The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [125]
"Does that mean the deck has to be stacked? Sir?"
"The 'deck,' to call it that, is too much for any of us to get our fingers around," the colonel maintained.
"Maybe so," Ben said, unsatisfied. "But sir, whatever accounts for it, this whole thing with the Supreme Team has turned out way to hell and gone different from what you projected, hasn't it. I mean, why keep on with the series? Shouldn't we just scrap it now? Six men gone—I've tried, but for the life of me I can't see what's to be gained by serving up my buddies in obituary after obituary." He stared squarely at the colonel. "Dead heroes serve a purpose, do they?"
"We are not dealing"—the colonel stopped—"not trafficking in that sort of thing, Captain, what kind of cynics do you think we are?" Reaching down to a wastebasket, he mashed out the stub of his cigarillo, and treated himself to another. "Thanks to your talents," he resumed levelly, "the story of the eleven of you, whatever misfortunes have been along the way, is one of the epics of this war. So we are not, repeat not, going to scrap the series." The tone softened. "Modify it a bit, perhaps." He waved away a slight cirrus of smoke. "Let's proceed to the reason I'm here. I wanted to brief you personally on the war outlook as we at TPWP see it, to provide some needed perspective"—needed by you to the point where you now shut up and listen or else, his tone implied—"about your assignments from here on."
Ben did listen, with every pore. The colonel's briefing came down to saying he did not have to see himself as a war correspondent into perpetuity; there was optimism at knowledgeable levels in Washington that the war could be over within a year. From their lips to God's ear, as Jake would say. The colonel sprinkled in some pep talk about once-in-a-lifetime coverage chances as Germany and Japan, in whichever order, were ground down into surrender. Depends on the lifetime, doesn't it. By the time the TPWP view of things had been fully impressed upon him, not a word had been uttered about how he was supposed to handle the due pieces on Dex and Moxie, leaving him as baffled as ever. If that didn't amount to scrapping the Supreme Team, what did? What was "modify" supposed to mean?
"Now as to your next orders, Captain," the colonel had arrived at. "It may not surprise you that you'll be going overseas—"
Well, here it is, and with something strangely like the spin of a compass in himself Ben began trying to set his mind to it, that ticket to Somewhere in Europe. Moxie, you win the sterling pencil-pusher for a change.
"—you'll need to tidy up with your clerk, finish up any pieces you're working on, you may be gone a good while—"
Or a bad one, Colonel, given the history of this.
"—and when the time is nearer, we'll let you know your departure date—"
Oh, swell, let's add waiting to the game.
"—for your old stomping grounds, the Pacific."
Ben was floored. What, again? Capital Y why? Danzer had been written about not all that long ago, there was nothing sane to be said further about his cushy boat ride through the war. It just did not make a lick of journalistic sense that he could see, returning to—Wait a minute: return. Oh goddamn, no.
"Sir, begging your pardon, I don't want to seem out of line or anything, but damn it," everything in him blew, "are you sending me out there again just so Tepee Weepy will have an eyewitness when MacArthur wades ashore at Manila or Zamboanga or Leyte or wherever the hell he's going to do it? When that happens there'll be correspondents and photographers up the gigi, the general will have to wade through the cameras and reporters as much as the surf, and I don't see why I—"
"Calm down, Captain. Watching Douglas MacArthur walk on water is not going to be your primary mission."
"Then what is?" he asked dubiously, still suspicious that somewhere in MacArthur's entourage as