Line of Fire

by W. E. B Griffin

  "If the Commander shows up, you can tell her I showed you that and asked you where I can find Sergeant Moore, and that you told me."

  "I never saw one of those before," Lieutenant McConnell said. "I hope he's not in some kind of trouble?"

  "No. As a matter of fact, I'm about to make him an officer and a gentleman."

  "He's a really nice kid," the nurse said.

  "What shape is he in?"

  "He still has to walk with a cane, but he's going to be all right."

  "Why isn't he on recuperative leave?"

  "He is. He was gone for a couple of days, but then he came back. He has family in Philadelphia, but-I didn't ask why he came back."

  "Where is he?"

  "Six-sixteen, second door from the end of the corridor on the left." "Is he in there alone?"

  "The scuttlebutt is that there was a telephone call from some captain in the office of the Secretary of the Navy ordering him a private room. It is one of the reasons he is not one of Commander Jensen's favorite people."

  "Real chickenshit bitch, huh?" McCoy said.

  "Ken!" Ernie Sage said.

  "You said that, Lieutenant," Lieutenant McConnell said, smiling, "I didn't"

  Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, wearing a T-shirt and hospital pajama pants, was in bed when McCoy pushed open the door and walked in.

  The top of the bed was raised to a nearly vertical position.

  And spread out before him on the food tray was the balsawood framework of a model airplane wing, to which Moore was attaching tissue paper covering.

  He looked up with curiosity, then annoyance, and finally surprised recognition as the Marine officer and the girl walked into the room.

  "Jesus!" he said.

  "And the Virgin Mary," McCoy said. "I thought I told you to remember to duck, asshole."

  "Ken!" Ernie said, and then, "Hello, John, how are you?"

  "Surprised," Moore said. He looked at McCoy and went on, "I read in the papers about the Makin Island raid. I thought you would have been in on that."

  "He was," Ernie said. "And almost got himself killed."

  "No, I didn't," McCoy said.

  Ernie walked to the bed and handed Moore a package. He removed the covering. It was a box of Fanny Farmer Chocolates; its cover didn't fit very well.

  "Well, thanks," Moore said a little uncomfortably.

  "I told you he wouldn't want candy," McCoy said.

  "Don't be silly. I love chocolate," Moore lied, and quickly opened the box to prove it.

  A pint flask of scotch lay on top of the chocolates. His face lit up.

  "I hate people who are always right," Ernie said.

  "He's a Marine. Marines always know what's important."

  "God!" Ernie replied.

  "Speaking of Marines," Moore said. "General Pickering. What's that all about?"

  "He told me he called you," McCoy said.

  "He called, but all he did was ask how I was, and if he could do anything for me. He didn't even tell me he was a general. I saw that in the newspaper. And he didn't tell me you were coming, either."

  "Well, he's now a brigadier general; he's our boss; and just as soon as we finish the paperwork, he will have an aide-decamp named Lieutenant Moore." Moore didn't seem especially surprised.

  "I wondered what they were going to do with me," he said.

  "Now you know," McCoy said. "As soon as you get out of here, you go to Washington."

  "I can leave here today," Moore said.

  "You're entitled to thirty days' recuperative leave," McCoy said. "You want to tell me about that?"

  "What do you mean, tell you about it?"

  "Why aren't you out chasing skirts, getting drunk?"

  "I can't chase too well using a cane. And when I get drunk, I fall down a lot."

  "I mean, what the hell are you doing here making model airplanes?" McCoy pursued.

  "Ken, that's none of your business!" Ernie snapped.

  Moore looked at McCoy for a full thirty seconds, and then shrugged his shoulders.

  "Going home was a disaster," he said. "For reasons I'd rather not get into. Before I went over there, I was... involved with a woman.

  Unfortunately she was a married woman. More unfortunately, she went back to her husband. So that leaves what? There's a couple of bars outside the gate here where you can go and have a couple of drinks without being treated like a freak-"

  "What do you mean, a freak?" Ernie asked.

  "Wounded guys are still a novelty," Moore said. "I am uncomfortable in the role of wounded hero...

  because I know goddamn well I'm no hero."

  "You got the Bronze Star," McCoy said evenly.

  `Not for doing anything heroic," Moore said, and then closed off further discussion of the subject by going on, "so I drink in local bars at night and make model airplanes during the day. Or is that against Marine Regulations?"

  "I have to make him wear his ribbons, too," Ernie said. "I'll tell you what you're going to do today, John.

  You're going to put on your uniform and spend the day with us. I don't care if either one of you like it or not, I want to be the girl who has two wounded heroes on her arm." McCoy saw Moore's eyes light up at the suggestion.

  "You're going to be here all day?" Moore asked.

  "Ken has to go to Parris Island tomorrow," Ernie said.

  Ì don't suppose I could go with you, could I?" Moore asked.

  The door burst open.

  Commander Elizabeth H. Jensen, NNC, a short, plump woman in her thirties, marched into the room.

  She folded her arms across her amply filled stiff white uniform bosom, glowered at McCoy, and announced, "I would like to know exactly what you think you are doing in here!"

  "We are about to have a drink to begin the day, Commander," McCoy said, taking his credentials from his pocket and holding them up before Commander Jensen's eyes, "but aside from that, what else we're doing in here is none of your business. If I need you, however, I'll send for you."

  [Four]

  UNITED STATES ARMY 4TH GENERAL HOSPITAL

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  7 SEPTEMBER 1942

  Now shorn, shaved, and dressed in a splendidly tailored officer's green elastique uniform, Major Jake Dillon sat with his hand wrapped around a glass of scotch at a small table in the Officer's Club. Two young and quite attractive members of the Navy Nurse Corps sat on either side of him.

  He had flown in this morning from Townsville on a Royal Australian Air Force airplane that Commander Feldt arranged.

  One of the nurses was Lieutenant (J.G.) Joanne Miller, NNCR, a tall, slim nurse-anesthesiologist who wore her fine blond hair in a bun. The other was Lieutenant (J.G.) Barbara T. Cotter, NNCR, a psychiatric nurse. She was also a blonde, but her hair was shorter. She was also not quite as tall as Lieutenant Miller, and a bit heavier-but by no means unpleasantly so. The two were part of a very small group of Navy nurses-with-special-training temporarily assigned to the Army Hospital. They were roommates and had become friends.

  The U.S. Army 4th General Hospital was one of the very few facilities in Australia that had never been a major logistical problem. The Royal Melbourne Hospital was originally completed in late 1940. It was an enormous, fully equipped medical establishment that had simply been turned over to the United States Army for the duration of the war. The only thing it lacked was officer's billeting and an officer's club; but it was no problem to convert facilities originally intended for use by the medical school to those purposes.

  That was where Dillon and the two nurses were now sitting.

  "There's a pretty one, Jake," Lieutenant Miller said, nodding toward a tall, good-looking Marine first lieutenant coming into the room, walking with a cane. He wore parachutist's wings pinned on his tunic.

  "You stay away from that guy, honey," Dillon said, recognizing the officer.

  "Why do you say that, Jake?" Lieutenant (J.G.) Barbara T. Cotter, NNCR, asked, surprised.

  Aft
er a moment Jake Dillon said, "I don't know. There's something about that guy I don't like."

  "You know him?"

  Dillon nodded. "I met him once in the States. I just remembered where."

  "I thought your criterion was `handsome hero,' " Joanne Miller said.

  "Handsome, wounded hero,"' Jake corrected her and then looked at Barbara Cotter. "Handsome, honey, not pretty."

  "Sorry. It's just that I've never been out with a man when he was looking for handsome men," Barbara said, and both women laughed.

  "Thanks a lot, girls," Jake said. "Buy your own booze."

  "I guess the one at the end of the bar won't qualify, huh, Jake?"

  Barbara asked. Jake looked in the direction of her nod.

  An officer, an aviator, was standing at the bar looking down at his drink. He had a large bandage over his nose; the adhesive tape holding it extended to his jawline and temples. Under the bandage, his face was a large bruise from the lip line to above his eyes.

  "Jesus, what happened to him?" Dillon asked.

  "It's not as bad as it looks," Joanne said. "He slammed his face into a control panel. There were some fractures in the nasal passage area; they went in and straightened things out."

  "I know him," Jake said, surprise in his voice. "Excuse me." He got up and went to the young officer at the bar.

  "I'm Jake Dillon, Lieutenant. Don't we know each other?"

  The young officer looked at him.

  `No, Sir. I don't think so."

  "Lakehurst," Dillon insisted. "Charley Galloway? A light colonel-what the hell was his name?-jumped out of your airplane and his chute didn't open?" Recognition came.

  "Yes, Sir," Lieutenant Jim Ward said. "You were the press agent excuse me, public relations officer, right?"

  "I don't think press agent is a dirty word," Dillon said. "I thought it was you." They shook hands.

  "If you're alone," Dillon said, "I'm not. Want to join us?" He nodded toward the table where the girls were sitting.

  "That's the best offer I've had in a long time," Ward said.

  "The smaller one is taken," Dillon said.

  "I admire your taste."

  "Not by me, but taken," Dillon said.

  As they walked to the table, Dillon saw the parachutist officer glance at them, and then saw recognition in his eyes. He did not respond.

  "Ladies, I would love to introduce this wounded, handsome hero to you, but I just realized I've forgotten his name," Dillon said.

  "Jim Ward," Ward said.

  "He's a pal of a pal of mine," Dillon went on. "Captain Charley Galloway." The women rather formally shook hands with Ward.

  "We've met before too," Joanne said. "I passed the gas when they fixed your face. Are you supposed to be drinking?"

  "Well, I hadn't planned on driving anywhere," Ward said.

  "Speaking of Charley?" Dillon said.

  "He's on thèCanal," Ward said. "Commanding VMF229."

  "Christ, I wish I'd known that," Dillon said. "I just came out of Henderson." Ward looked at Dillon with an interest he had not shown before.

  "What were you doing on Guadalcanal?" he asked.

  "I suppose most people would say I was getting in the way," Dillon replied, and went on: "How's Charley doing?"

  "He was shot down. He floated around all night and then a PT boat picked him up. Aside from that, he's fine."

  "What happened to you?" Dillon asked.

  "I made a bad landing," Ward said. "And bumped my nose on the control panel."

  "He lost-temporarily, by the grace of God-the use of his right eye when his windshield was shot away,"

  Joanne said matter-of-factly. "Plexiglas fragments. When he landed, his gear collapsed, and the airplane's nose hit the ground with such force that the seat was ripped loose. The main reason they sent him here was that they couldn't believe he walked away from that crash with nothing more than broken ribs and a broken nose."

  "Jesus," Dillon said.

  "I really hope your deep research into my background also came up with the fact that I'm single, available, and that dogs and old ladies like me," Jim Ward said.

  "So how are you?" Dillon asked.

  "Until about five minutes ago I was feeling sorry for myself," Jim Ward said.

  "Why?" Joanne asked.

  "Just before I came in here tonight, I was told that I couldn't go back to the squadron until my ribs healed, and that for the next three to four weeks I will be an assistant morale and welfare officer of the detachment of patients. Among other things I am to make sure the bingo games are honest."

  "Be grateful, for Christ's sake," Dillon said.

  Lieutenant Jim Ward looked directly at Lieutenant Joanne Miller.

  "Oh, I am now," he said.

  She looks uncomfortable, Dillon thought, but not displeased

  "Excuse me, Major," the officer wearing parachutist's wings and walking with a cane said, "but aren't you Major Dillon?"

  "That's right."

  "Correct me if I'm wrong, Sir, but haven't we met?"

  "Yeah. At Lakehurst," Dillon said. "We were just talking about that."

  "Why don't you pull up a chair, Lieutenant? And sit down?" Joanne Miller said.

  Why the hell did I do that? she thought. Because I wanted him to take the strain off his leg? Or because ol' I-bumped-my-nose=on-the-control-panel here is making a pass at me? Or because I don't like my reaction to the pass? I will not get emotionally involved with him or any of the others. I don't want to go through what Barbara's going through.

  "With the Major's permission?" the parachutist officer asked.

  "Yeah. Go ahead. Sit down," Jake said. "The ladies are Lieutenants Miller and Cotter. You remember Jim Ward?"

  "No, I can't say that I do," the parachutist said, glancing at Ward and dismissing him. "I'm Dick Macklin,"

  he said to the women. "I'm very pleased to meet you." Dillon did not like the way Macklin was smiling at Barbara Cotter.

  He remembered now why it was he didn't like Lieutenant Macklin. Not specific details, just that when they had been at Lakehurst, Macklin had been chickenshit. He was perfectly willing to throw an enlisted man to the wolves so he would look good-a PFC or a corporal, Jake now remembered, although he couldn't come up with a face or a name.

  All good Marine officers have contempt for such officers. But in Jake Dillon's case, the contempt was magnified by his own experience with chickenshit officers. He had far more time in The Corps as a sergeant than he did as a field-grade officer and gentleman.

  If you make a pass at Barbara, I'll break your other fucking leg. Why did I tell this sonofabitch it was all right to sit down?

  As a matter of fact, if you make a pass at either one, I'll break your other fucking leg.

  "May I ask, Sir," Macklin said, "if you're a fellow patient?"

  "Just passing through," Dillon said.

  "On your way to Guadalcanal?"

  "No," Dillon said.

  "We had press people with us," Macklin said. He raised his stiff leg. "That's where I caught this. I went in with the first wave of parachutists when we hit the beach at Gavutu."

  "Then we went in at about the same time," Dillon said, wearing a patently insincere smile. "I went in to Tulagi with Jack Stecker's 2nd Battalion of the Fifth."

  "Really?" Barbara Cotter asked. It was the first time Jake had said anything about what he had done at Guadalcanal.

  Without thinking about it, she'd decided that as a press agent, Jake had gone in after the beach had been secured.

  "Jack Stecker and I were sergeants in the Fourth," Dillon said. "He let me tag along."

  That's not surprising, Barbara thought.

  Jake was like Joe Howard. Both were Marine Mustangs (officers commissioned from the ranks); she knew the type.

  They felt somehow cheated if they weren't where the fighting was. This was admirable, unless of course you were in love with one of them, in which case they were damned fools.

  Barbara hadn't believed
a word Dillon told her about Joe Howard being all right. What she didn't already know, or guess, about the Coast watchers and Joe's chances of survival, she had learned from Yeoman Daphne Farnsworth, Royal Australian Navy Women's Volunteer Reserve. Daphne not only worked with the Coast watchers, she had become involved with Sergeant Steve Koffler before the two Marines parachuted onto Buka.

  "What happened to you, Ward?" Macklin asked, obviously not wanting to swap war stories with Dillon.

  "I thought the guy said `stand up,"' Jim Ward said. "What he said was `shut up."

  "He got hurt flying out of Henderson with VMF-229. With Charley Galloway," Dillon said. "You remember Charley, don't you, Macklin?"

  "No, Sir," Macklin said, searching his memory.

  Jim Ward not only remembered Lieutenant Macklin from Lakehurst; he'd picked up on Dillon's contempt; and was just as annoyed as Dillon with Macklin's raised-leg, look-at-me-the-hero attitude.

  "Sure, you do," Ward said. "He was our instructor pilot on the Gooneybird. Tech Sergeant Galloway?"

  yes, of course." Captain Galloway, now," Jim Ward added. "My squadron commander."

  "Really?" Macklin asked.

  From the look on Macklin's face, Ward saw that he had struck home. Nothing else he could have said would so annoy a Regular Marine officer with a commission from Annapolis than to be told that a technical sergeant he had tried to push around now outranked him as an officer and a gentleman.

  Meanwhile, Lieutenant Richard B. Macklin might not have been a prince among men, or even a very decent human being, but he was no fool. He saw that his high hopes to get to know one of the nurses, perhaps even carnally, were not going to come to fruition.

  Although Dillon had claimed that the blonde with the big boobs was taken, she kept looking at Dillon with something like affection. And the other one kept stealing looks at the aviator.

  He had been done in, he realized, by the natural tendency of female officers to be attracted to field-grade officers and/or aviators. He didn't understand this-as far as he was concerned, it took far more courage to jump out of an airplane than it did to fly one-but that was unfortunately the way things were.