Cryptonomicon

"The general is of the opinion that persons not familiar with the unique features of the Southwest Pacific Theater may not be entirely competent to judge his strategy," says the major. "The General feels that the Nips will never learn about Ultra. Never. Why? Because they are incapable of comprehending what has happened to them. The General has speculated that he could go down to the radio station tomorrow and broadcast a speech announcing that we had broken all of the Nip codes and were reading all of their messages, and nothing would happen. The General's words were something to the effect that the Nips will never believe how totally we have fucked them, because when you get fucked that badly, it's your own goddamn fucking fault and it makes you look like a fucking shithead."

"I see," Waterhouse says.

"But The General said all of that at much greater length and without using a single word of profanity, because that is how The General expresses himself."

"Thank you for boiling it down," Waterhouse says.

"You know those white headbands that the Nips tie around their foreheads? With the meatball and the Nip characters printed on them?"

"I've seen pictures of them."

"I've seen them for real, tied around the heads of pilots of Nip fighter planes that were about fifty feet away firing machine guns at me and my men," says the major.

"Oh, yeah! Me too. At Pearl Harbor," Waterhouse says. "I forgot."

This appears to be the most irritating thing that Waterhouse has said all day. The major has to spend a moment composing himself. "That headband is called a hachimaki."

"Imagine this, Waterhouse. The emperor is meeting with his general staff. All of the top generals and admirals in Nippon parade into the room in full dress uniforms and bow down solemnly before the emperor. They have come to report on the progress of the war. Each of these generals and admirals is wearing a brand-new hachimakiaround his forehead. These hachimakisare printed with phrases saying things like, 'I am a dipshit' and 'Through my personal incompetence I killed two hundred thousand of our own men' and 'I handed our Midway plans over to Nimitz on a silver platter.'

The major now pauses and takes a phone call so that Waterhouse can savor this image for a while. Then he hangs up, lights another cigarette, and continues. "That's what it would look like for the Nips to admit at this point in the war that we have Ultra."

More smoke rings. Waterhouse has nothing to say. So the major continues. "See, we've gone over the watershed line of this war. We won Midway. We won North Africa. Stalingrad. The Battle of the Atlantic. Everything changes when you go over the watershed line. The rivers all flow a different direction. It's as if the force of gravity itself has changed and is now working in our favor. We've adjusted to that. Marshall and Churchill and all those others are still stuck in an obsolete mentality. They are defenders. But The General is not a defender. As a matter of fact, just between you and me, The General is lousy on defense, as he demonstrated in the Philippines. The General is a conqueror.

"Well," Waterhouse finally says, "what do you suggest I do with myself, seeing as how I'm here in Brisbane?"

"I'm tempted to say you should connect up with all of the other Ultra security experts Marshall sent out before you, and get a bridge group together," the major says.

"I don't care for bridge," Waterhouse says politely.

"You're supposed to be some expert codebreaker, right?"

"Right."

"Why don't you go to Central Bureau. The Nips have a zillion different codes and we haven't broken all of them yet."

"That's not my mission."

"You don't worry about your fucking mission," the major says. "I'll make sure that Marshall thinks you're doing your mission, because if Marshall doesn't think that, he'll give us no end of hassles. So you're clean with the higher-ups."

"Thank you."

"You can consider your mission accomplished," the major says. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"My mission is to beat the stuffing out of the fucking Nips, and that mission is notaccomplished just yet, and so I have other matters to attend to," the major says significantly.

"Shall I just see myself out then?" Waterhouse asks.

Chapter 55 DÖNITZ

Once, when Bobby Shaftoe was eight years old, he went to Tennessee to visit Grandma and Grandpa. One boring afternoon he began skimming a letter that the old lady had left lying on an end table. Grandma gave him a stern talking to and then recounted the incident to Grandpa, who recognized his cue and gave him forty whacks. That and a whole series of roughly parallel childhood experiences, plus several years in the Marine Corps, have made him into one polite fellow.

So he doesn't read others' mail. It be against the rules.