In Danger's Path

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Just as soon as I can find a minute, I’ll bring you up to speed on this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I really appreciate your coming here on a Saturday afternoon. Pedro got you a drink, at least?”

  “Yes, sir,” Williamson said, holding it up.

  “And as far as you’re concerned, Jim,” Admiral Sayre said, “unless you’re really in love with listening to a battleship admiral insist that the sole function of aviation is to serve as the eyes of the fleet, you’d better get out of here right now.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “We’ll make it up to you when you come here,” Admiral Sayre said. “Finish your drink, of course.”

  “Thank you very much for your hospitality, sir,” Weston said.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Wait until I get my purse, Jim,” Martha said. “I’m going with you.”

  “What?” her father asked, surprised.

  “Daddy, I already know that the sole function of aviation is to serve as the eyes of the fleet. I really don’t want to hear it again.”

  “Well, you’re imposing on Jim, don’t you think? He may have other things on his mind.”

  “Am I, Jim?” Martha asked, meeting his eyes. “Or can you put up with me for a couple of hours.”

  “I’d welcome the company,” Weston said.

  “You see, Daddy?” Martha said, and walked off the patio.

  Admiral Sayre waited until she was out of earshot.

  “I don’t know how tough it will be for you, but I think Martha needs to talk over what happened to Greg with you. She knows how close you and Greg were.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you have the time, Jim,” Mrs. Sayre said, “I’d appreciate it if…what? Take her to dinner or something. She needs to get out of the house, be with someone her own age.”

  “I’d be happy to, if she’d want to go.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” the Admiral announced, and, trailed by his aide and his wife, marched off his patio.

  “Weston,” Major Williamson waved Colonel Dawkins’s letter in his hand, “do you think this is what the Admiral wishes to discuss with me about you?”

  “Yes, sir, I think that’s probably it.”

  “Very interesting. Good afternoon, Captain Weston.”

  Jim was left alone on the patio. Martha returned several minutes later, finished her drink, and then took his arm and led him back through the house to the driveway.

  He was very conscious of the pressure of her breasts against his arm.

  From this point on, black coffee, no booze, and absolutely no physical contact.

  “I like your car,” she said. “Does the roof go down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put it down, then.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  [THREE]

  Zeke’s Shrimp & Oyster House

  Alabama Point, Alabama

  1815 6 March 1943

  The restaurant hadn’t changed much from the last time Weston had been here.

  And that, he was acutely aware, had been in the company of Second Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC (USNA ’38); his fiancée, Miss Martha Sayre; and a tall redhead named…what the hell was her name?

  It was a rickety building on a pier just inside the inlet to the Gulf of Mexico. Shrimp boats were tied up to the pier. The tables were rough planking picnic tables, and waitresses carried plates to them stacked high with steaming shrimp. You made your own sauce in paper cups from bowls of ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire, and Tabasco, peeled and ate the shrimp with your fingers, and wiped your hands on paper towels. Rolls of towels sat among the bowls of ketchup and other condiments.

  There was a jukebox and a piano, and a small plywood dance floor. The patrons were almost entirely young Navy and Marine pilots, and a scattering of aviation cadets who got off-base passes on weekends during the last month of their training. Some of their girls were almost as good-looking as Martha.

  “The last time I was here, I was with you and Greg,” Jim said.

  “I remember,” she said.

  They found places at a picnic table occupied by two Marine lieutenants—both aviators—and their girls. When the waitress appeared, she asked, “Shrimp and a pitcher of beer?” in a tone suggesting she would be surprised by a “no.”

  “I’d really like a cup of coffee,” Jim said.

  “I’ll have a scotch,” Martha said. “And the shrimp, and the beer.”

  When she saw the look he gave her, she smiled and said, “Why, Captain Weston. I seem to recall that it was from you I learned ‘you can’t fly on one wing.’”

  “I didn’t say a word,” he said.

  “You wanted to,” she said, then turned to the Marines and their girls. “Captain Weston is just back from the Pacific. The first thing he did when he got off the plane was to call me—we’re very dear friends—to report that contrary to published reports, he was not only alive but back and on his way to see me.”

  “Welcome home, sir,” one of the lieutenants said.

  “You were reported KIA, sir?”

  “It was a mistake,” Weston said.

  “Christ, that must have been tough on your family.”

  “As well as his very dear friends,” Martha said.

  “If I’m out of line asking this, shut me up, but what did they do, sir, when they found out they made a mistake? Apologize? What?”

  “You must have been in the Corps long enough to know that the Corps never makes a mistake, haven’t you?” Weston said.

  There was the expected dutiful laughter.

  “But I am so glad to see you that I forgive you,” Martha said, and kissed him. Not on the mouth, but on his forehead. When she pulled his head down, he found his face against her breasts.

  Oh, Jesus Christ! Just as soon as we eat the shrimp, and she drinks as little of the beer as I can arrange, I’m getting her out of here. We’ll ride around with the roof down. Maybe that will sober her up.

  Only a three-star no-good sonofabitch with bells would take advantage of a girl like Martha when she was in her cups. And the reason she’s drinking is that she’s a widow, your best friend’s widow.

  “Here,” one of the lieutenants said, handing Martha a paper cup full of beer. “Until your pitcher gets here.”

  “Thank you very much,” Martha said. “And yes, I would.”

  “Yes, you would what?”

  “Like to dance. My very dear friend here is a lousy dancer.”

  “I’m a good dancer,” he blurted.

  “Okay, then you dance with me,” she said, and stood up and held arms out to him.

  The last thing in the world I want to do is put my arms around her.

  He stood up, and she gave him her hand and led him to the dance floor. He carefully avoided any body contact beyond the absolutely necessary.

  “I get the feeling, very dear friend, from your rigid body and the worried look on your face, that you think I am misbehaving.”

  “I think you’ve had a little too much to drink,” Jim said. “So have I.”

  “In which case, I will ease up,” she said. “The last thing I want to do is embarrass you.”

  “I didn’t say you were embarrassing me.”

  “You didn’t have to. I know what you’re thinking. I could always tell.”

  Christ, I hope not.

  He saw over her shoulder that the waitress had delivered their shrimp and drinks—two scotches, no coffee—and a pitcher of beer.

  “We have our shrimp,” he said.

  “Damn,” she said, but she turned out of his arms, and, hanging on to his hand, led them back to the table.

  He was surprised—and greatly relieved—that she didn’t touch the scotch, and drank only a little of the beer from the pitcher. He was also surprised that they were able to eat all of the steaming pile of boiled shrimp. And then he remembered he hadn’t had any lunch.

  Which is w
hy I felt the booze, and allowed myself to forget that a decent human being doesn’t look up the dress of a friend, who incidentally happens to be the widow of my best friend.

  Or completely forgets Janice!

  Jesus, what about Janice? What the hell would I have done about Janice if something had happened?

  “I hate to rain on this parade,” Martha announced, as she daintily wiped her fingers and mouth with a paper towel. “But I have had a very busy day, and tomorrow is going to be busier. And if we’re going to have a nightcap at the San Carlos, we’re going to have to leave this charming company now.”

  “We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos,” Weston said.

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Martha said, as she rose to her feet.

  The men shook hands, and one of the lieutenants repeated, “Welcome home, sir.”

  In the car, Weston repeated, “We could pass on the nightcap at the San Carlos’s bar.”

  “There’s something I want to show you there,” she said. “And didn’t you notice that I was a good girl and didn’t even touch my scotch? I’m entitled to a nightcap.”

  It was too cold now to have the roof of the Buick convertible down, or even to have the windows open. In a matter of minutes, as they headed down the two-lane macadam road back to Pensacola, Martha’s perfume overwhelmed the smell of the red leather seats.

  [FOUR]

  The Cocktail Lounge

  The San Carlos Hotel

  2030 6 March 1943

  The bar was crowded with Navy and Marine Aviators and their women, but it was captains and majors, an older, more senior crowd, than the aviation cadets and lieutenants in Zeke’s.

  After a minute their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and Jim Weston saw an empty banquette. He took Martha’s arm and led her to it.

  “You forgot, huh?” Martha asked, as she slid onto the seat.

  “Forgot what?”

  “That you weren’t going to touch me.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Martha!”

  “Your intentions, I know, are very honorable,” she said.

  A waitress took their order. Martha ordered a scotch, and after a moment’s hesitation, Weston said to make it two.

  “You said you wanted to show me something?”

  “I do. But first, something’s been bothering me.”

  “What?”

  “How come you were reported KIA?”

  “How did you hear that I was?”

  “Daddy told me you had been reported KIA on Luzon on April 3, 1942. He’d seen some kind of a report.”

  “You’re sure of the date?”

  “I’m sure of the date. It was another of the red-letter days in my life.”

  “That figures, then,” Weston said, as much to himself as to Martha.

  “What figures?”

  “On April first, I deserted,” he said. “I remember the date clearly, because it was April Fools’ Day, and that seemed somehow appropriate.”

  “You deserted?”

  He nodded. “I deserted. Probably in the face of the enemy. I didn’t mention that while reciting my inspiring tale of heroism to your mother.”

  “I don’t understand, Jim.”

  The waitress delivered the drinks before he could reply.

  He raised his to Martha.

  “Thank you for a very interesting afternoon,” he said.

  “Interesting?” she asked.

  “How about delightful?”

  “You don’t mean that either,” Martha said, taking a sip of her drink.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I told you, I can always tell what you’re thinking. Mostly you’ve been uncomfortable.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “We’re back to ‘I can read your mind’,” she said. “Finish the story.”

  “Okay. I was on Corregidor. That’s the fortress in Manila Bay….”

  “I know.”

  “Luzon was about to fall. Corregidor was going to fall. I decided I didn’t want to become a prisoner. I had some idea I could get out of the Philippines and make myself useful as a pilot. So I just took off. Deserted.”

  “Just like that? You just walked away?”

  “No. It was a little more complicated. I worked for a major named Paulsen. He knew what I was thinking. So he sent me—and Sergeant Everly—to Luzon, ostensibly looking for generator parts. But he knew we wouldn’t be coming back. We didn’t. We used the money we were supposed to buy generator parts with to buy a boat, and headed for Mindanao.”

  “It didn’t bother you that whoever needed the parts wasn’t going to get them?”

  “There were no parts to be bought, and Paulsen knew that when he gave me the money to buy them. But there’s an interesting question. What if I had stumbled on some parts? Would I have gone back to the Rock?”

  “Would you have?”

  “I don’t know. Moot point. There were no parts. I went to Mindanao.”

  “Which constituted desertion.”

  “Right. Major Paulsen stayed, of course, knowing he was either going to get killed when the Japs took Corregidor, or become a prisoner. As a good Marine officer, he couldn’t bring himself to desert. But without actually coming out and saying I should, he helped me to desert. Interesting question of morality.”

  “In other words, he was like Greg, and you were like…you?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “For Greg, everything was black or white. You’re smarter. You understand that everything is really one shade or another of gray.”

  That sounded like a shot at Greg. Did she mean that, or is that the booze talking?

  “Yeah, I suppose so. I can now rationalize, of course, that I was of more value as a guerrilla on Mindanao than I would have been as a prisoner, and now I’m going back to flying. But every once in a while I look myself in the mirror, and there’s the guy who deserted his post in the face of the enemy. Another interesting question of morality.”

  “What’s this got to do with you being reported KIA?”

  “I think Paulsen must have reported me KIA, two days after I didn’t come back.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a couple of possibilities. He had to say something when I didn’t come back. Desertion was becoming a real problem. We got lectures about our duty as Marine officers: ‘Marine officers don’t desert; Marine officers man their posts until properly relieved.’”

  “Which you decided didn’t apply to you?”

  “Sticking around waiting to get killed or become a prisoner when there were other options didn’t make much sense to me,” Weston said.

  “In other words, sometimes what people expect you to do—the conventional morality—doesn’t make any sense?” Martha asked, and added: “I’ve come to the same conclusion myself.”

  Now, what the hell does she mean by that?

  “So, what I think happened was that Paulsen reported me KIA,” he said. “He had to report something. If he reported me AWOL, they would have put my name on the list of probable deserters, and the MPs would have been looking for me.”

  “So you did what you thought was the right thing for you to do, right? And to hell with what other people thought you should do?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could put it that way,” he said.

  “I’m really glad you did, Jimmy,” she said, grasping his hand. “You’re here. You’re alive.”

  He exhaled audibly.

  Martha drained her drink and stood up. “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” she said. “Order me another drink?”

  “Don’t you think we’d better call it a night?”

  She looked at her watch.

  “It is getting late,” she said. “Pay the bill. Meet me in the corridor.”

  He nodded, watched her walk out of the cocktail lounge, and looked around for their waitress.

  He was waiting for her in the corridor, beside the elevator, when she came out of the ladies’ room.
/>   She walked past him to the elevator.

  “Good. It’s here,” she said. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I told you I had something to show you. I don’t want to show it to you in the corridor.”

  He stepped onto the elevator. She pushed the DOOR CLOSE and STOP buttons.

  “Somebody’s going to want to use the elevator,” he said.

  “This won’t take long,” Martha said. She reached for his hand and put something in it, then leaned against the wall of the elevator, smiling at him.

  He looked down at his hand. At first he thought the small, foil-wrapped package was a piece of candy. Then he recognized it for what it was really was. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

  “I think you know what it’s for,” she said.

  “Martha, that wouldn’t make any sense at all.”

  “Don’t be a hypocrite, Jimmy,” she said. “You want to as much as I do. You’ve been looking up my dress all afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry you saw that,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  He looked at her.

  “I’m not going to beg you, you sonofabitch!” she said.

  She turned from him to the row of elevator buttons.

  “Which one do I push?” she said. “Your call.”

  He didn’t reply until she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He saw tears forming in her eyes.

  “Six,” he said.

  She pushed the button, the elevator started to move, and then she was in his arms.

  “That’s the second time I bought one of those things from the machine in the ladies’ room,” Martha said.

  They were lying in bed, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Consumed with guilt, are we?” Martha said, and then went on. “I always wondered why they had a condom machine in the ladies’ room. To protect the ladies? Or the men?”

  “Jesus, Martha!”

  “The first time I bought one, he was willing, but when I went to his room, I wasn’t. Actually, it was the penthouse, here in the San Carlos. He was a very rich, and very nice, really, young Marine Aviator, and he told me he was in love with me. Maybe if he hadn’t said that, I would have gone through with it. Anyway, I didn’t. You’re the first man since Greg, if you’ve been wondering. And since he was the first, you’re number two.”