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

"Well, aren’t you an actress, too? Or should I say ‘the actress’?"

"No," Caroline McNamara said, laughing throatily. "But thank you. I love your mistake. I’m just a friend of Charley’s." She patted Charley’s hand fondly, possessively.

Mclnerney saw on her hand several thousand dollars’ worth of rubies set in gold.

Galloway didn’t meet this woman in the staff NCO mess at Quantico.

"Well, I just wanted to say hello," Mclnerney said. "It’s nice to meet you."

He walked back to his table and sat down.

Less than a minute later, Galloway and the two women got up and left the lounge. Mclnerney followed them. They walked across the lobby and got into an elevator.

This is really none of my business,Mclnerney decided, only to amend that decision a moment later: Fuck it! Watching out for the welfare of his Marines is always an officer’s responsibility.

He went to the desk and inquired whether Miss Monique Pond was registered in the Willard. The desk clerk took a moment to decide that a man in the uniform of a brigadier general of the United States Marine Corps was probably not a fan intent on bothering a movie star.

"I believe that Miss Pond is part of the party staying with Mr. Dillon, Sir."

"You mean Major Dillon? And the rest of the party being the other Marine and the other lady?"

"Yes, Sir. They’re in the Abraham Lincoln suite."

"Thank you," Mclnerney said, and walked to the house phones and asked the operator to connect him with the Abraham Lincoln suite.

"Hello?"

"Major Dillon, please."

"This is Jake Dillon."

"Major, this is General Mclnerney. I’m in the lobby, and I’d like a moment of your time."

There was a perceptible pause before Dillon asked, "Would you like to come up, General?"

"I think it would better if you came down. I’ll wait for you in the bar. The one on the second floor."

"I’ll be right there, Sir."

A waiter did not appear to serve General Mclnerney until after Major Dillon walked in the room. Then one appeared almost immediately, carrying on a tray a drink Mclnerney knew

Dillon hadn’t had time to order.

"They do that," Dillon said. "They know what I like. Should I just let it sit there?"

He had used neither of the words "Sir" nor "General," Mclnerney noticed.

"This is not official," Mclnerney said. "Bring me a Jack Daniel’s and water, please."

Dillon pushed his glass across the table to him.

"Please," he said. "Help yourself."

"I’ll wait."

"Please take it. I’m trying to be ingratiating."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I think this has to do with Charley Galloway, not with me. He told me you’d come up to him in here."

"It has to do with both of you," Mclnerney said.

"What’s the problem, General?"

"I don’t know if there is one. I am curious what one of my sergeants is doing in here, sharing an expensive suite with a movie star, a field-grade officer, and a woman with rubies on her hand worth more money than he makes in a year."

"She’s good for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in love with him. She keeps him on the straight and narrow."

"What about the field-grade officer?" Mclnerney said.

"I thought that’s what this was about," Dillon said. "I didn’t just come into the Corps, General. I just came back in the Corps. I know all about not crossing the line between officers and enlisted men."

"Then why are you crossing it?"

"You did say, General, that this conversation isn’t official?"

"Not yet. I’m trying to keep Charley Galloway out of trouble. You too, if that can be arranged."

"Well, if there’s going to be trouble about this, dump it on me. I invited Charley here, and when he said that might cause trouble, I told him we’d be careful, and that if something-like this-happened, I’d take the rap."

"What’s your interest in Galloway?"

"I like him. We’re pals."

"He’s a sergeant and you’re an officer,"

"I’m not really a major, I’m a flack wearing a Marine uniform."

"A what?"

"A press agent. My contribution to the war effort is getting people like Monique Pond to go to New River so she can flash her boobs at the cameramen and get the Marine Corps in the newsreels. Charley, on the other hand, is one hell of a Marine. He told me about flying the Wildcat out to the carrier off Pearl Harbor. But instead of commanding a fighter squadron, the Corps has him flying a bunch of brass hats and feather merchants around in a VIP transport airplane. So what we have here is an officer who should be an enlisted man, and a sergeant who should be an officer. So we hang around together. My idea, not his."

"What you’re doing, both of you," General Mclnerney said, "is important."

Why did I say that? I don’t believe it.

"General, I told Charley I would take the heat if something like this came up. I really would be grateful if you let me do that."

"Major Dillon," General Mclnerney said, after a long moment during which a few connections went click in his mind, "I really have no idea what you’re talking about. The reason I asked to have a word with you, when I saw you come in here alone, was that I know you are in charge of the public-relations activities marking the bringing of the 1stMarine Division to wartime strength at New River tomorrow. I want to know if there is anything, anything at all, that Marine Corps Aviation can do to insure that the ceremonies are a rousing public-relations success."

Dillon’s eyebrows rose thoughtfully.

"I can’t think of a thing, Sir," he said.

"And to make sure there is absolutely no problem at all flying the VIPs back and forth to New River, I wanted to tell you that I have personally assigned one of our finest enlisted pilots, Technical Sergeant Galloway, to the mission. If he has not reported to you yet, I am sure he will do so momentarily. I remind you that, as an officer, you are responsible for seeing that the Sergeant is properly quartered and rationed. If there are questions regarding how and where, in the necessarily extraordinary circumstances, you elect to do that, refer whoever raises them to me."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"That will be all, Major Dillon. Thank you."

"Yes, Sir."

Dillon stood up and started to leave. He had taken three steps when Mclnerney called his name.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Just between a couple of old Marines, Dillon, I don’t like flying my goddamned desk, either."

(Two)

The Commandant’s House

United States Marine Corps Barracks

Eighth and "I" Streets, S.E.

Washington, D.C.

2230 Hours 9 May 1942

A glistening black 1939 Packard 180 automobile pulled into the driveway and stopped before the Victorian mansion. Mounted above its front and rear bumpers it had the three silver stars on a red plate identifying the occupant as a lieutenant general of the United States Marine Corps.

The driver, a lean, impeccably turned-out Marine staff sergeant, got quickly out from behind the wheel, but he was not quick enough to open the rear door before Thomas Holcomb, the first Marine ever promoted to lieutenant general, opened it himself. The Commandant was home.

"Earlytomorrow, Chet," General Holcomb said to his driver. "Five o’clock."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

The general’s senior aide-de-camp, a very thin lieutenant colonel, slid across the seat and got out.

"Goodnight, Chet," General Holcomb said.

"Goodnight, Sir."

"I don’t see any need for you to come in, Bob," General Holcomb said to his aide. "I’m for bed."

The porch lights came on. General Holcomb’s orderlies had seen the headlights.

"General," the aide said, "I took the liberty of telling Captain Steward to be prepared to brief you on the Coral Sea battle. He’s probably inside, Sir."