The reviewing officer-Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, then a major, now a lieutenant colonel on Guadalcanal-concurred in the evaluation of Lieutenant Macklin. Colonel Wilson had served several times with Chesty Puller and held him in the highest possible regard.
Before the war, shortly after being labeled a liar on his efficiency report, an officer would be asked for his resignation. But that was before the war, not now. Macklin's service record showed that when he came home from Shang-hai, The Corps sent him to Quantico, as a training officer at the Officer Candi-date School. He got out of that by volunteering to become a parachutist.
Macklin invaded Gavutu with the parachutists, as a supernumerary. Which meant that he was a spare officer, who would be given a job only after an offi-cer commanding a platoon, or something else, was killed or wounded.
As his letter stated, Macklin was in the Army's Fourth General Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, recovering from his wounds, when he was sent to the States to participate as a wounded hero in the first War Bond Tour.
Colonel Wilson got the whole story of Macklin's valorous service at Gavutu from someone he'd known years before, with the 4th Marines in Shanghai, Major Jake Dillon. (In those days, Dillon had been a sergeant.)
At the start of the war, in a move which at the time did not have Colonel Wilson's full and wholehearted approval, the Assistant Commandant of The Marine Corps arranged to have Dillon commissioned as a major, for duty with Public Affairs. The Assistant Commandant's reasoning was that The Corps was going to need some good publicity, and that the way to do that was to get a professional, such as the Vice President, Publicity, of Magnum Studios, Holly-wood, California, who was paid more money than the Commandant-for that matter, more than the President of the United States. And wasn't it fortuitous that he 'd been a China Marine, and Once A Marine, Always A Marine, was willing to come back into The Corps?
Colonel Wilson was now willing to admit that Major Jake Dillon did not turn out to be the unmitigated disaster he'd expected. For instance, Dillon led a crew of photographers and writers in the first wave of the invasion of Tulagi, and there was no question they did their job well.
Dillon was responsible for Lieutenant Macklin being sent home from Aus-tralia for the War Bond Tour.
"Most of the heroes I saw over there didn't look like Tyrone Power," Dillon said. "That bastard does, so I sent him on the tour."
Dillon told Colonel Wilson that Macklin had managed to get himself shot in the calf and face without ever reaching the beach, and had to be pried loose from the piling he was clinging to, screaming for a corpsman, while the fight-ing was going on.
"You've got to admire his gall," Gunner Hardee said. "I would have thought he'd be happy to stay in Public Relations."
"I think the sonofabitch really thinks he can salvage his career," Wilson said. "Tell me what would happen next if I endorsed this application favor-ably."
"Yeah, that would get him out of The Corps, wouldn't it?" Hardee said appreciatively. "But I don't think it would work. The first thing we have to do is get an FBI check on him, what they call a Full Background Investigation. Then we send that and his service record over to the OSS. If they want him, they tell us; and we cut his orders."
"What do you think would happen if his service record turned up missing? I mean, those things happen from time to time, don't they? What if we just got this background investigation on him... he probably didn't do anything wrong before he went to Annapolis... and his letter of application... with service record to follow when available?"
"I think the OSS might be very interested in a Marine parachutist who got himself shot heroically storming the beach on Gavutu."
"And what will happen six months from now when his service record shows up and they see his efficiency report?"
"They might send him back," Hardee said. "But by then, maybe they'll have parachuted him into France or something."
"The true sign of an intelligent man, Hardee, is how much he thinks like you do. Thank you for bringing this valiant officer's offer to volunteer to my personal attention. And have one of the clerks type up a favorable endorse-ment."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
[FOUR]
Temporary Building T-2032
The Mall, Washington, D.C.
1125 Hours 19 October 1942
There were four telephones on the desk behind the pierced-steel planking wall on the ground floor of Building T-2032. When he heard the ring, Sergeant John V. Casey, USMC, who had the duty, reached out for the nearest one, a part of his brain telling him the ring sounded a little funny.
He got a dial tone, murmured "Shit!", dropped the first phone in its cra-dle, and quickly grabbed one of the others. And got another dial tone. He dropped that phone in its cradle and grabbed the third. Another dial tone.
"Shit," he repeated, now more amused than annoyed, and reached for the fourth telephone, which was pushed far out of the way. This was the one listed in the official and public telephone books for the Office of Management Anal-ysis. It rarely rang. Hardly anyone in the Marine Corps-for that matter, hardly anyone at all-had ever heard of the Office of Management Analysis. Those people who knew what the Office of Management Analysis was really doing and had business with it had one or more of the unlisted numbers.
Thinking that this call was almost certainly a wrong number, or was from some feather merchant raising money for the Red Cross or some other worthy purpose, Sergeant Casey nevertheless answered the phone courteously and in the prescribed manner.
"Management Analysis, Sergeant Casey speaking, Sir."
"I have a collect call for anyone," an operator's somewhat nasal voice announced, "from Lieutenant McCoy in Kansas City. Will you accept the charges?"
The question gave Sergeant Casey pause. He had no doubt that Lieutenant McCoy was Management Analysis's Lieutenant McCoy; but the last he'd heard, McCoy was somewhere in the Pacific, so what was this Kansas City business? And the immediate problem was that he was calling collect. So far as Sergeant Casey could recall, no one had ever called collect before; it might not be authorized.
What the hell, he decided. I'll say yes, and let McCoy straighten it out with the officers if he's not supposed to call collect.
"We'll accept charges, operator."
"Go ahead, please," the operator said.
"Who's this?"
"Sergeant Casey, Sir."
"Can you get Major Banning on the line?"
"He's not here."
"What about Captain Sessions?"
"Hold one, Lieutenant," Casey said, and considered that problem. The Management Analysis line was not tied in with any of the other telephones. He could not transfer the call by pushing a button. He solved that problem by call-ing one of the other lines, which was immediately picked up upstairs.
"Liberty 7-2033," a voice he recognized as belonging to Gunnery Ser-geant Wentzel said. What Sergeant Casey thought of as "the real phones" were answered by stating the number. That way, if the incoming call was a misdial, no information about who the misdialer had really reached got out.
"Gunny, Sergeant Casey. Is Captain Sessions around?"
"What do you want with him?"
"I got a collect call for him from Lieutenant McCoy on the Management Analysis line."
"I don't think you're supposed to accept collect calls on that line."
"I already did."
"He's here, put it through."
"This number don't switch."
"Oh, shit!" Gunny Wentzel said, and the line went dead.
Almost immediately thereafter, Casey heard someone rushing down the stairs, obviously taking them two and three at a time. A tall, lithely muscular, not quite handsome officer in his early thirties came through the door. He was in his shirtsleeves.
Casey handed him the telephone.
"Ken? What did you do, forget the number? Where are you?"
"In Kansas City. Fuel stop. We're on a B-25. They're going to drop us off at Anacostia-"
"Who's
we?"
"Dillon and me," McCoy went on. "The pilot said we should be there in about four hours."
"I'll meet you," Sessions said.
"That's not why I called," McCoy said. "I need a favor."
"Name it."
"Could you call somebody for me?"
"Ernie? You mean you haven't called her?"
Ernie was Miss Ernestine Sage, whom Sessions-and his wife-knew and liked very much. She was not simply an attractive, charming, well-educated young woman, but she had the courage of her convictions: Specifically, she had decided, despite the enormous gulf in background between them, that Ken McCoy was the man in her life, and if that meant publicly living in sin with him because he wouldn't marry her, then so be it.
As for McCoy, though he was far from hostile to marriage, or especially to marrying Ernie Sage, he had nevertheless decided-not without reason, Ses-sions thought, considering what he had done so far in the war, and what the future almost certainly held for him-that the odds against his surviving the war unscathed or alive were so overwhelming that marriage, not to mention the siring of children, would be gross injustice to a bride and potential mother.
"I didn't know when I could get east until now," McCoy said, somewhat lamely. "And now I can't get her on the phone."
"That's kind of you, Killer," Sessions said sarcastically. "I'm sure she was mildly interested in whether or not you're still alive."
"Tell her I tried to call her, and that I'll try again when I get to Washing-ton."
"Anything else?"
"I'll need someplace to stay. Would you get me a BOQ?" (Bachelor Offi-cers' Quarters.)
"OK. Anything else?"
"I've got an envelope for the Colonel from the General."
"I'll take it at the airport and see that he gets it. You have a tail number on the aircraft?"
"Two dash forty-three eighty-nine. It's an Air Corps B-25 out of Los An-geles."
"I'll be there," Sessions said. "Welcome home, Kil... Ken."
"Thank you," McCoy said, and the phone went dead in Sessions's ear.
Sessions put the handset back in its cradle.
"Thank you," he said to the sergeant.
"That was Lieutenant McCoy, and he's back already?"
"Maybe this time they'll let him stay a little longer," Sessions said.
"I guess everything went all right over there?"
"What do you know about 'everything,' Sergeant?" Sessions said, not en-tirely pleasantly.
"You hear things, Sir."
"You're not supposed to be listening," Sessions said. "But yes. Every-thing went well."
"Good," Sergeant Casey said.
"You didn't get that from me," Sessions said.
"Get what from you, Sir?"
"You can be replaced, Sergeant. By a woman."
"Sir?"
"They're talking about having lady Marines. You haven't heard?"
"No shit?"
"Scout's honor," Sessions said, and held up his hand, three fingers ex-tended, as a Boy Scout does when giving his word of honor.
"Women in The Corps?"
"Women in The Corps," Sessions said firmly.
"Jesus Christ!"
"My sentiments exactly, Sergeant," Sessions said.
Then he turned and went up the stairs to report to Colonel Rickabee that Lieutenant McCoy would be at the Anacostia Naval Air Station in approxi-mately four hours.
"J. Walter Thompson. Good afternoon."
"Miss Ernestine Sage, please."
"Miss Sage's office."
"Miss Sage, please."
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Captain Edward Sessions."
"Oh, my!" the woman's voice said. "Captain, she's in a meeting."
"Could you ask her to call me in Washington when she's free, please? She has the number."
"Just a moment, please," Sessions heard her say, and then faintly, as if she had covered the microphone with her hand and was speaking into an inter-com system: "Miss Sage, Captain Sessions is on the line. Can you take the call?"
"Ed?" Ernie Sage's voice came over the line. "I was about to call you."
"Why?"
"Why do you think? I haven't heard from you-know-who."
"I've heard from you-know-who. Just now. He'll be in Washington in four hours."
"Is he all right?"
"Sounded fine."
"The bastard called you and not me."
"He said he tried."
"Where in Washington is he going to be in four hours?"
"He asked me to get him a BOQ."
"Damn him!"
"Where would you like him to be in four hours?"
"You know where."
"Your wish, Fair Lady, is my command. Have you got enough time?"
"I can catch the noon Congressional Limited if I run from here to Pennsyl-vania Station. Thank you, Ed."
[FIVE]
The Foster Lafayette Hotel
Washington, D.C.
1625 Hours 19 October 1942
"What are we doing here?" Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, asked, looking out the rain-streaked windows of the Marine-green Ford as it pulled up last in a long line of cars before the marquee of the hotel.
McCoy's uniform was rain-soaked, and he needed a shave.
"Obeying orders," Captain Sessions said. "I know that's hard for you, but it's a cold cruel world, Killer."
"I asked you not to call me that," McCoy said. His eyes grew cold.
When his eyes get cold, Sessions thought, he doesn't look twenty-two years old; he looks like Rickabee.
"Sorry," Sessions said. "As I was saying, Lieutenant, we are obeying or-ders. General Pickering's orders to Colonel Rickabee, 'there's no point in having my apartment sitting empty. Put people in it while I'm gone,' or words to that effect. Colonel Rickabee's orders to me. 'Put McCoy in the General's apartment,' or words to that effect. And my orders to you, Lieutenant: 'Get out. Go In. Have a shave and a shower. Get your uniform pressed. The Colonel wants to see you at 0800 tomorrow.' Any questions, Mister McCoy?"
"The Colonel said to put me in there?" McCoy asked doubtfully.
"I am a Marine officer and a gentleman," Sessions replied. "You are not doubting my veracity, are you?"
"0800?" McCoy asked.
"If there's a change, I'll call you. Otherwise there will be a car here at 0730."
"OK. Thanks, Ed. For meeting me, and for... Jesus, I didn't ask. Did you get through to Ernie?"
"I would suggest you call her," Sessions said. "I can't imagine why, but she seemed a trifle miffed that you called me and not her."
"I'll call her," McCoy said, and started to open the door.
"You need some help with your bag, Lieutenant?" the driver asked.
"No. Stay there. There's no sense in you getting soaked, too," McCoy said. He turned to Sessions. "Say hello to Jeanne. How's the baby?"
"You will see for yourself when you come to dinner. Get a bath, a drink, and go to bed. You look beat."
"I am," McCoy said, opened the door, and ran toward the hotel entrance, carrying a battered canvas suitcase.
A doorman in an ornate uniform was somewhat frantically trying to get people in and out of the line of cars, but he stopped what he was doing when he saw the Marine lieutenant, carrying a bag, running toward the door.
"May I help you, Lieutenant?" he asked, discreetly blocking McCoy's passage. It was as much an act of kindness as a manifestation of snobbery. Full colonels could not afford the prices at the Foster Lafayette. It was his intention to ask if he had a reservation-he was sure he didn't-and then regretfully announce there were no rooms.
"I can manage, thank you."
"Have you a reservation, Sir?"
"Oh, do I ever," McCoy said, dodged around him, and continued toward the revolving door.
The doorman started after him, and then caught a signal from one of the bellmen. He interpreted it to mean, Let him go.
He stopped his pursuit and went to the bellman
.
"That's Lieutenant McCoy," the bellman said. "He stays here some-times. In 802."
W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines Page 17