“It’s a little early for me, Sir.”
“We’re wetting down a promotion,” Harris said. “And now that I am about to be a general officer, I will decide whether or not it’s a little early for you.”
“In that case, General, I would be honored,” Stecker said.
“I said ‘about to be a general.’ Not ‘am.’ You listen about as closely as that goddamned Adjutant. You’re going to have to watch that, Jack, now that you’re a field-grade officer.”
“Sir?”
“Now I’ve got your attention, don’t I?” Harris said, pleased with himself. He handed Stecker an ex-Kraft Cheese glass, half-full of whiskey.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Mud in your eye, Major Stecker,” Colonel Harris said.
“I’m a little confused, Sir,” Stecker said, as he raised the glass to his mouth and tossed the whiskey down.
“General Riley was on the horn just now,” Harris said. He drained his glass and returned the bottle to the drawer before going on. “He said that my name has gone to the Senate for B.G., and presumably, as soon as they can—if they can—gather enough of them, sober enough to vote, for a quorum, the orders will be cut.”
“It’s well deserved,” Stecker said sincerely.
“I’m glad you think so,” Harris said softly. “Thank you, Jack.”
Harris touched Stecker’s arm in what was, for him, a gesture of deep affection.
Then the tone of his voice changed.
“But we were talking about your promotion, weren’t we, Major Stecker? You owe me a big one for this, Major.”
“I didn’t realize that I was even being considered,” Stecker said.
“Let me tell you what happened,” Harris said. “You ever know a guy named Neville? Franklin G. Neville?”
“Yeah. The last I heard, he was on a tailgate assignment as a Naval attaché somewhere.”
“In Finland. Well, he came back, got involved with parachute troops of all things, and made lieutenant colonel. A couple of days ago, he jumped out of an airplane at Lakehurst without a parachute, or at least with one that didn’t work, and killed himself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, they need a replacement for him. I remain to be convinced that paratroops have any place in the Corps, but we have them. I think if the Army came up with an archery corps, some wild-eyed sonofabitch in Headquarters would start buying bows and arrows and claiming it was our idea in the first place.”
He looked at Stecker for a little appreciation of his wit, and found instead concern—perhaps even alarm—in his eyes.
“No, Major Stecker,” he said, chuckling. “You are not going to the Para-Marines, or whatever the hell they call them. You are going to the 1st Division at New River, North Carolina, to replace the guy who is going to jump into—pun intended—the shoes of the late Colonel Neville.”
“You had me worried for a moment,” Stecker confessed.
“I could see that,” Harris said. “Here’s what happened: General Riley asked me if I had a major I could recommend to take this guy’s place in the 5th Marines. He’s the Exec of Second Battalion. I told him no, but that I did have a captain I knew for a fact could find his ass with either hand…”
“Battalion Exec? Christ, I don’t know…”
“Come on, Jack. When I was a battalion commander, I had a master gunnery sergeant who made it pretty clear that he thought he could run the battalion at least as well as I could. His name was Jack Stecker.”
“That attitude goes with being a gunny,” Stecker said. “I’m not sure how it really works.”
“Well, you’re about to find out,” Harris said. “The original idea…Riley is one of your admirers, Jack, did you know that?”
Stecker shook his head.
“Well, he is. The original idea was to send you there as a captain. But then, genius that I am, it occurred to me that, A, you’re junior as hell, and that, B, if I had the battalion, I would assign an ex-master gunnery sergeant, now a captain, as a company commander.”
“I’d like to have a company,” Stecker said. “You know that.”
“Yeah, well, we have nice young first lieutenants who can be trained to do that. By a battalion exec who knows what it’s like in a battalion. So I told this to the General, and he said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to make him a major before we cut the orders sending him to New River.’”
“How’s the Battalion Commander, and, for that matter, the Regimental Commander, going to like having somebody shoving Jack Stecker down their throats? They’re bound to have somebody in mind.”
“Well, they’ll probably hate it at first, to tell you the truth. But after they are counseled by the Assistant Division Commander, I’m sure they will come to understand the wisdom of the decision.”
“Why should he do that? I don’t even know, off the top of my head, who the 1st Division ADC is.”
“As soon as they can sober up enough senators for a quorum, his name will be Brigadier General Lewis T. Harris,” Harris said.
Stecker, smiling, shook his head.
(Three)
Office of the Chief of Nursing Services
United States Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
27 February 1942
“You wanted to see me, Commander?” Ensign Barbara Cotter, NC, USNR, asked, sticking her head into the office of Lieutenant Commander Jane P. Marwood, NC, USN.
“Come in, Cotter,” Commander Marwood said. Commander Marwood, whom Barbara Cotter thought of as “that skinny old bitch,” was in blues. She was a very small woman, and thin. With the three and a half gold stripes of a lieutenant commander on her jacket cuffs, and several ribbons over her breast, Barbara Cotter thought she looked like a caricature of a Naval officer, almost like a woman dressed up for a costume party.
Barbara saw that Lieutenant Commander Hazel Gower, NC, USN, her newly promoted immediate supervisor, was also in the office, standing up and looking out the window.
I’m in some kind of trouble, otherwise good ol’ Hazel wouldn’t be here. I wonder what I’m supposed to have done?
And then she had an even more discomfitting thought: I wonder how long this is going to take?
She was supposed to meet Joe Howard in forty-five minutes. She would be pressed for time as it was, going through the controlled-drug inventory with the nurse who would come on duty, and then getting out of her whites, grabbing a quick shower, dressing, and then meeting him at the main entrance.
She had been thinking about Joe—and about herself and Joe—when she’d been summoned to Commander Marwood’s office. She had come to the conclusion that she was in love with him. In love, as opposed to infatuated with, sexually or otherwise. The emotion was new to her. She had been infatuated before. This was different.
Viewed clinically, of course, Barbara Cotter knew it was probably just sex alone, and nothing more than that. He was a healthy young male, and she was a healthy young female. There was nothing Mother Nature liked better than to turn on the chemical transmitters and receptors of a well-matched pair. She had a way of convincing both parties that the other was a perfect specimen, in all respects, of the opposite sex, and of turning off that portion of the brain that might question the notion that the two of them were experiencing an emotion never felt by anyone before.
What Mother Nature was after was propagation of the species, and Mother was totally unconcerned with the problems that might cause. Such as her family’s reaction to someone like Joe, and that there was a war on, and that she was in the United States Naval Service.
But none of that really mattered to Barbara. The only thing that mattered was that when she was with Joe, in bed or out of it, she felt complete and content, and that when they were separated, she felt incomplete and miserable.
She had felt incomplete and miserable all week. Joe had gone somewhere in northern California with an officer and a sergeant from the 2nd Raider Battalion at Camp Elliott. They’d gone
to some Army depot to get weapons for the Raiders.
She had been unpatriotically overjoyed with the realization that Joe was what he called an “armchair commando,” a Marine officer who commanded only a desk, and was not about to be sent off to fight the Japanese. And that when he was in San Diego, he was free just about every night and every weekend, and not running around in the boondocks day and night, practicing war.
And in forty minutes he would meet her at the main entrance, and they would get in her car and drive over to the Coronado Beach Hotel, and because the bar looked so crowded, they would go upstairs and have a drink before dinner in the Pacific & Far Eastern Suite, which translated to mean that half an hour after she met Joe, forty-five minutes from now, they would be in one of the wide and comfortable beds in their birthday suits.
And now this, whatever the hell this is all about!
Barbara walked over and stood before Commander Marwood’s desk.
I don’t care what she thinks I’ve done, what good ol’ Hazel has told her I’ve done. I will plead guilty, swear I will never do it again, and beg forgiveness. Just so I can meet Joe!
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“Apparently, Cotter,” Commander Marwood said, “the Navy has decided there is a slot where you may practice your special skills.”
What the hell is she talking about?
“Ma’am?”
“There has been a TWX from the Surgeon General’s office,” Marwood said. “Actually, two of them. The first of them requested a list of the nurses in San Diego with experience, or special training, in psychiatric service. I provided your name. The second TWX put you on orders.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is your formal notification, Miss Cotter, of your selection for overseas service. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Marwood said. “When a member of the Naval Service is officially notified that he, or she, is about to be sent to sea, or overseas, as I have just notified you, the officer making the notification is required to advise the person being sent overseas that failure to make the shipment—missing the ship or the airplane, or failing to report to the departure point as scheduled—is a more serious offense than simple absence without leave. Specifically, that offense is called ‘absence without leave for the purpose of avoiding hazardous service.’ Severe court-martial penalties are provided.”
Barbara felt rage flow through her; Joe Howard was immediately forgotten.
“Are you implying that I would go AWOL?” she flared.
“Not at all,” Commander Marwood replied.
“It sounded like it!”
“I don’t like your tone of voice, Ensign Cotter,” Commander Marwood said, angrily.
Barbara glared at Commander Marwood, but said nothing. Commander Marwood glared back.
Finally, Commander Marwood said, “Cotter, there was nothing personal in this. Regulations require that an individual being sent overseas be informed of the penalties provided for AWOL with the intent of avoiding hazardous service.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Barbara said.
“I’m really getting sick and tired of telling you, Cotter,” Lieutenant Commander Hazel Gower said, “that a junior appends ‘Ma’am’ to whatever she says to a superior officer.”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Barbara said.
Commander Marwood waved her hand in a sign that meant, OK, forget it.
“Where am I going?” Barbara asked, remembering just in time to append “Ma’am.”
“I don’t know,” Commander Marwood said. “Possibly to Hawaii. Possibly elsewhere. If they were going to station you aboard one of the hospital ships, I think your orders would have spelled that out. All your orders say is that you are to report to the Personnel Center, San Diego Navy Yard, for overseas service.”
“When?” Barbara asked.
“There’s some processing to go through. A physical. Shots, that sort of thing. Getting your pay up to date. Getting your personal affairs in order. Making sure you have the necessary uniforms and equipment. That’ll take a couple of days. Then you will be given a delay en route leave, up to fourteen days, which should give you time to go home. So, as a specific answer to your question, you will report to the Navy Yard two weeks from the day your processing is over and you begin your leave. When you will leave there depends on the availability of shipping.”
“I see.”
“Now, regulations also require that I ask you if there is any reason you wish to apply for relief from your orders on humanitarian grounds.”
Joe Howard reappeared in Barbara’s thinking.
“Sick parents, that sort of thing?” Commander Marwood pursued.
“No, Ma’am,” Barbara said. “Nothing like that.”
“I’ve scheduled your last day of duty for Sunday,” Lieutenant Commander Gower said. “You can start your out-processing on Monday morning.”
“I’d sort of planned on having the weekend off,” Barbara said, adding, again, just in time, “Ma’am.”
“Your shipping out has left me short of people,” Commander Gower said. “I had to rearrange the shifts. That requires that you pull a shift on Sunday. Sorry.”
Barbara nodded her understanding.
“That will be all then, Cotter,” Commander Marwood said. “Good luck. I’ll try to see you before you ship out.”
“Thank you,” Barbara said.
She had not appended “Ma’am” to her reply, but neither Commander Gower nor Commander Marwood called her on it.
When she was gone, Commander Gower said, “Well, there goes the romance of the century, down the toilet.”
“That’s a pretty goddamned bitchy thing to say, Hazel!” Commander Marwood snapped.
Ensign Barbara Cotter was twenty-five minutes late meeting First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard. Her replacement was late, and taking the goddamned drug inventory took longer than it usually did, and then she caught herself just standing in the shower, washing the same shoulder over and over again, lost in thought, and with no idea whatever how long she’d been doing that.
And then when she finally got to the main entrance, he wasn’t there.
He was here, and left.
Or he couldn’t get off, and won’t be here.
Oh, Jesus, now what?
A LaSalle convertible pulled up before the main entrance and tapped its horn. She saw a Marine officer in it.
No, goddamn you, I don’t want a goddamned ride!
Where the hell can he be?
The Marine officer in the shiny LaSalle convertible blew the horn again. Barbara glowered at him, working up what she hoped was a magnificent look of contempt. The Marine officer waved at her.
Oh, my God, it’s Joe!
She ran to the car as he opened the door.
“Hi!” he said, as she got in.
She kissed him. Hard. On the lips.
“They frown on public displays of affection,” Joe said.
“Fuck ’em,” Barbara said.
“Ooooh! I’ll have to wash out your mouth with soap.”
She slid next to him on the seat.
I’ll have to tell him. But not just yet.
“Where did you get this?”
“Nice, huh?” he said.
“Where’d you get it?”
“It belongs to the guy from the 2nd Raiders,” Joe said. “We’re going to have dinner with him and his girlfriend.”
“Do we have to?”
“I told him we would,” he said. “Any reason you don’t want to?”
“I wanted to be alone.”
“He’s a nice guy. A Mustang, like me. Out of the 4th Marines. But he went through officer candidate school. Killer McCoy.”
“Killer McCoy?”
“Yeah. They call him that because he killed a bunch of Chinese and a couple of Italian Marines in China,” Joe said admiringly. “He carries a knife in his sleeve.”
He pointed t
o his left sleeve to demonstrate.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not. Everybody in the Corps knows about Killer McCoy.”
“I know,” she said, aware that she was acting the bitch, “you and your friend the Killer and me, we’re going to go down to the waterfront and see if we can pick a fight, right?”
“Hey!” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Sorry,” Barbara said.
“Actually, we’re going to the San Diego Yacht Club,” Joe said. “How’s that for class?”
“Where?”
“The Yacht Club. Killer lives there. On a yacht.”
“I don’t believe any of this conversation,” she said.
“You’ll see.”
Twenty minutes later, they passed through the gates of the San Diego Yacht Club. And five minutes after that, they stepped from a floating pier onto the aft deck of a fifty-three-foot, twin-diesel-powered Mitchell yacht named Last Time.
“Hi!” a very good-looking young woman greeted Barbara. She wore her black hair in a pageboy, and was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. “Welcome aboard! I’m Ernie Sage.”
“Hello,” Barbara said.
A trim, brown-haired young man in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt appeared at the door to the interior. He was even younger than Joe.
“I was getting a little worried,” he said. “And you’re right, she’s gorgeous!”
“I’m very glad to meet you,” Barbara said. “I’m Barbara.”
“I’m Ken McCoy,” he said. “Romeo here has been bending my ear all week about you.”
“He was just pulling your leg. He does that,” Barbara replied. “He told me on the way over here that we were going to meet somebody who carries a knife in his sleeve, and is called ‘Killer’ because he kills people. Chinese and Italians, Joe said.”
“Thanks a lot, asshole,” Ken McCoy said furiously, and went back inside the cabin of the boat.
“Ken!” the girl called Ernie Sage said, and, after giving Joe a withering look, went into the cabin after him.
“What did I say?”
“I’m the asshole, not you. I should have warned you, getting called ‘Killer’ pisses him off.”
“You mean it’s true? He has killed people?”
Counterattack Page 30