The Callahans: The Complete Series

by Gordon Ryan

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the captain replied.

  Colonel Catlin hesitated another moment, thinking of a way to make Tommy’s participation somewhat easier. “Captain, make that nine, and see to it that Sergeant Holloman is invited to join our group.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” he replied again, glancing briefly at the other captain before departing, a raised eyebrow reflecting his chagrin.

  All through this exchange, Tommy had stood at attention, aware that his uncle had broken protocol in asking that a junior enlisted man join the senior party in the Officers’ Mess. He was caught, however, in an awkward position. It was not his to object or to offer unsolicited advice. Had he been asked, Tommy would have politely suggested to his uncle that they meet somewhere on the grounds following his luncheon with the Colonel and Congressman Denby.

  In the Officer’s Mess, seated next to his uncle, Tommy slid his chair back and stood to attention when Staff Sergeant Holloman entered the small dining area.

  “Ah, Sergeant Holloman,” Colonel Catlin said. “Thank you for coming. “Let me introduce you to Congressman and Mrs. Denby, Congressman and Mrs. Hansen, and of course, you already know Captains Ericksen and Palmer.”

  Holloman nodded acknowledgment to each of the congressional parties and the two captains.

  “And of course you already know Private Callahan,” Colonel Catlin concluded.

  “Yes, sir,” Holloman answered.

  “Fine, then. Take a seat here, Sergeant, next to me. Private Callahan, resume your seat.”

  “Thank you, sir” Holloman replied, taking his seat. His eyes locked momentarily with Tommy and Tommy tried to facially explain his own ignorance of how this unusual event came to be. Holloman’s brief wink almost caused Tommy to drop the napkin he was unfolding in his lap, but it put him at ease temporarily.

  “We are honored, gentlemen,” Colonel Catlin said to the two congressmen, “to have such distinguished guests at our first commencement. As I said earlier, there are nine companies in training at the moment—nearly two thousand young men desperately waiting for graduation day to rescue them from Sergeant Holloman’s peers, who are equally tenacious in their training regimen. Tell us, Private Callahan, did you find the training program rigorous?”

  Tommy was completely surprised to be addressed by the Colonel. He had assumed, perhaps wished, he would be allowed to eat his lunch quietly and depart without attracting any notice in the gathering. He looked directly at Sergeant Holloman who offered a hint of a smile.

  “Sir, I believe the training provided was appropriate for our conditioning.”

  “Come now, Private,” Catlin laughed. “Surely there was more discussion of the training than that. Why do you think the non-comms were so forceful in seeing to it you and the others finished the course? After all, it was the first such training program the Corps has developed so thoroughly.”

  This time, Tommy noticed a slight nod from Sergeant Holloman, an encouragement perhaps to speak his mind—within limits, of course, Tommy instinctively understood.

  “Sir, Private Borello, Guidon of the Third Platoon, and I did discuss the training on several occasions. It is our belief, sir, that Sergeant Holloman and the other drill instructors had but one motive. They wanted us to learn all we could about combat, discipline, and the chain of command so that should we, uh ... when we become engaged in this conflict, we would all be able to come home, sir. They wanted us all to survive.”

  The group sat silent for a moment, the two captains nodding slightly at Tommy’s answer. Sergeant Holloman held Tommy’s eyes, silently expressing his approval of the young man’s response.

  “Well said, Private Callahan. If you’re not careful, Congressman Hansen, you may find another Utahn taking aim at your congressional seat some day,” he laughed, as did Anders Hansen and the others around the table.

  “Do you think your fellows in 42nd Company share your understanding, Private?”

  Again, Tommy thought for a moment. “Sir, I can’t speak to their collective understanding of course, but there was one young man in my squad who perhaps understood better than I, what has happened to us here. If I can recall his words, he wrote home to his parents, if I may paraphrase: The first day I was at camp, I was afraid I was going to die. The next two weeks my sole fear was that I wasn’t going to die. And after that, I knew I’d never die, because I’d become so hard that nothing could kill me.”

  “I see,” Colonel Catlin said. “So the confidence level of these young men has been raised.

  “That, sir, and their trust in their leaders.”

  “There you have it, gentlemen. The voice of one of our newest Marines. Captains Ericksen and Palmer, you should not soon forget what this young private has said. If your men trust in you, then you will be victorious. But you must earn that trust, as quite obviously, Sergeant Holloman and his drill instructors have done.” Catlin stood and reached for his glass. “Ladies, and gentlemen, I give you a toast to the Corps and ...” he said, raising his glass to Tommy who was now also on his feet, “ ... to the thousands of new privates who will carry its banner. To the Corps, and to the Fifth Marines, now on French soil,” he said, raising his glass to his lips.

  “To the Corps,” the assembled guests replied. Holloman winked again at young Tommy Callahan as the party resumed their seats.

  After lunch, Anders, Sarah, and Tommy strolled a short distance around the training grounds, exchanging news of home and talking of everything except the growing conflict in Europe. Finally, Anders looked at his pocket watch and shook his head.

  “Look at the time. I’m sorry, Tommy. Your Aunt Sarah and I have to catch the four o’clock train back to Washington. It’s been splendid seeing you again, son. You’re looking mighty fit,” he smiled.

  “Thank you both for coming,” he said, reaching to hug Aunt Sarah, whose tears were just beginning to form.

  “What’s next for you?” Anders asked.

  “I’m not sure, Uncle Anders. Scuttlebutt has it that most of the company will be sent over to France as replacements for the Fifth Marines. Frank and I are hoping for that.”

  Anders nodded. “Well, Private Callahan,” he grinned, “whatever comes your way, I’m certain you’ll do your best. Aunt Sarah and I will be in Utah for Christmas, and we’ll see your parents. Would you like me to deliver a message?” he asked, placing his hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

  Tommy pursed his lips. “No, Uncle Andy. I think you know the trouble I have communicating with my father. Thanks, but I’ll just write to Mom and Tess.”

  “It, uh ... well, it may be some time before you see your father again, Tommy,” Anders said.

  “Aye.”

  Anders smiled. “Perhaps neither of you realizes how very much alike you are.”

  “Maybe so, Uncle Andy. But the part of him he sees in me, he doesn’t seem to like very much.”

  “I know it seems that way, Tommy, but I’ve spoken to him on a different level. He very much loves you.”

  “I suppose there are many kinds of love, Uncle Andy. I would have liked for ours to be different than it is.”

  “Give it time, son. Just give it time.”

  Tommy thought for a moment, then held his hand out to shake Anders’. “I hope we have enough time, Uncle Andy. But if I don’t ...” he hesitated, looking down at the ground.

  “Yes, Tommy?”

  Private Thomas M. Callahan looked up at his uncle and then smiled at his aunt, before looking back toward Anders. “If I don’t ... have the time, I mean, please tell my father that I am sincerely sorry that I disappointed him, and that ... and that I love him.”

  Anders wrapped his one arm around Tommy and hugged him for a silent moment. Tommy struggled to keep the tears from flowing as he pulled away and turned to give his aunt a kiss.

  “God be with you, Tommy,” Aunt Sarah said, hugging him closer.

  Tears standing in his eyes, Tommy stood back and smiled at both of them. “Have a safe trip home,” he said. “And thank
s again for coming,” he added, before turning and quickly walking away across the parade ground, joining the other Marines heading back to the Company training area, their liberty expiring at seventeen hundred hours.

  As the train pulled out of the station and headed north, Sarah snuggled up to Anders. “He’s become a fine young man,” she said.

  “Yah, that he has. But he does come from good Norwegian stock,” Anders smiled.

  “And his Irish side?” she smiled.

  “Well, he’ll have to overcome that,” Anders laughed.

  “Anders,” she laughed, “what a thing to say about your brother-in-law.”

  They rode in silence for the next several minutes, looking out the window at the fading daylight and long shadows that were enveloping the passing countryside.

  “Anders, have you ever figured out why the Lord did not see fit to bless us with children?”

  When Anders did not answer for some moments, Sarah linked her arm in his and lay her head on his shoulder, riding that way for several minutes until she could tell that he had fallen into a light sleep. She looked up at his handsome face, somewhat sagging as his chin bobbed gently against his chest.

  She thought of the long, childless years she had borne, and of the hundreds of mothers who had given birth to the hundreds of young men they had just seen graduate—other women’s children, who were now going to war. She wondered what it might be like for those mothers—sending their precious sons away into an uncertain future. The pain of being childless was momentarily assuaged by the relief that one of hers would not be in harm’s way. Then she thought again of Tommy.

  “As thou would, Lord,” she silently prayed. “As thou would.”

  After evening mess call, Frank and Tommy walked back toward their platoon area, twenty minutes ahead of the time when Frank had advised Tommy they had an appointment with Sergeant Holloman.

  “And he didn’t say what he wanted?”

  “No,” Frank replied. “In fact he didn’t deliver the message himself. Sergeant Ryker told me that Sergeant Holloman wanted to see us.”

  “Well, that was before I was invited ... or ordered, to have lunch with Colonel Catlin. So it can’t be about that.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough. There he is now, going in the command tent.”

  Tommy and Frank entered their sleeping tent and quickly brushed their shoes, adding a bit of polish and checking each other’s uniform for “ropes,” as Marines called the tiny slivers of thread that often came loose from seams or buttons.

  “I suppose he can’t bust us back now,” Tommy laughed. “And sending us to France is what we want, so there’s nothing to be worried about, right?”

  “Just stand tall, Private Callahan,” Frank said formally. “We’ll find out shortly.”

  The two new Marines approached the command tent, and Frank wrapped three sharp knocks on the wooden post set in the ground outside the tent flap. As he finished his knock, he called out. “Sir, Private Borello and Private Callahan reporting to the Senior Drill Instructor as ordered, sir.”

  “Enter,” boomed a voice from within.

  The two ducked under the tent flap, quickly standing tall and approaching the desk, coming to a stop exactly eighteen inches from the front of the desk. Their eyes were focused well above Sergeant Holloman who sat behind the desk. They concentrated instead on a small placard mounted on the pole behind the sergeant, which read, “Eyes Here.”

  Holloman stood up behind the desk, his face now on their level. “Stand at ease,” he commanded.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” they both replied, coming to a modified “Parade Rest,” but retaining their formality.

  “As you know, at twenty hundred hours, the Company will assemble in the main training area to receive orders. Most, as the scuttlebutt has indicated, will embark immediately for detachment to the Fifth Marines in France. Most, except you, Private Borello and you, Private Callahan. And a few others from the other platoons in the Company.

  Frank and Tommy maintained a straight face, masking their surprise and disappointment at the news.

  “No comment?” Holloman asked.

  Frank and Tommy remained silent.

  “Speak your minds, Privates.”

  “Sir,” Tommy commenced.

  “Private Callahan, you are now an accepted member of the Corps. Officers are referred to as ‘Sir.’ Noncommissioned officers are referred to as corporal or sergeant. Your training phase is over.

  “Yes, sir ... er, yes, Sergeant. Sergeant Holloman,” Tommy continued, “may the Private ask the reason for his omission from the Company movement?”

  “I need you, son.”

  “Sir?” Tommy replied.

  Holloman smiled at both men—a facial expression they had not witnessed or thought possible in Holloman during their eleven weeks of training.

  “Borello—Callahan—have a seat, both of you,” he said, gesturing to a couple of orange crates stacked against the side of the tent wall.

  “You go by Frank and Tommy, is that right?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Frank replied.

  “Well, then I repeat, Frank. I need you two. You’ve both performed well during recruit training, and the Corps has been stripped of many of our experienced non-comms to go with the Fifth Marines to France. Before long, we will have thousands more recruits here at Parris Island. We’ve got to be able to train these men. I’ve conferred with the other drill instructors, and they have selected eight men from the company whom we feel can aid us in the job. For every one new private, we can place that additional non-comm with another new platoon. Each platoon needs three drill instructors, and each of you will be the third man on those training teams.”

  “Sergeant, we had hoped—” Frank started.

  “We had all hoped, son. This job is every bit as important as assignment to the Fifth Marines. Those are your orders. Get used to it. Tomorrow, you’ll move your equipment into the instructors’ barracks. Oh, and to make the job a little easier, a stripe goes with the assignment. So, Private First Class Borello, and Private First Class Callahan, report to the Barracks NCO at oh nine hundred, sharp.”

  Both men stood, understanding they had been dismissed.

  “Aye, aye, Sergeant,” Tommy responded.

  They performed an about-face and commenced to leave the tent.

  “PFC Callahan,” Holloman called out. “Hold one.”

  Frank exited the tent and Tommy turned back around and came to attention.

  “At ease, Tommy,” Holloman said, coming to stand in front of him. “I know how uncomfortable it was at lunch this morning, but rest assured, PFC Callahan, Colonel Catlin was most impressed with your comments. And one more thing, lest you let your mind run away with you. Congressman Hansen had nothing to do with your new assignment. In fact, Colonel Catlin made sure he didn’t know of the orders.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Tommy said.

  “Give me two training cycles, Private, with your best effort, and I’ll see what I can do to arrange a transfer. Two cycles—until February.”

  “Aye, aye, Sergeant.” Tommy came to attention and stood in place for a moment, waiting to be dismissed.

  “That will be all, PFC Callahan.”

  “Aye, aye, Sergeant. And Sergeant,” he added. “I meant everything I said to Colonel Catlin. I will never forget the things you taught me and the purpose behind your methods.”

  Holloman was taken aback for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. “EWE? Do I look like a sheep, Private?”

  “No, Sergeant,” Tommy replied straight-faced. “You look like a Marine.”

  “Dismissed, Private,” Holloman said, a small smile creasing his leathery face.

  “Aye, aye, Sergeant,” Tommy smiled, completed an about-face, and departed the tent.

  In the platoon tent, Frank was gathering his gear and beginning to pack it in his sea-bag. Tommy entered and smiled at Frank.

  “So, France will have to wait awhile, eh?” Frank said.r />
  “To tell you the truth, Frank, the closer it gets, the more I wonder why we’ve been so anxious to go to war.”

  “Because it’s there, Tommy. And because we’re Marines.”

  “Aye. We’re Marines all right. And now we’re going to do what we can to transform another bunch of ... what was it Sergeant Ryker always called us, ‘worthless, mush-for-brains, gutter dwellers,’ into Marines.”

  “Semper Fi, Tommy.”

  “Semper Fi, Frank,” Tommy replied and they both started laughing.

  The sheep station wasn’t large by sheep station standards, comprising perhaps only sixteen hundred hectares, or roughly four thousand acres, but it was set in some of the most beautiful country PJ had ever seen. Even Elder Armitage, who spoke often about the beauty of Hawke’s Bay, admitted to PJ in an unguarded moment that Shenandoah Station was situated magnificently.

  For the past week, as they were making their way south along the foothills of the Southern Alps, residents of the area had told the two transient elders that another Callahan lived further up the road. PJ had thought nothing particular about the name, since Irish names were common in the South Island, especially the further west one went. Still, his curiosity was aroused as they neared Shenandoah Station.

  Walking up the long, dusty approach road, Elders Callahan and Armitage took note of the signs of a well-kept station. Now, in late November, spring lambing had been completed, and the station gave all the signs of full activity.

  Noticeably absent were the groups of young men usually found on such a station. Instead, the operation was manned by an older group, the result, PJ considered, of the war and the need to send the young men to more immediate wartime tasks. At an outshed, about a mile from the main house, the elders stopped for a drink of water. Two leathery-skinned Maori were tending to saddle repairs. Elder Armitage greeted them with a traditional “Kia Ora,” and asked for some water. Without speaking, one of them pointed to a can standing in the back of a nearby, dilapidated, open truck.