That was Jump Seven. It was just like Jump Six, except that the guy leading the stick, a corporal, sprained his ankle because he landed on the concrete runway instead of on the grassy area. So he was not going to be able to jump again for a while.
That made Steve lead man in the stick for Jump Eight. He wasn't sure if he would have the balls to jump first. If you were anywhere but lead man in the stick, it was automatic, and you didn't have to think about it. But in the end he decided that if he hesitated, the jumpmaster would just shove him out the door.
Another trainee was added to the stick at the end. He would jump last.
And then, after the pilot had already restarted the left-hand engine on the R4D, something very unusual happened. A face in a helmet appeared at the door and ordered the crew chief to put the ladder down. And then Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville himself climbed into the airplane, wearing a set of cover-alls. And his parachutes. And all of his field gear-except that he had a Thompson submachine gun instead of a Springfield rifle.
And then they took off.
Colonel Neville pulled Steve's head close to him and shouted in his ear.
"I'm going to jump with you," he said. "You just carry on as usual."
"Aye, aye, Sir!" Steve shouted back.
This time, instead of just circling the field and jumping the Para-Marines, the R4D flew south. From where Steve was sit-ting, he couldn't see much, but he became aware that there was a little airplane out there, too, flying close to the R4D.
During one of the brief glimpses he got of it, he saw that there was a man in the backseat with a camera.
Colonel Neville apparently knew all about it. He was standing in the door, hanging onto the jamb, making what looked like "come closer" signs to the pilot.
And then they were making their approach to Landing Zone Wake.
The commands now came quickly.
"Stand up."
"Hook up."
"Check your equipment."
"Stand in the door."
There were two little lights mounted on the aircraft bulkhead by the door. One was red and the other was green. The red one came on when you started getting ready to jump. The green one came on when the pilot told the jumpmaster to start the jump-ing.
Steve stood by the door, watching the red light.
"One minute!" the jumpmaster shouted in his ear.
Steve nodded his understanding.
He thought of Dianne Marshall Norman's breasts, and how their nipples stood up.
The light turned green.
Somebody pushed him out of the way and dove out the door. Steve saw that the little airplane was really close, and that the man in the backseat had what looked like a movie camera in his hands. The jumpmaster shouted "Go!" in his ear and pushed him out the door.
It all happened pretty quickly, maybe in two seconds, no more. As Steve went out the door he saw that something was bent around what he thought of as "the little wing on the back" of the R4D.
And then, as he fell beneath it to the end of the static line and he could hear the main `chute slither out, and as he steeled himself for the opening shock, he realized that what he had seen wrapped around the little wing on the back of the R4D was a man. And then, as his canopy filled and the harness knocked the breath out of him, he realized that the man must be Lieuten-ant Colonel Neville.
And then he looked below him.
And saw a man's body falling, just falling, toward the earth. There was no main `chute, and no emergency chest `chute. The body just fell to the ground and seemed to bounce a little, and then just lay there.
PFC Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, lost control of his bowels.
And then the ground was there, and he prepared to land as he had been taught; and he landed, and rolled as he had been taught. And then he got to his feet. He was immediately knocked onto his face as the canopy filled with a gust of wind and dragged him across the hard, snow-encrusted earth.
He had been taught how to deal with the situation, and dealt with it. He spilled the air from the canopy by manipulating the risers, and then he slipped out of the harness.
He stood up and rather numbly began to gather the parachute to him. He knew the truck would appear to pick it up.
And then he saw the body of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville, not fifteen feet away. It looked distorted, like a half-melted wax doll.
He was drawn to it. Still clutching his parachute harness to his chest, he walked over to it and looked down at it.
A photographer, one of the civilians, came running up, and a flashbulb went off.
Oh, shit! PFC Steve Koffler thought. What are they going to do to me when they find out I've shit my pants?
Another flashbulb went off, and Steve gave the photographer a dirty look. It didn't seem to bother him.
"What's your name, kid?" he asked.
"Fuck you," Steve said.
"That's PFC Koffler, Stephen M.," a familiar voice said. Steve turned his head and saw that it was Lieutenant Macklin. "He is, understandably I think, a little upset."
"I wonder why," the photographer said, and took Steve's pic-ture again.
(Four)
Lakehurst Naval Air Station
Lakehurst, New Jersey
1425 Hours 14 February 1942
Major Jake Dillon had returned to active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps sixty days previously. The last time he had worn a Marine uniform was in Shanghai, China, with the 4th Marines in 1934. Major Dillon had then been a sergeant.
In 1933, while watching an adapted-from-a-novel adventure motion picture in Shanghai, it had occurred to Sergeant Dillon that it was a bullshit story and that he could easily write a better one. Blissfully unaware of the difficulties facing a first-time nov-elist, he set out to do so. It was a melodrama; its hero, a Marine sergeant, rescued a lovely Chinese maiden from a fate worse than death in a Shanghai brothel. Dillon had no trouble calling forth from memory the description of that establishment.
Next, Dillon's hero slaughtered Chinese evildoers left and right; there was a chase sequence on horseback; and the book ended with the sergeant turning the girl back over to her grateful family and then returning to his Marine duties. Dillon wrote the novel at night on the company clerk's typewriter. It took him two months. He mailed it off, and was not at all surprised two months after that when a contract, offering an advance of five hundred dollars, arrived in Shanghai.
The book was published, and it sold less than two thousand copies. But it was optioned, and then purchased, by a major motion-picture studio in Los Angeles. The studio saw in it a ve-hicle for a very handsome but none-too-bright actor they had under contract. With all the fight and chase scenes, plus a lot of attention devoted to the Chinese girl having her clothing ripped off, it was believed they could get the handsome actor through the production without him appearing to be as dull-witted as he was.
It was necessary to find a suitable vehicle for the handsome young man because he was a very close friend of a very success-ful producer. More precisely, he was sharing the producer's bed in an antebellum-style mansion in Holmby Hills.
Sergeant Dillon was paid five thousand dollars for the motion-picture rights to his novel, an enormous sum in 1934. And he had, he thought, discovered the goose that laid the golden eggs. If he could write one novel in two months, he could write six novels a year. And at $5,500 per, that was as much money as the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps made.
He did not ship over when his enlistment ran out. Instead, he was returned to the United States aboard the naval transport USS Chaumont, and honorably discharged in San Diego.
Since he was so close to Los Angeles, and his film was in pro-duction there, he went to Hollywood.
When he visited the set, the Handsome Young Actor greeted him warmly, expressed great admiration for his literary talent, and invited him for dinner at his little place in Malibu.
That night, in the beachfront cottage, as Dillon was wonder-ing if he could gracefu
lly reject the pansy's advances (and if he could not, how that might affect his literary career), the Pro-ducer appeared.
Words were exchanged between the Producer and the Hand-some Young Actor, primarily allegations of infidelity. The ex-change quickly accelerated out of control, ending when the Producer slapped the Handsome Young Actor and the Hand-some Young Actor shoved the Producer through a plate-glass door opening on a balcony over the beach.
A shard of heavy plate glass fell from the top of the door-frame, severely cutting the Producer's right arm. Dillon noted with horror the pulsing flow of arterial blood. And then he saw the Handsome Young Actor, his face contorted with rage, ad-vancing on the fallen, bleeding Producer with a fireplace poker in his hand, showing every intention of finishing him off with it.
Without really thinking about it, Dillon took the Handsome Young Actor out of action, by kicking him repeatedly in the tes-ticles. (The story, when it later, inevitably, made the rounds in Hollywood, was that ex-Marine Dillon had floored him with a single, well-placed blow of his fist.) Then he put a tourniquet on the Producer's arm and announced that they needed an am-bulance.
The Producer told him they couldn't do that. The police would become involved. The story would get out. He would lose his job.
Dillon was even then not unaccustomed to developing credi-ble story lines to explain awkward or even illegal circumstances on short notice, prior to the imminent arrival of the authorities.
"We were fixing the door. It was out of the track, and it slipped," he said.
"But what was I doing here, with him?" the Producer asked somewhat hysterically, obviously more concerned with his pub-lic image than with losing his arm, or even his life.
"You brought me out here to introduce me to the star of my movie," Dillon replied, reaching for the telephone. "Where do I tell the cops we are?"
Two days later, at the Producer's request, Dillon called upon him at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.
The Producer was no longer hysterical. And he was grateful. His doctor had told him that if Dillon hadn't applied the tourni-quet when he did, he would almost certainly have bled to death before the police arrived.
"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Dillon," the Producer said.
"Call me Jake," Dillon said. "That's my middle name. Jacob."
"Jake, then. And I want to repay you in some small way..."
"Forget it."
"Please hear me out."
"Shoot."
"What are your plans, now that you've left the Marine Corps? Do you mind my asking?"
"Well, I thought I'd do another couple of quick novels, put a little money in the bank for a rainy day..."
"And if you can't sell your next novel?"
The Producer had had a copy of Malloy and the Maiden, by H. J. Dillon, sent to his hospital room. It was arguably the worst novel he had ever read, and as a major film producer, he had more experience with really bad novels than most people. He couldn't imagine why a publisher had ever acquired it, except possibly that it had been bought by an editor who knew he was about to be fired and wanted to stick it to his employers.
Dillon had not considered that possibility. But looking at the Producer now, he saw that it was not just possible but probable.
"I don't know."
"Are you open to suggestion?"
"Shoot."
"You obviously have a way with words, and you have proven your ability to deal with potentially awkward situations. In my mind, that adds up to public relations."
"Excuse me?"
"Public relations," the Producer explained. "Making the studio, and our actors, and our films, look as good to the public as they possibly can."
"Oh."
"The man who runs our studio public relations is a friend of mine. I'm sure that he would be interested in having someone of your demonstrated talents."
Dillon thought it over for a moment.
"How much would something like that pay?"
"About five hundred to start, I'd say. And there would be time, I'm sure, for you to continue with your writing."
"Everything seems so expensive here. After China, I mean. Can you make do around here on five hundred a month?"
"You can, but I'm talking about five hundred a week, Jake."
Jake Dillon then looked at the Producer very carefully.
"No strings?"
The Producer, after a moment, caught Jake's meaning. "No, Jake, no strings. I would really much rather have you as a friend than a lover."
Jake Dillon found his natural home in motion-picture public relations. He quickly became known as the only man who was ever able to get "the world's most famous actor" out of the teen-aged Mexican girls on his sailboat, and then off the sailboat and back to Hollywood sober-and to get him there on time to start shooting-and in a relatively cooperative mood. A half-dozen of his more experienced peers had tried to do all of that, and had failed to pull him off even one of the chiquitas.
Actresses trusted him. If Jake showed up at some party and told you there was an early call tomorrow and it was time to drink up and tuck it in, you knew he had your interests at heart and not just the fucking studio's. So you went home. Sometimes with Jake.
And the Producer, who found that Jake offered a comforting shoulder to weep on when his romances went sour, made it known among those of similar persuasion, a powerful group in Hollywood, that Jake was his best "straight" friend.
And he gradually came to be known as a man with a rare in-sight into how a motion picture or an actor should be publicized. In other words, his nerve endings told him what he could get printed in newspapers, or broadcast over the radio, and what would be thrown away.
Within two years, his pay tripled. And he began to run around not only with stuntmen and grips but also with a small group of the big-time actors. He fished with Duke Wayne, hunted with Clark Gable, played poker with David Niven, and with all three of them he drank and jumped on the bones of an astonishing number of ladies.
And he could often be found-puffing on his cigar and sipping at a cool beer-in screening rooms when daily rushes and rough cuts were screened. The stars of these opera invited him there. And they solicited his opinions, and he gave them. Sometimes his judgments were not flattering.
But, as the head of the studio said, "Jake is a walking public-opinion poll. He knows what the ticket buyers will like, and what they won't."
Jake Dillon's opinions of a story, a treatment, a screenplay, rushes, rough cuts, and final cuts were solicited and respected.
The only thing he failed to do, because he refused to do it, was talk some sense to David Niven. Niven was clearly on the way to superstardom. Which meant that very few people in Hol-lywood could understand why he was about to throw his career down the toilet. He was returning to England and again putting on the uniform of an officer of His Britannic Majesty's Royal Army.
"You guys don't understand," Dillon told the head of Niven's studio. "David went to Sandhurst-that's like our West Point. He's an old soldier, and somebody blew the fucking bugle. He had to go."
With Europe at war, Hollywood's attention turned to making war movies. One of them dealt with the United States Marine Corps, specifically with Marine fighter pilots. Headquarters USMC sent a full colonel to Los Angeles to serve as technical adviser. Ex-Marine Dillon was charged with keeping the Colo-nel happy.
Their relationship was a little awkward at first, for both of them were aware that the last time they'd met, Jake Dillon had been in Shanghai wearing sergeant's stripes and standing at at-tention for the Colonel's inspection. But the relationship quickly grew into a genuine friendship. This was based in large part on the Colonel's realization that Jake was as determined as he was that the motion picture would reflect well on the Corps.
There was an element of masculine camaraderie in it, too. The Colonel took aboard a load one night at Jake's house in Malibu and confessed that he couldn't get it up anymore-not after his wife of twenty-two years had left him for a doctor at Joh
ns Hopkins. Dillon was more than sympathetic; he arranged for the Colonel to meet a lady the Colonel had previously seen only on the Silver Screen. The lady owed Jake Dillon a great big favor, and she was more than happy to discharge it the way Dillon had in mind. She did wonders vis-a-vis restoring the Colonel's lost virility.
And Jake took a load aboard and confessed to the Colonel that he'd felt like a feather merchant when he'd put David Niven on the Broadway Limited on his way to England. He was as much a Marine as Niven was a soldier. And Niven had gone back in. And here he was, sitting with his thumb up his ass in Malibu, with the country about to go to war.
When the Colonel returned to Washington, he wrote a Memo-randum for the Record to the Director of Personnel, stating his belief that in the event of war, the Corps was going to require the services of highly qualified public-relations officers; that he had recently, in the course of his duties, encountered a man who more than met the highest criteria for such service; that he could be induced to accept a reserve commission as a captain; and that he believed a commission as a reserve captain should be offered to him, notwithstanding the fact that the man did not meet the standard educational and other criteria for such a commission.
W E B Griffin - Corp 03 - Counterattack Page 27
