TRAVEL FROM HAWAII TO WASHINGTON BY AIR IS DIRECTED PRIORITY AA2.
BY DIRECTION
STANLEY E WATT COLONEL USMC OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PERSONNEL
McCoy looked at Carlson.
“Well, you’ll be in here for forty-eight hours,” Carlson said. “That’ll give us time to get your gear from Catlin to you.”
“I guess they really need linguists, sir,” McCoy said.
“Certainly, they do. Linguists are valuable people, McCoy. There’s far too few of them—you did notice that TWX was dated 8 August—for the Corps to risk losing one of them storming some unimportant beach.”
Their eyes met.
“When you get to Washington, McCoy, say hello to Colonel Rickabee for me.”
McCoy saw that Carlson was smiling.
“You’ve known all along, then, sir?”
“Not everyone in the Corps thinks I’m a crazy Communist, McCoy,” Carlson said. “I’ve still got a few friends left who try to let me know what’s going on.”
“Oh, shit!” McCoy said.
“Nothing for you to be embarrassed about, McCoy,” Carlson said. “You’re a Marine officer. A good Marine officer. And good Marine officers do what they’re told to do, to the best of their ability.”
He stepped to the bed and put out his hand.
“Take care of yourself, son,” he said. “I was glad you were along on this operation.”
And then he turned and walked out of the room.
(Three)
Navy Air Station
Pensacola, Florida
29 August 1942
Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering’s first response to the knock at the penthouse door was to simply ignore it. Either it would go away or Dick Stecker would get up and answer it.
It was Saturday morning, and they had drunk their Friday supper.
They were finished at Pensacola. Orders would be cut on Monday, 31 August, certifying that Second Lieutenants Pickering and Stecker were rated as fully qualified in F4F-3 aircraft, and placing them on a ten-day-delay-en-route leave to where-ever the hell the Marine Corps was sending them.
It was occasion to celebrate, and they had celebrated until the wee hours.
The knocking became more persistent, and Pickering finally gave in. Wrapping a sheet around his middle, calling out “Keep your pants on!” he walked to the door and jerked it open.
It was Captain James L. Carstairs, USMC, Captain Mustache, in his usual impeccable uniform.
“Good morning, sir,” Pickering said.
“May I come in?” Captain Carstairs asked. “You alone?”
“I’m alone,” Pickering said. “But…Captain Carstairs, Stecker has a guest.”
“The one with her hair piled two feet over her head?” Captain Carstairs said. “And the enormous bazooms?”
“Uh…”
“We saw you last night,” Captain Carstairs said. “I rather doubt that in your condition you saw us, but we saw you.”
“I saw you, sir,” Pickering said. “I didn’t know you had seen us.”
“You should have come over and said hello,” Captain Carstairs said. “I had the feeling Mrs. Culhane rather wished you would.”
Pickering looked at him in surprise, and blurted what popped into his mind.
“Is that why you’re here? To tell me that?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Captain Carstairs said, and handed Pickering a yellow Western Union envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Keep in mind the other possibility,” Carstairs said. “The word is they left a lot of people on the beach.”
Pickering ripped the envelope open.
GOVERNMENT
WASHINGTON DC
5PM AUGUST 28 1942
SECOND LIEUTENANT M. S. PICKERING, USMCR
NAVY AIR STATION PENSACOLA FLORIDA
THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR FRIEND SECOND LIEUTENANT KENNETH J. MCCOY USMCR 2ND RAIDER BATTALION WAS WOUNDED IN ACTION AGAINST THE JAPANESE ON MAKIN ISLAND 17 AUGUST 1942. HE HAS BEEN REMOVED TO A NAVAL HOSPITAL AND IS EXPECTED TO FULLY RECOVER. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE FURNISHED AS AVAILABLE.
FRANK KNOX JR SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
“There’s another word in the lexicon,” Captain Carstairs said, “one they did not use. The adjective ‘seriously,’ as in ‘seriously wounded.’ And they included the phrase ‘fully recover.’”
“Yeah,” Pickering said, and then looked at Carstairs. “Thank you.”
“My curiosity is aroused,” Carstairs said. “Doesn’t he have a family?”
“Not one he gives much of a damn about,” Pickering said. “He’s got a brother, but he’s in the Raiders, too.”
“He came through it, that’s what counts,” Carstairs said. “That’s all that counts.”
“Oh, Christ!” Pickering said, having just then thought of it. “Ernie!”
“Who’s Ernie?”
“His girl friend,” Pick said. “I’ll have to tell her.”
“Why?” Carstairs said, practically. “If he’s not seriously hurt, he’ll write her and tell her. Why worry her?”
“Because she would want to know,” Pick flared. “Jesus Christ!”
“Keep your cool, Pickering,” Carstairs said. “Think it over. What would be gained?”
“Yeah,” Pick said. “This is not the first telegram from the Secretary of the Navy—” He stopped. “I am about to have a drink. Would you like one?”
“I thought you would never ask,” Captain Carstairs said.
Pick made drinks, and then told Captain Mustache about the first telegram from the Secretary of the Navy about Ken McCoy when he had been in the Philippines, the one that said he was “missing in action and presumed dead.” They made enough noise to raise Dick Stecker and his guest from their bed.
They had another couple of drinks, and then ordered room service breakfast, and in the end Pick decided he would not call Ernie, not now. It made more sense to wait and see what happened. There was no sense getting Ernie all upset when there was nothing at all that she could do.
Captain Mustache stayed with them. He even got a little smashed, and it had all the beginnings of a good party. Now that they were about to be certified as fully qualified brother Naval aviators, it was fitting and proper for him to associate with two lowly second lieutenants as social equals.
Sometime during the evening, Captain Mustache told him that he had just about given up on Martha Sayre Culhane. It had become clear to him that she was just not interested.
Pickering recalled that the next morning (now Sunday) when some other sonofabitch was knocking at the door.
As Pick staggered to open it, he remembered telling Captain Mustache that he knew just how he felt. And then Captain Mustache had said something else: He thought it wasn’t absolutely hopeless for Pick, and that it was a shame Pick was about to ship out.
Pick jerked the door open. It was Captain Mustache again.
“Why didn’t you just crap out on the couch?” Pick asked, somewhat snappishly.
“I took the brunette in the glasses home, remember?” Captain Mustache said, and then added, demonstrating, “You’ve got another one,” and handed him a yellow Western Union envelope.
“Oh, shit, now what?” Pick asked.
The second telegram, to his relief and confusion, appeared to be identical to the first. He was afraid that it would be one expressing the condolences of the Secretary of the Navy.
“What the hell is this?” he asked. “A duplicate? In case I didn’t get the first one?”
“I don’t know,” Carstairs answered. And then they saw that the two telegrams were not identical. The second said McCoy had been wounded on August 18; the first had said August 17.
“I guess he got shot twice,” Carstairs said, “and the paperwork just got caught up.”
“I’m going to have to call Ernie,” Pick said, firmly. “She has a right to know.”
“Can
I have a hair of the dog?” Captain Mustache asked.
“Make me one, will you? I think I’m going to need it.”
It took Ernie so long to answer her phone that he was afraid she wasn’t at her apartment, but finally, she came on the line.
“What is it?” she snapped.
“This is Pick, Ernie,” he said.
“What do you want at this time of the morning?” she snapped.
“I’ve got a little bad news,” Pick said, gently.
“About what?” she asked, now with concern in her voice.
“About Ken,” Pick said. “Ernie, did you read in the paper or hear on the radio about the Marine Raiders and Makin Island?”
“Yes,” she said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Ken,” Pick said.
“Just a minute,” Ernie said, and went off the line. And stayed off.
“Hello?” Pick said, finally.
“Hello, yourself,” Ken McCoy’s voice came over the wire. “You have a lousy sense of timing, asshole. Did I ever tell you that?”
“When did you get back?”
“I got into Washington about ten last night,” McCoy said. “And I caught the four A.M. train into New York. I’ve been here about an hour and a half. Get the picture?”
“Sorry to have bothered you, sir,” Pick said, and hung up.
Captain Mustache handed him a drink. Pick looked at it and set it down.
“Our twice-wounded hero is in New York,” he said. “I don’t know how the hell he worked that, but I’m not really surprised.”
“Well, there’s our excuse to celebrate again,” Carstairs said.
“No,” Pick said.
“No?” Carstairs asked.
“Actually, I think I’ll go to church,” Pick said.
“Well, sure,” Carstairs said, uncomfortably, forcing a smile.
(Four)
Navy Air Station Chapel
Pensacola, Florida
30 August 1942
Chaplain (Lieutenant Commander) J. Bartwell Kaine, USNR, who until three months before had been rector of the Incarnation Episcopal Church of Baltimore, Maryland, was pleased to see the two Marine second lieutenants at his morning prayer service.
It had been his experience since coming to Pensacola that few, too few, of the officer aviation students attended worship services of any kind, and that those who did went to the nondenominational Protestant services at 1100. He was interested in keeping, so to speak, Episcopalian personnel within the fold, and there was no question in his practiced eye that the two handsome young Marines in the rear pew were Episcopal. They knew the service well enough to recite the prayers and doxology from memory, and they knew when and how to kneel.
Chaplain Kaine made a special effort, when the service was over, to speak to them, to let them know they were more than welcome, and to invite them to participate in the activities of what he referred to as “the air station Episcopal community.”
They informed him that while they appreciated the offer of hospitality, they had finished their training and were about to leave Pensacola.
Then Second Lieutenants Pick Pickering and Dick Stecker walked to Pickering’s car and got in. As Pickering pushed the starter button and got the Cadillac running, Stecker spoke:
“Even though I’m aware of the scriptural admonition to ‘judge not, lest ye be judged,’ why is it that I have the feeling that you dragged me over here more in the interests of your sinful lusts of the flesh than to offer thanks for your buddy coming through all right?”
“Fuck you, Dick,” Pickering said, cheerfully.
“What made you think she’d be there? And if she had been, what makes you think she would have rushed into your arms?”
“I saw the picture of her father in the base newspaper. He’s a vestryman. It was worth a shot.”
“You’re desperate, aren’t you?” Stecker replied, half mockingly, half sympathetically.
“You’re goddamn right I am. We’re leaving here Tuesday.”
“You’re nuts, Pick,” Stecker said, not unkindly.
“I’m in love, all right? People in love are allowed to be a little crazy.”
“What you need is a piece of ass,” Stecker said. “It has amazing curative powers for crazy people. Let’s go back to the hotel and commit every sin—except worshipping graven images.”
“Let’s go sailing,” Pickering said.
“Let’s do what?”
“Sailing. Boats, sails. You have been on a boat?”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Trust me, my son,” Pickering said solemnly. “Put thy faith in me, and I will work miracles.”
Five minutes after they passed the Marine guard on the Pensacola Navy Air Station, Pickering turned off Navy Boulevard. Five hundred yards beyond he passed between two sandstone pillars.
“You did notice the sign?” Stecker asked, dryly.
“The one that said ‘Pensacola Yacht Club’?”
“The one that said ‘Members Only.’”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Pickering said.
“You really think she’s going to be in here?”
“There was another story about her father,” Pickering said, “in the Pensacola newspaper. In addition to being an admiral, he’s the vice commodore here.”
“Jesus, you are desperate.”
“It also said they serve a buffet brunch, starting at ten,” Pickering said. “Admirals have to eat, just like human beings. Maybe he brought his daughter with him.”
“And what if he did? Presuming we don’t get thrown out on our asses, what are you going to do, just walk up and say, ‘Hi, there’?”
“Why not?” Pickering said, smiling at Stecker as he parked the car and pulled the emergency brake on.
A portly, suntanned man in a blue blazer with an embroidered patch on the pocket walked up to them as they entered the lobby of the yacht club.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Meeting someone?”
“Gee,” Stecker said, under his breath, “we lasted a whole ten seconds before we got caught.”
“No, we thought we’d try the buffet,” Pickering said.
The man in the blazer looked uncomfortable, making Stecker think that he disliked throwing servicemen out of his yacht club, even if that was precisely what he was about to do.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m afraid this is a private club—”
“But you are affiliated with the American Yachting Association?” Pickering asked, as he took out his wallet.
“Yes, of course,” the man said.
Pickering searched through the wallet and came up with a battered card and handed it over.
“Welcome to the Pensacola Yacht Club, Mr. Pickering,” the man said, smiling, and handing him the card back. “I won’t have to ask, will I, what brings you into our waters?”
“Our Uncle Samuel,” Pickering said.
“Well, let me show you to the dining room,” the man said. “If you don’t think it’s too early, the first drink is traditionally on the club.”
“How nice,” Pickering said.
The corridor from the lobby to the dining room was lined with trophy cases and framed photographs.
“Well, there’s a familiar face,” Pickering said, pleased, pointing to a photograph of a large sailboat with its crew. They were standing along the port side, hanging on to the rigging, and they were obviously delighted with themselves.
A thin strip of typewritten legend on the photograph said, “FAT CHANCE, 1st Place, Wilson Cup, San Francisco-Hawaii 1939.”
“That was the ‘thirty-nine Wilson Cup,” the man from the yacht club said. “Jack Glenn, one of our members, was on her.”
“Fat Jack,” Pickering said. “But please note that splendid sailor about to fall off the bowsprit.”
Stecker looked. It was Pickering, as obviously drunk as he was delighted with himself, holding on firmly to the bowsprit rigging.
“That’s you,” Stecker accused.
“Indeed,” Pickering said.
From the look on the man from the yacht club, Stecker decided, the Pensacola Yacht Club was theirs.
“God is in his heaven,” Pickering said solemnly. “Prayer pays. All is right with the world.”
“What the hell?” Stecker asked, and then looked where Pickering was looking.
A rear admiral, a woman obviously his wife, and Martha Sayre Culhane were coming down the corridor.
“Well, hello, there,” Mrs. Sayre said, offering her hand to Pickering. “It’s nice to see you again, Lieutenant. You’re a sailor, too?”
“Quite a sailor, Mrs. Sayre,” the man from the yacht club said. He pointed to the photograph. “He was on the Fat Chance with Jack Glenn.”
“Good morning, Martha,” Pickering said.
“Hello, Pick,” Martha said.
She did not seem nearly as glad to see Pickering as Pick was to see her.
“Since no one seems to be about to introduce us, gentlemen,” Admiral Sayre said, “I’ll introduce myself. I’m Admiral Sayre.”
“How do you do, sir?” Pickering said politely.
“Jim, this is Lieutenant Pickering,” Mrs. Sayre said. “I’m afraid I don’t know this—”
“Stecker, ma’am,” Stecker said. “Dick Stecker.”
“We’re here for the brunch,” Mrs. Sayre said. “Why don’t you join us?”
“We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Stecker said.
“That’s very kind, thank you very much, we’d love to,” Pickering said.
“I’d like to thank you for doing this, Dick,” Mrs. Jeanne Sayre said to Stecker.
“Ma’am?” Stecker asked.
They were in the cabin of the Martha III, a twenty-eight-foot cruising sailer, now two miles offshore, and heeled twenty degrees from the vertical in nasty choppy seas. Jeanne Sayre had boiled water for tea on a small stove. Stecker had welcomed the opportunity to get out of the spray by helping her. When he had come below, Martha was with her father in the cockpit, and Pick was way up front, just behind what Stecker had earlier learned (looking at the photo in the yacht club) was the “bowsprit.”
Call to Arms Page 40
