W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps IV - Battleground

When she opened the glass door, she found him shaving. He told her he'd learned how to do that in boot camp at Parris Island when he had first joined the Corps. She found it delightfully masculine.

She wrapped her arms around him from the back.

"I'll wash yours if you wash mine," she said.

"Mine's already clean," he said.

"Bastard!"

He turned and put his arms around her.

"Christ," he said. "This is like a dream."

"If it is, I don't want to ever wake up."

"We have fifty-six hours," Charley said, "before I have to report to Mare Island."

"Say, 'Caroline, you were right about driving straight through so that we would have some time in San Francisco.' "

"You were right, Baby," he said.

"Fifty-six hours?" Caroline said. "However are we going to pass all that time?"

"Well, for openers, I'm clean enough," he said, and turned the shower off. "How about a quick game of Hide the Salami?"

"And then what?" she said, dropping her hand to his mid-section.

"And then another game of Hide the Salami," Charley said. "The second time we'll start keeping score."

"You're on," she said.

There came the sound of chimes.

"What the hell is that?" Charley asked.

"I think it's the doorbell."

"One of the characters in the fancy costumes is out there, and he's about to tell us they've made a mistake and we'll have to get our asses out of here."

"We're going to have to see what it is," Caroline said.

"Yeah," Charley said.

He turned her loose and stepped out of the shower, put one of the terry cloth robes on, and went out of the bathroom.

Caroline got out of the shower, quickly toweled herself, and pulled on a robe. She wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at herself.

I can't go out there looking like this!

But, of course, she had to. Charley was ill-equipped to deal with people who managed a world-class hotel like the Andrew Foster.

She went out of the bathroom.

There were three people in the sitting room. Two bellmen, one of whom was stocking the liquor cabinet with liquor, and the other in the act of taking the cellophane from a large basket of fruit. Caroline also saw a bottle of champagne in a cooler.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you, Madam," the third man announced; he was the older man who had announced the reservation cancellation downstairs. "But when I checked, I found that the bar wasn't stocked, and I thought I'd better remedy that."

"Thank you," Caroline said.

"And I wanted to make sure you understood that because of our mix-up about your reservation, your bill will be for the room you reserved; I mean to say there will be no increase in price."

"Oh, hell," Charley said. "I can't let you do that."

"It's the pleasure of the Andrew Foster," the old man said.

"No," Charley said. "That would be stealing. I mean, we didn't really have a reservation. I don't mind talking you out of a room, but I couldn't cheat you out of any money that way."

I can't believe, Caroline thought, that he just said that!

"Your husband, Madam, is obviously an officer and a gentleman," the old man said.

Charley is really a gentleman, Caroline thought. And touchingly, innocently honest. And not of course, my husband.

"My husband is on his way to the Pacific," Caroline said. "I wanted to spend our last night, our last two nights, in this hotel. I didn't much care what I had to do to arrange that."

"The Andrew Foster is honored, Madam. And so you shall. As guests of the inn."

"We want to pay our way," Charley said.

"I would be very pleased if you would be guests of the inn," the old man said.

"Why would you want to do that?" Caroline asked.

"How could you fix it with the hotel?" Charley asked.

"I noticed your wings, Captain. I gather you're an aviator?"

"Yes, Sir, I am."

"Are you familiar with the F4F Wildcat?"

"Yes, Sir, I am."

"Charley's on his way to take command of an F4F squadron," Caroline blurted.

My God, don't you sound like a proud wife!

"My grandson, my only grandchild, is training to be an F4F pilot," the old man said. "I don't suppose you've ever run into a second lieutenant named Malcolm Pickering, have you? They call him 'Pick.'"

"He's a Marine?" Charley asked.

"Yes. He's at Pensacola right now."

"No, Sir, I don't know him," Charley said. "Sorry."

"Nice boy. His father was a Marine in the first war, so of course, he had to go into the Marines, too."

"Yes, Sir," Charley said. "That's understandable."

"I don't know anything about the sort of training they give young men like that, or about the F4F," the old man said. "I don't want to know anything I shouldn't know, classified information, I think they call it, but I really would like to know whatever you could tell me."

"Yes, Sir. I'll be happy to tell you anything you'd like to know."

"Perhaps at dinner," the old man said. "If you did that, I'd consider it a fair swap for you being guests of the inn so long as you're here."

"You don't have to do that," Charley said. "And, how the hell could you square that with the hotel?"

"I can do pretty much what I want to around here, Captain Galloway," the old man said, with a chuckle. "My name is Andrew Foster."

"I'll be goddamned!" Charley said.

"I live upstairs," Andrew Foster said. "Just tell the elevator man the penthouse. My daughter, Pick's mother, lives here in San Francisco. I'd like her to join us, if that would be all right with you."

"Certainly;" Caroline said.

"Eight o'clock?" Andrew Foster asked.

"Fine," Caroline said, softly.

"My daughter, of course, knows as little about what Pick is doing as I do, and my son-in-law hasn't been much help."

"I'm sorry?" Caroline asked.

"My son-in-law, who is old enough to know better, and had more than enough to keep him busy here, couldn't wait to rush to the colors."

"He went back in the Corps?" Charley asked.

"The Marine Corps wouldn't have him back," Andrew Foster said. "So he went in the Navy. The last we heard, he's in Australia."

Chapter Seven

(One)

UNION STATION

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

1625 HOURS 24 JUNE 1942

"The Lark," as the train from Los Angeles to San Diego was called, was probably one hell of a money maker, Sergeant John Marston Moore thought; it probably should have been called "The Pigeon Roost."

There was not an empty seat on it; and the aisles and even the vestibules between the cars were jammed with people standing or, if they could, sitting on their luggage. At least half of the passengers were in uniform; and there was something about most of the civilian women that told Moore they had some kind of a service connection. They were either wives or girlfriends of servicemen.

He had recently become convinced that air travel was not only the wave of the future, but the only way to travel. Having a good-looking, solicitous stewardess serving your meals and asking if you would like another cup of coffee was far superior to this rolling tenement, where if you were lucky you could sometimes buy a soggy paper cup of coffee and a dry sandwich from a man who made his way with great difficulty down the crowded aisle.

When nature called, he waited half an hour for his turn in the small, foul-smelling cubicle at the end of the car; and then when he made his way back to his seat, he found a sailor in it, reluctant to give it up.

The ride wasn't smooth enough, nor his seat comfortable enough, for him to sleep during the trip; but he cushioned his head with his fore-and-aft cap against the window and dozed, floating in memories of the time he and Barbara spent together. Aware that it was ludicrous to dream of his return from the war before he had actually gone overseas, he nevertheless did just that.