Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  First Sergeant Hammersmith restrained a surprisingly strong urge to knock the paper out of Koffler’s hands, but at the last moment he just put his fingers on it and jerked it, to get Koffler’s attention.

  “Jesus!” Koffler said. He was, Hammersmith saw, surprised but not afraid. So far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with Koffler except that Macklin had a hard-on for him. He had never explained why, and Hammersmith had never asked.

  “Got a minute, Koffler?”

  “Sure.”

  “You was at the formation when they asked for volunteers, wasn’t you?”

  “I was there.”

  “I was sort of wondering why you didn’t volunteer.”

  Because I’m not a fucking fool, that’s why. “Volunteers will be advised that the risk of loss of life will be high.” I learned my lesson about volunteering when I volunteered for jump duty. So I didn’t volunteer for whatever the fuck this new thing is.

  “I didn’t think I was qualified,” Steve said.

  “Why not?”

  “They want people with special skills. I don’t have any. I don’t speak Japanese or French, or anything.”

  “You’re a Marine parachutist,” Hammersmith said.

  “I just made corporal,” Steve said. “I ain’t been in the Corps a year.”

  “You’re yellow, is that it?”

  “I’m not yellow.”

  “You didn’t volunteer.”

  “That don’t mean I’m yellow; that just means I don’t want to volunteer.”

  “What’s Lieutenant Macklin got on you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He doesn’t like you.”

  “Maybe because they promoted me.”

  “Maybe. But I do know he doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re a worthless shit.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I don’t like you, either,” Hammersmith said. “You’re supposed to be a Marine, and you’re yellow.”

  “I’m not yellow.”

  “You were given a chance to volunteer for an important assignment, and you didn’t. In my book that makes you yellow.”

  “They said ‘volunteer.’”

  “And you didn’t.”

  “What do you want from me, Sergeant?”

  “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “Then I don’t understand what this is all about.”

  “Just a little chat between Marines,” First Sergeant Hammersmith said, “is all.”

  “You want me to volunteer, that’s what this is all about.”

  “If I made you volunteer, then you wouldn’t be a volunteer, would you?” Hammersmith asked. “Don’t do nothing you don’t want to do. But you know what I would do if I was you?”

  “No.”

  “If I was in an outfit where my company commander thought I was a worthless shit, and my first sergeant thought I was yellow, I would start thinking about finding myself a new home.”

  (Three)

  San Diego, California

  17 April 1942

  Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, arrived in San Diego carrying all of his worldly possessions in two canvas Valv-Paks.

  That fact—that he had with him all he owned—had occurred to him on the Lark, the train on which he had made the last leg of his trip from Los Angeles. He had flown from Washington to Los Angeles.

  He had once had a good many personal possessions, ranging from books and phonograph records to furniture, dress uniforms, civilian clothing, a brand-new Pontiac automobile, and a wife.

  Of all the things he’d owned in Shanghai six months before, only one was left, a Model 1911A1 Colt .45 pistol; and that, technically, was the property of the U.S. Government. The 4th Marines were now on Corregidor. Banning sometimes mused wryly that in one of the lateral tunnels off the Main Malinta tunnel under the rock, there was probably, in some filing cabinet, an official record that the pistol had been issued to him and never turned in. The record—if not Major Ed Banning or the 4th Marines—would more than likely survive the war. And his estate would receive a form letter from the Marine Corps demanding payment.

  His household goods had been stored in a godown in Shanghai “for later shipment.” It was entirely credible to think that some Japanese officer was now occupying his apartment, sitting on his chairs, eating supper off his plates on his carved teak table, listening to his Benny Goodman records on his phonograph, and riding around Shanghai in his Pontiac.

  He did not like to think about Mrs. Edward J. (Ludmilla) Banning. Milla was a White Russian, a refugee from the Bolshevik Revolution. He had gone to Milla for Japanese and Russian language instruction, taken her as his mistress, and fallen in love with her. He had married her just before he flew out of Shanghai with the advance party when the 4th Marines were ordered to the Philippines.

  There were a number of scenarios about what had happened to Milla after the Japanese came to Shanghai, and none of them were pleasant. They ranged from her being shot out of hand to being placed in a brothel for Japanese enlisted men.

  It was also possible that Milla, who was a truly beautiful woman, might have elected to survive the Japanese occupation by becoming the mistress of a Japanese officer. Practically speaking, that would be a better thing for Milla than getting herself shot, or becoming a seminal sewer in a Japanese Army comfort house.

  Ed Banning believed in God, but he rarely prayed to Him. Yet he prayed often and passionately that God would take mercy on Milla.

  He was profoundly ashamed that he could no longer remember the details of Milla’s face, the color of her eyes, the softness of her skin; she was fading away in his mind’s eye. Very likely this was because he had taken another woman into his bed and, for as long as the affair had lasted, into his life. He was profoundly ashamed about that, too. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it away, in the end it was a betrayal of the vow he had made in the Anglican Cathedral in Shanghai to cleave himself only to Milla until death should them part.

  He had met Carolyn Spencer Howell in the New York Public Library. He had been sent to the Navy Hospital in Brooklyn, ostensibly for a detailed medical examination relating to his lost and then recovered sight. But he was actually there for a psychiatric examination. During his time in Brooklyn he was free—indeed, encouraged—to get off the base and go into Manhattan. (There’d also been strong hints that female companionship wouldn’t hurt, either.)

  Carolyn was a librarian at the big public library on 42nd Street in Manhattan. He went to her to ask for copies of the Shanghai Post covering the months between the time he had left Milla in Shanghai and the start of the war. He also wanted whatever she had on Nansen Passports. As a stateless person, Milla had been issued what was known as a Nansen Passport. He had a faint, desperate hope that perhaps the Japanese would recognize it, and that she could leave Shanghai somehow for a neutral country. Because Banning had given her all the cash he could lay his hands on, just over three thousand dollars, Milla didn’t lack for the resources she’d need to get away. Would that do her any good? Probably not, he realized in his darkest moments.

  He did not set out to pursue Carolyn as a romantic conquest. It just happened. Carolyn was a tall, graceful divorcee. Her husband of fifteen years, whom Banning now thought of as a colossal fool, had, as she put it, “turned her in for a later model, without wrinkles.”

  They met outside the library in a small restaurant on 43rd Street, where he’d gone for lunch. And they wound up in her bed in her apartment. Banning and Carolyn were very good in bed together, and not only because being there ended long periods of celibacy for each of them. They both had a lot of important things they needed to share with someone who was sensitive enough to listen and understand. He told her about Milla, for instance, and she told him about her fool of a husband.

  It was nice while it lasted, but now it was over. He could see in her eyes that she knew he was lying when he said good-bye to her and told her he would write. And she actually seemed to understand, whic
h made him feel even more like a miserable sonofabitch.

  Since Carolyn knew about Milla from the beginning, they managed to convince themselves for a while that they were nothing more than two sophisticated adults who enjoyed companionship with the other, in bed and out of it. They both told themselves that it was a temporary arrangement, with no possibility of a lasting emotional involvement—much less some kind of future with a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road. They thought of themselves as friends with bed privileges, and nothing more.

  But it became more than that. Otherwise, why would a sophisticated, mature woman be unable to keep from hugging her friend so tightly, not quite able to hold back her sobs, while a Marine major tried, not successfully, to keep his eyes from watering?

  The bottom line seemed to be that he was in love with two women, and he was in no position to do anything for either of them.

  Major Jack NMI Stecker, USMC, was waiting on the platform when Major Ed Banning threw his Valv-Paks down from the club car. There was nothing fragile in the bags except a small framed photograph of Carolyn Howell she had slipped into his luggage. He had found it while rooting for clean socks when the plane had been grounded for the night in St. Louis.

  They shook hands.

  “How’d you know I’d be on the train?” Banning asked.

  “Colonel Rickabee called and told me what plane you were on. And I knew you couldn’t get a plane further than L.A. And I didn’t think you would take the bus.”

  “Well, I’m grateful. When did you put the leaf on, Major?”

  “Day before yesterday. I just cleared the post. You can put me on the train in the morning.”

  “You didn’t stick around because of me, I hope?”

  “Well, sort of. I got you an office, sort of, in a Quonset hut at Camp Elliott, and I thought I should show you where it is. You’ve already got eight people who reported in. I put the senior sergeant in charge and told him you would be out there in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” Banning said, simply.

  They walked to Stecker’s Ford coupe. When Stecker opened the trunk, there were two identical Valv-Paks in it. There was not enough room for two more, so one of Banning’s was put in the backseat.

  Stecker got behind the wheel and then handed Banning a sheet of teletype paper.

  HEADQUARTERS US MARINE CORPS

  WASHINGTON DC 1345 9APR42

  COMMANDING GENERAL

  2ND JOINT TRAINING FORCE

  SAN DIEGO, CAL

  1. SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14 USMC IS ACTIVATED 9APR42 AT CAMP ELLIOTT CAL. DETACHMENT IS SUBORDINATE TO ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INTELLIGENCE, HEADQUARTERS USMC.

  2. INTERIM TABLE OF ORGANIZATION & EQUIPMENT ESTABLISHED MANNING TABLE OF ONE (1) MAJOR; TWO (2) CAPTAINS (OR LIEUTENANTS); AND SIXTEEN (16) ENLISTED MEN.

  3. COMMANDING GENERAL 2ND JOINT TRAINING FORCE IS DIRECTED TO PROVIDE LOGISTICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT AS REQUIRED.

  BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDANT:

  HORACE W. T. FORREST, BRIG GEN USMC

  Stecker started the car. After Banning had read the teletype message, he said, “That came in day before yesterday. The G-2 here is very curious.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Banning said. “Do I get to keep this?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Banning looked out the window and saw they were not headed toward Camp Elliott.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Coronado Beach Hotel,” Stecker said. “I figured before you begin your rigorous training program, you’re entitled to one night on a soft mattress.”

  “What training program? My orders are to collect these people and get them on a plane to Australia.”

  “You just can’t do that,” Stecker said. “There’s a program to follow. You have to draw your equipment—typewriters, field equipment, a guidon, field stoves, organizational weapons, training films and a projector to show them—all that sort of thing. Then you start the training program. If there’s no already published training program, you have to write one and submit it for approval.”

  Banning looked at Stecker with shock in his eyes, and then saw the mischief in Stecker’s eyes.

  “Jack?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m going to have to do the minute I get to New River and start to organize a battalion,” he said. “And I figured that if I have to do it, you should.”

  “You had me worried.”

  “You are going to have to do some of that stuff. You’re going to have to turn in a morning report every day, which means you will need a typewriter and somebody who knows how to use it. There’s all kinds of paperwork, Ed, that you just won’t be able to avoid—payrolls, allotments, requisitions.”

  “That never entered my mind.”

  “That’s why I brought it up,” Stecker said. “Maybe one of the people you’ve recruited can handle the paperwork, but just in case, I had a word with the G-1 about getting you a volunteer who can do it for you.”

  “Jesus!” Banning said.

  “The Marine Corps, Major,” Jack Stecker said solemnly, “floats upon a sea of paper.”

  “I’d forgotten.”

  “Your manning chart calls for two company-grade officers,” Stecker said. “You got them?”

  “No. I asked for McCoy—and not only because he speaks Japanese. But I got turned down flat.”

  “You know what McCoy is up to. That didn’t surprise you, did it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I know a guy—Mustang first lieutenant—named Howard. He doesn’t speak Japanese. Before the war, he was on the rifle team. He’s been seeing that the 2nd Raider Battalion got all the weapons they thought they wanted. That’s about over. Good man.”

  “How come you don’t want him for your battalion?”

  “I do. I offered him a company.”

  “And?”

  “He told me he wasn’t sure he could handle it. He was at Pearl on December seventh. He panicked. He found himself a hole—actually a basement arms room—and stayed there. After he saw that the arms were passed out.”

  “That doesn’t sound so terrible.”

  “He thinks it makes him unfit to take a command.”

  “You don’t, I gather?”

  “No. And I told him so. I think he would be useful to you, Ed.”

  “Would he volunteer?”

  “I don’t know. All you could do is ask him, I suppose.”

  “Where would I find him?”

  “You’ll see him tomorrow. I told him to keep an eye on your people.”

  “All this and the Coronado Beach Hotel, too? Or are you pulling my leg about that, too?”

  “No,” Stecker chuckled. “That’s where we’re going. Truth being stranger than fiction, I’ve got the keys to the Pacific & Far Eastern Shipping Company suite there. They keep it year round for the officers of their ships who are in port.”

  “How the hell did you work that?”

  “The guy that owns the company and I were in France together.”

  “His name is Fleming Pickering, and he’s a captain in the Navy reserve.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “He’s the man I’m to report to in Melbourne,” Banning said. “I didn’t know about you and him. Or that he’d been a Marine.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think you were supposed to tell me that.”

  “I’m sure I wasn’t.”

  “Then I won’t ask why you did. But at least that solves the problem of where you sleep while you’re out here.”

  “You mean in the hotel?”

  “Sure. Why not? I’m sure Pickering would want me to give you the keys. And speaking of keys, I’m going to leave you the Ford, too.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “Well, cars are getting harder and harder to come by. They’ve stopped making them, you know, and people are buying up all the good used cars. I figure that I’ll be out here again, or my boy will, or else friends who need wheels. So why sell it? I’ve
got two cars on the East Coast.”

  “Jesus, Jack, I don’t know…”

  “I’ve already arranged to park it in the hotel garage. Just leave the keys with the manager when you’re through with it.”

  “Things are going too smoothly. A lot of that, obviously, is thanks to you. But I always worry when that happens.”

  “You know what the distilled essence of my Marine Corps experience is?” Stecker said.

  “No,” Banning chuckled.

  “You don’t have to practice being uncomfortable; when it’s time for you to be uncomfortable, the Corps will arrange for it in spades. In the meantime, live as well as you can. I’m surprised you didn’t learn that from McCoy.”

  Stecker pulled up in front of the Coronado Beach Hotel.

  “Here we are,” he said. “Of course, if you’d rather, I can still drive you out to Elliott, and the Corps will give you an iron bunk and a thin mattress in a Quonset hut.”

  “This will do very nicely, Major Stecker, thank you very much.”

  “My pleasure, Major Banning.”

  (Four)

  Headquarters Motor Pool

  2nd Joint Training Force

  Camp Elliott, California

  18 April 1942

  When First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard, USMCR, walked up to the small shack that housed the motor pool dispatcher, he gave in to the temptation to add a little excitement to the lives of the dispatcher and the motor sergeant. Both of them, he saw, were engrossed in the San Diego Times.

  He squatted and carefully tugged loose from the ground a large weed and its dirt-encrusted root structure. Then he spun it around several times to pick up speed, and let it fly. It rose high in the air.

  “Good morning,” Lieutenant Howard said loudly, marching up to the dispatch shack.

  The weed reached the apogee of its trajectory, and then began its descent.

  The motor sergeant looked up from his newspaper and got to his feet.

  “Good morning, Sir,” he said, a second before the weed struck somewhere near the center of the tin roof of the dispatch shack. There was a booming noise, as if an out-of-tune bass drum had been struck.