The Corps 03 - Counterattack

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The Corps 03 - Counterattack Page 38

by W. E. B Griffin


  He was practically useless around here, too. The first sergeant had him driving a truck.

  Christ, you‘d just know that the one sonofabitch you would like to get rid of would be the only one that doesn‘t want to go!

  Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, tapped his pencil absently against his white china coffee cup as he thought the problem through.

  The basic question, he thought, is whatis best for the Corps?

  While it’s probably true that whatever these volunteers are needed for is important, I don’tknow that. What I do know is that parachutists are the wave of the future, and ergo, that the parachute school is very important, perhaps even critical, for future Marine operations in the Pacific and elsewhere. It follows logically from that that if I lose all, many, or even any of my middle-ranking noncommissioned officers to whatever it is they have volunteered for, I am setting parachute training back for however long it would take to train their replacements. I don V think I have the right to do that to the Marine Corps.

  Ido know that Corporal Stephen M. Koffler is not needed around here. Truckdrivers are a dime a dozen.

  First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin made his decision. "First Sergeant!" he called.

  (Two)

  First Sergeant George J. Hammersmith, having determined that Corporal Koffler had not been given a pass and that he was not in his barracks, looked for him first in the slop chute, and finally located him in the service club.

  The service club was a new building that had been put up in a remarkably short time not far from the huge dirigible hangar. It was a large building, two stories tall in the center, and with one-floor wings on either side. It had been furnished with upholstered chairs and couches, tables, magazine racks, and pool and Ping-Pong tables. Somewhere down the pike there was supposed to be a snack bar and a small stage for USO shows and for a band, for dances.

  With the exception of Corporal Koffler and two hostesses in gray uniforms, it was now empty. Lieutenant Macklin thought that parachutist trainees had more important things to do in their off-duty hours than loll around on their asses, and had placed the service club off limits to trainees except on weekends.

  The permanent party did not patronize the club very much. There was a club, with hard liquor, for noncommissioned officers, and a slop chute, beer only, for corporals and down. Furthermore, the permanent party was well aware that the First Sergeant and other senior noncoms held the belief that only candy-asses would go someplace where you couldn’t get anything to drink or do anything more than smile at the hostesses.

  Corporal Koffler was sitting in an upholstered armchair, a can of peanuts at his side, reading the Newark Evening News, on which there was a banner headline:bataan falls; wain-wright’s forces withdraw to fortress corregidor.

  That news had been on the radio all day, and it had bothered George Hammersmith. He had a lot of buddies with the 4thMarines, and the last he’d heard, they’d taken a real whipping. And he’d done his time in the Far East. There was no way that Corregidor could hold out for long. The fortress had been built on an island in Manila Bay to protect Manila; and Manila was already in the hands of the Japanese.

  That little shit probably doesn’t have the faintest fucking idea where the Philippines are, much less Corregidor. Sonofabitch probably never even looked at the front page, just turned right to "Blondie and Dagwood" in the comic section.

  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 4thMarines 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 4thMarines-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 4thMarines 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 42ndStreet 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 43rdStreet, 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, which 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

  2NDJOINT TRAINING FORCE

  SAN DIEGO, CAL

  1. SPECIAL DETACHMENT 14 USMC IS ACTIVATED 9APR4 2 AT CAMP ELLIOTT CAL. DETACHMENT IS SUBORDINATE TO ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INTELLIGENCE, HEADQUARTERS USMC.

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

  3. COMMANDING GENERAL 2NDJOINT 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 y
ou’ve recruited can handle the paperwork, but just in case, I had a word with the G-l 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?"

 

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