Call to Arms

by W. E. B Griffin

  He’s even using the same words that Stecker did, Pickering thought.

  “When you are addressed by a superior officer,” Captain Mustache said, “it is the custom to acknowledge that by saying something like ‘Yes, sir.’ That lets the superior officer know you’re alive.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering and Stecker said.

  “There was a price for my curiosity,” Captain Mustache said. “I presume you are familiar with the term ‘in addition to his other duties’?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering and Stecker said in chorus.

  “My primary duty here is as a flight instructor,” Captain Mustache said. “In addition to that duty, I am the Marine detachment commander. And as of about twenty minutes ago, in addition to that duty, I have been given the responsibility for you two. Someone has to be responsible for your well-being and to answer for it if you misbehave. For example, if you should disturb the peace and tranquillity of Pensacola by getting drunk and having yourselves thrown into jail, I will be the officer who will get you out of jail, prepare court-martial charges, and arrange to have your asses shipped out of here. Do I make my point, or will a more detailed explanation be necessary?”

  “Yes, sir,” they chorused.

  “Which, gentlemen? Do you understand me? Or would you like a more detailed explanation?”

  “I understand you, sir,” Stecker said.

  “You make your point, sir,” Pickering said.

  “Splendid,” Captain Mustache said. “Getting through this course is going to be hard,” he went on. “A year ago it was thirteen months. We’re going to try in six months to teach you everything that was taught in that course. And what that means is that you’ll have to work your asses off. And what that means is that there will be very little time for you to carouse and make whoopee. Do I make my point?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering and Stecker said in chorus.

  “Splendid! I will not belabor the point,” Captain Mustache said. “Take the rest of the day getting settled. If you have personal automobiles, get them registered. Take a ride around the base and orient yourselves. Report at oh-six-thirty tomorrow at Aviation Reception; the uniform is greens.”

  “Yes, sir,” they chorused.

  “That will be all, gentlemen,” Captain Mustache said.

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the two of them said, did an about-face, and marched out of the room.

  “We’re home free,” Stecker said. “And we have all day to find us someplace decent to live.”

  “I’ve already got a place,” Pickering said, as he headed toward his car.

  “Big enough for the both of us?” Stecker asked.

  “Two bedrooms, a living room, a patio,” Pickering said.

  “On Pensacola’s world-famous snow-white beaches, no doubt?”

  “Actually, it’s on the roof of the San Carlos Hotel,” Pick said. “The penthouse.”

  Stecker’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. He walked to the Cadillac, bent over, and looked inside.

  “And this, it would follow, is yours?”

  “Yeah,” Pickering said.

  “I don’t suppose that it’s run through your mind that a second lieutenant driving a new Cadillac convertible and living in a penthouse is going to stand out like a syphilitic pecker at a short-arm inspection?” Stecker asked.

  “Seven months from now, if I don’t kill myself between now and then, I will be living in a tent on some Pacific Island. At that time some people will be trying to kill me. A phrase from classic literature occurs to me: ‘Live today, for tomorrow we die.’”

  “You’re a man after my own heart, Pickering,” Stecker said. “Let’s go register our cars and then go have a look at our penthouse.”

  “I told you, I was in the hotel business,” Pickering said.

  “I’ve got a deal on the penthouse…a professional discount. It doesn’t cost as much as you might think.”

  “I don’t give a damn what it costs,” Stecker said. “I recently came into some money.”

  Pickering didn’t reply.

  Stecker took out his wallet, and from it a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded the paper and handed it to Pickering. It was a short, typewritten note.

  Dear Twerp,

  If at some time in the future, you should get a large check from Uncle Sam, I would be highly pissed if you did anything foolish with it…like putting it in the bank. Drink all the whiskey and screw all the girls while you have the chance.

  Love,

  Jack.

  Pickering read the short note and then looked at Stecker.

  “That’s from my big brother,” Stecker said. “Ensign Jack NMI Stecker, Jr. Annapolis ’40. He went down with the Arizona.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pickering said, very softly.

  “Yeah,” Stecker said. “Me, too. He was one of the good guys.”

  Their eyes met for a moment.

  “You did say our penthouse has two bedrooms, didn’t you?” Stecker asked. “Plus a living room? And a patio? What about a bar?”

  “Two bars,” Pickering said. “One in the living room, and another one, a wet bar, on the patio.”

  “I think that’s just the sort of thing Jack had in mind,” Stecker said.

  IX

  (One)

  Headquarters, 2nd Joint Training Force

  Camp Elliott, California

  0815 Hours, 9 January 1942

  Captain Jack NMI (No Middle Initial) Stecker, USMCR, was a large man, tall and erect. His uniform was perfectly tailored and sharply creased. It bore the insignia of his grade, the double silver bars of a captain, both on the epaulets of the blouse and on his shirt collar. His high-topped dress shoes were highly polished. But there were no ribbons pinned to the breast of the blouse. For what he considered good reason, Captain Stecker had put his ribbons in one of the bellows pockets of his blouse.

  Captain Stecker was quite surprised that the technical sergeant functioning as Colonel Lewis T. Harris’s sergeant major apparently had no idea who he was. Equally surprising was that he could not recall having ever seen the technical sergeant before.

  The technical sergeant wore the diagonal hash marks of sixteen years of satisfactory enlisted service on the sleeve of his blouse. Captain Jack NMI Stecker had worn a Marine uniform since 1917. It bordered on the incredible that they had never run into each other before someplace. The Marine Corps, between major wars, was a small outfit. By the time someone had put in a couple hitches, he knew practically everybody else in the Corps.

  There was supposed to be an exception to every rule, Stecker decided, and this was apparently it.

  “The colonel will see you now, sir,” the technical sergeant said.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Stecker said, and rose up out of his chair. He tugged on the skirt of his blouse and walked to the door with a red sign on it, lettered, “LEWIS T. HARRIS, COL, USMC, COMMANDING.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the jamb of Colonel Harris’s door.

  “Come!” Colonel Harris ordered.

  Stecker marched into the office, stopped three feet from the desk, came to attention; and, looking six inches over Colonel Harris’s head, barked, “Sir, Captain Stecker reporting for duty, sir.”

  Colonel Lewis T. Harris, a stocky, bald-headed, barrel-chested officer, looked up at Stecker without smiling. Then he stood up, walked to his office door and closed it, and returned to his desk.

  “Well, you old sonofabitch, how the hell are you?” Colonel Harris asked.

  “Very well, thank you, sir,” Captain Stecker said.

  “I’m always right, Jack,” Colonel Harris said. “Some people don’t understand that, but I hope this proves that to you.”

  “Sir?”

  “If you had taken a commission when I wanted you to, you’d be sitting here with a chicken pinned to your collar, and I’d be reporting to you.”

  For the first time, Stecker met Colonel Harris’s eyes.

  “I’m still a little uncomfortable with
the railroad tracks,” he said.

  “Shit!” Colonel Harris said. “Where the hell are your ribbons, Jack?”

  “In my pocket,” Stecker said.

  “I figured,” Colonel Harris said. “The Medal’s something to be ashamed of, like some bare-teated dame in a hula skirt tattooed on your arm?”

  “It makes people uncomfortable,” Stecker said.

  “Suit yourself, Jack, you can stand there at attention like some second lieutenant fresh out of Quantico, or you can sit down over there while I pour you a drink.”

  Stecker walked to the small couch and sat down.

  “I didn’t know how to handle this, Lew,” he said. “So I did it by the book.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t call when you got in last night, right?” Colonel Harris said. “And spent the night on a cot in a BOQ, instead of with Marge and me?”

  Captain Stecker did not reply. Colonel Harris went to a metal wall locker and took a bottle of scotch and two glasses from a shelf. He handed the glasses to Stecker and then poured an inch and a half of scotch in each glass.

  He took one of the glasses and touched it against Stecker’s.

  “I’m glad to see you, Jack,” he said. “Personally and professionally.”

  “Thank you,” Stecker said. He started to add something, stopped, and then went on: “I was about to say, ‘like old times,’ but it’s not, is it?”

  “It never is,” Harris said.

  They solemnly sipped at the whiskey.

  “I don’t know how to handle this, Jack,” Harris said. “I’m sorry about your boy.”

  “Thank you,” Stecker said.

  “He passed through here on his way to Pearl,” Harris said. “He looked like a fine young man.”

  “He was,” Stecker said. “Sixteenth in his class.”

  “I didn’t hear how it happened,” Harris said. “Just that it had.”

  “He was in the Marine detachment on the Arizona,” Stecker said. “I understand they got at least one of the Marine-manned antiaircraft cannon into operation before she went down. I hope Jack at least got a chance to shoot back.”

  “How’s Elly?” Colonel Harris said.

  Stecker shrugged. There was no way to put the reaction of his wife to the loss of their oldest son into words.

  “And the other boy? Richard? He’s in the class of ’forty-two at West Point, right?”

  “He was supposed to be,” Stecker said.

  “Supposed to be?” Harris asked.

  “They commissioned them early,” Stecker said. “Dick reported to Pensacola today. Or he reports tomorrow. For aviation training.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “I don’t know if I am or not,” Stecker said. “Elly’s afraid of airplanes.”

  “Hell, so am I,” Harris said.

  Stecker looked at him and smiled. “The only thing in the world you’re afraid of is your wife,” he said.

  “And airplanes,” Harris said. “I went to Pensacola in ’thirty, when I came back from Haiti. I did fine until they actually put me in the front seat of an airplane and told me to drive. I broke out in a cold sweat and was so scared I couldn’t find my ass with both hands. Once I tilted the wings, I really didn’t know which way was up. Somewhere in my jacket is a remark that says ‘this officer is wholly unsuited for aviation duty.’”

  “I didn’t know you tried it,” Stecker said.

  “I was afraid when I went,” Harris said. “I knew I was no Charles Lindbergh. But I was a brand-new captain with three kids, and I needed the flight pay. If your boy can’t hack it, Jack, he’ll find out in a hurry. Nothing to be embarrassed about if he can’t. Some people are meant to soar like birds, and others, like you and me, to muck around in the mud.”

  Stecker chuckled.

  “You know Evans Carlson, Jack?” Colonel Harris asked.

  The question was asked lightly, but Stecker sensed that Harris was not playing auld lang syne.

  “Sure,” Stecker replied.

  “China?” Harris pursued.

  “I was on the rifle team with him,” Stecker said.

  “I forgot about that,” Harris said. “You’re one of those who thinks the Garand’s the answer to a maiden’s prayer.”

  The U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, a self-loading weapon fed by an eight-round en bloc clip, was invented by John C. Gerand, a civilian employee of the Springfield Arsenal. It was adopted as standard for the U.S. military in 1937 to replace the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903, the Springfield, a bolt-operated rifle with an integral five-shot magazine.

  “I don’t know about a ‘maiden’s prayer,’” Stecker said. “But it’s a fine weapon. It’s a better weapon than the Springfield.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Harris said.

  “You ever fire it?” Stecker asked.

  “Familiarization,” Harris said. “I had trouble keeping it on the target. I rarely got close to the black.” (The eight, nine, and ten scoring rings of the standard rifle target are printed in black; the “bull’s-eye.”)

  “I was on the troop test at Benning,” Stecker said. (The U.S. Army Infantry Center was at Fort Benning, Georgia.) “And I had an issue piece out of the box. I had no trouble making expert with it. More important, neither did twelve kids fresh from Parris Island.”

  Harris grunted. A lesser man, he thought, would have quickly detected his disapproval of the Garand rifle and deferred, as is appropriate for a captain, to the judgment of a colonel. But Jack NMI Stecker, until recently Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker, was not a lesser man. He spoke his mind.

  “I’ve got one,” Stecker went on, “that was worked over by an Army ordnance sergeant at Benning. It shoots into an inch and a half at two hundred yards.”

  “I’ve got a Springfield that’ll do that,” Harris argued.

  “Your Springfield won’t put eight shots in the black at three hundred yards as fast as you can pull the trigger,” Stecker said.

  “You’re like a reformed drunk, Jack,” Harris said. “Nothing worse than a reformed drunk. They have seen the goddamn light.”

  “Sorry,” Stecker said.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” Harris said. “I’ve been wrong before.”

  “The last time was May 13, 1937, right?” Stecker said.

  Harris laughed, heartily, deep in his chest. “Moot point, anyway,” he said. “This war’ll be over long before the goddamned Army gets around to giving your wonderful Garand to the Corps.”

  “Probably,” Stecker agreed, chuckling. The Marine Corps received all of its small arms through the Ordnance Corps of the U.S. Army. It was accepted as a fact of life that the Army supplied the Corps only after its own needs, real and perceived, were satisfied.

  “We were talking about Evans Carlson,” Harris said. “You get along with him all right, Jack?”

  “Isn’t that a moot point? I heard he resigned a couple of years ago. Actually, what I heard is that he was asked to resign. I heard he went Asiatic and annoyed some very important people.”

  “I don’t know about that, but he’s back. He applied for a reserve commission as a major, and they gave it to him. And then they promoted him. He knows some very important people.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” Stecker said, thoughtfully. “Well, hell, why not? He’s a good Marine. And here I sit wearing captain’s bars.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Jack,” Colonel Harris said.

  “Do I get along with him? Sure. Is he here?”

  Colonel Harris did not reply to the question directly.

  “From this point, what I tell you is between us girls, Jack. I don’t want it repeated.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stecker said.

  “Within the next couple of weeks, maybe the next month, the Corps is going to establish two separate battalions. One of them here. The one here will be commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Carlson.”

  “What do you mean, separate battalions? To do what?”

 
“Commando battalions,” Harris said.

  “I’m lost,” Stecker confessed.

  “A reserve captain wrote the Commandant a letter,” Harris said, “in which he recommended the establishment of Marine units to do what the English Commandos do. Raids by sea on hostile shores.”

  “A reserve captain wrote the Commandant?” Stecker asked, incredulously.

  “And the Commandant has decided to go along,” Harris said.

  Stecker didn’t reply, but there was wonderment and disbelief all over his face.

  “The captain who wrote the letter has friends in high places,” Harris said.

  “He must,” Stecker said.

  “His name is Roosevelt,” Colonel Harris said.

  “Captain Roosevelt,” Stecker said, suddenly understanding.

  “You know him?”

  “I saw him a couple of times at Quantico,” Stecker said. “I don’t know him.”

  “Captain James Roosevelt will be the executive officer of the Second Separate Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Carlson, when it is activated,” Harris said.

  Stecker’s eyebrow rose but he said nothing.

  “I have been directed to do whatever can be done to grease the ways for Colonel Carlson and his separate battalion. He will have the authority to recruit for his battalion anywhere within the Corps. And simultaneously he will be able to transfer out from his battalion anybody he doesn’t want. He will have the authority to equip and arm his battalion as he sees fit, and funds will be provided to purchase whatever he wants that can’t be found in the warehouse. If there is a conflict between Carlson’s battalion and some other unit for equipment, or the use of training facilities, Carlson will get what he thinks he needs. You getting the picture, Jack?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because as of this minute, it’s your job to take care of Colonel Carlson and his separate battalion for me.”

  “I had hoped to get a company,” Stecker said.

  “No way, Jack,” Harris said. “Even without Carlson, there would be no company for you. We have company commanders. We’re damned short of people like you. Once you get Carlson formed and trained and he’s gone from here, I’ve got a spot from you in S-Three. If you handle Carlson right, there’ll probably be a major’s leaf to go with it.”