W.E.B. Griffin: The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

"Yes, Sir."

"Possibly, Wendell, you could make it from Mindanao to Australia. God knows, it would be a waste of your talents to spend the rest of this war in a prisoner-of-war cage."

"If you think I can be of any use here, General..."

"I think we've passed that point, Wendell. And I'm sure General Sharp will be glad to have you. Give him my best regards when you see him."

"Yes, Sir."

"That'll be all, Wendell," King said. He put out his hand. "You've car-ried your weight around here. Thank you. See you after the war."

"It's been a privilege serving under you, Sir."

Fertig saluted. King returned it.

Fertig did as crisp an about-face movement as he could manage, and then marched toward the door. His throat was tight; he felt like crying.

"Wait a minute," General King called after him. Fertig turned.

"I said there were several things on my mind," King said. "I forgot one."

"Yes, Sir?"

King motioned him to approach.

"This used to be done with photographers, with a proudly beaming wife standing by, and would be followed by a drunk at the club at your expense," King said. "No clubs, no photographers, and no wife, thank God, but con-gratulations nonetheless, Colonel."

He handed Fertig a lieutenant colonel's silver leaf.

"I'll be damned," Fertig said.

"Well earned, Wendell," King said, and shook his hand. "I'll hold you to the party. In better times."

"I'll look forward to it, Sir."

King grabbed Fertig's shoulder, squeezed it, smiled, and then turned away from him.

Fertig left the office and returned to Major Hurt's desk.

"Tell me about the boat," he said.

"It's a small coaster," Hurt replied. "Be at the pier at Mariveles at half past five. They expect you."

"Do I need orders, or..."

"You're traveling VOCG," Hurt said-Verbal Order of the Commanding General. "Technically, you're on temporary duty from Luzon Force to Min-danao Force. We don't have authority to transfer anyone."

"OK."

"I'll need your truck," Hurt said. "So far as luggage is concerned, one item of luggage."

"I've got a suitcase and a footlocker."

"One or the other. Sorry."

"Well, then, I'll leave the footlocker here with you. For safekeeping."

Hurt smiled.

"I love optimists," he said. "Sorry, there really is no room on the boat."

"If it's all right with you, Hurt, I'll take the footlocker to one of the ammo dumps. And then bring the truck back, of course. There's some personal stuff in there I'd much rather see blown up than fall into the hands of some son of Nippon."

"May I offer you a piece of advice?"

"Certainly."

"You're a lieutenant colonel now. You don't have to ask a major for per-mission to do anything."

"I'll try to remember that," Fertig said. He put out his hand. "So long, Hurt. Take care of yourself."

"Yeah, you, too," Hurt said. "And just for the record, I think you deserve that silver leaf."

"If there was anything left to drink around here, I'd think you'd been at it."

"If there was anything left to drink around here, I would be at it," Major Hurt said. "Good luck, Colonel."

"See you after the war, Major."

[One]

Headquarters, 4th Marines

Malinta Tunnel

Fortress Corregidor

Manila Bay

Commonwealth of the Philippines

0915 Hours 1 April 1942

Major Stephen J. Paulson, USMC, a slightly built thirty-two-year-old from Chicago, who was acting S-l (Personnel) Officer, 4th Marines, had been giv-ing a good deal of thought-much of it uncomfortable, even painful-both to his own future and to the future of First Lieutenant James B. Weston, USMC.

Paulson had been a Marine for eleven years, and a Naval Aviator for eight. But he had spent almost two years as an infantry platoon leader before going to Pensacola for flight training. So when push came to shove-by which he meant when the Japanese landed on Fortress Corregidor-he thought he could probably do some good, at least hold his own, as an infantry officer. Not in duties commensurate with the gold oak leaves on his collar points, nor even as a captain, commanding a company. But he remembered enough about leading a platoon to be useful when the Japs came.

On the other hand, in his view, Lieutenant Weston would not. This was not a criticism of Weston, simply a statement of fact. Weston came into The Corps right out of the University of Iowa, went through a sort of boot camp for offi-cers at Quantico, and immediately went to Pensacola for pilot training. He was an aviator, and a pretty good one, but he really wasn't qualified to be a platoon leader.

Not that that would matter to the overall efficiency of the 4th Marines. There were more than enough fully qualified infantry lieutenants and captains around, both among the officers who came to the Philippines when the 4th Marines were moved from Shanghai, and among those-like Paulson himself and Weston-who joined the regiment because they'd been in the Philippines filling billets that no longer existed.

Before the war, Major Paulson had been Aviation Officer on the staff of the Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Cavite Naval Station, and had commanded a staff sergeant and a PFC. There had not been much for any of them to do, except on those rare occasions when a carrier with a Marine squad-ron aboard actually pulled into Cavite. Then there was frantic activity for sev-eral days, doing what he could to pry necessary parts and supplies loose from the steel grip of Navy supply officers; arranging for the sick to be admitted to shore medical facilities; and trying for the release from the brig of those Ma-rines who had somehow run afoul of the Shore Patrol in time for them to sail with the carrier.

In those days, he had spent a lot of his ample free time trying to come up with a good reason to ask for a transfer back to flying duties. That was a deli-cate area. Marine officers are supposed to go where they are sent and do what they are told to do, without complaining or trying to get out of it.

Ordinarily, Paulson would not have tried to get himself out of Cavite. It was a three-year tour, and when it was over, he could expect a flying assign-ment. But he didn't think the war he considered inevitable was going to wait for him to complete his tour, so he tried to get out of it. He had absolutely no success.

A visiting colonel gave him a discreet word to the wise: Obviously, The Corps had to have someone ashore at Cavite, and he was selected; it was not acceptable behavior for a Marine officer to try to get out of an assignment he didn't like.

Lieutenant Jim Weston's case was somewhat different from his own. After a two-year tour with a Marine fighter squadron, flying Brewster Buffalo F2-As, he had been selected for multiengine training. After transition training, he had been given a six-month assignment to a Navy squadron flying Con-solidated PBY-5A Catalina twin-engine flying boats.

The idea was to give him enough time under experienced Navy aviators so that he could return to The Corps and serve as a multiengine Instructor Pilot. That, in turn, meant someone had judged him to be a better-than-ordinary pilot, skilled and mature enough to become an IP... and not, as Weston felt, because he hadn't been able to cut the mustard as a fighter pilot.

Three months into his "utilization tour" at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese at-tacked. Though many of the planes of the Navy squadron to which Weston was attached were destroyed on the ground, Weston flew, as copilot, one of the few remaining Catalinas to Cavite on a courier flight.

The Japanese also attacked Cavite, destroying on the ground other Navy Catalinas, one of which had been flown to the Philippines by a Pearl Harbor-based lieutenant commander. When Lieutenant Weston's Catalina landed at Cavite, the lieutenant commander judged that he could be of far greater value to the war effort back in Pearl Harbor than a lowly Marine lieutenant on loan to the Navy. And when the Catalina took off, he was at the controls and Weston was left behind, "awaiting transportation."