Battleground

by W. E. B Griffin

“It belongs to a guy, retired Marine, who lets us use it,” she said.

  “Charley told me you were up here on Pearl Harbor Day,” Jim said.

  “He told you that, too, did he? He say who he was with?”

  Jim shook his head “no.”

  Flo laughed. “Then I won’t.”

  “Then you won’t what?” Charley said, coming into the kitchen.

  “I won’t tell him who you was with on Sunday, December seven.”

  Galloway chuckled. “I was hoping you would,” he said. “I was hoping you would have a motherly word to him about the dangers of getting involved with certain members of the Navy Nurse Corps.”

  “Don’t play Mr. Innocent with me, Charley. The way I remember that, nobody had to drag you up here.”

  “This was all, Jim, pre-Caroline, when I was a footloose and carefree flying sergeant, like skinhead here.”

  “I told you, Charley,” Flo said, “I don’t like you to call Stefan that.”

  “Well, ‘Curly’ sure doesn’t fit,” Galloway said, unabashed.

  “Who are you talking about?” Jim asked.

  “One of Flo’s angels of mercy,” Charley said.

  “Angel, my ass,” Flo said. “I’m always wondering if she won’t say something to somebody about Stefan and me, out of pure bitchiness.”

  “Does she know about you?” Charley asked.

  “Not that we’re married,” Flo said. “But I have to let them know where I am. I’m assistant chief nurse. She knows damned well that I’m not coming up here alone to count the pineapples; she knows I’m still ‘dating’ Stefan. She’s always making some sweet little crack, you know, ‘give my regards to Sergeant Oblensky,’ like that.”

  “I don’t think she’ll say anything,” Charley said. “You know too much about her.”

  “I know more about her than you think I do,” Flo said, “but now that she’s running around with that lieutenant of yours, no telling what she’s liable to do.”

  By then, she had finished making the drinks. She handed them out.

  “Well, welcome to our happy home,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Jim said.

  “I’m getting really sick of the whole goddamned thing,” Big Steve said, “hiding out like we’re doing something wrong. I’m pretty close to telling them. ‘We’re married. Fuck you, what are you going to do about it?’ ”

  “Watch your mouth, Honeybun!” Flo snapped.

  “They wouldn’t court-martial us,” Big Steve went on. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Maybe not. You can never tell,” Charley said. “But they’d sure as hell transfer one of you. Probably you. You’d spend the war changing Yellow Peril engines at Quantico or Pensacola. You could kiss these weekends up here good-bye.”

  “What the hell’s the difference? Here or Pee-Cola? The fuckers won’t let me fly anymore anyway.”

  “You’re too goddamned old to fly, you old fart,” Charley said, laughing. “The Corps’s not flying Spads any more.”

  “I don’t know what the hell is with you two,” Flo said, angrily. “Watch your mouths, there’s a lady present!”

  “Sorry,” Big Steve said, contritely.

  “Just watch it!” she said. Then, “Charley’s right, Honeybun. Be grateful for what we have. Don’t do something dumb.”

  “Just because he’s an officer now don’t make him smart,” Big Steve said.

  “The hell it doesn’t!” Charley protested, jokingly. “We officers have to know how to read and write and how to tie our own shoes. Don’t we, Flo?”

  “You tell him, Charley,” Flo said, laughing.

  “If you’re so fu—smart, Captain, Sir,” Big Steve said, “tell me about Guadacanal.”

  “About what?”

  “Guadacanal,” Big Steve said, triumphantly.

  “Never heard of it,” Charley confessed.

  “Well, for your general information, Captain, Sir, it’s an island. The Japs are building a fighter base on it, and the First Marine Division is going to take it away from them.”

  This scuttlebutt has the ring of truth to it, Charley decided.

  “Where is this island?” Charley asked.

  Big Steve shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “It’s in the Solomon Islands, Charley,” Flo said, softly. “Down by Australia. And it’s Guadalcanal, with an ‘L.’ I heard the same thing. They’ve been levying us for doctors and corpsmen. I heard they’re going to invade this place right after the first of the month.”

  “You heard that too, huh, Honey?” Big Steve asked.

  Charley looked at Jim Ward.

  “Jim, do I have to tell you not to repeat this scuttlebutt?”

  “No, Sir. Of course not.”

  “I don’t even know where the Solomon Islands are,” Charley said, as much to himself as to the others.

  “Wait a minute,” Big Steve said. “I brung some maps. I was going to ask Flo.”

  He left the kitchen. They heard him a moment later walking across the living room, and then they heard the screen door screeching.

  “Straight poop, would you say, Flo?” Charley asked softly.

  She nodded. “I don’t know where he heard it, but I’d bet on my information.”

  The screen door slammed again, and then Big Steve called for them to come into the living room. They went in, to find him fastening the corners of a large map to the floor with ash-trays and a bottle.

  They all got on their knees and examined the map.

  “There it is,” Flo said, pointing. “And those itsy-bitsy little islands near it. Tulagi and Gavutu. I heard that, too.”

  “God,” Charley said thoughtfully. “It’s a long way from nowhere, isn’t it?”

  There was no reply, except a grunt from Big Steve. And then Charley asked for a sheet of paper and a pencil. When Flo produced both, he laid the paper on the map and copied the scale from it.

  Then he began moving the paper around on the map.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Big Steve asked, taking the words from Jim’s mouth.

  “Ssssh, Honeybun,” Flo said.

  Finally, Charley sat back on his heels.

  “Well, if this is the place the First Marine Division is going, they’re going without VMF-229,” he said.

  “How can you tell that?” Jim asked, curiously, not as a challenge.

  “Because it’s out of fighter range from any land airbase we control,” Charley said. “Which means they’re going to have to use carrier-based aviation. And VMF-229 is not carrier qualified. I think only Dunn and me ever were.”

  Big Steve grunted again.

  “And, if your date is anywhere near close, Flo, there’s no way we could qualify in time.”

  “Why not?” Big Steve asked. “All you’d need is, what? Two, three days to shoot some landings.”

  “We’d need a carrier to shoot them on,” Charley said. “There’s no carrier here right now. And even if there was, there’s no way we could be qualified, and put aboard, and still steam that far in time to make the invasion.”

  “Huh!” Big Steve said, disappointed.

  “But I tell you what could happen,” Charley said thoughtfully. “They are going to need fighters on that island when they take it.”

  “Why, if we take it?” Jim asked.

  “Because all of those islands are within fighter range of each other. They will be within range of land-based Japanese aircraft. And they’re not about to leave aircraft carriers in the area; they’d be too vulnerable to the Japs.”

  “OK,” Big Steve said. “So what? What are you driving at?”

  “They could load us on one of those escort carriers, and then catapult us off that onto this island when they have captured the airfield.”

  “I thought you said nobody but you and Dunn was carrier qualified,” Flo asked.

  “Nobody else is, but that wouldn’t matter. If they were to catapult us off one of the escort carriers, we wouldn’t go back to it. The hard part of
carrier operation is landing—the approach and the arrested landing. Getting catapulted off a carrier is something else. It’s scary, especially the first time. You go from zero to ninety knots in a second. But then you’re flying.”

  Big Steve snorted.

  Galloway looked at him and shrugged.

  “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “I was just thinking,” Big Steve said, “that you may not be so dumb after all—for an officer, that is.”

  “You have just been complimented,” Flo chuckled. “Enjoy it, Charley.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Charley said, and then looked at Jim Ward. “But you will not. You are flying tomorrow. You will be practicing the technique of taking off short. And you will be as baffled as any of your peers when they start wondering out loud what that crap is supposed to be all about—as opposed to mock dogfights, which are a lot more fun.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “Let’s eat,” Flo said. “We’ve having a Hawaiian Luau. Except it’s a pork loin. I can’t stand the sight of one of those poor baby pigs with apples in their mouths.”

  (Six)

  OFFICER’S CLUB

  U.S. NAVY BASE, PEARL HARBOR

  OAHU, TERRITORY OF HAWAII

  2130 HOURS 7 JULY 1942

  Although he was of course delighted to see his sister’s son, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam was also a little annoyed at the way the kid popped up unannounced out of nowhere, expecting to be entertained.

  The Admiral had been working his ass off since the Eyes Only EXECUTE OPERATIONAL PESTILENCE radio had come in five days before, and it seemed obvious that the work days were going to grow longer rather than shorter as things finally started to mesh.

  The truth of the matter was that the Pacific Fleet and attached Marine Forces were not prepared—in any way—to stage an amphibious assault on an island in the Hawaiian chain, much less on three islands a quarter of the world away in the Solomons.

  There was not enough of anything that would be needed. About the only thing that was not in short supply was senior officers. A whole flock of commanders and captains and even a dozen or so flag officers had been called back from retirement. They had come back into uniform willingly, even eagerly, and their expertise was most welcome. But at times, Admiral Wagam had reluctantly concluded, they were like a bunch of goddamned old maids.

  By his own actual calculation, Admiral Wagam was spending two-thirds of his time establishing shipping priorities and scheduling convoys and the other third settling disputes over Naval protocol between the retreads, who were exquisitely sensitive to the prerogatives of rank and time in grade.

  Most often, the disputes had to do with the assignment of creature comforts—who had a permanently assigned staff car with driver, and who didn’t, that sort of thing. But the worst fights were over quarters—where the most desirable rooms in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters were assigned, or in cottages, in the case of captains and flag officers. These assignments were ordinarily made on the basis of rank, and within rank, on the basis of time in grade. Now and again, however, some of the retreads came to believe that the assignment they had been given was beneath their dignity and inappropriate to their rank and seniority.

  As Admiral Wagam knew only too well, “seniority” was not as simple a concept as it might at first appear to be. For instance, seniority could not be established solely by date of promotion; for this would have made virtually all of the retreads senior to virtually all of the officers in a particular grade who had not retired. Some of the retreads had retired as early as 1935.

  Thus it had been necessary to make up a seniority list for the retreads. Clerks had dug into the records to see how much time in grade Captain So-and-so had at the time of his retirement. This would be added to the time he now had on active duty since being recalled. This produced a seniority list based on time in grade, not date of promotion.

  It had not been possible, however, to merge this list with a similar list prepared for nonretired officers, and announce that Captain A, who had never retired, and who had five years, nine months, and eleven days of service as a captain, therefore outranked Captain B, a retread, who had five years, nine months and one day of service as a four striper. When this happened, Captain B would very often make it known that the list be damned, when he retired, Captain A was a lowly lieutenant commander, a none-too-bright one, as he recalled; and he had no intention of taking orders from the young pup now.

  And it wasn’t a question of simply reminding Captain B that he was back in the Navy and expected to take orders, although Dapper Dan Wagam had done just that several times. Even when there was no question of seniority, a good many of the retreads seemed to have an uncontrollable urge to question the orders they had been given. Even when he himself was giving the orders, he’d come to expect from these guys a moment of smug hesitation, then something like, “Well, in my experience, we did ... or did not ...” Or, “In the Old Navy, they ...” When they believed that they were being forced by an unappreciative Navy to take orders from some young pup still wet behind the ears, their obedience ceased being cheerful and willing. “After all,” they were quick to point out, “we were asked to return to duty.”

  It often lent an entirely new meaning, Wagam had concluded, to the word “grudging.”

  And since he was on the bridge of a desk, rather than at sea, Admiral Wagam had, he believed, more than his fair share of the retreads. Indeed, very few of them were actually being sent to sea, although virtually all of them had volunteered—often two or three times a week—to take a command.

  When his sister’s son, First Lieutenant David F. Schneider, USMC, showed up, Admiral Wagam was trying to recover from yet another bad day. For one thing, he was frustrated that he’d failed to solve logistical problems there was no satisfactory solution for—there was simply not enough available tonnage for OPERATION PESTILENCE; and consequently, the First Marine Division was going to assault a hostile shore inadequately supplied. And for another, he’d been forced to handle no less than three retreads who truly believed that their professional reputations were being demeaned by the duties he had assigned them.

  But Admiral Wagam was as gracious to David Schneider as he could be under the circumstances. He realized his problems were certainly not David’s fault; but more to the point, his sister was hell on wheels when she felt one of her children had been slighted....

  So he personally showed David around the office, to give the boy some understanding of what he was up to.

  He did not, of course, mention OPERATION PESTILENCE, which was classified Top SECRET.

  And then he took him to dinner in the Flag Officer’s Mess and introduced him around. It would have been nice if David could have written his mother that he had been introduced to Admiral Nimitz, but Nimitz apparently had elected to eat in his quarters.

  Nimitz was probably eating alone, or as alone as the CINCPAC ever got to be, Admiral Wagam thought, as opposed to having a working dinner. If it had been a working dinner, he probably would have been invited.

  And then he sent him on his way:

  “David, I’d like to send you back to Ewa in my car, but I’m going to need it.”

  “I understand.”

  “There’s a bus that runs between here and Ewa. Among other places, it stops at the Main Club.”

  “I can manage, Uncle Dan.”

  “I would suppose there will be a number of officers from MAG-11 at the club. Ask around. The odds are you can find a ride back with one of them.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Give your mother my love when you write.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’ll do that.”

  XIII

  (One)

  First Lieutenant William C. Dunn, Executive Officer, VMF-229, was sitting at the bar with Lieutenant (j.g.) Mary Agnes O‘Malley, Nurse Corps, USN, having an after-dinner cognac. Dunn had learned that an after-dinner cognac—for that matter, any kind of alcohol at any time—seemed to trigger in Mary A
gnes lewd and carnal desires. As they sipped their cognacs, her arm was resting on his upper leg, and her hand was gently stroking his inner thigh. She was fully aware what this did to him. And he knew that once there was proof positive, so to speak, that she had flipped his HORNY ON switch, and the mechanism had been activated, she would look into his eyes with pleasure and understanding, and purse her lips in promise of what was to come. And probably even give it a friendly little pat on the head. Good doggie.

  Dunn had recently been giving a good deal of thought to his relationship with Mary Agnes O‘Malley.

  For starters, he was the envy of most of his peers, even the noble minded who chose to believe she wasn’t really giving him any. The ratio of young bachelor officers in the Naval Establishment around Pearl Harbor to good-looking, socially acceptable females—or for that matter, to any kind of females—was probably two-hundred-fifty to one. Phrased another way, the odds against a first lieutenant hooking up with a good-looking, firm-breasted, blonde-headed nurse who fucked like a mink were probably on the order of a thousand to one.

  What did every red-blooded Marine Aviator want? A nymphomaniac whose father owned a liquor store. Mary Agnes’s father didn’t own a liquor store, but there didn’t seem to be any question that if she wasn’t really a nympho, she was pretty damned close.

  But Bill Dunn kept remembering from college some great philosophical truth—he forgot who said it—to the effect that the only thing worse than not realizing one’s dreams was to realize them: Here he was with a good-looking woman who couldn’t wait to get him in bed every night. There she would eagerly perform sexual acts he had seen before only in stag movies. And he was unhappy with the situation.

  Even the sex, once the novelty wore off, was becoming a chore. He was regarding it lately as his duty, his more and more reluctant holding up of his end of the bargain.

  The sad truth was that Mary Agnes O‘Malley was dumber than dog shit. It was a realization he’d come to somewhat belatedly, probably because intellectual attainment was not high on his original list of priorities. But it didn’t take him long to begin to think that it was entirely within the realm of possibility that an original idea and a cold drink of water would actually kill her.