The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(41)
“Yes, Admiral Kimmel?” she said. Dorothy’s boss, Rear Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, was a handsome man in his midfifties, a four-star Admiral in the United States Navy and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. When he bellowed, people ran to fall in line—the Admiral was infamous for throwing books at walls, or even taking off his hat and jumping on it in frustration, a situation that happened so frequently when he’d been at sea that the mess boys kept an old sea hat handy, just in case.
But today Kimmel was with Major General Frederick L. Martin, Commander of the Hawaiian Air Force, a man about Kimmel’s age. Kimmel was in Navy whites and Martin in Army browns. Both men were highly decorated.
Kimmel took off his horn-rimmed glasses, folded them, and placed them on his desk. Above his head, the blades of a ceiling fan turned lazily. “Major Martin and I are going to have an early supper in my office today, Miss Tuttle. Would you order us two burgers, french fries, and Coca-Colas from the canteen, then pick it all up? That’s a good girl.” His face crinkled in a smile. “Oh, and a thick slice of one of those Maui onions, if they have them.”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Yes, sir.”
“And two of those pineapple tarts, you know—the ones with the caramelized coconut on top? And order something for yourself too, honey, while you’re at it.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“You can have mine, Admiral. I’m not eating much these days,” Martin admitted, after she left.
“Nervous stomach? You can’t let it get to you!” Kimmel thumped his palms on the desk. “Don’t let the damn Japs get you down!”
Kimmel rose and widened the angle of the wooden blinds. Outside, the Honolulu sky was a dazzling blue. Two orange butterflies chased each other beyond Kimmel’s windows. The windows were open as far as they could go, and, if they’d wanted to, Kimmel and Martin could have reached out to touch the spiky stalks of bird-of-paradise that grew outside.
Martin shook his head. “It’s not the Japs. It’s the Army. General Short’s insisting that we move all of our planes together in the center of Hickam Field, all bunched up together. They’re sitting ducks in case of an air attack.”
“Why the hell is Short doing that?”
“We have over a hundred thirty thousand Japanese on Oahu, and Short thinks those planes are far more vulnerable to sabotage on the ground than air attack from above—‘It would be far too easy for the enemy to sneak in at night and blow up all the planes.’ He thinks that with the new radar installations in place, there’s no way any enemy aircraft could sneak in undetected.”
“It’s a good thing you finally put in that radar station.”
“No thanks to the National Park Service, which didn’t even want to give us permission—damn wildlife preservationists! Now we just have to get those men out there some telephones.”
Kimmel sat and tipped back in his chair. “What are those boys supposed to do without telephones? Walk a mile to the nearest store and use a pay phone?”
Martin gave a nervous smile. “We’re doing the best we can, with what little we have.”
Miss Tuttle rapped on the door and then entered, carrying a white paper bag full of food, grease stains beginning to form on the bottom. The bottles of Coca-Cola clinked against each other. “Thanks, honey,” Kimmel said. She nodded to the two men and left.
Kimmel dug into the bag and handed a burger wrapped in paper to Martin.
Martin accepted it, unwrapping the paper on Kimmel’s desk.
“That’s one good thing about this move to Hawaii—fantastic golf. Tennis, too.”
Kimmel swallowed a french fry and took a swig of Coke. “I still think the fleet should have stayed in San Diego—but don’t mention it to Roosevelt, he won’t listen to any of us. Doesn’t even seem to see the need for a Pacific Fleet these days—wants to send more and more of our ships to the Atlantic, to help the damn British. And then what are we supposed to do? I even brought up the British success toppling the Italian fleet at Taranto—they just used some old biplanes and sank nearly all of the Italian battleships. And the harbor at Taranto’s similar to Pearl’s.”
Martin pushed his food away. “Pearl’s too shallow.”
“That’s just what Roosevelt said. Here”—Kimmel said, reaching into the bag and pulling out a spear wrapped in waxed paper and handing it over to Martin—“at least have a pickle.” He dunked a french fry into a small paper cup of ketchup and shoveled it into his mouth. “And I’ll have Miss Tuttle call the club to set up a golf match for us this afternoon.”