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

"Sir, the whole set, when you get it out of the crates," Steve Koffler explained, "doesn’t weigh more than maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Cargo ‘chutes, the ones I’ve seen, are designed to drop a lot more weight-"

"The question is moot," Lieutenant Donnelly said. "There are no cargo ‘chutes available. Period. You’re talking about modifying a standard Switlick C-3 ‘chute, Corporal?"

Steve nodded.

"How?" Donnelly pursued.

"Do you think I might be able to get you the parachute, parachutes, you need, Banning?" Pickering asked.

"Sir," Donnelly replied for Banning, "I don’t think there’s a cargo parachute in Australia."

"OK," Pickering said. "You were saying, Corporal Koffler?"

"Sir, I think you could make up some special rigging to replace the harness. Make straps to go around the mattresses."

"Mattress?" Banning asked.

"Mattresses," Steve said. "What I would do is make one package of the antenna and the generator. I think you could just roll them up in a mattress and strap it tight. And then add sandbags, or something, so that it weighed about a hundred seventy-five pounds. Where do you want to drop the radio, Sir?"

"Why sandbags? Why a hundred seventy-five pounds?"

"That’s the best weight for a standard ‘chute. Any more and you hit too hard. Any lighter and it floats forever. You couldn’t count on hitting the drop zone," Koffler said, explaining what he evidently thought should be self-evident to someone who was not too bright.

He obviously knows what he’s talking about. Why does that surprise me?

"And then do the same thing with the transceiver itself," Koffler went on. "Wrap it in mattresses, and then weight it up to a hundred seventy-five pounds. It would probably make sense to wrap some radio tubes-I mean spare tubes-in cotton or something, and put them with the transceiver. They’re pretty fragile."

"I have some parachute riggers, Corporal," Lieutenant Donnelly said. "Civilian women. They have some heavy sewing machines. Could you show them, do you think, how to make such a replacement for the harness?"

"Yes, Sir," Koffler said. "I think so."

He looked uncomfortable.

"Speaking of civilian women, Sir, I’ve got a lady outside in the car. Could I take a minute to talk to her? I was about to take her home."

"Sure," Banning said. "Go ahead."

When he was gone, Fleming Pickering said, "Well, what do you think, Ed?"

"I don’t know what to think, Sir. He doesn’t seem to think there will be much of a problem. More important, he seems to know what he’s talking about."

"I was thinking, for a moment, that he seems so young for something like this. But then I remembered that I was a Corporal of Marines when I was his age; it’s probably not that he’s so young, but that I’m so old."

Steve Koffler didn’t have to go out to the Studebaker to find Yeoman Daphne Farnsworth; she was standing in the foyer, just outside the corridor to the library.

"I had to go to the ladies’," she said.

"You found it all right, I hope?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Something’s come up," Steve said.

"I heard, I went looking for you."

"I don’t know how long this will take," Steve said. "I’m sorry, I should have taken you home first."

"Are you in some kind of trouble? About taking the car, maybe?"

"No, I don’t think so. I thought I would be when I saw that Captain Pickering was here, but I think they want me to jump in with the radio. Otherwise, I think my ass would have been in a crack."

"You’re sure?"

He nodded. "I’m sorry you have to wait. I was going to tell you to wait in there," he said, pointing toward the sitting room. "There’s couches and chairs and a radio."

"All right," Daphne said. "You’re sure you didn’t get in trouble coming out to see me?"

"I’m fine," he said, smiling. "No trouble. Things couldn’t be better."

He turned and went back down the corridor. Daphne walked into the sitting room. She sat down on a couch and picked up a magazine, and then threw it down angrily.

That American Navy captain and Steve’s major and lieutenant and Donnelly didn’t come here on a Saturday evening to discuss a training mission. I know what the Marines are doing here with the Coastwatchers. If they’re going to parachute him anywhere, it will be onto some island in Japanese hands. And the only reason they would do that is because there’s some sort of trouble with the Australian already there.

She looked impatiently around the room. Her eyes fell on several bottles, one of them of Gilbey’s gin. She walked over to it, looked over her shoulder nervously, and then took a healthy pull at the neck of the bottle.

" ‘Otherwise,’" she quoted bitterly, " ‘I think my ass would have been in a crack!’ Oh, Steve, you bloody ass!"

Then she capped the Gilbey’s bottle and walked down the corridor to the library door, where she could hear what was being said.

"I’ll try to get to the airfield to see you off, Steve," Captain Fleming Pickering said, "but if something comes up ... good luck, son."

"Thank you, Sir," Steve said.

They were standing on the porch of The Elms. All that could be done tonight had been done. The officers, except Lieutenant Howard and his girlfriend, were leaving.

"You’ve been taking some kidding, I’m sure, about being a corporal, as young as you are," Pickering went on.

"Yes, Sir. Some."

"Well, it’s going to get worse," Pickering said. "As of this moment, you’re a sergeant."

"Sir?"

"I think, Ed," Pickering said to Banning, "that between us we should have the authority to make that promotion, shouldn’t we? I’m not going to have to trouble the Secretary of the Navy with an administrative problem like that, am I?"

"No, Sir," Banning chuckled. "I don’t see any problem with that."

"Then good luck again, Sergeant Koffler," Pickering said, and patted Steve, a paternal gesture, on the arm. He went down the stairs and got in the Drop-Head Jaguar.

"I will see you and Lieutenant Howard at half past six, Sergeant, right?" Lieutenant Donnelly said. "At the airfield."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Don’t get carried away with your girlfriend tonight, Sergeant, " Banning said softly. "Have fun, but be at the airport at 0630."

"She’s not my girlfriend, Sir," Steve said.

"Oh?"

"I wish she was, but all she is ... is a very nice lady."

"I see."

"I’ll be at the airport on time, Sir."

"Goodnight, Steve," Banning said.

He got in Pickering’s Jaguar. Steve stood on the porch until both cars had disappeared down the driveway, then went looking for Daphne. He suspected that she would probably be sort of hiding in the sitting room. It would have been very embarrassing for her if Lieutenant Donnelly had seen her. He would have gotten the wrong idea.

Daphne Farnsworth was not in the sitting room. Nor in the toilet off the corridor. Nor in the kitchen, Nor anyplace.

Jesus! What she did was walk all the way to the goddamned road, so that she can try to catch a ride!

He ran to the Studebaker. Daphne’s bag was not in the backseat.

She’s even carrying her goddamned suitcase!

He got behind the wheel, squealed the tires backing out and turning around, and raced down the drive between the ancient elms. She was not in sight when he reached the highway. He swore, and then drove toward Melbourne. Once he thought he saw her, but when he got close it was not Daphne sitting on her suitcase, but a pile of paving stones, neatly stacked by the side of the road.

Finally, swearing, he gave up, and drove back to The Elms.

At least she didn’t have to carry that heavy goddamned suitcase; I would have carried it to her in the morning.

And that would have at least given me the chance to say "so long."