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

Ido know that Corporal Stephen M. Koffler is not needed around here. Truckdrivers are a dime a dozen.

First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin made his decision. "First Sergeant!" he called.

(Two)

First Sergeant George J. Hammersmith, having determined that Corporal Koffler had not been given a pass and that he was not in his barracks, looked for him first in the slop chute, and finally located him in the service club.

The service club was a new building that had been put up in a remarkably short time not far from the huge dirigible hangar. It was a large building, two stories tall in the center, and with one-floor wings on either side. It had been furnished with upholstered chairs and couches, tables, magazine racks, and pool and Ping-Pong tables. Somewhere down the pike there was supposed to be a snack bar and a small stage for USO shows and for a band, for dances.

With the exception of Corporal Koffler and two hostesses in gray uniforms, it was now empty. Lieutenant Macklin thought that parachutist trainees had more important things to do in their off-duty hours than loll around on their asses, and had placed the service club off limits to trainees except on weekends.

The permanent party did not patronize the club very much. There was a club, with hard liquor, for noncommissioned officers, and a slop chute, beer only, for corporals and down. Furthermore, the permanent party was well aware that the First Sergeant and other senior noncoms held the belief that only candy-asses would go someplace where you couldn’t get anything to drink or do anything more than smile at the hostesses.

Corporal Koffler was sitting in an upholstered armchair, a can of peanuts at his side, reading the Newark Evening News, on which there was a banner headline:bataan falls; wain-wright’s forces withdraw to fortress corregidor.

That news had been on the radio all day, and it had bothered George Hammersmith. He had a lot of buddies with the 4thMarines, and the last he’d heard, they’d taken a real whipping. And he’d done his time in the Far East. There was no way that Corregidor could hold out for long. The fortress had been built on an island in Manila Bay to protect Manila; and Manila was already in the hands of the Japanese.

That little shit probably doesn’t have the faintest fucking idea where the Philippines are, much less Corregidor. Sonofabitch probably never even looked at the front page, just turned right to "Blondie and Dagwood" in the comic section.

First Sergeant Hammersmith restrained a surprisingly strong urge to knock the paper out of Koffler’s hands, but at the last moment he just put his fingers on it and jerked it, to get Koffler’s attention.

"Jesus!" Koffler said. He was, Hammersmith saw, surprised but not afraid. So far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with Koffler except that Macklin had a hard-on for him. He had never explained why, and Hammersmith had never asked.

"Got a minute, Koffler?"

"Sure."

"You was at the formation when they asked for volunteers, wasn’t you?"

"I was there."

"I was sort of wondering why you didn’t volunteer."

Because I’m not a fucking fool, that’s why. "Volunteers will be advised that the risk of loss of life will be high." I learned my lesson about volunteering when I volunteered for jump duty. So I didn’t volunteer for whatever the fuck this new thing is.

"I didn’t think I was qualified," Steve said.

"Why not?"

"They want people with special skills. I don’t have any. I don’t speak Japanese or French, or anything."

"You’re a Marine parachutist," Hammersmith said.

"I just made corporal," Steve said. "I ain’t been in the Corps a year."

"You’re yellow, is that it?"

"I’m not yellow."

"You didn’t volunteer."

"That don’t mean I’m yellow; that just means I don’t want to volunteer."

"What’s Lieutenant Macklin got on you?"

"I don’t know."

"He doesn’t like you."

"Maybe because they promoted me."

"Maybe. But I do know he doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re a worthless shit."

"I didn’t know that."

"I don’t like you, either," Hammersmith said. "You’re supposed to be a Marine, and you’re yellow."

"I’m not yellow."

"You were given a chance to volunteer for an important assignment, and you didn’t. In my book that makes you yellow."

"They said ‘volunteer.’"

"And you didn’t."

"What do you want from me, Sergeant?"

"I don’t want anything from you."

"Then I don’t understand what this is all about."

"Just a little chat between Marines," First Sergeant Hammersmith said, "is all."

"You want me to volunteer, that’s what this is all about."

"If I made you volunteer, then you wouldn’t be a volunteer, would you?" Hammersmith asked. "Don’t do nothing you don’t want to do. But you know what I would do if I was you?"

"No."

"If I was in an outfit where my company commander thought I was a worthless shit, and my first sergeant thought I was yellow, I would start thinking about finding myself a new home."

(Three)

San Diego, California

17 April 1942

Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, arrived in San Diego carrying all of his worldly possessions in two canvas Valv-Paks.

That fact-that he had with him all he owned-had occurred to him on the Lark, the train on which he had made the last leg of his trip from Los Angeles. He had flown from Washington to Los Angeles.

He had once had a good many personal possessions, ranging from books and phonograph records to furniture, dress uniforms, civilian clothing, a brand-new Pontiac automobile, and a wife.

Of all the things he’d owned in Shanghai six months before, only one was left, a Model 1911A1 Colt .45 pistol; and that, technically, was the property of the U.S. Government. The 4thMarines were now on Corregidor. Banning sometimes mused wryly that in one of the lateral tunnels off the Main Malinta tunnel under the rock, there was probably, in some filing cabinet, an official record that the pistol had been issued to him and never turned in. The record-if not Major Ed Banning or the 4thMarines-would more than likely survive the war. And his estate would receive a form letter from the Marine Corps demanding payment.

His household goods had been stored in a godown in Shanghai "for later shipment." It was entirely credible to think that some Japanese officer was now occupying his apartment, sitting on his chairs, eating supper off his plates on his carved teak table, listening to his Benny Goodman records on his phonograph, and riding around Shanghai in his Pontiac.

He did not like to think about Mrs. Edward J. (Ludmilla) Banning. Milla was a White Russian, a refugee from the Bolshevik Revolution. He had gone to Milla for Japanese and Russian language instruction, taken her as his mistress, and fallen in love with her. He had married her just before he flew out of Shanghai with the advance party when the 4thMarines were ordered to the Philippines.

There were a number of scenarios about what had happened to Milla after the Japanese came to Shanghai, and none of them were pleasant. They ranged from her being shot out of hand to being placed in a brothel for Japanese enlisted men.

It was also possible that Milla, who was a truly beautiful woman, might have elected to survive the Japanese occupation by becoming the mistress of a Japanese officer. Practically speaking, that would be a better thing for Milla than getting herself shot, or becoming a seminal sewer in a Japanese Army comfort house.

Ed Banning believed in God, but he rarely prayed to Him. Yet he prayed often and passionately that God would take mercy on Milla.

He was profoundly ashamed that he could no longer remember the details of Milla’s face, the color of her eyes, the softness of her skin; she was fading away in his mind’s eye. Very likely this was because he had taken another woman into his bed and, for as long as the affair had lasted, into his life. He was profoundly ashamed about that, too. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it away, in the end it was a betrayal of the vow he had made in the Anglican Cathedral in Shanghai to cleave himself only to Milla until death should them part.