The First Wave (23 page)
“Because the British censor international mail, but not internal mail,” Kaz said, nodding his head.
“What about getting information back to Algiers?” Harding asked. “That wouldn’t be so easy.”
“It wouldn’t have to be done the same way,” said Kaz, quickly.
“They could have set up a simple code, word for word. Jules could write back, ‘My good friend, John, will be visiting London in three weeks.’ That could actually mean someone named John would be in Algiers in six weeks, depending on whatever previous arrangement they made for signifying numbers and places.”
“But even so, how could they have found out? Everything about the invasion was top secret,” Harding said.
“But Major, what does top secret really mean? Just how secret is it?” I asked.
“Well, a lot of people did have to know,” admitted Harding. “Planning staff, logistical staff, civil affairs. As the date got closer, the circle of those in the know grew larger and larger.”
“Would the Medical Corps be in that circle?”
Harding let that question hang in the air for a minute as he thought.
“They’d have to be, especially to prepare for the kinds of indigenous diseases they’d have to deal with,” he finally said.
“And certainly if they were involved in the testing of a new miracle drug,” added Kaz.
Harding took more coffee, poured milk into it and tapped his spoon on the edge of the thick ceramic mug.
Clink clink clink.
“I don’t like what I’m hearing. You’re suggesting that a U.S. Army officer would betray secret plans for the invasion of North Africa for personal gain. But I agree it’s possible. Does your speculation fit with Lieutenant Kazimierz’s information?” Harding nodded at Kaz.
“Scotland Yard is quite familiar with Jules Bessette and his associates in Blackpool,” Kaz said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, even though the tables around us were empty. “I first called the Provost Marshal’s office, and they referred me to Scotland Yard, and I was told that Jules Bessette is suspected of everything from running the black market to murder, but he is very careful. They have no concrete evidence against him or anyone in his organization. Except . . .” Kaz stopped and took a sip of coffee. He loved the drama of all this.
“Okay, I’m hooked,” I said. “ Except for what?”
“Except for the case of Sergeant Frederick Hotchkiss, of the 21st General Hospital, who supposedly deserted.”
“He was the supply sergeant before Casselli,” I said.
“Yes. The man who drove off in a jeep one night never to be seen again. But the jeep was, or the engine, at least. It was found in a local garage.”
“Let me guess, a garage owned by Jules Bessette,” I said.
“Exactly!”
“So why didn’t they arrest Bessette?” Harding asked.
“He owned the garage but was seldom there. Scotland Yard had their eye on it as a link in a black market operation. Vehicles could come and go from a garage without arousing suspicion. Someone reported that Hotchkiss had been seen at the garage the day he deserted. The Provost Marshal’s office and Scotland Yard searched the place and found the jeep’s engine lying among other auto parts, but no sign of Hotchkiss or the rest of the jeep. The odd thing was, the manager of the garage was found floating face down in Blackpool harbor a few nights later. The investigation went nowhere.”
“Which is exactly what brother Jules wanted,” I said, thinking out loud.
“What do you mean?” asked Harding.
“I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Hotchkiss was killed at the garage, and the manager was supposed to dispose of the body and the vehicle. The jeep, intact, would be too hot to try to sell or salvage. But somebody got greedy and thought they could stash the engine away until all the fuss died down.”
“Ah,” said Kaz, “so when Jules found out, he had the manager killed, to eliminate the link to him . . .”
“And to set an example. Follow orders or else, like in the army.”
“If I threw you in the harbor every time you didn’t obey orders, Boyle, you’d still be treading water,” said Harding, setting down his coffee mug with a thump on the wooden tabletop. “Anything else?”
“Yes sir,” I said, wanting to sound like an authentic officer to keep Harding from getting any ideas. “I got a look at Mathenet’s wounds that he supposedly got in the air raid. It wasn’t from shrapnel. They were knife wounds.”
“Like we figured the assailant got when he tried to slit Casselli’s throat?”
“Exactly like that. I’m certain Mathenet won’t be going anywhere soon, so we can get our hands on him anytime we want. But I’d like to find out who treated him for those wounds. I don’t think anyone with medical knowledge would buy the shrapnel story.”
“Go ahead,” Harding said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the doctors and nurses here didn’t know shrapnel from shinola. This is their first posting in a combat zone. Guy comes in bleeding and said something hit him during the air raid.What are they going to do, give him the third degree?”
“As long as it’s okay with you, I’ll ask around.”
“Knock yourself out. Now, with all this new information, who seems to be our most likely suspect?”
“Well, who would know both that North Africa was our destination and that penicillin would be sent to this hospital?” I asked.
“That would be
both
shipments of penicillin,” Kaz added.
“Yeah. And, who had access to the morphine to give Jerome an overdose?”
“Hold on,” Harding interrupted, holding up his hand. “That happened after the theft, so it could have been anybody.We don’t know if the morphine that killed Jerome came from the stolen lot or the remaining supplies.”
“That’s right,” I said, rapping my fingers on the table. “Some of that stolen stuff could have stayed right here. Which means that it could be anybody—”
“
If
they knew about the unit’s destination and about the penicillin,” said Kaz.
“Or it could mean two of our people are involved,” I said. “Actually I should have said three, because it’s obvious Casselli was involved to some degree. Maybe with petty stuff at first, and then he may have gotten nervous about going big-time.”
“Like the former supply sergeant, Hotchkiss?” asked Harding.
“Maybe, or maybe Hotchkiss was too much of a Boy Scout for them. He may even have been going to report some funny business.”
Harding pushed back his chair and got up, his mouth set in a frown of frustration.
“We could play the maybe game all day. Let’s get some facts. Lieutenant Kazimierz, you work on that notebook. Boyle, you start with Walton and find out if this fish stinks from the head. I’ve got to get back to HQ. Ike is in town.”
“What’s happening, sir?”
“The deal with Darlan is about to happen, and all hell is going to break loose.”
“Here? Why?”
“Not here. Even though Darlan is a double-crossing fascist, he’ll do a deal that will make things easier for us. Darlan will be in charge politically and General Giraud will be in command of the French Armed Forces in North Africa. We won’t have to worry about our rear areas. And the French will join us in fighting the Germans.”
“But we’re still making a deal with a fascist.”
“Right. The politicians and the newspapers back home are going to have a field day. Once the news gets out, half the country will want Ike’s head. Your uncle may make it home before any of us. In the meantime, I’ll meet you two back here at 1500 hours.”
Kaz’s eyebrows were raised. I shrugged. I hate to admit it, but the first thing I thought about wasn’t Uncle Ike losing his job. It was about what would happen to me if he did. I doubted if I’d be lucky enough to be sent home in disgrace.
“BILLY, I’M SO GLAD you’re back with us, safe and sound.”
I felt the hand on my shoulder before I heard Gloria Morgan’s honeyed Southern voice.
I stopped in the busy hospital hallway and said, “Yes, ma’am. I am, too.”
“Now Billy, remember, you don’t have to be so formal here.”
She hooked her arm through mine and we strolled down the hall together. I could feel the softness of her body as her arm pressed mine to her side. She smelled like real soap and perfume, not whitewash and lye.
“Sure . . . Gloria. . . . It’s just that Major Harding has me well-trained when it comes to addressing superior officers.”
“I’ll bet he does. I don’t think of myself as outranking you, Billy. I’m only a nurse. You know I can’t even give you an order, even though I am a captain.” She stressed those last words, as if she needed to remind me, or herself.
“No, I didn’t. So lady officers can only order other lady officers around?”
“That’s the way the army likes it, Billy. At least among the Nurse Corps, anyway. I can’t even order the dumbest, lowest private to empty a bedpan.”
I stopped. I needed to go left, down the hall to Walton’s office, and Gloria seemed to be propelling me along for the ride to wherever she was headed.
“Yeah, but I bet you could ask real nice and get him to do what you wanted.” I said it with a smile, and she didn’t miss a beat.
“I might try that out on you someday, Billy.” She peered up at me through long eyelashes, and I could almost see her licking her lips. “Say hello to your lady friend for me. I checked up on her this morning, and she asked me to tell you she was feeling much better.”
“You did? She seemed okay?”
“Fine, she’s fine. I’ve got to go, Billy.We’ve got some new doctors arriving and I need to check on arrangements for them. See you later, sweetheart.” She turned, fluttering her fingers in a wave.
“Oh, wait a second, Gloria. I wanted to ask you, do you remember after the aid raid, when you told me that Lieutenant Mathenet was being treated for a shrapnel wound?”
“Yes, I do. I ran into you when you were visiting that poor French boy who died . . .”
“Jerome.”
“Yes, Jerome . . . Dupree it was. You asked me if the Lieutenant was going to be taking him into custody.”
“You told me he was being treated.Who was caring for him?”
“Why, I’m certain I don’t know. The fellow stumbled into the emergency room, with blood running down his arm. I pointed him to the triage area and that was the last I saw of him.”
“Did you look at his wound?”
“I could tell it wasn’t very serious by the small amount of blood. But no, I didn’t look at it closely.Why, is he having a problem with it?” Her eyebrows rose with the question, all professional curiosity.
“No, it’s healing up fine. I just wanted check on who was where and when. Routine cop stuff.”
“Sorry I can’t help. See you later, Billy.” She gave me a little wink and sashayed away.
I nodded and watched her go. It took a hell of a woman to make a career out of the Army and put up with everything she had to contend with. Pompous doctors, low pay, and no respect for her rank. For the first time, I wondered why. What did Gloria Morgan get out of the bargain? I wondered about that as I walked down the hall, knocked on Colonel Walton’s door, and entered his office.
“Goddamn it Boyle! I thought I’d seen the last of you! I’ll tell you something . . .”
Walton got up from behind his desk and advanced on me, wagging the two fingers holding a cigar, ashes falling on the carpet in front of him.
“Now I’ve got Headquarters troops standing guard in my own hospital, like goddamn prison guards. That Major Harding of yours is a pain in the ass!”
He went back to his chair. I was thinking about telling him I agreed, when he wheeled around and pointed the cigar at me again.
“And you’re not much better! Take a seat.”
I did. I waited a minute in silence as he puffed on his cigar, staring me down through the smoke.
“You’re not as stupid as you look, Boyle,” he finally said. “A lot of guys would try to calm me down by explaining themselves. Shutting up is hard for most people.”
“What do you need explained, Colonel?”
“Why Harding is bringing in these men, for starters. And why in hell I got orders from HQ to cooperate with you!”
I held up one hand, fingers outstretched.
“Two murders, one theft, an idiot doctor, a crooked supply clerk. . . . What did I leave out?” I looked at my five fingers.
“Petty pilferage. Goes on all the time. I didn’t mind losing those two anyway.Dunbar was a prissy sonufabitch and Willoughby deserves to be at the other end of the supply chain. If you investigated every CO when some supplies go missing, you’d have a lifetime occupation.”
“But those supplies are drugs, Colonel.”
“Wake up, Boyle. I run a hospital here. Of course drugs are missing. If it were a paratroop outfit it’d be jump boots. If it were the Air Corps it’d be leather jackets. If it was Headquarters it’d be champagne.”
“Good point, Colonel, but we’re talking about this hospital and what’s gone on here. Plus, we don’t really have champagne that much. Bushmills, yeah.” I tried a smile.
“Bullshit is more like it. Ask your goddamn questions, and be quick about it.”
I could tell Walton didn’t like being pressured to cooperate, and he wanted me to know he didn’t like it. Question was, is this the way the guilty party would react? Answer was, maybe, if he were cool and smart. Walton seemed more the fly-off-the-handle than the cool-calculating type to me. I thought I should start easy so he wouldn’t fly off that handle and beat me over he head with it. I looked at the books lining the shelves and thought about the first time I came into his office.
“Colonel, you’ve got everything here from
Gray’s Anatomy
to the
U.S. Army Manual for Courts-Martial
. Are you a doctor yourself? Regular Army?”
“No and no. I was a kid in the First World War, infantry. I went to medical school when I got back, but it wasn’t for me. I went to work at a hospital instead and ended up as Chief Hospital Administrator, Detroit General. Then the war came along and the army needed to build up the Medical Corps overnight. That’s my job, to organize and make things happen, in a hurry. Best way to do that in the Army is to know every damn regulation backward and forward, and bury those desk-jockeys at HQ with paperwork if they give you a hard time.”
“And the medical texts?” I gestured with my thumb toward
Gray’s
Anatomy
, the only book with a title that I could understand.
“I like to keep up. Keeps the MD bullshit factor down if I understand every third word.”
“Can anyone come in here and borrow them?”
“No one needs to.”
“But if they did?”
“The door’s locked when I’m not here.My clerk across the hall has a key if he wants anything. I suppose anyone could ask to borrow a book.”
“Is this where you play poker too?”
“Yep. And you’re not invited.”
“Okay, Colonel. Now a more important question. Do you know who bandaged Lieutenant Mathenet’s wounds after the air raid?”
“No fucking idea.”
“Do you keep records of that sort of thing?”
“For a little scratch, right after we’ve been bombed by the Nazis? If we had to hospitalize someone, then yes. Otherwise it’s just gauze and tape and get the hell out.”
“Is that the only working telephone in the hospital?” I pointed to the ornate French-style telephone on his ornate table.
“Yes. Probably the only one for miles around. The Signal Corps ran a wire out here, straight to this room. That’s it.”
Time for the harder questions. I figured I’d build up to the big one.
“Why do you think Sergeant Hotchkiss deserted in England?”
“Now that’s a mystery I’d like solved. No idea. Not in his character. He up and disappeared one day, no warning, no explanation. His gear, jeep, everything.”
“You certain he deserted?”
“Apparently he did. Captain Morgan saw him leave that night, and he was spotted in town the next day. Then nothing.What else could’ve happened?”
I didn’t feel like going into all the possibilities. Next question.
“When did you first learn the destination of your unit?”
“About six weeks before we shipped out, I was told to prepare for two eventualities. One was that Spain was considering getting into the war on our side, and that we should prepare to move to the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border. The other was that Vichy France was going to come over to us, and that we should prepare to set up a hospital in Algiers as a preliminary step to moving into France.”
“Two cover stories, one just a little off the mark.”
“Exactly. Nothing was said about an invasion, just to prepare for transport to either locale.We had to research local diseases, health conditions, and stock up on drugs and medications for each.”
“Who is ‘we’ exactly?”
“I mean the hospital. I did the research and gave orders for the supplies.”
“When I was in England I saw GIs issued cold weather gear for Norway, as part of a deception plan. Anything like that go on with your unit?”
“That’s a laugh. No, no cloak and dagger stuff. Once I got the word, though, I couldn’t leave base.”
“Could you send and receive mail?”
“Sure. What, do you think I was going to send a note to Adolf?” He laughed.
“No, just curious about the security.When did you learn about the penicillin?”
“I knew the 21st had been selected for the trial run of the first batch months ago. But I didn’t know when and where.”
“When did you find that out?”
“Three weeks before we left. Medical Corps brass and some pharmaceutical reps paid me a visit. I had to sign the Official Secrets Act and everything, promising not to reveal that piece of information.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No!”
“Not to a trusted colleague, or to anyone on your staff? It must have been pretty exciting for the doctors when they heard about it.”
“Yeah, they were jumping up and down when I told them. Here. After we landed.”
“All right, just a cop’s suspicious nature.”
“Anything else, officer?” Walton drew out the last word, sarcasm dripping off each syllable.
I looked around the room for a few seconds, just to irritate him. “Nooo,” I said, tapping my finger against my lips, as if I were trying to come up with something but couldn’t.
“Good. I have more supply requisitions here than there are hours in the day.” He picked up a pen and started in on stack of papers about two inches thick. I leaned back in the chair and got comfortable. Crossed my legs, even.
“You know,” I said, wagging my finger in the air, “there is just one more thing.”
Then I saw it.Walton had been perfect so far. It’s hard for a suspect to hide his relief when he thinks the session is over. Innocent or guilty, everyone is glad to have a cop stop asking a million irritating questions. It’s even harder to hide disappointment when he starts up again. It’s a flicker of resentment, from deep inside the soul of someone who is trying his damnedest to protect a lie. It takes a lot out of a guy, and I saw some of that wind go out of Walton’s sails in that brief moment.
“What?” No goddamn this or that—a weary, resigned question.
“You must have taken that Official Secrets Act pretty seriously.”
“Have you signed it, Boyle?”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Did you read it?”
“I had it explained to me.”
“So you know they can string you up by the balls, throw you in a cell, and toss away the key if they even think you’ve violated it?”
“Well, I wasn’t told those details, but I got the drift of the thing.”
“So my answer is, Yes, I take it seriously.”
“You must.Why else would you have kept the second shipment a secret?”
“Second shipment of what?”
“How many second shipments of things that you had to sign the Official Secrets Act over are you expecting?”
“Spit it out, Boyle! Are you talking about more penicillin coming in?”
“Yes, Colonel, I am. And I’m wondering why you didn’t mention that, after the theft of the first.”
“No one told me anything about more penicillin! I figured more would be coming, but I had no idea. . . .When is it due?” He looked up at me as if the full impact of my information was just hitting him. “Who else knows about this?”
“I can’t say anything more, Colonel. Are you trying to tell me you’re ignorant about the second shipment?”
“Dumb-fucking-founded, boy. Ignorant as a Texas mule. You find out who was supposed to have told me about this and ask him if he did. If he says yes, he’s a lying bastard! Check the paperwork! The army doesn’t let you shit without filing a form! You find me a supply order telling me I have another shipment of penicillin due, with my signature on it, and I’ll kiss your Irish ass!”
Walton got up and stalked around his desk toward me, leaning forward so his red face was just above my nose. He put his hands on either arm of the chair. I could smell the cigar and coffee on his breath.
“But you remember this, you worthless rear-area fuck-up! If you find that form with somebody else’s name on it, I’m gonna drag you across that parade ground and you’re going to kiss my ass, and smile while you’re doing it. Now get out before I get all worked up and do something that will cause you to appreciate the quality medical care provided at the 21st General Hospital.”
That last word had a fine spin of spittle on it.Walton pushed away from the chair and went back to his desk, puffing on that cigar like a locomotive building up a head of steam. I waited until I got out in the hall to wipe my face. He was hiding something, I was sure. I was also sure that he was either another Clark Gable or he had no clue at all about the penicillin coming in tonight on the 3:00 AM train from Oran. But somebody did.
I walked out of the rear entrance for some fresh air but didn’t get much more than dust and a warm, stale breeze. The breeze part was nice, but the dust and heat didn’t have much charm. The area between the hospital and the Medical Supply Depot had been neatened up, Army style. They had whitewashed rocks laid out to mark walkways and the roadway. It made me wish I had stock in a whitewash company. The army must buy that stuff by the truckload. The debris that had been out back had been taken away, and there were a couple of real air raid shelters with reinforced roofs instead of slit trenches. I wanted to breath in the fresh air and feel it fill my lungs, send oxygen to my brain, and help me figure all this out. Instead, a couple of deuce and a half trucks rolled through the yard slowly, tires crunching on gravel, raising a cloud of dust when they braked to a halt. I shielded my eyes against the sun and dust, then gave up. No inspiration, no flash of intuition. I kicked a stone and went back inside.