The Corps 03 - Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  He had managed to establish communication with her only once since he had started Jump School. On his fourth attempt to call her, he’d gotten her on the phone. The first three times, Bernice or her mother had answered the phone, and he’d just hung up. Dianne seemed glad enough to hear from him, but she told him that her parents and Bernice would not understand his calling her-her having her Leonard and being older and everything-so it would be better if he waited until he got home again, and then maybe they could get together and talk or something, if it could be arranged without making anybody suspicious.

  He didn’t want to say it on the telephone, but in addition to all those things that went through his mind the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, he did want to just talk to her. He would tell her that he wasn’t just an ordinary PFC anymore but a Para-Marine, which meant that with his jump pay he was making almost twice as much money as a regular PFC. And it also meant that he stood a better chance of making corporal, and maybe even sergeant. And then there was an allowance, called an allotment or something, that he could get if he was married. And he intended to tell her that he would be honored to raise little Joey just as if he was really his kid.

  So a great deal hinged on his getting through Jump School, and having his slate wiped clean, and getting at least a pass so that he could go see her.

  But then they didn’t hold the graduation ceremony because of the people coming from Life magazine. And when he went to the First Sergeant and reminded him about what Lieutenant Macklin had said about getting the slate wiped clean if he kept his nose clean and got through Jump School, the First Sergeant told him that so far as he was concerned, his slate was wiped clean. But when Steve asked about a pass, the First Sergeant said that would have to wait until the Life magazine people had come and gone. In the meantime there would be no free time.

  Over the days before they arrived, there were several pre-inspections; and then the last inspection itself, conducted by Lieutenant Macklin, to make sure everything would be shipshape.

  On the morning of 14 February, they were marched out to a Marine R4D. It was the first one Steve had ever seen; he didn’t even know the Marines had R4Ds. Then they ‘chuted up and took off just as usual. But this time, instead of just making a swing around the field and then dropping the parachutists, the pilot flew the airplane out to the ocean, and then over the beach from Asbury Park down to Point Pleasant, and then back and forth several times, until he apparently got the word on the radio and flew back to Lakehurst. Then they jumped.

  That was Jump Six.

  The Marine R4D landed while Steve was still folding up his parachute; and he watched it take on another load of Para-Marines while he was walking back to the staging area after the truck had come and taken up the ‘chutes.

  As he and the others were ‘chuting up again, he saw that stick of Para-Marines jump. The R4D landed immediately, and they loaded aboard and jumped almost immediately.

  Steve decided that what they were doing was showing the people from Life magazine how it was done.

  That was Jump Seven. It was just like Jump Six, except that the guy leading the stick, a corporal, sprained his ankle because he landed on the concrete runway instead of on the grassy area. So he was not going to be able to jump again for a while.

  That made Steve lead man in the stick for Jump Eight. He wasn’t sure if he would have the balls to jump first. If you were anywhere but lead man in the stick, it was automatic, and you didn’t have to think about it. But in the end he decided that if he hesitated, the jumpmaster would just shove him out the door.

  Another trainee was added to the stick at the end. He would jump last.

  And then, after the pilot had already restarted the left-hand engine on the R4D, something very unusual happened. A face in a helmet appeared at the door and ordered the crew chief to put the ladder down. And then Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville himself climbed into the airplane, wearing a set of coveralls. And his parachutes. And all of his field gear-except that he had a Thompson submachine gun instead of a Springfield rifle.

  And then they took off.

  Colonel Neville pulled Steve’s head close to him and shouted in his ear.

  "I’m going to jump with you," he said. "You just carry on as usual."

  "Aye, aye, Sir!" Steve shouted back.

  This time, instead of just circling the field and jumping the Para-Marines, the R4D flew south. From where Steve was sitting, he couldn’t see much, but he became aware that there was a little airplane out there, too, flying close to the R4D.

  During one of the brief glimpses he got of it, he saw that there was a man in the backseat with a camera.

  Colonel Neville apparently knew all about it. He was standing in the door, hanging onto the jamb, making what looked like "come closer" signs to the pilot.

  And then they were making their approach to Landing Zone Wake.

  The commands now came quickly.

  "Stand up."

  "Hook up."

  "Check your equipment."

  "Stand in the door."

  There were two little lights mounted on the aircraft bulkhead by the door. One was red and the other was green. The red one came on when you started getting ready to jump. The green one came on when the pilot told the jumpmaster to start the jumping.

  Steve stood by the door, watching the red light.

  "One minute!" the jumpmaster shouted in his ear.

  Steve nodded his understanding.

  He thought of Dianne Marshall Norman’s breasts, and how their nipples stood up.

  The light turned green.

  Somebody pushed him out of the way and dove out the door. Steve saw that the little airplane was really close, and that the man in the backseat had what looked like a movie camera in his hands. The jumpmaster shouted "Go!" in his ear and pushed him out the door.

  It all happened pretty quickly, maybe in two seconds, no more. As Steve went out the door he saw that something was bent around what he thought of as "the little wing on the back" of the R4D.

  And then, as he fell beneath it to the end of the static line and he could hear the main ‘chute slither out, and as he steeled himself for the opening shock, he realized that what he had seen wrapped around the little wing on the back of the R4D was a man. And then, as his canopy filled and the harness knocked the breath out of him, he realized that the man must be Lieutenant Colonel Neville.

  And then he looked below him.

  And saw a man’s body falling, just falling, toward the earth. There was no main ‘chute, and no emergency chest ‘chute. The body just fell to the ground and seemed to bounce a little, and then just lay there.

  PFC Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, lost control of his bowels.

  And then the ground was there, and he prepared to land as he had been taught; and he landed, and rolled as he had been taught. And then he got to his feet. He was immediately knocked onto his face as the canopy filled with a gust of wind and dragged him across the hard, snow-encrusted earth.

  He had been taught how to deal with the situation, and dealt with it. He spilled the air from the canopy by manipulating the risers, and then he slipped out of the harness.

  He stood up and rather numbly began to gather the parachute to him. He knew the truck would appear to pick it up.

  And then he saw the body of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville, not fifteen feet away. It looked distorted, like a half-melted wax doll.

  He was drawn to it. Still clutching his parachute harness to his chest, he walked over to it and looked down at it.

  A photographer, one of the civilians, came running up, and a flashbulb went off.

  Oh, shit!PFC Steve Koffler thought. What are they going to do to me when they find out I’ve shit my pants?

  Another flashbulb went off, and Steve gave the photographer a dirty look. It didn’t seem to bother him.

  "What’s your name, kid?" he asked.

  "Fuck you," Steve said.

  "That’s PFC
Koffler, Stephen M.," a familiar voice said. Steve turned his head and saw that it was Lieutenant Macklin. "He is, understandably I think, a little upset."

  "I wonder why," the photographer said, and took Steve’s picture again.

  (Four)

  Lakehurst Naval Air Station

  Lakehurst, New Jersey

  1425 Hours 14 February 1942

  Major Jake Dillon had returned to active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps sixty days previously. The last time he had worn a Marine uniform was in Shanghai, China, with the 4thMarines in 1934. Major Dillon had then been a sergeant.

  In 1933, while watching an adapted-from-a-novel adventure motion picture in Shanghai, it had occurred to Sergeant Dillon that it was a bullshit story and that he could easily write a better one. Blissfully unaware of the difficulties facing a first-time novelist, he set out to do so. It was a melodrama; its hero, a Marine sergeant, rescued a lovely Chinese maiden from a fate worse than death in a Shanghai brothel. Dillon had no trouble calling forth from memory the description of that establishment.

  Next, Dillon’s hero slaughtered Chinese evildoers left and right; there was a chase sequence on horseback; and the book ended with the sergeant turning the girl back over to her grateful family and then returning to his Marine duties. Dillon wrote the novel at night on the company clerk’s typewriter. It took him two months. He mailed it off, and was not at all surprised two months after that when a contract, offering an advance of five hundred dollars, arrived in Shanghai.

  The book was published, and it sold less than two thousand copies. But it was optioned, and then purchased, by a major motion-picture studio in Los Angeles. The studio saw in it a vehicle for a very handsome but none-too-bright actor they had under contract. With all the fight and chase scenes, plus a lot of attention devoted to the Chinese girl having her clothing ripped off, it was believed they could get the handsome actor through the production without him appearing to be as dull-witted as he was.

  It was necessary to find a suitable vehicle for the handsome young man because he was a very close friend of a very successful producer. More precisely, he was sharing the producer’s bed in an antebellum-style mansion in Holmby Hills.

  Sergeant Dillon was paid five thousand dollars for the motion-picture rights to his novel, an enormous sum in 1934. And he had, he thought, discovered the goose that laid the golden eggs. If he could write one novel in two months, he could write six novels a year. And at $5,500 per, that was as much money as the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps made.

  He did not ship over when his enlistment ran out. Instead, he was returned to the United States aboard the naval transport USS Chaumont, and honorably discharged in San Diego.

  Since he was so close to Los Angeles, and his film was in production there, he went to Hollywood.

  When he visited the set, the Handsome Young Actor greeted him warmly, expressed great admiration for his literary talent, and invited him for dinner at his little place in Malibu.

  That night, in the beachfront cottage, as Dillon was wondering if he could gracefully reject the pansy’s advances (and if he could not, how that might affect his literary career), the Producer appeared.

  Words were exchanged between the Producer and the Handsome Young Actor, primarily allegations of infidelity. The exchange quickly accelerated out of control, ending when the Producer slapped the Handsome Young Actor and the Handsome Young Actor shoved the Producer through a plate-glass door opening on a balcony over the beach.

  A shard of heavy plate glass fell from the top of the doorframe, severely cutting the Producer’s right arm. Dillon noted with horror the pulsing flow of arterial blood. And then he saw the Handsome Young Actor, his face contorted with rage, advancing on the fallen, bleeding Producer with a fireplace poker in his hand, showing every intention of finishing him off with it.

  Without really thinking about it, Dillon took the Handsome Young Actor out of action, by kicking him repeatedly in the testicles. (The story, when it later, inevitably, made the rounds in Hollywood, was that ex-Marine Dillon had floored him with a single, well-placed blow of his fist.) Then he put a tourniquet on the Producer’s arm and announced that they needed an ambulance.

  The Producer told him they couldn’t do that. The police would become involved. The story would get out. He would lose his job.

  Dillon was even then not unaccustomed to developing credible story lines to explain awkward or even illegal circumstances on short notice, prior to the imminent arrival of the authorities.

  "We were fixing the door. It was out of the track, and it slipped," he said.

  "But what was I doing here, with him?" the Producer asked somewhat hysterically, obviously more concerned with his public image than with losing his arm, or even his life.

  "You brought me out here to introduce me to the star of my movie," Dillon replied, reaching for the telephone. "Where do I tell the cops we are?"

  Two days later, at the Producer’s request, Dillon called upon him at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.

  The Producer was no longer hysterical. And he was grateful. His doctor had told him that if Dillon hadn’t applied the tourniquet when he did, he would almost certainly have bled to death before the police arrived.

  "I am very grateful to you, Mr. Dillon," the Producer said.

  "Call me Jake," Dillon said. "That’s my middle name. Jacob."

  "Jake, then. And I want to repay you in some small way ..."

  "Forget it."

  "Please hear me out."

  "Shoot."

  "What are your plans, now that you’ve left the Marine Corps? Do you mind my asking?"

  "Well, I thought I’d do another couple of quick novels, put a little money in the bank for a rainy day . . ."

  "And if you can’t sell your next novel?"

  The Producer had had a copy of Malloy and the Maiden, by H. J. Dillon, sent to his hospital room. It was arguably the worst novel he had ever read, and as a major film producer, he had more experience with really bad novels than most people. He couldn’t imagine why a publisher had ever acquired it, except possibly that it had been bought by an editor who knew he was about to be fired and wanted to stick it to his employers.

  Dillon had not considered that possibility. But looking at the Producer now, he saw that it was not just possible but probable.

  "I don’t know."

  "Are you open to suggestion?"

  "Shoot."

  "You obviously have a way with words, and you have proven your ability to deal with potentially awkward situations. In my mind, that adds up to public relations."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Public relations," the Producer explained. "Making the studio, and our actors, and our films, look as good to the public as they possibly can."

  "Oh."

  "The man who runs our studio public relations is a friend of mine. I’m sure that he would be interested in having someone of your demonstrated talents."

  Dillon thought it over for a moment.

  "How much would something like that pay?"

  "About five hundred to start, I’d say. And there would be time, I’m sure, for you to continue with your writing."

  "Everything seems so expensive here. After China, I mean. Can you make do around here on five hundred a month?"

  "You can, but I’m talking about five hundred a week, Jake."

  Jake Dillon then looked at the Producer very carefully.

  "No strings?"

  The Producer, after a moment, caught Jake’s meaning. "No, Jake, no strings. I would really much rather have you as a friend than a lover."

  Jake Dillon found his natural home in motion-picture public relations. He quickly became known as the only man who was ever able to get "the world’s most famous actor" out of the teen-aged Mexican girls on his sailboat, and then off the sailboat and back to Hollywood sober-and to get him there on time to start shooting-and in a relatively cooperative mood. A half-dozen of his more experienced peers had tried to do all of that
, and had failed to pull him off even one of the chiquitas.

  Actresses trusted him. If Jake showed up at some party and told you there was an early call tomorrow and it was time to drink up and tuck it in, you knew he had your interests at heart and not just the fucking studio’s. So you went home. Sometimes with Jake.

  And the Producer, who found that Jake offered a comforting shoulder to weep on when his romances went sour, made it known among those of similar persuasion, a powerful group in Hollywood, that Jake was his best "straight" friend.