W E B Griffin - Corp 05 - Line of Fire

by Line Of Fire(Lit)

  GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS

  1605 HOURS 13 SEPTEMBER 1942

  Looking something like a schoolteacher, Major General Archer Vandergrift, commanding the First Marine Division, stood with an eighteen-inch ruler in his hand in front of the situation map in the G-3 Section. A technical sergeant was nearby, armed with a piece of cloth and a red and black grease pencil, prepared to make corrections to the map as necessary.

  The "students" were the general staff. the G-1 (Personnel), the G-2 (Intelligence), the G-3 (Plans & Operations), the G-4 (Supply), plus Lieutenant Colonel William Whaling, executive officer of the Fifth Marines; Lieutenant Colonel Hayden Price, commanding 5th Battalion, Eleventh Marines (the artillery); and Lieutenant Colonel Merritt Edson, commanding 1st Raider Battalion.

  "I realize you all would rather be with your units, so I'll make this as quick as I can," General Vandergrift said. "I just want to make absolutely sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing." He turned to the map.

  "Red Mike sent his people out at sunrise to recover what he had lost during the night," he said, using the pointer. "There was not much resistance, and they were able to regain their fighting positions. When the Raiders withdrew last night, they had to leave the food they took from the Japanese at Tasimboko. The Japanese now have it back." He moved the pointer. "The Parachute Battalion's Able Company, which was here, had no contact with the Japanese last night. We moved it down here, to the level area, so they could support the Raiders when they went out to take back their positions. They got this far when they were taken under fire from concealed positions. The company commander... who was that, Mike?"

  "McKennan, General. Captain William."

  "Right. Good man. He made the correct decision not to get into a major scrap on what was a very narrow front. So he moved around here, got some artillery support, and this time only ran into some sniper opposition. He was where he was supposed to be by about 1500.

  "Charley Company of the Raiders was pretty badly hurt last night, here on the right. They were withdrawn and replaced by Able Company, plus what was left of Dog Company, which we have disbanded.

  "Edson has pulled his line back about one hundred yards, to here," Vandergrift said. "That shortened it, and it will force the Japanese to attack the open ground here. We have moved the machine guns around to take advantage of that field of fire, and the rifle positions have been built up all along that area.

  "I called Mike about three o'clock and told him that I was going to send in the 2nd of the Fifth to back him up, and that as soon as I could find Jack Stecker, I was going to send him up there to look around. He told me that Jack was up there first thing this morning. Why wasn't I surprised?" There was dutiful laughter.

  The problem of getting 2nd of the Fifth into position is that have to cross the Henderson runway to get there," Vandergrift continued. "And the runway, obviously, has been about as busy as it can get. Whaling, have you got an estimate from Jack Stecker about when he'll be in position?" Colonel Whaling stood up. He did not appear happy.

  "Sir, I talked to him a few minutes ago. He says it will be long after dark."

  "Can't be helped," Vandergrift said. "Jack will do the best he can." He turned to the map and used the ruler as a pointer again.

  "Price has moved his 105s out of the woods here and into firing positions here south of the Henderson runway. Are your guns laid in, Price?" Since the Division's 155mm cannon had not been off-loaded during the invasion, the 105mm howitzer was the largest artillery piece available.

  Colonel Price stood up.

  "If they're not, Sir, they will be within minutes."

  "OK. As soon as that happens, everybody but the gunners will move back to about here," Vandergrift said, pointing, "where they will form a secondary line in case the Japanese get through the Raiders and the Parachutists. If that happens, gentlemen, the artillery will be lost, and there won't be very much to keep the Japanese from taking Henderson." There was no response.

  "Are there any additions, corrections, or observations that anyone wishes to make?" Vandergrift asked politely.

  There were none.

  "That will be all, gentlemen, thank you," General Vandergrift said.

  The Japanese attacked at 1830. They directed their major effort to the right of the Raider defense line at almost exactly the point where they'd attacked the previous night.

  [Four]

  POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

  1405 HOURS 15 SEPTEMBER 1942

  When the knock on the frosted glass panel of his office door destroyed his concentration, Captain Karl Hart, commanding officer of the Homicide Bureau, was trying to make sense of a police officer's report of a death the previous evening by gas asphyxiation.

  He had just concluded that the reporting officer was not only a functional illiterate, but a genuine goddamn moron to boot.

  He ignored the knock and tried to make sense of a sentence that read, so far as he could make out, "body dispozd by coronary's office." Coronary's obviously was supposed to mean Coroner's, but what the hell was dispozd?

  There was another knock on the frosted glass panel of his door, this time an impatient knock.

  "Wait a goddamned minute!" He reached for his telephone and placed it on his shoulder.

  Holding it in place with his chin, he started to dial a number.

  The doorknob turned, followed by the faint rattling noise it always made when it was being opened. In fury, he turned to face it.

  Goddamn it, I said to wait a goddamned minute!

  "Is this where I go to have somebody homicided?" Sergeant George Hart asked innocently.

  "George," Captain Hart said.

  "Hi, Pop."

  "George," Captain Hart repeated, and then got up and walked around the desk and put out his hand.

  His son shook it.

  "Damn," Captain Hart said. "You could have let us know you were coming."

  No, I couldn't. That would have required explanations.

  "You been out to the house? Seen your mother?"

  "I went there from the airport."

  "What did she say?"

  "She asked was I here, and had I seen you," George reported truthfully.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" Captain Hart said. And then, though it had been a long, long time since he'd done it: What the hell, why not? he asked himself as he put his arms around his son and hugged him. "Damn, it's good to see you!" It's the first time in God knows how long, George realized, since I was a kid, that Pop's hugged me.

  He felt his eyes water, and that surprised him.

  "How much leave they give you?"

  "Five days."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all they give you."

  "Jesus, you can hardly get from down there and back in five days," his father said. Then he saw the chevrons on George's tunic.

  "You're a sergeant? Jesus, that was quick."

  "The Marines recognize good men when they see one," George said.

  "Look," his father said, "I got a report on a citizen stuck his head in the oven that's so bad I don't even believe it."

  "Since when do you handle suicides?"

  "When the guy's brother's a Monsignor and the Commissioner told me he don't want to hear the word suicide. You know the Catholics, they won't bury a suicide in holy ground-"

  "Consecrated, " George corrected him automatically.

  "Consecrated, holy, whatever. I got to talk to the cop - I can't believe this guy, he's so dumb-and then talk to the coroner, and then report to the Commissioner."

  "Just out of idle curiosity, what are you going to find out really happened?"

  "He slipped on a wet kitchen floor as he was about to light the oven," Captain Hart said, "bumped his head and knocked himself out. And then the gas got him."

  "Brilliant." George laughed.

  "It was all I could think of," Captain Hart admitted. "Anyway, you don't want to hang around here. I'll meet you in Mooney's in thi
rty minutes."

  "OK."

  "Maybe you better call your mother and ask her does she want to eat out someplace?"

  "She said she was going to make a pot roast, and I was to bring you home no later than half past six."

  "OK. So we'll have a couple of snorts and go home."

  "OK, Pop."

  "You got some money?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  "You said you went home from the airport. So what did an airplane ticket cost you? Where'd you get the money?" Captain Hart said, as he took a wad of bills from his pocket and peeled off two five-dollar bills. "Don't argue with me, I'm your father."

  "OK, Pop. Thank you."

  "Thirty minutes, George," Captain Hart said, and then there was another unexpected gesture of affection. He rubbed his hand over his son's head, but masked the affection by saying, "Jesus, I love your haircut."

  Mooney's was crowded. Cops who had come off the four-in-the-afternoon shift change mingled with courthouse people who seldom waited until the clock said five before closing up.

  George smiled at familiar faces and even shook a couple of hands, but there was no one in the bar he knew well enough to sit down with.

  He found a stool toward the back of the room, near the Wurlitzer jukebox. Before he sat down, he reached behind the Wurlitzer and turned the volume control way down.

  "Welcome home, George," Jerry the bartender said, offering his hand. He was a plump young man wearing a black vest and an immaculate white shirt with the cuffs turned up. "Your Uncle George was in a while ago, and Ramirez just left."

  "I'll be around a while. My father's coming in."

  "Seagram's & Seven? Or a beer?"

  "Jerry, you got any Famous Grouse?"

  "What the hell is that?"

  "Scotch." The bartender shook his head, no. "I got some Dewar's and there's some..." He turned, searched the array of bottles against the mirror and put a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch Bottle on the bar... of this."

  "That. Straight. Water on the side."

  "When'd you start drinking that?" Jerry the bartender asked as he poured a very generous shot in a small, round glass.

  "As soon as I found out about it," George said. He took out his wallet and laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar.

  "Put that away," Jerry said. "Your money's no good in here."

  "Thanks, Jerry," George said, and started to put the twenty back in his wallet. Then he remembered the two fives his father had given him, and took them from his pocket.

  The truth of the matter, Jerry, is that I was having a couple Of drinks with my pal Pick Pickering-you know, the guy whose grandfather owns Saint Louis' snootiest hotel, the Foster Pierre Marquette, and forty other hotels-right after we flew under the Golden Gate Bridge in his grandfather's airplane; and Ol' Pick said, "George, if we're going to drink as much as I think we are, you better get off that Seagram's & Seven and onto The Bird. " So I got onto The Bird, which is what my pal Pick calls Famous Grouse; and I got to like it, right from the first.

  Would I bullshit you, Jerry?

  He took a swallow of the water on the side and then poured scotch into it.

  "My God, " Pick said, "you were a vice cop and I have to teach you about booze? Upon my word as an officer and a gentleman, Sergeant Hart, the way one drinks whiskey-and by whiskey, I mean scotch whiskey-is to mix it in equal portions with just a little bit of ice.

  I wonder why I used to think scotch tasted like medicine?

  George thought after he'd taken a sip of his drink. Well, what the hell, when I was a little kid and pop ate oysters, I used to want to throw up. And now I love them. They're what they call an acquired taste.

  He turned on his stool and caught the arm of a waitress.

  "Hey, George," she said, "I thought that was you. You look real nice in your uniform."

  "Hazel, could you get me a dozen oysters?"

  "You bet your life I could, honey." When he turned back to the bar, Jerry handed him a newspaper.

  "Seen the paper?"

  "No, I haven't. Thank you." He unfolded the paper and spread it on the bar. There was a four-column picture of an aircraft carrier, and below it the headline: AIRCRAFT CARRIER `WASP' SUNK IN PACIFIC.

  He read the story: Washington, DC Sept 15 (AP) - In a terse announcement this afternoon, the I Navy announced that the aircraft carrier USS `Wasp' was lost at sea yesterday (Sept 14), with heavy loss of life, while operating in the Solomon Islands area.

  The Navy said that initial reports indicate the `Wasp' was struck by at least three Japanese torpedoes from a submarine in an action which also saw a destroyer sunk, and serious, but not fatal, damage caused to the battleship USS `North Carolina."

  There was other war news, some of it accompanied by photographs:

  in North Africa, German airfields at Benghazi have been attacked by units of the British Long Range Desert Group, and severe damage is reported.

  American bombers have attacked Japanese bases in the Aleutian Islands.

  The Russian forces defending Stalingrad are in desperate shape. The defense perimeter has been reduced to a thirty-mile area. The German High Command has predicted the fall of the city within a matter of days.

  Word has reached London that the Cunard liner `Laconia,' carrying British military dependent families and Italian prisoners of war, has been sunk off the Cape of Good Hope by the German submarine U-156.

  On Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, the Marines have succeeded in turning back a Japanese attack on `Bloody Ridge' near the American air base, Henderson Field. Severe Japanese losses were reported.

  Jesus Christ, Pick and Dick Stecker are on their way to Guadalcanal. It doesn't seem so fucking impersonal if you know people.

  An elbow jabbed Hart in the ribs. He turned and saw that he'd been joined by a fellow noncommissioned officer of The United States Marine Corps, Staff Sergeant Howard H. Wertz, USMC, -the miserable, lying cocksucker who conned him into joining the crotch by telling him he could be sort of a Marine detective.

  Sliding his beer glass around in a little puddle on the bar, Wertz gave him a smirking smile.

  "You look good, kid," he said. "Parris Island must have been good for you."

  "Yeah, all that fresh air," Hart said. "Still scrounging up all the warm bodies you can for the crotch, are you, Sergeant?"

  "You know how it is, kid. You're in The Corps, you do what they tell you." I don't really want to stick his head in the spittoon or knock his teeth down his throat. How come? Christ knows, I thought about doing just that by the goddamned hour.

  "I guess so," Hart said.

  "You know what I wondered when I saw you, Hart?"

  "Haven't the faintest fucking idea, Sergeant."

  "I wondered where you got those chevrons on your sleeve.

  "Oh, you wondered about that, huh?"

  "Yeah, I mean, what the hell. I'm not normally a suspicious person, but what is it now, eight weeks since you went off to Parris Island?" Hart did the arithmetic in his head.

  "Closer to ten, actually."

  "OK, ten, then. You don't get to be a Sergeant in The Corps in ten fucking weeks." `Some people do." `You know what I think, Hart? And I'm really disappointed. I think you sewed those stripes on to impress broads."

  "Well, I admit it works. Some girls think Marine sergeants are really hot shit."

  "Yeah, well, assholes like you wearing stripes they haven't earned really piss me off. You better have some orders to go with them stripes." He held out his hand.

  "No orders, Sergeant," Hart said. "Sorry.

  He reached into the breast pocket of his tunic and took out his leather identification folder. He handed it to Wertz.

  Wertz examined with great care the credentials of Special Agent George F. Hart of the Office of Naval Investigation.

  "Go fuck yourself, Wertz," Hart said, taking them back.

  "I'm not sure I believe that," Wertz said.

  "Call me on it, you sonofabitch! Call the MPs and tell them you don'
t believe it. If I report that I showed you those credentials and told you to get out of my way, and you didn't, you'll be out of Saint Louis on your way to a rifle company so quick your asshole won't catch up with you for a month." Staff Sergeant Wertz made a decision.

  "OK. So I'm sorry."

  "Get the fuck out of my sight," Hart said. "I don't want to see you in here again as long as I'm in Saint Louis." Staff Sergeant Wertz slid off his stool and walked out of Mooney's bar.