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

He walked up and stood beside him.

"Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" Dillon said.

"There's coffee, if you want some," Stecker replied, and then walked a few feet away; he returned with a canteen cup and gave it to Dillon.

Dillon walked to the coffee pot at the end of the serving line and waited until the KP ladling out coffee sensed someone standing behind him, looked, and then offered his ladle.

The coffee was near boiling; Dillon could feel the heat even in the handle of the cup. If he tried to take a sip, he would give his lip a painful burn. This was not the first time he had stood in a rain-soaked uniform drinking burning-hot coffee from a canteen cup.

But the last time, he thought, was a long goddamned time ago.

"What brings a feather merchant like you out with the real Marines?" Stecker asked.

"I'm making a movie, what else?"

Stecker looked at him.

"Really? Of this?"

"What I need, Jack, is film that will inspire the red-blooded youth of America to rush to the recruiting station," Dillon said. "You think this might do it?"

Stecker laughed.

"Seriously, what are your people doing?"

Dillon told him about the movie he had in mind.

"I suppose it's necessary," Stecker said.

"I'd rather be one of your staff sergeants, Jack," Dillon said. "I was a pretty good staff sergeant. But that's not the way things turned out."

"You were probably the worst staff sergeant in the 4th Marines," Stecker said, smiling, "to set the record straight. I let you keep your stripes only so I could take your pay away at poker."

"Well, fuck you!"

They smiled at each other, then Stecker said bitterly: "I'd like to make the bastards who sent us this mess, packed this way, see your movie."

"They will. What my guys are shooting-or a copy of it, a rough cut-will leave here for Washington on tomorrow's courier plane."

"No kidding?"

"Personal from Vandergrift to the Commandant," Dillon said.

"Somehow I don't think that was the General's own idea."

"No. But Lucky Lew Harris thought it was fine when I suggested it."

Stecker chuckled. "I guess that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"I saw General Harris for a moment this morning," Stecker said. "I asked him how things went when you took Goettge to Australia. He said, 'very well. I'm beginning to think that maybe your pal Dillon might be useful after all. He's really not as dumb as he looks.' "

"Christ, I better go buy a bigger hat," Dillon said. "How much did he tell you about what's going on?"

"You mean about the airfield the Japs are building?"

Dillon nodded.

"That we better go try to stop them, whether we're ready or not."

"And we're not ready, right?"

Stecker waved his hand up and down the Quay.

"What do you think?"

"Well, there'll at least be the rehearsal in the Fiji Islands."

"And because we're not even prepared for a rehearsal, that will be fucked up. And we'll go nevertheless."

"What's going to happen, Jack?"

"You know what the Coast Guard motto is?"

" 'Semper Paratus'?" Dillon asked, confused.

"No. Not that one, anyhow. What the Coast Guard says when a ship is in trouble. They have to go out. Nothing's said about having to come back."

"You think it's that bad?"

"Even after Wake Island and what happened to the 4th Marines in the Philippines, half the people in the Division think the Japs are all five foot two, wear thick glasses, and will turn tail and run once they see a real Marine. Not only the kids. A lot of the officers, who should know better, think this is going to be Nicaragua all over again."

"Jesus, you really mean that?"

"Yeah, but for Christ's sake, don't tell anybody I said so."

"Of course not," Dillon said.

"Are you going to go?"

"Sure, of course."

"You're not going to inspire... what did you say, 'red-blooded American youth'?... to rush to the recruiting station with movies of dead Marines floating around in the surf."

Dillon didn't reply for a moment. Then he said, "Straight answer, Jack: I'm not going to show them movies of dead Marines. I'm going to find me a couple, maybe three, four, good-looking Marines who get themselves lightly wounded, like in the movies, a shoulder wound..."

"A shoulder wound is one of the worst kinds, nearly as bad as the belly, you know that."

"I know that, you know that, civilians don't know that," Dillon replied. "... and maybe have a medal to go with it" he went on, taking the thought forward. "Then I'm going to bring them to the States and send them on a tour with movie stars. People will be inspired to buy War Bonds. Red-blooded American youth will rush to Marine recruiting stations."

Stecker turned to look at Dillon, who saw the contempt in his eyes.

"Most heroes I've known are as ugly as sin and would lose no time grabbing one of your movie stars on the ass," Stecker said. "What are you going to do about that?"

"Present company included, I suppose," Dillon said. It was a reference to Stecker's World War I Medal of Honor. "I'd love to have you on a War Bond tour. Do you suppose you could arrange to get yourself shot in the shoulder, Jack? After you do something heroic?"

"Fuck you, Jake."

"Like I said, Jack, I'd much rather be going to Guadalcanal as one of your staff sergeants. It didn't turn out that way, so I try to do what the Corps wants me to do as well as I can."

Stecker met his eyes.

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

He handed Dillon his empty canteen cup.

"I am now going out in the rain again," he said. "Somebody once told me that a good Marine officer doesn't try to stay dry when his men are getting wet."

"Nobody has to tell you what a good Marine officer should or should not do," Dillon said.

"What the hell is that?"

"It was intended as a compliment."

"Don't let it go to your head, Major, but I almost wish you were one of my staff sergeants," Stecker said, and then he touched Dillon's arm and walked out from under the fly tent and into the rain.

(Three)

HEADQUARTERS, VMF-229

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION

EWA, TERRITORY OF HAWAII

7 JULY 1942

If Captain Charles M, Galloway, commanding officer of VMF-229, had been called upon to describe his present physical condition, he would have said that his ass was dragging. He was bone tired and dirty. He had been flying most of the morning. He was wearing a sweat- and oil-stained cotton flying suit. His khaki flight helmet and goggles were jammed into the left knee pocket of the flying suit, and his fore-and-aft cap stuck out of the right knee pocket. He carried his leather flying jacket over his shoulder; his index finger was hooked in the leather loop inside the collar.

He needed a long shower and some clean clothes, he knew, and he would dearly like to have a beer. But beer was out of the question: He would probably put another two hours in the air this afternoon, and you don't drink-not even a lousy beer-and fly.

The door to the Quonset hut which housed both the squadron office and the supply room of VMF-229 was padlocked when Charley Galloway walked up to it. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after 1200.

PFC Alfred B. Hastings, Galloway decided angrily, had elected to have his luncheon, and fuck the phone, let it ring. He immediately regretted his anger. Hastings, who had transferred into VMF-229 with Tech Sergeant Big Steve Oblensky, had been promoted from being Oblensky's runner to Squadron Clerk. His only qualification for the job was that he could type, but he had proved to be a quick learner of the fine points of Marine Corps bureaucracy and had been doing a good job. Galloway knew how late at night the kid worked, and obviously he had to eat sometime.

Galloway dipped his hand into the open flap of his flight suit and came out with his dog tag chain. It held his dog tags and four keys-one to his BOQ room; one to the Ford; one to the padlock on the squadron office door; and one to the padlock on the safe in the squadron office. He opened the lock and went inside.