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

"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Galloway said.

Jake Dillon thought he could bleed the story for a little more, with pictures of the honor guard and the flag-draped casket. And if they were still burying people in Arlington with the horse-drawn artillery caisson, maybe a shot of that and the firing squad, too. With a little bit of luck, he could get a two-, three- minute film sequence tied together for the newsreels. But that was none of Galloway’s or Koffler’s business, so he didn’t mention it.

"I don’t care where you guys go, or what you do. But I will have your ass if you either talk to the press or get shit-faced and make asses of yourselves. Do I have to make it plainer than that?"

"No, Sir," they said, together.

Jake Dillon put his hand in his pocket.

"You need some money, either of you?"

"No, Sir," they replied.

"OK. I want you back here at seven in the morning."

"Get in the backseat," Technical Sergeant Charles Galloway ordered Corporal Stephen Koffler as they approached the Mercury station wagon.

Galloway got in the front beside Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara.

"Now what?" Aunt Caroline said, touching Charley’s hand.

"I’m sorry you had to wait like this," Charley said. "Caroline, this is Corporal Steve Koffler. Koffler, this is Mrs. McNamara."

"Hello," Aunt Caroline said, looking at Steve. "I repeat, now what?"

"I have been ordered to keep an eye on Corporal Koffler overnight, and to bring him back here at 0700 in the morning."

"Oh," Aunt Caroline said.

"We are going to find a hotel room-rooms-someplace," Charley said. "I wondered how that would fit in with your plans."

"Well, it’s already dark, and I hate to drive at night, with the snow and all. Maybe I should think about getting a hotel room myself. Where’s Jim and the other lieutenant?"

"I understand Major Dillon sent for them. Maybe it would be better if we got off the base before he’s finished with them. I’m a little afraid that Major Dillon will tell one of them to keep an eye on me and Koffler."

"Oh, I see what you mean," Aunt Caroline said. She started the engine and headed for the gate.

"Just how close an eye do you have to keep on the corporal?" Aunt Caroline asked.

"I think an adjacent room would be close enough."

"Adjacent but not adjoining, you mean?" Aunt Caroline said.

"Exactly."

"Excuse me, Sergeant?" Corporal Koffler said.

"What, Koffler?"

"Sergeant, I live in East Orange. Do you suppose it would be all right if I went home?"

"You live where?"

"East Orange. It’s right next to Newark."

"Oh, really?" Aunt Caroline said. "Maybe you could find a hotel in Newark for yourself, and Corporal Koffler could spend the night with his family."

"The Essex House Hotel’s in Newark," Steve offered helpfully. "I never stayed there, but I hear it’s real nice. You both probably could get rooms there."

"Now there’s a thought," Aunt Caroline said innocently.

"But I’m supposed to keep an eye on him," Charley Galloway said. "If he went home alone, and Major Dillon or Lieutenant Ward or Lieutenant Schneider ever heard about it, we’d all be in trouble."

"Well, we don’t have to tell them, do we?" Steve asked shrewdly.

"No, I guess we wouldn’t really have to," Charley Galloway said. "Could I trust you to stay out of trouble, Koffler, and be waiting for me at, say, 0530, outside your house in the morning?"

"It’s an apartment house," Steve said. "Sure, you could trust me, Sergeant. I’d really like to see my girl, Sergeant."

"You’d better be careful about that, Koffler. Women have been known to suffer uncontrollable sexual frenzies at the mere sight of a Marine in uniform. That could lead to trouble."

Aunt Caroline giggled, and Charley Galloway yelped in pain, as if someone had dug fingernails into the soft flesh of his upper thigh.

"My girl won’t get me in trouble, Sergeant," Steve said.

"OK. Then we’ll do it. You give Mrs. McNamara directions to your house."

On the outskirts of Newark, Aunt Caroline pulled into a gasoline station. As the attendant filled the tank and she visited the rest room, Charley Galloway saw a rack of newspapers.

"I’ll be damned," he said, and went to the rack and bought two copies of the Newark Evening News.

He walked back to the station wagon and handed one to Steve Koffler.

"You’re a famous man now, Koffler," he said. "Try not to let it go to your head."

There was a three-column picture in the center of the front page. It showed Steve Koffler holding the risers and shroud lines of his parachute against his chest; he was looking down at the body of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville. Tears were visible on his cheeks.

Over the picture was a headline,even the tough can weep, and below it was a caption: "Cpl. Stephen Koffler, of East Orange, a member of the elite U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Force, weeps as he looks at the body of his commanding officer, Lt. Col. F. G. Neville, who fell to his death moments before when his parachute failed to open during training exercises at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station this morning. Koffler was second man in the ‘stick’ jumping from the Marine airplane, behind Col. Neville. [Associated Press Photograph from Life]"

On the way from the gasoline station to 121 Park Avenue, East Orange, Corporal Stephen Koffler of the "elite U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Force" (Jesus Christ, that sounds great!) ran over several times in his mind the sequence of events that would occur once he got home.

Dianne would have seen the Newark Evening News. Everybody read it. She would see his picture. She would wonder, naturally, when she would see him again. And she would more than likely realize that the reason he had been unable to come to see her was that he was busy with his duties with the Elite Marine Corps Parachute Force.

He would appear at her door. She would answer it. Her family would be gone somewhere. She would look into his eyes. They would embrace. Her tongue would slip into his mouth. She would break away.

"I saw your picture in the paper," she would say. "Was it just awful?"

And he would say, "No. Not really. You have to expect that sort of thing."

And they would kiss again, and she would slip her tongue in his mouth again. And this time he would put his hand up under her sweater, or maybe down the back of her skirt.

And she would say, "Not here," but she wouldn’t mean it, and he would take her into her living room and do it to her on the couch. Or maybe even into her bedroom-and do it to her in her own bed.

Just by way of saying hello.

"Let’s get out of here," he would say. "Where we can really be alone."

"But where could we go?" she would ask.

"How about the Essex House?"

And she would say, "The Essex House? Could we get a room in the Essex House?

And he would say, "Sure, we can. I’m a corporal on jump pay."

He wasn’t born yesterday. Sergeant Galloway and the blond lady in the station wagon were going to shack up in the Essex House. That was just so much bullshit about getting two rooms. And if Sergeant Galloway was going to screw this blond lady in the Essex House, why shouldn’t he screw Dianne there?

And Dianne would say, "But what about Leonard?"

And he would say "Fuck Leonard. You’re through with that candy-ass civilian."

No. He didn’t want to talk like that around Dianne. He would say, "To hell with Leonard. You’re through with that civilian."

And once he got her into the Essex House and they’d done it a couple of times more, he would tell her that it didn’t matter that she was a couple of years older than he was, he was psychologically older than the age on his birth certificate. He was a Marine, for Christ’s sake, a member of the Elite Marine Corps Parachute Force. What he had done, and what he had seen, made him at least as old as Leonard, psychologically speaking.