THE CORPS VI - CLOSE COMBAT

by W. E. B Griffin

  "You were there, I gather, Dillon?" General Underwood asked.

  "Yes, Sir. I went into Tulagi with Jack (NMI) Stecker's battalion."

  General Underwood and Major Dillon were now looking at each other.

  "This was easier, frankly, when I thought you were a goddamn feather merchant," General Underwood said.

  "Jake, are you really here to try to talk us into letting this sonofabitch go?" Colonel Frazier asked. "Do you know what all he did?"

  "Yes, Sir, I read the reports. But on the other hand, Sir, I heard what he did on Bloody Ridge. He's one hell of a Marine, Colonel."

  "He's a goddamn animal who belongs in Portsmouth!" General Underwood said angrily.

  Dillon and Colonel Frazier both looked at him.

  "Sir, the word is already out that they're going to give him the Medal of Honor," Dillon said. "If it comes out why he-"

  "That's enough, Dillon," General Underwood said sharply.

  "Yes, Sir."

  General Underwood stood up.

  "I can't waste any more time on this individual," General Underwood said. "You deal with it, Frazier. If Dillon has any reasonable proposals to make, that you feel you can go along with, I will support any decision you make. That will be all, gentlemen. Thank you."

  Colonel Frazier stood up. Both he and Major Dillon came to attention.

  "By your leave, Sir?" Colonel Frazier asked.

  General Underwood, his eyes on his desk, made an impatient gesture of dismissal. Colonel Frazier and Major Dillon made precise about-face movements and marched out of his office.

  "The General said if you had 'any reasonable proposal,' Jake," Colonel Frazier said. They were now in his office, drinking coffee to which sour-mash bourbon had been added.

  "Sir, the first thing we have to keep in mind is that some people, who are a lot more senior than you and me, think this war bond tour business is good for The Corps."

  "Do you?"

  Dillon met his eyes.

  "I really don't know. They told me to do it. I'm saying 'aye, aye, Sir,' and giving it my best shot."

  "OK. We'll go with that, for the sake of argument: The war bond tour is good for The Corps."

  "If we go with that, Colonel, then we have to go with the idea that putting a major, me, in charge, with a lieutenant and half a dozen sergeants to help, is a justified use of Marines. Plus, of course, the heroes. They could be doing other things, too."

  "I'm listening, Jake," Colonel Frazier said.

  "If we go with that, and if it means that instead of The Corps looking foolish for giving the Medal to somebody who turns out to be an asshole, The Corps looks good for giving the Medal to a guy who killed thirty, forty Japs all by himself, then it seems to me that The Corps would be justified in assigning two more Marines to the tour... that would mean for about a month."

  "Two more Marines, Jake? Who are you talking about?"

  "I don't have any names, but I'll bet you wouldn't have to look hard around the Recruit Depot to find two gunnery sergeants who are larger and tougher than Staff Sergeant McCoy."

  "And what would these two gunnies do, Jake?"

  "Well, I think that by now, as long as he's been in the Brig, Sergeant McCoy must be pretty dirty. The two gunnies would probably start off by giving Sergeant McCoy a bath. With a fire hose. That would probably put him in a good frame of mind. Then they could talk to him about how important it is to him and The Corps for him to behave himself. And if he ever felt he needed some exercise, they could give it to him."

  Colonel Frazier looked at Major Dillon for a long moment. Then he pushed a lever on his intercom.

  "Sergeant Major," he announced. "I'm sending a Major Dillon to see you. He will tell you what he wants. I don't know what that is, and I don't want to know. But you will give him whatever he asks for. Do you understand?"

  "Aye, aye, Sir," a metallic voice replied.

  "Thank you, Colonel," Jake said.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about, Major Dillon," Colonel Frazier said. "But I'm sure you'll be able to work it out with the Sergeant Major. He's in the third office down the hall to the right."

  [FOUR]

  Water Lily Cottage

  Brisbane, Australia

  1615 Hours 23 October 1942

  When he heard the crunch of tires on the driveway, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was drinking coffee. Not five minutes earlier, he almost took a stiff drink. But now that Ellen was arriving, he knew he'd made the right decision in not doing that.

  He checked himself in the mirror, tugging at the skirt of his blouse, then adjusting his necktie to a precise location he decided would please the Commandant of The Marine Corps himself.

  He was wearing his ribbons, too. There was an impressive display of them-the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the Purple Heart with three oak leaf clusters, the World War I Victory Medal, the Legion d'Honneur in the grade of Chevalier, and the Croix de Geurre. And they were neatly arrayed above what Pickering thought of as the "I-Was-There" ribbons: for service in France in World War I, for service since World War II started, and the Pacific Theatre of Operations ribbon.

  He rarely wore all this, and he wasn't sure why he was doing so now. Certainly his visit to General MacArthur required it (he'd correctly suspected that El Supremo would not only have a photographer present for the pinning-on-of-the-insignia, but that he would insist that Pickering get in the picture). But then there was Ellen Feller, who was just now approaching (like a pirate ship on the horizon; up goes the Jolly Roger). Mrs. Feller was impressed with brass. And he was aware that he made a visually impressive brass hat in his general's uniform, with stars on collar points and epaulets, and all his ribbons.

  "On deck, George," Pickering said softly. "Here she comes."

  He heard footsteps on the stairs, and then on the porch, and then the old-fashioned, manual, twist-it-with-your-fingers doorbell rang.

  Wearing not only his hours-old lieutenant's uniform, but a silver cord identifying him as an aide-de-camp to a general officer, George Hart went to the door and opened it.

  "May I help you?" George asked.

  Pickering looked up and let his gaze rest casually on Ellen. She was a tall woman in her middle thirties, dark haired and smooth skinned; and she was wearing little makeup. She seemed surprised to see Hart. At the same time, Pickering was surprised to see how she was dressed. She was in uniform. An Army officer's uniform, complete to cap with officer's insignia. But on the lapels, where an officer would have the U.S. insignia above the branch of service, there were small blue triangles. The uniform was authorized for wear by civilians attached to the Army.

  Now that he thought about it, Pickering was not surprised that Ellen had decided to put herself in uniform. He noticed, too, that the uniform did not conceal her long, shapely calves or the contours of her bosom.

  He had a quick mental image of her naked, and as quickly forced it from his mind... consciously replacing it with an image of Johnny Moore wincing with pain as he pulled his torn-up leg from the Studebaker.

  What happened to Johnny is as much Ellen's fault as it was the fault of the Japanese. This is a world-class bitch.

  "Mrs. Feller to see General Pickering," Ellen said.

  "Just a moment, please," George said, "I'll see if the General is free."

  "He expects me, Lieutenant," Ellen said, not at all pleasantly.

  "One moment, please," Hart said, and closed the door in her face.

  He turned to look at Pickering, smiling. Pickering nodded, held up his hand for ten seconds or so, and then dropped it. Hart turned back to the door and opened it again.

  "Would you come in, please?" Hart said, and turned to Pickering. "General, Mrs. Feller."

  "Hello, Ellen, how are you?" Pickering said, and added, "That will be all, Hart, thank you."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," Hart said, and marched across the living room to the kitchen, closing the door after him.


  "He's new," Ellen said. She crossed the room to him and shook his hand.

  That was better than being kissed.

  "Yes. Moore has been promoted, and Hart is my new aide."

  "I heard only yesterday that you had come back," Ellen said. "I was in Melbourne."

  "Yes, I know," Pickering said. "With Colonel Jasper, of Willoughby's staff."

  "Oh, you've spoken to him?"

  "Not yet," Pickering said.

  I'll be damned if there isn't something really erotic about her in the uniform.

  "Well, I'm sure you know that the OSS is setting up here. Jasper met with them in Melbourne. I thought I should know what's going on."

  "If you're fond of Colonel Jasper, Ellen, you might tell him that General MacArthur is opposed to the OSS setting up here."

  "What is that supposed to mean, Fleming?" Ellen asked. "If I'm fond of him?"

  "Well, you've been sleeping with him. That generally presumes a certain fondness."

  Ellen could not quite conceal her surprise at that.

  "Fleming, you weren't here," she said after a moment. "So far as I knew, you were never coming back. Charley Jasper doesn't mean anything to me."

  She didn't deny it; I rather thought she would. I wish she had. And she assumes I'm jealous. I suppose maybe I am. That's a perfectly natural male reaction.

  "Ellen, your sleeping around is posing problems we have to deal with."

  "I'm not going to beg for your forgiveness, Fleming, if that's what you're talking about. If you were here, what happened with Jasper never would have happened."

  I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone to Guadalcanal? You know damned well what would have happened. The only reason it only happened once was that I did go to Guadalcanal.

  "Problems with MAGIC," Pickering said. "As of this moment, the only MAGIC material to which you will have access will be that provided to you by Pluto or Moore for the purpose of briefing General MacArthur."

  "You didn't give me my MAGIC clearance, Fleming, and I don't think you have the authority to take it away. I can't believe you're letting your personal feelings cloud your professional judgment."

  "I have the authority, Ellen."

  "Well," she said, for the first time losing control, "we'll see what General Willoughby has to say about that."

  And then control came back. She smiled at him and wet her lips with her tongue.

  "Fleming, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to go back outside. While I'm gone, you will send your aide someplace; and when I come back, we'll start this all over again. We both have said things we really don't mean."

  "Ellen..."

  "I wept when you left for Guadalcanal," she said. "I had finally found a man I really admired, and we... we had only that one time together."

  "That shouldn't have happened," he said.

  "It did. Fleming, are you afraid I want more from you than you're in a position to give? I'm satisfied with the crumbs.... I know you would never leave your wife.... She would never find out about us, I swear on my life."

  Was there an implied threat in there?

  "That's enough, Ellen. Now shut up and listen to me."

  She found his eyes. With an effort, he forced himself to meet hers.

  "You have two options, Ellen. You will become the briefer for MacArthur and Willoughby. You will not have access to any MAGIC material except that which Pluto gives you; you are no longer authorized access to the dungeon in any way."

  "Or?"

  "You will be on the next plane to the States, under sedation. On your arrival in the United States, you will be taken to a federal mental hospital, and you will spend the war there."

  "You have to be kidding!"

  "General Willoughby will be made privy to the rather extensive report the Army's Counterintelligence Corps has compiled on you. He will understand why this was necessary."

  "What CIC report?" she snapped.

  Pickering went to his briefcase, unlocked it, and took from it a thick stack of paper. This was held together with metal clips and covered by a sheet of folder paper imprinted with diagonal stripes and the words TOP SECRET, top and bottom.

  "This one," he said, handing it to her. "They are remarkably thorough, you'll see."

  She snatched the report from his hand and glanced through it... but long enough to take in what it contained.

  "You'd let this garbage out? After what we've meant to each other?"

  "The only reason I'm not doing it is that it would ruin the careers of Colonel Jasper and the others. They don't deserve that."

  "Your name is in this filthy file! Have you considered that?"

  "You still don't understand, do you?" Pickering said. "We're not talking about you, or me, we're talking about the security of MAGIC. You have proved that you can't be trusted with that...."

  "Don't be absurd. That's absolutely untrue."

  "Oh? By a conscious act, you did nothing when they were going to send Moore to Guadalcanal. You knew he wasn't supposed to go. No one with access to MAGIC is supposed to be placed in any threat of capture by the enemy."

  "You went to Guadalcanal," she said.

  Yeah, I did. And I was wrong.

  "You allowed Moore to be sent to Guadalcanal because he posed a potential threat to your reputation, and MAGIC be damned."

  "Flem, you were gone. I was lonely. He was persistent. It happened. I was trying to stop it. I knew it was wrong. All I was trying to do-"

  "Was save your skin. And MAGIC be damned," Pickering interrupted her.

  "Why don't you just have me shot, then?"

  "I considered it. Banning would almost certainly see that as the best solution. It is still an option."

  She looked at him, and he met her eyes. And after a moment he saw in them that she believed him. But he saw too, in her eyes, that she wasn't going to grant the point.

  "We're both saying things we don't mean again, aren't we?"

  "I have said nothing I don't mean. I'm getting tired of this, Ellen. You either accept the option of becoming our briefer, and thus saving Pluto's and Moore's time, as well as the careers of the people you've been sleeping with..."

  "Including yours?"

  "... or you don't."

  "This conversation is unbelievable," Ellen said. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Fleming. I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to walk out of here and forget we ever had it."

  She glared at him defiantly for a moment, as if waiting for his response. Then she turned and walked to the door.

  Just as she reached it, it opened inward and three men in civilian clothing moved inside. One of them spun her around and twisted her arm behind her back. Ellen screamed. The man put his hand over her mouth. The second man pulled her uniform skirt up, high enough to clear her stocking. Then he jabbed a hypodermic needle like a dart into the skin of her upper thigh and carefully depressed the plunger.

  He removed the needle, then looked at Ellen Feller's eyes.

  The third man moved to Fleming Pickering.

  "Are you all right?" he asked.

  Pickering glared at him.

  "What was that he injected?"

  "Not what it should have been," the man said. "It won't kill her."

  "God damn it!"

  The man walked past him and picked up the CIC report.

  "What happens to that, now?" Pickering asked.

  "I don't think we'll have to use it," the man said.

  Pickering looked on while Ellen Feller, as if she were drunk, was half carried, half walked out of the house between the first two men. The man with the report walked after them. He stopped at the door and turned to face Pickering.

  "General, for what it's worth, I've been thinking that this is the difference between us and the Japs. If I was in the Kempe Tai, she would be long dead. What we do with people like this is lock them up somewhere until the war is over, and then turn them loose."

  Then he was gone.

  Pickering moved to the ba
r and took a bottle of scotch and poured three inches in a water glass. Then he picked up the glass and very carefully poured the whiskey back into the bottle. He felt eyes on him, and looked over his shoulder.

  George Hart had come into the room.