Retreat, Hell! tc-10

by W. E. B Griffin

He walked into the office and laid the message from Lieutenant Colonel William C. Dunn on Captain Young's desk.

  "I'll be damned," Young said when he'd read the message, then read from it: " 'The undersigned is unable to comply.' "

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "Start out, Commander, by having faith in your fellow man," Young said. "It may mean just what he says. He is unable to comply. That is different, wouldn't you agree, from 'unwilling to comply'?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And then, Commander, we must consider the circumstances. Actually, these circumstances should be considered first. The President has spoken. He thinks this officer should be awarded the Navy Cross. He desires that this offi­cer be awarded the Navy Cross. What the President of the United States desires has the force and effect of a lawful order."

  "Yes, sir," Commander Davis said, smiling.

  "Furthermore, this jarhead obviously deserves a medal. Jesus Christ, he was shot down, and then evaded capture . . . three months?"

  "About that, sir."

  "Furthermore, when the Commander-in-Chief desires something, he desires it right then. He is not interested—and indeed, should not be—with admin­istrative problems that get in the way of his desires. Agreed?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Given (a) and (b) above, we cannot let a little thing like a misplaced cita­tion get in the way of our carrying out what is clearly our duty, can we?" Cap­tain Young asked reasonably.

  "No, sir, we cannot."

  "Why don't we ask Harrison to step in here for a minute, Commander?"

  "Excellent idea, sir," Commander Davis said, and walked out of the office.

  He returned a moment later with Chief Personnelman Robert C. Harrison, a slight thirty-five-year-old with eighteen years' naval service and a perfectly manicured pencil-line mustache.

  "Yes, sir?" Harrison asked.

  "Chief, we have a small problem that requires your literary skills," Captain Young said.

  "Commander Davis showed me the TWX, Captain," Harrison said.

  "Since the citation has been misplaced, Chief," Captain Young said, "we're going to have to duplicate what it must have said here so we don't keep the CNO—and indeed, the President—waiting. You take my meaning?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Have you got your pad?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Let's go over this together," Captain Young said. "What do we know, Com­mander Davis?"

  "We know the major was shot down, sir."

  "Okay. Let's go with that. To get shot down, he had to go up, right?"

  “Yes, sir.”

  "Despite severe weather conditions that in other circumstances would not have permitted flight operations, Major . . . What's his name?"

  "Pickering, sir, Major Malcolm S., USMCR," Harrison furnished.

  "Hereafter Pickering," Captain Young went on, ". . . took off from the USS Badoeng Strait to render air support'—make that 'desperately needed air sup­port'—'to/U.S. Marine forces then engaged in combat'—make that 'outnum­bered U.S. Marine forces' and 'fierce combat' . . ."

  "Sir, I get the idea," Chief Harrison said. "Why don't you give me the ba­sics and let me fill in the blanks?"

  "Okay. He was shot down while doing this."

  "Wounded?"

  "I don't think so, but he almost certainly suffered painful injuries making the crash landing. . . ."

  "Because he crash-landed the airplane away from civilian houses?" Chief Harrison asked.

  "Good thought, Harrison!" Captain Young agreed. "And if he got shot down, the plane had to be on fire, right?"

  "Got it," Harrison said. "Then what?"

  "While he was supporting the troops on the ground, he encountered fierce antiaircraft fire. . . ."

  "Which, at great risk, he ignored?"

  "Right."

  "Then what?"

  "He spent the next . . . what?"

  "Find out when he was shot down and when he was rescued. That many days. 'Avoiding the determined efforts of the enemy to capture him,' et cetera. . . ."

  "Got it, sir."

  "We need that now, Harrison."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Length is a criterion here, too. Make sure that the citation fills a sheet of paper, and that the signature block goes on the next page," Captain Young said.

  "Signature blocks sometimes get lost, sir, right?"

  "I guess they do," Captain Young said.

  "Take me thirty or forty minutes, sir."

  "Good man, Harrison!"

  [THREE]

  U.S. Naval Hospital

  U.S. Navy Base, Sasebo

  Sasebo, Japan

  22O5 19 October 195O

  Security for U.S. Naval Hospital, Sasebo—the guards at the gate and around the perimeter—was provided by a five-man detachment of U.S. Marines who set up and supervised the system, using sailors from the hospital staff—Corps-men, others—assigned to "Shore Patrol" duty on a roster basis to man the var­ious posts.

  Sergeant Victor C. Wandowski, USMC, very rarely spent any time at all at Post Number One, which was the guard shack at the main gate, but tonight was an exception. He had been given a heads-up that a Marine major, named McCoy, was going to arrive at the hospital either sometime tonight or—probably— early tomorrow morning. The major was to be sent immediately to see the med­ical officer of the day, and the hospital commander, Captain Schermer himself, was to be notified of Major McCoy's arrival, no matter what the hour.

  Under these circumstances, Sergeant Wandowski had decided, it behooved him to be at the main gate around 2200. He knew there was a courier flight arriving at the airfield around 2130, and it seemed likely this Major McCoy would be on it.

  When he saw an Air Force jeep approaching just after 2200, Sergeant Wandowski congratulated himself on his foresight. If one of the swabbie pecker-checkers fucked up meeting this major—which was very likely—it would have been his ass in the crack, not theirs.

  "I'll handle this one," he said to the swabbie on duty, and stepped out of the guard shack, crisply raising his hand to stop the jeep.

  An Air Force buck sergeant was driving the jeep. If his passenger was a Ma­rine major, he goddamned sure didn't look like it.

  He was coverless, insignia-less, and wearing an Army field jacket.

  Whatever it was, it did not rate a salute, and Sergeant Wandowski did not offer one.

  "What can I do for you?" he demanded.

  "You can tell me where I can find Brigadier General Pickering," McCoy said.

  "Never heard of him," Sergeant Wandowski said, both truthfully and as sort of a challenge.

  "Trust me, Sergeant," McCoy said. "He's somewhere around here. How about getting on the horn and calling the officer of the guard and asking?"

  "I'm the officer of the guard," Wandowski said.

  "Then call the officer of the day," McCoy said patiently.

  "Can I ask who you are?"

  "My name is McCoy," McCoy said.

  "You're Major McCoy?"

  McCoy nodded.

  Sergearit Wandowski was unable to accept that.

  "Sir, have you got any identification?"

  "Get on the horn—and right now, Sergeant," McCoy said icily. "Call the OD and tell him to get word to General Pickering that Major McCoy is at the gate."

  There was something about Major McCoy's tone of voice that made Sergeant Wandowski decide that he really didn't have to check the major's . ID card.

  He picked up the telephone, and had the operator connect him with the commanding officer's quarters.

  "Hold the major there, Sergeant," Captain Schermer ordered. "Someone will be there shortly."

  Captain Schermer's Navy-gray 1950 Ford station wagon rolled up to the main gate several minutes later. A Marine captain, who looked like a circus strong man, jumped out of the front passenger seat and walked quickly to where Sergeant Wandowski was standing by the Air Force jeep. Sergeant Wandowski saluted.

  The Marine captain return
ed the salute.

  "Good evening, sir," he said.

  Major McCoy, shaking his head, returned the salute.

  "The general's compliments, sir," the Marine captain went on. "The general hopes that you had a pleasant flight, sir, and asks that you join him in his car."

  Sergeant Wandowski took a closer look at the Ford station wagon. There was a man in the backseat from whose collar points and epaulets gleamed the silver stars of a brigadier general. Sergeant Wandowski popped to attention and saluted. The general returned the salute.

  "Thank you, Captain," McCoy said. "I would be delighted to do so." He got out of the Air Force jeep, said, "Thanks for the ride, Sergeant," to the driv­er, and walked toward the Ford. The captain ran ahead of him, pulled the rear door of the station wagon open, and stood to attention as Major McCoy got in the back beside the brigadier general. Then he ran around the front and got in beside the driver.

  As the station wagon drove away, Sergeant Wandowski saluted again. The captain returned his salute.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Brigadier General Pickering asked.

  "Considering the circumstances," Captain George F. Hart said, "I thought a little levity was in order."

  "What circumstances, George?" McCoy asked.

  "Where should I start?" Hart said. "For openers, Banning showed up with a hair up his ass, and the boss had to pull it out of him that Milla's in the hos­pital in Charleston with breast cancer."

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "You could have phrased that with a bit more tact, and substantially more respect for a senior officer," Pickering said. "But let's start with you, Ken. How are you?"

  "Then you weren't wounded very early this morning?"

  "How'd you hear about that?" McCoy asked, genuinely surprised. "I took a little shrapnel hit, nothing serious."

  "We shall shortly find out how accurate a statement that is," Pickering said.

  "Sir?"

  Pickering pointed out the windshield. McCoy looked and saw they were ap­proaching a three-story building. An illuminated arrow pointed to the emer­gency entrance.

  "General, I just had this thing bandaged. . . ."

  "And now the hospital commander himself is going to have a look at it," Pickering said.

  Two hospital Corpsmen, a nurse, and a gurney were waiting outside the emergency room door.

  "I don't need that," McCoy protested.

  "I had to talk him out of sending an ambulance to the airport," Hart said.

  One hospital Corpsman and the nurse came quickly to the station wagon. The second Corpsman pushed the gurney up to it.

  McCoy winced when he got out of the station wagon. Pickering saw it.

  "I don't need that," McCoy said. "Thanks anyway."

  "Get on the gurney, Ken," Pickering said. "That's not a friendly suggestion. The response I expect is Aye, aye, sir.' "

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

  He winced again as the Corpsmen helped him onto the stretcher.

  "Where'd you get it, Ken?" Hart asked.

  "Left leg, four inches from the family jewels," McCoy said, and then re­membered the nurse, and added, "Sorry."

  The nurse ignored the apology.

  "Where were you first treated, Major?" she asked. "Forward aid station?"

  "In the sick bay of the Mount McKinley " McCoy answered, then made the connection. "Oh. What did General Almond do? Send a message?"

  "He suspected—correctly, obviously—that you might not mention what had happened to you," Pickering said.

  Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, looked up from his examination of McCoy's now-unbandaged upper thigh.

  "Couldn't have done it better myself," he said, then stepped away from the table and made a gesture to the nurse to apply fresh bandages.

  "I presume you've been given some penicillin, Major?"

  McCoy reached into the pocket of Al Haig's Army OD shirt, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to the doctor.

  "The doctor gave me this as I was walking out of sick bay, sir," he said.

  "Walking or limping, Major?" Captain Schermer asked. He read the note. "Well, you're full of penicillin. Did he give you anything for the pain?"

  McCoy went back in the shirt pocket, came out with a small vial of pills, and handed it to Captain Schermer.

  "How many of these have you taken? And when?"

  "None, sir."

  "You're a real tough Marine, are you? Or maybe a masochist? That has to hurt like hell every time you move."

  McCoy didn't reply.

  Dr. Schermer walked to a sink and came back with a paper water cup.

  "Take two of these now," he said, and turned to the nurse. "See that he gets one every four hours. Make sure his chart says 'do not wake to administer.' And start penicillin again in the morning."

  "Yes, sir," the nurse said.

  Schermer turned to Pickering.

  "Well, General, the major gets at least ninety-six hours in bed," he said. "At least forty-eight of which he should spend offering prayers of gratitude that whatever hit him didn't go an inch deeper. Or four inches higher." He looked at McCoy. "I said take two of those, Major."

  "Sir, could I hold off until I can call my wife? She's in Tokyo. I don't want to sound like a zombie."

  "Which brings us to Mrs. McCoy," Dr. Schermer said. "Had you planned to tell your wife about your leg, Major?"

  "Nothing to tell," McCoy said.

  "I think she'll be just a little curious when she sees that bandaged leg," Dr. Schermer said.

  "She's not going to see it, sir."

  "Ernie's here, Ken," Pickering said.

  "She's here?"

  "She came to see Pick," Pickering said.

  Schermer added, "And a combination of the train ride down here, seeing Major Pickering, and learning of Miss Priestly's death almost—I say almost— caused her to lose the baby."

  "Oh, shit!"

  "At the moment, her condition ranges from stable to improving slightly," Dr. Schermer said.

  "I want to see her," McCoy said.

  "I am wondering what her reaction will be to learning she almost lost her husband," Dr. Schermer said.

  "She's a pretty tough girl," Pickering said.

  "I noticed," Schermer said.

  "Ken," Pickering said, "Pick took Jeanette's death pretty badly."

  "I suppose," McCoy said.

  "Dr. Schermer thought, and I agree, that in addition to her own worries, Ernie didn't need to be any more upset by him. So he's on his way to the States."

  "He was that bad?" McCoy asked.

  "He needs a lot of rest, Major. Physically and emotionally. He wasn't going to get much emotional rest here—sending him to the States, we hope, will sort of close a door on what happened to him here—and the hospital at San Diego has the facilities to take better care of him than we can here."

  "I guess that answers my question, doesn't it?"

  "What he did, Ken," Pickering said, "when he finally broke down, was start to cry. And he couldn't stop. And since he didn't want Ernie, or George, or Zim­merman, or-me, to see him crying, that made it worse."

  "A vicious emotional circle, Major," Captain Schermer said. "We got it under control here, temporarily, with medicine, but what Major Pickering needs is a lot of time with a good psychiatrist, and they've got better ones in San Diego."

  "And we haven't told Ernie about this yet, either," Pickering said.

  "Jesus H. Christ!"

  "Your call, Major," Dr. Schermer said. "How do we deal with your wife? If you think a telephone call would be better, if you think learning that you've been wounded would upset her even more ..."

  "I'm not going to be wheeled into her room on a gurney," McCoy said.

  "Can you walk?"

  "And I want to go in alone," McCoy said. "And not in Al Haig's Army pants and shirt."

  "Is that where that came from?" Pickering asked, chuckling. "Doctor, Cap­tain Haig is General Almond's aide-de-camp."

>   "There's an officers' sales store in the hospital," Dr. Schermer said. "If you will agree to be rolled there in a wheelchair—and from there to your wife's room?"

  "Deal," McCoy said. "That is, if General Pickering will loan me enough money to buy a uniform."

  "I think that can be worked out," Pickering said.

  [FOUR]

  Major Kenneth R. McCoy sat with a white hospital blanket over his knees in a wheelchair in a small dressing cubicle in the officers' sales store. He was wait­ing for his new uniform trousers to be taken in an inch at the waist, and for them to be provided with precisely the correct crotch-to-cuff length. While he was waiting, he was giving serious, just about completely futile, thought about what bright and witty comment, or comments, he would make to his wife when he walked into her room.

  He had just about decided that he was not going to be able to come up with something useful when his reverie was interrupted by Captain George F. Hart coming into the cubicle with a dozen roses.

  "Where the hell did you get those?" McCoy asked.

  "It wasn't easy," Hart said. "A lesser dog robber than myself probably would have had to settle for one of those miniature trees—"

  "Bonsai," McCoy furnished.

  "—of which the Japanese seem so fond."

  "Thanks, George."

  "On the other hand, maybe a bonsai tree would have been better," Hart said. "The roses are going to wilt. The bonsai would last for the next century, as a souvenir of this unexpected encounter."

  A Japanese seamstress pushed the curtain aside, handed McCoy the trousers, and then folded her arms over her breast, obviously intending to see how well she had done her job.

  "Would you please wait outside for a minute?" McCoy said to her.

  Her eyes widened when she heard the faultless Japanese. She bowed and backed out of the dressing cubicle.

  "That always bugs me," Hart said. "They're always surprised as hell when one of us speaks Japanese, but a hell of a lot of them speak English."

  "That's because we're barbarians, George," McCoy said. He handed Hart the hospital blanket, then started to put his left leg in the trousers. He winced.

  "You need some help with that?" Hart asked.

  "They are surprised when we use indoor plumbing, take showers, and don't eat with our fingers," McCoy went on as if he hadn't heard the offer of help.

  He got the right leg mostly inside the trousers, and then, awkwardly, got out of the wheelchair and pulled them up. He tucked his shirttail in, then pulled up the zipper and closed the belt.