The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

by W. E. B Griffin

  Raiders walked their boats into the surf, and they generally managed to get past the first four waves without trouble. But then the agony started. Only a few of the outboard engines could be made to start, and those that they did get running were quickly drowned as waves crashed over the bows of the rubber boats and soaked coils and points.

  After that, the Raiders tried paddling.

  But paddling rhythmically and furiously for all they were worth, the Raiders could not make it past the rollers coming into the beach; they would make it over one roller only to be hit and thrown back by the next before they could gain momentum.

  Boats filled to the gunwales. The Raiders bailed furiously. Then they loosened the outboard motors and dropped them over the side. And then they got out and pulled the boats by their own efforts, by swimming.

  Surf turned boats over, which sent the Raiders' weapons, ammunition, and equipment to the bottom. But even empty, it was impossible to get the boats past the wave line.

  After an hour, Carlson ordered back to the beach everybody that had not made it through the close-packed waves. When he got there, he found that less than half of the boats had made it through the surf. Thus more than half of the Raiders were still on the beach, and they were exhausted. Most of them had lost their weapons and equipment and rations. And there were a few wounded men, including four stretcher cases. These then were in pain, and obviously in no condition to keep trying to get off the beach.

  So Carlson ordered all the boats pulled well up on the shore. He collected what weapons there were, set up a perimeter defense, and did what he could for the wounded. Then he formed teams to keep trying (it was possible that the surf was a freak condition, which would pass) to get through the surf, one boat at a time.

  Carlson conducted a nose count. There were 120 Raiders still on the beach. And then, as if to suggest that God was displeased, it began to rain.

  As soon as daylight made it possible, the Raiders tried Carlson's idea of forcing their boats through the surf one at a time. When one boat made it, another tried, and when it made it, then another tried. The wounded, Carlson knew, could not be extracted this way, and he would not leave them. He therefore ordered Captain Roosevelt into one of the boats so he could assume command of the Marines on the submarines. When he was sure Roosevelt had made it, he ran another nose count. Now there were seventy then on the beach.

  At 0740, five Raiders aboard the Nautilus volunteered to take a boat with a working motor as close to shore as it could manage. Then one of the Raiders swam ashore from it with a message from Commander Haines that the subs would lay off the island as long as necessary to get the Raiders off the beach.

  Then Japanese Zeros appeared. And the subs made emergency dives. The Japanese strafed the beach, and then turned their attention to the rubber boat with its volunteer crew. Nothing more was ever seen of it-or of them.

  When Roosevelt, whose rubber boat had been the fourth and last to make its way through the rollers, started counting noses aboard the Nautilus, he came across Lieutenant Peatross and the remaining eight of the then who had been with him in his rubber boat during the initial landing.

  He was convinced that Peatross and his then had been swamped. But they hadn't. The current had taken them a mile farther down the beach than any of the others, where they had made it safely ashore. When they heard the firing, they had literally marched toward the sound of gunfire. And then he and his then had spent the day harassing the Japanese rear. They had burned down his buildings, blown up a radio station, and burned a truck.

  And in compliance with orders, still not having made their way through Japanese lines to the others, they had at 1930 gotten back in their rubber boat and made it through the surf to the waiting submarine.

  During the afternoon of August 18, Carlson moved what was left of his forces to Government House on the lagoon side of the island. There they found a sloop. And for a short while

  (until it was determined that the sloop was unseaworthy), there was a spurt of hope that they could use it to get off the island.

  Meanwhile, a radio was made to work long enough to establish a brief tie with the Nautilus. Evacuation would be attempted from the lagoon side of the island at nightfall.

  Carlson sent then to manhandle the boats from the seaside beaches across the narrow island to the lagoon. Then he led a patrol toward the Japanese positions. He stripped the deserted office of the Japanese commander of what he had left behind (including his lieutenant general's flag, which the Raiders forwarded to Marine Commandant Holcomb). And then they burned and blew up one thousand barrels of Japanese aviation gasoline.

  The fire was still burning at 2308 hours, when Colonel Carlson, believing himself to be the last man off the beach, went aboard the Nautilus.

  There was no question of attacking Little Makin Island. For one thing, they would be expected. And the then not only had no weapons, they were exhausted.

  The Raid on Makin Island was over. The Nautilus and the Argonaut got underway for Pearl Harbor.

  (Two)

  Pearl Harbor Navy Base, Territory of Hawaii

  26 August 1942

  It is a tradition within the submarine service for the crew to stand to on deck as the boat eases up to its wharf on return from a patrol. In keeping with this tradition, then were standing on the deck of the Nautilus. In fact, the deck was crowded; for in addition to the crew, the Marine Raiders who'd been "passengers" on the boat were on the deck, too.

  The Raiders would have failed an inspection at Parris Island (or anywhere else in the Marine Corps). And they would have brought tears to the eyes of the gunnery sergeant of a Marine detachment aboard a battleship, a cruiser, or an aircraft carrier.

  They were not at attention, for one thing. For another, no two of them seemed to be wearing the same uniform. Some were in dungarees, some in dyed-black khaki, some wore a mixture of both uniforms, and some wore parts of uniforms scrounged from the Nautilus's crew. Some wore steel helmets, some fore-and-aft caps, and some were hatless.

  There was a Navy band on the wharf, and it played "Anchors Aweigh" and the "Marines' Hymn," and the Raiders watched with their arms folded on their chests, wearing what were either smiles of pleasure or amused tolerance.

  The Pearl Harbor brass came aboard after that. And on their heels corpsmen started to offload the stretcher cases and ambulatory wounded. A line of ambulances, their doors already open, waited on the wharf behind the gray staff cars of the brass and the buses that would carry the Raiders.

  Lieutenant W. B. McCracken, Medical Corps, USNR, was wearing, proudly, dyed-black trousers and an unbuttoned Marine Corps dungaree jacket-as if to leave no question that he had been the doc of Baker Company, survivor of the Makin Raid, as opposed to your typical natty, run-of-the-mill chancre mechanic. McCracken walked up to Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMC, grabbed his dungaree jacket, and looped a casualty tag string through a button hole.

  "Go get in an ambulance, Killer," he said.

  "I don't need it," McCoy said.

  It was neither bravado nor modesty. He had not, in his mind, been wounded. A wound was an incapacitating hole in the body, usually accompanied by great pain. He had been zinged twice, lightly zinged. The first time had been right after they'd started moving down the island. A Japanese sniper in a coconut tree had almost got him, or almost missed. A slug had whipped through his trousers, six inches above his knee, grazed his leg, and kept going. It had scared hell out of him, but it hadn't even knocked him down.

  Almost immediately, he had seen another muzzle flash and fired four shots from his Garand into the coconut tree. The Jap's rifle had then come tumbling down, and a moment later the sniper followed it-at least to the length of the rope he'd used to tie himself up there.

  After that McCoy had pulled his pants leg up, then opened his first aid packet and put a compress on the hole, which was a groove about as wide as his pinky finger and about as long as a bandage. And then he'd really forgotten about it. Or rath
er, the wound hadn't been painful until that night, when he'd waded into the surf and the salt water had gotten to it and made it sting like hell.

  And he had been zinged again the next morning, when he'd led a squad down the island to see what the Japs were up to. He had been looking around what had been a concrete-block wall when a Japanese machine gun had opened up on them. A slug had hit the blocks about two feet from him, and a chunk of concrete had clipped him on the forehead; It had left a jagged tear about three inches long, and it had given him a hell of a headache, but it hadn't even bled very much. And it was not a real wound.

  The doc on the Nautilus had put a couple of fresh bandages, hardly more than Band-Aids, on him; and until now, that had been the end of it. He had spent the return trip trying to come up with a casualty list: who had been killed; who was missing from the fucked-up landing and the even more fucked-up withdrawal from the beach; and who, if anybody, was still unaccounted for. He hadn't thought of much else after it had become apparent to him that they had left as many as eight people on the beach.

  "Hot showers," Doc McCracken said, pushing him toward the gangplank, "sheets, mattresses, good chow, and firm-breasted sweet-smelling nurses. Trust me, Killer."

  Doc McCracken was smiling at him.

  "What the hell," McCoy said. "Why not?"

  It took about two hours before he had gone through the drill and was in a room in the Naval hospital with something to eat. A couple of doctors had painfully removed the scabs and dug around in mere as if they hoped to find gold. Then they'd given him a complete physical. And of course the paper pushers were there, filling in their forms.

  McCoy was just finishing his second shower-simply because it was there, all that limitless fresh hot water-and putting on a robe over his pajamas, and getting ready to lie on his bed and read Life magazine, when Colonel Carlson pushed open the door and walked into the room. He was still in mussed and soiled dungarees. McCoy supposed he'd come to the hospital to check on the wounded. The real wounded.

  "Go on with what you were doing," Carlson said, as McCoy started to straighten up to attention. "Go on, get on the bed. It's permitted. Then tell me how you feel."

  "I don't think I really belong here, Colonel," McCoy said, climbing onto the bed.

  "Clean sheets and a hot meal," Carlson said, smiling.

  "That's what the doc said, sir," McCoy said.

  "I'm about to go out to Camp Catlin," Colonel Carlson said. "I thought I'd drop by and say 'so long.'"

  "Sir?"

  Carlson dipped into the cavernous pocket of his dungaree jacket and came out with a sheet of teletype paper, which he handed to McCoy.

  PRIORITY

  HEADQUARTERS USMC WASH DC 8AUG42

  COMMANDING OFFICER

  2ND RAIDER BN

  FLEET MARINE FORCE PACIFIC

  YOU WILL ON RECEIPT ISSUE APPROPRIATE ORDERS DETACHING SECOND LIEUTENANT KENNETH J. MCCOY USMCR FROM COMPANY B 2ND RAIDER BN AND TRANSFERRING HIM TO HEADQUARTERS USMC.

  TRAVEL FROM HAWAII TO WASHINGTON BY AIR IS DIRECTED PRIORTTY AA2. BY DIRECTION

  STANLEY F. 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 be 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 whenever the bell 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 BATTAUON 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 ove
r. 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.