by Don DeNevi
Although Peter’s movements were surprising to the Ghoul, the murderer managed to inflictfour additional minor slashes on the lieutenant’s right shoulder, abdomen and left hand and arm. Each was bleeding, one, the shoulder, profusely.
Weakened by the loss of a moderate amount of blood from all the cuts thus far endured, Peter, realizing he would probably be cut open in less than a moment, and that he could no longer skirt and dance around the Ka-Bar, remained calm and at peace with himself. Seeing the lieutenant’s condition, Pinoe, with a set, tightly drawn smile, inched forward toward Peter who was bent backward. Seeing the Ghoul’s arm lift with his hand firmly griping the long, wide knife, he knew one swooping slash would either cleave his head in two, or sever it from his throat.
Without a sound, and with every fluid ounce of might idling in his veins, Peter swung his right fist in an uppercut thrust that sent the murder-mad, still clutching his large knife, wheeling and stumbling so that Pinoe momentarily lost his balance and as his hand holding the Ka-Bar hit the shut door of a toilet stall, last in a line of a dozen, and, it miraculously slipped from his grasp.
Realizing he now had the advantage, Peter pulled himself up and walked slowly toward where the Ghoul lay in a stark heap. With his turn to stand over the enemy, Peter could not help but smile cynically. Leaning over the Ghoul, the lieutenant’s fist went to work on Pinoe’s head and face, so much so that the murder-mad no longer had the strength to shield himself. Head wobbling, body nothing more than a limp, unmoving mass of uniformed flesh, the Ghoul was in excruciating pain where he could no longer utter a word.
All Peter could do now was to wait for the arrival of help, and, in doing so, ensure the Pinoe would not get away. Underlying the increasingly savage grin of satisfaction on Peter’s face was a genuine hatred for the murderer of fellow Marines, a wish to kill him with the Ka-Bar weapon laying less than a few yards away. “Best,” Peter thought to himself, “If the MPs arrive quickly, before I lose self-control and kill him myself.”
Then, Pinoe, prostate before him, groaned, and slowly lifted himself sufficiently from lying downward, to an inclined sitting position, all accompanied with low, mournful sounds of both physical pain and sorrow for himself, having been being discovered and caught. Staring at the floor, he kept mumbling in a thick, grating lisp, ‘give me a gun’, ‘watch the fun’, ‘big-son-of-a-gun’, ‘water, jam, gun’, ‘watch-man’s gun’, ‘washerson gun’, ‘son-of-a-gun’, ‘laughing gun’, ‘shrill gun’, etc.
Rubbing his eyes to see more clearly, Pinoe looked up at Peter now clutching the Ka-Bar and, with a vindictive light in his eye, he grinned evilly, then almost triumphantly. He uttered, “I’m only one of three Ghouls. The ‘silly gun’ will kill you for me.”
Peter, drained and almost depleted of all his strength and energy, allowed himself to slip into a complacing quiescence. Only a moment before, he had been a bitter, raging avenger resolving to kill the Ghoul, totally missing the obvious, sudden glint of exultation in the eyes of the muttering murderer. And, as he mediated on the harmlessness of the barely conscious Mad Ghoul struggling to stand, the grim lines on the lieutenant’s face also relaxed slowly from their ruthlessness.
“Pinoe, why you?” Peter challenged softly. “You, the Man of the Cloth, the clergy, that every Marine admires, and respects, and trusts. That’s why our men were killed up close and frontally, without resistance, because they never dreamed you, of all people, could murder so cruelly, you cowardly son-of-a-bitch!”
Again Peter growled within, allowing an inner anger, an uncontrollable rage, to consume him. As he waited a second or two for a response, Peter sensed Pinoe had not heard a word. Even worse, the Ghoul wasn’t even looking at him. He was snickering in what appeared to be in jubilation at something behind him.
Suddenly hearing short, soft steps running toward him, Peter whirled to see Ellen, pallid in face, shaking of body, a Ka-Bar of her own raised and poised to plunge. Peter, mustering his remaining strength to defend himself against certain slaughter, swayed backward in a delirium of disbelief. Although he still firmly gripped the Ghoul’s fighting knife, he had no intention of using it to defend himself. After all, Ellen was a friend. No, he loved Ellen.
“ELLEN! It’s me, Peter! What are you doing?” Peter screamed as he lurched backward. The nurse, meanwhile, repeatedly plunged and swung the Ka-Bar, missing as Toscanini darted and danced slowly backward until he was stopped by the lavatory wall, his knees sagging to the point that he went down. For a moment, all he could see was a blurred figure holding a long, wide object approaching with quick firm steps.
Eyeing her calmly, he gazed into Ellen’s hard, expressionless face.
“Hello, Peter . . . Why did you have to get involved with all of this? Killing Hope, and with luck, Rupertus, and a few of his staff today was going to be the last of the spree. You were supposed to keep out of it. Now, I’m obliged to put you to sleep, too.”
Ellen’s death sentence didn’t faze or frighten Peter. Even the painful bruises and cuts, one still bleeding profusely, didn’t matter, he thought. She was the Ghoul, too, and an unexpected accomplice. If he could manage to keep her talking a few more moments, it was possible the military would come bursting through the facility doors.
“But why the killing of our own?” Peter asked softly, “Why them?”
“Oh,” she responded angrily, “I asked the chaplain to help me murder that asshole Johnny Houser, who betrayed me for the nurse we killed last night. He said he’s murdered before, stateside, members of his congregation. He lusts for the terror in his victim’s eyes. But, since we were all confined to these islands, we first began killing the ones we wanted dead. Then, to hide the fact, we began eliminating a host of others like we’re crazy, and no one will ever guess that Hauser was the only real victim.”
As Pinoe, struggling to crawl toward them shouting hoarsely, his lisp more than ever. “Get him, you fool! Shut up and kill him! They’ll be here in a flash! Can’t you see he’s gotten a stupid trusting female to yakity-yak while Hope has run for help! Kill him!”
Peter remained deathly still, allowing the seconds to pass as he pretended to listen. In reality, his depleted energy was replenishing itself for one final hefty trust at Ellen. If help hadn’t arrived by then, he was finished anyway.
“After the hours we spent together these past two days,” Peter said slowly, knowing they would impact her dramatically. “I was beginning to love you, Ellen.”
“And, me too!” she yelled in a muffled voice. “How ironic I wanted you more than that cheap B actor! All you had to do was tell that Jap woman in the internment camp back home you were through with her. Now I’m going to send you to Heaven. Sorry, Peter, but I have to.”
At the very instant Ellen stepped forward, her hand with the Ka-Bar raised to strike him, Peter wheeled to his left, flinging his smashed and deeply sliced shoulder up and toward the plunging knife. As large as it was, the heavy knife ripped through the loose collar of his shirt. To his amazement, his right arm, which had hung uselessly at his side for the past several minutes, blocked the thrust aimed at his face. As he painfully lay with his back to the facility wall, he used his right leg to continually kick and block any additional Ka-Bar swipes. Peter knew he was already dying and there was no longer any hope the MPs would arrive in time to save him. Ellen, seeing the spurting blood from the long, deep shoulder slash, marveled that her Peter had not screamed in pain from the gash, which appeared more as a gouge than a long slit. Resting on his side, back against the wall, Peter smiled grimly as he looked up at her.
“Go ahead, you f…ing slut.”
As Pinoe, waving his arm, was shouting, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”, Ellen raised her arm a second time, not to slash or slice, but to plunge. With it, held as high as she could possibly get it, an indistinguishable gleam surfaced in her eyes, and, looking down at Peter, ready and still defiantly prepared to absorb the plunge into his head, a bullet from Bill Lundigan’s .45 entered the back of her skull
, and exited through her left eye.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
-
Sealed Orders
“Wow! What a sickening sight you look! To say nothing of the messy mass of broken bones, cut flesh, and painful wounds you must feel. You could be the start of a horror movie! Yes, sir!” Bill Lundigan chuckled uncomfortably as he stood over Peter huddling against the back wall near the exit door. Less than two yards away lay Ellen, deceased, right eye wide open, blood oozing from her left eye after Lundigan’s .45 bullet entered the back of her skull and exited a few inches above her nose dangling the eye from its socket.
“And look at him,” Lundigan continued, casting his chin toward Pinoe, the Mad Ghoul, or Charlie the Choker, more than a dozen yards away, attempting to crawl in their direction. “Limp and bleeding, pale and ashen, unable to get up, or stand, realizing he’s caught, facing certain death, a firing squad or noose and struggling to reach us so he can strangle you. Are you up to all this drama and comedy?”
A faint smile lingered around Peter’s lips.
“Oh, I’m not damaged much, Bill,” Peter whispered weakly, staring at the Ghoul. “I wish he could reach me, the loathsome aberration.”
Lundigan, with one eye on Pinoe, knelt by the side of his wounded friend and said softly,
“Medics are right behind me. When Hope called for help, I was out of my seat and flying over here. Ellen had left my side a few moments before. Hope passed her. I somehow knew then that she was part of the killing spree. The medics called after me if you were still ‘a-going it’, and I laughed. ‘Are you kidding me’, I thought to myself, ‘You can’t easily kill a nice kid like that’. Now, let me take a quick tally of your wounds and bruises. I hear the medics bouncing in now. And, look at me, still holding my .45 in the air! Damn, look at the huge monkeyshine on your rotary cuff, sure to affect the first serve of your tennis game.”
“It’ll heal,” Peter said nonchalantly. Glancing again at Pinoe, he said, “I should have known. When he and Schneidermann, the psychiatrist, visited the morgue while I was studying the corpses, he hinted how much he enjoyed looking upon and touching dead flesh.”
“Well, you got the Mad Ghoul, all right,” Bill smiled, shaking his head admiringly. “And my Lord, what a roaring cookout party you made of it!”
Holstering his .45, Bill, with no further comment, gazed past Pinoe, as several medics, military police, and other officers swarmed into the lavatory. For such a relatively compressed restroom, debris of various materials was now scattered about. Anything that wasn’t bolted down was smashed--small wooden tables, potted plants, Ka-Bar slashes on the walls, broken mirror glass on the floor, etc.
Skillfully, two medical officers began administering first aid to Peter’s wounds and preparing to place him on a stretcher for immediate departure to the Banika hospital. As one cut open Peter’s bloody shirt, the lieutenant seethed,
“Oh, for goodness sake, I’m fine. Look after that pitiful creature who soon enough will be dead and thought of no more. He’s shattered and has grown weaker and more quiet. He’s given up attempting to crawl toward me with an evil intent. We should try to at least save him from embarrassment and discomfort from all the pageant and parade sure to come in the hours that follow.”
“Soldier, be soldierly. He can wait. We’re not through with you yet,” one of the medical officers said. With three medics working in synchronization, each of Peter’s wounds was carefully bathed, the bleeding staunched, and then dressed.
More than a dozen rugged, burly experience-appearing MPs filed silently through the lavatory doors, their .45s readied, all with grim faces, savage gleams in their eyes, thinking of vengeance for the murdered Marines. Dividing into groups of two, the MPs checked the storeroom and each of the closed door, toilet stalls, finding all of them empty.
Once the MPs declared the facility cleared, the 1st Division command staff, including that of the Military Police, were allowed to enter. With more than half a dozen heavily armed officers surrounding the Ghoul seated double-chained and handcuffed, everyone wanted to see him, the Chaplain the 1st Division Marines adored.
Rupertus remarked to Peter, who was now being placed upon a stretcher for delivery to the Banika Hospital,
“Well, my boy, the mystery is at last cleared up.”
“And, how!” echoed Bill Lundigan.
“And, double, how!” Captain Del Barbra echoed laughingly. “After more than a week of murder after murder, the ordinary killer stateside must seem like a Messiah. There wasn’t much any of us could do. But apparently, you fought heroically, saving Bob Hope’s life, from what Hope said. Of course, I’ll write up the whole story for the Brass in Washington. You’re certain to make promotion. And, naturally, we’ll arrange to have you fly in for the execution.”
“I’ll be there. Soon as I leave the hospital, I’ll want to interview him, especially if he’s murdered before, why and how he joined Ellen. The real question, which he can’t answer, is, ‘How does someone like you become so fiercely cruel in one hour and so compassionate and understanding in the next.”
Pinoe, barely able to walk when so heavily cuffed and double-chained, was now on his feet and being prepared to be led to the Banika brig. Overhearing the exchange between Rupertus, Toscanini, Lundigan and Del Barbra, he began laughing in a low tone, with a glint in his eyes, he said,
“How can such a travesty as myself happen in America, or the great U.S. Marine Corps? My head is spinning at such a stupid question? Cry out with your questions! Cry out for my execution! With Ellen gone, you will learn nothing of her motivations, and all I’ll give you are warts on your asses. You won’t . . . you can’t prevent a reoccurrence by another monster like me. The brutal, heinous murders were orchestrated by me, so you try figuring out all the ‘whys’.”
A feeling of revulsion swept over Peter.
“Yeah,” responded Peter, “you’re right. You’re too sick to even know the reasons why. You’ll soon find yourself in the lowest depths of Hades justly meeting your hellish rewards.”
As Pinoe was led through the back door of the facility, limping and smirking simultaneously, officers in the back of the crowd by the front door cried out,
“Make way. Make way! VIP coming through. VIP, VIP coming. Man of God headed for Hell!”
The circle surrounding Peter on the stretcher parted and Bob Hope entered, glancing all around. Walking up to Peter and the medics, with a blanket stretched over Ellen a few feet away, he glanced around and commented loudly with a grin,
“I see so many lively men in khaki holding big guns, I feel I’m back on the Paramount Lot in Hollywood marking the 1942 war comedy ‘Caught in the Draft’ with Eddie Bracken and Dorothy Lamour. I’ve got to complement you MPs indulging our hero: You all look like Madeleine Carroll with muscles.”
Although there were the usual chuckles, smiles, titters, grins, and outright laugher, very few were amused. Noticing the absence of the usual mirth, Hope paused, and apologized,
“Fellas, I’m sorry for my feeble attempt at humor when death is bleeding there in front of us. She was an American nurse who during the day cared for, administered to, and watched after you soldiers. At night, off duty, for who knows why, she killed you. There’s no humor today, really, in here, or out there. Sure, you caught up with them, the Mad Ghoul, and, who would have guessed, his beautiful accomplice I passed as she ran in to stab him to death. And, a USMC-assigned nurse, at that, they watched their brothers, the victims, writhe in pain, squirm, wriggle, and struggle against the battle-knife plunged into them, crying out one word, ‘Why?’ But that lieutenant there, being carried out to the hospital on Banika, showed implacable iron in his veins, and a fierce resolution, saved my life and cornered him singlehandedly.”
After a short pause with everyone riveted to listening to what appeared to be a different, a deadly serious Bob Hope,
“No, men, there’s no humor here. And, it’s only fair people Stateside know that the Mad Ghoul was not just a M
arine problem, but a mental illness issue. All of you officers joined the Corps to fight the Japs, but you never dreamed they enemy on Pavuvu would be one of your own.”
During the days that followed, Peter was confined to a Banika hospital bed, while waiting the slow healing of the heavy bruises and the larger wounds Pinoe had inflicted. Deeper than first believed the Ka-Bar gouges had penetrated deeper than originally believed, forcing Peter’s admittance into the officers’ bedridden ward.
On the third morning that Peter was confined to bed, under the strict order if he violated this provision for convalescence, he would not only be handcuffed to his bed, but also strapped under the blankets. Captain Del Barbra, with Sergeant Guidi trailing behind him with his clipboard in hand, entered the ward shouting in his usual jovial, ebullient manner,
“Guess what, Toscanini. They just honored you by lifting the beer rations for the whole 1st Division!”
Barely awake, Peter frowned.
“Very funny. And, I thought all the comedians had flown back to Guadalcanal.”
“And, Rupertus named the order after you, ‘Honoree’!”
Peter, struggling to sit up by himself, smiled.
Del Barbra couldn’t stop talking loudly.
“What a wacky farce it’s been! Amid the sad multiple deaths, it’s been sheer buffoonery. A broad comedy by the world’s greatest comedian, a burlesque without the hoopla and hum-dog music led by the top mimic!”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Peter smiled.
“And, Hope said to tell you and Bill Lundigan that the two of you will always have roles with Paramount Pictures, if you want them. A long letter will be forthcoming to you personally in appreciation for you saving his life. For now, he wants you to heal, and heal quickly. He says to tell you all gags aside, you are his hero, and that you saved his life. And, above all, he says to you personally, ‘Thanks for the memories.’”