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

"Sit it down, Pickering."

There was a moment's pause, then, "Aye, aye, sir."

Pickering moved the Yellow Peril to a position behind the last Yellow Peril in the stack.

Carstairs finally found something to fault in Pickering's flying technique. They were a little too close to the Yellow Peril before them before Pickering retarded the throttle.

And then it was their turn to land.

"Sir," Pickering's voice came over the tube, "I've never landed an airplane before."

"Do the best you can, Lieutenant," Carstairs replied.

Pickering aimed the Yellow Peril at the runway.

When he was over the threshold, he chopped the throttle and skewed the Yellow Peril from side to side as he tried to line it up with the runway.

Carstairs made a quick decision. While it was entirely possible that Pickering was going to be able to get it safely on the ground the way he was doing it, he was coming in way too high.

"I've got it," Carstairs said over the speaking tube. He shoved the throttle forward and put his hands and feet on the controls, and they went around.

Carstairs put the Yellow Peril at the tail of the stack of Yellow Perils, and then spoke again.

"The way this is supposed to be done," he said, "is that you run out of lift the moment you level the wings. We like you to do that about ten feet off the runway, not one hundred."

Pickering shook his head to signal his understanding.

On his next attempt to land, Pickering greased the Yellow Peril in two hundred feet from the threshold. The Yellow Peril's main gear touched, and then a moment later, it settled gently onto its tail wheel.

And then, for the first time, there was terror in Pickering's voice. "I can't see to steer!"

"I've got it," Captain Carstairs responded. He braked, turned onto a taxiway, and taxied the Yellow Peril back to where Second Lieutenant Stecker waited for them.

Captain Carstairs hoisted himself out of his cockpit ahead of Pickering, and then he stood on the wing root in a position where he could look directly into Second Lieutenant Pickering's face.

"Am I to believe, Pickering, that this has been your first opportunity to attempt to fly aircraft?"

"Yes, sir," Pickering said. "Captain, I realize I screwed up. But I really think I can learn how to do it."

Carstairs looked directly into Pickering's eyes for a long moment before he spoke.

"Actually, Pickering, you didn't do too badly," he said, and a smile of relief appeared on Pickering's face. "I would, in fact, go so far as to say I saw a suggestion-faint, but a suggestion-that you may have a natural talent for flying."

The smile of relief turned into one of joy.

"Thank you, sir."

"You're going to have to work a little harder than your friend Stecker," Captain Carstairs said. "But if you apply yourself, there's really no reason why you can't get through the course."

"Thank you, sir," Pickering said, absolutely seriously. "I'll really try to do my best, sir."

Carstairs nodded at Pickering and then jumped off the wing root.

Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering surprised Captain James L. Carstairs a second time that same day.

At half- past six, Captain Carstairs was at the bar of the San Carlos Hotel in the company of Captain and Mrs. Lowell B. Howard, USMC, and Mrs. Martha Sayre Culhane. They were waiting for a table in the dining room; they had reserved a table for eight.

There were two empty stools beside them at the bar.

Second Lieutenant Pickering, trailed by Second Lieutenant Stecker, obviously freshly showered and shaved, crossed the room to them.

"Good evening, sir," Pickering said.

"Pickering."

"Sir, are these stools occupied?"

"No. Help yourself. We're about to leave."

"Thank you, sir," Pickering said. "Hello, Martha."

"Hello, Pick," Martha Sayre Culhane said.

"May I present Lieutenant Dick Stecker?" Pickering said.

"Hello," Martha Sayre Culhane said, and gave him her hand.

"I'm a little surprised that you know Mrs. Culhane, Pickering," Captain Carstairs said.

"My mother introduced us on the golf course," Martha said.

Captain and Mrs. Howard were introduced.

"You two here to have dinner?" Carstairs asked, to make conversation.

"Yes, sir," Pickering said.

The headwaiter appeared, and beckoned to Carstairs.

"There's our table," Carstairs said. And then he gave in to a generous impulse. "Listen, we've reserved a larger table than it looks like we're going to need. Would you like to have dinner with us? It's sometimes hard to get a table…"

"Thank you, sir, but no," Second Lieutenant Stecker said.

"Shut up," Pickering said. "Yes, sir. Thank you very much."

The invitation did not seem to please Martha Sayre Culhane.

"They can probably get a table of their own without too much trouble," she said. "They live here. In the penthouse."

It was a rude thing for Martha to say, Carstairs thought. He wondered how long she had been waiting in the bar; how much she'd had to drink.

"Well, it must be nice to have a rich father," Carstairs joked.

"No, sir, we're just a pair of payday-rich second Johns," Dick Stecker said. "My father's a captain at Camp Elliott."

"But his father," Martha Sayre Culhane said, inclining her head toward Pickering, "owns Pacific and Far East Shipping." Martha really doesn't like Pickering, Carstairs thought. 1 wonder why. I wonder what happened on the golf course.

"I think," Pickering said, "that on reconsideration, we had best decline with thanks your kind invitation, Captain."

Carstairs could think of no other way to get out of what had become an awkward situation.

He nodded at Pickering and Stecker and, taking Martha's arm, led her away from the bar.

But at the entrance to the dining room, she shook loose from his hand and walked back to the bar. Carstairs, now sure that she was in fact drunk and about to make a scene, hurried after her.

Martha put her hand on Pickering's arm, and he turned to look at her.

"For some reason," she said, "you bring out the bitch in me. I'm sorry. Come and have dinner."

Pickering hesitated.

"Please, Pick," Martha said. "I said I'm sorry."

Carstairs saw the look on Pickering's face and knew that he was absolutely incapable of refusing anything Martha Sayre Culhane asked. And then he had a sure, sudden insight why Pickering brought out the bitch in Martha. She was attracted to him, strongly attracted to him, and under the circumstances she didn't know how to handle it.

As Captain Carstairs had recently come to realize, he himself didn't know how to handle Martha Sayre Culhane.

Carstairs had known Greg Culhane at Annapolis, where Greg had been three years behind him. They had become closer when Greg had come to Pensacola. And Carstairs had been at Admiral Sayre's quarters when Greg's engagement to Martha had been announced, and he had been the best man at their wedding.

And he had been considered part of the family after the telegram from the Secretary of the Navy had made official what Admiral Sayre had been told personally over the phone days before the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. And he had sat with the family during the memorial service in the chapel where she and Greg had been married.

And then Martha had started to hang around with him and his friends. The polite fiction was that Martha took comfort from the company of the other officers' wives. That wasn't true. Martha took comfort from the officers, and from Captain James L. Carstairs, USMC, in particular.

This had not escaped the attention of Admiral Sayre, who had spoken to Carstairs about it: "Mrs. Sayre and I appreciate the time and consideration you're giving Martha. She needs a friend right now. someone she can trust when she is so vulnerable, emotionally."