“That involves me? You said something about Diego,” Banning asked.
“The Commandant told me—this was during the eighteen-hour period General Forrest thought he was being retired in disgrace, and there was nobody to deal with but me—that the worst thing you can do to a commander is let him know his superiors question his ability. If necessary, the Commandant is prepared to go to California and apologize to Carlson and assure him of his personal confidence in him. But he hopes that Carlson doesn’t know we sent an officer out there to spy on him, and that an apology won’t be necessary.”
“Apologies being beneath the dignity of the Commandant?” Banning asked, sarcastically. “You don’t suppose he could be worried that President Roosevent will find out about this half-cocked spying operation?”
Rickabee hesitated a moment before he replied. “I’m sure he is,” he said finally. “And the damage to the Corps if that happens is something I don’t even like to think about. If the President found out, the Commandant would have to go. And that would be bad for the Corps, for all the reasons that come quickly to mind.”
Banning grunted.
“But having granted that, Ed, no, I don’t think apologizing would bother the Commandant at all. But making the apology would be an admission that there was doubt in Carlson’s loyalty and ability—doubt high enough within the Corps to have the Commandant personally involved. What the Commandant wants to know is whether Carlson knows, or strongly suspects, what’s been going on. That’s where you come in.”
“How?”
“The forward element of the First Raider Battalion will leave Quantico one April for Diego, and sail for Hawaii as soon as shipping can be found for them. The Second Battalion, Evans Carlson’s, is supposed to complete their training at Camp Elliott on Fifteen April. There will be an inspection of the Second Raider Battalion by officers from Headquarters, USMC. You will be part of that delegation, charged, as an experienced regimental S-Two, with having a look at Carlson’s intelligence section. Not, if I have to say it, as somebody assigned to us. You’ll prepare the usual report, which will make its normal passage through channels. You will also be prepared, immediately on your return, to tell the Commandant personally whether or not you think Carlson suspects anything.”
“Lovely job,” Banning said, dryly.
“Check with McCoy, of course. And there’s somebody else out there you probably should talk to. You remember Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker?”
“Did a hitch with the Fourth? Has the Medal of Honor?”
“He’s a captain, now, in Diego. At Second Joint Training Force headquarters. He works for Colonel Lou Harris, and Harris has had him greasing Carlson’s ways. If approached discreetly, you might ask him if Carlson has smelled a rat.”
“I don’t know if he would talk to me. He’s a starchy sonofabitch.”
“He’s a good Marine,” Rickabee said. “Use your judgment, Ed.”
“I get the picture, sir,” Banning said. “When do I go?”
“Your leave is over two April,” Rickabee said. “I’ve got orders for you. You are assigned to the office of the Inspector General, Headquarters, USMC, on that date, and to the inspection team for the Second Raiders. They will have left Washington one April. You’ve got a rail priority, and Sergeant Gregg—you remember him?”
Banning shook his head. “No.”
“Gregg got you a compartment on the Twentieth-Century Limited to Chicago, and then on whatever they call that train with the observation cars—”
“I know what you mean,” Banning said. “I can’t think of the name.”
“Well, anyway, after you cruise through the Rockies in luxury to Los Angeles, you take a train called the Lark to San Diego. The inspection team will return to Washington by air. You’ll travel with them.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Banning said.
“By the time you get to Washington, have your mind made up,” Rickabee said. “The Commandant has a tough call to make, and he’ll have to make it pretty much on what you decide.”
Banning grunted, and nodded his head thoughtfully.
“I knew the good life was too good to last,” he said.
XVIII
(One)
Company B, 2nd Raider Battalion
Camp Elliott, California
26 March 1942
The men of Baker Company were spread out on both sides of the dirt road—hardly more than a path—in the hills above Camp Elliott when the jeep drove up. The platoon leader and Gunnery Sergeant Esposito were standing up. And a few of the men were sitting up, but most of them were flat on their backs, still breathing heavily. Gunny Esposito had elected to have them pass the last five minutes before the break at double-time. After forty-five minutes of marching at quick time with full field gear, including a basic load of ammo, five minutes of double-time feels like five hours.
The jeep was driven by the company clerk. Unlike the stereotype of most company clerks, Baker Company’s company clerk looked like the fullback he had been on the Marion (Ohio) High School “Tigers” before he had enlisted in the Corps three days after Pearl Harbor. You had to have a “C” average to remain eligible for varsity football, and since Rocky Rockham wasn’t too comfortable with geometry or English, the coach had suggested that if he wanted to play football, he better take something he could do well in, something that would bring his grade average up, like typing.
At Parris Island the personnel clerk had asked Rocky Rockham if he had any skills, like typing. And Rocky told him that he could type pretty good, forty-five words a minute. Naturally the personnel clerk hadn’t believed him, and made him take a test. Rocky Rockham didn’t look like somebody who could type, but he passed the test, and he left Parris Island for the Joint Training Force at Diego as a clerk/typist.
Rocky quickly realized that telling the personnel clerk that he could type had been a mistake. He had joined the Corps to kill Japanese, to pay the buckteethed bastards back for Pearl Harbor and Wake Island, not to sit at a fucking typewriter in a fucking office, filling out fucking requisition forms.
At the reveille formation one day, there had been a call for volunteers to serve in something called the 2nd Separate Battalion. The first sergeant told them the 2nd Separate Battalion was going overseas as soon as they finished their training. So Rocky volunteered. That was what he wanted, getting overseas, and out from behind the typewriter.
“Well, lad,” the first sergeant of Baker Company said, smiling at him the day he reported aboard, “I’m damned glad to see you. You can really type forty-five words a minute?”
A minute after that, not smiling, the first sergeant of Baker Company pointed out to PFC Rockham that he was in the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps didn’t give a flying fuck what he wanted to do. He would do what the Corps told him to do, and if he was smart, he would do it wearing a fucking smile. He was now Baker Company’s company clerk, and that was fucking it.
When Rocky wrote home that he had been made a corporal, he didn’t add that he was the company clerk of Baker Company, 2nd Raider Battalion, USMC; just that he was in the Raiders and hoped to soon be killing Japs.
Rocky stopped the jeep, and walked over to the lieutenant who was taking the march for the Old Man. He saluted and delivered his message.
“Go get him, Gunny,” the lieutenant ordered.
Gunny Esposito turned around.
“McCoy!” he bellowed. “Up here! On the double!”
PFC Thomas M. McCoy, still breathing heavily, still red-faced, pushed himself off the ground and trotted to where Gunny Esposito stood with the lieutenant and Rocky Rockham.
“Throw your gear in the vee-hicle,” Gunny Esposito said, “and go with Corporal Rockham.”
“Where’m I going, Gunny?”
“In the vee-hicle with Corporal Rockham,” Gunny Esposito explained.
When they were bouncing back down the hill, McCoy asked Rockham where he was going.
“Able Company,” Rockham said. “You been
transferred.”
“What the fuck for?”
“Who the fuck knows?” Rockham asked rhetorically. “First sergeant give me your service record, told me to collect you and your gear and take you over to Able Company.”
PFC McCoy naturally concluded that Zimmerman, that fat, mean cocksucker, was responsible. He had seen Zimmerman three, four times since the night Zimmerman had taken him from the Slop Chute and worked him over. And it was always the same thing. Zimmerman would motion for him to come over to wherever he was standing.
“I hear you been keeping your mouth shut and your nose clean,” Zimmerman had said. “Maybe you aren’t as dumb as you look, brig bunny.”
When Rockham dropped him off at the Able Company orderly room, with his sea bag, his records, and all his gear, McCoy put the bag and his field gear by the side of the door, and then he complied with the order painted on the door to “KNOCK, REMOVE HEADGEAR, WAIT FOR PERMISSION TO ENTER.”
“Come!” a voice called.
McCoy stepped inside.
“You’re McCoy,” the company clerk announced. The company clerk was a little fucker with glasses.
“I was told to report here,” McCoy said.
The first sergeant looked up from his desk. He was a mean-looking sonofabitch, a tall, skinny Texan.
“You got your gear, I hope?” the first sergeant asked. When McCoy nodded, he motioned to McCoy to hand him his service record.
He opened the envelope, took out all the records it contained, and picked out the service record itself, leaving the clothing forms and the shot records and all the other documents on the table. Then he stood up and walked through a door under a sign reading “MERWYN C. PLUMLEY, 1ST LT, USMC, COMMANDING,” carrying the service record with him.
He was inside maybe two minutes before he opened the door and stuck his head out.
“McCoy, report to the commanding officer.”
McCoy walked to the open door and followed the protocol. He rapped twice on the doorjamb with his knuckles, waited until he was told to come in, and then he marched in. He stopped eighteen inches from Lieutenant Plumley’s desk, coming to attention; and then, looking six inches over the officer’s head, he barked, “Sir, PFC McCoy reporting to the company commander as ordered, sir.”
“Stand at ease, McCoy,” Lieutenant Plumley said. McCoy spread his feet and put his hands in the small of his back. Now he could look at Lieutenant Plumley. When he did, he saw that Plumley was examining him very carefully.
“Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman has been talking to me and to First Sergeant Lowery about you, McCoy,” Lieutenant Plumley said.
Well, that fucking figures!
“When the lieutenant talks to you, McCoy, you say ‘Yes, sir,’” First Sergeant Lowery snapped.
“Sorry, sir,” PFC McCoy said.
“Tell me, McCoy,” Lieutenant Plumley said, “why you did so badly with the BAR in Baker Company?”
What the fuck is that all about?
“Sir, I qualified with the BAR,” McCoy said.
“Marksman,” Lieutenant Plumley said. “Only Marksman.”
Record firing scores qualified a marine as Marksman, Sharpshooter, or Expert. Marksman was the lowest qualifying score, and extra pay was given those qualifying as Expert.
“Sir,” McCoy blurted, “the BAR I had was a piece of shit, one of them worn-out ones we got from the Army.”
“And you think you could do better if you had a better weapon?”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“So does Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman,” Lieutenant Plumley said.
“He’s sure big enough,” First Sergeant Lowery said. There was a faint hint of approval in his voice. McCoy looked at him in surprise.
“Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, as you know, McCoy,” Lieutenant Plumley said, “has been temporarily assigned other duties. But when we deploy, he will come back to the company. He is naturally interested in what he will find here when he comes back.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“We’re short a couple of squad leaders,” Lieutenant Plumley said. “And when the first sergeant and I discussed this with Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, he recommended that you be transferred from Baker Company and be given one of those billets.”
“Sir?” McCoy was now completely baffled. He was sure he hadn’t heard right.
“Gunny Zimmerman has recommended that you be given one of the squad-leader billets. It carries with it a promotion to corporal,” Lieutenant Plumley said. “That’s why I was curious when I saw that you’d only made Marksman when you fired for record.”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
“If the first sergeant could arrange for you to requalify, with a weapon in first-class condition, do you think you could do better than Marksman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, we’ll do it this way. We will assign you temporarily as a BAR fire-team leader,” Lieutenant Plumley said. “Sergeant Lowery will arrange for you to requalify. If you make Sharpshooter—I would hope Expert—I’ll give you your corporal’s stripes. Fair enough?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have anything else, First Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“Then that will be all for now, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Plumley said. “I would like a word with McCoy alone.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” First Sergeant Lowery said, and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.
Plumley looked at McCoy.
“There’s something about me I think I should tell you, McCoy,” he said. “I don’t listen to scuttlebutt. I don’t like scuttlebutt.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If someone comes to me with a clean service record, so far as I am concerned, he has a clean record. So far as I am concerned, you have reported aboard with a clean record. Do you take my point?”
“Yes, sir,” McCoy said.
Lieutenant Plumley smiled and reached across the desk with his hand extended.
“Welcome aboard, McCoy,” he said. “You come recommended by Gunny Zimmerman, and therefore I expect good things of you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re dismissed, McCoy,” Lieutenant Plumley said.
McCoy came to attention, did an about-face, and marched out of the office.
First Sergeant Lowery was waiting for him in the outer office.
“Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll bunk,” he said. Outside the orderly room, he picked up McCoy’s field gear and carried it for him.
Halfway to the barrack, he laid a hand on McCoy’s arm.
“I understand you’re pretty good with your fists, McCoy.”
“I guess I’m all right,” McCoy said.
“You use your fists in Able Company, McCoy, and I’ll work you over myself. And compared to me, what Zimmerman did to you will be like being brushed with a feather duster.”
McCoy looked at him.
“You understand me?” First Sergeant Lowery asked.
“Yeah, I understand you.”
First Sergeant Lowery smiled, and patted McCoy, a very friendly pat, on the shoulder.
“Good,” First Sergeant Lowery said. “Good.”
(Three)
The New York Public Library
1415 Hours, 26 March 1942
Carolyn Spencer Howell had expected Major Edward Banning to join her for lunch. But when he hadn’t been there, and after she had finally given up on him and gone to eat, she knew she had to come to terms with the reality of what had happened.
The conclusion she drew was that she had made a grand and glorious ass of herself. That, for reasons probably involving the moon, but certainly including the fact that she was a healthy female with normal needs, as well as the fact that Ed Banning was a good-looking healthy male, she had played the bitch in heat. And she’d done everything a bitch in heat does but back up to the male, rub her behind against him, and look over her shoulder to see what was keeping him from doing what she wanted
done.
She had even performed the human version of that. Before they kissed in the elevator, she had with conscious and lascivious aforethought pressed her breasts against him.
All this morning Carolyn relived with surprise and embarrassment her shamelessly lewd behavior with him in her apartment. The reason she thought of nothing else all morning was that until the reality dawned on her, she had wondered how she would behave when he returned from Brooklyn.
The last thing he said to her when she left him at the subway entrance was that he would go change his uniform and come back. He even kissed her. Rather distantly, she thought even at the time, but a kiss was a kiss. Once she reached the library, there had been time to consider what she had done: She had allowed one of the patrons to buy her a drink, following which she had taken him directly to bed.
Her worrying started when she began to imagine how she was going to be able to look him in the eye when he came back from Brooklyn. But after he hadn’t returned by eleven (when she thought she would take him into the staff lounge, which you could do for a “friend,” and give him a cup of coffee and maybe a Danish), she began to worry, to give her imagination free rein.
By noon, one theory of the several that had occurred to her seemed to stand the test of critical examination. The point of this one was that he was not entirely a sonofabitch. He had at least been decent enough to tell her he was married. And she was now convinced that he was indeed a Marine officer.
Yet he had been very vague about what exactly he did as a Marine officer, and where he did it. And in fact, now that she had time to think about it, it no longer seemed entirely credible that he was in New York on leave simply because his family was gone and he had no place else to go, and New York seemed as good a place as any to take a holiday.
If he was so bored with his leave, why was he on leave?
And viewed with the cold and dispassionate attitude that she believed she had reached by one o’clock—when it was apparent that he was not going to come—his melodramatic story of the White Russian wife left on the pier in Shanghai clearly served two purposes. First, it told her he was married, so don’t get any ideas. And second, it clearly infected the heart of the librarian with terminal nymphomania and inspired her to perform sexual feats right out of the Kama Sutra. He had probably enormously embellished the original tale as soon as he had realized how much of it she was so gullibly willing to swallow.
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