W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines

by Behind The Lines(Lit)

  There was only one alternative to this course of action, one that Paulson himself could not accept, but which, the more he thought about it, seemed to be a viable course of action for Lieutenant Jim Weston.

  Before the war, Paulson came to know a number of Army Air Corps pilots. One of them, an Army Air Corps major-also transferred to ground duty when there were no more airplanes for him to fly-approached him and announced that since the war here was about over and he had no intention of surrendering, he was going to head for the hills and hide out. From there, he would either try to escape to Australia, or maybe even fight as a guerrilla.

  "You want to come along, Steve?" he asked.

  Paulson gave the offer a good deal of thought before declining. For one thing, it would be AWOL, or perhaps even desertion. Something about that rubbed him the wrong way. The very word "desertion" made him consider that since he still had some contribution to make, even if only as a platoon leader, he would in fact be deserting the enlisted men at a time when they needed him most. Finally, although he didn't like to face the fact, his health was shot. He had some sort of rash whose suppurating sores seemed to grow worse daily. His teeth were falling out. There was no way he could survive running around in the hot, physically debilitating jungles of the Philippines. He would become a burden to whomever he was with.

  Weston, however, was another matter. Although Paulson was sure he would try his best, the young pilot would be nearly worthless as a platoon leader. And maybe even worse, he could be a burden to those he was com-manding. On the other hand, if Weston could somehow get out of the Philip-pines, he would be of great use to The Corps. There had been a pilot shortage before the war, and that shortage must, Paulson reasoned, be even more acute now.

  And even if Weston couldn't escape from the Philippines, he was young, and-considering the circumstances-in good health. He could probably make himself useful to a guerrilla operation. For one thing, he had a degree in electri-cal engineering, which meant he probably knew something about radios. Any guerrilla force needed radios.

  The final consideration was very simple. If Weston stayed on Corregi-dor, one of two things was certain to happen: he would be killed, or he would be taken prisoner. It was equally certain that he would be more of a problem than an asset in the final fighting. If he went off into the hills, tried to escape to Australia, he would probably be killed. But he might not. He might escape. And if he did, he could make a contribution. Or he might be useful to some guerrilla commander (Paulson thought of his Air Corps friend, who one day simply vanished from Corregidor) and make a contribu-tion that way.

  On The Rock, the alternatives to death and/or surrender were the subject of many careful, soft conversations between officers. Yet, as close as he and Paul-son had become, Weston had never brought the subject up.

  Is this, Paulson wondered, because he's been thinking about it, and is afraid I will order him to forget about it if he mentions it to me? Or because he thinks his duty is clear, to stay here and get killed or become a prisoner? And doesn't want me to think he's even thought about taking off?

  Finally-he later recognized this as one of the most difficult things he'd ever done in The Corps-Paulson brought the subject up to Weston himself, directly and somewhat forcefully. They were discussing Weston's alterna-tives-as possibilities Weston could choose, one possibility being to try to es-cape. But then Paulson stopped and changed that from a choice to something close to an order. And Weston accepted it as an order.

  Because, Paulson wondered, he is a good Marine and obeys whatever order he is given, even one that frightens him? Or because he was on the edge of making that decision for himself, and my making it an order made it easier?

  By then-none of this took more than a few days, but things were disinte-grating at a rapidly accelerating pace-it was harder and harder to leave the island. The boats, the only means of crossing the two miles of water from The Rock to Bataan, were disappearing... partly as a result of enemy action, partly from lack of parts and maintenance, and partly, Paulson suspected, because they'd been "requisitioned" by people who were electing not to surrender when the end came.

  There seemed to be proof of that. The boats now carried guards to make sure they completed their intended trips. And getting permission to leave the island for any purpose now required the authorization of a colonel or better.

  Solving that was an emotional problem for Paulson, not a practical one. As a paper-pusher, he routinely signed colonels' names to all sorts of documents, including permission authority to leave the island. Sometimes he added his ini-tials to these, sometimes not.

  He did not think his memorandum ordering Weston to Bataan on a supply-gathering mission would be questioned. But writing it was still one of the most serious violations of the officer's honor code: "willfully uttering a document known to be false."

  At 0900, he sent a runner after Lieutenant Weston, whom he had loaned to the Army Finance Officer. Weston and a half-dozen other officers had spent the past three days making lists, in triplicate, of the serial numbers of all the one-hundred-, fifty-, twenty-, and ten-dollar bills in the possession of Army and Navy Finance Officers.

  When the lists were completed, the money would be burned, to keep it out of Japanese hands. Attempts would be made to get the lists somehow out of the Philippines.

  There's no food, and no medicine, and damned little booze, Paulson thought with bitter amusement, but the Army and the Navy are loaded with dough.

  "You wanted to see me, Sir?" Weston asked.

  Paulson met the eyes of the young, unhealthily thin officer.

  "I've decided we should make one more attempt-you should make one more attempt-to find the parts for our generator," Paulson said.

  "Aye, aye, Sir," Weston replied, trying but not quite succeeding to keep his face expressionless.

  "Here's your boat pass," Paulson said, handing him the authorization.

  "Yes, Sir."

  "And the necessary funds," Paulson went on. "You'll have to sign for them."

  "Aye, aye, Sir."

  Weston's eyes widened when he glanced into the envelope Paulson handed him. It was a thick stack of crisp, unissued fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills. Far more money than was necessary to buy generator parts.

  "Five thousand dollars," Paulson said. "Inflation seems to have come to this Pacific paradise."

  "Yes, Sir," Weston said as he leaned over to sign the receipt on Paulson's desk.

  "There's supposed to be a motor pool on shore," Paulson said. "You are authorized, by your pass, to draw a vehicle. You may or may not get one."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I've arranged for an interpreter to go with you. He's supposed to be flu-ent in Spanish. Pick him up at the Headquarters Company CP."

  "Aye, aye, Sir."

  Paulson had given a good deal of thought about the wisdom of sending an interpreter with Weston. On the one hand, it would reduce any suspicions about Weston's generator-parts-finding mission. On the other, there was no way to predict how the interpreter, a buck sergeant who'd come to the Philip-pines with the 4th Marines from Shanghai, would react when he found out Weston was not going to return to The Rock.

  In the end, he decided in favor of sending the sergeant with Weston. Wes-ton might be able to handle the sergeant. If so, the sergeant, with his knowledge of Spanish, and because he was an Old Breed China Marine, might be very useful when Weston took off.

  "And I think you'd better take this with you," Paulson said, taking from the well of his desk a Thompson.45 caliber submachine gun and two extra stick magazines. "You never know when you might need it."

  "Aye, aye, Sir. Thank you, Sir," Weston said.

  He slung the Thompson's web sling over his shoulder, then put one maga-zine in each of his trouser side pockets.

  "Don't shoot yourself in the foot with that, Mr. Weston," Paulson said, meeting his eyes. "In other words, take care."

  "Aye, aye, Sir."

  "Move out, Mr. Weston," Paulson sai
d. "Get your show on the road."

  Weston said nothing for a long minute. Then he saluted.

  Paulson returned the salute and then extended his hand.

  "Good luck, Jim," Paulson said.

  "Good luck to you, Sir," Weston said. Then he came to attention. "By your leave, Sir?"

  Paulson nodded.

  Weston made the about-face movement and marched away from Paulson's desk. Paulson watched him go down the lateral tunnel and then turn into the main tunnel. Then he turned his attention to the papers on his desk.

  [TWO]

  Kindley Field

  Fortress Corregidor

  Manila Bay

  Commonwealth of the Philippines

  0920 Hours 1 April 1942

  Sergeant Percy Lewis Everly, USMC, had spent most of the morning thinking very seriously about desertion.

  Everly, who was twenty-six years old, six feet tall, sharply featured, and weighed 145 pounds, was in charge of a two-gun, water-cooled.30 caliber Browning machine-gun section of Headquarters Company, 4th Marines. This was set up to train its fire on Kindley Field, a rectangular cleared area toward the seaward end of Corregidor. The area had been cleared years before to serve as a balloon field. Everly had seen that on the map. The map didn't say what kind of balloons it was supposed to serve, whether barrage balloons, designed to interfere with aircraft attacking the island fortress, or observation balloons, from which the tip of the Bataan Peninsula two miles away could be observed.

  There had been no evidence of either kind of balloons, although Everly had come across the rusted remains of what could have been a winch for bal-loon cables.

  Everly, in his washed thin khakis, web pistol belt, and steel helmet, looked skeletal. Part of that, of course, was because they were on one-half rations, and everybody had lost a lot of weight. But Everly, who from time to time had been called "Slats," was never heavy, never weighed more than 160 pounds.

  The machine guns were set up in bunkers made from sandbags, sand-filled fifty-five-gallon drums, and salvaged lumber. They would probably provide some protection against small-arms fire and even hand grenades, but Everly knew the guns weren't going to get much protection from mortar fire or artil-lery.

  When the field telephone buzzed, Everly took it from its leather case and pressed the butterfly switch.

  "Sixteen," he said.

  "Everly?" a voice Everly recognized as the company clerk's asked.

  "Yeah."

  "The first wants you here. Now."

  "On my way," Everly said, and put the telephone back in its case.

  He had a good idea what the First Sergeant of Headquarters Company, 4th Marines, wanted with him. Because he spoke Spanish, he was in some demand as an interpreter if one of the officers had business on Bataan.

  Everly walked, stooping, across the bunker to where Corporal Max Schirmer, a short, no longer plump twenty-three-year-old, was sleeping on a bunk of two-by-fours and salvaged commo wire, and touched his arm.

  "You've got it," Everly said when Schirmer opened his eyes. "They want me at the CP."

  Schirmer nodded, then sat up and shook his head to clear it. When Everly was satisfied that Schirmer was really awake, he left the bunker and headed up the dirt path toward the Company Command Post.

  Everly had been a Marine for almost eight years. If the war hadn't come along, he would have been discharged, at the conclusion of his second four-year hitch, on 25 May 1942. But a whole year before that, on 27 May 1941, when the 4th Marines were still in China, President Roosevelt had proclaimed "an unlimited state of national emergency," one result of which had been the extension of all enlistments in The Marine Corps "for the duration of the emer-gency, plus six months."

  But that had really not meant much to Everly. He liked The Marine Corps, and he could not imagine doing anything but being a Marine. If his enlistment hadn't been extended, he would have shipped over, sewn a second four-years-service hash mark on the sleeves of his uniform, and gone on being a Marine.

  The only thing the date 25 May 1942 meant to Everly now was that- unless he did something about it, and soon, and the only thing he could think of doing was to desert-when it came around, and it was going to come around next month, he'd either be dead, or wishing he was dead.

  Everly was pretty sure in his mind about three things: (1) Bataan was about to fall; (2) "The Aid' was not coming, at least not in time to do any good; and because it wasn't, (3) soon after Bataan fell, Fortress Corregidor was going to fall.

  Bataan was a peninsula on what Everly thought of as the bottom of Luzon Island. It sort of closed off Manila Bay.

  Fortress Corregidor was an island in Manila Bay two miles off the tip of Bataan, about thirty miles from the capital of the Philippines, Manila. Maps of Corregidor looked to Everly like the drawings Mr. Hawkings used to make of human sperm on the blackboard at Zanesville High School during what was called "Masculine Hygiene."

  Everly graduated from Zanesville High School on 22 May 1934, went into The Corps two days later, and had not been back to Zanesville, or even to West Virginia, since. His father, a coal miner, died when Everly was fourteen, and his mother two years later. Since no relatives were either able or willing to take him in, the State boarded him out for two years with a "foster family." Both the State and his "foster mother" took pains to make sure he understood he would be on his own the minute he was eighteen.

  He went to the post office in Wheeling one day in the first weeks of his senior year, intending to Join The Navy and See The World, as the recruiting posters offered. But the Navy wouldn't have him, for reasons he no longer remembered, nor would the Army. But the Marine recruiter said he would ac-cept his application, send it in, and see what happened.

  A month later, there was a letter with a bus ticket and meal vouchers. He went back to Wheeling and took a physical examination and filled out some more forms; and two weeks after that, there was another letter, this one from Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., telling him he had been accepted for enlistment, and that since he was a minor, he would have to have his parents' permission to enlist, form enclosed, signature to be notarized.

  He got his "foster father" to sign it and mailed it off. But it came back saying that since Everly was a Ward Of The State Of West Virginia, it would have to be signed by the Responsible Official. That turned out to be the Judge of Probate. The Judge signed the form and told him he thought he was doing the smart thing, shook his hand, and wished him good luck.

  Everly left Zanesville the morning after the day he graduated, took the bus to Washington, D.C., was given another physical at the Washington Navy Yard, and was sworn into The Corps that afternoon.

  He went through boot camp, and then they loaded him aboard the USS Chaumont and sent him to the Marine Barracks, U.S. Navy Base Cavite, out-side Manila. That was good duty. The Corps put him to work in the motor pool, where he was supposed to be supervising the Filipino mechanics. But since the Filipinos knew a hell of a lot more about automobile mechanics than he did, what really happened was that they taught him, rather than the other way around.

  He also got himself a girl, a short, sort of plump, dark-skinned seventeen-year-old named Estellita, which meant "Little Star" or something like that. Estellita had been raised as a Catholic. Every week she went to confession, because what they were doing-not being married-was a sin, and then to Mass, and then came home and got in bed with him again.

  Everly was very careful not to get her in the family way. He had only been an orphan two years before coming into The Corps, but that had been enough to convince him that making a baby that was going to be an orphan because you weren't going to marry the mother would be a lousy thing to do to any-body.

  Between Estellita and the little brown brothers in the motor pool, it wasn't long before he was speaking pretty good Spanish. And then he got promoted to private first class, and he considered that things were better for him in The Corps and in the Philippines than they had ever been so far in
his life.

  Then he got in a fight in the Good Times bar with a sergeant from the Marine Detachment on the battleship USS Pennsylvania when she came into Cavite. The sonofabitch was a mean drunk. And when Everly knocked him on his ass the first time he put his hand on Estellita's breast and wouldn't stop, he came back at Everly with a knife, one of those kind that flick open when you press a button. And when the fight was over, both of them were cut, and the sergeant had a broken nose and a busted-up hand, where Everly had stomped on it.

  Everly knew the fight wasn't his fault, but he also knew that he was a PFC, and the mean sonofabitch was a sergeant. When they put him before a General Court-martial charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon upon the person of a superior noncommissioned officer, Ev-erly decided that the other shoe had dropped, the good times were over, and he was going to spend the next ten or fifteen years in the Portsmouth Naval Prison.