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

(Five)

Headquarters Special Detachment 14

Camp Elliott, California

18 April 1942

The Quonset hut was so called because it had been invented at the Quonset Point Naval Station. It was originally envisioned as an easy-to-erect shelter-sort of a portable warehouse-not as barracks. The huts were built out of curved sheets of corrugated steel, which formed the sides and roof in a half-circle. And there was a wooden floor, the framework of which visibly traced its design to forklift pallets.

When they were to be transported, the curved sheets of corrugated steel could be nestled together. Then they, and the framework which supported them, could be steel-banded together on top of the plywood floor and its underpinning. So packed, they took up little cubic footage, and could be erected quickly at their destination by unskilled labor using simple tools.

Quonset huts had sprouted like mushrooms over the rolling hills of Camp Elliott. Many of these had been put to use as barracks in lieu of tents, "until adequate barracks could be erected."

Major Edward J. Banning followed Major Jack NMI Stecker up to one of them and stepped through the door behind him in time to hear someone call "Ten-hut."

The hut was furnished with two folding metal chairs, two small folding wooden tables, on one of which sat a U.S. Army field desk, and a telephone. There were eight Marines in the forty-foot-long room. They were now all standing erect, at attention; but most of them, obviously, had a moment earlier been sprawled on mattresses on the floor. Their duffel bags, some of them open, were scattered around the floor. Their stacked ‘03 Springfield rifles were at the far end of the room.

Banning wondered idly why Jack Stecker didn’t put them at rest, and then he belatedly realized that Jack was deferring to him, as the commanding officer.

"At ease," Banning said. He smiled. "My name is Banning. I have the honor to command this splendid, if brand-new, military organization."

There were a couple of chuckles, but most of them looked at him warily. That was understandable. Reporting aboard an ordinary rifle company was bad enough. The unknown is always frightening; and you naturally wonder what the new company commander and first sergeant will be like, how you will be treated, where you will be going, and what you will be doing. Reporting in here posed all those questions, plus those raised by the words "classified"; "involving extraordinary hazards"; and "the risk of loss of life will be high."

And there wasn’t much he could do to put their minds at rest. This was one of those (in Banning’s judgment, rare) situations where the necessity for secrecy was quite clear. It was even possible that the Japanese didn’t know of the very existence of the Coastwatchers. Sometimes, not often, the Japanese were quite stupid about things like that; this might be one of them. If the Japanese did not yet know about the Coastwatchers, then every effort, clearly, should be made to keep them from finding out, as long as possible. They inevitably would, of course. When that happened, the less they learned the better.

All I can do is try to get these people to trust me. I can’t even tell them where we’re going, much less what we’re going to be doing, until we’re on the ship. Or maybe not even then. Not until we get to Australia. If we go over there on a troopship, I can’t afford to have everybody else on the ship talking, and talk they would, about that strange little detachment with the strange mission.

Banning had long ago learned that enlisted Marines trust their officers on a few occasions only: first, when the officer knows more about what’s expected of them than they do; second, when he will not ask them to do something he will not do himself; and, third, perhaps most important, when he is genuinely concerned with their welfare.

There were two staff sergeants, five buck sergeants, and a corporal. Banning went to each man in turn and shook his hand. He asked each man his name, what he had been doing up to now in the Corps, and where he was from.

"Who’s senior?" Banning asked, after he’d met them all.

One of the staff sergeants took a step forward.

"Richardson, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, for the time being, Sergeant, you’ll act as First Sergeant. Your first orders are to get some bunks and bedding to go with those mattresses."

Staff Sergeant Richardson looked uncomfortable.

"Problem with that, Sergeant?"

"Sir, the warehouse is a hell of a ways from here, and we don’t have any motor transport."

"You seem to have managed to draw mattresses and get them here without transport," Banning said.

That made Sergeant Richardson look even more uncomfortable. Banning glanced at Major Stecker, whose eyes looked mischievous again. And then Banning understood: somewhere on the post, much closer than the issue point for bedding, another Marine Corps unit was dealing with the problem of eight missing mattresses.

That was clearly theft, or at least unauthorized diversion of government property-in either case a manifestation of a lack of discipline. On the other hand, getting mattresses to sleep on when the Corps didn’t provide any could be considered a manifestation of initiative, which was a desirable military quality.

"Well, I’ll look into the problem of transportation, Sergeant. What I would like to do, right now, is have a look at everybody’s service record, and then I’d like to talk to you one at a time."

"Yes, Sir," Staff Sergeant Richardson said, visibly relieved that the subject of the source of the mattresses seemed to have been passed over.

"Sergeant, has Lieutenant Howard been over here today?" Jack Stecker asked.

"Yes, Sir. He was here about oh-six-hundred to make sure we were going to get breakfast. He said he would be back"-he raised his wrist to look at his watch-"about now, Sir. He said he would be back before you got here, Sir."

As if on cue, there came the sound of tires crunching and an engine dying. A moment later, Lieutenant Joe Howard came through the door.

"Good morning, Sir," he said to Stecker. "Sorry to be late. I had a little trouble getting wheels from the motor officer."

"Major Banning," Stecker said. "This is Lieutenant Joe Howard."

"How do you do, Sir?" Howard said.

Banning liked what he saw. Like others before him, he thought that Joe Howard looked like everything a clean-cut, red-blooded, physically fit young Marine officer should look like. And then he remembered what Jack Stecker had said about Howard having found, and stayed in, a safe hole during the attack at Pearl Harbor.

I’m in no position to be self-righteous about that. When the Jap barrages began, I would have swapped my soul for a safe hole to hide in.

"I’m happy to meet you, Howard," Banning said, putting out his hand and raising his voice just enough to make sure everyone in the hut heard him. "Major Stecker speaks very highly of you. I’ve known him a long time, and he doesn’t often do that."

Lieutenant Howard looked as uncomfortable as Staff Sergeant Richardson had a moment before.

"I’ve got to get out of here," Stecker said. "I can’t miss that plane. Howard can drive me."

He put out his hand to Banning. "Good luck, Ed. Send a postcard."

"Take care of yourself," Banning said. "Say hello to Elly."

"I will," Stecker said, and then turned to the men watching curiously. "Listen up," he said. "You guys have fallen in the you-know-what and come up smelling like roses. Major Banning is one hell of Marine. He probably wouldn’t tell you, so I will: He’s already been in this war, wounded and evacuated from the 4thMarines in the Philippines. Before that, he was with the 4thMarines in China. When he tells you something, it’s not coming out of a book, it’s from experience. So pay attention and do what he says, and you’ll probably come out of what you’re going to do alive. Good luck. Semper Fi."