W.E.B. Griffin - Retreat, Hell!

THIS INTEL HAS NOT REPEAT NOT BEEN FURNISHED TO X CORPS OR 1ST MARDIV. IN LATTER CASE, THIS IS BECAUSE UNDERSIGNED HAS LEARNED GEN SMITH IS VERY DISPLEASED WITH TRANSFER OF PERSONNEL TO CIA.

MCCOY, MAJ, USMCR

TOP SECRET

[SIX]

Room 39A, Neuro-Psychiatric Ward

U.S. Naval Hospital

San Diego, California

O945 31 October 195O

When Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, pushed open the door he found Major Malcolm S. Pickering in pajamas and robe sitting in his plastic-upholstered chrome armchair attempting, without much success, to spin play­ing cards into his wastebasket, which he had placed on his metal folding chair.

"A little bored, are we?" McGrory inquired.

"I'm looking forward with immense anticipation to the arrival, about now, of a Corpsman who will ask if I would like some canned grapefruit juice, if you find that of interest, Doctor."

"Well, cheer up, you're about to have a visitor."

"Well, then I guess I'd better clean up the mess"—he pointed to what looked like far more than one deck of playing cards on and beneath the folding chair. McGrory remembered the Ship's Store sold playing cards in packs of four decks—"before Mommy gets here, hadn't I?"

"It's not your mother," McGrory said. "It's somebody's wife. Can I leave here assured that you will behave as an officer and a gentleman?"

"Is her name Dawkins? Tiny little woman?"

"No. It's somebody else's wife. You are going to behave?"

"What does she want?"

"To bring a little cheer into your drab life, I suppose."

"I don't want to see anybody."

"Too late, I cleared her in. If there is misbehavior, there will not be marti­nis at the cocktail hour. Understood?"

Pick gave him the finger.

McGrory put his right hand on his hip, waved the left, and in a feminine lisp said, "Oh, you Marines are so crude!"

Pick had to laugh.

"I'll see you in a while," McGrory said, and the door swung closed.

Three minutes later, just after Pick had finished picking up the cards, dump­ing them in the wastebasket, and putting the wastebasket back where it be­longed, the door opened.

A good-looking young woman put her head into the room.

Wholesome, not striking, Major Pickering thought. But, all in all, a very at­tractive package.

"Major Pickering?" she asked.

"Guilty," he said.

"I'm Barbara Mitchell," she said.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Dick's wife," she said, and then corrected herself: "Dick's widow."

Oh, shit! Jesus Christ, did that fucking McGrory know this? Is this his idea of therapy?

"I was sorry to hear about Dick," Pick said as he got to his feet. "He was a fine man."

"May I come in?"

"Of course," Pick said. And then his mouth ran away with him. "I'll even let you sit in the upholstered chair."

She gave him a strange look.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess you noticed this is the lunatic ward. I'm afraid you'll have to take that into account."

"It's all right," she said. "And that doctor—McGrory?—said that you were in here only for evaluation, that you were . . ."

"Harmless? True. Ill-mannered, but harmless."

She walked past him and sat down in the armchair.

Nice tail.

What the fuck's the matter with you?

This is not a potential piece of tail; this is a lady whose husband just went in.

And what would you do with apiece of tail if one jumped at you?

Even one not the widow of a fellow Marine officer and Naval aviator fallen in honorable combat?

Being the prick you know you are, you'd probably nail it.

"I got a very nice letter about Dick from Colonel Dunn," Mrs. Mitchell said. "Actually, I got a letter about a week ago, and then yesterday there was an­other letter from Colonel Dunn, with a carbon copy of the first letter. He said that he wanted to make sure I had gotten the first. He said he'd given it to you to mail when you were taken off the Badoeng Strait, but that you were in pretty bad shape and it might have been . . . misplaced."

He didn't reply.

"Anyway, somewhere in his second letter he said that you were being sent here, so I had the impulse, and gave in to it, to come see if there was anything I could do for you. Bad idea, huh?"

"Not at all," Pick said. "I very much appreciate your coming."

"Really?"

"Really. Dr. McGrory is a fine fellow, but he's not much to look at."

She smiled uneasily.

Your fucking mouth is out of control. There was a clear implication there that you like looking at her.

What a fucking insensitive thing to say to a widow!

I hope she thinks I am nuts.

"Is there?" she asked.

"Is there what?"

"Anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"

Don't even start to think what you started to think. You sonofabitch!

"I'm really in pretty good shape. I really think I should be asking you that question. How are you doing?"

"Well, you tell yourself over and over that you married a Marine pilot, and that sometimes they go away and don't come back. But when it happens, you just don't believe it for a while. It's unreal."

Yeah, I know. When it happens, you just don't believe it for a while.

"I think I understand," Pick said.

She didn't challenge the statement, but he saw in her eyes that she simply thought he was being nice.

She doesn't want to hear your problems. She's got a load of her own.

"The same day I was rescued," he heard himself saying, "my girlfriend—we were talking about getting married—was in an Air Force medical supply Gooney Bird that went down in Korea."

"Oh, how terrible for you!" she said.

"You're right, you just don't believe it for a while," he said.

"She was a nurse?"

"A war correspondent," he said. "Jeanette Priestly. Of the Chicago Tribune."

"Oh, I saw that in the paper," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you," he said.

"I didn't believe it when the notification team came," she said. "I guess I didn't believe it until yesterday, when they called up to ask 'what my wishes were with regard to funeral arrangements.' Then it really sank in."

"What were they talking about?" Pick asked.

"Well, they've recovered what they call Dick's 'remains.' Why can't they say 'body'?"

"I don't know," Pick confessed.

"And they wanted to know 'my wishes.' "

"What about? Where to ... bury him?"

"Uh-huh. And when did I want to accept his Distinguished Flying Cross? At the funeral, or separately?"

"What did you decide?"

"Well, he's not going back to Arkansas. He hated Arkansas."

"That's where his family is?"

She nodded. "Mine, too."

"Are you going there? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. The only thing I know is that I'm not going to go back to Arkansas. I'm going to bury Dick here. We were happy here."

"You mean in San Diego?"

"At the National Cemetery, on Point Loma?"

"I know it."

"It overlooks the ocean. Dick loved the ocean. I do, too. Maybe because there's no ocean in Arkansas."

"I grew up on the ocean," Pick said. "And I love it, too."

"Where?"

"San Francisco," Pick said. "My parents have a place on the ocean a little south of San Francisco."

"You're not a regular, are you?" she asked.

He shook his head no.

"Just a weekend warrior," he said.

"What did you do as a civilian?"

"I flew for an airline," he said. "Trans-Global."

"That's what I'd like to do," she said.

"Fly for an airline? I don't think they have lady pilots."

She giggled, and smiled at him. Jesus Christ, I could fall into those eyes.