THE CORPS VI - CLOSE COMBAT

by W. E. B Griffin

  The students and some of the IPs looked at Dunn and Pickering. One of them started to applaud, and others joined in.

  I wonder if I look as uncomfortable as Grandpa Bill.

  "To the victor goes the spoils," Colonel Porter said. "Tradition requires that the senior officer present is served first. But I think we can waive that tonight. Waiter, would you please serve Lieutenant Dunn and Lieutenant Pickering?"

  A white-jacketed waiter appeared. He was carrying a silver tray on which were two glasses filled with a dark liquid and ice cubes.

  Thank God! I can really use a drink!

  "A toast, Mr. Dunn, if you please," Colonel Porter said.

  Bill Dunn raised his glass.

  "To The Corps," he said.

  Pick took a sip.

  Jesus, what the hell is this?

  It's tea, that's what it is! I'll be a sonofabitch!

  He looked at the lectern. Lieutenant Colonel J. Danner Porter, USMC, was smiling benignly at him.

  "I think," Lieutenant Dunn said softly, "that that's what is known as 'inspired chickenshit.' "

  "I just hope it means we are forgiven," Pick said.

  "You mean for getting drunk?"

  "We paid for that by being here. What I mean is for cleaning his clock."

  Dunn laughed, and then his face changed.

  "I have just fallen in love again," he said. "Will you look at that in the doorway?"

  Pick turned.

  "That one's off-limits, Billy," Pick said as Mrs. Martha Sayre Culhane started walking across the floor to him. She looked every bit as incredibly beautiful as he remembered her.

  "Lieutenant Pickering, how nice to see you," she said. "It's been some time, hasn't it?"

  "Hello, Martha."

  "I'm Bill Dunn, Ma'am."

  "I know," she said.

  "Bill, Martha," Pick said.

  "Do you suppose you could get me one of those?" Martha said, nodding at Pick's tea with ice cubes.

  "It's tea," Pick said.

  Colonel Porter walked up.

  "Good afternoon, Miss Sayre," he said.

  "It's Mrs. Culhane," Martha said.

  "Oh, God! Excuse me!"

  "My father sent me to ask when you're going to be through with Lieutenant Pickering, Colonel. Anytime soon?"

  "Why, I think the Admiral could have him right now, Mrs. Culhane."

  "Thank you," Martha said. She turned to Bill Dunn. "You don't have to worry about his getting home, Mr. Dunn. I'll see that he gets there, either tonight or perhaps in the morning."

  Pick looked at Colonel Porter.

  "By your leave, Sir?"

  "Certainly," Porter said, and put out his hand. "Thank you very much, Pickering," he said. "I hope you understand why what happened here today was worth all the effort, and your time?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Good luck, Mr. Pickering," Colonel Porter said, and then added, "Good evening, Mrs. Culhane. My compliments to your father."

  "Thank you," Martha said. She put her hand on Pick's arm. "Ready, Mr. Pickering?"

  A dark-maroon 1940 Mercury convertible was parked just outside the front door of the Club. It was in a spot marked RESERVED FOR FLAG AND GENERAL OFFICERS.

  Martha had the driver's door open before Pick could open it for her. He went around the rear of the car and got in the front. Martha ground the starter, but then put both of her hands on the top of the steering wheel and looked over at him.

  "I had to come see you," she said. "But you don't have to come with me."

  "I'm here because I want to be," he said. "And besides, I thought your father, your father and your mother, wanted to see me."

  "I lied about that," she said. "I lied to Colonel Porter. I told my father I was going to see... a friend of mine, and that I might stay over.

  I don't think Colonel Porter knew I was lying; I'm sure my father did."

  "What do you want to do, Martha?"

  "I want to get it settled between us, once and for all."

  "I thought we'd... I was pretty sure you had... already done that."

  "So did I, but here I am."

  "I don't think this is the place to have a conversation like this," he said.

  "Neither do I," Martha said, and put the Mercury in reverse with a clash of gears.

  When they passed out of the gate onto Pensacola's Navy Boulevard, Pick asked, "Where are we going?"

  "The San Carlos," she said, without looking at him.

  "Well, at least I can get a drink. That was really tea Colonel Porter gave me."

  "I'm going to drop you off in front," Martha said. "You're going to go in and get a room, and then meet me in the bar."

  "Why doesn't that sound like the schedule for an illicit assignation?"

  She laughed. "Because it isn't. We're going there to talk. You know, I'd forgotten that about you, that you're really funny sometimes."

  "We're going to talk, right?"

  "I can't think of anyplace else to go, and I want to look at you while we're talking."

  "Well, you could pull to the curb and turn the headlights on, and I could stand in front of the car."

  She laughed again.

  "I've really missed you."

  "I could tell by all the letters you didn't answer."

  "Four is not very many letters."

  "It is, if none of them get a reply."

  Martha dropped Pick off at the front of the white, rambling, Spanish-architecture San Carlos Hotel. (A good many Naval Aviators (and some Army and Air Force pilots, too) have fond memories of the San Carlos Hotel.... And so as I was actually writing this chapter (September, 1992), I was saddened to hear over a Pensacola radio station the news that the San Carlos is to be demolished and turned into a parking lot, all efforts to preserve it having failed. Since I thought that at least some of my readers would be interested to learn of this tragedy, I've added this footnote, which has nothing whatever to do with this story.) He walked into the lobby and looked up at the stained-glass arching overhead. All its pieces were intact. This was not always the case.

  Sometimes, exuberant Naval Aviators and/or their lady friends caused pieces of glass to be broken by bombing the lobby with beer bottles. The Navy bombed the Marines, or vice versa. And sometimes the Marines and the Navy bombed instructor pilots.

  He walked to the desk, and smiled when he recognized the man behind it, Chester Gayfer, the resident manager.

  "Well, look what the tide washed up," Gayfer said. "When did you get back, Pick? It's good to see you."

  "How are you, Chet? Good to see you, too."

  "Back for good? Or just passing through?"

  "Just passing through. I need a room."

  "Your old 'room' just happens to free, primarily because we don't have much call for the Penthouse."

  Jesus, I don't want to go up there. Dick and I lived there. It would be haunted.

  "I think an ordinary room, Chet, thank you," Pick said.

  Gayfer turned to the key rack, took one, and then handed it to him.

  "The Penthouse," he said. "Take it." When Pick reached for his wallet, he held his hands up, fingers spread. "My pleasure. I want you to comp me at the Andrew Foster."

  What the hell. The Penthouse at least doesn't look like a hotel room- as in taking a girl to a hotel room.

  "It's done," Pick said. "Thank you."

  "Where's your luggage?"

  "It will be coming."

  "Have a good time, Pick," Gayfer said with a knowing smile. But then he asked, "How's Dick Stecker? You ever see him?"

  "Yeah, he's in Hawaii."

  "Give him my regards if you see him," Gayfer said.

  "I will," Pick said, and walked across the lobby to the bar.

  Martha was sitting at the bar. She already had a drink, as well as the fascinated attention of a number of young men in Navy and Marine uniforms who were sitting to either side of her.

  He walked up to her.

  "I ordered you a scotch," she said.
/>   The bright smiles faded from the faces of quite a few young officers.

  "Did you get a room?" she asked. "Let me have the key."

  The faces now registered gross surprise.

  He handed Martha the key. She looked at it.

  "There's no number on it."

  "It's the Penthouse," he said.

  "Maybe it would be a good idea if you bring something to drink with you when you come up," she said.

  Does she not know these clowns can hear her? Or doesn't she give a damn?

  She walked out of the bar and through the door to the lobby, carrying her drink with her.

  "Give me a bottle of this," Pick said to the bartender, "and let me pay for the drinks the lady ordered."

  "I can't do that, Sir," the bartender said. "Sorry."

  "Call Mr. Gayfer," Pick said. "And tell him the bottle's going to the Penthouse." When he saw hesitation on the bartender's face, he said, more sharply than he intended, "Do it!"

  The bartender went to the telephone and returned a moment later, his hands refusing the money Pick held out to him.

  "Mr. Gayfer said he'd put it on your bill, Sir," he said. Then he took a fresh bottle of Johnnie Walker from under the bar and handed it to Pick.

  "Thank you," Pick said, then smiled at the officers at the bar. "Good hunting, gentlemen," he said, and walked out to the lobby.

  The door to the Penthouse was open. Martha was by the windows overlooking the street, half sitting on the sill.

  "I think you find my etchings interesting, as the bishop said to the nun."

  She smiled.

  He glanced around the sitting room and into the kitchenette. Both bedroom doors were closed. It was a hotel suite now, nothing more. There was no hint that a pair of Marine second lieutenants had once lived here while learning to fly.

  "Brings back memories?" Martha asked.

  "Yeah. Some. We had a lot of fun here."

  "I was only here once. You're talking about you and Dick?"

  He nodded.

  "How is he?"

  He met her eyes. "He got his gear shot out; made it back to Henderson, dumped it, rolled his airplane into a ball, and is now in the Navy Hospital at Pearl, wrapped up like a mummy."

  "I'm sorry," Martha said. "I liked Dick."

  "Everybody likes Dick."

  "You didn't get hurt?"

  He shook his head no.

  "Jim told me you were a natural pilot," she said.

  Jim? Oh. Carstairs. Captain James Carstairs.

  "And you're an ace," she went on. "I saw the way they looked at you."

  "You saw how who looked at me?" he asked. And then, before she could reply, he held up the bottle and asked, "You want some of this?"

  "In a minute; I still have some." She said, raising her glass; it was a quarter full. Then she went on: "The kids, the students at Corey Field this morning."

  He walked into the kitchenette and started making himself a drink.

  "You were at the Field this morning? I didn't see you," he said from there.

  "I didn't want you to see me."

  "I hope you were suitably impressed."

  "I was," Martha said. "You had those kids hanging on your every word."

  "I was talking about the flying."

  "I was talking about Lieutenant Pickering, the Marine officer. You weren't that way when you left. You've changed. You reminded me of my husband today."

  "He's dead."

  "Why did you have to say that?"

  "Because sometimes I think you think he's coming back."

  "I guess I did for a while. No more."

  He finished making his drink and went back into the sitting room. Martha hadn't moved from the window.

  "So now you get on with your life, right?" Pick asked.

  "Right."

  "And does that include me?"

  She turned, carefully put her glass on the windowsill, and then pushed herself erect and looked at him.

  "I'm sorry I brought you here, Pick," she said. "Sorry I put you through this."

  She touched his cheek with her hand, then stepped around him and walked across the room and out into the corridor. She stopped and turned.

  "Take care of yourself," she said, and then she was gone.

  Pick exhaled audibly. Then he put his untouched drink on the windowsill beside hers, waited for the sound of the elevator to tell him that she was gone, and walked out of the apartment.

  At the door he turned, went into the kitchenette and picked up the bottle of scotch, took a last look around the Penthouse, and left.

  [TWO]

  Belle-Vue Garden Apartments

  Los Angeles, California

  1325 Hours 4 November 1942

  When the door buzzer sounded, Dawn Morris was at her card table, autographing a stack of eight-by-ten-inch photographs.

  Actually, they weren't real photographs, run through an enlarger; they were printed, like the cover of a magazine, but on heavy paper with white borders, so they looked like photographs. And this disappointed her just a little when she first saw them.

  Dawn managed to talk herself out of that little disappointment, however, after it sank in that there were two thousand of them, and that not just any old photographer took them, but Metro-Magnum Studios' Chief Still Photographer himself, and that Mr. Cooperman, who was Jake Dillon's stand-in as publicity chief, told her they would order more as necessary.

  They'd printed up all those photographs so she could pass them out on the war bond tour. The picture showed her in something like a military uniform, except that she wasn't wearing a shirt under the jacket, and you could see really quite a lot of her cleavage.

  Mr. Cooperman said they were going to start calling her "The GI's Sweetheart." And just as soon as she came off the tour, they were going to start shooting her first feature film. She would play a Red Cross girl who breaks the rules and dates a GI. She falls in love with him and gets caught, and gets in trouble. They hadn't resolved that yet-how she was going to get out of trouble-but they would by the time she came off the war bond tour.

  Anyway, she was under contract to Metro-Magnum Studios. And they were paying her five hundred dollars a week. While that certainly wasn't nearly as much money as they were paying some star like Veronica Wood, for example, it was a lot more than she ever made in a month, much less a week.

  Mr. Cooperman said they wanted to take advantage of the war bond tour publicity, so they were going to make the movie just as fast as they could. They would get it out right away, not let it gather dust in the vault. Dawn wasn't sure how she felt about that. You obviously couldn't make a high-quality movie if you did it in a hurry. But on the other hand, it was better to be the star of a movie made in a hurry than not to be in any movie at all.

  When the doorbell rang, Dawn had no idea who it could be. Somebody she didn't want to see anyway, probably; so she didn't answer the door at first.

  Then whoever it was just sat on the damned button and banged on the door with keys or something... which was probably going to chip the paint and make the superintendent give her trouble. Not that she really had to give a shit anymore; she'd be out of this dump by the time she came off the war bond tour. Get a place maybe closer to Beverly Hills. Or maybe even she'd get lucky and find some place on the beach.

  Mr. Cooperman said not to worry about gas rationing. Motion pictures had been declared a war industry, just like the airplane companies. Since she was driving to work in a war industry, she would get a "C" Ration Sticker for her car.

  Dawn stood up and went to the picture window; she'd made a hole in the curtain over it that let her peek out at whoever was at her door.

  At least most of the time: It was possible to stand in a place that was out of range of her peephole. And the person who was there today was doing that. But she did recognize Mr. Jake Dillon's yellow Packard 120 convertible in the parking lot. It stood out like a rose in a garbage dump from all the junks there... including Dawn's 1935 Chevrolet coupe.
/>
  She wondered what he wanted. But then, that wasn't all that hard to figure out. So the question was really how to give it to him. How coy should she appear? Probably not very coy at all, she decided. They'd understood each other right from the start. She scratched his back by being nice to the kid he brought home from the war, and he scratched hers by getting her a film test. A really good film test. Which meant she owed him. And now he was coming to collect.