “You remember Ed Banning, don’t you?”
“It’s been a long time, Colonel,” Huff said, and put out his hand.
Neither Pickering nor Banning thought his smile looked very sincere.
“The Supreme Commander will see you now, General. He’s been expecting you.”
“Not for long, certainly, Sid,” Pickering said. “You said nine o’clock, and Banning and I stood out in the corridor for fifteen minutes looking at his very expensive Rolex until it was oh eight fifty-nine fifty-five.”
“Yes, sir,” Huff said.
He opened the right of the double doors to MacArthur’s office and announced, “General Pickering, sir.”
Pickering saw that Major General Charles M. Willoughby was in the office, sitting in an armchair by a coffee table.
“Come on in, Fleming,” MacArthur called.
The two Marines marched in, stopped eighteen inches from MacArthur’s desk, and saluted.
“Good morning, sir,” Pickering said. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, as I’ve told you time and again. Will you have some coffee?”
“Yes, thank you. General, you remember Colonel Banning, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” MacArthur said. “Good to see you again, Colonel. And you remember General Willoughby, of course?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Banning said.
Willoughby gave Banning his hand but didn’t say anything.
“This is fortuitous, General,” Pickering said to Willoughby. “I was hoping to get a couple of minutes of your time this morning.”
“I’m at your disposal, General,” Willoughby said.
“Thank you,” Pickering said. “The reason I asked to see you, sir, was to introduce—reintroduce?—Colonel Banning to you as my deputy.”
“What does that make him, General?” Willoughby asked. “His title, I mean?”
Pickering chuckled. “General, General Smith and I got a laugh out of that, too, in Washington, when he made the appointment. General Smith asked, ‘If Colonel Banning is going to be Deputy to the Deputy Director of the CIA for Asia, what are we going to call his number two, when he inevitably appoints one? The Deputy to the Deputy to the Deputy Director?’ ”
MacArthur chuckled. “Obviously, the nomenclature on your manning chart needs some work. But Banning is obviously a sound choice for the job, whatever the title, and I look forward to working with you again, Colonel, and I’m sure General Wil-loughby is similarly pleased.”
“Thank you, sir,” Banning said.
“Speaking of intelligence, Fleming,” MacArthur said, “I got several interesting bits of intelligence just now by officer courier from Ned Almond—on an Interoffice Memorandum form, which also seems a bit incongruous, with Ned’s office right now being on the Mount McKinley and mine here—which I really wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Ned said that he’d run into your man McCoy—more about that in a moment—and that McCoy had told him it is his belief that the Russians will not