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Thayne -> Introducing Thayne (3/11/2005 4:56:40 AM)
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My partner is still out taking care of business-related business.
So, I decided that I would provide you with a bit of insight concerning Thayne -- the character in the AAR, not me.
If you are one of the other contributors to this AAR, you might find this particularly valuable.
If not, it may be entertaining.
Enjoy.
Thayne
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There is no shade on Canton Island that man did not create. Even the few palm trees were imported, planted by a shipping company that had leased, and then abandoned the island.
Ethan Lynde -- "Thayne" to all who knew him -- found his shade under the wing of a PBY named "Lesley." His pilot, Frank Martin, had parked the plane at the end of the pier, facing into the lagoon to allow for a quick escape in case of attack. This put the wing of the PBY over the end of the pier.
"Thayne" was not the only pseudonym that the man used. His last name also hid his identity. Normally, his name would have been spelled "Lin" in English, but he adopted the Scottish spelling to avoid questions that would have otherwise caused problems.
"Lin" was the name that his grandmother had brought across the Pacific in 1850. This was the time of the great gold rush, and Chinese by the boatload saw as much opportunity in the new world as Europeans.
At the time she made the journey, Thayne's grandmother was not yet out of her teens. Mike Fitzroy, the owner of the Orient Steamer that her family booked passage on, found her quite attractive. By the time they reached America, he had negotiated with her grandfather to have her sign on as a part of his crew. She would become his personal servant, and translate for him in business dealings back in China.
Once in San Francisco, he set the rest of the family up with jobs and a place to live, then loaded up with supplies and started back to China. He did not like his new young servant's Chinese name, so he took to calling her Princess. In time, nobody remembered her by any other name.
Princess learned English quickly, and started her service as Fitzroy's translator immeidately after arriving in China. Also, during the trip, she had become his lover, and bore him a child before her first year of service was through.
Fitzroy did not want to publicly acknowledge the child as his own, and refused to give the boy a name, except to insist that the boy be called William. That also happened to be the name of Fitzroy's father, who had served as a naval officer in the War of 1812.
Trade during the Civil War years made Fitzroy wealthy, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad gave him a wealth of new markets for his Chinese imports.
As William grew older, he began to take over many of his mother's responsibilities. He proved to be easy to like, and a shrewd negotiator. Fitzroy was soon letting young William negotiate deals on both sides of the Pacific. He also made arrangements for William to marry into one of the most politically influential families in California. At the wedding, Fitzroy gave William a substantial portion of the Fitzroy Shipping Company. Many suspected that it was the easiest way for Fitzroy to arrange for William to inherit the company without formally mentioning him in a will.
Ethan was born into a world that had one foot firmly planted in the shipping business, and the other in politics. William still traveled to the orient arranging business deals for Fitzroy Shipping. His stops included Russia, Japan, and the European colonies, as well as China. He took Ethan with him and introduced the boy to influential people throughout the Pacific Ocean.
When Ethan was old enough to go to college, William made the arrangements to get him into Harvard. In the process, he changed the spelling of Ethan's last name. Ethan was, after all, only one-quarter Chinese, and it did not seem fitting to burden him with a foreign name. On the application, Ethan Lin became Ethan Lynde. His college friends shortened his name to Thayne.
Thayne graduated from college in 1905. Shortly after that, Japan attacked Russia. When Japan and Russia accepted Theodore Roosevelt's offer to negotiate a settlement, the state department scrambled to find people who could handle the job. Young and likeable Ethan Lynde, with business associates and powerful family friends in nearly every port on the Pacific, was quickly added to the delegation.
State department officials were more than pleased with Thayne's work. Though he was young, he soon moved from negotiating peace between Russia and Japan, to negotiating trade agreements between the United States and all of the Far Eastern countries.
The Great Depression brought a sudden drop in America's interest in trade and gave rise to a new interest in the Pacific. Japan signaled its intent on expansion by taking over Manchuria in 1931. From that moment on, Japan focused on becoming as powerful as possible, and the United States adopted a single-minded determination to make sure that did not happen. Thayne stood in a world between them.
At the age of 61, Thayne's graying hair had taken away the last remnants of oriental appearance. He stood shorter than most men, and had a darker complexion, but that could easily be taken to be signs of a Mexican or Mediterranean heritage, or Native American.
Radio operator Lieutenant Joe Hammond stepped out of the PBY and offered Thayne a dispatch. Thayne read it, and smiled.
"Good news?" asked Hammond.
"What do you think?" Thayne asked.
"I suppose, if the Aussies don't press for the 9th Division for six months, that takes some of the pressure off."
"The Aussies are not going to give us six months," said Thayne, handing the paper back. "The instant the Dutch army surrenders on Java, or Japan lands troops at Port Moresby, Curtin will call the 9th Division back to Australia, and there will be no talking him out of it. That won't take six months."
Hammond gave a sympathetic sigh.
"He might even be playing games with us," Thayne added. "If we forget about the 9th Division, then it will be available for Curtin to call on when one of those two events happens -- unless we can extract from him a promise to leave it in Africa no matter what happens in Australia before then."
The radio operator was about the only person Thayne could talk to. He had two guards who flew around with him, whose duty was to guard the plane more than to guard him. His pilot and copilot and their navigator were responsible for flying the plane, and knew nothing about the messages that its passenger sent and received. Hammond knew everything.
Yet, the message did take away some of Thayne's pressure. If Curtin was no longer threatening to call the division home immediately, Thayne did not need to devote his energy to preventing it. Thayne, too, had been given until the fall of Java or an attack on Port Moresby -- rather than the end of the week -- to arrange a peaceful settlement.
He stood up from his typing, stretched, and looked out across the island that surrounded him. Parked within the calm lagoon of the atoll, he could not look any direction without seeing land, except for a few small gaps in the atoll off to the west.
He put on his hat, buttoned up his shirt, and straightened his tie. He then reached into the plane and took his coat off of a hanger and put it on.
Hammond watched, shaking his head. Thayne put a great deal of stock in appearances and first impressions. Whenever he appeared in public, he was as well dressed as the opportunity allowed, regardless of how uncomfortable it made him. Even his shoes were polished.
Thayne headed off down the pier. Without a word, one of his guards stepped up behind him, following by a few paces, firearm at the ready.
On his way to shore, Thayne passed another PBY. A mechanic stood on the wing, wrestling with a stubborn bolt inside of an exposed engine. He and his partner were replacing the spark plugs and performing other routine maintenance. Most of the PBYs stationed at the island were out looking for a Japanese fleet. Each day, one or two stayed behind for maintenance.
The mechanics laid each part they took off the plane on a canvas in a simple array. Each part would go back in reverse order, and nothing would get lost. Thayne nodded a polite greeting as he walked by, but did not distract them with conversation. Thayne stepped carefully past them, and continued on to shore.
Where the pier met the coral sand, Thayne stepped between a pair of 40mm AA guns placed to protect the seaplanes. A three-man crew worked at each gun to grow the sandbag walls around it. He gave those who looked at him a friendly smile, and paused. He knew that they would think of the well-dressed man on this remote island to be odd, and perhaps eccentric, so he stopped for a moment.
One of the soldiers noticed, and snapped to attention with a salute.
"You don't have to salute him," said a companion. "He's a civilian."
Sheepishly, the young soldier let his hand fall.
"I appreciate the sentiment," said Thayne. "But it is I who should be saluting you. Don't think for a moment that I don't know the sacrifice you boys made to be here." He put his hands in his pockets, and acted as if he found something unexpected there. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then offered them to the least friendly looking soldier in the crew. "Do you want these? I don't smoke."
The soldier said "yes" with a wide smile, and took the gift. Thayne tipped his hat to the soldiers, and continued up the beach.
He avoided the buildings of the Pan Am complex. In the mid day heat, the buildings would be turning into ovens. Instead, he headed over to the mess tent. It stood with its sides rolled up to let the breeze pass through. Unfortunately, that breeze had crossed a thousand miles of ocean to reach the island, and could not possibly hold another drop of water. Sweat collected on the bodies of the soldiers gathered there and rolled off of them.
He passed a soldier laying on a makeshift bench reading a paperback book. After catching the soldier's attention, he tipped the book back a bit to get a look at the cover. THE VESPER SERVICE MURDERS.
"You're into spy stories?" Thayne asked.
"It's not a spy story. It's a murder mystery," the soldier answered.
Thayne looked at the title again. "I'm thinking about the later books. I think, in the next one, Hugh North starts working for G2. That's military intelligence."
"I guess," the soldier answered with a shrug. "My girl sent this to me. She said she would rather have me reading than looking for something else to do. Nobody thought I would be out here where there's nothing else to do."
"Your girl?" Thayne asked.
"Nancy," he said, putting the book down and quickly sitting up. In an instant, he had his wallet in his hand and was showing Thayne her picture.
"Nice," Thayne said. "You're lucky."
"Yeah," was all the boy could muster.
"I would take her advice," Thayne added. "She looks like she's worth it." I left him to his book. He seemed a little sadder than he was as he put his wallet away.
Thayne helped himself to some water and took a biscuit from a permanent stack of biscuits on the first table. Then he found an isolated corner of the tent and sat down, leaning back against a pole and closing his eyes.
He could hear his guard, no more than ten feet away, shifting his weight and standing ready to deal with any attacker.
While he sat, his mind raced through his memories of the communications he had received to date. Both the Australians and the English seemed to be unusually cooperative today. It made him nervous. The English were blaming Percival for inadequately preparing Malaya for the Japanese attack, rather than Thayne for mismanaging its defense. Thayne felt grateful, but wondered if he could have done more. A persistent thought had nagged him recently that, maybe, he could have gotten a cargo ship or two to the island before Japan took it, or used destroyers to take in extra supplies.
"It's too late," Thayne reminded himself. He realized suddenly that he had actually spoken the words, though not too loud. He opened his eyes. Nobody seemed to have noticed.
He caught Lieutenant Hammond coming toward him, holding a briefcase. For an instant, Thayne thought of running and hiding, but he forced himself to stay put.
Hammond took a seat across the table. Thayne dug a key out of his pocket, opened the case, and removed a single sheet of paper.
He read it through.
Then he read it again.
After looking around to see the distance of the nearest soldier, Hammond whispered, "I don't get it. We all know the Japs have an airbase at Tarawa. What does it mean that they hear radio broadcasts south of Apamama? It could just be Japanese scouts."
"Or it could be the Japanese carriers," said Thayne, tossing the paper back into the case. He took his hat off and set it on the table, than ran his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. "Or it could be that the Japanese think that we think they have left, and we are going to do something careless."
He sat up straight and looked at Hammond directly.
"It means, I think, that they're coming back."
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