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

"I’m already the General’s man who does that," Stecker said. "Is that why you’re here?"

Pickering nodded. "So much the better, then. The Navy brass are as curious as a bunch of old maids about what I’m doing here. It will get back to them that I had lunch in the Coronado with you. It might come in handy for them to remember you have friends in very high places when you’re asking for something outrageous for the Raiders."

Stecker looked at Pickering for a moment, until he concluded that Pickering was both serious and right.

"OK. But first we have to get from here to the hotel, and my car may not start. Bad battery, I think. I had to push it off this morning."

"The Admiral’s aide met my plane and graciously gave me the use of the Admiral’s car for as long as I need it," Pickering said.

"And then we have to get in the dining room."

"I think I can handle that," Pickering said. "Can I have your sergeant make a call for me?"

"Sure," Stecker said, and called the sergeant into the office.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Sergeant," Pickering said, "would you call the dining room at the Coronado Beach for me, please? Tell the maitre d’ that Captain Stecker and myself are on the way over there, and that I would like a private table overlooking the pool. My name is Fleming Pickering."

"Aye, aye, Sir," the sergeant said. "A private table, Sir?"

"They’ll know what I mean, Sergeant," Pickering said. "They’ll move other tables away from mine, so that other people won’t be able to hear what Captain Stecker and I are talking about."

"Why is this making me nervous?" Stecker asked.

"I have no idea," Pickering said. "Maybe because you’re getting old, Dutch."

"If there are any calls for me, Sergeant, tell them that I went off with Captain Pickering of Secretary Knox’s office, and you have no idea where I went or when I’ll be back."

Pickering chuckled. "You’re a quick learner, Dutch, aren’t you?"

"For an old man," Stecker said.

(Five)

United States Naval Hospital

San Diego, California

1515 Hours 2 February 1942

"Tell me, Sergeant," the Navy doctor, a full commander, said to Staff Sergeant Joseph L. Howard, "do you suffer from syphilis?"

"No, Sir."

"How about gonorrhea?" Commander Nettleton asked.

"No, Sir."

Commander K. J. Nettleton, MC, USN, was a career naval officer. In his fifteen years of service, he had discussed venereal disease with maybe fifteen thousand Navy and Marine Corps enlisted men. In his experience, it was seldom possible to judge from an enlisted man’s appearance whether he had been diving the salami into seas of spirochetes or not.

He had treated angelic-looking boys who-as their advanced state of social disease clearly proved-had been sowing their seed in any cavity that could be induced to hold still for twenty seconds. And he’d treated leather-skinned chief bosun’s mates and mastery gunnery sergeants who had not strayed from the marital bed in twenty years, yet were hysterically convinced that a little urethral drip was God finally making them pay for a single indiscretion two decades ago in Gitmo or Shanghai or Newport.

But it was also Dr. Nettleton’s experience that when regular sailors and Marines-sergeants and petty officers on their second or third or fourth hitch-contracted a venereal disease somewhere along the line, they tried to get their hands on their medical records so they could remove and destroy that portion dealing with their venereal history. They had learned how the services subtly and cruelly treated men with social diseases.

His experience told him that’s what he had at hand, in the person of Staff Sergeant Joseph Howard, USMC. Sergeant Howard was taking a pre-commissioning physical. That meant he had applied for a commission. An Officer Selection Board was likely to turn down an applicant who had a history of VD, even one who was obviously a good Marine. You didn’t get to wear staff sergeant’s chevrons as young as this kid was without being one hell of a Marine-and one who looked like he belonged on a recruiting poster.

"Sergeant," he said, "if anyone was to hear what I am about to say, I would deny it."

"Sir?" Howard asked, confused.

"There are ways to handle difficult situations, " Commander Nettleton said. "But destroying your records is not one of them. Now, what did you have, and when did you have it?"

"Sir, if you mean syphilis or the clap, I never did."

Nettleton fixed Howard with an icy glare.

You dumb sonofabitch, I just told you I’d fix it!

"Never?"

"No, Sir," Howard replied, both confused and righteously indignant.

I’ll be damned, I think he’s telling the truth.’

‘Then how do you explain the absence of the results of your Wassermann test in this otherwise complete stack of reports?"

Staff Sergeant Howard did not reply.

"Well?"

"Sir, I don’t know what-what did you say, Wasser Test?- is."

"Wassermann," Doctor Nettleton corrected him idly. "It’s an integral part of your physical."

"Sir, I don’t know. I went everywhere they sent me."

Commander Nettleton looked at him intently, and decided he didn’t really know if he was looking at Innocence Personified or a skilled liar.

He reached for the telephone, found the number he was looking for on a typewritten sheet of paper under the glass on his desk, and dialed it quickly.

"Venereal, Lieutenant Gower."

"This is Commander Nettleton, Gower. How are you?"

"No complaints, Sir. How about you?"

"You don’t want to hear them, Lieutenant. I need a favor. How are you fixed for favors?"

"If I’ve got it, Commander, you’ve got it."

"You got somebody around there who can draw blood for a Wassermann for me? And then do it in a hurry?"

"Yes, Sir. I’ll take it to the lab myself. They owe me a couple of favors up there."

"It has to be official. I need the form and an MD to sign off on it."

"No problem."

"I’m sending a Staff Sergeant Howard to see you. Make him wait. If it comes back negative, send him and the report back to me. If it’s positive, put him in a bathrobe and find something unpleasant for him to do. Call me and I’ll see that he’s admitted."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Lieutenant Gower said.

"Appreciate it, Gower," Commander Nettleton said, hung up, and turned to Staff Sergeant Howard. "You heard that, Sergeant. The Venereal Disease Ward is on the third floor. Report to Lieutenant Gower."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Staff Sergeant Howard said.

Like Commander Nettleton, Lieutenant Gower was a career naval officer, with nearly as much commissioned service as he had. She had entered the Naval Service immediately upon graduation from Nursing School, and, in the fourteen years since, had served at naval hospitals in Philadelphia; Cavite (in the Philippines); Pearl Harbor; and San Diego. She had just learned that she was to be promoted to lieutenant commander, Nurse Corps, USN.

While on the one hand Lieutenant Hazel Gower did not consider herself above the mundane routine of the VD ward, of which she was Nurse-in-Charge, on the other hand, Rank Did Have Its Privileges.

She rapped on the plate-glass window surrounding the Nurses’ Station with her Saint Anthony’s High School graduation ring, and caught the attention of Ensign Barbara T. Cotter, NC, USNR. Ensign Cotter had just reported aboard, fresh from the Nurses’ Orientation Course at Philadelphia.

Lieutenant Gower gestured to Ensign Cotter to come into the nurses’ station.

"Yes?" Ensign Cotter asked.

"The way we do that in the Navy, Miss Cotter," Lieutenant Gower said, "is ‘Yes, Ma’am?’ "

"Yes, Ma’am," Ensign Cotter said, her face tightening.

"This is not the University of Pennsylvania, you know."