"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 snapshot 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. Mclnerney, 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. Mclnerney, 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney inquired. "Or are you perhaps staying in a hotel? A Foster hotel?"
"I'm in the Lafayette, sir."
"I thought you might be," General Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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 Mclnerney 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."
"I am aware of that, sir," Pick said. "But I didn't think it would ever be applied in a situation where the order was to pass canapes."
"You're telling me that you would prefer to be running around in the swamp at Camp LeJeune to being the aide of a general officer?"- General Mclnerney asked, on the edge of indignation.
"Yes, sir, that's exactly my position," Pickering said. "I respectfully request that I not be assigned as your aide."
"I am sorry to tell you, Lieutenant," General Mclnerney said, "that I have no intention of going back to Headquarters, USMC, and tell them that I have now changed my mind and don't want you as my aide after all. As I said, arranging for your assignment as my aide wasn't easy." He waited until that had a moment to sink in, and then went on: "So where would you say that leaves us, Lieutenant?"
"It would appear, sir," Pick said, "that until I am able to convince the general that he has made an error, the general will have a very reluctant aide-de-camp."
General Mclnerney snorted, and then he chuckled.
"Lieutenant, you are a brand-new officer. Could you take a little advice from one who has been around the Corps a long time?"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't jump until you know where you're jumping from, and where you're going to land," General Mclnerney said. "In other words, until you have all the intelligence you can get your hands on, and have time to evaluate it carefully."
"Yes, sir," Pick said, annoyed that he was getting a lecture on top of everything else.
"In this case, the facts as I presented them to you seem to have misled you."
"Sir?"
"Your dad is indeed concerned about you, and he did in fact call me and ask me to look after you. But what he was concerned about was the possibility that some chairwarmer would review your records, see what you did as a civilian, and assign you appropriately. He said he didn't want you to spend your hitch in the Corps as a mess officer. Or a housing officer. And when I checked, that's exactly what those sonsofbitches had in mind for you. If I had not gone over there, Lieutenant, and had you assigned to me, you would have reported for duty this morning to the officers' club at the Barracks."
Pick's eyes widened.
"So, because your Dad and I are old buddies-we were corporals together at Belleau Wood-I am protecting your ass. I think you would make a lousy aide, too. You will be my junior aide only until such time as I decide what else the Corps can do with you."
"I seem to have made an ass of myself, sir," Pickering said.
"We sort of expect that from second lieutenants," General Mclnerney said, reasonably. "The only thing you really did wrong was under
estimate your father. Did you really think he would try to grease the ways for you?"
"My father is married to my mother, sir," Pickering said.
"I take your point," General Mclnerney said. "I have the privilege of your mother's acquaintance."
"May I ask a question, sir?"
"Sure."
"Was my moving into the hotel a real blunder?"
"Not so far as I'm concerned," General Mclnerney said. "I understand your situation." _
"I was thinking of… my best friend, I suppose is the best way to decribe him. I sort of pressured him to move in with me."
"I see," Mclnerney said. "Another hotelier? Classmate at school?"
"No, sir. He was a China Marine, a corporal, before we went through the platoon leader's course."
Mclnerney thought that over a moment before he replied.
"I think it might be a good idea if he moved into the BOQ," he said. "There would certainly be curiosity. It could even turn into an Intelligence matter. Where would a second lieutenant, an ex-China Marine enlisted man, get the money to take a room in the Lafayette? It could be explained, of course, but the last thing a second lieutenant needs is to have it getting around that Intelligence is asking questions about his personal life."
"Thank you, sir," Pickering said. "I was afraid it might be something like that. May I ask another question?''
"Shoot."
"How long will I be assigned here? I mean, you said something about deciding what to do with me. How long will that take?"
"That depends on what you would like to do, and whether or not you're qualified to do it. Presumably, you learned at Quantico that leading a platoon of riflemen is not quite the fun and games the recruiter may have painted it."
"Yes, sir."
"Have you ever thought of going to flight school?" General Mclnerney asked.
"No, sir," Pickering confessed.
General Mclnerney was a little disappointed to hear that, but decided that Fleming Pickering's kid meant what he said: that he simply had not thought of going to flight school-not that he had considered the notion and discarded it because he didn't like the idea of flying.
"That's an option," General Mclnerney said. "But only if you could pass the flight physical. On your way out, have Sergeant Wallace set up an appointment for a flight physical. And then take the rest of the day off, son, and get yourself settled. I'm talking about your friend, too, of course."
The Corps I - Semper Fi Page 32
