W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

Pickering chuckled. Stecker looked at him and winked.

"Just a moment, please, sir," the staff sergeant said, and went back into the detachment commander's office. In a moment, a captain came out.

Pickering and Stecker came to attention. Pickering winced inwardly. He had met the captain before… unpleasantly, in the San Carlos Hotel. His name was Carstairs… Captain Mustache.

And obviously, from the way the captain looked at him, he remembered the incident, too.

"As you were," the captain said, and picked up the orders and glanced at them.

"The both of you were sent here from Aviation Reception?" the captain asked.

"Yes, sir," Pickering and Stecker said, together.

The captain looked for a number in a small, pamphlet-sized telephone book and dialed it up on the phone.

"Commander," he said, "this is Captain Carstairs at the Marine detachment. I have two second lieutenants here with orders for flight training who tell me that you sent them here for billeting."

Whatever the commander replied, it took most of a minute, after which Captain Carstairs said, "Aye, aye, sir," and hung up. Then he turned to the sergeant. "Put them somewhere, two to a room."

Finally he turned to them.

"Gentlemen," he said, "when you are settled, I would be grateful if you could spare me a few minutes of your valuable time. Say in forty-five minutes?"

"Aye, aye, sir," Stecker said, popping to attention. Pickering was a half second behind in following his lead.

Captain Carstairs walked out of the room.

The sergeant consulted a large board fixed to the wall. When Pickering looked at it, he saw it represented the assignment of rooms in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters.

"Put them in one-eleven-C," the sergeant ordered, and then he walked out of the room.

The corporal took a clipboard from a drawer in his desk and then said, "Please follow me, gentlemen."

They followed him out of the building over to what looked to be a brand-new, two-story frame barracks building. Inside he led them upstairs and down the corridor, stopping before a door.

He ceremoniously handed each of them a key.

"There is a dollar-and-a-quarter charge if you lose the key," he announced.

He waited for one of them to unlock the door, Stecker was the first to figure out what was expected of him.

Inside they found that the room was not finished; unpainted studs were exposed. Between them could be seen the tar-paper waterproofing and the electrical wiring. The floor was covered with Navy gray linoleum.

Otherwise, the place was furnished with two bunks, two desks, two upholstered armchairs, two side tables, and four lamps, one on each of the desks and side tables. A wash basin with a shelf and mirror shared one wall with a closet. A curtain, rather than a door, covered the closet entrance, but a real door led to a narrow room equipped with a water closet and a stall shower.

The corporal walked around the room, touching each piece of furniture as he announced, "One bunk, with mattress and pillow; one desk, six-drawer; one chair, wood, cloth-upholstered; one table, side, with drawer, and two lamps, reading, with bulb. There are two curtains on the closet, you each sign for one of them."

He handed Stecker the clipboard and a pencil. Stecker signed his name on the receipt for the room's furnishings and handed it back. The corporal then handed the clipboard to Pickering, who did the same.

The corporal nodded curtly at them and left them alone.

"What do you think?" Pickering asked, glancing around the room.

"I think I'm going to find someplace off base to live," Stecker said, "and leave you to wallow in all this luxury all by yourself."

"Can you do that?"

"I think I have figured out what's going on around here," Stecker said.

"Which is?"

"Let me ask you a question first," Stecker replied. "How come you're going to flight school?"

"I applied, and they sent me," Pickering said.

"You get passed over for first lieutenant?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're supposed to have two years' troop duty before they send you to flight school," Stecker said. "If you had two years' service, unless you really fucked up, you'd be a first john.".

"I was commissioned just after Thanksgiving," Pickering said.

"I was commissioned second January," Stecker said.

"Last week?"

"Right."

"Quantico?"

"Actually, at West Point," Stecker said.

"I thought West Point graduated in June?"

"Not this year," Stecker said. "They needed second lieutenants, so they commissioned us right after the Christmas leave. Six months early."

"I have no idea what this conversation is all about," Pickering confessed.

"We are discussing how and where we are going to live for the next six months," Stecker said.

"That implies there is an alternative to this," Pickering said, gesturing at the bare studs and the crowded room. "One that we can legally take advantage of."

"I think there is," Stecker said. "Would you care to hear my assessment of the situation? I have reconnoitered the area, and carefully evaluated the enemy's probable intentions."

Pickering chuckled again. "You remind me of my buddy at Quantico," he said. "He knew his way around, too. He'd done a hitch as an enlisted man in China before they sent him to the Platoon Leader's course."

"A China Marine," Stecker said. "I did a hitch with the Fourth Marines myself."

"Bullshit," Pickering blurted. "You're not that old."

"I was eleven when we went there," Stecker said, smugly. "I was born in the Corps. My father was the master gunnery sergeant of the Fourth Marines."

"And now he's a captain, right?" Pick demanded, suddenly. "He won the Medal of Honor in the First World War?"

"How'd you know that?" Stecker asked.

"They were sticking it to my buddy when we went through Quantico," Pick said. "'Captain Jack NM1 Stecker showed up like the avenging angel of the Lord, banged heads together, boomed, 'go and sin no more,' and left in a cloud of glory."

"That sounds like my old man," Stecker said. "He's one hell of a Marine. I'm surprised you know about the Medal, though. He never wears it."

"He wasn't wearing it," Pick said. "But I asked my buddy who he was, and he told me about him."

"How did he find out?"

"I told you, he's another China Marine," Pickering said.

"They stick together," Stecker said. "The Medal got me in the Point. Sons of guys who won it get automatic appointments to service academies if they want one. My brother went to Annapolis, but I was sick of being the little brother following him everywhere, so I went to West Point."

"How come you didn't go in the Army, then?" Pick asked.

"I will consider how recently you have been a Marine, and forgive you for asking that question," Stecker said. "The Army?" he added incredulously.

"You said you had reconnoitered the area?" Pickering asked, chuckling.

"Would you like the full report, or just the conclusions I have drawn?" Stecker asked.

"I think I'd better hear the full report," Pickering said. "I don't want to do anything that will get me thrown out of flight school."

"Okay," Stecker said. "It does not behoove a second lieutenant to act impulsively."

Pickering chuckled again. He liked this boy-faced character.

"The lecture begins with a history of Naval aviation," Stecker said solemnly. "Which carries us back to 1911, which was six years before my father joined the Corps, and ten years before I was born."

Pickering was aware that he was giggling.

"The flight school was established here, with two airplanes… and if you keep giggling, I will stop-"

"Sorry," Pickering said.

"We career Marines do not like to be giggled at by reservists," Stecker said. "Keep that in mind, Pickering."