The Corps IV - Battleground

by W. E. B Griffin

  "I wondered if you would come back in here," the beautiful older woman said, behind him.

  "Jesus!"

  "How was your dinner?"

  "The food wasn't bad," John said.

  "But the rest was awful?" she asked. "Mine, too."

  "Can I get you a drink?"

  "Yes, please," she said. "But I insist on paying."

  "I can pay," he said. "I want to."

  "I think I have a little more money than a Marine Sergeant," she said.

  "Don't be too sure," he said. "You weren't at my dinner."

  "It was a money dinner? Have you noticed that talking about money at dinner ruins the taste of the food?"

  He laughed.

  "Yes," he said. "Is that the voice of experience?"

  "Yes," she said. "Unfortunately. Over a Bookbinder's lobster, my soon-to-be ex-husband and I fought politely over the division of property."

  "I'm sorry," John said.

  "Yes, Miss?" the bartender asked.

  "What are you drinking?" she asked John.

  "Famous Grouse," he said.

  "Fine," she said to the bartender. She turned to John. "Why is it that now that I see you again I don't think you're a lonely marine, far from home and loved ones?"

  "I'm from here," he said. "That may have something to do with it. And I just had dinner with my uncle."

  She chuckled. "You are also far more articulate than you were on the train," she said. "What was with you on the train?"

  "I thought you had caught me staring at you," he said.

  "I had," she said. "Why were you?"

  "Because you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

  "I can't believe that," she said.

  "Why did you come back in here?" John asked.

  "Ooooh," she said, and then looked at him. "Right to the bone, right? OK. I thought maybe you would be in here."

  "I am."

  "Did you come in here to pick up a girl?"

  "I came in because I didn't want to go home and face my father," John said evenly.

  "You did something wrong?"

  "He did."

  "That's the money you were talking about?"

  He nodded.

  "And because I had the crazy idea you might be here."

  "I am," she said.

  "I think maybe I'm dreaming and will wake up any second," John said.

  "It's like a dream for me too," she said. "A bad dream. I had the odd notion that when I met my husband, that we could... patch things up. But what he wanted was the Spode... his beloved saw the Spode and wanted it... You know what I mean by Spode?"

  "China."

  "... and the monogrammed silver. I mean, after all, it would have no meaning for me anymore, would it? I'll certainly remarry in time, won't I?"

  "I'm sorry," John said.

  "And then here I am, in a bar, more than a little drunk, with a Marine. A boy Marine. Bad dream."

  "I'm not a boy," John said, hurt.

  "Yes, you are," she said, laughing.

  "Well, fuck you!"

  There you go, asshole. You fucked it up. Why the fucking hell did you say that?

  "Sorry," he said, in anguish.

  She opened her purse and he thought she was looking for a cigarette and remembered that Uncle Bill had taken his Zippo so he couldn't light it for her.

  But her hand came out of the purse with a five-dollar bill. She dropped it on the bar and stood up.

  Now she's going to walk out of here, and I will never see her again.

  She looked into his face.

  "Come on," she said. "Let's get out of here."

  She walked to the side door; and in a moment he followed her. She waited for him to open the door for her, and walked out. Then she put her hand on his arm.

  "As long as we both understand this is insane..." she said.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Rittenhouse Square," she said. "We-I-have an apartment there."

  There was a hand on Sergeant John Marston Moore's shoulder and a voice calling gently, "Hey!"

  He opened his eyes. He was lying belly down on a bed, his arm and head hanging over the edge. He could see a dark red carpet and a naked foot, obviously a female foot. This observation was immediately confirmed when he saw that the leg attached to the foot disappeared under a pale blue robe.

  He remembered where he was, and what had happened, and rolled over onto his back.

  She was standing there, holding a cup of coffee out to him.

  I don't even know her name!

  "Hi!" she said.

  "Hi," he replied, looking into her eyes. "What's that?"

  "Coffee," she said.

  "Coffee?"

  "You said you had your father's car. I don't want you driving drunk."

  "You're throwing me out?"

  "I'm sending you home."

  "Why?"

  "Didn't we both get what we were looking for?"

  "We gave each other what the other needed would be a nicer way to put it."

  "All right," she said. "Yes, we did. I hope I did. I know you did. But now it's time to come back to the real world."

  "And for me to go home."

  "Right."

  "I don't want to go home. I want to stay here with you, forever."

  "That's obviously out of the question."

  He sat up. She tried to hand him the cup and saucer. He avoided it.

  She touched the top of his head.

  "You are really very sweet," she said.

  He tilted his head back to look up at her. She smiled.

  He reached up for the cord of her robe.

  "Don't do that."

  He ignored her.

  The robe fell open when he pulled the cord free.

  He put his arms around her and his face against her belly.

  He heard her take in her breath, and her hand dropped to the small of his neck.

  "Oh God!" she said.

  Her navel was next to his mouth and he kissed it.

  "I'm going to spill the coffee."

  "Put the coffee on the floor and take the robe off."

  "And if I do, then will you go?"

  "No."

  She dropped to her knees and put the cup and saucer on the floor, shrugged out of the robe, and then turned her face to him and kissed him.

  "Oh, Baby, what am I going to do with you?"

  "I don't know about that," he said. "But I know what I'm going to do to you."

  He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her onto the bed and looked down at her.

  "God, you're so beautiful!" he said.

  "So are you," she said.

  And then he surprised her very much by pushing himself off the bed. She raised her head to look at him. He walked to the other side of the bed and sat down and reached for her telephone.

  "Father," he said into it. "Uncle Bill and I have had a long talk and a lot to drink, and I think it would be best if I stayed over with him at the Union League, rather than driving."

  There was a pause, and then Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, said: "You're going to have to understand, Father, that I'm no longer a child. I can drink whatever and whenever I wish."

  There was another pause.

  "There's something else, Father. My orders have been changed. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon. When Mother's awake, please tell her that I'll be out there sometime before noon to pack. I have to see Mr. Schuyler at First Philadelphia, first."

  One final pause.

  "I think you know why I have to see Mr. Schuyler, Father," John said.

  A moment later, he took the receiver from his ear and looked at it.

  It was clear to Barbara Ward (Mrs. Howard P.) Hawthorne, Jr., that John's father had hung up on him. There was pain in his eyes when he turned from putting the receiver in its cradle and looked at her.

  "Oh, Baby," she said. "Whatever that was, I'm sorry."

  "Do you think you could manage to call me 'Darling,' or 'Sweetheart,'
or something besides 'Baby'?... I'll even settle happily for 'John.'"

  She held her arms open.

  "Come to me, my darling," she said.

  He didn't move.

  "I thought you wanted me to leave."

  She put her arms down and pulled the sheet up and held it over her breast.

  She found his eyes and looked into them and said, "I want what's best for you."

  "You're what's best for me."

  "You really have to leave tomorrow? Which is really, now, today?"

  "No. Thursday."

  "Then why... ?"

  "I want to be with you until I go."

  She took her eyes from his and lowered her head and fought the tears. Then she raised her eyes to his again and opened her arms again and said, "Come to me, John, my darling, my sweetheart."

  And this time he went to her.

  Chapter Six

  (One)

  HEADQUARTERS

  MARINE AIR GROUP TWENTY-ONE (MAG-21)

  EWA, OAHU ISLAND, TERRITORY OF HAWAII

  1325 HOURS 19 JUNE 1942

  Lieutenant Colonel Clyde G. Dawkins, USMC, Commanding MAG-21, was a tall, thin, sharp-featured man who wore his light brown hair so closely cropped that the tanned and sun-freckled flesh of his scalp was visible.

  He was wearing a stiffly starched khaki shirt with a field scarf tied in a tiny knot. A gold collar clasp held the collar points together and the knot in the field scarf erect. He had heard somewhere that the collar clasp was now frowned upon; but that brought the same reaction from him as the suggestion from Pearl Harbor that since Navy Naval Aviators were now discouraged from wearing their fur-collared leather flight jackets when not actually engaged in flying activities, it behooved him to similarly discourage Marine Naval Aviators from wearing their flight jackets when not actually on the flight line: He said nothing; thought, Fuck You; and wore both a collar clasp and his leather flight jacket almost all the time, fully aware that if he did so, the Marine Naval Aviators of MAG-21 would presume it was not only permissible but encouraged.

  He was not at all a rebel by nature. He did not relish defying higher authority, even when he knew he could get away with it. But he was a practical man, and the wearing of flight jackets by aviators seemed far more practical and convenient than forcing his officers to waste time taking off and putting on their uniform tunics half a dozen times a day. And the gold collar clasp, in his judgment, struck him as a splendid means to keep an officer's collar points where they belonged, even if some people in The Corps thought of it as "civilian-type jewelry." An officer with one of his collar points in a horizontal attitude looked far more slovenly than one with his collar points fixed in the proper attitude with a barely visible piece of "civilian jewelry."

  The officer standing somewhat uncomfortably before Lieutenant Colonel Dawkins's desk had performed well in the Battle of Midway. His name was Captain Thomas J. Wood. He was young and newly promoted; he was wearing a fur-collared flight jacket and a collar clasp; and he was standing with his hands clasped together behind him in the small of his back.

  But there was something about him-an impetuosity, an indecisiveness-that Dawkins did not like. Dawkins believed that a good officer made decisions slowly, and then stuck by them.

  "It's time to fish or cut bait, Tom," Dawkins said, not unkindly.

  "Uh... Sir, I decline to press charges."

  "So be it," Dawkins said.

  "Sir, I saw what I saw, but I can't..."

  "That will be all, Captain," Dawkins said. There was now a hint of ice in his voice. "You are dismissed."

  The captain came to attention.

  "Yes, Sir," he said. He did an about-face and started to march out of the room.

  "Ask Major Lorenz to come in, please," Dawkins called to him.

  "Aye, aye, Sir."

  Major Karl J. Lorenz, who was the Executive Officer of MAG-21, walked into the office. Lorenz looked, Dawkins often thought, like a recruiting poster for the Waffen-SS-in other words like an Aryan of impeccable Nordic-Teutonic heritage, blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and lithely muscular.

  "You wanted me, Skipper?" he asked.

  "Close the door, please," Dawkins said.

  Lorenz did so.

  "After some thought," Dawkins said, "he declined to press charges."

  "Huh," Lorenz said thoughtfully. "Probably a good thing, Sir. It would have been hard to make those charges stick."

  "Not a good thing, Karl," Dawkins said.

  "You think we should have tried him?" Lorenz asked, surprised.

  "I think before young Captain Wood started running off at the mouth, he should have made up his mind whether or not he was prepared to carry an accusation of cowardice through."

  "Oh," Lorenz replied. "Yes, Sir, I see what you mean."

  "He doesn't really know any more than I do-and I wasn't there-if Dunn ran away from that fight or not. Cowardice in the face of the enemy... that's the worst accusation that can be made."

  "I presume you told Wood that?"

  "No. I didn't want to influence his decision, one way or the other."

  "Can I ask what you think?"

  "I already told you, I don't think Wood-really knows. Or, if you were asking, do I think Dunn ran?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "I think we're going to have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He says he doesn't remember when, or under what conditions, he broke off the engagement. I don't think he does. He lost his windscreen and he was wounded. The question is, when did that happen? Before or after he started back to Midway? He didn't run before the fight. He got a Kate. There's no question about that. And then he got a Zero. Again, confirmed beyond any question. And then the next time he's seen, he's on his way back to Midway. Close enough to be recognized beyond any doubt, but too far away for anyone to be able to state with certainty that he had, or had not, already lost his windshield."

  "I realize, Sir, I haven't been asked, but in those circumstances I would be prone to give him the benefit of the doubt."

  "Ascribing Wood's charges to post-combat hysteria?"

  "Something like that, Sir."

  "Unfortunately, although he elected not to pursue them, Wood's charges are going to be remembered by a lot of people for a long time-made worse in the retelling, of course."

  "What are you going to do with Dunn, Sir?" Lorenz said, after a moment.

  "You and I are about to visit Lieutenant Dunn in the hospital; there I will express my pleasure that he will be discharged tomorrow, present him with his Purple Heart Medal, and inform him that he is now assigned to VMF-229. I think he will understand why it would be awkward for him to return to VMF-211. I hope he doesn't ask me for an explanation."

  "Two-twenty-nine, Sir?" Lorenz asked, surprised.

  Dawkins nodded. 'Two-twenty-nine."

  "Sir, we haven't activated VMF-229 yet."

  "It is activated," Dawkins said and paused to look at his watch, "as of 1300 hours today. Its personnel consists of one officer, absent in hospital, and one officer, en route, not yet joined. See that the order is typed up."

  "Who did you decide to give it to, Sir?"

  "A good Marine officer, Major," Dawkins said, "is always willing to carefully consider the recommendations of his superiors."

  "Sir?"

  Dawkins chuckled, opened a desk drawer, and handed Lorenz a sheet of yellow teletype paper.

  ROUTINE

  CONFIDENTIAL

  HQ USMC WASH DC 1445 14JUNE42

  COMMANDING OFFICER

  MAG-21 EWA TH

  CAPTAIN CHARLES M. GALLOWAY, USMCR, HAVING REPORTED UPON ACTIVE DUTY, HAS BEEN ORDERED TO PROCEED BY AIR TO EWA FOR DUTY AS COMMANDING OFFICER VMF-229. WHILE THIS ASSIGNMENT HAS THE CONCURRENCE OF THE COMMANDANT AND THE UNDERSIGNED YOU ARE OF COURSE AT LIBERTY TO ASSIGN THIS OFFICER TO ANY DUTIES YOU WISH. D.G. MCINERNEY BRIG GEN USMC