The Corps I - Semper Fi

by W. E. B Griffin

  "I was upset, Ken," she said. "I'm sorry."

  "Forget it," he said. "Those things happen."

  "I understand why you're… angry," she said.

  He didn't reply.

  She turned on the seat and caught his hand in both of hers.

  "I said, I'm sorry," she said.

  "Nothing to be sorry about," he said.

  "If you're still angry, then there is," she said.

  "I'm not angry," he said.

  She rubbed his hand against her cheek and then let him go.

  "Not everything that happened the day before was unpleasant, of course," she said.

  He didn't reply.

  "Do you remember what happened just before?".

  You were blowing me, that's what happened just before.

  "No," he said.

  "I often think about it," she said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," McCoy said.

  Fuck you, lady. You get to screw old McCoy just once. I'm not about to start up anything with you again!

  "Don't you really?" Ellen asked, and then sat forward on the seat to give the driver instructions: "Stay on Pennsylvania," she ordered. "It's faster this time of day."

  "Yes, ma'am," the driver said.

  When she slid back against the seat, her hand went under the skirt of McCoy's tunic and closed around his erection.

  "Liar," she said softly.

  "For God's sake," he said, pushing her hand away.

  "Pity there's not more time, isn't it? But you won't be gone all that long, will you?"

  At least with her, I know what she's after. It's not like with Pick's rich-bitch friend.

  And thirty minutes in the sack with the old vacuum cleaner, and I won't even be able to remember Miss Ernestine Sage's name, much less remember what she looked like.

  "No," he said. "A couple of weeks, is all. No more than three."

  "That'll give us both something to look forward to, won't it?" Ellen Feller said.

  McCoy reached out for her hand and put it back under the skirt of his blouse.

  Chapter Fifteen

  (One)

  The Madison Suite

  The Lafayette Hotel, Washington, D.C.

  1410 Hours, 7 December 1941

  Until this week, airplanes for Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, had been something like taxi cabs. They were there. When you needed to go somewhere you got in one and it took you.

  That changed. The Navy medico (more properly, flight surgeon, which Pickering thought had a nice aeronautical ring to it) told him that he met the physical standards laid down for Naval aviators. General McInemey's senior aide-de-camp, himself a dashing Naval aviator with wings of gold, then explained that while there might officially be, say, fifty would-be birdmen in any course of Primary Flight Instruction at the Pensacola Naval Air Station (Flight training for Marine aviators is conducted by the U.S. Navy. Marine aviators wear the same gold wings as Naval aviators), that was something of a fiction. More than the prescribed number were routinely ordered to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Experience had taught that a number of students would quickly prove themselves incapable of learning how to fly. By sending extras, the Corps wound up with the desired number after the inept had bilged out.

  General Mclnerney was in a position to have Pickering sent as a member of the supernumeraries. Pickering knew his mother would have a fit when she heard that he was to become an aviator, which was a problem that would be a bit difficult to handle. On the other hand, there was a positive appeal about the prospect of swapping the slush-filled streets of Washington for the white sandy beaches of Pensacola.

  On the way home from Anacostia Naval Air Station in McCoy's LaSalle on Friday evening, he stopped at a bookstore, asked for books on aviation (starting with the theory of flight), and bought half a dozen that looked promising.

  He was now reading one of them, one with a lot of drawings. The others, stacked up beside his chair, waited for his attention. A small table beside him held a silver pot of coffee. He was attired for a more primitive means of transportation than he was reading about: A tweed jacket with leather patches over the elbows; a plaid cotton shirt open at the collar; a pair of pink breeches; and a pair of Hailey Smythe riding boots, which rested on a pillow (to preserve the furniture) on the coffee table before him.

  He had spent the morning in Virginia aboard a horse. Sort of a fox hunt without either the fox or the ceremony that went with a hunt. Just half a dozen riders riding about the countryside, jumping fences of opportunity.

  They were going to sit around in the afternoon and get smashed. Rather nobly, he thought, he had pleaded the press of duty and returned to the hotel to read the airplane books.

  The telephone rang, and he looked around for it, a look of annoyance crossing his face as he spotted it, ten feet out of reach. It had taken him some effort to reach his present comfortable position, with his feet just so, and his back just so, and with The Miracle of Flight propped up just so on his belly.

  He had just begun to grasp the notion that aircraft are lifted into the air because there is less pressure on the upper (curved, and thus longer) portion of a wing than there is on the bottom (flat, and thus shorter) portion of a wing. As the wing moves through the air, it simply follows the path of least resistance, upward, and hauls the airplane along with it. He wasn't entirely sure he fully understood this. He was sure, however, that he didn't want to chat just now with whomever was on the phone, especially since he had to get up to go answer it.

  "Yes?" he snapped impatiently, "what is it?"

  Oh, shit! It's probably General Mclnerney. And I was supposed to have answered that, "Lieutenant Pickering speaking."

  "Pick?"

  It was a female. And a half-second later, he knew which one.

  "Hello, Ernie," he said.

  "Are you alone? Can you talk?" Ernestine Sage said.

  "You have interrupted a splendid orgy, but what's on your mind?"

  "I want to talk to you," Ernie Sage said.

  "Then talk," he said. "Just make it quick."

  "I'll be right up," Ernie Sage said.

  "You're here?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "In the hotel?"

  "I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd just pop in," she said, and the phone went dead.

  Between the time she hung up and the time he answered her knock at the door, he had considered the possibilities: Certainly this had to do with Ken McCoy. But what would bring Ernie all the way to Washington except true love? And the possibility, not as astonishing when there was time to think it over, that Ernie was in the family way. Could she be sure, so soon? To the best of his recollection, it took several months to be sure about that. It hadn't been that long since he had seen Juliet kissing Romeo in the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

  "Hi," Ernie said, when he opened the door. "Don't you look horsey?"

  For the first time in a long time, Pickering looked at her as a female, and not as part of the woodwork.

  Damned good-looking, he judged. Marvelous knockers. They had obviously grown a good deal since (he now remembered with somewhat startling clarity) he had last seen them, looking down her bathing suit in Boca Raton. He and Ernie must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. "Come into my den, as the spider said to the fly." "You're a hard man to find," she said. "I called your mother, or tried to, and they said she was in Hawaii. So I called your grandfather, and he told me where you were."

  "Why do I suspect that you weren't suddenly overcome with an irresistible urge to see me?" Pickering asked. She looked into his face. "Where is he?" she asked.

  "Where's who?"

  "Come on, Pick," she said.

  "Ken, you mean?"

  "Where is he?"

  "In Hawaii, too, come to think of it," Pick said.

  "Oh, hell," she said.

  "Not to worry," he said. "He will be back."

  She looked at his face.

  "That's important to you, isn't it?
" Pickering asked.

  "Don't be a shit about this, Pick, please," Ernie Sage said.

  "Okay," he said. "It will be an effort, obviously."

  "Do you have something I could have to drink?"

  He gestured to the bar.

  "Help yourself," he said.

  She walked to the bar and made herself a Scotch.

  "You want one?" she asked.

  "I want one, but… oh, what the hell. Yes, please."

  She made him a drink, handed it to him, and then sat down on a couch and stirred the ice cubes in her glass with her index finger.

  "I never imagined myself doing this," she said, without looking at him.

  "Doing what?"

  "Running after a boy," she said, and corrected herself: "A man."

  "I'm not surprised," Pick said.

  She looked at him quickly.

  "For one thing, McCoy's quite special," Pick said. "And for another, I saw the two of you in the Oyster Bar."

  She did not seem at all embarrassed to hear that. Just curious.

  "What were you doing there?"

  "McCoy had led me safely through the wild jungles of Quantico," Pickering said, "protecting me from unfamiliar savage beasts. I thought it only fair that I return the favor."

  "Protect him from me, you mean? Thanks a lot."

  "I didn't know who it was until I saw you," Pickering said.

  "Where did you meet him?"

  "On a train from Boston," Pickering said. "He had just escorted prisoners to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. And then he showed up, wholly unexpected, at Quantico." "Why unexpected?"

  "Because our peers were… our peers. McCoy was a noncom of the regular Marine Corps, just in from years in China."

  "He told me about China," she said. "He took me to a tiny little Chinese restaurant off Mott Street, where he talked Chinese to them."

  "As I say, he's something special." "Isn't he?" she said. Then she looked up at him. "Four hours after I met him, I took him to bed." "He told me," Pickering said.

  "I don't know what you think of me, Pick," Ernie Sage said. "But that's not my style."

  "He told me that, too," Pickering said, gently. That surprised her. She looked into his face until she was sure that she had not misunderstood him.

  "Pretty close, are you? Or did he proudly report it as another cherry copped?"

  "Actually, he was pretty upset about it," Pickering said. "But not too upset to tell you all about it?" "We are pretty close," Pickering said. "I don't know. It's something like having a brother, I guess."

  "You heard about his brother? The one who was offered the choice of the Marine Corps or jail?"

  "I even know that was the choice they gave him, too," Pickering said. "Like I say, Ernie, we're close."

  "Okay, so tell me what happened? I have six letters, all marked 'REFUSED.' "

  "He found out you were rich," Pickering said. "Oh, God!" she wailed. Then the accusation: "You told him. Why the hell did you have to do that?"

  Pickering shrugged his shoulders helplessly and threw up his hands.

  "Now I'm sorry that I did," he said. She turned her face away from him. Then turned back, frowning.

  "But I suppose I was thinking that the bad news better come gently, and from me. I didn't want that shocking revelation suddenly thrust upon him."

  "If you came from a background like his, it would upset you, too," Ernie Sage said, loyally. "He has pride, for God's sake. I know he's a fool, but-"

  "Did he tell you about the lady missionary?"

  "What lady missionary?"

  "There was a lady missionary in China who apparently gave him a bad time. Strung him along. Hurt him pretty badly."

  "I'd like to kill her," Ernie Sage said, matter-of-factly.

  "You've really got it pretty bad for him, don't you?"

  "As incredible as it sounds," she said, "I'm in love with him. Okay? Can we proceed from that point?"

  "Love, as in 'forsaking all others, until death do you part'?"

  "I was disappointed when I found out I wasn't pregnant," she said. "How's that?"

  "I hope you know what you're getting into," Pickering said.

  "It doesn't matter, Pick," she said. "I have absolutely no control over how I feel about him. I thought that only happened in romantic novels. Obviously, it doesn't only happen in fiction."

  "I'm jealous," Pickering said.

  "What have you got to be jealous about?" Ernie asked, and then she understood. "You should be," she said. "But that's your problem. What do we do about mine?"

  "I don't know," Pickering said. "If you're really sure about this, Ernie, Big Brother will think of something."

  "I have never been so sure of anything in my life," she said. "It's either him and me, hand in hand, or to hell with it."

  "For what it's worth, with the caveat that I am relatively inexperienced in matters of this kind, I would not say it's hopeless."

  Ernestine Sage brightened visibly.

  "Really?" she asked.

  "Really," Pickering said. "For reasons I cannot imagine, Lieutenant McCoy seemed to be more than a little taken with your many charms."

  "God, I hope so," she said, and then asked, "what's he doing in Hawaii?"

  "They made him an officer courier," Pickering said. "He carries secrets in a briefcase."

  "I never heard of that," she said. "How long did you say he'll be gone?"

  "He's going to Hawaii. He got there today. Or will get there today. There is something called the International Dateline, and I've never figured it out. And from there, he's going to Manila, and then back to Hawaii, and then back here."

  "And what are we going to do when he gets back here?"

  "We'll arrange for him to find you in a black negligee in his bed," Pickering said. "As a Marine officer, he would be duty-bound to do his duty. You can play the ball from there."

  "If I thought that would work," she said, "I'd do it."

  "I think, Ernie," Pick Pickering said seriously, "that all it would take would be for him to find you sitting there, just like you are now."

  She looked at him and smiled. Then she got up and walked to him and kissed him on the cheek.

  "And I was really afraid that you'd be a shit about this," she said.

  "My God! Me? Pick Pickering? Cupid's right-hand man?"

  She chuckled and looked at her watch.

  "I was so sure of it, that I reserved a compartment on the three-fifteen to New York. I've still got time to make it."

  "Maybe," Pickering said, "you should get some practice riding coach."

  She looked at him curiously for a moment until she took his meaning.

  "If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do," she said. "But the next time. Not today."

  He smiled at her and walked with her to the door, where she kissed him impulsively again.

  He had just rearranged himself in the chair with his feet on the pillow and The Miracle of Flight propped up on his belly when there was another knock on his door.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" he fumed as he went to answer it.

  It was Ernie Sage, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that something was terribly wrong.

  "A radio," Ernie said. "Have you got a radio?"

  "There's one in here," he said. She pushed past him into the sitting room.

  She had the radio on by the time he got there.

  "Repeating the bulletin," the voice of the radio announcer said, "the White House has just announced that the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, has been attacked by Japanese aircraft and that there has been substantial loss of life and material."

  "Jesus Christ!" Pickering said.

  "If he's dead," Ernestine Sage said melodramatically, "I'll kill myself."

  "You don't mean that," Pickering said.

  "Oh, my God, Pick! Your mother and father are there!"

  He hadn't thought of that.

  Somehow, he wound up holding her in his arms.

  "Everything is
going to be all right, Ernie."

  "Bullshit!" she said against his chest.

  And then it occurred to him that he was a Marine officer and that what he should be doing now was getting into uniform and reporting for duty.

  (Two)

  Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

  7 December 1941

  The Japanese task force, which had sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, began to launch aircraft at 0600 hours. The task force was then approximately 305 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. In relation to the task force, Pearl Harbor was on the far side of Oahu Island, the second largest island of the Hawaiian Chain.

  Japanese Intelligence was aware that the attack could not be entirely as successful as was initially hoped. In the best possible scenario, essentially all of the United States Pacific Fleet would be in Pearl Harbor. The worst possible scenario was that essentially all of the Pacific Fleet would be at sea. The reality turned out to be between these extremes. All the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were in Pearl Harbor, as well as a number of other ships.

  But the seven heavy cruisers and the two aircraft carriers the Japanese had also hoped to find at anchor were at sea. The Japanese knew the composition of the at-sea forces, but not their location.

  Task Force 8-an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and nine destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was approximately 200 nautical miles from Pearl. Task Force 3-one cruiser and five destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was 40 nautical miles off Johnson Island, about 750 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. Task force 12-one carrier, three cruisers, and five destroyers-was about as far from Pearl Harbor as Task Force 3, operating approximately 400 nautical miles north of Task Force 3.

  The decision was made to attack anyway. There was always the chance of detection; the destruction of harbor facilities and airfields was of high priority, and the destruction of one or more battleships would severely limit the capability of the American fleet.

  The code command for the attack was "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208."

  Approximately 125 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor, the stream of aircraft from the Japanese task force split into two streams. Fifty miles from Oahu, what was now the left stream began to split again, this time into three streams. The first two turned right and made for Pearl Harbor across the island. The third stream continued on course until it was past the tip of Oahu, and then turned toward the center of the island and made an approach to Pearl Harbor from the sea.