Close Combat

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” the Easterbunny said.

  “The same applies to you two,” Jake said. “Today is Tuesday the twenty-seventh. I want you in Los Angeles a week from Thursday. The tour starts Friday. And you will be on it.”

  “This officer, too, Sir?” Dunn asked.

  “For a day or two. Then he’s going to start training combat correspondents.”

  “Hey, good for you, Easterbunny,” Pick said.

  “In the meantime, I don’t want him to pick up any bad habits,” Dillon said.

  “We won’t let him out of our sight until we send him home to his mommy, will we, Lieutenant Dunn?” Pick replied.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Miss Dorothy Northcutt, a stewardess for two of her twenty-eight years, thought the two young Marine officers in 9B and 9C were just adorable. Neither of them looked old enough to be out of school, much less Marine officers.

  She did the approved stewardess squat in the aisle.

  “Well, the Marines seem to have just about taken over this flight, haven’t they?” she asked.

  “I think they have just come back from the war,” the blond one said, indicating the three sergeants in 8A, -B, and -C. “There’s something about their eyes…”

  Meaning, of course. Miss Northcutt concluded, that you are on your way to the war. And you’re so young!

  “Can I get you anything before we serve breakfast?”

  “Do you think I could have a little gin in a glass of orange juice?” the blond one asked. When he saw the look on Miss Northcutt’s face, he added, “My mother always gave me that when my tummy felt a little funny.”

  “You don’t feel well?”

  “I’ll be all right,” he said bravely. “It’s a little bumpy up here.”

  “But you’re wearing wings. Aren’t you a pilot?”

  “In training,” Dunn said. “I’ve never flown on one of these before.”

  “I’ll get you one,” she said, and looked at Second Lieutenant Easterbrook.

  “Could I have the same thing, please?”

  Ignoring the Marine officer in 9A (who was obviously older—and even more obviously trying to look down her blouse while she was squatting in the aisle), Miss Northcutt stood up and walked forward to fetch orange juice and gin.

  “This isn’t your day, Bill,” Pickering said, leaning across the aisle. “We’re making a fuel stop at Kansas City; I’ll bet they change crews there.”

  “With a little bit of luck, we’ll hit some bad weather, or blow a jug or something, and get stranded overnight,” Dunn replied. “Think positive, Pickering! Butt out!”

  [THREE]

  The Foster Lafayette Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  1300 Hours 28 October 1942

  Senator Richardson S. Fowler (R., Cal.) knocked on the door of the suite adjacent to his.

  “Come!” a familiar voice called, and he pushed the door open.

  Three young men, in their underwear, were seated around a room-service table eating steak and eggs and french fried potatoes. When one of them stood up and smiled, Senator Fowler had trouble finding his voice.

  “Well, Pick,” he said finally, trying and not quite succeeding to attain the jocular tone he wanted, “home, I see, is the sailor….”

  “Uncle Dick…” Pick said, and approached him with his hand extended. But that gesture turned into an embrace.

  “Uncle Dick, sailors are those guys in the round white hats and the pants with all the buttons on the fly. We are Marines.”

  The other two young men looked at them in curiosity.

  “Senator Fowler, may I present Lieutenants Dunn and Easterbrook?” Pick said. “They, too, are Marines.”

  Both of them stood up and he shook their hands.

  My God, they’re even younger-looking than Pick! Are these kids the men we’re asking to fight our wars?

  “You could have called me, Pick,” Fowler said.

  “We just came in this morning,” Pick said. “The airplane broke…unfortunately, at the wrong airport. And then duty calls. I have to take these two heroes to have medals pinned on them.”

  “So I understand,” Fowler said. “Frank Knox called me.”

  And what Frank Knox said was, “I’m going to decorate two heroes at three-thirty. One of them is Fleming Pickering’s son. I thought you might want to be there.”

  There was another knock at the door.

  “Come!” Pick called.

  It was a bellman carrying freshly pressed uniforms, thus explaining the underwear.

  “Easterbrook?” Fowler asked, remembering. “You’re the Marine combat correspondent who shot the film Fleming Pickering sent back?”

  “Blush for the Senator, Easterbunny,” Pick said.

  “That was you?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Easterbrook said, furious with himself when he felt his cheeks warm.

  “Marvelous work, son. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Can we offer you something, Uncle Dick?” Pick said.

  “Not if it’s an excuse for you to have something. If you’re going to see Frank Knox, I want you sober.”

  “I am on my very good behavior,” Pick said.

  “That will be a change,” Fowler said, and immediately regretted it. But he moved hastily on: “So the two of you are to be decorated?”

  “Not me,” Pick said. “Johnny Reb here—”

  “Screw you, Pick,” Dunn interrupted.

  “—gets the Navy Cross at half past three from Frank Knox. And at half past five, Easterbrook gets the Bronze Star from a general named Stewart at Eighth and I.”

  “Oh,” Fowler said.

  He doesn’t know he’s being decorated. Was that intentional, or a foul-up? Should I tell him?

  “Can I see you a minute, Uncle Dick?” Pick asked.

  “Certainly. You want to come next door?”

  Pickering followed through the door connecting the two apartments, then closed it after him.

  “What’s that fellow…Dunn, you said?”

  “Dunn,” Pick confirmed.

  “…done to earn the Navy Cross?”

  “He shot down ten Japanese aircraft. Three at Midway, seven on the ’Canal.”

  “And how many have you shot down?” Fowler asked softly.

  “Six.”

  “Doesn’t that make you an ace?”

  “I have always been an ace,” Pick said.

  “There are those who are saying that air power saved Guadalcanal,” Fowler said.

  “Has it been saved?”

  “It’s not over. But the Japanese apparently took their best shot, and it wasn’t good enough.”

  “I hadn’t heard,” Pick said.

  “I should have thought you’d be fascinated to hear the news from there.”

  Pick ignored the question. “If anybody saved the ’Canal—if, in fact, it has been saved—it was the Marine with a rifle in his hand who saved it.”

  “That’s pretty modest of you, isn’t it?”

  “No. That’s the way it is. I have a hard time looking a rifle platoon leader in the eye; it makes me feel like a feather merchant.”

  “I’m sure he feels the same way about you,” Fowler said, then changed the subject. “What did you want to ask me, Pick?”

  “I need some influence. I need an air priority for Dunn—he lives near Mobile, Alabama—to get him from there to Los Angeles on November 5. And the same thing for the Easterbunny. He lives near Jefferson City, Missouri, wherever the hell that is.”

  “‘The Easterbunny’? Why do you call him that?”

  “What else would you call a nineteen-year-old who blushes and whose name is Easterbrook?”

  “But those were officer’s uniforms the bellman carried in there. He’s only nineteen and he’s an officer?”

  “He’s been an officer for maybe three days. I need an air priority for him from here to Jefferson City, leaving as soon as possible after five-thirty today, and then from t
here to Los Angeles.”

  “Call my office, they’ll arrange it. I’ll tell them to expect the call.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll probably stay here. Mother’s in Honolulu. God only knows where The General is, and I’m sure I’m beginning to get on Grandpa’s nerves living in his apartment.”

  “You better not let him hear you say that,” Fowler said, chuckling. “Your father-the-general is in Brisbane. The President sent him there.”

  “To do what?”

  “I’m sorry, Pick, I can’t tell you; that’s privileged.”

  Pick shrugged.

  “Well, if you stick around here, we’ll have dinner,” Fowler said.

  “Love to. Thanks for the help.”

  “I’m invited to that awards ceremony in Knox’s office, Pick. You want to ride over with me?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “I’ll pick you up at quarter to three,” Fowler said. “Now let me make some telephone calls.”

  The first call the Senator made was to his office, to tell his administrative assistant that Young Pickering would be calling. The second was to the Hon. Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy.

  The Director of Marine Corps Public Relations was also on the phone to Secretary Knox’s office that afternoon. It was quite easy for Captain David Haughton, USN, Secretary Knox’s administrative assistant, to clarify for him the confusion about which Marine officers were to be decorated and by whom. The Secretary desired to make the presentations to all three officers personally.

  And it turned out to be just as easy for the Director of Public Affairs, USMC, to carry out the Secretary’s desires in regard to this ceremony. The President’s presentation of the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Thomas M. “Machine Gun” McCoy was scheduled for 1100 the next day. General Stewart had already laid on a dry run for the still and motion picture photographers and the sound team who’d be recording that event. And now, instead of practicing with Marines playing the roles of the people involved, those technicians would simply go to the Secretary of the Navy’s office today. Two birds with one stone. General Stewart was pleased with himself.

  [FOUR]

  Office of the Secretary of the Navy

  Navy Department

  Washington, D.C.

  1515 Hours 28 October 1942

  Having decided the presentation ceremony was of sufficient importance to justify his personal attention, Brigadier General J. J. Stewart had arrived at Secretary Knox’s office thirty minutes earlier, on the heels of the still and motion picture photography crew.

  Those to be decorated, however, had not yet shown up. And so General Stewart’s temper flared once again at Captain O. L. Greene. The first time Captain Greene provoked his anger (at least in regard to the present circumstances) was after he’d returned from meeting the plane from California at the airport. When he came back from the airport, Greene reported that the three young officers did not, as they were supposed to, accompany him to the VIP Transient Quarters at Eighth and I, where they were to be installed.

  “I told them about the quarters, General,” Greene explained, “but Pickering, the officers’ escort, told me he’d already made arrangements for the officers. Sergeant McCoy and the two gunnies are in the transient staff NCO Quarters. I gave the officers’ escort the schedule.”

  By then, of course, it had been too late to do anything about the escort officer running around loose with Dunn and Easterbrook. So he’d limited his expression of displeasure to suggesting to Captain Greene that the next time he was given specific instructions, it would well behoove him not to let a lieutenant talk him out of following them.

  Now he wished he’d given in to the impulse to ream Captain Greene a new anal orifice back when it might have done some good. In fifteen minutes, the Secretary of the Navy was going to invest Lieutenant Dunn with the Navy Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor, and no one had the faintest goddamn idea where Dunn was.

  The Secretary’s conference room had been turned into something like a motion picture set for the presentation. The conference table itself was now pushed to one side of the room; a dark-blue drape suspended from iron pipe was put up as a backdrop; lights were set up and tested; and two motion picture cameras—an industry-standard 35mm Mitchell and a 16mm EyeMo as a backup—were in place. It then took the master sergeant in charge of it all an extraordinary amount of time to arrange the flags against the backdrop—the National Colors, and the flags of the Navy Department, The Marine Corps, and the Secretary of the Navy.

  But that delay was as nothing in comparison with the one that really mattered.

  And then, as General Stewart glared impatiently—for the umpteenth time—at his wristwatch, the door to the Secretary’s conference room opened and three Marine officers walked in.

  “General,” the tallest of the three barked crisply, “Lieutenant Pickering reporting with a detail of two, Sir.”

  The other first lieutenant, who was also wearing the wings of a Naval Aviator (and thus he had to be the Navy Cross decoratee), seemed for some reason to find this very amusing.

  But General Stewart did not dwell on that. He was pleased with what he saw. The three of them were not only shipshape, with fresh shaves and haircuts, but fine-looking, clean-cut young officers in well-fitting uniforms. It could very easily not have been so. When these pictures appeared in movie newsreels and in newspapers across the country, The Corps would look good.

  There was only one minor item that had to be corrected. But even as this thought occurred to General Stewart, the master sergeant took care of it:

  “Lieutenant,” he said, “this time you’re on the other side of the lens. Why don’t you let me hold that Leica for you?”

  Lieutenant Easterbrook pulled the strap of his Leica camera case over his head and turned it over to the master sergeant.

  It was at that point that General Stewart realized that a civilian had entered the room. And then, a moment later, he realized just who that civilian was.

  “Good afternoon, Senator,” he said.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “I’m General Stewart…” General Stewart began, but got no further.

  Captain David Haughton put his head in the door and interrupted him: “Senator, if you don’t mind, the Secretary…”

  “Certainly,” the Senator said, and left the room.

  A moment later a Marine first lieutenant wearing the silver cord of an aide-de-camp came in carrying a red flag with two stars on it. He was followed by a Marine captain carrying an identical flag. General Stewart recognized the captain as the aide-de-camp of the Assistant Commandant. But he had no idea who the other two-star was.

  He was pleased that he had chosen to appear personally; if he hadn’t, the Assistant Commandant might have wondered where he was.

  Captain Haughton reappeared, leading the Assistant Commandant, the Director of Marine Corps Aviation, and the senior senator from California. He arranged them before the flags, and then gestured to the young Marine officers.

  “Over here, please, gentlemen,” he said. “Lieutenant Dunn on the left, Lieutenant Pickering, and then Lieutenant Easterbrook.”

  “Sir, I’m not involved in this,” Lieutenant Pickering said.

  “Mr. Pickering,” Captain Haughton said sternly, “your father can argue with me. You can’t. Get in ranks.”

  The Assistant Commandant and the Director of Marine Corps Aviation both laughed.

  My God, General Stewart realized somewhat belatedly, that must be General Pickering’s son!

  “You ready for us, Sergeant?” Captain Haughton asked.

  “Yes, Sir,” the master sergeant said. “Let’s have the lights, please.”

  The backdrop was instantly flooded with brilliant light. The master sergeant gave those bathed in it a moment to recover.

  “Roll film,” the master sergeant ordered.

  Captain Haughton opened the door again.
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  “Gentlemen,” he announced, “the Honorable Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy.”

  [FIVE]

  * * *

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT-VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL

  NAVY DEPARTMENT WASH DC 21 15 22OCT42

  FOR: SUPREME COMMANDER SOUTH WEST PACIFIC AREA

  EYES ONLY BRIGADIER GENERAL FLEMING PICKERING, USMCR

  FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM SECNAV TO BRIG GEN PICKERING:

  DEAR FLEMING:

  THIRTY MINUTES AGO I HAD THE GREAT PERSONAL PLEASURE AND PRIVILEGE OF INVESTING FIRST LIEUTENANT MALCOLM S. PICKERING, USMCR, WITH THE DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS FOR HIS EXTRAORDINARY VALOR AND PROFESSIONAL SKILL AT GUADALCANAL. SENATOR FOWLER WAS PRESENT. YOUR SON IS A FINE YOUNG MAN, AND YOU CAN TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN HIM.

  I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT FOLLOWING HIS PARTICIPATION IN THE WAR BOND TOUR HE IS TO BE ASSIGNED TO DUTIES INVOLVING THE DEVELOPMENT OF TACTICS FOR THE NEW CORSAIR FIGHTER. VIS A VIS THE WAR BOND TOUR, WHEN I ASKED, PRO FORMA, IF THERE WAS ANYTHING I COULD DO FOR HIM, HE INSTANTLY ASKED TO BE RELIEVED FROM WAR BOND TOUR DUTIES. I TOLD HIM IT WAS OUT OF MY REALM OF AUTHORITY. VIS A VIS THE CORSAIR ASSIGNMENT, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT EITHER. THE DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS AVIATION TOLD ME THAT PILOTS LIKE YOUR BOY (AND LIKE THAT OF HIS GUADALCANAL COMRADE IN ARMS, LIEUTENANT WILLIAM DUNN, WHO WAS DECORATED TODAY WITH THE NAVY CROSS FOR HIS TEN VICTORIES AND WHO IS BEING SIMILARLY ASSIGNED) ARE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD TO TRAIN OTHER PILOTS AND THAT THE MARINE CORPS HAS NO INTENTION OF SENDING THEM BACK INTO COMBAT UNTIL THEY HAVE TRAINED AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF NAVAL AVIATORS.

  KEEP BUTTING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE PALACE WALL FOR YOUR FRIEND DONOVAN’S FRIENDS. YOU CAN IMAGINE WHERE THAT ORDER CAME FROM, AS RECENTLY AS YESTERDAY.

  GUERRILLAS IN PHILIPPINES HAVE ATTRACTED ATTENTION IN SAME QUARTERS. LEAHY QUOTE SUGGESTED UNQUOTE THAT RICKABEE’S PEOPLE ARE PROBABLY THE BEST TO GET TO BOTTOM OF QUESTION OF THEIR POTENTIAL EFFECTIVENESS, IF ANY. YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS, IF ANY, AND OPINION, IN PARTICULAR, OF MACARTHUR’S RELUCTANCE TO GET INVOLVED EARNESTLY SOLICITED.