Call to Arms

by W. E. B Griffin

  They had not been altar boys at the same time. Captain Kamnik was six years older than Lieutenant Commander Grotski. And he had enlisted in the Marine Corps when Grotski was still in the sixth grade at St. Teresa’s parochial school. But it had been a pleasant experience for the both of them to recall their common experience, and to find somebody else from the old neighborhood who was a fellow commissioned officer and gentleman.

  “Good morning, Commander,” Captain Kamnik said as he rose up behind his desk and grinned at Grotski. “How can the Marine Corps serve the Navy?”

  “Oh, I just happened to be in the neighborhood and I thought I would drop in and ruin your day.”

  “Let me guess,” Kamnik said, first closing the office door and then going to a file cabinet. From this he took out a bottle of Seagram’s Seven Crown. Then he continued, “You are about to rush to the defence of some innocent boy out there, who has been unjustly accused.”

  “Close, but not quite,” Grotski said, taking a pull from the offered bottle and handing it back. Kamnik took a pull himself, and then put the bottle back in the filing cabinet. Technically, it was drinking on duty, one of many court-martial offenses described in some detail in the Rules for the Governance of the Navy Service. But it was also a pleasant custom redolent of home for two Polack former altar boys from the same neighborhood.

  Kamnik looked at Grotski with his eyes raised in question.

  “You have a fine young Marine out there named McCoy, Thomas Michael,” Grotski said.

  It was evident from the look on Kamnik’s face that he had searched his memory and come up with nothing.

  “McCoy?” he asked, as he went to his desk and ran his finger down one typewritten roster, and then another. “Here it is,” he said. “Ex-Marine. He’s on his way to do five-to-ten at Portsmouth.” Portsmouth was the U.S. Naval Prison.

  “Not anymore, he’s not,” Grotski. “You have his file?”

  “Somewhere, I’m sure. Why?”

  “You’re going to need it,” Grotski said, simply.

  Captain Kamnik walked to the door and pulled it open.

  “Scott, fetch me the jacket on a prisoner named McCoy. He’s one of those general prisoners who came in from Pearl. On his way to Portsmouth.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the corporal said.

  Kamnik turned to Grotski.

  “You going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “After you read the file,” Grotski said. “Or at least glance at it. I’ll throw you a bone, though: I have the feeling the commanding general of the joint training force in Diego is more than a little pissed at me.”

  “Really? You don’t mind if I’m happy about that?”

  “I’m flattered,” Grotski said.

  Corporal Scott entered the office a minute later, carrying a seven-inch-thick package wrapped in water-resistant paper and sealed with tape. On it was crudely lettered, “McCoy, Thomas Michael.”

  The package contained a complete copy of the general court-martial convened in the case of PFC Thomas M. McCoy, USMC, 1st Defense Battalion, Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to try him on charges that on the twenty-fourth day of December 1941, he had committed the offense of assault upon the person of a commissioned officer of the U.S. Navy in the execution of his office by striking him with his fists upon the face and on other parts of his body.

  The record showed that PFC McCoy was also charged with having committed an assault upon a petty officer of the United States Navy in the execution of his office by striking him with his fists upon the face and on other parts of his body, and by kicking him in the general area of his genital region with his feet.

  The record showed that PFC McCoy was additionally accused of having been absent without leave from his assigned place of duty at the time of the alleged offenses described in specifications 1 and 2.

  The record showed that in secret session, two-thirds of the members present and voting, a general court-martial convened under the authority of the general officer commanding Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor, T.H., had found PFC McCoy guilty of each of the charges and specifications; and finally that, in secret session, two-thirds of the members present and voting, the court-martial had pronounced sentence.

  As to specification and charge number 1, PFC McCoy was to be reduced to the lowest enlisted grade, suffer loss of all pay and allowances, and be confined at hard labor for a period of five to ten years at Portsmouth or such other Naval prison as the Secretary of the Navy may designate, and at the completion of his term of imprisonment, be dishonorably discharged from the Naval service.

  As to specification and charge number 2, PFC McCoy was to be reduced to the lowest enlisted grade, suffer loss of all pay and allowances, and be confined at hard labor for a period of three to five years at Portsmouth or such other Naval prison as the Secretary of the Navy may designate, and at the completion of his term of imprisonment, be dishonorably discharged from the Naval Service.

  As to specification and charge number 3, PFC McCoy was to be reduced to the lowest enlisted grade, suffer loss of all pay and allowance, and be confined at hard labor for a period of six months in the U.S. Navy brig at Pearl Harbor, or such other place of confinement as the Commanding General, Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor, T.H., may designate.

  “Another of your innocent lambs, I see, Commander,” Captain Kamnik said.

  “Lovely fellow, obviously,” Grotski said.

  “So what about him?”

  Grotski handed a single sheet of paper to Kamnik.

  OP-29-BC3

  L21-[5]-5

  SERIAL 0002

  REFERENCE: RECORD OF TRIAL, MCCOY, PFC THOMAS MICHAEL, USMC

  1. THE REVIEW REQUIRED BY LAW OF THE TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND SENTENCING OF PFC MCCOY HAS BEEN COMPLETED BY THE UNDERSIGNED.

  2. THE REVIEW REVEALED THAT THE COMPOSITION OF THE GENERAL COURT-MARTIAL WAS NOT IN KEEPING WITH APPLICABLE REGULATIONS AND LAW. (SEE ATTACHMENT 1 HERETO.)

  3. IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED THAT THE FINDINGS AND SENTENCE IN THE AFOREMENTIONED CASE BE, AND THEY HEREBY ARE, SET ASIDE.

  E. J. KING

  ADMIRAL, USN

  “You mean we’re going to have to try this character again?” Captain Kamnik asked. “What about the ‘composition’ of the court-martial?”

  “The law requires that ‘all parties to the trial,’” Grotski said, “be present for all sessions of the court. They weren’t. The trial lasted three days. Three times, one officer or another was called away. The court reporter, apparently a very thorough individual, put it in the record every time somebody left, and when they came back.”

  “I can’t imagine why they would be called away,” Kamnik said, sarcastically. “It’s not as if there’s a war on, or anything important like that.”

  “CINCPAC really doesn’t review these cases himself,” Grotski said. “He gives them to a lawyer on the judge advocate’s staff to review, and he generally goes by his recommendations. Whoever reviewed this saw that members of the board kept wandering in and out.”

  “You’re not telling me we have to go through the whole goddamned trial again?” Kamnik said.

  “No,” Grotski said. “You remember I said the general is pissed at me?”

  “What about?”

  “Well, by the time the case was reviewed, McCoy was already on his way to Portsmouth…here, in other words. So this was sent here for action. And the general called me in and said that somebody had fucked up in Hawaii, and that we were going to have to try Brother McCoy all over again, and would I please see that it was done very quickly and efficiently, and that I was to personally make sure that no member of the board left the room for any purpose while the trial was on.

  “So I said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and read the file. Then I went back to see the general and told him that in my professional judgment, we could not retry Brother McCoy. For two reasons: The first was double jeopardy. He’d already been tried. The government had its shot at him. They should not have gone on with the t
rial with any member of the court missing, but they did. That was not McCoy’s fault. He was there. And I told the general that it was not the responsibility of his defense counsel to object; that he was almost obliged to take advantage of mistakes the prosecution made. And then I told him that even if they sort of swept that under the rug and tried him again here, McCoy was entitled to face his accusers. The Navy would have to bring here from Pearl (or from wherever they are now) the officer he punched out, and the shore patrolman, plus all of McCoy’s buddies who had previously testified that McCoy was just sitting there innocently in the whorehouse when the shore patrol lieutenant came in and viciously attacked him for no reason that they could see.”

  “You mean this sonofabitch is going to get away with punching out an officer? A shore patrol officer?” Captain Kamnik asked incredulously.

  “Think of it this way, Casimir,” Commander Grotski said dryly, “‘it is better that one thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted.’”

  “But the sonofabitch is guilty as hell! Innocent, my ass!”

  “He was entitled to a fair trial, and he didn’t get one,” Grotski said. “I must say the general took this better than you are.”

  “I thought you said he was pissed,” Kamnik said.

  “At me. As the bearer of bad news. He doesn’t seem to be annoyed with Brother McCoy nearly as much. As a matter of fact, he even had a thought about where PFC McCoy can make a contribution to the Marine Corps and the war effort in the future.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m here to ‘counsel’ McCoy,” Grotski said. “You’re welcome to watch, but only if you can keep your mouth shut.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Kamnik said. “You want him brought here?”

  “That would be very nice, Captain Kamnik,” Grotski said. “I appreciate your spirit of cooperation.”

  “Scott!” Captain Kamnik called. The natty corporal stuck his head in the door. “Do you know where to find the sergeant of the guard?”

  “He’s out here, sir. He’s waiting to see you.”

  “Ask him to come in, please.”

  The sergeant of the guard was the meanest-looking sonofabitch Commander Grotski had seen in some time, a bald, stocky staff sergeant of thirty or so, with an acne-pocked face. Grotski searched for the word, and came up with “porcine.” The sergeant of the guard was porcine, piglike, a mean boar pig.

  The sergeant of the guard came to attention before Kamnik’s desk.

  “What’s on your mind, Sergeant?” Kamnik asked.

  “I didn’t know that the captain was busy, sir.”

  “Don’t mind me, Sergeant,” Grotski said amiably.

  The sergeant still hesitated.

  “Go on, Sergeant,” Captain Kamnik said.

  “The captain said he wanted to hear,” the sergeant of the guard reluctantly began, “of an ‘incident.’”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “We had a little trouble with one of the transits, sir,” the sergeant of the guard said.

  “Oh?”

  “He gave one of the guards some lip, sir,” the sergeant of the guard said. “And then he assaulted two guards. The point of it is, sir, before we could restrain him, he busted PFC Tober’s nose.”

  “The situation is now under control?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” the sergeant of the guard said. “But I thought you’d want to hear right away about PFC Tober. I sent him over to the dispensary.”

  “And the transient?”

  “We have him restrained, sir. I was going to ask the captain’s permission to keep him in the box until we can ship him out of here.”

  “The ‘box,’ Sergeant?” Commander Grotski asked, innocently.

  “That’s what we call our ‘solitary detention facility,’” Captain Kamnik explained.

  “Oh, I see,” Grotski said. “And just out of idle curiosity, what’s the name of the prisoner who broke the guard’s nose?”

  The sergeant of the guard looked at Captain Kamnik for permission to reply. Kamnik nodded.

  “McCoy, sir,” the sergeant of the guard said. “He’s a mean sonofabitch, a general prisoner on his way to Portsmouth. He’s gonna do five-to-ten. Assault on an officer and some other stuff.”

  “Curiosity overwhelms me,” Commander Grotski said. “I would like to see this villain.”

  The sergeant of the guard looked distantly uncomfortable. He looked to Captain Kamnik for help and got none.

  “Do you suppose you could bring him here, Sergeant?” Commander Grotski asked.

  “Commander,” the sergeant of the guard said, “you don’t really want to see to this character, do you?”

  “Oh, but I do. Go get him, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant of the guard again looked in vain for Captain Kamnik’s help.

  When he had gone, Commander Grotski asked, “Are you a betting man, Casimir?”

  “Sometimes,” Kamnik said.

  “How about three will get you five that this McCoy will fall down the stairs on his way here?”

  “It happens, Commander,” Kamnik said. “I do my best to stop it, but sometimes it happens.”

  Five minutes later General Prisoner Thomas Michael McCoy was led into the brig commander’s office. He was dressed in dungarees. A ten-inch-high letter “P” had been stenciled to the thighs of his trousers and onto the rear of his jacket. He was in handcuffs, and the handcuffs were chained to a thick leather belt around his waist. His ankles were encircled with heavy iron rings, and the rings were chained together, restricting his movement to a shuffle.

  His hands were swollen, and red with iodine. There was more iodine on his face, on his mouth, and above his eyes. His face was swollen, and in a few hours both of his eyes would be dark.

  They must have been really pissed at him, which was not surprising, since he broke a guard’s nose, Commander Grotski thought. Otherwise the marks of his beating would not be so visible.

  “What happened to your face?” Commander Grotski asked.

  General Prisoner McCoy thought about his reply for a moment before he gave it.

  “I fell down in the shower,” he said.

  “I fell down in the shower, sir,” Grotski corrected him.

  “I fell down in the shower, sir,” McCoy dutifully parroted.

  “That will be all, Sergeant,” Commander Grotski said. “When we need you, we’ll call for you.”

  The sergeant is worried that the moment he’s out of the room, Grotski thought, McCoy will tell us that three, four, maybe five guards got him in the box and had at him with billy clubs, or saps, or whatever they thought would cause the most pain. That’s against the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service.

  “You really fell down in the shower, McCoy?” Grotski asked, when the sergeant of the guard had gone, closing the door after him.

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said, after thinking it over.

  “Tough guy, are you?” Grotski asked.

  McCoy didn’t answer.

  “I asked you a question, McCoy,” Grotski said.

  “I guess I’m as tough as most,” McCoy said, and remembered finally to add, “sir.”

  “You don’t know what tough is, you dumb Mick sonofabitch,” Grotski said. “And you’re the dumbest sonofabitch I’ve seen in a long time. You don’t even know what you’re facing, do you? It hasn’t penetrated that thick Mick head of yours, has it? You’re really so dumb you think you can take on Portsmouth, don’t you?”

  McCoy didn’t reply.

  “That sergeant isn’t even very good at what he did,” Grotski said. “He’s nowhere near good enough to get himself assigned to Portsmouth. At Portsmouth, he would be a rookie. When they beat you at Portsmouth, they got it down to a fine art. No marks. It just hurts. And how long are you going to be in Portsmouth, McCoy?”

  “They gave me five-to-ten, sir,” McCoy said.

  “Let me tell you how it works. The first time you look cockeyed at some
body at Portsmouth, you dumb Mick, they’ll give you a working over that’ll make the one you just had feel like your mother kissed you. And then they’ll add six months on your sentence for ‘silent insolence.’ And every time you look cockeyed at a guard there, you’ll get another working over, and another six months, until one of two things happens. You won’t look cockeyed at anyone, or you will fall down the stairs and break your neck. Then they’ll bury you in the prison cemetery. You don’t really understand that, do you?”

  “I’m going to keep my nose clean, sir,” McCoy said.

  “Bullshit! You’re not smart enough to keep your nose clean,” Grotski said, nastily.

  He let that sink in.

  “You wouldn’t even know what to do, would you, you stupid sonofabitch, if I told you I can get you out of Portsmouth?”

  McCoy looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  Finally, he said, “Sir?”

  “If I was in your shoes, you miserable asshole, and somebody told me he could get me out of Portsmouth, I would get on my knees and ask him what I had to do, and pray to the Blessed Virgin that he would believe me when I said I would do it.”

  McCoy looked at him, his eyes widening.

  And then he dropped to his knees. He tried to raise his hands together before him in an attitude of prayer, but his handcuffed wrists were chained to the leather belt around his waist, and he could move them only slightly above his waist.

  “You tell me what I have to do, sir, and I’ll do it. I swear on my mother’s grave!”

  “And now you pray, you miserable bastard,” Grotski ordered. “And out loud!”

  McCoy looked at him, frightened and confused.

  “What do I pray?”

  “Say your Hail Marys, you pimple on the ass of the Marine Corps,” Grotski ordered icily.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” McCoy began, “the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  Grotski looked at Captain Kamnik, then nodded his head in an order for him to leave the room.