"Thank you."
"My pleasure. Now we're going to put you to bed. Does your leg need a fresh bandage? Before I was a CIC agent, I was a Boy Scout. I know all about bandages."
"I find that hard to believe. You being a Boy Scout, I mean."
Vandenburg raised his right hand, three fingers extended, as a Boy Scout does when swearing an oath.
"You can trust me, Killer. I'm in the CIA," he said solemnly.
[SEVEN]
Room 39A, Neuro-Psychiatric Ward
U.S. Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
O915 2 November 19SO
Major Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom when Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, pushed open the wide door and entered the room.
Pick had just concluded that he looked like hell. The uniform tunic hung loosely from his shoulders, which he had more or less expected. But he hadn't thought that he might have problems with the shirt until he'd stood before the mirror, buttoned the collar button, and begun to knot the field scarf. Then he'd seen that the shirt collar was an inch—maybe two inches—too big for the skinny neck rising from his shoulders. He realized why: Without thinking, he'd bought shirts in 'his' size, which meant they were far too large for him in his walking skeleton condition.
It was too late to do anything about it.
He turned and looked at McGrory.
"Good morning, Doctor," he said. "And how is my favorite leprechaun feeling today?"
"I'm impressed," McGrory said. "That's an impressive array of fruit salad."
Pick gave him the finger.
"I mean it," McGrory said. "I was impressed when I saw the list of your medals General Dawkins sent over—"
"What?"
"I said I was impressed with the list of your medals when General Dawkins sent it over—"
"What the hell was that all about?"
"General Dawkins called the hospital commander and said that he wanted to make sure you had a uniform, as they are about to pin another medal on you—"
"Oh, shit. That was a mistake. With its typical efficiency, the Crotch put my name on somebody else's citation."
"—and that he was sending his driver over," McGrory went on, "with an official list of your medals so that you would have them on your uniform when they took your picture when they pinned the medal on you. The hospital commander summoned me, handed me the list, and told me to take care of it. Which I did, by telling Francis Xavier O'Malley I was sending him a list of ribbons which he was to make up when getting you your uniform. And as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, I was impressed with the list, but am even more impressed now that I can see them all on your manly breast."
"Manly chicken breast," Pick said. "Or chickenly man breast?"
McGrory chuckled.
"I did notice your collar seems a wee bit roomy," McGrory said. "But for the record, you have gained eleven pounds while in my loving care. You'll get it all back, Pick. You lost a hell of a lot of weight, pal. It won't come back overnight."
"The O Club had the effrontery to serve me rice with my pork chops last night," Pick said. "I will never eat rice again in my life."
"Is that how you made it, on rice?"
"We are back to my terrible ordeal, are we? Okay. I'll give you that much. Yes, rice was a staple of my diet during my terrible ordeal. Are you now happy?"
"The longest journey begins with the first step," McGrory said solemnly. "I think Confucius said that."
"I hate to break off this fascinating conversation," Pick said, "but I told Mrs. Mitchell I'd be waiting for her in the lobby"—he looked at his wristwatch— "in six minutes."
"She's not coming," McGrory said.
The wristwatch, a battered pilot's chronometer, had a new alligator strap. It had been a strange experience watching the salesgirl in the Ship's Store replace the old one, which had surprisingly held up all the way in Korea. He had remembered sometimes passing the time at night watching the radium-tipped sweep second hand gradually losing its luminescence, and when it had—it had usually taken about forty minutes—holding the watch to his ear for the sound of its ticking. It had been comforting, proof that there was more to the world than human-feces-fertilized rice paddies, dirt roads, and thatch-roofed stone hootches. And unpleasant people trying to kill you.
He heard what McGrory said.
"What do you mean, she's not coming?"
"She called and said she was sorry, but coming here was impossible, and would you mind taking a cab? I guess you were in the shower. You didn't answer your phone."
"So what happens now? I thought I had to be placed in the care of a responsible person?"
So I don't have to go to the funeral. Great. I didn't want to go anyway, and McGrory probably told her he was sorry, but the policy is that nutcakes can't be released except in the company of a responsible person, so I'm off the hook.
So why am I so disappointed?
McGrory took out his pocket notebook, tore off a sheet, and handed it to Pick.
"You get in a taxi and go to Mrs. Mitchell's apartment. That's the address."
"All by myself?"
"Yeah, against my better judgment, all by yourself."
"Why against your better judgment? What do you think I'm going to do?"
"I have already told you what I'm worried about," McGrory said. "In my experience, putting together two people—especially two people of different sexes—who are both suffering from an emotional trauma is a prescription for disaster."
"But you don't want to play God?"
"I hope I'm wrong."
"I think you can relax, Doc," Pick said. "The last thing I'm going to do is fuck up a nice lady like that."
"Good," McGrory said. "I was going to say, 'Have a nice time,' but you're going to a funeral, aren't you?"
[EIGHT]
Apartment 12-D, "Ocean View"
1OO5 Ocean Drive
San Diego, California
O955 2 November 195O
The Ocean View apartment building was a large, curved structure overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When Pick got out of the taxi, he saw a Marine Corps staff car and a Cadillac limousine parked in the curving driveway, and a black wreath hanging from the nameplate on the right side of the double doors. That surprised him.
Maybe the owner's patriotic. Or maybe just a nice guy. Or maybe he knew Mitchell.
When he had walked down the hospital corridor to the elevator, and then out through the lobby, he had felt what, for lack of a better term, he thought of as "funny in the feet." He felt that way now, but he understood what it was. He had figured it out in the taxi. He was wearing shoes for the first time since he'd put on flight boots the morning he'd flown off the Badoeng Strait for the last time.
Even after he had been promoted to Category II and permitted to take his meals in the Officers' Club, he'd worn slippers.
The doorman was a short, plump Mexican who directed him to the bank of elevators on the right of the lobby.
He walked down the corridor to 12-D, which also had a black wreath on the door, pushed the button, and heard chimes.
A young woman in a black dress and wearing a veiled hat opened the door to him and smiled a little uneasily.
"My name is Pickering. Mrs. Mitchell expects me."
"I'm Dianne Welch," the young woman said. "Al's wife."
Okay. Now I know who you are. I don't know an Al Welch, but you expect me to. That makes you a Marine officer's wife. The sorority has gathered to do good for a member of the sisterhood now a widow.
I really don't want to be here. I really don't belong here.
"Babs is in the living room with the family," Dianne Welch said. "Down the corridor and straight ahead."
I wish there was some way I could turn around and get out of here.
What did she say, "with the family"? What family? I thought Babs . . . Mrs. Mitchell . . . said both their families were in Kansas? No, Arka
nsas.
Shit!
At the threshold to the living room, whose windows overlooked the Pacific, Pick was intercepted by a Marine captain, a pilot. He saw Mrs. Mitchell standing with two middle-aged women and a middle-aged man by the window. The room wasn't very large, and it was crowded, mostly with young Marine officers' wives and a few Marine officers.
Not many.
Of course not. Their husbands are off on what the Crotch euphemistically calls a Far East Deployment.
"Major Pickering?" the captain asked.
"Right."
"I was getting a little worried," the captain said.
"About what?"
"We're about to leave for Saint Paul's, sir, and you—"
"I'm here."
"Yes, sir. Sir, I'm Captain Kane. I'm the coordinating officer."
"Okay."
"Sir, you are to ride in the limousine with the widow, and at grave site, you are to sit next to Mrs. Mitchell."
"Who decided that?"
"Mrs. Mitchell, sir."
"Okay. Well, I suppose I had best pay my respects, hadn't I?"
"Yes, sir. She's over by the window with Captain Mitchell's parents and—"
"I see her. Thank you," Pick said.
He walked across the room toward Mrs. Mitchell, who smiled faintly when she saw him. She was dressed very much like the officer's wife at the door, in a simple black dress with a veiled black hat.
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you," Mrs. Mitchell said. "I'm sorry I couldn't pick you up. . . ."
"Not a problem," Pick said.
"This is Dick's mother and father," Mrs. Mitchell said. "And my mother. This is Major Pickering, who was on the Badoeng Strait with Dick."
Hands were shaken all around.
"Babs tells me you're in the hospital," Mr. Mitchell said.
"Yes, sir."
Dick Mitchell's mother looked at him as if she didn't like him.
What's that all about?
She thinks I'm fooling around with Babs. . . Mrs. Mitchell?
Or how come I'm back alive from the Badoeng Strait and Dick isn't?
"Babs didn't say why," Mrs. Mitchell's mother said.
She obviously didn't want to say "Neuro-Psychiatric Ward."
"It's sort of an extensive physical checkup."
"Really. Were you ill?"
"Pick was shot down and spent three months evading capture," Babs said.
Pick. Not Major Pickering.
"I read about that," Mr. Mitchell said. " 'Marine Pilot Rescued After Three Months.' Was that you?"
"I don't know what you read, sir."
"That sort of thing happen often?" Mr. Mitchell asked.
"No, sir. I don't think it does."
Captain Kane walked up to them.
"If it's convenient, Mrs. Mitchell, it's that time," he said.
"Anything you say," Babs said.
Kane gestured toward the door.
"You're to ride with us in the limousine," Babs Mitchell said.
"So I understand."
"I need to talk to you for a minute," Babs Mitchell said, and added, to the others, "You go ahead. We'll catch up."
That did it. Now Mama has her proof that we're fooling around. And Bab . . . Mrs. Mitchell is so naive, she doesn't even see that.
She took his arm and led him into a corridor. The door at the end was open. It was a bedroom, the bed covered with women's coats.
"I'm sorry about this," Babs Mitchell said to him. She was standing close to him, and he could smell both her perfume and her breath, which smelled like Sen-Sen.
"Sorry about what?"
"When I called them to tell them about the funeral, to invite them, they didn't say anything about coming. They told me I was making a mistake I would remember all my life—"
"He was your husband, for Christ's sake!" Pick blurted, and then quickly added, "Sorry."
"—and that was it. And then they just showed up last night. Right after Captain Whatsisname and a representative of the Officers' Wives Association showed up to tell me how they were going to help out today."
"What are you apologizing for?" Pick asked. "I don't understand."
"I thought I would call up and tell you, but the truth is I guess I really wanted you to be here."
And what did the good Dr. McGrory have to say about that? "The woman, whether she's aware of it or not, hungers for a strong male shoulder to lean on. "
"I'm glad you did," Pick said.
Am I just being polite, chivalrous? Or what? For Christ's sake, what?
"I think we'd better go," Pick said.
Leaving unsaid, Or your mother-in-law, and maybe your mother, too, will really think there's something going on between us.
The rear of the Cadillac limousine provided upholstered seating for three across the backseat, and two jump seats.
Mr. Mitchell was in the jump seat, the women on the bench, leaving space for Babs on the bench and Pick on the other jump seat.
From which location, when he sat down, he was unable to be unaware of her knees and the lace hem of her slip.
Black. Black is the color of mourning. Also of sexy feminine underwear. What's the connection there? McGrory probably has a theory.
"I hope Pick—Major Pickering—won't be offended when I tell you this," Babs Mitchell said as they were rolling through San Diego. "But he's just experienced a terrible loss himself."
"Is that so?" Mother Mitchell asked.
"His fiancee was in a plane crash in Korea the day he was rescued," Babs Mitchell said.
Why is she telling them this?
Because she has finally picked up on Mother Mitchell's—or her mother's—suspicions that I am the reason she doesn't want to go home to Kan . . . Arkansas. That's why, stupid.
"Oh, how awful!" Bab's mother said, sounding sincere.
"She was on an Air Force medical supply aircraft that crashed," Pick said.
"A nurse?"
"No, ma'am, she was a war correspondent."
"Jeanette Priestman," Babs Mitchell said. "Of the Chicago . . . what?"
"Tribune," Pick said. "The Chicago Tribune. And it's Priestly, not Priestman."
"Sorry," Babs Mitchell said.
"Don't be silly."
"My son and his wife, Major Pickering," Mr. Mitchell said, "I still don't really understand why, recently became Episcopalians. The funeral service will be an Episcopal service. Are you familiar with—"
"Yes, sir," Pick said. "I was even an altar boy once."
"Were you really?"
He's pleased. He doesn't think I'm trying to get—or have already been—in his son's widows pants.
"Yes, sir, I was. And before that I sang in the choir of a church also called Saint Paul's."
"Really?"
"Yes, sir."
I think I just made the first goal for Protestant Episcopal Christian virtues.
Hell, make sure!
"Jeanette's body is being returned later this week," Pick said. "So I suppose you could say that Babs and I are trying to support each other. . . ."
Unless, of course, you are aware of the McGrory theory concerning two people of opposite sexes who have both experienced an emotional trauma.
There was a Cadillac hearse outside St. Paul's Church, through the windows of which a flag-draped casket was visible. And a flower car. And several more Marine-green staff cars. And half a platoon of Marines, in dress blues. Two-thirds of them were carrying Garands, and the others were apparently pallbearers.
A function normally performed by one's brother officers.
But they're off on a Far East Deployment and thus unavailable.
Mrs. Babs Mitchell took Major Malcolm Pickering's arm as they followed Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell and Babs's mother down the aisle of the church toward a reserved pew near the altar.
As Major Pickering dropped to the kneeling bench—
So you haven't done this in years.
So maybe you're a little hypocritical.
&
nbsp; So what? The point of the exercise is to convince Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell, Babs's mother, and of course Mrs. Babs Mitchell herself that you are not only a fine Marine Corps officer and gentleman, but a Christian gentleman who wouldn't even think of nailing Mrs. Babs Mitchell.
—he saw sitting directly across the aisle from him, in dress blues, Brigadier General Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC. Beside him was Mrs. Dawkins, looking like a slightly older version of the officers' wives who had been in Babs's—Mrs. Mitchell's—apartment.
Both looked at him. Mrs. Dawkins smiled. He smiled back.
Marines carried the casket in and set it on a catafalque in the aisle. The ceremony began.
It was, Pick thought, mercifully brief. The Marines carried the casket back down the aisle. Captain Kane came to the pew and indicated that it was now time for him to lead the widow back down the aisle and out of the church. Mrs. Mitchell took his arm, and he did so. She didn't cry. But that doesn't mean she's not all torn up. How do I know that? Does it matter? I do.
On the slow drive to the cemetery, Mr. Mitchell said, "I was surprised the ceremony was so short."
Well, that's the way we Whiskey-palians do it. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, and out of the church and into the ground.
"That's what Dick liked about the Episcopal church," Mrs. Babs Mitchell said. "The ... I guess the word is 'liturgy.' I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. And Dick would have loved it when they sang 'The Marines' Hymn' as a hymn."
You're going to like this even less, Mr. Mitchell. This usually takes about two minutes, tops.
In the limousine on the way back to the Ocean View, Mrs. Babs Mitchell did not cry. She sat across from Pick with the folded flag in her lap, stroking it with her finger tips.
She had cried three times during the graveside ceremony. First when General Dawkins, on behalf of a grateful nation, handed her the folded flag.
Then she had cried when the bugler played taps.
I felt a little weepy then myself.
And she had cried when the firing squad did their little ballet, which had put Major Pickering in the probably prohibited-by-regulation position of holding a weeping female closely with his left arm while he saluted with his right. Every time there had been the crack of twenty blank cartridges going off simultaneously, Mrs. Babs Mitchell had cringed, and he could feel her bosom pressing against him.
The two squads of Marines who would fire the salute were already lined up, standing at parade rest.
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