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

"Took off for where?"

"Local," Stacker said. "Training flight. Mock dogfights."

She turned and went to the bar, returned with a bottle of beer, and handed it to him.

"You look like you could use this," she said. When she saw the surprise on his face, she added, "Yes, 1 did make myself right at home, didn't I?"

"You didn't say who you were?"

"Just another Marine camp-follower," she said. "Mine has gone overseas, so I figured I'd better latch on to another."

"Ah, come on," Stecker said.

"I'm Ernie Sage," she said. "I'm the closest thing Pick has to a sister."

"Oh, sure. The one he's always talking to on the phone. In California."

"Used to," she said. "My second lieutenant's gone. Now I'm back in New York."

"I'm Dick Stecker," Stecker repeated.

"I know," she said. "I know your father. I like him; Pick likes you. Our acquaintance is off to a flying start."

"What brings you here?" Stecker asked.

"I have been holding Pick's hand about the Sainted Widow for months. Now it's his turn to hold mine for a while."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Can you miraculously transport me to Camp Catlin?"

"I never even heard of it," Stecker said.

"That's surprising," Ernie said. "According to Pick, you're a walking encyclopedia of military lore."

"Where is it?"

"It's in- on?-Hawaii. And if you can't miraculously transport me there, why don't you take a shower? I can smell you all the way over here."

"Do you always talk like that?" Stecker asked, shocked but not offended.

"Only to friends," Ernie said. "And any son of Captain Jack NMI Stecker, any friend of Pick's, et cetera et cetera…"

"I'm flattered," Stecker said.

"And well you should be," Ernie said. "Go bathe; and when you come out, you can give me a somewhat more accurate picture of the Sainted Widow than the one I got from Pick."

"How do you know the one you got from Pick isn't accurate?"

"No one, not even me, is that perfect," Ernie said. She pointed toward one of the bedrooms. "Go shower."

Stecker took a shower, and put on a khaki uniform. When he came out, Ernie Sage was leaning on the glass door leading to the patio.

"How much further along are you than Pick?" she asked, smiling at him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're wearing wings," Ernie said. "I thought you got those only when you're finished training."

"When you finish the school," he said. "We got rated the first of the month."

"Then you're finished?"

"Yes, we are. Now we're getting trained in F4F-3s."

"I thought-Pick told me-they were going to send you to Opa-something for that?"

"Opa- locka," Stecker said. "Farther down in Florida. They usually do. But they have some F4F-3s, and qualified IPs here… and Pick and I make up a class of two, so we stayed here."

"Congratulations," Ernie said.

"Excuse me?"

"On being a Naval aviator," she said.

"Oh," Stecker said. "Thank you."

"Now tell me about the Sainted Widow," Ernie said.

"I'm not sure I should," Stecker said.

"Think of me as a kindly old aunt," Ernie said.

"That would be hard," Stecker said. "You don't look anything like a kindly old aunt."

"I think I should tell you that my boyfriend is a Raider," Ernie said. "Their idea of a good time is chewing glass. I have no way of knowing what he would do if he thought someone was paying me an unsolicited compliment."

"That would be 'Killer' McCoy," Stecker said. "Pick's told me all about him."

"Did he tell you that Killer McCoy and I were sharing living accommodations, without benefit of marriage, at what I have now learned to call Diego?" Ernie asked.

"Yeah," Stecker said. "As a matter of fact, he did."

"Well, now that he's told you my shameful secret, you tell me his. What's this Sainted Widow done to him?"

"I don't think she's done anything to him," Stecker said. "That's what you could call the root of the problem."

By the time Pick walked in the door (in a crisp tropical worsted uniform, without a drop of sweat on him, which sorely tempted Stecker to spill the beer he handed him into his lap), Stecker had covered the dead-in-the-water romance between Pick and Martha Sayre Culhane in some detail.

He had explained to Ernie that he believed, or at least hoped, that the romance was beginning to pass. Since the Navy had kept them busy flying, Pick simply didn't have time to moon over his unrequited love. And when they did have a Sunday off, Pick drank-but not too much, for he knew he would have to fly the next day.

Stecker went on to tell her that he thought it was a shame they hadn't gone to Opa-locka for fighter training. That would have gotten Pick out of Pensacola. And once he was out of Pensacola, he believed that Martha Sayre Culhane would, however slowly, begin to fade. In his opinion, absence did not make the heart grow fonder.

And then, after Pick arrived, his role and Ernie's were reversed. Ernie, with a couple of drinks in her, revealed how much she missed Ken McCoy and how worried she was about him. Pick and Stecker tried to comfort her, after their peculiar fashion: Pick told her, for instance, that it was her romance she should be worried about, not Ken McCoy's life. He told her that she was responsible for teaching McCoy bad habits. Which meant that at this very moment, he was probably on some sunny, wave-swept Hawaiian beach with some dame wearing a grass skirt.

In time, Pick and Ernie got more man a little smashed. And Stecker found himself making the decisions and driving. They went to Carpenter's Restaurant, where he made them eat deviled crabs and huge mounds of french-fried potatoes, to counter the alcohol.

That didn't seem to work with Pick, who slipped into a sort of maudlin stupor, but it seemed to sober up Ernie. Consequently, she was acutely aware of the look on Dick Stecker's face when Martha Sayre Culhane walked into Carpenter's with Captain Mustache and two other couples. And she followed his eyes and turned to him with a question on her face.

Dick Stecker nodded as he put his ringer quickly before his lips, and he then glanced at Pick, begging her not to let him know.

She nodded her understanding of the situation.

But there was nothing Dick Stecker could do when Ernie Sage saw Martha Sayre Culhane go into the ladies' room. Ernie suddenly jumped to her feet and went in after her.

When Martha Sayre Culhane came out of the stall, a young woman wearing a T-shirt with a large red Marine Corps emblem on was it sitting on the makeup counter. The young woman examined her shamelessly, and said "Hi!"

"Hello," Martha said, a little uncomfortably. She took her comb from her purse and ran it through her hair. Then she took out her lipstick and started to touch up her lips.

"Funny," Ernie said. "You really are nearly as beautiful as Pick thinks you are."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You don't look like a selfish bitch, either," Ernie went on. "More like what Dick Stecker says, 'the Sainted Widow.' I guess you work on that, huh?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Just one more Marine Corps camp-follower," Ernie said.

"I don't know what this is all about, but I don't like it," Martha said.

"We have something in common, believe it or not," Ernie said.

"I can't imagine what that would be," Martha said.

"I got one of those telegrams," Ernie said. "From good ol Frank Knox. He regretted that my man was 'missing in action and presumed dead.'"

Martha looked at Ernie.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"As things turned out, he wasn't dead," Ernie said. "I told you that to explain what we had in common. I know what it's like."

Martha started to say something, but stopped.

"At the moment, I'm crossing my fingers again," Ernie said. "No, I'm not. I'm praying. Mine's back in the Pacific. He's an officer in the Second Raider Battalion."