Battleground
Page 8
“Sergeant Moore?” Major Humphrey interrupted.
Captain Sessions ignored him. “In the next day or two, there will be a TWX from Enlisted Personnel routinely transferring him. You are to discuss the circumstances of Sergeant Moore’s departure with no one.”
“I understand, Captain,” Humphrey said. “Colonel Westman, the G-2, has asked me for an after action report.”
“I’ll go see Colonel Westman when I leave here. You are not to tell him anything. I’ll make sure he understands that I’m responsible for that decision.”
“Whatever you say, Captain.”
“I don’t want the people in his platoon, boots or Drill Instructors, discussing the unusual circumstances of Sergeant Moore’s departure,” Sessions said. “Do you see any problem there?”
“No, that can be handled, I think. I’ll have to tell my sergeant major something. You understand, he will be curious.”
“OK. Tell him that there’s been an administrative fuckup—that shouldn’t surprise him—and that we’re quietly trying to make it right. I would rather you talk to him than me. And also, by the time Sergeant Moore and I get on the courier plane in the morning, I want him to be wearing the insignia of his rank. Which means that someone is going to have to go to his platoon and get his gear and run the shirts and blouses past a seamstress.”
“I think the Gunny can handle that without trouble, Captain,” Humphrey said.
“Another practical matter. Where is Sergeant Moore going to spend the night?”
“There’s a guest house. I don’t suppose too many eyebrows would be raised if he was in one of those rooms. He could be waiting for his wife, or mother, whatever.”
“Particularly if he went to his room and stayed there until I fetched him in the morning, right?”
Humphrey nodded.
“How is he going to eat?”
“There’s a snack bar,” Humphrey said.
“Could I stay there, too?”
“It’s an enlisted guest house,” Humphrey said.
“OK. I’ll get a room in the transient BOQ. Moore, you will be taken to the guest house. Your gear will be delivered to you there. You will take supper and breakfast in the guest house. You will not leave your room for any other purpose. I will fetch you at about eight-thirty tomorrow morning. You are to make no telephone calls, or communicate with anyone but myself. I will get you a number where I can be reached. Clear?”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“Questions?” Sessions asked.
Christ, he thought, I sound just like Colonel Rickabee.
There were no questions.
(Four)
ENLISTED GUEST HOUSE
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT
PARRIS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
0730 HOURS 16 JUNE 1942
Sergeant John Marston Moore was unable to resist the temptation to examine himself carefully in the cheap and somewhat distorting full-length mirror mounted on the door of the closet in his room at the guest house.
He had last examined himself in a small and even more distorting mirror in the head of his barracks twenty-six hours before, after shaving. What had then looked back at him was a hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked individual in baggy utilities. He had looked very much like every other boot in his platoon, except that he was taller than most of them, and the weight loss and musculature hardening of the physical conditioning had made him look skinnier.
What looked back at him now was a sergeant of the United States Marine Corps, wearing a stiffly starched khaki shirt and a sharply creased green uniform. He moved slightly, so that his left shoulder pointed at the mirror and looked at the reflection of his new chevrons.
Then he met his eyes in the mirror and shook his head. He looked closer. He still had what he thought of as a “boot head”—a head an electric clipper had shorn of all hair, down to the skin, in ninety seconds. His head was by no means recovered from that outrage.
With the boot head I still look like a boot.
He went to the double bed where he had passed the night, picked up his fore-and-aft cap, put that on, and examined himself in the mirror again. That was better. The cap concealed the top of his head from view.
He had woken in the bed at four o‘clock, conditioned by six weeks of waking at that hour to the shrill blast of a whistle and the ritual admonition to drop his cock and pick up his socks.
For a moment, he hadn’t known where he was, for the room was pitch dark. There had always been some kind of light in the squad bay, if only what came into the long, narrow, and crowded room from the head. And then he had remembered what happened, out of the blue, the previous afternoon.
They would have wondered, the guys in the platoon, what the fuck had happened to Moore, J. He was known as Moore, J. because there were two Moores in his platoon. The other one, from Connecticut, was Moore, A. Moore, J. had never learned what Moore, A.’s “A” had stood for.
“What the fuck happened to Moore, J.?”
“Who the fuck knows. They sent for him. Company, I think. ”
“What the fuck did he do?”
“Who the fuck knows?”
Eventually, someone’s curiosity would overwhelm his good sense and he would ask, waiting until he thought one of the DI’s assistants was in an unusually kind mood.
“Sir, permission to speak, Sir?”
“Speak, Asshole.”
“Sir, whatever happened to Moore, J., Sir?”
“If the Marine Corps wanted you to know, Asshole, I would have told you. What are you doing, Asshole, writing a book?”
“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
He had not been able to get back to sleep. After a while, he had gotten out of the double bed and stood at the window in his underwear and looked out at the deserted streets.
Then the sounds of mating had come through the thin walls from the next room. He remembered hearing them the night before, waking him about half past nine.
Someone, he had thought, was making up for lost time.
It had been funny for a moment ... and then somehow erotic, as his mind’s eye filled with what was going on next door. And then finally it was terribly sad, although he didn’t quite understand why that should be the case. The Marine Corps, he had noticed from signs at the Reception Desk, seemed determined that no Marine should share one of its Parris Island Enlisted Guest House rooms with a lady to whom he was not legally joined in marriage.
He hadn’t thought much about sex since he’d been at Parris Island. For one thing, there hadn’t been time to think about sex or anything else. For another, he had always been exhausted; he had woken up exhausted. And he thought it was possible ... he had learned that at Parris Island anything was possible ... that they did indeed lace the chow with saltpeter as the folklore had it.
There was a knock at the door. He looked at it in astonishment. Since he had been at Parris Island, closed doors, what few of them there were, had been flung open whenever they were noticed.
The door opened. It was the Sergeant Major.
“Good morning,” the Sergeant Major said. “You’re up.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The Sergeant Major smiled. He was a bald, barrel-chested man, whose blouse wore the hash marks, one for each four years of service, of two decades in the Marine Corps.
“Sergeant, sergeants do not say ‘Sir’ to other sergeants,” he said. “Only boots do that.”
Moore took off his fore-and-aft cap and rubbed his boot head.
“It’ll grow back,” the Sergeant Major, understanding the gesture, chuckled. “Keep your cap on when you can. Let’s catch some breakfast.”
Moore had been given a room on the upper floor of the two-story, newly constructed, frame building. As he followed the Sergeant Major down the stairs to the first floor, they ran into Captain Sessions coming up.
“Good morning, Sir,” the Sergeant Major said. “I thought I would make sure that Sergeant Moore got his breakfast.”
“Yes, Sir. It’s run by the Base Exchange. Neutral territory.”
“Good morning, Moore. You packed?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Then let’s eat.”
“Would I be in the way, Sir?” the Sergeant Major asked.
“Not at all,” Sessions said.
“I’ve got a staff car, too, Sir. I thought I could take you and Sergeant Moore to the airfield. And then you could turn Colonel Westman’s car loose.”
“Fine,” Sessions said.
“I always feel sorry for colonels who have to walk, Sir,” the Sergeant Major said, solemnly.
“I’m sure you do, Sergeant Major,” Sessions said, and then laughed. “Take Moore to the snack bar, and I’ll go tell the colonel’s driver he can go.”
The breakfast fare was simple, but the eggs and the hash-brown potatoes were served on plates, and they sat at chairs at four-place tables covered with white oil cloth, and the china coffee mug had a handle; and that combined to make it, Moore thought, the most elegant meal he’d had since he left Philadelphia.
And there was something else. A newspaper. The Charleston Gazette. He hadn’t seen a newspaper since coming to Parris Island, either.
There was a photograph on the front page of a tall, skinny American officer, a lieutenant general, Moore could now tell. He was seated at a table on what looked like a porch, wearing a tieless, mussed khaki shirt. There were three other American officers sitting with him. On the other side of the table were Japanese officers.
JAPS RELEASE PHOTO OF WAINWRIGHT SURRENDER, the headline over the picture said. Under it, the caption read: “War Department officials confirmed that Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright, U.S. Commander in the Philippines, sits (center, left) in this photograph, which the Japanese claim depicts General Wainwright’s surrender to Japanese General Mashaharu Homma (center, right) May 5. The photo was obtained via neutral Sweden.”
“That’s a bitch, isn’t it?” the Sergeant Major said, tightly.
“I think that must be the toughest thing an officer ever has to do,” Sessions said. “God, what a humiliation!”
“It was on the radio last night that General Sharp surrendered Mindanao,” the Sergeant Major said. “That’s it. The Japs now own the Philippines.”
“I know some of the people who are now prisoners,” Sessions said, sounding as if he was thinking aloud, “if they’re still alive.”
“Yes, Sir, I know,” the Sergeant Major said.
“How do you know that?” Sessions asked.
Moore sensed that Sessions had been made uneasy by the apparently innocent statement and wondered why.
“I’m an old China Marine, too, Captain. In my last hitch I was the S-3 Operations Sergeant for the 4th.”
“Were you?” Sessions asked, and now the suspicion in his voice was evident.
“Yes, Sir. The 4th was a good outfit. Good people. I had sort of a special buddy. Guy named Killer McCoy.”
“You’re moving into a mine field, Sergeant Major,” Sessions said, softly. “Sometimes, playing auld lang syne is not the thing to do.”
“Oh, I don’t mean to ... I wasn’t trying to pump you for poop, Sir. Really. It was just that Killer and I had the same ideas about who was a good Marine officer and who wasn’t.”
“Which means?”
The Sergeant Major hesitated momentarily, and then met Sessions’s eyes.
“I got three, four staff NCOs who could have taken care of Sergeant Moore for you, Sir. I sort of wanted to do it myself. You know, any friend of The Killer’s ...”
Sessions looked at the Sergeant Major for a long moment before he replied.
“That’s very kind of you, Sergeant Major. I’m touched. Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary, Sir,” the Sergeant Major said. “There’s not many of us old China Marines left now. I figure we should try to take care of each other, right?”
“You didn’t get this from me, Sergeant Major,” Sessions said. “But the Killer made it out. He’s with the 2nd Raider Battalion.”
“I hadn’t heard that. Thank you, Captain.”
“What’s the word on the courier plane?” Sessions said, obviously changing the subject.
“We better get out to the airport by say nine-fifteen, Sir.”
Sergeant John Marston Moore had no idea what the conversation between the Sergeant Major and Captain Sessions was all about, but he understood that Captain Sessions had done something—probably in China, there was all that talk about Old China Marines—that had earned him the respect of the old Marine non-com. And he had the feeling that earning the Sergeant Major’s approval didn’t come easily.
He wondered about “The Killer.” If he was the “special buddy” of the sergeant major and held in high regard by Captain Sessions, “The Killer” was obviously one hell of a Marine. Hash marks from his wrist to his shoulder, a breast covered with twenty, thirty years worth of campaign ribbons, barrel chested and leather skinned, with a gravel voice to match.
There was something really admirable about these professional warriors, Moore thought. They were latter day Centurions. Or maybe gladiators? Whatever they were, they weren’t like ordinary men. For them, war was a way of life.
Captain Sessions looked at his watch.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s get the show on the road. It never hurts to be early.”
“You’re all packed, right?” the Sergeant Major asked Moore.
“All packed,” Moore replied, stopping himself just in time from replying, “Yes, Sir.”
“Go get your stuff then,” the Sergeant Major said. “I’m parked right out in front.”
“One late thought,” Captain Sessions said. “There’s always one late thought, too late to do anything about. Have you been paid? Have you got enough money to carry you, Moore? Enough for the train ticket between Washington and Philadelphia?”
“The train ticket between Washington and Philadelphia”? I’m actually leaving Parris Island and going home. Why is that so incredible?
“I haven’t been paid, Sir,” Moore said. “But I have money.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Go get your gear, Moore,” Captain Sessions said.
IV
(One)
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION
PARRIS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
0905 HOURS 16 JUNE 1942
As the Sergeant Major drove them to the small airfield that served the Parris Island Recruit Depot, Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, wondered what his father was going to say about his turning down an officer’s commission and then going off to God only knows where in the Pacific. His father—to put it mildly—had not been pleased when he joined the Marine Corps in the first place; and he’d probably go into a righteous rage that he was not going to be an officer, at least not for the foreseeable future. To make matters worse, John couldn’t even tell his father the reason why he’d made his choice.
All the same, there was no sense worrying about his father.... He’d learned not to worry about things he had no control over. And besides, no matter how used his father was to getting his own way, he could not bend the U.S. Marine Corps to his will.
Moore had flown only twice before in his life, both times during the family’s last trip home from Japan: They’d left the ocean liner in San Francisco, and then they’d flown on from there via Chicago to New York. The flight from San Francisco to Chicago had been on Transcontinental & Western Airlines, and from Chicago to New York on Eastern. The airplanes had been essentially identical, large, twenty-odd-passenger Douglas DC-3s. Eastern had called theirs “Luxury Liners of the Great Silver Fleet.”
John Marston Moore knew he would never forget that trip. He still had a flood of memories from it. He even remembered the name stenciled on the Eastern airplane’s nose; it was The City of
Baltimore. He also recalled watching his father take his mother’s hand, bow his head, and mouth a prayer as the TWA airplane started down the runway in San Francisco.
He hadn’t forgotten, either, the justification his father put forth for the extra expense of flying: “The Lord is a hard taskmaster,” he would intone in his most virtuous voice, “who wants all that I can give Him. ‘Missions’ needs me in Philadelphia as soon as I can reach there. I’ve already spent a great deal of time at sea on the voyage from Yokohama, and that has kept me out of touch with ’Missions’ for weeks. If I take the train, I’ll be traveling another five days, while it will only take thirty-six hours by airplane. Obviously, taking the plane is the clear will of the Lord.”
By then, John Marston Moore had long since decided that the Reverend Doctor John Wesley Moore was a pious hypocrite. A number of arguments supported this judgment. His father, for example, had delayed their departure from Japan for nearly three weeks, so they could return to the United States in first class aboard the Pacific Princess, the flagship of the Pacific & Far East Shipping Corporation fleet. The alternative would have been to travel on one of the Transpacific freighters which made their comfortable but spartan passenger accommodations available to missionaries and their families at reduced rates.
“Your Uncle Bill would insist,” the Reverend Doctor Moore told John Marston Moore and his sisters. “He would know how much I need the rest.”
Uncle Bill—William Dawson Marston IV—was president of the family business, Dawson & Marston Paper Merchants. Dawson & Marston had been in business in Philadelphia since 1781, on Cherry Street, near the Schuylkill River. If John Marston Moore had been a betting man, he would have laid five to one that the first time Uncle Bill heard about the first-class cabins on the Pacific Princess was when the bill arrived for payment at Dawson & Marston.
John knew no one in the world who could muster the audacity to ask his father the obvious question: “You could have flown alone at one third the cost, and then the family could have followed by train ... why didn’t you do that?” If someone by chance had dared to ask him such a thing, his father would have replied—with a perfectly straight face, believing every word that poured from his lips—that it was clearly his Christian duty to be with his family and protect them from the well-known hazards of a transcontinental journey.