Pick and his family were people from a different world.
A world like Ernestine Sage’s. A world where I don’t belong, even with a gold bar on my collar.
(Three)
Washington, D.C.
1600 Hours, 28 November 1941
Before Pickering’s parents had showed up, it had been understood between McCoy and Pickering that immediately after they were sworn in, they would drive to Washington. The LaSalle was already loaded with their luggage.
He had been sure that would change because of his parents. But that hadn’t happened. Pick shook hands with his father, allowed himself to be kissed by his mother, and then the Pickerings left. Taking trips halfway around the world was obviously routine stuff for them.
Pick and McCoy, as originally planned, then simply backed from the parade field to where McCoy had parked the LaSalle by the barracks, got in, and drove off.
There were no farewell handshakes with the others in 23–41. Because he had been on Pleasant’s and the gunny’s shit list, the others had most of the time avoided McCoy as if he were a leper. And they had avoided Pickering, too, because he was McCoy’s buddy. And there had been whispers at the end about the two of them getting “administrative duty” in Washington rather than “in the field” at LeJeune and San Diego.
Pickering thought about this as they got in the LaSalle: If somewhere down the pike, Class 23–41 sent him an invitation to its twentieth reunion, he would send his regrets.
This time, they were stopped by the MP at the gate. First the MP waved them through, then he saw the bars and saluted, and finally he stepped into the road in front of them with his hand up.
He saluted as McCoy rolled down the window.
“Excuse me, sir, is this your car?”
“Yes, it is,” McCoy said.
“It’s got an enlisted decal, sir.”
“That’s because, until about twenty minutes ago, I was enlisted,” McCoy said.
The MP smiled broadly. “I thought that was you,” he said, admiringly. “You been sneaking in and out of here all the time you was in the Platoon Leader Course, haven’t you?”
“How could you even suspect such a thing?” McCoy asked.
The MP came to attention and saluted.
“You may pass out, sir,” he said. “Thank you, sir.”
A minute later, after they had left the base, McCoy said, “I guess I better stop someplace and scrape that sticker off.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean, then what?”
“What are we going to do when we get to Washington?”
“I thought you’d be taking some leave,” McCoy said.
“No,” Pickering said. “I’d rather report in. I want to find out what’s planned for me. How, exactly, do we do that?”
“Today is a day of duty,” McCoy explained, patiently. “We get a day’s travel time to Washington. That carries us up through midnight tomorrow. So long as we report in by midnight on Sunday, that makes Sunday a day of duty. So about eleven o’clock Sunday night, we’ll find out where it is.”
“You’re not going home?” Pickering asked, and when McCoy shook his head, went on, “Or to New York?”
“No,” McCoy said, stiffly.
“I thought maybe you’d come to your senses about going to New York,” Pickering said.
“You miss the point,” McCoy said. “I have come to my senses. And that’s the end of that particular subject.”
“Okay, so we’ll go to the Lafayette,” Pickering said. “It’s a little stuffy, but it has a very nice French restaurant.”
“Another hotel you own?”
“Grandpa owns it, actually,” Pickering said. “It’s right across from the White House. Do you suppose you can find the White House without a map, Lieutenant?”
“No, I’ve never been in Washington before, and I don’t have a map, and I’m not going to sponge again off you or your ‘Grandpa,’” McCoy said.
“Very well,” Pickering said. “I will stay in the Lafayette, and you can stay in whatever flea-bag with hot-and-cold running cockroaches strikes your fancy, just so long as I know where to find you when it is time for us to go to the Marine Barracks and sign in. I hate to tell you this, Lieutenant, you being an officer and a gentleman and all, but you have a great talent for being a horse’s ass.”
McCoy laughed.
“You’re sure you want to sign in early?” he asked. “It may be a long time until they offer you any leave again.”
“I need to know what this ‘administrative’ duty is all about,” Pickering said. “I don’t like the sound of it.”
“What’s the difference?” McCoy asked. “Whatever it is, they’re not offering you a choice.”
“Indulge me,” Pickering said. “Take me along with you, so that you can explain things to me. And for Christ’s sake, stop being an ass about being comped in one of our hotels.”
“Being what?”
“‘Comped,’” Pickering explained. “‘Complimentary accommodations.’ It’s part of the business. If you work for Foster Hotels, you’re entitled to stay in Foster Hotels when you’re away from home.”
“I don’t work for Foster Hotels,” McCoy argued.
“That’s all right, you’re with me,” Pickering said. “And I am the apple of Grandpa’s eye. Will you stop being an ass?”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” McCoy said.
“So do you, when you pick your nose,” Pickering said. “But if you agree to stay in Grandpa’s hotel, you can pick your nose all you want, and I won’t say a thing.”
The doorman at the Lafayette knew Pickering by sight. He rushed around and opened the door with all the pomp shown a respected guest. But what he said, was, “Jesus, Pick, are you for real? Or is there a costume party?”
“You are speaking, sir, to an officer and a gentleman of the U.S. Marine Corps,” Pickering said. “You will not have to prostrate yourself; kneeling will suffice.” He turned to McCoy. “Ken, say hello to Jerry Toltz, another old pal of mine. We bellhopped here all through one hot, long, miserable summer.”
“How long are you going to be here?” the doorman asked.
“I don’t know. Probably some time.”
“They know you’re coming?”
“I don’t think so,” Pickering said.
“I thought I would have heard,” Jerry Toltz said. “The house is full, Pick.”
“We need someplace to stay,” Pickering said.
“Well, if they don’t have anything for you, you and your pal can stay with me. There’s a convertible couch.”
“Thank you,” Pickering said.
“Will you be needing the car?”
“Yeah,” Pickering said. “I’m glad you asked. Don’t bury it. We have to go out.”
“That’s presuming you can get in,” the doorman said, and motioned for a bellboy and told him to park the car in the alley.
The man behind the reception desk also knew Malcolm Pickering.
He gave him his hand.
“You will be professionally delighted to hear the house is full,” he said. “Personally, that may not be such good news. How are you? It’s good to see you. Your grand-dad told me you were in the Marines.”
“Good to see you,” Pickering said. “This is my friend Ken McCoy.”
They shook hands.
“How long have you been an officer?” the manager asked.
“It must be, four, five hours now,” Pickering said.
“And I don’t have a bed for you! All I can do is call around. The Sheraton owes me a couple of big favors.”
“What about maid’s room in the bridal suite?”
“There’s only a single in there,” the manager protested.
“Put in a cot, then,” Pickering said. “I’ll sleep on that.”
“I’ll probably be able to find something for you tomorrow,” the manager said.
“Lieutenant McCoy and I are going to be here for some time,�
�� Pickering said. “What about one of the residential hotels? I really hate to comp if we can rent it.”
“There’s a waiting list for every residential room in Washington,” the manager said. “If you don’t want to sleep on a park bench, you’ll have to stay here. I’ll come up with a bed-sitter for you in a day or two. Unless you need two bedrooms?”
“Lieutenant McCoy and I will not know how to handle the luxury of a bed-sitter. We have been sharing one room with thirty others.”
“You want to go up now?”
“No, what we want to do now is locate the Marine Barracks.”
The manager drew them a map.
They arrived at the Marine Barracks, coincidentally, just as the regularly scheduled Friday evening formal retreat parade was beginning. The music was provided by the Marine Corps Band, in dress blues.
It’s like a well-choreographed ballet, Pickering thought as he watched the ceremony (the intricacies of which were now familiar) progress with incredible precision.
I’ll be damned, McCoy thought, these guys are really as good as they’re supposed to be.
There were Marines in dress blues stationed at intervals around the manicured grass of the parade ground. Their primary purpose, McCoy saw, was more practical than decorative. From time to time, one or more of them had to restrain eager tourists from rushing out onto the field to take a snap-shot of the marching and drilling troops, or just to get a better look.
When the Marine Band had finally marched off, the perimeter guard near them, a lance corporal, left his post.
When he came to Pickering and McCoy, he saluted snappily.
“Good evening, sir!” he barked.
“Good evening,” McCoy heard himself say.
Something bothered him. After a moment, he realized what it was. When the kid had tossed him the highball, he had done so automatically. The kid had seen a couple of officers, and he had saluted them. There had been nothing in his eyes that suggested he suspected he was saluting a China Marine corporal in a lieutenant’s uniform.
I really am an officer, McCoy thought. Until right now, it was sort of play-acting. But now it’s real. When that kid saluted me, I felt like an officer.
Well, this is the place to have it happen, he thought. At the Marine Barracks in Washington after a formal retreat parade, with the smell of the smoke from the retreat cannon still in my nose, and the tick-tick of the drums of the Marine Band fading as it marches away.
(Four)
On Saturday, Pickering and McCoy drove around Washington. Pickering was at first amused at the notion of playing tourist, but then he realized it wasn’t so bad after all. He saw more of Washington with McCoy than he’d seen during the entire summer he’d spent bellhopping at the Lafayette.
And he came to understand that McCoy was doing more than satisfying an idle curiosity: He was reconnoitering the terrain. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but there was no question that’s what it was. It occurred to him again, as it had several times at Quantico, that McCoy was really an odd duck in society, as for example a Jesuit priest is an odd duck. They weren’t really like the other ducks swimming around on the lake. They swam with a purpose, answering commands not heard by other people. A Jesuit’s course through the waters of life was guided by God; McCoy’s by what he believed—consciously or subconsciously—was expected of him by the Marine Corps.
They spent most of Sunday at the Smithsonian Institution. And again, Pickering was pleased that they had come. He was surprised at the emotion he felt when he saw the tiny little airplane Charles Lindbergh had flown to Paris and when he was standing before the faded and torn flag that had flown “in the rockets’ red glare” over Fort McHenry.
At half-past ten on Sunday night (Pickering was still not fully accustomed to thinking in military time and had to do the arithmetic in his head to come up with 2230), Second Lieutenants M. Pickering and K.J. McCoy presented their orders to the duty officer at the Marine Barracks and held themselves ready for duty.
“Your reporting in early is probably going to screw things up with personnel,” the officer of the day said. “I’ll send word over there that you’re here, and they’ll call you at the BOQ [Bachelor Officers’ Quarters].”
“We’re in a hotel in town,” Pickering said.
“Okay. Probably even better. As you’ll find out, the Corps is scattered all over town. What hotel?”
“The Lafayette,” Pickering said.
“Very nice,” the officer of the day said. “What’s the room number?”
“I don’t know,” Pickering said and started to smile.
“Then how do you know where to sleep when you get there?” the officer of the day asked, sarcastically.
“Actually, we’re in the bridal suite,” Pickering said. And then, quickly, he added: “In the maid’s room off the bridal suite.”
At 0915 the next morning, the telephone in the maid’s room of the bridal suite rang. It was a captain from personnel. Lieutenant Pickering was ordered to report, as soon as he could get there, to Brigadier General D.G. McInerny, whose office was in Building F at the Anacostia Naval Air Station. Before McCoy’s reconnoitering over the weekend, Pickering had only a vague idea where Anacostia Naval Air Station was. Now he knew. He even knew where to find Building F. He had seen the building numbers—or rather building letters—in front of the office buildings there.
Lieutenant McCoy was to report to a Major Almond, in Room 26, Building T-2032, one of the temporary buildings in front of the Smithsonian. They knew where that was, too, as a result of McCoy’s day-long scoping of the terrain.
“You drop me there,” McCoy said. “I can walk back here. Anacostia’s to hell and gone.”
Pickering found Building F without difficulty. It was one of several buildings immediately behind the row of hangars. Three minutes later, to his considerable surprise, he was standing at attention before the desk of Brigadier General D.G. McInerney, USMC. Unable to believe that a brigadier general of Marines would have thirty seconds to spare for a second lieutenant, he had simply presumed that whatever they were going to have him do here, his orders would come from a first lieutenant.
General McInerney looked like a general. There were three rows of ribbons on his tunic below the gold wings of a Naval Aviator. He didn’t have much hair, and what there was of it was cut so close to the skull that the bumps and the freckles on the skin were clearly visible.
The general, Pickering decided as he stood at attention, was not very friendly, and he was unabashedly studying him with interest.
“So you’re Malcolm Pickering,” General McInerney said finally. “You must take after your mother. You don’t look at all like your dad.”
Pickering was so startled that for a moment his eyes flickered from their prescribed focus six inches over the general’s head.
“You may sit, Mr. Pickering,” General McInerney said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, sir,” Pick Pickering said. “Thank you, sir.”
A sergeant appeared, apparently in reply to the pushing of an unseen buzzer button.
“This is Lieutenant Pickering, Sergeant Wallace,” General McInerney said. “He will probably be around here for a while.”
The sergeant offered his hand.
“How do you do, sir?” he said.
“Lieutenant Pickering’s father and I were in the war to end all wars together,” General McInerney said, dryly.
“Is that so?” the sergeant said.
“And the lieutenant’s father called me and, for auld lang syne, Sergeant Wallace, asked me to take care of his boy. And of course, I said I would.”
“I understand, sir.”
Pickering felt sick and furious.
“I think we can start off by getting the lieutenant a cup of coffee.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Sergeant Wallace said. “How would you like your coffee, Lieutenant?”
“Black, please,” Pickering said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“You get fixed up all right with a BOQ?” General McInerney inquired. “Or are you perhaps staying in a hotel? A Foster hotel?”
“I’m in the Lafayette, sir.”
“I thought you might be,” General McInerney said. “I mean, what the hell, if your family owns hotels…how many hotels does your family own, Lieutenant?”
“There are forty-two, sir,” Pick said.
“What the hell, if your family owns forty-two hotels, why not stay in one of them, right? There’s certainly no room service in the BOQ, is there?”
“No, sir.”
The coffee was delivered.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Pickering said.
“Certainly, sir,” Sergeant Wallace said.
“I guess it took a little getting used to, not having someone to fetch coffee for you. At Quantico, I mean?” General McInerney asked.
“Yes, sir,” Pickering said.
“Well, at least here, you’ll have Sergeant Wallace and several other enlisted men around for that sort of thing. It won’t be quite like home, but it will be a little better than running around in the boondocks with a rifle platoon.”
“Yes, sir,” Pickering said.
“It’s not quite what the Corps had in mind for you,” General McInerney said, “but I’ve arranged for you to be my junior aide-de-camp. How does that sound?”
“Permission to speak frankly, sir?” Pickering asked.
“Of course,” General McInerney said.
“My father had no right to ask you to do anything for me,” Pickering said. “I knew nothing about it. If I had any idea that he was even thinking about something like that, I would have told him to keep his nose out of my business.”
“Is that so?” General McInerney said, doubtfully.
“Yes, Sir,” Pickering said fervently, “that’s so. And with respect, Sir, I do not want to be your aide-de-camp.”
“I don’t recall asking whether or not you wanted to be my aide. I presented that as a fact. I have gone to considerable trouble arranging for it.”
“Sir, I feel that I would make you a lousy aide.”
“You are now a Marine officer. When a Marine officer is told to do something, he is expected to reply ‘Aye, aye, sir’ and set about doing it to the best of his ability.”
Semper Fi Page 33
