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

"That doesn’t sound so terrible."

"He thinks it makes him unfit to take a command."

"You don’t, I gather?"

"No. And I told him so. I think he would be useful to you, Ed."

"Would he volunteer?"

"I don’t know. All you could do is ask him, I suppose."

"Where would I find him?"

"You’ll see him tomorrow. I told him to keep an eye on your people."

"All this and the Coronado Beach Hotel, too? Or are you pulling my leg about that, too?"

"No," Stecker chuckled. "That’s where we’re going. Truth being stranger than fiction, I’ve got the keys to the Pacific and Far Eastern Shipping Company suite there. They keep it year round for the officers of their ships who are in port."

"How the hell did you work that?"

"The guy that owns the company and I were in France together."

"His name is Fleming Pickering, and he’s a captain in the Navy reserve."

"How’d you know?"

"He’s the man I’m to report to in Melbourne," Banning said. "I didn’t know about you and him. Or that he’d been a Marine."

"Somehow, I don’t think you were supposed to tell me that."

"I’m sure I wasn’t."

"Then I won’t ask why you did. But at least that solves the problem of where you sleep while you’re out here."

"You mean in the hotel?"

"Sure. Why not? I’m sure Pickering would want me to give you the keys. And speaking of keys, I’m going to leave you the Ford, too."

"I don’t understand that."

"Well, cars are getting harder and harder to come by. They’ve stopped making them, you know, and people are buying up all the good used cars. I figure that I’ll be out here again, or my boy will, or else friends who need wheels. So why sell it? I’ve got two cars on the East Coast."

"Jesus, Jack, I don’t know . . ."

"I’ve already arranged to park it in the hotel garage. Just leave the keys with the manager when you’re through with it."

"Things are going too smoothly. A lot of that, obviously, is thanks to you. But I always worry when that happens."

"You know what the distilled essence of my Marine Corps experience is?" Stecker said.

"No," Banning chuckled.

"You don’t have to practice being uncomfortable; when it’s time for you to be uncomfortable, the Corps will arrange for it in spades. In the meantime, live as well as you can. I’m surprised you didn’t learn that from McCoy."

Stecker pulled up in front of the Coronado Beach Hotel.

"Here we are," he said. "Of course, if you’d rather, I can still drive you out to Elliott, and the Corps will give you an iron bunk and a thin mattress in a Quonset hut."

"This will do very nicely, Major Stecker, thank you very much."

"My pleasure, Major Banning."

(Four)

Headquarters Motor Pool

2ndJoint Training Force

Camp Elliott, California

18 April 1942

When First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard, USMCR, walked up to the small shack that housed the motor pool dispatcher, he gave in to the temptation to add a little excitement to the lives of the dispatcher and the motor sergeant. Both of them, he saw, were engrossed in the San Diego Times.

He squatted and carefully tugged loose from the ground a large weed and its dirt-encrusted root structure. Then he spun it around several times to pick up speed, and let it fly. It rose high in the air.

"Good morning," Lieutenant Howard said loudly, marching up to the dispatch shack.

The weed reached the apogee of its trajectory, and then began its descent.

The motor sergeant looked up from his newspaper and got to his feet.

"Good morning, Sir," he said, a second before the weed struck somewhere near the center of the tin roof of the dispatch shack. There was a booming noise, as if an out-of-tune bass drum had been struck.

"Holy fucking Christ!" the motor sergeant said, "what the fuck was that?"

"Excuse me?" Lieutenant Howard said. "Were you speaking to me, Sergeant?"

The motor sergeant, still wholly confused, looked at Lieutenant Howard suspiciously.

"If the chaplain," Joe Howard said, still straight-faced, "heard a fine noncommissioned officer such as yourself using such language, Sergeant, he would be very disappointed."

The sergeant’s wits returned.

"What the fuck did you do, Lieutenant?" he asked. "You scared the shit out of me."

"You’re not really suggesting that an officer and gentleman, such as myself, would do anything to disturb your peace and quiet, are you, Sergeant?"

"No, Sir, I’m sure the Lieutenant wouldn’t do nothing like that," the motor sergeant said, "but I used to know a wiseass armorer corporal at Quantico who had a sick sense of humor."

Howard laughed. "Les, you looked like you were coming out of your skin."

"You shouldn’t do things like that to an old man like me."

"I’m trying to keep you young, Les."

"Christ, you got a letter," the motor sergeant said.

"Huh?"

"Mail clerk brought it over," the motor sergeant said. "He called over here yesterday, looking for you. Said the letter had been there three days. I told him you would be here this morning. Wait till I get it."

He rooted in a drawer and came out with a small envelope and handed it to Howard. There was no stamp on the envelope, just a signature. As a member of the armed forces of the United States serving overseas, the sender was given the franking privilege.

Howard’s heart jumped when he saw the return address. He tore the envelope open and resisted the temptation to sniff the stationery; he thought he detected a faint odor of perfume.

He was afraid to read the letter. He hadn’t heard from Barbara since she’d sailed, and was beginning to wonder if he ever would. His fear grew when he saw how short the letter was, and how it began:

Special Naval Medical Unit

Fleet Post Office 8203

San Francisco, California

My Dearest Joe,

Well, here I am. I can’t tell you where.

We have been told that, because we are officers and can be trusted not to write home things that would interest the enemy, our mail will not be censored. It will be, however, subject to "random scrutiny." What that means, I think, is that the senior nurses here will open outgoing letters they think will be interesting, in terms of intimacy. Consequently, I will not write the things I would like to write. I don’t consider what we have to be a spectator sport, and I don’t want a bunch of dried-up old maids giggling over my correspondence.

On the way over here, I had a lot of time to think about us, and you are constantly in my thoughts here "somewhere in the South Pacific." There is not much for us to do, except prepare for what we all know is going to happen.

I have carefully considered what happened between us, and I’ve given a lot of thought to our different backgrounds. I am fully aware that the both of us behaved very foolishly, and that any marriage counselor worthy of hanging out his shingle would have to conclude that the odds against us getting married in the first place, much less making a success of it, are very long indeed.

Having said that, I have concluded that meeting you was the best thing that’s happened to me in my life. Until you, I really had no idea what being a woman really meant. I will not be alive until I feel your arms around me again.

I love you. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.

May God protect you, Barbara

PS: Picture enclosed, so you don’t forget what I look like.

Joe Howard had trouble focusing his eyes on Barbara’s picture; they seemed to be full of tears.

He put the letter back into its envelope and carefully put it into his pocket.

"Thanks very much, Les," he said.

"Ah, hell, Lieutenant," the motor sergeant said. Then he raised his voice, and the tenor changed. "Well, get off your ass, asshole," he said to the dispatcher, "and go get the Lieutenant’s truck."