The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Not even the Big Nose is critical," Carlson said, in Cantonese, and smiled benignly at Captain Roosevelt, who smiled back. "Only you and me, McCoy."

  McCoy grinned back.

  Still in Cantonese, Carlson went on: "I don't think you need to know the name of the island, yet, McCoy, so I won't give it to you. But for our first mission, we are going to conduct a raid on a certain island. That's subject to change, of course, but I have a hunch it won't. The reason I'm telling you this much is that it is currently projected that we will be transported in submarines, rather than the converted destroyers. That will limit the force to no more than two hundred people. I want you-alone, don't confer with anyone else-to start thinking how we'll have to structure that force, and equip it."

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said, in English. "Does that mean I will go with the assault force, sir?"

  "Uh- huh," Carlson said. "I thought you'd want to go."

  "Oh, yes, sir," McCoy said.

  And then he thought, Oh, shit! What the hell have I done?

  Chapter Twenty

  (One)

  The San Carlos Hotel Pensacola, Florida 8 August 1942

  Second Lieutenant Richard J. Stecker, USMC, was in direct violation of the uniform regulations of the U.S. Navy Air Station, Pensacola, which, in addition to specifying in finite detail what a properly dressed officer would wear when leaving the post, took pains to specifically proscribe the wearing of flight gear except immediately before, while participating in, and immediately after aerial flight.

  He was wearing a gray cotton coverall, equipped with a number of zippered pockets. This was known to the Naval Service as "Suit, flight, aviator's, cotton, tropical," and to Stecker, who had copied Pick Pickering's description, as "Birdman's rompers." Sewn to the breast of the rompers was a leather patch, stamped in gold with Naval aviator's wings and the words "STECKER, R.J. 2ND LT USMC." Pick said they did that so that professional Marines could look down and see who the Marine Corps said they were.

  The flight suit was dark with sweat. Enormous patches of it spreading from the back and the armpits and the seat nearly overwhelmed the dry areas. The patches were ringed with white, remnants of the salt taken aboard in the form of salt pills and then sweated out.

  Stecker was aware that he was learning bad habits from Pick Pickering. Or, phrased more kindly, that Pickering had given him insight into the functioning of the Naval establishment that had not previously occurred to him. Previously, he had obeyed regulations, no matter how petty, because they were regulations and Marine officers obeyed regulations. He had in fact cautioned Lieutenant Pickering (a friendly word of advice from a professional Naval establishment person to a temporary officer and gentleman): "You're gonna get your ass in a crack if they catch you driving home in your flight suit," he'd told him.

  Lieutenant Pickering had not only been unrepentant, but had patiently pointed out to Lieutenant Stecker the flaws in his logic.

  "First of all, I don't intend to get caught. I drive through the woods, not past the Marine guard at the gate. Secondly, I think the MPs have better things to do than establish roadblocks to catch people wearing flight suits. And I come into the hotel through the basement, not the lobby. I think the chances of my getting caught run from slim to none. But, for the sake of argument, what if I'm caught? So what?"

  "You'll find yourself replying by endorsement," (When an officer was caught doing something he should not be doing, such as being out of uniform, he would receive a letter from his commanding officer specifying the offense and directing him to "reply by endorsement hereto" his reasons for committing the offense) Stecker argued.

  "And I will reply by endorsement that since officers who live in quarters on the post can go from the flight line to their quarters in their rompers, I thought I could go directly to my quarters so attired. And that if I have sinned, I am prepared to weep, beat my breast, pull out my hair, and in other ways manifest my shame and regret."

  "You can get kicked out of here."

  "Oh, bullshit! We're nearly through this fucking course. They might throw us out for showing up on the flight line drunk, or something else serious like that. But so much time and money has been invested in us, and they need pilots so bad, they're not going to throw anybody out for wearing rompers off base."

  And he was right, of course.

  Lieutenant Stecker had spent three hours that afternoon between six and ten thousand feet over Foley, Alabama. He had been at the controls of a Grumman F4F-3 wildcat, engaged in mock aerial combat with an instructor pilot.

  The Wildcat had been rigged with a motion picture camera. The camera was actuated when he activated the trigger that would normally have fired the six.50-caliber Browning machine guns with which the Wildcat was armed.

  The film was now being souped, and they would look at it in the morning. Dick Stecker knew that in at least four of the engagements, the film from the gun camera would show that he had successfully eluded his IP and then gotten on his IP's tail and "shot him down."

  It had been almost-not quite, but almost-pleasant tooling around at six, seven thousand feet with the twelve hundred horsepower of the Wright XR-1830-76 moving the Wildcat at better than three hundred knots. And, although he had consciously fought getting cocky about it, it had been satisfying to realize that he had acquired a certain proficiency in the Wildcat. The odds were that in about two months, certainly within three, he would be flying a Wildcat against the Japanese.

  When the training flight was over, however, it was not at all pleasant. He opened the canopy before he had completed his landing roll at Chevalier Field. By the time he had taxied to the parking ramp, the skin of the aircraft was too hot to touch, and he was sweat-soaked. The temperature had been over one hundred degrees for three days, and the humidity never dropped out of the high nineties.

  He actually felt a little faint as he walked to the hangar, carrying a parachute that now seemed to weigh at least one hundred pounds. His IP came into the hangar red-faced and sweat-soaked, and went directly to the water cooler, where he first drenched his face in the stream, and then filled a paper cup and poured it over his head.

  The post- flight critique was made as brief as possible. Then the IP had walked to his car in his rompers and drove off. That left Stecker with a choice: He could be a good little second lieutenant who obeyed all the rules. Or he could do what he ended up doing. What he did was get in his car and drive through the woods to the Foley Highway and then to the hotel.

  He parked the car behind the hotel and entered through the basement. He planned to use the service elevator, but it wouldn't answer his ring, so he had to summon a passenger elevator.

  With my luck, he thought, the elevator will stop in the lobby, answering the button-push of the base commander, who will be accompanied by the senior Marine Corps officer assigned to Pensacola.

  But the elevator rose without stopping to the top floor, and there was no one in the small foyer when the door opened. Stecker crossed quickly to the penthouse door, put his key in, and opened it. A wave of cold air swept over him. The basement of the building was not air-conditioned, and the allegedly air-conditioned elevators seldom were.

  Stecker emitted a deep, guttural groan of relief.

  Then he worked the full-length zipper on the rompers to its lower limit and spread the sweaty material wide. When the cold air struck his lower chest, he groaned appreciatively again.

  Then he walked into the penthouse and found it was occupied.

  The occupant was a female. The female was clothed in brief shorts and a T-shirt decorated with a red Marine Corps insignia. And she was smiling at him. Not a friendly smile, Stecker quickly realized, but a "see the funny man, ha ha" smile.

  "What am I expected to say in reply to your groans?" Ernie Sage asked. "You Tarzan, me Jane?"

  "Not that I really give a damn," Dick Stecker said, "but how did you get in here?"

  "I told them I was Pick's sister," Ernie said. "Wh
ere is he?"

  "I'm Dick Stecker," Dick said.

  "How about this to start a conversation, Dick Stecker?" Ernie said. '"Your fly's open.'"

  "Oh, Jesus," he groaned and dived for it.

  "To quickly change the subject, you were telling me where Pick is," she said.

  "He took off about an hour after we did," Stecker said. "He should be here in about an hour."

  "Took off for where?"

  "Local," Stacker said. "Training flight. Mock dogfights."

  She turned and went to the bar, returned with a bottle of beer, and handed it to him.

  "You look like you could use this," she said. When she saw the surprise on his face, she added, "Yes, 1 did make myself right at home, didn't I?"

  "You didn't say who you were?"

  "Just another Marine camp-follower," she said. "Mine has gone overseas, so I figured I'd better latch on to another."

  "Ah, come on," Stecker said.

  "I'm Ernie Sage," she said. "I'm the closest thing Pick has to a sister."

  "Oh, sure. The one he's always talking to on the phone. In California."

  "Used to," she said. "My second lieutenant's gone. Now I'm back in New York."

  "I'm Dick Stecker," Stecker repeated.

  "I know," she said. "I know your father. I like him; Pick likes you. Our acquaintance is off to a flying start."

  "What brings you here?" Stecker asked.

  "I have been holding Pick's hand about the Sainted Widow for months. Now it's his turn to hold mine for a while."

  "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Can you miraculously transport me to Camp Catlin?"

  "I never even heard of it," Stecker said.

  "That's surprising," Ernie said. "According to Pick, you're a walking encyclopedia of military lore."

  "Where is it?"

  "It's in- on?-Hawaii. And if you can't miraculously transport me there, why don't you take a shower? I can smell you all the way over here."

  "Do you always talk like that?" Stecker asked, shocked but not offended.

  "Only to friends," Ernie said. "And any son of Captain Jack NMI Stecker, any friend of Pick's, et cetera et cetera…"

  "I'm flattered," Stecker said.

  "And well you should be," Ernie said. "Go bathe; and when you come out, you can give me a somewhat more accurate picture of the Sainted Widow than the one I got from Pick."

  "How do you know the one you got from Pick isn't accurate?"

  "No one, not even me, is that perfect," Ernie said. She pointed toward one of the bedrooms. "Go shower."

  Stecker took a shower, and put on a khaki uniform. When he came out, Ernie Sage was leaning on the glass door leading to the patio.

  "How much further along are you than Pick?" she asked, smiling at him.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You're wearing wings," Ernie said. "I thought you got those only when you're finished training."

  "When you finish the school," he said. "We got rated the first of the month."

  "Then you're finished?"

  "Yes, we are. Now we're getting trained in F4F-3s."

  "I thought-Pick told me-they were going to send you to Opa-something for that?"

  "Opa- locka," Stecker said. "Farther down in Florida. They usually do. But they have some F4F-3s, and qualified IPs here… and Pick and I make up a class of two, so we stayed here."

  "Congratulations," Ernie said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "On being a Naval aviator," she said.

  "Oh," Stecker said. "Thank you."

  "Now tell me about the Sainted Widow," Ernie said.

  "I'm not sure I should," Stecker said.

  "Think of me as a kindly old aunt," Ernie said.

  "That would be hard," Stecker said. "You don't look anything like a kindly old aunt."

  "I think I should tell you that my boyfriend is a Raider," Ernie said. "Their idea of a good time is chewing glass. I have no way of knowing what he would do if he thought someone was paying me an unsolicited compliment."

  "That would be 'Killer' McCoy," Stecker said. "Pick's told me all about him."

  "Did he tell you that Killer McCoy and I were sharing living accommodations, without benefit of marriage, at what I have now learned to call Diego?" Ernie asked.

  "Yeah," Stecker said. "As a matter of fact, he did."

  "Well, now that he's told you my shameful secret, you tell me his. What's this Sainted Widow done to him?"

  "I don't think she's done anything to him," Stecker said. "That's what you could call the root of the problem."

  By the time Pick walked in the door (in a crisp tropical worsted uniform, without a drop of sweat on him, which sorely tempted Stecker to spill the beer he handed him into his lap), Stecker had covered the dead-in-the-water romance between Pick and Martha Sayre Culhane in some detail.

  He had explained to Ernie that he believed, or at least hoped, that the romance was beginning to pass. Since the Navy had kept them busy flying, Pick simply didn't have time to moon over his unrequited love. And when they did have a Sunday off, Pick drank-but not too much, for he knew he would have to fly the next day.

  Stecker went on to tell her that he thought it was a shame they hadn't gone to Opa-locka for fighter training. That would have gotten Pick out of Pensacola. And once he was out of Pensacola, he believed that Martha Sayre Culhane would, however slowly, begin to fade. In his opinion, absence did not make the heart grow fonder.

  And then, after Pick arrived, his role and Ernie's were reversed. Ernie, with a couple of drinks in her, revealed how much she missed Ken McCoy and how worried she was about him. Pick and Stecker tried to comfort her, after their peculiar fashion: Pick told her, for instance, that it was her romance she should be worried about, not Ken McCoy's life. He told her that she was responsible for teaching McCoy bad habits. Which meant that at this very moment, he was probably on some sunny, wave-swept Hawaiian beach with some dame wearing a grass skirt.

  In time, Pick and Ernie got more man a little smashed. And Stecker found himself making the decisions and driving. They went to Carpenter's Restaurant, where he made them eat deviled crabs and huge mounds of french-fried potatoes, to counter the alcohol.

  That didn't seem to work with Pick, who slipped into a sort of maudlin stupor, but it seemed to sober up Ernie. Consequently, she was acutely aware of the look on Dick Stecker's face when Martha Sayre Culhane walked into Carpenter's with Captain Mustache and two other couples. And she followed his eyes and turned to him with a question on her face.

  Dick Stecker nodded as he put his ringer quickly before his lips, and he then glanced at Pick, begging her not to let him know.

  She nodded her understanding of the situation.

  But there was nothing Dick Stecker could do when Ernie Sage saw Martha Sayre Culhane go into the ladies' room. Ernie suddenly jumped to her feet and went in after her.

  When Martha Sayre Culhane came out of the stall, a young woman wearing a T-shirt with a large red Marine Corps emblem on was it sitting on the makeup counter. The young woman examined her shamelessly, and said "Hi!"

  "Hello," Martha said, a little uncomfortably. She took her comb from her purse and ran it through her hair. Then she took out her lipstick and started to touch up her lips.

  "Funny," Ernie said. "You really are nearly as beautiful as Pick thinks you are."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You don't look like a selfish bitch, either," Ernie went on. "More like what Dick Stecker says, 'the Sainted Widow.' I guess you work on that, huh?"

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Just one more Marine Corps camp-follower," Ernie said.

  "I don't know what this is all about, but I don't like it," Martha said.

  "We have something in common, believe it or not," Ernie said.

  "I can't imagine what that would be," Martha said.

  "I got one of those telegrams," Ernie said. "From good ol Frank Knox. He regretted that my man was 'missing in action and presumed
dead.'"

  Martha looked at Ernie.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "As things turned out, he wasn't dead," Ernie said. "I told you that to explain what we had in common. I know what it's like."

  Martha started to say something, but stopped.

  "At the moment, I'm crossing my fingers again," Ernie said. "No, I'm not. I'm praying. Mine's back in the Pacific. He's an officer in the Second Raider Battalion."

  "What is it you want from me?" Martha said.

  "I want to talk to you about Pick," Ernie said. "He's in love with you."

  "I don't really think that's true," Martha said.

  "It's true," Ernie said. "Take it from me. I've known Pick since we used to play doctor. I know about him and women. He's in love with you."

  "Well, I don't happen to be in love with him, not that it's any of your business," Martha snapped.

  "So what?" Ernie said. "Lie about it. You're going to have to stop playing the sainted widow sooner or later. Give it up now. Give that poor, frightened, wonderful sonofabitch a couple of weeks, a couple of months, however long he's got before they ship him off to the Pacific. It won't cost you anything. You might even like it. I've never heard any complaints. And if you don't, Martha, and he gets killed, too, you'll regret it the rest of your life."

  "You're crazy," Martha said. "My husband-"

  "Is dead," Ernie said. "And he's not coming back. I told you, I know what that feels like. Pick is alive. He's in love with you. Stop being so goddamned selfish!"

  Ernie pushed herself off the counter and walked out of the room.

  When the Sainted Widow came out of the ladies' room two minutes later, she looked as if she had been crying. She gazed around the room, found Pick, and stared at him for almost a minute before turning and rushing out of the restaurant.

  And a moment after that, Captain Mustache crossed the room, obviously in pursuit of the Sainted Widow. They did not return to the restaurant.

  Stecker would have really liked to ask what had gone on in the ladies' room. He couldn't ask, of course, with Pick sitting right there.

  (Two)

  Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii