Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

“And what’s wrong with VMI and the Citadel?” Pickering challenged. “George Catlett Marshall went to VMI. And I personally know a number of fine officers who went to VMI and Norwich.”

  “Point granted,” Jeanette said. “I. D. White went to Norwich. You don’t see anything petty—not to mention sinister—in Almond’s assignment to MacArthur?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  Why did I say that? I believe the story that MacArthur, when he was chief of staff, wrote an efficiency report on Marshall, then a colonel, saying he should not be given command of anything larger than a regiment. There was really bad blood between the two. One of Marshall’s acolytes—maybe even Eisenhower himself—could have repaid the Marshall insult by sending him a two-star non-West Pointer whose sole claim to fame was commanding a colored division.

  But I’m not going to admit that to this woman, this journalist.

  Why not?

  Because it would air the dirty linen of the general officers’ corps in public, and I don’t want to do that.

  Why?

  Because, I suppose, I used to be called General Pickering. I guess that’s like Once A Marine, Always A Marine.

  But my fellow generals can be petty. Stupidly petty.

  El Supremo refused to give the 4th Marines the Distinguished Unit Citation for Corregidor, even though everybody else on the island got it. When I asked him why, he told me the Marines already had enough medals.

  And Charley Willoughby is stupid enough, and petty enough, to ignore McCoy’s report—have it destroyed—because it disagrees with his assessment of the situation. Or admit that he didn’t even have an assessment. Captains are not supposed to disagree with generals, much less point out that generals have done their jobs badly, or not at all.

  What the hell am I going to do with that report?

  And what the hell can I do to help McCoy?

  “From what I’ve seen of General Almond, General,” McCoy said, “he’s as smart as they come.”

  Pickering was surprised that McCoy had volunteered anything, much less offered an opinion of a general officer.

  Why did he do that?

  To tell me something he thought I should know?

  To challenge this female’s theory that there was something sinister in Almond’s assignment?

  And why, if he likes Almond, didn’t he take his report to him, bypassing Willoughby?

  Because that’s known as going out of channels, and in the military that’s like raping a nun in church.

  Pickering looked at McCoy.

  And had another thought:

  Almond must have a hard time with Willoughby, even though the G-2 is under the chief of staff. Not only does Willoughby have MacArthur’s ear, but he’s the senior member of the Bataan Gang, who can do no wrong in El Supremo’s eyes.

  “Jeanette,” Pick said. “Now that you’ve talked to Sir, are you going to live up to your end of the bargain?”

  “What bargain was that?”

  “Dinner. I’m starved. The last thing I had to eat was a stale sandwich on the airplane.”

  “A deal’s a deal,” Jeanette said.

  “Dad, do you want to go with us?”

  “I’ve eaten, thank you. And I’m tired. The restaurant here’s supposed to be pretty good.”

  “Ken says he knows a Japanese place,” Pick said.

  Jeanette Priestly put out her hand to Pickering.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, General,” she said. “Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Pickering said.

  [SIX]

  THE DEWEY SUITE THE IMPERIAL HOTEL TOKYO, JAPAN 0140 2 JUNE 1950

  Both father and son were surprised to see the other when Pick Pickering entered the living room of the Dewey Suite. Pick had assumed that his father would have long before gone to bed, and his father had assumed more or less the same thing about his son: that at this hour, Pick would also be in bed—Jeanette Priestly’s bed.

  “Still up, Pop, huh?” Pick asked.

  “No, what you see is an illusion,” Pickering said, getting out of an armchair and walking to the bar. He picked up a bottle of Famous Grouse. “Nightcap?”

  “Why not? Just a little water, no ice,” Pick said, and walked toward his father.

  Pickering handed him a drink.

  “Ida M. Tarbell turned you down, huh?” Pickering asked.

  “What? Who?”

  “Ida M. Tarbell, the first of the lady muckrakers,” his father explained.

  “Her name is Jeanette Priestly,” Pick said. “And yes, since you asked, she turned me down.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Pickering said.

  “She said I was good-looking, charming, intelligent, dashing, and rich, and under those circumstances, she obviously could not take the risk of getting involved.”

  Pickering smiled.

  “She really said that?”

  “That’s almost a direct quote.”

  “Well, I knew from the moment I saw her that she was an intelligent female,” Pickering said. “Sometimes, as I suppose you know, that’s a ploy. Telling someone who is good-looking, charming, et cetera, ‘no’ may in fact be step one in a hastily organized plan to get you to the altar.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pick replied, seriously. “I don’t think she wants someone in her life.”

  “But you are planning to see her again?”

  “I don’t know, Pop,” Pick said, still seriously, his attitude telling his father that the Priestly girl, either intentionally or not, had gotten more of his son’s attention than most young women ever did.

  “What are you going to do about the Killer?” Pick asked.

  “I’ve been sitting here thinking about that.”

  “And?”

  “There’s really two problems,” Pickering said. “Ken getting reduced to the ranks . . .”

  “Sonofabitch, that makes me mad!”

  “. . . and his report. Whatever the Killer is, he’s not a fool. If he thinks the North Koreans are going to start a war, the odds are that they will.”

  “So?”

  “I just sent Dick Fowler a radiogram, telling him I have to see him the minute I get to the States, and asking him to call the office and let Mrs. Florian know where he is.”

  Senator Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.) a somewhat portly, silver-haired, regal-looking 67-year-old, once described by Time magazine as “one of the three most powerful members of the World’s Most Exclusive Club,” was one of Fleming Pickering’s closest friends.

  “I was sort of hoping you could get to MacArthur at dinner, ” Pick said.

  “So was I,” his father replied. “But it . . . just wouldn’t have worked. He would have backed Willoughby, and been pissed with me. Not that that would bother me, but it would certainly have made the Killer’s situation worse.”

  “I had—just now, as I headed home, with my masculine ego dragging on the ground—what may be a disloyal thought.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck the Marine Corps. If they don’t recognize what they’ve got in the Killer, don’t appreciate what he’s done, and want to bust him down to sergeant, then fuck the Marine Corps.”

  Pickering looked at his son for a moment before replying.

  “I had a somewhat similar thought,” Pickering said. “Ken doesn’t need the Marine Corps to make a living.”

  “He doesn’t want to live on Ernie’s money,” Pick said.

  “Ken is a very capable fellow. He would do well at whatever he put his mind to. And I think they’ve come to some sort of understanding about her money. The furniture in their house—did you notice?—didn’t come from the Salvation Army.”

  “And what did the guy say? ‘Money may not be everything, but it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place’?”

  Pickering chuckled.

  “Have you got a place for him in Trans-Global?”

  “I thought about that, too. Yeah. Sure. There’s half a dozen pla
ces where he really could do a job. The problem is that he would think it was charity.” He paused. “God damn the Marine Corps!”

  “It’s not the Corps, Pick,” Pickering said. “It’s some chair-warmer in the Corps who has caved in to whoever here decided McCoy was a thorn under MacArthur’s saddle blanket, and for the good of the Corps has to go.” He paused. “If General Vandegrift was Commandant, I could—I would—go to him. But I don’t even know who the present Commandant is.”

  “Cates,” Pick furnished. “You didn’t know?”

  “Cliff Cates?” Pickering asked. Pick nodded. “I didn’t know, but I do know him. He commanded the 1st Marines when we landed at Guadalcanal. And didn’t make much of a secret he thought Vandegrift could have done a hell of a lot better in picking a replacement for the Division G-2 than your old man.” He paused. “But he’s a good Marine. A good officer. I think he’d see me—more important, listen to me. I’ll ask Dick Fowler what he thinks.”

  Pick nodded.

  “I didn’t ask Ken when they’re actually going home,” Pickering thought aloud.

  “The day after tomorrow, with us,” Pick furnished.

  Pickering looked at him in surprise.

  “It sort of came up at dinner,” Pick explained. “The Killer excused himself, and came back in a couple of minutes and said his boss—some Navy captain—had given him permission to return to the States on commercial transportation, which means us. I guess the sonofabitch figures the sooner he gets the Killer out of Japan, the better for him.”

  “And when are we going home?”

  “Day after tomorrow. Trans-Global Airways, as you should know, Mr. Chairman of the Board, operates a thrice-weekly luxury service flight schedule in both directions between San Francisco and Tokyo.”

  “And is this thrice-weekly luxury service making us any money?”

  “Yeah. A lot more money than we thought it would, at first.”

  “Don’t say anything to Ken about this conversation,” Pickering said.

  “No. Of course not. I’m going out there tomorrow to help them pack.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Pickering said.

  “What if he asks you what you’re going to do?”

  “He won’t,” Pickering said. “He trusts me to do whatever I think is appropriate, even if it’s nothing. He didn’t come to me about his getting busted back to the ranks— that’s not his style. But he thinks there’s going to be a war, and that somebody should give the Corps a heads-up.”

  “Pop, do you think he’s stupid enough to take the bust? To be Staff Sergeant—or Gunnery Sergeant—McCoy?”

  “I don’t think he thinks there’s anything for a gunnery sergeant to be ashamed of.”

  “Either do I, but the Killer should be a colonel, not a fucking sergeant.”

  “If he gets out, it will be because he thinks Ernie would be uncomfortable as a gunnery sergeant’s wife. Not that she wouldn’t try to make it work . . .”

  “God damn the Marine Corps!” Pick said, bitterly.

  "Let’s see what happens, Pick, after I talk with Dick Fowler.”

  III

  [ONE]

  OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF FOR OFFICER RECORDS OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-1 HEADQUARTERS, CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA 0705 7 JUNE 1950

  Major Robert B. Macklin, USMC, parked his dark green 1949 Buick Roadmaster sedan in the parking place reserved for the Deputy Chief of Officer Records, walked around to the front of the frame building, and entered.

  Major Macklin knew that people sometimes said, not unkindly, that he looked like an actor sent by Central Casting to a Hollywood motion picture set in response to a request for an extra to play a Marine officer. Major Macklin was not at all unhappy to have people think he looked like what a Marine Corps officer should look like.

  He was a tall and well-built, thirty-five-year-old, not quite handsome, fine-featured man who wore his brown hair in a crew cut. There was a ring signifying his graduation from the United States Naval Academy on his finger, and the breast of his well-tailored, short-sleeved, summer-undress tropical worsted shirt bore a rather impressive display of ribbons attesting to his service.

  They were topped with the Purple Heart medal, testifying that he had shed blood for his country and the Corps in combat. His Asiatic-Pacific service ribbon bore stars indicating that he had participated in every World War II campaign in the Pacific.

  There were two enlisted men just inside the door. One was Staff Sergeant John B. Adair, USMC, who had had the overnight duty NCO, and the other was PFC Wilson J. Coughlin, USMC, who had had the overnight duty as driver of the 1949 Chevrolet staff car, should that vehicle be required in the discharge of Staff Sergeant Adair’s duty.

  When Staff Sergeant Adair—who was short, squat, starting to bald, and did not look as if he had been sent over from Central Casting to play a Marine sergeant—saw Major Macklin, he popped to attention and bellowed, “Attention on deck!”

  PFC Coughlin popped to attention.

  There were only two ribbons on PFC Coughlin’s shirt, but Staff Sergeant Adair’s display was even more impressive than Major Macklin’s. His was topped by the ribbon signifying that he had been awarded the Silver Star Medal. Adair also had the Purple Heart, but with two clusters, indicating he had been wounded three times.

  Very privately—although he knew his opinion was shared by most of his peers—Staff Sergeant Adair thought Major Robert B. Macklin was a chickenshit prick.

  “As you were,” Major Macklin said, and marched through the outer office of the G-1’s office into the Officer Personnel Section, and between the desks of that section to his office, which was at the end of the room.

  He put his fore-and-aft cap on a clothes tree and sat down at his desk. The desk was nearly bare. Macklin liked to keep things shipshape. There was an elaborately carved nameplate he’d had made for a package of cigarettes in Tientsin, China, after the war. There was a telephone and a desk pad of artificial leather holding a sheet of green blotter paper. There was a wooden In box on the left corner of the desk and an Out box on the right corner of the desk. The Out box was empty. The In box contained a curling sheet of teletypewriter paper.

  Major Macklin opened the upper right-hand drawer of his desk and took from it a large ashtray, which had a box of matches in its center. He placed this on the right side of his desk, then went back into the drawer and came out with a straight-stemmed pipe and a leather tobacco pouch. He filled the pipe, carefully tamping the tobacco, and then lit it with one of the wooden matches from the ashtray. Then he returned the tobacco pouch to the drawer and reached for the teletype message, which had apparently come in overnight.

  ROUTINE

  HQ USMC WASH DC 1405 6 JUNE 1950

  TO COMMANDING GENERAL

  CAMP PENDLETON, CAL

  ATTN: G-1

  REFERENCE IS MADE TO MESSAGE HQ USMC DATED 27 MAY 1950 RELIEVING CAPT K. R. MCCOY FROM NAVAL ELEMENT HQ SCAP TOKYO JAPAN AND ASSIGNING HIM TO CAMP PENDLETON CAL FOR SEPARATION FROM ACTIVE DUTY.

  SUBJECT OFFICER, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS DEPENDENT WIFE, DEPARTED TOKYO JAPAN FOR CAMP PENDLETON VIA COMMERCIAL AIR 4 JUN 1950. EN ROUTE TRAVEL TIME ESTIMATED AT NINETY-SIX (96) HOURS.

  SUBJECT OFFICER’S SERVICE RECORDS ARE CURRENTLY BEING EVALUATED BY ENLISTED PERSONNEL SECTION, G-1, HQ USMC TO DETERMINE AT WHAT ENLISTED RANK OFFICER WILL BE PERMITTED TO ENLIST, SHOULD HE SO DESIRE, AFTER HIS SEPARATION FROM COMMISSIONED STATUS. PRIOR TO ENTERING UPON TEMPORARY ACTIVE DUTY AS A COMMISSIONED OFFICER IN 1941, SUBJECT OFFICER WAS CORPORAL, USMC.

  ON ARRIVAL AT CAMP PENDLETON CAPT MCCOY SHOULD BE COUNSELED BY AN OFFICER OF EQUAL OR SUPERIOR RANK MAKING CLEAR TO HIM THE FOLLOWING:

  HQ USMC DOES NOT WISH TO ENTERTAIN ANY REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATON OF HIS RELEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY AS A COMMISSIONED OFFICER. HE WILL BE SEPARATED FROM THE USMC NOT LATER THAN 30 JUNE 1950.

  IT IS THE INTENTION OF THE G-1 SECTION USMC TO DETERMINE AT WHICH ENLISTED GRADE CAPT MCCOY MAY ELECT TO ENLIST ON SEPARA
TION AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE TIME. SUCH DETERMINATION WILL BE FURNISHED BY TELETYPE MESSAGE TO G-1 CAMP PENDLETON, AND IT IS ANTICIPATED THIS WILL OCCUR BEFORE 30 JUNE. ON RECEIPT OF ENLISTMENT OPTION, CAPT MCCOY WILL BE OFFERED THE OPTION OF IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENLISTING IN THE USMC; OR OF IMMEDIATELY BEING SEPARATED FROM THE NAVAL SERVICE TO ENTER CIVILIAN LIFE. SHOULD CAPT MCCOY ELECT TO DO SO HE MAY REMAIN ON ACTIVE DUTY UNTIL 30 JUNE 1950.

  CAPT MCCOY HAS TWENTY-NINE (29) DAYS OF ACCRUED LEAVE. HE SHOULD BE OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO ON LEAVE STATUS IF HE SO DESIRES UNTIL HE ACCEPTS OR DECLINES REENLISTMENT IN THE GRADE TO BE OFFERED, OR UNTIL 28 JUNE 1950 WHEN ABSENT PRIOR SEPARATION AS OUTLINED ABOVE HIS SEPARATION PROCESS MUST COMMENCE.

  FOR THE COMMANDANT:

  ROSCOE L. QUINCY LT COL USMC ASST CHIEF OFFICER PERSONNEL OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-1 HQ USMC

  ROUTINE

  Major Macklin puffed thoughtfully on his pipe as he considered the message, then read it again to fix the details in his mind.

  Although this was not mirrored on his face, Major Macklin had an emotional reaction to the message. He was surprised at its intensity.

  At 0735, five minutes after Lieutenant Colonel Peter S. Brewer, USMC—a short, muscular, thirty-seven-year-old—who was Chief of Officer Records and Major Macklin’s immediate superior, had entered his office, he saw Major Macklin in the open door of the office, waiting for permission to enter.

  He waved him in.

  “Good morning, Macklin,” Lieutenant Colonel Brewer said. “Something?”

  “Good morning, sir,” Macklin replied. “I wondered if the colonel had seen this?”

  He handed Brewer the TWX from Eighth & Eye.

  Brewer read it, then looked up at Macklin to see what he had to say about it.

  “The phrase about encouraging this officer to take leave before he’s separated, sir.”

  “What about it?”

  “Sir, I’d like to find something for this officer to do around here, so that he wouldn’t have to take leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Sir, I know this officer. May I speak frankly?”