The Corps 03 - Counterattack

by W. E. B Griffin

  Then it no longer seemed amusing at all.

  His promotion had not come through.

  He was supposed to be in San Diego two weeks from tomorrow, and from there he was going to the Pacific-in other words, to war.

  It didn’t seem fair. Just as he was getting the Parachute School shipshape, they were taking it away from him.

  It seemed to him that he could make a far greater contribution to the Marine Corps where he was-as an expert in place, so to speak-than in a routine assignment in the 1stParachute Battalion.

  After some thought, he picked up the telephone and called Captain Boehm, who had signed the TWX and had presumably made the decision to send him overseas. He outlined to Boehm the reasons it would be to the greater benefit of the Marine Corps if the TWX was rescinded.

  Captain Boehm was not at all receptive. He was, in fact, downright insulting:

  "I heard you were a scumbag, Macklin. But I never thought I would personally hear a Marine officer trying to weasel out of going overseas."

  (Four)

  The Officers’ Club

  U.S. Marine Corps Base

  Quantico, Virginia

  1730 Hours 17 May 1942

  When he entered the club, First Lieutenant David F. Schneider, USMC, was not exactly pleased to bump into First Lieutenant James G. Ward, USMCR, and Lieutenant Ward’s aunt, Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara. But neither was he exactly unhappy. He reacted like a man for whom fate has made a decision he would rather not have made himself.

  Now that he had accidentally bumped into them, so to speak, as opposed to having gone looking for them, he could now begin to rectify an unpleasant situation that it was his duty, as a regular Marine officer, to rectify for the good of the Corps.

  Schneider had learned of Mrs. McNamara’s presence on the base the day before: He was looking for Lieutenant Ward; so he walked into the squadron office and asked the sergeant on duty if he had seen him.

  "He took the lady over to the Officers’ Guest House, Lieutenant."

  The Guest House was a facility provided to temporarily house (there was a seventy-two-hour limit) dependents and friends of Quantico officers.

  "What lady?"

  "Didn’t get her name. Nice looking. First, she asked for Sergeant Galloway; and when I told her he wasn’t back yet, she asked for Lieutenant Ward, so I got him on the phone, and he came over and fetched her and told me he was taking her over to the Guest House." There was a perceptible pause before the sergeant added, "Sir."

  There was little question that the lady was Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara, but Schneider was a careful, methodical man. He called the Guest House later that day to inquire if there was a Mrs. McNamara registered. And, of course, there was.

  Technical Sergeant Charles M. Galloway had gone to Washington in response to a telephone call from General McInerney’s office. But Washington was to be only his first stop. Schneider suspected that Major Jake Dillon, the Public Affairs Officer, was behind the mysterious call from General McInerney’s office. If that was the case, there was no telling where Galloway had gone after he left Washington.

  "Hey, Dave," Ward called to him. "I thought you would show up here."

  "Good evening," Schneider said.

  "You remember my Aunt Caroline, don’t you?"

  "Of course. How nice to see you again, Mrs. McNamara."

  "Oh, call me Caroline!"

  Dave Schneider smiled at her, but did not respond.

  "Let’s go in the bar," Jim Ward suggested. Schneider smiled again, and again did not reply.

  The bar was crowded with young officers. With varying degrees of discretion, they all made it clear that they considered Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara one of the better specimens of the gentle gender.

  Dave Schneider wondered if they would register so much approval of the "lady" if they were aware that Mrs. McNamara was not only shacked up with an enlisted man but apparently didn’t much care who knew about it.

  They found a small table across from the bar.

  "Dave, do you have any idea where Charley Galloway is?" Jim Ward asked, as soon as the waiter had taken their order.

  "I believe he’s in Washington," Schneider said. "Specifically, with Major Dillon."

  "No, he’s not," Caroline said. "We just called Jake. Jake said he hadn’t heard from him since Tuesday morning, when he left the Willard. He spent Monday night there with Jake."

  Reserve officer or not, Mustang or not,Lieutenant Schneider thought angrily, Major Jake Dillon should know better than to offer an enlisted man the freedom of his hotel suite.

  "He called Caroline from Pensacola-" Jim Ward said.

  "Pensacola?" Schneider interrupted.

  "Pensacola. He called on Wednesday. He told Caroline he was going to the West Coast," Jim Ward said.

  "Actually, he said he had a week to get out there," Caroline McNamara said, "and suggested we could drive out there together."

  Jim Ward looked a little uncomfortable when she said that, Schneider noticed.

  And well he should. There is absolutely no suggestion that his aunt finds anything wrong with the idea that she has been asked to drive cross-country alone with a man to whom she’s not married. Having a shameless aunt like that should embarrass anybody.

  "That sounds like he’s on orders," Jim Ward said. "But when Caroline showed up here, and no Charley Galloway, I checked. No orders have come down on him that anyone knows about."

  "I can’t imagine what’s going on," Schneider said. "Did anyone in the squadron office know he was in Pensacola?"

  "All the squadron knows is that he went to Washington on the verbal orders of Colonel Hershberger. That was eight, nine days ago," Jim Ward said.

  "Is there a Lieutenant Jim Ward in here?" the bartender called, holding up a telephone.

  Jim Ward got up and walked to the bar and took the telephone. Less than a minute later he was back at the table, smiling.

  "Our wandering boy has been heard from," he said. "That was Jerry O’Malloy. He’s the duty officer. I asked him to let me know the minute he heard anything about Galloway."

  "And?" Caroline McNamara asked excitedly.

  "Charley just called the tower. He’s twenty minutes out," Ward said, then turned to look at Schneider and added, "In an F4F."

  "In a what?" Caroline asked.

  "A Wildcat," Jim Ward said. "A fighter plane. I wonder where he got that, and what he’s doing with it?"

  "Well, I intend to find out," Lieutenant David Schneider said, and started to get up.

  "Sit down, Dave. I told O’Malloy to have Charley call me here the minute he gets in."

  "I’m going to be at Base Operations when he lands," Schneider said.

  "What the hell is the matter with you?"

  "You know damned well what’s the matter with me. For one thing, and you know it as well as I do, he is absolutely forbidden to fly fighters."

  "And for another?" Ward asked coldly.

  "I would prefer to discuss that privately with you, if you don’t mind."

  "Sit down, Dave," Jim Ward said.

  Schneider looked at him in surprise.

  "You heard me, sit down," Jim Ward repeated firmly. "I don’t know what Charley is doing with an F4F, but I do know that it’s none of your business or mine. That’s between him and the squadron commander."

  Schneider sat down.

  "When he calls, I’ll ask him what’s going on," Jim Ward said. "In the meantime, we’ll pursue the legal principle that you’re innocent until proven guilty."

  "I don’t like the way this sounds," Caroline said. "What’s going on? What’s wrong?"

  "Never worry about things you can’t control," Jim Ward said. "So far as we know, nothing is wrong."

  Charley Galloway did not telephone. Half an hour later, he walked up to the table, leaned down, said, "Hi, baby," to Mrs. McNamara, and kissed her on the lips.

  He was wearing his fur-collared leather flight jacket over tropical worsteds. He had jammed a fore-and-
aft cap in one pocket of the flight jacket, and thin leather flying gloves in the other. He almost needed a shave, and there was a light band around his eyes where his flying goggles had protected the skin from the oily mist that often filled a Wildcat cockpit. It was obvious that he had come to the club directly from the flight line.

  "Where have you been, honey?" Caroline asked. "I was getting really worried."

  "That’s a long story," he said.

  "Charley," Jim Ward asked uncomfortably, "should you be in here?"

  "He knows damn well he shouldn’t," Dave Schneider flared. "What the hell do you think you’re doing, Galloway?"

  "Are you talking to me, Lieutenant?" Charley asked pleasantly. He shrugged out of the leather jacket and dropped it on the floor.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Then please use the words ‘Captain,’ and ‘Sir,’" Charley said. He faced Dave Schneider, smiled broadly, and pointed to the twin silver bars on each of his collar points.

  "Jesus!" Jim Ward said. "Are they for real?"

  "I got them from the Commandant himself, believe it or not," Charley said. "Together with a brief, but memorable, lecture on the conduct expected of me now that I was going to be an officer and a gentleman."

  "What about the West Coast?" Caroline asked softly.

  "I’m going to be given a fighter squadron, baby," Charley Galloway said. "As soon as I can get out to the Pacific and organize one. They’re going to fly me at least as far as Pearl. I’ve got six days to get to San Diego."

  "Oh, God!"

  "Can I go with you?" Jim Ward asked softly.

  "With Aunt Caroline and me? Hell, no," Charley Galloway said indignantly. "Didn’t you ever hear that three’s a crowd?"

  "That’s not what I meant, Captain, Sir."

  "If, in the next three weeks or a month, you can scare up an IP here who is willing to check you out in that Wildcat I just brought up here, you can come along later. I’ve got authorization to steal five pilots from here," Galloway said. Then he faced Dave Schneider. "That’s an invitation to you too, Dave. You’re a real horse’s ass sometimes, but you’re not too bad an airplane driver."

  (Five)

  Melbourne, Australia

  19 May 1942

  The Martin PBM-3R Mariner made landfall on the Australian continent near Moruya, in New South Wales, seventy-five miles southeast of the Australian capital at Canberra. The PBM-3R Mariner was the unarmed transport version of the standard PBM Mariner, a deep-hulled, twin-engined gull-winged monoplane.

  Aboard were a crew of six, nineteen passengers, and eight hundred pounds of priority cargo, including a half-dozen mail bags.

  When the excitement of finally making landfall had died down-for most aboard, it was their first view of Australia- Captain D. B. Toller, Civil Engineer Corps, USN, permitted his curiosity to take charge. He walked to the forward part of the cabin, just below the ladder leading to the cockpit, and sat down beside a Marine Corps major.

  "All right if I sit here?"

  "Certainly, Sir."

  "I’m Captain Dick Toller, Major," he said, offering his hand.

  "Ed Banning, Sir."

  "Well, we’re finally here. Or almost. This has been a long flight."

  "Yes, Sir, it has. I’ll be glad to get off this thing and stretch my legs."

  "Now, if I’m asking something I shouldn’t, just tell me to mind my own business," Captain Toller said. "But I’m really curious about something."

  "Yes, Sir?"

  "Him," Captain Toller said, nodding his head to a small area to the left of the ladder of the cockpit, where Corporal Stephen M. Koffler was curled up asleep, under blankets he had removed from his duffel bag. Koffler had rolled around in his sleep and wound up with his arm around his Springfield 1903 rifle. It looked as if he was holding it protectively, affectionately, as a child holds a teddy bear.

  Banning chuckled.

  "Corporal Koffler. He’s got the right idea. He slept from ‘Diego to Hawaii; and except to eat, he’s been asleep most of the way here."

  "I saw you get on the plane at Pearl," Captain Toller said. "I mean to say, I saw a very annoyed lieutenant commander and an even more annoyed captain being told to give up their seats in favor of passengers with higher priorities. And then you two came aboard."

  Banning didn’t reply. He was not particularly surprised by the question. The bumped-from-the-flight captain and lieutenant commander had glowered at him with barely contained indignation when they climbed down from the airplane into the launch and he and Koffler climbed aboard. Getting bumped by a Marine major was bad enough; but to be bumped by a Marine corporal with a higher priority was a little too much of a blow to a senior officer’s dignity.

  It was a question of priorities. Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee had set up their travel; and he apparently had easy-and probably unquestioned-access to the higher priorities. Special Detachment 14 had occupied most of the seats on the Mariner from San Diego to Pearl. The Air Shipment Officer at Pearl had been almost apologetic when he explained that seats were in even shorter supply from Pearl onward, and that all he could provide on this flight were two seats. The others in Special Detachment 14 would have to follow later. A lot of people with high priorities had to get to Australia.

  Banning had decided to take one of the two available seats himself, not as a privilege of rank, but because he was hand-carrying a letter from the Secretary of the Navy himself to Captain Fleming Pickering, and because he thought that, as commanding officer, he should get there as soon as possible. He had taken Koffler with him because he suspected that his most important personnel requirement immediately on reaching Australia would be for a typist. Koffler had boarded the Mariner carrying his portable typewriter as well as his rifle.

  Banning had no intention of satisfying Captain Toller’s curiosity about Corporal Koffler’s presence on the Mariner. For one thing, it was none of Captain Toller’s business why Koffler was aboard the Mariner. And for another, it would only exacerbate the Captain’s annoyance if he told him the unvarnished truth.

  "It’s a strange war, isn’t it?" Captain Toller went on, "when getting a major and his corporal to the theater of operations is of more importance to the war effort than getting a lieutenant commander and a captain there."

  Banning resisted the temptation to, politely of course, tell the Captain to go fuck himself.

  "Our orders are classified, Sir," Banning said. "But out of school, apropos of nothing at all, may I observe that there are very few people in the Naval Service, commissioned or enlisted, who were raised in Yokohama and speak Japanese fluently?"

  Captain Toller nodded solemmly.

  "I thought it might be something like that," he said. "I wasn’t trying to pry, Major, you understand. Just curious."

  "Your curiosity is certainly understandable, Sir. But I think I’ve said more than I should already."

  Captain Toller put his finger in front of his lips in the gesture of silence, and winked.

  "Thank you, Sir," Banning said politely.

  There was now a range of mountains off the right wing tip. When there was a break in their tops, Banning could see what was obviously a near-desert area on the far side. Below them, the terrain was either green or showed signs of fall cultivation.

  I should have remembered that the seasons here are the reverse of those in America.

  The plane began to let down an hour or so later. When the pilot corrected his course, Banning for a moment could see they were approaching a populated area. And then an enclosed body of water appeared.

  Port Phillip Bay,Banning decided, pleased that he had taken the trouble to look at some maps.

  He went to Koffler and pushed at him with the toe of his shoe. And then pushed twice more, harder, before Koffler sat up.

  "Yes, Sir?"

  "We’re here," Banning said.

  "Already?" Koffler asked.

  The Mariner touched down several minutes later with an enormous splash, bounced airborne again; and
then, with an even larger splash, it made final contact with the waters of Port Phillip Bay and slowed abruptly.

  A launch carried them from the Mariner to a wharf. U.S.navy was stenciled on the wharfs sides. There was a bus, an English bus, now painted Navy gray. But when Banning started toward it, someone called his name.

  "Major Banning?"

  A tall, handsome, distinguished-looking man in a Navy captain’s uniform was smiling at him.