W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

Another sergeant, whose name, after a moment, Banning remembered was Solinski, marched happily up and saluted.

"Sir, the convoy is formed. If the Major would care to enter his staff car?"

"Thank you, Sergeant," Banning said. "Nice work, getting this all organized so quickly."

"Thank you, Sir," Sergeant Solinski said, pleased.

Lieutenant Commander Feldt had arranged for USMC Special Detachment 14 to take over a two-story, tin-roofed frame building that had belonged to the now-defunct Townesville Young Men’s Christian Association. In addition to a small suite of offices, there was a room with a billiards table, as well as six small bedrooms, a small gymnasium with a rusty collection of weightlifting machines, and a reception room with a soft-drink bar that Banning suspected was about to be converted to a saloon.

Banning had prepared notes for the little speech he intended to deliver to his men, but he decided that would have to wait until he got the full story of the cars and trucks. The speech mostly dealt with the importance of getting along with the Aussies, and included the details of their rationing (with the Aussies) and other housekeeping information. The story of the cars and trucks was obviously more important.

He called Lieutenant Howard and Staff Sergeant Richardson into what would serve as the detachment office and told Howard to close the door.

"I want to know about the trucks and cars," he said. "And I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"Yes, Sir," Staff Sergeant Richardson said. "Well, Sir, Lieutenant Howard sent me and Sergeant Jenkins on the next plane. After yours and Koffler’s. Koffler met us on the dock, with the Studebaker, and drove us out to The Elms. I asked him where he got the car. He said he didn’t know where it had come from."

"Captain Pickering arranged for it. He got it from a Navy depot."

"Yes, Sir. But Koffler didn’t know that. So I told him to ask somebody. He asked an Aussie lady sailor he’d met, and she told him there was a Navy depot. A U.S. Navy depot. So I went down there. It’s not a regular depot. What I found out is that it’s a place they store stuff that was supposed to go China, but didn’t make it."

"Go over that again?"

"Well, Sir. There was a lot of stuff being shipped to China. What they call Lend-Lease. When they couldn’t get in there, they went on to Australia and just unloaded the stuff. The only Americans around was a small Corps of Civil Engineers depot, and they suddenly had all this stuffed dumped in their laps. They didn’t know what the hell to do with it all. One of the ships was full of Studebakers, cars and trucks."

"I see. And you stole the ones you brought with you?"

"No, Sir. I didn’t have to. I just had Koffler drive me down there, and I told an officer I found that I had come for the rest of our vehicles. He said he couldn’t issue any of what he had without authority, and I told him we had the authority, and there was our Studebaker, to prove it. He asked me who we worked for, and since you weren’t in Melbourne, I told him this Captain Pickering. Lieutenant Howard gave me his name in Hawaii, in case we needed it."

"And this officer called Captain Pickering?"

"Yes, Sir. And Captain Pickering, I guess, told him it was all right. He asked me how many trucks I wanted, and how many cars, and I said two, and he said, ‘All right, but you’re going to have to get them running yourself, I don’t have anybody to help you.’ I think I could have gotten a dozen of each, if I had been smart enough to ask for them."

"I think you’ve done very well, Sergeant Richardson," Banning said. "Thank you."

(Four)

Air Transport Office

Royal Naval Station, Melbourne

1 June 1942

Lieutenant Vincent F. Donnelly, RAN, said, "Yes, Sir. Right away," and put the telephone handset back in its cradle.

He looked across the crowded office to where Yeoman Third Class Daphne Farnsworth, her lower lip clipped under her teeth in concentration, was filling out one more sodding form on her typewriter.

"Daphne!" he called. He had to call again before he broke through her concentration.

"Yes, Sir?"

"We’ve been summoned to the Captain’s office," Donnelly said.

"I don’t suppose we could ask him to wait thirty minutes, could we?" Daphne asked, smiling. "I’m finally almost finished with this."

"He wants us right away."

"Should I bring my pad?"

"No, I don’t think so."

Lieutenant Junior Grade Eleanor McKee, Royal Australian Navy Women’s Volunteer Reserve, commanding officer of all the women aboard RA Naval Station, Melbourne, was in the Captain’s office when they got there.

She looks as if she’s been sucking a lemon again,Daphne thought. I wonder what the hell this is all about. I haven’t done a damned thing, so far as I know.

The Captain stood up.

"Yeoman Farnsworth," he said, "it is my sad duty to inform you that your husband, Sergeant John Andrew Farnsworth, Royal Australian Signals, has been killed in action in North Africa."

"Oh, God!"

"You will, I am sure, be able to find some solace in knowing he died for king and country," the Captain said.

"Oh, shit!" Daphne said.

"I’m very sorry, my dear," the Captain said.

(Five)

Townesville, Queensland

5 June 1942

"I’m only saying this, you two must understand, because I have been drinking," Lieutenant Commander Eric A. Feldt, RAN, said to Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, and Lieutenant Joe Howard, USMCR, "but I am far more impressed with your band of innocents than I ever thought would be the case."

They were in Commander Feldt’s quarters, sitting on folding steel chairs, facing one another across a rickety wooden table on which sat a half-filled bottle of Dewar’s Scotch and the empty hulk of another. A rusting bucket on the floor held a half-dozen bottles of beer and a soda siphon in a pool of melting ice.

"You’re only saying that," Major Banning responded, "because you found out I outrank you."

"That’s beneath you, Banning," Feldt said, "bringing up a sodding six days’ difference in the dates of our promotions."

"And we gave you a truck," Joe Howard said, somewhat thickly. "We have a saying in America, ‘Never look a gift truck in the mouth.’"

"You didn’t give me the truck, you only loaned it to me. And anyway, the steering wheel is on the wrong side."

"The steering wheel is in the right place," Howard said. "You people insist on driving on the wrong side of the road."

Feldt stood up and walked, not too steadily, to a chest of drawers. He returned with a box of cigars, which he displayed with an elaborate gesture.

"I mean it," he said. "Have a cigar."

"Thank you, I don’t mind if I do," Banning said. He took one and passed the box to Howard.

"I got them from a Dutchman, master of an inter-island tramp," Feldt said, sitting down again, and helping himself to a little more of the Dewar’s. "He swore they were rolled between the thighs of fourteen-year-old Cuban virgins."

Banning raised his glass. "Here’s to fourteen-year-old Cuban virgins."

"Here, here," Howard said.

"And here’s to Captain Vandenhooven," Feldt said. "He gave me those cigars just in time."

"Just in time?" Banning asked.

"The next time he went out for me, the Japs got him. One of their sodding destroyers. They caught him off Wuvulu Island."

"Shit," Howard said.

Banning raised his glass again. "To the Captain," he said.

He lit the cigar and exhaled slowly through pursed lips.

"That’s all right," he said approvingly.

"Virginal thighs’ll do it every time," Feldt pronounced solemnly.

There was a polite knock at the door.

"Come," Feldt called.

A young, thick-spectacled man in the uniform of a Leading Aircraftsman, Royal Australian Air Force, came into the room and, in the British manner, quick-marched to the rickety table and saluted with the palm outward as he stamped his foot.