The Corps 03 - Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Which airplane is yours?" she asked.

  "The third one," Jim Ward said. "The one with ‘Marines’ painted on the fuselage."

  "I’m impressed," Aunt Caroline said. "I didn’t know you were flying something that large."

  "I’m just learning how, to tell you the truth," Jim Ward said.

  "And you’re the teacher, Lieutenant Schneider? Is that it? Is Jim a good student?"

  "Actually, Caroline," Jim Ward said, "Sergeant Galloway is the IP. Instructor Pilot."

  Aunt Caroline shifted her head so that she could see Sergeant Galloway in the rearview mirror.

  Their eyes met. Charley Galloway felt his heart jump.

  "Isn’t that a little unusual?" she asked.

  "No, Ma’am," Charley Galloway said.

  The hell it isn’t,Aunt Caroline thought. And that isn’t all that’s interesting about that young man.’

  "Have you been flying airplanes like that long, Sergeant?"

  "No, Ma’am," Charley Galloway said.

  "What do you ordinarily fly? And stop calling me ‘Ma’am,’ it makes me feel ancient."

  "Until recently, I was a fighter pilot," Charley Galloway said. "I usually fly Wildcats."

  "I didn’t know that, Charley," Jim Ward said, impressed. Aunt Caroline picked up on that, too.

  "Why aren’t you flying them now? And for that matter, what’s a Wildcat?"

  "The hottest fighter in the world," Jim Ward said firmly, almost with awe.

  "We lost all of our planes on December seventh," Charley Galloway said. "At Pearl."

  "You were at Pearl Harbor?"

  "Yes, Ma’am."

  "If we’re going to be friends, Charley," Aunt Caroline said, "you’re really going to have to stop calling me ‘Ma’am.’ "

  How the hell could we possibly get to be friends?

  Charley saw, in the rearview mirror, that Aunt Caroline was smiling at him. He had a momentary, insane thought: She’s smiling at me the same way Ensign Mary Agnes O’Malley smiled at me just before she grabbed my joint in the Ford on the way up to the cabin in the mountains.

  Immediately, he had more sensible thoughts:

  Jesus Christ, I’m letting my imagination run wild. Lieutenant Ward’s Aunt Caroline is a lady, for Christ’s sake! Probably a married one. Not a slut in a Navy uniform. Ward’s Aunt Caroline is not about to grab the joint of a Marine sergeant! And you better watch your fucking step, pal You’re out of your depth around these people. Schneider, that starchy little prick, would love to tell Hershberger I got out of line here. And Hershberger told me what General Mclnerney said would happen to me if I so much as farted and embarrassed Marine Aviation. You know the rules. It’s always been the same choice, fucking or flying. They’re giving you a second chance to fly. Don’t fuck it up!

  Charley Galloway smiled politely at Ward’s Aunt Caroline’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

  "Yes, Ma’am," he said.

  Lieutenant Ward laughed.

  Charley took the chance. He winked at her reflection in the mirror.

  Aunt Caroline stuck her tongue out at Charley’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Charley’s heart jumped again.

  (Four)

  2307 Watterson Avenue

  Jenkintown, Pennsylvania

  2140 Hours 13 February 1942

  Because Lieutenant Jim Ward’s mother and dad really went out of their way to make Sergeant Charley Galloway feel welcome and comfortable, they severely undermined his determination to stay off the sauce in the process. Mr. Ward, who’d been in the Army in World War I, made a pitcher of martinis soon after they came in the house. Charley didn’t like martinis, but he had two-the first to be polite and the second because he saw that Lieutenant Schneider didn’t like to see him drinking at all.

  There was red wine during dinner to go with the steaks; and cognac after dinner, when they went down to the basement game room. Mr. Ward poured generously, and whenever Charley lowered the level in his glass a quarter-inch, he "topped it off."

  Jim Ward’s girlfriend and a friend of hers for Lieutenant Schneider were both good looking, but Charley thought that neither of them was as classy or as good looking as Aunt Caroline. Wearing a soft, pale blue cashmere sweater and a pleated skirt, she was even more beautiful than he had thought the first moment he saw her. With absolute innocence, they had been sort of paired off, as the only unattached people who would make up a couple.

  They sat beside each other at dinner, and several times their knees brushed under the table. Charley didn’t think it was his fault. He didn’t have much room for his knees, squeezed as he was between Ward’s mother and Aunt Caroline.

  Aunt Caroline was wearing a perfume he had never smelled before. He had a wild fantasy of burying his face between Aunt Caroline’s breasts and inhaling to his heart’s content.

  He smelled the perfume again in the basement game room when Aunt Caroline bent over, at Mr. Ward’s order, to "touch off" his cognac snifter.

  "No more for me, please, Ma’am," Charley said.

  "I don’t think you’re having a very good time, Charley Galloway," Aunt Caroline said.

  "I’m having a fine time, thank you," Charley said.

  "Why don’t you dance with Sergeant Galloway, Caroline?" Lieutenant Ward’s mother said.

  "Would you like to dance with me, Charley?" Aunt Caroline asked.

  I’d cut off my left nut for the chance to put my arms around you.

  "I’m not a very good dancer," he said.

  He saw Lieutenant Schneider looking at him uneasily.

  He’s afraid I’m going to grab her on the ass, or say something dirty in her ear.

  Aunt Caroline spread her arms for him, and Charley stood up.

  He put his arms around her and felt the warmth of her back, and then the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest; and the smell of her filled his nostrils; and the primary indicator of his gender popped to attention the moment that Aunt Caroline elected to move a little closer to him.

  She was startled; but he was literally immobilized with humiliation. They stopped dancing. When he glanced nervously around to see if anyone was watching, he saw that they were alone in a small corner of the game room. He wondered how they had gotten here.

  "I’m sorry," Charley said.

  "I’m not," Aunt Caroline said matter-of-factly, not withdrawing her midsection at all. "I was beginning to think you were a faggot."

  "Do I look like a faggot?" Charley asked, shocked, after a moment.

  "Not at all, but neither did my husband, and he was-is-as queer as a three-dollar bill," Aunt Caroline said.

  "Your husband’s queer?"

  "My ex-husband is," she said.

  Her hand had been brushing his neck. She dropped it, caught his hand, and led him back to the main area of the game room. She let go of his hand.

  "Charley’s too polite to say so," Aunt Caroline said. "But he’s bushed and wants to go back to the base."

  Very quickly, Lieutenant Schneider said, "Galloway, we’ll all be leaving shortly. We can leave together."

  "Oh, I know how Charley feels," Aunt Caroline said. "Four’s company and five is a crowd, right, Charley?"

  "Something like that," Charley said.

  "And I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, too," Aunt Caroline said. "And I drive right past Willow Grove, so I’ll take Charley back to the base."

  "That’s very good of you, Caroline," Charley’s dad said. "Then I’ll take the boys back later."

  "Oh, I can drive them, Mr. Ward," Jim Ward’s girlfriend said. "You won’t have to."

  They were almost at the gate to Willow Grove before Aunt Caroline spoke.

  "I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time tonight."

  "I had a good time."

  "You were uncomfortable," she argued. "Because Jim and his friends are officers, and you’re not?"

  "That didn’t bother me," Charley said.

  "Then it was me," she said. It was not a question. "You don�
�t have to be afraid of me, Charley."

  He didn’t reply.

  "How old are you, Charley?"

  "Twenty-five."

  "I’m thirty-three," she said. "Is that what’s been bothering you? God, that never happened to me before, the older woman."

  "I don’t give a damn how old you are," Charley blurted. "You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen."

  Startling him, she pulled the station wagon to the curb and slammed on the brakes. She switched the interior lights on and looked at him intently, into his eyes. After a long moment, her hand came up and lightly stroked his face.

  Then she turned from him, switched off the interior lights, and pulled away from the curb. When they reached the gate to the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, she drove right past.

  (Five)

  Willow Grove Naval Air Station

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  0205 Hours 14 February 1942

  When Lieutenants Schneider and Ward and their dates returned to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, Dave Schneider asked the MP at the gate how to find the Chief Petty Officer’s Quarters. He had the girls drop them off there.

  But then he wanted to be absolutely sure that Sergeant Galloway was there and not drunk in some saloon, about to punch out a shore patrolman. After Colonel Hershberger’s little speech, Lieutenant Schneider regarded the likelihood of that happenstance as probable.

  Technical Sergeant Galloway was not in the Chief Petty Officer’s quarters. A chief petty officer, visibly annoyed to be wakened by a pair of damned jarhead lieutenants, gave Schneider directions to the transient enlisted quarters. Technical Sergeant Galloway was not there, either.

  The crew chief was. He reported that he had not seen Sergeant Galloway since he had "driven off with you and that knockout blond lady," and that he had no idea where he might be.

  "He’ll show up," Lieutenant Jim Ward said, without much real conviction. Sergeant Galloway had left the Ward home with Aunt Caroline Ward McNamara at about ten minutes to ten.

  "He goddamed well better!" Dave Schneider replied angrily. "I knew damned well we shouldn’t have left him out of our sight!"

  When Sergeant Galloway did not appear by half past three, Schneider began preparing to make the flight to Lakehurst without Technical Sergeant Galloway. He checked the aircraft books. The red-line "engine roughness" comment had been written off: "Sparkplug replaced. Running smoothly."

  They made up the flight plan, which was pretty simple. Direct, VFR, off the airways. It was about forty miles from Willow Grove to Lakehurst. They got a weather briefing, and made sure that the aircraft had been fueled and that a ground auxiliary power unit and a fire extinguisher would be in place. And then they waited.

  "Absence without leave," Lieutenant David Schneider declared five minutes later, "is defined as ‘failure to repair at the properly appointed time at the proper place in the properly appointed uniform.’ If Galloway’s absence does not meet those criteria, I’d like to know why not."

  "Come on, Dave," Jim Ward said uncomfortably. "What’s the ‘properly appointed time’? Did you tell him to be here at any specific time? I didn’t."

  "I think," Dave Schneider said, "that the courts will hold that ‘the properly appointed time’ in this case would be when Sergeant Galloway knew he had to be here in time to fly to Lakehurst, in order to arrive there at the scheduled time. In other words, 0600, less the time to prepare to fly there, and make the flight. Zero four-thirty hours. I’m going to give him until 0430, and then we’re going, Jim, without him; and I will report him AWOL when we get there. It might also be called ‘missing a scheduled military movement.’ The Judge Advocate will have to decide that."

  There was no reply from Jim Ward. And Dave Schneider, who was nearly as annoyed with Jim Ward as he was with Sergeant Galloway, looked at him angrily.

  "Here he comes, I think," Jim Ward said, pointing out the door.

  A wooden-sided Mercury station wagon was pulling into the Base Operations parking lot. Technical Sergeant Galloway was driving. It looked to Dave Schneider as if he was driving with his arm around Aunt Caroline, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure.

  But he was sure that they walked from the station wagon almost to the door of Base Operations with their arms around each other.

  And then Sergeant Charley Galloway came through the door, touched his hand to his forehead in a gesture that might just barely be considered a salute, smiled brightly, and said, "Good morning, gentlemen."

  "Where have you been, Galloway?" Dave Schneider demanded.

  "With me," Aunt Caroline said. "Good morning. Jim, I wanted to talk to you about that."

  "About what?"

  "Well, on the way here from your house last night, it occurred to me that it was pretty late. And then I got to thinking about all the empty bedrooms in my house, just a few minutes away from here; and then that it hardly made sense for Charley-Sergeant Galloway-to go through the bother of checking into a hotel, or whatever you call it, here on the base. So we went to my house."

  "Oh," Jim Ward said lamely.

  "So we sat around there for a while, and had a cup of coffee and whatever, and then Charley got a couple of hours’ sleep in one of the bedrooms."

  "Oh," Jim Ward repeated.

  "But then it occurred to me that maybe your mother wouldn’t understand," Aunt Caroline went on. "So maybe it would be better if you didn’t mention it to her. OK?"

  "Sure," Jim Ward said.

  While Lieutenant Dave Schneider, in all modesty, did not regard himself as an infallible expert in sexual matters, he did have enough experience to recognize the signs on the female of having just had her bones jumped upon-almost certainly more than once; and the signs of sexual satiation, plus a hickey on the neck, on the male.

  Either Jim Ward is too stupid to realize what happened, or he knows that this goddamned sergeant has been screwing his Aunt Caroline and doesn‘t give a damn.

  He realized that whatever he said would be likely to exacerbate the situation, so he said nothing. But at that moment, his fondness for the reserve and enlisted components of the U.S. Marine Corps was at a low ebb.

  The crew chief appeared.

  "They changed a plug on number-five cylinder," he reported to Galloway, "and she’s fueled."

  "We filed a flight plan," Jim Ward said, "and weather says nothing significant until tonight, if then."

  "Let me see the flight plan," Galloway said, and Schneider handed it to him, aware that by so doing, Galloway had again put on the mantle and authority of pilot-in-command.

  Galloway read it carefully.

  "OK," he said finally, handing it back to Schneider. "Then let’s go. You want to drive, Lieutenant Ward?"

  "Yes . . ." Ward replied, thrilled-stopping himself, it was clear to everyone, a split second before adding, "Sir."

  "OK. Then you do the preflight," Galloway said. He turned to Aunt Caroline. "Thanks for all the hospitality," he said.

  "Oh, don’t be silly," she said. "It was my pleasure."

  I’ll bet it was,Dave Schneider thought bitterly. His sexual status was exactly the opposite of Charley Galloway’s. Jim Ward’s girlfriend’s girlfriend had roused him to exquisite heights of sexual anticipation, allowing him, among other things, to explore the soft wonders of her naked bosom. She had then made it clear that she was not the sort of girl who did that on the first date.

  His attitude was improved not at all when he noticed that Aunt Caroline was running her fingers between Charley Galloway’s legs while she kissed him chastely on the cheek.

  "Jimmy," she then said, "if I drove over to Lakehurst, could I watch you drop the paratroopers?"

  "I don’t know," Jim Ward said. "What about it, Charley?"

  "Why not?" Galloway replied. "Just tell the guard at the gate that you’re there to meet the plane from Quantico."

  He set that up, too,Dave Schneider realized furiously. What has that sonofabitch got planned for tonight?

  As they we
re climbing out of Willow Grove, on a due-east course for Lakehurst, the crew chief, who was wearing a headset, got out of his seat and leaned over Dave Schneider.

  "He wants you up forward, Sir," he said.

  Schneider walked through the cabin into the cockpit. Jim Ward was in the pilot’s seat. Galloway mimed for Dave to put on a headset.