W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound

by Honor Bound(Lit)

  [TWO]

  The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

  Los Angeles, California

  12 October 1942

  When Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade, USMCR, stepped out of the tub onto a bath mat, the telephone was ringing.

  He walked quickly, naked and dripping, into the bedroom to answer it, wondering both who it could be and how long the telephone had been ringing. It had been a long time since he'd had access to either unlimited hot water or privacy; he'd been in the shower for a long time.

  He picked up the telephone on the bedside table.

  "Hello?"

  "¨El Teniente Frade?"

  "S¡, yo soy el Teniente Frade."

  "Yo soy Graham, Teniente, Coronel A. F. Graham."

  "Yes, Sir?"

  "Are you alone, Lieutenant?" Graham asked, in Spanish.

  "S¡, mi Coronel."

  "I'd like a word with you. Have you been drinking?"

  "Not yet, mi Coronel."

  Hell of a question, Clete thought, and a reply that was a little too flip for a lieutenant talking to a colonel.

  "See if you can hold off for half an hour or so," Colonel Graham said, a chuckle in his voice. "I should be there by then. Nine twenty-one, right?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  The telephone went dead. Clete put the handset back in the cradle and walked toward the bedroom.

  Jesus, did he speak Spanish to me?

  I'll be damned if he didn't. That entire conversation was in Spanish. Pretty good Spanish at that. What the hell was that all about?

  Clete dried himself slowly and carefully, partly to take advan-tage of the stack of thick, soft towels the hotel had so graciously provided for his comfort, and partly because his long exposure to soap and hot water had softened and loosened the scabs-perhaps twenty-five of them-on his legs and chest.

  An incredible number of insects lived on Guadalcanal, and each variety there became addicted to Cletus's blood. Sometimes, it seemed as if they fought among themselves for the privilege of taking their dinner from him and leaving behind a wide variety of irritations. These ranged from small sting marks to thumbnail-size suppurating ulcers.

  After he finished drying, Clete walked on the balls of his feet from the bathroom to the wood-and-canvas rack beside the chest of drawers that supported his suitcase. He took from it his toilet kit-once a gleaming brown leather affair, now looking like something a mechanic was about to discard. From this he took a jar of gray paste. Despite the assurances of the Medical Corps, U.S. Navy, that the stuff was the very latest miracle medicine to soothe what the doctors somewhat euphemistically called "minor skin irritations," he suspected that it was Vaseline.

  He returned to the bathroom and with a practiced skill applied just enough of the greasy substance to protect each "minor skin irritation" without leaving enough residue to leave greasy spots on his clothing. He then returned to his toilet kit, carried it back into the bathroom, and shaved-in the process slicing the top off several "minor skin irritations." He dealt with these new wounds by applying small pieces of toilet paper to his face. When he examined himself in the mirror, he concluded that if he was going to look like a properly turned out officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, he'd need a haircut.

  He went back into the bedroom and dug into a large brown Kraft paper bag, taking from it a brand-new T-shirt and cotton boxer shorts.

  The Public Affairs Officer Escort had taken Clete and the other "heroes" to the Officers' Sales Store almost directly from the Martin Mariner that had flown them from Espiritu Santo to Pearl Harbor. There, the Escort Officer suggested mat they might wish to acquire new linen. Clete Frade bought six sets of underwear, six khaki shirts, six pairs of cotton socks, and two field scarves, which was what the Corps called neckties. And then, because the very idea that anyone would sleep in anything but his underwear or his birthday suit seemed absurd, he bought two sets of what their label identified as "Pajamas, Men's, Cotton, Summer."

  Since there was no room in his one suitcase for his new ac-quisitions, he carried them in the paper bag the rest of the way- on a Pan American Clipper from Pearl Harbor to San Diego, and then on a chartered Greyhound bus from 'Diego to Los Angeles.

  The new T-shirt was usable as is, and he put it on, but the boxer shorts reflected the Naval Service's fascination with fasten-ing small tags to garments with open staples. He sat down on the bed and removed eight of them-he counted-from various places on his shorts. He had just pulled the shorts on when there was a knock at the door.

  It was a bellman, carrying a freshly pressed uniform. Clete went to the bedside table, opened the drawer where he had placed his wallet, his watch, and his Zippo lighter and cigarettes, and found a dollar bill. He gave it to the bellman, then hung the uniform on the closet door. When he turned, he noticed for the first time on the bedside ta-ble on the other side of the bed, an eight-by-ten-inch official-looking envelope. It wasn't his, and he was sure that it hadn't been there when he'd gone into the bathroom for his shower.

  He picked it up. It contained something other than paper, some-thing relatively heavy. He opened the flap and dumped the contents on the bed. Insignia spilled out: two sets of first lieutenant's silver bars and a new set of gold Naval Aviator's wings-and bars of ribbons, representing his decorations. There was the Dis-tinguished Flying Cross, with its oak-leaf cluster signifying the second award; the Purple Heart Medal with its oak-leaf cluster; and the ribbons representing the I-Was-There medals: National Defense, and Pacific Theatre of Operations, the latter with two Battle Stars. The ribbons were mounted together.

  The Public Affairs people again, Clete thought. The Corps doesn't want its about-to-go-on-display heroes running around with single ribbons pinned unevenly, one at a time, to their chests; they should be mounted together. And God knows, I have never polished my first John's bars from the day I got them. And my wings of gold are really a disgrace, when viewed from the per-spective of some Corps press agent; they're scratched, bent, and dirty.

  I wonder if this stuff is a gift from the Corps, or whether they will deduct the cost from my next pay.

  Clete dropped the brand-new set of glistening gold wings on the bed, then picked up the telephone.

  "Room Service," he ordered when the operator came on the line.

  "Room Service," a male voice said.

  "This is Lieutenant Frade in nine twenty-one," he said. "I would like a bottle of sour-mash bourbon, Jack Daniel's if you have it, ice, water, and peanuts or potato chips, something to nibble on."

  His voice was soft, yet with something of a nasal twang. Most people he'd met in the Corps thought he was a Southerner, a Johnny Reb, but some with a more discerning ear heard Texas. Both were right. Clete Frade had been raised in New Orleans and in the cattle country (now cattle and oil) around Midland, Texas. He'd spent his first two years of college at Texas A&M, and then, when his grandfather had insisted, finished up (Bachelor of Arts) at Tulane.

  "Lieutenant," Room Service said, hesitantly, "you understand that only the room is complimentary?"

  "I didn't even know that," Clete said. "But if you're asking if I expect to pay for the bourbon, yes, of course I do."

  And I damned sure can afford it. There's four months' pay in Sullivan's boots.

  Sullivan was-had been-First Lieutenant Francis Xavier Sul-livan, of Cleveland, Ohio, and the 167th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps. The Corps and the Navy had flown Grumman Wildcats off Henderson Field and Fighter One on the 'Canal. The Army Air Corps, those poor bastards, had flown Bell P-39s and P-40s. The story was, and Clete believed it, that the P-39s and P-40s had been offered to, and rejected by, both the English and the Russians before they had been given to the Army Air Corps and sent to the 'Canal. They were both essentially the same air-plane, a weird one, with the engine mounted amidships behind the pilot. The one good thing they had was either a 20- or a 30-mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub. But they were not as fast or as maneuverable as the Wildcat, which meant they were not even in t
he same league as the Japanese Zero. And in a logistical foul-up that surprised Clete not at all, they had been sent to the 'Canal with the wrong oxygen-charging apparatus, so they could not be flown over 12,000 feet.

  The pilots flying them fought, in other words, with one hand tied behind them. And one by one they were shot down, Francis Xavier Sullivan among them.

  Clete and F.X. made a deal. If Clete didn't come back, F.X. could have Clete's two bottles of Jack Daniel's sour-mash bour-bon; and if F.X. didn't come back, Clete could have F.X.'s Half Wellington boots, which, conveniently, fit him perfectly. The sec-ond part of the deal was that each had promised the other- presuming, of course, that one of them came through-that he would visit the other's family and tell them a bullshit story about how the fallen hero had died-"quickly, without pain, he really didn't know what hit him."

  F.X. went in while supporting the Marine Raiders on Edson's Ridge. He got his P-40 on the ground in more or less one piece, and he was alive when it caught fire. The Raiders heard him screaming until finally, mercifully, the sonofabitch blew up.

  Clete went to F.X.'s tent while F.X.'s Executive Officer was inventorying his personal gear. About the only thing that wasn't worn out, or covered with green mold, was the boots. F.X. had spent a lot of time caring for his boots. They would, he claimed, get him laid a lot when they were given a rest leave in Australia. F.X. had heard that from a fellow who'd flown with the Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force before the United States had gotten into the war; women liked men who wore boots.

  Clete was tempted not to claim the boots, but decided in the end that a deal was a deal. F.X. damned sure would have claimed the Jack Daniel's.

  While he waited for the bourbon, he pinned the new insignia to his new shirt and freshly pressed tunic. The new shirt, being new, was not stiff with starch. Before long, he knew, it would look limp and floppy, not shipshape.

  Is there a regulation someplace that orders shirts to be washed and starched before wear? I wouldn't be a damned bit surprised.

  There was a knock at the door. When he opened it, a different bellman pushed in a tray on wheels; the tray held a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a battered silver bowl full of ice, a silver pitcher that presumably contained water, and two glass bowls, one filled with mixed nuts and the other with pretzels. There was also a news-paper, which Clete thought was a nice touch.

  He took the bill from the bellman and signed it. When he turned back to the bellman, he was holding the newspaper open, so that it was ready to read when Clete took it.

  "Welcome home, Lieutenant," the bellman said, meaning it.

  "Thank you," Clete said. "It's good to be home."

  "You're here," the bellman said, pointing at the photograph on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It showed a dozen Marines standing by the Greyhound bus in front of the hotel. The headline above them read:

  Guadalcanal Heroes Receive Key to City From Mayor

  Clete looked at his photograph.

  My God, I look like a cadaver! Do I really look that bad, or is it just the photograph?

  "Thank you," Clete said.

  The bullshit begins.

  After he joined the other returning pilots back on Espiritu Santo-in the absence of more deserving heroes, he decided, he was apparently a last-minute addition to the roster-and they were waiting for further air transportation, via Pearl Harbor, T.H., to U.S. Navy Base, San Diego, California, there was a lot of talk, naturally, about why they were being sent home.

  No one believed that their pleasure, or comfort, or even phys-ical well-being had anything to do with it. The Marine Corps did not act that way. It was certainly not a reward for a job well done, either.

  All they'd been told, probably all that anyone knew, was that the orders came as a radio message from Eighth & I.

  It wasn't until they were actually given their orders at Espiritu (a twenty-copy stack of mimeographed paper), minutes before they boarded the Martin Mariner, that the words "War Bond Tour" came up. And these gave Clete little more information than Dawkins had already told him:

  The following officers, the orders read, are detached from in-dicated organizations and temporarily attached to the USMC Public Affairs Office, Federal Building, Los Angeles, Cal, for the purpose of participating in a War Bond Tour.

  That 1/Lt Frade, C. H., USMCR was detached from VMF-229 was sort of a joke, for little-if anything-of Marine Fighter Squadron Number 229 remained to be detached from. After Clete wrecked his Wildcat, VMF-229 was down to two airplanes and four pilots. There were almost no mechanics, or clerks, or cooks either. As more of VMF-229's Wildcats and their pilots had been shot down, crashed, or simply disappeared than had been re-placed, the mechanics and clerks had been transferred to other squadrons.

  What, exactly, a baker's dozen of battered fighter pilots who resembled not at all the handsome Marine aviators of the movies and recruiting posters could possibly have to do with a War Bond Tour was something of a mystery, until one of them realized that they all had one thing in common besides membership in the Cactus Air Force and their surprising presence among the living. They each-he polled the jury to make sure-had shot down at least five Japanese aircraft. They were all aces. Two were double aces, and one was working hard on being a triple.

  "They're putting us on fucking display, is what they're do-ing!" one of them announced in disgust.

  There were groans. Some of these were genuine, Clete thought-including his own. And some of them were pro forma. There was really nothing wrong with being identified as a hero. For one thing, as one said with a certain fascination in his voice, it would probably get them laid. Clete Frade had absolutely noth-ing against getting laid, but he was uncomfortable with the notion of considering himself a hero. In his mind, what he'd done was only what he had been ordered to do.

  He had not volunteered to fly at Midway, where he shot down his first Japanese shortly before being shot down himself and earning his first Purple Heart. And he had not volunteered to go to Guadalcanal. He was sent there, and he flew off Henderson and Fighter One because he was ordered to. So far as he was concerned, with one exception, he owed his seven victories to luck. He could just as easily have been killed. He was not a hero. On the chartered Greyhound bus from San Diego to Los An-geles, a public relations major stood in the aisle and delivered a little speech, the straight scoop about what was going on, Clete Frade realized then.

  "What this is all about, gentlemen," the major said, "is civilian morale. The powers that be have decided that civilian morale needs a shot in the arm. You may have noticed that so far in this war, we haven't done very well: The Japanese took Wake Island away from the Marine Corps, and the Philippines away from the Army. In other words, we have had our ass kicked-with two exceptions.

  "The two exceptions, the only times we have at least hurt the Japanese a little, were Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's B-25 raid on Tokyo and the Corps' invasion of Guadalcanal. From what I've heard, we almost got pushed back into the sea at Guad-alcanal, and that fight, as you all well know, is by no means over. But at least it looks to the public as if the Armed Forces, espe-cially the Marine Corps, have finally done something right.

  "So what has this got to do with you? You're Marine officers. You will carry out the orders you are given cheerfully and to the best of your ability. Your orders in this instance are to comply with whatever orders we feather merchants in Public Affairs give you. Generally speaking, this will mean being where you are told to be, sober, in the proper uniform, and wearing a smile. This will, it is hoped, convince the civilian populace that after some initial setbacks, the Marines finally have the situation under con-trol. This, in turn, may encourage people to buy War Bonds, and it may even convince some of our innocent youth to rush to the recruiting station so they can share in the glory.

  "An effort will be made to have someone from Public Affairs present whenever you are interviewed by the press. Keep in mind that the purpose of this operation is to bolster civilian morale. I don't
want to hear that any of you have been telling the press about what went wrong on Guadalcanal, and that certainly means you are not at liberty to say anything unflattering about the Navy, or the Army, or indeed the Corps.

  "The tour will last two weeks, and possibly three. When it is over, you will be given a fifteen-day delay en route to your new assignments. The tour will start on Monday, which will give you an opportunity to get your uniforms in shape. Tonight you are free. Which does not mean you are at liberty to get drunk and chase skirts. Use the time to call home, if you like, to have a good meal, and-repeating myself-to have your uniforms pressed and your shoes shined. Sometime early tomorrow morn-ing, you will be informed where you are to gather for specific instruction in what will be expected of you."

  After the bus delivered them to the Hollywood Roosevelt Ho-tel, and the senior officer among them had received the Key To The City from the Mayor, they were assigned to rooms. Clete Frade's first priority then was a long, hot shower.