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

The Marine captain returned the salute.

"Good evening, sir," he said.

Major McCoy, shaking his head, returned the salute.

"The general's compliments, sir," the Marine captain went on. "The general hopes that you had a pleasant flight, sir, and asks that you join him in his car."

Sergeant Wandowski took a closer look at the Ford station wagon. There was a man in the backseat from whose collar points and epaulets gleamed the silver stars of a brigadier general. Sergeant Wandowski popped to attention and saluted. The general returned the salute.

"Thank you, Captain," McCoy said. "I would be delighted to do so." He got out of the Air Force jeep, said, "Thanks for the ride, Sergeant," to the driv­er, and walked toward the Ford. The captain ran ahead of him, pulled the rear door of the station wagon open, and stood to attention as Major McCoy got in the back beside the brigadier general. Then he ran around the front and got in beside the driver.

As the station wagon drove away, Sergeant Wandowski saluted again. The captain returned his salute.

"What the hell was that all about?" Brigadier General Pickering asked.

"Considering the circumstances," Captain George F. Hart said, "I thought a little levity was in order."

"What circumstances, George?" McCoy asked.

"Where should I start?" Hart said. "For openers, Banning showed up with a hair up his ass, and the boss had to pull it out of him that Milla's in the hos­pital in Charleston with breast cancer."

"Jesus Christ!"

"You could have phrased that with a bit more tact, and substantially more respect for a senior officer," Pickering said. "But let's start with you, Ken. How are you?"

"Then you weren't wounded very early this morning?"

"How'd you hear about that?" McCoy asked, genuinely surprised. "I took a little shrapnel hit, nothing serious."

"We shall shortly find out how accurate a statement that is," Pickering said.

"Sir?"

Pickering pointed out the windshield. McCoy looked and saw they were ap­proaching a three-story building. An illuminated arrow pointed to the emer­gency entrance.

"General, I just had this thing bandaged. . . ."

"And now the hospital commander himself is going to have a look at it," Pickering said.

Two hospital Corpsmen, a nurse, and a gurney were waiting outside the emergency room door.

"I don't need that," McCoy protested.

"I had to talk him out of sending an ambulance to the airport," Hart said.

One hospital Corpsman and the nurse came quickly to the station wagon. The second Corpsman pushed the gurney up to it.

McCoy winced when he got out of the station wagon. Pickering saw it.

"I don't need that," McCoy said. "Thanks anyway."

"Get on the gurney, Ken," Pickering said. "That's not a friendly suggestion. The response I expect is Aye, aye, sir.' "

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

He winced again as the Corpsmen helped him onto the stretcher.

"Where'd you get it, Ken?" Hart asked.

"Left leg, four inches from the family jewels," McCoy said, and then re­membered the nurse, and added, "Sorry."

The nurse ignored the apology.

"Where were you first treated, Major?" she asked. "Forward aid station?"

"In the sick bay of the Mount McKinley " McCoy answered, then made the connection. "Oh. What did General Almond do? Send a message?"

"He suspected—correctly, obviously—that you might not mention what had happened to you," Pickering said.

Captain F. Howard Schermer, MC, USN, looked up from his examination of McCoy's now-unbandaged upper thigh.

"Couldn't have done it better myself," he said, then stepped away from the table and made a gesture to the nurse to apply fresh bandages.

"I presume you've been given some penicillin, Major?"

McCoy reached into the pocket of Al Haig's Army OD shirt, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to the doctor.

"The doctor gave me this as I was walking out of sick bay, sir," he said.

"Walking or limping, Major?" Captain Schermer asked. He read the note. "Well, you're full of penicillin. Did he give you anything for the pain?"

McCoy went back in the shirt pocket, came out with a small vial of pills, and handed it to Captain Schermer.

"How many of these have you taken? And when?"

"None, sir."

"You're a real tough Marine, are you? Or maybe a masochist? That has to hurt like hell every time you move."

McCoy didn't reply.

Dr. Schermer walked to a sink and came back with a paper water cup.

"Take two of these now," he said, and turned to the nurse. "See that he gets one every four hours. Make sure his chart says 'do not wake to administer.' And start penicillin again in the morning."

"Yes, sir," the nurse said.

Schermer turned to Pickering.

"Well, General, the major gets at least ninety-six hours in bed," he said. "At least forty-eight of which he should spend offering prayers of gratitude that whatever hit him didn't go an inch deeper. Or four inches higher." He looked at McCoy. "I said take two of those, Major."

"Sir, could I hold off until I can call my wife? She's in Tokyo. I don't want to sound like a zombie."

"Which brings us to Mrs. McCoy," Dr. Schermer said. "Had you planned to tell your wife about your leg, Major?"

"Nothing to tell," McCoy said.

"I think she'll be just a little curious when she sees that bandaged leg," Dr. Schermer said.

"She's not going to see it, sir."

"Ernie's here, Ken," Pickering said.

"She's here?"

"She came to see Pick," Pickering said.

Schermer added, "And a combination of the train ride down here, seeing Major Pickering, and learning of Miss Priestly's death almost—I say almost— caused her to lose the baby."

"Oh, shit!"

"At the moment, her condition ranges from stable to improving slightly," Dr. Schermer said.

"I want to see her," McCoy said.

"I am wondering what her reaction will be to learning she almost lost her husband," Dr. Schermer said.

"She's a pretty tough girl," Pickering said.

"I noticed," Schermer said.

"Ken," Pickering said, "Pick took Jeanette's death pretty badly."

"I suppose," McCoy said.

"Dr. Schermer thought, and I agree, that in addition to her own worries, Ernie didn't need to be any more upset by him. So he's on his way to the States."

"He was that bad?" McCoy asked.

"He needs a lot of rest, Major. Physically and emotionally. He wasn't going to get much emotional rest here—sending him to the States, we hope, will sort of close a door on what happened to him here—and the hospital at San Diego has the facilities to take better care of him than we can here."

"I guess that answers my question, doesn't it?"

"What he did, Ken," Pickering said, "when he finally broke down, was start to cry. And he couldn't stop. And since he didn't want Ernie, or George, or Zim­merman, or-me, to see him crying, that made it worse."

"A vicious emotional circle, Major," Captain Schermer said. "We got it under control here, temporarily, with medicine, but what Major Pickering needs is a lot of time with a good psychiatrist, and they've got better ones in San Diego."

"And we haven't told Ernie about this yet, either," Pickering said.

"Jesus H. Christ!"

"Your call, Major," Dr. Schermer said. "How do we deal with your wife? If you think a telephone call would be better, if you think learning that you've been wounded would upset her even more ..."

"I'm not going to be wheeled into her room on a gurney," McCoy said.

"Can you walk?"

"And I want to go in alone," McCoy said. "And not in Al Haig's Army pants and shirt."

"Is that where that came from?" Pickering asked, chuckling. "Doctor, Cap­tain Haig is General Almond's aide-de-camp."

"There's an officers' sales store in the hospital," Dr. Schermer said. "If you will agree to be rolled there in a wheelchair—and from there to your wife's room?"